Blood Silence (43 page)

“Why?”

“Because,” Ann replied quietly, “I just don’t think he wants to. I think he still carries a lot of anger about what happened, and he’s … he’s just not ready to let that go, Meredith.”

“He needs to. For his own good, he needs to.”

“Then there is one person you could call,” her mother replied. “There is one person he might listen to.”

• • •

Mac did celebrate a little on the flight. Sitting in first class, he had two very stiff Bloody Marys before the flight was out of Minnesota airspace. Then he drifted off, having to be awoken by a flight attendant when they landed. The cab ride home took fifteen minutes, and he went right up and started a shower.

Mac let the warm water just run over his tired body for twenty minutes. He toweled off and jumped into bed.

He’d been going flat out for two weeks.

His body shut down, and he slept.

He slept and slept until something woke him—a smell. A smell that made him smile, and he knew exactly where it was from. He eased his legs over the side of the bed and pulled on a pair of blue jeans and a gray, V-neck sweater and slowly made his way down to the kitchen, where he found Sally opening a bottle of wine. There were no words—he just went to her and hugged her and then kissed her softly. “Man, is it good to see you.”

“Right back at you,” she answered, cupping his face gently with her right hand and looking into his still-tired and weary eyes. “You’ve been one busy boy.”

He nodded and looked to his left, at the table, with a single lit candle and boxes of Italian food, with music playing lightly. It was what they often did after they’d been apart. It was their little reunion ritual. She led him by the hand over to the table and sat him down, and together they quietly dug into the boxes, loading spaghetti, fettuccini, and mostaccioli onto their plates.

They ate, talking, mostly about her week and the wedding venue she’d picked. He was eager to go see the Davidson House and knew that there was much planning in store, which they both enthusiastically talked about. It was a welcome break from the last two weeks. Mac didn’t want to talk about the investigation, Meredith, North Dakota—any of it.

It was enough to have lived through it.

He just relaxed. The sound of her voice had that effect on him—that and great Italian food and a smooth red wine.

Once they were down to only the wine, Sally switched gears. “Meredith must have been happy
and grateful
,” she offered as she poured them each another glass of wine.

“I suppose” was the only response Mac could muster. No, that wasn’t entirely fair, he thought. “I imagine she is grateful.”

“But you don’t know because you didn’t stay to find out, right?” There was a tone, not a disapproving one necessarily, but a knowing one—a tone born of over three years together and her ability to always know what he was thinking. It amazed him at times how well she knew him.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to get home to you,” Mac replied, which was very much the case, but not the whole truth, and Sally knew it. She saw right through the answer.

She quickly reached for his hands. “I love you, and I know you wanted to get back here. I mean, how could you not? Look at all this,” she added, quickly striking a sexy pose with a seductive smile.

Mac smiled. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

“But be honest with me,” Sally pushed. “Getting back to me wasn’t the only reason, was it?”

Mac shrugged, not answering.

“Come on, you ran because you are still very,
very
angry at her, aren’t you?” she asked. “Even after all these years.”

He sipped from his wine, not wanting to respond.

“Aren’t you?”

He nodded, looking down into his wine glass.

“I thought so,” Sally replied, taking a small sip of wine.

“Can I ask a question?” Mac asked, gesturing toward her with his wine glass. “Why do you care?”

“Why do I care?”

“Yes, why do you care about this?”

“Selfishly, I’ll admit a part of me likes that you’re still angry with her. She’s a smart, intelligent, and beautiful woman who has a history of getting exactly what she wants when she wants it. Most women in my position, even if she was your ex-wife, would be very leery of her.”

“That,” Mac replied, looking Sally dead in the eye, “is not something you have to worry about.”

“I know. What I worry about is you.”

“Me?”

“I know what that divorce did to you,” she answered, slowly twirling her wine glass. “Yet what you did here was one of the more selfless acts I’ve ever seen someone do, even if you had to be talked into it at first. For someone who makes you so angry, who hurt you so badly, you still risked your life for her to stay out of jail and to have a life.”

