The Grid (8 page)

- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN -

Sarah and her husband live in a thirteen-thousand-square-foot home on Strait Lane, a tree-lined street in North Dallas populated by the top end of the one percent—billionaires and bankers, captains of industry, people with good tans who play a lot of golf while living off trust funds.

The home is a Spanish colonial, white stucco walls, long sweeping arches, a terra-cotta tile roof. Her brother, Elias, once likened the house to a high-end Mexican brothel but not as classy. Sarah’s husband had been unamused.

An enormous living area dominates the first floor. The room is designed for entertaining, bracketed on either end by matching fireplaces big enough to hold a minivan. This section of the home is the main reason her husband purchased the monstrosity. “A good place to entertain prospective clients and business associates,” he’d said at the time.

Sarah is in her bathroom in the master suite, a ground-floor wing on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen. She’s showered again, washing off the grime from the stolen Monte Carlo and any remaining traces from her encounter with the coked-up man in the motel.

Dylan had still been asleep when she left the hospital forty-five minutes earlier. Sarah wanted to be there when the girl woke up, but she needed to change. The clothes are a link, however small, to the dead man.

Her bathroom looks like a Persian disco, ridiculous even by the gaudy standards of North Dallas, decorated with gold leaf and green marble and curtains made from burgundy silk. Her husband’s idea of what would please her.

Sarah stands in front of the mirror, naked, the only moment all day she’s had to be still. Her skin is damp, face flushed from the heat of the shower.

The body reflected back at her is lean and taut, the skin unblemished except for the large bruise on her arm from where the dyke hit her with the tire iron. Her appearance—
her beauty
—is soothing in ways she doesn’t understand.

She tries to envision all the men who’ve gazed upon her nakedness. She can’t. Faces and places drift away, half remembered, gone from her mind like a swirl of smoke.

In their stead, an image of the sheriff at the motel appears. Her mind’s eye lingers over the line of his jaw, the flatness of his belly.

She blinks and he goes away, too, leaving her alone, as always.

In the mirror, for an instant, she sees her mother. The swell of her hips, the slender valley between her breasts.

What would her mother say now if she could see how her only daughter’s life had evolved?

Sarah turns away, combs her wet hair.

Her mother, who longed for nothing more than a good game of bridge and a perfectly decorated tree at Christmas, had died when Sarah was sixteen. Valium and chardonnay hadn’t mixed well with a sexually conflicted husband and an overbearing father-in-law.

The thought of the old man makes his presence loom over the steamy air. His raspy voice is in her ear:
What are you gonna do now, girl?

Sarah says the words out loud: “Dylan. I’m going to take care of my daughter. She’s my priority.”

That’s all that matters. Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone.

In response, an invisible hand presses on the back of her head, forcing her to look at the crumpled rain poncho lying on the floor next to a sweat-stained Dallas Cowboys ball cap.

What about that?
her grandfather says.
What are you gonna do when they come looking for whoever was wearing those clothes?

Sarah wraps herself in a robe and rushes from the bathroom, the grotesque furnishings and the steam too much.

You messed up today. Left stuff behind they can use to find you.
The old man’s voice is loud in her skull.
I raised you better than that, didn’t I?

Sarah’s phone is on the desk on the other side of the suite, by the fireplace.

“You didn’t raise me,” she says to the empty room, her voice shrill. “I raised myself.”

She marches across the thick carpet, grabs the device, googles “Waco News.”

In her head, the old man cackles, a cruel sound she’s heard often.

She knows what’s coming next. The truth. Cold steel on a winter’s day, a wedge of metal that burns and cuts at the same time.

Sarah, darlin’, you and me, we’re cut from the same cloth,
the voice says.
Ain’t that a pisser, you being a girl and all?

She leans against the desk for a moment, dizzy. Then she continues scrolling through the links on her phone.

News about the power outage dominates. Seven counties affected, a hundred thousand people still without electricity, authorities frantically trying to piece together what happened.

Normally, Sarah would have spent some time reading these stories.

That many counties just don’t go dark, not in Texas, which has one of the most robust electrical grids in North America—a tidbit she’s picked up from the people who manage her investment accounts.

She continues clicking until she finds a story about a murdered man discovered at a motel on the interstate. The words ricochet inside her skull.

D
EPUTY
M
URDERED.
P
OLICE
S
EARCH FOR
W
OMAN IN
C
OWBOYS
C
AP.

She devours the story, every word, searching for hidden meaning in each phrase.

