“Just because they probably didn’t see you, doesn’t mean you should keep pursuing this little quest you’ve got playing out in your head.” Brendan said nothing. “It won’t end well. These people will kill you if they catch you. Let us handle it.”
“You guys have done a bang-up job so far.”
She didn’t rise to this, but passed him her card. “Call me if you think of anything else that can help. My cell number is on the back.”
“Sure thing, Casey.” Brendan pocketed the card and continued past her.
“Do I need to detain you for your own safety?” Spee called after him as he walked to the exit.
“No, ma’am,” Brendan yelled back, noticing Marcus coming in through the front door as he approached.
The two men crossed paths and made eye contact briefly. Brendan stopped and watched his friend stride right past him.
“Hey—”
But Marcus ignored him and kept on walking. Brendan took the hint and stepped into the West Texas sun.
Chapter 37
The percussion section camping out in Brendan’s head had lightened up while he’d watched his brother’s drug barn, but now they pounded away in full force. He gingerly probed the back of his skull, the pain a sharp reminder of his futile battle with gravity the night before. Inhaling a few gallons of natural gas probably didn’t help either. Brendan poured himself another glass of water from the filtered pitcher in the fridge.
The cool liquid froze his whole mouth as it flowed over his tongue and down his throat, a typical sign of dehydration for Brendan. He stared out the kitchen window into the front yard, watching nothing at all.
Other than the general thumping inside his skull, he wasn’t really the worse for wear. Most of his injuries incurred at the hands of Fisher’s crew had healed enough not to remind him of their presence every time he moved. And the recent knock to the back of the head hurt his pride more than anything. Trapped by a bunch of amateurs. Next time would be different.
Special Agent Casey Spee had warned him to stay away, to keep out of it. Leave it to the professionals. Well, that wasn’t going to happen, but he did need to reconsider his approach moving forward. Now that he knew his brother was heavily involved, or at least high enough up that his subordinates feared him, Brendan needed a strategy for their next confrontation. Those guys in the barn were genuinely frightened at the prospect of disappointing Grant, something Brendan knew far too much about. With a heavy sigh, he crossed to the back of the house and exited onto the porch, where a pair of wicker chairs stood guard next to a glass-topped table. He sat down and let his mind drift back to the worst days of his life.
How old was he back then? Fourteen? That made sense. Grant was about to start his senior year at Shallow Creek High School, and Brendan was making the transition into ninth grade. The year before that, the Shallow Creek Coyotes had crushed their regular season competition handily, but had faltered in their first playoff game, burning out painfully. Grant had wrestled a rare case of the flu in the days prior to that game, and it showed when he played so badly that the coach was forced to sub in the backup quarterback at halftime.
Grant had been devastated, but since he still had his senior season remaining, and enough other good players returning as well, redemption was all but assured. The whole town was thinking State Championship, and they weren’t quiet about it.
So when the school year started, the varsity football team held a party of epic proportions. In their minds, the championship already sat in the mostly empty trophy case at the school. They all met at a gigantic bonfire outside of town, fueled by the hungry flames and untold numbers of beer bottles. Brendan shouldn’t have been there at all, but as the superstar’s younger brother, no one would dare tell him to leave.
While he sipped his one and only beer that night, feeling lonely and out of place, despite his older brother’s insistence that they stay close all night, Brendan slowly grasped Grant’s intentions. The invincible quarterback didn’t want a younger brother there; he wanted a designated driver. Grant hammered that point home when Brendan reached for a second beer. His brother swiped it from his hand, telling him one was enough.
Six hadn’t been enough for Grant, so Brendan hardly thought two would break any arbitrary limits. In spite of his own feelings, he acquiesced to his brother, not wanting to ruin his fun on his special night. As the night dragged on, a drunker and drunker Grant got caught up in more and more of the festivities, leaving Brendan to hang around on the outskirts of the raging fire alone.
