Heaven Should Fall Page 29

  “Sorry,” said Drew. “My bad. I got mixed signals. I thought we had a bond. Sorta like the one you had with Stan when you were fucking him all that time you lived in his apartment.”

  My heart went cold. “What?”

  Dodge and Cade exchanged a glance. “Where’s the duct tape?” Cade asked Dodge, but his voice had a nervous waver.

  “In the truck. I’ll grab it.”

  “Yeah, you know what I’m talking about,” Drew said to me. Looking at Cade, he said, “Slept in his bed every damn night. I saw it myself.”

  “Bullshit,” said Cade.

  “No bullshit. Tell him, Jill. No surprise you didn’t tell this white-supremacist SOB you were taking it from the big black dude. How’d the baby turn out?”

  Cade grabbed the broom beside the gun safe and whacked him across the face with the handle. His mouth started to bleed, and he rolled his lips to suck back some of the blood. Beyond that, he didn’t react. “Don’t hit me, asshole,” he said. “Hit your nigger-loving girlfriend. Not my fault the soul brother’s too beaucoup.”

  Cade thrust his palm against Drew’s forehead, making his head whip back and then forward. Streaks of blood poured down either side of Drew’s chin, vampirelike. “Shut up,” Cade shouted in his face. From the second floor came the drowsy cry of the baby. “Shut up. Shut up.”

  Drew spit a mouthful of blood into Cade’s face, and Cade recoiled.

  “You better let me out of here now,” Drew shouted back. “You’re gonna go to jail for the rest of your goddamn life. Best you show some mercy so they don’t hang you. Guys are gonna be bending you over in the shower till you grow a vagina. You fucked up for real, Cade. If I were you I’d let me go and run like hell to Guatemala. They know who you are. You’ll be lucky if they’re not here by sunrise.”

  By now Dodge was back, tearing a noisy strip from the roll of tape. He slapped it over Drew’s mouth and Drew ceased to even try to talk. He just glared at me, trickling blood from around the bottom of the tape and now from his nose, as well. The baby’s cry had risen to an insistent howl. I broke with Drew’s stare and hurried up the steps to TJ.

  He was sitting upright on the bed, red-faced and squalling, the top of his little bare chest shiny with tears and drool. I lifted him and pulled him against me to nurse, the tension in my throat growing tighter by the second. His small fists pounded my chest with frustration when my anxiety slowed the milk letting down. Downstairs I heard the cellar door bang shut, and at that a sob burst from me, a choking, helpless sound that startled TJ and set his arms waving. I gasped back the second sob and tried to breathe normally.

  Cade’s footsteps clunked against the stairs. I backed up into the corner beside the window. The door swung open and Cade stepped in, looking first at me and then to TJ. For the first time since his return I noticed his clothes were grimy and his eyes exhausted. His tattooed forearm was smeared with blood where he had wiped Drew’s spit from his face. He was overdue for a haircut, and with his baseball cap off the lank strands hung around his face in a dirty, formless mess.

  “What have you done, Cade,” I cried. At the dread in my voice he threw me the uneasiest of glances, reaching into the hamper for a washcloth to wipe his forearm. “Tell me how you’re going to get out of this one. Tell me now, and then get me and TJ out of this house before they come to arrest you.”

  He tossed the washcloth back into the basket. “Nobody’s coming. We’re all on our own here. And nobody’s leaving until we figure out what to do next.”

  The weight of that notion was almost physical. The house, this drafty and rattling old place, seemed to snug around me as if shrunk tight by Cade’s determination. I clutched TJ tighter against my body to steady the shivers that rippled through my muscles, but it didn’t work. “How could you do this to us,” I stammered, my voice at a whisper, without any hope that he would offer an answer. “If you were going to do something this awful you never should have come home.”

  “I didn’t intend to,” he snapped. “I’m not that stupid. The idea was to lure him into the truck and hold him while I went into the building with his ID. And then I walked over and the entire office building went on lockdown out of ‘an abundance of caution’ because of a bomb on the Metro. So I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I just told Dodge to drive and we’d figure the rest of it out once we got here. He was acting like I was supposed to have all the answers, and hell if I know how to cover our tracks.”

