Death is Not Forever (Barefield Book Book 3)

by Trey R. Barker

  “All the more reason for her to go with me. Then you won’t have to worry about prison. Everything’ll be on me.”

  “Everything,” Echo said. “Every goddamned thing that happened in here today is on you.”

  “I’ve got big shoulders.”

  “Makes a better target.”

  “Get to me quick, Echo, I don’t have much time left.”

  “Hah. Self-pitying bullcrap.”

  From somewhere deep in his brain, maybe even his heart and soul, Bean knew he’d never see Echo again. “You’re a good man, Randolph, you always have been. I’m sorry it ended this way.”

  “Told me once I ain’t had no heart.”

  Bean nodded. “Yes, I did.”

  “You was wrong, yo.”

  “I was wrong, yo.” With a sad nod, the Judge backed away. “I need a vehicle.”

  “You the one holding the heat. So take any fucking thing you want. Keys in everything.” Echo nodded toward the back gate. “It’s open.”

  “Randolph, don’t follow me. I need to get her home before you come after me.”

  “A last wish?”

  “Please.”

  Echo nodded. “A week. That’s all you get. I’ll find you.”

  “I know you will, my old friend.”

  When Bean opened the truck door, the girl was on her knees near the back of the cab. “I can’t call the police, not yet, but you have my solemn promise I will get you home.”

  Her eyes, hard and dark as onyx, flashed. “How’d he die?”

  “I ran over him with this truck.”

  In answer, she rattled the chain against her cuffs. Eventually she nodded.

  With a bolt cutter from Echo, Bean snapped the chain, but left her in cuffs. She didn’t resist, but her eyes smoldered rage.

  As the Judge led her out, Echo lifted Daryl and set him gently on the conveyor belt. A few minutes later, as the Judge headed toward Barefield’s edges, black smoke began leaking from the roof of the garage.

  10

  If Mariana were here, she’d be in Bean’s face. She’d be close and intense, always her way, commanding him to release the girl. “Take the damned cuffs off,” she’d say. “She’s just a little girl.”

  Bean would answer, “No.”

  He banged a fist against the SUV’s steering wheel. He couldn’t release her. If he did, she’d bolt outta the car and disappear into traffic. Two minutes later, the cops would swarm this entire end of Barefield. They would find him; there was no chance they wouldn’t. Faith would know just enough, without really knowing anything, to ensure him a nice long stay in Huntsville.

  “I’m not going to jail,” he said to her.

  Faith was still as a headstone, her tattered face almost lost in the white dress. Her flat, completely empty eyes stayed on his.

  Mariana had always believed her husband a good man, and Bean had wanted to believe in her belief, but he knew his own heart too well. He was too intimate with his demons and daggers to believe otherwise. He was not a good man and the fact that he held a teenaged girl, a rape victim, in cuffs while he made his escape, simply proved he’d been right and his wife wrong.

  Faith jangled the cuffs and in that metallic language, Bean heard her tell him that he was no better than Bassi.

  Bassi flooded Bean’s head. The man’s fear, how desperately he’d hung onto the front of the truck, hands wrapped around the hood ornament. Then slipping. Then falling, tearing the hood ornament off. Going beneath the wheels. Howling in terrible pain, the sound splitting the air like an axe splitting a skull.

  Not painful enough, though. Not bloody enough or brutal enough or long enough to be a reckoning for what he’d done to this girl. Twice as much pain, and for twice as long, wouldn’t begin to pay the freight.

  He had the balls to apologize? The entire time he died he had the nuts to apologize to Faith? Worse, his eyes had been full of regret. Not fear of dying, not pain, but motherfucking regret? Like he regretted not having more time with her, not getting inside her more often, not getting enough pictures or sharing her with enough perverts.

  What about your own eyes, Bean? After the house fire, when I was told my beautiful daughter was dead, was I full of regret that I couldn’t save her?

  Bean hadn’t saved her. In fact, it was a straight shot from his actions to his daughter’s death. If he’d been the father he always fantasized about being, half of the perfect parenting team, would she still be alive? If he hadn’t been forced to give her to other parents, to adoptive parents, would she still be alive?

