Shadow in Serenity

fourteen


Carny watched through the window of her office next to the hangar as Logan’s Navigator pulled up. She’d seen it parked at the Trents’ earlier in the day, and that riled her. Apparently, David and Janice were buying into the scam. She had stewed about it all day, trying to think of a way to make the people of Serenity listen to her. But those who were gullible enough to give Logan their money didn’t want to hear anything negative about him. Everyone’s patience with her wore thin as soon as she got on her soapbox.

She turned to the plane parked in the hangar behind her. Jason sat in the cockpit, making flying noises and talking into the radio, a top gun who’d just seen the enemy. As long as she and Jason were safe from Logan’s clutches, maybe she should just let it go. Let the town learn its lesson. As for her in-laws, well, she had put the money Logan paid her for her class in a safe place, to return to them when he skipped town. She only hoped they hadn’t given him more than that.

She watched Logan get out of the car and wave at her, grinning that grin. For a moment, she considered the possibility that she was wrong, that he wasn’t a con artist, just a businessman about to change the face and heart of Serenity.

No, the image didn’t fit. He was a crook, pure and simple.

Opening the door, Logan stuck his head into her office. “Are we still friends?”

She feigned distraction and headed for the classroom at the other end of the building. “We’ve never been friends, Brisco.”

“Well, okay. Then are we still just mild enemies, or is it worse since last night?”

She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

He looked a little too smug as he came in and dropped his notebook and car keys on the table. His nose was the slightest bit sunburned, and vaguely, she wondered when he’d had time to get any sunshine since last night.

“You seemed a little disgusted at my attentions to the pretty Miss Miller. Isn’t that why you left?”

She laughed then. “You thought I left because of you? Get real.”

He leaned a hip against her desk as she straightened her papers, and crossed his arms. “I don’t know. I noticed a definite chill when you looked at me on the dance floor.”

She knew he was baiting her, so she came around the table and faced him squarely. “All right, Brisco. It did disgust me. There’s not a woman in this town who deserves to be strung along by you, used, and then dumped when you disappear without a trace.”

“And what if I stayed, Carny?” he asked, annoyed. “What if I actually did what I said I was going to do, and built the park, and made Serenity my home?”

“And what if the sky turned green, and grass was pink, and the Loch Ness monster turned up in our lake?”

He stared at her. “You think you’ve got everything all figured out, don’t you? The possibility that you’re wrong never even occurs to you, does it?”

“When I’m wrong I can admit it.”

“Are you sure?”

She looked him dead in the eye. “Tell you what. When you prove me wrong, I’ll prove I can admit it. Until then, we have nothing to talk about. Now, do you want to take your lesson or not?”

Logan sat down. Pulling his pen out of his pocket, he said, “Teach me. I’m listening.”

Her heart hammered with anger as she launched into her lesson about federal air-traffic regulations. She wondered how much longer she’d have to endure this.


Logan didn’t know what had provoked him more — Carny’s dead-on attitude about him, or the tough questions the town’s citizens had begun asking about the park. Now that they’d had more time to think through his “proposal,” questions about infrastructure, permits, and the buy-in of county and state government kept popping up. By the middle of the week, those questions had driven him back to his motel room, where he reviewed the research he’d done to get a better working knowledge of theme parks. He memorized details about the inner workings of those parks, the people who had built them in the past, the impact on the towns around them, their potential revenue. As always when he researched a part he was playing, he found himself absorbed in the subject matter, meticulously planning out details and adding up figures. He had the facts worked out as clearly as he would have if he’d been legitimate.

The problem was, he’d been here too long already. In another week or two, everyone from Peabody’s Printing to the Welcome Inn would realize his credit was no good, that he was a fraud.

That left him a week or so to finish the job and skip town. The checks he’d collected from the citizens so far had already cleared, and all he had to do was push those undecided investors over the hump, take their money, and disappear. It was so simple.

So why hadn’t he called it a day already? You’re getting soft, he imagined Montague saying, but Logan shook his head. He told himself that Carny Sullivan hadn’t gotten under his skin, that Jason’s fishing hole had made no difference. He was here to score, and score big.

And then what? Would he buy that ranch that had been Montague’s dream and live there alone, isolated and hidden, so he wouldn’t get caught? Or would he just keep moving, keep scoring, keep deceiving everyone he met for the rest of his life?

A knock on the door to his room startled him, as though he’d been caught with his incriminating thoughts. He glanced at the appointment calendar on his computer to see if he’d forgotten someone. He hadn’t.

Tucking his shirt in and finger-combing his hair, he went to the door. Slade Hampton, the barber, waited there with Jack at his side. “Slade, come on in,” Logan said, shaking the man’s hand.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Slade said. “I didn’t have an appointment, but I just made my mind up this minute.”

It was exactly the kind of thing Logan liked to hear. Bending down to pet Jack, he said, “What’s on your mind?”

