Dark Sky (19 page)

E
than had left the window cracked on his rented car, and when he climbed behind the wheel, he sat in cold dew.

Served him right, he thought grimly.

It was barely daylight, but Juliet had assured him her family was the up-at-first-light type. He'd left her standing on the lakeshore, staring into a white fog that would burn off with the morning sun, her toes practically in the water. She'd slipped out of the tent early, before dawn, and performed tai chi and karate warm-ups in her flannel shirt and a pair of sweatpants she'd pulled on. When a flock of wild turkeys trooped through the nearby woods, she abandoned her exercises and went to get Ethan up so he could see them, but discovered he'd been watching her. He'd pulled her back into the tent with him.

And now it was time for a quick shower, a change of clothes, a pot of coffee and honest answers to any and all questions Deputy Longstreet had for him. She'd made it clear she expected nothing less. “I swear I'll turn you over to Joe Collins, Brooker,” she'd warned him, never mind that she was lying naked beside him, loose and warm from their lovemaking.

The dirt road led back out to the main road, which he took down to Longstreet Landscaping. Juliet would walk from the lake and meet him there. When he parked next to the pumpkins, the vehicles that had been there last night were gone, and one that hadn't been there—a spotless truck—was parked crookedly, its front left tire on the stone walk to the side porch.

An old dog got up slowly, stretched and greeted him with a head butt. Ethan patted him on the head.

“His name's Spaceshot.” A tall, fair-haired man walked out from the side porch. Another brother. “You must be Major Brooker.”

“Just Ethan will do. You're—”

“Joshua Longstreet.”

The niece's father. He looked tense, exhausted. Ethan felt a wave of compassion for the man and decided not to bullshit him. “Juliet's on her way over.”

“Bobby Tatro escaped last night.”

He gave Ethan a few seconds for the words to sink in, then told him what he had. By the time he finished, Juliet was there, in her new leather jacket and jeans, her Glock in its holster on her belt. Joshua didn't go through Tatro's escape again. He left Ethan to do it and got in his truck, speaking to his sister through the open door. “I'll be back in an hour. I'll check on the status of the search. Sam's in the shed. The folks wanted to stay, but I made them go—they've got a big job they need to finish before winter.” If anything, his blue eyes hardened as he shifted his gaze to Ethan. “Wendy's asleep. She doesn't know about Tatro. Tell her she can reach me on my cell phone.”

He pulled his truck door shut, started the engine and backed out of the driveway. Juliet grabbed Ethan's arm, her fingers digging in. “Wendy doesn't know what about Tatro?”

And Ethan told her, without emotion. She didn't interrupt, but when he finished, she ground her teeth. “Son of a bitch.
Damn.
Rivera must be beside himself.” She focused on Ethan. “I need to call him. Stay put.”

She took the three steps onto the side porch in a single leap. Without waiting for an invitation, Ethan followed her into the warm country kitchen. There were no pecan rolls freshly made by a hired cook. How was he going to explain the Carhills and his relationship to them to Juliet? How would he make her understand his sense of obligation to Ham?

He headed back out to his car, fetched his overnight bag and found his way to a bathroom sink to get cleaned up. A long, hot shower would have to wait.

When he returned to the kitchen, Juliet was off the phone, putting on a pot of coffee. Her back to him, she scooped coffee from a five-pound can and dumped it into a filter. “Help yourself when it's done. Mugs are in the cupboard above the sink. Left side. I'm taking a shower and clearing my head.” She hit the power switch for the old coffeemaker and spun around at him. “Rivera and Joe Collins are meeting with your friend from the White House this morning. Mia O'Farrell. Nate Winter's flying up from Nashville.”

“Juliet—”

“Did this O'Farrell arrange Tatro's escape?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Well, someone did. He had outside help. The plan had to be set up in advance, just in case he was arrested. He didn't know I'd catch him at my apartment. He didn't have any visitors in jail. Now—” She broke off, inhaling. “
Damn
it, a police officer was almost killed.”

“Anyone you know?”

