F Wilson - Deep as the Marrow

But he was Snake. He could do it.

And not just to save his skin. Poppy had hurt him twice now—twice. Both times she’d taken him by surprise. No third time. No messing around with threats. He’d pop her as soon as he saw her and search her body and the truck. And if he didn’t find the tape, then so be it. But no games this time: Poppy was dead.

“I think you’d better come in,” Salinas said. “We need to make contingency plans should this tape be found.” Snake knew what that meant. Fat chance.

“I’ve still got tomorrow. Plenty of time.”

“You are one man. They are many, with helicopters. You cannot hope—”

“If I can get a little goddamn support, I can get to her first, dammit!” He wanted to scream at Salinas. Didn’t he know who he was dealing with?

This is Snake talking here. I can turn the tables on the feds and stupid greaseballs like you any day. I can take this big-ass search and turn it to my advantage.

“What sort of support do you need?”

“Mostly information. You’ve got a pipeline. Here’s what I need.” Snake began reeling off his list.

21

“That was you?” Katie said, pointing to the photo in the scrapbook.

Poppy sat on the sofa in Uncle Luke’s front room and stared at her seventeen-year-old self, dressed in her old number 23 basketball uniform, hair pulled back into a ponytail that trailed halfway down her back, long legs bare, knobby knees bent, poised at the foul line to make a free throw.

Only ten years ago… yet it totally seemed like some one else, like a photo from another century.

She looked at that fresh face, those clear eyes that had a whole different future planned out… no idea at all what the next ten years would hold.

“Yeah, that was me.” The other me.

She glanced at her Uncle Luke. “I can’t believe you like saved all this stuff.”

“What else was I going to do? After your father died, I couldn’t just throw it out. And besides…” He turned his head away.

“Besides what?”

“He asked me to keep your scrapbooks and trophies. He said he… he knew you’d come back some day.” Poppy closed her eyes and tilted her head back. She didn’t want to cry again.

All the pain she’d caused in her life. What was wrong with her? She’d been around for like a quarter century… Jesus, you’d think I’d be able to get something right by now.

“Uncle Luke.” An urgent-sounding knock on the door interrupted her. In a surge of panic, she wrapped her arms around Katie.

“Wait!” she said in a fierce whisper. “Don’t answer that!” But then a voice called from the other side.

“Luke! It’s me—Matt!” Poppy relaxed, but only a little. Uncle Matt. That was okay—she hoped.

Uncle Luke gave her a strange look, then opened the door. Uncle Matt, a thinner, bearded version of Uncle Luke, stepped in, all excited and talking a blue streak.

“Luke, there’s been men in town asking about—” His voice cut off as he spotted Poppy and Katie.

“Hi, Uncle Matt.”

His eyes widened. “Is that you. Poppy?” She nodded.

He gulped. “Then it’s true. People are looking for you. They say they’re from the government and that you—”

“Don’t believe them,” she said, quickly overcoming her shock. How could anyone—Mac, the feds, anyone— know to look for her here?

“Not even about being from the government.” She gave them a slightly cleaned-up version of events, something to the effect that she and Katie had witnessed a crime and the bad guys were trying to shut them up. She was trying to get Katie back home to her dad but her plans kept getting messed up.

“So those guys who’ve saying they’re feds might not be the real thing?” Uncle Luke said.

Poppy nodded and hid a smile. Announcing you were from the federal government—or any government, for that matter—was one sure way to get people in these parts to clam up.

“You always were trouble. Poppy,” Uncle Matt said. “You went and broke your father’s heart. You know that, don’t you.”

“Easy, Matt,” Uncle Luke said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We been through all that. What we got to do now is put her someplace where no one’ll find her till we straighten out who’s who.”

“That’s easy enough,” Uncle Matt said. “Hide her with the Appletons.” Poppy would have leaped off the sofa if Katie hadn’t been on her lap.

“Oh, no! Not them!”

“Where else you gonna stay, girl?” Uncle Matt said.

“They’ll be checking every Mulliner in the pines. But nobody’ll be checking the Appletons, even if they could find them.”

Oh, Jesus, she thought. Not the Appletons.

“He’s right. Poppy,” Uncle Luke said. “I’ll lead you out there come first light. Soon as I can see the road. Don’t worry. They won’t turn you away. You’re kin.” She knew. And the thought made her queasy. She’d almost rather face Mac again than move in with the Appletons.

22

Bob Decker lay in his creaky motel bed and glanced again at the glowing numerals on the clock radio.

Almost midnight. He needed sleep, dammit. They’d all be up and moving in five hours or so.

But Gerry Canney’s suspicions about Dan Keane kept echoing off the inner walls of his skull.

And maybe he hates them so much that he doesn’t want to stop fighting them…

What was the one thing all his years in the Secret Service had taught him? Never take anything for granted.

Which meant he couldn’t take Dan Keane for granted.

As much as he doubted—loathed—the possibility, he’d worked out a plan to check out Keane. But he couldn’t do it alone.

He reached for the phone and dialed Canney’s room.

1

“Where are we?” Katie said, staring out the panel truck’s side window.

“We’re in the woods, honey bunch. Like deep in the woods.” Poppy squinted through the windshield into the dim predawn light as she followed her uncle’s pickup along a narrow, winding back road. Weeds growing in the mound between the sandy ruts scraped along the undercarriage.

The forty-foot scrub pines crowded close to the road, leaning over it, seeming to open ahead as she approached, and close in behind as she passed.

She’d been out here a number of times as a girl with her dad when he’d make a run to bring the Appletons some Christmas pies or stock up on their applejack, but she’d never learned the way. Never wanted to. She’d been a passenger those times and had never noticed how one stretch of road looked pretty much like every other, almost as if they were driving in circles.

She wished she could like turn on her headlights or something, but Uncle Luke had said it was safest to keep them off—otherwise he would have brought her out here last night.

Thank God for little favors. Appletons by day were bad enough, but Appletons by night…

She shuddered.

“It makes me feel lonely out here,” Katie said.

“It is lonely. But some folks don’t get lonely like us. And some folks don’t like to have much to do with other folks, so they like it out here.” And some folk shouldn’t be seen by the rest of us.

At least no one would find Katie and her out here— not in a million years. But that cut both ways. She was just as lost out here as anyone else—safe but trapped.

Uncle Luke finally made a sharp right turn and pulled to a stop in a small clearing. Four other pickups in various stages of rust rot were parked any which way in the sand. Poppy’s truck brought the total to six.

“All right now,” Uncle Luke said as he helped her and Katie from the truck. In his free hand he held a gallon jug and the sleeping bag he was lending them. “Stick close to me until they know who we are.”