Author's Notes: A special thanks goes out to my beta, Skyrose.
When last we left our characters...
- Jake accepted Beck's job offer, but things remained tense between the two men.
- Heather agreed to conclude the interview she began with Major Beck.
- Gail and Heather had a heart-to-heart, and Gail tried to offer the younger woman some hope.
- Hamilton received word that his friend Buchs has gone missing, while a mysterious brother and sister team with a dangerous agenda held the answers to Buchs's whereabouts.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Thirteen, Part A: “Confessions”
The moisture from the previous night’s rain saturated the knees of the blue jeans Emily Sullivan wore as she knelt in the tall grass next to her brother’s grave. For what was not the first time, guilt washed over her for not visiting his graveside more often.
She was used to guilt. It had been her constant companion over the last few months. When Jake returned, she felt guilty not just for being glad to see him but for the butterflies that fluttered in her stomach when she did. When Roger and the other refugees staggered into town and Emily saw the haunted look on Roger’s once handsome face, she felt guilty for having had a comparatively easier time. After taking Roger home, heating water for a bath for him, and taking him back into her bed, Emily felt guilty for wishing it was another man touching her, kissing her, filling her. When Roger was exiled and refused her offer to accompany him, she was relieved, and that made her feel guilty. When she heard that Heather had been killed in New Bern, she felt guilty for not going to get her when she didn’t return after a few days. When Heather came home to Jericho very much alive, Emily’s reticence to see her friend prompted more guilt.
So, yes, Emily was familiar with guilt, but none of that compared to the sense of guilt she felt for letting down her brother. She had been four when Chris was born, and she still remembered when her mother placed the infant into her four-year-old arms, helping Emily hold her brother for the first time. “This is Christopher, Emily. He’s your brother. You have to be a big girl and take good care of him.”
Emily promised that she would take care of Chris and love him always. Loving him always? That was no problem. Taking care of him, on the other hand, proved to be more than she could do, especially when she had Jonah and Jake pulling her little brother into a life that Emily did not want for him.
And she was bothered. Bothered by the fact that Chris would not be celebrating his twenty-eighth birthday. Bothered by the fact that the cemetery was overgrown, but she’d not been around to notice. Bothered by the fact that what should have been a happy time in her life was marred by too much uncertainty and loss. Bothered by the fact that she was about to assume more losses.
“So, kiddo, I was thinking about you. Yeah. I know what you’re going to say. You’re unforgettable, right? Well, save that one for the pretty girls up there. Doesn’t work with me.” She clenched her eyes shut and took a deep breath before opening her eyes again. “I know I’ve not been around much. We’ve had a few things going on here. Guess you know about the nukes, Jake being back, Roger being gone, and the war with New Bern. I’d say that you’re lucky you missed the craziness, the hard winter, the…the losses, but knowing you, you’d love to be right in the thick of things. I wish you were here, Chris.
“All this time has passed, and I still can’t believe you’re gone. You were my biggest cheerleader, you know? You and Jake. Jake’s here, but he might as well not be. At least, he’s not here for me. Not anymore. “ Emily gulped, trying to force the lump that was forming in her throat to dissipate. She’d had little sleep the night before. Listening to rain pounding the roof normally lulled her to slumber, but all she could think about was her argument with Gail and the fact that Jake was with Heather, not with her. Her imagination had run wild with her, and when she did sleep, she dreamt of going to the ranch house, throwing open the door, and finding the two naked, entangled.
“Am I just dense, Chris? I mean, am I turning into Mom? I-I don’t know what she saw in Jonah. Our father,” she spat out the title, “was never there for her, broke her heart into more pieces than could be mended, and still she kept coming back for more. With Jake, I just keep coming back for more, and I do things that don’t make me proud.
“It’s got to stop. It has to. I just-he’s all I have left. Almost all.
“Oh, and my best friend Heather is back. Wish you could meet her. She’s cute. A little awkward, perhaps, but wholesome. No baggage. Least, I thought she was wholesome. Wide-eyed. Looks at Jake in adoration. Guess she’s shacking up with him now. She needs Jake too much, and Jake loves to be needed.
