Chapter 28 Lee
Lee
Within the hour the whole family had arrived except for Weaver, who was on duty. She was trying to get emergency leave to come up to be with the family and I’d barely managed to extract her promise not to go AWOL by swearing I would text her at any news, good or bad.
It was late morning or early afternoon, I didn’t even know anymore and I didn’t really care.
The twins had been moved to surgery. The doctors, who occasionally came out to update us, were grim and not telling us a whole helluva lot.
An orthopedic surgeon had gone in a while ago to try and save Sonny’s leg.
He said he could only try, there were no guarantees.
Even if the doctor managed to save his leg, I knew he would have a long road to recovery ahead of him. My own hip ached in sympathy.
My parents struggled, alternating between fury at whoever had done this and fear for the boys.
I walked by one of the conference rooms that lined the hallways of the hospital and saw two men in medic uniforms seated around a conference table filling out paperwork.
One of them was a young kid, I doubted he was much more than twenty-one.
The other was a man in his late thirties to early forties, just a little older than me, his dark hair starting to show threads of silver throughout.
I respected the work they did, and normally I wouldn’t have interrupted them, but as I passed, I spied a tell-tale tattoo peeking out from under the shirt sleeve of the older medic.
“Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen,” I said, knocking on the door frame, “But I saw your ink, sir, and had to say the 119th was one of the best damn group of men I ever had privilege to serve with,” I smiled. “Even if they were Marines.”
“That so?” the older man asked. “I thought they were pretty much all assholes,” he laughed. “Javier,” he said, standing and holding his hand out to me.
“Lee,” I responded.
“This is my probie, Danton,” the medic said, nodding toward the young man. I held my hand out and the young man shook it as well.
“Let me guess,” Martinez said, looking me up and down. “Squid?”
“Yes, sir. But my b—my best friend, James Macklin, had friends in the 119th, so we drank with them whenever we were all at liberty.”
I’d lied about my relationship with Mack almost automatically, even now. He hadn’t been out at the time of his death and the habit was still strong, even after all these years.
“Waitaminnit— Macklin?” Martinez asked, eying me with a question. “You knew Jimmy Macklin?”
I felt my smile widen, feeling a rekindling of that camaraderie that had been the main reason I’d joined the military in the first place.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, “But I hope you won’t hold it against me,” I chuckled.
“Not hardly, soldier,” he said, his own grin widening. “Mack was a good man and a damn good pilot,” Martinez’s grin faded a bit, and I watched as his eyes lost some of their shine. “It was a damn shame we lost him.”
As he spoke, I watched as Martinez’s brow furrowed quizzically a moment, then he said, “Wait a minute…‘Lee’? Ripley? Ripley Devereaux?” He asked, raising his eyebrow at me in question.
I saw the kid pale next to him and Martinez’s eyes shuttered when he registered my name. Fuck, that was never good.
“…Yes sir.” I said, my own good humor fading as hesitation snuck into my voice as I unconsciously braced myself.
If he was homophobic, it really didn’t matter to me anymore, but that didn’t feel right, somehow.
While I didn’t recognize Martinez, Mack and I had partied with more than a few members of the 119th and they’d been good men.
They really didn’t give a shit who’s “team” you batted for, as long as you had their back when shit got real.
But for the first time I found myself almost hoping that all I was about to experience was some good old-fashioned, up front, in your face homophobia and not the news I feared.
“So, the twins we brought in…” Martinez asked.
“My brothers, sir,” I answered, feeling my lips press together in a thin line. “Baby brothers.”
Martinez started to speak, then saw a movement from Danton out of the corner of his eye and stopped himself. Danton looked like a new puppy, all eagerness and energy, and not a lick of sense.
“Danton, why don’t you go take five and let Devereaux and me catch up with some old war stories for a few minutes,” he said, gesturing for the young man to take a break.
“But—” Danton began, looking at the paperwork on the table, at me, then back at Martinez. I was sure for a moment he was going to object, but a sharp look from the older man had Danton on his feet and out the door. Martinez might not be military anymore, but he still knew how to give an order.
