16. Nolan
16
NOLAN
“This feels wrong,” I said. “Does this feel wrong to you?”
I was staring through the windshield of Rafe’s Jeep at Burger Haven, one of those chain restaurants that had offered variations of the same food — all of it overpriced — since before I was born.
“I get what you’re saying,” Jude said from the driver’s seat, “but it’s for her protection.”
Normally we would have taken the Rover for an hours-long stakeout mission — if that was what we wanted to call this — but we were worried Lilah might recognize it, and my midnight blue Lotus Emira wasn’t exactly low-profile.
“I know, but still,” I said, staring across the pavement at the generic square building.
It was mid-afternoon and the sun was high overhead, the days slowly getting longer in the slow march to spring. Snow was still piled high from the plow that had cleared the parking lot after the storm, but warmer weather was a promise I could feel.
“Rafe’s not going to want to do this much longer,” Jude said.
I barked out a laugh. “Or he’ll want to do it forever.”
We all had complicated feelings about Lilah, but Rafe’s were the most complicated of all, mostly because Rafe didn’t spend more than five seconds thinking about his feelings, and that just made them build up into a tangled mess he was determined to avoid.
“True,” Jude said. “But seriously, we can’t watch her forever.”
“I know.” We’d already installed cameras in and around Lilah’s apartment for the times we couldn’t be there — those we could monitor from an app on our phones — but we couldn’t watch her every minute of every day indefinitely. “I’d feel better if that dickhead Vic Lombardi wasn’t still out there, but I know he’s not the only one we have to worry about.”
Vic was clearly working with — or for — someone else, probably the guy in the suit, but we had no idea who that guy was. All our resources were focused on keeping Lilah safe, and the last time Rafe had staked out the Dive, the guy in the suit hadn’t shown up.
“Same,” Jude said.
“I wish we could get her to stay with us, for a while at least,” I said.
“You know that’s not going to happen and it’s not like we can blame her.”
Shame seeped through my chest. I would never have called myself a good guy — not even now after saving lives in the desert — but back then I wasn’t only a bad guy, I was a bad guy who took all my orders from Rafe.
And Rafe was epically fucked up — then and now.
I had no excuse for myself except that my dad had died in a car accident when I was eight years old, and even in high school Rafe had the kind of confidence and swagger that had been reassuring to a kid who felt obliged to protect his mom and younger siblings when he wasn’t even old enough to protect himself.
I’d been too young to understand the unfolding dynamic between Rafe, Jude, and I when we’d become friends. By the time I did — by the time I learned how to push back against Rafe’s bullshit — we’d moved through Blackwell High like a three-man wrecking crew.
And the worst damage of all, the damage we most regretted even though Rafe would never admit it, was what we’d done to Lilah.
I’d never stop hating myself for it.
The military had helped straighten us out — to a point — but there had been something we hadn’t known about the military when we’d joined: it was a brotherhood too, and some of the shit our brothers expected us to do — to keep quiet about — made our high school bullshit look like preschool.
We’d all gotten sucked in under the leadership of Captain Robert Sandoval, the leader of our SEALs unit. Rafe had been especially vulnerable to Sandoval’s macho bullshit — although Rafe would never admit to being vulnerable to anything — because Rafe was carrying around a metric fuckton of baggage about his old man.
The truth about Sandoval had ruined all of our military careers, but it had ruined Rafe in other ways.
Something else he would never admit.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked, watching as two guys in their twenties got out of a Tesla and made their way into the restaurant. Fucking Tesla douchebags. “Long-term.”
Rafe was pushing us to take another job. We didn’t need the money, but none of us liked to be still for very long. We needed to stay busy, needed to keep moving to prevent ourselves from thinking about all the shit we’d seen.
All the shit we’d done.
Jude shrugged and sank lower in the driver’s seat of the Jeep. “Keep an eye on her until it’s not practical. It’s a good sign that no one’s come for her yet.”
I didn’t say anything. The fact that Lilah was still safe a week after Vic and his goons had tried to shut her up didn’t make me feel better. If these guys were involved in the disappearances of local girls, they weren’t going to let a witness run around blabbing about it for long.
The door to the restaurant opened and Lilah emerged. Her hair flared gold in the sunlight and my heart caught in my throat as she looked down at her phone. I felt like I was seeing something I wasn’t supposed to see: Lilah vulnerable, minus the armor she wore when she’d been around us, armor that had seemed like a second skin.
She was so fucking beautiful, a combination of strength and softness that caused my chest to constrict in a way that was unfamiliar.
“There she is,” Jude said, and I knew from the way he said it that he felt it too.
We watched her cross the parking lot to her car. She got in and reversed, and we waited until she turned onto the main road to follow.
We were two cars behind her when Jude’s phone rang with a call from Rafe.
“Yeah,” Jude said, taking the call on the Jeep’s Bluetooth.
“Two guys heading into Lilah’s apartment.” I could tell Rafe was on the move from the way he spoke, his words clipped and efficient, the way they were when we were working.
“Fuck,” Jude said. “She’s on her way home. We’re not far behind her.”
“I’m on my way too,” Rafe said. “Don’t let her go in without you.”
The call disconnected and Jude hit the gas, then blew through a red light in a cacophony of honking horns and skidded tires.