Enemy Closer, page 13
“Are you going to take the truck?”
“No, I’ll have to find something else.”
“Where will you go?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Okay,” I said firmly, standing up. I groped around in my backpack for the manilla envelope which had, until very recently, been in the front pocket of my laptop bag. I pulled out five hundred-dollar bills and handed them to him. “At least take this.”
“Are you serious?”
“You said you have no money. Money tends to help.”
“You can’t give this to me. This is—”
“Just take it,” I snapped, forcing the bills into his hand. “We’re even now.”
I turned away from him and sat down at the desk again, opening my laptop and hiding behind it while he stood motionless, saying nothing. Eventually I heard the crisp sound of bills being folded and stuffed into a pocket. He came around the desk and turned my chair toward him, taking my face in his hands. His next words took me off guard, but I managed not to react to them.
“By Christmas, I’ll either be dead or in London. You can come find me there, if you want.”
“London?”
“Don’t make me regret telling you that.”
He kissed me, grabbed his duffel bag, and left.
Monday, July 6, 2020
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Later that morning, I was wrenched from a mercifully deep sleep by the hotel phone ringing. Some psycho had set the ringer to full volume. It cut through my sleep like a hot knife and I struggled upright, disoriented and panicking. I picked it up, prepared to give some crank caller an earful.
“Who is this?” I demanded. My voice was a painful rasp and I coughed, almost missing the light chuckle coming through the receiver.
“Good to hear your voice, Anna.”
A full five seconds passed in complete silence while I processed what I’d heard. I cleared my throat.
“Jim?”
“So you do remember me. I was beginning to wonder.”
“How the—Why are you calling me?”
“Circumstances have changed. I’ve got someone here who really wants to see you. Meet me at the dog park on Louisiana and Corona.”
He hung up, leaving me reeling as reality settled over me. I laid back and covered my eyes with my arm, intoning, “Anna Bowman. My name is Anna Bowman. I live in Washington, DC and work for the FBI. Agent Jim Camposanto is the bastard who ruined my life and made me go to Colorado to find Luke Jackson, to find out what happened to Tommy in Houston.”
I’d been dubious at the time, when Jim made me write down that very spiel and memorize it before I left for Colorado. He hadn’t been amused by the “bastard who ruined my life” part, but he also couldn’t argue with it. How could someone forget who she was? But he was right; I was so deep into being Abigail Breckenridge that I had to repeat the words twice before they sank in.
The fictional Abigail and I had one or two things in common, though; chief among them was Dude. Knowing Jim had him, somehow, brought relief washing over me. I got out of bed and groaned as my shoulder gave a twinge of protest. It was sore from the fight with Philip, but not injured. I did a few perfunctory stretches and opted for another shower. Jim and his questions could wait.
Aided yet again by Google Maps, I found my way to the appointed place around ten in the morning. I hadn’t bothered to find a replacement for Ernest’s stolen pickup; as Jim had said, circumstances had changed. I picked out Dude’s booming voice as soon as I stepped out of the truck, and I followed it toward the off-leash area on the north side of the park. At midmorning on a workday, the park was sparsely occupied by three other people and about half a dozen other large dogs. Dude bowled me over right at the gate, licking my face and generally behaving as though we’d been apart for seventeen years. Far from being hurt or abused, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying life. Once I’d been greeted, he leapt up and started chasing a pair of huskies around the perimeter of the park. I stood up, brushed dirt and wood chips off my clothes, and headed toward the bench where a tall, lanky, dark-haired man in his early forties was looking painfully out of place in a three-piece suit. He stood up when I got close.
“Anna.”
“Jim.”
“Have a seat.”
I complied, torn between annoyance and worry. “How did you get Dude?”
“You finally used your laptop. I saw you track him to the Sunport, so I went there and explained to the agent holding him that Philip Levin asked me to pick him up.”
He finished this terse tale and looked expectantly at me, as though he’d explained everything. I was bursting with questions, but I held them back long enough to say, “Thank you. I was so worried about him…”
“I’ve been worried about you, too. No contact since you left Washington, phone and laptop totally dark, not so much as a ‘Happy Fourth of July’ email. You can see why I’d be concerned.”
“Luke took my phone. I broke it.”
Jim sat up a little straighter, eagerly asking, “You found Jackson?”
“Sure, I told you I would. He was calling himself Alan for a while. He’d shaved off the beard. He knew someone was looking for him.”
“And?”
“Nothing. Philip caught up with me a few days ago, and I didn’t get a chance to find anything out before Luke ran for it.”
“Levin knows Jackson was there?”
“They met. Briefly.”
“God dammit… So Jackson knows who you are.”
“No.” I squirmed under his penetrating gaze, struggling to explain, “Philip played along. I don’t know why. He just… We didn’t get a chance to talk about it.”
“Where’s Levin now?”
I scoffed. “You’re asking me? I thought that was your job.”
“Don’t get smart with me, kiddo.”
Frowning at the nickname, which he used exclusively to piss me off, I admitted, “I lost him in Red Mesa.”
“Where the hell is that?”
