Chapter 13 #2
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She was walking back as she said it, sliding the phone into a hip pocket, biting her lip.
She met her cousin’s eyes then, and said, “Gringo Sombrero’s name is Jeremiah Thorne.
He was serving time, but got released early in exchange for his testimony against a kingpin who was already in for another crime, and who’s since died in prison. ”
Ethan looked at Willow, his face slowly changing. Curiosity was replaced by something that might’ve been dread. “Who was the kingpin?”
“His father,” Willow said. “Vincent de Lorean.”
The words landed, but they sat on the surface of Ethan’s brain for a moment. And then they sank in just enough to make him say, “But that would make him my brother.”
“Half-brother,” Willow said. “Different mother. He’s two years older than you.”
He was shaking his head slowly. He sought out Lily’s eyes. “I have a brother. All this time, I’ve had a brother. And he’s been right here…for how long?”
“He got paroled a year ago,” Willow said. “And that’s around the time he first started showing up at Manny’s, as far as I can tell. Maria agrees.”
“Well, what the hell was he doin’ here? Watchin’ the place?
Or watchin’ me? Was he still workin’ for de Lorean, or whatever’s left of his crew?
And if not, then why didn’t he say anything?
” He wasn’t asking anyone those questions, really, just letting them spin from his brain into his words. “Why didn’t he tell me who he was?”
“Why don’t we head to the hospital and see if he can tell us anything himself?” Lily asked. She reached up to close her hand on the back of his neck.
Her hand was cool. He liked it there. “Yeah, let’s do that. Talk to him. I don’t even…” He trailed off, distracted because she’d moved her hand away.
“You okay to drive, cuz?” Willow asked. “You look a little shell-shocked.”
“I’ll drive him,” Lily said. “I’ve been dying to drive that big truck of his anyway.”
Willow, hearing the same double entendre Ethan had, snort-laughed and tried to pretend she hadn’t by coughing and clearing her throat.
Lily shot her a quelling look and Willow gave what she probably thought was an innocent shrug. Ethan saw every bit of it but pretended he hadn’t.
To change the subject, he thought, Lily opened the cantina door, put her fingers to her lips and gave a whistle. Everyone turned, power tools went silent, safety glasses slid up onto heads.
“We’re going to be out for a bit. Anyone need anything before we go?”
As one, the team returned to work, lowering their safety goggles and letting their tools answer for them. Only Burdick gave a real reply, and it was merely a thumbs-up, before he returned to work.
“Guess they’re okay without us. Come on, Big Guy.” Lily put a hand on Ethan’s upper arm, right around his bicep. He really didn’t mean to flex, it was automatic. Her fingers moved over his arm in what felt like appreciation.
“Let’s go meet your brother. Remind me to call him Jeremiah and not Gringo Sombrero like I’ve been calling him for a year.”
“He came up that often, did he?” he asked.
“Oh he’s a hot topic among the She-Brands.” She gave him an eyebrow wiggle and walked around his truck to the driver’s side. So he got in the passenger side and looked over at her in his seat. She looked like a doll sitting in a human’s chair. “You can adjust the, uh?—”
“I know, I got it.” She’d already been running her hands along the bottom and sides of the seat in search of controls. She moved his seat upward and forward, and still looked small, but at least she could see over the steering wheel and reach the pedals.
He buckled up. She adjusted the mirror and shifted. “Find us something on the radio, will ya?”
He turned on the radio. His song was ending, as a Willie Nelson standard started up, “That was your idea, right there.”
“It was Baxter’s idea, wasn’t it? Around the bonfire?”
“The song was your idea.”
“You should probably always listen to my ideas, then.”
“I should probably at least consider it.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
He looked over at her. She was entirely focused on driving, leaning forward in her nervousness, going slower than necessary. He said, “Hey, don’t be nervous about the truck. You can’t hurt this thing, it’s a beast.”
“Now, I know that to be false. I saw what happened to its predecessor. It got hurt plenty.”
“I guess that’s what insurance is for.”
She didn’t relax. He didn’t blame her; it was an expensive ride and everyone knew how fond of it he was. But he liked Lily a hell of a lot more.
Whoa, that notion had come right out of the blue.
“You think it’s okay, leaving the work crews alone?” she asked.
“They’re gonna have to work when I’m not around watchin’ ‘em, and they’ll either do great or drop the ball. Better to see how it goes now than later.”
She nodded. “Yeah, but…most of the time one or the other of us would be here,” she said.
