David Baldacci - True Blue

Roy looked around at the large, open spaces. “How big is this place?”

“Oh, about six thousand square feet, I suppose. Bill and his family stayed here while their new home was being built.”

Roy said, “My condo is twelve hundred square feet.”

“My cell was eight by eight,” said Mace.

As they rode back to the main house, Altman said, “It’s funny, you know.”

“What’s that?” said Roy, who was sitting in the backseat of the four-person cart.

“Growing up in Omaha with him, I never thought Warren Buffett would ever amount to much.”

“People said the same thing about me,” Mace quipped.

WHAT YOU’RE DOING is a mistake.”

Beth had changed from her uniform into sweats. She’d pumped some dumbbells and done a half hour on the elliptical set up in the lower level of her house. It was nearly midnight yet neither sister seemed sleepy as they sat across from each other in the living room. Blind Man was curled up by Mace’s feet.

“I thought you wanted me to take the job.”

“I’m talking about Roy Kingman. You shouldn’t be hanging out with him .”

“Why not?”

“We haven’t cleared him as a suspect in the Tolliver murder, that’s why. You’re on probation. That means avoiding all contact with people of questionable character.”

“But that’s the reason I am hanging out with him. To keep tabs on him.”

“You could be passing time with a killer.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“You were undercover then.”

“I’m sort of undercover now.”

“You’re not a cop anymore.”

“Once a cop always a cop.”

“That’s not how it works. And I thought we had this discussion?”

“Maybe we did.”

“I’m working the case, Mace. You start poking around then it might get all blown up. And that hurts you and me. You need to focus on moving forward with your life.”

Mace sat back and said resignedly, “Okay, okay, I hear you.”

“Good, I’ll hold you to that. So when do you start with Altman?”

“Two days. And he wants me to move into the guesthouse on his property.”

Beth looked surprised. “I thought you’d stay with me for a while.”

“I can actually do both. Hang here and hang there when work requires it.”

“Okay,” Beth said, her disappointment clear.

“I’m not abandoning you.”

“I know. It’s just been two years without you. I need a big Mace Perry fix.”

Mace gripped her sister’s arm. “You’ll get it. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Before we get all blubbery, Mom called. She’d like to see you.”

Mace punched a pillow she was holding. “That’s actually the only thing that could make me cry. When?”

“How about tomorrow?”

“Will you come with me?”

“I’ve got a full schedule, sorry.”

“Does she still live on the plantation with all the slaves?”

“The last time I checked she was paying her staff a living wage.”

“And hubby?”

“Firmly under her thumb and usually not underfoot.”

“How about instead of doing the visit I run naked through Trinidad in northeast with ‘DEA’ stenciled on my back?”

“Might be safer, actually. Oh, Lowell Cassell said hello. And he also said, ‘You tell Mace that there is indeed a heaven and Mona Danforth will never make it there.’”

“I knew I loved him. So what did he find?” She added quickly, “I’m not poking around, just curious.”

“Tolliver was raped.”

“Sperm leave-behind?”

“Yes. He also found a couple of foreign pubic hairs and a bit of fiber. There were also soil stains on Tolliver’s clothing.”

Mace rose. “Well, I guess I should get some sleep if I’m going to survive Mom. You turning in?”

Beth had pulled out her BlackBerry and was answering e-mails. “Just two hundred and sixty-three to go.”

“You still answer every e-mail in twenty-four hours?”

“It’s part of the job.”

“You still never turn it off, do you?”

Beth looked up. “Like you ever did?”

“I had some fun.”

“I’ve had fun too.”

“Yeah, your ex was a real barrel of laughs. I lost two years, sis, you lost eight.”

“I’m not saying it was all Ted’s fault. My career-”

“It wasn’t like he didn’t know that going in.”

Beth stopped thumbing the BlackBerry. “Get some shuteye, you’re going to need all your energy for Mom.”

MACE WAS FLYING along the winding roads leading out to horse country where old money melded, often uneasily, with new. She was going to see her mother but was now lost. Backtracking, she became even more turned around. Finally she stopped her bike at the end of a dirt path surrounded by trees. As she was trying to get her bearings she heard something move to her right. When she looked that way her heartbeat spiked. She reached for her gun, but of course she didn’t have one.

“How the hell did you get out?” she screamed.

Juanita the Cow was waddling toward her, Lily White Rose with the nineteen teeth right behind. Juanita carried a wide smile along with a Smith & Wesson.40, while Lily White had her gutting knife. Mace tried to start her bike, but the ignition wouldn’t catch. The two women started to run toward her.

“Shit!” Mace jumped off the bike and sprinted to the woods, but her boot caught in a bump in the dirt and she fell sprawling. By the time she turned over the women were standing over her.

“No big-sis bitch to help you now, baby,” cooed Juanita.

Rose said nothing. She just cocked her blade arm back, waiting for the word from the queen bee to plunge the serrated edge into Mace’s jugular.

“Do it, Lily White. Then we got to get the hell outta here.”

The blade flew down with a speed that Mace was not prepared for. It hit her square in the neck.

“No!”

Mace fell out of the bed. She felt warm blood spurt out of her nose as it smacked against the nightstand. She landed awkwardly on the carpeted floor and just lay there.

Blind Man, who’d been asleep on the floor next to where she’d fallen, licked her face and gave off little mournful noises in her ear.

“It’s okay, Blind Man, I’m okay.”

She finally rolled over, sat up, and backed her way into a corner. She squatted there in a defensive ball, her hands made into fists, her eyes looking out at the dark, her breath coming in waves of uneven heaves. Blind Man lay in front of her in the darkness, his thick reddish nose probably taking in each and every dimension of her scented fear.

An hour later she was still there, her spine digging into the dry-wall that her sister had painted a soothing blue especially for her return. Only she wasn’t thinking of Juanita or the gut-chick Rose. Her images were of herself, strung out on meth, huddled in a corner, her body going through shit it had never suffered before.

She’d never seen any of them, none of the bandits who’d snatched her out of an alley where she had set up an observation post on a drug distribution center in Six D. After they’d injected her multiple times with stuff for three days running she didn’t even know her own name. The next thing she vaguely remembered was climbing in and out of cars, holding a gun, going into stores and taking what didn’t belong to any of them.

Once, shots had been fired. She recalled pulling the trigger on her weapon by instinct, only no round had come out of the barrel; turned out her weapon wasn’t loaded and never had been. She was finally arrested holding an unloaded Sig and enough evidence to put her away for a long time while the rest of her “gang” conveniently had disappeared.