“So if you’ve been following everything, you know that Jake still can’t sit still for long. He’s been running around saving everyone. He’s saved me a time or two. But I guess he thinks now that I don’t need him enough or now that I’m not a challenge to him, he’s moving on. But I do need him, and I absolutely hate that I do.
“Sometimes I think back to the day that you died, Chris. I know I shouldn’t. I know that you don’t want me to remember you that way, but I can’t help myself. I think back, and I get so angry at him. He should’ve stopped you from going into that store. He should’ve…” her voice trailed off. “How do I let go?”
“Still not much for forgiveness, are you?”
Emily stood quickly and spun around. Jonah Prowse stood a few feet off.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, the tender expression that she’d reserved for her dead brother hardening once she saw her estranged father. She was surprised she hadn’t heard him approach.
“Same as you, Kid. Paying my respects minus the therapy session.”
She felt aghast, wondering how much he had heard. The last thing she wanted was for Jonah to know anything about her, about Jake, about…
“Go away.”
He stood his ground, his features firm. “I have as much a right to be here as you.”
As far as Emily was concerned, that was debatable. Still, another thought came to mind, one far more pragmatic. “How’d you get past the Rangers? The military?”
“You think they have all the entrances and exits to this town covered?” Jonah scoffed. He grimaced looking at the cemetery grounds, the smattering of artificial floral arrangements toppled over, and at some of the gravestones broken by what must have been a stray mortar round from the New Bern attacks.
“You have no right to be here. Even assuming that you had been the perfect father—which you were not!—you have no right. Hell, you weren’t even lousy. You were poisonous to us! And then, when I needed you, you hung our town out to dry, Jonah. You killed a man in cold blood, took the weapons that we needed to defend ourselves, and did what you do best! You tucked tail and ran!”
“And what, Em? What do you want me to do? You damn me for leaving a hopeless cause then and you damn me for wanting to stay for a hopeless cause now?”
Once when Emily was nine and Jonah had too much to drink, he had struck her. Her mother soothed her, kept her home from school until the bruises on her face healed, and her father had bought her a small stuffed pony when he sobered up and realized what he had done. It had still hurt, and Emily found little comfort in pony. It was only a reminder of what had happened, and she knew later when she heard her parents arguing that it cost money their family didn’t have. He never hit her again, but she always remembered the hurt.
And now Jonah’s words hurt. “No one’s begging you to stay for this hopeless cause,” Emily spat out, pointing to herself. “I’ll save us both the trouble.” With that, she began to walk down the path, going the opposite way from the man she neither wanted to love or hate, but the man about whom she wanted to feel indifferent. She was afraid she would never be able to embrace indifference.
Jonah watched her leave, thought about giving chase, but decided against it. Instead, he sat against his son’s gravestone, pulled a flask from the inner pocket of his jacket, and took a swig. “Wish you were here.”
Jacob Hamilton felt uneasy.
He’d been scared senseless plenty of times. When he was younger, that fright typically came whenever his father’s hand touched a bottle, as that meant he or his siblings or their mama would likely feel that hand on them at some later point. When he was sixteen and his mama caught him letting a girl in through his bedroom window, he knew fear. And then there were those weeks spent in basic training. His drill sergeant had instilled in him a healthy dose of dread.
But uneasy? That intangible feeling so difficult to pinpoint had proven to be more elusive in his life.
He was glad to be back in Jericho, eager to see Heather, anxious to speak with her about what Ted had told him. He wanted to keep bad things from happening to her again. His thoughts fell back to what he had heard the afternoon she spoke with Major Beck, and Hamilton was convinced that Heather withheld information from the major. Not that what she told him wasn’t bad enough—but Hamilton felt like she must have downplayed it. There was something in her tone, and in getting to know Dorothy better over the last few days and seeing her reaction when he told her he was going to New Bern, Hamilton knew without a doubt that more happened to her than met the eye. And now to hear from Ted that there were whispers in New Bern that she was being targeted? Hamilton had known many people in his twenty-six years, some he liked and some he could do without. None were like Heather Lisinski, though. The thought that someone would want to harm her made him feel fiercely protective—and just plain fierce. Some would have considered him an unlikely soldier. Fighting wasn’t something he craved or reveled in like some others with whom he served, but at the same time, he wasn’t one to back down from a fight, particularly not when he believed in a cause. And he couldn’t think of any better cause than protecting Heather Lisinski.
