David Baldacci - First Family

His ace in the hole.

He locked the door, walked up to the library, pulled on his gloves, slid the single piece of paper into his typewriter, and started hitting keys. As the inked words appeared in front of him on the page, there was no surprise or revelation in their substance. He had formed all that he was putting down a long time ago. Finished, he folded up the page, took a key out of his pocket, dropped it in a pre-addressed envelope along with the letter, sealed it, and drove off in his old truck. Two hundred miles later, now in the state of Kentucky, he deposited the letter in a mailbox.

He arrived back at Atlee in the morning. After having driven all night, he was not tired at all. It seemed as though with each step of his plan completed, his energy was renewed. He ate breakfast with Gabriel and Daryl, then helped Ruth Ann wash up the dishes in the kitchen. Six hours of working the fields next to his son left Quarry sweating. He figured his letter would get to its destination in the next day or so. He wondered about their reaction; the panic that would start to set in.

It made him smile.

After dinner he rode one of his horses to Fred's Airstream. Slipping down from his ride, he set himself down on the concrete-block furniture outside the trailer and handed out smokes, a bottle of Jim Beam, and cans of Red Bull that his Koasati friends liked. He listened to several stories Fred told about his youth spent in Oklahoma on a reservation there along with a man whom Fred had insisted was Geronimo's son.

"That was Cherokee up there, wasn't it?" Quarry said idly as he watched Fred's mutt lick its privates and then roll around in the dirt trying to shake off some fleas. "Thought Geronimo was Apache."

Fred looked at him, a mixture of mirth and seriousness on his flint-hard features. "You think people who look like you can tell the difference in people who look like me?"

The other Indians laughed at that and Quarry did too, shaking his head and grinning. "So why'd you end up coming back here? I never did know really."

Fred spread his short arms. "This is Koasati land. I came home."

Quarry wasn't about to tell him that this wasn't Koasati land, that this was good old American Quarry land. Yet he liked the man. Liked visiting him and bringing the man smokes, and Jim Beam and listening to the stories.

Quarry grinned and raised his beer. "To coming home."

"To coming home," they all said together.

A few minutes later they all went inside to get away from the mosquitoes and raise a few more toasts to nonsensical things. One of the Koasatis turned on the TV, adjusted the dials, and the picture cleared. The news was on. As Quarry sat and sipped his drink his gaze settled on the screen and he stopped listening to Fred's jawing.

The lead story was about the Willa Dutton kidnapping. Breaking news had just come in. A leak from somewhere had revealed evidence at the crime scene not previously disclosed to the public. Quarry stood as the news anchor said what this evidence was. Writings on the dead woman's arms. Letters that made no sense, but that the police were following up on.

Quarry jumped from the top step of the trailer to the dirt, scaring the old hound so badly it started whining and curled up in a protective ball. Fred arrived at the door in time to see Quarry astride his horse racing back to Atlee. Fred shook his head, mumbled something about crazy white people, and closed the trailer door.

Quarry found Daryl alone in the barn. The younger man watched in disbelief as his old man came at him like a blitzing linebacker. Quarry slammed him up against the wall and drove his forearm against his son's throat.

"You wrote something on her arms!" he roared.

"What?" gasped Daryl.

"You wrote something on her arms! What in the hell was it?"

"Give me some damn air and I'll tell you."

Quarry stepped back, but not before giving his son a hard shove that drove him back against the wall one more time. Breathing hard, Daryl told his father what he'd done.

"Why in the hell did you do that?"

"After the lady got killed I got scared. Thought we'd throw 'em off that way."

"What you did, boy, was stupid."

"I'm sorry, Daddy."

"You sure as hell are sorry."

"But the way I wrote it down no way they gonna figure it out."

"Tell me exactly how you wrote it."

Daryl grabbed an old seed catalogue from the workbench, tore off a page, and wrote the letters down on it, using a Bic pen.

Quarry took the paper, read through it.

"See, Daddy, it's gibberish to them, right? You know what it says, right?"

"Course I know what it says," he snapped. Quarry walked outside and stared at the sky, which was still light, though the lowering sun was coloring the clouds a flaming red like the underbelly of lit charcoals. He didn't notice that Daryl had followed and was now staring at him with a face that just begged for some sort of praise for thinking of this subterfuge. Thus he would never know it was the same pleading look Quarry had given his mother on her dying day.

Quarry struck a match and burned the paper to a black puff. He watched it drift away, propelled by a slight breeze until it crumbled to earth a few feet away.

"Is it okay, Daddy?" Daryl said nervously.

Quarry pointed to the black puff. "That's your second strike, boy. One more, it's all over, son or not."

He turned and walked off.

THE MAXWELL FAMILY, along with Sean King and a large crowd of mourners, watched as the preacher had his say. He read in a suitably devout tone from the scriptures, and then stepped aside to let folks come forward and touch the flower-draped coffin and have a private word with the deceased. Michelle's brothers walked up as a single group, followed by others. Later, as the crowd slowly trickled away, Frank Maxwell put his hands on his wife's coffin and bowed his head.

Michelle stood next to Sean and watched her father. He finally touched his eyes with one hand and, head still down, walked past them and on to his car. Michelle had started to reach out to grip his arm, but at the last second pulled back.

Sean said, "Are you going to go up?"

"Up where?"

"To the coffin? Last respects?"

Michelle stared up at the mahogany box holding her mom. In the background, cemetery workers stood ready to lower it into the ground. The sky was overcast. The rain would be coming soon and they were probably anxious to get on with their work. There were other funerals today; accommodating the dead was very much a full-time occupation, it seemed.

There were few things Michelle Maxwell was afraid of. But she was staring at one of them right now.

"Will you come with me?"

Sean took her arm and they walked together up to the front. She put her hand on top of the coffin, her fingers flicking at some of the flower petals.

"She never liked lilies," said Michelle.

"What?"

Michelle indicated the flowers on the coffin. "She preferred roses." As soon as she said the word, she jerked her hand back like she'd been stung.

"Are you okay?"

She stared down at her hand. There was nothing there. She hadn't been stung or bitten or anything. And lilies didn't have thorns.

She looked up at him.

"Michelle, are you okay?" he said again.

"I… I don't know." She added more firmly, "Let's get out of here."

Back at the house there were mounds of food, friends stopping by; quiet, somber talk mixed with the occasional joke and twitter of laughter. In the middle of it all Frank Maxwell sat on the couch and stared off. Anyone who approached him to offer condolences was soon on his way when the man failed to even acknowledge their presence.

Sean watched Michelle, who was watching her father. When a group of people came in, Frank Maxwell finally did stir. The scowl on his face made Michelle and Sean turn to see what he was looking at. Six people had come in the door, four men and two women. They were carrying platters of food and were chatting among themselves. Michelle recognized a few of them from the funeral service. When she turned back to her father, she started.