“Colorado. Near the border. He’s probably on a plane by now.”
“Do you have any idea where Jackson is going?” he probed.
“He didn’t leave a forwarding address.”
Jim grabbed my right hand, pressing his index and middle fingers to the underside of my wrist. “Do you know where Luke Jackson is going?” he repeated.
Fuming, I met his gaze and said, “I don’t know. He was at the casino with me last night, and he freaked out. He said something about plan B, then he left.”
He released my hand, satisfied.
“You should work with someone you trust,” I snarled. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Completely ignoring this, he pressed a set of car keys into my hand and said, “You’re tired. We can debrief later; I need to focus on Levin. Go to your parents’ house, get some rest. I’ll contact you when we figure out where Jackson is.”
“And Philip?”
“If he shows up, you call me immediately. Got it?”
“Got it.”
I stood up to leave, but he grabbed my hand again. Rather than trying the improvised polygraph nonsense, he squeezed my hand and asked, “You are okay, aren’t you?”
Though I would’ve loved nothing more than to yank my hand away and explain in detail how very not okay I was, I nodded and waited for him to let me go.
“Did you have to sleep with him?”
At that, I did yank my hand away. Looking down my nose at him, I spat, “That’s none of your fucking business. See to it that Ernest Perkins gets his truck back.”
I called to Dude, and we left the off-leash area to find the car that went with the keys Jim had given me. I found it a few spaces down from the pickup: An unremarkable Mazda sedan, barely large enough for all my luggage and Dude. We squeezed inside, and I entered my parents’ address into the navigation system. The soothing female voice cheerfully informed me that an eleven-hour, forty-one minute trip lay before me. I glanced over at Dude, who had taken up his place in the passenger seat.
“Time to meet your grandparents.”
Monday, July 6, 2020
Manchester, Texas
Living with my parents for an undefined length of time was not a prospect I relished. Heroic efforts had been made, questionable deals had been struck, and many bridges had been burned so I could finally consider myself fully independent from them. They weren’t happy about how I’d done it, but after a few years they were content that it was done and I was better off. After all, what parents’ vision for their daughter’s future includes abject dependency well into said daughter’s twenties? We’d settled into a reasonably civil, almost halfway normal relationship until about a year and a half ago, when my sister Emily had decided to unseat me as the black sheep of the family. At the end of that debacle, my sister was in jail, my parents were raising her two daughters as their own, and I was on their shit list again for siding with Emily.
Given the circumstances, I decided not to give them any more warning than my phone call from Red Mesa. My little sedan ate up the highways from northern New Mexico to scenic Manchester, Texas near the Oklahoma border. I stopped for gas and a bathroom twice, otherwise refusing to prolong the journey any further for such trifles as hot meals, stretching my legs, or simply resting.
I used the hours to mentally game out various scenarios, everything from my mom running across the yard to welcome me (unlikely) to my dad greeting me at the door with a loaded shotgun (less unlikely). If Dude, in the passenger seat, thought my silence a strange departure from the chatterbox I’d been on the drive from Washington to Hesperus only a few weeks ago, he made no comment.
Even though I wasn’t expecting a warm welcome, it was undeniably fortifying to arrive at the home of my youth and see that very little had changed in the two years since I’d last visited, just as very little had changed in the previous three decades. It was past nine o’clock when I got there, and the little town through which I’d driven looked like it had been asleep for hours.
The lower story was illuminated, and from the driveway I could see movement inside. I hadn’t expected to surprise them; as resistant as my parents were to most trappings of twenty-first century life, they had bitten the bullet many years ago and shelled out a substantial amount of money for an electric gate. I still knew the code to get in, but my opening it so late had set off an alarm inside the house.
Though I couldn’t see much more than shadows rippling across curtained windows, I knew what was happening: They were throwing on robes, my dad was arming himself, my mom was peeking through the curtains to see who it was, and my seven- and five-year-old nieces were most likely oblivious to it all, having once slept through a literal tornado.
I turned to Dude, who was quietly wriggling in the passenger seat, enthusiasm building. He had never been here before, in fact had never been within a hundred feet of a child in his life. I hoped my nieces were made of sterner stuff than their mother, who would’ve been terrified of my German Shepherd.
“Well,” I said, breaking my eleven-hour silence. “You better wait here. This is going to be…” I trailed off, unable to think of the right word, shrugged, and stepped out of the car.
I picked my way across the dark front yard, up the porch stairs, and halfway to the front door as it was jerked open from the inside. I ground to a halt in the middle of the porch.
“Annie?”
I winced at the nickname but let it slide. “Hi, Mom.”
One look at her told me I had seriously misinterpreted the situation. She was not dressed for bed and seemed wide awake. My oldest niece, Emma, hovered behind her, looking curious. My dad and younger niece, Ellie, were nowhere to be seen.
“I didn’t think—we were just getting ready for bedtime—Goodness, come in, come in.”
She partially dragged me inside and then disappeared into the kitchen, saying something about coffee. Emma and I stared at each other for a moment, unsure how to proceed.
“You remember me, right?” I finally asked.