Then there was that part of him that wished he were still in New Bern, still looking for Buchs. You don’t leave a man behind. It had been ingrained in him from the first day of basic training. Yet that was what Hamilton felt he was doing: leaving a man behind. Others were continuing their search for Buchs, but the others were not invested in finding the missing man the way Hamilton was. Barrett Buchs was his best friend.
So as Hamilton pulled his duffle bag from the Humvee at his encampment, along with the bag of items that Ted Lewis had put together for Heather, he could not shake the uneasiness he felt and wished, for what wasn’t the first time, that he could be in two places at once.
After checking in at camp, he began to head by foot to town hall. Passing the church yard, he was surprised to see Emily Sullivan walking briskly from the unkempt cemetery. Her face was blotched with red, and he noticed the large, round wet spots on the knees of her jeans.
She was a pretty thing, to be sure. If he could notice the redness of her face from that distance, he’d have to be blind not to notice her beauty. And yet he couldn’t say that he was particularly attracted to her. His impression when he saw her at the tavern the first night he was in town, coupled with her lack of desire to help out at the library the day before, had him feeling like she was more style than substance. Emily Sullivan and Heather Lisinski seemed like an odd combination, indeed, for friends.
It was then that Emily caught sight of him, awareness crossing her features as she slowed her movements, seemingly hesitating, before altering her path to coincide with his.
“Mind if I walk with you?” she asked, though Hamilton figured that she had her mind set to walk with him for some purpose, whether he approved of it or not.
“Be my guest. You looked like you were on your way somewhere…”
Emily glanced over her shoulder, frowning. “No. I’m going nowhere.”
Hamilton sucked in a breath. He thought he was in a bad mood, but whatever was going through Emily Sullivan’s mind seemed infinitely worse if her scowl was any indication. “I’m on my way to town hall.”
Emily merely frowned.
“You know, if you keep frownin’ that way, your face is gonna get stuck.”
“Who says?” Emily replied sullenly.
“My mama. She’s always right.”
“She’s someone you admire, isn’t she?”
“Strongest woman I know.”
“You don’t know how lucky you are.” She bit her bottom lip, her thoughts drifting to her own mother. She had been beautiful. When Emily got past the disappointment, the sense of her mother’s weaknesses, she always came back to that. People used to always tell her that she looked just like her mother, but when Emily thought of the paleness of her mother’s skin, a contrast to the rich crimson of the blood that flowed from her wrists, Emily could find little resemblance. And yet when she thought of the hold Jonah had over her mother and the hold Jake held over her, Emily wondered if they were the same person.
“Oh, I know how lucky I am, Ms. Sullivan.” Hamilton’s earnestness struck Emily, prompting the image of her mother to flee from her mind, replaced by the sight of the man with whom she walked. His hazel eyes were warm, his tanned face smooth, his sandy hair closely cropped to his head, and his shoulders broad and well-muscled. Heather could do much worse than this, so why did she have to poach her relationship with Jake? Hamilton’s next words shook Emily from her thoughts. “Your family?”
Emily cleared her throat. “It’s just me now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s been that way for a long time. Anyway, it’s not really my family I want to talk about. It’s Heather.”
Hamilton choked back a chortle. “I thought we covered that topic yesterday at the library.”
Emily shoved her hands in her back pockets as they walked side by side. “You seem like a nice guy.”
“I try to be.”
“You deserve better.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that Heather isn’t what she seems. She’s not this innocent, doe-eyed…”
Hamilton stopped in his tracks. “Then she wouldn’t be the only one who isn’t what she seems.” His tone hardened. “Yesterday you were championin’ her as your best friend. Now you’re warnin’ me off her? Why the change?”
Emily hesitated for a minute, thought about telling him about Jake and Heather, but could not give voice to the thoughts that plagued her. “Just watch yourself. Don’t get too attached. You’ll only end up disappointed.”
“Ms. Sullivan, you are unbelievable. And not in a good way. I don’t need you—someone who obviously has some kinda ax to grind along with the emotional stability of a two year old—givin’ me relationship advice. Take care of your own business and leave mine alone.”
