Chapter Seventeen
Madelaine had to give away the hiding place of her secret phone as she retrieved the buzzing device and put it to her ear. Luckily, she trusted Jack completely.
She stood up from the table as she answered, “Secret Keeper? Your call is unexpected.”
“Are you able to speak safely?”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“I’ll keep this as brief as I can. I believe there is a strong likelihood someone may be following you.”
“Who? And why?” Her gaze lifted to Jack’s. He had stood when she did, but gave her space and didn’t crowd her. She appreciated his understanding.
“The who is the man named in the envelope who you never considered for a husband. And as for why, I suspect because his giant ego can’t understand being passed over for anyone else on this important journey you’re on.”
“Is he dangerous?” she asked. Jack’s head lifted to stare. Undoubtedly, he was as concerned as she was.
“Unclear. But keep an eye out. My personal feeling is that he can’t be trusted.”
“How far behind us is he?”
“Also unclear. I tried to divert him to Nocturne Falls, but I’m not sure he took that bait.
I don’t know what resources he commands nor the information he has with regard to your journey.
My guess is he didn’t take my word for anything.
He was rather belligerent about being left out of the Paladin Courier loop when you were in Alienn. ”
“Boo-hoo. What’s his name?”
“Look in the envelope.”
“Please, just tell me.”
There was a brief pause before he said, “Fine. His name is Dirk Zandis. Listen, Madelaine, he had information that he should not have been privy to. He somehow knew that you were in Alienn but had not contacted him, which is worrisome.”
“I have no regrets,” she muttered.
“Yes, I have no doubt. Still, he made a journey all the way to Suspicion to complain and discover what I knew. I pretended there was an addendum and that Nocturne Falls, Georgia, might be a destination for you, even though we both know that was a big fat lie. I called Bubba Thorne, a retired guardsman who lives there, to give him a heads up. He’ll contact me if Dirk shows up in Nocturne Falls, but I don’t expect him to. ”
“Thank you for trying,” Madelaine said, her mind racing with the dire possibilities involved in someone trying to intercept her already perilous journey.
“We have to assume that Dirk knows the location of all the places you are about to visit to collect packages, even if you don’t know them yet. All of the locations identified by the Paladin Cabal could be compromised. Or at least monitored.”
“That follows.”
“The other worry that occurs to me is that I don’t know the scope or depth of his influence in this matter.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he might have powerful friends that could make your journey difficult even if he does not involve himself directly. So be extra vigilant. Don’t trust anyone with the exception of your husband.
” His tone sounded amused when he mentioned Jack.
She didn’t comment, but tucked that tidbit away for later pondering.
“As it has been from the start, I will only trust Jack.” Madelaine mulled over the fact that she didn’t trust anyone except Jack anyway and even the Secret Keeper knew it.
However, now every person she ran into could possibly be a disciple of a man she’d never met who held a grudge for possibly his own foolish reasons.
“It seems Jack Grey was clearly the best choice for you,” the Secret Keeper said.
Madelaine smiled for the first time during this disturbing conversation. “Yes. In fact, he was the only choice for me.”
“Right. Be safe, Madelaine. Call if you need to.”
Madelaine snapped the phone closed without further conversation.
“Who might be dangerous?” Jack asked the second she hung up.
Madelaine tucked the phone back where it belonged and gave him a Cliffs Notes version of what the Secret Keeper had said. She would have put the phone on speaker, but the communication device didn’t offer that function.
It was a secret phone, after all.
“Do you know a man by the name of Dirk Zandis?” Madeline asked as she moved closer to Jack.
Jack shook his head. “Nope. Never heard of him, but Alienn is a growing town and has been for a number of years. It’s still small, but as the population gets bigger each year, not everyone knows everyone else.
Plus, Alphas are allowed to live in Old Coot and Skeeter Bite.
The alien circle widens more as time goes on. ”
Madelaine nodded. “We need to watch out for him or anyone with seemingly too much interest in what we are doing, since the Secret Keeper mentioned he might have influence over others in this matter.”
Jack nodded. “Yep. For when he doesn’t want to dirty his own hands. I get it.”
Once more, they were standing close together. The Secret Keeper had interrupted their almost-kiss. Madelaine knew they needed to get going to the next destination, but decided one little kiss wouldn’t shatter the plan and she wanted it.
