Long Tale Press

1

Maggie Driscoll was exhausted. The ceaseless white lines of the highway had burned a negative in her eyes. Eyes that stung like popped blisters after being rubbed for the zillionth time. The aching stiffness in her neck and hands didn’t help matters either. Maggie had tried rotating her grip on the U-Haul’s steering wheel for the last hundred miles. She had hunched over, sat up straight, shook her arms, and played an imaginary piano. Relief had lasted for a mile or two. Then the elephant was back sitting on her shoulders, and Maggie’s hands had curled back into bird’s feet again.

Maybe Maggie had been in too big of a hurry to put Los Angeles behind her, or maybe she was just plain stubborn. Twelve hours of driving with only a couple of gas stops had really beaten her up. Now, to make matters worse, a swirling dense fog had begun to settle in low spots along the highway forcing Maggie to ease off the accelerator.

The speedometer needle wagged fifty, forty, thirty, and then hovered at twenty-five miles per hour. Maggie switched the windshield defrosters on high. If she had to drive any slower, she would be better off walking to Snake Island. The road curved around a rocky hill and straightened out.

“Damn it,” spat Maggie, pounding a fist against the steering wheel. The fog up ahead of had whitewashed the road away. Route 10 and the lane dividers had disappeared. She might as well be wearing a frigging blindfold. There was only one thing for her to do now.

Maggie eased back on the accelerator until the speedometer read five miles per hour. She leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window then clicked off the radio. Her ears would need to be her eyes now.

“Please, please, have a gravel shoulder,” said Maggie, as she began to inch the heavy truck to the right. She knew if the wheels hit soft sand, the truck could roll over or get stuck. Maggie would have a long wait for help to arrive if that happened. She was in the middle of nowhere, and hadn’t seen another vehicle on the road for over an hour.

Maggie exhaled as she heard the crunch of gravel beneath the tires. She brought the truck to a slow stop and turned on the emergency flashers. The pulsing light turned the fog into an amber heart. Maggie squinted. There was something up ahead. She put the truck in gear and inched the vehicle slowly forward.

“Well I’ll be damned,” chuckled Maggie, reading the sign that had floated into view like a sea green ghost. There was a rest area a quarter mile down the highway. If she took it easy and stayed on the gravel, she should make it in one piece.

It took twenty minutes of crawling along the shoulder before Maggie saw the arrow pointing to the rest area. She turned the U-Haul into the drive, followed an arc of road, and brought the truck to a stop in front of the restrooms. From what Maggie could see, within the aura of diluted florescent light that bathed the parking lot, she was alone. Being alone in a foggy, empty, rest area at night might have spooked some women, but not Maggie. Four years in the Marines had taught her how to take care of herself. But it was her eight years as a teacher in East LA that had really toughened her up.

The gang bangers at Carver High, where Maggie had taught science and chemistry, had respectfully tagged her Little Demon. Maggie had earned the nickname when Tito Sanchez, President of the Casa Blanca Banditos had tried to take over the class on her first day at Carver.

Tito was a tall willowy Latino kid, with a long granite face, chipped and scarred by living too fast and furious in a barrio that always killed its kings. Maggie knew the rules of survival. They were simple. Every gang used the same ones. You were a member, a victim, or the enemy, nothing in between. If she had let Tito back her down, Maggie might as well have gone home. There had been only one thing for her to do.

Maggie had stood on a chair so she could look Tito dead in the eyes. She had warned Sanchez, that if he, or any of his homies, ever gave her any grief, she would find out where he lived, where he hung out, and when. Eventually, she would be there, waiting in the shadows, and when Sanchez showed up by his lonesome, she would put a cap in his bad ass. Tito Sanchez and the rest of the class knew by the devil in Maggie’s eyes, and the thin cruel smile on her face, that she meant every word she had said. It was during the traditional stare-off after her warning, when Sanchez had finally turned his eyes away, that Maggie had earned her nickname. Tito had laughed and said, Nadie ensucia con la hija del diablo. Nobody messes with the Devil’s Daughter. The tag of Devil’s Daughter eventually became Pequeño Diablo, or little devil. Maggie didn’t care one way or another. She had garnered her take no shit reputation. That was all that mattered to her. It would keep the dogs at bay.