“My retirement,” Slade said. “I think I told you that I’ve been planning for it for years. Saving a good portion of what I made, so that one day, I could retire in style and do some traveling, some gardening, some volunteering — the kinds of things I’ve never had the chance to do.”

“Sounds like heaven,” Logan said. “Are you planning to do it soon?”

Slade hesitated for a moment, then looked Logan squarely in the eye. “No. Actually, I’ve decided to keep working a while longer. I want to invest my retirement money into the park. When it starts paying me back, then I’ll retire.”

Logan stared at him for a moment, his conscience at war with his goal. This was what he’d come for — to take money from marks like this. Besides, Slade loved his work. He loved cutting hair, always having someone to talk to, always having a line of friends and neighbors waiting for his services. Retirement probably wouldn’t suit him. He was the type who should work until he simply couldn’t anymore.

And yet — the money Slade was offering him was his life savings, the money he’d earned and banked, the money that would allow him to finally do the things he deserved after a lifetime of working on his feet.

“So do you think that’s realistic? That I’ll earn it back, and then some, in time to retire?”

Something inside Logan — something that had never been there before, something unwelcome — prevented him from lying and making a quick killing. “I can’t promise that you’ll earn every penny back in the next ten years, Slade. In fact, I can almost promise you won’t.”

“But you said —”

“I know what I said, but it’s a matter of timing.” Logan went to his logbook, opened it up to a clean page. Sitting down, he wrote Slade’s name at the top. “Everyone who invests stands to make a fortune. Just not overnight.” He looked up at Slade and noted the disappointment on his face. “Look, don’t give me the whole thing, Slade. Keep some back, just in case. I can promise you dividends enough to supplement your retirement. They’ll grow every year, I know that.”

Wearily, Slade sat down on the edge of the bed, his face pale. “I came here prepared to give you all I had.”

“I know, but I can’t take it. Not all of it.”

Slade rubbed his face, slumping slightly. “You see, I’d like to have enough to live well on in retirement, but still leave something behind to my daughter and her husband. They don’t expect anything, ‘cause I’ve never been a rich man. But wouldn’t it be nice if I could take care of their kids’ educations, maybe a down payment on a house? I don’t quite have enough for that as it is, Logan. But I might if I invest with you. I could leave them my share of the park, and that would be just as good.”

Logan took a deep breath and leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees. He tried to block out Montague’s voice blaring through his ears, Take it, boy! You’re thinking too much. Stop it right now!

Logan slammed the door on his conscience and gave in. “All right, Slade. I’ll take whatever you’re offering. And I’ll do my best to see that it helps you reach your goals.”

Slade smiled like a lottery winner as he fished the checkbook out of his back pocket and picked up a pen from Logan’s table. “Thank you, Logan. You’re practically saving this town, you know. You couldn’t have come along at a better time.”

Logan watched him tear the check out and hand it to him, and his heart jolted when he saw the amount — one hundred thousand dollars. It was enough, he thought. Enough to call the mission accomplished and get out of town. There was no point in being greedy. No point in waiting for more.

Excitement welled inside him as he made the careful log entry, trying to keep up the appearance of legitimacy. When he’d finished, he laid the check carefully on the log entry’s page and closed the book. “Thank you, Slade. You won’t regret it.”

They shook hands. Slade’s was unusually limp and clammy. Perspiration glistened over his lip and at his temples, and his face became even more pasty than it had been when he came in.

“Slade,” Logan said softly, “are you feeling all right?”

Slade tried to chuckle, but the effort fell flat. “Just a little angina, I think,” he said. “Chest feels a little tight.”

Alarmed, Logan got to his feet. “Do you … do you want me to call an ambulance?”

“No, no,” Slade said. “I’ll go up the street to see Dr. Peneke.”

“Right now? Do you want me to drive you?”

He waved him off. “I’m fine, Logan. I can make it.”

Logan hesitated at the door as Slade went through it, walking with a pained slump, but trying to hide it. When he stumbled and fell against the wall, Logan ran out and caught him. He eased Slade to the floor as Jack began to whimper. “Doc!” Logan yelled. “Help, Doc! We’ve got an emergency! Please! Somebody call an ambulance!”

In seconds, Doc, who had never been a real doctor, ran out of the office downstairs, looked up at Logan holding Slade, then dashed back inside to the phone.

As Slade clutched at his heart and winced in pain, Logan flashed back to Montague’s heart attack. “You’re gonna be okay, buddy. Just hold on.” The memory of the teenaged kid he used to be, and the death of the only person in his life who had cared for him, reeled in a loop through Logan’s frantic mind.

Jack began to whimper and lick Slade’s face.

In moments that seemed to stretch into eternity, the area outside Logan’s room was crowded with paramedics and machinery. But before they could get him on the gurney, Slade Hampton was dead.