Keep (A Gentry Novella) (Gentry Generations Book 3)

by Cora Brent

  Cami didn’t offer me false reassurances. Her mind was too fact-centered and honest. She knew the news had to be bad and she couldn’t bring herself to say things that weren’t true.

  The hospital parking lot was full. What was it about the middle of the night that activated a range of tragedies? I was lucky to find a spot only a few dozen yards from the ER entrance. Cami held onto my arm as we walked toward the glass door beneath the crimson letters.

  Her parents were in the lobby waiting for us. They looked younger than they were, standing there in the harsh light of the hospital’s emergency room with their hands intertwined. They’d married young and had been in their early twenties when Cami and Cassie were born. Saylor’s eyes filled when she saw me and she bit her lip like she was trying to keep it from quivering. Cami’s grip tightened on my arm and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was thinking. However bad we had assumed this situation was, it was destined to be worse.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  Cord looked me in the eye. When I’d first gotten together with Cami he’d thought I was too old for his daughter, perhaps too worldly. But aside from a few early bumps we’d gotten along pretty well ever since. Maybe he and I weren’t as close as he was with Curtis but so what. After all, Curtis worked for him, was from the same bleak hometown, seemed to be cut from the same kind of tough guy cloth. But Cami’s father and I shared plenty of common ground. I always appreciated that he was the kind of man who wouldn’t hesitate to let you know where he stood. And right now he was looking at me with the deepest sympathy.

  “He was brought in with severe head trauma,” Cord said. “I know he’s in surgery but we couldn’t get an update because we’re not immediate family. I’m sorry, Dalton. I would have called your mother too if I knew how to contact her.”

  “She was staying with a friend while in town for the wedding,” I said. “I’ll call her now.”

  I already had my phone out and was retreating to a corner to make the call when I noticed something weird. Cord and Saylor weren’t the only Gentrys here. Cadence was sitting in a plastic chair in the corner and appeared to be comforting her teenage cousin, Thomas, who leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his head bowed in a pose that made him look like he was sick or in pain.

  That fact barely had time to sink in before a set of double doors opened and Cord’s brother Chase walked out, accompanied by his wife, Stephanie. They both appeared oddly dazed and borderline distraught. Cord went right to his brother and enveloped him in a hug while Stephanie accepted Saylor’s embrace amid soothing murmurs and none of it made any fucking sense to me at all. Something else had happened, something else to bring them all here. Cami took in the scene open-mouthed and turned to me with bewildered eyes.

  By a strange quirk of fate I’d met Chase Gentry long before I ever knew Cami. He was my teacher in high school. My all time favorite teacher. The kind of rare and special educator who takes the time to make a real difference to the kids he encounters. It didn’t make sense that he and his wife were here and it didn’t make sense that they were so upset. I tried to remember if Chase had taught Hale in high school as well but that detail escaped me. They must be here for another reason. On an ordinary night I would have approached him to find out if there was anything he needed. However, this wasn’t an ordinary night.

  The phone remained in my hand, poised to connect to my mother, but I didn’t proceed with the call. I stood there staring at the spectacle of Chase embracing his brother and was struck again by the oddity of coincidence, that all these years after I walked into Mr. Gentry’s classroom we should find ourselves here in a hospital emergency room in the middle of the night. There was a reason, a link, though I hadn’t connected the dots yet.

  A strange thing, coincidence. Chance. Fate. Whatever the fuck you want to call it. There’s no telling when or where it will resurface.

  “Family of Hale Tremaine?” questioned a doctor. At least I assumed she was a doctor. She was dressed head to toe in mint colored scrubs like she’d just wandered out of brain surgery.

  “Here.” I pushed my phone back into my pocket. I might as well get an update before calling my mother.

  “I’m his brother,” I explained as I approached the doctor. “Dalton Tremaine.”

  Cami quietly stood at my side and I slipped my arm around her, gaining strength from holding her. This would be okay. This had to be okay. Hale would come out of surgery with a headache and maybe a scar or two. If he needed a place to stay while he recovered he could stay with Cami and me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the glass entrance doors slide open. Cassie and Curtis were here. The place was getting more crowded by the second.

