Envy the Night

aware of his father’s story? Oh, Mr. Temple had already offered that. Interesting. What else had he said?

That’s how it went for more than an hour. One thing was settled—she didn’t need to do that Internet research to verify Frank’s story. Mr. Atkins of the FBI did a fine job of that.

“You seem to be suspicious of Frank,” she said. “Is that my imagination?”

“Suspicious?” Atkins leaned away from the table and hooked one ankle over his knee. “That’s getting ahead of the game, Ms. Stafford. I’m just gathering information.”

His words reeked of insincerity, though, and she felt instantly sorry for Frank. This was the price he paid for the family he’d been born into. When she walked through the streets of Tomahawk, people stopped her and told her stories about how wonderful her father was, asked after his condition; strangers gave her hugs on a regular basis simply because of her father’s history in the town. Frank’s experience was quite different.

“I understand you need to gather information,” she said, “but Frank was nothing but a help. I’ve already told you what he did yesterday.”

“Yes, I know. But when you consider his background, Ms. Stafford, you can surely understand any heightened curiosity we might have.”

Heightened curiosity? Now, there was a good FBI phrase. A minute ago he’d denied being suspicious of Frank, but now he admitted to heightened curiosity. Huge difference, clearly.

“Whatever his father did when Frank was essentially a child really seems insignificant to this situation,” she said.

“Perhaps.”

“You disagree?”

“Let me ask you this—has Mr. Temple told you anything of what he’s been doing for the past seven years?”

“I just met him yesterday. Obviously I don’t know his life story.”

“That’s a no, then?”

“He told me he’s been a student.”

“He’s been enrolled in school for a grand total of six semesters in seven years. Those six semesters were scattered among five different schools, in five different states. He has lived in at least ten different states for short times. His highest level of employment is as a bartender, his longest stint at that five months, yet he’s paid his rent, bills, and tuition in full and on time.”

“Wonderful. So your point is that he’s a model citizen?”

Atkins gave her a long, unpleasant stare. Things were becoming contentious, and she knew part of her defensiveness was a product of guilt. She’d basically berated Frank as they’d driven back to town, dismissing his concerns and suspecting him of lies. Then there was Jerry, a terrible but undeniable support for Frank’s story. His concern had clearly been genuine and well founded.

“My point,” Atkins said, “is that there are many unknowns about Frank Temple the Third. He leads a nomadic lifestyle, maintains few connections to his past, and somehow generates a steady cash flow. It is a pattern, Ms. Stafford, not unlike many of the men in his father’s profession.”

She pulled her head back and stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m making observations, not accusations.”

“Well, I made an observation myself today, and that’s that Frank doesn’t like to talk about his father and is very ashamed of what the man did.”

“Shame is one reason to avoid talking about his father. There are other possibilities.”

“You’re suggesting he followed in his footsteps? Frank was seventeen when his father died. I’ve never heard of a seventeen-year-old assassin.”

Atkins just looked at her, studying her face, silent.

“Why aren’t you asking about Vaughn?” she said.

“This is the man who drove the Lexus?”

“Yes. He’s the one who caused all of this. He’s the one who brought these murderers into my shop.”

“You were with Mr. Temple and Vaughn at the same time,” Atkins said, switching tracks. “Although he called himself Dave O’Connor at the time, right?”

“What do you know about him? Who is he?”

Atkins ignored her. “Did you sense any familiarity between the two men?”

“Frank and Vaughn?” She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I mean, they’d just gotten in an accident. So they had about twenty minutes of familiarity before I met them. That was as much as I sensed, too.”

“You let the Lexus driver leave without seeing a driver’s license or insurance information?”

“He gave me cash. I’ve explained that to everyone already. It was a mistake, but I can’t fix it now. I can’t fix any of this now.”

“And you have no idea where he went?”

She should answer that question, tell him about the island cabin and the car in the woods. That was the right thing to do, certainly, but she was remembering Frank’s reluctance to bring the police into this, the idea he had that it might make her even more of a threat to these men who had such evil ways of dealing with threats. The less involvement the better, right? Knowing nothing was better than knowing something. If you knew something, you were a loose end. Isn’t that what Frank had called her? A loose end. Just like Jerry. She wanted to be clueless again. Wanted to be a bystander. She was a bystander, damn it—and wouldn’t it be safer, ultimately, to stick to that role? She thought of that and of Jerry’s blood running into the floor drain, and she shook her head.

“When he took my car he said he was going to Rhinelander.”

She waited for him outside the police station as evening descended, the sky tinged with wispy purple clouds that stood stark against a backdrop of pinks and oranges. Down the street, loud music blared from speakers near the river, some sort of evening event commencing.

Jerry was dead. He’d been a cantankerous, combative employee from day one, but he’d also been the only person she was close to in the entire town. Time with Jerry made up about ninety percent of her human interaction since she’d arrived in Tomahawk, and understanding that he was gone filled her with the chill of loss. With Jerry went the shop. She couldn’t run it alone. Running it with just the two of them had seemed impossible at first, but they’d made it work. The reason for that, she knew, was Jerry’s willingness to stick around. He might not have liked working for her, but he’d done it, and without him the shop that her grandfather had opened sixty-eight years earlier would have already been out of business.

She was feeling the threatening rise of more tears when the door opened and Frank Temple stepped out of the station and came down the steps to join her. He held his jacket in his fist, and she saw for the first time that he was wearing a gun in a holster on the side of his chest.

“Where’d you get that?”

He didn’t look at her. “Had it on when we left the cabin. Cops seemed to want to keep it, but I made a compelling case against that by pointing out that nobody was killed with a gun today.”

There was a bristle to him she’d not seen before, a darkness in his voice. Atkins, probably. If he’d asked her so many questions about Frank’s past and his family, it could only have been worse for Frank.

The door to the police station opened again, and two cops in uniform stepped out and stared at them.

“Is your car still around?” Frank asked.

“At the shop. They were going to give me a ride, but I wanted to wait for you.”

“Let’s walk down there, then.”

They started down the sidewalk, falling in step together quickly and silently.

“The FBI was here,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

“I was surprised . . . I mean, I’m glad that the police are getting help, but I was surprised by that.”

He was looking at his feet and still holding the jacket in his hand, that gun open and obvious now, as if it were some sort of statement. “The question is whether I’m the only reason they’re involved.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that.