Maggie switched off the truck's engine. She unlocked the glove compartment and removed a Glock 9mm automatic. The gun felt cold in her hand, like a dead thing. Maggie released the clip, checked for the glint of a bullet at the top, then snapped the clip back into place, and set a round in the chamber. She eyed the safety to make sure it was on then slid the automatic into the holster attached to her belt. There was no need to check the twelve-inch switchblade strapped to her ankle. It was like an old friend, always there when she had needed it.

The bathroom doors were barely visible through the ashen murk, even though they were only a few paces from the front bumper of the truck.

“Oh well,” said Maggie, opening the truck door. “A gal has to pee, when a gal has to pee.” Maggie sucked in a quick breath. “Damn!” The cold fog had slithered in around her licking at her face like a zombie dog trying to lap the warmth of life from her skin.

“Something tells me this is not going to be my best night,” said Maggie, shivering, using the toe of one boot to nudge open the bathroom door. Maybe it was the lack of sleep that had made her more edgy than usual, or the knife-scarred icon of the skirted woman on the door. In either case, Maggie was not about to take any unnecessary chances and let some pervert with a knife fuck up her new life before it got started. Nobody was going to do that to her.

The stench of cheap disinfectant and stale urine blended with the fog as it rolled into the bathroom. Maggie wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, then spat. Her lips tasted sour. She poised her right hand just above the Glock and swept the small room with tired eyes. Two stalls, both with closed doors, a sink streaked like a dirty Zebra on the adjacent wall. The room appeared empty, but Maggie had learned a long time ago that appearances could be deceiving. She crouched down and glanced under the first stall door—no shoes. After the word CLEAR had popped into her head, Maggie took a couple of sidesteps then bent over to check the second stall. A shadow behind the door changed shape. Something had moved inside. Maggie stepped quietly backwards, drew her 9mm, and flipped off the safety. She tapped on the door with the muzzle.

“You okay in there?”

No one answered.

Maggie shifted her weight to her left foot and tapped again.

“Hey, is anyone in there?”

Nothing but dead silence.

Maggie sighed, “Murphy you’re an asshole” and kicked open the door.

Lying on the dingy tile floor, between the wall and the toilet, was a barefoot woman dressed in what looked like a green hospital gown.

“What kind of a sick fuck would do something like this,” spat Maggie. She eyed the restroom entrance. No frigging lock, and there was nothing she saw in the bathroom to prop up against the door. She would have to take a chance that the perpetrator was gone and holster her Glock. The woman had not awakened when Maggie kicked the stall door open, which meant she was likely dead or unconscious. Getting her out of the stall would require both hands.

“You’ve got a half-assed angel watching over you,” said Maggie, checking the women’s pulse, and feeling a slow steady beat beneath her fingertips. “But why are you unconscious?” There were no obvious reasons, no external bleeding or bruising, no outward signs of a pathogen at work.

Maggie braced the woman’s neck with one hand, and slid her other hand beneath her torso. Fuck forensics. She was not going to leave the woman lying on the bathroom floor. Even if Maggie had a way to call the 911, with the fog as thick as it was, there was no telling how long it would be before help arrived.

“Let’s sit you up so I can check out the rest of you.”

Maggie pulled the woman into a sitting position and propped her against the wall. The curtain of ebony hair that had been shrouding her face fell away. Maggie’s eyes hardened. A familiar tingle of cautious fear rippled through body. The same fear that had kept her alive in Desert Storm. A latticework of dried blood trailed down from a deep ugly gash above the woman’s left ear. Maggie had seen plenty of bullet wounds on Marines who had zigzagged the wrong way. This woman had been very lucky. If the bullet that had made the gash on her head had hit a couple of millimeters closer, she would be long dead.

Maggie slid the woman out of the stall as gently as the narrow space would allow. A quick search told Maggie what she had already suspected. The woman was a Jane Doe, what Marines called a UC—an Unidentified Casualty. Until Maggie knew different, the name Jane would have to do.

The woman groaned, “Cold…too cold.”

Maggie dropped to one knee. “What did you say? Can you hear me?”

“Shit!” Jane was out again, and she did not look good. Her skin had taken on a waxy appearance, and she was shivering terribly. Maggie recognized the symptoms from her days in survival training. Jane was suffering from stage-3 hypothermia. Maggie needed to get her into the truck and warm her up fast. She had no way of telling if Jane’s core temperature had dropped below ninety-three degrees. If it had, she could die.

“I’m going to get my truck,” said Maggie, taking off her jacket and draping it over Jane’s shoulders. “It’ll only take me a minute. You hang in there.”

