by Porter, Cat
Even though we’re only a few states apart, it feels like we’re separated by war, far far away. But it is a war, isn’t it? When I was in Vietnam, I’d see the other guys get mail from wives and girlfriends, and they’d open the envelopes with a sort of reverence—even if they opened them slowly and carefully or ripped at them—taking in deep breaths, swallowing the words on the paper whole. Reading them over and over and over again, rubbing the paper between their fingers. Then folding them up and tucking them in a pocket over their chests. Knowing they were there did something for them. I never knew what that was really about, but now I get it. I get it because that’s how I feel now. Reverent, grateful, blessed. And holding the fuck on.
The time in between getting to see you breaks new pieces of me apart and I got to work hard to build them back up, like a brick wall, one brick at a time, one layer at a time. At first, it was so hard, baby. So hard. And you know why? Because my center of balance is different now. It’s at a new angle, a new measurement on the map of me. I need you, and that’s a good thing. Funny, huh?
I don’t think anyone can really change another person, but they can have an effect on them for the better and the worst. You’ve had an effect on me, the best kind.
After being with you like this last time at the motel, after that night we had (yeah we get it in, any which way we can, and I love that you don’t give a shit about where we are either, just like me, as long as we’re together) having to leave you after all that, I feel shattered like broken glass, yet full to bursting all at the same damn time. How do you explain that? It’s loving you and you loving me, isn’t it? That love has its own pulse that flows through the both of us, connecting us, and nobody and nothing can stop it. I know that every time we make love, it’s a promise. A promise that builds and keeps building, keeps growing, bonding us, keeping us tight. It’s also the only place, the only time where everything makes sense. A place that’s ours, that no one can threaten. That place where your mustangs run and my eagles fly.
You are the only one for me, baby. The only one, ever. And those aren’t some words in a sappy love letter, that’s the motherfucking truth.
I got this smile plastered on my face as I write this at a truck stop diner having breakfast. I’m writing this now that it’s only been a handful of hours since I kissed your mouth, licked your skin, fucked you, held you and heard your moans for me, felt your body tremble against mine, your sweat on me. It cuts, but that ache is searching for you, and you know what? I’d rather feel all that crazy than feel nothing. It’s the nothing that’s the true hell, and I never realized it until you.
I know that when we’re finally together, we’re both going to appreciate every goddamn second of every hour of every day. I don’t know if we’ll laugh about it when we’re old and gray. I don’t think I will. But we’ll know we can survive anything. You and me.
I know you don’t want to hear it, but I worry about you all the time. About you taking chances, not laying low enough. Do not let your guard down, ever.
And don’t forget to send me the lyrics of your new song when you finish it. You got a gift, baby. You write all the words and never stop. Never stop.
I love you.
Signed,
Your old man.
I folded the paper and tucked it in my jacket. Like I kept all those expectations for our future tucked in my chest, bundled tight.
I didn’t know if Isi ever got that last letter and read my words and let them fill her.
I never knew.
Chapter Forty-Nine
“Another draft, please, Annie?” Ryan’s voice came up behind me at the bar at Pete’s.
“Sure thing.” She filled a fresh glass for him and set it on the bar and left us alone.
Ryan took a long swallow, the two of us keeping our gazes fixed on the shelves lined with all sorts of antique whiskey bottles from before Prohibition. “Wanted to let you know some news,” he said. “Might be of interest to you.”
“I’m listening.”
“The remains of a gas tank were found at the warehouse and were traced to Steve’s Repair, your place of business. Steve testified how he’d sold that tank to my uncle. There’s no reason to think Leo had anything to do with the fire. The arson charges against Leo are being dropped.”
“That took forever.”
“The Feds wanted a different outcome. There was a lot of back and forth over the investigation.”
“I’ll bet. Well, that is interesting news.”
“Thought it might be.” Ryan took his beer and left me at the bar.
