High-Caliber Concealer (15 page)

“She tried to teach you to shoot?”

“It was kind of adorable. She has this
ancient .357 and was hell bent on teaching me gun safety.”

Ellen laughed. “What’d she think of your
gun? Which one did you bring?”

“The SIG Sauer. She liked it, but she
worries about cleaning and loading.”

“It is harder to screw up a revolver. And if
she’s not worried about reloading speed, then it could be the right
gun for her.”

“The right gun is the gun you practice with.
I’m not about to try and get her to switch guns. Stick with a
system that works.”

“She sounds like the kind of grandma I need
to hang with. I mean, I love all you young people, but I wouldn’t
mind hanging out with a few more of my own cohort.”

“What? Who would teach you what twerking was
if you didn’t have us?”

“I actually wish I could blot twerking from
my brain,” said Ellen.

“Some things you can’t un-know.”

“Sadly. But I’m assuming you didn’t call to
rub in your sweet vacation?”

“No, I called to ask for advice.”

“Advice, I have. I am full of advice. This
afternoon, I advised my five-year-old grandson to build a rubber
band gun and shoot his mother in the rear.”

“By advise, I assume you mean, ‘helped
build’?”

“So I prefer the CIA’s interpretation of the
word ‘advise.’ What’s your point?”

“No point, that’s just an example of why I
love you. But that may be the kind of advice I need.” She filled
Ellen in on her adventures in Kaniksu Falls. “So what do you
think?” she asked when she was done.

“I think that’s weird. If he wasn’t going to
arrest them, then he should have said so at the time he took them
away. Also, if your grandma doesn’t like him, then I would trust
her opinion more than Jackson’s. She’s lived in that town a long
time, and what did you say? He’s only been back a few years? Yeah,
I wouldn’t be swayed by that opinion. And then there’s Donny. He’s
a cop. If he thinks something’s up, then there’s probably something
up.”

“That is probably totally unrelated,”
objected Nikki. “He’s a narcotics cop. He probably spotted some
sort of local drug dealer or something.”

“OK, leaving out Donny,” agreed Ellen. “But
any which way you slice it, I find the situation suspicious.”

“You think I should investigate?”

“Well, speaking as someone who just went
rogue and helped the worldly exit of a serial killer, I think we
can safely assume that my answer will be yes.”

“Two days, Ellen,” said Nikki. “I was gone
for two days. You couldn’t wait until I got back?”

“Lives were in danger and you were out of
cell range. I thought Darla was covering for her Canadian friend,
and the best thing to do was save the girl and worry about the
paperwork later.”

Nikki sighed. “Yes, of course, the answer is
always save the girl. But you can’t go out on your own like
that.”

“Oh, please,” said Ellen. “You break rules
all the time.”

“I do,” said Nikki. “And I know this is
unfair, but the difference is that I don’t get caught. You have to
have an eye on the bigger situation. Mrs. M has a hard enough time
wading through Carrie Mae politics without us handing weapons to
her enemies.”

“Are things really that tough?”

“Carrie Mae was founded with the idea of
small actions making a difference. Tiny missions, usually performed
by one to two agents. Mrs. M and a few others have pushed Carrie
Mae into the twenty-first century by using larger weapons, bigger
teams and going after major issues. Which means that we’re leaving
a more extensive footprint and costing more money than we used to,
and it means that some of the older leadership people aren’t really
comfortable with what we’re doing.”

“They want to shut us down?”

“They want to refocus and recommit to our
original ideals.”

“They want to go back to the sixties,”
translated Ellen.

“Yeah. We have to be careful until we get
women in positions of power who can help push our agenda
forward.”

“Like Darla,” said Ellen.

“Right. And we have to at least look like
we’re trying to keep Carrie Mae flying under the radar. I’m not
objecting to what you did. I’m saying that maybe there were better
ways to do it, that didn’t put our team, Mrs. M, and our branch in
hot water.”

It was Ellen’s turn to sigh. “Sorry. Yeah.
Sorry. I guess I got really focused on the mission, forgot there
might be a big picture.”

“Well, it’s your job to get mission-focused
and it’s part of my job to worry about the big picture. But that’s
why next time you should make a bigger effort to call me.”

