David Kent - The Triangle Conspiracy

Faith reached into the pocket of her jeans. The man tensed and flattened himself against the wall. “Don’t shoot me!”

Faith pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to him. He looked at it as if he’d never seen one before, then held it up by the window. “That’s one of them new ones. Jackson’s head is bigger.”

“Sure is,” Faith said.

“Not counterfeit, is it? You didn’t make it, did you? That’s illegal.”

“It’s real. I’m going now. You take care.”

“That’s right, you better go. You can’t make me leave. Not even with your gun. I know my rights.”

Faith quietly stepped out of the room and retreated to the stairs. She took them slowly, then let herself out of the house. The front porch step creaked under her feet again. The screen door banged behind her.

She took one look back. It was as if she’d never been there. The place looked the same.

In a moment she was over the rise. Ten minutes later the Miata was back on Interstate 35 heading south.

Alan Davenport watched her go. He craned his neck and watched the car. From the second floor of the house he could see the little gold sports car until it left the driveway and turned back onto the road.

When it was out of sight, he dug in the pocket of the filthy cardigan and pulled out a new cell phone.

He made his call. When it was answered, he said, “Contact.”

“Understood,” said the voice on the other end.

Davenport broke the connection. Then, just as he’d been instructed, he left the house by the back door and took the steps down from the deck. He checked underneath the wooden floor of the deck, looking at all the furniture where they’d shoved it, far back from the edge, wedged into the corner where the deck met the foundation of the house. Most of it was junk anyway, not worth stowing, but the object-so Sanborn had said-had been to ensure that the house did not look lived in, and not to attract attention by moving the stuff out onto the road. So under the deck it went.

Davenport had even embellished the look of the house, by transporting dirt from the field near the creek and scattering it around. He’d earned his money.

He had no clue who the woman was, although he could tell she resembled the man that Kat-or whatever Kat’s real name was-had brought to the house for that crazy week. All Sanborn had said was that he was sure a tall young woman with long red hair would come around. She hadn’t had long hair, but other than that, Sanborn was right.

He walked through the tall grass in the field behind the house until he came to the banks of Skeleton Creek. He took out the new cell phone-the one call was all that had ever been made on it-and threw it into the middle of the creek. Then he started walking, not back to the house, but cross-country toward the spot where he’d hidden his car, nearly a mile away.

Davenport had no clue what it all meant. He’d played a part and played it well. Sanborn had told him so. Now it was finished and he was ready to go home. If he drove straight through, he’d be home in Dallas by nightfall, where he could take a bath, have a good meal, throw away these filthy clothes, and sleep in his own bed.

Davenport gave no further thought to the woman with the red hair.

“DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” DARYN ASKED THEheavyset deputy marshal with the curly hair.

“No,” Leneski said.

“My father is a United States senator.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m also a whore. What do you think of that?”

“I don’t care,” Leneski said again, and left the living room of the safe house for the kitchen.

Daryn sat back in the uncomfortable armchair. None of the deputies assigned to her would talk about anything other than her immediate needs-did she want to eat, was she going to bed, did she need any Tylenol for her headache? It was a strange existence. She knew why she was here, she knew what she was doing, and still believed it would advance The Cause.

But she couldn’t talk to anyone. She’d been able to make people pay attention to her for her entire life, through her intellect and her looks and later, through her sexuality. This entire plan had been about getting people to pay attention.

But now, in this anonymous house with its sparse garage-sale furnishings, she sat in a bubble of nothingness, not quite Daryn but not Kat anymore, either.

She lit a cigarette, which was guaranteed to give her even more privacy. Neither Hagy nor Leneski smoked, and they both tended to move away from her when she lit up. Daryn found herself actually wanting the Kelly woman to come back. She was tired of this waiting.

Faith Kelly wouldn’t even let her brother come around. That had disappointed Daryn. She’d enjoyed playing with Sean Kelly, lived for the manipulation, but in another place, she actually liked the poor guy. She’d had a few moments, drifting outside herself in moments when she had a bad headache, when she fantasized about running away with him. Both of them would be new people. They’d hide in a cabin somewhere in the mountains where no one knew either of them. He would escape the bottle and his bitchy sister. She would forever escape her father’s name and his hypocrisy and the stupidity of everyday society. There would be no further need for The Cause, because they would simply rise above all the petty foolishness that made The Cause necessary.

Britt even wandered her way into Daryn’s fantasy. She missed the girl’s absolute, unwavering devotion, and in the fantasy she let the girl serve Sean and her, and she would happily fulfill anything they asked of her.

Oh, stop it, she would tell herself. It would never happen.

It never could happen, for more reasons than Daryn could count. She would simply put a cold wet cloth on her face and lie still in the dark, and the fantasy would break apart until she was left with nothing but darkness and silence.

Come on, Faith Kelly, she would say in her mind. Let’s get this over with.

Faith arrived in the early evening, carrying a black soft-sided briefcase. She looked harried, her short hair tangled and windblown. The deputies’ shifts had just changed, and Daryn and Deputy Carson of the night shift were watching Antiques Roadshow on PBS. There was no cable service to the safe house, and the local PBS affiliate had the strongest signal of any of the over-the-air TV stations.

Faith came in the front door and nodded to Carson. Hunnicutt came in from the back of the house. “Hi, guys,” Faith said. “You’re relieved. The detail’s over. Go on home.”

“Tired?” Hunnicutt said.

“Busy, busy,” Faith said, nodding.

The two deputy marshals gathered their things and left. Faith snapped off the TV set, dropped the briefcase, and lowered herself heavily into the armchair across from Daryn.

“I was beginning to wonder,” Daryn said, “if you were coming back, or if I was cursed to a life of watching TV and eating microwave dinners with those deputies.”

“You can send out for food,” Faith said. “I told you that before I left.”

Daryn shrugged.

Faith unzipped the side pocket of the briefcase, took out a few papers, shuffled them, and looked directly at Daryn.

Daryn felt uncomfortable. She was always the one who gazed directly at someone else, daring them to drop their eyes from hers. But Faith Kelly’s green eyes blazed at her, never wavering, never moving.

“I guess two women like us shouldn’t get into a staring contest,” Daryn finally said, and blinked.

“ ‘Two women like us?’ ” Faith echoed.

Daryn shrugged again. “We do what needs to be done.” She thought about saying more, but let it go at that.