Southern Cross (37 page)

“He is.”

“And you’re still here.”

“I am,” I said with a nod, trying for casual. “I
mean—you’re still burned and broken and concussed. It didn’t seem right to just
leave you in Kentucky.”

“I appreciate that.” He patted the side of his bed. “Come
here.”

I went over and sat gingerly on the edge.

“I’m not gonna break, Solomon. Get up here.” He scooted
over. I scooted over. We both lay back, his arm around my shoulders, my head on
his chest. He smelled like burn ointment—surprisingly, not in a bad way.

“You all right?” he asked.

“I think so.” I fell silent, thinking yet again about
everything that had happened. “Mitch Cameron was behind this,” I said quietly,
after a long while. We hadn’t discussed this yet, but he didn’t seem
surprised—at the revelation or the direction the conversation had taken.

“I thought as much,” he said. 

“And J. Enterprises…”

“…has to have something to do with your father,” he
finished for me.

I closed my eyes, listening to Diggs’ heart beat. “They’ve
killed a hell of a lot of people.”

“They have.”

He rolled to his side so he could look at me. I studied him
for a minute, running my finger along the slope of his nose, his cheekbones and
jaw. I lingered at his lips, tracing the lines there. He kissed my fingertip,
scraping his teeth along the pad with just a hint of devil in his eyes. We had
yet to acknowledge the kiss-at-the-end-of-the-world thing, or what we planned
to do about it. The feel of his lips on my skin made the question seem more
pressing than it had. 

“So,” he finally prompted me. “What are you going to do?”

“About?” I asked, though I knew what he meant.

“Are we still pretending Mitch Cameron doesn’t exist?” He
looked at me seriously. “Because if that’s what you want to do, I’ll do it.
We’ll pretend we never heard the name. Never saw his face.”

“And all those people you watched die three days ago?” I
asked. “Glenda Clifton and the professor and your druggie friend? The boy
soldiers and all the other men, women, and children… Casey, who almost lost her
leg? The families I knew from Payson Church? What do we do about them?”

His eyes held on mine, eyebrows up. “I don’t know. This is
your call, ace.”

I bit my lip, considering that. “I can’t drop it this
time,” I said softly. Even saying the words was terrifying. He leaned in and
kissed me, light and fast.

“Okay,” he said. “Then we’ve got work to do.”

He nodded to the drawer in the nightstand by his bed. “Open
that up and hand me the envelope inside there, would you?” Suddenly, he was all
business. I almost got whiplash at the shift. “And grab my laptop.”

He all but pushed me out of bed. Ah, the joys of dating a
newspaper man.

“I thought you were supposed to be resting.”

“I’ll rest in a minute. First, I need to show you
something.”

I fetched the envelope and his laptop. He pulled a memory
card from the envelope and fired up his computer. A jumble of meaningless
numbers scrolled endlessly across the screen as soon as he put the card in.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s encrypted.”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “I got that part. But where did you
get it? What’s the relevance to what we’re doing here?”

He hesitated. “I’m not sure. But that professor I told you
about? When I found his body, he was clutching this in his hand. When we were
talking, he told me he studied Christian fundamentalism and cult behaviors. My
focus at first was the fundamentalism, but what if that was a smokescreen? What
if J. Enterprises—and whoever they represent—is more focused on the cult side
of things?”

“The senator found murdered in Washington last spring—Jane
Bellows,” I said. “She did a lot of work around legislation regarding cults.
And obviously my father and the Payson Church…”

He nodded. We were on the same page. “The professor and his
grad students were the only ones at Kildeer who were shot. As though Jenny
needed to make sure that, whatever else happened, those three didn’t get out,
and that the building went up in flames…”

“You think all this was over a professor in a third-rate
college in Kentucky and his thesis on cults?”

He ran his hand through his hair. I caught just a hint of a
tremor there and stood, taking the laptop from him.

“Okay,” I said. “We’re gonna talk about this later.” 

“Why? I’m fine.”

“No.” I shook my head firmly. “You’re not fine—you got
blown up. A lot.” I took out the memory card, returned it to the envelope, and
put the computer away. Diggs scooted back down in his bed. The fact that he
didn’t fight harder told me he really wasn’t quite as unaffected by all this as
he’d like me to believe.

“I’ll go and let you sleep.”