  So if you’re record is so damned stellar, how you gonna protect this girl sitting next to you?

  Would you cuff your own daughter, Jeremiah?

  His anger was hot and liquid in his bowels. He hated himself for even having the thought...comparing Faith to Angela. But he was doing the best he could in extraordinarily shitty circumstances.

  “Mariana, I’m trying to do better by Faith than I did by Angela. Angela is dead, Faith is not.”

  “...the fuck?” Faith eyed him. Her jaw tightened. Not with fear, though. With...anger? Strength? Determination?

  She’s stronger than I realized, Bean thought. What has she been through to stand so solid?

  The SUV, a hulking thing with a rattle deep in its guts, wobbled to a stop at a red light. Cars hummed and buzzed around them, radios blasted, conversations roared into and out of cell phones, air conditioners pounded cold air into the burn of summer.

  Bean’s balls shriveled. Yeah, she was cuffed. Yeah, her tinted window was up all the way and his was only partially down so no one was going to see her. But if something was going to happen, sitting at this stop light was exactly where it would.

  Faith stared at him.

  “My wife.” Hated the apology in his voice. “I just talk to her sometimes. She’s not really here.”

  “No shit.”

  Scalding blood flooded Bean’s face. “I see her sometimes.”

  “Good for you.”

  Traffic moved slowly on Big Spring Street. Bean had driven back into downtown traffic, hoping for cover. But traffic as cover also meant moving more slowly, which frayed his nerves. Traffic would thin when they reached the outskirts, but he’d be anxious until then.

  Not that traveling with a finger wasn’t anxiety-producing enough.

  Right now, the damned package was in his pocket and weighed him down like an anchor. Between the note, They lied to you, and the pic of a Ranger badge, it was obvious someone knew something about that night. Something they believed Bean didn’t know.

  “Then tell me, damnit, don’t make me work for it.”

  Why did you lie to me, baby? What is the truth from that night?

  Disgust wormed through him. He shouldn’t even ask her. Now he was taking the word of a random, anonymous note, written by some faceless, nameless person sitting out in the World, over Mariana? Mariana was everything to him. Her mere presence, without even a touch or a word, was enough to make him grin like the village idiot. He had concocted how many schemes to get close to her, before and after they were married? His need to be in her presence, to simply revel in her being, had been vaguely embarrassing, but she had laughed his embarrassment away and answered it by gently kissing his cheek and assuring him she planned ways to see him, too. She had an ability, like no other woman he’d ever known, to make him push beyond what he thought he could do. She calmed his beasts while setting fire to his ambitions and desires. She kept him on course while showing him the existence of so many other courses.

  Bean’s father had always believed women were interchangeable. One was as good or as bad as the next and as long as they could cook and clean and sometimes lay open for him, it didn’t really matter who they were. That was his lesson for Bean, from as early as Bean could remember, but the moment Bean met Mariana, Bean knew his father had been unutterably wrong.

  So what was the sender doing? Randomly chewing on the wrong tree? Baiting Bean? To what end? And who the hell wa
s the sender? Christ knew he had an entire state full of enemies, from men and women he’d tossed either in jail or state prison, to spouses who got the shitty end of a bitter divorce and businessmen sued for obvious and straight up stupid ass negligence who Bean had ruled against.

  And let’s not forget, ladies and gentlemen, all the criminals who’d paraded before my bench since they fucking disbarred me and ran me the fuck outta town.

  The sender could be anybody. Except it couldn’t be just anybody.

  Because of the photocopy. That scratchy, grainy picture of a Ranger badge came from someone who knew either Bean or Mariana’s history with the Rangers. Not only their history, but a specific history...the history of the night Mariana got shot.

  “And the finger?” Bean asked, pulling the small box from his pocket. He set it on the dashboard. “Who used to own that fucking finger?”

  Faith stared at the box, then at the Judge, then out the window. Her jaw clenched visibly, her hands tight fists.

  “Someone sent it to me in the mail.”

  “Merry freakin’ Christmas.”

