The Triangle Conspiracy

She lit a cigarette, which was guaranteed to give her even more privacy. Neither Hagy nor Leneski smoked, and they both tended to move away from her when she lit up. Daryn found herself actually wanting the Kelly woman to come back. She was tired of this waiting.

Faith Kelly wouldn’t even let her brother come around. That had disappointed Daryn. She’d enjoyed playing with Sean Kelly, lived for the manipulation, but in another place, she actually liked the poor guy. She’d had a few moments, drifting outside herself in moments when she had a bad headache, when she fantasized about running away with him. Both of them would be new people. They’d hide in a cabin somewhere in the mountains where no one knew either of them. He would escape the bottle and his bitchy sister. She would forever escape her father’s name and his hypocrisy and the stupidity of everyday society. There would be no further need for The Cause, because they would simply rise above all the petty foolishness that made The Cause necessary.

Britt even wandered her way into Daryn’s fantasy. She missed the girl’s absolute, unwavering devotion, and in the fantasy she let the girl serve Sean and her, and she would happily fulfill anything they asked of her.

Oh, stop it, she would tell herself. It would never happen.

It never could happen, for more reasons than Daryn could count. She would simply put a cold wet cloth on her face and lie still in the dark, and the fantasy would break apart until she was left with nothing but darkness and silence.

Come on, Faith Kelly, she would say in her mind. Let’s get this over with.

Faith arrived in the early evening, carrying a black soft-sided briefcase. She looked harried, her short hair tangled and windblown. The deputies’ shifts had just changed, and Daryn and Deputy Carson of the night shift were watching Antiques Roadshow on PBS. There was no cable service to the safe house, and the local PBS affiliate had the strongest signal of any of the over-the-air TV stations.

Faith came in the front door and nodded to Carson. Hunnicutt came in from the back of the house. “Hi, guys,” Faith said. “You’re relieved. The detail’s over. Go on home.”

“Tired?” Hunnicutt said.

“Busy, busy,” Faith said, nodding.

The two deputy marshals gathered their things and left. Faith snapped off the TV set, dropped the briefcase, and lowered herself heavily into the armchair across from Daryn.

“I was beginning to wonder,” Daryn said, “if you were coming back, or if I was cursed to a life of watching TV and eating microwave dinners with those deputies.”

“You can send out for food,” Faith said. “I told you that before I left.”

Daryn shrugged.

Faith unzipped the side pocket of the briefcase, took out a few papers, shuffled them, and looked directly at Daryn.

Daryn felt uncomfortable. She was always the one who gazed directly at someone else, daring them to drop their eyes from hers. But Faith Kelly’s green eyes blazed at her, never wavering, never moving.

“I guess two women like us shouldn’t get into a staring contest,” Daryn finally said, and blinked.

“ ‘Two women like us?’ ” Faith echoed.

Daryn shrugged again. “We do what needs to be done.” She thought about saying more, but let it go at that.

“Do we?” Faith said.

They stared at each other again, and this time Faith looked away first, to the papers in her lap.

“You have something to say to me?” Daryn said.

Faith cleared her throat. “Daryn, I’ve already told you the criteria for entry into Department Thirty protection. I won’t go over that again. But I’ve been investigating the things you…and Sean…told me. The Coalition for Social Justice, this Franklin Sanborn character, all of it.”

“And the list of targets?”

“Yes, the targets. I sent that list on up the line, so we could try to prevent anything else from happening.”

Daryn nodded.

“Do you have any other evidence?” Faith asked.

Daryn cocked her head slightly. “Excuse me?”

“Anything else that could prove what you’ve told me? About your fear of Sanborn, about the Coalition’s future plans, that sort of thing.”

“No, I’ve given you everything there is. Why?”

Faith thumped the papers against her leg. Her face took on a resigned look. “I haven’t been able to find one single bit of corroborating evidence for anything you told me. Franklin Sanborn is a phantom. There’s no evidence he exists.”

“But-”

Faith held up a hand. “There were no Coalition cells in any of the towns you mentioned. The dates for the next two ‘strikes’ on your list have passed. Nothing has happened in either Memphis or Denver.”

Daryn stared at her.

“I even went to Mulhall. Sean gave me directions to the house you said you lived in for that week. Except for a homeless man who’s been squatting there for several weeks, it’s empty. No furniture, nothing. It looks like no one has lived there for a long time.”

Daryn shook her head.

“Aside from what you did in Oklahoma City, there is no evidence of the Coalition for Social Justice ever existing, nor this Sanborn.”

Daryn went totally still. She’d been headache-free for more than twenty-four hours, and could feel her heart beating, faster and faster. “I don’t understand,” she said, very slowly.