That wasn’t going to be true for much longer, Ethan thought. Still, there was no point bringing it up now. She got all funny every time he mentioned leaving town. But that had always been the plan.
It only took fifteen minutes to get to the hospital in El Paso.
They signed in, got passes to stick onto their shirts, and headed to the hospital room. Lily knew the staff, and she knew her way around, having worked there. She squeezed his hand and said, “I can wait in the waitin’ room. We just passed it.”
He nodded, but didn’t release her hand. He was staring at the door, completely unsure what the hell he was doing there, what he was about to learn. This was his brother, the son of the man who’d murdered his mother. Then again, Ethan was also that man’s son. Biologically, at least.
What sort of man was Jeremiah Thorne? Was his soul as black and bloody as their father’s, or as torn and tormented as Ethan’s own, or somewhere in between?
He tapped the door twice, then opened it and stepped inside.
But the hospital bed was empty.
Lily squeezed his hand, then tugged him with her as she spoke to a passing nurse. “Hey, Sally. We’re looking for the patient who was in this room.”
He let her pull him around to face the nurse she’d stopped in the hallway. She had red hair, and redder eyeglasses. “Hey, Lily. Great to see you!” She hugged Lily, and he had to let go of her hand then.
After the hug and a speculative but quick look his way, Nurse Sally said, “You mean Mr. Thorne?”
“Yeah, bushy beard, dirty blond hair,” Lily said.
“Yeah, that’s him. He signed himself out, ‘bout a half hour ago.”
It felt to Ethan like a blow to the mid-section.
“Was he okay to leave?” Lily asked.
“We’d have kept him overnight,” she said, “But he’ll prob’ly be okay. Sore, but okay.”
Gone, just like that.
“Wait, wait, who took him downstairs?” Lily asked, and when Ethan shot her a questioning look, she said, “Rules are rules. Somebody has to walk discharged patients out, make sure they’re safe till they’re off the property?—”
“So they don’t trip over a pebble and sue us,” Sally put in. And they shared a look. “I took him down myself,” she said. “You know, the guy’s not bad-looking under all that hair.”
He saw that Lily agreed with that opinion, and a dark cloud tried to move in.
“Did you see who picked him up?” Lily asked.
“Taxi,” she said. “I watched him get in, then headed back to the floor.”
“Thanks, Sally.”
“Any time. You’re a little bit famous around here, you know.” She was speaking to Lily but her gaze shifted to Ethan, as he was the reason.
“Infamous, maybe,” Lily corrected.
Then Sally leaned in and whispered loud enough for him to hear, “He’s even better looking in person, isn’t he?”
Lily tucked her arm through Ethan’s and said, “Way better.” Then she walked him down the hall toward the elevators. She didn’t take her arm out of his until the doors closed. Then she did, though, and he realized it had been for the other woman’s benefit.
Marking her territory, maybe?
For some reason the notion made him stand a little straighter.
“We can call the cab company,” Lily said. “We can find out where they took him.”
He lowered his head, shook it slowly. “He knew he’d been ID’d,” he said. “So he knew I’d be comin’. That’s probably why he left.” The elevator doors opened, and he stepped out, hands in his jeans pockets, heart somewhere in the vicinity of his boots.
Lily couldn’t get a minute alone with Ethan for the next several hours. They’d returned to the cantina and worked all the rest of the day. He’d driven back, readjusting his seat and mirrors to their previous positions with the push of a button.
It had been a long day, but the crews had finally cleared out.
The cantina was missing a wall, and industrial plastic had been draped in the opening, inside and out.
The parking lot had been jack-hammered to pieces and hauled away in dump trucks.
The bare ground underneath looked rough, and so did the building.
You had to break a few eggs, she figured.
Finally alone in the place, she leaned her elbows on the plastic-covered bar top. “How are you holding up, Ethan?”
He looked her way. He’d been standing in the doorway, looking outside, but he turned then. She could tell he was trying for all the world to act normal—as if his life hadn’t been turned upside down today. Again. “I’m all right.”
“That’s not a real answer,” she said.
He shrugged and changed the subject. “Sam left us a copy of his purchase order. Likes to get approval as he goes, so there’s not an issue later, he says.
Mainly it’s lumber, nails, insulation, wiring, about forty other things like that.
I went over it item by item, but there are a few choices we need to make before he can send it in. Seating, fixtures, flooring.”
“The fun stuff,” she said. “We can do it now, if you want. Everyone’s gone. It’s quiet.”