122 Rules (18 page)

That’s a double entendre,
Chet said.

“Really? And so you thought, ‘Oh, small town hospitality and all. Surely someone will invite the handsome stranger into her house.’ Is that pretty much it?”

“So, handsome, huh?”

“You’re avoiding the question, Mr. Morrell,” she admonished but blushed all the same.

Bring it home,
Chet said.
Not even you could eff it up now.

When you’ve been doing this job as long as I have, there is zero possibility of a blowout.
“Well, everyone seems so friendly I thought surely
someone
would show some small-town hospitality. Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps I should just go down the street, get a cat burger, lie in my hotel room, and listen to the sound of it clogging my arteries. Such is the way of things.”

And yet you did...
Sam could almost see Chet shaking his head in disappointment and disgust.

“Gross,” Susan said.

“Tell me about it. Have you seen the menu at the diner?”

She studied him for a minute. “So, you do the dishes?”

* * *

A scream ripped Sam out of his rough slumber. Susan sat up next to him, breathing hard, her face a mask of terror and tears. She had been draped over him when they fell asleep in her bed—her head on his chest with him running his fingers through her hair—and now they were soaked in her sweat.

He placed a hand on her lower back, trying to comfort her. “Are you okay?”

“Nightmare.” Her whole body shook in aftershocks of the terrifying experience. Whatever she’d just dreamed about had scared the hell out of her. Her quaking hands dumped half of her cigarettes onto the floor before he took them from her and lit one for her.

If he said that she’d woken him up by screaming, then she might just let the bad dream explanation lie. But if he led her on, like she’d already revealed details about herself, he might get her to tell him more. “It sounded like hell. You were talking in your sleep. I couldn’t tell what you were saying, but the longer it went on, the worse it got. I thought you were angry, but then you started crying. I was about to wake you up, but you screamed and about scared the crap out of me.”

“I hate that dream. I have it all the time.”

“What happens in it?” The moonlight shone through the large window, bathing the little room with a luminescent glow. He studied her profile, half of which remained hidden in the shadows cast by the soft white light. He really wanted to know, but would she tell him?

The night before, she’d surprised him by asking for a ride on his motorcycle, in spite of what Mary Beth had said about
ladies
never riding around on one of those
things
. He’d started off carefully, not wanting to scare her, minding the speed limits and his manners. But the further from town they’d gone, the faster she’d yelled for him to go. Soon they had been flying down the thin strip of asphalt in the middle of the desert. Even riding harder than he’d ever pushed the big bike, she’d still wanted to go faster.

When they arrived back at her place, they’d chatted over cold beers while he seared crusted salmon and baked homemade fries. They’d taken the food out onto the front porch, where they swapped stories—her about Lisa, the drama queen of the west; him, some of his more amusing military stories—while they laughed, drank more beer, and watched the stars.

At the end of the evening, he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She’d returned the gesture and then took his hand, leading him to her room. As they rolled around in her bed, she had again surprised him by enthusiastically vocalizing her pleasure, and he wondered if it had been loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Something about the performance smelled off, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. Almost as if she had been putting on a show. But why?

Then she had laid her head on his chest and fallen asleep until scaring him awake.

Still breathing hard from the nightmare, she looked at him, her skin glistening with sweat in the moonlight. She’d shared her body with him, but some things were even more personal. Would she keep the details of her dream to herself? “I killed a man.”

He knew this. Read the grim details in her dossier a thousand times, but still he wasn’t prepared for the matter-of-fact way she’d delivered the information. “Ummm, what? Really? What happened?”

“That’s what the dream is about. After my dad died, mom decided to drink the county dry and screw every lowlife on the western seaboard. One night she passed out, and the bastard she’d brought home decided to pay me a little visit.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yes. I was only twelve, but the perv wanted some more action. I disagreed and sent him to the big bar in the sky.”

He knew the story, but it fascinated him to hear her version of the details. Monica’s mother had spiraled out of control after her husband had died. The psychiatrist’s diagnosis had been that she’d slipped into a deep, manic-like depression. As a result, instead of embracing her sole-remaining family member, the mother shoved the girl away. The situation devolved until one glorious evening the mother had screamed out profanities in a drunken tirade during Monica’s middle-school graduation and had to be escorted from the premises. Her mother’s invitations to attend any future functions had been permanently revoked by the school board.

Monica had been required to bail her mom out of jail on two separate occasions for possession. By the time the girl had turned fourteen, she lived by herself while her mother stayed with one boyfriend or another.

“She didn’t show up when I graduated high school, top of my class I might add.”

Probably for the best.
“Congrats. That’s not easy in the best of circumstances. Sorry about your mom, though.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t surprised or really disappointed. My best friend, Angel, her mom more or less adopted me. They were the only ones that I cared were there.”

“Still, it had to sting.”

“Well, that’s life isn’t it? Things don’t always work out the way you want.” Susan had begun to trace the deep scars on his thigh with her fingertip. “What about you? Why are you here?”

Rule # 73:

Blend some elements of truth into your background story. It increases believability.

“Stories are, by definition, fiction. Trying to formulate a past on the fly while making it sound believable is difficult unless great thought and planning has gone into the structure and background. However, blending elements of truth, no matter how trivial the details, into the tale lend it credence to the ear and can get it past the most honed of bullshit detectors.”

