by Cara McKenna
“You were gonna fire him?”
Tremblay held up his hands. “Perish the thought. No. But I was gonna break it to him, he needed help. Let the idea settle, offer him a leave of absence, then maybe help him find himself a program, or a rehab. I thought comin’ from me, it might just hit home—it’s no secret I earned my own fifteen-year chip this spring.” No, that wasn’t a secret. Tremblay was worse than a born-again Christian when he got to preaching to the poor saps who wound up in the drunk tank. “I planned to give him a day or two to chew on the ultimatum, then do whatever I could to help him make the right choice. But the second I pulled up at the scene that night, saw it was Alex . . .” He rubbed at his chest, eyes going to the window. “Well, I knew it was partly my fault. The job was all he had left. I’d hoped my threatenin’ to take it away would be the wake-up call that got him clean, his rock bottom. Not the final straw.”
Vince felt a cold chill, chased immediately by the hot flush of frustration. What the sheriff was saying held some insight, but it didn’t do a thing to address Vince’s worries. “You don’t think there’s anything to this, then? To what he told me about bones? Because how does a man go from needing to talk to a friend about something he saw to feeling so sad about his job security that he gets himself killed?”
“This business with the bones . . . It’s creepy, I admit. But I can’t get over the fact that he told you, drunk, but not somebody in the department, right after it happened—not the dispatcher, not a detective, not me. What seems more likely is that maybe Alex got wasted, slurred to you about some bones. If that’s what he even said—you coulda misheard—”
“I didn’t.” Christ, it was like his talk with Miah all over again.
“So he drives drunk. Gets killed—”
“So everyone thinks.”
Tremblay huffed an unmistakably exasperated breath. “Vince, I was first at the scene—I think I’d know, better than you. Plus, the man shut off his cruiser’s cameras. Now why would he do that if he didn’t have something to hide, like the fact that he was drivin’ with the blood alcohol level of a wino?”
“Maybe someone else shut them off.”
Tremblay pinched the bridge of his nose. “Listen. Alex was sober all afternoon and coulda told me all about it. He was a by-the-book man, too—he would have told someone in the department. But he didn’t, and the only indication I’ve got that there’s anything amiss here is you tellin’ me about some bones. And you’re comin’ up real short on details.”
Don’t I know it.
“I’m sorry your friend died, Vince. My friend, too. I mentored the man, and I don’t need to cry about it in front of you to prove I loved him. But whatever he saw, I’d bet good money it was a figment of the bottle. I ought to know—my demons fed me plenty of bull, for as long as I let them. It’s not in my job description to be givin’ folks false hope.”
Vince felt his patience snap. “Which site was he at that day?”
Tremblay thought a moment. “Monday . . . The main one, it would’ve been. The central groundbreaking. Had him go in my stead to deal with a zoning dispute.”
Vince stood. “Fine. I’ll check it out my own damn self.”
Tremblay’s blue eyes widened. “You can’t, Vince. You need permits to be in those areas. And if you think you’re above the law, I don’t think I need to remind you, you’re on parole.”
The fucking P-word. “Maybe I’ll hire a PI to do it for me, if the BCSD doesn’t think it’s worth looking into.”
“Come on, now, son—”
Vince pushed the chair back to where he’d found it. “Much obliged for the info, Sheriff. I’ll get out of your hair now.” He headed for the door.
“This all some bluff,” Tremblay asked, following, “to get me to send a man over there? If it’ll let you sleep, fine. I’ll do it, okay? Jesus Christ.”
He turned. “Not a bluff, just a warning. My brother’s got the poker face in our family.”
“Don’t do anything stupid now, Vince. The folks at Sunnyside won’t be happy to hear about their contractors gettin’ harassed by the locals.”
Vince held his stare. “You couldn’t measure how small a fuck I give about what anyone at Sunnyside thinks.”
“Lot of your friends and neighbors disagree, though. Be reasonable for a minute, now.” The sheriff looked weary. “Opportunities like the Eclipse are rare to come along to begin with, rarer still for a town like Fortuity to win the chance. They’re tenuous, too, and we can’t afford to lose this project, if the construction outfit starts complainin’ about interference.”