I caught a flicker of vulnerability on his face before he
could hide it. I thought of the boy I’d seen on Barnel’s tape, with the Bugs
Bunny boxers and the will of steel; the kid who wouldn’t be broken.

“Unless you’d rather I stay,” I said.

“You can if you want,” he said. God, he was a pain in the
ass. “I mean… you know, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“It’ll only make me feel better if you actually sleep.”

He patted a spot beside him. “I will if you will.”

I kicked off my shoes and returned to the bed. We lay down
facing one another.

“So…” he said.

“So…” I said.

He rested his hand on my side, niftily finding the hem of
my shirt with little to no effort. I quirked an eyebrow.

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“I want to take you out.” His fingers moved lightly along
my bare skin. It wasn’t doing a lot for my concentration.

“And I repeat: I thought you were sleeping.”

“Not
now
,” he clarified. “When we get home. We’ve
never really gone on a date before.”

I curled my hand around his roving digits and returned them
to the outside of my clothes. “You know I just broke up with someone, right?”

I expected him to make a joke. Possibly disparage Juarez’s manhood or something. Instead, he stayed serious, a line at the center of his
forehead.

“I know that,” he said. “If it makes you feel any better, Juarez gave us his blessing. He even wished me luck; I think he might be under the
impression that you’re more woman than I can handle.”

“And what do you think?”

He grinned. “I think I’m gonna have a lot of fun trying.”

I fell silent again. I was completely on board with the
fact that Jack and I weren’t meant to be; really, by the end it couldn’t have
been clearer. But that didn’t change the reality, which was that I still had a
bunch of his shirts in my dresser and his spare toothbrush beside mine back
home. Diggs may have made a habit of bed-hopping for the past twenty years, but
that had never really been my M.O.

“Well, I’m glad you guys have it all figured out for me,
then,” I said. Diggs smiled, amused at my indignation. Somehow, his hand had
made it back under my shirt. Tricky bastard.

“I told you: I just want to take you on a date.” He leaned
in and kissed me, very lightly, his hand migrating a little higher up my shirt.
He nipped my lip before he moved back again. That devil spark was back in his
eye. “I’ve decided to sweep you off your feet.”

I laughed, though the look in his eye and the thing he was
doing with his hand was really making me rethink my policy on bed-hopping.

“You have, huh? I don’t know that I’m ready for that.”

The spark faded, just a little, replaced with an intensity
that Diggs rarely showed the world. “I’ve been half-assed about being in love
with you for too long,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. I forgot how to
swallow. “I plan on making up for that.”

“Okay,” I said. Or croaked, really. He looked infinitely
amused, the intensity gone as suddenly as it had come.

“And that starts with a date,” he said simply.

“All right,” I said. His eyes drifted shut, but he was
still smiling. I leaned up and kissed him, fast, then snuggled in with his arms
around me.

Finally, an apocalypse with a happy ending.

Three days later, Diggs and I were ready to hit the road
for Maine. The Durham’s yard was overflowing, as Mae seemed to have had some
kind of epiphany when Danny survived Barnel’s end times. She’d even invited
Danny’s band, including a wheelchair-bound Casey Clinton and Casey’s brother
and sister, Dougie and Willa. At the moment, the littlest Clintons were hanging
out with Grace and Einstein: Einstein and Dougie chased each other around the
yard while Willa sat quietly beside Grace, gently brushing the dog’s silky
fur. 

George Durham was smuggling out paper cups of rotgut
whiskey, and Buddy Holloway—who in all likelihood would be crowned sheriff
before long—was pretending not to notice. The rest of the Durhams were also in
attendance: Rick and Ida; Ashley and Terry and the Nordic toddler, Angus. Sally
Woodruff had threatened to make an appearance, but Diggs assured her that while
Mae might have turned over a new leaf, there was no way in hell she was ready
to embrace a godless abortion doctor. At least, not yet. Sally had been
surprisingly gracious about that. 

“You sure you had enough to eat?” Mae asked when Diggs announced
that we were heading out.

I was so stuffed I’d never button my jeans again. Diggs
looked at me. “We should probably pack another couple of cookies for the road.”

I didn’t argue.

