Paradise Falls (40 page)

“We have to watch our backs. If I heard right, there’s a quarter million dollar bounty on our heads.”

“What do we do?”

He turned the computer to face her.

“Senator Katzenberg is holding a major fundraiser next week. Fifty thousand a plate. Rumors are that he’s going to make a major announcement.”

“Like what?”

“Like running for a higher office,” said Jacob. “I think he’s going to run for President.”

Jennifer drew back, eyes wide. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. I keep tabs, and he’s been making a lot of contacts. He put out a book last year. It sounds like he’s going to announce an exploratory committee. That’s the next step. It explains why he put in a personal appearance here for the kid’s funeral and why things have been so quiet. Can’t afford to have all these problems at home blow up while he’s in the media limelight.”

“Wow,” said Jennifer.

“It’s good for us. He’ll keep the Leviathans off our backs. The last thing he’ll want is a motorcycle gang raising hell in his home town. That doesn’t mean we can be off our guard. One slip up and we’re in trouble. It’s already happened once.”

“You had no way of knowing that Ellison would pull that at the funeral.”

“No, but I should have been ready. I have a legal team on retainer. I’m moving them here, so the police will think twice before doing something official or semi-official, in front of a crowd of people, like that. If they come after us one on one…” he shrugged.

“I’m not letting you do anything crazy until you’re healed up.”

Jacob sighed and rolled his eyes.

“I can’t sit around here forever. There’s too much to do. We need to get into that lawyer’s office and see what we can find linking the Katzenberg interests together. We need intel on this fracking operation and Cerulean shipping company. We need to go shopping.”

“Shopping? What for?”

“You. You don’t have anything to wear to a fifty thousand dollar per plate fundraiser. That comes later. First I want to see about getting those girls in treatment and get as many as we can back to their families.”

“What about the ones that don’t have anywhere to go?”

“I’ll figure something out. Help me down to the basement.”

Jennifer crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. “You are not going to try to exercise in that condition.”

“No, but you are. Let’s go.”

Jennifer groaned, but did not argue. When stood up she regretted. Her everything hurt. Gingerly, Jacob brushed her hair aside and closed his finger around the back of her neck. She went stone still, heart speeding up, but let out a slow breath and relaxed as he worked his fingers into the muscle, pressing out the tension. She stood there for a minute, feeling a little queasy as the panic tried to surge back, confused when it didn’t. He ran his hand down her back and pulled away.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes.”

To prove it, she turned around and helped him up, dipping under his arm. He grunted as he stood and his leg shook for a moment as he found his footing. Jennifer turned and put her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest, and his breath tickled her scalp. He was very big, much taller than she was. She liked that. He put his good arm around her waist.

“You’re not wearing pants.”

“Oh. Right. Give me a moment to change.”

“Meet you downstairs. Faisal will help me.”

She nodded, and after he left she changed into sweats, and jogged down the stairs. The girls were waking up. Faisal and his sister raced around the house, doing a dozen tasks at the same time. There were fewer girls now- some needed trips to the hospital. The others were awake, sitting around eating bowls of cereal and plates of eggs. The sisters were in the corner, huddled up against each other against the walls. Kirsten waved weakly at Jennifer.

Ana was in the kitchen.

“What’s going on?”

“We are converting one of the safehouses into a crude clinic,” said Ana. “We had to move some of the girls. Their withdrawal symptoms will be too severe.”

“Move them where?”

“To a hospital.”

“Will they be safe there?”

“Yes,” said Faisal, ascending from the basement. “Mister Kane owns it.”

Jennifer just looked at him.

“He has a lot of money,” said Faisal.

Jennifer shook her head softly to himself and walked down the stairs, pulling the big door shut behind her. Jacob was at his computer, hunched over they keyboard, grimacing as he hunted-and-pecked with one finger.

“Can’t type one-handed,” he muttered. “Stretch.”

She nodded, moved to the mats, and started her stretching routine. Jacob was engrossed in what he was doing, so she did some exercises of her own until he noticed her. As she rolled through a cartwheel, she spotted him staring at her, open-mouthed.