  “I’m Dr. Shevchenko,” the woman said, her voice kind but unrevealing, a veneer of professionalism firmly in place. “Let’s go have a seat.”

  She didn’t motion to the chairs in the waiting room but instead held open one of the double doors. Television shows tend to depict emergency rooms as these frenzied hives of activity with people shouting things like ‘Defibrillator, stat!’ but there was no chaos in sight. As we followed Dr. Shevchenko past a long counter surrounded by curtained stalls there weren’t many people wandering around. A nurse frowned at a computer screen. A doctor paused at the counter and scribbled his signature on a clipboard full of paperwork.

  And then there was Kellan Gentry.

  “Kellan?” Cami said in a tentative voice as if she wasn’t convinced the young man parked in a wheelchair and staring at the heavily bandaged hand in his lap was really her cousin.

  Kellan’s head jerked up at the sound of his name. The left side of his face was swollen and mottled with new bruising.

  “What happened to you?” Cami asked.

  Kellan moved his arm and winced. “I’m fine. Just got knocked around a little in the accident.”

  “You were in an accident?” I said, noting that Dr. Shevchenko was eight feet away, patiently watching and waiting.

  Kellan nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said and his eyes shifted, as if he didn’t want to meet my gaze. But no, he was only checking out the uniformed police officer who was standing guard nearby.

  “Mr. Tremaine?” Dr. Shevchenko prompted, beckoning to us from the doorway of a nearby room.

  When Cami and I followed the doctor into the room I expected to see Hale even though it wouldn’t have made much sense that he would be there. I knew enough about hospitals to understand patients weren’t usually wheeled back to the emergency room after surgery.

  Dr. Shevchenko closed the curtains behind her and now I saw the first hint of emotion in the downward tug of her mouth. She pulled off her surgical cap and crumpled it in her hand while Cami and I waited beside the lone empty cot in the room.

  “Where is my brother?” I asked. “Can we see him yet?”

  Dr. Shevchenko slowly shook her head and I had the terrible sense she was stalling for time, that she hated the words she’d have to say almost as much as I would hate hearing them.

  “I’m so sorry to tell you this,” she said. “But your brother has passed away. The trauma to his head was severe and he suffered serious internal bleeding. He did not make it through surgery.”

  Cami’s cry of anguish was instant. My first instinct was to pull her into my arms to comfort her. She had loved Hale too. She would be devastated.

  “I really am very sorry,” said Dr. Shevchenko and I wondered how many times in a week she had to do this, deliver terrible news to people.

  I had no words as I stroked Cami’s hair and felt her breathing change as she started to sob. There would be questions and grief and things that needed to be done but first I needed to catch up with this new reality.

  My brother is dead.

  I have no brother.

  My brother is dead.

  Before she quietly exited, Dr. Shevchenko told us we were free to remain in the room for a little while. A grief counselor would be available to help with anything we needed. I assumed she was talking abo
ut funeral arrangements.

  Cami still cried into my chest and kept murmuring how sorry she was while my eyes strayed to the clock on the wall and found relief in one sad fact. The hour was after three a.m. so at least Hale’s death and our wedding weren’t technically on the same day. He would have hated for us to be burdened with that coincidence.

  “Hey Dalton. I’ll always be at your side, whether you know I’m there or not.”

  Deep inside of me an unfamiliar ache matured with every passing second. Last year when my father died it had been after a ten month battle with an aggressive cancer that had already metastasized when discovered. There was time to get used to the mortal reality. And anyway we all expect that someday we’ll be burying our parents. But Hale should have had more time left. So much more time.

  “I’ve got to call my mother,” I told Cami. I didn’t want to do it here, in the midst of the hushed echoes inside the hospital.

  Cami held my hand as we threaded our way through the triage area. I’d forgotten all about Kellan until I noticed that the spot where we’d seen him earlier was now vacant. It seemed there’d been more than one accident tonight but Cami’s cousin had said he was just a little banged up. Nothing to worry about.

