Chapter Eight #2
“Good to know,” Spade said. “I thought maybe it meant money. Glad I asked.” He flipped to another page. Some names had little triangles next to them. “Those?”
“Police,” I said. I recognized one of the names.
“Or anyone he thought might be a cop or connected to them. Triangles were ‘watch your back but keep talking.’ Stars meant ‘shut up and run.’ I only know that last one because I heard him mumbling to himself one of the times he was scribbling in his notebook.”
Spade’s fingers tapped across the keyboard while I explained. “These initials caught my attention,” he said, highlighting a line on screen: 11/5 -- CD says move drop to South dock. RK pissed.
“CD,” I said. “I think that’s Carlos Diaz. My brother mentioned him a few times.”
“Yeah,” Spade said. “What about ‘South dock’?”
“That’s probably the old warehouse near the river,” I said. “Jason used to take me down there when we were kids. He’d fish off the pier while I read library books. He said it belonged to some ‘friends of the family’ but we never saw anyone.”
Kane rested his hand on the back of my chair. “That near the industrial park?”
“Other side of town. Same idea.” Spade pulled up a map on the second screen and typed.
The location popped up with a pin. He zoomed out.
More pins marked other spots. All around our area.
“Diaz used this warehouse as a transfer point. Or he did when Jason wrote this. We don’t know if he still does.
But having a cluster of activity around a place tells you where the bones are buried. ”
“Those triangles.” I pointed to several marks along the margins near certain dates. “He saw cops around those hits. Or thought he did.”
“Helpful.” Spade nodded. “He basically handed me a blueprint and a cop radar.”
I swallowed hard. “Jason would play detective when we were kids, setting up crime scenes with my stuffed animals. He turned his games into something real.”
Spade glanced up from the screen. “You holding up?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I can push through.”
He nodded, accepting my answer as correct.
We examined each page methodically. Spade questioned while I decoded my brother’s system.
Small circles indicated cash-only drops. A tiny skull doodled beside names warned “this person terrifies even me.” Checkmarks marked trustworthy contacts. Squiggles next to dates signaled operations gone sideways.
With every explanation, Jason’s world grew clearer on the screen.
It hurt.
It helped.
“They used fronts near your diner,” Spade said, pointing to a name. “You recognize this?”
I leaned closer. “That’s the pawn shop two blocks over. I’ve seen the owner standing outside smoking. He’d talk to whoever came in or out. I had to pass there on the way to work.”
“That lines up,” Spade said. “Diaz likes pawn shops. Laundering. Collateral. I can work with this.”
After an hour, my head felt full and heavy. My back ached from leaning forward. My throat burned from talking.
“We can stop,” Kane offered. “You look wrung out.”
“Two more pages,” Spade said.
“Spade,” Kane warned.
“Fine,” Spade relented. “One more page. Then she can eat.”
I laughed in spite of myself. We worked through another set. At the bottom of one page, Jason had doodled something that looked like a cartoon bomb. Under it, he had written: insurance if I die. JF + key.
“What key?” Spade muttered.
“Maybe the one I found after he was locked up? He’d sent a note about it. I found the key, and that’s what led me to the flash drive.”
“Could be. Right now, all we can do is guess,” Spade said. “Or maybe he hid a physical key somewhere. Either way, we have this. It’s more than we had a week ago.”
He closed the window and sat back. “Go. Eat. Breathe. I’ll yell when I need you again.”
“That’s your way of saying thank you, right?” I asked.
He smirked. “Pretty much.”
Kane guided me out with a hand on my lower back. The touch felt natural now.
“You okay?” he asked as we walked down the hall.
“Yes. No. Maybe. I keep expecting to turn corners and see Jason standing there. Notebook clutched in one hand, coffee mug in the other, grinning as though everything remained fine.” My voice cracked. “Then reality hits me -- where he ended up. The crimes he committed.”
Kane stayed quiet for a moment. “You still love him.”
“Yeah.” The word scraped my throat raw. “My brother acted selfishly. Thoughtlessly. A complete asshole through and through. But he belongs to me. My idiot brother.” I swallowed hard. “I hate him. I miss him. The emotions pile up, contradicting yet coexisting.”
“You’re allowed.”
“I keep thinking if I had pushed harder,” I said. “If I had called the cops sooner. If I had told him to fuck off… or if I’d known he was taking out loans, maybe he wouldn’t have spiraled so far down.”
“Or maybe he would have done it faster,” Kane said. “You did what you could with the information you had. He made his choices. So did the men above him. You refusing to carry their weight doesn’t mean you love him less.”
