“If Ira was the author, then I’d say so.” Sybil was working hard to keep her voice even. “But you see, here—on the inside of this cover?”
Jasper squinted alongside the old lady.
“Looks like it reads Alice to me.”
Jasper felt his heart do a double beat.
He knew that name. He’d seen it once—the article on Ira’s death from dengue fever.
“His wife’s diaries,” Jasper said.
“Still valuable,” Sybil interjected. “Historians researching women during the Revolution would naturally love this in their collections. Unfortunately, I am not authorized to pay a premium for anything but Ira Boswell’s own documents.”
“How much?” Anna asked.
Sybil put a latex finger to her lips. “Based upon condition—very poor—and content—interesting, but not exactly what the university is seeking—”
“Oh just say the number, sister.”
“I could go as high as … three hundred a piece?”
Anna smiled wide enough for Jasper to count her missing teeth. “Sold.”
Jasper took out some legal documents Cyrus had drawn up that would fool even an actual lawyer.
“I’ll need your signature here,” Sybil said. “And here and here.” Anna scribbled like a demon. “Would cash be acceptable?”
“Darlin’, cash is king.”
Sybil removed nine crisp hundred-dollar bills from a bank envelope and handed them to Anna. Jasper took out a special plastic bag and Sybil placed the diaries inside, and then back in his bag. He wanted to take off sprinting to the car.
“On behalf of the university and archivists and historians of the Revolutionary era, I thank you, Ms. Boswell,” Sybil said. “Please, do reach out to us if you locate anything else you think might be of interest to our collection.”
“Sure you don’t wanna look in my cellar?”
“Unfortunately, we have to be on our way. But you have my card.”
“Yes, I do.” Anna walked them to the front door. “Bother me on a Sunday any time you want.”
“Take care, Ms. Bowell.”
Gravel crunched under Jasper’s feet as he struggled to walk slowly back to the car. The short walk was an eternity. His heart beat hard and fast as if he’d just run a marathon, and all he could think of was his dad—how this is where he would have come. How now, he was finishing his dad’s work.
Sybil got in the front passenger seat. “Go,” she ordered when Jasper fired up the ignition. He put her car in gear and eased back down the driveway as Byron got on the walkie to Rufus. The trucks fell in line behind them as they pulled out onto the road.
“Oh my God,” Jasper said, gripping the wheel. “Oh my God. We did. You did it! That was amazing.”
“We probably could have started at fifty a piece,” Sybil said. “But the Counselor can afford it.”
“We did it. We actually—”
The seatbelt choked the rest out of him as he slammed on the brakes, skidding the car sideways. Two black SUVs blocked the road ahead. The Donelsons’ trucks rolled up on either side of Jasper. Sybil pulled a coal-black pistol from her purse and chambered a round.
“Jasper,” she said evenly. “This is where you get your gun out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Jasper slid the pistol from the holster and pulled the hammer back with his thumb.
“Reverse if they start shooting,” Rufus said over Byron’s walkie. The bodyguard stowed Jasper’s bag with the diaries under his seat and chambered a round.
For about ten seconds, the two sides just stared each other down. Jasper couldn’t see into the black SUVs—the windows were tinted. He remembered what Sheldon had said about the Jeffersons and machine guns, and wondered if Rufus had brought enough firepower.
A short, muscly guy in his thirties stepped out of one of the SUVs and walked toward Sybil’s car. He wore a dark blue suit, pistols hanging beneath his armpits in shoulder holsters.
“Exit your vehicle,” he ordered. His blond hair ruffled in the wind.
Nobody moved.
The man signaled back to one of the SUVs. A window lowered and Jasper spotted a muzzle. He didn’t even have time to duck before a string of bullets ripped across the windshield, spidering it badly. Sybil let out a sharp scream.
“You are trespassing,” the man yelled. “Now, step out of your vehicle and explain yourselves.”
Rufus slowly climbed from his truck and walked a few steps toward the guy. “William, good to see you again.”
