The Constantine Conspiracy (32 page)
“You’re attracted to me?”
“You just want me to say it again, don’t you?”
“A girl always likes to hear that kind of thing.”
“Okay, I’m attracted to you.”
“Was that so hard?”
Silence came again, then Rick pushed up the left sleeve of his shirt and turned to her where she could see the tattoo on the upper part of his bicep. “It’s Chinese,” he said. “My tattoo.”
“So?”
“It’s the Chinese symbol for ‘full life,’” he said. “Like your
zoë
. I wanted to mention it earlier but it . . . well, it seems to mean more now.”
“Interesting,” she offered.
“That’s all you have to say?”
“Coincidence, Rick. What else?”
He hesitated, dropped his eyes, then looked up again. “I just thought . . .”
“What? That our tattoos, the same meaning, meant something? Our same middle names, might as well throw that in too, right? Come on, Rick, that’s superstition, you’re better than that.”
“But we’re attracted to each other, we both admit that.”
“Love, Rick, that’s what it takes. Love plus faith. If either is missing, it’s a no-go, a deal-breaker. Besides, I’ve got work left with the Order. I’d like your assistance, but if that’s not available I’ll have to do it myself.”
He stood, walked to the window, and stared out, his feelings hurt. “So I’m not good enough for you, is that it? I’m okay if I’ll rat out my grandfather for your Order. But I’m subpar if I don’t embrace your religion.”
He faced her again, his frustration rising as the rejection sank in. “You’re as much of a snob as I ever was,” he said. “Looking down your judgmental nose at me. I’m beneath you, a heathen, spiritual rubbish.”
“No, Rick, that’s not it!” she sat up again. “But I have a calling to stop the Conspiracy.”
“A calling?”
“I took an oath when I entered the Order, a vow to protect the faith against its enemies.”
“I hear it’s more about revenge for your mom and dad,” he said, stepping to the bedside again, his anger making him say hurtful things. “Not exactly a Christian motive, is it?”
Tears slipped into her eyes. “I’m not pure, Rick. I confess that. Sure, I entered the Order for revenge and that’s part of what drives me, always will be. But I’ve grown since then, it’s more than revenge now. I have to stop them before they destroy faith here, then across the world, maybe forever. I can’t turn my back on that for anything, anyone, not even somebody I love.”
Rick stiffened. “Love?”
“Yes, you fool, love. I think I love you, least I’m headed toward that. There, I’ve said it and I feel like a clown but I can’t help it. I loved you before I ever met you, what I learned of you as I prepared, watched, waited. And you’ve done nothing to disappoint me since. But you are a secularist and I can’t accept that, no matter that I want to with my whole heart.”
Rick stepped to her, but she held up a hand to keep him away.
“No,” she said. “We can’t, I already told you that.”
“But you say you love me and I . . . I don’t know, maybe I feel the same way about you, I’m not sure, I’m confused.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “My faith won’t let me act on my emotions. We see the world through different eyes, no matter what I feel.”
“What kind of God wants you to walk away from what you feel? Isn’t God all about love? Didn’t I see that once on a billboard? God is love.”
“That’s a different kind of love, Rick.”
“What kind of love is better than what two people feel for one another?”
“A sacrificial love. A selfless love. The kind God feels for us.”
“What the heck does that mean?”
She closed her eyes to stop the tears. “When you find out, come back to me, then we can talk.”
“Don’t bet your last dollar expecting that.”
“Then there’s no hope for us.”
Rick hung his head. “I don’t understand you, Shannon.”
“I’m sorry,” she offered, eyes open again. “But I don’t know what else to say, how to explain it.”
He backed away, too hurt to argue anymore. “The security will stay,” he said. “You too, until you’re better. But . . . I guess . . . I guess I’m done here.”
“Don’t leave me, Rick. That’s not what I want.”
He laughed, but it had no joy in it. “You want to use me,” he said. “Just like Pops, only for different purposes.”
“Where will you go?” She wiped her eyes.
“Maybe back to Pops—at least he accepts me like I am.”
“You can’t do that; you said you wouldn’t.”
