“Josh…” I say, looking up from the phone and staring him straight in the eye. “Is this…?”
He lets out a heavy sigh and nods. “Yup… that is Clara Fox.”
10
I wasn’t aware of anything around me. Like the world had shrunk, reducing my existence to nothing except this image on Schultz’s phone.
Clara Fox.
I fucking knew she was still alive!
I look at Josh, angry. “And when did you plan on mentioning this?” I ask him.
“Honestly?” he replies. “I wasn’t going to. Not after you said you wanted no part of whatever’s going on here. I respected the fact you’ve moved on and was gonna leave you in blissful ignorance.”
We both know my anger isn’t justified, and I calm down as quickly as I got fired up.
Tori appears next to me. “What’s going on?” she asks. “Is everything okay?”
Josh and I look at each other. He knows instantly that I’ve told Tori nothing about my old life, and he discreetly nods to me.
“Is this to do with what’s been happening here?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I reply. “Josh here works for a defense contractor who’s investigating the organization that’s been sending people after me. There’s, ah… evidence to suggest a link to an old mission we worked together, back when I was in the military. He’s asking for my help to sort it out.”
I feel awful lying to her, but it’s for her own good. After everything that’s happened here, the last thing she needs is to find out her boyfriend’s the world’s greatest hitman, trying to retire.
To her credit, she doesn’t even hesitate.
“You’ve gotta help them, Ady. It’s the only way to make sure we’re left alone, isn’t it?”
“I’m not leaving you. These guys are professionals — I’m sure they can handle things without me.”
She shakes her head. “Ady, I know you. If you let them go without you, you’ll walk round here, restless, wishing you’d gone with them. There’s nothing to do here that I can’t do myself. You won’t trust anyone else to stop this, either, so quit worrying about me and go be my action hero.”
She smiles and hugs my arm. I look at Josh and raise an eyebrow.
“Wow, she really does know you!” he laughs. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Tori, this man is like a brother to me, and I can confidently say, hand on heart, that I have never seen him this happy. That makes me happy, and I thank you for that. And you’re right, you know him almost as well as I do, by the sounds of it.” He turns to me, taking the phone off me and handing it back to Schultz without looking. “And you… you should listen to your better half here. We need you on this. Neither of us trusts anyone other than you to fix it, and we both know it.”
I turn and walk over to the refrigerator, open the door, take out four beers, and place them on the counter. Opening the drawer underneath, I use a bottle opener on them, and then carry them over, two bottles in each hand, to the rest of the group. I hand them out.
I say, “Everyone — drink.”
They all oblige. Even Schultz, which surprises me. I look at the bottle for a moment, appreciating the taste.
“Tori, if I go, I don’t want you to stay here, okay? Go and stay with Nicki for a few days, I’m sure she won’t mind? If you need anything, you call the sheriff.”
She smiles and kisses me. “Don’t worry about me,” she says, seeming happier than she was five minutes ago. “I’ll be fine. You just need to go and fix this, so we can move on.”
She stands up straight and salutes before laughing. I laugh along with her while Josh looks on with that proud smile on his face again.
I look at him. “New York, huh?”
He nods and says, “That’s where our intel puts him at some point tomorrow. We need to track him, find out what he’s doing, and who he’s meeting, then apprehend him before getting out of there without alerting anyone.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
Schultz scoffs. “You’re still an arrogant son’ bitch, ain’t ya, son?” he says.
“Not arrogant,” I say, correcting him. “Just good.”
“We’ve got a plane fueled and ready to go on an airstrip at Fort Worth,” Josh announces. “It’s a five hour drive, so the sooner we hit the road, the sooner we can get you fully briefed and in the air. The flight will take around three-and-a-half hours.”
I nod and look at Tori. Her flame-red hair is all tangled, yet still looks gorgeous. Her brown eyes stare at me, not quite full of life, like normal, but getting there. She smiles at me like she’s so proud of her man she can’t contain it. It makes me think I’m doing the right thing by agreeing to help Josh.
I look at him. He'll be close to fifty, nowadays, but he still looks younger than I do. He was always well built, so I figure it's his fitted shirt that makes him look like he’s been working out more. His change of image is staggering, considering he’s looked the same to me for the last twenty-seven years. But it suits him. It seems he moved on, too, and it’s good to see.
“Gimme half an hour guys,” I say. “I’ll meet you out front.”
I’m packing a shoulder bag with a change of clothes and some essentials. I’m wearing my jeans but no shirt. Tori’s lying in bed, wearing nothing. We spent ten minutes saying goodbye the way people in love ought to, then another ten minutes re-assuring each other we’d both be okay. My thinking is, whoever this Armageddon Initiative is, they’ll go where I go to try to kill me, so there’s no reason to come to Devil’s Spring if I’ve left.
And now I’m packing for a trip to the Big Apple.
I make sure I pack my Berettas, which, up until earlier today, I hadn’t touched in over two years. I’m not traveling on a civilian plane, so having them with me won’t be a problem.
“Are you sure you’re okay with me doing this?” I ask Tori as I pull my T-shirt on over my head.
“Will you stop asking me that,” she replies. “If I didn’t want you to go, I’d tell you. Josh is your friend, and he’s asking for your help. Besides, you’re going off to fight terrorists and stuff! That’s so exciting!”
I smile at her. It’s nice to see that some people still remain innocent to the harsh realities of conflict. Even after everything she’s been through in the last twenty-four hours, she’s still the same ol’ Tori that I fell in love with.
“What would I do without you?” I ask.
“Well, you probably wouldn’t have as much great sex as you do now,” she replies.
We laugh and I lean down, kissing her hard on her lips. When we part, we look into each other’s eyes for a moment.
“See you soon, beautiful,” I say.
“I’ll be here waiting,” she replies.
I smile, pick up my bag, and then leave the room. I walk out my front door and down the stairs to the back of the bar. I walk round to the street, where Josh and Schultz are standing side by side, leaning against their car. I stand in front of them, bag over my shoulder.
I say, “You guys ready?”
Without a word, they get in the car. I climb in the back, behind Josh, who’s driving. As we set off, I lean forward.
“Swing by the police station, would you? I wanna see the sheriff before I go.”
“No worries,” says Josh, turning right at the end of the street and heading up the hill toward the station house.
“Hey, you’ve got a companion club here, haven’t you?” he asks, rhetorically.
“Yeah,” I reply. “One of the girls there is friends with Tori.”