Tempest (Playing the Fool #3)

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 6652

  Hillsborough, NJ 08844

  www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Tempest (Playing the Fool, #3)

  Copyright © 2015 by Lisa Henry and J.A. Rock

  Cover art: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  Editor: Delphine Dryden

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at marketing@riptidepublishing.com.

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-223-3

  First edition

  March, 2015

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-224-0

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  Something wicked this way comes.

  FBI Agent Ryan “Mac” McGuinness and con man Henry Page are on the run again. This time they’re headed back to where it all began: Altona, Indiana. Population: some goats. Henry’s not happy about lying low at the McGuinness family farm, but they’ve got nowhere else to go.

  While Mac fights to clear his name and Henry struggles with whose side he’s really on, a ghost from the past threatens to destroy everything. And those aren’t the only storms on the radar. Cut off from both sides of the law, Mac and Henry must rely on their tenuous partnership to survive.

  If Henry can convince himself to let Mac see the man behind the disguises, they’ll stand a chance of beating the forces that conspire against them. The course of true love never did run smooth, but for the two of them, it might be their only hope.

  My dear Nicholas Amado,

  I wish I could do more to help you out with your tuition. My Bert, God rest his soul, always used to say that the government didn’t do enough for young people. Of course, he was a no-good, dirty Communist. You could always get a job at Taco Hub.

  —Margaret from Muncie

  About Tempest

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Dear Reader

  Also by Lisa Henry

  Also by J.A. Rock

  Also by Henry & Rock

  About the Authors

  Enjoy this Book?

  Thunder cracked as Mac turned onto Holloway Road. A few seconds later, rain slammed the windshield.

  Mac glanced at Henry, who sat rigid in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead as water poured down the glass and the wipers pushed it away.

  “We won’t see the worst of it,” Mac said. “It’s heading west.”

  “Thank you,” Henry said tersely. “That was Special Agent Ryan McGuinness with the weather. Over to you, Viola, for sports.” He turned to his sister. “Vi? How ’bout them Hoosiers?”

  Mac stole a peek in the rearview mirror. Viola was gazing at her brother calmly. “You don’t have to be scared, Sebby,” she said.

  “Oh, wow, I didn’t realize it was that simple.” Henry faced forward again.

  Mac had suspected, based on past experience, that Henry didn’t do well with storms. He also suspected Henry didn’t want his fear spotlighted.

  “We’re almost there.” He said it to both of them, though it was really for Henry’s benefit.

  Henry leaned back and drew his left foot up onto the seat. “Or would it be former Special Agent Ryan McGuinness with the weather?”

  Mac flinched but refused to echo the bitterness in Henry’s tone. “I haven’t been fired yet.”

  “No. Just if you set foot in that office again, you’ll be arrested. That’s all.”

  “Why will he be arrested?” Viola asked.

  Mac opened his mouth to tell her not to worry about it, but Henry jumped in. “Because Mac’s been pissing off the big bosses at his work. They think renegade McGuinness has been up to all sorts of naughtiness—shooting crooks, snorting coke, hopping into bed with witnesses, going on the lam. And all because that piece of shit Remy disappeared before he could help us clear it all up!”

  “Henry.” Mac didn’t know enough about Viola to feel comfortable telling Henry what he could and couldn’t say in front of her. Henry had been caring for her for years, after all, and Vi was an adult, even if her mind didn’t function at an adult level. But still.

  “Mac,” Henry said, a deliberate challenge in his voice.

  “Buckle your seat belt.”

  Henry propped his elbow on the ledge by the window and rested his head on his hand with a sigh.

  Mac wondered how much of Henry’s edginess was the storm and how much was anger at his—friend? Consort? Mac didn’t know what Remy Greig was to Henry. He told himself he didn’t care to know.

  He sneaked another look in the mirror at Viola. She was facing out the window, her lip trembling. “I think you’ll like the farm, Vi. My parents keep goats. And Cory, my niece, has rabbits.” He didn’t know whether it was insulting to think twenty-five-year-old Viola would get along well with his nine-year-old niece. But Henry had said that since Viola’s accident, her mind operated on roughly the level of an eight-year-old’s. And Mac figured anyone, any age, would like Cory. She was about the only kid Mac had ever felt comfortable around.

  Viola ignored him and continued to stare out the window. Mac focused on not driving them into a ditch as a gust hurled the rain harder against the windshield.

  A moment later, Viola leaned forward. “Remy is not a piece of shit,” she said to Henry, her voice wavering but fierce.

  Henry whirled. “He left you, Vi! He left you, and you got hurt. You could have gotten hurt a whole lot worse. He ran, the coward; he ran. And he promised me!”

  Mac didn’t comment on the irony of Henry Page getting angry about someone else breaking a promise. Or running. “Cool it.”

