by Carys Jones
“That’s what I fear.”
“And you should be afraid,” Buck said with a sharp, piercing glance in Aiden’s direction. His eyes glimmered as though he knew something more. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, drawing it in to a tight line.
“You have much experience with these kinds of…people?” Aiden wondered aloud.
“These cartel types, they don’t mess around. Whatever you did down there in San Migeno, you managed to ruffle enough feathers to get their attention.”
Aiden listened, feeling numb. He’d been so desperate to understand what had happened to Justin that he hadn’t thought things through. Buck was right; Aiden had brought danger to Avalon’s doorstep.
“What should I do?” Aiden lifted his head and was surprised to see kindness behind Buck’s eyes rather than the sheriff’s usual look which was typically laced with malice.
“You own a gun?” Buck asked calmly, as though he were asking Aiden if he liked to go running.
Aiden shook his head. He didn’t own a gun. Like most liberals, he was rather opposed to the concept of keeping a deadly weapon in his home.
“Well then, we’re going to need to correct that,” Buck told him with a stiff nod.
*
“Again!” Buck shrilly barked the order and Aiden raised the .38 caliber pistol and aimed. He squeezed the trigger and the force of the shot vibrated throughout his arm causing the trajectory of the bullet to shift and miss the target completely.
Buck had driven Aiden to a shooting range an hour outside of Avalon. The old sheriff told him that it was here that all his officers trained to use their guns. Aiden swallowed nervously as he listened, already feeling sick to his stomach at the thought of handling a gun.
“It’s time you learned to shoot,” Buck had declared, not taking his eyes off the road as they drove to the shooting range. “It’s your God-given right as an American to own a gun.”
Aiden had turned and looked out the window at the barren landscape speeding by. He’d never before felt the need to own a gun. Back in Greensburg, the town had been safe and relatively crime free. Any dispute would be handled with a war of words rather than brandishing a weapon.
In college it had been a similar story. Aiden had lived in the shelter of the campus. His days were spent studying, nights partying hard with Guy Chambers by his side. Greensburg became a distant memory.
Even after graduation and living in Chicago, Aiden still felt safe. Isla had occasionally bought up her desire to own a gun.
“Just to feel safe,” she’d insisted, glancing protectively in Meegan’s direction. But Meegan was precisely the reason Aiden had been so averse to getting a gun. What if it fell into the wrong hands? Even though it would be purchased with the intention to protect, it also had the ability to destroy.
And now Aiden was standing in some southern shooting range, his hands tightly clutching the barrel of a gun. It felt heavier than he’d expected it to. And the kick every time he fired was surprisingly fierce.
“You’ll get used to it,” Buck commented from where he stood behind Aiden, coolly observing him.
Aiden nodded and looked back through his protective glasses at the hanging target several feet away. It was the crude silhouette of a man, encouraging the shooter to learn to aim for a person’s head or chest. Aiden squeezed his left eye shut, aimed and then fired again.
“Better,” Buck noted, both his voice and his expression flat.
Aiden fired off several more rounds at the target. When he eventually lowered the gun, he realized that he was dripping in his own sweat. As he put the gun down, he saw that his hands were trembling.
“Didn’t your daddy ever teach ya how to shoot?” Buck asked as they headed into the foyer of the shooting range which doubled as a gun store.
“No,” Aiden panted, still feeling quite breathless.
“My daddy shoved a gun in my hand as soon as I could walk.” Buck was walking along the display racks and admiring the guns as he talked.
Aiden imagined Buck and Samuel Fern as little boys, fumbling and awkward as their father passed them their first gun to hold. The image sent a sharp shiver down Aiden’s spine.
“You don’t need to look so uncomfortable.” Buck looked like he was suppressing laughter as he came and stood beside Aiden.
“What?”
“Guns make you nervous, don’t they?”
“Yes,” Aiden admitted, pushing his hands in to his pockets. “They do.”
