Chapter 61
Chapter 61
M aynard was widowed. They’d never had kids and he’d had no steady girlfriend. In the decades since his wife died, he’d gone to dinner a few times, but nothing serious. Photo ops mostly. He was a devoted public servant who had given his life to his country. From what we could uncover, he owned three residences. A condo near the capital. A respectable log cabin in Oregon along a storied salmon river where he entertained other high-level officials while they scared the fish and sipped expensive Scotch. And a rural western Virginia farmhouse. Cell phone data suggested he spent a lot of weekend time there, but we found no evidence that Maynard ever entertained there. This was a very private residence. In fact, we found nothing to suggest he had ever received visitors at the farmhouse. If that didn’t set our alarm bells dinging, it got worse.
As Eddie peeled back the layers, he found that not even the United States government possessed such an impenetrable firewall. Eddie said he’d only seen its equal once. When I asked, “Who?” he raised an eyebrow and half shrugged, which could only mean one person. Frank. What surprised us most were the drones. Sixteen of them. They flew in pairs, thirty-minute shifts, making random thermal scans across the property while the others docked in their charging stations. This meant Maynard had drones in the air 24/7/365. Which begged the question, Why? And if that wasn’t enough, Jess and BP discovered that Maynard had patched into several private satellites that gave him next-gen military-grade accuracy at the touch of a button.
After Eddie relayed the near impossibility of my undetected entrance, he shook his head. “Dicey.”
“Can you do it?”
“Maybe.”
“What’s the worst that can happen?”
“He watches you bug his house on some video monitor we don’t know he possesses. And if he is who you suspect he is, and if he had anything to do with the disappearance of Ashley’s girls and the trap you walked into, then chances are really good that he’s not going to get caught watching the paint dry.”
“Meaning?”
“He’ll be waiting for you.”
He was right. “That would not be good.”
Somewhere in here I clued into the fact that Waylon Maynard was paranoid.
So how did you spy on someone who couldn’t be spied on? And how did you trap someone who’d already set a trap for you?
I turned to Camp. “When you were a kid, you ever play dress-up?”
“What, you mean like women’s clothes, high heels, wigs?”
“No.”
“Good, ’cause I was about to tender my resignation.”
“I mean like cowboys and Indians.”
“We played Dukes of Hazzard all the time.”
I nodded. “Perfect.”
We landed in middle Georgia to a media frenzy. The sharks were circling. Ashley gathered Bill, Camp, and me. His face was granite. He pointed to the sea of cameras nearly a mile in the distance. “Esther and I would like to get the girls off—”
Bill cut him off. “Taken care of, sir.”
Aaron nodded.
Because we had made what looked like an unscheduled stop in the middle of nowhere, we had no hangar to hide in while the girls descended the steps in private. So, bravely, they exited the plane and walked across the tarmac while cameras appeared out of nowhere and snapped their pictures from a distance. His staff had suggested Walter Reed, but Ashley shook his head. “Bring them to us. My girls need familiar right now.” Miriam, Ruth, and Sadie disappeared behind tinted windows and the seven-car caravan disappeared down quiet country roads en route to home.
I watched them drive off, wondering what memories awaited. Fear or peace. As I thought about it, red taillights appeared and the third vehicle swung a U-turn. Returning to me. They pulled up alongside and when the door opened, Sadie stepped out. Wrapped in a blanket that did not look to be keeping her warm. An odd mixture of pain, peace, and simmering strength. She looked up.
“Uncle Murph?”
I knelt. “Yeah, sweetheart.”
She swallowed and a tear broke loose. Thumbing it away, she stared off toward the circus and the flashing cameras. A question rested on the tip of her tongue.
I held out my hand and she took it, studying it. As if she was trying to remember how she once saw it. Finally, she held it with both hands. “Does the good stuff ever come back?”
The words left her mouth and something in me cracked down the middle. Pieces spilling around my soul like jacks on granite. I tried to maintain my composure, but I could not. In that moment I made a promise that I would not speak. And only Waylon Maynard would know when I kept it.
“Yes.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“I have.”
She launched herself forward, wrapping arms and legs around neck and waist. Clinging. Burying her face in my neck. Moments passed as her body convulsed, every muscle screaming in revulsion at the top of its lungs. Trying to rid her heart of the memories. When the tremor passed, she spoke without lifting her head. Holding on had taken all she had. Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. “Do you know when?”
