Aldon McKenzie rocked on his front porch as his heart fluttered. He had bought his first firearm that afternoon, a Glock 19 nine-millimeter pistol. In an ideal world, he would have taken classes to learn how to care for the weapon and how to use it, but he didn’t live in an ideal world. Besides, he didn’t need to become an expert marksman. He only needed to stay alive long enough to protect his family until the threat passed.
Aldon and his wife lived in a beautiful house they had built on a five-acre spread in western St. Augustine County. Aldon loved that house, but more than that, he loved the memories he had made in that house. He had watched Daria take her first step in the living room; she had said her first word in the backyard as she ate a snack on their picnic table; and the family had spent their first Christmas huddled together around the fireplace in the living room. As much as he loved that house and his family, though, he wished it were empty.
As the sun set, Jennifer stepped outside, a concerned look on her face. She reached to his shoulder.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He looked at her and reached for her hand. She was so gentle and good. She didn’t deserve this, and he didn’t deserve her.
“It’s nothing, sweetheart,” he said. “Work stuff. I still think you and Daria should head to your mom’s house until all this settles. Might be easier for a while.”
“We’ll do that as soon as you tell me what’s going on,” she said, crossing her arms. “You hate sitting outside, and now you’re sitting on the porch and watching that road closer than you watched me on our wedding night. Not only that, you’ve got a gun on your hip. You blew me off yesterday when you came home, but I’m not letting you do that now. What’s going on, Aldon?”
He looked to his wife. Jennifer had brown eyes and dimples. Her beautiful smile made his whole world stop, and her loving gaze made him feel wanted. As if her physical attributes weren’t enough, she treated everyone with such kindness and graciousness that she had friends everywhere. He was lucky to have her. Knowing that made lying to her much harder.
“The boss is changing things at work. We’re dumping most of our old contracts, and Mr. Stewart is hiring new hotshot chemists to develop our own chemical compounds. Everything’s changing at once. I’m worried about having a job.”
She squeezed his shoulder. “Every company needs accountants, and you’re a good one. They need you.”
“Yeah,” he said, trying to muster strength into his voice. “I guess so.”
She said nothing. His gut twisted.
“Mr. Stewart’s bringing in new business partners,” he said. “They’ve tightened security. Now there are biometric readers on the elevators, and I’ve got to give a retinal scan to log in to my computer. Our security guards carry guns now. It’s like I’m working in the Pentagon or something.”
“Is that why you’re carrying a gun at home?”
He shifted as if that would hide the weapon.
“My dad kept guns in the house when I was a little girl,” said Jennifer. “I don’t mind them, but I wish you had consulted me before you bought one.”
“It was an impulse buy,” said Aldon, not looking at his wife. She may have said something, but he wasn’t paying attention to her. In the distance, tires hummed as they rolled down the street. His body tensed as he held his breath. Jennifer squeezed his shoulder but said nothing until a minivan drove past the house. Then she relaxed her grip and patted him.
“Okay, mister,” she said, nodding and stepping around so she faced him. “What’s going on?”
Jennifer locked her brown eyes on his, but he said nothing for several moments. Then she raised her eyebrows. Still, he said nothing. She shook her head.
“Damn it, Aldon,” she said. “Talk to me. I’m your wife. Your daughter’s inside. What the hell is going on?”
He licked his lips and looked down. “I found a problem at work. Some dangerous chemicals were missing from our inventory. I brought it up with my boss, and he looked into it and told me not to worry about it. When I checked again, he had corrected the books like nothing happened.”
Jennifer shrugged. “Okay. You found an error, you reported it, and Danny corrected it. What’s the problem?”
“I’ve known Danny a long time. Something scared him. He told me I needed to forget what I’d found and destroy all my backups. The next day, IT came by and replaced my computer with another. They said it was an upgrade, but it was the same computer.”
“Okay,” said Jennifer. “You wouldn’t be this upset if that was everything.”
“Danny may not care about the numbers, but I could lose my license if I submit a false report. I didn’t trust the numbers my computer was giving me, so I walked down to the warehouse and searched the stockpile. We were short almost a million dollars’ worth of chemicals.”
