Chapter 32
At eleven, Scott bypassed his usual after-rehab venti caramel at Two Cups and drove to Erin’s house. Even before he’d asked Drew to go with him, he’d decided not to stop by the coffee shop. Routine was what often blew your cover.
Instead he stopped at a convenience store and picked up a couple of sandwiches, a few snacks, and drinks even though he had his doubts that Drew would actually go until he pulled into Erin’s driveway. The teenager was waiting on the steps. He jogged to his truck and hopped in the passenger seat.
“What kind of rehab are you doing?” he asked before Scott even got out a hello.
Deflect and divert. Great tactics if you were afraid someone was going to ask questions you didn’t want to answer—the boy might have a career in undercover work. Scott flexed his right hand. “Trying to regain the use of my hand again.”
“Why’d someone shoot you?”
Scott pulled out of Erin’s drive and took a left.
In undercover work, sharing personal information was one way of gaining a target’s confidence, even when the personal information wasn’t true.
Maybe a half-truth would work here. “I got involved with the wrong people, and they thought I crossed them.”
“Did you?”
“Depends on how you look at it.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Sometimes people ask you to do something that goes against what you believe in, and you have to decide if you’re going along with them. Either way there can be bad consequences.”
“That’s the truth.”
Scott had hit a nerve, but there was a time to talk and a time to be quiet, and this was a time to let silence settle between them. The silence lasted all the way to the lake. Scott parked and opened his door. “We have to walk from here.”
They climbed out of his truck, and he handed Drew the tackle box. “I’ll carry the rods.”
Drew glanced around the back of the truck. “Don’t we need waders?”
“Nope. I’m practicing my hand-eye coordination, and you’re just learning. Where we’re going there aren’t any trees for your line to get snagged on. And be careful with the tackle box—it has our water in it . . . and lunch.”
Scott led Drew around the edge of the lake until they reached a bank of large angular rocks that controlled erosion. It was a good hundred yards from where he’d been casting yesterday. “Like I said, nothing here to get your fly caught on . . . unless you hook a rock.”
He spent the next half hour taking Drew through the basics of fly fishing and managing the line. “You sure you haven’t done this before?”
“A couple of times . . . TJ likes to fly fish, and he tried to show me.”
“You learned more than you thought,” Scott said. That or the boy was a natural. “Are you two good friends?”
“He’s my best friend. TJ doesn’t act like the sheriff’s son at all.” Drew’s face turned beet-red. “I mean, he doesn’t do bad stuff, he just . . .”
“He’s a regular guy?”
“Yeah!” Relief showed in his face.
“Well, I’m glad you have a good friend, someone to hang out with and talk to.” Scott pointed to a log about forty feet from shore. “See if you can land your fly in front of the log.”
Drew’s fly overshot the log. Scott took his time, concentrating on where he wanted to put the fly before casting. When it landed way right, he ground his teeth. A baby could’ve done better than that. How long was it going to take him to gain accuracy with his left hand?
“Dude, you missed it by a mile. Have you tried using your right hand?”
“No.” Scott rolled his shoulders, trying to release tension. “The muscles in my right shoulder and my hand don’t work right, and it looks like they never will. The physical therapist thought fly fishing with my left hand would be a good way to gain accuracy.”
“Don’t think it’s working.”
“Tell me about it,” he muttered. “How about a water break?”
“Sounds good—it’s getting warm here.”
Thankfully the sun ducked behind a cloud, and they found a comfortable spot on the rocks. He handed the teenager a bottled water and a pack of cheese and crackers. Scott leaned his elbow on one of the flat rocks as a boat raced by, sending ripples to the shore in its wake.
“My brother Nick and I used to go fishing when I was a lot younger than you are.”
“He the one who taught you how to fly fish?”
“Yeah.” Scott broke open the cellophane and took out a cracker, and Drew followed suit.
“He and his first wife, Angie, raised me until I got too smart for my own good.” Scott tossed a cracker to a gull that had landed near him.
He told Drew about the trouble he’d landed in when he was a teenager and ended it by saying, “By the time I was your age, I thought I didn’t need anybody, including God.
That I could handle anything that came my way.
And the alcohol numbed the pain for a while, but it always came back. ”
“That sounds like my dad.”
“Yeah. Losing your mom knocked him for a loop. Right now he’s treading water, trying to keep from going under.”
“That’s the way I feel. Any second now, I think I’m going to drown.”
“I hope you don’t follow his path.”
Drew grunted. “Tried it and all it did for me was to make me sick. Jenny about read me the riot act.”
Scott chuckled. “I can see her doing that. I wish it’d made me sick—would’ve saved me a lot of grief.”
Drew uncapped his water and chugged it. “Jenny kept me on the straight and narrow after my mom died. She was always there for me. And now . . . all I want to do is catch whoever killed her.”
The way he said it sent a chill through Scott. “That’s understandable, but if you know something that will help Ben Logan, you need to tell him.”
Drew froze, then he glared at Scott. “You said we wouldn’t talk about Jenny.”
“I don’t think I brought her name up.” Scott eyed him. “But if you want to talk about her, I’m here to listen.”
Silence answered him as Drew stared toward the lake. The boy was scared, and he didn’t trust Scott. He had to change that. “You know why I got shot?”
The boy’s head shot up. “You said you made someone mad.”
“That’s just part of it.” Scott leveled his gaze at Drew. “This is just between you and me—I’m an undercover FBI agent, or I was until I got hurt.”
Drew’s eyes widened. “You’re a—”
“Yep. I had infiltrated a motorcycle gang out West that was involved in drugs, and the operation went south when a new member from South Carolina recognized me. They meant to kill me, but my team got there in time. God and my team are the reason I’m here today.”
Scott didn’t share the part about Andy getting killed. Thinking about it all the time was hard enough, talking about it even harder.
Drew cocked his head at Scott. “I get how your team helped, but how does God figure in it?”
Scott smiled. “My team just ‘happened’ to be at the right place at the right time . . .” He touched where the bullet entered his body. “And the bullet missed an artery by millimeters.”
“Yeah, but he let you get shot.”
Drew was looking for answers. Scott floated a quick prayer before he nodded.
“Like he let your mom get cancer,” he said quietly.
The boy nodded.
“So why did I survive but your mom didn’t?
Why did she have to die so young and leave you behind?
” The boy didn’t have to ask the question—it was on his face.
Plus Scott had the same question for months after Andy died.
“I don’t know. It’s the same question I ask when people I care about die.
When my mom died, I was so angry at God I yelled at him. ”
“You?”
“A wise woman told me that I might as well since he already knows,” Scott said with a smile. “After that, I learned that this life isn’t the end, there’s a life beyond what we know, and your mom is experiencing that life now. And God’s watching over both of us.”
“What about your arm—what if it doesn’t get better?”
He nodded at the fly rod. “I’m working on shooting proficiently with my left hand.”
Drew jutted his chin. “Why doesn’t he just heal you? What if you never learn how to use your left hand? And your right one doesn’t get stronger?”
“Then he has another plan for me, even better than the one I envision.”
The teenager looked doubtful.
“God is big enough to handle anything, even our disappointments. Besides, even though I’m injured, I’m still pretty good at my job.” Scott held Drew’s gaze. “Good enough to keep you safe if you want to talk about Jenny.”