  “Derek!” Cami exclaimed.

  We’d stopped in front of a room where the curtain had been drawn earlier. That’s why we hadn’t seen him the first time.

  Derek Gentry, Chase’s eldest son, was sitting up on a narrow bed. A hospital gown was crumpled on the floor and he was shirtless, dressed only in the black pants he must have worn to the wedding . There was a shallow gash edged with dried blood on the right side of his forehead but he looked normal otherwise. Except for the sick look on his face. And the set of handcuffs that anchored his right hand to a metal bar beside the bed.

  The cop we’d seen earlier stepped in front of Cami when she tried to enter the room.

  “Hold on,” the man said in an officious voice that didn’t match his boyish appearance. “I’m afraid you can’t go in there.”

  Cami looked him up and down, assessing the situation quickly. “Is he under arrest, officer?”

  “I’m sorry,” said the cop. “I can’t answer any questions.” And he really did look sorry as he stared down at Cami, probably noting the tears that were still fresh on her cheeks.

  Cami didn’t pay any attention to him. “Derek,” she told her cousin. “Don’t talk to anyone until your parents call you a lawyer, okay?”

  Derek didn’t respond. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was looking at me. There was something about the way he was looking at me that I knew I’d remember later. I just didn’t know why.

  All the Gentrys were still waiting back in the lobby. They were shocked and sorrowful to hear the news about Hale but I couldn’t accept any sympathy just yet. Not when I still had a phone call to make. Cami stayed with me when I sought the dark privacy of the parking lot. She held my hand as I told my mother that her firstborn son was dead. My mother had always been distant, rarely affectionate even when we were children. She was often accused of being selfish. But in that moment her agonized sob would have broken the coldest heart.

  I promised my mother I would go to her as soon as I could. Returning to the hospital was the last thing I wanted to do but there were things to be done. And I still didn’t even know what had happened. Maybe there was no mystery. Hale had always been a reckless motorcycle rider who avoided helmets.

  Curtis and Cassie met us at the door. Cassie immediately hugged me tight.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said in a choked voice.

  “Who called you?” Cami asked, taking her turn to hug her twin. “Was it Dad?”

  Cassie swiped at her eyes and nodded. “Yeah. He’d gotten the call from Uncle Chase about the boys and when he and Mom got to the hospital they found out about Hale.”

  “How are they?” I asked, noticing Chase and his wife weren’t in sight. “How are Derek and Kellan?”

  “Kellan has a fractured wrist and a slight concussion,” Cassie said. “And Derek…”

  Her voice trailed off and she looked in the direction of her family, biting her lip.

  “There was a cop,” Cami said. “He was standing outside Derek’s room.”

  Cassie nodded. “Yes.”

  “And Derek was handcuffed to the hospital bed.”

  Cassie’s eyes were already tearful but now they spilled over. “Oh god.”

  “Kellan said they were in an accident too,” Cami said. “Is that right?”

  Cassie nodded, closing her eyes briefly.

  “Cassidy,” Cami said, her voice starting to break. “What happened tonight?”

  Sometimes a few seconds of silence answers more questions than words do. The dots were now all connecting in a terrible way.

  Curtis was the one who had to say it and he did so with reluctance. “Derek was driving the car,” he said. “He was driving the car that hit Hale.”

  “Oh,” I said and coughed. So that was it. They were all out on the road after the wedding at the same place and time. They just happened to collide.

  But no, that wasn’t it. There was something else. There was the cop posted outside Derek’s room and the desolate look in the eyes of Chase’s son when he stared at me.

  “What else?” I asked Curtis because I knew he wasn’t the sort to shrink from the truth no matter how bad it was.

  And he didn’t.

  Curtis exhaled and stuck the last piece into the puzzle of the night.

  “Derek had been drinking. He was legally intoxicated when he ran into Hale’s bike.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Curtis

  I told Brecken he didn’t have to join us for the funeral. He didn’t even really know Hale. But he wanted to come along for Dalton’s sake.