  “Stay out of this, Mac!” Henry warned. He continued to address Viola. “I know you think he’s your friend, but he’s not. He’s not a friend to either of us. Okay?”

  “You’re not my friend either!” Viola flung herself back in her seat and folded her arms. She stared out the window once more, tears rolling do
wn her cheeks.

  Henry sighed and turned slowly around.

  Mac increased the wiper speed.

  “Old Mac-Guinness had a farm,” Henry sang dully. “E-I-E-I-O.”

  Mac shook his head.

  “And on that farm he had some fiber-optic surveillance cameras. E-I-E-I-O. With a whir-whir here and a click-click there—”

  “No surveillance equipment on the farm,” Mac interrupted.

  “Then how are we gonna know if the navy suits are coming for us?” Henry asked.

  “They won’t come for us.”

  “Why the hell wouldn’t they? I don’t know much about Suitland, Mac, but doesn’t the Office of Professional Responsibility have access to your personal files? Don’t you think they could probably look up your family and say, ‘Hey, the McGuinnesses have a goat farm in Altona, let’s pay a visit there’?”

  “The property’s divided. There’s the main farm, and then there’s an old house about a quarter of a mile down the road. In bad shape, but discreet. OPR can search the farm all they want, but I doubt they’ll get as far as the old house.”

  “You doubt,” Henry muttered.

  “The old house has a good view of the road, but the road doesn’t have a good view of the house. If anyone shows up, we’ll see them before they see us.”

  “What if they come disguised as goats and rabbits?”

  “I don’t have a lot of other options, Henry.”

  Henry shrugged. “Val.”

  “She risked enough when she told us to run. Janice Bixler’s gonna be all over her now. We can’t ask Val to harbor us.”

  Val was Mac’s boss—special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis field office. And Janice Bixler, OPR, was the current bane of Mac’s existence—a position Henry had recently held, until he and Mac had started sleeping together and Mac had sort of stopped thinking Henry was the most irritating person in the world.

  But apparently Henry wasn’t going to give up his title so easily.

  “It’s not that I have anything against your parents,” he said. “I’m sure they’re lovely people. I just fail to see how running to one of the first places OPR would think to look can be considered ‘hiding.’”

  “Weren’t you hiding in plain sight the day you met me, Detective Falstaff?”

  Mac had arrived outside a crime scene three weeks ago and had been briefed by a local detective, who’d told him he’d catch up with him in the house. Turned out the “detective” was actually Henry Page—sole witness to a grisly shooting and the one man Mac needed to interview in order to hold mob boss Dean Maxfield on murder charges.

  By the time he’d put two and two together, Henry was long gone.

  Mac had gotten him back. Eventually. And Henry had promised to stay within the FBI’s reach until he testified at Maxfield’s trial. Mac was still waiting to see how that worked out. A promise from Henry was about as meaningful as a guarantee from a used-car salesman.

  It should have embarrassed him to recall his and Henry’s first encounter. But the memory of their meeting was sort of funny now. Proof that his time with Henry was messing with his head.

  Another clap of thunder. Henry twisted toward the door as though he didn’t know whether to try to curl up or escape. Mac reached over without thinking and took his hand. Henry squeezed him so tightly he winced. As soon as the sound faded, Henry jerked his hand away.

  Maybe Mac had been wrong about them missing the worst of the storm because the rain was lashing harder than ever. Henry’s breathing grew shallow. They would have only been about five minutes from the farm, if it weren’t for the rain slowing them down.

  The tension in the car would be enough to put Mac on edge even if he hadn’t already been stressed about Janice Bixler and her arrest warrant. For years he’d prided himself on being a good agent. He’d played by the rules, and any liberties he’d taken had been rendered necessary by the circumstances. He’d never had to worry about anyone questioning his choices. He knew how to do his job.

  Then Jimmy Rasnick had come back from the dead to haunt him.

  Three years ago, Rasnick had made Mac a hero. The FBI had been trying to get a lead on Indianapolis’s most notorious drug lord for nearly a decade. Mac and Val had been partners at the time, and together they’d discovered Rasnick’s hiding place and organized the bust. That arrest was Mac’s greatest triumph. Val had been promoted, and Mac had started handling bigger cases. And despite the occasional death threat from Rasnick’s people, life had been good.

  Last week, Rasnick had died in prison. The official ruling was suicide—though Mac, upon hearing the details, was nearly positive it had been an assisted suicide. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, but still. The same day, a file from homicide had landed on Mac’s desk. Lonny Harris, small-time drug dealer. Shot through the head and heart, just the way Rasnick used to do his victims.

