Chapter 21
Lucas
There’s only one way the location of that body is known to anyone but Reeves and me. Reeves told Hugo Navarre.
And he must’ve told him recently, too, because Hugo didn’t seem to know the other day outside of Fallon’s shop.
Drew is in the area. I knew it from my second day back in Shelburne Falls, and I will never deny my gut again. I knew it.
Maybe Hugo’s bluffing. To get me to leave. To make a mistake. But it’s best to assume he’s not.
“He’ll leave you alone if you give him the building,” Farrow tells me. “He wants to meet.”
Raking my hand through my hair, I shake my head. So blackmail, it is, then. I’m almost impressed. He could just kill me.
Maybe I should be warier of Farrow. He could do it easily right now.
But then, who knows what happens to the building if I die? They want the deed.
“Where?” I ask.
“He’s on Rivertown’s roof.” He looks away and back again, shifting uncomfortably.
Fucking great. Right here near all the people I care about, shielded by the chaos of the BBQ Crawl.
I walk for my car, Farrow matching my stride. I’m happy that Quinn is safe back there with her family, at least.
“Is there someone buried in River Hill Tunnel?” Farrow asks.
One of the hedges next to us rustles, and I glance down, seeing a bird pop out.
Is there someone buried? Does Farrow even care?
I have no illusions that he saw some shit long before I came along.
“No,” I state quickly, surprising myself. I stop next to the Mustang and dig out my keys. “There’s someone buried outside of it.”
I don’t look at him, and I don’t know why I told him. Do I trust him? Kind of. But for no good reason, that’s for sure. He wants Green Street. That’s what he told me the night I found out he bought my house.
He won’t want to clean up Weston any more than Hugo, and he could see me as just as much of a threat as his boss.
I’m just worn out on lying. And something tells me he cares about the same people I do.
He studies me. “Why don’t you just give him Green Street?”
“Should I?” I ask.
Is that what he wants?
He falls silent and then twists his lips in disgust. “No. Quinn doesn’t deserve a coward.”
“And why would ridding myself of Green Street make me a coward?”
“Because you’d simply be shifting responsibility from yourself to Madoc Caruthers,” he points out. “Hugo will become his problem then.”
Exactly. I’m glad he agrees. I can get Green Street off my back in a second, but what then? I’m not leaving the people I care about to face the mess I made.
The hair on the back of my neck rises, feeling like we’re being watched. But when I look behind me, there’s no one.
Fucking Drew is around somewhere. I know it.
“So…” I face him again, swallowing. “I shut it down then,” I announce. “Or sell it.”
Farrow looks away. “You do what you want.”
I almost fucking smile. I can see right through him.
He wants the building. That was Hugo he was speaking to that night at the gym while Noah and Quinn were jogging. He wants Hugo’s position.
Yeah, I trust him. But only a little.
“Do you have to pay?” I clench my teeth. “Or do you get it for free from the girls you turn out?”
He smiles through his sneer. “We supply men too. We’ve expanded since your day.”
I yank open the car door and climb in, and he leans down, peering through the open window.
Staring ahead at Madoc’s house, I smell the grill firing up and hear the music.
“I just couldn’t…accept what it became,” I tell him.
“What Drew Reeves turned it into. It was a social club, you know? We found this cheap property, and there were no cops around. I thought we were going to bring in other guys who liked to snowboard in the winter and be lake bums in the summer. We’d drink and have block parties.
” I meet his eyes. “Maybe network when we all settled into careers. Start businesses in the area and get the town running again. Maybe host a wet T-shirt contest to raise money for the kids or something.”
“As you do.”
I laugh. “Exactly.”
But then my face falls, remembering the fights and the blood and the looks in people’s eyes like they were sorry we ever came.
“The girls, the weapons…” I murmur. “Trafficking drugs is no less than a ten-year sentence, kid. For a first offense.”
“And murder is life.”
Yeah.
“I got in over my head,” I admit, “because I had it in my mind that Madoc had filled in as a father long enough, so I tried to make my own family, and I fucked up.”
“You only see it that way because you had something better,” he retorts.
His words make me pause, guilt creeping in over having all the privileges that others didn’t. I get what he’s saying. What he has in Green Street is worth saving to him, because to him, it is a family in some ways.
But in the end, it’s a downward spiral that leads to nowhere good. Not once. Not ever.
I steady my voice as I plainly state, “Anything else is better for you to the people who love you, Farrow.”
