John Hart - Iron House

Seconds.

Michael powered up the phone, called the police department and told the desk sergeant he had a message for Detective Jacobsen. He didn’t want to talk to the detective, just a message. “That’s right,” Michael said. “Half-mile past the Exxon. The mailbox with three blue reflectors.”

The sergeant wanted more, but Michael wouldn’t stay on the line. No name, no particulars, no explanation. Bodies at the farm. Dead guys and guns. People cut to pieces. Maybe the sergeant thought he was crazy; maybe he’d get promoted.

Michael looked at his watch. He’d been ready to scapegoat Senator Vane even before the man was dead. Why? Two reasons. He’d planned to turn Michael over to Stevan, so screw him. Most important, though, was Abigail. Whether she knew it or not, he’d given her the chance to call it off. I love someone else, she’d said, and that was good enough for Michael.

He looked at his watch again, and wondered if Jessup knew how she felt.

The cops came eighteen minutes later.

Abigail woke from the same dream that had haunted her every night for thirty-seven years. She kept her eyes squeezed tight, breaking softly as the images flickered, faded, refused to die. She was ten years old and half-frozen on the bank of her mother’s creek. Her teeth chattered, and her mind ached with a terrible emptiness. She didn’t know what had happened, only that she’d done bad. She saw it in her mother’s face, in the leveled eyes and the sly, contented smile.

Now you’re mine forever.

And Abigail looked down at what she’d done. She saw the face of that baby boy, water in his mouth, eyes half-open. She tried to wake him but he wouldn’t wake. He was still as a doll, all powder blue and lifeless in her hands.

Now you’re mine forever.

“No, Momma.”

Forever and ever and ever…

“No!”

“Abigail.”

“No!”

“Abigail. It’s okay. You’re okay. Just a dream.” The voice was real, familiar. Abigail opened her eyes, confused. Something warm rested in her hand. She squeezed and felt Jessup’s fingers. Faint blue light shone through a high, small window. It seemed to wink. She sat up, brushed hair from her face.

“Jessup?”

“Yes.”

“Did I say anything in my sleep?”

“Not really,” he said. “Just at the end when you said, ‘no.’”

Some of the tension bled out. “Where am I? What time is it?”

“You’re in my room. It’s late. You’re fine.”

She shuddered from the dream, and he touched her shoulder. “What am I doing here? Oh, God. I blacked out again, didn’t I?”

“Just for a bit.”

“Did I do anything… you know.”

“Nothing bad. No.”

“I don’t remember anything.”

“Do you remember the senator in your room?”

“Vaguely. An argument.”

Jessup nodded. “I came in in the middle of it. Your husband didn’t like it. We left and came here. You zoned out after that.”

“God, it feels like they’re getting worse.”

“It’s nothing to worry about. You got a little fuzzy. I brought you here to sleep it off.”

“My head hurts.”

Jessup offered a weak smile. “I think you were drunk.”

“I suppose I should feel relieved.”

She started to rise, but Jessup pulled her down. “I want you to listen to me very carefully, Abigail.”

“What?”

“It’s important. Something bad did happen, but you had nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, God.” She tried to rise again, but Jessup stopped her.

“Listen. You and the senator argued. I came in and the argument stopped. We left and came here. This is very important. We talked about Julian. We talked about what’s been happening the past few days. We talked about what to get your husband for Christmas this year. We thought maybe some art. An oil painting from that gallery he likes in Washington. Do you remember this?” She shook her head, fear spreading. “This is what happened: You and the senator argued. I came in and the argument stopped.”

She looked at the small window. Blue light thumping.

“We left and came here,” Jessup continued. “Listen to me. We talked about Julian-”

“What’s happening, Jessup?”

“We talked about art for your husband.”

But she wasn’t listening. She pulled herself free and went to the window. The room was partially underground, so the window was high. She stood on a stool, looked out.

Cops were in the drive.

“It’s okay,” Jessup said. “Abigail. Trust me.”

“Jessup.” The voice was tiny and scared.

“You did nothing wrong. You and the senator argued-”

“Jessup?”

A lot of cops were in the drive.

Michael went to ground at a hotel in Chapel Hill, and it played more or less how he thought it would. A night maid found the dead senator shortly after the cops found the bodies at the farm. The police kept quiet about the farm. It was too explosive, too much to get their heads around in the space of a day. But the murdered senator was a different story. They came respectfully at first; they did their preliminary workup, and then went after Abigail with a vengeance. Randall Vane was a billionaire, and he’d been shot dead in her room. Her alibi was the man who for twenty-five years had been her bodyguard and driver. The cops saw the same tired motives they’d seen a hundred times before, but Jessup circled the lawyers like a seasoned professional. He kept her out of custody for a full day, then the cops came with a warrant. They hit her hard for six hours of custodial interrogation, but Jessup had her prepped by then, and the cops eventually had to let her go. Michael got the call an hour later. The man was distraught.

“She’s breaking. She thinks she did it.”

“What do you mean, she thinks she did it. She did it. You told me as much.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Jessup sighed deeply. “It’s complicated.”

“I can handle complicated.”

“This is killing her.”

Michael weighed his options. “I think it’s time we talked.”

“I can’t leave her right now. Julian is still missing. You’ve seen the news. Even the staff is avoiding her.”

“Okay, okay. Tomorrow, then. Or the next day.”

“Michael, listen. Nothing’s happening the way you said. They’re all over her. You understand? They’re eating her alive. Cops. Media. You’ve seen the things they’re saying?”

“I’ve seen.”

And he had. They were saying she’d killed him for the money. They showed pictures of her and Jessup, and speculated on the nature of their relationship. It was a perfect story: bodies in the lake and the senator dead, sex and money and hired help. The woman was beautiful, her driver handsome, and they chose the pictures carefully: Abigail with her fine, pale skin and arched brows; Jessup holding her arm; a diamond the size of a quail’s egg on her finger. With a phalanx of lawyers around her, she came off like a black widow, came off guilty.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep her together.”

“Give it a day,” Michael said.

“She might not make it that long. She’s undone.”

“A day,” Michael said.

It took less than that. Someone in the police department leaked the farm, and the story exploded to a whole new level. Organized crime and a crooked politician. Blackmail and torture. Links to the violence in New York. The media went ballistic; lead story in every outlet. When the body bags rolled off the farm, camera crews caught it; they caught the feds, too. There was a small army of them: panel vans and black Suburbans, serious people in dark suits and stenciled Windbreakers. Abigail’s real break, though, came unexpectedly from a quiet, diminutive lawyer that no one had yet thought to question.