23
NASHVILLE
Another afternoon shading into another night in another no-name motel on the payday-loan side of town. They’d been in this room barely a day, on the road not even a week. Tom Miller was exhausted in mind and body and, worst of all, soul. He wanted to go home.
If he could decide where home might be.
Room 214 was peeling green paint and cigarette burns on the bedside table and a toilet with twin brown rings, the universe’s ugliest asteroid belts. Next door, a hooker urged her clients with an endless rotation of Do me. Harder, baby. So good. Every so often, she threw in an Oh, yes. God, yes for variety. Pretty much the second the men walked out, the hooker turned on her television. She watched the Food Network. And only the Food Network. Maybe all that acting made her hungry. Maybe she’d worked at a restaurant in her previous life.
Miller had watched a lot of television himself since Sunday. CNN and Fox, mostly. They were both big on computer-generated re-creations and retired cops talking about sniper nests. Miller didn’t mind those parts. But he hated hearing everyone talking about what good guys Luke Hurley and Cardinal James McDonnell had been. On CNN, the word senseless kept coming up. Fox focused on Islam. They keep saying Islam is a religion of peace. This look like peace to you?
Miller didn’t know what anything looked like anymore. He hadn’t minded shooting the Talibs in Kandahar. Those men were soldiers, too. Armed and dangerous. He’d slept fine after those kills.
But taking out Hurley, and especially McDonnell, had cut in a way he hadn’t expected. On Tuesday night, he lay on the bedcovers, staring at the ceiling. Whatever they might have done, whoever they might be, those two dudes were helpless when he’d come for them. They’d had no chance at all.
Wednesday morning, he left Allie in the motel, found himself a copy-and-print store that had an Internet-connected computer. He looked for any hints Hurley and McDonnell were involved in a sex ring. Not just the regular news outlets but conspiracy sites and message boards, too.
Nothing. Anywhere. On Reddit, the posters mostly thought jihadis had killed the men. These dudes want a religious war, I say we give it to them! The ones who didn’t said the Christian right was running a false flag operation to make Muslims look bad. Don’t fall for it. Not one person even raised the idea that they were being targeted because they were part of a pedophile gang.
Funny part was, he and Allie were good at shooting people. McDonnell had gone even more smoothly than Hurley. The Chicago streets had been dark and empty when Miller lined up the shot. Allie had the Ram fifty miles away by the time the cops showed up. Now the FBI was basically admitting it had no good leads. Nothing about a pickup truck, nothing about a female driver or a two-person team. This could be a long hunt, and we are hoping for the public’s help, the Chicago chief of police had said on Tuesday night. Maybe they were lying, playing down what they knew, but Miller didn’t think so. Given the panic the second shooting had caused, if the cops had information, they would have shown more confidence.
Allie was standing on the motel balcony when he drove back. She waved when she saw him, almost ran down the steps. Normally, watching her move was enough to excite him. Not today.
“You okay, babe?”
“Fine.” He knew what she’d say. Of course you didn’t find it anywhere. Do you think they told people they tricked out thirteen-year-old girls? Come on, Tom. The answer made sense, too.
Then why did he have such a hard time believing it?
Being in Nashville meant he was barely four hours from his old sergeant if he was still at his old address. But if he went to Coole now, told the truth, what would Coole say? He would tell Miller to turn himself in: You got to do what’s right, Tommy. You know that. Coole might even call the cops himself. What then? No mercy. Not that Miller deserved any. He’d shot two men in cold blood. Because some woman he didn’t know had told him a story.
For the first time since he’d met Allie, he just wanted to get stoned. So stoned he couldn’t move. So stoned he couldn’t think.
He watched television instead. After a while, CNN made his eyes ache, and he switched to the Food Network. Why not? If it was good enough for the whore next door, it was good enough for him. The stuff looked tasty, too.
Around 1 p.m., Allie went out. He didn’t ask where she was going. She was gone most of the afternoon. When she came back, he barely looked up. She lay beside him on the bed, slid a long leg over his, buried her face in his neck. She even ran a lazy hand down his chest, those fingers that had given him so much pleasure. He didn’t stir.
She sat up, poked at him. A finger on his carotid.
“Tom. Look at me. Please.”
He turned off the television now, stayed on his back. She looked down at him with those cool-blue eyes.
“I wouldn’t want to be with you if this was easy for you. You’re a soldier, not a killer.”
“I don’t know what I am.”
“You’re purifying me. Can’t you see?” She stretched her hand around his neck. Like she could draw out his life with her fingertips. He wished she could. Giving himself to her that way would hurt less than what he’d done. And then they’d be together forever, him inside her.
He closed his eyes.
“I’m too weak to do it myself, Tom.”
“Maybe we should stop.”
“Soon.”
He’d known she was working up to asking him again.
“Not a minister this time.”
“Who?”
“Paul Birman. The senator.”
Miller opened his eyes, looked up at her. The pieces fit. Allie had wanted to come to Nashville, after all. And Birman had been on CNN talking about Luke Hurley like he’d known Hurley. Worst part, she was right. Birman would be easier. He was too smooth. Like everything had come easy his whole life. Miller’s teeth gritted every time he saw the guy on television.
Still. Another man down.
Miller didn’t ask what Birman had done to her. He didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want to have to wonder if she was telling the truth.
“Please, baby.”
Oh, hell. What difference did another one make, anyway?
“He must have a ton of security here.” His way of saying yes.
“Tom.” She kissed him, chastely, her hand still close on his neck. Her way of saying she understood that he’d agreed. He felt his desire flickering once again, lightning in the distance. “Not here. He’s giving a speech in Dallas Friday. At the basketball arena. Where the bombing was.”
“The American Airlines Center.” CNN had mentioned the speech.
She nodded.
“He’ll have security there, too.” Now that he’d agreed, he felt the weight off him. He was already thinking tactically, solving the problem of shooting Paul Birman. Solving the problem of Paul Birman’s life. The guilt would come back later, but Miller didn’t care. Not if he didn’t have to think about it now.
“I googled it, and there’s a hotel that looks over the arena. Just south of it. I’ll show you.”
Of course she’d already looked.
“We’ll go down tonight. Have tomorrow to scout. Friday, too, if we need.”
“Still be tricky.”
“I know you can do it, Tom. You’re an amazing shot. And then Mexico. The border’s six hours from Dallas. No one will pay any attention to us. It’ll just be us. You and me. “
“You promise?”
“I love you, Tom.”
A few days before, he would have given anything at all to hear her say those words. Even now, they carried a power that he couldn’t fight.
She kissed him, not chastely this time but openmouthed, exploring him with her tongue. And he couldn’t help himself, the lightning wasn’t in the distance anymore. He wanted her as badly as ever. She broke off the kiss, sat up, straddled his chest. She reached down. And when she touched him, the shock ran through him—
This is wrong, what you’re doing. She’s playing you, and you’re letting her. It’s wrong, Tom—
“No, stop—” But he wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to himself. He didn’t want to hear anything else in his head, he just wanted to feel her. And if he had to shoot Paul Birman to do it—
She smiled at him. She seemed to know what he meant, because she didn’t stop. She didn’t even slow down.