  “Uh...yeah...I don’t think they were thinking Christmas.”

  What happened that night? Nothing, you idiot. She did not lie to me.

  “You hear me?” He impatiently signaled a last minute lane change. It didn’t move him any faster out of town. “It happened just like she told it.”

  Next to him, Faith muttered under her breath.

  “What?” Bean thundered. “What’d you say?”

  She cowered, tried to melt into the door, behind the seat, anywhere she could find some cover. She slumped away from him, raising her shoulder as though she could block his blow. Her eyes snapped away from him and her head went down.

  Fear becomes supplication, he thought.

  “Son of a bitch.” His stomach fluttered, rolled over on itself. He wanted to throw up.

  Yelling at a girl? Not just a girl, but a victim of something you can’t even begin to imagine? Well played, Mr. Justice of the Peace.

  “I am so sorry. Faith...I’m sorry. Please don’t be scared, I would never hit you. I promise. I apologize for raising my voice. It won’t happen again.”

  Silently, she kept as much space between them as possible.

  “I will get you home, Faith, I promise. As soon as we get out of Barefield, I’m going to get you home.”

  The Judge yanked out his cell. Two buzzes and Digger picked up. “We’ve got a couple of problems,” he said without introduction.

  “Yeah, we lost a chunk of our shipment. Already explained it to Little Lenny. He was bent but since it was a gift, he’ll be fine.”

  “Beyond that,” Bean said.

  Jeremiah? Don’t be upset with her, you scared her.

  “Not now, Mariana.”

  Digger hesitated. “Uh...you got Mariana with you?”

  “Always.”

  But, Jeremiah, I can’t believe you’re leaving her cuffed. It’s so harsh, babe. Why would you do that?

  Bean clamped his teeth together. Flares of pain slipped into his brain. “Harsher than lying, Mariana?”

  The slow-moving traffic cranked up the Judge’s paranoia. He wanted to floor this fucking SUV, lay lines of black rubber for three hours, and get back to the relatively safe confines of Langtry West. Or rewind maybe, go back to a time before Johnny’s. Intercept his truck on the road, shoot Bassi in the head before he had the chance to steal Faith, dump him for the coyotes and vultures, and keep the world tilted the right way.

  Next to him, Faith rattled the cuffs, stared hard at Bean.

  “First problem,” Bean said. “I had a package waiting for me at Johnny’s.”

  “Shit...every time you get a package, it costs us time and money.”

  “It was a note.” Bean stared at the box on the dash. “And a finger, a cut off finger.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Digger was sharp, agitated. “A finger? Like a threat?”

  “I don’t think so. The note had a picture of a Ranger badge.”

  Through the phone, eaten by static and bad cell tower reception, Bean heard Digger blow out a long breath. “Mariana’s?”

  “No. The note said they lied to me.”

  “About?”

  Bean took a deep breath. “That night is my guess.”

  “The night she got shot?”

  “Yes.”

  Digger thought for a second. “Okay, well, we’ll deal with that when we have to.”

  Simply hearing Digger’s voice, his decisiveness even as he shelved whatever threat the note might be, calmed Bean considerably. He trusted Digger’s judgment above everyone but Mariana.

  “What else?”

  Faith was no longer huddled against the door, but anger rode hard in her face, chiseled granite upon which she might break Bean. Her jaw clenched and her eyes were narrow on him. Her nose flared with hot breath.

  “Faith.”

  “What? Faith? You telling me you wanna go back to church?” Digger chuckled. “Gotta give me a better road sign, Judge, ’cause I ain’t following.”

  “Bassi got himself a taste. Her name is Faith.”

  Half a block...full block...two blocks...three blocks. All thumped beneath the tires and Digger said nothing. Finally, “No joke, right? ’Cause it ain’t funny.”

  “Picked her up on the road.”

  Digger breathed. “Was only on the road a week. How’d he manage that?”

  “That’d be the question.”

  “Damnit,” Digger said. “Another one of Bassi’s girls. What the hell—”

  Bean looked at her, but spoke to Digger. “I sure as fuck wouldn’t call her one of Bassi’s girls. Not this one.”

