Working for Jorgenson had trained Darren to expect the unexpected. So when he got the call diverting him from his morning commute, he didn't bother asking why Jorgenson wanted to meet at his home. Darren simply told his boss he'd be there in twenty minutes.

After the phone disconnected, he cranked up the stereo. Beethoven's Archduke Trio was just at the point where the dizzying piano runs were rising and falling. The music was like cascading water. Darren let it wash over him just as he had let the warm water run down his body in the shower earlier.

Darren was in a good mood for a change. Surprising for a Thursday. He was usually in a deep pit of despondency by this point in the week—one weekend was nothing but a faint memory and the next was still too far away to give any glimmer of hope.  This many days into the week, the baggage of his work had usually built to a backbreaking load that weighed him down and made him feel as though he should be walking hunched over like an elderly man with a cane.

But this morning, even the seventeen murders at the inn were no longer bothering him. The archaeologists and their assistants were fading from his conscience. It felt wrong to get over it so quickly. It had only been two days. Perhaps it was because their deaths had been more peaceful than what most of Jorgenson's enemies received. A far better death than Darren had given to Senator Wainewright—the fool had taken the devil's money for his campaign and then refused to dance like the circus monkey he was. Jorgenson didn't just want him killed but taught a lesson.

That night in the senator's Washington townhouse had kept Darren up for weeks.

By comparison, the archaeologists and the Benbow Inn had been tame, even if he had felt like a ghoul creeping from room to room, using the compact gas canister and its rubber mask to anesthetize them.  A few of them had awoken and struggled vainly for a few seconds, their desperate eyes burning into his soul, before losing consciousness for the last time. It had been a mercy. None of them even stirred when the fire raged through the old, sad lodge. They never felt a thing.

Still, such acts were typically hard to shake off. But spending last night at home with Noelle and the girls had done him a world of good.

He had gotten home just in time for dinner. Noelle had made a rice and mushrooms dish. She had called it risotto funghi but what mattered to Darren was that it reminded him vaguely of the cream of mushroom soup his mother used to make him as a boy. Then there was chocolate ice-cream for dessert. He was in such a good mood that he didn't get upset when Noelle corrected him. ("Darren, dear. I swear you do it just to annoy me. Ice-cream, please! It's semifreddo au cacao et aux amaretti.")

After dinner, he helped Carrie with her math homework, taking the opportunity of leaning close to her to smell the strawberry shampoo in her hair. Madeline lost a tooth and he tucked her in and told her about the tooth fairy who would come in the night while she slept to reward her. She knew it already but wanted to hear it all again. When they were both asleep and a crisp bill was tucked under Maddie's pillow, he joined Noelle in the bedroom. She was in the sitting area reading one of her craft magazines.

"They're growing up," he said placing the tooth in the brass canister on his dresser. The can held a scattering of his girl's baby teeth, bone white with flecks of dried blood. Darren had a moment of disorientation and for a second they flickered from being cherished mementos to resembling grim human detritus—something found in some unmarked pit.

Noelle made a distracted sound of agreement. She had her do-not-disturb force field around her but he pressed on. He had been letting her drift away lately. That needed to change.  The course needed to be corrected. "Why don't we all head down to the shore this weekend. We can make it a mini-vacation. Rent a house."

"Are you mad? It's not even spring. It'll be freezing."

"So it'll just make it cheaper. And it will be different. We only ever go in the summer when it's packed with tourists."

"Always trying to save a buck."

"I'm not..." Darren stopped himself and tamped his irritation down. "I just want to spend time together as a family."

He was expecting Noelle to resurrect the fight from the night before, when she berated him for leaving her alone to go out of town on business again and then staying late at the office. But she surprised him by putting the magazine down and moving to the bed. She took off her robe briskly. It was strange how the untying of a terry towel belt could so clearly communicate that she was done for the night. Done talking. Done with daytime concerns. Done with him.

Darren went over to her and told her how romantic it would be on the isolated shore, in a big, old beach house with a fire in the hearth. He spun it out like a story. Could she picture it? Getting up early and bundling up to look for seashells. Warm meals in the house. Chowder. Her baked, stuffed crab. Lobster. Board games with the girls. And after the little ones were in bed, just the two of them to listen to the waves by the fireside.

Noelle warmed to the idea and to Darren. For the first time in what felt like years, they made love.

It was with these thoughts he entered the Upper East Side palace.

Jorgenson was lounging like a chieftain in a large wingback chair reading a paper. A gilded espresso cup was empty on the table in front of him. He was dressed sharply for the day in an immaculate charcoal three-piece suit, with his beard neatly manicured.