Martinez shut the conference room door behind Danton, then gestured for me to sit. I moved to take him up on his invitation to take a seat at the conference table, but my hip chose that moment to freeze up. Apparently, sitting in ER waiting room chairs didn’t agree with it.
I swallowed hard and held up a finger, silently asking for a moment from Martinez. He eyed me curiously, but didn’t say anything, just waited for the spasm to pass. Mercifully, it passed pretty quickly and I was able to take the seat after a few seconds.
“Afghanistan?” he asked, his grey-blue eyes looking me up and down as he sat.
“Yes, sir,” I said, nodding. “Hip, most of the leg. But they were able to save it.”
He grunted and nodded. “So, you’re Mack’s man? Aren’t you a medic?” he asked.
I nodded again, solemnly bracing for whatever he was going to say. “Was, sir.”
His eyes softened as he looked at me.
“Don’t ‘sir’ me, boy. I work for a living,” he grunted at me. “Mack was a great man and a great soldier. I was holding out for an invite to your wedding, son.”
I felt my eyes tear up unexpectedly. I’d braced for a lot of things, but not this. Mack had not been ‘out’ to many people, including most of his family. To find this man knew about us, about me, was a huge surprise.
“He was a good man and a good pilot, sir, but I don’t know if he qualified as a ‘great’ soldier,” I said wryly. “More like a ‘great’ pain in the ass.”
Martinez laughed and leaned back as far as the uncomfortable chairs would allow.
“I think even Mack would agree with you on that, Devereaux,” he agreed, running his fingers through his hair. “So, your brothers, eh?”
“Yes, sir. The police aren’t telling us much, but they said they think it was an accident, a hit and run…?” I let my voice end on an up note, a hint of question in it.
Something about the cops story just didn’t seem right, but I'd been too distracted by taking care of my family and worrying about my brothers to really think it through.
“Hrmpff. I don’t know about ‘accident’,” he said, pausing for a moment, his gaze holding mine. “Are your brothers gay?” he asked, again taking me off guard.
“I’m not sure what that would have to do with anything…” I began, hedging. The twins were out, yes, but that was their information to share, not mine.
“Shit, boy, I don’t care who they fuck,” he said, taking in my hesitation.
“I’ve got a man at home myself,” he said, winking at me and a tiny tinge of pink appearing on his cheeks.
“I don’t know you, or your brothers, really, but I did know Mack, and I owe him for saving my ass more times than I can count. ”
I held his gaze with my own. Whatever was going on had to be serious for Martinez to be responding like this. A random hit-and-run wouldn’t have caused this kind of a response from a man like him.
Something in my gaze seemed to give him whatever he was looking for, because Martinez leaned under the table and pulled out a crumpled piece of gray paper from a battered medic bag, much like the one sitting under my own bathroom sink.
He laid it on the table, and I couldn’t help but see the blood spatters on the paper: My brothers’ blood.
“This trash has been bothering me, but I could get in deep shit for it,” he said, setting the paper face down on the table. “Medics work very closely with law enforcement and I don’t like the idea of anyone, or anything jeopardizing that relationship.”
I reached for the paper, but as my fingers touched the paper he didn’t lift his hands to release it.
“Anything,” he repeated, his gaze holding mine as he raised an eyebrow at me.
“I have no idea where it came from, sir,” I said solemnly.
“Good man,” he said, nodding at me and taking his hand away from the paper, settling back in the chair.
“We found these scattered around the sidewalk where we found your brothers. The cop who showed up didn’t say anything about it, but I noticed while we worked that he was busier picking them up and stashing them in his car than he was assessing the scene,” he said, nodding at the paper.
“The main thing though is…” he continued, his voice dropping, “Son, you may want to keep a close eye on the rest of your family. The driver that hit your brothers would have had to have driven off the road, around a dumpster and then away. With no skid marks, no damage to the building, and no damage to the car.”
I turned the paper over and looked down at the paper in front of me, the hateful speech pouring across the page, pictures of crosses and Bible verses blaring in the blood-smeared ink.
Martinez’s voice seemed to come from a great distance.
“This was no accident.”
Fuck.