by Tess Sharpe
“Run into anyone today?”
“You called Will?” I stare at her in disbelief.
“I had to,” Brooke says. “I was worried.”
“You promised you’d help me.”
“I did,” she insists. “And I am. I’m here every day, Harley. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me.”
“I didn’t ask you to call him. Brooke, if he—” I stop. “I need you both to be okay.”
“And we both need you to be okay,” she snaps.
“This isn’t about me,” I say. Because it isn’t. This is about the Rubies. This is about the town. This is about Brooke’s mother and the waitresses at the Blackberry Diner and the guys at the trucking yard. This is about the little girl in the house on Shasta Street.
This is about Springfield, and how he needs to pay for all he’s done.
“I had to call Will,” Brooke says. “You know I did.”
“You’re such an asshole,” I say, because there isn’t anything else to say.
After a long pause, she asks in a hesitant voice, “Did it go okay?”
I nod, short and jerky.
“And now?” Brooke asks, like she doesn’t know.
“Now you’ve got to do what you promised.”
She makes a face. Scrunches up her eyebrows and nose, like she’s smelling something bad.
“We have to get out of sight.” I grab her arm and walk her over to the side of the building, looking up at the windows, all the blinds shut.
I stand across from her, planting my feet hip-width apart. “I need it to look real.”
Tears start to swim in her brown eyes. Goddammit. She can’t chicken out now.
“Brooke, please,” I insist. “If you don’t, they’re not going to believe me.”
She rocks back and forth on her heels. “I don’t know why being beat up helps you.”
“It’s the final nail in the coffin,” I say. “They’re going to assume Springfield blew the lab, but if he doesn’t make another move, they’ll start getting suspicious. If I walk into the Tropics black and blue and tell them one of the Springfield boys did it, then that’s a real declaration of war. Once they’re in defense mode, I can get what I need from all of them.”
“I want to go on record, again, and say this plan is shitty as hell.” Brooke sighs.
“It’s the only one I’ve got,” I say. “Come on. Hit me.”
Her mouth twists, her fingers flexing. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Bitch, there were a good ten years when you’d do anything for a chance to hit me,” I say. “Just…just be twelve-year-old Brooke.”
Her eyes narrow. “You can be such an asshole sometimes,” she says. And then she throws a perfect right hook, smashing into my cheekbone. Pain surges across my face, and I gasp.
I’ve taught her well.
She doesn’t even let me gather my breath. She punches me again, hard, in the nose this time. Blood spurts down my lips, and my head snaps back with the impact. For such a small person, she’s strong. I take a deep breath.
“More,” I say in a choked voice.
She splits my lip. Perfect. The key here is to make me look bad, but I need to be able to move.
I need to be able to run.
“Okay,” she says, stepping back, her hands up. “Okay, Harley. That’s enough.”
I spit out a mouthful of blood. Had she managed to knock some of my teeth loose? I feel strangely proud. Any man who tangles with her is gonna regret it. We’ve made sure of that.
My stomach’s throbbing, and blood’s rising beneath my skin, I can feel a bruise forming on my cheekbone. Soon, I’ll have one hell of a black eye.
Perfect.
“Thanks,” I say. “Ow.”
Brooke’s glaring at me.
“I’m sorry,” I shrug, because what else can I say? Who else could I have asked?
I trust three people—that’s it. She’s one of them. And she’s the only one I’ve told.
“Here.” She rummages in her purse and thrusts a tissue at me. I dab at my nose. It’s not broken, but it’s gonna swell like a bitch.
“This is so stupid,” she says.
“I’m doing what I have to do,” I reply, my words clogged and muffled.
Brooke shakes her head. “You’re a fearless, scary bitch. But I love you.”
“I know,” I say, because saying that back, well, I don’t do that.
“I have to go,” Brooke says. “And you have to get inside. There’s an icepack waiting for you in the room.”
She always thinks of everything.
“I left some books,” Brooke says. “The doctors want to talk to you tomorrow. Three o’clock.”