Shot in the chest with a large-caliber handgun. A decorated law-enforcement officer, husband, father of three. The Texas Rangers are handling the investigation under the supervision of the sheriff of Peterson County, Jonathan Cantrell. The only lead thus far is a woman aged thirty to forty, wearing oversized sunglasses and a ball cap, seen leaving the hotel.

The phone slips from her fingers.

She’s killed a cop.

No place is safe. They’ll scour every inch between the Rio Grande and the Red River looking for her.

She rushes into the bathroom, grabs the raincoat and cap from the floor, then dashes to the fireplace.

Rap-rap.
Somebody’s knocking on the door to the bedroom.

She throws the coat and cap into the fireplace, cranks on the gas.

An instant later, flames engulf the clothing, and black smoke wafts up the chimney.

More knocking.

“Ma’am.” The muffled voice of the ex-Marine. Walden, head of house security.

“What is it, Walden?” She watches the last of the rain jacket melt and burn away.

“You wanted a car and a driver at five o’clock,” he says. “To go back to the hospital.”

Sarah looks at her watch. It’s 4:55.

Her robe stops at the middle of her thighs. She tightens the sash, walks to the entryway, opens the door.

Walden is standing on the other side, wearing his usual outfit: a pair of cargo khakis, a black polo shirt, and dark athletic shoes.

“I’m glad you’re here.” She points to the window. “I heard something outside.”

The movement shifts her robe open slightly, and Walden tries not to stare at her cleavage.

“What, uh, did you hear?” he asks.

She motions him in, shuts the door. The warmth starts in the pit of her stomach, spreads upward.

He walks to the window, looks outside. She stares at the khakis, tight around his ass, the biceps straining the material of his shirt.

“When does my husband’s plane land?” Sarah says.

Walden doesn’t answer.

“He’ll go straight to the hospital, I would imagine.” Sarah’s thighs tingle.

“An hour.” Walden turns around, no longer making a pretense of looking outside. “Touch down a little before six.”

Sarah tugs on the robe’s belt.

The garment falls open. The material feels rough as it moves across Sarah’s skin, delicious against her breasts. Cool air washes over her body.

“We shouldn’t do this,” Walden says. “Not again.”

She walks toward the man, a smile on her face, a feeling of peacefulness in her soul.

The voice of her grandfather:
Fuck him, Sarah. Fuck him good and hard.

- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN -

Whitney and I got back into the Suburban, the AC a welcome relief.

A large panel van with government plates pulled up next to us. Several people in hazmat suits got out. They waved at Whitney and trudged over to the nearest gate leading to the transformers.

“Oh joy. The EPA is here.” Whitney rubbed her eyes. “Just in case we were running short on paperwork.”

“Hope those suits are air-conditioned,” I said. “Otherwise, you’re gonna need an ambulance crew for when they get heatstroke.”

She put the transmission into drive. At the same time her cell rang. A one-sided conversation ensued, Whitney doing most of the listening. She was finished by the time the main office for the power plant appeared.

“The sniper’s location.” She stopped in front of the office but didn’t park. “The crime-scene guys are finished. We can check it out now.”

Price Anderson stood on the curb by the front door of the building, watching.

“This has been fun,” I said. “Really it has. But I need to get back to work.”

“The Texas Rangers are sending another team to help with your murder investigation,” she said. “Your boss, Jerry—he’s signed the paperwork granting you extended leave.”

“Jerry wouldn’t do that without talking to me.”

“He’s probably too busy figuring out what to do with all the money from the new USDA housing grant that just came through this afternoon.”

Overhead, a pair of buzzards circled a spot on the other side of the switching station.

“There’s this undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture I know,” she said. “He fast-tracked the county’s application.”

“Well played.” I nodded in admiration.

The Bible says faith can move a mountain. So can the US government, if they turn on the money spigot.

“But I’m going to pass on this one,” I said. “No more contracting work for me.”

A moment of silence. Whitney picked at the nail on her ring finger with her thumb.

“You still have active indictments on the books,” she said. “I hate to bring those up, but I’d be more than happy to get the DOJ involved if need be.”

I didn’t say anything.

During my time as a DEA contractor, I’d been an unwilling participant in actions where a number of felonies had been committed.

“Leavenworth sucks the big one,” she said. “From what they tell me.”

Several years before, I had been involved in a situation where a lot of lives had been lost as a result of clashes between a competing contracting firm, the feds, and several drug cartels.

