Chapter 16
The Kingstons left town in the SUV with Gunner driving, Dylan in the seat beside him, and Asher in back nursing a cup of coffee. The ride was mostly quiet, which suited Asher.
Saying goodbye to Nora this morning felt like the first time, all over again—when they were so young and so in love—full of excitement for what was to come. They’d never planned to ghost each other. They just drifted apart.
Then the reunion happened, and as a grown-ass man, he fell even harder for the woman she’d become.
Despite the turmoil they’d both been in, their reasons for coming back to Crossroads had also been their blessing.
Knowing she wouldn’t be there when they came back today was hard.
Waiting again was harder. Getting her moved was going to be his quest. He was not going to be satisfied until she was sleeping under his roof, in his arms, with a ring on her finger.
And they still had to unload this nightmare onto Jacob’s shoulders.
The media would do what they do, stirring enough lies into a truth to create a headline.
They didn’t care what damage the lies left behind.
But Asher did, for him. When they arrived at the hospital, they parked and went inside, then went up to Jacob’s room.
* * *
Jacob was sitting up in his bed watching the morning news when his sons walked into the room.
“Wow! All of you together! This is wonderful. Come sit. Talk to me. Tell me, what’s been happening?”
They were all smiles and careful hugs and then they settled around him like they’d always done when looking to him for advice.
“We have a story to tell you, so bear with us,” Asher said. “Ever since our arrival, we have been actively looking for your shooters. And once you identified the Brandt brothers, everything else began falling in place. We finally knew who did it, but we had no physical proof to back us up.”
“Dad, since I was the one with zero sleuthing ability, I asked to be the one to stay with you,” Dylan said. “We still had no motive for why it happened, and all three of us feared they would try it again. That’s why you had the security guards at your door.”
Jacob nodded. “I guessed that much. Truthfully, it made sleep a lot easier.”
Gunner picked up the story. “I ran most of the background checks while Asher was researching facts and sifting through new information. He was an awesome partner to work with, and still a not-so-bad brother, to boot. Little by little, things began popping up that began to make sense, but we couldn’t put our finger on what was missing until the night we all finally admitted to ourselves that we were overlooking the obvious.
We rarely talk about Brenda, not even to each other, but when we opened that door…
” Gunner paused. “You finish it, Ash. You’re the one who remembered. ”
Jacob’s heart skipped when they mentioned Brenda’s name. What the hell else had she done?
“We were working around a theory. We knew Pete Brandt’s sons visited him only hours before he died.
We also knew that it was only a week or so afterward that they showed up at the bar.
Then when they came back and shot you, we still had no motive, and it was driving us crazy.
So, one night, we were all home, sitting around the kitchen table, and we started talking about the day of Gunner’s birthday, and each of us told what we remembered from that day.
And the last thing I remembered was Gunner waking up all bloody from losing a tooth, and howling to the moon about swallowing it. ”
Jacob smiled, and patted Gunner’s hand. “I remember that day. You had your seventh birthday.”
Asher nodded. “All the crying woke me, and I kept expecting Mom to go see to it, but she didn’t, and I went to see what was wrong.
When I saw all the blood, I went to look for her.
I knew there would be sheets to strip, and Gunner would need a bath.
I went all through the house calling for her, but she wasn’t there.
I went back to the boys’ room long enough to give Gunner a cloth to pack in the bleeding gum, then made another sweep through the house, calling her name over and over.
I was in the kitchen, thinking she might be outside, when she came out of the basement.
I remembered the dirt on the knees of her jeans, and all over her hands, because she had to wash them before she went to tend to Gunner.
And that’s when it hit us. What if Pete Brandt lied about hiding the money.
What if he gave it to Mom to hide? And what if she buried it in the dirt floor of that basement?
And what if that’s what Pete Brandt told his sons, and that was the reason they came to the bar, then came back and shot you?
If they knew it was there, then that would be their motive for shooting you. ”
Jacob went pale. His eyes welled. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Was it there?”
Dylan and Gunner reached for his hands.
Asher nodded. “We found it with a metal detector. Dug it up and turned it over to the FBI three days ago, and asked them not to announce the recovery until we got the men who shot you, to which they agreed.”