Jennifer covered her mouth. “And you think Danny’s stealing?”
Aldon shrugged. “Might be Danny, might be somebody else. I contacted a lawyer and gave her what I had. She realized something shady was going on, so she looked into it. Now she thinks somebody at that plant is making drugs, and somebody high in the company is covering it up.”
Jennifer closed her eyes and nodded, her skin pale.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll pack our bags. If you’re this scared, you need to call your lawyer and tell her we’re getting out of town.”
“I can’t get in touch with her,” said Aldon. “I’ve been trying to call Laura for days, but she’s not answering my calls. I even drove by her office, but her assistant said she hadn’t been in for a while.”
Jennifer raised her eyebrows. “Where is she?”
“I think she’s dead,” said Aldon, blinking and staring at the trees across the street. “I got coffee at Rise and Grind this afternoon. Somebody said the police found a body out by the chicken processing plant. It sounded like Laura.”
“That’s why you got the gun,” said Jennifer, comprehension dawning on her.
Aldon nodded. “Yeah. Laura investigated, and they killed her.”
Jennifer didn’t even hesitate. “Call the police. I’ll get Daria, and we’ll go to my mom’s house in Kentucky. You’re coming with us.”
Jennifer started walking into the house but stopped when he didn’t move.
“What are you waiting for? If they killed your lawyer, they’ll kill you as soon as they find out you’re her client.”
“Laura told me not to go to the local police,” he said. “She was putting together a case. We planned to go to the US Attorney’s Office in St. Louis.”
“Your lawyer is dead,” said Jennifer. “Call the police. If she’s dead, you could be next.”
He shook his head. “Mason Stewart’s got at least one officer in his pocket. Laura told me. If we go to the police, we’re dead.”
Jennifer closed her eyes. “Fine. Then we’re leaving now. I’ll get Daria. Get the car ready.”
He swallowed and nodded. “Okay. Get your bags together. I’ll be inside in a minute.”
Jennifer twisted around and ran into the house. Aldon stayed on the porch, watching the road. Then, he took out his cell phone and called Laura’s number again. As before, it went to voicemail.
“Hey, Laura, it’s Aldon McKenzie. I’ve called you half a dozen times. I need to talk. This is getting serious. Call me back because I’m getting scared. My family and I are leaving town. I hope you’re not dead.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he used the voicemail system’s controls to replay his message. His voice trembled so much he sounded like a teenager who had found out his girlfriend was pregnant, so he hit the button to delete his message and stood. He had called Laura enough. If she was still alive, she’d call back. If she wasn’t, one more message didn’t matter. He had things to do.
He slipped his phone into his pocket and opened the door. Already, his wife’s footsteps carried throughout the house as she hurried from room to room, packing their bags. Her mom’s farm in Kentucky would be safe. If anybody came for them there, they’d find a trio of armed Marines—Jennifer’s father and two brothers—waiting for them. Now they had to get out.
Aldon climbed the stairs. He and his wife could have packed an emergency bag for a typical kid in moments, but Daria had needs beyond the usual. At night, she slept with a special hypoallergenic pillow and a white noise machine. She also had two stuffed animals she loved and couldn’t sleep without. Her autism had also made toilet training difficult, so she still wore diapers.
Leaving a familiar setting at home was hard enough for her, but leaving without her stuffed animals, her favorite clothes, or her favorite pillow would have been cruel. They could chance a few minutes. Once they got Daria’s stuff together—a process that took about ten minutes—Aldon carried the bags to the hallway while his wife turned off the lights. His feet were lighter than they had been all day. They had a plan now. They’d run. Maybe it wasn’t a perfect plan, but it’d keep them alive.
Then, their imperfect plan blew up when Daria opened the front door.
“Hi. Do you like fish?”
Aldon dropped the bags, and Jennifer gasped. Daria’s sweet voice became an ice pick stabbing his heart. Aldon held his breath.
“I love fish, darling. Do you know what else I love? Elephants,” came the response in a man’s soft, southern accent. “You get a bunch of elephants together, you know what they’re called? A parade. Everybody loves a parade.”
Daria didn’t respond. Aldon held his breath.
Please, God, don’t let him hurt her.