He kept walking, leaving Emily to stew in her own misery.
When Heather Lisinski first moved to Jericho, she was delighted to find the town hall was a familiar and centralized place to conduct business. How different from New Bern where so many departments were spread over several miles! In Jericho, it was just as easy to walk to town hall and pay her electric bill after work as it was to mail her payment. That was probably a good thing because often there was some question whether Charlotte would provide the needed transportation. Indeed, school board meetings were held in town hall, and Heather had been beyond thrilled to be in attendance at the meeting in which she was granted tenure. Town hall also housed the sheriff’s department. From time to time, Heather would meet with Sheriff Dawes about the mentoring program she spearheaded between Jericho Elementary and the Jericho Sheriff’s Department.
Now when Heather entered town hall, the familiarity she once felt seemed misplaced. Certainly, the portraits of former mayors still adorned the entry, along with the makeshift memorial to Johnston Green that she’d noted upon her return to Jericho days earlier. Many of the faces were the same: Jimmy Taylor, Bill Kohler, for instance.
Jake would be here, too, as the new sheriff. Though how much time he would spend in his new office with the military crawling around, she couldn’t guess. Heather was still trying to get used to the idea of Sheriff Green, but pleased that he would have some say in an official capacity for what happened in Jericho. When she thought of all that he’d done for the town since the day of the bombs, it seemed appropriate somehow, though from what she’d heard of some of his more colorful exploits, ironic.
But Heather wasn’t here to relive her past in Jericho. She was to relive her past in New Bern, a necessary evil that she dreaded beyond measure. Two days earlier, she had been relieved when her debriefing by Major Beck was cut short by a call from Colonel Hoffman. Heather’s mind briefly flitted to the time she’d met Colonel Hoffman, the man who oversaw the A.S. Army’s operations in the northern half of Kansas and the southern half of Nebraska. He wasn’t unlike some of the men who used to visit her father on occasion, old Army buddies who talked about the not-so-good-old-days in Vietnam. They were men she saw as people, just as the colonel had seemed very human to Heather as she met—okay, accosted—him while a wound on his arm was being tended.
Major Beck, on the other hand, seemed less than human to Heather. She had the sense that he was not a power hungry man. She’d seen enough would-be despots to spot one from a mile away. Her impression was that he wanted to do right by their town, that he was honor-bound. With that, however, she knew that this was only part of the picture she was getting. His detachment from those around him unnerved her.
So as she stood outside Major Beck’s office and one of his men opened the door to admit her, she did not enter his office lightly. She’d tried for days to wrap her mind around what she would need to say to him, how she would convince him that he must not hold Jericho responsible for the conflict with New Bern. She resigned herself to the fact that she may have to tell him everything that happened in New Bern, share details that were painfully etched in her mind but that she’d struggled to give voice to.
Major Beck rose from his seat behind his desk, walked around the desk, and nodded his head, acknowledging her. “I am pleased you could make it to conclude our interview.” His business-like tone indicated no great pleasure in her company.
From the moment their previous meeting had ended, Heather knew this moment was inevitable. He’d as much said so in their parting. His reminder at the ranch that morning only solidified the notion. “Did I have a choice?”
He seemed genuinely flummoxed by her question, as evidenced by the manner in which his eyebrows rose. Then his mask slid back into place. “Ms. Lisinski, we all have choices.” He indicated a wooden chair. She took his cue and sat. “May I offer you coffee? It’s not very good, but it is wet.”
She shook her head, in her current state not trusting herself to hold the cup without spilling it on herself. Her mind lingered on his visit to the Green Ranch that morning, his private conversation with Jake, and his siccing his men on her. “I can’t figure you out.” She wanted to. Desperately. It wasn’t the man, in particular, that had her curious. It was what he represented. He held her future in his hands, and he did not entirely realize it. And what would become of Jericho, of Jake and Eric, if Constantino was released unimpeded to return to his former role in New Bern?
Beck leaned against the edge of his desk and met her eyes. “I am a simple man doing my job. What is there to figure out?” Beck watched as Heather’s thoughts darted across her expressive face. Disbelief. Distrust. He wanted to put her to ease. He wanted her to trust him. The realization was startling to him, though he betrayed none of his thoughts to her.
