Page 42 of Yankee in the Wind

Deja moved her eyes from left to right in lieu of shaking her head. “I told Smith when… when he came to see… his father… in secret.” Her words were punctuated with bouts of labored breathing. “So Smith could… get him.”

“So Smith killed him after you told him where he was?”

Deja’s eyes drifted closed.

Jack shook her by the shoulder. “Deja, stay with me. How and where did Smith kill Thomas?”

Deja’s eyes opened. “… didn’t want him dead.”

“What? Who didn’t want him dead?”

“Smith… he needed him alive.”

“But Thomas is dead,” Lilly interjected and leaned over Deja. “Deja, what happened to Thomas?”

Deja turned her eyes to Lilly. “I’m sorry… Smith needed him for…”

“For what?” Lilly urged her on.

“… brain. His gift… wanted to scan it… use it…”

“Smith wanted to scan Thomas’s brain?” Jack asked Deja, then looked at Lilly. “The MRI machine?”

Lilly nodded.

“Not MRI…” Deja said. “…bigger… more dangerous… the machine… it takes everything from the brain… but it’s too much… takes too long… it fries… fries the brain…”

Lilly put a hand over her mouth, visibly choking down her tears. “Oh my God, Thomas… no.”

“Deja, where is that equipment now? Where did Smith move it to?” Jack asked.

“Another place…” Then she looked back at Lilly. “I’m sorry… I had to protect my son… Smith knew because…”

Deja stopped moving. There was no breath. Jack checked for a pulse but found none.

“She’s gone.”

“What now?” Lilly stared at him, her eyes wide, anxiety rolling off her.

Jack glanced around. The sun would be up soon, and shortly after that the first employees of Delta Labs would show up for work. “There’s no time to move her. We have to leave her here.”

“But, somebody will find her. What if they tie her death back to you or me?”

“They won’t. Not if we clean up.” He pulled a flashlight from his jacket pocket. “Take this and look around for the shell casings. There should be a total of six. Three from my gun, three from hers.” He pointed to the spots on the parking lot where his casings would have fallen, then to the spot where Deja had hidden earlier. “Pick them up.”

She nodded and took the flashlight. “And what are you gonna do?”

“Dig the bullets out of her,” he said.

Lilly blanched. “Are you serious?”

“Has to be done. We can’t afford ballistics to trace back to this gun.”

Lilly nodded, then started looking for the shell casings. Jack pulled out his knife and started digging for the bullets. The bullet in the shoulder was no problem, the one in the lungs took a little longer to dig out. By the time he was done, Lilly was back with the casings.

“Found all six?”

“Yes.”