Never Go Home (19 page)

He didn’t
respond.

“I need to see
that paper.”

Glenn shook his
head.

April said, “I
can get a warrant.”

Glenn said, “Up
yours, Noble. You ain’t getting inside my house again.”

“Let it go,
man,” I said. “Your wife wasn’t murdered.”

“Then who’s
that in the casket.”

“Listen to me,
Glenn. She wasn’t murdered. She was executed.”

“You really
made a mess up there in Crystal River,” the guy said.

Leon counted
the mailboxes as they passed. He spotted one with an owl painted on it. He
smiled. He had the same one at home. When his son got home from school this
afternoon, he would open it up and get the mail. Leon appreciated that. Saved
him the trip outside.

“I did what she
told me to do,” Leon said. “In fact, I cleaned up a mess. No one’s gonna get
anything from that murder scene now.”

“But you killed
a cop,” the guy said.

“What else was
I supposed to do?” He shifted in his seat and faced the man. “What would you
have done?”

The guy glanced
over, smiled. “I would have killed the cop.”

Leon pointed at
himself and then the guy. “See, you and me, we’re the same. I’m surprised I
never met you before. You do hits, too? Thought I met most everyone.”

The guy nodded.
“I’m the same as you. There are a few more of us. We’re never supposed to be in
the same place at the same time. Something really went wrong if we are.”

“What’s your
name, man?”

The guy said
nothing. He slowed the car down and turned onto a driveway. It curved behind
tall hedges and led to a white garage door. The man pulled the keys from the
ignition and got out.

Leon glanced
around. The house was nice, big. The yard looked spacious and unnaturally
green. This guy had it better than he did. Did that mean he was better? Or had
he been around longer?

Leon hopped out
and headed for the front door.

“Not that way,”
the guy said. “Follow me.”

Leon followed
the man around the side of the house.

“Still can’t
get over that mess you made up there,” the guy said.

“Ah, come on.
One cop. When things go bad, we gotta do what we gotta do. Right?”

“Yeah, I agree,
but you put yourself in a position where you might have been spotted by your
mark.”

“Who, Jack?
Man, that’s what I wanted to say to Vera. She had me out there as a spotter. I
ain’t cut out for that. You know what I’m saying. You’d be pissed if you’d been
asked to do what I had to. Right?”

The guy nodded,
and said, “Through the garage.”

“That ain’t
never happened to you before?”

“It has.”

“The cop or
having to spot for yourself?”

“Both, maybe.”

“Why won’t you
tell me your name?”

“I never tell
anyone my name.”

Leon looked
back at him. “But you said we’re equals. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“I guess it
doesn’t really matter if you know it. My name is Alessandro.”

Leon nodded,
smiled, opened the door and stepped into the garage.

“Although,”
Alessandro said, “if you hadn’t been spotted, I wouldn’t have told you.”

The ground
crinkled underneath Leon’s feet. He looked down. He stood on a blue tarp. The
door closed. The garage went dark. His arm lurched into motion, but couldn’t
get to his gun fast enough. He heard a tinny sound.

It was the last
thing he ever heard.

***

Alessandro
stepped over the dead man and folded the end of the tarp across the corpse. He
didn’t need to check vitals beforehand. The hole in the back of the Leon’s head
was enough confirmation. He wrapped the man in the tarp, then strung together
heavy-duty zip ties to secure the bundle.

His panting was
the only sound in the empty garage. He pulled out his phone and placed a call.

“It’s done, V.”

“Thank you.
Leave the body in the garage and the car in the driveway. There’s a blue Impala
out back. The keys are in the glove box. The code for the door is
nine-four-four-eight-two. I want you to drive to Tampa. Call me when you get
there.”

Alessandro hung
up. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He took two deep drags while looking
down at the tarp surrounding his victim. Had he ever come this close to his
employer terminating him? Sure, he’d had a couple snafus in his time. Who
didn’t? The only thing he could figure was that this Jack guy had to be more
dangerous than Leon, and maybe even more dangerous than himself.

