by Ashley Harma
“What’d he give them?” Barrett asked, waiting in horror.
“Gave ‘em the boy. Turned out Lyle was shootin’ blanks, serves him right, but he wanted a boy more than anything—“
“Wait, Lyle?” Barrett’s jaw nearly hit the floor. “Lyle took the baby boy? Meaning—“
“Jackson, yep.” The Sheriff held Barrett’s eyes with his own. There was an unnatural sadness to watching the agony cross Barrett’s face when Bill confessed the identity of his son. “Jackson was my son and—and Barrett,“ he faltered. “Barrett, Lila is my daughter. Deborah, their mother, was my wife. Jackson and Lila are my children.”
Barrett dropped his beer can, amber foam spilling out all over the floor.
“No,” Barrett said. “No,” he stood up, hardly noticing the beer he walked through as he began to pace. “No that’s not—it isn’t possible, Bill. That’s—“ He looked at the Sheriff with an awful expression, something wounded and sick and appalled. “That can’t be true.” The Sheriff just looked back at him, silent. “It can’t be. Tell me it’s not true.” Bill dropped his head and looked at the ground.
With a loud bang, Barrett slammed his fist into the drywall. It gave a bit, creating a hand-sized crater in his living room and nearly breaking Barrett’s hand. The Sheriff leapt to his feet, rushing to Barrett and grabbing him by the shoulders.
“Calm down, boy! Calm down.”
“I can’t believe you have to comfort me right now,” Barrett said bitterly to Bill. “I killed your fucking son. I killed your son, Bill. You should be beating the shit out of me. You should be wailing on me until I don’t move anymore.
“Believe me, I thought about it.” Barrett knew the Sheriff meant what he’d just said. “I—you killed my son, Barrett, you did, you killed him, and I hate you for that, I fucking hate you for that, boy, but—I need to forgive you. I need to forgive you as much as I can, because I need you—“ the Sheriff swallowed hard. “I need you to get my daughter out of here, and you’re the only one who can do it.” Barrett felt like collapsing, but the Sheriff held him firmly. “Tell me you can do that for me, Barrett,” he pleaded, eyes burning into Barrett’s. “Tell me you can save my daughter.”
“I—“ Barrett swallowed hard. “I can do that, Bill. I’ll do it.”
“Good,” the Sheriff was all business now, a dazed focus setting into his eyes. He pulled a thick envelope from his back pocket and held it out to Barrett. “I managed to get this all pulled together this morning.” Barrett took it and opened the flap. Inside was a thick fold of papers and two brand new IDs, one with his picture and one with Lila’s.
“Bill…” Barrett guessed what this was but couldn’t believe this was happening to him.
“I had to call in every favor I ever had in my entire life, but those are complete and legit, and they’ll get the two of you outta this godforsaken town and into a better life, one where those bastards can’t even find you.”
“How do we—“
“You have to convince her. Tonight. You all need to be headed out of Belle Chasse before the sun goes down.”
“She’ll never agree to it, Bill, she’ll never—“ The Sheriff grabbed him hard again.
“If you all aren’t gone by tonight, I’m coming back here and killing you myself, Barrett.” He stared into Barrett’s eyes, deep and hard. “I’ve got the FBI heading to the Club around sundown to hopefully bust the joint, but there’s no telling what the syndicate could do before then, or after even. So tell her whatever you need to tell her, but get her out of here.” He let go of Barrett, checked his watch, and headed for the door. “I don’t know a damn thing about you, boy,” he said with his back to Barrett, “but I’m trusting you with the only thing I got left in this world that I give a damn about. I wired you nigh all my life’s savings, so she’s taken care of for awhile at least—“
“Bill, I got—“ Barrett went to confess how much money he’d won last night, but his voice caught in his throat, and he couldn’t finish the sentence. “What do you want me to tell her?” he asked quietly.
The Sheriff opened the door. “If you ever tell her the story, Barrett, you just tell her that I loved her so much, and I wish I’d gotten a chance to show her that.”
Bill walked out of Barrett’s house, closing the door behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lila was sliding a top on, freshly showered, when she heard the rumble of a motorcycle engine. It could only be one person, but she couldn’t believe why he’d be coming to her house, or how he’d found out where it was. She left her bedroom and headed to the back stairs, coming out of the door just as he pulled into the driveway. He ripped off his helmet and rushed towards her.
“Barrett, what’s going on?” she cried, immediately terrified at the look on his face. He bounded up the steps, encircled her with his arms, and kissed her powerfully.
“Lila,” he said when they’d finally parted. “This is the absolute worst time I could possibly say this, okay? I know that, I fucking know that. But,” his hands found her face, touching it gently as he stared into her eyes, “I love you, Lila. I know we don’t know each other that well, I know I’m fucking asshole, but I love you, and I need you to believe me when I say that.”
