By the time night fell, Donovan had found a seemingly happy balance between the pain-free wave of drunkenness he sought and the overly mindful sobriety he needed.
“Hey, hey! Look what’s on,” he hooted, pointing at the television.
ABC. The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. Great.
“Very funny,” I said.
“We should watch.” He turned up the volume and sprawled himself across the center of the bed. But when I studied him, laying there in his current state of willful inebriation, he scowled at me. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. There’s room for you here, too.” He patted the right side of the mattress with a small grin and added, “Nancy.”
On any other day or at any other time, I would have made a face and shoved him in the chest, probably calling him a few names in return.
But this wasn’t that day or that time.
In fact, as I sat down beside him, I found myself increasingly worried about his wellbeing.
By implicit agreement, we hadn’t talked about either of our brothers, what we’d heard from Sebastian or the fact that we’d nearly been killed that morning… We both knew we were going to talk about it all—no doubt at great length—but Donovan had a dash of Scarlett O’Hara’s attitude about him ever since we’d walked into our no-tell motel and locked the door behind us. He’d made it clear that we’d deal with all of that tomorrow.
So, instead, we snacked, we drank and we watched Nancy Drew try to solve some kind of a case involving a “whispering” statue.
“The statue’s not really whispering,” Donovan confided, having turned the show into something of a personal drinking game. He said “bottom’s up” and slugged his whiskey every time any of the characters mentioned Nancy’s boyfriend Ned.
I wasn’t watching the episode half as closely as I was watching Donovan, but even I could tell everything was not what it appeared to be in the world of Miss Drew and her friends. Bad people got away with their crimes, at least for a while. Good people were sometimes in the wrong place at the wrong time. The sleuths trying to figure out the caper often thought they’d drawn the correct conclusion, only to be proven wrong in the next scene. It was starting to feel a little too much like real life.
“Bad timing,” I murmured, as Nancy and the gang discovered another victim, moments too late, but I was thinking of Gideon and Jeremy filming that tribute clip up in Crescent Cove. I wasn’t sure of the chain of events that originally led to them meeting Ben Rainwater at some party in St. Cloud, but the tragedies that followed surely could’ve been prevented if our brothers hadn’t visited Wisconsin that weekend.
“It’s a bitch,” Donovan agreed, his eyes never leaving the screen, but I suspected he knew I wasn’t talking about the show.
While he finished out the hour with Nancy Drew, then lost himself in a repeat episode of The Six-Million Dollar Man and, later, the Sunday Night Movie, I mentally reviewed what we’d learned that day about the summer of ’76.
I pulled out the notes I’d decoded back in Joplin from Treak’s shorthand pages, and I studied them as if seeing the words for the first time.
Hal Chaney - Americana Trucking - Cres Cove, Chic, MO, TX, NM
Vincent Leto - Chic
Rick Brice - Chic
Sebastian James - Chic
Timothy Wick - Americana Trucking, Jop, Amar
Billy Neville - Albuq
Julian Carello - Chic
Of course, the name “Sebastian James” now jumped out at me like a Fourth of July sparkler burning in my hand. I hadn’t guessed there would be any relationship between him and Officer William James at home—it was such a common last name—and I hadn’t thought I’d meet anybody named Sebastian in Amarillo. Treak had listed the man in question as being from Chicago…which had been true two years ago.
But, in reading through all of this again, I realized Sebastian might have given away even more information than those details. He told us “his buddy Rick” had been involved in Jeremy’s death. And I remembered from one of the newspaper articles that “Rick Brice” had been found dead at the scene. So Sebastian’s friend must have been the same Rick as the guy on Treak’s list—a man also from Chicago—which was a significant tie between them.
In the papers Gideon had given to Andy to give to me, I clearly remembered reading those two police reports. Rick Brice was a former Chicago cop who was wanted in connection with some unsolved labor disputes. A couple of union leaders had died a few years ago, and he was most likely the reason.
I checked the papers just to confirm that recollection and also dug up the report on Timothy Wick, the Americana Trucking exec who’d ordered the shipment of the explosives. That report had shown a direct connection between Wick, Chicago crime boss Vincent Leto and “Leto’s right-hand man,” a.k.a. Rick Brice.
Sebastian told us he’d started out in Chicago and had gotten a “promotion” to a higher police position in Texas as a result of putting a cap on the truck explosion and the news stories that followed. To get a kickback like that, someone with a lot of clout—like, perhaps, a major mobster—would need to pull a few strings with his “associates” in that town. Sebastian’s buddy Rick was high up in the mob, but on the run from the law. Bet it helped to have someone still involved with the police force as a friend…
Somehow Rick and Sebastian both ended up in Amarillo, trailing Hal and our brothers and killing both the trucker and Jeremy. And, while I couldn’t prove it yet, I got the distinct sense that one of these two dirty bastards was the “cop” responsible for gunning down Treak and Ben, too.
When Gideon and Jeremy were cornered on that deserted road, my brother did something to distract and hurt Rick and Sebastian, but it was too late to save Jeremy. Gideon got his friend’s body away from there, though, despite being shot himself. Where he went after that and whom he turned to for help with his injuries, I had no idea.
