Upon A Pale Horse

TWENTY-FIVE Suspicions Allayed

Jeffrey flipped the sun visor down as he approached Washington’s outskirts, mulling over the professor’s disclosures, a dark idea beginning to form. Was there something to his hypothesis that the government had been involved in covert testing of bio-warfare agents forty years ago? And even if so, why would it matter now? That was ancient history — hardly the sort of thing that got planes blown up, even if you were the hardest-boiled conspiracy theorist on Earth.

And yet Keith had chosen to send Jeffrey on a quest to talk to the ex-academic, and had obviously believed that his story was an important enough aspect of whatever he’d been researching to warrant making the trip a priority. He replayed the discussion over and over, but didn’t see anything he might have overlooked the first time — and his memory couldn’t expunge the image of Kaycee standing in the sun, holding a gun on him, blond mop shimmering like an angry lion’s, her eyes radiating an allure that was as undeniable as it was powerful.

No matter how he sliced the professor’s account, at the end of the day it was nothing more than a theory about sins of the past that had no bearing on the present that he could see. A tragic tale of abuse of power, no question, and if true, evidence that the government had been dirty, but that was hardly front page news even on a slow day. Try as he might there was no smoking gun, and as he pulled to the curb near Jakes’ office, he was no closer to a hoped-for breakthrough than when he’d started in the morning. Although something had shifted in his perspective, and he was no longer thinking his brother had been crazy: Something about the professor’s tale had resonated with Jeffrey, and by the end of their discussion he’d been left feeling that his brother had been sane, but pulling at a dangerous thread — and one worth killing over.

He slipped the keys through the mail slot as instructed, forgoing the note since the car was in plain view, and then walked to the corner and flagged down a taxi at the intersection. The driver dropped him off a hundred yards from the storage facility, and he saw with relief that he still had time to rummage through his things so he could bring a box of belongings back with him to the condo, satisfying any prying eyes.

Jeffrey spent a half hour in his locked area and got more clothes, as well as some photographs and personal items, and packed them all into a large carton that would just fit in his trunk. He carefully clasped the padlock and carried his carton past the desk clerk getting ready to shut down and then out to his car. He’d guessed correctly on the box’s size, and soon was winding his way back home, glad to be rid of the Taurus and feeling like he’d need to take a long shower to get the vehicle’s stink off his skin.

There was a parking space near his building, and after some juggling of keys he manhandled the container to the condo and pushed his way through the front door. His phone rang as he was stepping into the foyer, and he muttered a curse as he dropped the carton in the entry hall and felt for his cell.

“Hey. I tried calling you earlier, but you didn’t pick up,” Monica said.

“What? Oh, shit. I forgot my phone in the car. No wonder. Where are you?”

He peered into the darkened living room and flipped on the lights. “I just got home.”

“Perfect. You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Want to hit Caruzzo’s? I could go for their veal…”

“That sounds great. You want to meet me here or at the restaurant?” Jeffrey asked.

“I’ll come by. Say, twenty minutes?”

“That will give me just enough time to rinse the dust off and slip into something more comfortable.”

“Okay. See you then,” she said, and hung up.

He hoisted the box and lugged it into the spare bedroom, then undressed as he moved through the rooms, finishing by hopping on one leg as he wrestled his pants off, narrowly avoiding falling face first on the floor before he threw the bathroom door open and cranked the water on. Ten minutes later he was standing naked in his bedroom, debating which shirt to wear, when the street buzzer echoed through the condo, sounding like the wrong answer on a television game show. He grabbed the green polo shirt directly in front of him and pulled it over his head as he hurried to the intercom, held down the black button for a few moments, and jogged back to the bedroom for pants.

When the knock came at the door he was standing near it, barefoot, brushing his fingers through his damp hair. He twisted it open, and Monica stepped through, moving directly to him and planting a long kiss on his lips.

“Hmm. I missed you,” she purred.

“Me too,” he said, a twinge of guilt accompanying the words as a vision of Kaycee popped into his consciousness, immediately followed by Jakes’ craggy countenance.

“You planning to go out like that? Do the hippie barefoot thing? I’m cool with it if you are, although I think the restaurants generally insist on shoes for service,” she teased, looking down at his feet. “You’re not in San Francisco anymore.”

“I’ll be ready in no time. You’re early,” he said, kissing her forehead.

“Traffic was nonexistent coming here.”

“That’s lucky,” he said, and detached from her and headed back to the bedroom. “Give me two minutes,” he called over his shoulder, disappearing through the doorway.

She set her purse on the dining room table and walked to the refrigerator. “We need to go to the grocery store tomorrow. All you have is water, beer, and wine.”

Jeffrey reappeared wearing shoes and carrying a jacket. “And water comes out of the tap for free. A waste of valuable beer space, if you ask me,” he said with a grin.

“How did it go today?”

“Sort of a disaster, but I expected that. Next time I’ll mark the boxes so I know what’s in them. This way I had to unpack everything to find what I wanted, then re-pack it all again. Big pain in the ass, but it’s over now, and I could eat a horse.”

“Which is probably what they make the lasagna with.”

“That’s fine. You put enough cheese on anything and I’ll eat it. Ready?”

“Lead the way. Unless you’re feeling frisky first,” she said, the offer unmistakable.

The guilty feeling returned, but he shrugged it away. “Can I get a rain check? I hardly ate anything for lunch.”

“Poor baby. You need to keep your strength up.”

“Exactly. Although beer has calories, so I could always chug one and then…”

“Come on. Let’s get you fed. I hate it when my studs fade early from starvation,” she said, and took his hand. She smelled great, as always, and any trace of suspicion evaporated. What had Jakes been thinking? And why had Jeffrey let himself be talked out of his money so easily on a snipe hunt? He didn’t need the PI to tell him that Monica was exactly what she seemed to be. He’d never been more sure of anything in his life.