“It all comes back with practice,” she panted. “Like riding a bike. You need to get me some rings.”

“I’ll look into it.”

Under Jacob’s direction, she ran through a new set of exercises, similar but different from before, and came out the other side just as winded and achy, and that was before he had her practice punches and kicks and pummel the speed bag with her fists. The protein shake gloop was no more pleasant than before, but oddly satisfying. She was drenched in sweat when she finished, her chest heaving as she sat down next to him at the computer, picked up the practice handcuffs, and started working on the lock.

“I’ve been working on this Cerulean company,” he said. “They’re definitely connected to the Katzenberg operation. There’s something big here that I’m not seeing. I want to run an op. Find one of these trucks. We put a tracking device on it and see where it goes.”

“You can do that?”

“Yeah. They’re used by the FBI and DEA to track vehicles with the global positioning system. Very sophisticated and expensive.”

Jennifer popped the cuffs open. “Won’t somebody notice? I mean, don’t they track who buys tracking devices and super armor and stuff?”

“Yes,” said Jacob, smirking as he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “I can play the shell company game, too. Somebody might notice if I ordered one, so I order ten thousand and sell them to police departments. A few of them go missing. Guess the box fell off the truck.”

He jerked back, a grin spreading on his face.

“It’s coming today.”

“What is?”

“I’ll show you. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

Faisal opened the basement door and stood at the top of the stairs.

“Sir, there are two men here to see you. The vice principal from the school and the policeman.”

Jennifer and Jacob looked at each other. Jacob got up and hobbled up the stairs. Jennifer couldn’t fit next to him on the staircase so she walked up behind, hands on his back as if she could actually stop him from falling. When they stepped out on the front porch, the two men stared at them. Jennifer pulled the door shut as Brock Edwards, the school resource officer, tried to peer through the opening and frowned. Howard was dressed casually rather than his usual brown business suit, and Brock was in a t-shirt and jeans. He looked like someone’s favorite uncle, except for the bulky revolver on his hip and the badge clipped to his belt.

“Where the hell have you been?” said Howard. “Everybody has been going crazy looking for you two.”

“The locals,” said Brock, the words dripping with disdain, “said they questioned you for an hour and released you, no charges filed. You haven’t been answering your phone, Jennifer.”

“Um,” said Jennifer.

Edwards was already looking at Jacob. “What the hell happened to you? Don’t tell me you fell down the stairs.”

“Cut myself shaving,” said Jacob.

“Right,” Howard sighed. “Jenn, I don’t want you getting hurt, but that’s not why we’re here.”

“What’s going on?” said Jennifer.

Howard scuffed his shoe and looked down at the stained wood.

“Everything, pretty much. First off, you two are suspended from work.”

Jennifer’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“You were arrested in connection with a murder, and you’re cohabiting. That’s enough for Elliot to put pressure on the board to bring you under contractual review. You’re not tenured, Kane. Your chances are pretty bad.”

“Cohabiting?” said Jacob. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Our contract hasn’t been substantially updated since ’76,” said Howard. “The union got their cost of living adjustments to the pay scale, so there was never a serious threat of strike. So the contract was never rewritten. There’s some pretty old language in there, including a moral turpitude clause. Our teachers can’t been seen drinking in public, engaging in behavior that, and I quote, ‘casts a negative light on the profession of education’ or constitutes moral turpitude. One of the clauses specifically mentions female teachers living with a man that is not her husband.”

Jennifer’s jaw dropped, but no sound came out.

“Bullshit,” Edwards muttered.

“It gets worse,” said Howard. “They’re putting the entire school under review. They’re going to hang the drug incident around our necks. I talked to Bruce, over at the school board, and he says they’re talking about closing classes for a month to reorganize and merge the high schools right away. Everyone at No. 2 would be fired. Including us.”

“Everybody?” Jennifer croaked.

“Yes. Everybody.”

“I’m going to put you in touch with my legal team,” said Jacob. “My assistant will call you later with the details.”

“Thanks,” Howard shrugged. “Fat lot of good it’s going to do. The board are all James and Adam Katzenberg’s toadies. There isn’t anybody in the politics of this town that ain’t in bed with them.”