As if I don’t have enough to do—to get back here by three, I’ll have to find a way to slip away from the mess I’ve started.
She heads toward the parking lot, pausing on the curb at the edge of the path.
“Harley,” she says. “Don’t die on me, okay?”
I smile at her, but I don’t say anything. I can’t make that promise, not anymore. Not ever. It isn’t the kind of life I lead. It isn’t the kind of vow I can give.
I wait until she’s in her car, pulling out of the parking lot, safe on the road and heading home, before I breathe easy. Then I stand up, wincing from the pain in my stomach, and walk to my truck, letting Busy out and snapping her into her service-dog vest so I can take her inside.
I run my hand through the strands of hair that got loose from my braid, pushing it off my forehead. I wince when it pulls at my skin, making my soon-to-be black eye throb.
At least I look adequately beat up. The second he sees me, Cooper will be so mad, he won’t be able to concentrate on anything else. And I can send him on a wild goose chase—a crucial distraction.
Buck isn’t stupid, but if I’m careful, I can con him. Cooper’s another thing, though—not only smart, but he knows me. He’s been around my entire life. He was there the day I was born, waiting with Duke in the lobby. He knows things about me that even Will doesn’t. He’s seen through me before.
So unless I keep him angry and running around, looking for my “attackers” in all the wrong places, he might see through me again.
I want nothing more than to collapse onto the bench here for a few hours, but the glass doors beckon. So I untangle my braid and arrange my hair around my face, hiding my injuries. I take a deep breath and head on through. The silver handle is cold and smooth in my hand. It reminds me of the barrel of a gun.
It’s dim inside, the waiting room’s tasteful table lamps turned low now that night’s fallen. This late, there’s no one sitting on the plush crimson couches, just the night nurse sitting at the station far in the back, under a sign with the words PATHWAYS—TAKING THE JOURNEY TOGETHER. Busy’s nails click against the tiles, the only sound in the room.
I nod to the nurse as I pass, flashing my plastic badge but keeping my swollen face hidden. She smiles briefly, her attention sliding back to her computer.
The hall’s lined with more tasteful lamps, vases, and prints of those lily pictures that look like they’re sponge-painted. The door of the room at the end is closed, and when I open it, I’m greeted by the rhythmic beeping of the monitor and his quiet breathing.
I shut the door behind me and take a few seconds to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. When I’m sure I can move forward without bumping into anything, I make my way to the end of the hospital bed, where Busy’s already settled herself on the shiny linoleum floor.
“Hey,” I whisper, stroking his arm, bony and still under one of Miss Lissa’s quilts.
There’s no answer. I don’t expect one.
I sit down in the chair next to the bed after picking up the crocheted blanket that’s folded in it—more of Miss Lissa’s handiwork from better days. Then I grab the ice pack Brooke’s placed on the table, pressing it gently against my cheek. The cold makes me wince, but I grit my teeth and press harder.
I turn on the burlwood lamp,
casting a warm yellow light across the room. I’d brought it from home, along with the quilts and the photos that are laid out along the window. I’ve done the best I could to make his room homey, like Will and I did for Miss Lissa at Fir Hill.
The difference is, we decorated Miss Lissa’s room for her to live in.
But Duke isn’t here to live.
He’s here to die.
Twenty-One
I’m twenty-two when Duke gets diagnosed.
Five months ago, we’re halfway into our camping trip on the coast when Duke’s skin turns a weird shade of yellow. He argues with me for two straight days about seeing a doctor. But on the third day, he’s throwing up too much to stop me from taking him in.
There’s no one to call, even if he’d let me. It’s just the two of us now: Uncle Jake’s dead, Will’s at school, Miss Lissa’s in Fir Hill. So I sit in the ER waiting room by myself and work hard at not being scared.
Two days later, test after test, scan after scan, and suddenly it’s a brand new world: stage four, spread to the liver, a year, maybe less.
