Maggie O Dell 09 Hotwire Read online

  She was missing her son’s first official playdate. Her husband had emailed three photos—mostly blurs of babies surrounded by too many toys—but they were enough to make her ache. She had only been back at work three weeks and already she wished she had taken some extra time.

  It didn’t help matters that she returned to a new boss; her old one, promoted up the ranks, had been kind enough to make sure her job was secure before he left. These days that was no small feat. And so she was grateful even if her new boss was obsessive-compulsive, an outsider who Mary Ellen believed was an obvious political pick.

  Mary Ellen felt like she had spent the last three weeks teaching her the nuts and bolts of the job. But she held her tongue even when she realized her husband was, most likely, right. Had she not been pregnant, her previous boss would have recommended Mary Ellen for his old position. She didn’t like to admit that such bias still ran rampant in the federal government, especially at the upper levels. Had she been a man with the same qualifications, age, marital status, and even a new baby, she would, no doubt, be the new undersecretary.

  The door to the office opened so suddenly that Mary Ellen startled. A man in a military uniform marched out then turned back.

  “Keep me posted,” he said.

  Mary Ellen could see that her boss, Irene Baldwin, had followed him to the door. The officer looked familiar but Mary Ellen couldn’t put a name to the face, although she realized he resembled too many military elite—thick-chested with steel-gray hair, a rubber-stamped scowl, and lifeless eyes.

  She watched the man march all the way down the hall before it hit her. General Lorimer was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Off the top of her head she couldn’t think of a single project her boss was supposed to be working on with the Department of Defense. She wondered what brought him here.

  “Wychulis. Good, you’re on time. Enter,” Irene Baldwin said with a wave of her hand then darted back into her office before her last guest had even reached the elevator.

  Baldwin had changed the office so remarkably from its previous occupant that each time Mary Ellen walked in she had to remind herself she worked for the government, not a Fortune 500 company. But it was also a reminder that Baldwin not only had worked for a Fortune 500 company but had run one.

  Where framed black-and-white photos of agricultural history had hung on the walls, there were now canvases in vibrant-colored oils with abstract images that on closer inspection could depict stalks of grain or bird’s-eye views of a forest. The new wall decorations looked like they belonged in a contemporary art museum instead of the office of an undersecretary in the Department of Agriculture.

  “Sit,” Baldwin told Mary Ellen.

  Her one- or two-word commands reminded Mary Ellen of dog obedience school.

  Baldwin continued to stand behind her desk and pull file folders from a neat stack piled on the polished corner. The only other things on the desk were three pens and a legal pad.

  “I have questions,” she said, sorting through the contents of a file folder.

  Mary Ellen sat on the edge of her chair. Of course, she had questions. Every morning she had questions and she expected Mary Ellen to save her precious time by providing the answers. Mary Ellen kept her back ramrod straight, her feet flat on the floor, preparing for whatever Baldwin wanted.

  “I have a request to continue”—Baldwin paused to put on a pair of reading glasses—“something called a mobile slaughter unit in Fort Collins, Colorado. What exactly is that?”

  “It’s part of the ‘Know your farmer, know your food’ initiative. The unit travels from site to site and provides services to small regional producers at a host farm.”

  “Services?”

  “Yes.”

  “Slaughter services.”

  “That’s correct.” Mary Ellen refrained from any more details. One thing she had learned about Baldwin—and learned the hard way—was that the woman enjoyed making a game of what she believed were the agency’s “absurdities” or “foibles.” Despite Mary Ellen’s recent absence she had almost five years invested at the USDA and a loyalty to public service. She didn’t appreciate the sarcasm even if some of it was justified. Of course any agency had problems.

  Baldwin came from the private sector. She had worked her way up the ranks of a large food corporation, ultimately becoming responsible for developing the research facility which was known worldwide for its cutting-edge labs. It was no secret that she was hired to bridge the communication gap between the Food Safety and Inspection Service and the private processors and distributors who provided the nation’s food supply. Her experience would give credibility to an agency that had the reputation of beating up on those same processors and distributors that it was supposed to work closely with, not just regulate to assure the safety of the nation’s food supply.