“I’m lookin’ for your daddy,” said the voice again. “I work with him. Is he around?”
Jennifer shot her eyes to her husband. Aldon removed the weapon from his holster and crept toward the landing at the top of the steps.
“Hey, Daria, take a step back,” said Aldon, turning the corner into the foyer. An unfamiliar man stood at the bottom of the steps. He was about fifty or fifty-five, and he had curly hair. He wore a beige linen sports coat, dark jeans, and a white shirt. Though the jacket partially concealed it, he had a black semiautomatic firearm in a holster against his chest. “Come upstairs, baby.”
“She’s fine here,” said the man. “You and I need to talk in private, Mr. McKenzie. How about we go for a ride? My car’s out front.”
Aldon stopped walking and stood straighter. The man in the entryway didn’t even react to the gun Aldon carried. From his vantage at the top of the steps, Aldon had a clear shot on him from about ten yards, but if Aldon missed, the man would have a clear, open shot on his little girl. Aldon’s gut wrenched, and his knees threatened to buckle. He should have gotten his family out hours ago.
“Where do you want to go?” asked Aldon.
“Away from here,” said the man, nodding. “It’s a nice night. I’m not from around here, so I thought you could show me the sights. Please leave your sidearm at the house. Guns make me jumpy.”
Aldon looked back to his wife and mouthed that he loved her before putting his firearm on the ground. She had tears on her cheeks as he climbed down the steps. Daria smiled at him from the entryway.
“Clownfish form symbiotic mutualisms with sea anemones in the wild,” she said, repeating something she had heard on a documentary a few hours ago. She’d repeat the same sentence all night if Jennifer let her. Doctors called it echolalia. It was common among those with autism.
“I love you, sweetheart,” he whispered. “You’ll always be my baby.”
She smiled and looked at him out of the corner of her eye before speaking again.
“Clownfish form symbiotic mutualisms with sea anemones in the wild.”
He blew her a kiss and stepped onto the porch. The curly-haired man put a hand on his elbow and led him to a Toyota sedan in the driveway.
“Are you going to kill me?” asked Aldon.
The man hesitated before nodding. “Not in front of your family.”
“And if I don’t cooperate, you’ll kill them?”
“My partner will. If he has to do it, he’ll make it quick,” said the curly-haired man. “Please don’t make us do that. I don’t like killing innocent people.”
“Did you kill Laura, too?”
Again, the curly-haired man nodded. “Yeah. She didn’t suffer.”
“Okay,” he said. Aldon’s legs trembled, and his lungs felt tight, but his mind was clear, and his heart was light. He opened the sedan’s rear door and sat down, knowing he was about to take a ride to his death but also knowing Jennifer and Daria would live. They gave his life meaning and purpose. His death would keep them alive. That seemed fitting.
As the curly-haired man drove away, Aldon turned and looked out the rear window to see Daria standing on the front porch. She didn’t wave or blink. She just watched. That was his autistic daughter in a nutshell. He memorized the way she looked standing there. She was perfect.
“For what it’s worth, you don’t deserve this. You were doing your job. Your co-workers screwed up. You got caught in the mess.”
Aldon turned around.
“You can let me go,” he said. “I won’t talk. Let me go home. Jennifer and I will leave. You won’t ever see us again.”
The man looked in the rearview mirror. “I wish I could, but this isn’t my call. If I let you go, I’ll get visitors at my house. They won’t hesitate to kill my kids.”
They drove for about ten minutes before pulling off on a side road in the woods. Aldon had driven by that side road dozens of times over the years, but he had never noticed the abandoned home in the woods. Vines covered the front porch and broke through the siding and windows. The curly-haired man led him inside. Clear plastic tarps covered the walls. That was when it hit him. This was the end.
“You can stand, or you can kneel. Whichever you want. Once we’re done here, I’ll call my partner to let him know what happened. Your family will never even know he was nearby.”
Aldon knelt in the center of the floor without saying a word. As he closed his eyes, he pictured Daria as she had been on his front porch. She and Jennifer would live because of him.
He never even heard the gunshot that ended his life. At the moment of his death, all he saw, all he knew, all he felt was love for his little girl and his wife, and that was fine with him.