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"Brenda's in town tomorrow," said Jessica. They were having a second cup of coffee on the back deck. Like Alex she rarely even had her phone at the table during meals - that time was for them. "I'd like to see her," said Alex. "How long will she be here?" "Through the weekend," Jessica replied. "Today's Wednesday, I'll see when we can get together. She's interested in how you're doing." "She should be happy," Alex said. "Whether it was her native herbals or something else, I'm a lot better." "She'll be happy to hear that. What's on for today?" "I need to check in with Doug, see how he's doing. And then get with Harry and see what's up on his end. And we need to check out our place at Jonesboro." I know I'm talking like we're married or something. We can worry about that later. "Want to go today? Or see when Brenda wants to meet?" "Let me look over some things on the site, if there's nothing urgent we'll go out there. That leaves the rest of the week free." Alex finished his coffee and lit a cigar. "That smells nice," said Jessica. "Something new?" "Cherry Vanilla. Been looking all over for some, since I started smoking again." "I noticed Jennifer had a serious look," Jessica said, "when you were showing her how to shoot. When you talked about using a gun for defense." "Yeah. Me too. She's a sweet kid, seems nice. Gentle I guess. Never exposed to bad stuff before." "Apparently not," said Jessica. "She's got to have a lot of anger, along with all the feelings, losing her brother. I hope we can bring these people down, it's bad enough for us, but Jen's brother... no telling who else they've killed." Wouldn't want to be Copeland if Jen ever got a chance at him. Or me or Jessica for that matter. "Yeah." Alex finished his cigar and they went back inside. "You want to check in with Harry and Brenda while I talk to Doug?" he asked. "Sounds good." Alex took a quick look at the web server logs before calling Doug. That's interesting. He copied an IP address from the log into a search tool. Little Rock. Could be lawyers. Or hospitals, doctors. Or the law. Generic AT&T. No government agency. Big hospitals often own their IPs. Or show up as a sub-delegation to the owner. Guess we'll have to wait." He called Doug. "What's shaking, man?" he asked when Doug answered. "Piles of data is what. It's mostly medical stuff, names of doctors and drugs. Probably take a doctor to make sense of it. I did make a flowchart, showing what's going where. Might be some help." "Cool," said Alex. "We'll be talking to Harry in the next day or two. See what his guys have come up with. Maybe we can make some connections." "Sounds good. When's a good day to come up and look over it?" "Any day's good. Retirement gets dull sometimes. Bring Jessica, she and Hannah seem to get on well." "I will. Where I go, Jessica goes. Or something like that. I wouldn't be here without her. Is Wednesday good." "Wednesday's fine. See you then."
"OK, Brenda's up for lunch tomorrow," Jessica said. "At the hotel or wherever. And Harry says Friday is good. I guess we should talk to Harry before we plan the weekend. What did Doug have to say?" "He has lots of stuff, but hasn't done any analysis beyond tracing the information flow. After we see what Harry has, we can go visit with him and see where it fits. One day next week." "Doug's good for Wednesday," Alex said. "That takes care of most of the week. Except the rest of the day. "How about a drive in the country? Take a look at your new place. We can see Scott and Michelle on the way. See if they want to go." "Sounds good." Alex put a .40 caliber Ruger in a cross-draw holster that was covered by his windbreaker, while Jessica concealed her Beretta under a belt pack. A Ruger Ranch Rifle with a couple of extra magazines was accompanied by a Mossberg 20-gauge shotgun. Jessica had become comfortable with both guns, even shooting the Mossberg from the hip easily. Between them they should be able to handle any threat from wild animals. Other than occasional feral dogs there wasn't much to worry about. "Wild hogs, maybe," Scott had told them. "But none have been seen around here. Coyotes will avoid you, but if they don't even a handgun is fine. Provided you can shoot." They spent a couple of hours exploring the property, but didn't cover much of it. "I can't get over how big this place is," said Jessica. "It could take years to get to know it." "Maybe we'll have time," Alex replied. "If we can settle this, hand it off to the law, be done. I know there's more where this came from, always will be. But..." "I know," Jessica said. "We'll do what we can. It's all we can do. And anyone we save is someone who won't be if we don't do it." "Yeah." A rabbit had come to within a few feet of them and was nibbling the grass, ignoring them. "Whatcha doin', rabbit?" Alex asked. The rabbit continued its meal, biting the top off of a white clover plant then moving to a clump of grass. "I remember rabbits," Alex said. "Just like that, sitting there, eating grass, like nothing else in the world matters. Long as you don't startle them, they'll sit there and eat, then maybe they'll take off and go somewhere, maybe not. Long as you don't startle them." "A lot of people are like that," said Jessica. "They go through life, as long as nothing happens to disrupt it, they don't worry. Who, especially younger people, thinks about what can happen if they get sick and go to a hospital, and an incompetent doctor bungles a simple procedure, cripples them or kills them?" "People don't worry about drunk drivers killing them either," Alex replied. "Drive every day, never thinking that every car they meet can be the drunk that kills them. Or some crazy person comes in and starts shooting people. But it happens, I'm going to make sure the ones that happened to me wish they hadn't." Jessica turned and put her hands on his shoulders, kissed him. "It's going go be all right," she said. "You know why?" "Why?" "Like being killed by a drunk driver, or hit by a meteorite, there are statistical probabilities. They're hard to avoid, without becoming a recluse. Even one of the things that has happened to you was very unlikely, statistically. Two of them, more really... " "You mean I've used up all my bad luck?" "Maybe. But like Brenda said, you have that light around you. You can't see it, but it's there." "You know this could get ugly if these people find out what we're doing?" "I know. But we'll win. The light, light always wins." Hope she's right. It's not right, putting her in danger. But she wants it more than I do. |
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