Another hour dragged by and finally the fire burned down and the alcohol ran out. Grant stumbled over to Brendan and inaccurately tossed him the keys. After a few minutes of digging around in the dark, Brendan produced the keys and helped his brother mount the step into the passenger side of his old beat-up truck. Brendan sat at the wheel for a moment before inserting the key and turning the ignition. He’d driven a few times out on the backroads with his dad, learning the basic concepts of handling a vehicle on the off-chance he’d need to drive one.
And now he had that chance.
Grant’s head lolled back and forth drunkenly as Brendan put on his seatbelt and turned the engine over. He remembered very precisely telling Grant to put his damn seatbelt on, but his brother had laughed this off and told him to start driving before he puked all over himself. Confident in his driving abilities, Brendan pulled into the stream of pickups fleeing the sputtering bonfire and headed for the highway. After a few more urgent requests from Brendan, Grant eventually, and sloppily, installed his seatbelt.
After a few miles on the state highway, the procession of vehicles started to break up, with teenagers making their turns to head to homes on different sides of town. Brendan followed along until his left turn appeared suddenly in the dark. Adhering to procedure, he flicked his blinker on and made a hard left into the gap in the wide median.
The next sequence of events always got a bit blurry for Brendan.
Grant punched him in the shoulder, hard. That much he remembered for sure. Brendan had turned to admonish his drunken idiot of a brother, and in doing so had failed to yield to the oncoming truck darting towards them on the opposite side of the highway.
The impact was so damn loud. That was what Brendan recalled the most. Grant’s pickup spun wildly and settled in the middle of the grassy median, engine dead and silent. He didn’t find out until later, but none of the other kids flying by on the highway stopped to help, or even to check on them. They’d all been terrified of parents or cops finding them drunk.
The only help came from the driver of the other truck, who’d managed to slam on the brakes just enough to not end up dead himself. He wasn’t from Shallow Creek. He was passing through on a late call to a land-based oil rig. Brendan couldn’t remember what he did, couldn’t even remember his name.
But he remembered his face.
His vision was blurred and he had that hopeless feeling of being lost, despite knowing exactly where he was. His brain quickly tried to churn through the options of what to do next, but all of them ended with a fourteen-year-old kid facing a world of trouble, and soon.
But the man hadn’t been pissed. He’d carefully helped Brendan from the battered pickup, and he’d set him on the grass before checking on Grant. The man had then immediately run back to his truck to call the fire department.
The next couple of days zipped by, but that didn’t mean they were easy. Grant suffered a shattered leg and a cracked pelvis in the wreck, landing him in traction. Brendan’s impotent claims that he’d been the one who’d forced Grant to put his damn seatbelt on satisfied no one, especially his own father. Yes, Brendan could admit even to this day that he’d screwed up that night, but he also took responsibility for saving his dumbass brother’s life.
At the end of a tough week, doctors ruled conclusively that Grant wouldn’t just miss his senior season, but he’d never play ball again. All eyes had turned to a lowly young teenager huddled in the corner of the room;
a teenager who’d tested positive for alcohol in his system after a car crash. That whole thing was bullshit; he’d had one damn beer, but of course, that’s not the piece of information anyone cared to remember. As the story burned across town, his blood alcohol content doubled and tripled and more. The residents of Shallow Creek liked a good story, and they created one.
Brendan hadn’t cried at the announcement of his brother’s fate, but after the first day of school, with hundreds of disappointing kids relentlessly tormenting him, Brendan had broken down in his room, sobbing his heart out.
Surprisingly, his father had shown up. Brendan had braced himself for a beating, assuming that was the reason for his dad’s visit. Instead, Darryl Rhodes had instructed his son to man-up and accept the consequences of his stupidity. He saw no reason to discipline Brendan any further, since he knew how cruel his high school years would be, but by the same token he would not move the family to a different school just for his son’s stupid mistake.