Diggs went over to say goodbye to Rick and Danny, who were
hanging out together on the sidelines with the band. It seemed even they had
gotten closer since the whole end of the world thing. The fact that Rick had
nearly gotten everyone killed by falling for a Bible nerd with a crazy
Apocalyptic grandpa had apparently endeared him to Danny; he said it took his
brother down a couple of pegs. It didn’t hurt that Danny’s recollection of
Rick’s project on the tunnels and catacombs beneath Kildeer Auditorium had
saved everyone’s lives, either.

“You guys can come visit us in Maine anytime,” Diggs said.
He seemed to be talking to the whole band. That was definitely their
impression, anyway.

“Sure,” Danny said. “We could do a tour of New England.” His hand rested on Casey’s shoulder.

Of everyone, Casey was the one I worried about the most—for
the obvious reason that, according to doctors, she was in for months of
physical therapy and potential surgery before she was back on her feet. Beyond
that, though, there was a weariness about her that I hadn’t seen when we first
met. It was inevitable after what she’d been through, but I hoped that somehow
she would make it through everything intact.

While Diggs was chatting with the boys, I pulled Casey
aside and gave her my card again.

“If you need anything, this is how you can reach me. Even
if it’s just to talk. Or bitch about dating a music geek.” She laughed at that.
I smiled, then got serious. “If you have any problems with the dog, or anything
else… Medical stuff with your leg, even—you can call me. My mother and her
partner are both surgeons. If you feel like you’re not getting what you need
down here, just pick up the phone.”

“I will,” she said with a nod. “Thank you.”

I thought of everything she had stacked against her: an
abusive father, no money, two kids depending on her, and now the physical
issues she’d be facing with her leg. Then, I thought of Mitch Cameron again.
Right now, Casey was relying on her father’s crappy insurance to handle her
medical bills. Which meant that added to all the other problems she had, she’d
be fighting with insurance companies for at least the next year or so.

Whoever was in charge of J. Enterprises had seemingly
limitless resources.

If no one else got it, Casey Clinton deserved a little
justice in all this.

“I’ll be in touch,” I told her earnestly. She looked at me
in surprise, clearly caught off guard at my intensity. “I don’t want you to
worry about things, all right? There’ll be a lot coming at you, but you’re not
alone in this. People will be looking out for you.”

“Uh…Okay.”

Good job, Solomon: Freak out the girl in the wheelchair.
Well played. Diggs looked at me, nodding toward the car.

“You ready to go, ace?”

I nodded. Definitely ready to go. We hugged the rest of the
crew and then Diggs slipped his hand in mine as we headed for the car.

With our goodbyes behind us, Einstein hopped into the
backseat without too much coaxing, then promptly settled his fuzzy chin in the
back window with his mournful brown eyes on Grace. The retriever had reclaimed
her place beside Casey, with Dougie and Willa at her feet. Grace looked at
Stein once, then reached out and tentatively licked Willa’s face. The little
girl giggled.

Diggs leaned in with his arm around my waist and his lips
at my ear. “You really think Stein will make it without her?” he asked.

Grace lay down and offered her belly to the Clinton trio. “Honestly? I don’t think he has much choice.”

Einstein whimpered once, then circled in the backseat
before he settled in for the ride. I was selfishly pleased I wouldn’t have to
share him with another woman, but I chose not to acknowledge such pettiness.

I took the wheel for a change this time out, since Diggs
was still under the weather. Once we hit the main stretch headed for Maine, I checked the rearview. Diggs followed my gaze.

“See anything?” he asked.

“No. I don’t really expect to, though,” I said, thinking of
Cameron’s words to me.
I’m not an ally in all this.
Ally or not, I knew
he was out there. And there was no doubt in my mind that we would be crossing
paths again. “We’ll need to be careful now, you know. No more charging into the
fray. We know they’re watching. Cameron already said he’ll kill you if we don’t
stop.”

“So, we’ll be careful,” Diggs said. He squeezed my hand.
“We just won’t back down this time.”

I expected him to turn on the radio once we were on our
way, if only for a final fix of Crazy Jake Dooley. Instead, he settled in with
his feet on the dashboard and looked at me speculatively.

“All right,” he said, serious as a heart attack. “You’ve
put me off long enough. Let’s have it.”

“Let’s have what?”

“Your top twenty-four, Solomon. From the top.”

It was gonna be a long ride home.