Page 53 of Mean Streak

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W ere you still up?”

“Jeff?” Alice said a bit groggily. “Up? No. I was in bed, but not asleep.”

He didn’t care if he’d roused her from a coma.

“You sounded strange when I called earlier,” she said. “Why didn’t you call me back? I thought you’d be coming by to get Emory’s car. Did you make it back to Atlanta okay?”

“Nothing’s okay.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t even know where to start. But the upshot of it is, Emory is gone again.”

“ Gone ?” Suddenly she sounded wide awake.

Half an hour earlier, Sergeant Grange had joined the party.

Using cop-speak and acronyms, Knight and Jack Connell filled him in on the latest development.

Meanwhile, dozens of other officers were outside trying to pick up Emory’s trail.

Snow was beginning to accumulate, making the search for tire tracks and footprints even more difficult.

They had, however, discovered two sets of prints just beyond the front door of the neighboring suite.

The imprints of Emory’s riding boots didn’t indicate there had been a struggle or even any hesitancy on her part.

Gauging by the distinctive outlines of the soles of her boots, Knight’s assessment had been that she had gone willingly with the much larger set of prints, and Connell had agreed.

It was requiring every ounce of cool reason and self-control for Jeff not to pound something or tear his hair out. But he couldn’t allow rage to overtake him. He must continue to think calmly and practically.

Almost without their taking notice, he’d excused himself to call Alice. “If Emory contacts anyone, it will be her,” he’d told them. But Alice’s astonishment had doused that faint hope.

“About half an hour ago, she split. We believe she went with that man from the now-famous cabin. His name finally came to light. Hayes Bannock.”

“Oh, Jeff.”

Her soulful groan set his teeth on edge. People were saying the dumbest, most unhelpful things to him tonight. “You don’t know the half of it. She and this man were accomplices in a crime.” He told her about the burglary.

“I can’t believe that of Emory!”

“I wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

“Did they charge her?”

“No. They figure she was coerced to participate, though I’m not convinced coercion was necessary. There was this girl.” He went on to tell her about the family of Floyds and how they factored in.

“This is all so bizarre,” Alice murmured.

“Even more bizarre is where these people live, although subsist would be a more accurate word.” In disparaging terms he described the state road by which they’d reached Bannock’s cabin.

“ Backwoods is an understatement of how rustic it is. The Floyds are his nearest neighbors and that isn’t by happenstance.

Apparently Bannock already had the brothers in his sights over some past grievance.

God knows what. Some tawdry mess, I’m sure. Connell said—”

“Who is Connell?”

“Oh, that’s the best part. He’s the effing FBI.”

“How did the FBI become involved?”

“Hayes Bannock has been eluding Connell for years. Something to do with a mass shooting.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m afraid so. His fingerprint was lifted in the cabin.

Connell was notified. He rushed right down.

Twenty minutes after meeting him and telling him about her mountain adventure, Emory bolted, almost surely with Bannock, and, as we speak, their trail is being obscured by snow.

” He paused and took a breath. “I think that’s everything. ”

His recitation was followed by a lengthy and teeming silence. Then Alice drew a shaky breath. “Jeff, this is a tragic turn of events.”

“You think?”

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“Then say something less banal.”

“Very well.” After a beat, she said, “It’s obvious to me that Emory has lost her grasp on reality.”

He sensed a ponderous footnote left unspoken. “Alice? Dear? Do you know something I don’t?”

“I’m not sure it’s relevant.”

“Tell me and let me decide its relevance.”

“I can’t betray Emory’s confidence.”

“Your loyalty to her is admirable, but if you keep something from me and the authorities, you’re fostering her bizarre behavior.

She’s sacrificing her reputation and jeopardizing the future of the clinic.

Her career—as well as mine, yours, and Neal’s—are at stake.

Not only that, her life could be in danger.

This man she’s with is a violent criminal.

My God, Alice, screw confidentiality and tell me what you know! ”

She inhaled a deep breath. “She called me from the hospital last night. Actually early this morning. She seemed on the verge of hysteria. She was breathing erratically, like she was having a panic attack.”

“What brought it on?”

