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I pulled out the burner phone and dialed Alan. I noticed the time had just turned midnight.
He answered after one ring. “What’s your status?”
“Robby was shot, and Sam is taking him to the hospital. There is one, possibly two, dead in the parking lot of the old post office, two doors down from the funeral home.”
“Dammit, Will. I told you to stand down. For Christ’s sake.” He started talking to someone else. “We are literally less than ten minutes from your location. Do not move!”
“Jack Miller and I will be in the parking lot of the funeral home when you arrive. I promise.”
Alan hung up the phone. I knew I was in over my head, but at this point I didn’t care. I started walking to Rod’s car.
“Where are you going?” Jack asked.
I didn’t answer. I opened up the driver’s side door and used my phone light to see inside. Rod’s body was there, but the entire passenger’s side of the car was covered with blood, brain, and skull. I didn’t examine the situation any closer. I grabbed the bag containing the guns and fireworks from the back seat and shut the door.
“Who was that?” Jack asked.
“That was Rod. Robby’s uncle. He was trying to help us.”
Jack and I both heard them at the same time. Sirens. Coming our way.
I started running back through Carol’s parking lot and made it directly behind the funeral home. I heard Jack chase after me.
“Where are you going now?” Jack yelled.
“We have to get out of here now,” I said. Another twenty seconds, and I reached the old garage in the back. It was locked and I had no idea where the keys were. Jack finally caught up to me, breathing hard, then bending over. “Do you have the key for this?” I asked, pointing at the lock.
“The funeral home. Janet’s office,” he said between breaths.
I stood staring at the front of the doors. Two large barn doors protected by a hinge and a Master Lock. The sirens were getting closer, less than a few blocks away. “No time,” I said. I took three steps back and ran at the middle of the doors as fast as I could.
I hit the doors and fell to the ground. The pain was immediate. I did more damage to my shoulder than to the doors or the lock.
“Son, get out of the way,” Jack said, pushing me aside, still breathing hard.
He stood to the side and raised his SKS, pointing the rifle at the lock, but at an angle. So he doesn’t damage the cars on the inside. “Cover your ears,” he said. One second later, he fired the SKS multiple times and lit up the backyard like it was a night baseball game. When the smoke cleared, the right side of the garage door was gone.
Without a word, we ran into the garage. The 1917 wagon was trapped in the back, but the hearse was facing out. The 1971 lime-green Cadillac Funeral Coach, the same exact one they used in the show Six Feet Under. I ran to the driver’s side and threw Dad’s package and the bag of guns in the back. Jack opened up the passenger door and slid in. I pulled down the sun visor. The keys dropped in my lap and fell between my legs. I grabbed them, threw them into the ignition, and turned forward.
The car squelched and choked but didn’t turn over. I tried it again. Same result.
“Come on!” I said, pushing the ignition forward and stepping on the gas simultaneously. The car coughed itself to life. I went to put it in drive but there was no gearshift to the right of my leg. I looked up and it was right in front of me, sticking out about a foot to the right of the steering wheel. After a couple fumbles from reverse to neutral, I found the D and punched the gas pedal.
The left front of the Cadillac cleared the garage nicely, but I hit the right side and smashed it on impact with what remained of the door. I looked left and could see the cruiser lights entering the post office parking lot. I took a hard left turn and came around the other direction, rumbling over a patch of grass, through another parking lot, and into the back of a 7-Eleven. I found the light switch on the lower left side by my knee and pulled it toward me. Only the left beam of the hearse came on.
I passed two dumpsters on the right and took a back driveway that led north, away from the sirens and followed the same road north for three blocks.
“Where do we go now? The hospital?” I asked, half talking to myself and half asking Jack. I wanted to get to Robby and Sam as quickly as possible.
“Turn right at the next stop sign,” Jack said. “We need to collect ourselves a bit and figure out the next move.” I did as he said. “Make a left here.” I did.
It looked like some kind of large storage facility for boats. There was a twenty-five-foot Bayliner on a hitch to our right. “Go straight for a few. Okay, now pull down this narrow row to your right.” I turned off the Cadillac’s remaining headlight.
There wasn’t much more clearing than two feet on either side of the Cadillac. I pulled forward, going about ten miles an hour. We reached a set of doors on the right. “Okay, stop here,” Jack said.
“Where are we?”
“This is my boat storage.”
“I didn’t know you had a boat.”
“I don’t. I decided to buy the storage first and the boat second,” he said, slithering out the door. I did the same on my side. He closed the door and looked at me from over the Cadillac. “That was fifteen years ago. Still no boat. Go figure. Now I use this place when I don’t want to go home or have exceeded my time at the funeral home. So I’m here most of the time.”