“All these years. God… The nightmare is going to start again. Everyone is going to think I knew it was there,” Jacob said.
“No, Dad. It’s exactly the reverse. Part of the Feds’ announcement will be that the discovery was entirely due to your sons’ investigation of the attempted murder.
And that the exact location was unknown to everyone, because Brandt told her to hide it, and she did, but then the truth and the location died with her.
We would never have known it was there, had Pete’s sons not come looking.
During the Feds’ original investigation, they’d overlooked considering her part in the robbery.
It was enough that she’d died on their watch.
Asher didn’t trust them not to put a spin on the recovery to make themselves look better.
He said if they did, he would hold a press conference of his own. ”
“It won’t happen to you again, Dad. One lie from the media and I slap them with a lawsuit for slander so fast it’ll make their heads spin. Don’t worry. We’ve got your back. All we want is for you to get well enough to go home.”
Tears were rolling down Jacob’s face. He just kept shaking his head and clutching their hands until he finally pulled himself together.
“I am so proud of all of you. I don’t have the words to express what this means to me.”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Asher said. “I saw. I remember what you went through before. It won’t happen again.”
“And they’re in custody?” Jacob asked.
“As of midnight, last night,” Dylan said.
“Where? How?” Jacob asked.
And then they explained the trap they’d laid with Sheriff Reddick’s help, and how it all went down.
Jacob shook his head in disbelief. “I will never look at my kitchen in the same way. A treasure was buried in the floor beneath it, and you took down the men who tried to kill me where I eat my breakfast every day.”
“It was our home, too, Dad. You made it the best place to grow up,” Gunner said.
“Speaking of the kitchen and home, has your doctor given you any indication of when you might be released?”
Jacob nodded. “Probably tomorrow, but once I’m there, you boys do not need to play nursemaid. I can do for myself just fine.”
“Maybe so, but until you are well enough to reopen the bar, you will have daily home healthcare,” Asher said. “It’s the only way we’ll feel safe enough to leave you on your own.”
Jacob frowned.
“No, Dad. No frowning,” Dylan said. “Ash is right.”
“He is definitely right, and I am incapable of giving my own father a bath,” Gunner said.
They all burst out laughing, and at that point, Jacob agreed.
Asher was still smiling as he got up. “I’m going to the nurses’ station for some info on home healthcare. You two feel free to update Dad as to the recent developments of my love life. I’ll be back shortly.”
* * *
The trip back to Crossroads felt shorter—the mood lighter. They were hoping to get home in time to catch a news bulletin about the recovered money. Asher wasn’t going to assume the Feds had kept their word until he heard it for himself.
He glanced at the time, wondering how far Nora had driven, and how many hours she had to go. It was at least a five-hour drive—too early to expect an arrival text, but he was feeling off balance. Thief that she was, she’d left town with his heart.
* * *
Once Nora left Highway 86 for southbound US 287, the distance between her and Asher became a reality.
The nearer she got to home, meant an increasing distance from him.
The next few weeks were going to be challenging.
Getting back into the full routine of her job.
Notifying her employer of the upcoming move, dispatching her furniture in the ivory tower, before the freedom to move to Austin.
The upheaval of her old life had yet to settle.
She knew dithering would not be a wise move. If she didn’t get there soon, Asher would come get her, lay waste to whatever barriers she’d made for herself, and what was left behind would go begging. A quick ache of longing washed through her, but she put wishing aside for the reality of what was.
He loved her. He cherished her.
Making love to him made her crazy.
She would never take the love he’d given her for granted again.
* * *
Back in Crossroads, the Kingston brothers had just walked into the Yellow Rose for lunch when the breaking news bulletin about the recovery of the missing money, along with the end of Brenda Kingston’s story, hit every major news outlet.
It was airing in sports bars, businesses, airports, and people’s homes, and it was live on the TV hanging behind the register at the Yellow Rose Café.
Pearl saw Jacob’s sons walking in, and as always, the thought they could have been her sons came and went. And then Asher was pointing at the TV and asking her to turn up the volume.