No matter what, Ryan Dillon loved his family.
I turned on my stool and caught Ryan taking a seat next to his wife at a table with Georgia and her husband. Double date night at Pete’s. Georgia caught my glance and gave me a slight nod and that secret smile of hers, and I smiled right back.
That was good, a relief, that Leo was cleared as far as the law was concerned, but that didn’t mean that he could come back home free and clear. The Shepherd and Claw were still after him. And even though the Feds had lost this round, yet again, they’d invested a lot of time and energy tracking all of us, they’d want some kind of result to show for it. And I was sure Ryan knew this.
* * *
Ringing. Ringing. Ringing thrummed in my ear.
Phone.
I reached for the receiver in the dark. “Who is it?”
“Wreck?”
I shot up at the sound of her voice around my name. “Isi, what’s wrong?” My grip on the phone tightened. My back tensed. I hadn’t spoken to her on my house phone since this started. It had been one of our rules. Why was she calling me here?
“Leo took off from the Jacks.” Her voice was rushed, jumpy. She was panicking.
“He took off?”
“I was so excited that he finally got cleared from the arson and manslaughter charges that I called him and told him. He didn’t have much of a reaction. He only said that was good and hung up. Typical Leo, no surprise. But when I called over there to say I was on my way, they told me Leo ran off.”
“Jesus.”
“I know it was so hard for him to stay there in lockdown, but he promised me he’d stay put until his name was cleared for the fire and Dad’s death. He promised, and he did it. I really didn’t think he’d last, but he did it.”
“He did it for you, baby.”
“I know. We never talked about what would happen after because we both knew going back to Meager with Claw and The Shepherd gunning for him wasn’t an option. Oh God, I know he’s doing this to protect me, to protect us.”
“Isi—”
“I need to find him.”
“No, baby.”
“But I didn’t get to—”
“Sweetheart, sweetheart, listen to me. You have to listen to me. Leo’s right. It’s the smart thing to do. Let him do this, let him protect you. He knows it’s in his hands now. He’ll come back, he always does, right? Is, now it’s his turn to take care of you. You have to give him this.”
Her soft crying filled my ear, and my pulse jagged at the sound. “I can’t lose him too.” Her voice crumpled.
All the years of loss were coming out now.
“You won’t lose him, Is. He’s been doing real good of taking care of himself, hasn’t he? You know how he hates being dependent on anybody. He laid low at the Jacks for you. He’ll be in touch, you know that. You got to give him time.”
No reply.
“Isi, you there? Isi, baby, tell me where you are.”
“I’m at a truck stop that Leo and I had stopped at a few times before. Scout had told me about it. Just north of Denver.”
“Denver?”
“We have a gig tonight at a small club in the city, opening for … holy shit…”
“What is it?”
“He’s here! He’s talking with a truck driver, he must be trying to get a ride—thank God I stopped here. I got to go.”
“Baby, wait—”
“Love you, honey, bye!”
The dial tone buzzed in my ear. “Isi? Dammit!” I slammed the phone back in the cradle before I could throw it against the wall. It rang immediately.
“Is?”
“Wreck, it’s Scout.”
“I just talked to Isi, she said Leo took off. What the fuck?”
“He disabled our security system, and we never let him near our shit. How the fuck he figured it out … then he climbed over our back fence. You know how high our back fence is? Plus, there’s fucking barbed wire!”
“Isi called me from some major truck stop north of Denver, and she said she spotted him trying to hitch a ride. She said you’d told her to go there a couple times.”
“Thank fuck, yeah I know the one. I’ll get a crew out there now.”
“I want you out there, goddammit!” I thundered.
Then I threw the phone across the room.
Chapter Fifty
Willy and I sped toward Denver. I didn’t think. I only ate up road. My skull and my back ached when we finally got there. We met up with Scout and his boys. They’d missed Leo and Isi at the truck stop, and there was no trace of them anywhere. Stewart, the drummer of the Silver Tongues, had contacted Georgia, telling her that Isi was a no show at their last gig and they were worried about her. In a panic, Georgia found Jake and Boner and told them, asking the club for help.
