Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
T hat evening, Chelsea served a thick stew in heavy pottery bowls, with homemade bread for dipping. It was just the five of them; Lily, Hyram, Ethan, and the couple who’d adopted and raised him, whom he still called Uncle and Aunt rather than Mom and Dad.
“This is delicious, Chelsea,” Hyram said. “This better than mine. What’s your secret?”
“My secret is that Garrett makes the stew,” she said.
“And my secret,” Garrett said, “is soy sauce, two tablespoons.”
“I make him use the reduced sodium kind.” Chelsea glanced her husband’s way with a smile and their eyes met. The love between them kind of lit up the room.
Lily sighed and glanced at Ethan. He seemed quiet and deep in thought. He caught her looking, so she shifted her focus lower, and it fell on the crockery bowl in front of her. “I agree the stew is phenomenal, but it’s these bowls I can’t get over,” she said. “I’ve never seen any like them.”
“Right?” Chelsea asked. “A local artist makes them. I’ll take you to her shop sometime.”
“I’d love that.”
There came the sound of a vehicle, and then the screen door creaked, and seconds later Willow was joining them in the dining room.
“I’ll get another bowl,” Chelsea said, starting to get up.
Will held up a hand, “No, it’s fine, you don’t need to—wait, is that Uncle Garrett’s stew?”
Chelsea grinned and went to the kitchen, returning with another heavy ceramic bowl, gray on the bottom half, blue on the top, little handles on either side, brimming with stew, still steaming hot.
Willow accepted it and chose the seat next to Ethan, which was across from Lily. She said, “So I was trying to track down Jeremiah Thorne,” she began.
“Why?” Ethan asked. “He didn’t do anything illegal. Trespassin’, I guess, but I think gettin’ hit by a truck was prob’ly punishment enough, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “His car is a 1982 Buick Electra. Color’s listed as brown. Dark Brown Firemist, to be exact. I looked it up. It was a premium color, cost extra.”
Lily and Ethan exchanged a quick look, and Lily was sure Willow noticed it before she went on. “I’m checking it against the brown paint sample we scraped off that wrecked Caddy.”
Ethan stopped with his spoon halfway to his mouth and looked across at his cousin. “Why would you do that, Will? Why would you go lookin’ to cause trouble for my brother?”
She took a small, soft breath through parted lips.
Garrett said, “She’s doin’ her job, Bubba.”
“Ethan,” he said. “And no, she’s not.” He faced Willow again. “Jeremiah wasn’t implicated in any crime, was he? He wasn’t a suspect. You’re digging into him just because he’s my brother. Is that even legal?”
“You…I…” She shoved her bowl of stew away and stood up. “I thought you’d want to know who he is. Whether he’s a decent guy or a piece of shit like your father.”
Ethan shot to his feet too. “Don’t fuckin’ call him my father!”
Garrett stood up slower and sent his quelling look at them both until they sat back down. Then he did, too.
“Willow was trying to help,” Chelsea said. And then to Willow, “You should’ve talked to him first.”
“Right, even if he killed a guy?”
Garrett got up and left the room. When he came back, he had a folder, which he set beside Ethan on the dining room table. “If he killed the guy, he killed a killer who’d just threatened one of our own.”
Ethan reached for the folder, but Garrett put a hand over his.
“Not at the table, Son. I can nutshell it for you. Angus Silver was the muscle for his older brother’s fentanyl trade in Texas and New Mexico.
Got paid to rough up the dealers who got greedy.
But he was sloppy, messed up so many times, big brother Nathan sent him to El Paso to run his own small time protection racket. He likes hurting people.”
“What people?” Ethan asked.
“People who cross him. Most often it’s the loved ones of people who cross him, usually women.
There’ve been murders, disappearances. There’s photos in that there folder, and they aren’t pretty.
” He lowered his head, then returned to his own seat.
“Seven arrests, but he’s only gone to trial twice and never convicted. ”
“Why not?” Ethan asked.
“Witnesses change their stories. Evidence disappears. Somebody forgets to cross a T or dot an I or check their brake lines before a road trip. He’s slippery. Or he was.”
“So when he threatened me…” Lily whispered.
“He wasn’t kidding,” Willow said. She blinked and lowered her head.
Garrett said, “Now you’re getting it. I’ve been worried about repercussions from the older brother, Nathan Silver, so I been lookin’ into things off the books.
I went out to pay Nathan a visit. Condolences on your brother dying in my county, we’ve ruled it an accident, call me if you have any questions , you know the drill.
