Southern Cross (31 page)

“You
okay with a little pain? Shouldn’t hurt too bad, but it might cut a little.”

I
lowered my voice further. “Do what you need to do.” 

He
grinned. “Yes, sir. I reckon we got ourselves an escape plan.”

01:50:22

The
party had gotten even bigger by the time Juarez and I got back to headquarters:
another batch of National Guard, a few more spooks, everyone now gathered in
the school gymnasium to accommodate the swelling numbers. So far, we’d learned
that the creepy post-modern bar in the woods was listed as being owned by
something called J. Enterprises, out of San Francisco. J. Enterprises, sadly,
was a dummy corporation, and everyone was having a hell of a time figuring out
how to connect a name with that dummy corporation.

Once
we’d gotten that disheartening news, Blaze pulled Juarez and me aside. 

“A
package was left on the front steps at the police station,” she said, her eyes
steady on me. “Deputy Holloway just discovered it. It’s a tape.”

“What
do you mean?” I asked. “What kind of tape?”

“It’s
from Barnel,” she said. “In it, he makes very vague references to whatever he
has in store at midnight. He also has messages from those he’s holding
hostage.”

“Diggs
is on the tape?” I asked.

“He
is,” Blaze confirmed. “I need you to take a look—we think he may have put some
coded information in there for you.”

I
nodded blindly. She led me to the little A/V cubicle I’d been at before, and
set me up with the digital tape. This time I wasn’t alone, though: Blaze, Juarez, Agent Keith, the Technology Nazi, and another handful of agents stood by, watching
alongside me.

The
tape started with Barnel, talking about everything he was planning: the end of
the world at midnight; holding everyone accountable for their sins; taking his
family out with him. Your garden-variety psychotic ramblings, in other words.

“This
is not suicide,” he said, looking into the camera with sweat running down his
face and an odd, glazed look to his eye. “This is a revolutionary act. We won’t
be held hostage by the devil and his minions no more.”

He
signed off. A whole parade of others were next: Casey, Danny, Wyatt Durham,
along with a slew of faces I didn’t recognize. Each read from a prepared
statement held off camera, detailing their past indiscretions. Most everyone
looked like they’d been through hell already—bruised, bloodied, out-and-out
terrified. George Durham came on and I cursed softly, realizing I’d been right:
he never made it to his mountain hideaway.

And
then, Diggs appeared.

I
pulled my legs up into the chair, all but curling into myself when he looked at
the camera. He read the words with dead eyes and no inflection in his voice,
using a steady monotone that sounded beyond wrong coming from him. He looked
exhausted. The tape switched off; half a second later, it came back on. Diggs
was still there. The dead eyes were gone suddenly, replaced with something raw
and sad and so deeply personal that I wanted to shut it off until I was alone. I
fought the urge and remained there, my attention riveted to the screen.

“Since
this is apparently my last will and testament...” he began. I steeled myself
against an onslaught of emotion, managing to hold it together until the end,
when he looked into the camera with those sparkling blue eyes and smiled at me.

“You’re
an amazing woman... even if your best record is
Original Soul
, you’ve
made my life better in a thousand ways. I’ve always loved you, Sol. Even when
it wasn’t smart. Even when I had no right. I think I always will.”

No
one said anything for a respectful few seconds after the tape ended, while I
sat there trying to get a grip, fighting a losing battle against the tears
tracking down my cheeks and a pain in my chest I knew wouldn’t go away until I
had Diggs back.

Finally,
I cleared my throat. “
Original Soul
,” I said. “That’s not my favorite
record—I don’t even know who recorded it. That’s his clue.”

It
took us sixty seconds on Google to track down what he was trying to tell me:

Original
Soul
: the 2004 debut album by Grace Potter
and the Nocturnals.

“Jenny
Burkett,” I said, as soon as I saw the band’s name. I turned around in my seat,
pulse racing, heart jumping, ready to lead the charge.

Juarez
looked at me blankly. “How do you get there?”

“Grace
Potter—Grace is the Burkett’s dog,” I said impatiently. “Roger’s dead… Jenny
disappeared. J. Enterprises is out of San Francisco; Mae told us early on that
Roger brought Jenny out here from San Francisco. She’s in on it. I’m sure of
it.”

Blaze
gave the word and a dozen agents sprang into action.

I
turned off the TV, still frozen on Diggs’ face.

“You
okay?” Juarez asked. We sat together, alone in the darkened room now. 

I
nodded. He waited for me to give him something—I could all but see him doing it.
Waiting for me to break down, share my thoughts, give him something to hold
onto to make it seem like we were even remotely in this together. I took a deep
breath, and forced it out slowly.

“I
kissed Diggs the other night,” I said. I looked at him. He didn’t even look
surprised, a flicker of anger in his eyes the only trace of emotion I could
see.

“I
mean—technically, he kissed me,” I continued awkwardly. “But there was a second
when I kissed him back.” I looked down, tracing the scar on my wrist. “I’m
sorry. I didn’t plan on it happening…”

“I
know that,” he said. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear,
his head tilted a little. There was something naked, soulful, about his dark
eyes when they met mine. The anger was gone.

“I
was fifteen when I met Lucia,” he said. It wasn’t what I’d expected—Lucia was Juarez’s first wife. His only wife. I’d been curious about her, but had never asked. It
seemed too personal, somehow… Plus, what woman really wants to talk to her
boyfriend about the lost love of his life? 

“It
was one of those instant connections that you read about sometimes, with her,”
he said. “We met, and… that was all. We dated, we fell in love, we married. So
easy.”

“I’m
sorry,” I said.

He
smiled a little—that sad, dark smile he didn’t really show the world. The one I
was just getting to know. “I know… I am, too. She was killed, and it was like
all the light went out of my life, for a long time. But we had something…
important. As though, when I was with her, all the planets were aligned.
Everything was exactly as it should be.”

