The Eighth Guardian (31 page)

Except that now I know she
did
love me. She tried so hard to protect me. I shake my head; but the guilt remains, firmly nuzzled, no intention of budging.

The second picture sits on my mom’s dresser in her bedroom. It was taken on their wedding day. They’re looking right at the camera. I spent hours staring at that picture as a child. I used to talk to it. Talk to my dad.

In my head, my dad is going to look exactly like that picture tomorrow. Young. Handsome. Wearing a tuxedo and a bow tie.

Okay, that’s probably not going to happen. But it might.

I wake up Yellow at six the next morning, mainly because I’m jumpy, and I can’t sit there and watch her sleep anymore.

“Plan,” Yellow says as she flops our cocktail napkins full of poorly thought-out gibberish onto the bed. “We need to have a better idea what we’re doing.”

I nod. She’s right. I pull out my dad’s file and flip to the very end. I read over the details I only skimmed before.

“According to this, the main confrontation with Beta happens on the landing in between the fifth and sixth floors.”

“And Lee Harvey Oswald is on the sixth?” Yellow says. “How close to the stairs is he stationed?”

I realize I have no idea what the layout of the building is. That’s such a simple, basic detail, and I don’t have a freaking clue.

“He can’t be too close to the stairs,” Yellow says, “or else he would have heard the argument; and as far as I know, the assassination happens just like it always has.”

“Or he does hear it and carries on anyway.”

“Either way, we need to figure out where we’re going to be. How many floors does the building have?”

“Seven,” I tell her. At least I know that.

“Okay, so we could set ourselves up on the sixth floor where Oswald is”—Yellow cocks her head to the side—“which just seems like a recipe for disaster, or we could be on the stairs too, on the landing above.”

“Yes, the landing above,” I say. “That way we can be there the whole time and just wait for it to happen.”

It’s seven in the morning by the time we cross Dealey Plaza and head over to the book depository. The president isn’t due to arrive for more than five hours, but already the crowds are gathering, setting up to get the best look.

“These poor people,” Yellow whispers. “They have no idea what’s going to happen.”

A pit forms in my stomach. They don’t know. The president doesn’t know. No one knows except for me and Yellow and Lee Harvey. For a second I wonder if maybe we
should
stop the assassination. Reading about something in a history book is so much different than actually being there.

Kind of like the time my mom took me to Disney World when I was seven. She’d been on a high for a week already. My mom is almost always a happy manic. Anything is possible during that time. It’s when she gets all her painting done. Passionate swirls of color thrown onto canvas that sell for enough money throughout New England to ensure that the rent gets paid. She always paints first whenever mania hits—exhausts the muse, as she calls it—and then it’s onto whatever else she feels like in the moment. This time it was Orlando.

We started driving in the middle of the night, and I was so excited I barely slept. Before the trip, I could have cared less about all that Disney princess crap, but there was something about being inside the park. Seeing the characters right there. Getting my picture taken with Cinderella. I had to have the merchandise. Dress-up clothes and wands and dolls. Plates and cups and straws. My mom bought it all.

I’m feeling the same urge today. I’m in Dallas. On the day of one of the biggest tragedies in American history. And I can stop it. Alpha will get a windfall, yes, but I could save my dad, too.

Yellow looks at me. “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

Am I being that obvious? I shake my head. “No,” I lie. “Of course not.”

“Don’t get caught up in this.” Yellow gets right in my face and stares me down. “It’s so hard to do, but you have to distance yourself. You
have to
, Iris.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I brush past her and open the door to the depository and hold it for Yellow. I pass through and then Yellow’s in my face again.

“Seriously,” she says. “Get yourself out of the moment. Think with your head, not with your heart. You’re a trained government operative.”

Of all the things she could have said, this is the worst. Because she’s right. She’s so right. This excitement is a feeling—nothing more. It will wear off. Just like my mom’s high suddenly stopped in Virginia on the car ride back from Disney World. It was the first time she rapid cycled, so there was no normal phase. She sank straight to the bottom. We spent three awful nights in a motel that rented out rooms by the hour, as my mom cried and wailed and drank an entire bottle of Jack Daniels. I pitched all the princess crap into the parking lot Dumpster and never thought of it again.

Think with your head, not your heart.
That’s been the moral of my story since birth. I know better.

I nod my head once to show Yellow I’m serious, and we start climbing the stairs. They’re located in the back left corner of the building, as far as you can get from the front right window where Oswald is going to start shooting in a few short hours.

Yellow and I camp out on the landing between the sixth and seventh floors. If I peer over the railing, I can see two landings below me. The landing where my dad is going to die. I pull my head back.

We pass the time by flipping through Alpha’s notebook and making notes of all the entries where CE appears. That sucker is everywhere. All over this notebook, going back more than twenty-five years. Most payouts are small, insignificant even. Other than the Kennedy assassination, there are four big ones.

One commissioned before I was even born, before the Kennedy mission. That one earned Alpha $300,000. Another commissioned eight years ago for $250,000. Another one from four years ago, for a half million. And then one more, for an even million. The ink is barely dry on that one. I recognize the date. Yellow does, too.

“The Gardner,” I say.

Yellow nods. “The Gardner.”

Just then there’s noise. Below us. A hammering of footsteps up the stairs. Yellow and I scramble up, and she tucks the notebook inside the belt of her dress. I look at my watch. It’s 12:20. That has to be my dad on the stairs.

And then there’s a voice. A loud voice. It’s shouting things. I catch “sniper” and “gun,” and I have no idea what’s going on; but my heart starts thumping away in my chest with the realization that this isn’t right. It’s not right at all. I look at Yellow, and she has terror written all over her face.

She leans over the railing for a half second before yanking her head away. Her eyes get wide as she mouths,
A cop.