“Two days ago you and I helped lower a good man’s body into the cold red earth.” Vince scuffed the linoleum with his boot. “And I’m not letting him turn into a heap of forgotten bones himself, not before I find out what he saw.”
“I’d hate to get a call that has me lockin’ you up in county over this, son.”
Vince closed his gloved hand around the doorknob. “I’d hate that, too, Sheriff. So I suggest you keep outta my way.”
“Christ. You’re just like your old man.”
“You wish. If I was, I’d have skipped town years ago. And just think how boring your job would be.” He offered a cocky little salute and smirk. “Sheriff.”
“Vince, stop.”
He kept his fist wrapped around the knob.
“I’m gonna send a patrolman over there, okay? This afternoon. Happy?”
He faked a cheery grin. “Delighted. You’re too generous, Sheriff.”
“Just keep out of it. I’m sick of hearin’ your voice over in lockup.”
“You make a man feel unwanted.”
“Get out of here, son. You can consider this matter under investigation. I’ll let you know what comes of it.”
“Don’t think I won’t be curious.” A nod, and Vince exited, leaving the door wide-open. He heard Tremblay shut it behind him with a sigh.
• • •
My ass. That was what Vince had thought of Tremblay’s offer to investigate. Yeah, he’d send some useless rookie over there to ask the foreman a couple questions, probably. The end. But at least he’d gotten the site location off the prick.
He’d been poised to follow that first lead when a call buzzed that rearranged his entire day. A call he’d been waiting on for years. A familiar voice saying, “I’m at the service station just past the off ramp. Where you at?”
Now Vince was grinning from ear to ear, taking in his brother as the kid strode through the open bay door to the auto garage. Vince had been on the phone with Miah, telling him to head over as well, and he pocketed his cell with a laugh.
“Jesus, that really you, Case?”
“Last I checked,” his little brother said. Though little wasn’t quite the word.
“Goddamn, you filled out.” He pulled the fucker into a long, tight hug.
As they stepped apart, Casey patted his middle, smiling. “You telling me I got fat?”
“Nah. Just not used to you being all man-sized. You were still a toothpick when you took off.”
Though other than the build, the kid looked just as he was supposed to. Dressed about the same, in a button-up Western shirt and old jeans, old boots. Same copper blond hair, overgrown and curling around his ears, and a whole lot of red in his scruffy beard. Chicks fucking loved Casey’s hair. He’d always tried to pass it off as proof he and Vince didn’t share a father. True, Vince resembled the shithead physically, but their mom was a blue-eyed strawberry blonde, same as Case, so it wasn’t like his coloring was such a mystery. Plus, as much as Vince looked like their old man, Casey was just as clearly the heir to the guy’s self-serving deserter genes.
When the going gets tough, the cowards run for the hills. Whatever. Vince had managed to call his brother home, and that was what mattered. Now, how to keep him here . . .
“You look about the same,” Casey said, his narrowed eyes making an inventory. “Just with about ten times as much ink on you.”
“H
ad to pass the years somehow.”
Casey turned his attention to the space—“the spot,” as everyone called it—and the place also probably looked about the same as when he’d last stood inside these four walls. It had been a working auto garage in the eighties. Its owner was still local, but he’d gotten busy with other ventures since then. When the Desert Dogs had been teenagers, the guy had let them fuck around with their first motorbikes in here, and eventually the place had become theirs officially, for the bargain price of fifty bucks a month. A good deal for its owner, too, as it kept the building free of squatters.
“Why’d you want me to meet you here, instead of the house?” Casey asked, his expression turning shifty. He still spoke with a hint of that affected Southern accent, put on for purposes he’d never explained. “Is Mom that bad?”
Vince flinched on the inside. “Nah, she’s not that bad.” She’s doing just fine, in fact. Just told you she was dying to get you to come home. Christ, he must be going to hell for that one. Though, to be fair, their mother might as well have passed on, for how much of the woman still lingered behind those vacant blue eyes. “But I figured you might want your first stop back in Fortuity to be someplace upbeat.”