“I am tired of carrying men,” I muttered.
Kane snorted. “Then let us carry you for a while.”
The idea scared me more than Roth or Diaz. I still liked it.
By midday, the sun had driven off most of the chill. Someone had dragged a couple of picnic tables closer to the little playground so the kids could run while the adults ate. Men moved between yard and shop and gate. Engines rumbled. A radio near the garage played low rock.
Kane took me back to the range behind the shop. “Ready for round two?” he asked.
I looked at the targets. At the berm. At the gun in his hand.
The memory of my first shot lingered in my bones. The noise. The kick. Power surged up my arms and into my chest. I enjoyed the sensation.
Fear accompanied my enjoyment, though. Finding pleasure in such raw force reminded me too much of the gleam I’d seen in Roth’s eyes when he’d threatened me. He seemed like the type to enjoy inflicting pain.
“I want to,” I told Kane.
“We can take our time. Slow and steady wins.” Kane presented the pistol once more.
He checked the chamber, verified the magazine, and made sure I observed every motion. No rushing. No distracting jokes. The weapon received his full attention as a serious, everyday tool.
“Same rules as before,” he said. “Muzzle downrange. Finger indexed until you’re ready. You control the gun. Not the other way around.”
“Okay,” I said.
He helped me adjust my stance again. Feet planted. Knees soft. Weight forward. Both hands on the grip.
My mind didn’t scream quite as loudly.
“Good.” His voice stayed low. Calm. “You remember the sights?”
“Equal height, equal light,” I said. “Front post where I want the bullet.”
“Exactly. Breath in. Let half out. Squeeze slow.”
He loaded the mag and racked the slide. The sound still made my shoulders tense but not like before.
“You’re live,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I raised the gun. Sighted on the center of the paper silhouette. Breath in. Out. My arms trembled a little. Not enough to throw off the aim.
Finger moved from frame to trigger. I expected the panic to spike. It rose. It did not swallow me.
“One,” I whispered to myself. “Two. Three.” I squeezed.
The shot cracked through the air. My shoulders jerked, but I held my stance. The smell of gunpowder wrapped around me.
The hole appeared just left of center mass. “I did that,” I breathed.
“You did,” Kane said. Pride warmed his voice. “Again.”
We worked through the mag. Ten rounds. Each shot easier than the last. Two drifted high. One went wide. The rest clustered around the heart of the silhouette.
When the slide locked back, I lowered the gun, breathing hard. Not from exertion. From adrenaline. “That felt… good.”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Scary,” I said. “But good. Like I was the one deciding something instead of waiting for someone else to pull the trigger.”
He stepped in front of me and gently took the pistol. Cleared it. Set it aside. “Look at me.”
I raised my eyes.
Kane’s gaze locked with mine. “You’re deciding. About shooting. About staying. About me. Every day you make choices. You act instead of react. Men such as Roth and Diaz fear when people they considered puppets cut their strings.”
My throat burned. “Do you always turn philosophical after I shoot?”
“Pretty much,” he said with a half-smile. “Ask Spade or General. Guns bring out my inner poet.”
I laughed and wiped my eyes with the back of my wrist.
He walked downrange to pull the target. I watched his shoulders move under his cut, the way his jeans clung to his legs, the casual confidence in his stride. Mine, I thought.
The word startled me. Never before had I called anyone mine.
He came back and held the target up. “Look.”
I had.
He drew a little heart around the cluster. “He is having a very bad day.”
“Good,” I said.
He rolled the cardboard and propped it against the table. “You want to keep going? We can run another mag. Or stop here.”
My arms felt a little shaky. My head buzzed. “Enough for today. I don’t want to push it and freak out.”
“Smart,” he said. “We’ll come back tomorrow. Or whenever you feel ready.”
“When do I get my own?” I nodded at the gun.
His eyebrows rose. “Your own what?”
“Gun. You said we’d talk to Atilla.”
A slow, pleased smile curved his mouth. “You sure you want to carry?”
“If they come for me, I want something in my hand besides fear.”
Kane nodded. “We’ll get you fitted, then. The armory holds a few nine mils which might suit you better. Smaller grip. Lighter slide. You can try several until one feels perfect.”
“A wand chooses the wizard,” I blurted, then felt my cheeks warm.
He grinned. “We really need to get you a library card again.”
“You offering to take me on a date to the library?” I asked.
“Baby, I would buy you all the library cards,” he said.
Baby. My stomach did a little flip.