Heather clasped her small hands together. She looked down, spotting the smallest hint of grime from Charlotte under her thumb nail. The strength of her voice belied the edginess she felt as she lifted her head and looked him in the eyes. “You know that I am a skilled mechanic. Yet you sent your men to ‘assist’ me while you spoke with Jake. Why is that?”
Heather expected a perfunctory response or perhaps a disingenuous one suggesting that he’d forgotten her mechanical skills, but Beck surprised her with his blatant honesty. “I wanted to speak with Jake privately, but I also wanted to have my men nearby as a precaution.”
Heather’s brows furrowed. Jake had made no secret of the fact that he disliked Major Beck, but she knew enough of Jake to know that he wouldn’t risk the town’s safety over a personality conflict. “Jake isn’t your enemy.”
“Try telling that to him.” Beck crossed his arms. “I was under the impression that you were here for a debriefing, not the other way around.”
“Rule #14: Understand the person with whom you speak.”
Those dark brows were lifted again, though this time, Heather had the feeling that his expression was for her benefit rather than an involuntary response. “You’re trying to understand me?” It had been a long time since Beck had interacted with anyone other than subordinates or superiors. And then, that interaction wasn’t based on understanding but was, rather, based on orders given or orders followed. One needed not to understand why to do something in order to do it. “Are you sure it’s not a stalling tactic?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“But you think you have no choice in the manner.”
“I am procrastinating,” she admitted.
“Why is that?”
“Because when I say aloud what happened in New Bern, that’s going to make it very real. It’s also going to force you to make a decision that will affect people I care about. And,” she added, “I’m scared what you’re going to decide.”
“Do you think I’ll be unjust, Ms. Lisinski?”
“No,” she replied without hesitation. “I know that someone will receive justice.”
“With your permission…” he began, walking around the desk, taking the all-too-familiar tape recorder from a drawer and placing it on the work surface of his desk. She nodded her assent. “When last we spoke, you told me how you came to be in New Bern again, the maps of Jericho you found in the factory, the mortar shell production.”
“And how Eric and I planned to blow it up.”
“And you were discovered.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t killed outright. That surprises me. If Phil Constantino is a monster, as he’s been described, why would he choose to keep you alive?”
Beck had his suspicions. History was filled with examples of political prisoners and prisoners of war being used to further an agenda. In some instances, that agenda involved extracting state secrets that the captor believed the prisoner held, like in the case of Captain Joe Paget, whose plane was shot down over Manchuria in WWII during his one hundredth and final mission. Imprisoned by the Japanese for eighteen months, Captain Paget had endured confinement in a four foot by four foot cell, torture, and food and sleep deprivation, all in an attempt to force him to share strategic Allied plans with the Axis’s militant leaders. Paget never divulged information and was liberated by the British shortly before the end of the war, returning to his family who’d been informed that he was likely dead. Beck admired his fortitude and hoped that he, if faced with a similar situation, would display the strength and courage displayed by this man.
In other cases, the agenda involved cementing power in the eyes of the people, imprisonment for the purpose of propaganda. In 2004 eight British sailors inspecting merchant shipping lanes in international waters discovered this the hard way, when Iranian naval forces seized them at gunpoint. The sailors were freed after nearly two weeks of captivity—and multiple, forced P.R. photo ops with Iran’s president, Mohammed Khatami. Of course, Iran no longer existed as such, wiped out along with North Korea, the result of reciprocity. What goes around, comes around.
Beck forced the thought from his mind. If he allowed himself to dwell on what Iran and North Korea had cost him, he would not be able to perform his duties. Duty was all he had left.
Heather rubbed her wrists, an involuntary reaction, as she remembered the feeling of the cold metal against her skin. They were led onto a platform, newly erected, complete with gallows. At the time, she’d thought death by hanging would be her fate. After all, she and Eric had been caught sabotaging the factory. “Constantino used Eric and me to whip the crowd of starving, desperate people in New Bern into a frenzy. Rumors were circulating about Jericho, no doubt planted by Constantino’s people.”