“He says I can do whatever I want with the Conspiracy— no violence, lead it forward however I like.”
“It always ends up using violence, that’s the history of the movement.”
“It’s not your problem, Shannon.”
“But it is!” She raised from the bed, her elbows under her ribs.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Call me?”
“Not this time.”
With that he pivoted and left the room, his shoulders sagging, and his heart heavy. His mother was insane, his father was dead, his grandfather was a cancer-ridden conspirator, and the woman he cared about more than anybody he’d ever met was a Jesus freak. Add to those tidbits the fact that he’d soon lose his wealth and the fame that went with it and everything was screwed, himself most of all.
A
fter Rick left Shannon, he put aside his hurt and got practical. He gave a bodyguard his bank card and password and sent him to an ATM machine to find out if Pops had already emptied his account. Then he went home and gathered a few clothes. Fifteen minutes later the bodyguard returned with five hundred dollars, and Rick quickly took the money and put it with the rest of his cash. He needed to visit the bank before it closed, he decided, take out every dollar, just over a million in money market funds the last time he’d looked. He’d call his financial advisor too, sell all his stocks and bonds and get the proceeds in a cashier’s check, claim every dime he could before the Conspiracy cleaned him out.
A surge of energy passed through him as he left his bodyguards, hopped into a golf cart in the garage, and drove to Pops’ house. An attendant greeted him at the door, but he rushed past her and headed up to the home’s study, a massive room with bookshelves from floor to ceiling on three walls. Time to find some answers, he decided, something to prove or disprove Shannon’s accusations about Pops. He gave the place a thorough search, desktop, drawers, computer files, everywhere he could think to look. Nothing obvious stood out, no clue to anything that had happened or was about to happen.
Hoping to find a hidden portal, he ran his hands over a variety of spots on the bookshelves but again came up empty. If Pops had a secret room in the place, he kept it well hidden.
Rick headed to the master bedroom next, a corner area bordered with ceiling-high windows that opened to a back patio on the first floor. As in the study, he inspected the space stem to stern but with no success. Other than a sheet listing Pops’ travel itinerary that he found on the ornate writing desk sitting by the bed, he turned up nothing. He quickly checked the itinerary: private jet to St. Louis in the morning, limo drive to Junction City by noon, funeral at 3:00. Return in reverse process. Nothing unusual in any of that.
To be expected, Rick thought, pausing to get his bearings. A man as smart as Pops didn’t leave evidence of his business—legitimate or otherwise—lying around in public view. He thought of Pops’ office complex in Midtown but dismissed the idea as impractical. Too many people there, multiple levels of security, too complicated to find anything incriminating if Pops didn’t want it found. And, if he had increased his security, then he’d already removed any evidence from his office or anywhere else.
Frustrated, Rick grabbed the itinerary, left the house, and drove to his parents’ place. Although Shannon had inspected the panic room, he wanted to go through it again, plus look over the rest of the mansion. At the front door he keyed in the security codes and entered the empty entryway. The loneliness of the place gripped him like never before, draining some of his adrenaline. He stood for several seconds, listened to the silence, and his mood sank even lower. He possessed everything that money could buy but felt like he had nothing really worth owning. He thought of his mom and resolved again to bring her home as soon as possible, to fill up the house with her and Luisa, maybe Tony too if he’d move in to watch over things for him. Someday perhaps he’d add a wife and children to the mix.
A little more hopeful, he hurried to the panic room. To his surprise he found the door open. Crime scene tape remained stuck to the walls on either side of the door, and he ripped it off, stepped into the room, and found it scrubbed. No television, no computer, no pictures, nothing to indicate that a human had ever occupied the space. Bothered but undaunted, he left the panic room and moved to the bedroom. He searched the nightstands first but found the drawers empty. An inspection of his parents’ desk proved equally unfulfilling. Except for a couple of pens, a box of paper clips, six rubber bands, and a handful of other assorted items, he found nothing else.
Rick moved to the closets and discovered them empty also. He stepped back and examined the rest of the room. Except for the family pictures hanging over the desk and artwork on the walls, no evidence remained of any human occupants, now or ever.
