Laying Low
REG’S MOTHER and Dean had apparently arrived in Bakersfield the night before Reg and Anthony’s plane touched down, and Dean was the one who picked them up at the airport.
He greeted Reg with an uncharacteristically tight hug.
“Good to see you, little brother,” he muttered before taking the full tote from Reg’s hand and swinging around toward the parking lot.
The airport was small, but it was still far too big a distance for Reg to deal with Dean’s enigmatic silence after that demonstration of affection.
“What?” he asked irritably as they buckled in. It was late afternoon, and while the day had gone without a hitch (besides being grateful for the witch hazel pads—thanks, Mom!), it was still a long day to be traveling, even with, well, the love of his life.
Which he had no doubt Anthony was—not after the last three days. Or the week before that. Or the months before that, really.
“You couldn’t have told me?” Dean retorted, turning on the ignition. “Me? Of all of us, you had to tell Chance?”
Reg frowned at his brother unhappily. “Chance didn’t have any expectations,” he explained. “You would have pushed me.”
“Well, you needed to be pushed,” Dean said bitterly, and Reg was tempted to argue with him because, well, it was Dean.
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I’m trying to figure out how to take over Adelle’s classes right now, and it would be a lot easier if I’d gotten the damned degree first.”
Dean grunted. “You can’t… you know….” He waved the fingers of one hand while steering with the other. “Make that happen?”
“It’s a computer, Dean, not a magic time traveling machine!”
Dean put both hands on the wheel and shot him a sideways glance. “Are you sure about that? Now that I’ve seen your setup, I’m thinking you could pretty much make me king of an imaginary country with that thing.”
Reg snorted, and Anthony said, “He could probably make you king of a real country with that thing. And don’t think we haven’t been plotting. But you’re right. Would be a lot easier if… you know….”
And Reg was forced to say it. “I’d been brave about being smart in the first place.”
“Exactly,” Dean said, and then patted his shoulder. “But that’s okay. I’ll have lots of time to grill you about it now!”
Oh God. Apparently this would be his penance for lying to his family most of his life. He guessed he had it coming.
Reg braced himself for more uncomfortable conversation when Anthony came to his rescue. “Hey, Reg, what is this property?”
Reg glanced about, surprised to see they were passing one of those areas that made people think Bakersfield was “the middle of nowhere.” The forty-acre spread was a pile of bleached grasses and thistles, but Reg knew it had once been a little more.
“It’s the old snake reserve,” he said, and Anthony’s snort made him smile.
“No, really,” Dean added. “See, rattlesnakes are protected unless they’re threatening stock. Sometimes they’re an immediate threat, but if somebody discovers, say, a nest of them—that’s something they need help dealing with, and, well, senseless slaughter is—”
“Senseless,” Anthony supplied. “So why’s it for sale?”
“Got a better venue,” Reg told him. “There’s still a couple of buildings out in the middle of that, though. A house, actually, for the ranger who used to stay on call, and a big building for the, uhm, other occupants.”
“So, uhm, Snakeshit Acres,” Anthony murmured. “And judging by the rust on those For Sale signs, I bet it’s cheap.”
Dean made an “oolf” sound, and Reg remembered flying to the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert to retrieve his older brother that summer. They’d called that Snakeshit Acres too.
“Yeah, why?” Reg asked. “It’s been deserted for at least five, six years. What did you have in mind?”
“Mm… another branch of the business,” Anthony said absently. “A house with a loft, close to the high school where my husband teaches art. You know. The necessities of life.”
Reg almost turned around in his seat. “That’s… uhm… that’s pretty well thought out,” he said, feeling small again.
“Well, yeah. It’ll take a while,” Anthony told him, sneaking his hand out from the back to rest on Reg’s shoulder for a moment. “At least a year. Long enough, maybe, for my future husband to get used to the idea.”
“Oh,” Reg said in a small voice, but suddenly, with that lightning quick clarity he got sometimes, he could see it.
He could see Anthony’s new branch of the business on one side of the property, and his house—their home—on the other side.
He could see that he’d be close to his parents’ house, and his siblings, and the job that, now that he’d thought about it, he really wanted.
He could see himself painting on the weekends, and attending barbecues, and maybe even hosting a few, and how he could go from being a quiet presence on the periphery of the life of everybody he loved to being the center of his own life, his own family, with Anthony holding his hand, his bright and shining sun.
Both of them glowing with the promise of a future together.
“I think,” he said slowly, the idea growing thunderous like the dawn, “that’s an awesome idea.”
