but found none. The CIA had effectively buried it all, deflecting suspicion onto a logical if bogus source.

Knox stared at the old black-and-white image of Claire Michaels that he had taken a copy of from the archives. He wondered if the fragments of another picture of the woman currently resided inside the ballistics entry in the chest of a senator from Alabama. If he were a betting man, he would’ve laid down a stack of hundred-dollar chips that the photo taped to Senator Simpson’s newspaper the morning he died was of Claire, John Carr’s wife.

Okay, Finn had been telling the truth. They’d killed the man’s family because he wanted out. Knox didn’t want to believe that his government would treat a man who’d served them faithfully for many years in such a way, but the reality was it certainly could’ve gone down like that.

Knox walked to his book-lined study. He was chasing a man who’d been betrayed by his own government. True, the evidence was compelling that Carr had killed Gray and Simpson. Knox stared over at a photo of his wife on one wall. Yet what would he have done if he’d found out the two men had killed Patty? He sat down in a chair and stared at the floor. He couldn’t say he wouldn’t have done the very same thing.

And if that wasn’t enough, Carr had been screwed in Vietnam by the very man Knox was working for. The war hero had never gotten his just due. The military man in Knox took great umbrage at that. It was hard enough to fight. It was hard enough to survive without some prick denying you something you’d earned fair and square. And Knox still didn’t know why Hayes had cheated Carr out of his medal. Yet if he had to guess, he would have concluded that the fault rested with Hayes and not the heroic enlisted man.

The real question became: what did Knox do now? He had to keep looking for the man. But maybe what he did when he got there might change. And that meant he was now basically a traitor to his own agency. Helping the enemy. It could tank his career, ruin his retirement, perhaps cost him his freedom or maybe even his life.

For a man he’d never even met, but one whom he felt he probably knew better than many he’d called a friend.

Was John Carr worth it?

He didn’t have the answer to that. At least not yet.

CHAPTER 38

ABBY AND STONE had just finished breakfast. Stone had been famished while Abby barely touched her food.

He looked at her nearly full plate and said, “Remember that Danny is going to be okay.”

“For now, yeah. He never should have come back here.”

“And you’re saying you only wanted him to go because there were no decent jobs here? You’ve got plenty of money.”

“It’s not the money! He hated how I got it anyway.”

“They killed your husband, Abby. What other way was there for you to get justice? You can’t exactly imprison a company.”

“For what they did to my husband somebody should’ve gone to jail.”

She rose, poured another cup of coffee and sat down next to him.

“You know much about digging coal out of the mountains?”

“Only that I probably wouldn’t want to do it for a living.”

“My husband worked at a dog hole mine. I guess you don’t know what that is?”

“No.”

“Small-scale shops, usually only a single shift crew and a foreman. Doesn’t pay as well as the big shops and you get no health insurance. But if you’ve failed enough drug tests the dog holes tend to be more forgiving than the big outfits. Nice fallback.”

“So your husband had a drug problem too?”

“The men are beat to hell from digging in the earth on their hands and knees. Sam had three back surgeries before he was forty. Got a hand caught in a grinder machine that they use to chew up coal seams. Even after a bunch of surgeries his hand was still a mess. Out of his mind with pain and the meds the clinic gave him didn’t do anything after a while. He was snorting six hundred dollars’ worth of crushed-up oxycodone up his nose every day.”

“Can’t they get help for their addiction? Other than the methadone juice?”

“I kept begging until Sam tried. Tore my heart to see him all wormed over after a few days in withdrawal. But he could never hold it.”

“I’m sorry, Abby.”

“The mining companies don’t care so long as you pass your pee test and show up for work. They make their money and America stays warm.”

“Abby, how did your husband die?”

She put down her cup and gazed past Stone, perhaps all the way to the past when her husband’s life had abruptly ended. “Lot of things to worry about when you’re sitting a thousand feet under rock, but there are two big things to keep in mind besides the earth falling on top of you. One is carbon dioxide and the other is methane gas. The first one will suffocate you and the second one will blow you up. The methane got Sam because the meter the company gave him to use to check out a new seam line was faulty. And they knew it. Explosion caused a cave-in. That was it.”

Stone didn’t know what to say, so he just stared down at his hands.

“Yeah, we’re going through a real boom right now, coal and natural gas just pouring out of the mountains. Funny thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Most folks around here use propane or wood to warm themselves and cook with, not coal or natural gas. Maybe nobody else knows the real cost of digging that stuff out of the rock, but we sure as hell do, you hear what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“A young man right out of high school with clean urine can start in the coal mines at twenty dollars an hour. Never get that kind of money anywhere else. But by the time they’re thirty-five they’ll be broke-backed and worn out, looking closer to seventy with lungs full of shit.”

She finally looked over at him and her eyes seemed to refocus. One large tear was perched at the corner of her right eye.

“So you staying or going?”

“I’m not going to leave you like this, Abby.” If Stone was startled by his words he didn’t show it.

She reached over and squeezed his arm. He involuntarily grunted in pain.

“What’s the matter?” she said in an alarmed tone.

“Nothing, just . . . it’s nothing.”

“Ben, what is it?”

“One of the guys with the bat got me a little bit on the arm.”

“Oh good Lord, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Abby, it’s nothing.”

“Take off your shirt.”

“What?”

“Take it off.”

He slowly peeled it off and she exclaimed, “Oh my God.”

There was a lumpy black bruise the size of a walnut on his left upper arm and the discoloration had spread down to his forearm.

She ran to the freezer and grabbed an ice pack and placed it over the bruise. “You’re a hero, okay, you don’t have to be stupid,” she scolded. “And if—”

She was staring at his chest and other arm. Stone followed her gaze to the old knife slashes and bullet pocks.

She looked up inquiringly.

“Coal miners aren’t the only ones with scars,” he said quietly.

A half hour later, she came back into the room. He noticed that she’d changed her clothes and the scent in the air spoke of a shower and shampoo. She gave him an unfathomable look as she checked his arm. “Does it feel better?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Good.” She leaned down and kissed him. In the same motion her arms slid around his middle and he felt her nails dig lightly into his back. Before he realized it, Stone felt himself kiss her in return. Abby’s lips tasted sweet.

Stone felt his hand slide to her back and squeeze but then he pulled back.

“Abby, I don’t think—”

She put a hand against his mouth. “That’s right. You don’t have to think at all. Come on.”

Abby took his hand and led him up the stairs to her bedroom. She closed the door and motioned for him to sit on the bed. She st

ood in front of him and undressed.

She was fit and fleshy in all the right places and Stone felt a small gasp jump from his throat as he took all of her in. He noted that she had a small tattoo of a cross near her left hip bone. She pressed against him, her warm breasts pushed flat against his own hard chest; her hands began massaging his shoulders and back even as she made soft moaning sounds in his ear. She nimbly worked his pants off. A minute later he lay down beside her on the bed.

Later, they lay back, side to side, her hand clasping his arm, lightly rubbing the hairs.

“I haven’t been with anyone since Sam died.” She rolled over on her stomach, her arms supporting her chin. “Not once.”

“There must’ve been opportunities, Abby. You’re . . . beautiful.”

Tags: David Baldacci Camel Club Thriller
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