John Hart - Iron House

“Meaning?”

“I was impressed.”

“How could the white trash daughter of a white trash whore possibly impress you? What could she have possibly said?”

“She wants a better life. Julian is helping her.”

“I bet he is.”

“Must you be so juvenile? She’s an artist. Carves bone, apparently. Something her grandmother taught her. She must be exceptional at it.”

“Because Julian wants to bang her?”

“Because for all Julian’s faults,” Abigail finally raised her voice, “he is a man of exquisite taste. If he says she has talent, she does. He sent her work to New York. He got her a showing at one of the finer galleries. His publisher wants to do a book.”

“About bones?”

“About a disappearing art form. About an illiterate child who does this exceptional thing.”

“Artists. Writers. Jesus. How did my life come to this?” The senator stood. “If you need me, I’ll be with the lawyers. They’re bloodsuckers, but at least I understand them.”

He got halfway to the door before Abigail stopped him. “What I said about Michael…” She waited for him to look back. “I meant it. If you try to hurt him, I’ll take it personally.”

The senator smiled thinly. “You would choose him over me?”

“Don’t force the choice.”

“Sometimes, Abigail, it’s you who I don’t understand.”

“Perhaps it’s best that way.”

“And perhaps not.”

The senator left; she finished her coffee.

Two hours later, they came for Julian.

Michael heard about it on the radio. He was doing 110 on the interstate, eyes wide for state troopers, weapon cocked on the seat beside him. He’d never killed a cop or a civilian, but knew Jimmy well enough to know that four hours meant four hours.

The needle touched 120.

He checked the rearview mirror again, turned up the radio.

“… sources close to the investigation indicate an arrest warrant has been issued for Julian Vane, the internationally best-selling children’s author and adopted son of Senator Randall Vane. Authorities have converged on the sprawling estate…”

They had few details, but the story was sensational. Celebrity. Politics. Multiple bodies. When it was over, he called Abigail. “How’s Julian?”

“Michael? Where are you?”

He heard voices in the background, a low, vital hum. “Is he arrested?”

“No, but they’re looking for him, and its only a matter of time. He can’t hide forever, and if he runs, God alone knows what’ll happen. I’m coming apart, Michael. Randall says the warrant is trumped up, but it won’t matter. If they arrest him, they’ll break him. You said it yourself. He can’t handle it.”

“I’m on the road-”

“Don’t come here!”

Michael hesitated as hairs stood up on his arm. “What’s wrong?”

“Just… don’t.”

Michael thought for long seconds. “I need my gun,” he finally said.

“What?”

He pictured Elena, broken in some dark hole; Jimmy with an unknown number of men, and a full day to prepare. Michael had the forty-five, and that was it. “The nine millimeter you took from my car. I need it. I don’t have time to find another one.”

“What’s going on, Michael? Please don’t tell me you’re in trouble, too.”

“Can you get it?”

“Yes, of course. But-”

“Where can we meet?”

Abigail descended shallow, mossy steps and knocked on Jessup’s door. She knocked again, then opened the door and stepped into the low, spare room. Dim light filtered through covered windows. A teakettle whistled on a small stove in the kitchen alcove. “Jessup?” She lifted the kettle from the heat. It was light, most of the water boiled away. The whistle died, and she turned off the stove. “Jessup?”

The bedroom door stood ajar. Inside, she saw Jessup. He wore a crisp, white shirt, buttoned at the cuffs, black pants, a black tie and shoes that had been recently shined. He sat on the edge of a narrow bed that was tightly made. His back was rigid and straight, head bent so that his neck creased at the collar.

“Do you remember when you gave this to me?”

He kept his head down, but lifted a hand so she could see the small cross that swung from a platinum chain. She’d given it to him for Christmas on their fifth year together. They’d become very close, and he’d told her one cold night that he believed in hell. Not the vague concept of it, but the physical place: a lake of fire and remembrance. There’d been weight on his shoulders when he said it, tears in his eyes and sweet, dark whiskey on his breath. He was one of the strongest men she knew, and he was breaking. She’d always imagined some terrible thing that haunted him: the barbarism of war, a breach of faith or some poor woman broken to the marrow. But he would never talk about it.

“I remember.”

She stepped closer, rounding the end of the bed. His eyes were sunken, cheeks drawn. The nine millimeter lay on the bed beside his leg.

He let the cross swing. “Did you know then that we would spend our lives together?”

“How could I have known such a thing? I was barely into my twenties.”

She stared at the gun. Jessup shook his head. “Yet, here we are, twenty years later.”

“And you have been the most perfect friend.”

He laughed, but the laugh was broken.

Abigail hesitated. “Is that Michael’s gun?”

His hand moved unerringly to the gun, and Abigail was reminded that Jessup Falls was a dangerous man. That was the reason her husband hired him. Ex-special forces. Ex-cop. Her driver and bodyguard.

“Yes.”

His voice remained empty, and Abigail thought of screaming kettles and boiled-off water. She wondered how long he’d been sitting in the dark, a cross in his hands and a gun by his side. For that instant, Abigail felt as if she knew nothing of this man at all, but when he looked up, his gaze was familiar and fresh and raw. “I thought for a long time that you loved me…”

“Jessup, we’ve discussed this.”

“You’re married, I know.” He smiled, and was suddenly the same old Jessup. “It’s just that I’m torn.” He met her eyes, then lifted the gun. “Do I do what you want me to do? Or do I do what’s right?” He put the gun down. “What I know is right.”

“You’re speaking of Michael.”

“He’s dangerous.”

Abigail saw it, then. She understood what he wanted to do, and why he was so torn. “You want to give the gun to the senator.”

“To his people,” Jessup said. “The gun. The photographs. Everything we know about him and Otto Kaitlin.”

“You can’t do that.”

“His arrest would take the pressure off everybody. The cops would have a warm body and the media would have its story. A year from now, this would all be a fading memory. Our lives would go on.”

“And what of the truth?”

“No one wants that.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Then call it a sacrifice for the greater good.”

Abigail sat beside him, the gun between them. “Such a sacrifice would be my decision.”

“And yet, you don’t always make the right choice.”

She put her hand on the gun; his hand settled on hers.

“You are a good and decent man, Jessup, but you’ve never told me no, and this is not the time to start.”

His hand tightened. “They’ve pulled three bodies from the lake, Abigail. How long before they link them to you?”

She smiled, but it was tired. “I didn’t kill anyone, Jessup.”

“But you brought them here. You tracked them down; you paid them. The cops will figure that out.”

“What I did, I did for Julian. No one here had ill intent.”