Jacob scratched his chin.

“We’ll be in touch,” said Jennifer. “I need to get him back in bed.”

Howard’s eyebrow raised.

Jennifer felt a strange urge to stick her tongue out at him.

“Wait,” said Jennifer, as Howard turned. “How are Krystal’s parents?”

“Leaving,” said Howard. “They put the house up for sale. Or they’re going to, anyway. I talked to the mother yesterday. She said some charity group showed up at their house and offered to cover their moving and housing expenses, pay off all their loans and cover the girl’s funeral. She didn’t have life insurance.”

“Why would she?” said Jennifer.

Howard looked at the floor. “This is some shit, Jenn. I’ll be waiting for that call, Kane.”

“It’s not over,” said Jacob. “They’re not closing my school.”

“Your school?” Howard laughed.

He walked back to his old Ford, got in, and rolled off down the hill. Edwards remained on the porch, arms folded over his broad chest.

“Newspaper says a rival motorcycle club raided the Leviathans.”

“Yeah,” said Jacob. “Shame about that.”

“Put a bunch of their guys in the hospital. One lucky he wasn’t killed. Somebody shot his tire, knocked his bike right out from under him. Broken leg, broken arm, chipped pelvis, pretty bad road rash. He makes it, he’ll be messed up.”

“That’s a shame,” said Jacob.

“The hell it is. I’ve been making phone calls about that fucking place for years. Half those girls are underage. Everybody knows it, nobody cares. The higher ups tell me it’s an ongoing investigation.” He looked around the porch and shrugged, pulling his belt up at the same time. The badge dragged on his waistline like a lead weight.

“Once upon a time me and a couple other guys thought about raiding that place on our own,” he said. “When my father was on the PFPD that’s what they’d have done. They’d never have run a thing like that in the first place. You know what? We were too old. Couple of my buddies joined the FBI. Couple other are retired. One died in the line of duty- in a car wreck. Drunk in an old Trans-Am sandwiched him against the side of a semi-trailer he pulled over to check the driver’s logbook. I remember when I used to feel like I was part of a community and I knew people I could trust who would do the right thing. Now I don’t know who the hell I can trust. It’s getting dark around here. My family lived here since the coal days, but now I walk down the street and feel like a stranger.”

Jacob nodded, slowly.

“I’m not dense, son. I know it was you.”

Jacob shifted on his feet.

Edwards pulled his badge of his belt, and flipped over the leather cover, turned it in his hand.

“My dad carried his badge in this wallet for twenty-six years. Gave it to me when I graduated from the academy.”

There was a silver plate on the back, and an inscription.
John 1:15.

“A light shines in the darkness,” said Jennifer.

Edwards nodded and put the badge back on his belt.

“I can’t say I approve of what you’re doing. I approve of someone doing it. You ever need a third hand, you give me a call. I’m old. I’m not dead.”

With that, he left. Jacob retreated to the bench, and sat down. Jennifer sat beside him and leaned over his shoulder.

An angry snort rolled up the hillside and her head came up. She’d dozed off, without even realizing. It really was getting dark now and the semi-tractor struggling with the grade had its lights on. With a great diesel rumble, it crunched onto the gravel in front of the carriage house and came to a stop. Behind it rolled a flatbed trailer. An angular shape rested on top, covered in a tarp and heavy nylon straps.

“What is that?” said Jennifer.

“That,” said Jacob, “is the other car.”

Spy Games

1.

Jennifer ran down the stairs, at full tilt. The bed was empty when she woke up, Jacob’s side abandoned but still warm. She was so perturbed, she was only half dressed in a long t-shirt that covered her to the knees, bare feet slapping on the kitchen tiles as she skidded to a stop, assaulted by the rich buttery scent of cooking pancakes. Jacob stood in front of the stove, stripped to the waist, his left arm in a sling. For the last several days she’d had to repeatedly chase him back to bed. The wound on his shoulder was not deep but it was a long gash, constantly at risk of breaking open and bleeding again.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Making you breakfast.”

“You should be in bed.”