“Right. Check. Note taken.” She sighed
again. “What are you going to do about the sheriff?”

“I have no clue. I’m not even sure what
there is to do.”

“Well, call Jenny and Jane. Maybe there is
some sort of technological wizardry that Jane can come up with that
might help. Jenny will probably say to kick his ass, but she might
have more useful thoughts after she gets that out of her system. If
nothing else, you should consider going to look at the auto-body
shop. Seems kind of suspicious that Milt, or whatever you said his
name was, walked into a closed store.”

Nikki grunted. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll think
about it. You know, I really did just want a nice vacation.”

“Hey, Mom, come on, we’re about to play
Jenga!”

“I’ll be there as soon as I get off the
phone,” said Ellen brightly. Nikki could hear footsteps retreating
in the background. “And I would like it if my daughters weren’t so
monumentally boring, but we can’t always get what we want, now, can
we?”

Nikki checked the Indiglo on her watch:
11:05
p.m.
Peg would have had enough time
to enter REM sleep. She waited another ten minutes to be on the
safe side and then swung the door to the old shed open. She opened
the door to the Ford and began to push it out of the barn. About
twelve feet later gravity caught up and the truck began to roll on
its own. Nikki hopped in and steered it to a safe stop down by the
gate to the property. She opened the gate and then went back to the
truck. Time to practice those hotwiring skills.

She turned on the flashlight app on her
phone and looked under the dash.

“What are you doing?” demanded a male
voice.

Nikki immediately turned her phone toward
the voice, blinding the speaker, and prepared to look helpless and
cute.

“Oh, it’s you. Jackson, what are you doing
here?”

“Captain Beaumont and I are out for a
run.”

“Who’s Captain Beaumont?”

In response, a black lab jumped up and put
his paws on the window frame, panting in Nikki’s face.

“He’s Captain Beaumont. What are you
doing?”

“I’m hotwiring grandpas’ truck.”

“OK, but why?

“Because it’s a pre-90s vehicle. Cars post
about 1994 have the automated key fobs, which are harder to
hotwire.”

“OK, but why not use the key?” He reached in
and flipped down the visor. The truck key tumbled down into Nikki’s
lap.

“I think Captain Beaumont is laughing at
me.”

“Probably,” agreed Jackson. “Seriously,
though, what are you doing that you can’t use your car or borrow
Peg’s?”

“My car is too easy to spot and Grandma
always puts her keys in her purse and she puts her purse in her
room. I think Mom used to steal the car when she was a
teenager.”

“Much like you appear to be doing now. Where
are you going that you don’t want your car remembered?”

“Jackson, this is really one of those times
that you should ask yourself if you really want to know?”

“You’re not stealing more pigs again, are
you?” Captain Beaumont pushed away from the truck and began to
sniff around the tires.

“Oh, my God, you steal one pig, one time,
and no one lets you forget it.”

“Hey, I was very helpful in the porcine
theft department if you remember. It was Donny that got us caught.
Just tell me what you’re doing.”

Nikki knew she should lie. But Jackson was
staring at her with those blue eyes that knew right where all the
skeletons were buried and where all the pigs had been set free and
suddenly it was like she’d forgotten how.

“I’m going to go check out the body
shop.”

“Check it out for what? What are you going
to do, break in? That’s ridiculous.”

There was a thump as Captain Beaumont jumped
up into the tailgate-less truck bed.

“It’s not ridiculous and get your dog out of
my truck or he’s coming with me,” said Nikki, starting the
truck.

“Nikki, you’re being crazy!”

“Say goodbye, Captain,” said Nikki, rolling
the truck past Jackson. She expected him to yell, but instead there
was a second thump as Jackson jumped up into the truck bed too.
Seconds later, he was wiggling through the back window.

“This is crazy,” he said, when he’d righted
himself in the seat. He was wearing a zip-up hoodie over cut-off
sweat pants and sneakers.

“Hey, I’m not the one out for a run in the
middle of the night.”

“Captain Beaumont is a black dog.”

“What does that mean?”

