Bitter Crossing (A Peyton Cote Novel) (37 page)

They all stopped when they heard the front door slam, and the faint sound of Morrison yelling, “Stop, freeze!”

By the time she heard the gunshot, Peyton was at the bottom step.

Pam Morrison was on her back in the driveway, her .40 on the pavement several feet from her, shining beneath the garage’s spotlight like a dark gemstone.

Peyton stepped out of the house and moved to her left, crouching behind the hood of a vehicle.

Behind her, she heard Hewitt say, “Agent down. Shots fired,” into his radio. Then he was crouching beside Peyton.

“I’ll check on Pam,” Peyton said. “Cover me.”

She started to stand, but Hewitt clutched her forearm.

“Peyton, think about this. Think about the Radke shooting. Just slow down. I’m going out there, not you. We have no idea what happened or where the shooter is.”

Then they heard a moan, boots on the pavement, and Morrison curse as she climbed to her feet.

“He bull-rushed me,” Morrison was saying. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”

They were in the kitchen, where only twenty minutes earlier, Morrison had drunk coffee. Now it was a glass of ice water.

Peyton looked at her watch. She should have stayed on nights. Hewitt would never grant this much overtime, and it was nearly midnight.

“So you fired and missed?” Hewitt said.

Morrison put her water glass down, started to speak, but paused, shook her head, and finally said, “That’s right. I just choked. Blew it. Missed from fifteen feet.”

“The bullet is in the side of the house,” Peyton said. “I found the hole.”

Morrison nodded. “I think I shot high.”

“Did he draw a weapon?” Hewitt said.

“No. I think he was carrying a laptop.”

“And then he laid you out?”

“Yeah. Just ran right over me. I lost my gun, and I think I blacked out for a few seconds.”

Peyton said, “Your eyes are still glassy. Probably have a concussion.”

“So he was unarmed?” Hewitt said.

Morrison shook her head. “I don’t know. I heard the door slam, and I spun around, and he was heading straight for me.”

“And you fired as he was running at you?”

“Yes, Mike. I don’t know how I missed. I’m embarrassed as hell, if you want to know the truth.”

“Get a look at him?” Peyton said.

“Yeah. It was Hurley. No doubt about it.”

“It’s pretty dark out there,” Peyton said, “and it all happened in a matter of seconds.”

“Look,” Morrison said, “I might not shoot like you two, but I know who I saw. It was him.”

“What was he wearing?” Hewitt said.

“Jeans and a leather jacket.”

“He always wears a leather jacket,” Peyton said.

“Gloves?” Hewitt said.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Hurley broke into his own house?” Hewitt said. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“We’re talking about a guy who changes jobs every year, knocked up a student, and ran away with her,” Peyton said. “Not a lot of rational thinking going on.”

“And he may have shot a federal agent,” Hewitt added.

Elise walked into the kitchen, sensed the tension, and said, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but now I know for certain who was here.”

“I went back upstairs to the office,” Elise explained. “I know why Jonathan came back.”

“For the laptop?” Hewitt said.

“Yeah, but for something else, too. Let me show you.”

Peyton followed her sister upstairs again, Hewitt and Morrison trailing. The windows were black, and blowing snow hit them, shaking the frames.

“He took the laptop,” Morrison said. “What else could he have needed?”

“I’ll show you.”

The office contained only a desk and three metal file cabinets.

Elise pointed to the open cabinet.

“That drawer is always closed. All of them are. The top one was just slightly open. I knew someone had been in it. There’s a file miss-
ing.”

The files were lined in a neat manila row, not one sheet of paper exposed.

“How can you tell?” Hewitt said. “Looks like everything’s in order to me.”

“He didn’t know it, but I went through these files one day when he was at work a couple months ago. I needed to know what was going on.”

“What do you mean?” Hewitt said.

“Just that I knew he was hiding something. It wasn’t anything he said, nothing overt, just the way any wife would know. All I know is that he kept the files in alphabetical order. There was a file beginning with the letter S. It’s gone.”

“What did the S stand for?” Morrison asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“Are you sure?” Morrison said.

“If you can remember,” Hewitt said, “it might help us.”

