Last Call - A Thriller (Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels Mysteries Book 10) (40 page)

Thought of my husband.

Thought of everything I’d done in my life. All the victories, and all the mistakes. And maybe it wasn’t a perfect life. And maybe I hadn’t always made the right decisions.

This decision was right. The compound would blow, the arena would collapse, and my friends would get away.

But this was about more than just the moment. This was about the future.

There was only one way to I could fully protect people I loved. To make sure no more monsters ever came after them.

I’d been thinking about it for a while. And I felt I had no other choice.

Jack Daniels had to die.

I cocked the weapon, certain there was no way I could miss when I was this close.

Then I fired.

The sound of the world exploding was so achingly beautiful, it was all I needed to take to my grave.

W
ith his daughter on his hip, Phineas Troutt walked out the front door of his home without needing to check the video monitor.

There was no need to. With his wife dead, there wouldn’t be any bad guys calling. Ever again.

He walked down the driveway, past the
FOR SALE
sign staked into the lawn, a bright red
SOLD
sticker plastered across it diagonally.

“I miss Mommy,” Samantha said.

“Me too, Sam.”

Phin opened the mailbox, and took out a stack of mail. Bills, crap, and two important pieces of mail, both addressed to him.

He brought Sam back inside, sidestepped several cardboard boxes filled with packed stuff, and suffered the soulful greeting of Duffy the dog, who howled like he hadn’t seen Phin in years.

“I was gone for forty seconds,” he told Duffy.

Duffy bumped Phin with his head and howled again, demanding to be petted. Phin gave him a scratch behind the ears, then walked into the kitchen, past more boxes. He set Sam on the counter, then opened the mail.

The first was from the Retirement Board of the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund. It was a letter saying that Jack Daniels’s pension had been transferred over to her surviving spouse, Phineas Troutt, and the new address was being processed.

The second was from the Coroner’s Office in Mexicali.

Phin didn’t like to think about Mexico. It had been, without question, the worst time of his life.

After Jack had blown the compound, a merc with an eyepatch named Heath had driven them all to a hospital in Mexicali, where Phin had stayed for two weeks under a fake name. Each day of recovery was nerve-wracking, fearfully waiting for the authorities, or Cardova’s cartel, to somehow connect him to the destruction of the arena in the Vizcaíno desert. It had gotten international attention, and dozens of bodies had been recovered from the rubble.

The corpses of Herb Benedict and Tequila Abernathy weren’t among those found. Phin hoped that somehow, maybe, they’d survived their lethal wounds and were sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere.

It was a nice fantasy. But there was no way it could possibly be true.

The only remains of Jacqueline Daniels discovered was a severed arm. The fingerprints matched Jack’s, but Phin had identified it at first sight from the inscribed wedding band he’d bought her.

For forever and beyond.

That’s what the letter referenced. That the coroner’s examination was complete, and Phin could pick up Jack’s remaining personal effects.

The ring.

“Are you crying, Daddy?”

Phin wiped his eyes.

“Is it because you miss Mommy, too?”

“Yes, that’s why, Sam.”

“Can we call her?”

Phin picked up his daughter and held her, tight.

“You’re squeezing too hard, Daddy.”

“That’s because I love you so much. Are you excited that we’re moving to a new house?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll be near Grandma. And we can go to the beach all the time, and swim in the ocean. Won’t that be fun?”

“Yes. I want to call Mommy.”

“Sam…”

“Please, Daddy. Please call Mommy. I miss her so much.”

Phin set her down. Then he took out his phone and hit redial.

“Hi, honey,” Phin said when his wife picked up. “Our progeny misses you.”

“I’ve only been gone for three hours,” Jack said. “I’m not even out of Illinois yet.”

Phin had wanted to sell the car and buy a new one when they got to Florida, but Jack had decided she wanted to take a road trip and clear her head. He didn’t argue. She hadn’t taken Herb’s death well.

However, Jack had been very excited about her own death. She’d even gone to her own funeral, in disguise and standing in the crowd. After coming to the realization that she’d never be free of her past, Jack took the opportunity that Vizcaíno represented and ran with it, making sure the world thought she died in that explosion. Fleming hacked the CPD database and swapped out her prints with Katie’s, McGlade planted the arm with the ring, and now Jack had a fake last name and a whole new life. One without any sort of past that could come back to haunt her or the people she loved.