Shit rolls downhill, as they say, and, being at the bottom, I’d found myself neck deep. The government didn’t want to prosecute me because I might name names in an open court. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t, or threaten to at least, if they felt the need.

We were still in front of the main office for the Black Valley Generating Station, idling on the gravel road, cool air blowing on our faces.

Price glared at us, hands on his hips. He looked hot and sweaty standing there.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked.

She turned, looked in my eyes.

“I’m not a fed anymore, or a contractor,” I said. “You have access to a lot of qualified people for something like this.”

“The FBI as well as my best agents,” she said. “They’re going to be handling the investigation. We’ll be throwing everything we’ve got at this.”

“See?” I smiled. “That’s how it should be done. FERC and the FBI. An alphabet-soup operation all the way.”

“But I want an extra set of eyes.”

“Why?” I asked.

A few seconds of silence. Then:

“You know who the attorney general is, right?”

I nodded.

The AG was the cousin of the treasury secretary, both scions of an old East Coast family. Regattas at the yacht club, summer homes on the Vineyard, custom-made Brooks Brothers underwear. That sort of thing.

“The attorney general owns a very large chunk of Sudamento stock,” she said. “One of his family’s trusts does, technically.”

I swore under my breath.

Sudamento was a publicly traded company, a perennial Wall Street favorite, like Enron but without the scandal and ruined lives.

If Whitney’s team uncovered anything that might affect the stock price, there would be pressure to change the course of the investigation. Because money trumps everything, even terrorism.

“Do you think Price is involved?” I asked.

She shook her head. “But he’s a college dropout making a hundred and a quarter a year. You tell me where he’ll end up in a showdown between his boss and the feds.”

Outside, Price Anderson continued to stare at us like he was trying to read our lips.

“Obviously, I’d prefer to use federal agents for everything.”

I nodded. “Obviously.”

“But after the first incident, and considering the AG’s potential—oh, how shall I put it . . .
entanglement
—I decided that we needed an outside perspective.”

“The first incident?”

“We’ll get to that later.” She waved a hand dismissively.

“How many have there been?”

“I cast a wide net, looking for the right person,” she said. “Contractors, ex-military, retired federal agents. You’re the most qualified for what I need.”

“And what, pray tell, made you think that?”

She ticked off the list on her fingers. “Your military background. You have a pretty long resume in law enforcement, both federal and local. You’ve had extensive counterterrorism training.”

Her voice trailed off, one finger left to go.

“And . . .” I arched an eyebrow.

“Your personnel file. Quite an interesting document. If you read between the lines, it’s almost like you don’t know how to quit.” She paused. “That’s what I’m looking for. Someone who won’t quit.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Your job is to run a parallel investigation,” she said. “Off the books. You report to me only, and I go straight to my boss at Homeland.”

“How come Price knows about me? Doesn’t that kinda negate the off-the-books part?”

She didn’t reply.

“He told me this morning that the feds sent him.”

Whitney chewed her lip.

I remembered the rest of the conversation. “Hell, he said that Sudamento was going to pay my fee.”

“FERC doesn’t have any money in the budget right now for outside investigators,” Whitney said.

“So the people I’m potentially going to be investigating are paying my bill?”

“You’ll be a licensed FERC agent. Working undercover.”

“
Ferc
that,” I said. “I’m liable to end up roadkill. Literally.”

She remained silent, staring out the window.

“But that doesn’t matter, does it?” I finally understood. “Because one of the other criteria you’re looking for is someone who’s expendable.”

My initial reaction to her manipulations was anger. Then came a level of excitement that I hadn’t experienced in a long time. It felt good to get back into something other than the business of being sheriff in a sparsely populated county.

A crew of workers emerged from the office and strode toward the towers.

“I picked you,” she said, “because you once broke an FBI agent’s jaw. Shit that petrifies normal people seems to have no effect on you.”

“Did you ever consider that maybe I’m slow in the head?”

Price marched to Whitney’s side of the SUV, stood by her window. She didn’t appear to notice.

“Are you gonna take the job, Cantrell? Or do I call the DOJ?”

I looked at Price. He was scowling at Whitney, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“Are you in love with him?” I asked. “Or was it a friends-with-benefits kind of thing?”

“He’s got a good line of bullshit,” she said. “You’d think at my age I’d be immune to that.”

“We all have our hang-ups.” I shrugged. “He’s not a bad guy, really.”

She sighed. “Yes, he is.”

Price tapped on the glass.

Whitney unlocked the doors, rolled down her window. “Get in already. I’m tired of watching you sweat your nuts off.”