“I can’t, and I don’t think I will. I didn’t think it was important. I just remember seeing two S folders, and now there’s only one.”

Peyton moved past her sister and stared into the file cabinet. Hurley had risked a lot coming here, so the file had been worth coming for. What was in it? She’d been given a letter, an S. How did it fit with the rest of the puzzle? Like a crossword puzzle, the letter had to go with something else, something she had already learned. What was it?

She turned around and looked at Hewitt.

“I think things are falling into place.”

“How?” Hewitt said.

“What is it?” Morrison said.

“Not sure,” Peyton said. “Let me talk to Jerry Reilly first.”

“He’s gone,” Hewitt said. “He cooperated, answered our questions, so we had to kick him free.”

“You know where he is?”

“At home. Someone is watching him.”

“It’s late, Peyton. Take one of the patrol SUVs and bring Elise and the boys to your mother’s. We’ll be working in here all night. Get some sleep and come in first thing so we can debrief. I’ll send Stan to your mother’s in the morning.”

Peyton looked at Elise, who leaned against the counter, hair disheveled. She looked as tired as Peyton felt.

“Drive carefully,” Hewitt said. “It’s nasty out there.”

A sputtering snowfall had turned to a steady downfall, and the ride home was treacherous. Elise was fast asleep, along with the two boys, by the time Peyton had reached the middle of Garrett. She passed Leo Miller at a roadblock; she knew he’d be looking for Hurley’s Toyota pickup. She saw a tall black man in a dark winter coat with ICE on the back.

She thought of what they had: A call to McAfee’s Boston office had done no good. His receptionist said she didn’t know where her boss was staying in northern Maine. In fact, she insisted McAfee told her only he wouldn’t be in the office this week. “Northern Maine? Really? That’s where he is? What’s he doing up there?”

And despite his nighttime hiking prowess, to Peyton, Jonathan didn’t fit the profile of a Columbia-gear-wearing serious hiker. No L.L.Bean backpack or leather ankle-length boots for him. Instead, he wore a sleek leather jacket, a Cesar Chavez T-shirt, and Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers. He wouldn’t last long in falling temperatures and blowing snow.

So where was he?

She guessed he wasn’t on foot, and she doubted he was in the Toyota pickup that everyone was looking for.

What about Autumn, who, according to Tyler Timms, was Hurley’s and Celia’s love child? Where was she?

And what did any of it have to do with a missing file titled with a word starting with the letter S?

By the time she arrived at her mother’s house, she had a theory but still more questions than answers, and she wanted nothing but a pillow.

FORTY
-
FIVE

P
EYTON SPENT
S
UNDAY AROUND
the house. She didn’t let Tommy out of her sight. When he went outside, she was with him. She insisted Elise and Max remain there all day, too. Stan Jackman, bless him, even took Lois to Mass.

She hoped the day provided a respite for Elise. For Peyton, it was anything but. When not outside with Tommy, she worked. At the dining room table, she sat before her yellow legal pad, recalling recent conversations with Tyler Timms and Jeremiah Reilly. The names
Reilly, Timms, Radke, Hurley, Picard, McAfee,
and
Celia
were on the pad. She drew arrows among them, in both directions, as she thought. The name
Scott Smith
was circled.

She made additional notes and wrote full paragraphs—she might have been a math student working out a problem. In the late afternoon, she viewed a British website on her laptop, thinking all the while about a missing file folder from the S section.

Shortly after dinner, she called Mike Hewitt at home.

“I think I have something,” she said.

“I’m all ears,” he said.

Monday, she woke early, went to the kitchen for coffee, and glanced at her phone.

A message had been sent at 1:57 a.m.

The kitchen was dark, the house silent. She took her iPhone in hand.

I need to see you. In trouble.—JR

She called the number.

“Hello?”

“Jerry, this is Peyton Cote. I got your message. Do you need me to send police?”

“God, no. Don’t do that. I need to see
you.
That’s what I wrote. Can you come to my place?”

“Are you in danger?”

“Not at this moment,” he said.

She looked at the clock on the stove. It was 6:45 a.m.

“Give me a couple hours,” she said.

“Why so long?”