“Doesn't matter.”

She stalked past him, stopping abruptly in the doorway, turning to him. Her eyes, a clear sky-blue, black-lashed, were wide with anger and determination, and regret, Ethan thought. She softened slightly. “We'll talk. Then we'll head to New York together.”

“Juliet—”

The edge came back. “You don't have any choice.”

She about-faced and ran upstairs, trusting him, at least, to stay put, drink coffee and wait for her.

Either that, Ethan thought, or she'd keep one eye on the bathroom window and shoot him where he stood if he tried to leave.

He poured himself coffee and drifted out to the front porch, shaded by a maple tree with leaves so red, so bright, he couldn't take his eyes off them. But he kept seeing the photo of Juliet, lying in Tatro's hut. Had he been meant to find it?

Bobby Tatro was an instrument. A tool someone was using to get what he wanted. Ham Carhill—the same. Mia O'Farrell—the same. Means to an end.

Ethan picked up a single red leaf that had blown onto the porch and twirled its stem between his fingers. How long had it been since he'd led a normal life? Even if he went back to Texas and took his place alongside Luke on the ranch, Ethan had no illusions.

A normal life wasn't in the cards for him.

It never had been.

 

Ham tucked himself into a booth at a lunch-and-breakfast place down the highway from his motel. He drummed the Formica table with his fingers while he looked over the plastic-encased menu. A short, plump waitress about his mother's age took his order for pancakes and home fries.

“Any sausage or bacon with that?” she asked.

“No, ma'am.”

“You like your carbs, huh?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She sighed and tucked the order pad into her apron pocket. “Wish they affected me the way they do you.”

He didn't tell her that a week ago he'd been eating fatback and beans. If his captors had set snake meat in front of him, he'd have eaten it, too. She went to put in his order, then returned with a mug of coffee. Normally Ham didn't drink coffee. He hoped the caffeine would give him a buzz.

Two uniformed cops came in and took stools at the counter.

Ham wondered if he looked suspicious. Hell, he wondered about so many things these days, he couldn't keep his head straight. He wondered if Mia O'Farrell hadn't liked him taking off on his own after his rescue. He'd told her he couldn't talk and needed time to recuperate from his ordeal. She would cut him off at the knees if she felt national security was at stake.

If the cops found cause to search him, Ham knew he was doomed. No way could he explain the emeralds he'd hidden in his hip-pack. One emerald he could pass off as a present for a girlfriend.
But fifteen?
After Colombia, he'd transferred them to a soft suede drawstring pouch.

A big man in work clothes, his bulk oozing over the edges of a stool down the counter from the cops, asked if they thought the escaped ex-con would head their way. “That's the same guy who broke into Juliet's place in New York on Friday, isn't it? You worried about her?”

One of the cops—fair, tall, blue-eyed, in no mood—shrugged. “My sister can take care of herself.”

“I heard she's in town. Did she pitch her tent on the lake like she usually does?”

The blond cop—Juliet's brother—bristled, obviously preferring this guy didn't broadcast details about his sister. “You see Tatro, give us a call.”

“Damn right.”

The other cop said, “Consider him armed and dangerous. Don't approach him.”

“Hell, I'll just call Juliet.” The big guy had gone a little pale but wasn't letting it get to him. “She used to sit in front of me in algebra. Even then she could beat the hell out of the rest of us. Must be having five older brothers.”

The Longstreet cop didn't seem to think that was funny, but the other cop hid his smile in his coffee. Ham could only see some of what was going on from his vantage point, but it was easy to fill in the blanks. During his two years in South America, he'd enjoyed sitting in cafés and bars, watching people. He'd grown up isolated and alone, but he thought he had a decent eye for reading people.

The waitress brought him his pancakes on one plate and his home fries on a second plate. “Anything else?”

“No, ma'am. This'll be fine. Thank you.”

The two cops swiveled on their stools and looked him over.

The Texas accent.

Ham had left his cowboy hat and boots at home, but he never thought about his accent drawing attention. At least Tatro wasn't a Texan.

