Vital Secrets Vol 4-6

Chapter 3-1

Chapter Three

By the following evening Lizzie and Donny had made it to Santa Rosa, and by Tuesday afternoon they had taken the SUV off the tow dolly and backed the moving truck up into the driveway of Lizzie’s childhood home in Pantego, Texas.

“Nice to be back here,” she said as she gazed at the familiar structure. “I missed this place.”

She sighed and turned to Donny.

“So, I think we probably ought to go in first, look at Dad’s stuff, see what needs to stay in the house and what needs to move to storage, right?”

“Yep,” he agreed. “And this will get interesting with just two of us.”

“About that,” Lizzie said with a smile. “Faith and Rick should be here any minute. Rick asked Micah to cover at the bookstore so they could come help us lug stuff around.”

“Nice!”

A few minutes later Faith and Rick pulled up at the curb, with Faith leaping out of the truck almost before it came to a complete stop.

“Bestie!” she called out and moved quickly to wrap Lizzie in a huge hug. “It’s so good to see you! I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Lizzie managed through her sudden and unexpected tears of happiness.

My life is so full, she thought. I am so blessed.

“No ma’am,” Faith admonished, tears starting to brim in her own eyes. “No crying, or I’ll start too.”

Lizzie laughed.

“Always know just what to say, don’t you?”

“Hey guys,” Rick called out as he approached. “Lizzie, Faith has been so excited about today. It’s all she’s talked about for a week.”

Lizzie moved to hug him too, then stepped back as Rick and Donny did their usual ‘bro-hug’ thing.

“It’s not all I’ve talked about,” Faith said with an exaggerated eye-roll before grinning and whispering to Lizzie, “but I may have mentioned it a couple times here and there.”

“Oh! I almost forgot, be right back,” she gasped suddenly, and moved quickly back to Rick’s truck.

She returned a few moments later with takeout bags.

“We brought food, too,” Faith revealed. “Chinese from your favorite place.”

“How much daylight do we have left to work with?” Donny asked.

“About four hours,” Rick told him.

“Guess we’d better get started, then. Eat first?” Lizzie suggested.

“Sure. Fried rice is better when it’s hot,” Donny chimed in.

Forty minutes later they’d finished the meal and determined what pieces of Frank Zimmerman’s furniture would be staying. Then the work began to move those things destined for donation outside and replace them with Lizzie’s furniture from the moving truck.

He stopped, saved his work, and stretched to relieve the stiffness that had set in from being hunched over a keyboard most of the day.

So, the games will start in San Angelo, huh? Never been there. This ought to be interesting. And it will be nice to be able to put my marksman skills to use.

The mere idea had him smiling.

“Which reminds me, I need to practice with it first,” he muttered to himself.

He opened a second browser window and called up all outdoor shooting ranges within a hundred-mile radius.

He needed to get a better feel for the weapon he’d stolen from Grant Forrester’s display case; it just wouldn’t do to proceed without getting more familiar with his weapon’s firing characteristics first. He already knew from his research that the lever-action repeating rifle was rated for accuracy up to two hundred and fifty yards from the target - plenty of distance to take his shot and be able to get away undetected.

He was counting on that ability. After all, what point was there in staging and playing such an elaborate game with only one round?

The only question mark in it all was precisely where his ideal firing position would be on the big day, and he couldn’t decide that until he was onsite at the old fort. The pictures he’d found on the internet weren’t helpful at all for learning the layout or gauging distances.

Better go down a day or two early and scope it out in person, he realized. I’m going to have to walk the land to make the best decision.

He moved to the kitchen, fixed himself a sandwich, and returned to his computer to keep gathering data for his trip. The very expensive bugs he’d planted in Grant’s house, car, and cell phone were working beautifully alongside the sophisticated hack into Grant’s computer system. All of it was returning valuable information.

That setup was worth every single penny, for sure, he told himself as he scrolled through results and ate his sandwich.

Two hours in, they stopped for a break.

“How much is left?” Faith asked before taking a long drink of water.

“Another hour, tops,” Lizzie observed. “Then drive the truck to the storage place, unload it, and turn it in.”

“And you guys aren’t heading out for Virginia until the twenty-seventh, right?”

“Yep,” Lizzie confirmed. “We built in some time for us to relax and visit with everybody here before we have to get going again.”

She looked around to make sure the men were out of earshot, then continued, “And it’s a good thing, too. I need to pick your brain about a conversation that Donny and I had on the way here.”

“Sounds serious.”

“It was definitely… unexpected, for sure.”

“Well then. We’ll just have to make sure you and I have some girl time before you leave.”

“You two ready to keep going? I think the truck rental place closes at eight,” Rick called out.

“Then let’s get this done,” Lizzie answered, winking at Faith.

By seven-ten Lizzie and Faith were in Lizzie’s SUV following Rick and Donny to the storage unit.

“So, spill. What’s going on?” Faith said as soon as they’d shut their doors.

“In a nutshell, Donny brought up kids,” Lizzie told her.

“Wow. Already? Kinda soon, isn’t it?”

“Exactly. And I said as much.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said he’s not even sure how he feels about having any, and he totally gets that he freaked me out by asking about it.”

