by Tara Lynn
“Oh, that's good. That's really good.”
He scribbled it down in his little notepad like I had given him the secret to Coca Cola. It wasn't even to impress me. I'd already told him he'd be the new editor-in-chief of the paper next year. Something inside made him burn.
If I had anything like that anymore, it sure wasn’t for the paper. Even sketching art felt more like an extension of me, rather than a burning drive. I might be over my pad for hours a day, but I had no goal in mind.
I hoped Jasper felt the same way about the paper. I hoped he’d find someone who made him feel as relaxed as Rett made me.
And I hoped he didn’t make that girl wreck her life.
Rett wore that cut cause of me. He had locked himself up in it to save me from being destroyed. Was I worth it? If I was so perfect, then why in weeks hadn't I come up with something to save him? Apparently, I couldn’t even help him with what he was trying to do. He returned exhausted every night, too tired to even tell me what was going on.
He still wanted to protect me, and I still didn’t have the courage to stop him.
“Anything else?” Jasper asked, finishing up whatever essay he had turned my stray comment to.
“What else do you need?” I said. “You already know all the technical stuff. The only thing left is to step into my shoes.”
Inspiration struck me. I might be useless to Rett, but at least I could free up some time to figure out my own play.
“That's what you should do,” I said, rising from my chair.
“What?” Jasper asked.
“Take over right now.” I came around the desk. “You become editor-in-chief while I’m still here. I can give you feedback on exactly what you should be doing.”
Jasper eyed the empty chair. “No, you're still in charge. I can't take over. People read the paper cause of you.”
“No one reads the paper, Jasper,” I said. “Unless they're looking for their name, people don't really care. This is about you stepping up to do what you want to do. And you are ready.”
“You don't mind?” he said. “It's the last time you'd get to write here.”
I glanced over at the faded green leather on the office chair. This place had been a fortress for awhile and I'd convinced myself that it was what I did inside that mattered. It wasn't though, and I didn't need it anymore. I’d faced dark parts of the world and emerged alive. I even had the strength to do it again.
“Go on,” I said. “It's logged in already. The password is 1234. You go through the edits and I'll check them out in a couple days, ok?'
Jasper rose unsteadily, then went over and sat down, eying the armrests like he had been coronated onto a throne.
“Ok,” he said, looking up steely-eyed. “I won't let you down.”
I did my best not to look too happy as I left. A couple of our new freshmen were typing at their desks – into a chat or a blank page, I wasn't sure. But they looked untroubled, and that was enough for me.
I had to wait another hour almost for the late bus. The sun was red and low, and the parking lot looked like it etched out into the desert as it lay empty. I sat at the curb and tried to unwind just how I’d help Rett.
I’d been investigating statutes on limitations the past week. I couldn’t exactly make a legal case, but it seemed like someone could. Rett was still young when he killed that guy. It was an accident. That had to be grey enough. If I could find a couple lawyers who said they could make the situation less clear, Rett might be able to call the MC’s bluff.
It all sounded great in my head. I searched online and started making a list of lawyers. The harder part would be figuring my pitch: “Hey, I'm looking to see whether there's a way out of a murder charge if you're not an adult. It's for a friend!”
I got so intent, that I didn’t even notice the rising rumble of a motorcycle until it came roaring in to the parking lot.
I glanced up and saw it riding straight along the curb to me. Rett’s form towered over the handles. I jumped to my feet, my heart beating too fast to keep me down.
Rett pulled up in front of me. His dark hair lay ragged from the wind. His eyes shone, but he looked serious. I hugged him anyway.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“Picking you up.” He slapped the back seat. “Come on.”
“You came here to give me a ride?”
“No. I’m taking you to see something.”
“What?”
“Just get on.
His voice was breathless, but he looked irritated at my simple question. My own pulse started to simmer.
“You’ve been avoiding me for days, and now you suddenly want to whisk me away? I’ve been trying to figure out how to save you and you’re not even around to talk it through.”
Rett crushed his eyes shut a moment. His gaze had warmed when they opened.
“I know you want to help, but I didn’t want you to. And you don’t have to anymore. Now, will you just trust me?”
He held out a hand, the lines of his palm darkened with sweat and flecks of dirt. He looked tired all over. My irritation collapsed to worry.
“Ok, ok.” I let him tug me on back. “Take me wherever you want.”
He smacked a helmet over my head and waited for me to click the strap shut under my chin before he thrummed the engine back to life. It sang between my legs, and when I rested on Rett’s back, the scent of oil and him spun together in my nose, comfortable as a cradle.