  “Second question.” Baldwin pushed at the glasses that tended to slide to the end of her nose. “Why do I have a citizen’s petition from”—she paused again as she flipped pages—“a Wesley Stotter, who says these mobile slaughter units are, quote, being used for unethical and secretive government experiments, unquote?”

  “I’m not familiar with that petition.”

  “No?” Baldwin slid the file to Mary Ellen’s side of the desk. “Please read it. Stotter is a syndicated talk-radio guy. Looks like he has a rather significant audience, though a somewhat strange mix of antigovernment and UFO fanatics. Could be nothing. Could be a media headache waiting to explode into a migraine. Last question.”

  Her curt, brisk style had Mary Ellen’s head spinning and stomach turning the first several days.

  The woman pulled another file from the stack.

  “What in the world is a ‘spent hen’ and why is there a pending review waiting for my confirmation?”

  “Spent hens are old egg-laying birds, past their productivity. Most commercial buyers like fast-food restaurants or processed-food companies won’t buy them. The hens spend most of their lives caged while laying eggs so their bones tend to be brittle and can splinter.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a review. Brittle bones would definitely be a food-safety issue. If no one wants to buy them, why is there a review?”

  “Well, actually for the last decade the USDA has bought them. Millions of pounds, in fact.”

  “What on earth for?”

  Mary Ellen fidgeted with the pages in her lap. There was nothing else in the folder except the document asking for confirmation from Baldwin to continue the review. Mary Ellen wanted to kick whoever had put this on her boss’s desk in the first place. She didn’t want to hear her boss’s sarcasm and judgment, even if she agreed.

  “Wychulis, I have only the request. Please enlighten me. Why in the world did the USDA buy millions of pounds of brittle-boned chickens?”

  “For the National School Lunch Program.”

  EIGHTEEN

  NEBRASKA

  Maggie had slept. Hard enough that she needed to remember where she was. The scent of brewed coffee and freshly baked bread wafted up to the loft, but when she looked over the side rail she didn’t see Lucy in the kitchen.

  The woman had loaned Maggie an oversized T-shirt to sleep in. It looked new and had blocks of brightly colored train cars with a logo that read RAILFEST 1999. She found her clothes, which had been soaked and stained with blood and debris, now freshly laundered and stacked neatly on an upholstered bench by the stairs. Even her shoes had been cleaned, the mud scraped off and the leather polished. She wondered if Lucy had slept at all.

  Maggie opened the sliding glass door to the porch and stepped out into the morning sunlight. Blue skies—not a patch of white cloud—stretched over miles of sandhills, the yellow and burnt-orange grasses waving so that the hills looked like they were actually moving.

  Directly below—what Maggie had not been able to see last night—were a patio and landscaped garden with brick-paved pathways between berms of flowers. Colorful birdhouses hung from trees. A small fountain mad
e of watering cans trickled a stream down onto rocks. Maggie could hear wind chimes and smell pine. And in the middle of this paradise was Lucy’s tall thin figure, arms stretched above her head, the wide sleeves of her shirt and the slow, graceful movements of her arms looking like wings of a bird.

  Sheriff Skylar had mentioned Lucy’s Indian heritage and Maggie wondered if this was, perhaps, part of a silent tribal dance. Lucy saw her, completed the circle her arms had started, and then shouted up, “You’re welcome to join me for a little yoga before breakfast.”

  Maggie was glad she was far enough away that Lucy couldn’t see her embarrassment. Yoga. Of course, it was yoga. What was wrong with her? She was as bad as Skylar.

  “No, thanks. Do I have time for a short run instead?”

  “That’s fine. Help yourself to whatever you can find in the closet and the bottom drawer of the bureau.”

