Steven Womack - By Blood Written

“I know that, sir,” Hank said, understanding the reference to published reports that the FBI’s success rate was the worst of all the various federal law enforcement agencies. Even the BATFucks were outscoring them these days.

There was a slight break in the connection, and Hank realized it was an incoming call, probably Jackie. There was no way he could put Dunlap on hold to check a call waiting cue.

“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Show me something good on this one, Hank.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

Dunlap hung up without saying another word. Hank reached up and quickly clicked the telephone button.

“Hello,” he said.

“Daddy?”

“Hi, precious, how are you?”

“I didn’t know if you were going to answer or not,” Jackie said. Her voice was soft and sweet to his ears. Another year or two and she would sound just like her mother.

“I’m sorry, baby, I had another call. It was business and I couldn’t break away. You know how it is.”

“Unfortunately, these days I do,” Jackie said, scolding him. “Don’t you ever take a complete day off?”

“I’m off today,” Hank said. “It was just a phone call.”

“Yeah, just a phone call. Are you going into the office today?”

Hank hesitated. A nine o’clock meeting in Washington meant he’d have to spend most of the afternoon in Quantico getting ready. He didn’t want to admit what he was up against, yet couldn’t bring himself to lie to his daughter either.

“For a little while,” he confessed after a few moments.

“No big deal.”

“Daddy, you’ve got to quit this,” Jackie said, real concern in her voice. “I’m worried about you.”

“You’re worried about me?” Hank asked. “Who was it that last weekend spent Saturday night working on a term paper until three in the morning?”

“It’s winter term up here, Dads,” she said. “We’re snowed in. There’s nothing else to do.”

“You could sleep, you know,” Hank offered.

“I do plenty of that. Look, Dads, I’ve been thinking about spring vacation. It’s only six weeks away.”

“I know,” Hank said. He’d been thinking about spring vacation, too, and trying to figure a way to take some time off and travel with Jackie. A beach, maybe, or perhaps even a trip overseas. But with everything going on, it wasn’t looking good.

“I think I know what I want to do, if it’s okay with you,”

she said.

“Okay, shoot.”

“I talked to Miss Appling yesterday. She wants me to go down to Florida with the soccer team for spring break. It might mean being a varsity starter next year if I do okay.”

Jackie had just missed making the starting lineup for varsity soccer last fall and had been terribly disappointed.

He knew she wanted to take another shot at it. Anne had been captain of the soccer team her senior year in boarding school.

“Where will you go?” Hank asked, hiding his disappointment at not seeing his daughter over spring vacation.

“Tallahassee,” she answered. “We’ll stay in dorms at FSU, eat in the cafeteria.”

“Tallahassee,” Hank sighed. Tallahassee. Despite himself, Hank couldn’t help but think of Tallahassee, Florida, as the site of Ted Bundy’s last murderous rampage at the Florida State University Chi Omega house. He thought of the two girls in the Nashville killing, L and M in the Alphabet Man’s lexicon, who were only a few years older than his own daughter.

“Yes, Tallahassee,” Jackie said. “Is there something wrong?”

“No, sweetheart, no, it’s just that … Well, will there be lots of adult supervision, chaperones?”

“Daddy, please,” Jackie said, exasperated.

“I just worry about you,” he said.

“That’s sweet, but I’m a big girl now,” Jackie said. “I go off to college in a couple of years.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Well, it’s true. And I can take care of myself.”

Hank started to tell her that there were things in life no one could take care against, but held his tongue. There was no need to dump his own baggage off on his daughter. She wouldn’t understand anyway.

“I just hope you’ll be careful,” he said. “I love you, precious. I can’t help but worry.”

“Daddy, I’ll be okay,” Jackie said, trying to placate him.

“Okay, you can go. On one condition …”

“Yes?”

“You won’t be embarrassed if I take off a couple of days and fly down to see you.”

Jackie giggled. “I’d love it. Can you?”

“I’ll start working on it tomorrow.”

“Great,” she said, excited. “There’s some forms and stuff you’ll have to fill out, and it’s going to cost a little bit. Not too much, though.”

“I think we can handle it,” Hank said. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Oh, Daddy, stop it,” she said.

But Hank knew, as they said good-bye and hung up, that he couldn’t stop, could never stop worrying about her, not in this world.

Not ever.

Sunday morning, Nashville

Priscilla Janovich loved Sundays. After thirty-five years teaching high school English in the Metro Nashville public school system, she had never quite gotten used to retirement, even though she was now in her fourth year of it. She had too little to do during the week, and that often made her feel guilty or restless and sometimes both. But resting on Sunday, enjoying her newspapers and her mystery novel and a drink in the middle of the afternoon before a long nap, had been a lifelong habit for her. She savored Sundays like some people savor a fine steak or a glass of wine.

Priscilla pulled back the yellowed sheer curtain over the window in her tiny kitchen and looked out over the parking lot in the back of her apartment building. That damn Mr. Berriman was supposed to have shoveled the snow and salted the walks yesterday afternoon, but of course he’d not taken care of it, and when Priscilla stepped outside last night for a breath of fresh air, she’d been nearly upended by the icy concrete. Now, she noticed, the walks were clean.

An overfed tabby cat jumped from the breakfast table to the counter and rubbed his face along Priscilla’s forearm.

“Well, Doodles,” she cooed, gently scratching the cat’s ears as she looked outside. “It looks like that awful man might actually have done his job for once.”

She leaned down into the furry face, rubbing noses with him as the cat purred happily. “Yes, Doodles, we can go get our paper now.”

Behind her, another cat at least twice the size it should be rubbed her shoulders against the doorframe. Her yellow hair was so long it draped on the linoleum and was equally thick and well-combed. Priscilla turned.

“Hello, Prissy,” she said. Priscilla picked up her cup of herbal tea and downed the last inch of it, then set the cup in the sink. She pulled her overcoat off an enameled cup hook she’d screwed into the plaster at a skewed angle. At the door to her apartment, she leaned down and gingerly pulled on a pair of rubber boots over her thick wool socks. Then she hooked her purse over her shoulder and walked down the two flights of stairs and out into a freezing late February Sunday in Nashville.

She walked to the corner of Cherokee and West End Avenues, then waited cautiously for the light to change so she could cross the five-lane street. Like many Nashvillians, Priscilla was terrified of driving in the snow, so much so that at the slightest hint of frozen precipitation, she bolted to the grocery store, stocked up on enough food to last a month, then fought her way back to her apartment and locked her car for the duration.

The temperatures had risen into the high thirties, and with the Sunday church traffic jam, much of the ice on the road had turned to dirty yellow-gray slush. Her boots alternated a plopping sound with a sucking noise as she trudged across the street and up onto the sidewalk. It was another three blocks to her favorite bookstore, which occupied a building that had once been a grand, Art Deco movie palace that had fallen on hard times. If the Bookstar hadn’t moved in, the building would have faced demolition and, no doubt, been replaced by another twenty-four-hour Walgreens or Eckerd drugstore.