Brendan and his dad enjoyed a strained relationship throughout high school, but it was nothing compared to the vindictiveness endured at the hands of his brother. Grant never really spoke to Brendan again, and definitely never defended him against the various forms of assault brought upon him at school. It all came to a head when Brendan started his own senior year.
The varsity football coach had made it perfectly clear Brendan would never play for him, so Brendan had given up on his passion early in high school. He saw no point in pursuing it if the ultimate goal was unachievable. Plus, the other players hated him, even the ones who’d never even met Grant. They all knew that Brendan had blown everything.
So Brendan had been confused when Grant showed up drunk one night, bitching him out about his senior season. As far as Brendan was concerned, he’d suffered enough for Grant’s ill-fated decision to let his fourteen-year-old brother drive all those years ago, but Grant was juiced up for a fight.
Grant beat Brendan mercilessly, leaving blood splattered on the kitchen floor. Brendan was a late bloomer and nowhere near strong enough to defend himself against the furious onslaught built up over three years. He’d curled up on the floor as his brother waylaid him for what seemed like forever before his dad rushed in and threw Grant across the room.
And Brendan didn’t say another word to his brother, even after he graduated and headed for the Marines.
Chapter 38
After reminiscing about the good ol’ days, water just wasn’t going to cut it. Brendan headed back inside to the fridge and grabbed a beer out of the twelve-pack that had survived a surprisingly long time. He cracked it open and took a seat at the small table next to the kitchen.
Had losing out on some meaningless high school football game pushed his brother into the drug business? It wasn’t like Grant was ever going to be a pro, or even a college star. Even Grant couldn’t be that delusional. Even if the dumbass thought that was his reason for indulging in meth, there was no way that was all there was to it. There had to be more.
And Brendan was the one to work out what that “more” was.
He sat and finished his beer in silence. When he started to wonder what had happened to his parents, his mother appeared through the front door with bags of groceries. Brendan dropped his empty bottle in the trashcan on his way to help her bring the stuffed paper bags in.
“Michelle and Grant bringing the family over again?” he asked as the last of the bags went onto the kitchen island.
“No, hun,” his mom replied. “I talked to Michelle earlier and she said she was taking Grant out on a hot date since he came back into town early.”
“That sounds nice.” Brendan unpacked some boxes from the bags. He had no idea where to put any of this stuff, but he needed a reason to hang around and ask a few more questions. “Did she say where they were going?”
His mom opened the fridge and started filling it up with the cold items.
“She said she’d booked a reservation at De Luca’s.”
“That old, nasty Italian place? People actually need reservations for that dump?”
“Oh, they remodeled about five years ago,” his mom explained. “It’s one of the nicest restaurants in town now.”
“It’s not that far from Trish’s Place, right?” he asked, still idly fumbling with the dry goods on the counter.
His mother wrestled a can of beans from his hand and carefully balanced it on top of two other cans in the pantry. “Not far at all, but then again, nothing’s really that far away in this town.”
And that made things a lot easier when surveillance was involved, especially on a solo op. It looked like Brendan’s next step had landed nicely in his lap, all thanks to dear old Mom. He wasn’t exactly sure what good following his brother around would do, but he could at least watch for third-parties involved.
He yawned long and hard.
“Where did you stay last night?” his mom asked, pausing in front of the open fridge, a jug of milk hovering in her hand.
“Uh, I met up with some of Grant’s old friends,” he said, blurring the truth ever so slightly. “Things got a little out of hand, so I didn’t want to risk driving home.”
“That was a good decision,” he mother said sternly. “But next time you need to call me and let me know where you are. I know you’re all grown these days, but I still worry when you don’t come home.”
“You’re right, Mom. I screwed up. It won’t happen again.”
His mom placed the milk in the fridge and closed the door. She walked up and gave him a brief hug before taking his hands and moving back a step, her round face looking up at his with moist eyes brimming with tears.
“It’s good to have you home.”
“It’s good to be home.”
