The Achilles Heel (31 page)

While busy stringing lights, I heard the car door shut and the sound of footsteps
coming around the corner, the frozen grass crunching under his shoes.

Kessler must be back already. He’ll get on board the decorating train when he sees
how nice the lights look.

“Hey, baby! Don’t you love…” I started to say, until I looked up and saw Jamie standing
on my lawn.

I tried to scream, but my voice caught inside my throat and only a hollow screech
managed to escape. As frozen in my boots as the grass to the ground and holding on
tight to a strand of Christmas lights, my mouth hung open in a silent scream; visible
breath my only sign of life.

He spoke first. “Hi, Annie. It’s been a long time.”

“W-What do y-you want?” I almost had to manually rip the words out of my neck. “P-P-Please
leave me alone. Please!”

He took a step towards me, as I took a step back.

“Jack really made a mess of things in our little family, didn’t he?” he asked me with
an arrogant smile, shaking his head. “He never should have married you. I told him
not to marry you, but as you can see, Jack always does what Jack wants with little
regard for anyone else.”

He took another step forward, and I matched him with another step back.

I have nothing but Christmas lights to defend myself. Oh fuck, this isn’t good!
I really started panicking, realizing that I would have to make it to the house and
lock all the doors for a chance at survival, but knowing how slim that chance actually
was.

“There’s so much you don’t know about the Whitman boys, Annie. Although, you’ve done
very well for yourself over the last six months; fattening up your bank account with
those diamonds and running around St. Croix with a celebrity. Kessler Carlisle? Really?
I never pictured you as a country music fan.”

“You were in St. Croix. You killed that man, our waiter,” I stated.

“Yes, I admit I was there, and yes, that man needed to die, but I wasn’t the one who
pulled the trigger,” he said.

This
time I heard the gun cock.

“Don’t move you limp dick shitweasel or I’ll fill the back of your head with bullets
and splatter your ugly face all over these pretty decorations; even Santa Claus won’t
recognize you!” Wade yelled as he stood up from the waist high, cat-tailed grass just
a few feet from us; his face hidden behind a shotgun, ready to fire.

Jamie held his arms in the air “Now, let’s not lose our heads! Everyone calm down!
Everything’s okay, and no one’s getting hurt today!” he negotiated, obviously backtracking.

“Yeah, she’s gonna be just fine, but I gotta say mister, it ain’t looking good for
you,” Wade boasted as he stepped over the tall grass, shotgun still in position. “Get
inside the house, Annie, and lock the doors; you don’t wanna see another man die,
not like this.”

“Whoa, whoa! Nobody has to die today! I’m not armed! Everyone please stay calm!” Jamie
pleaded.

All of a sudden, a red blur shot past me running at full speed and tackled Jamie,
laying him out with his face in the ground. In four maybe five seconds, Kessler had
Jamie hogtied, his feet and hands jacked up behind his back; he looked like a yoga
pose gone horribly wrong.

“Yee-haw! And time! Unbelievable, Kess, you still got it, farm boy! That had to be
some kind of record!” Wade yelled, whooping and hollering, stomping his feet.

Jamie sucked hard at the air, coughing and sputtering as he tried to regain his breath.

Kessler hurried over to me, first pulling me in tight and then holding me away from
him, checking me over. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, I’m okay,” I said, finally wrapping my head around the last five
minutes.

Kessler walked back over to Jamie and kicked him hard in the ribs, then yanked his
hair back, revealing his face as he clocked him; blood sprayed the ground in front
of him.

“Stop! Please stop!” I yelled, running to Kessler, pulling him off Jamie. “Please
don’t, I can’t stand to see you do that to someone. That’s not who you are, so just
stop,” I begged him.

Kessler turned and spit on him; walking away with the final word.

“Let me shoot ‘em, Kess!” Wade bawled in the background, probably enjoying this confrontation
a little too much.

“Please! Let me explain!” Jamie begged from the ground.

“Explain what?” I asked, crouching down beside his head, smearing his blood further
into the grass.

“Just untie me first! Please, I can’t breathe!” he complained.