Lila’s eyes welled up. She laid her hands on top of his and kissed him again. “I love you, too,” she said quietly. “I almost said it this morning, right before I left, but I held back. I wasn’t sure if it was too soon…” she trailed off. Barrett’s face lit up, and he lifted her and held her against him tightly. She took in his scent. He was her Barrett now.
“I love you!” Barrett said happily, loudly now. “I fucking love you, Lila Collins.” She giggled and he spun around once before setting her on the ground.
“But what did you mean about this being the worst time?” she followed up. His face darkened.
“Is your dad home?”
“No, it was really weird, he went out—to drink, I assume—but he said he wasn’t going to wait for them to come get him. What could he have meant by that, Barrett?” Barrett pulled her by the hand back into her kitchen, shutting the door behind them.
“I think I know who he might’ve been talking about. Lila, listen to me—Lyle and Cassandra? They run a fucking crime syndicate, okay?” The words hit her like a Mack truck that she should’ve seen coming for miles. Of course they did. She was an idiot.
“The fight rings…” she whispered.
“Yeah, and gambling—probably where your dad knows them from—but it’s more than that. They do some nasty shit on the side. I don’t even know all the details about it, but…it’s bad, Lila, it’s real bad.” Barrett looked at her intensely. “They’ve got a hit out on me, Lila.” Her stomach bottomed out and sounds disappeared for a moment.
“Wh—what?” She was stunned. The last 24 hours felt like a nightmare.
“Thankfully it was after you left, but they sent two lackeys to my house to—“ Barrett gulped—in his mind, because he was lying, he had to; in Lila’s, because he was scared—“and, well, thankfully they tried to come at me from both entrances. That was the only thing that gave me enough time to deal with them both. I knocked the guy out at the front door, and choked the guy at the back door, just until he passed out, I didn’t…” Barrett trailed off. He couldn’t say it, especially not as a falsehood, when he’d really killed a man—Lila’s brother, at that—last night. “They’ll be looking for me in no time.”
“Yeah but…will they think to come here?” She panicked.
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m saying, Lila: I need to go right now.”
The words echoed off the kitchen walls, bouncing back into Lila’s ears and chilling her to her core. “How? How can you go right now? How can you manage that?”
“Fuck, I’m just leaving. I put the money in my saddlebags, that’ll be more than enough for a good, long while. I know a guy back in Missouri who can get me a hook-up with new identities, I called him on the way here and I can take ca
re of all that on the road.” He’d decided to lie about the identities too, keep the Sheriff out of it for now. He wasn’t sure if the story would hold up. He didn’t really have time to worry about it right now.
Suddenly, she knew what choice was in front of her.
“I’ll go. I’ll go with you.” Barrett’s face melted with relief. She put her hands on his cheeks, staring into his eyes. She was crazy. This was crazy. Her life had gone from nothing to too much in so little time, but here she was. She loved Barrett. Jackson was dead. There wasn’t much in Belle Chasse to keep her here. She would go, she had to—if Barrett was going, she had to.
Barrett kissed her. “I was hoping you’d say that. Grab whatever you can fit in a backpack and—“
“I don’t need anything,” she said, breathless. “Wait! Yes, one thing.” She ran back into her bedroom and tore into her jewelry box, finding the gold arrow necklace and putting it on. She took one last glimpse around her bedroom and the things she’d called her own. She wasn’t sure that she’d miss any of it.
Back in the kitchen, Barrett was standing, waiting for her.
“Wait, question.” Barrett’s blood ran cold at her words, and he waited for a split second of deep agony before she asked, “How’d you get my address?”
He had to think fast. “Raechelle,” he lied.
Thankfully, mercifully, Lila’s face broke into a grin. “That bitch,” she muttered jokingly. “First she gave you my phone number, then she gave you my address.”
“Little did she know I was stealing you away, into the sunset.” Barrett cocked an eyebrow at her. “Speaking of phone numbers, leave your cell phone here. I ditched mine on the drive, don’t want them tracking us.” Lila nodded, taking hers out of her pocket and setting it on the table.
“We’re really about to do this,” she breathed.
“We really are.” Barrett reached out a hand to her. She crossed to him and took it, lacing her fingers through his, both of them lost in each other for a brief moment. Then, Barrett pulled her out the door, down the steps, and onto the back of his bike. He gave her the helmet again. Lila glanced at her childhood home—place of so many miseries for her—just before she slid her head into its musky darkness, and Barrett jolted his bike to life, and they sped off towards a westbound highway.
Epilogue
“They cleared out. Someone must have tipped them off that we were coming.” The FBI agent scribbled something on a pad of paper. Bill slumped against a bar stool, his head in his hands. The agent came over to him, patting him on the back. “Don’t worry, Sheriff, all’s not lost. We can nail those bastards yet.”
