CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The streetlamps gave Conor a clear view of Angel’s garage.
He stood in the bed of the truck and surveyed the street, thinking he should bang on the back window of the cab and yell for the kid to stop and drop him off in the alley, but the whole street was empty.
None of Barry’s or Duck’s guys were hanging around.
No strange cars were in sight. The only thing out of place was Angel’s Camaro parked by the front door.
He looked at his watch. His dad was supposed to pick him up two hours ago, but there sat the Camaro.
What was it doing here? And where was his dad? He knocked on the pickup’s back window.
“This is good,” he said. The truck rolled to a halt. He jumped out of the pickup bed, walked to the driver’s window, and gave the teenage boy a fist bump. “Thanks for the ride,” he said.
The kid nodded. “Sure. Have a good night.”
Conor watched the truck drive away. He hiked the backpack up on his shoulders and walked toward Angel’s garage with his head on a swivel.
His gaze kept getting pulled back to the Camaro.
If his dad had gone on a bender, it would be parked at a bar, not here.
Halfway through the parking lot, he stopped and reached in his pocket.
He pulled out the set of keys that Angel had given him when he drove to Massey to find Julia.
He had the paintings. He had the keys to the Camaro.
And the car was right here, waiting for him.
Something was telling him to drive away, to put distance between himself and everyone else.
Once he was clear, he could call Angel to make sure nothing had gone wrong.
It made the best sense. It was too quiet. Too many things were lining up wrong.
He put his head down and walked toward the Camaro, stepping around a puddle in the parking lot. The sweet, metallic smell of radiator fluid wafted over him. He walked to the driver’s side and stopped.
The whole front end of the Camaro was wrecked. This car was going nowhere.
Conor fumed. So that’s what happened. His dad had gotten wasted and cracked up the car. He was probably inside right now, sleeping it off.
And Angel’s probably driving around looking for me, thought Conor, shaking his head as he walked to the front door. He tried to turn the doorknob. It was locked. He knocked, waited, and knocked again. Footsteps thumped toward him. The door flew open.
“Get in here,” Julia said, pulling him inside.
He didn’t get a chance to say a word as she dragged him to the restroom. His dad hugged the toilet bowl, retching. It smelled like someone poured a case of cheap vodka on the floor. Conor took off his backpack.
“How long’s he been like this?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Julia. “He crashed Angel’s car out front a couple hours after you left. There was an empty bottle of vodka with him. He’s been doing nothing but passing out and throwing up since. I tried to get some aspirin in him, but he can’t hold anything down. I don’t know what to do.”
Conor stood over his dad. “Little sick, huh?”
His dad raised his head out of the toilet. “I didin say nuffin.”
“And he keeps saying that,” said Julia. “‘I didn’t say nothing.’ Took me an hour to figure it out. What does that mean?”
Conor backed out of the bathroom. “It means he’s drunk.” He shook his head. “Go make some coffee while I throw him in the shower.”
His dad could walk. Not perfectly, but he managed.
Conor put him in the shower, found a clean pair of Angel’s coveralls, hung them on the towel rack, and then sat on the toilet, watching to make sure his dad didn’t slip and kill himself.
Once he got the money from Angel, he was leaving with Julia for good. This bullshit was over.
After his dad was cleaned up and dressed, he led him into Angel’s office and shoved a hot cup of coffee in his hands.
Then he went out in the hall, grabbed his backpack, and went back into the office, closing the door.
Julia eyed him from her seat on the front of Angel’s desk, sipping coffee. His dad sat on the couch.
“So, where’s Angel? Driving around looking for me because you’re a drunk?” he said, looking at his dad.
His dad took a big gulp of his coffee. “I din’t...say anything,” he said, slowly and deliberately, his hands shaking.
Julia put her coffee cup on the desk. “You should sit down, Conor.”
Conor set the backpack on the floor. “Just tell me where I can find Angel. We need to get our money and get out of here.”
“I did nah tell him anyfing,” said his dad.
Conor scowled at his dad. “Shut up.”