We’re quiet for a long time after the oncologist leaves, the surgery scheduled for the next morning. It’s no cure, just hoping to buy some time: some sort of stent thing so the stuff that’s turning him yellow will stop. Jaundice caused by bile or something? I don’t understand half of the words the doctor uses.
A part of me has always been prepared for losing him. Nights when I thought he wouldn’t make it home alive. Days when I was sure he’d die on me like Uncle Jake or go up in flames like Momma. There were times I thought he’d end up in prison, his doings finally catching up to him.
But in the end, Duke McKenna’s greatest enemy is his own damn body.
I’d never even thought of cancer bringing a man like him down.
We’re still not talking when the nurse comes and checks on him, fiddling with his IV drip to up the dose. But when she leaves, his eyes drift open, hazy from the morphine.
“Gotta promise me something, sweetheart,” he mumbles.
I squeeze his hand. “Anything.”
“Gottadoitforme.” His words slur together as the morphine kicks in.
“Do what?” I stroke his upper arm, where there aren’t as many tubes and needles sticking into him.
“Gotta…” His eyelids droop, and his head sinks deeper into the pillow, but his hand reaches out and grasps mine with surprising strength. “He’ll get you. Gotta kill Springfield. Gottaendit. Gotta do it for me. Gotta kill him. Only way…only way, Harley-girl.” His voice trails off to a whisper, his eyes close, and his grip loosens, his hand dropping onto the quilt again.
“Shh,” I say, brushing his wiry hair off his forehead. “Don’t you worry about that. Get some rest.”
I wait until I’m sure he’s asleep before I stand up and make my way back through the quiet halls. It’s late, one or two in the morning by now, and I can smell salt and fish in the crisp ocean air as I walk out the sliding doors.
I cross the parking lot to the smoking area set far from the ER entrance. It’s empty of people, but I’m not surprised to see roaches mixed with cigarette butts in the overflowing ashtray. We are smack dab in the middle of the Emerald Triangle.
I sit down on the redwood bench and pull my hoodie tighter around me as the wind whips at my braid. I bend at the waist, my head hanging low, my forehead pressed into my hands.
Stage four, spread to the liver, a year, maybe less.
My hands shake.
I can’t stop it.
Duke’s going to die. He’s going to die, and I can’t stop it.
My chest tightens like someone’s pushing with both palms against it, pressing me against a wall. My toes curl inside my boots. I haven’t changed my clothes or showered since we got here. All I’ve done is drink crappy coffee from the cafeteria and wait for the biopsy to confirm what we’ve known since the first night: Duke’s got pancreatic cancer, that it’s spread, it’s everywhere now.
He’s gonna be gone soon.
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
I won’t cry. I won’t. I breathe in and out through my nose, biting the inside of my cheek…fighting, fighting…
Failing.
Twenty-Two
June 7, Past Midnight
After Duke got diagnosed, life went on like everything was normal, even though it was anything but. He went to the Tropics, he took care of business, and no one caught on, even if he did look a little rough.
But then he started losing weight, fast. Somebody was going to notice.
He trusted no one but me. And that made it easy.
He always took an annual trip down south, stopping first in L.A. to sell the pot Paul and the Sons had grown and then heading down to Mexico to make whatever connections he needed to. When I turned twenty, he started taking more trips down there—not just at harvest time. He’d disappear into some hole in the wall and he wouldn’t come out for a month or two. It was his version of a vacation.
And now it was his saving grace. The cooks didn’t even blink when he told them he was going down south for a while. Then he retreated to the house and ordered me to not let anyone past the gate.
He wanted to die at home. I wanted that for him, too. For three months, I fought for it. I bathed him. I fed him. I helped him to and from the toilet dozens of times a day. I cleaned up puke and shit and drool and blood.
I tried. But I couldn’t bring in a nurse—there was no one I could trust—and soon, he couldn’t get out of bed anymore, and I wasn’t strong enough to lift him. So for a week, I fed and cared for him in his bed.