“I can’t say the same, Rufus. Neither would my brother if he knew you were here.”
“Last-minute kinda thing, you understand. These folks are guests of mine and are making their way to Tennessee.”
“I wasn’t notified of this journey through the proper channels,” William said.
“Well, I’m sorry ’bout that, but just the same.”
“Would you stop me from interrogating trespassers on my land?”
Rufus scratched his cheek. “The way I see it, I’m helping you avoid what could otherwise be a messy situation—what with the buckshot my boys got loaded in them widow-makers. So why don’t you head on your way, and we’ll do the same.”
The two men were close now, maybe a couple feet apart. William looked off to his right, like he was thinking about something.
Then he went for his gun.
It was a blur—Jasper couldn’t believe Rufus could move that fast—but the older guy tapped into some hidden energy reserve and hit William with a sharp jab on the chin. It stunned the man just long enough for Rufus to step behind him, and throw the guy to the ground. By the time his back slammed into the road, Rufus had his gigantic revolver pointed at William’s chest.
“Now, be a good boy and tell your people to back on outta here,” Rufus said. “Like I said, we’ll be on our way.”
The passenger door of one of the SUVs opened, and a woman stepped out.
The woman.
The Iron Woman.
Jasper saw the gun in her right hand, the black duster jacket sweeping around as her arm rose up to aim. It was like watching a movie, except it wasn’t in slow motion. Elsbeth, the death-dealer.
But then Jasper wasn’t watching anymore, because the camera moved. He was moving. He didn’t even realize until Byron yelled something and tried to grab him, but it was already too late. Jasper opened his door and raised his gun.
In.
Out.
Half-in.
Hold.
This must be what Cyrus had meant—the automatic reaction. You didn’t tell your body what to do. It just did it and you were along for the ride.
Jasper settled the sights on her dark torso and steadied his arm. Her gun was almost in position—she’d be firing soon.
This was it. The moment. If he missed, Rufus would be dead. Maybe they’d all die. But he wasn’t afraid anymore. He felt no emotion.
Squeeze.
BANG.
Elsbeth spun around like she’d been hit in the shoulder by a truck. A bullet cracked in the car windshield; she’d still gotten a shot off.
Then there was yelling: Donelsons screaming at the dark-suited guys with machine guns who had poured from their SUVs. Rufus started backing up slowly, screaming orders, gun never leaving William. Rufus made it to the truck before the first Jefferson machine gun went off.
Rattattattatat.
The Donelsons returned fire, their shotguns creating deep bass KABOOMs. Byron finally got ahold of Jasper and shoved him in the back seat. Sybil was looking at something on her chest, studying it like an experiment. Jasper saw a dark circle getting bigger and bigger until it covered her entire right side. She touched it with a finger and then slumped toward the console. The back of her shirt was soaked through.
Byron grabbed a first aid kit from the glove compartment and started stuffing gauze onto the wound. “Jasper, put pressure on this while I drive. Jasper! Pressure!”
Jasper ducked as a machine gun round shattered the win
dshield completely. He felt blindly for Sybil and pressed against the wound as Byron threw the car into reverse. The transmission whined as he red-lined it and cut hard to right the wheel.
“Sybil’s hit,” Byron yelled into the walkie. “Bullet went through. She’s bleeding out.”
Jasper put his other hand on Sybil’s chest and pressed as hard as he could, trying to keep the life inside her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Wind tore at Jasper’s face as they flew along the roads. Every time he opened his eyes to check on Sybil, a piece of windshield glass or road debris got in his eye.
There was so much blood.
It covered her entire torso, the seats, and Jasper’s arms. It really did have a smell—dull, metallic. He felt like he’d showered in it.
“Is she going to die?” Jasper shouted.
“Pressure!” Byron yelled back.
Eventually, the car rocketed over a set of railroad tracks into a small town with a single traffic light. Byron screeched to a halt in front of an old square building with a medical cross insignia and carried Sybil’s unconscious body from the car. Rufus leapt out of his truck and banged on the aid station’s door, bellowing for help. A guy in a white doctor’s coat came to the door and unlocked it.
