The Best Revenge Page 6

  “For some reason, people like him don’t intimidate me. If they did, I never would have made it out of the FBI Academy. Female agents have to have especially thick skins. God knows that the Bureau has its share of self-righteous bullies. Fortunately, people like Prehost just get me riled.”

  “Won’t he turn you in to somebody for pointing your gun at him?”

  “No. He’d have to admit to spiking the road and harassing you. What just happened out there will become a story he embellishes for his cop buddies the next time he’s at his favorite saloon. But he’ll change it a little bit—in his version the girl won’t get the draw on him, I can promise you that.”

  Tom sat back on his chair. “So whatdoes scare you?”

  Kelda found it an interesting question. She pondered it a moment before she said, “Bees. Some spiders. Failing. Mice, a little, but not so much.”

  “But not bullies with badges and guns?”

  “Not them, no. I’ve never had a problem with them.”

  The Bloody Marys arrived. Tom lifted his glass. “To freedom, and freedom fighters.”

  Kelda acknowledged the compliment and touched her glass to his. The celery stalk and the tomato juice caused her to think about Christmas and long, white flannel nightgowns at dawn. As she sipped at the drink the fire from a healthy dose of peppers lit the back of her tongue.

  They both looked at the mountains.

  “God, this is good,” he said.

  “The Bloody Mary?”

  “Everything. This moment. You, the drink, this place, the mountains. Everything is good. I haven’t felt that for a long, long time.”

  Silence took over the space between them. “The dark, sometimes,” Kelda finally said.

  “What?”

  “You asked what scared me. The dark does sometimes.”

  Her admission caused his breathing to pause and he wondered if his heart had added an extra beat to its routine.

  The waitress arrived with their food. He was momentarily transfixed by the bounty that was placed before him. When he looked up from the table, Kelda was smiling at him.

  Tom said, “You don’t smile much. You should. It makes you even more attractive.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “that’s why I don’t do it.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Kelda and Tom had finally made it past the madness of T-Rex, the “transportation expansion” that was decimating seventeen miles of Denver’s primary interstate corridor in honor of the vanity that building more lanes of highway might somehow result in less traffic, and they were skirting downtown on I-25 near the new football stadium.

  Kelda said, “I think I’ll take you to Boulder myself. It’ll save you a bus ride on your first day out.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” He was trying to decide whether he liked the new stadium better than he’d liked Mile High.

  “I know I don’t. Look, I actually live in Lafayette. Going a little farther down the turnpike to Boulder is not that big a deal for me. I can run some errands while I’m there.”

  “Great, then, thanks,” Tom said. A moment later he added, “You just decided, didn’t you? To take me to Boulder. You were originally planning on taking me to the bus station, weren’t you?”

  “Just decided? No. I actually made up my mind back near Park Meadows.”

  She realized that Tom wouldn’t know what, or where, Park Meadows was. The huge mall had been conceived long after his incarceration began.

  He asked, “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you decide to pick me up today?”

  She checked her mirrors for Prehost’s Suburban, something she’d done regularly since fixing the flat. “Just so you understand. . . . What I did over the past few months in Park County? With the evidence in your case? That wasn’t about you. That was about justice. I was doing my job. There’s no benefit to any of us in this country when we convict the wrong man, let alone when we execute him.

  “Picking you up this morning? That was a combination of simple curiosity and me agreeing to do a favor for Tony Loving. And breakfast at the Broadmoor? To be honest, that was selfish; I wanted to treat myself. I really enjoy having breakfast at the Broadmoor, and I don’t get down that way very often. Let’s face it, asking you to wait in the car wouldn’t have been exactly polite. But since we sat down to eat, I’ve begun to come to the conclusion that you may be a decent enough guy, so I’ve decided to do you a small kindness by driving you to your grandfather’s house.”

  “Thank you for your honesty.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What kind of name is Kelda?”