“You better start talking, because if you haven’t noticed, Wade over there is trigger
happy, and I can’t hold him off much longer,” I touted, enjoying the power I finally
had over him.

“I’m not Jack’s brother!” he yelled reluctantly.

“Liar!” I screamed at him, pointing my finger in his face.

“I swear to God, Annie! Jack and I met at West Point about nine years before he met
you. We were partners,
not
brothers. You and I aren’t related,” he revealed.

“What do you mean partners?” I asked, still not believing him.

“We worked for the government! Please untie me and let me explain. I came here to
explain things to you,
not
kill you! I never wanted to kill you. Believe it or not, I was protecting you from
the shit storm that Jack put you in giving you access to those diamonds.”

I sat back on my heels, my body suddenly three hundred pounds and impossible to hold
up; this was all just too much.

My past actually keeps getting shittier. Is it possible to continually feel worse
and worse over a dead man? Time heals all wounds is the biggest fucking joke anyone
could ever tell me, because the more time that goes by, the bigger this wound gets.

“Untie him,” I said, feeling somewhat defeated by my past.

“What? No! What if tries something?” Kessler yelled at me.

“Untie him, Kessler! Wade, if he makes a move, you can shoot him; I don’t care anymore,”
I said, walking over to the patio and sitting down with my head between my knees.

Kessler did as I asked, but Wade kept one eye through the sight and the double barrel
on the back of his head.

Once I collected myself, I motioned him over to have a seat and spill his guts, hoping
he had proof to back up any of his accusations.

“I’m going to ask you some questions, and I swear to God, if you hesitate even one
second or make me think in any way you’re lying, then you’re dead, and I won’t shed
one damn tear for you. Got it?” I demanded.

“Do we have to do this in front of them?” he asked, motioning to Kessler and Wade.
“I’m divulging very sensitive information; can we go somewhere private?” he asked,
somewhat hopeful.

“You have blood running down the front of your head and a shotgun pointed at the back;
consider your cover blown,” I fumed, irate that he would ask for any kind of special
treatment.

He nodded his head in agreement.

“Is Liz really your wife and Max and Mia, are they your kids?”

“Yes, but Liz knew as little as you did until last night when I came clean with her.
I don’t know if she’s going to stay with me; divorce was mentioned,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, I bet it was!” I snapped. “Who do you work for?”

“We were brokers, of some sort, for the CIA. Jobs were assigned to us, and Jack was
the go man; I filed and filtered the money that we took from our target. We didn’t
really have a job title because as far as the United States is concerned, we don’t
actually exist; we were created by a Homeland Security board, and basically, the last
ten years we spent outside of our homes were somewhat fabricated. Well, all fabrication,”
he alleged.

“The CIA? You expect me to believe that?” I sneered.

“Just think back over the years, Annie. Have you met Jack’s parents? No, conveniently
they’re dead. Where are his friends from high school or college? Do you really think
anyone is so much of a loner that not only do you never meet an old buddy, but they
don’t call either? What about your house and the things inside? Nice, but not too
nice? Do you pay by cash or credit card? Have you ever known Jack to stick out in
a crowd? Parties, pictures, even his wardrobe; has he ever called attention to himself
in the eleven years you’ve known him?”

I didn’t answer because he was right, and didn’t even need time to consider the questions.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“Did you not just hear what I said? If you live on this planet, I can find you; especially
if you don’t know you need to be found. Plane ticket to St. Croix-easy, cell phone
calls‌—‌even better, and then you downloaded about a hundred dollars worth of music
from the same artist‌—‌a Mr. Kessler Carlisle, who happens to own the house next door
to the one you rented. You’re a good looking woman, Annie, and the fact you two ended
up together didn’t take a genius IQ,” he boasted with a snarky tone.

“Not the time to get cocky, ass-wipe!” Wade yelled, poking him with the barrel of
his shotgun.

“Why were you in St. Croix? You said you were protecting me; from what?”