“Be careful,” she said, releasing his hands.
Abruptly she returned to the task of organizing the groceries. Brendan stood stunned, his mother’s words penetrating far deeper than she’d intended.
Or maybe not.
“Okay, Mom. I will.”
She turned just enough to catch his eye.
“You look terrible, hun. Go take a nap before dinner.”
He yawned on cue and nodded as he left the kitchen.
Chapter 39
“Need anything else, hun?”
Brendan looked up from his phone.
“Sure. I’ll switch to water for this round, though.”
The bartender smiled, grabbed the two empty beer bottles from the table, and moseyed back inside the bar. Brendan zipped up his fleece a little higher and pulled his Texas Rangers’ baseball cap a little lower. A cold front had moved in during the afternoon and the temperature had plummeted with the sunset. Not too many patrons inhabited the fenced-off patio outside Gruff’s Bar & Grill, but enough sat around him that Brendan didn’t stand out.
Across the street, seated at a small table by the window, Grant and Michelle enjoyed a nice dinner for two at the new and improved De Luca’s. Judging by the expressions on their faces, the conversation had taken all the twists and turns that a married couple could jet through in a little over an hour. Laughter, anger, the threat of tears, and then more laughter. Brendan had selected a table next to the short fence, and had chosen a chair that didn’t directly face the restaurant, but did make it easy to peer over and around his phone to keep a close eye on his brother and sister-in-law. The poor lighting on the patio, and the generally high levels of drunkenness assured no one watching him casually would notice where he cast most of his attention.
A couple of times Brendan had thought he’d been made, but quickly realized that his paranoia was ramping up after some downtime. A guy strolling by with the gait of a police officer had stared him down, getting Brendan’s hackles up, but had only pulled in close to comment on his hat. The fellow Rangers fan wanted to shoot the shit about the recent failed playoff run and offered speculation on offseason trades. Not seeking any negative attention, Brendan had agreed with everything the guy said and sent him on his merry w
ay.
About ten minutes after that encounter, a few rough-looking individuals had sauntered into Gruff’s and occupied a table on the opposite side of the patio from Brendan. One man in particular had kept tabs on Brendan, but they’d left without incident after chugging a couple of beers each. Nothing had happened, but Brendan was damn sure going to be on the lookout for those gentlemen when he made his next move.
Still tapping away intensely on his phone, Brendan caught sight of Grant closing out his bill. Now Michelle was standing and putting on a long coat. A few seconds later Grant was on his feet and leading Michelle to the door.
The bartender returned with Brendan’s water. Figuring he had a few seconds to burn before his brother hit the front door of the restaurant, he thanked the young woman, gave her fifteen dollars for the beers, and told her to keep the change. She smiled briefly and turned away quickly in the way that terrible waitresses often do moments after receiving payment. Customer service sucked these days.
Grant and Michelle headed down the street in the general direction of Trish’s Place, which was around the corner and down the block. Brendan waited until they took the turn, and then casually let himself out through a small gate in the patio’s fence. He jogged across the street before the light turned green that would allow the light traffic to cut him off.
As he rounded the corner slowly, Brendan wondered why he hadn’t noticed any DEA surveillance units around. If they cared so much about his brother, surely they were keeping close tabs on him, even on date night.
It took all of Brendan’s self-control not to stop, or even hesitate, when he noticed the unmarked cruiser parked on the other side of the street. Even if the make and model had not been so obvious, there was nothing discrete about the shadowy figure inside pointing a telephoto lens towards the only other people on the street: Grant and Michelle.
Brendan’s heart skipped a beat when a second figure in the car tapped the first on the shoulder and pointed at Brendan. The windows featured dark tint, so the movement was just barely discernible. The camera swinging in his direction illustrated that he’d been burned. Grant and Michelle turned up ahead, still aiming for Trish’s, so Brendan continued undeterred, marching past the police car on the other side of the street, wondering what his new friends would do.
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