  The service at the funeral home had been brief and punctuated by the heartrending sobs of Hale’s mother as Dalton delivered the eulogy. He had a tough time keeping it together as he talked about his brother and my own heart ached for his loss. I knew I couldn’t cope with losing one of my brothers. I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to stand in front of a room and talk about it while his remains sat on a nearby velvet-draped table in a silver urn.

  “Will Derek go to prison?” asked Brecken as he snapped his seatbelt closed once the funeral was over.

  Cassie stared straight ahead in the passenger seat beside me. She sighed and I reached for her hand.

  Naturally Derek’s fate had been a huge topic of conversation lately. It was hard to believe that a week ago we were all partying at a family wedding. Now the best man at that wedding was dead and the bride’s cousin might go to prison for it. Cassie was pretty busted up about Hale but she was also painfully worried for Derek. The Gentrys were closer than any family I’d ever known. To them, cousins weren’t just distant relations you saw twice a year and forgot about the rest of the time. I’d barely known the names of my far-flung cousins while growing up and that wasn’t likely to change now. But it wasn’t the same for Cassie. She loved Derek like a brother, felt protective of him. No matter what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into.

  “I don’t know,” I told my little brother. “He might. The accident is still being investigated.”

  Brecken slumped in his seat. “But he was driving drunk?”

  I thought about discovering Derek in that alcove with a bottle in his hand. How I wished I’d done something differently, that I hadn’t believed him when he said he knew better than to get behind the wheel. When I confessed my regret to Cassie she shook her head and said I shouldn’t blame myself. Derek wasn’t a kid. Nobody could have guessed that he’d be so foolish.

  “Yeah, Derek was drunk,” I said. The hospital had run his blood work right away and the police were quick to make the arrest, although he’d been released on bail the next morning.

  “They both were,” Cassie sighed.

  It was true. Yesterday Cami had told us Hale’s results showed his blood alcohol content exceeded the
limit, higher than Derek’s. They’d been two drunk idiots careening around out there on a path to destruction.

  “Fucking dammit,” I muttered, gripping the steering wheel in both fists because I needed to squeeze something in anger. Anger toward such reckless fools who believed too much in their own invincibility and wound up destroying lives. Sometimes even their own.

  Cassie patted my leg. “We should go, babe,” she said, nodding toward the stream of cars that were exiting the funeral home parking lot.

  Cord had offered to host something at his house after the service but Dalton declined, preferring to spend some quiet time with his mother before she got on a plane tomorrow to fly back to her home in Chicago. He might have felt a little funny about it too, considering a guy with the last name Gentry was responsible for his brother’s death. Maybe that’s why Chase had come to the funeral without his family. He’d been quiet, sitting with Cord and Saylor in the last row. Dalton and Chase had known each other for years, long before Dalton met Cami. Chase had been Dalton’s favorite high school teacher.

  Weird the way shit works out in life.

  “You know that guy?” I asked Cassie, putting the car in drive and gesturing to a man I’d noticed earlier. He’d been at the funeral, occupying a seat at the end of the row nearest the door, blending in with ordinary thirtysomething looks and a gray shirt with black pants. He might have been a friend of Hale’s but he didn’t look sad. Just observant and maybe a little tense, his narrowed dark eyes surveying every mourner who walked through the door.

  “No,” said Cassie. “He doesn’t look familiar.”

  Now he was leaning against the brick exterior of the funeral home with his phone to his ear but to me it looked like it might be a pose. His lips weren’t moving and his shifting eyes were intent on the vehicles leaving the parking lot. I’d never seen the guy before and I never claimed to have superior analytical skills but I did have my instincts. And my instincts told me the dude was either a cop or up to something shady. If he was a cop it didn’t make sense that he’d need to attend Hale’s funeral to investigate the accident. On the other hand, if he was scoping out Hale Tremaine’s mourners because he had some bad intentions then that was a different worry altogether.