“The people who own those diamonds, the same people Jack stole from. I only recently
found out about those; Jack had secrets from me too, and when I cleaned out the office
at the Plaza, I finally put all the clues together. Wherever he got the diamonds was
kept from me, and with the publicity surrounding his death, the rightful owner would
come looking for them. It’s just too much money to let go. And obviously, I was right,”
he answered.

“The waiter?” I asked.

“Yes, the waiter,” he echoed.

“Why did you freak out at Robert Graville’s office?”

“Because Jack was dead, and for all I knew, I would be next. I’ve wanted out of this
job for years, and only recently found out because of Jack’s death they are releasing
me. I’m sorry Jack’s gone, but when you have more enemies than friends, bad things
are bound to happen. I’ve made all the exit arrangements to put that part of my life
behind me, and just turned over all of my identities and any paper trail created over
the last ten years. A person needs an iron stomach, nerves of steel and no conscience
for this type of life; I’ve been extremely stressed the past six months,” he whined.

A surge of anger came over me. “You’ve been stressed? Are you fucking kidding me?
Do you realize that you haven’t even said the words, ‘I’m sorry?’ You and Jack have
lied to me for over ten years, which by the way, led me to almost getting killed,
and I think you should at least say I’m sorry, you self-centered prick!” I screamed
in a shrill voice.

“Annie, I
am
sorry, and that’s why I’m here, to tell you the truth about your past so you won’t
question any kind of future you might have with someone else. You deserve a better
life, a better man than Jack‌—‌you always have. I told Jack not to marry you. Liz
and I were different because I was only a glorified accountant, but Jack put you in
danger. That never sat well with me. I just didn’t have the balls to say so,” he added.

“Do you think he committed suicide or is murder now on the table?” I asked.

“I don’t know if either of us will ever know the answer to that question,” he replied.

“Did he love me?” I asked, not turning to look at Kessler’s face, but feeling his
stare and knowing that question probably hurt him. But I had to know the answer.

“Yes, Annie, of course he did; you were his wife. That’s why he left you the money,
so you would always be taken care of financially and never need to worry about finances
again.”

“Well, Jamie, maybe in the next chapter of your life, you should try to remember you
can’t buy a family. A real family is something that you earn, with honesty and compassion,
not with money,” I said, standing up and putting my arms around Kessler’s neck. “I’m
done here. I don’t want to hear any more about my past; I’m so fucking tired of my
past. Me and you, baby, the future,” I said, lightly pushing my forehead against Kessler’s.

“I hope it works out for you, Annie. I really do,” he said. “Are we done?”

“Tell your children I love them, and will for the rest of my life. Just because I’m
done with you doesn’t mean I don’t want to see them, because I do. You tell them that!”
I yelled, as I poked him in the chest. “But don’t you ever contact me again; I don’t
ever want to see you,” I said.

“Understood,” he replied, as the three of us watched him turn away and walk back up
the hill to his car.

I was exhausted‌—‌bloated with toxic information that might take years to completely
expel from my mind. All I wanted to do was sleep.

“Just in the nick of time, Wade,” I said as I hugged him. “Thank you.”

“Happy to do it, but I really thought I was gonna get to shoot ‘em,” he whined, disappointed
in the outcome.

“Sorry, buddy, maybe next time.” I patted his arm, and the three of us walked inside‌—‌locking
the doors and turning on the alarm.

ANNIE

W
ith my decision to make a permanent move to Nashville, there were some ends in need
of tying in Kansas City. My house was on the market and the realtor held an estate
sale for me. I wanted to retrieve any items of sentimental value and bring them home
before the random population rummaged through the belongings I had spent a decade
collecting. Walking into my old house was easier than I expected; there was no love
lost, only good riddance. Kessler begged to come with me, but I gave him an adamant
no. I didn’t want him to have any affiliation with that part of my life‌—‌complete
separation‌—‌like a severed head detached from its body. He did, however, let me use
his jet, and I could see how wealthy people become totally unattached from the rest
of the world; it was glorious! My journey of gratitude was beginning.

The first stop was Gail’s house; she had another cup of her homemade marvel waiting
for me when I arrived.

“This coffee is beyond addictive! You should have gotten your ex hooked on this and
maybe he would have given up the coke,” I joked.