“Should’ve met me at Benji’s, then. God knows I’ll need a stiff one before we head home.”
“All in good time.”
“Have we got good time?”
“We’re fine. It’s a slow burn, with her. Slow but steady.” Filthy fucking liar.
Casey wandered around, obviously eager to switch the topic. “What’re you working on these days?”
When Vince had heard his brother pull up, he’d tossed a drop cloth over his current project. “Bit of a surprise.”
“Surprise? Who for?”
Vince smiled. “You.” He strode to the big, draped silhouette in the center of the concrete floor and tugged the canvas free with a flourish.
Casey stared. Blinked. Grinned. “Ho-ly shit. My old Fat Boy.”
Kind of a misnomer. This bike was a ’90, one of the originals, and since then the styles had expanded like bodybuilders on HGH. Practically two-wheeled SUVs these days, for the weekend warrior clowns. But this old Harley was a beauty. No frills. Case had bought it used, and used hard, but it was still the original silver, and this had been the bike Vince had taught himself to install a kick-starter kit on. Crying shame it’d been shut away in here for just shy of a decade.
“Think of it as nine birthdays’ worth of missed presents.”
Casey circled the thing. “I always imagined you must have sold her by now.”
“Never.”
Swinging a leg over, Casey took a seat, bounced the suspension, palmed the throttle. “Damn. I might just have to bring the old girl back with me. I had so goddamn much fun on this thing . . .”
“You never forget your first. And I figured we ought to get you saddled up, for as long as you’re in town.” Especially as you’ll be staying a bit longer than you realize, if I have my way. “What’d you come in on? Not that old Mustang?” That goddamn sky blue horse, galloping off and leaving Vince in its dust, alone with their deranged mom and her spooky-ass daydreams . . .
“I sold that heap ages ago. I’m on my third Corolla in five years, now.”
Vince let his distaste show.
Casey shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m favoring ubiquity these days.”
“Fucking drifter. You dodging a debt or a paternity claim?”
“Neither. Jeez, Vince, give a guy some credit.”
“Earn it. You on parole?”
“Nah, not for ages.”
“That makes one of us. Don’t tell me you cleaned up your act.”
Casey snorted. “No. Just got better about not getting caught.”
“Card counting’s not illegal.”
“Not doing that anymore. Except maybe on the odd weekend.”
“What’re you up to, then?”
Casey didn’t reply. Caginess flashed across his face before he returned his attention to the bike, stroking it affectionately.
Vince let the topic slide. Maybe he didn’t want to know the details of his brother’s latest scam. Fucking con man. They chatted about the bike for a while instead.
“Take her for a spin.” Vince nodded to the garage’s wide-open door. “Got her plated and everything.”
“My bike license is way lapsed . . . but what the hell?” He switched it on, fucked with the fuel and the choke, and was just about to give it the first roaring kick when a different noise stopped him.
Vince knew the growl of Miah’s old Triumph as well as he knew his friend’s voice. He heard it pull up outside and, sure enough, the man came marching in seconds later, a grin overtaking his face.
“Well, well, well. Hell froze over, huh?”
When Casey dismounted, Miah hauled him into a long, back-slappy hug. Two years was a big gap at age ten, twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and Miah had never been near as close to Casey as he was to Vince. They’d had more of a trash-talking, ball-busting, cousin-type relationship. Miah pulled back, holding Casey by the arms. “Goddamn, you got big. And old.”
“You, too. Funny what nine years’ll do.”
“Fuck me, has it been that long?”
Casey nodded. Miah jostled him by the shoulders, turning him this way and that.
“Last time I saw you, you couldn’t grow a mustache to save your life. Now you’re like fucking Redbeard over here.” He let him go. “You just roll in?”
“About two seconds after we hung up,” Vince cut in.
They talked and joked for a few; then Casey disappeared to take the Fat Boy on a quick spin down Station.
As the throttle faded, Vince told Miah, “I talked to Tremblay this morning.”