“Well, they shouldn’t,” Buck pointed a skeletal finger at him. “People, now there’s every reason for them to make you nervous. But guns, they are harmless until someone’s aiming one at you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Aiden eyed the array of guns for sale. There was everything from small pistols to huge assault rifles. He wondered fearfully why a civilian would ever have need for an assault rifle.
The store smelled of petrol and sweat. Aiden tried to appear nonchalant as he scanned the guns, aware that both Buck and the heavily tattooed store clerk were observing him.
“You need to take a gun home,” Buck stated as if they were in a pet store and he were urging Aiden to choose a puppy.
“No.” Aiden shook his head. “I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” Buck jutted his chin towards a collection of pistols, their silver hilts gleaming invitingly.
“Buck, look…” Aiden sighed, ready to explain how he didn’t believe in violence as a solution to a problem. It was a big part of why he became a lawyer in the first place, because he wanted to fight with his words instead of his fists or, worse, a gun. But the old man cut him off before he could continue. “These men that are trailing you, they’ll have guns. Probably a couple of them. And they’ll know how to use them too. They will have killed before and they won’t hesitate killing you.”
Aiden swallowed hard as Buck’s flint eyes held him in a tense gaze.
“Get the gun.” Buck reached out and tapped the butt of a pistol which retailed for three hundred dollars. Aiden glanced hesitantly at the weapon.
“Get the gun and keep her safe,” Buck insisted. “Isn’t that your whole deal? You live to protect Brandy White?”
“Cotton,” Aiden muttered quietly. “Her name is Brandy Cotton now.”
“Whatever the hell her name is, you want to see her guts splattered up the side of your living room wall? No? Then buy the damn pistol.”
“Why are you helping me?” Aiden wondered aloud. This was the kindest Buck had ever been to Aiden and he didn’t understand why. Surely it would please the old sheriff if the men in the mysterious car did kill Aiden and Brandy?
“Just buy the gun!” Buck snapped abruptly, turning on his heel and stalking out of the store.
Aiden wavered by the display a few moments longer, his mind fighting with his own morals.
*
Brandy ran the water from the faucet until it became warm and began washing up the small pile of plates and cutlery which had gathered by the sink. She plunged her hands in to the cherry-scented soapy water and hummed lightly to herself. She had to admit that since purchasing the piano, Avalon was starting to feel like home. She was even considering going to the store later that afternoon to fetch some fresh ingredients for dinner.
“This is my home,” Brandy told herself as she washed a plate until it sparkled. She refused to be a prisoner in Avalon. There was a time when she would walk the streets with her head held high, back when she was still a beauty queen, back when Brandon might have truly loved her. She wanted to feel like that again, to feel proud of who she was.
She was still humming when a car slowly approached the house, gliding along the curb as if it were lost. Brandy paused, clutching a plate in both hands and leaned forward to look out the window. For a moment her heart quickened in her chest, fearing that the car belonged to Isla who had perhaps returned to collect some forgotten item. Brandy put down the plate and wiped her hands dry on her jeans.
Her he
art was drumming loudly in her ears as she anxiously watched the car. She recalled the last time she’d seen Isla Connelly, back when she was still in prison. From the other side of the thick glass, Isla had asked Brandy to stay away from Aiden, to leave their family alone. Brandy blinked back tears and wiped her hand across her eyes. Now she was living in Isla’s home with her husband.
Tears fell like raindrops down Brandy’s cheeks as her bottom lip trembled and her shoulders started to shake. She’d been foolish to think she could walk round Avalon with her head high. She was living in the ruins of a broken family where she was the cause of the destruction.