Silver said his brother’s driver, Terrence Clay, had told him the same story he told us.
Said he was so shaken up he’d asked for time off and was currently visiting family in Florida.
I asked if he’d heard from Clay since he left, and he said no and asked if I had.
I got the feelin’ he actually had no idea where the kid was. ”
Ethan sighed. “I spoke with him for a few seconds, before Angus sped off. Advised him to get away from that crew or he’d end up dead or in prison.”
“Maybe he listened after that wreck,” Willow said. “So are we lookin’ for him?”
“Doesn’t seem necessary,” Garrett replied. “Nathan didn’t seem suspicious about the accident. My plan was to close the case and put his mind at ease.”
Willow shook her head hard and smacked the table. “Well, you might want to clue somebody into your master plan, Uncle Garrett. I already sent the sample out for comparison.”
Garrett nodded. “It’s good police work, I’ll give you that. When, uh, did you send it?”
“This morning. Dropped it into the mailbox in front of the station before I came here.”
“Huh,” Garrett said.
Willow sighed and reached for her stew bowl, and the meal resumed under a cloud.
When Willow left, looking miserable, Ethan noticed Lily follow. The two were on the front porch for another fifteen minutes, and he imagined Lily was doing that thing she did. She had a way of making a person feel better just by being around them. She didn’t like hearing it, but it was the truth.
He helped with the cleanup while his cousin and Lily talked, and then he headed up to his room so he could argue with himself in private.
He’d reached the end of his ability to deny Lily whatever she asked of him, even if it was kids and a dog and a white picket fence. But she’d decided to stop trying.
His honest and immediately reaction had been crushing disappointment and anger with himself for waiting too long and missing his chance. And now, with Jeremiah maybe tangled up in a murder, maybe on the run…
Killing was wrong. But this killing might’ve saved Lily’s life. How could he judge Jeremiah for that, if he’d even done it? Hell, Ethan might’ve done it himself if he’d had all the information.
He stopped pacing for a moment when that thought crossed his mind, because it seemed like one he hadn’t had before—the notion that he could do violence in Lily’s defense. That was the way he felt about his family. She’d become every bit as important to him as they were.
And yet he’d just been reminded how toxic his true bloodline was. Willow wouldn’t have sent that sample if Jeremiah had been anyone else—anyone besides a son of de Lorean. That hurt, but it was logical. You can’t dip good water from a poisoned well.
Dammit, Lily deserved better. He was going to let her fall in love with him and then leave her behind in the end, and he knew it.
But he was out of goodness, out of nobility, out of ideals, and he didn’t think he could turn away from that look in her eyes one more time.
Not now that they’d been together once. Not now that he knew what he was missing.
He glanced at the clock on his nightstand.
Another hour, and he’d head down to meet her on the front porch.
To choose freaking light fixtures. And he was going to be with her again, if she was still willing.
He wouldn’t make promises, he wouldn’t talk about the future, he’d make sure she understood that he had nothing to offer her beyond the moment.
He paced. The time dragged. He brushed his teeth. His beard was coming in, but he thought she liked the extra shadow on his face in the afternoon. A couple of times, she’d run her hands over his bristly cheeks in a way that made him think so.
He took out the guitar, sat on the bed and tried to work on a song he’d started, but he wasn’t feeling it. His emotions were tangled and knotted and he had no idea how to sort them out.
His phone rang and he checked. Angelo Barrone, his manager. It occurred to him how good it was not to feel dread when he saw the caller ID. Every time Ang called lately, it had been with good news. Maybe he’d have something else to celebrate with Lily tonight.
Lily donned a long sweater with deep pockets in deference to the nighttime chill, over jeans and her favorite bedroom slippers. Grabbing her iPad, she left her bedroom, pulled the door closed without making a sound, and tiptoed to the stairway. She didn’t want the Elder-Brands getting ideas.
Although, they already knew there was something going on between her and Ethan. The whole clan knew.
She sighed, crossing the living room floor to the front door. It was open, with just the screen door closed. The soft strum of Ethan’s guitar wafted through, and she smiled at the sound till he hit a bad chord and swore under his breath.
She lowered her head and pushed the screen door open.
It creaked its special creak that had etched itself into her brain with all the time she’d spent at the ranch.
That sound said, “Welcome home. You’re among family here.
” She hoped Garrett never got around to oiling the hinge and taking the ranch house’s voice away.