Lethal(11)

“I’m not playing games.”

“So we understand each other, neither am I.”

He spoke softly, malevolently, and his point was made. Furious with him, and with herself for having to capitulate without putting up more of a fight, she said coolly, “It would be helpful if you told me what you’re looking for.”

“It would be helpful if you quit jerking me around.”

“I’m not!”

“Aren’t you?”

“No! I have no idea what you want or even what you’re talking about. Gold bars? Stock certificates? Precious stones? If I had something like that, don’t you think I would have liquidated it by now?”

“Cash?”

“Do I look like I have a lot of cash at my disposal?”

“No. You don’t. But you wouldn’t make it obvious, because that would be stupid.”

“Stupid in what way?”

“If you were suddenly flush with cash, people would be on to you.”

“People? What people? On to me? I don’t understand.”

“I think you do.”

During this heated exchange, he’d been coming ever closer until now they were toe to toe. His sheer physicality made her feel trapped. It was hard not to move away from him, but she refused to dance that dance again. Besides, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how effective his intimidation tactics were.

“Now, for the last time,” he said, “where’s Eddie’s stuff?”

She defied him with her glare, her upright posture, her sheer force of will. Telling him to go straight to hell was on the tip of her tongue.

But Emily giggled.

In her sweet, piping voice she addressed something to the characters on the program, then squealed in delight and clapped her hands.

Honor’s bravado evaporated. She lowered her defiant chin, and rather than telling him to go to hell, she said, “There’s a storage box under the bed.”





Chapter 6





It wasn’t a long commute between Tom VanAllen’s home and the FBI’s field office in Lafayette. Often, he considered it not long enough. It was the only time of his day in which he could switch off and think of nothing more complicated than to stay in his lane and drive within the speed limit.

He wheeled into his driveway and acknowledged that his house looked a little tired and sad compared to others in the neighborhood. But when would he have time to do repairs or repaint when something as necessary as mowing the lawn was only done sporadically?

By the time he entered through the front door, those self-castigating thoughts had already been pushed aside by the urgency of the situation in Tambour.

Janice, having heard him come in, hurried into the entryway, cell phone in hand. “I was just about to call you to ask when you’d be home for lunch.”

“I didn’t come home to eat.” He took off his suit jacket and hung it on the hall tree. “That multiple murder in Tambour—”

“It’s all over the news. The guy hasn’t been caught yet?”

He shook his head. “I’ve got to go down there myself.”

“Why must you? You dispatched agents early this morning.”

Royale Trucking Company conducted interstate trade. When the carnage was discovered inside the warehouse, Tom, as agent in charge of the field office, had been notified. “It’s politic for me to review the situation in person. How’s Lanny today?”

“Like he is any other day.”

Tom pretended not to hear the bitterness underlying his wife’s voice as he headed down the central hallway toward the room at the back of the house where their thirteen-year-old son was confined.

In fact, where he and Janice were also confined. Sadly, this room was at the epicenter of their lives, their marriage, their future.

An aberrant accident in the birth canal had cut off their son’s oxygen and left him with severe brain damage. He didn’t speak, or walk, or even sit alone. His responses to any stimuli were limited to blinking his eyes, but only on occasion, and to making a guttural sound, the meaning of which neither Tom nor Janice would ever be able to interpret. They had no way of knowing if he even recognized them by sight, or sound, or touch.

“He’s soiled himself,” Tom said upon entering the room and being hit with the odor.

“I checked him five minutes ago,” Janice said defensively. “I changed the sheets on his bed this morning and—”

“That’s a two-person job. You should have waited for me to help you.”

“Well, that could have been a wait, couldn’t it?”

Quietly Tom said, “I had to leave earlier than usual this morning, Janice. I had no choice.”

She blew out a gust of air. “I know. I’m sorry. But after changing his bed, I had to do laundry. It’s not even lunchtime, and I’m exhausted.”

He stayed her as she moved toward the bed. “I’ll take care of this.”

“You’re in a hurry to get away.”

“Five minutes won’t matter. Will you fix me a sandwich, please? I’ll eat it on the way down to Tambour.”

After seeing to Lanny, he went into their bedroom and changed out of his suit and into outdoor clothes. Before day’s end, he would probably be called upon to join the manhunt. He had little or nothing to contribute to such an undertaking, but he would make the gesture of pitching in.