  She shook her head and made a disappointed face. “Maybe some other time, Tom. The question is, like, so first-date-ish, you know what I mean?”

  Tom Clone’s grandfather lived on High Street, just off Fourteenth, at the end of the cul-de-sac that extended up from Casey School north of the Downtown Mall. The few blocks of High Street in Boulder hadn’t been named on a whim by some pioneer who’d enjoyed a little too much whiskey. The precious strip of land enjoyed prime territory on the front shelf of a bluff above downtown, and the views to the south were special. The red brick of the old city, the vaulting faces of the Flatirons, the miles of greenbelt around Chautauqua. The Rockies.

  The location was convenient, too. The charm of the Downtown Mall was within walking distance. Tom’s grandfather lived mere blocks from the offices of the doctors who cared for his myriad health problems, and he could buy groceries, his favorite brandy, and fresh bread minutes from his front door.

  Despite all that, the house that Tom’s mother had grown up in on High Street was almost worthless.

  But Tom’s grandfather slept well at night knowing that the land on which it rested was worth a fortune.

  You want to come in?” Tom asked Kelda.

  “No, thanks. You and your grandfather need some time together. And I have to get back home to my cat.” She didn’t have a cat, but the imaginary pet came in handy when she was in need of an excuse.

  They stood in front of the house. Tom’s duffel was at his feet. “Will you be at the press conference later?”

  Kelda said, “No, I won’t be there. Tony thinks that word is leaking out about my role in your release. Now that you’re out of prison I think it’s prudent for me to try to reduce my profile a little. This is a story I’d rather not become part of.”

  “Yeah. Tony told me that on the phone. I’m cool with that.”

  A whining drone increased in volume as a cherry red Vespa came into view from down the street.

  Tom said, “There he is. He said he got a new scooter. I like it. Do you like it?”

  “That’s your grandfather on that scooter?”

  Long gray hair flowed out from beneath a helmet that matched the bike. The driver raised a hand to wave before turning up toward the house.

  “That’s Grandpa. He’s had a bum hip for years, so he’s been getting around on a scooter since I was a kid. He’s always been kind of a legend in the neighborhood. Gave us all rides when we were kids, let us drive it around parking lots on Sundays. He’s a good guy.”

  “God bless him,” Kelda said.

  “Yeah,” Tom said.

  “What about the winter?”

  “Snowy days cramp his style.”

  “I bet they do.” She turned to leave. “Hey, good luck, Tom.”

  “Thank you. Thanks for everything.”

  Kelda stepped away from the awkwardness of their good-bye, slid back into the Buick, and watched through the windshield as an elderly man hobbled from the garage with the aid of a cane. His grandson saw him, too. Tom took a little skip and a hop before launching himself into the cartwheel/back flip combination that Kelda had first witnessed that morning just before dawn on the walkway leading up to the public entrance of the Colorado State Penitentiary.

  She circled the end of the cul-de-sac on High Street and chanced a final glance in the mirror.

  Tom was
two steps from his grandfather, his arms outstretched. As Tom closed on him, the thin, frail man actually took a clear step back, away from his grandson. Their eventual embrace was cordial, but not exuberant. A pat on the back, good-to-see-you kind of hug. As a child, Kelda got warmer greetings than that after she returned from a sleepover at a friend’s house. What did it mean that Tom Clone only got a pat on the back after thirteen years on death row?

  She wasn’t sure. Probably nothing.

  When she finally returned her attention to the road, she thought she saw the tail end of an old Chevy Suburban descending Fourteenth toward downtown Boulder.

  But she wasn’t quite sure about that either.

  Kelda didn’t bother to watch the news coverage of Tom and Tony’s press conference that afternoon.

  The drive from High Street in Boulder to her old farmhouse in Lafayette took her only about twenty minutes. Recently she’d been getting the uneasy feeling that new tract homes were filling the fallow fields near her two acres so fast that they were literally going up overnight. She told herself that it couldn’t be true.

