Page 72 of Penny for Your Saints

My head begins to spin and my ears fill with the sound of hissing voices that come from far beyond this room—from the back of my mind, from my worst fears, from the grave.

I clamp my palms over my ears and screw my eyes shut tight as my heart pounds in my ears and my teeth grind against one another.

Just as I think I’m about to fly apart, I return to myself; Louise and The Saints staring at me with pinched, worried expressions.

“Frank?” Quentin calls my name with urgency—everyone crouched and loaded in their seat—ready to pounce on me, to give some kind of support.

My head aches, and I can’t quite remember how I got here.

“Just a cluster headache.” I blink away my double vision and shake out my shoulders.

Everyone continues to stare me down, their concern plain on their faces.

“Quit sitting around looking at me like I’m some delicate flower, I’m fine—Seb and Q, you’ve got shit to do,” I bark, jolting everyone back into motion.

It’s a bandaid over a bigger issue, but it’s all I can manage for now to keep everyone moving toward a common goal—not giving them too long to stop and think about where this journey ultimately ends.

With the heat broken, and the nest disassembled, Louise sits by the stone ledge of the fire, gazing into the banked coals whileCaz and I peel the last of the potatoes and cut them into small cubes for our last meal at the cabin.

“What’s the first ‘cache’?” Louise asks, her voice—with its edge of anger, her eyes still fixed on the fireplace.

Caz squirms uncomfortably in his seat.

“I know you mentioned it, back when we talked about the hard drive—I had just assumed in the moment that you had meant data, but since we got to the cabin, it sounds more and more like these ‘caches’ are physical things in the material world,” she says slowly and evenly.

Caz wets his lips as if to speak, then his eyes dart to me—thinking better of answering her right away. He casts his eyes back down to his knife, and the spiraled peel of the potato—keeping his mouth shut.

“That may or may not have been an intentional obfuscation,” I sigh, sidestepping a direct answer.

“God fucking damn it, Frank,” she sighs in exasperation, covering her face with her hands for a moment before slicking her long red hair back from that carved marble face of hers—cinnamon eyes burning into mine. “You said yourself—you need me to help you access some of these ‘caches’—I can choose to become uncooperative.” She issues her challenge, and though my first instinct is to kick back from the table and snarl some threat to force her compliance—I know from the look on Caz’s face that my control over the Saints isn’t strong enough to endure such cruelty after the deep connection during the heat.

“Does the name ‘STOR-WITH-US’ mean anything to you?” I sneer instead.

Louise blinks, taken aback.

“Like the chain storage unit place?” Her brows pinch and draw downward.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” I confirm.

“My parents had a unit at the one by their place that I had to clean out after they…” She trails off a moment before regaining her voice. “Most of the stuff in it was actually from my high school bedroom. They cleaned everything out when I got my first apartment after undergrad.”

“Yeah, well—they’ve got another unit at the same facility that somehow slipped through the cracks, probably because you didn’t know about it—your parents didn’t want you to,” I say unkindly, turning away from the hurt look in Louise’s eyes.

Never had the stomach for this kind of stuff, the softness of people—the way they start to need you. Better she understand now, before the end—I’m not a person she should need.

“We head Northeast, see what’s in the unit. I had hoped that we’d have been able to use you to access it the legal way, as their surviving child… but since the Feds have had you declared legally dead, that’s no longer on the menu. Old Q’s going to have to break out his lock picks again. It’s been a minute since we’ve had to use his physical security skills.” I can feel Louise’s eyes on me, Caz’s reproachful glare—still I press on. “The other cache, well—that’s where you come in.” I hazard a glance at Louise, a devious smile on my lips.

“Since you love the sound of your own voice so much,” she snipes, a terse smile turning the corners of her mouth upward. “Why don’t you enlighten us, oh fearless leader.”

That’s right. I’m the leader, the alpha. Don’t you forget it Louise Penny. I’ll wipe that smile right off your face—ethereal beauty or no.

“Word on the wire is that your parents sold almost everything before they got bumped off.” I make the shape of a gun with my thumb and forefinger and pantomime firing two shots at her.

Louise’s throat works and her jaw clenches as she bites her tongue—doing her best not to give me the satisfaction oftaking my obvious bait. So much control, so much self righteous decorum—maybe that’s why I adore unraveling her so.

“Almost, but not actually everything.” I bounce the turn of phrase off her, her willpower palpable as she breathes in deeply through her nose before speaking.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Frankie, but the only thing they didn’t sell before their death was the house in Lexington. The one I happened to own before I supposedly ‘died.’ No fucking chance we can get back in there now—the place will be crawling with Feds and local law enforcement. If you idiots had just approached me with evidence of Lowry’s betrayal in the first place instead of kidnapping me, we wouldn’t be up shit creek now.” Now Louise is baiting me—with this Frankie stuff and the nasty comments about how things have gone down. I suppose she’s entitled to bitch and moan about her own abduction and captivity—but really, is she gonna defend the behavior of Compton and Lowry and the Fed who sent her away to ‘get bit and bred,’ lest Louise’s career advancement opportunities suddenly evaporate?

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