Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Nysa
Some days, I miss my old, nomad life. Drifting from one vineyard to the next, checking on crops, tasting wine—it was simple, predictable, and a hell of a lot more enjoyable than pretending to be fine while a bunch of strangers hammer my house back together.
“It’s free,” they say. “The agency is covering it.” Which agency? Who the hell knows. Are we talking FBI, CIA . . . is there any other? I remember Hopper saying that his brother is no longer working for the FBI, so then who?
Next Monday, the equipment to fix my land arrives. They tell me I should start planting crops. That I should put down roots. For what? Maybe tomorrow, I’ll be gone again. Or dead. Again, this is paid for by the agency.
But which one?
They refuse to tell me who’s paying for all the things that are being fixed on my property. It’s been two weeks since they moved out, Hopper moved back into his house, and I am wondering what to do with my future.
Do I even have a future? Okay, maybe the part where I’ll be dead is a little fatalistic, but this doesn’t feel safe. Malerick swears they’ve got it under control. Whoever buried the bodies believes the investigation has moved to another state. How do they know?
Nobody thinks the killers are still in town.
But I do, and that should be enough.
When I told Malerick I should just leave, he leveled me with a glare that cut straight through any argument I had and told me I’d be putting myself in even more danger. He has no jurisdiction outside Birchwood Springs.
Here, he can protect me. Out there? I’m on my own. But can he, really?
I should think about Maddie and Hopper, he said. It’d be cruel to make them live in fear. Also, Hopper doesn’t have a babysitter. I need to help him.
Malerick had a good argument. Of course, he won. If this sheriff thing doesn’t work, he can try becoming a lawyer.
Though, the real question is, when did Hopper and Maddie become my Achilles’ heel?
Since it’s Saturday and I’m stalling before heading to the bookstore, I fire off a text to Atlas. Mostly to check in, but also to let him know his brothers are—relatively—okay. Better than he thinks, at least.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and I barely get a word out before his voice slices through the line. “What the fuck do you mean, you’re babysitting my niece?”
I smirk, lifting the phone to my ear. “Well, hello to you too.” Then I ask, “Since when do you answer calls instead of texting?”
“Since you’re telling me you’re back in fucking Birchwood Springs babysitting Maddie,” he grinds out. “Last I checked, Hopper doesn’t let anyone near her. No one.”
“Well, let me tell you that Maddie and I are close,” I gloat. “I might even be her favorite.”
“That brings me to the bigger issue: what the fuck are you doing there?”
His voice drops, rough and angry, the kind of tone that says he’s barely holding it together. “They ran you out with a goddamn gun, Nys. You almost died. Do you think staying there is smart? You need to get the fuck out. I’ll send you money for a plane ticket. Come to Seattle. It’s nice and fucking cloudy.”
“It’s always cloudy,” I retort, then ask, “You making some kind of guest appearance over there?”
“Actually, I’m living here. A friend of mine, Sanford Bancroft, is renting me a spot in his parlor, up in Luna Harbor for the weekends,” he says, dropping the name of the bassist from Too Far From Grace like it’s casual. I forget sometimes that he runs in those circles, that people actively seek him out for tattoos.
“And on weekdays?”
“I work at Ink Art Gallery. By appointment only,” he responds. “That’s here in Seattle. I live in an apartment upstairs.”
“And the comics?”
“I’m still working on them. But, you know, survival comes first. Either I tattoo and eat, or I write comics and starve.”
“You could live here,” I say, only half-joking because he can’t stand this town—and his brothers.
He snorts. “I’m just waiting for my brothers to sell Old Birchwood Timber. I’ll get my cut, and I’ll be out.”
I pause. “You’re getting a cut? Therese Smith left you money?”
“She liked me,” he says, voice flat. “Unlike my father, who ignored me, or my asshole brothers, who hated me.”
The bitterness in his tone punches through my ribs. My heart withers.
“She was decent to me, you know. Even at the end, she treated me almost like her son,” he continues. “Those assholes . . . I just need them to pay me what I’m owed, and I’ll pretend they don’t exist.”
I swallow the knot in my throat. His mom died when he was too young. I remember how he used to wish for a grandmother like mine—someone who would love and take care of him. Instead of living with his father and his family where he was always reminded that he was a bastard. My grandmother did as much as she could.
“Hopper isn’t as bad as you think,” I say.
He scoffs. “Nys, tell me you’re not falling for that asshole.”
My stomach clenches. “That’s not?—”
“It’s like you forgot everything. You saw them. Stay away from him. As a matter of fact, leave. Right now. Do I need to hop on a plane and drag you out of there?”
If I could I would, and maybe I should take his offer. However . . . I know better. “Technically, I can’t leave.”
Silence. Then, a low, dangerous growl. “What the hell did you do now?”
I tell him. Everything. From the night I arrived until now.
Atlas already knows why I left town, so it doesn’t shock him to hear that the same people tried to scare me away again. He understands why I came back.
His breathing changes. “My brother is using you as bait?”
“No, it’s?—”
“He is,” he cuts me off, voice dark and vibrating with rage. “This isn’t just some small-town crime drama, Nys. This is real. This is fucking dangerous.”
I exhale slowly. “It’s not?—”
“Bullshit.” His voice sharpens. “This isn’t right. I’ll— I’ll figure something out.”
“You don’t have to.”
“The fuck I don’t, Nys. You’re dealing with the Timberassholes. We’re the worst parts of humanity—them more than me.”
The line goes quiet, and I know he’s already thinking up a plan.
I just don’t know if it’ll make things better . . . or worse.
Stick to the plan, I tell myself, don’t listen to Atlas, but it’s hard. He knows them. What if Malerick is really just using me? Using all of us? I know Ledger and Galeana are coming back soon. He doesn’t care if she’s in danger too.
Mal swears everything will be fine. Sure, the sheriff’s department, the FBI, or any of the other agencies that have been crawling all over Birchwood Springs for the past few weeks, say the danger has passed.
The case has been closed. The bodies identified. The investigation moved to another state. Which means I don’t have to worry anymore—but I do.
Is Atlas right?
“Listen, I don’t think he would put me or your siblings in danger,” I state.
“Siblings? Who else is there?” he asks.
“Ledger. He arrived with his wife a few days ago,” I state, though I haven’t seen them. I’ve yet to meet his wife, though everyone who’s been at the bookstore says she’s really nice.
“He’s fucking married?” He scoffs. “I just needed him to sell the company, not to . . . is he moving there? Fuck. I swear I’m going to kill them.”
“Murder is punishable by law,” I remind him, half-joking.
“Listen, I’ll be there soon, and you stay away from them, you hear me?” he states. “If they hurt you, I will hurt them back—and they will. They’re not nice, Nys.”
But he’s wrong. I understand that they hurt him, but they’re not the same people, are they?