Then he stopped eating. For months, it’d been a struggle to get anything down him, but one afternoon, he just turned his head when I tried to get him to eat or drink anything: rice pudding, those instant breakfast drinks that have become a staple, watermelon, which I read on the cancer sites online was good. But he wouldn’t take anything, no matter what I offered or how often I asked.
He slept most of the time, and when he was awake, he talked mostly nonsense: to Momma like she was here; to me like I was a baby still. He’d even call out for his daddy in a voice that sounded so young it made my stomach hurt.
So a month ago, I put him in hospice care in Burney. I knew, then, that this was the beginning.
The beginning of the end. And the beginning of my plan.
When he died, everything would go to hell. Chaos would reign, the cooks would fight it out with each other, with Springfield, and probably with the Sons of Jefferson, too. Everyone would be fighting for a piece of North County.
Unless someone already had control, before Duke died.
I had to watch him walk that tightrope between life and death for weeks, waiting until he was close enough for me to start destroying what he built.
Then, a week ago, he fell into a light coma, his body too weak to even stay conscious.
When the nurses told me it wouldn’t be long, I knew it was now or never. I had to act and clear the playing field before anyone knew Duke was going—or gone.
Duke’s orders were to let him die at home in secret, and then I was to deliver a box he kept under his bed to Cooper—and “things will be handled so you can take over.”
But I have other plans. The older I got, the more I lost, and the more I saw, the more sure I was that the only way to break free was to burn it all to the ground. And that I was the only one who could do it.
So I smiled when he told me what I had to do and I nodded and I told him I’d do anything he asked. I lied—I had to.
I knew what would happen if I did it Duke’s way. If I waited and did nothing until he died, and then just sprang it all on them.
Buck would turn on me the second he knew Duke was gone. He’d take all the product and all the cooks, and he’d spend the next few months, maybe years, pumping more poison into our county before he screwed up and got caught. Cooper would be on my side, but Cooper’s old. He’s tired.
Buck would kill him.<
br />
Buck will try to kill me. He won’t succeed.
But Carl Springfield might.
Mo is the reason the Ruby is still a haven, but fear of my family helps keeps them safe. If Carl Springfield kills me, Mo and the Rubies would end up going down, fighting every step of the way. If Buck took over and I managed to live, all the power to protect them would be gone. Being a McKenna would mean nothing.
Being a McKenna had to keep meaning something.
To protect the Rubies, to protect myself, the McKenna family has to continue to rule North County. The only way we all survive is if I take Buck and Springfield both out, one after the other, before anyone knows what’s happening.
The trailer in the woods. The warehouse. And the house on Shasta Street. All the blame on Springfield, Buck out of my way, and me slipping free of all of it.
My plan hinges on hitting each target before Duke’s death forces my hand. Now it’s in motion, and I can’t turn back—not that I want to.
Sometimes I wonder what Duke would think if he knew what I’ve done. The steps I’m taking to destroy his empire and to protect the people who looked to me first and him second. I’m using everything he taught me, but I’ve turned the lesson upside down.
Would a part of him be proud?
Or, given the chance, would he just shoot me where I stand?
I’ll never know. Soon he’ll be dead, and I’ll be alone.
I spend each night here, watching and waiting for him to stop breathing. It’s fucked up, but it’s the truth. I’m terrified it’ll happen during the day, when I’m not here. When I’m out tearing down everything he built up.
But he holds on. He’s stubborn, my father.
I tug the quilt higher on his chest, smoothing down the sheet. I push the sleep chair the hospice nurses were nice enough to find me close to the side of his bed and fold my hand into his.
Duke doesn’t stir. His skin’s dark and getting darker as his liver tries to work and can’t, choked by the cancer. When I look at him now, a hollow-cheeked shell of a man wasting away in the hospital bed, I can’t help but think back on the strong, stocky, robust father who could gallop up a steep hillside like a mountain goat and lift me high in the air, balanced on one hand. Of the man who taught me to shoot, hunt, punch, kill.