—122 Rules of Psychology

“Well, since my wife left me, I’ve been a bit lost.” Sam watched her as he continued his well-rehearsed saga. Eye contact, relaxed body language, and a reflective tone would make him appear sincere and earnest. He gauged her reaction, giving her just enough then wrapping up while he still had his audience’s attention. “I’ve only had a few people in my life I truly cared about; the first was my wife...”

“And the second?” she prompted.

“My brother. He was my absolute best friend.”

Oh, boo hoo. Going on about your brother again? What the hell? You didn’t have to go there. You could have left it.
Chet’s words rang with indignation.

I’m going where the story leads. That’s all. She needs to trust me.

This isn’t a therapy session, and you aren’t her patient. Don’t go overboard. We are information gatherers, not information providers.

“Was? What happened? Can you go stay with him?”

“He’s dead.” The weight of guilt over his brother’s death lingered in the background. Sam sensed the lumbering hulk looming nearby and avoided it, as he always did.

She didn’t say anything as he gathered his thoughts.

He continued, “So anyway, after I finished physical therapy, I tried to figure out where I was going and what I wanted to do with my life. I got a little money because of my injury, not a lot, just enough to get by for a while. Started traveling the country—Chicago, D.C., New York, California, all the big exciting places everyone always says they want to see—but so far, no place has struck me as home. So, here I am, trying the opposite of everything else.”

“The opposite being small, remote, and decrepit, with no hope of a job or future?”

She’d made references and little jabs about the horrendousness of the town the night before, too. Given that, he asked himself the big question again: Why had she come here? He had hoped that by talking to her, he’d unravel some of these mysteries, but random threads of that tapestry only seemed to be leading to more unknowns.

“Suppose so,” he said. “I actually didn’t know anything about the town before I got here. I was driving and found this wide patch in the road. My bike took the off ramp, and here I am. My life has been turned upside down so many times I don’t know which way is which. So I thought, why the hell not?” She must have run out of questions because she remained silent, so he asked one of his own. “So you graduated top of your high school class, then followed your dreams to be a lawyer?”

Anger flashed hot and white across her face. Had he crossed an imaginary line? But she hadn’t been looking at him, staring instead out to space as if deep in thought. Then a small smile played on her lips. “Well, that was the plan.”

He had been guiding the conversation most of the evening, but his control had been slipping away. Now he had no idea where she intended to take it. “But it didn’t work out? Looks to me like you’re living the dream.”

Chet snorted.

“Well, looks can be deceiving. I went to NYU on a full scholarship and was all set to be a big shot lawyer. But then I overheard a conversation I wasn’t supposed to.”

“What kind of conversation? Who was it?”

“It was between a drug lord and his hitman. Maybe you’ve heard of the Laven Michaels case?”

Sam almost never had time for television, but he tried to remain abreast of current events. So he spent two or three hours a week reviewing articles and reading blogs. The case had made national news. Not since the arrest of Al Capone had such a significant mobster been on trial. “Oh, yeah. Who hasn’t? It’s all over the headlines and on every news channel. They have some star witness, though that doesn’t seem to be enough because, by all accounts, the case seems to be falling apart.”

You know where she’s going with this, don’t you?
Chet asked.

Yeah, I think so.

Go ahead. Ask her,
Chet told him.
I’ll bet she has a good, though unverifiable, story.

“Wait. Is that you? You’re the witness?” Sam asked.

“One and the same. They wanted to ‘protect’ me, so here I am in witness protection, though I think witness prison is a better name for it. They locked me away, using me when they want and forgetting about me the rest of the time.”

Told ya,
Chet said.
The question is: what are you going to do?

I really have no idea,
Sam admitted.
None of what she said is in her file. But if she were the star witness in a major trial, The Agency would know about it.

Maybe they do, but they kept that information from you?

No. They wouldn’t do that.

Chet just shrugged.

As he listened to her talk about the unfulfilled promises of her continued life and education, he tried to relate this to everything else he knew. But the new information looked like the wrong piece of the wrong puzzle.

Not a thing fits together.
Sam flipped through the file in his mind, searching for a clue that would tie Monica’s story to the intel Josha had provided. The school and the sudden disappearance might connect if he could trust what she’d said. But The Agency would never send him after someone just for testifying… Would they?

Maybe The Agency you now know isn’t the same one who hired you. Things change. Have you thought about that?

No. Sam hadn’t. And more importantly, he didn’t want to
. Yes, things do, but the simplest solution is usually the right one. So we have two choices: either we’re talking major corruption and conspiracy, or our mark is lying.

You have a point, but I’m telling you, something doesn’t smell right.

Sam tuned back in to Susan. “So, they stole your identity?”

“Witness protection, baby.”

“Wait, so you’re saying your name isn’t Susan?”

“Nope. Monica Sable, star witness and slave to the system.” She held out her hand. “Pleased to re-meet you.”

Gotcha,
Chet said.

“Wow. I don’t know what to say to that,” Sam told her, and he didn’t. Nothing lined up. Did she know a lot more than she let on? Had she simply been playing him all evening? He didn’t think so. Sometimes, those that lived underground created elaborate fabrications to explain away their situation. Monica’s intelligence had been a factor all along, and this story could just be another example of it.

Though WITSEC did explain the sudden disappearance in New York and her being here, in this town. It explained a lot of things.