“Takes me a while to get going,” she lied. She planned to wait for Jackman’s arrival and then drive Tommy to school.

The hardwood floors were cold. She placed two logs and some newspaper in the woodstove’s dying ashes, then carried her coffee to the upstairs bathroom, thinking all the while about a British website, the envelope Scott Smith had dropped in Morris Picard’s driveway, and what she’d seen on Picard’s coffee table.

When the snow stopped falling, the final tally was four inches. Halloween was still a day away. Peyton had seen October deliver worse during her childhood, but after years in Texas, four inches was plenty.

Showered and uniformed, she was at the kitchen table with her laptop open again, taking one final view of the British website. Like working on a difficult crossword puzzle, she managed to fit her letter S with what she’d seen at Morris Picard’s home.

The knock at the front door took her away from the computer, but her theory was making more sense.

She went to the door, her .40 in her right hand, but saw Stan Jackman and reholstered the pistol before unlocking the door.

“I’m sorry for leaving your sister last night,” he said, as she led him to the kitchen for coffee. “The call came to my cell phone. They said there was a shooting near the border. Mike is really upset because no one has my cell number. Only one who ever calls it is my daughter, and of course you guys. Maybe I’m getting too old to be doing this.”

“Don’t read into it, Stan. It’s not your fault. The question is who lost their phone in the past two days?”

“Think someone stole an agent’s phone?” he said.

“Could be. We all have each other’s numbers in our Contacts.”

She filled a travel mug, added cream, and kissed him on the cheek.

“Not your fault. And if I thought differently, I wouldn’t be leaving my family with you.”

The first time she’d seen Morris Picard since moving back—at the diner—he’d recognized her and smiled. No such reaction this time.

“May I help you?” he asked flatly. “Class starts in about fifteen minutes.”

“I know that,” she said. “Same old desk, huh?”

“This desk is probably older than you.”

Two neat piles of essays were stacked before him. A thick history book lay open; next to it, a sheet of paper. He was taking notes.

“I’m preparing my afternoon lectures, Peyton. I don’t have much time to chat.”

She stood in front of his desk. “Have you heard from Jonathan Hurley in the past few days?”

“I wish I had. I don’t know whether my substitute teacher should be considered long-term or not. Apparently, Hurley just up and left.”

“You call his home?” she said.

“Oh, no. I didn’t want to bother his wife in her time of trouble.”

“What trouble do you mean? She must be looking for him, too, right?”

“Well, I mean, she’s still there and he’s gone, so I assumed the marriage failed. Look, the office tried to reach Jonathan but couldn’t, so now we have a sub. That’s really all I know.”

Peyton unzipped her flannel field jacket, adjusted her holstered pistol so it wouldn’t dig into her side, and sat in a desk-chair combination in the first row.

“I sat in one of these, in this very room, about fifteen years ago.”

He nodded. “Same exact spot, if I recall.”

She smiled.

“Those were good years,” he said, and she sensed him relaxing.

“You were awfully busy. I remember you’d bring three, four foster children to see high school sports events. You were so good to those kids. I have one lasting memory. Not really sure why it stands out, but I remember you leaning down to put a Band-Aid on a little girl’s knee. She scraped it on the playground.”

He smiled. “Did a lot of that.” He looked away, still lost in recollections, but now his face was downcast.

“Mr. Picard,” she said, “do you know where Alan McAfee can be reached? We’ve tried to reach him all weekend.”

“No, I don’t.”

“How do you know Mr. McAfee?”

“I … He’s my attorney, Peyton. Has been for years.”

“For years? Jonathan said McAfee was an adoption attorney. Is that your connection with him?”

“I don’t see what this has to do with my missing teacher.”

A bell rang. In the hallway, doors banged open and lockers clanged.

“That’s the five-minute bell,” he said. “I need to get ready.”

“I stopped at the office on my way here. You’ve got next period free, Mr. Picard.”

He sighed and leaned back. “What is this, Peyton?”

“You love children, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Children,” she said. “You couldn’t or maybe didn’t have any of your own …”

“Couldn’t.”

“So you took them in. Ten, maybe more, over twenty or so years.”

“Eighteen,” he corrected, “twelve boys, six girls, over twenty-two years.”