“Oh yeah? What’d he say?”
“He was skeptical, same as you. But I rode his ass, and he said he’d send somebody over.”
“That’s something.”
Vince shook his head. “That’s fucking nothing. Lip service, just to get me off his back.”
Miah frowned. “Have a little faith.”
“Fuck him. Alex was his best deputy, and he can’t even be bothered to go check it out himself? Doesn’t matter, anyhow—I got the site location out of him. I’m heading out there tomorrow afternoon.” Right after his little date with hard-to-get Kim. God willing, she’d leave him with a clear head and some much-needed focus.
“I’ll come with, if I can get away from the ranch,” Miah said.
Vince raised his brows, surprised. “’Cause you think I’m onto something, or ’cause you want to see me turn up jack shit and prove you right?”
“You know I’m not that petty. I just want to see you get the answers you’re after so you can get busy mourning the man. And maybe to make sure you don’t get yourself arrested.”
Vince shrugged, a touch vindicated, a touch annoyed. “I’ll take it. And we’ll bring Case. Make a little field trip of it.”
The noise returned along with Casey, a grin strung across his face. Seventeen again.
“How’d she run?” Vince asked.
“Just like I remembered—hot and stinky.” He climbed off, casting the bike a hungry look, as if it were a girl he couldn’t wait to get back on top of. “We should ride over to Benji’s.”
“No doubt.” A glance at his phone told Vince it was after three. “Never too early to get this homecoming rolling. Lemme call Raina and let her know what kind of a night she’s in for.”
“Raina’s still kicking around this shithole?” Casey rubbed his beard. “What a waste. She all washed out and married with six kids?”
“You’ll see. She runs her dad’s place now. Benji died three years ago.”
Casey’s face fell. “Shit. What of?”
“Of a broken heart from missing you, Brother.”
Casey rolled his eyes; then his expression turned nervous. “We heading home first?” His relief was evident when Vince shook his head. Casey had to be dreading the moment h
e saw their mother again after all this time. Vince didn’t blame him. Case had taken off right when she’d started to come unhinged, and she’d only gotten worse. Vince lived with her, gave her the best care he could manage with a ton of help from their neighbor, Nita. The whole sad situation unnerved Vince, too, but then he’d always been pretty fearless. Nothing pushed Vince around. Especially not his own motherfucking emotions.
“I talked to Nita at lunchtime,” he said. “Mom’s been steady today, but not too with it. She’s always more lucid earlier in the day. We’ll try to catch her when she stands a chance at recognizing you.” How about that? Not a single lie, there. “We’ll just drop your car off, save the real homecoming for the morning.”
Casey nodded, looking like a kid who’d dodged a test he hadn’t studied for.
Vince pulled up Raina’s number. After two rings, she sighed static into his ear. “What is it, Grossier?”
“Casey’s back.”
Genuine surprise came through the ether. “No shit?”
“None I can smell—I’m staring at his ugly face now.”
“Will wonders never cease?”
“We’re heading over.” He patted his pockets, checking for his wallet, keys, and a phantom pack of smokes. Damn. Still, plenty of other vices left to indulge. “Get the coolers stocked.”
“Ten dollars a head?”
“I’ll cover the balance,” Vince promised.
“Works for me. Get your sorry asses over here.”
“And send up the smoke signals—I want the whole damn town toasting my brother tonight. We lost one good man this week, but at least the drifter’s finally come home.”
Vince stowed his phone and grinned at Miah and Casey in turn. “Time for the Desert Dogs to throw our stray one fuck of an overdue welcome-back party.”
Chapter 7
Barely seven o’clock and the bar’s lot was maxed, so Duncan Welch parked his Mercedes a block down the road in front of a drugstore.
As careful as he’d been, the desert had still infiltrated the car. Red dust in the pile of the floor mat, and between the seams and laces of his favorite Moreschi oxfords. He slipped off the latter and took a cloth from the glove box, buffing away as much of the offense as he could. It made him ache for San Diego. Made him nearly homesick for the clammy gloom of London, even. Anywhere was better than this quaint corner of hell.