“Yeah?” Anthony asked, and even though he was in the back seat of the now familiar Subaru, Reg knew his voice was for Reg and Reg alone.
“Yeah,” Reg said, and he felt that sneaky hand through the seats, and he squeezed it on his shoulder, until Dean grunted in disgust and the conversation returned to how Reg was going to break the law to forge the education he should have allowed himself in the first place.
Dean, his law-abiding brother, who should have had Reg arrested for communicating with a cartel leader or, at the least, brought in for questioning for the extent of his use of the dark web, was 100 percent behind that plan.
BUT WHEN they pulled up toward the house, they saw that they weren’t yet allowed to bask in all their plans.
Three unmarked SUVs with light racks on top could be seen from the main road as they pulled up, and Dean grunted. “Okay, how do we want to play—”
“Pull around toward the mother-in-law cottage,” Reg said. “I’ve still got the key, and hopefully Connor is there with Catherine and staying out of whatever bullshit is going on inside the house.”
They all breathed an angry prayer of assent, and Dean did what Reg asked. “Be careful,” he said. “I take it you’re going to sneak into the computer room?”
“Yeah,” Reg told him, smiling grimly. “Believe it or not, I’ve got a plan.”
Dean snorted. “Duck down, guys. I don’t want anybody to go looking for you after I park. And yeah, Reg, I believe you’ve got a plan.”
Reg was huddled under the dashboard, and Anthony was lying on the floor as Dean pulled past the gate and toward the mother-in-law cottage, which sat behind the pool.
He swung around the house and pulled out his ever-present badge and the gun he kept in a lockbox under the passenger’s seat before he got out.
“Wait until you hear me identify myself,” he said. “I can buy you some time to get into the cottage.”
“Be careful,” Reg begged.
Dean winked at him as he climbed out of the SUV. “You worry too much,” he said.
Reg stayed crouched and listening through his open window.
He heard Dean shouting toward the house and could imagine his brother, gun held by two fingers on the trigger guard, ID presented in front of him, and he prayed—prayed—that the men on the other side of the guns and tactical gear didn’t decide to take Dean out because they’d gotten away with it so far.
And then he didn’t have time to think at all as he and Anthony scrambled out of the vehicle, closed the doors softly, and then sprinted toward the side door to the cottage.
Catherine didn’t even bark as Reg let himself in with his spare key, and Connor held his hand to his lips and gestured toward the kitchen and the stairs to the passage to the house.
“Wait!” he hissed. “You should know that Muffin escaped again!”
“Wonderful,” Anthony muttered. “Is this snake the friendly family pet, or is it poisonous and going to bite my face? I love that game.”
“Rattlesnakes see in the dark,” Reg said. “Or they sense in the dark. You’ll hear one before you grab it and call it Muffin.”
“Thanks, baby,” Anthony told him as they soft-footed down the stairs and crouched in the restocked room that they’d used—oh geez. Barely more than a week ago, right? “I’m grabbing an electric lamp anyway.”
“Good idea,” Reg told him earnestly. “We don’t want to scare Muffin.”
“You and that snake have an unhealthy attachment,” Anthony said, but he didn’t sound alarmed, so Reg assumed he was kidding.
“She’s a very nice snake,” Reg told him, but by now, they were almost crawling, the passage close and dark and a little damp, which meant they were by the pool. Anthony stumbled and swore, and the lamp went out.
“Shit,” Anthony said. “I banged it. I think I broke the bulb.”
“Leave it,” Reg whispered. “We’ll come back for it later.” And with that, he got on his hands and knees and, grateful they’d both put on their jeans that morning as opposed to their cargo shorts, he began to crawl.
Behind him, he could hear Anthony doing the same, and there was no more banter as they drew close enough to the house to know they could be heard if somebody was in the basement where they didn’t belong.
He moved his hand forward and stopped, repressing a sound of surprise, as a soft, cool body slithered past his fingertips.
“Hello, Muffin,” he whispered, and Anthony made the same grunt of surprise, and, Reg could admit it, mild alarm.
“Where—oh. The right.”
“Do you have her?” Reg asked anxiously. “Is she—”
“She’s, uhm, saying hello,” Anthony rasped. “Uhm, give me a minute—she’s almost up my arm.”
“Oh, poor baby. She’s missed us!”
“Yeah, Reg,” Anthony said, humor evident, even in the dark. “It’s a real Hallmark moment.”
“Just don’t lose her,” Reg told him earnestly. “I don’t want to have to tell Chance we lost her.”