And more
important than any of his previous targets.

One thing was
for sure. Alessandro couldn’t make the same mistake Leon had.

People
pointed. They gasped. They cursed at us. Even tried to block our path as we led
Glenn toward April’s cruiser.

“Back off,”
Glenn called out. Matt and Jed stepped in and helped keep the rowdier attendees
at bay.

It was odd,
to say the least, working together with them after a lifetime of dislike and
disrespect.

April switched
on her lights and we raced through town toward Glenn’s house. On the way he
described the documents he had seen. He explained that on the surface they
seemed like nothing more than itineraries and meeting notes. But he never liked
the names that appeared. Especially mine. His suspicions developed a few years
ago after the first time he saw a correspondence to me. Of course, only Jack
showed up. When I pressed him, he couldn’t produce a last name.

He assumed.

“If my name
appeared, what else did the documents say?” I said.

He shrugged
and glanced away. “I really can’t remember. Maybe it had a city name or
something.”

“You remember
which city?”

“Nah. What
does it matter anyway?”

“Sometimes a
word isn’t just a word, Glenn. Sometimes it means something else.”

He made a
noise, but said nothing.

“Anybody ever
call and hang up, say they had the wrong number? Did you ever see anyone
suspicious outside your house? Ever answer the door and the person said they
had the wrong house after asking for a random person?”

Glenn looked
at me. He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. His eyes narrowed. He
wagged his right index finger.

“You know, I
remember seeing a black sedan out there recently. Never seemed like anyone was
in it. I figured one of the neighbors had family in town or something. But it
showed up kinda regular, like a few times a week for a while there. The phone
calls thing, yeah, I mean, we’d get a lot of calls asking for some random name.
Who doesn’t? I always supposed someone had wrote our number on a few bathroom
stalls.”

Glenn smiled
for a second. I didn’t.

What the hell
had Jessie gotten herself into?

April barely
touched the brake as she made the turn into the neighborhood. I had to hold
onto the handle on the ceiling keep from sliding out of my seat and into hers.
She stopped in front of the house.

I stepped out
into a cloud of smoke. The burned rubber stunk like a paper factory. I ran up
the driveway. I heard Glenn’s heavy footsteps not far behind my own. April’s
joined his a second or two later. I ripped the police tape off the two columns
on either side of the porch entrance. Glenn pushed past me. He pulled out a key
and stuck it in the door.

The smell
knocked all three of us back. We coughed and gagged before adjusting.

“What the
hell is that?” Glenn said.

“Bleach and
ammonia,” I said.

He pulled his
undershirt up and over his nose. “That’ll kill you, won’t it?”

I nodded.
“Let’s go.”

He led me
down the hall to a spare bedroom. It looked more like a closet with a window
that provided a view to the front yard and the street. They had a computer set
up next to the window. Whoever sat in the chair could swing to their left and
look. Presumably, they set it there so they could watch the kids playing
outside while Glenn or Jessie worked on the PC.

Or they were
like the old man across the street and liked to stare through a couple glass
panes all day long.

I made a note
to run the black sedan by the old guy. Perhaps he’d noticed it during one of
his stake outs. Reports of aliens aside, the guy pegged Craig’s killer as far
as I was concerned.

Glenn
squeezed past me. He sat down. The chair groaned under his weight. Dust rose
and trickled through the sunbeams that filtered through the cracks in the
blinds. He placed his arms on armrests wrapped in neon green duct tape.

I scanned the
contents of a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Mostly fiction, a combination of
romance and mysteries. There were a few non-fiction books on disaster
preparedness, Special Forces training, and wilderness survival. Next to the
bookcase there were three framed paintings on the wall. One was of a mallard.
Another of the gulf at sunset. The third was a family portrait done in
charcoal.

“What the
hell?” Glenn said.

I looked over
my shoulder. Glenn had his arms raised. His mouth dropped open. He shook his
head.