There’s someone who loves him and doesn’t want this for him.
I should’ve stayed. I could’ve put all of my energy into finding a way to make amends. I made the wrong choice.
I start the car. “I liked some of it, though,” I muse. “I liked feeling tall. I liked girls who wanted a college boy. I liked how dark the town got at night. Cruising the hills. Phalen’s Throat. The car graveyard.”
We did have some fun.
I grin a little. “I liked that no one I loved knew about my secret life, as if nothing was real. For a while.” I fix my eyes on him. “But it was just a fantasy.”
Everything ends, and there’s always a price.
He stares at me, and I know he’s not burdened with the same type of conscience. His father, whoever he is, is a very wealthy man who would never deny him. Farrow doesn’t have to be here, but I know why he is. I understand his loyalty.
Still, though, it’s a choice. He’s a guy with options preying on those who don’t have any. Just like Reeves.
I think he’s going to reply, but he doesn’t, and I shift the car into Reverse.
But he calls out, “It wasn’t because you were in college.”
I glance at him, seeing the twinkle in his eye.
“They like blonds,” he says.
Walking away, he stuffs his own blond head into a helmet, but I can feel the gleam in his eyes from here.
I don’t want to like him.
I wish I didn’t.
Much the same way I used to like Drew. Until I didn’t.
“Someone’s going to die,” Drew warned.
The hint of excitement in his gaze told me that he was up for the challenge.
I was almost breathless. “Don’t worry. I’ll save you.”
I looked at him, and he looked at me as the old, rusty car rolled into the pond, both of us locked into our seatbelts.
“And if I chicken out first and still don’t keep my end of the bargain?”
“Then I’ll go to Madoc,” I warned him. “After I burn it all down around you.”
He could never resist a dare. Maybe I couldn’t either. We wouldn’t fight. There would be no guns. I simply had to stay in my seat the longest as the car sank to the bottom.
The water fills the space around us, rising up our legs. He turns to me. “You would risk killing me to end Green Street?”
The shock of the cold water made me suck in a breath. “And you thought I was a lamb,” I scoffed.
The car started to go bottom-up, plunging, and we planted our hands on the dash, watching each other for any signs of retreat.
The water hit our chest. “I’ll miss you,” he told me.
I smiled. “Yes, you will.”
Drawing in one last breath, I got ready to sink, but then I heard it.
The pounding and screaming coming from the trunk.
I flex my jaw, that familiar roil through my stomach making the bile rise.
I could’ve gotten out of a murder charge.
Maybe even a manslaughter charge. But I would never forget what happened.
Of that, I was always going to be a prisoner.
The horror of the moment when you realize that you’re never going to be the same, and you can’t undo what you did.
God, Drew knew me so well. I didn’t know him at all.
How could I not have understood that someone who had boundaries could never beat someone who had none?
I still can’t believe I was stupid enough to challenge him like that, thinking I would ever win.
He didn’t follow rules. He would make sure he succeeded, even if he had to cheat.
I speed to town, knowing the police have their hands full elsewhere. Farrow trails me on his motorcycle, and there are a couple of other cars behind him. The traffic tonight will be heavy everywhere as people move from one party to another.
Cruising past High Street, I see the lane blocked up with barriers, tables, vendors, and people slowly filling the space under the street lights.
They dance and drink, firecrackers going off as sparklers light up the air.
Far off, a firework whistles into the sky.
I don’t see the pop overhead, but I hear the fizzle as it dissipates somewhere.
I park along a side street and get out of the car, noticing the tail-end of another Mustang, like Dylan’s, turning and disappearing down another block.
I shake my head. She was in the pool with her family ten minutes ago. It can’t be her.
Farrow strides up to my side, and we turn at Frosted, heading past Rivertown.
“I think they’re gonna set off the city fireworks early,” Farrow says. “Rain’s coming.”
All the more reason to make this quick. We won’t be in the dark for long. “Where are they again?” I ask him.
“On the roof.”
We cut down the next street, pulling down the ladder to the fire escape. Chills prick the back of my neck again, and I look behind me, searching for someone following us. High Street practically vibrates under my shoes, laughter and liquor flowing in equal measure.
No one’s looking at me, though.
I shake it off. “How many of them are there?”
“Just Hugo and a couple of his lackeys.”
I side-eye him. “Isn’t that what you are?”
He could be leading me into a trap, but if there’s any chance to settle this on my own, I’m taking it.