“Gunshot wound,” Rufus shouted as they carried Sybil inside. “Bullet went clear through.”
“My Lord,” the doctor said. “Bring her back here.” He glanced at Rufus’s gun. “I guess y’all haven’t called the police?”
“No police,” Byron said.
Jasper followed them down the narrow hallway, hands still pressing as they lay her on a gurney.
“Let go, son,” the doctor said as he pried Jasper’s hands off. “I’ll take it from here.”
Jasper stumbled into the lobby. He would’ve collapsed if Sheldon hadn’t caught him. His body shuddered. The blood on his arms was sticky, pulling at the hairs. His breathing got shallow and quick until it was almost impossible to breathe at all, and he started to cry. He grabbed his knees and rocked back and forth, trying to ignore the sounds coming from the OR down the hall.
****
Jasper didn’t remember moving. But somebody—Byron, probably—must’ve carried him because he woke up under a heavy blanket in the back of one of the pickups. A billion stars shone overhead as a cold wind rushed around him. Six or seven Donelsons sat nearby, shotguns ready. Byron practically sat on top of Jasper.
Sheldon was snoring near the gate.
A shadow stirred on his other side and handed him a water bottle.
“She made it through surgery,” Colton said. “Bullet just missed her lungs. Sybil’s tough, that’s true enough.”
Jasper downed half the bottle in one gulp. “Where is she?”
Colton nodded to the cab. “Others are in the truck behind us.”
“Nobody else got hit?”
“They was spraying wild to cover Willy.”
Jasper yawned. The air felt good, like cool water over a fresh wound. “Who was he?”
“You know Asher Jefferson?”
The name registered from chatter at school. “The head of the Jefferson clan?”
Colton nodded. “That was his little brother, William.”
“We just shot up a big-time Libertine’s little brother.”
“Seems that way.”
Jasper could feel the hyperventilation creeping in again. He gulped some more water to keep it at bay. The whole point of this had been to keep a low profile.
Not start a war.
“Nice shot,” Colton said.
Jasper replayed the scene—saw Elsbeth Reed in his sights. It felt like a week ago. “Did you see her, Elsbeth, get up?”
“Saw somebody haul her through a door.”
“So I didn’t kill her.”
“Bullet looked high right. Shoulder, I’d think, by the way she went down.”
That actually made Jasper a little less tense. He tried to concentrate on how he’d feel if Colton said she’d stayed down, but it was all too blurry. Maybe it was better this way.
“Means you gotta name her now,” Colton said. “Your gun.”
Jasper shifted around, felt the butt of the weapon in the small of his back. “What are the rules again?”
“Girl that broke your heart, or mom. Moms and sisters are risky, though.”
“Right.” Jasper thought about his limited romantic past. “I went out with this girl named Jackie once in tenth grade for like a week.”
“Jackie.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry-ass name for a gun. Maybe it’ll do just till you and Nora split.”
Sheldon snorted so loudly, he woke himself up for a second, then settled back to sleep.
“Shame about that old lady you visited,” Colton said.
“What?”
“That the house was empty,” Byron cut in. “That you found nothing.”
Headlights from the next truck lit his face enough to make it crystal clear.
Keep your mouth shut.
“Yeah,” Jasper said to Colton. “It sucks.”
“’Least nobody died,” Colton said. “And y’all get to see Tennessee while Sybil heals. Real mountains. Won’t be a total waste, is what I mean.”
Jasper tried to catch Byron’s eye. The bodyguard gave him absolutely nothing.
****
The ride got bumpy as the trucks crossed a skinny ridgeline around dawn. Descending the winding slopes, the caravan crawled along a dirt road for another hour before stopping at a monstrous log cabin. Sheldon didn’t actually wake up until the truck gate opened and he rolled out into the dirt.