“Want to go to Mexico again?” Phin asked. “We can pick up your ring. Make a vacation out of it.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to go back. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. Can they FedEx it?”

“I’ll ask.”

“Hey, you know that inscription you wrote?”

“For forever and beyond?”

“Yeah. I keep forgetting to ask you, did you steal that from the movie
Toy Story 2
?”

Phin laughed. “Of course not, honey.”

He was telling the truth. Phin hadn’t cribbed that line from
Toy Story 2
. He’d taken it from the first
Toy Story
movie. But
to infinity and beyond
didn’t sound as romantic as Phin’s version.

“McGlade called me earlier,” Jack said. “The dog just ate his couch.”

“She’s a big dog.”

“Harry says she still mopes around a little. Misses Tequila. But Harry Junior loves her, and I think Harry does, too. Kinda funny. McGlade has spent years looking for a pet. He had fish and monkeys and parrots and pigs. When this whole time all he needed was a dog.”

“Sometimes we don’t know what we want in life until it’s sitting right in front of us,” Phin said, looking at his daughter.

“Indeed.”

“You okay that he changed her name from Rosalina to Herb?”

“We all mourn in our own ways. I miss him, Phin.”

“Me, too.”

Jack sniffled, then said. “Interesting fact; Katie’s last name was Glente. Glente is the Danish name for a specific bird of prey. In English, it’s known as a
kite
.”

“She was, as McGlade put it, crazypants.”

“Crazypants McButtnutspants.”

“I’m glad that part of our life is finished.”

“Yeah. I feel free, Phin. Like I’ve never felt before. We’re about to start a whole new chapter.”

“Just a new chapter?” Phin said, smiling. “I have the feeling we’re going to start a whole new book.”

Sam had been tugging at his arm so hard she was practically hanging from it.

“Here’s your daughter.”

He handed the phone over and Sam blurted out, “Hi, Mommy!”

Phin watched his daughter talk to his wife, then touched the scar on his belly.

Mexico had been the worst time in his life. No contest.

But if he had to do it again for those two beautiful ladies, he would.

He’d do it again and again and again. And a thousand times again.

For forever and beyond.

THE END

The following is a preview of
WHITE RUSSIAN
,
the eleventh Jack Daniels thriller by J.A. Konrath

H
e opened his eyes to a world of pain. Everything hurt.

But being in pain meant being alive.

He was on his back. Immobile. Bandages covering his body.

He tried to move his arm.

Couldn’t.

Not because of an injury. But because he was handcuffed to the bed.

“Nurse?” he called, his voice a painful rasp.

“No nurses. This isn’t a hospital.”

He turned, and saw a familiar but scarred face occupying the cot next to him, similarly handcuffed.

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know yet,” the man said. “But it’s bad.”

“How bad?”

The man frowned. “Bad enough that we’re both going to wish we hadn’t survived Mexico.”

F
or the first time in my life, I had a life.

I was in such a good mood that I didn’t even mind getting a call from my ex-partner, Harry McGlade.

“Hiya, Jackie. How’s things?”

“Wonderfully boring. I feel great, Harry. It’s truly a joy not to be involved with anything dangerous.”

“Good for you. I’m Glad. Now I need your help with something dangerous.”

I didn’t hesitate. “No.”

“You didn’t even hear my pitch.”

“I don’t care, McGlade. I’m out. No more police work. No more detective work. My guns are in storage. The only cases I’m taking are cases of beer.”

“You know I’ve got this blog, right?” he went on, undeterred.

“Yeah. I read it all the time,” I lied.

“What do you know about human trafficking?”

“I know enough that I’m not helping you.”

“Slavery is still a big business, Jack. Do you know that it’s estimated that there are more than thirty million people enslaved today? And we’re not just talking third world. It’s happening right here, in the good old US of A.”

“Tragic. Heartbreaking. Terrible. I mean that. And I’m not helping you with any cases.”

“Remember Mexico?”

That hit a nerve. “Of course I remember Mexico.” Some good people had died south of the boarder, helping me out. “Are you calling in a favor?”

“No. I’m
doing
you a favor.”

“This doesn’t sound like a favor.”

“What if I told you,” McGlade said, “that someone we thought was dead wasn’t actually dead?”

I sat up in my chair so fast I spilled my coffee.

“What are you saying, Harry?”

“I’m on my way to your place right now,” Harry said. “I’ll tell you in person in about ten minutes.”