  Couldn’t be. But she knew that it wasn’t going to be long before she was going to have neighbors who were close enough to peer through her windows.

  She parked the Buick in the shade cast by the two elms that were closest to her home, walked in the side door, and shut off her alarm. She flicked on the swamp cooler and began stripping off her clothes, sparing a moment to return the Sig Sauer to its temporary resting place on top of the highboy in her bedroom. She took a quick shower and pulled on a long T-shirt that was one of her few remaining mementos from the FBI Academy.

  Kelda was ready to begin her ritual.

  From the freezer in the kitchen she pulled six bags of frozen peas and carried them into her bedroom. The blinds on the window were closed against the relentless heat, and she left the light muted in the little room, though she did flick on the ceiling fan. On her bed she spread two bath towels and carefully aligned three bags of peas on each before folding the towels over to cover the plastic bags. She fluffed the pillows at the head of the bed before she propped herself against them, slowly lowering her legs onto the parallel rows of frozen vegetables.

  Beneath each leg, one bag of peas pressed against the meatiest part of her calf, another against the underside of her knee. The final bag pressed against the terrain where Kelda’s buttocks became her thigh.

  She slowed her breathing, forcing herself to inhale more deeply than usual. At first she felt no temperature change on her legs; the insulation of the terry cloth temporarily prevented the peas from yielding their chill. But as the seconds became minutes the cold began escaping the cotton, and she thought maybe she knew how addicts felt as the tip of the needle pierced their skin.

  Usually she thought she felt the pain most intensely at the instant when she was on the threshold of relief. This was one of those times. She tried not to cry but soon the tears were tracking down her cheeks. She captured one salty drop with the tip of her tongue and realized she was thirsty. Getting something to drink meant getting up and going to the kitchen. The act felt impossible to her.

  Impossible.

  Instead, she cried some more and used her tongue to steal each tear as it meandered toward her chin.

  She didn’t think she’d be able to nap but she did. Her last remembered thought was about Tom’s grandfather’s red Vespa. She wondered if maybe she should get one—if they were as helpful for bad legs as they were for bad hips. And she wondered if they came in green.

  When she awoke, the afternoon sun had just begun its descent toward the mountains. The air along the Front Range was calm, and the billowing clouds that could provide a canopy of relief were still tantalizing miles away over the Divide. The swamp cooler was losing its battle to make the tiny house temperate, and the rhythmic pulse of breeze from the ceiling fan washing over her bare skin offered the only respite from the heat.

  Beneath Kelda’s legs the peas had softened, and the thunder and lightning in her lower body had diminished its burn and roar. She stood and carried the flaccid bags of peas to the freezer, carefully hanging the damp towels over the backs of kitchen chairs to dry. The clock above the door that led out to the service pantry told her it was just after four in the afternoon.

  She mouthed a profanity at her forgetfulness and took quick steps toward the tiny bathroom. She crossed her arms in front of her and lifted the T-shirt over her head. She immediately turned her back to the mirror, looking over her left shoulder at a spot high above her scapula.

  The patch wasn’t there. Her heart skipped a beat and then she remembered she’d chosen a new location for the one she’d put on three days before. Kelda spun back around and without checking her reflection touched a spot on her right side, level with her navel. She slid a fingernail beneath the edge of the clear rectangular patch, grabbed the edge of the plastic, and ripped it off her skin. She dropped the solitary square inch of material into the toilet, and she flushed it away.

  The telephone rang.

  Kelda mouthed another profanity and half ran to the side of the bed. She sat on top of the comforter and crossed her legs before lifting the receiver.

  “Hello,” she said. It was her Bureau voice. She feared that the call was from somebody at the office wanting to harass her about what she’d been doing to help Tom Clone.

  The line went dead. She hit *69 and waited to hear the number of the last telephone that had been used to call her home. But the phone company’s system couldn’t—or wouldn’t—identify it. She logged the call in a notebook she kept beside the phone. It was the third hang-up she’d received in the past six days, since the rumors began surfacing about what she’d done to help Tom Clone.