“Frickin’ freezing,” he said. “I thought it was supposed to be hot in the South.”
The cabin’s front door opened and a dark blur bolted straight for Jasper. Nora rammed into him in a sort of hug/body check that took the wind out of him.
“You need to stop scaring the shit out of me,” she hissed in his ear.
Cyrus and Larkin helped Rufus carry Sybil inside while Tucker tried to high-five Sheldon, but ended up just slapping his forearm instead.
“I shot Elsbeth,” Jasper told Nora.
“I know.”
“She was gonna kill Rufus.”
“You did what you had to.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
Nora touched his bloody hands and forearms. “Did you want to?”
“I don’t know.”
She rubbed the sticky residue between her fingers, lost in some thought. Then she snapped straight. “Doesn’t matter. You’re not dead. Mission accomplished, even without the documents. We’ll keep looking.”
So she was in the dark, too. Jasper looked around, eyeing the Donelsons unloading. Did anybody know what really happened?
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. Crazy day.”
Nora watched him for a beat—really bore into him—then she dragged him toward the cabin. “You need a shower.”
****
Under the steaming water, Jasper watched tiny streaks of Sybil’s blood run out from beneath his fingernails. He wondered if he’d ever be able to forget that horrible drive, pressing her wet skin with his bare hands. Bile surged into his mouth, and he put a hand against the tile to steady himself. Maybe stop reliving that moment until he had some food in his stomach.
Or forever.
Somebody banged on the bathroom door and then barged in.
Byron.
“Jeez,” Jasper said, grabbing for a towel. “Naked here.”
Byron held out a flannel shirt and jeans from the Colton Donelson collection. Jasper could hear Nora’s combat boots treading the planks outside.
“What’s going on?” Jasper asked in a low voice. “Why are we lying about the diaries?”
“Because that’s what the Counselor wants.”
“But you have them, right? They’re safe?”
Byron nodded. “You should have stayed in the car.”
“A little late f
or that.”
“The Counselor was very upset you took such an unnecessary risk.”
“I got you in trouble. I get it. Sorry.” Jasper cinched his towel tighter. “Maybe you could lecture me later?”
Byron left and Jasper got dressed.
“You two having a moment in there?” Nora asked when he came out. Some suspicion in her voice.
Jasper deflected by shrugging. “Byron needs a lesson on boundaries.”
“You’re not kidding.”
Downstairs, the pair joined the others around a giant oak table. Jasper shoveled in ham, eggs, biscuits, and grits while Nora filled in the group on how they’d bolted from the motel after the shootout. Jasper was on his third cup of muddy coffee when Cyrus appeared in the kitchen doorway and signaled for him and Byron. Nora got up, too.
“Stay,” Byron told her.
“The hell I will.”
The room went silent.
“It’s fine,” Jasper said. “I’ll be right back.”
Nora looked back-and-forth between Byron and him. Her eyes narrowed; she could sniff BS from fifty feet away.
Cyrus silently led Jasper and Byron down a hallway to the other side of the house. “Have you told anyone?” he finally asked.
“No.”
“It must stay that way.”
“Why?”
Cyrus stopped before a mirror and adjusted his tie. “Because we have been betrayed.”
A set of double pine doors opened up ahead. Rufus appeared in the doorway and waved them inside.
“Can’t be him,” Jasper said. “He almost died with us.”
“Perhaps, but we’re done trusting our closest allies. I’ll share with Rufus only what is necessary to secure his continued service. But the diaries remain a secret.”
The den was big and warm and ringed with trophy bucks. Byron and Larkin roamed among windows, hands hovering close to their guns. Rufus stoked some logs in the large fireplace and motioned to a pair of leather couches separated by a coffee table.
“How is she, Counselor?” Rufus asked.
“Resting. Thank you for your quick thinking.”
“That river splits two ways.” Rufus walked over and held out his hand to Jasper. “Glad you learned how to aim that thing.”
“Me, too.” Jasper shook his hand. No way this guy would betray them.
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