  I waved a hand wildly toward the door. “Well, what are you going to do with him now?”

  He squinted in a peevish way. “I don’t know, Jill. Fucking bury him in the backyard. I’m driving back to D.C. tomorrow. I’ll think about it on the way down.”

  I started to cry again.

  “Jill, knock it the hell off. It has to be this way. The tree of liberty must be refreshed by the blood of patriots and tyrants, and if it has to be mine and his, then so be it. I’m not just going to let Elias die for nothing. Let them stick a toe tag on him and shove him into their freezer.”

  “He wouldn’t want you to do this. And it isn’t going to work. They’ll connect this to you in no time. You heard what Drew said. He knew who Dodge is.”

  “Well, I wasn’t expecting that. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. And you know why it all is.” He pointed savagely at TJ drowsing in my arms. When he spoke again, his voice sank to an aggressive hiss. “Why my life’s fucked up. Why Fielder’s downstairs. Why you’re stuck in this shithole, and why Elias is dead.”

  “TJ’s got nothing to do with Elias.”

  “Bullshit he doesn’t. Elias killed himself because I had you and he didn’t and he couldn’t stand it. Let’s just put it out there, all right? Let’s lay it all on the table. He came home from the Sandbox and he was doing okay in spite of it all—”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  “Don’t cut me off! He was doing okay until I brought you home. I thought about this shit the whole way back from D.C., and there’s no point now in pretending it doesn’t exist. The VA had no business putting him on all those goddamn drugs and making it impossible for him to get up off his ass and get his life together. The fact that he couldn’t handle life anymore falls square on their shoulders. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say what it was that pushed him over the edge. It was him seeing that baby and knowing he was never, ever going to get a chance with you.”

  “No,” I protested. But I knew it was probably true.

  “And I love that kid with everything in me,” he continued. “I’d give him the world and it’s a damn good thing, because that’s about what he’s costing me. My freedom, my brother, my future, my loyalty to you—”

  “That’s not TJ’s fault,” I snapped. “Back off the poor kid and take some responsibility.”

  “That’s all I ever do anymore is take responsibility,” he shouted. “I’ve given all I goddamn can, and it’s time for the people who owe me to pay up.”

  “Your son and I owe you nothing,” I yelled back raggedly. TJ, who had been almost asleep at my breast, awoke all at once and turned his head to look at his father, eyes baleful and mouth agape. “And we’re the ones who are going to be paying.”

  Cade scowled at me. “‘Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.’”

  Leave, the instinctive part of my mind commanded me. Leave now. It’s time. Whether or not I would be implicated with the rest of them, there would be no avoiding the consequence either way, and for TJ’s sake I needed to press forward without fear. With my son clutched against my chest with one arm, I snatched up the diaper bag from the bed and, before Cade could step into my path, hustled down the stairs. As I reached the landing Cade grabbed my shoulder, sending the bag sliding down my arm and disrupting my balance. I spun toward the wall to compensate, and then Dodge was in front of me, blocking off the bottom of the stairs.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Dodge said. “Don’t you even think about going anywhere.”

  “I’m taking T
J to the hospital for his surgery. Whatever it is you’re doing here has nothing to do with me. I don’t know a thing about it.”

  “Get back upstairs.”

  I met Dodge’s eyes. Cade’s hand gripped my shoulder again, and I shrugged hard, but he didn’t let go. “It’s easier for you if we’re gone,” I told him. “Babies need too many things. Let me out the door now and I won’t say a word to anyone.”

  “It’s too late for that,” said Dodge. “They’re all around the house. Agents. FBI probably. Scooter, he was on his way over here and saw them coming up the road. Called to warn us—”

  Not us, I thought. Me. All the pieces snapped into place in my mind: that when Cade texted him, he realized he had been all wrong in his prediction that they would wait until after TJ’s surgery. He had turned them in, most likely in a panic, and only realized after the fact that TJ and I were about to be caught in the net with the rest of them. He had tried to do the right thing, but it was too late and too complicated.