"Ah, Mr. Palmer, so good of you to come," he said as though Darren had a choice in the matter. "I hope you didn't have anything important scheduled today. I need you to head out of town on urgent business."

"But I only just got back."

Jorgenson looked momentarily confused like the trip to Maine had been ages ago and was ridiculous to be bringing up. "And you will be off again. But don't worry this task shouldn't take you too long. At least, I hope it will not."

It was clear that if it were to take long, Darren would be the one blamed, and not anything to do with the assignment. Before he could ask what he had to do, a voice spoke behind him and nearly buckled his knees with its icy force.

"What is this?" Barbara Gracie asked.

A flicker of curiosity appeared in Jorgenson's eyes as he took in Darren's shock, but then he made introductions with such an indifferent tone, it was clear that he felt those seconds of his life were completely wasted. Darren was saved the awkward moment of having to pretend he did not know his tormentor, when Jorgenson interrupted to tell Gracie, "He will be taking you to the airport."

"Really." Barbara crossed past Darren as though he wasn't there or as though he was of little more consequence than a house cat. She sat down in the chair opposite Jorgenson. It was an act of defiance, practically saying: I'm not going anywhere. 

"I didn't realize I was going on a vacation."

Jorgenson stroked his blond moustache and stared at her with all the sobriety of an embalmer surveying his newest cadaver. It was a look Darren had seen many times before. It was incredibly intimidating but he had learned that the Norde employed this detached stare when he was amused by a show of obstinance. Although. Gracie didn't look at all intimidated by it. She stared back with the raw malice of a newly reanimated corpse.

Sweat dampened the back of Darren's collar. He had never been in a room with the two of them before. All he needed was for Noelle to show up and his brain might just explode.

"You must take my jet back to Phoenix, posthaste," Jorgenson said to her.

"I have no plans on returning to that dust pit. Do you not want me here anymore?"

Jorgenson stood and went over to her with more grace than his ungainly body should have allowed. The movement was almost a series of dance steps, they were so elegant. He clasped one of her alabaster hands in his and cooed to her in a nauseatingly romantic tone. "My Barbara. Of course, I do not want you to go. I would keep you here beside me for all eternity if but fate allowed it."

Darren became aware of his deep desire for Gracie to choose this moment to take her revenge and plunge a stiletto blade deep into one of Jorgenson's eye sockets.

"Sending you away gives me no pleasure. But I have learned agents from the DTAA will be calling upon you this afternoon. And, well, if they were to find you missing, things could turn ugly."

"Why? What do they want with me? Have they found the girl?"

"If only it were so." He looked to the heavens as though passing the sentiment along. "Alas, no. It appears they have plans to reassign you. But this is all I know at the moment."

"Very well," Barbara said. "I'll get my things."

When she stepped out, Jorgenson went back to his paper and Darren had the feeling he was completely forgotten about. He cleared his throat. "So, I'm to escort her?"

"As far as the airport. See she boards and the plane gets off. Then take the 9:00 a.m. flight to Dallas."

"Does that mean we have a lead on the she-wolf?"

"Were you not paying attention?"

"Then why Texas?"

"Garvin will meet you when you arrive and explain everything.  He has the mission briefing."

Matt Garvin was a former Navy Seal and one of many security contractors SBI kept on retainer to provide local support when need. He was one of Connor's recruits—old guard. Darren was never sure If the man resented him for taking over after Connor's death or if he simply hated all humanity equally.

"Couldn't you tell me now?" Darren probed.

"I could." Jorgenson flipped a page of the newspaper noisily then raising it until only a shock of hair showed above it. Darren got no more out of him.

In the car, Gracie grilled him on everything and seemed to get increasingly annoyed by how little he knew about either of their situations.

Finally he said, "I'm just thankful we're not traveling together."

"Worried I might make a man out of you?"

"No, I...what?" What the hell did that mean? He didn't want to think about it. "No, I meant if Jorgenson suspected we were working against him and wanted us dead, he'd put us on the same plane." That would be the bastard's style. Blow the thing out of the air with both of them on board.

"Maybe he just wants you dead."

"Could be." Darren spoke through tight lips with his eyes on the traffic ahead of him. He let the words hang there as a sign of his cowed surrender. But the truth was each time Jorgenson called for him or sent him to take care of something, Darren worried about just that. Was Garvin really going to brief him on the mission or was Darren Palmer the mission this time.

***

Author's Note: Just a brief note this week. As you might remember this book takes place in 2016. The events of this scene take place on Thursday, March 24th. So we have crossed over what will happen to what has happened.