There were two doors on the right side. Jack approached the first, put a code into the keypad, and it opened. He flipped on the light switch. I followed him in and went to close the door behind me.
“No, no” he said. “The front door is manual. You take the hearse around to the front, and I’ll let you in.”
I walked back out to the car and restarted the Cadillac. Before I moved, I texted Sam and told her we’d be delayed and to send me updates.
I shifted into drive and slowly pulled forward. About twenty feet up, there was an opening. I took it right. Another forty feet up was a larger drive and I turned again. Jack was pulling down on chains as I approached. The door was rising. Jack must have wanted a small yacht because his storage unit was huge. Easily fifteen feet wide and another forty feet deep. I made a right, and Jack directed me in. I pulled the hearse forward about ten feet, and Jack put up both his hands to stop me. I turned off the ignition, and Jack pulled the chains in the opposite direction to close the storage door.
The left side of the facility housed a desk and chair, a small refrigerator, multiple standing lights, and a secondhand couch with an ottoman. “Nice digs,” I said. Jack leaned over to start the coffee machine. The burner phone rang.
It was Alan.
“Where the fuck are you?”
“Had to go. Couldn’t be avoided. We heard the sirens and left as fast as possible.”
“I’m standing in front of the shed behind the funeral home. Someone blew the doors off.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Did you just call to yell at me?”
“Look, Will, my team doesn’t even think you exist right now. We need to sit down right now and talk this over.”
“I’m happy to chat with your team now over the phone. Tell them we’re in the process of trying not to die at the moment. The dead guy in the parking lot is one of Traynor’s men. His name is Jones. The dead guy in the car was Robby’s uncle.” I was still breathing heavily and couldn’t get my heart to slow down. “What’s the update on your end?”
“The tech team is trying to follow the money from the insurance companies you gave us. Whoever it is, they’re very savvy. The money seems to be in five places at once. But the Columbus guys are good. They’ll find something.”
“What about the two agents in Pennsylvania? Are they protecting my daughter?”
“I haven’t heard back yet. They’re supposed to check in shortly.”
“I don’t feel good about any of this, Alan. Get ahold of them now!”
“You’re not in position to give me orders. I understand you’re under a bit of stress, but we don’t just jump into situations like these without all the details.”
“That’s great to know. While you’re looking for details, my entire family is going to be killed.” I paused. “Call me back when you have something good to tell me.” I ended the call.
Jack had two cups of coffee in his hands. He gave one to me and sat on the couch, seemingly without a care in the world. I sat on the ottoman in front of him.
“Look, Jack. You’ve always been like family to me, but right now I don’t know who to trust, and it’s been a little crazy today. I need to know what you know, and I need it now.”
Jack took in a deep breath and then breathed out. “You don’t have any cigarettes on you, do you?”
“You quit smoking.”
“Feels like a most appropriate time to start back up actually,” Jack said, scratching the side of his face. He took a sip of coffee and leaned back. “Give me the short version of what you know about the Traynors, and I’ll fill in the gaps best I can.”
So I went through the details again. Jack had a feeling my father committed suicide but wasn’t sure until I told him. Jack knew he was up to something that night. He confirmed the life settlements scheme and the targeting of minorities. He was unaware of the samples Dad was collecting and, of course, didn’t know about Jared or that the poor guy was killed a few hours ago.
“The Traynors control the town through surveillance, but not just in this city. I’m not sure how sophisticated it is, but it’s advanced enough that they have pictures of my son, his wife, and his family in places around Dallas, where they live. Last year, I was sent a care package warning me to stay in line or else, and it included a picture of them with red X’s over their faces. They did the same with your father, as well as everyone else in SA.”
I asked him about Janet and her involvement. My heart sank while listening to him. Apparently, Janet had been seeing the elder Traynor, in the romantic sense, since SA began. As the minority eradication plan started to take root, it was Janet’s plants that provided the poison, with Janet herself taking the lead on the poisoning itself.
“Your Uncle Dan and I called her the Grim Reaper, believe it or not,” Jack said. “She volunteers at all the nursing homes in the area, especially Blessings.”
My thoughts went to Mr. Davies.
Then I told him about Uncle Dan. He didn’t know.
We sat for a few minutes. It was all so horrible.
Then I stood and picked up Dad’s evidence bag from Jack’s desk. I pulled back the tab and removed the contents, taking inventory on the desk. Two black journals, just like all his other ones from the funeral home, and an orange folder. “Okay, Jack. Let’s see what Dad got me for Christmas.”