But, while there were still plenty of missing pieces—like how Rick Brice ended up dead in Amarillo, who Billy Neville and Julian Carello were or why the Chicago mob was transporting pipe bombs halfway across the country—the picture was becoming clearer.
Donovan, not surprisingly, didn’t want to chitchat about any of these revelations just then. Thanks to the assistance of his golden liquor and a steely determination not to think too much, he held himself together through a full night of TV and even a few hours of sleep. But, sometime around two a.m., I woke to the sounds of him retching violently in the bathroom.
I sprang out of bed and sprinted to the door that separated us. “Donovan, are you okay? Can I get you anything?”
“I’m fine. Just sick. Go back to bed.”
“How about some water?”
“There’s water in here.” He ran the faucet as proof. “Sorry to keep you up…I just—” I could hear more coughing and heaving. “I just need to be alone right now, okay? I’m…I’m gonna take a shower.”
“Okay,” I said. “But, really, if you need anyth—”
“I don’t. Thanks. I’m fine.”
Yeah, right. Because I always thought people were fine when they were gagging their guts out in a motel bathroom in the middle of the night.
I stepped away from the door but didn’t get back into bed. Instead, I sat down in a chair close to the bathroom and just listened.
Donovan had polished off half a bottle of whiskey that afternoon and evening, which would make almost anyone sick. I wasn’t sure, though, if the alcohol was also responsible for the sobs I heard, despite how well they were being muffled by the running water.
After fifteen minutes, the shower stopped and I jumped into bed, closing my eyes and pretending to sleep. Donovan still didn’t come out for a while, though. He spent a long time brushing his teeth, gargling with mouthwash and thoroughly drying off. When finally he did emerge, he was wearing only his thin pair of shorts—discarded was the t-shirt from before. He slipped back into bed without putting another one on.
I let him get comfortable and waite
d to see if he’d fall asleep. He didn’t.
With a sigh, I abandoned my charade of sleeping myself and turned toward him. “How are you feeling now?”
He’d been staring up at the ceiling, but he glanced over at me for several seconds—his eyes moist, his jaw tight—and shook his head.
Despite his recent shower and his lack of a t-shirt, he was sweating hard. All over. The perspiration dotted his forehead and cheekbones. It glistened on his neck and bare chest. He’d taken off the bandages I’d put on his flesh wound earlier in the day, so dark-red scabs slashed across his otherwise smooth shoulder, and beads of wetness were surrounding them, too.
“It’s not the liquor that’s the problem, is it?” I asked.
He shook his head again. “No.” It came out as a rasp.
“I’m—I’m so sorry about Jeremy.”
“Yeah, me, too. I’d hoped so much…but I knew he wouldn’t still be alive and not…not let me know somehow.”
I heard another sound, one originating deep in his throat, like an injured mammal fighting against his own agony. Donovan flipped away from me and curled inward upon himself.
That sense of helplessness I despised came upon me again, like a suffocating veil in the darkness. God, there was almost nothing I hated more than that feeling. I had to try to do something. To be of some comfort to him. But all I could see was his back and his lacerated shoulder.
I took a breath and slid toward his side of the mattress. Kept sliding until my chest was against his spine. Then, careful to avoid the site of his wound, I snaked my arm around him, spooning him. Cradling him even tighter when he entwined his fingers with mine and when the silent sobs wracked his body.
Eventually, the sobs stopped and his breathing slowed, though he didn’t let go of my hand, and I didn’t pull it away. I, too, drifted into sleep for a couple of hours. Wasn’t sure when, exactly, his position changed. Just that the next thing I remembered was waking up with my head against his bare chest and his arms embracing me.
I snuggled closer and whispered, “It’ll all be okay.”
He murmured something back, kissed my forehead lightly and said, “Thanks.”
I nodded, pressed my lips against the vee of his neck—which was very warm but no longer damp—and kissed him lightly in return. It was a simple exchange. Not so terribly different from the night I’d been crying in Tulsa and he’d tried to console me.
But then I looked up at his face. And, in the same moment, he looked down at mine. Somehow, without either of us thinking about it, our lips met in the middle.
It was just a soft kiss—at least at first. An act borne more out of a need for comfort and gratitude than out of passion.
But then it changed.
Then it was no longer this innocent, nonverbal sign of friendship and support. There was suddenly something much more powerful connecting our bodies to one another. A force that had always existed between us. I’d known it was there for years, but it had lain mostly dormant.
To be honest, the strength of this feeling scared the hell out of me—I’d begun to lose myself in his kiss—and I knew if it continued for even ten seconds longer, Donovan would never be able to forgive himself in the morning.
So, I pulled away.
Donovan instantly stopped touching me. “Oh, Jesus…Aurora, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “Really.” I gave his arm a reassuring pat and scooched back to my side of the bed.
He slid himself as far to the other side as he could go and collapsed against his pillow—staring at the ceiling again as if watching a fiery meteor shower in the night sky. The sweat started to return to his brow. He groaned and covered his eyes with his palm. “I’m not…myself. I’m not—”
“I know. Don’t worry about it.” I faked a yawn. “We need more sleep.” I twisted away from him and tried to still every one of my limbs. I only allowed myself to take quiet, shallow breaths until I knew he was asleep again.