She moved into his personal space and he didn’t retreat.
Madelaine slid her hand along his handsome jaw, hooked her palm around the back of his neck and pressed her lips to his. She was glad he was with her, wished they could have forever. Enjoy the time you have with him. It won’t last.
Jack wrapped his arms around her, taking her tender kiss to the next level and then up a few more levels. She relaxed into his tall, solid frame in this soul-captivating kiss…
An abrasive alarm sounded on the dashboard control panel, signaling that their fuel was getting low. Space potatoes.
They pulled away from each other, both of them a bit out of breath.
Jack grinned ruefully. “I wonder if we’ll ever be able to kiss the way we want to without an alarm of some sort sounding off to break us apart.”
“I doubt it. Forces larger than us seem to be at work here. And, to be fair, we do need to load more fuel in the tank.” Madelaine grinned back at him. “I’d intended to do it before we lifted off from Verdara, but I was thwarted by a Class Four rain and thunder windstorm.”
“Right. I remember.” He released her slowly, but didn’t move away to silence the alarm.
He watched as she reached over to the table to put the petrified timber back in the burlap envelope, resealed it, tucked it in the tan sack, along with the parchment instructions, and stowed everything in her backpack.
Then, Jack walked over to silence the alarm on the pilot’s console.
Together, they moved to the rear of the ship and the storage area to replace the spent bauxite fuel cubes. They’d probably used a significant portion of fuel in their emergency blastoff from Verdara.
Madelaine pulled open the fuel locker and gasped.
“Space potatoes!” Jack said.
Someone had clearly been aboard their ship causing mischief.
Verdara was a green-and-gold marble shrinking behind them, but Jack had decided he did not like the farm planet very much.
Not because Verdara had been unpleasant. No. Verdara had been downright pretty in a wide-open, windblown, “please admire our endless grain fields and emotionally complicated civic policies” kind of way.
He had even liked the Hearthvale Cooperative grain belt market hub, right up until the local weather produced a Class Four windstorm as they ran to their ship. He didn’t see it firsthand, but suspected every sane citizen had begun tying down livestock, shutters, and possibly elderly relatives.
No, Jack’s problem with Verdara was that it had tried very hard to keep them. That windstorm had been no joke. And now, apparently, it had tried to keep part of their ship. The most important part. Their fuel reserve. Not cool.
Madelaine stood in the narrow service compartment across from the storage area at the back of the ship, one hand braced against the wall, the other holding open the fuel locker door.
She had gone very still.
Jack knew that stillness. It was not calm. It was not composure. It was Madelaine Archer locking every emotion behind her eyes because letting one out might cause something to break.
“Tell me that face means you found a secret button,” Jack said from the doorway. “A happy button. A button that says, ‘Just kidding, Jack, we have enough fuel to visit three planets, two moons, and one suspiciously themed gift shop.’ What do you say?”
Madelaine did not turn around. “Sorry. Not this time. All of our reserve fuel is gone.”
Jack’s smile fell away. The fuel locker had been broken into and the lock was in several pieces on the floor.
He stepped into the compartment, ducking under a low archway that had tried to scalp him twice since he’d boarded this vessel. Did the designers not understand Alphas were tall?
“Gone, as in misplaced? Or gone, as in the universe hates us and has decided to express that hatred through theft?”
“Gone, as in stolen.”
The locker shelves were bare. Not mostly bare. Not unfortunately low.
They were completely and utterly empty.
“How much did they get?” Jack asked, wondering how long a Class Four windstorm with rain and thunder would last before they could make their way back to Verdara and safely land or if they would simply fall out of the sky or go permanently adrift in space when their fuel ran out.
Madelaine gestured inside the compartment, and he saw for himself that the three bauxite fuel cubes they’d had in reserve for this mission were gone as if they’d never existed.
“All of it,” she said and slammed the broken compartment door shut and said a colorful bad word that he had almost uttered himself.
Jack stared at the empty brackets where the compact blue-gray bauxite cubes should have been secured for interstellar travel. The basketball-sized brackets had been opened cleanly. The security seals were sliced through, the little silver strips curled back like peeled ribbon.
“Well,” he said after a moment. “That seems rude.”
Madelaine finally looked at him.