Maggie hurried to the door. She stopped and held her breath, listening. Nothing, it was quiet as a tomb outside. She drew her automatic and then slowly pushed the door open. The fog swirled passed Maggie into the restroom like wet smoke. The truck, everything beyond the doorway was concealed behind a luminescent wall of dingy white. Maggie holstered her Glock. For now, the fog was working in her favor. She knew if she couldn’t see past her nose, either could anyone else, unless they were wearing infrared goggles. If that were the case, and a shooter wanted her dead, she would already be bleeding on the ground.

Maggie used a dime as a screwdriver to adjust the pneumatic cylinder on the restroom door to lock it open. Finding the truck was not difficult. It was parked straight out from the door a dozen steps away. Maggie climbed inside, started the engine, and turned the heater on high. She carefully jockeyed the truck, and repositioned it in front of the restroom. Then she slid over and opened the passenger side door. The corridor between the two doors would offer some protection, if there were more than shadows lurking in the fog.

“I’m back,” said Maggie, crouching down by Jane. “I’m going to lift you up now, so don’t go ballistic on me if you wake up, okay.”

Maggie folded Jane over her right shoulder like a rolled-up rug and drove upward with her legs. Maggie wobbled for a second, caught her balance, and then took baby steps to the truck. Jane weighted maybe a hundred ten pounds. But limp dead weight always felt twice as heavy.

A blast of warm air hit Maggie in the face as she lowered Jane onto the passenger seat. Thankfully, the heater was doing its job. The wool blanket Maggie tucked around Jane would act as an insulator and keep her from losing any more body heat. Maggie decided to leave the gash alone. It wasn’t bleeding, and she wanted to keep it that way. Applying a field dressing could inadvertently disturb the clot and cause a gusher. A doctor could patch Jane up when they got to the next town. It was no big deal. All Maggie had to do was stay awake until the fog cleared. Morning was only a few hours away. She could tough it out.

Maggie climbed in behind the steering wheel and eased the door shut. She checked Jane’s pulse again. It was faint but steady. Her forehead was cool to the touch, but not clammy. Maggie leaned back in her seat and yawned. The cab was like a sauna. Too damned warm, if she was going to stay awake until morning. Maggie switched the heater fan to low and rolled her window down. The fog washed her face like a cool wet cloth.

“Cold. . . fog cold.”

“Huh?” Jane was conscious again.

“Sorry,” said Maggie, cranking the window shut. “I was falling asleep.”

“Please. . . don’t. . . “

Jane’s lips scarcely moved.

Maggie leaned in closer.

“Don’t what?”

Jane’s lashes fluttered, but her eyes remained closed.

“Don’t let them take me. Please don't let them take me back to the white room.” The words were barley audible.

“Who,” said Maggie? “Who wants to take you? What white room? Where?”

Jane didn’t answer. She had passed out again. Maggie opened the door and stepped outside. A pane of glass wouldn’t stop a bullet, and it was too frigging hot in the truck. She tapped a cigarette loose from its pack, lit the end, and inhaled deeply. Things were not adding up. Hospitals and sanitariums had white rooms, but as far as Maggie knew, they didn’t go around shooting their patients. Maybe Jane was a dangerous criminal who had escaped from a prison infirmary. That would explain the hospital gown and the shooter. Nah, that didn’t jive. Jane would have said, don’t let them take me back to this prison or that prison, not a white room.

Maggie ground out her cigarette beneath the heel of a boot and lit another. There was one other possible explanation. One that would raise more questions than it would answer. The men tracking Jane could be agency trained or military. The white room could be a detainee cell on a base somewhere. Jane was young, petite, non-threatening, the perfect asset for a hardcore terrorist cell. Then why hadn’t the shooters finished the job? Fog would not have stopped a Special Ops team. Maggie decided until she knew what was up no one would be a friendly. No one!

A sudden gust of wind created a murky phantom that twirled by the truck then disappeared. Maggie pulled out her Glock and clicked off the safety. Shadows always made her nervous. Things hid in shadows, secrets, lies, mortality. She had no idea why the shooters had not found Jane. But there was one thing Maggie knew for certain. When the shooters did come, she would be in their crosshairs right along with Jane. All assassins shared one commonality; leave no lose ends.

2

The gas gage had dipped below one quarter. Running out of gas would be a real dumb move. Maggie had no choice. She turned the ignition key and killed the engine. It was three o’clock. Sunrise was around six thirty. Until then, Maggie could start the truck once per hour. Run it just long enough to keep the cab and Jane warm.