“Her sunglasses. She asked me if I remembered her mentioning at some point during the day that they’d been broken.”

“She called you in the wee hours to talk about her sunglasses?”

“Because you had asked her about the repair.”

“Jesus, she’s really hung up on that. She brought it up to me tonight.”

“She wondered how you knew they’d been broken when she fell.”

“I didn’t. All I knew was that when she left home on Friday, the stem was intact. Yesterday I noticed it had been glued together.” He waited a ten count, then said, “Alice, what was she… Why did she call you in a panic over something so innocuous?”

“It wasn’t innocuous to her. She thought that your question about them might have been a slip of the tongue. That by asking it, you had implicated yourself.”

“Good Christ,” he exclaimed in a stage whisper.

“I told her that she wasn’t thinking clearly, that she was letting her imagination run wild, but even as we hung up, she sounded uncertain.”

“She’s the one stealing and keeping company with a wanted man, but she implicated me . Unbelievable.”

“I didn’t know about the break-in and all the rest last night when I spoke to her. But even then she seemed irrational, and I told her so. I said that perhaps she was transferring her own guilt onto you.”

“Her guilt over the burglary?”

Alice didn’t respond.

“Guilt over something else?”

“Jeff, I can’t—”

“She slept with him, didn’t she?”

Alice held her tongue.

He sneered, “Ah, the resonate silence of a confidante and friend.”

“Not that good of a friend,” she said with contrition. “I’m sleeping with her husband.”

“She knows.”

“Oh my God,” she wailed.

“Relax, Alice. For God’s sake. I didn’t name you, but I did confess.”

“Why? Why now ?”

“Emory backed me into a corner. Even after today’s shocking disclosures, she had the gall to ask me outright if I was having an affair. In anger I admitted it but didn’t tell her with whom.”

Speaking in an undertone, she said, “It might be a relief for her to find out. Keeping the secret has been torture.”

“No one would doubt your loyalty to her, although you should have contacted me immediately after your conversation with her last night. I should have known about her suspicions regarding me.”

“I chalked them up to exhaustion, medication, a residual fear after what she’d been through. Emotional upheaval and—”

“I understand. But you should have told me, Alice. Had I known, things might have gone differently today.”

“How so? What would you have done?”

“For starters, I wouldn’t have been so eager to take her home. I would have recommended that she stay in the hospital and be kept under observation for another couple of days.”

“Seen a psychiatrist, perhaps?”

God bless Alice. He forgave her the previous banalities.

She was saying all the right things now.

“Yes. I blame myself for not suggesting a psychiatric evaluation yesterday when she seemed unable to remember specifics about how she sustained the concussion and the time she spent in that cabin. Of course, given what we know now, how were we to distinguish between faulty recollection and sheer fabrication?”

“We must get help for her.”

“We have to find her first. I only hope she survives this villain. Connell said he wasn’t a sexual predator, but…well, he’s already seduced her, hasn’t he?” He let his voice crack emotionally on the last two words, and Alice’s response to it was instantaneous.

“It’s difficult to be angry with her and worried at the same time, isn’t it?”

“That describes exactly what I’m feeling.”

She was silent for a moment, then, “What does all this mean to us, Jeff? To our relationship?”

“I’ve already told you. We can’t go on seeing each other. Emory has to be my sole concern now. I don’t say that to hurt you.”

“Nevertheless, it does.”

“I’m sorry. We both went into this with eyes wide open, neither predicting a happy ending.” Then, “I’d better go now, check in downstairs and see if any progress is being made.”

“Should I keep this latest incident under my hat?”

“Please. Let’s get through the night, see what tomorrow brings.”

“All right.” Her good-bye was tearful and subdued.

He disconnected and grinned at himself in the dresser mirror. “That went well.” Had he scripted Alice, he couldn’t have put better words in her mouth.

If Emory survived this second misadventure with her criminal boyfriend, her mental stability would be brought into question.

She would be denounced and ridiculed. Perhaps the end of her star-kissed life would bring too much pressure for her to bear.

She might very well break under the strain of losing everything she had worked so hard to achieve, and, when she did, God knows what she would do to herself. Suicide would be credible.