  “Fuck my life,” Cade said. He let go of my shoulder and pushed past me into the living room. “Fuck!” he shouted toward the front wall.

  “And they arrested him, or so it sounded like. Now they got people outside every door. And we’re just waiting.”

  Dodge stopped speaking and looked toward the living-room window, but its dusty drapes had been drawn tightly against the night. Cade leaned back against the wall and gazed toward the ceiling with an empty expression, as though looking to God for instructions. I asked, “Waiting for what?”

  “For them to make contact.”

  I looked impatiently at Cade. The door was right there; everything within me pulled me toward it, and irritation was rapidly replacing my fear and disbelief. “Well, why don’t you take out your damn phone and call them yourself? It’s all over anyway, right? And your son needs to get to the hospital.”

  Cade didn’t respond. He looked stricken. In the silence, Dodge spoke up again. “I told you Scooter was a plant. Like hell he just happened to walk into that one. Arranged to disappear before he got trapped in the house with us is more like it.”

  “Shut up, Dodge,” Cade said peevishly. “It could have been anybody. Someone who saw your truck, someone who works with Bylina—Uncle Randy, even—”

  Dodge cocked his head in rueful agreement. “Randy, yeah, it could be. Thanks to Miss Busybody over here.”

  I scowled at him. “Why don’t you quit listening to yourself talk for five minutes and get the police on the phone so we can get out of this? Where’s Candy?”

  “Downstairs watching our guest. She set the boys up in Grandma’s workroom. Cade’ll take you upstairs, too. Got to have someone keep them kids away from the windows.”

  “No chance. I’m not babysitting so you can bicker back and forth with the police. Cade, give me your phone.”

  He gave me a long, guarded look, as if he was considering it. Dodge said, “Goddamn, Cade, your little woman needs to see the back of someone’s hand.”

  But right then, it rang. I took a step back from him and shifted TJ to the other hip, and Dodge took advantage of Cade’s distraction and mine to take me firmly by the upper arm and pull me out into the hallway. “Up the stairs,” he ordered.

  I shook him off. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Fine. Walk.” When I balked, he met my eye with a gaze widened by impatience. “You want to be down here if they bust in, huh? You think that’s such a smart idea? Best you and your boy be up at the top of the house, away from the people they want. And don’t think they’re going to give us any warning.”

  As much as I hated him, there was a logic to what he said. I stepped onto the first stair and he nudged me forward. On the second floor the shades were all drawn. I held TJ firmly against me as I navigated the narrow staircase to the attic. In Leela’s workroom, the three little boys sat hunched around Dodge’s laptop from which came the tinny dialogue of a children’s show about George Washington. Despite the early hour, John’s face was a mess of red lollipop residue; Matthew, seated in the middle, wore his birthday rifle slung on his back as always. The little square of electrical tape over the webcam curled outward at its top edge.

  “Tell Cade to tell them I need to leave,” I told Dodge. “That ought to be his priority.”

  Dodge grunted a reply and thumped back down the stairs.

  I set TJ down on the floor and shut the door. “Matthew, give me your rifle.”

  He shook his head slowly, not raising his gaze from the screen. “‘This is my rifle,’” he quoted. “‘There are many like it, but this one is mine.’”

  “Not right now, it isn’t. Hand it over.”

  “No.” He began babbling a half-coherent version of the Rifleman’s Creed. “I will ever guard it against the ravinges of weatherman damage—”

  I walked up behind him and lifted it off his back, ignoring his indignant hey, and unloaded it before securing it in the craft closet that was safely outside the door. Crouching on the floor, I peeked out through the thin gap between the bottom of the shade and the window. I squinted against the sudden swirling lights, red and blue, that pulsed in rhythm against the dark sky. Out on the main road sat two ambulances, three fire trucks, several other boxy emergency vehicles and a white van from which sprouted a satellite dish perched atop a long pole. At the end of the driveway, glinting beneath the moonlight and partially obscured by the trees, a large black truck blocked the exit. I sighed from deep in my chest. There was still the chance they would let me walk out with TJ and take us to the hospital if Cade put his son ahead of himself. He might, I told myself. None of this had been a part of his original plan. Surely he wanted his son to have this surgery as much as I did.