  Maggie found shorts and a sweatshirt. Thankfully Lucy wore baggie workout clothes. Her shoes were a bit long but Maggie fixed them by putting on two pairs of socks. In minutes she made her way out the long driveway with Jake, the black shepherd, following along.

  Last night she hadn’t noticed that the road to Lucy’s place was hard-packed sand with only patches of gravel mostly in the middle. The rain had left crevices that ran like veins and crumbled the edges. Maggie stayed close to the center, not risking sliding into the rain-filled ditch.

  At first the shepherd seemed confused by her behavior, on alert, looking for whatever danger had made her run. But he kept pace and soon stopped looking over his shoulder. It reminded her of jogs with Harvey. She liked having the company.

  They hadn’t been at it for long when the dog’s ears pitched and he started herding Maggie to the side of the road, bumping her leg once and then a second time when she ignored him. The pickup came roaring over the hill from behind them. The tires sent a spray of sand at Maggie and Jake as it swerved to avoid hitting them. The dog crouched to his belly. The brakes screeched, spitting more sand and gravel. Taillights flared. The truck jolted to a stop about ten yards ahead of them.

  Jake was back on his feet, his nose nudging Maggie’s hand, wanting her to follow him back to the house.

  The engine idled then the driver shifted into reverse and slowly backed up. The window opened and a man poked his head out. He was young, mid-twenties with a sunburn and ball cap pulled low so that all Maggie could see were his mirrored sunglasses and a bushy mustache.

  “Everything all right, ma’am?”

  “Just out for a run.”

  “A run?” His head swiveled around as if he were looking for someone else to explain.

  “I’m jogging,” she said, noticing that her mouth and eyes were lined with sand.

  He stared at her. Then finally said, “Oh sure. Okay. Just thought I’d better check.”

  He shifted gears and slowly drove off. She could see him watching her in the rearview mirror and realized that it was curiosity more than remorse that had slowed his speed.

  When she and Jake got back to the house, Lucy had the table already set for breakfast and had added the scent of bacon to the kitchen.

  “You forgot to mention what an oddity I might be, out running in the road.”

  Lucy didn’t look up from the counter where she slathered butter on bread, but there was a glimpse of a smile when she said, “I think you and I were meant to be oddities no matter where we are or what we do.”

  NINETEEN

  NORTH PLATTE, NEBRASKA

  Light blinded Dawson. He jerked awake to find sunlight streaming through the blinds of his hospital-room window.

  Sunlight. No laser beams or fireworks.

  His dad sat up in the chair beside the bed and rubbed at the stubble on his face and the sleep in his eyes. Dawson wondered how long his father had been there. Had he seen the creature? Dawson frantically searched around the room.

  “You’re in North Platte,” his father said, thinking he must not recognize his surroundings. “At the hospital. You got banged up pretty good but you’re gonna be okay.”

  His dad looked tired. But he always looked tired. He worked ten-hour shifts at the meat-processing plant. Sometimes he pulled a double shift when one of the other security guards called in sick. He even worked part-time on his days off, couriering packages. He didn’t used to put in this many hours when he was a state patrolman. But he left that job years ago. Dawson didn’t know the details and he didn’t really care. It happened right about the time his mom left them. In fact he’d barely noticed that one day his dad was getting ready for work and holstering a Taser instead of a Smith and Wesson.

  They didn’t even have dinner together anymore, let alone talk to each other. Except for when his dad felt it was necessary to tell Dawson how disappointed he was in him. Dawson figured this would be one of those times, especially if his dad had spent the night sleeping in that vinyl chair.

  “What happened?” Dawson asked, hoping to preempt the lecture.

  “You don’t remember?”

  He stared at his father trying to decide whether he would even believe him. A creature with red eyes shooting electrical sparks out of its arms? His father mistook the confused look to be a loss of memory.

