Chapter 38 #2
“Bad men don’t bother with atonement,” Liam said. “I promise you Ivan doesn’t worry about that. You are not your brother. You saved Amelia’s life. You could’ve left her at Dauer’s, but you didn’t. I’m not stupid, Emory. It wasn’t opportunistic heroism, was it?”
Liam cast a pointed look at Emory, the answer already in hand, it seemed, but some things needed to be said out loud.
Emory shook his head. “It was more complicated than that.”
“Then tell me. Why her?”
A nervous breath passed Emory’s lips, an overture to a story seldom told. Denial would be futile, and they were alone in the desert, the secrets they shared between them and the moon riding high.
“When I was ten, Ivan murdered our babysitter. I found him raping her dead body in the woods. He forced me to watch. Most of it’s a blur, but I’ve never forgotten her eyes. I thought people looked peaceful when they died. She didn’t. Even in death, she looked helpless and terrified.
“When he was done, we buried her beneath dead leaves. The whole time I felt like I was erasing her. On the way back home, Ivan kept saying, ‘You and I, we did this,’ like it bound us in some unbreakable way. She wasn’t found for months, basically bones by then.
I wasn’t responsible for her death, but I felt responsible for her disappearance.
If I hadn’t covered her body so well, maybe they would’ve found her sooner.
“At the party, I knew Amelia was in danger even before the killing began. I had my chance to get out, but I saw her on the ground, just lying there amongst the dead. I thought she was dead too, but then she opened her eyes and looked just as terrified and helpless as the girl in the woods.”
Emory swallowed hard to dismiss the lump in his throat and, with a deep breath, drank in the cool air.
“I can’t change the past but thought maybe I could atone for the time I’d been too late, done too little, played a part in erasing someone else. I know a singular moment of morality doesn’t pay for a lifetime of sins. The debt doesn’t work that way, but she wasn’t dead, and I couldn’t leave her.”
Emory leaned against the wall and stared up at the sky dusted with stars. When he spoke again, it wasn’t to Liam. If something up above was listening, he hoped it might hear him.
“I just want her back.”
“You’re in love with her,” Liam said plainly and didn’t bother spinning it into a question. There wasn’t much need.
“Yes,” Emory whispered, the confession aching in his chest, and he’d gladly give his next heartbeat to turn back time. If only he’d told her sooner, it might not have happened.
Liam rested a hand on his shoulder with a slight pressure that encouraged Emory to face him.
“I always wanted a son and prayed he’d be half the man you are,” Liam said, his eyes glistening in the moonlight.
“Then you came along. A son to me, a good man, more than this world deserves. You were never meant to claim my legacy. I realize that now, and I’m sorry I ever asked you to.
Once Ivan’s gone and the war is over, I’m setting you free. ”
Emory laughed. “You say that now.”
Liam didn’t hold his sentimental musings well. Like too much whiskey, they went to his head.
“I mean it. You want your freedom or not?”
“The oath I took…”
Liam snorted and stubbed his cigar against the wall.
“That oath is meant to keep shit-stirrers in line. ‘Lose your way, you lose your head.’ Not you. You,” he said and pointed his smoldering cigar at Emory, “you are the exception. I brought you into this. I’ll find you a way out.”
Emory searched Liam’s face for a bluff, but the fervor had already started with the promise of freedom, and his head swam with a flood of questions. There’d have to be plans, contingencies, a way to do it safely.
“How though?” Emory asked because so often his dreams orbited just out of reach. Until it was in his hands, he wouldn’t trust it. “It’s not that simple. What would I tell the others?”
“I never said it’d be simple, and there’s a catch, of course. I need you to lead this organization through war. Once we put things to rights, I will build you an off-ramp. You’ll be the hero I put to pasture. That’s how we’ll sell it to the others.”
Liam offered his hand. Deals like that existed in word first and legend later, never inked in anything real.
“You really mean it?” Emory asked and cautiously took Liam’s hand.
“My integrity lives and dies by my word. What else do any of us have if not that?”
Locked at the eyes, they shook on it and started for the diner.
Giddy in such dire times, Emory’s first instinct was to tell Amelia.
The flash of her smile lit up his thoughts, but the punishing darkness prevailed again.
She’s gone, he reminded himself as his phone rang in his pocket.
Emory dug it out and stumbled to a stop as he stared at the screen.
Dauer calling…
A flurry of activity erupted in the diner. The others hovered around Zulu battering his keyboard.
“Where is she?” Emory demanded. “You can have whatever you want. I will give you everything I have. Just give her back to me.”
A puff of breath rustled on the other end of the line.
“Little brother,” Ivan said in a slow exhale and depravity Emory remembered well—the thrill of the taunt and the chilling way he elongated his words. “Don’t speak. Just listen.”
Emory’s pounding heart plummeted to his stomach and cold sweat slicked his brow. Dizzy on his feet, his vision blurred at the edges. Through the window, Pete gestured to Emory with a twirl of his finger. Keep him on the line.
“Remember that day in the woods, Emory? I’ve never felt closer to you, more proud to share your blood. She can bring us together again, just like that day. I want to be close to you. I want to taste what you’ve tasted, feel what you’ve felt.”
Ignited with sterling hatred, Emory’s knuckles popped as his hands curled into trembling fists.
“Where is she, you fucking psycho? I will tear you apart!” he raged, but the call had already ended.
Emory froze with the phone to his ear. The world moved around him, a million miles an hour or more as he stared in a daze at the screen. He palmed the outside wall to steady himself as grief slackened his frame and saliva filled his mouth. He’d be sick soon.
Inside the diner, Zulu shoved pieces of equipment into bags, and Jack tossed cash to the table. Pete bolted out the door with Corey hastening behind.
“Got it!” Pete hollered and sprinted for the car. “We got a location.”
The numbness dissipated and left Emory unsteady on his feet. He removed himself from the wall as the other men hustled from the diner.
He turned to Liam, who smiled softly and said, “Let’s find those calm seas.”