But no matter how motionless my body may have appeared on the outside, my insides were careening wildly, threatening to give me and my deepest secrets away.
Donovan and I had just kissed.
I knew better than anyone that it didn’t mean anything to him—especially since alcohol had been involved. But just the fact that it had happened, and that I’d felt what I felt while it was happening, was enough to throw me into a disorienting whirl.
It wasn’t just about my attraction to him. Those feelings had always been there. No, it was also about what I told my dad before we’d left on the trip. My lie to my own father. My insistence that there was nothing between Donovan and me other than a desire to find out what had happened to our brothers.
I guess I’d never expected that Donovan would let down his guard long enough for anything to actually occur between us. And, now that he had, I was confused.
Were my feelings for him real…or just a product of being a romance-hungry American teen growing up in a lustful generation? And what were his feelings toward me? What would he think of me the next day when he remembered my behavior from tonight? He might only be twenty-three, but he was already such a man of honor. Too much of one to ever take advantage of me, even a couple of years ago, before any tragedies had taken place, and back when I was practically throwing myself at him in the middle of a wild party.
Yet, here he was tonight—sad, emotionally distraught and under the influence—and when he moved to kiss me, I didn’t immediately stop him.
I kissed him back. And I enjoyed it.
Sure, eventually I pulled away, but I hadn’t wanted to, even knowing how he’d later consider this all to be his fault. That he’d try to take responsibility for it, like he did for everything.
I’d been acting smug and superior toward him ever since I first showed him the journal, just because I was more intuitive, but, in so many ways, he’d proven to be the more mature person of the two of us. It wasn’t because he was older but, rather, because he lived by an unshakable code of conduct. Firm guiding principles. Ethics that wouldn’t waver, even in the face of tragedy and injustice.
***
We woke up to a clear, hot weekday morning in Albuquerque—as deceptively bright and unthreatening as the morning before in Amarillo—but look at how wrong we’d been about that, huh?
I was exhausted still. Donovan was, of course, more than a little worse for the wear, but he was making a heroic effort to get back to a healthy equilibrium after his whiskey bender.
He scrubbed his face with his palms, ran his fingers through his dark hair and looked at me with concern. “Morning,” he said. Then, after gulping down a few Dixie cups of tap water, “Um, Aurora, last night—”
I used his pause as an excuse to jump in. “Yeah, I know you were pretty sick. How are you feeling? I hope you’re not too headachy today, but we can take it easy if you are. I’m not sure what you feel like eating, but I think simpler and plainer food is better, right?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “And maybe you’ll want to take an aspirin now and a nap later. I know you didn’t get as much sleep as usual.”
He glanced at me warily. “Yeah. Aurora, about that—”
“Oh, and we should really go over some things in the journal,” I babbled. “A few new words or phrases might stand out more for us now.”
He exhaled, walked up to where I was standing by the edge of the bed and put his hands on my shoulders. “We’ll do that today, I promise. But first, I just wanted to apologize for yesterday. All of it. The morning and all the danger I put us in. The afternoon, the evening and especially the middle of the night. I was just…I don’t know…for some stupid reason I thought the alcohol would help take the edge off, but it didn’t really work that way. And then I kept waking up a thousand times and waking you up along with me.”
I put my index finger up to his lips. “Been drinking,” I said, parroting his words from the night of the graduation party. “I understand. I really do. Nothing happened last night.” When he
shook his head and opened his mouth to contradict me, though, I added, “Nothing you need to worry about, okay? Please, Donovan. Please don’t.”
He still looked like he wanted to continue debating this point, but I was determined to put an end to any further apologies. Especially since I should be the one apologizing for most of it.
Instead, I pulled out Treak’s notes and reviewed with Donovan what I’d noticed when I reread them last night. Then I opened up Gideon’s journal to the Albuquerque/Santa Fe page and read it aloud.
Monday, June 7, 1976
Albuq. - S.Fe
M + 2, D + 3
NevilleB: 0 x 2 + 7
RIP in Traveling St.
“So, the date, when run through the month/day equation, is actually August 10, 1976,” I said. “Five days after the explosion in Amarillo.”
“And ‘NevilleB’? What’s that?” he asked.
“Treak listed a ‘Billy Neville’ in his notes, and he was from Albuquerque, so that’s my best guess. As for the numbers following the name, I’m not sure. Zero times two is zero. And zero plus seven is seven. So maybe the number seven has some meaning in connection with this Neville guy.”
But Donovan was staring at the page with an odd expression. “I know you’re better than me at this stuff, but could the zero times two equal a double zero with the seven added onto the end? So it’s actually 007?”
Instantly I saw what he saw and knew he had to be right.
“Wow, yeah,” I said. “That’s it for sure. It’s exactly the kind of thing Gideon would write.” Then I thought about it. “I just don’t know why. Is Billy Neville some kind of spy? Someone who’s British? Or does it refer to something else from the Bond films?”
He shrugged, but I couldn’t help but notice that he looked fleetingly proud of himself for having cracked one of my brother’s little codes.
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