  Before she had a chance to stand up, the phone rang again.

  She grimaced, cursing silently. “Hello,” she said, again using her Special Agent incantation.

  “Kelda? It’s Tom, Tom Clone.”

  She mouthed yet another profanity.

  “How did you get my number?”

  “I asked Mr. Loving for it. He gave it to me. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called, should I?”

  Damn, Tony,she thought.How about a little discretion? We had a deal, right? Jesus.

  “It’s okay. What can I do for you?”

  “Um, if this is a bad time . . . Look, I’m sorry. This was a mistake, obviously. I shouldn’t have bothered you again. You’ve been so great already. I’ll—”

  She sighed. “What is it you want? Just tell me, please.”

  “My grandfather? He and I have been talking. He’s come up with some conditions for me to live with him. They’re okay, they’re reasonable. I understand where he’s coming from. Basic things. He wants me to start looking for work within a week or so, which is fine—I was going to do it anyway.”

  “Yes?”

  “He wants me to talk to a lawyer friend of his about my options. I’d planned to do that anyway, too. And . . . he wants me to get some psychotherapy. Thinks I might have some issues to work through for some reason.”

  She ignored his attempt at humor. She said, “Your grandfather wants you to go into psychotherapy?” A fly landed on her knee and immediately jumped up to her left breast. She flicked it away with the back of her hand.

  “As you may have gathered earlier, my grandfather is not your typical eighty-year-old. He’s real bright, real sharp, and he tries to keep up with the world. He says he’s serious about the psychotherapy—that he doesn’t want me to carry around any baggage from what I went through in prison. It’s a pain, but he’s doing me a favor, right? I’ll humor him for a while. But I don’t know who to go see. I wondered, since you live close to Boulder, if you know of anybody here, or even out your way in Lafayette. I’d rather have a recommendation than just go to somebody cold, you know.”

  “Tony doesn’t know anyone you could see?”

  “Mr. Loving said he doesn’t know anything about anyone north of Denver.”

  Kelda
said, “I know one guy, in Boulder. His name is Dr. Alan Gregory. He’s good. Try him.”

  “You know his number?”

  “Check the phone book. I’m sure he’s there.”

  “Thanks,” Tom said. “That’s all I ever seem to say to you. I’d like to make it up to you at some point.”

  “That’s not necessary. Low profile, remember? No grand gestures, please.”

  “I understand.”

  “Listen, I need to run. Good-bye, Tom. Good luck.”

  After hanging up the phone, Kelda opened her closet and punched in the code that unlocked the heavy door on her little gun safe. From inside the safe she pinched a small foil-lined pouch out of a flimsy cardboard box. She clenched the edge of the pouch between her teeth while she retrieved her Sig Sauer from the top of the highboy and returned it to its home in the safe.

  The fly flew in with it.

  She said, “Stupid fly,” closed the door on the insect, and walked back to the bathroom. She ripped the pouch open, withdrew the solitary patch from inside, peeled the lining from the adhesive, and stuck the plastic square onto the firm skin of her abdomen six inches or so from her navel. This time the patch went on her left side.

  After keeping pressure on the patch for half a minute with the palm of her hand, she pulled the FBI Academy T-shirt back over her head and ran her fingers through her hair. The narcotics in the patch were absorbed slowly; the fentanyl wouldn’t make it through the membrane of the patch into her skin and from her skin into her bloodstream until sometime during the middle of the night.

  Which meant that if she wanted to dull the pain, she’d go through a lot of frozen peas and Percocet by bedtime.

  Out loud, she said, “Why the hell did I give him Alan’s name? God, Kelda. Think, think.”

  She thought about the fly inside the safe, and noticed that the light that was seeping into the room through the cracks in the blinds was slightly gray. She concluded that the clouds that had been building above the Divide must have finally blown down from the mountains.