“Sure thing,” Bill said, not really hearing or seeing anything. He’d blown it. His once chance to put that motherfucker away, and he’d blown it. If the syndicate had known about him going to the FBI, had time to clear out Club Malevolence and leave not a single trace of its existence, then the Sheriff knew what was coming his way, too.
The FBI had taken over, sweeping for what little traces they could find, so Bill didn’t need to be there anymore. He conversed with the agents he needed to, laid out plans of action with the head of the investigation, and headed back up to the top floor of the parking garage. More agents were sweeping up there. He combed his way through them to his squad car, got in, and headed home. He could still run, he guessed, but what was the point? He was too old for it now. He tried to call his brother on the drive—they hadn’t kept in great touch, but Bill thought he should call before the letter he’d written in a hurry last night and sent this morning made its way from Belle Chasse to Nashville, where Derek lived now. Derek didn’t answer.
“Hey, little brother. Just callin’ to say—because we hadn’t talked in awhile. Hope you and the missus are doing well. I, uh, I sent you something in the mail, something important. With my luck the Postal Service’ll lose it, but…I hope it makes it to you, Derek. I really hope it does. I love you. Well, bye.” He hung up his cell phone as he turned into his driveway. He turned the car off and rested against the seat, breathing in the silence. Finally, he clicked the door open and hoisted himself out, slamming it shut as he walked up to his house. He got his keys out and unlocked his front door. The sun was beginning to set, burning red into his eyes as he turned to close the door behind him.
“Welcome home, sweetheart,” a female voice cooed behind him. He swiveled quickly, drawing his gun. Cassandra and Lyle sat, side by side, on his couch.
“Thought we might pay our old friend Bill a visit,’ Lyle said coolly, despite having Bill’s pistol trained on him. “Tried to call the Feds! Damn, boy. Lot a’ hassle for us, shuttin’ down the club on such short notice.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Cassandra smacked. “And now, all the trouble of startin’ a new one! You’re really gonna keep us busy, Bill.”
“You’re both scum,” he growled, cocking his gun. The faces of Jackson and Lila flashed before him as he fingered the trigger.
From around the corner, Kurt appeared, too quickly for Bill to turn in time. He grabbed the Sheriff’s head with both hands and, like he was flicking a bug off a picnic blanket, snapped the Sheriff’s neck, killing him instantly.
Eight hours later, in a grungy Motel 6 off I-10, Barrett and Lila made love. Tonight, it was sedate, passionate, both reveling in the act, enjoying the other to the fullest extent. There were no bells, no whistles: it was enough just to be together, enough to have each other, enough to press together, achingly slow, until their bodies took over and forced them to finish. Afterwards they laid, tightly entwined, unwilling to part even a fraction of an inch.
“You love me,” Lila beamed at Barrett. He laughed softly and nuzzled her nose.
“I do.” He kissed her. “You love me.” He kissed her again. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I do,” she murmured. She looked into his eyes. “Do you think we’re safe?”
“I know we are. I’ll make sure they never find us, Lila.” He pulled away slightly to look at her intensely. “I promise you, I swear it on my life: they’re never going to get to us.”
She believed him. Oh god, she believed him. She pushed her mouth to his, wanting to fill him with the love she had for him, the trust she had in him. A lot of bad things had happened in her life, and even more of them had happened in the last day—but, for maybe the first time in her life, Lila could see the other side, and it looked beautiful. What was a name, what was a hometown, what was any of it, as long as she had this incredible man at her side, who needed her just as much as she needed him. She’d never known that, the exchange of need; it’d had always been a one-way street for her, and not in her direction. She’d never needed anything in her life, and that opened up inside her like a flower, and made her grow.
“We’re going to get to California and buy a house, and start a life, and I’m going to take care of you like only a psychopath can.” He cocked his eyebrow at her, flashed that wolfish grin, and kissed her.
“I never did come up with a nickname for you,” Lila whispered.
“I’m about to get a permanent nickname, and that’ll be enough. You can call me Barrett when we’re getting down and dirty.” She laughed loudly, and Barrett felt happiness and relief wash over him. If he could keep her laughing like that, everything would be okay. They’d be all right. He hoped the Sheriff could sense that he’d done his part, gotten Lila out of there. He didn’t think the syndicate would come after them anyway—they’d never intended to, and Barrett didn’t believe they’d waste their time on small fish and chump change. Things would be okay.
Lila was gazing at him lovingly, and for a split second, Jackson’s face flashed before his eyes. Things would only be okay if Lila never found out the truth about Jackson. Was that the price he had to pay now? Would Barrett always have to keep that buried, far and away from the woman he wanted to share everything with? In theory, it seemed like a small price to pay for making a clean start and living a good life. But, in practice, Barrett’s gut already told him it wouldn’t
be quite so easy for him to keep that secret.
# # #
THE END