The car edged closer to the house and Brandy hoped it was Isla. She deserved to endure every word of vitriol the woman wanted to sling at her. But to Brandy’s surprise the car continued past the house. As Brandy watched it, she saw that the windows were blacked out, hiding the identity of the driver from her. The car snaked by and disappeared deeper in to the estate. Brandy pressed her palms against her eyes to stop her tears and then plunged her hands back into the soapy water which had started to cool. She was busily scrubbing a bowl when she suddenly froze as an unsettling thought occurred to her. She’d seen the car with the blacked-out windows before. Earlier that day it had driven past but she’d barely caught a glimpse of it as she was entering the bedroom after showering. Wrapped in a towel, she opened the curtains and briefly spotted the car but thought nothing of it.
But now she’d seen it again. Brandy shivered as she wondered who was driving the black estate car so slowly around the neighborhood and, more worryingly, why they were doing it.
*
“You get the gun?” Buck asked as Aiden slid into the passenger side of the patrol car. “You took long enough,” he added with disdain.
“Yeah, I got the gun.” Aiden placed the package by his feet and Buck frowned.
“That goes in the trunk, Son,” he explained. Aiden rolled his eyes, picked up the package and got back out of the car. As he carefully placed the package in the trunk of the patrol car, he suddenly realized what Buck had said. He’d called him ‘son’. Was the old sheriff growing fond of him? How was that even possible? They despised one another.
“You never said why you were helping me,” Aiden noted as he got back in the car. Buck snorted, put the car into Drive and began pulling out of the parking lot.
“I mean, you are helping me, right?” Aiden clarified.
“Yes,” Buck said with an exasperated sigh. “I’m helping you.”
“But why?”
“You ever killed someone before?” Buck asked as his jaw tensed, his eyes locked onto the open road ahead.
“Killed? No!”
“Mmm.”
“Why?”
“What do you think it takes to protect your loved ones? To protect Avalon?” Buck asked, still looking out at the road.
“I…I don’t know. Not killing someone!”
“Mmm.”
“What, have you killed someone?”
Buck was silent but his hands tightened upon the steering wheel.
“Do you think you could kill someone?” Buck asked.
“What?” Aiden’s voice felt tight in his throat. Aiden didn’t know if he could kill someone, how could anyone know such a thing? He was great at being a lawyer, at taking someone down in a courtroom, but killing a person was completely different. That required a level of detachment which Aiden hoped he’d never have. To be a killer you needed to be cold and hard. You needed to be like Guy Chambers.
Back in college when they were debating what would await them after graduation one night after several beers too many, Guy told Aiden how he yearned to feel powerful.
“I want to feel like the man holding the gun, getting to decide whether someone lives or dies. I want to bring about justice, but have power with it.”
Aiden had sipped his beer and declined to tell his friend that he didn’t know how it felt to hold a gun as he’d never done it.
“Connelly?” Buck’s voice was sharp and pierced through the memory lingering in Aiden’s mind.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said, you don’t have much time to make a decision.”
“A decision on what?”
Buck sighed deeply and shook his head in irritation.
“Whether or not you could kill someone,” Buck repeated through thin lips pulled into a straight line.
“Why don’t I have much time?”
“Because…” Buck turned to look at Aiden, briefly releasing his silver eyes from the road ahead. His expression was grim but edged with sorrow which made Aiden feel extremely nervous. He’d never seen Buck Fern look that way before.
“Those men who have followed you here, they’ve not come to Avalon for a vacation,” Buck explained, looking back at the road and pressing down on the gas to ensure them a swifter arrival back in town.
Chapter Five
Hangman
Aiden tried to forget how heavy the gun had felt in his hand. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to imagine it nestled just a few feet away from him in a bedside drawer. He’d not told Brandy about his purchase. He didn’t want to scare her. He kept holding onto the fragile thread of denial and hoped that perhaps the car with the blacked-out windows wasn’t associated with the Caulerone brothers and just belonged to someone in Avalon who highly valued their privacy.
Groaning, Aiden rolled onto his side and allowed his eyes to flicker open and focus on the nearby beside table. If he reached out, he could access his new gun. It was secured in a box but as Buck had advised, it was loaded. Aiden’s skin broke out in nervous sweat just thinking about it.