My mouth drops open as the two of us plaster ourselves against the back wall. A cop. A cop who knows about the assassination attempt? None of this is in the history books. What the hell is going on?

I guess we’re about to find out.

The footsteps pound against the stairs, almost making a sort of rhythm. I close my eyes and try to make out individual patterns, to count how many men there are. It’s one. Only one.

I open my eyes, and Yellow grabs my hand. She tilts her eyes up and mouths,
The roof?

I shake my head and wave her off. I’m not running away from this. I need to know what’s going to happen.

The footsteps are louder. The man is on the landing right under us. But then a door opens with such a bang that I jump.

“Back off!” a voice shouts. It’s a male voice, smooth and authoritative. “I have him.”

There’s a scuffling and a grumbling.

“I saw a man with a gun!” someone else shouts. The cop?

“I said back off!” the first man shouts. “Dallas PD has no jurisdiction here anymore.” There’s another rustling. “FBI. We have the situation under control.”

Yellow and I exchange a glance. Her eyes are wide, and I’m sure mine are wider. The FBI is here? They’ve captured Oswald before the shooting even begins?

“You’re in Dallas!” the other shouts. “My jurisdiction.” The cop.

“And you’re trampling all over my crime scene. The situation is under control. Go back down and don’t speak a word of this to anyone.” The first man’s voice is calm, collected.

“But—”

“Don’t give me a
but
. There’s a crowd down there, and the less they know, the better. You want mass pandemonium with the president’s motorcade in sight?”

“No, but—”

“The situation is under control.” There’s a shuffling of footsteps and a muttering of angry words, and I close my eyes but can’t tell what’s happening. “Don’t breathe a word of this. Not now. Not yet. Not until the parade is over. I have backup on the way, and then I’ll be down to your squad car to take your statement.”

Then the voices speak over each other, and there’s more grumbling and scuffling, and I look at Yellow again. She shakes her head at me with uneasy eyes. She’s as clueless as I am.

The footsteps on the stairs start again, but this time they get fainter and fainter as the Dallas cop races down them. I try not to breathe. The FBI is on the landing below me as we speak. They’ve already captured Oswald. I have no idea what the hell is going on and how we’re going to get out of here.

But then. A whisper. Barely audible.

“Delta, you’re cutting off the circulation in my arm.”

Delta. My dad.

A laugh. “Sorry.” It’s the first man. The first man is Delta. The first man is my dad. He’s not FBI. He’s . . . pretending to be FBI.

“That was too close,” the other man says.

I shake my head, over and over, as if I can shake out the truth and understand what’s going on. This is nothing like Alpha’s report. Nothing at all. I keep waiting. Waiting for some sign that my dad thinks this is an authorized mission. That President Clinton okayed it and that he’s there to stop the assassination. Any second now the truth will come out.

It does.

“You hear that?” my dad says. “The motorcade must be approaching Dealey.”

A crowd cheers in the background.

“Is Oswald in position?” the other man says.

Wait. No. I—this isn’t right—

“Should be,” my dad says.

Next to me, Yellow grabs my hand and squeezes. I’m stunned into silence. I can’t move. My feet are granite slabs cemented to the floor.

A shot rings out in the distance, and my neck snaps back. What is this? Why isn’t my dad trying to stop this?

“Hear that?” my dad shouts. “That’s the sound of Old Cresty coughing up ten million dollars!”

I can’t breathe. I bend over and wrap my arms around my body as I shake and convulse and—WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?

A second shot in the distance, out over Dealey Plaza. And then silence.

“I ought to say that did it,” my dad says. “Dallas PD will be swarming these steps again any second now. Time to go, Beta. We gotta take care of that real cop.”

Beta. The other man is Beta. That doesn’t make any sense. Beta and my dad are in on it.

“You’re right. Time to go,” Beta says. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry about this, Mitch. I always liked you.”

And then I bolt up. Because I know what’s about to happen. There’s a gasp on the floor below that echoes up to my stairwell. And then. A blast of gunfire. It pierces my eardrums as fireworks explode in my mind.

I stumble to the wall. Yellow grabs my shoulder, but I shake her off. I fumble with my necklace, and my legs buckle and my knees slam to the ground. My hands are shaking. I need to get away away away. I turn a dial. I don’t know which one. And then I start to close the watch.

“Iris!” Yellow hisses. She lunges at me, but I’ve already shut the watch.

I’m yanked up for a quick few seconds, and I don’t feel the pain this time. Not the physical pain at least. I drop on to the landing, and Yellow pops next to me a few seconds later.

“No!” Yellow screams. “No! You do not project without me, do you understand? You never, ever project without me. Thank God I saw your dial.”

I drop to my knees and grab at my chest with my hands. I feel as if I’m having a heart attack. Deep, shooting pains throb inside my chest and fly down the left side of my body. But this has nothing to do with projecting. My heart has broken into a million pieces, and I’m going to die.

My dad wasn’t a Navy SEAL. He wasn’t a war hero. He was a traitor. Alpha didn’t set him up.

He assassinated a president.

I don’t understand. My father is a cold-blooded killer, and I don’t understand anything anymore.

I inhale the pain and refuse to blow it out. I let it fill me, consume me, crush me. My hands find the floor, and I sink into it. It’s a lie. Everything I’ve ever known has been one massive lie.

“Get up,” Yellow says.

I ignore her.

“I said get up.”

“Go away, Yellow.”

“I’m only going to tell you to get up one more time before I bend down and pull you up myself.”

We studied the physical effects of trauma aftermath at Peel. Rationally, I know I’m in shock. I tell myself I am. But I can’t snap out of it. I’m classic: numb dizzy weak nauseated confused. I can’t process my thoughts. Too fast. They’re coming too fast.