I laced my fingers around him, and we took off.
We headed out west, for miles and miles. The towns out here were even smaller than Loving, and there was only gaping sandy brushland in between. We drove for more than an hour. Not long ago, I would never have wasted that time, but I had nothing that I needed to do now except save Rett. I just rattled against his shoulders, and watched the sun sink down into the endlessly receding horizon.
We stopped at an isolated gas station after two hours, a bright moon shining down on us. My ears were ringing when I stood off. Rett had already run straight into the store, and by the time I had steadied myself on the pump, he was out with a plastic bag.
He handed me a soda and a mini apple pie.
“It’s all they have for food here,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry.”
“I understand,” I said. “I mean, it’s not like you haven’t given me a single clue what I’m headed into.”
“We’re just about there.” He hefted the still heavy bag. “I just wanted to stop and get this in case a cloud came by.”
I spotted the heavy dark handle. “A flashlight? Why?”
“Eat and I’ll show you.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Rett glanced somewhere west, jaw tight, pale somehow even under the gas station lights. “Eat anyway. You won’t want to later.”
I sighed, but chomped through the artificial, over sweetened and utterly delicious pie. It wasn’t exactly as hard as taking the SATs, but I crammed it down quickly
We got back on and rode off again. Not fifteen minutes later, Rett slowed and turned off into what looked like desert. I was about to yell in his ear, but I saw the thin outlines of a dirt road as we shook our way up over the sand. We stopped eventually in the middle of nowhere, the highway hidden at our backs by a short hill.
Rett got off. He glanced this way and that, his whole body stiff. I got off and steadied my legs at the bike a moment.
“Where are we?” I said.
He didn’t turn right away and when he did, there was something slow and sinuous about it that sent an instant shiver up my spine. His face was dipped and dark and I could barely see him speak.
“We’re in a graveyard.”
Hairs rose on my arm, even as I looked around at emptiness. “What?”
“This is where the MC buries its bodies,” he said.
He shone the flashlight on the ground. A small cactus sat squat in the middle of the beam. It looked no different than any other scattered around, but then I saw a flash of glistening whit
e at the base.
It was the bones of a finger, curled into a fist.
“Oh my god.” I jumped away from the bike. “That’s someone’s hand.”
“It was,” Rett said. “The rest of him is still under that cactus.”
“You dug up someone’s hand?” I said. “Why?”
“To convince myself that it wasn’t fake. To be sure I knew what I was seeing. And I am.”
The wind blew past and his voice almost vanished. Hairs rising on my arm, I looked around. There were cactuses around, here and there. None of them were super close, but there were at least a dozen in my field of sight.
“Are the plants-”
“Tombstones,” he said. “At least some of them. The club wanted to make sure they could find evidence if they needed it.”
“Oh my god,” I said, again. “How many are there?”
“Plenty.” Rett paced off and I followed his silent steps.
“So you found your guy?”
How could he even be sure the one he pulled out was the guy he’d shot that night? There’d be nothing of him to remember.
“Not the one I killed that first night.” Rett glanced back at me. “But I found the other man I killed.”
“What?”
He just strode off against the packed earth. My heart pounded. Had he been hiding more from me? He’d been so guilty admitting the accidental shot. Maybe that had been a test to see how much more I could handle.
I should be angry. I should be scared. No one knew where we were. This wasn’t even a place, just space on a map.
But, I still trusted him. I caught up at his side.
After a little while, Rett stopped and gazed down at another cactus.
“Is this him?” I said. Luckily, there was no human hand at this plant, but it stood a good couple feet tall.
Rett nodded. “Yep.”
“Who was it?” I asked, softly.
Rett flicked on the beam and pointed it under the arm of the cactus.
A badge shone back.
The top read: ‘City of Loving’
The bottom half simply read: Sheriff.
My stepfather might as well have risen and punched me in the gut himself.
“Is that…” I whispered. “Are you sure it’s him?”
“I dug it out,” he said. “I’m sure.”
I carefully crouched and picked up the medal. No other cops had vanished. Only one person fit this bill.
I stood on my stepfather’s grave.
“Are you ok?” Rett’s hand warmed my shoulder.
“Yeah.” I turned the medal between my fingers. It felt so ordinary, as if it hadn’t turned a man into a monster. It probably never had that power.
“The badge sent off a strong reading from my metal detector,” Rett said. “I’d found a few bodies already, but when I struck that, well, it changed everything. He might have been a piece of shit, but he wore a uniform, and he was cut down by the MC.”