“Get a grip,” Aiden told himself sternly, sitting up and pressing his fingers against the corners of his eyes. The hour felt earlier than it was as outside it was still relatively dark, a pewter sky hanging ominously over Avalon, waiting to unburden the storm it carried.
“It’s just a gun,” he tried to reassure himself as downstairs Brandy let out a sharp, terrified scream.
Instantly, Aiden’s heart leaped into his throat making each frantic beat echo madly around his head. Wearing just his boxer shorts, Aiden sprang from the bed and ran towards the stairs. As he was about to reach the bottom step he wondered if perhaps he should have grabbed the gun. He glanced back briefly and then continued towards the source of the shrill sound.
Brandy was standing in the kitchen in her nightgown breathing heavily. One hand was pressed against her chest and the other shook as it pointed out the window.
“I just looked out…” Brandy’s voice trembled as she tried to explain what had happened. Her skin was as pale as the cotton of her nightdress.
“At first I didn’t see it,” she continued. “And then it swung slightly in the wind and I saw it.”
Aiden forced himself to be calm. He approached Brandy and placed his arms around her. She melted into him. Aiden leaned down to kiss her head.
“It’s okay,” he said soothingly. “What did you see?”
Brandy pulled back from his chest to nod towards the kitchen window.
“It’s hanging outside.”
“What is?” Aiden pulled away from her to approach the window. The question had barely left his lips when he saw the answer for himself. Hanging from the guttering and gently swaying back and forth was a long line of rope. The end was gathered together and knotted in a loop. It was a noose. Aiden swallowed hard and looked back at Brandy.
“This is just some stupid joke,” he stated casually though he was sweating profusely.
“Well I don’t find it very funny,” Brandy objected, running a hand nervously through her long blonde hair. “In fact, it downright scared me. I didn’t know what the hell it was when it swung out by the window!”
Aiden turned his back on the window and the noose and focused his attention on Brandy.
“It’s nothing to worry about. I’ll take it down after I’ve showered.”
Brandy nodded and smiled lightly in relief. She be
gan moving towards the kitchen door, but she stopped just before the threshold, tilting her head thoughtfully to the right.
“It’s nothing to do with that black car that keeps driving by here, is it?”
Aiden’s whole body went rigid as though he’d suddenly been cast in iron.
“What car?” he asked mildly whilst in his mind he was shouting in frustration. If Brandy had seen the car too, it meant it truly was stalking the house. Aiden had to lean back to grip the edge of the kitchen sink to stop himself from falling into the black hole which he felt had opened up at his feet.
The danger he’d previously just suspected was present had been confirmed. Aiden tilted his head towards the ceiling, grateful that he’d allowed Buck to convince him to buy the gun. But was he going to have to use it? What did the noose hanging outside even mean?
“Aiden?” Brandy was eyeing him with concern.
“Just go have your shower, honey. There’s nothing to worry about.”
*
Buck slid his silver eyes along the length of the noose and ground the tobacco he was chewing against his teeth.
“Well?” Aiden pressed him impatiently. “What does it mean?”
“Where’s the girl?” Buck sent a hostile glance in the direction of the house.
“I dropped her off at an outlet mall an hour or so ago to do some shopping.” Aiden explained. He didn’t want Brandy in the house catching snippets of their conversation while he tried to decipher with Buck why the noose was there.
“Mmm.” Buck reached out for the noose and gave it a sharp tug. It stayed in place where it was hanging.
“Someone did a good job of putting this up so it would stay,” Buck observed before leaning to his left and spitting upon the ground.
Aiden grimaced at the gesture but didn’t berate the old man. As strange as it was, he actually needed Buck. The grizzly old sheriff was the only law enforcement in Avalon and the best shot Aiden had at protecting himself from whoever was in the blacked-out car.
“Did ya hear anything last night?” Buck continued to scrutinize the noose with his eyes as Aiden loitered behind him.