Thonk, thonk.
Desmond’s face foretold another gripe.
“This was supposed to be in-out, fast, and then barbecue. I was fantasizing ribs. How long’s it going to be now? I’ve got business, you know.” Desmond laundered money through a used car lot he owned. He knew what he was doing. Where else in the world were 1998 Subarus going for $250K?
Moll had projects too. While he enjoyed faux painting, his special services job found him the go-to man for disposing of bodies — ones that either he and Desmond, or other clients, had made. Presently he needed to complete an assignment involving one Edgar Barth, a potential whistleblower, who was cold and stiff and swathed in a tarp, tucked into a cabin in Ralston. The idea was that Edgar would be deposited someplace unfindable on the way to Akron, where Moll would deliver a painted settee. He’d planned on leaving late this afternoon.
But now...
His neck and hands complained and he sprayed Benadryl once more. Better.
Desmond examined the willow branch carefully. He put it down and took out his phone. Moll noted that he was looking at the texts about the job, specifically the pictures of Allison Parker and her daughter.
They had memorized what the females looked like. It made sense to be absolutely sure of your target. When you’re after woodcock you don’t want to take an out-of-season quail by mistake.
Moll noted the glint in Desmond’s eyes as he scanned the whole-body shot of Allison Parker.
The man had this habit...
Moll said, “No.”
Desmond swapped phone for willow branch. He shrugged. “A man can dream, can’t he?”
And began the thonk, thonk, thonk once more.
26
Allison Parker was looking over the unfortunate beds in unfortunate room 306 of the Sunny Acres motel, whose bold pink vacancy sign had been a beacon in the spooky night and beckoned them in for shelter.
The place was shabby and worn, the window cracked, the frame and gutters in need of paint. The view was the parking lot and a chain-link fence, whose mesh was fitted with slats to block out the view of Buddy’s Salvage.
So, it’s come to this, she thought.
“Here?” Hannah asked.
The girl’s dismay was the exact opposite of her happy reaction to the rental car.
The walls, painted white, needed another coat. Blond, scarred, tired furniture. Industrial dark blue carpet, just the shade to camouflage stains, though it was largely unsuccessful in its mission. A two-socket lamp with one bulb. Two double beds, not even queens. The scent was of musty air and powerhouse cleanser.
“It’ll do for now.”
The girl gave another exaggerated sigh.
“We’re on an adventure.”
This had once brought a smile to the girl’s face — when she was younger and the family was about to embark on a drive to the zoo, a theme park, a camping trip.
Now no such reaction.
Parker didn’t even consider mentioning Greenstone, the mythical castle of their bedtime reading pleasure. How distant were those days...
“ ‘For now’?” Hannah asked, her voice edgy. “How long is that?”
“Not long.”
Now a sigh of a different order.
They finished bringing in their bags.
Parker got the AC going. The room wasn’t that hot but she wanted to cover up the sticky noise of traffic on Route 92, trucks mostly. This she found both intrusive and, for some reason, depressing.
She was going to unpack completely. Organized to the extreme, Allison Parker always did this when she traveled, never happy living out of suitcases. But it occurred to her Hannah would deduce that “for now” might extend longer than the girl hoped.
Still, as Hannah scrolled through the basic cable stations, Parker risked scrutiny and got the toiletries assembled in the bathroom and some clothes hung in the closet. The Keurig coffee maker, on the desk, seemed in working order and there were pods that she guessed had distant expiration dates, if any. The creamer was of the powdered variety. She was stabbed by a memory — not long after she and Jon had been married and they were having his lieutenant from FPD over for dinner. She’d realized there was no milk for the cake she was going to bake. It was important to her to make a nice meal but it would have taken too long to hit the store for a quart.
Parker told Jon she had an idea — and concocted a cup of “milk” by mixing warm water and Coffee mate.
At dinner the supervisor’s wife had eaten the confection and had a second sliver. Then she had asked for the recipe, wondering aloud what made it so special. Parker and Merritt had shared a smile. “There’s a secret ingredient,” she’d said.
With this memory, she was suddenly overwhelmed and tears pricked. She glanced at Hannah to see if the girl caught it. She did not and Parker wiped fast.
For dinner: Burger King (Hannah’s the meatless selection). They heated the sandwiches and onion rings in the microwave that she thought about scrubbing but gave up worrying about.
Hannah seemed to enjoy her meal, splurging, for a change, with a vanilla milkshake.
To Parker everything was merely fuel.
U-235 came spontaneously to mind.
She gathered up the empty bags and wrappers and stuffed them in the too-small trash container.
“Go take a shower.”
“Mom...”
“And your teeth.”
“I didn’t bring any...”
Parker handed her daughter an unopened box of Crest and a sealed brush.
The girl sighed once more, but this exhalation fell into the off-the-shelf mother-daughter-nighttime-routine playbook.
All good.
The instant the door closed Parker dug through her purse and extracted a black envelope, about twelve inches by three and quite thick. It was made of a polycarbonate material and was fireproof. Even temperatures over two thousand degrees would have no effect on the contents.
When she’d cashed the check at First Federal Bank in Carter Grove after fleeing from Jon that afternoon, she had gone straight to her safety deposit box — hers alone, unknown to anyone else — and removed the envelope and stashed it in her purse. She’d taken the Coach, rather than her usual leather bag. It would be a curious choice for a simple check-cashing errand but the girl had not noticed.
A glance at the door, an ear to the shower. Then Parker lifted the Velcro-sealed flap with a loud tearing noise and pulled open the zipper. Inside were scores of documents and a thumb drive. She plugged the storage device into her laptop’s USB port and, after opening an encrypted container on her drive, selected thirty files — text and JPG photos — and copied them to the drive. When the bar hit one hundred percent, she tugged it out. She then wrote a note on the top document, jotting quickly in her careless hand. Then the papers and USB went back into the formidable envelope.
After sealing it up once more, she rose and, checking that the water was still streaming, she stepped outside and hurried to the car.
There she slipped the envelope into the glove compartment and closed it.
She returned to the room, locked the door and sat back on the bed, sipping Diet Coke. Her heart was pounding and her breath came hard. Slowly, eyes on a TV show she wasn’t watching, Allison Parker began to calm.
Much of the peace, she realized, came from her confidence that the contents of her secret envelope would be safe from fire, flood and any other disaster, except — she couldn’t help but think — nuclear ones.
27
Colter Shaw was sitting in an unoccupied office in the security division of Harmon Energy Products’ Building One.