Maggie yawned. Damn it was silent without the drone of the truck’s engine and the whir of the heater fan. She reached for a cigarette. Shit! She couldn’t roll down the window. The cab would lose too much heat. Opening the door and stepping outside would do the same thing, but even faster. Maggie glanced at her watch. It was only three-twenty. She chuckled softly to herself. Old man time must be as tired as she was. The minutes were crawling by. She had forty more to count off, before Maggie could start the engine and step outside for a smoke. But counting minutes in the silent warmth of the cab, after twelve grueling hours on the road, was like Maggie counting backwards after a shot of Sodium Pentothal. She blinked three times, then her head fell forward on her chest and sleep engulfed her.

3

What was that noise? It sounded like someone tapping on a tin can with a spoon. Maggie bolted awake. A huge crow was standing on the hood of the truck. It flashed a glistening black eye at Maggie, cawed, then snatched up its gory breakfast and flew away. Maggie exhaled a sigh of relief and lowered her Glock. She had gotten lucky. The crow could have been one of the shooters tapping on the window before he blew her brains out. There were plenty of sadistic bastards working Black Ops.

Maggie checked her watch. The icy knot in her stomach pulled tighter. It was quarter of nine. Dumb, dumb, dumb. She should have stood watch outside. The cold would have kept her awake. Screw it! Maggie fired up the trucks engine. She could beat herself up later. Dwelling on shoulda, woulda, and coulda now could mean a toe tag. Maggie needed to stay frosty. The parking lot was still empty, but the fog had turned into a translucent mist. She guessed that the shooters had been on the move for over an hour. That was more than enough time to close the gap between her and them. Maggie flipped on the windshield wipers, slipped the truck into gear, and headed for the rest stop exit. She had one major advantage over the shooters. They didn’t know Jane was with Maggie, and she meant to keep it that way. Jane moaned as the truck bounced over the last speed bump then rolled out onto Route-10. Maggie flashed a glance in her direction. Jane was wrapped up in Maggie’s wool blanket with her head resting on a pillow wedged against the window.

“Hey Jane, are you awake?”

Jane was unresponsive.

Maggie reached over and felt her forehead. It was cool and dry. Her breathing sounded normal. Jane was young, athletic, probably in her early twenties. She had an oval face with high-set cheekbones and a slightly narrow nose. Her eyes were almond shaped hidden beneath a thicket of black lashes. Although she wore no discernable makeup, her full lips still cast a ripe cherry color, contrasted by flawless tawny skin. Her mane of ebony hair draped down over her shoulders resembling a delicate shawl woven from the shear of a night sky. Without question, Jane was a beautiful woman, and strangely dangerous. Looking at her was like looking at the face of a sleeping goddess. Power and innocence blended like the hybrid offspring of a hawk and a dove. Maggie felt a sudden flutter in her stomach as if she had just swallowed a panicky butterfly.

“You've got to be frigging kidding me,” said Maggie. The last time she had felt butterflies was eleven years ago when she had first met Andrea. It had been love at first sight, just like in the movies. A couple of dreamy-eyed gals caught up in a romantic fairy tale. Maggie had known better than to believe in happy ever after. She had seen too many lives shattered by a bullet or a Dear John letter. Andrea had been different. She had a way of making dreams seem real. Maggie wiped a hand across her eyes. God, she hated cancer.

“You okay?”

The hair on Maggie’s neck bristled. Her heart sprinted in her chest. For a split second, Maggie thought she had heard a ghost. It was Jane. She was awake looking at Maggie with spheres of aqua blue as clear as tide pools. Maggie exhaled and feigned a weak smile.

“I'm okay. How are you feeling?”

Jane frowned.

“But you were crying, giving water back to the world.”

“It’s nothing,” said Maggie, waving a hand of dismissal. “What about you? You’ve got a pretty nasty gash on the side of your head.”

“They shot me,” said Jane, gently touching the tender furrow on the side of her head. Thank God, no amnesia. Maybe now Maggie could get some answers.

“Who shot you?”

Jane shrugged. “The one's who want me dead.”

“No shit,” said Maggie, sharply. “That’s a no brainier. Who wants you dead?”

Jane wrung her hands together. Her bottom lip was trembling. She reminded Maggie of a little girl being scolded by her mother. Living in LA had taught Maggie to shoot from the hip. Quick and dirty was a nasty habit on her long list of city traits she hoped to lose once she was back home in the bayou.