“It’s
not like that with you and me,” I said quietly. He shook his head.

“I
didn’t realize, when we first met,” he said. “I should have—the two of you
denied it enough. I should have understood then.”

“Understood
what?”

He
smiled. Rolled his eyes. “That your planets were already aligned.”

I
opened my mouth to protest, but one look from him stopped me. What was the
point arguing something I didn’t even believe anymore?

“You
saved my life this year,” I said instead. I looked at my hand again, studying
that angry white line. I wiped my eyes, which continued to leak copiously. “I
mean—beyond the thing where you actually found Diggs and me and dragged us out
of the woods last summer. I’ve really…” I stopped and wiped my eyes again. I
was dangerously close to getting maudlin. “Well, hell.” I did a little deep
breathing since words were obviously failing me, and eventually gave up trying
for grace and eloquence. Clearly they were beyond me. “You know, I think Blaze
has a thing for you.”

I
don’t know what I expected him to do with that revelation, but it wasn’t laugh
at me. That’s exactly what he did, though. “You mean Allie?” he asked.

“Yeah,
Allie,” I said, indignant. “That’s so hard to believe? I haven’t seen a ring on
her finger.”

“That’s
because she’s single,” he said. “I’m not really her type, though.”

“She
doesn’t like tall, gorgeous, sensitive guys? You sure seem like her type when
you two are in your little huddles together.”

He
brushed the tears from my eyes and shook his head at me, as though I were the
most hopeless idiot on the planet. “I just mean,
you’re
more Allie’s
type than I am,” he clarified. 

“Oh.”
I took a very long, very deep breath, then let it out very slowly. I sat back
and looked at him. “So… this is it, huh?”

“I
think so. You don’t?”

I
thought of Diggs again—hopeless Diggs, with his temper and his past and his
passion and his ability to push every friggin’ button I had. Then, I looked at Juarez: stable, sensitive, heroic. And gorgeous. I was an idiot.

I
shook my head. “No, you’re right.”

He
stood, leaned in, and kissed me on the cheek. Then, he pulled me to my feet.
“We should go see if there have been any developments. It could be a good lead
you’ve given us—Jenny Burkett and the California connection. We could be
closing in on something.”

“Do
you mind if I go back to the hotel for awhile, actually?”

“Now?”

“I
want to look through Diggs’ room again. Check on the dogs. Get a little
breathing room. Just for a little while.”

“Yeah,
of course,” he agreed. “I’ll just let Allie know and we can go.”

“No,”
I said quickly. “Stay here. If you feel like I need an escort, get someone
else—you’re too valuable to be playing bodyguard right now.”

He
looked at me. “You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

He
hesitated, his eyes dark with sympathy. “We’ll find him, Erin,” he said. It was
the first time he’d said it since this whole thing began. I looked at the
clock: 10:35. An hour and twenty-five minutes.

“Yeah,”
I said, with a slightly embittered laugh. “Because things always work out that
well.”

“Not
always,” he agreed. “But sometimes, they do.”

01:05:42

Agent
Keith took me back to the hotel while Juarez retreated to the war room with
Blaze and the others. When I got to our room, I grabbed Einstein and Grace and
then lingered for just a second, staring at the rumpled sheets. Jack’s clothes
hung neatly in the closet. There wasn’t time to cry about it, but Diggs was
wrong if he thought Jack Juarez was just an easy way for me to deal with life
without him. It had definitely run deeper than that.

With
that uncomfortable realization behind me, I took Stein and Grace up to Diggs’
room to enact the only plan I’d been able to come up with thus far.

The
glass from Diggs’ broken mirror had been cleaned up, but otherwise his room was
in the same condition it had been when I’d left: overturned bureau, dirty
clothes, blood on the carpet… and no Diggs. I went in with Einstein and Grace,
closed the door behind me, and went straight for the window. I already knew what
I was there for—I’d known the moment Blaze had said a business called J.
Enterprises owned that bar in the Kentucky woods.

J.
just happened to be the initial my father had gone by as a kid, years and years
ago. It also happened to be the initial carved into the chest of more than a
dozen girls brutally hunted and murdered in northern Maine over the past forty
years.

It
was probably just coincidence that now a shell corporation with that very
initial was tied to a rash of kidnappings, murders, and a potential mass
murder-slash-suicide with the potential to rock the nation.

Probably.
But, Mitch Cameron was here when Diggs and I flew into Kentucky. He claimed it was to check up on me, but what if he had other business in the
state? I thought of his words just before he shot Max Richards point blank last
summer:
You’ve become a liability, Max. We warned you about this when you
left the fold…

I had
no idea what “fold” he was talking about. And maybe I was just reeling with
fatigue and hunger and the sting of just being dumped for a guy who would
probably end up dead before the night was out, but this seemed like a lead to
pursue. If my father and J. and Mitch Cameron and the Payson Church were somehow tied into J. Enterprises and the clusterfuck surrounding Jesup Barnel, I
planned on getting to the bottom of that connection.  

I
took a roll of masking tape from my bag and went to the picture window along
the far wall of the room. I looked at Einstein, now up on Diggs’ bed beside
Grace.

“Don’t
look at me that way,” I said. I imagined Diggs’ reaction to all this. He’d
never let me hear the end of it. I didn’t have a bat signal, though, and I was
out of good ideas.

I
tore off three pieces of masking tape and taped them into the shape of an
awkward, block J on the inside of the window. Then, I took the MagLite I’d
taken from Juarez’s room and trained it on the tape, so anyone outside would be
sure to see. If it worked for Scully, why shouldn’t it work for me?

Grace
hopped off the bed and trotted over to me, tail wagging slowly.