I called Ryan, and he was in contact with police departments in every state from South Dakota to Colorado. “She told me about a road trip she and Leo once took on Route 66 when she brought him home from California, how it was the best time. You think they could be down there?”
“Everything is a possibility,” he said. “We’re looking.”
But still, no word. Willy and I ate up road, and more road. I didn’t know exactly where we were going, but we kept going.
I was sure Leo would tell her not to call any of us so that their location would remain unknown. Georgia told Jake that the band had a couple more gigs ahead of them, and she hoped that Isi would be in touch with the band at the very least. It was unlike her to take off when she had responsibilities and obligations.
She’d dropped everything for Leo.
Maybe this was their last hurrah together, and she knew it. Maybe she was willing to steal some time, whatever it was—a day, a handful of hours—to be with her brother, make sure he was okay, and get him somewhere safe herself.
Willy and I had stopped at the millionth truck stop for a caffeinated anything, and my beeper went off. I darted to a phone booth and called the number. Ryan’s number.
“Dillon,” he answered, his voice heavy. Sirens wailed in the background. My heart fisted in my chest.
“Ryan? It’s Wreck.”
“Wreck.” His voice was curt in a way that set off a sickening swirl in my insides like he was forcing himself to enunciate. “Wreck, you need to get down here.” That swirl seeped through me, and the edge of a cold, sharp blade swiped up my spine.
“What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“The Shop Kwik on the 385.”
I knew that Shop Kwik. It was over the border between Nebraska and South Dakota. I’d stopped there plenty of times.
“Ryan—” my voice bellowed. It was my voice, but it came from another part of me.
Fear.
“Get here.” The line cut off.
Willy and I took off.
Twenty miles? Twenty thousand? Didn’t know. As my bike ate up the road, a dull blackness ate me up. My insides dropped, every muscle pulled tight as we plowed through the wind and the sun.
A sign with a red, blinking “Kwik” entered my field of vision. Five cop cars surrounded the lot like they’d sped there, braked on a dime, and ended up tossed there as if they were toy cars in a reckless giant’s hands. In the parking lot, on the curb, on the road. Walkie-talkies, static-filled voices boomed. A news van had shown up, and a cameraman and a reporter guy in a suit were setting up and shouting directions at each other. I got off my bike. My boots hit the pavement, my knees wobbled.
“Oh, fuck me,” Willy muttered at my side.
That’s when I saw it.
Isi’s car, her striking LeMans rammed into the glass wall of the Shop Kwik, the back end jutting out, broken glass scattered everywhere. Everyfuckingwhere. I charged toward the car. A figure was hunched over in the driver seat.
“Wreck.” Ryan blocked my line of vision. His jaw was tight. Eyes full of water.
“Is that her?” I pointed.
“No,” he said, voice blank. “It’s Leo.”
My pulse jacked all over again. “Ah thank fuck,” said Willy. I scanned the broken storefront. My eyes pierced Ryan’s hard gaze. “Where is she?”
His lips parted, but no sound came out, no words. I slanted my head. “Where is she?” I shouted.
“In the store,” came the reply.
“No.”
“She was in line to pay for a carton of orange juice. The asshole in front of her pulled a gun to get the cash in the register. The cashier pulled his own gun, and they both started shooting. Cashier dead, perp dead—”
“No.”
“Isi … holding a quart of fucking orange juice…”
“No.”
“She’d gone into the store, and Leo had stayed in the car, and must have heard, seen. He rammed the car into the store to stop it and hit a supporting beam, and the…” Ryan let out a grunt, his head hung forward.
“And the shooter?”
“Leo ran him over, they’re trying to get the rest of his body out from under the car now.”