“Let’s not get crazy here.”

“Oh, really?” Sally replied. “Care to review the last couple of nights? Or perhaps last Sunday night in Minneapolis, chasing those guys through Meredith’s neighborhood? You laid it on the line there, pal.”

“What’s your point?”

“Meredith called me.”

“Again?” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Sal.”

“It’s okay. She called me to thank me.”

“To thank you?” he asked quizzically.

“Yes. To thank me for asking you to do this, and she asked me to thank you because she knows you’ll never let her do it. In fact, she thinks that’s part of her punishment. That she’ll never get to express her gratitude. That you want to hang it over her head for the rest of her life.”

“She’s right about that.”

“And that’s the other reason she called,” Sally replied. “She knows you better than you think. She knows you’ll never get over being angry with her. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have regrets, because I think she does.”

“I don’t.”

“Really?” Sally asked. “You don’t believe that.”

“I know I don’t regret a thing
I
did.”

“And you shouldn’t.”

“So why the inquisition on this, then?” he asked wearily.

“We’re getting married, and I can’t wait. I wish tomorrow were the day. I can’t wait to be married to you. But this anger you have for her, you don’t have to carry it for me.”

“I’m not.”

“But you are carrying it, and … it’s not good for you to carry and to keep.”

“You don’t understand …”

“Oh, I understand,” Sally persisted. “I was just like you, Mac. I was a cheated-on spouse, eventually left for another woman. I know the feeling—the anger, the betrayal—I know it all. That’s why I’m telling you that you have to let that all go.”

“Have you let it go? Have you stopped being angry at your ex-husband?”

“I’d be lying if I said every once in a while it doesn’t pop into my head and I get a little sad. But the reality is he wasn’t happy, I was starting to get unhappy, so it was probably going to end one way or another.” She took a sip of her wine. “I just decided I didn’t like carrying around the anger anymore. It wasn’t healthy for me, and it’s not healthy for you. I just wanted to stop being angry about it.”

“How’d you let it go?” They’d never talked about this. He’d assumed she felt about her first marriage much the way he felt about his to Meredith.

“I never told you this, but six months ago when his new wife had their child, I sent a baby gift—a really nice gift, and I felt good when I sent it. A week later, David called to thank me. It had been a long time since we’d spoken to one another. We talked, and I wished him well, he wished me well—we were both really sincere, and it was a really good talk. It was cathartic. I felt freer for it, and I’ve hardly looked back on my marriage or any of it since.”

Mac nodded, looking down.

“Look, one of the reasons I suggested you take her case was to give you the chance at this closure. I figured if you did this, you would have a chance to maybe find that peace. I think you need it, to do it, to just let it go.”

Mac sat back in his chair and exhaled, slowly shaking his head.

In one sense, he felt as if he was in
The Twilight Zone
again. His fiancée was asking him to forgive his ex-wife. How was that possible?

In another sense, being angry with Meredith was something he had carried with him for four years. It motivated him. It drove him. He was determined to prove her wrong, to show her what she’d missed out on, to make her regret it.

Now he had that.

He’d proven it to her in the most personal way he possibly could have.

Did that make him happy?

Did it give him any peace?

Those were the questions Sally was really asking.

He chuckled to himself. A little coerced introspection can go a long way.

In that moment, he knew Sally was right, that whatever motivation he’d taken from the divorce, it was time to just let it go and move on. “How’d you become such a good amateur psychologist?”

“I don’t know,” she answered quietly. “All I do know for sure is that I want us to be married and both of us have that feeling of peace with everything that happened before. I want us to leave the past behind and focus only on the future.”

“That sounds like a good plan.”

T
wo weeks later.

The late-November morning was beautiful, a bright-blue cloudless sky, a little crispness in the fifty-degree air as Mac jogged along the Mall, Rascal Flatts playing in his earphones.