“So where did the conversation end?”

“Well, we’re both undecided, and we both agree that it’s way too soon to talk about anything that big, so, we’ve shelved it for now.”

“Okay, and – what are your thoughts on it?”

“Honestly? I’m terrified,” Lizzie admitted to her best friend. “First of all, I’m shocked I’m even having talks like this. And second, how the hell would I juggle a career as an FBI agent and being a mom? I can’t even begin to think how that would even be possible.”

“So, you’d be interested in having kids with Donny?”

Lizzie blinked rapidly.

“Yes… no… I don’t know, Faith. What if I don’t and he does? I don’t want to break up, but I know that I’m not ready to make that kind of commitment. Being a parent… that’s a massively big responsibility.”

Faith looked over to see Lizzie turning progressively paler.

“You all right?”

“I’d almost rather serve a warrant on someone that I know has guns and a temper than talk about kids and stuff,” Lizzie managed through clenched teeth. “The warrant stuff is much less scary.”

“Wow, that’s saying something,” Faith observed. “Okay, so, set it on the back burner like you two agreed. Focus on getting through Quantico and getting settled in down here.”

“That’s another thing,” Lizzie interjected. “I pointed out that he and I don’t even live in the same state.”

“Yes, well, seems to me that part would need to be addressed before anything else,” Faith conceded.

A few minutes later they were pulling into the parking lot of the storage unit complex.

“Thanks for listening,” Lizzie said.

“Anytime, Liz. That’s what best friends do,” Faith replied.

“Hey, before the guys rejoin us, I’ve been meaning to ask you - have you two set a wedding date yet, or what?”

“Not yet,” Faith’s reply was casual and even.

“What are you waiting for?”

“I…” Faith began to say but faltered.

To be honest, I’m really not sure, she realized.

Lizzie noticed her hesitation.

“Huh,” Lizzie said. “Sounds like we both have some big questions to answer at some point.”

“I’m so, so glad you’re here,” Bella said to Jandy Wednesday morning as she stared at the oversized turkey taking up an entire shelf of her refrigerator.

“I’ve never cooked Thanksgiving dinner before, and to be honest, I’m a little intimidated right now. That bird is huge. It weighs more than Charlie!”

“Don’t be, honey. It’ll be fine,” Jandy reassured her. “I’ll be right here with you every step of the way. Besides, it can’t be any worse than my very first Thanksgiving dinner.”

“What happened?”

“Well, among other things, I didn’t know that there was this little packet of stuff in the cavity of the bird that needed to be taken out before cooking.”

“Packet of stuff?” Bella was incredulous. “What are you talking about? What packet?”

Jandy laughed.

“Yeah. They take the neck, gizzards, and heart of the bird and they put it in a little food-grade paper packet, and they shove it down in the inside. Because some people use that stuff in their gravy, or whatever. I don’t. I usually just throw all that away. Anyway, my very first turkey, I didn’t know about the packet, so, it got left in there and I cooked the turkey.”

Bella’s face scrunched up in disgust.

“And?”

“And it smelled like burnt paper, to begin with, and went downhill from there. My dressing was soupy, my potatoes were lumpy, and I forgot about the rolls and burned them so badly they weren’t edible. Pretty much everything about that first meal was horrible.”

Bella paled.

“But I learned a lot from that first try,” Jandy continued, “and now I can pretty much nail it every time. I figured out some tricks and tips that really helped, and I’m gonna show you every one of them. It’s going to be all right, I promise. And fun, too.”

Her cell phone rang, and Jandy glanced at it.

“It’s the fire chief,” she relayed just before she answered the phone, and her eyes fluttered shut as she listened.

“Thanks, I appreciate the update,” she murmured. “Will we be able to be there, at least? Okay, see you then.”

Jandy sighed as she hung up.

“The engineers say it’s too dangerous to enter. They’ve scheduled demolition for this afternoon at four-thirty.”

“I’ll call Kellie and ask if she can watch Charlie for a while this afternoon. That way Nathan and I can both go with you,” Bella suggested, and pulled out her cell phone to reach out to the high school senior on their block who had become a regular babysitter for Charlie.

A few minutes later, Bella called Nathan and filled him in.

“Sure. I’ll make sure I’m home in time to ride up with you guys,” he confirmed. “Not much going on in the office today anyway.”

Meanwhile, Jandy relayed the latest information to Tony, who said he’d meet them onsite.

At four-twenty, Jandy, Tony, Bella and Nathan were standing in the driveway of what once was a warm and inviting two-story Victorian-style house on a manicured half-acre lot just north of Denton, Texas.

No one spoke as they stared at the burned-out shell before them. The lovingly restored exterior was burnt to a crisp, and the entire second floor over the wraparound porch had collapsed downward.

On the side that was still standing as two separate floors, almost no roof covering was left at all. The few remnants were badly damaged, first from flame, then from water as the fire department had tried their best to save the structure.

From what Nathan could tell, not a single window in the place had been spared; each one had large shards of glass hanging in disjointed pieces in twisted frames, making the house look as if it were writhing in agony.