“Jesus Christ,” muttered Willy.
More sirens screamed and wailed.
I jerked forward, but Ryan put a hand to my arm and stopped me. “No. The place is a fucking battlefield. Do not. I called you up here because I know you got Leo out of town while the investigation was going on, and you kept Isi out of it, kept her away, safe. Even from yourself. I know she loved you. I know it was real. That you loved her too. Protected her. You protected both of them.”
My heart hammered in my chest. No. No. No. A snarl escaped my mouth as I shoved both him and Willy out of my way and ran past the police tape flapping in the wind.
“Hey! Stop! Who is that guy? Stop him!”
I climbed inside the destroyed cave of a store, over hills of metal and glass. The crunch under my feet deafening. Firemen and police were hunched at the front end of Isi’s car. Leo’s body was halfway through the windshield, smashed, twisted. One body lay under a plastic sheet, and I pulled it back.
My angel’s beautiful face was streaked with her hair. Her expression frozen, stopped in time. Asleep but not sleeping. Elsewhere. The rest of her hair was fanned out in a puddle of orange juice. Her limbs were twisted awkwardly. She’d fallen back, she’d…
I fell to my knees on the floor next to her and scooped her up in my arms. The stench of blood filling my senses, the stench of juice. Baby, wake up, baby … we gotta get out of here … Is… My heart smashed against my ribs. My voice broke from my insides, a howl calling her back, calling her from the dead. “Isi!” I cradled her against me, wiping the wet, sticky hair from her face. “Baby, wake up! Baby!”
“Get him out of here now!”
I was shoved away, pulled, plucked, Isi taken from me.
“NO! NOOOOO! DON’T YOU TOUCH HER!” A hot blur spun in a burning, whirling daze. “NO!”
Ryan cuffed my bicep with his hand, pulling at me. I pushed at him, shoved, jerked out his grasp, and, as I did, I grabbed his pistol and pointed it at him. “No!” I shuddered.
“Put it down, Wreck. Come on, man, put it down.” Willy shook his head, his eyes glistening, pleading. “Don’t do this now. Don’t. Wreck, don’t! It won’t bring her back.” Ryan raised his hands in the air. “I know, Wreck. I know.”
“You don’t know anything!” My arms shook, and I struggled to keep the gun aimed at his chest.
“I know you loved her. I know.”
“You don
’t know! Nobody knows!”
“I loved her too. I loved both of them. They were my family.” An ache bubbled in his voice.
“She was the only—” my voice cut, all the words, the sting, the horror cavorted in my chest in a grotesque chaos.
Willy edged toward me. “Come on, brother, give me the gun, give me the fucking gun. I got you, come on … Ryan’s not the enemy here, come on…” Willy’s gaze suddenly darted to my side, his lips parting.
A shove in my back, the gun went flying, and my face slammed against the cold, hard floor. The wind knocked out of my lungs, my skull and jaw aching against the hard surface. The stench of dirt, sweat, sticky sweet orange filled my nostrils, and I heaved.
“Don’t touch her! Don’t you fucking touch her!” Kicks jammed into my prone body. My arms were grabbed, twisted back.
“Stop! I know him!” Ryan’s voice rose above the clamor of feet, grunts and shouts. “He’s from my jurisdiction, I got him, please! Please—” shouted Ryan. “He was her boyfriend!”
was
was
My heart thudded in my chest as Willy pulled me up, and with an arm around my middle and another tugging my arm over his shoulders, we shuffled forward. Ryan’s arm came around my other side, and they hustled me back outside. The fresh air slapped me. The sun’s glare poured over us like acid.
“Wreck, listen. You listening to me?” Ryan’s hand fisted my jacket, and he pulled me close. I growled at him, pulling myself free of his clutches, the copper taste of blood seeped into my mouth, and I wiped at it. Ryan leaned into me. “It’s taking everything I got not to explode into a million pieces right now,” he gritted out.