“Uh huh.”
“Oh good. Okay.”
She smiled at me, which I knew from experience was all the greeting I could expect; she wasn’t a hugger. Instead she walked boldly toward me and addressed the gun on my right hip.
“Papa let me shoot his gun before he left. Can I shoot yours?”
“Uh… mine would knock you over, Ems. Where did he go?”
“Sucklahoma.”
“Emma Marie Bowman,” my mom snapped, re-appearing in the entry way, “We don’t say that.”
“Papa does.”
“We don’t. It’s not nice. Come sit down, Annie, you look exhausted.”
“I will, but, um… I left my dog in the car. Can I let him run around? He’s been stuffed in there for a while.”
“Of course…” she said uncertainly, asking, “Is he… he’s a big dog, isn’t he?”
“Some would say.”
“Is he safe to be around the girls?”
“He may scare the shit of them at first, but he’s not dangerous.” My mom clucked disapprovingly, Emma giggled, and I added, “Sorry, he’ll scare the tar out of them.”
“Hm. He can stay outside for now, okay?”
Dude was only too happy to have the entire two-acre yard to himself. He disappeared into the darkness as soon as I opened the door, and I returned inside to find my mom and Emma at the kitchen table in the midst of a heated exchange.
“Bedtime is bedtime, no matter who’s here. You know that.”
“But I want to play with the dog! And Anta said I could shoot her gun!”
“I did not, don’t drag me into this,” I defended, joining them. My mom slid a cup of coffee my way.
“Emma, you promised Grandpa you’d behave while he was gone. Didn’t you?”
“Yes…”
“Okay. Go brush your teeth.”
She stomped away toward the stairs.
“And don’t wake up your sister!”
Mom’s eyes followed Emma’s progress up the stairs and remained fixed on the ceiling for several seconds, as though she could see through it. Finally she sighed and looked down at her own coffee. “She’s going to be just like you.”
“Sorry.”
“Anta, she called you,” she laughed. “I thought she’d forgotten about that.”
“Aunt Anna is a mouthful, even for an adult.”
She laughed again, still staring at her coffee. I took a few sips of mine, and gradually the silence became strained and uncomfortable. I could tell she was about to think of another innocuous topic, so I cut her off.
“Mom, my boss sent me here. I didn’t have a choice. Did you get my voicemail?”
“Yes, it was very distressing.”
“I said I was okay like nine times.”
“You didn’t sound okay. How can your boss send you home to your parents’ house, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“He needs me to lay low for a while.”
“He sounds very demanding.”
“Well… yeah.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“… Yeah.” Her gaze shifted to me, finally, and I could see her question before she asked it. “Y’all won’t be in any kind of danger because I’m here. I promise. I would never do anything to put those girls at risk.”
“How long do you need to stay?”
“Er—I don’t know.”
“This is… I don’t know. Your father isn’t going to be happy about this.”
That hurt more than I would’ve guessed. I took a sip of coffee to hide my expression, but I couldn’t hope to fool my own mother.
“I don’t mean that you’re here. He’ll be happy to see you. I just mean… the circumstances…”
“I’m sure if I tell Jim I can’t stay here, he’ll figure something else out.”
“Jim is your boss?”
I nodded.
“You tell him you can stay here as long as you need to.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
We sipped at our coffee in silence for a minute, but it wasn’t the tense non-conversation it might have devolved into. Eventually I could hide my curiosity no longer.
“Why is Dad in Oklahoma?”
“He’s doing some training. They hired a lot of new engineers in May and he needs to get them up to speed. He’ll be back on Friday.”
“Did he… hear the voicemail?”
“He was already gone when you called. I was at church.”
I knew it. “Have you told him, though?”
“There wasn’t much to tell, Annie.”
It struck me that I’d sent the voicemail in question less than twenty-four hours ago. It felt like a week had passed. I sank a little under a wave of exhaustion as the energy drinks, coffee, and caffeine pills that had kept me going in the interim all gave up at once. My stomach growled angrily, but it was easy to ignore; a few more hours, all of them asleep, wouldn’t kill me.
“You need to sleep,” my mom said firmly, taking my coffee cup and carrying it to the sink. “We can talk about this in the morning.”
Those last few sips of coffee got me through feeding Dude and setting up a pile of old blankets on the porch for him, up the stairs to my dad’s vacant man-cave-office-guest-room, and through the rigamarole of brushing my teeth, going to the bathroom, and struggling into borrowed pajamas. My brain’s last act that day was a reminder that there were two children in the house: I unloaded my gun, hid it on the top shelf of the closet, and stuffed the magazines in my backpack.
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
Manchester, Texas
My first night at my parents’ house was surprisingly comfortable, all things considered. The air conditioner was blasting arctic breezes well into the early morning hours, and under three blankets I was as snug as a bug in a rug. Their little corner of Texas was as peaceful and nearly as remote as the cabin in Colorado, and I was so far beyond tired that I would’ve slept until noon if my nieces had let me. Since they’d probably been awake since dawn, I was impressed they didn’t disturb me until half-past nine.