Bones had taught me all he knew, but there was one thing he could not teach me—and he knew that too. He could arrange the intersection of the experience with my heart, but he could not cause me to know that experience. To live in it and through it. To identify with it in such a way that the truth of that moment became my plumb line. My reason. In my mind’s eye, I saw the dungeon at the academy. Bones handing me the letter. Two lockers. My life laid out before me. Wrapped in her shaking arms, I heard the echo of his words plain as day.
What, then, you might ask, is the value of door number two? If door number one is cash, prizes, and life laid out on a silver platter, why would anyone in their right mind choose anything else? Why not just ride the gravy train into the sunset? Unfortunately, there’s only one way to know. I will tell you this, and I’m qualified to speak because I walked through the door before you: There is something more valuable than money. Although you will have to dig deep to find it. I cannot promise you that door number two will lead to all your dreams coming true. In fact, a few will be shattered. But walk through it and I can promise you this: One day you’ll look inside, and amid the scars and the carnage and even the heartbreak, you’ll find something only a few ever come to know.
K neeling, sitting on my heels, cradling her, I heard the echo again. And there in that moment, I came to know it again. For the ten thousandth time. Something I’d promised myself never to forget... but then the pain came. And the memory faded. And I wanted to forget. Something else Bones knew but could not teach me. Pain will cause you to want to forget what you know to be true. It’s a lie, and in my pain I’d agreed with it. But her grip on me, the shaking and the wailing, reminded me. I was so sorry I had forgotten. There is a truth in this universe: Evil is real and it’s playing for keeps. It wants to kill us. Rip off our heads and post them on stakes outside the city walls. Because it can’t be appeased, can’t be negotiated with, and there’s no such thing as land for peace. That’s a crock. Always has been.
The solution is not popular. Not easy. In fact, it’s next to impossible. What is required is one who leaves the ninety-nine to rescue the one. With no promise that he’ll ever return to those he loves. That’s the price. The inescapable cost. Bones had paid it. Cradling Sadie, thinking of all that was stolen and lost, but knowing it would return and she’d once again dance and laugh and bathe in the sun, I remembered the price. The price was me. Bones, dead and gone, was still teaching me. Continuing my schooling. And I loved him all the more for it. Now, as then, I stared at the locker in my mind, the letter, and walked once more through door number two. Willing to pay all that I had. Freely. Again and again. Why? I held the answer in my arms. Of the several billion people on the planet, she had a name. One that set her apart from all others. As unique as her fingerprint. Sadie. Sadie was lost. Taken. Abducted. Then somehow, despite incredible odds, found. Rescued. Snatched back. Names matter. Early in my career, I’d tried to remember them, so I forced myself to carry them. Inked them onto my back. A permanent record. Starting with Marie, every name written and yet to be written on my back, including Ruth, Miriam, and Sadie, reminded me. But one name had not been etched into my back. It had been written deeper. Seared into my soul. Why? Because it was the most important. Because of his name, all the other names mattered; without his, none mattered. I loved and was able to love because he loved me. Period. I could take credit for nothing. Bones had made me and he was making me still.
Sadie lay limp in my arms. Despite the cold, she was soaked in sweat. I wanted so badly to gather up all the evil and take it away. To take it on myself. I wasn’t immune, but I was willing. If I could have saved her the pain crumpling her face, I would have.
But I knew better. I could not.
I shook my head. “I don’t know when. But...” When I pressed my forehead to hers, she closed her eyes and breathed. “I know that you are loved and that you are beautiful beyond measure.”
When I said that, Gunner, who had been sitting obediently by my side, couldn’t take it any longer and started licking the tears and snot off her face. Too tired to wiggle and too hurt to giggle, she lay limp in my arms, so I carried her to the car, set her in her mom’s lap, and closed the door quietly.
When the taillights disappeared, I press-checked my CZ and said, “Time to clock in.”
Camp watched the caravan. “Never clocked out.”
Clay pointed his cane at me. “I’m in and don’t give me no back talk. I been schooling whippersnappers like you since before you were a gleam in your daddy’s eye.”