Faith dropped the papers on the floor and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I don’t know who’s lying, whether it’s you and my brother, or someone else. And right now, I just don’t care anymore. None of the information you provided me checked out.” She leaned back again. “We can’t protect you. I can’t give you a new identity and a new life. You can go.”

Daryn’s heart raced. She felt sweat beading on her lip. “Go? Go where? What do you mean, go? What about Sanborn? What about…what about the FBI?”

“What about Sanborn? I can’t find any evidence of him. As for the FBI, I’m obligated to turn you over to them at least as a material witness in the bombing. For what it’s worth, I believe you when you say you didn’t know the group was planning to use violence. But you still have to understand that six people died at Chase Tower.”

“But Sanborn sent those guys to my apartment! They chased us on the highway! There’s your evidence!”

“All I know is that someone using the name of Franklin Sanborn sent two thugs to your apartment. I don’t know why. I do know that you and my brother got away from them. I admit that the name of Franklin Sanborn sounds familiar to me, but I don’t know why, and my boss and his boss aren’t going to admit you to the department because you know my brother and I think I recognize a name. It just doesn’t work that way.”

Daryn closed her eyes, squeezing them shut until they hurt. “You…” She almost choked on the words. “You fucking bitch. You sorry, worthless Irish bitch.” She picked up the lamp from the end table beside her, and with a strength betrayed by her small frame, ripped the plug out of the wall and heaved it at Faith.

Faith dodged it easily and the lamp bounced off the arm of her chair. It crashed to the ground, lightbulb and lamp base shattering simultaneously. Faith stayed where she was.

“Don’t you get it?” Daryn screamed, on her feet, between her chair and Faith’s. “Don’t you fucking get it, you stupid wench? It’s Sanborn…he’s trying to make you think I’m crazy, make you think I’m lying. You let me go and he’ll come after me. He’ll kill me, and the Coalition-everything I’ve fought for-will die. How can you be that stupid, Kelly? You’re smarter than your brother, you should know…”

Faith stood up slowly, towering over her. “You leave Sean out of it. I’ll deal with him. And once you leave here, you stay away from my brother. He’s sick, and all you’ve done is feed his sickness.”

“I haven’t lied to you, and your brother hasn’t lied to you! It’s like a big circle. We lied to each other about who we were, but not to you, not about the Coalition. What about Sanborn? When he comes after me, what then? If he kills me, what do you do then?”

Faith winced. Daryn felt flushed-she’d just poked a hole in Faith Kelly’s armor.

“Yeah, you’ve thought about that,” Daryn said, starting to circle around the room. She maneuvered around the broken glass from the lamp. “You have your doubts, you’re not one hundred percent sure about this, and deep down, you’re afraid to let me walk out of here, because there’s a little tiny voice that says I’m not lying, and your brother’s not lying, and you know it could happen. You know Sanborn could get to me, and you know he could go on and blow up all those banks.”

Faith stayed in place, but followed Daryn around the room with her eyes, never letting the smaller woman get behind her. “I have no evidence-”

“Fuck the evidence!” Daryn screamed. “What do your insides tell you? Way down, under all the pompous federal nonsense they’ve been feeding you, way down past all your own pathetic defenses, what do you see there?”

Daryn put her hands to both sides of her head and wailed at the top of her lungs. “I’ve done so much, I’ve come so far.” Her eyes zeroed in on Faith’s again. “I’ve used others and I’ve been used, Faith. And when I try to do right, when I try to throw off the world of the ruling classes and save the lives of innocent people, real people, you say you have no evidence.”

“I think-”

“What if he kills me?”

The words rippled off the walls and toppled over each other. Then the silence came, a living, breathing thing, larger than both women in the room.

Daryn was breathing hard, gripping the back of the chair she’d been sitting in before she threw the lamp. Her head was splitting, but it wasn’t her usual headache. For the first time in all this-the first time since she’d met Sanborn, since they’d conceived the plan and created the Coalition-she was afraid. Fear rolled over her like a cloud across the sun.

“I think,” Faith said, “that you’re troubled. You’re brilliant and passionate and troubled, and I’m sorry. But I can’t offer you protection. I have no basis to do that.” She folded her hands together.

Daryn looked at her, at the way her hands gripped each other. She looked at her face, at the white line scar beside her nose. Daryn blinked at her and sagged against the chair. She blinked again, several times in rapid succession. Even without the light of the lamp, it suddenly seemed very bright in the living room.

“Your brother believed me,” Daryn said.

Faith nodded. “I know.”

They were both silent a while longer.

“I can drop you off somewhere,” Faith said. “I don’t have the authority to arrest you, or to hold you as a material witness.”

“I want to see Sean.”

“I told you, leave my brother alone.”

“Are you his keeper?”

“Maybe I should be.”

Daryn nodded. She actually smiled a little. Faith Kelly looked confused.