Ignoring the cops, Ham emptied his little syrup pitcher onto his pancakes. They were practically floating.

The cops finished their coffees, paid up and left.

A lake.

Ham decided it couldn't be too hard to figure out what lake. Then he could find Juliet Longstreet and talk to her alone. He wasn't sure what all to tell her, but thought he'd start with the emeralds and how he didn't want anything else rotten to happen to anyone on his account.

 

Juliet sat on a wicker chair on the front porch of her childhood home with her coffee, the ends of her hair damp from a sixty-second shower that had settled her mood if not cleared her head. “Tell me about the Carhills first,” she said. “Then we'll get to vigilantes, smuggling and ransom.”

Ethan was leaning against a post and the porch rail, legs stretched out, ankles crossed. “You've been busy.”

“My partner did some digging for me. The Carhills are your Texas neighbors—”

“I don't know that I'd call us neighbors. By Vermont's distance standards, they'd live in Maine.”

“That's an exaggeration.”

Her serious tone didn't seem to affect him. He shrugged. “Of course it is. I'm a Texan.” But when she didn't budge, he went on, “Johnson Carhill and my father went to grade school together. The Carhills are very private people. They don't court publicity—they value the opposite, in fact.”

“Their son?”

“Ham's a bright kid. He's twenty-five but already has his Ph.D. in physics. He took off for South America and adventures. Mountain-climbing—”

“Is he into precious gems? Colombia is known for its emeralds.”

“If it's a rock, Ham's interested in it.”

Juliet noticed the distant look that had come into Ethan's dark eyes, and tried not to think of them in the night, locked with hers. “How did he become a national security asset? Because of his science background or his ‘adventures'?”

“I don't know. I've told you.” His gaze settled on her, just long enough to make her realize that whoever Hamilton Carhill was, Ethan's loyalty to him had driven his actions, at least in part, over the past month. “I'm just a soldier.”

“Fair enough. I believe you. Where's your friend Carhill now?”

“He left his parents' home in Texas on Friday without saying where he was going. He was a wreck when we got him in Colombia. He's thin by nature, but he was malnourished, covered in bites—scared as hell. He needs time to recuperate.” Ethan turned to the sugar maple in the front yard and gazed up at it, the sun having burned off most of the fog by now. “Ham knows that not very many people give a damn about him.”

“But you do,” Juliet said.

“He'd follow my brother and me around when he was a little tyke. His parents—”

When he didn't go on, Juliet thought she understood. “They wanted him to be like you. He idolized you. Damn it, Ethan, how did he get mixed up with Bobby Tatro and national-security types?”

“That's what I'm trying to figure out, too.”

“If it's true that Carhill was in New York in late August—” She hesitated, choosing her words carefully before continuing, “If he was in trouble, in over his head, would he come to you?”

“If he could find me.”

“News reports had you hooking up with me in August over the search for Libby Smith. You haven't been that easy to find this past year. Maybe my source is right and Ham came to New York looking for you for some reason—”

“Such as?”

“Maybe he knew he was in over his head and was turning to you for help.”

That seemed to make sense to Ethan. “It's possible.”

“Bobby Tatro was out of prison by then, stalking me. If he saw your guy—” She stopped herself, frowning. “But how would Tatro know who he was?”

“Someone told him.”

“Mia O'Farrell?”

“No. I don't think so. She's got a source, but whoever it is got in touch with her before Tatro was released from prison.”

“She won't tell you who it is?”

He gave her that wry smile again.

Juliet sighed. “Ah. Yes. You're just a soldier.”

“I doubt Tatro figured out Ham on his own. It'd be difficult to put a name and a face together out on the street like that, even with people you've seen before. And Ham's a Carhill. There aren't many pictures of him floating around in public, none recent.”

“So, Tatro had help figuring out who Ham was.”

Ethan obviously didn't like the idea any better than Juliet did, but he said nothing.

“How convenient,” Juliet went on, “that you don't need a picture to recognize him. And you happen to be a Special-Forces type who could also rescue him.”