The wind was strong that night. Many of the townspeople carried torches that reminded Heather of a low budget medieval horror film, though she knew there would be no director to yell cut. The flames from the torches flared up in the wind, burning almost sideways. Neither she nor Eric had a coat that night, and while they had tried to stand as near to one another as possible—and Eric tried to block the wind from Heather—they were both shaking from the cold as much as from fear.
As she looked out at the throng of people that night, she recognized many of the faces. Mrs. Hanson, who’d been her father’s church secretary; Mr. Gentry, her high school soccer coach; Mr. Libbey, her biology teacher; Timmy Fitzwilliams, whom she’d babysat when he was a child; and so many others. They called out to Constantino. They demanded justice for their suffering.
He offered them an answer.
Heather’s voice hardened and her jaw tightened. “According to him, Jericho had hoarded goods. Jericho sent Ravenwood to ravage the city.” A flash of recognition shone in Beck’s eyes, but Heather did not see it, lost in her own recollection of those events. “Constantino told them that Jericho was preventing shipments of food and other goods from reaching New Bern, to keep New Bern desperate, to make New Bern rely upon Jericho for its food supply, its survival. Never mind that people were starving in Jericho or freezing to death. Constantino was smart. He knew that the people needed something to believe in, and Constantino gave it to them. He gave Eric and me to them.” She laughed humorlessly, jarring the otherwise silent office. “We were spies, according to him. The Jericho mayor’s son and the hometown girl turned turncoat. We were trying to keep New Bern from producing turbines because if they did, they’d be in a bargaining position. All of which was utterly ridiculous. If Jericho and New Bern had been able to work together, the way we intended when we ran into Russell and Ted at Black Jack Trading Post, our alliance would have been a win-win situation.”
Beck understood where Heather was going. What she said corroborated what Eric Green had told him. “So he called into question Jericho’s motives.”
“And convinced the citizens of New Bern that a pre-emptive strike on Jericho was the only way to handle the threat Jericho posed. Never mind that they’d been divvying up Jericho’s resources behind closed doors. Never mind that they’d been planning an attack since even before we got the factory up and running again.” Heather shook her head. “I helped them get on their feet. I helped them solve problems in that factory that they’d not figured out. People died because of it.”
“You had no way of knowing.”
“I was too naïve.” Her thoughts dashed to Emily. “I’m still too naïve.”
“Yet Constantino kept you alive.”
Many in the crowd called for Eric’s and Heather’s immediate hangings, while others cried out asking what type of people they’d become as a town. In the end, Constantino, in a show of his ‘mercy,’ announced that they would receive a fair trial, if a kangaroo court could be deemed fair.
Heather laughed uneasily. “Oh, there came a time when I’d outlived my usefulness. After Eric and I were demonized, we were imprisoned. Constantino and his ‘deputies’ would come get Eric or me from our cells for our ‘conversations.’ Every time we’d go for the ‘conversations,’ we’d have to pass through a corridor with a number of makeshift cells. What happened in there—let’s just say that dying isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a person.”
“I understand. When we went in to New Bern, we found what looked to be the remnants of slave trade.”
Heather had to bite her tongue. She wanted to ask whether slavery was permissible under the new A.S. Constitution. Then again, there was no new Constitution. It just so happened that the A.S. government wasn’t particularly good about upholding the old Constitution either. Instead, she tempered her thoughts with more a more diplomatic approach. “Why is Constantino still in New Bern, still able to stoke people’s anger?”
“He’s under house arrest. Project Home Sequester.”
“Please. Gangsters used to order hits from prison. House arrest doesn’t mean anything. Shouldn’t there be enough on the issue of slavery alone to make Constantino accountable?”
“I don’t mind telling you that we’re investigating the scope of his crimes, part of why you’re here, isn’t it? Thus far, two of his subordinates have claimed that it was not Phil Constantino’s operation. That a Deputy Travers ran that operation unbeknownst to Sheriff Constantino.”
“And if your men had, say, a prostitution or gambling ring going on, who would be accountable?”
“I would,” Beck replied. “The story does not ring true, but with no credible evidence to contradict their claims…”
“They say Bart Travers was the mastermind?”
“Yes.”
“The man didn’t sneeze without Constantino’s permission.”