“Sorry,” said Maggie. “Let's start over. My name is Maggie Driscoll. And you are?”

Jane rocked her eyes back and forth as if she was keeping time to a song no one else could hear. Then she grinned as though she had found a match to Maggie’s question amidst the unsung lyrics.

“Una, I am La Una.”

Maggie shook her head.

“No! I mean what’s your name. La Una means The One. You have a real name, don’t you?”

Jane’s bottom lip pushed into a pout. Her dancing eyes lowered to stare at her lap.

“No. My name is La Una. It is all that I can remember. It is what they called me. I am sorry.”

Maggie grimaced. No amnesia my ass. Maybe La Una was some kind of gang handle, like the tag little devil Tito Sanchez had hung on her. Maggie tried to picture Una as a hard ass. It didn’t work.

“Okay, La Una, what happened? You said someone shot you, that they wanted you dead. Can you tell me why?”

Una wrapped her blanket tighter, and tucked it up under her chin. Maggie read the gesture as a fear response, until Una looked up at her. Maggie didn’t see fear in Una’s eyes. She saw pity.

“They think I can hurt them. I would not. I do not want to hurt anyone. But I couldn’t stay in their white room anymore. I would die if I did.”

Una’s eyes were rimmed with tears. Her shoulders trembled. Maggie’s heart sunk. She had always been a sucker for a woman in tears.

“It's going to be okay,” said Maggie, gently grasping hold of Una’s hand as though it were a rose about to lose its petals. “Nobody is going to take you anywhere. You’re safe with me. But you need to tell me more about the people who are after you. I need to know who we’re up against.”

Una’s teary eyes disappeared behind a curtain of eyelashes. A few seconds later, they reopened, glistening like wet turquoise.

“There are just pieces inside me, broken images. I cannot put them together. I feel like a stranger to my own mind. I don’t think it will ever let me see me again.”

Maggie was a fixer. Gluing broken people back together was part of her intrinsic nature, and Una certainly qualified as broken. However, there was more to it this time. Maggie’s need to fix Una was more than just an urge. It was a feeling of desperation. The same unrelenting dull ache Maggie had felt in her heart when Andrea had first gotten sick. The calloused part of Maggie, her self-survival instinct said to unload Una. Drop her off at the first medical facility they came across. The butterflies flittering in her stomach said there was no way that was going to happen.

“Don’t worry,” said Maggie. “You took a hard hit from that bullet. It probably caused some type of temporary amnesia. A little rest and relaxation, and you’ll be your old self in no time.”

“Promise,” said Una, snuggling with her pillow.

Maggie’s mouth opened, but the words I promise froze in her throat. Andrea had asked her the same thing, when Maggie had told her everything was going to be all right. Saying I promise then had cost Maggie a piece of her soul. After Andrea died, Maggie had made her last promise. She promised never to promise anyone anything ever again.

“Get some rest,” said Maggie, avoiding an answer. “I'm going to find us a dinner. When we get there, I’ll give you some of my clothes to change into. Personally, I don’t mind your tush showing, but the guys after you are probably asking everyone if they have seen a woman roaming around in a hospital gown. I can just imagine what kind of stories they have concocted about you. Lizzy Borden would probably look like a Girl Scout.

Una frowned.

“I have a tush? Where, Maggie?”

Maggie patted her ass.

“Tush, you know, butt.”

“Tush and butt, these are the same?”

A smile creased Maggie’s lips. Yep, Una was definitely not hard-core. At least not the kind of hard core Cholas Maggie was used to.

“It was supposed to be a funny compliment.”

“Oh,” said Una, yawning and closing her eyes.

“Tush and butt. . . tushbutt sounds funnier to me. Maybe you should try that word next time.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Maggie, chuckling, her voice dropping to a whisper, “tushbutt is funnier.” Una had fallen asleep.

The silence gave Maggie time to think. She had already decided not to take Una to a hospital or clinic. Whoever had shot her would probably be canvassing every medical office and hospital in the area. Until Maggie knew more about Una, why someone was trying to kill her, she was going to keep Una under wraps. The last thing Maggie wanted to do was get into a firefight with the men from the white room. Nevertheless, if they got lucky and found her and Una, Maggie would not have a choice. It would be a kill or be killed situation. Maggie unsnapped the leather strap securing the Glock in its holster. She knew death up close and personal. The Reaper had been the third wheel in her life for far too long. It was time to say goodbye, one way, or another.

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