  I sat with my back against the wall beneath the window and waited out the long minutes, watching the backs of the three little boys hunched over the laptop, the wanderings of TJ as he crawled across the rug. All of a sudden I had an idea. “Boys,” I said, and they startled at the sharpness of my voice. “Let me see that computer a minute.”

  I took it from Matthew’s hands and checked the network connection. Our phones had been cut off long ago, but Dodge had kept up payments on the satellite internet to keep his eBay sales going. Relief washed over me at the sight of the little icon of expanding rays. I logged in to my email and sent off a quick message.

  Dave—complication. We’re in trouble here at the house in Frasier. SWAT teams or FBI outside. Might not get to hospital but am trying. Help if poss.—Jill

  I turned off the WiFi connection and handed the computer back to Matthew, who snapped the video back on. “TJ stinks,” he said as an afterthought. Sure enough, the baby needed a diaper change, and I had left the bag downstairs. I carried TJ down the narrow steps to change him in my room, where we kept extra diapers next to the laundry basket where he slept. As I laid him down on the bed, working hard to keep my touch gentle in spite of my anxiety, Cade stepped into the darkened room behind me. “Jill, Fielder’s lying about you and Stan, isn’t he?”

  I looked over my shoulder and shot him a perplexed look. Of all the things he could be worrying about right now. “Of course he is.”

  “I thought so.” He rested his back against the wall and looked toward the hallway, dimly lit from what little daylight was now creeping in around the shades. For the first time in all this I noticed the handgun holstered on his belt, just behind his right arm. “But he said—he said he saw you himself.”

  I closed up the diaper and lifted TJ to my hip. “He saw that I slept in Stan’s bed sometimes, but never when Stan was home. It’s that simple.”

  “I thought you were sleeping in the living room.”

  “When he was home, yes, but his mattress was more comfortable and I was pregnant and my back hurt, so when he wasn’t there I didn’t see the harm in sleeping there. Come on, Cade. Drew’s just exaggerating to distract you, and it’s working. It’s ridiculous that’s even in your head at a time like this.”

  “If everything was so up-and-up,
then why didn’t I know about this before?”

  “Because there wasn’t anything to say. Seriously, if it was like that between me and Stan, do you think I would have taken this as my best option in life?” My voice was rising. TJ thumped his fist against my chest and squirmed, but I lacked the restraint to lower my voice. “If I haven’t proven by now that I’m loyal to you, then God help me, Cade. Nothing would make you believe it.”

  He broke eye contact grudgingly and looked toward the hallway again. Light splintered down in a broken pattern against the stairs, like kindling for a fire. “You know what, Jill—” he began, and the quaver in his voice was strange. “My old girlfriend, Piper…I almost slept with her about a week ago. I ran into her and it almost happened. Wait, no. That’s not the whole story.” He faced me, his eyes freakishly bright. I realized with astonishment that they were wet, almost overflowing with tears. “I was trying to find her. I couldn’t, though. And then I just stumbled into her, and one thing led to another, and I kissed her.”

  I had no idea what to say. This was a fresh affront, this knowledge that I had stood through all of this beside a man who was chasing his ex-girlfriend in his spare time. I gave a short, sharp bark of a laugh and said, “That’s not cool.”

  “I know. I stopped. I felt terrible. I’m such a piece of shit, babe. I’m going down so hard. I swear to God I thought I was going to die yesterday, once I walked into the office building with the stuff in my bag. I never planned to walk back out, no matter what Dodge thought. ‘The tree of liberty must be refreshed—’”

  Impatience and boredom filled my voice. “‘With the blood of patriots and tyrants.’”

  “Right, yeah. And now what am I supposed to do? Go to jail? What the fuck would I do in jail?” His voice was rising. “I’m too goddamn smart to be in jail.”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’ll do,” I snapped. “I guess you should have thought about that several months ago.”