  Faith’s head snapped toward Bean. Her eyes were icy daggers. “One of his girls?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way, Judge,” Digger said. “What I meant was that Bassi obviously wasn’t as clean as he told us.”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  Digger went silent and behind him, Bean heard the clink and clank of glasses at Digger’s bar. He heard a few voices, a few laughs and yells. Standard business. “Damnit.”

  “I want you to start working on getting her home.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “All I know is Faith.”

  “Uh...gotta do better than that.”

  “Pull the GPS on our truck and see where that bastard stopped.”

  “Got it. You coming home?”

  Bean cracked his neck, thought about the note. It was nagging him, as the sender undoubtedly hoped it would. He wanted to know what happened that night, how it differed from what Mariana had told him and what the four of them told the World.

  “Yeah, but I’ve got a stop or two first.”

  No stops, Jeremiah, you have to get her home.

  Damnit, Mariana, tell me the truth and I won’t have to stop at all.

  She faded as Faith rattled the cuffs again. The sound was an icepick that cracked the silence. It was a terrible thing to keep this little girl cuffed, but freeing her meant taking a chance on losing her, which meant seeing the cops.

  And once the police saw him, there would be no hesitation. Arrest, prosecution not only for whatever they could pin on him from today, but for everything else hovering in the shadows. Past crimes had always kept his visits to Barefield hushed and quiet, hidden in shadows. As long as they didn’t know he was in town, they couldn’t come after him. Today, with guns and fires, with dead businessmen, was hardly that. If the power structure was able to pin any of today’s mess on him, they’d go ahead and pin all of today’s mess on him.

  Therefore he had to stay away from cops and attorneys and judges and politicians. Faith was angry and defiant. The dare on her face dictated he keep her with him for a bit longer.

  “I am not Bassi.” He turned the air conditioner up a notch. “I will get you home. But you could cause me problems...so it’ll be a little while.”

  She held up the cuffs but said nothin
g.

  She doesn’t believe you, Jeremiah. Trust her. Maybe she’ll run. But maybe...

  “Maybe she won’t,” Bean said.

  Uncuff her, Jeremiah, and then get her out of Barefield.

  Bean felt his scrotum tighten.

  “Judge?” Digger said. “You with me?”

  Bean cleared his throat, looked back at the road. “Yeah.”

  “Who’s the girl?” Digger asked.

  “Dig up all of Bassi’s compatriots. One of them knows who she is and where she came from.”

  The Judge signaled, changed lanes. Immediately that lane slowed down. He switched back over.

  “Done.”

  With a click, Digger was gone. Bean shut his phone, signaled again, and moved the SUV over. Then, before he could change his mind, he signaled again and pulled into a parking lot. A hamburger joint, cheap food and cheaper clientele. It had been one of the places the Judge scored. Burgers and Horses, fries and eight-balls.

  Hurry, Jeremiah, hurry. Someone’s coming.

  Killing the motor, Bean looked over the lot and the street.

  Coming for you.

  Turning back to Faith, hands shaking with sudden nerves—Mariana, shut up!—Bean took a cuff key and motioned for her hands. She hesitated, a question in her eyes that he didn’t understand. Equal parts anger and anxiety, hatred maybe, but also a strength and steadiness.

  Jeremiah!

  Faith raised her hands.

  They’re here!

  A long moment passed, one in which he tried to ignore his dead wife, and then there was a tap on the driver’s side window.

  Bean looked at the visitor.

  And found himself staring at a shiny fucking badge.

  11

  Two badges, actually. One strapped to the chest of a young buck, cut and lean and ready to go to war. Bean knew his kind intimately.

  The other clinged to the tired chest of an old-timer who stood on Faith’s side of the truck. She cranked her window down and smiled at him. Probably twenty-plus years on the beat. Putting in a last few years, cruising to maybe a twenty-five-year retirement, with an eye on a comfortable duplex and beach somewhere in Florida or Arizona.

  “Wanna explain that?” The young cop, on Bean’s side, managed to keep one eye on Bean and one on handcuffed Faith.