“Tell me about him.”
Bart Travers. Forty-four. Despite the dire times, the man never lost his gut. It hung over his belted uniform pants, all the more apparent as those around him grew thinner with hunger. Heather remembered the perpetual smell of sweat that emanated from him.
“I vaguely remember him from before. Before the bombs, I mean.”
Beck knew what she meant. It was common enough. Life before the bombs, life after the bombs.
“His son was a year behind me in school, his daughter a few years younger. I’m not sure how many. I didn’t really hang out with either one. His wife left the family sometime when I was in elementary school. I don’t remember when exactly, but I do remember him coming to the parsonage, yelling at my dad to back off. He didn’t believe in heaven, hell, or eternity. Only the here and now, he’d said. He also said he’d take care of his kids himself.
“And he did,” Heather continued. “Everyone knew he was in the back pocket of Phil Constantino, who rewarded him handsomely. Nothing major before the bombs, but there were kickbacks. New Bern was known as a speed trap along Route 70.” Heather remembered when New Bern made the national news a few years back when a traveler passing through got a speeding ticket, paid the fine by check, along with a memo on the check: speed trap. Sheriff Constantino refused the check out of principle, setting off a controversy until a bigger story came along. “Deputies were permitted to skim off the top—or so the rumor went—when an ethics committee investigated Constantino.” A look of intense concentration fell upon her face. “What year was that?” She paused trying to piece together a timeline accurately.
“1998,” Beck supplied. “I’ve done my homework. At least, what the official record can tell us.”
“Fast forward eight years, twenty-three nukes, and one dictatorship later. Travers was Constantino’s yes man as always. Constantino would interrogate Eric and me. Often separately but occasionally together, mostly if they were trying to break our silence. One night, Eric and I were both taken out and brought into a cold room. Sheriff Constantino wanted to know strategic information. How many men manned the town outposts? What was their armament? Which homes and farms still had fuel or food supplies? Were there booby traps? We knew we couldn’t answer. Not truthfully, at least. Constantino ordered Travers to pound Eric each time he refused to answer a question. And then he’d turn to me, tell me that I could end Eric’s suffering and mine if I’d talk. Even if I was willing to talk, what did I know? I’m a third grade teacher for crying out loud! I did what I could to help around here after the bombs, but I wasn’t privy to the detailed information that Eric had. Each time they’d ask, he’d say the same thing: ‘Go to hell.’
“I won’t pretend that watching Eric being beaten was as painful as receiving the blows myself. How he—how he kept going, I’ll never know. But Travers would come, do Constantino’s bidding.”
“But you were not struck?”
“Not at first. Constantino wanted my body to remain unblemished by bruises or cuts. He said I would fetch a nice price in the slave market. Women who,” Heather searched for the right words, “looked healthy, attractive, and strong were far more valuable. The only mark upon me for quite some time was the brand Constantino used to show that I belonged to New Bern. I belonged to him.”
Beck grimaced. “You were branded?”
“Like cattle, yes.” Without realizing it, Heather’s hand went to her upper thigh, running her fingers over the mark. She could not feel the brand through her jeans, but in her mind’s eye, she could see the scar, remember the smell of burnt flesh, and the pain that seared through her.
Beck pursed his lips, maintaining eye contact with the young woman who sat across from him, though his first instinct was to look away, to gather his slipping composure. Instead, he plunged forward with the interview, determined to disconnect himself from the queasiness that formed in the pit of his stomach. “So you’re saying that Bart Travers had nothing to do with the slave trade.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Bart Travers had plenty to do with it, Major Beck. He carried out Constantino’s orders.”
“But Constantino was the leader. Everything went through him.” Major Beck leaned forward, elbows on his desk, hands clasped. “In my investigation, I’ve been told that Travers left the day of the skirmish, trying to cover his tracks beforehand.”
Heather shook her head. “Someone was lying to you, Major.”
“From what I understand, you were long gone by then, Ms. Lisinski. How do you know it didn’t happen as I’ve been told?”
“Because,” Heather said taking a deep breath. “I killed Bart Travers more than a week before the battle between New Bern and Jericho.”
to be continued in Chapter 13, Part B...