“What is it?”
I said.

“There’s
nothing on this hard drive,” he said.

“What?”

“Look.”

I took a few
steps and stopped behind him. I grabbed the back of the chair and leaned over.
He might have cleaned up for the funeral, but he still stunk.

I focused on
the computer. The operating system had started up, but it was as if it had been
given a clean slate. The programs directory was empty. So were all the document
folders. He pulled up the second hard drive. It was blank.

“When was the
last time you used the PC?” I said.

“Couple days
before Jessie was killed.”

It was the
first time I’d heard him use the word killed.

“You
mentioned files,” I said. “I assume paper files. Where are they?”

He spun in
his chair. I moved out of the way. He pulled open a drawer in a wooden file
cabinet behind me.

“The hell?”
he said.

“What?” I
said.

“It’s all
gone. Look. Nothing’s in there.”

My patience
started to wear. I had a feeling that Glenn had purposefully led us astray so
that the real killer could get away. I glanced toward the doorway. April stood
in the hall. She lifted an eyebrow and made a gesture with her hand toward the
front of the house. I shook my head.

“Glenn?” I
said.

“Wait a
minute.” He straightened up. “I know.” He got up and walked past me, past April,
down the hall and into his room.

We followed.

He pulled
clothes out of a drawer and tossed them onto the floor. Had he done the same at
Sean’s house? I pushed the thought aside. That didn’t matter at the moment.

“Here.” He
held up a piece of paper. It had vertical and horizontal creases through the
middle of the page. Didn’t seem to affect anything though.

I walked over
and snatched it from him. On the top I saw my first name. Below that were forty
letters and numbers, evenly spaced, and in some kind of random order. None of
it made sense. It had to be a code of some kind. There were two inches of space
below the jumbled code. At the bottom, written in big letters I saw what Glenn
had referred to earlier.

KOS

“What’s it
mean?” April said.

I looked up.
They both stared at me. I cleared my throat.

“Kill on
sight.”

We stood in
Glenn’s stuffy bedroom in a triangle formation, elbow to elbow. I held the
paper in my hand. Flat, so everyone could see.

“Jack,” April
said. “Who would want to kill you on sight?”

I said
nothing.

“What the
hell are you into, man?” Glenn’s cheeks turned red. I could see him piecing
together an imaginary puzzle. “What did you get my Jessie into?”

I squared up
to the man in case he tried something. “Glenn, I told you the truth earlier. I
haven’t had any contact with Jessie since ’02. Whatever this is about, she got
herself into it.”

“So, what is
it?” April said.

“To figure
that out, we need to break this code.”

“Can you do
that?”

“No,” I said.
“But I know people who can.”

“Why’d they
kill Jessie if you’re the KOS guy?” Glenn said.

“Good
question. Just because my name is on that page doesn’t mean I was the target.
You don’t know when she wrote all of this down. The code could have been from
months ago. KOS added a week ago. My name three days ago. Just the fact they
are on opposite ends of the page adds doubt.”

The three of
us remained silent for a minute. The circular hum of the fan filled the void.
Cold air hit my forehead. I looked up and saw a vent overhead.

April spoke
first. “Glenn, is there anything else you can tell us?”

“There was
more than this. I wish I’d have…” He backed up and sat down on the edge of his
bed. It looked like he was about to have a breakdown.

I looked at
April and shrugged. Picking up on the fact that I didn’t intend to comfort the
guy, she walked over to him and placed one hand on his shoulder.

“If you think
of anything else, you call me,” she said.

He said
nothing. He didn’t look at us. We left him in the room and made our way to the
front door.

“You buy
this?” April said.

I nodded,
said nothing.

“You live in
a world where something like this is possible?”

I nodded
again. That was as much as she needed to know. Bad things happen to people when
they get involved in my world. It was best I leave her out of it.

We walked
toward her cruiser, which idled in the street. I saw Fults on his porch. He
leaned against the front railing. He had a flask in one hand, a cigarette in
the other.