  “The doctor said you might have short-term amnesia. You got an electric shock from something. He’s thinking it was strong enough to throw you into a barbed-wire fence. You ended up with it wrapped all around your body. You don’t remember anything?”

  Dawson didn’t respond. His father was standing now. Not a tall man but from the bed Dawson felt as if the man towered over him. Then his dad did something totally unexpected. He put his hand on Dawson’s shoulder and for a brief moment Dawson thought he saw sadness in his eyes.

  “You’re really lucky, kid. A couple of your friends are dead.”

  It didn’t register. How could any of them be dead? They were just screwing around. Having some fun. Who was dead? Dawson didn’t get a chance to ask.

  “Hey, Mr. H,” a voice called from the doorway and suddenly Dawson’s dad was smiling. The sadness was gone and so was his hand from Dawson’s shoulder.

  “Johnny. How’s that throwing arm?”

  “Sore, but I guess I can’t complain.”

  Dawson thought Johnny B looked better than after a football game. What he couldn’t believe was how excited his dad looked, as if a celebrity had walked in, but then Johnny B was the closest thing there was to one in town.

  “Is it okay for me to talk to Dawson?”

  “Sure. I need to get home and change for work. I’ll leave you boys. Dawson, I’ll be back tonight as soon as I get off, okay?”

  Johnny waited for Dawson’s dad to leave and even then, took a place beside the bed where he could watch the door.

  “What did you tell him?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What did you tell your dad happened last night?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t tell him anything.”

  “Did you tell him about the camera?”

  “No.”

  “What about the Sally-D?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You know we could be in a whole shitload of trouble if they found out where we got it.”

  “I didn’t tell him.”

  “They’d drop me from the team. All those scholarship offers will be gone if I end up not playing.”

  “I didn’t say a word.”

  “I’ll never go anywhere.” And then under his breath, “That’d make Amanda happy.”

  Dawson had never seen Johnny like this—more scared than angry.

  “None of it was my idea,” he said. “I go down, everybody goes down.”

  “My dad said somebody died.”

  Johnny stared straight ahead, somewhere over Dawson’s head. Then suddenly he gripped Dawson’s bandaged arm, digging his fingers into the wounds. Dawson wanted to scream from the pain. He saw fresh blood staining the wrap. He tried to jerk his arm away but Johnny tightened his grip, leaned down unti
l his face was inches from Dawson’s, his breath hot and sour.

  “Just keep your mouth shut.”

  TWENTY

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Julia Racine wished she could stop thinking about how sticky the little girl’s hand was. She should be grateful that CariAnne wanted to hold her hand. Truth was, when Julia finally gave in to dating women, she thought that at least she wouldn’t have to deal with children. Too often the men she had dated wanted her to be instant stepmom to their weekend kids. Julia knew long ago that she didn’t possess that maternal gene. She realized that she never wanted to be a mother long before she even realized her preference for women.

  She didn’t admit it to anyone, but children grated on her nerves. She didn’t have the patience for either their bouts of exuberance or, at the other end of the spectrum, their constant whining. Her new partner had recently suggested— after seeing how uncomfortable Julia seemed to be with her daughter—that perhaps Julia hadn’t gotten the chance to be a child herself and so she couldn’t relate. To which Julia had muttered, “Thank you very much, Dr. Freud,” but at the same time she remembered thinking, “Duh. You think?”

  Julia was ten, just a little older than CariAnne, when her mother died. Her father tried to make Julia’s life as normal as possible and she absolutely adored Luc Racine for his efforts, but something broke inside Julia the day her mother left. She knew that then, although she didn’t understand it. But she had felt it, like fabric that had tugged and stretched then ripped at the seams. It had been a pain, an ache so real, so palpable that as a little girl she truly believed something— her stomach, her intestines, her heart—had surely been torn.

  Her father claimed that one day she was climbing trees and the next day she was pulling up a chair to the kitchen sink to wash dishes, trying to do her mother’s chores herself.