  Mac hadn’t had time to figure out who Lonny Harris was, because Janice Bixler of OPR had descended immediately after, throwing bizarre accusations at Mac. Telling him Lonny Harris had been preparing to testify that Mac was a customer. That Mac was tied up in the very underworld he’d been fighting for years to quash. He’d been too shocked to take the allegations seriously—at first.

  But when Henry had shown up on Mac’s doorstep this morning saying Bixler was in the FBI office with false evidence and a warrant for Mac’s arrest, Mac hadn’t known what else to do but take a page from Henry’s book and run.

  It helped that it was Val’s idea for Mac and Henry to go into hiding together until she could figure out who had set him up. He trusted Val’s crazy ideas more than he trusted Henry’s.

  Henry was still pressed against the door with his eyes closed. Mac wished he knew what to say, what to do. But it was impossible to know with Henry.

  Viola leaned forward, singing softly: “‘O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?’” She had a high, sweet voice, almost childlike—but rich too, in a way only an adult’s could be. “‘O stay and hear! Your true love’s coming . . .’”

  Mac watched from the corner of his eye as Henry slowly sat up. Then, to his surprise, Henry joined Viola. “‘That can sing both high and low. Trip no further, pretty sweeting. Journeys end in lovers’ meeting . . .’”

  They sounded good together, and as Mac tried to watch both of them without neglecting the road, he was struck by the eerie beauty of their identical features. Henry was a short-haired version of his twin. Mac had even seen Henry in Viola’s clothes and had marveled at the physical similarities. Henry’s body was thin and lithe, his skin smooth, and he was able to sway his hips in perfect imitation of a woman’s without it seeming like a performance, an exaggeration.

  He swallowed. No need to think about that right now.

  Through the rain he spotted the Kellers’ wooden house. Properties on this road were spaced far apart, but the Kellers’ meant Mac was less than a mile from the farm.

  Henry and Vi finished their song. Henry looked back at his sister.

  “Sorry I yelled, Vi.”

  “It’s okay, Sebby. I know you’re scared of the thunder.”

  Sebby.

  Sebastian Hanes. Mac still called him Henry Page.

  Someday, when Mac had sorted out who’d framed him, who Lonny Harris was, and who was carrying on Jimmy Rasnick’s work now that Rasnick was dead, he’d work on solving an even bigger mystery:

  Who the hell was Sebastian Hanes?

  And how deep did Mac’s feelings run for him?

  With Henry it often seemed that no matter what Mac learned, he was only ever scratching the surface.

  They finally made it to the McGuinness farm. Mac was briefly tempted to turn into the drive, run inside the house, and throw his arms around his mother. He couldn’t help believing she’d know what to do—that she’d be just as capable of giving him advice about being framed for drug use as she’d been of guiding him through his failed tryout for the junior high baseball team. But he’d better take Henry and Vi
to the old house down the road. Then he could spend a few minutes figuring out how exactly to explain to his parents that he was on the run from the FBI, traveling with a con man and his twin sister, and that he needed to hide on the outskirts of the family property until he could clear his name.

  When he pulled up to the old house a few minutes later, the rain had eased. He drove the car under an overhang of trees where the woods met the yard. Henry was the first out of the car. He opened the back door for Viola, then went to the trunk to get their bags.

  Mac was hoping the impromptu duet had cured Henry’s foul mood, but when Henry came to stand beside Mac, he looked at the house and said, “Kind of a dump, isn’t it?”

  It was, but Mac didn’t like the way Henry said it. Normally Henry would have made a joke about the peeling paint and the roof with its missing shingles. Would have teased Mac until Mac was thoroughly annoyed, but secretly amused. Right now Henry just sounded angry.

  “It’s old.”

  “This is a bad idea. You ought to let me go back to Indianapolis so I can find Remy and get him to spill about Lonny Harris. Oh, and kick his ass.”

  He put a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “How about you go inside, get changed, and I’ll take you and Vi up and introduce you to my parents?”

  Henry rolled his eyes. “You don’t know anything about going on the run, do you? Should’ve figured you’d screw this up.”

  “Stop it,” Mac said. “I know it’s a bad situation, but I need your help.”

  “Sebby, look! A goat!” Viola was pointing at a distant pasture. It was hazy with rain, but a few goats stood there, heedless of the weather.

  Henry shrugged Mac’s hand off. “If the person who set you up knows Lonny Harris, they could be really fucking dangerous. Lonny was a piece of shit, and he knew some real losers. It’s one thing if OPR comes here and finds you, but what if there’s someone worse who’s after you? You’re endangering my family and yours.”

  “Do not tell me I’m not concerned about the safety of my family,” Mac said. “Or Viola. I won’t accept lectures on responsibility from you.”

  Henry’s mouth hung open. “Gee, thanks, Mac.”