epilogue 7
The drive back to Antlers is mostly silent, occasionally punctuated by a change of radio stations whenever the one they’re tuned in to switches from music to ads, or becomes more static than music. Naberius chose to return to Hell from the motel parking lot, leaving Walker alone in the car with Landis (and possibly Landis’s ghost friend, as well). Neither of them seem particularly keen on communicating - although, Walker has to admit, he wouldn’t particularly know if a ghost was trying to have a conversation with him. Still, after the day they’ve all had, it’s hard to mind the silence.
Walker finds himself dozing off in short intervals, leaning over in his seat with his chin tucked against his chest. The couple of painkillers he took after seeing Austin off haven’t kicked in yet, and every so often a sharp, hot burst of pain shoots through his shoulder, waking him and forcing him to reposition himself. It’s hard to tell how much time passes between these brief jolts of discomfort, and it’s equally hard to discern between periods of genuine sleep and just sitting with his eyes shut, feeling exhaustion weighing him down like a lead-lined blanket.
The feeling of the car no longer speeding along at 60 or 70 miles per hour, is what eventually yanks Walker back to a wakeful state, feeling more or less pain-free. He blinks out the window, hoping to see the apartment complex in Antlers, but instead finds a dark parking lot with some kind of glowing oasis at its center. A fast food place, he realizes, cleaning his glasses on his shirt and sliding them back on.
Landis is gone from the driver’s seat, probably inside the restaurant getting something to eat. Walker unhooks his seatbelt and squirms to get more comfortable again, stretching his legs as much as he’s able, trying to encourage slightly better circulation in parts that have started to go numb. He takes his phone out to check the time, and finds that they’ve only been driving for just under two hours, as well as several missed calls from Cillian.
The dread from the latter discovery manages to bring Walker all the way to complete consciousness, and he barely spends time waffling over whether to call back before he finds his thumb hitting the Send button. The line only gets a chance to ring once before Cillian picks up.
“Where have you been?”
“Asleep,” Walker says, “like you probably should be. Jacob’s not dead, is he?”
“No,” Cillian says, “Jacob is fine. Well, not fine in the strictest sense of the word, but he’ll get there, I’m sure. His nurse said that he woke up about an hour ago to ask for something to drink.”
Great. Austin won’t be coming home to his last living family member’s funeral. Walker feels himself instantaneously become less tense. “That’s good, right? You said he hadn’t woken up yet, when I called before.”
“We’re…cautiously optimistic. He went back to sleep shortly after, but he seems stable for the time being,” Cillian says. He sounds vastly more tired than usual, an impressive feat considering the many believable rumors circulating at the DPR that claim he only sleeps three hours a night, or doesn’t sleep at all.
“So where was August when the whole stabbing thing went down?” Walker asks, naming Jacob’s bodyguard. He hadn’t thought of it before, mostly because of the more immediate situation at hand, but it is odd that the one person whose job it is to make sure that Jacob doesn’t get injured just so happened to be AWOL for the one time Jacob was actually in danger.
Cillian lets out a heavy exhale that crackles over the phone’s speaker. “Out of town for the evening. He’s still supplanting you on Squad A’s missions until we can find a better replacement.”
“And nobody thought to find Jacob another bodyguard?”
“He was rather insistent about not needing one while at work.” Cillian’s tone makes it abundantly clear how little he thinks of that idea. “My attempts to impress upon him how easy it would be for a hired hitman to follow him to the Department building and blow his brains out while he sat at his desk apparently didn’t quite stick.”
Walker snorts. Of course they didn’t. He and Austin are the same, even though it’d kill them to admit it. Both stubborn as mules. I wonder if their dad was that stubborn - or is that stubborn, I guess, Walker corrects himself, recalling that Richard Jones is still around, even if only a few people can hold a conversation with him.
“Any leads on who did it?” he asks Cillian curiously. “I know you won’t know for sure until Jacob wakes up, but…”
“Well, whoever did it entered and left through the office door, so it was almost certainly someone who was inside the building at that time,” Cillian says, sounding somewhat less irate now that the conversation has flowed into a different topic. “Which does very little to narrow down who the culprit was.”
“You can’t check the security tapes?”