My brain started to work again. I remembered what he’d said and looked at his face. “You killed him?”
“I did, didn’t I? I told the MC about who he was. But I didn’t pull the trigger. And that’s what the courts care about.”
I got up, and faced him.
“Why did they kill him? I thought he was their friend.”
“The MC code isn’t all bullshit. They were never going to abide what he did to you. I didn’t think they’d killed him for it, but apparently what he did went sufficiently beyond the pale.”
The night breeze swept over us. “I just don’t understand.”
“It’s like I told you. There’s a code. And he went far beyond that code.”
“Rape? The MC murders. I’m sure they don’t treat women right.” Rett ducked his eyes, and I added, “I mean, the rest of them.”
“No,” Rett said. “It’s not all holy matrimony or consent even. But for a father to do that to his own daughter. That was perverse to them.”
“Stepdaughter.”
“It didn’t matter. You shared a roof. He was yours to protect.”
I gazed down at the blossoming cactus. It had rough and prickling with needles that shone like stiff colorless hairs in the moonlight. It was too beautiful a tombstone for the life my stepfather had lived in many ways.
Rett gazed down alongside. There was a tightness on his face.
“Do you feel bad?” I asked, utterly puzzled.
“If I had said nothing…”
“Then he would have kept on doing what he did. You made him go away.”
“For good.”
I grabbed his shoulders and turned him to me. “Don’t carry this too. You did the right thing. You took care of me. And to be honest…”
I stopped. Did I really want to admit it? Was I really that cold?
Well, neither of us was perfect. It was time for him to see.
“I’m glad he’s dead,” I said. “I’m happy.”
I cupped Rett’s cheeks and drew him down for a kiss. It wasn’t sweet, but I think he caught some of my strength. He stood again, and he looked taller, eyes hardened.
“So,” he said, stretching his wide chest, and glancing around. “I think there’s enough for a case here.”
“You’re going to go after the MC?”
“Hell, no,” he said. “I’m just going to make them a deal. I let them go, if they let me go.”
He looked down at me, as if I were some expert in blackmail. I knew the legal route though, and that would be a far bigger mess.
“It’s fair,” I said. “It’ll work. Just get them to set you free.”
He smiled and squeezed my hands. We walked off, arm in arm, away from the badge and cactus.
I was worried for Rett. What he found was brilliant, but he still had to be careful.
But a new lightness was in my step. I could float off, pull Rett into the air with me.
My stepfather would never haunt me again. He was gone. He was dead.
Now, as nothing more than dust trapped under earth, he could actually do some good.
Maybe, just maybe, he could set Rett free.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Everett
Ruth’s diner was just packed enough as I walked in. A thin river of conversation burbled over the clink of plates and silverware, with the odd laugh or child shrieking. Half the tables were empty and I took a lounge over in the least occupied corner of the room.
If everything went right, I wouldn’t have much to say. But that didn’t mean I wanted my words overheard. Neither me or the MC would want our truths known.
A big waitress named Bertha came up to my table and didn’t leave until I’d gotten some coffee. I stretched out and peeked out the blinded windows. No one yet.
My phone buzzed against the table. I snapped to it, but it was just Liza: Be careful, baby.
Careful? This was anything but that. I’d do what it took though to make sure I got to hear sweet things from Liza for as long as I lived.
Even if that came measured in minutes, rather than years.
Bertha came back and set down my coffee with a handful of cream pods and sweeteners. Everything seemed like a calm trip to the café so far. There was no telling how fast that flip could switch if anything went foul though. The public spot was supposed to stay the MC’s hand, but their grip on this town was firm. No one would rat them out and no one at the station would give them more than a slap on the wrist, even for murder.
I texted Liza back: Don’t worry.
I took my jacket off and set my keys down on top of it. Whatever happened here, I hoped she had the sense to not follow through. If my bluff got called hard, only one of us needed to pay.
I stirred in copious milk and sugar and took tiny sips, watching families enjoy their lunch. I didn’t need to look outside. It was easy enough to pick the rumble of chopper engines even through the glass. They grew until my cup trembled, and then they cut off altogether.
On the other side of the room, the door
jangled open. Bertha stepped up by instinct, but froze as Clash and Jethro marched in, clad in denim, leather and flat looks. I had on the same outfit but people still knew me as the QB more than the biker. It was good to know I hadn’t made it all the way in the MC yet.
Time to make sure it stayed that way.