Primary Valor, Jack Mars [black female authors .txt] 📗

Luke stared at it. It was an oldblue phone, the kind that had hung on kitchen walls for decades. They weredisappearing now, gradually being replaced by small black phones that you heldin your hand, carried in your pocket, and brought with you wherever you went. Thewall phone was a relic from a simpler time.

Luke ignored the phone for amoment, reached into the refrigerator and came out with a cold beer.

The weather was fine. Thesurroundings here were beautiful. He and Becca were at her family’s cabin inQueen Anne’s County for the weekend. The house had been in the family for overa hundred years.

The place was an ancient, rusticplace sitting on a small bluff above Chesapeake Bay. The house was two floors,wooden everything, with creaks and squeaks everywhere. There was a screened-inporch facing the water, and a newer stone patio down a small hill from thehouse. The patio sat right on the bluff, with commanding 180-degree views ofthe water. Some mornings Luke walked out of the house in his bare feet, withhis coffee cup in hand, and was staggered all over again by the panorama, as ifseeing it for the very first time.

It really was an incredible place.Luke loved it here.

The only problem was sometimes thehouse came with Becca’s mother and father. Luke looked out the picture window,at the group of people down on the patio. Becca was there at the table, Gunneron her lap.

Gunner was ten months old, andzooming toward his first birthday. He was getting big. He wore blue shorts anda yellow pullover fleece today. He was about as cute as humanly possible. Hishead was huge! Luke liked to think it was because of the brains it held insidethere.

Also present were the in-laws,Audrey and Lance. They had a bottle of white wine on the table with them, andthey were getting tipsy.

Luke picked up the phone.

“Luke Stone,” he said.

“Son, it’s Don.”

Who else would it be on a sleepySunday afternoon? The same man who had given Luke and Ed the day off tomorrow.

“Hi, Don. How are you?”

“Good. Good. Listen, I’m going tokeep this short and sweet. I need you to come in tomorrow, bright and early,and I need you to be prepared for a day or two out of town. Sorry about that.”

Luke didn’t even try to argue. Donwouldn’t rescind a day off lightly. At the same time, Luke never knew quitewhat “a day or two out of town” meant. In the past, it had meant a trip to gunbattles on the other side of the world.

“A day or two?” he said.

“Yes. For real. I was asked tolook into a missing person case in North Carolina. We’re going to keep itquiet. I want you and Ed to drop down there and poke around a little. It’s notofficial SRT business, so we’re not going to get our noses dirty on this. Ijust want to see if we can turn up anything the locals haven’t.”

“Sounds like you’re doing someonea favor,” Luke said.

“That’s what I saw in you when wefirst met,” Don said. “You catch on quick.”

There was a pause between them. Lukeunderstood that part of the game, part of what kept the agency alive, was Donscratching backs, and getting his own back scratched in turn. Luke understoodit, but he knew very little about it. It wasn’t his department.

“Trudy Wellington is digging upthe details on this as we speak. She’ll have everything for you tomorrowmorning. For now, let’s keep this under our hats.”

Let’s keep this under our hats.

That meant don’t tell anyone aboutit. Of course, anyone could be listening to this conversation, and anyoneprobably was.

“Sure,” Luke said.

“Good. Thanks, Stone. I’ll make upthe free day for you guys, and I’ll double it. In the meantime, I’ll see youtomorrow.”

Luke put the phone back on itscradle. He walked out the screen door and headed down to the patio. The doorslammed behind him. The door had tight springs—it always slammed with enthusiasm.

Everyone at the table looked upand watched him come down the hill. Even Gunner seemed to follow Luke with hiseyes. Within reason, Luke was not the paranoid type. And yet, he often had thefeeling that people in his own family were eyeing him with suspicion.

“Did the phone ring?” Becca said.

Becca’s brown hair was straightand long. Her bright blue eyes were alive and aware. She was as physicallybeautiful as ever, possibly even more beautiful as she headed into her thirtiesand embraced motherhood.

Luke nodded. He took a sip of hisbeer. It was cold and delicious.

“It was Don. He needs me to comein tomorrow.”

“Luke,” Becca said. “We just gothere yesterday. He promised you a three-day weekend.”

“I know it,” Luke said.

“How is work?” Audrey said.

Luke gazed at his mother-in-law,taking his time, soaking her in. She had deep-set eyes with irises so dark,they seemed almost black. She had a sharp nose, like a beak. She had tiny bonesand a thin frame. She reminded him of a bird—a crow, or maybe a vulture. Andyet, in her own way, she was attractive.

Audrey St. John was born wealthy,and as a general rule, she frowned upon work. She didn’t understand why someonewould do the kind of dangerous, dirty work that occupied Luke Stone. She seemedcontinually shocked that her own daughter, Rebecca St. John, would marrysomeone like Luke.

That had changed a bit when Gunnerwas born. Audrey went for the jugular a little less often now, and Luke wouldhappily take whatever positive interactions he could get from her.

“It’s going okay,” he said now,still a little wary, like a fighter circling a dangerous opponent. “It’s beenpretty quiet these last months.”

Luke didn’t mention that it hadbeen quiet since he and Ed and Kevin Murphy had saved the President of theUnited States from a hijacking to Somalia. That part was classifiedinformation, and anyway, among the people at this table, it was understood.

And quiet didn’t begin to describehow these past months had been.

Despite the success of the Somaliaoperation, the FBI brass had decided that the Special Response Team was a roguedepartment, and needed to be reined in. Until the raid on Friday, Luke and Edhad largely been on the bench while Don