“He gets too hot during the day, but he
likes to run. Plus, I’m training for
American
Ninja Warrior
.”

“You’re making this up.”

“I’m not making this up. And you’re the one
stealing a truck!”

“It’s not stealing if you return it.”

There was a scrabbling as Captain Beaumont
tried to climb in the window too. He stopped half-way through,
either high-centered on the seat back or content to only mostly be
with his person.

“What is your dog doing?” demanded Nikki as
Captain Beaumont began to lick her ear.

“He was trained to be a police dog and this
is how he indicates when he smells someone batshit crazy.”

“I am not crazy.”

“You’re stealing a truck with the intention
of breaking into a building.”

“I told you—I’m not stealing the truck. I’m
borrowing it quietly.”

The argument continued as Nikki drove down
into town. The Columbia River reflected the moonlight like a ribbon
of polished steel and the lights of the houses glowed softly from
behind closed curtains as they drove toward Main Street.

“I don’t know why you think the auto body
shop is going to have anything to look at,” complained Jackson.
“Even if, and I say if, you really saw that Milt guy go in there,
what’s that got to do with anything?”

“I did see him. Please stop second-guessing
me. And it might seem like nothing, but you’ve got to follow your
gut in these situations,” said Nikki, checking the review mirror
and pulling into a parking spot well away from the light of a
street lamp. “You have to look for loose threads and then you pull
them.”

“And how often have you been in ‘these
situations’?” demanded Jackson, making air quotes.

“Oh, you know,” said Nikki, cutting the
motor and fishing in her bag for some binoculars.

“No,” said Jackson, eyeing the binoculars.
“I don’t know.”

“Tell your dog to move his butt.” She pulled
Captain Beaumont all the way into the cab, so she could look
through the back window of the cab and scrutinize the body shop
through the binoculars. The evening wind had cleared some of the
smoke haze from the sky and she had no trouble peering through the
windows of the body shop. It was a cement block building of an odd
height, not quite two stories. One corner was a glass enclosed
little lobby with uncomfortable looking chairs and a tall desk. The
rest of the front was covered by two roll-up garage doors. The
office was dark and a closed sign hung at a careless angle on the
door, but a tiny ribbon of light could be seen around the edge of
one of the garage doors.

“You can’t just yadda yadda sex,” said
Jackson.

“What?”

“That episode of
Seinfeld
? ‘And yadda yadda, one thing led to another…’
You can’t just wave your hands over the important parts and expect
me to not question it.”

“I don’t have time for this,” said Nikki.
“Nobody invited you to this party, so stop being such a Debbie
Downer.”

“You were stealing my dog. And besides
someone has to keep you out of trouble.”

“Jackson.” She stopped, trying to think of
the right thing to say. This was ending up like every argument
she’d ever had with Z’ev. “I don’t need to be kept out of
trouble.”

Jackson stared at her, his forehead
wrinkled, eyebrows pinched together in skepticism. “Are you
sure?”

“Do you need to be kept from throwing
yourself in front of giant cows?”

“Bulls. And no, because I’m good at it and I
know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Oh.” He paused, the effort of shifting
mental gears showing on his face. “OK.”

“Now you can stay in the truck if you want.
I’m going to go for a closer look. I’m just going to take a little
poke around. I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

“I’m not staying in the truck. And –” He
broke off and then pointed out the window at the body shop. Nikki
ducked and then peeked over the edge of the seat with her
binoculars. Milt and another man walked around the corner of the
building. Milt was waving his arms and even most of a block away
Nikki could hear his voice, if not the actual words. He sounded
angry and defensive.

“Who’s that with Milt?” she asked, passing
the binoculars to Jackson.

“That’s Bill Pims,” said Jackson, without
taking the binoculars. “He always wears that ratty, red ball
cap.”

“There must be a back door then,” said
Nikki, training the binoculars back at the building as Milt and
Bill climbed into the body shop tow truck and pulled away.

“I don’t know,” said Jackson. “I take my car
to Josie’s.”

“Well, they probably didn’t climb out
through a window, so I’m going to try behind the building first.”
Nikki picked up her bag, a brown leather messenger style bag that
looked ordinary enough.