He’d gone nearly eight miles this morning. Jogging throughout DC, there was so much to look at and take in. It didn’t really feel as though he’d gone that far as he passed by the Lincoln Memorial and made his way back toward the brownstone. As he turned the corner onto his street, he had an odd feeling of déjà vu. Parked in front of townhouse was the black limousine of Judge Dixon.

He’d really tried not to think about it much since he’d gotten home.

The chase along Highway 85 had come to him repeatedly in his sleep, waking him, often in a cold sweat. Other than accidentally seeing a report about Deep Core being forced to suspend all drilling by the North Dakota Industrial Commission, he’d paid no attention to the fallout. He didn’t care. Meredith was free and clear—that was all that really mattered. The rest would sort itself out.

But it was the Judge.

“The last time you parked in front of my place, two weeks later I ended up in Williston, North Dakota,” Mac exclaimed as he came to a stop, extending his very sweaty right hand, which the Judge took.

“How are you sleeping?” The Judge got right to it. “Still having the nightmares?”

Mac shrugged. “Yeah, but maybe not as much. Now when it pops into my mind, I wake up. So I don’t have the nightmare.”

“But then you don’t sleep.”

“It’ll pass. It always does,” Mac answered. “So what brings you here, Judge?”

“An update,” the Judge replied. “It’s a beautiful morning, my docket was light, and I had some information I thought might interest you in return for a cup of joe.”

Mac led the Judge into the kitchen and started the coffee. For the moment, Mac stuck to water. Hydration was needed first. Mac actually asked the first question. “Were you able to get Coolidge’s nephew in the right pile for Annapolis?”

“I spoke with the Secretary of the Navy, and I believe young Tyrone Coolidge will find a favorable result in his application to the Naval Academy.” The Judge took out a folder from his briefcase. “So, we finally identified those two killers. Their names are Clint Slocum and Royce Dalton.”

“Those sound like good old Southern boy names.”

“Texans to be exact, so your initial hunch on their state of origin proved correct.”

“How’d the FBI identify them?”

“Well, they did all their fancy facial recognition looking and whatnot, and eventually, they found them by talking to Wheeler’s mother. Turns out these two were childhood friends of Wheeler. They grew up just down the street from him out in Odessa, Texas.”

“How’d they become professionals?”

“The DEA helped with that once they had names and earlier photos. Turns out it was the drug cartels,” the Judge answered. “They both went down to work as ranch hands in Mexico and eventually found their way to a ranch owned by Rodrigo Diaz, who was a higher-up in the Monterrey Cartel. They were proficient with guns, and Diaz put them to work, and apparently they didn’t have a problem with killing. Diaz was eventually gunned down in a turf war with another cartel, and these two made for the US. Eventually, they crossed paths again with their buddy Dan Wheeler. As you know, Deep Core was involved in some drilling issues in Wyoming four years ago. Three locals ended up dead—executed. The cases are unsolved.”

“These two did it?” Mac asked.

“The FBI thinks it’s likely. Deep Core was there and having trouble, Wheeler was their man there, and by that time, these two were back in the United States, so it seems to fit.”

“So now we know who killed Shane. Who killed all of them,” Mac replied, appreciating the sense of closure. He poured himself some coffee and refilled the Judge. “I guess it’s now all wrapped up with a pretty red bow.”

“Not quite,” Dixon answered. “There is one open question.”

“Which is?”

“Who killed O’Herlihy. The Bureau wanted me to ask you if you had any ideas on that.”

“You’re running errands for the FBI now?” Mac asked with a dig.

“No,” the Judge answered. “I had the information about these two killers and figured you’d be interested. So … any thoughts on who would kill this O’Herlihy?”

“When a guy like that gets killed, it’s about the money, Judge. Who lost money?”

“That’s what I was thinking as well. And you’d said something about Deep Core needing an infusion of cash, and they did get one—forty million dollars.”

“So there’s your answer,” Mac replied, leaning against the counter.

“But we don’t know where the money came from. No record. One day, suddenly, Deep Core had the money to get their operation going. One day O’Herlihy was flush with cash.”

“That tells me he probably got it from one person,” Mac answered. “Who gives you forty million dollars?”