“We have agents on it,” Cillian says. Walker can very nearly hear him rolling his eyes. “Unfortunately, both my and Jacob’s offices are equipped with security cameras that we can turn on and off with the press of a button, to prevent confidential information from reaching the wrong eyes in the event of a hack or a break-in. I prefer to keep mine on as often as possible, but Jacob -”
“Keeps his off. Of course.” Walker leans his forehead against the passenger’s side window, and is chagrined to find the glass much warmer than he was expecting. “You think this was an inside job?”
“I don’t think I understand your meaning.”
“Like, someone at the DPR did it, or was in on it. Hell, maybe a few people. You guys have been hiring a lot of new agents lately to make up for being short-staffed, right? Maybe a professional assassin slipped in under your radar.”
As Walker speaks, the driver’s door opens and Landis climbs into the car, a bag of fast food in each hand. He holds one out, offering it to Walker, who grins and mouths a “thank you”, balancing the phone precariously in between his ear and his shoulder in order to take the bag. Inside it is a cardboard sleeve full of french fries and a paper-wrapped burger, the latter of which which Walker immediately unwraps and begins to wolf down. His last proper meal feels like it was a year ago - it’s a miracle that taking the painkillers with barely any food hasn’t made him sick yet.
“- records of everyone we hire,” Cillian is saying, when Walker tunes back in. “We’re much more thorough than that. It’s impossible - unthinkable - that any of them could be an assassin hiding under a false identity. What is that awful noise you’re making?”
“Chewing,” Walker says, swallowing a largely un-chewed mouthful of burger. “Sorry.”
Cillian makes a dismissive “tch” noise that would read as a burst of static if Walker hadn’t heard him make it a million times before.
“By the way,” Walker adds, figuring that he might as well, “Austin’s on his way home.”
There’s a short pause in which he thinks he’s been hung up on, and then Cillian laughs.
“That’s funny. I could have sworn you just said that Austin is on his way home.”
“He is,” Walker says.
“I see. You mean he’s on his way to his home in the apartment complex where you both live in Colorado,” Cillian says, his voice cracking a little. “I didn’t know he came home from work this late.”
“I mean,” Walker says, “he’s on his way to Havenwood. Right now.”
“With you?”
“With some mercenaries I paid to take him there.”
“The same mercenaries you had me investigate for you today, I suppose,” Cillian says. His voice is still light and conversational, like he very much wants to play along with the prank he believes Walker is pulling.
“Yeah, actually,” Walker says, with not a shred of mirth in his voice. “Jenny and those other two guys.”
He doesn’t mention the demon, out of courtesy to Cillian’s health. Landis raises an eyebrow at him, and he grins.
“Don’t bullshit me,” Cillian says flatly.
“I’m not,” Walker says, swallowing down a laugh. “Although I did forget to tell him you said hi.”
“What in the world made you think that allowing Austin to travel with mercenaries was a good idea?” Cillian’s voice cracks as he raises it. “Are you out of your mind? Do you know how much a member of the Jones family is worth?”
“Yeah, they won’t hurt him, though, is the thing,” Walker says. “Even the guy who was paying them to kidnap Austin wanted him delivered in one piece. And Austin wanted to go see Jacob, after he found out about the whole stabbing thing, so I figured it was better to let him go with people who’re paid to make sure he’s safe.”
“Walker,” Cillian says, “you are paid to make sure Austin is safe.”
Landis tries very hard, and very visibly, to stifle a laugh in his hamburger wrapper, convulsing in the driver’s seat. Walker reaches across the car to pat Landis reassuringly on the thigh, using his free hand to cram fries in his mouth.
“Hey,” he says into the phone, “you think I should order Jacob a flower arrangement or something? Maybe one of those fruit baskets with the apples dipped in chocolate?”
There’s an abrupt click as Cillian hangs up. Deeply satisfied, Walker shuts his own phone and slides it back into his pocket. He balances the fast food bag on his leg as he reaches for the seat belt, giving Landis another glance as they both buckle themselves in.
“Jacob’s not dead?” Landis asks.
“Nah,” Walker says, shaking his head. “He’ll be fine. They still don’t know who stabbed him, though.”
“Well, I’m sure they’ll find out,” Landis says. He puts the key in the ignition, twists it, and the convertible rumbles to life around the two of them. “It’s only a matter of time.”