His hopes lowered, Rick left the bedroom and stepped to a theater room just off the kitchen in the back of the house. In the past he and his family often ate there, then watched movies or played games together. Sometimes they just sat in silence and read, content with each other’s company, a retreat from the constant attention they received as one of America’s most iconic families. His favorite place, Rick realized as he inspected the area—a cozy room with a stone fireplace, lots of old pictures and warm memories.
He stood still while he looked around, his body framed in the middle of the room, his head tilted as if expecting to hear somebody speak. Nobody did. He twisted a complete circle as his eyes raked over the space—another area cleaned of everything but pictures. All the energy suddenly drained from his body, and he felt completely stripped down—singular, a microscopic nothing floating in vacuum occupied by nobody but him. He almost laughed. So it boiled down to this. Subtract the limelight, remove the family, cut away the props of fame and fortune, and what did he have left? Not much, he concluded—reasonable intelligence, decent looks, and a good education, but no real friends, no real purpose in getting up every day, no real sense of why he existed. Revealing, he concluded, how he’d never considered these issues until now. Almost thirty years of life before his first bout of introspection.
He shrugged and scanned the area once more but again saw nothing worthwhile. No red light blinking, no finger pointing to a way out of his situation. He turned to go but then realized he’d never enter the room again if Pops followed through on his promise and he ended up destitute and homeless. A lump the size of a baseball filled his throat. He needed something, he decided, a memento to remember the good times he’d experienced with his mom and dad. A picture, he figured, about the only thing left for him to take.
Pushing down his grief, Rick stepped to the row of photographs hanging over the fireplace and searched them over. Which one to take? Most included everybody—mom, dad, and son. Although he’d vaguely noticed the images over the years, he studied them one by one this time, as if seeing them for the first time. Three rows of five pictures. He and his folks in the gardens in Victoria, Canada; at a bullfight in Spain; at the ruins of a Mayan Temple; at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His eyes landed on the picture exactly in the middle of the group and he stopped. Weird. Dust covered the top of the photo, like it had been in storage for a long time, not out where the maids could have cleaned it.
He stepped closer to the photograph, one he felt confident he hadn’t seen until today. His dad held him on his shoulders and his mom had an arm looped in his dad’s elbow. Behind the family stood a substantial building made of white stone, obviously a government building. The family stood by a street sign, his father leaning against the pole.
Rick read the street sign in the photo—Constitution Avenue. A vague memory clicked into place. He and his folks had traveled to the nation’s capital for his sixth birthday. Visited all the usual sights—the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, the Smithsonian. On a couple of later visits that he vividly remembered, he’d learned that several of the Smithsonian museums, the National Gallery of Art, and the Lincoln Memorial lined the south side of Constitution Avenue. His mom and dad loved those places, especially the Gallery of Art. His dad in particular spent hours there, studying the art, staring at the displays.
Rick flipped over the photo, saw the date and time stamped to the back. Puzzled, he stepped back and tried to figure out the significance, if any, of the recently placed photo. Who hung it? When? And most importantly, why?
His mouth dropped open. He grabbed the paper folded in his back pocket, flipped it open and read again the address on Pops’ itinerary, the location of Justice Toliver’s final resting place: 311 Constitution Avenue, Junction City, Missouri.
CONS—all capitals! Not conspiracy, although that fit too.
Rick read the cemetery address again, then looked back at the photo and knew they were connected. But how?
He studied the itinerary a final time, glanced back at the photo. “Did you leave this for me to find, Dad?” he whispered. “But when? And what does it mean? Is something happening at Justice Toliver’s funeral?”
He stepped to the fireplace and leaned against it. His mother had said it also: CONS, Constitution. Did she have information for him too?
Unable to answer the questions banging in his brain, he pulled out his phone and called Pops.
“Hello, Rick,” Pops said. “You figured things out yet?”
“What’s going down at the judge’s funeral?” he asked quickly.
“I’m not sure what you mean. Has Miss Bridge filled your head with more nonsense?”
“Forget her, she’s out of the picture.”