Never Go Home by L.T. Ryan Page A

and
said nothing.
    “Don’t brush
me off.”
    “There’s a
lot of things I’ve done that I can’t talk about, April. Just how it works. I
never worked for the CIA, although I may or may not have been loaned out
to them a time or two.” I paused a beat. “Or three.”
    She seemed to
accept the answer for what it was. An admission of guilt without admitting I
was guilty.
    “And what
about a secret government agency?”
    “I am not at
liberty to discuss the existence or non-existence of any secret government
agencies.” I threw in a smile to derail her a bit.
    “Have you
worked as an assassin?”
    “Why put
labels on things like that?”
    “What kind of
answer is that?”
    I rose.
“Look, April, you’re wasting time. Whoever did this, didn’t do it because of
me. No one knows I’m here right now. I flew in from England on a private jet.
Landed at an Air Force base. No customs, passports, computer scans, or anything
like that.”
    She sighed
and fell back in her seat. “OK, then, so who did this?”
    “What do you
know about my brother?”
    “Sean? He’s
well known, well liked. His law firm is taking off. Does a lot in the
community.”
    She didn’t
read into my question the way I thought she would. I wondered if she really had
her heart into the job, or if she’d taken it to get her dad to quit.
    “Let me
restate that,” I said. “Have you ever heard anything about Sean—”
    “No, Jack.
Don’t go there. He’s clean, trust me.”
    “How would
you know?”
    She got up
and walked past me, toward the kitchen.
    I rose and
followed. “You didn’t answer me.”
    “I know
because I questioned him already.”
    April had
absolved herself. Perhaps she was cut out for her line of work.
    We each took
a seat at the kitchen island. The gut feeling that I’d missed something in
there returned. I glanced around the room, looking for something. I didn’t find
it. My fingers bounced nervously against the granite counter top.
    “What is it?”
she said.
    “What?”
    She placed
her hand on mine. My fingers settled down.
    “You’re a
wreck,” she said.
    “Something
about this room,” I said. “Can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something.
I’ve learned to trust that feeling. It’s always right.”
    “Always?” She
lifted a curious eyebrow.
    “There’s a
dud here and there.”
    She squeezed
my hand and then slid off her stool. For a day out policing, she smelled nice.
She walked behind me, circled around the island and headed toward the fridge.
Her head and her eyes never stopped moving. I doubted she’d find anything. Then
again, it couldn’t hurt to have her look.
    “Wonder why
they didn’t disturb anything in here?” she said.
    “Me either.
They trashed everything else. What’s so special about the kitchen? It’s like
they knew whatever they were looking for wouldn’t be in here.”
    She let the
door to the freezer fall shut. It created a puff of wind that blew her hair off
her shoulders for a second. She turned toward me. Her nose and cheeks were red
from the cold air. She smiled, but I looked past that.
    I saw what
I’d been looking for.
     

Chapter 19
    “Step aside,” I
said.
    Her smile
faded. She narrowed her eyes and said, “What?”
    “Just do it,” I
said.
    April took one
step to the right and turned halfway. “What is it?”
    I hopped off
the stool. We stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the fridge. There were
dozens of magnets on the door. It hadn’t struck me as odd earlier, even though,
as far as I knew, they couldn’t stick to stainless. In the middle of the door
were a bunch of magnetic poetry, words and phrases. Most were spread out into
jumbled meaningless messages. Others said corny things like, “All my love
belongs to you.”
    I pointed at
the phrase in the center of it all. There was a gap of at least two inches on
all sides separating the group of words from the rest of the magnets. It looked
deliberate.
    April read it
out loud. “Back off get