As he was leaving the bedroom, he glanced toward the bed where he’d tossed his ski jacket when he came upstairs. He had noticed yesterday that the trademark zipper pull was missing. He didn’t know how and when it had become detached, and a search among his belongings hadn’t produced it.

It was a small thing. But wasn’t the devil in the details?

***

When Jeff excused himself to go upstairs to call Alice, Jack Connell asked the two detectives, “What’s that about?”

Knight, who was halfway through a minibar can of cashews, said, “Dr. Alice Butler. OB-GYN.” He explained the three-way medical clinic partnership. “Also, she’s Emory’s best friend.”

“Who’s committing adultery with him.” Grange tipped his head toward the top of the stairs.

Jack divided a look between them. “Huh. Does Emory know?”

“We don’t think so,” Grange replied. “She might. She might not care. Would you, if you were her?”

Jack smiled, then asked, “When she went missing, you looked hard at him?”

“Snug as a bug in a rug with Alice Butler from Friday evening till Sunday afternoon, when he became concerned about his wife,” Knight said.

Grange expanded on that, recounting the interview he’d had with the other woman. “She confessed, crumbling beneath the weight of guilt. We thought for sure we had Jeff’s dual motive.”

“Dual?”

Grange told him about Emory’s legacy from Charbonneau Oil and Gas. “She’s worth a bundle and then some. We were on our way to apprehending him, but then Emory showed up at the filling station, alive.”

Knight said, “The husband’s no longer a suspect. Your boy Hayes Bannock stole all his thunder.”

“Bannock won’t hurt her.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I’d stake my career on it,” Jack insisted. “Besides, she isn’t afraid of him or she wouldn’t have left with him tonight.”

Grange said, “That’s the first thing that crossed my mind when Knight called me and said to get over here.

There’s a big difference between being unafraid of someone and running off with him.

Why’d she go? What did he say to her? What did he do to get her to take off without even getting her coat first? ”

Jack said, “I don’t know Emory Charbonneau well, but from my perspective, it’s just as puzzling. Always before, when Bannock was done somewhere, he split. Like in a matter of hours. After the incident with Norman and Will Floyd, I can’t figure why he’s sticking around.”

“Maybe he’s not done with the Floyds. Maybe the beating was only a prelude leading up to a big finish.”

Jack pulled the inside of his cheek between his teeth. “I hope not.”

“Or maybe we’re overlooking the obvious.

Maybe Emory’s ‘he treated me kindly’ refrain was euphemistic for…

” Knight let his raised eyebrows speak for him, then shook the last of the cashews from the can and tossed them into his mouth.

“But whatever he’s doing to, or with, or for her, we still want him for assault and battery.

So my question to you, Agent Connell, is on behalf of all the men and women we’ve got out there looking for them. Just how dangerous is this guy?”

“Officers should proceed with caution.”

“That’s it? That’s your only word of advice?

” Knight was frowning over the insufficiency.

“Word’s spread through our department about the Floyd boys.

Truth be told, their beating has been toasted by more than one six pack.

They’re scumbags, and that was the opinion even before anybody knew about them raping their kid sister. ”

“Have they been charged?”

“Not yet. It’s on the DA’s desk, but the girl is iffy about bringing it out in the open. You know how that goes.”

Jack nodded, and Knight continued.

“In the meantime, everybody’s just a tad spooked over the man who whipped the Floyds single-handedly. We found where he stored his weapons, but not the weapons themselves, meaning he could have a lot of firepower with him. Now a fed has shown up hot on his heels. Bannock’s taken on a…a…”

“Aura,” Grange said.

Knight acknowledged the supplied word with a nod, but he kept his attention on Jack. “I’m asking you as an officer of the law, same as you, to cut the double-talk and basic bullshit and tell us just who we’re dealing with here.”

“You referenced a mass shooting in Virginia, but you weren’t specific.” Grange cast a quick upward glance at the closed bedroom door that would prevent Jeff from overhearing. Then, leaning toward Jack and speaking in an undertone, he asked, “Are we talking Westboro?”

Jack looked at them in turn. “You know the story?” And when they nodded in unison, he said, “That was Bannock.”

Grange whistled softly.

Knight murmured, “Holy shit.”