“Sully’s dead,” said Julia.
Conor straightened. “What?”
“Me and Angel went to see him. He hanged himself.”
Mickey lowered his head. “No,” he moaned.
“We just saw him yesterday,” said Conor. “He was fine.”
Julia walked over to Conor. She put her hands on his shoulders. “I know. And I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Conor. “Why would he do that?”
“He left a note,” said Julia.
“I did nah tell him,” said Conor’s dad. “Nuffffing.”
“Stop it,” yelled Conor, pointing at his father. He walked over and smacked the coffee mug out of his father’s hands. It flew across the room and shattered against a wall.
“I didn’t,” said his father.
Conor turned his back on him. “What did the note say?” he asked.
Julia looked at the broken coffee cup. “I don’t know,” she said. “Angel has it. He read it, then he dropped me off and said he had to take care of something.”
“Where did he go?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t say. But he seemed different.”
“What do you mean, ‘different?’”
She took a deep breath, thinking hard, and then exhaled. “Like...worried...or scared.”
Tires squealed out front. An engine revved in the parking lot. Conor looked at Julia. He whispered, “Stay here,” and slipped out the office door, closing it behind him.
He crept through the garage. The engine revving stopped, but he could hear someone yell, “Now get the hell off my truck,” followed by the sound of a thud. He peeked through the blinds. His blood went cold.
Angel was lying in a heap on the asphalt behind a pickup truck.
A man was in the bed of the pickup, pushing Angel’s motorcycle out.
The motorcycle tipped over the opened tailgate.
It fell on its side in the parking lot, right next to Angel.
One more foot and it would’ve crushed Angel’s head.
The man in the truck straightened, looking over his handiwork.
It was Joe Cracker Jones. Conor had seen enough of him on the Internet to know.
All muscle and vein and sharp bone and bad haircut wrapped up in a squinty-eyed package.
His nose was swollen, and his face was bruised, but he didn’t move like he was hurt.
He brimmed with power as he raised his gaze and stared at the garage, seemingly straight through the blinds at Conor.
When Cracker finally looked away, Conor realized he hadn’t taken a breath. He pulled in a lungful of air, watching Cracker jump off the bed, get in his truck, and drive away.
Conor looked at his hands. They were trembling.
He walked outside, peering down the street.
The brake lights on Cracker’s truck brightened three blocks away, then disappeared as the truck took a right.
Conor stared at the empty street. Maybe Cracker saw him.
Maybe he was circling back right now. Conor looked at Angel, then back down the street.
Let him come.
He went to Angel, sat on the pavement next to him, and cradled Angel’s head in his lap.
It could’ve been seconds or hours later when Julia showed up.
Conor had no concept of time. All he could do was hold Angel and marvel at the damage Joe Cracker Jones had done.
Angel’s face was smashed, his hands broken, his eyes swollen shut.
Blood was splattered over every part of him. Julia touched Conor’s shoulder.
“I called an ambulance,” she said.
Conor stroked Angel’s forehead. “Hang in there, Angel. It’s gonna be okay.”
Angel stirred. He opened one eye into a slit and reached for a piece of paper hanging halfway out of his pocket, trying to push it back in with broken fingers. Conor grabbed Angel’s wrist. “I’ll get it,” he said, pulling the paper out.
“No,” Angel mumbled through swollen lips. “Don’t read it.”
Conor opened the note. When he got to the part that read, “One thing’s for sure—if Conor had fought Joe Cracker Jones instead of hiding like a bitch, I’d still be here,” he knew.
This was the note from Sully’s room. Cracker had killed Sully.
He was doing what he said he would do, destroying the people Conor cared about to make him fight.
“He mayme drink. Tried to make me tell’m where you are. I said nuffin.”
Conor looked up at his father, wavering on his feet.
“Cracker made you drink?” said Conor.
“I don’t know. Sum hillwilly guy.”
“Take Julia and run, Conor,” mumbled Angel.
A black mist dropped over Conor. It sifted through his pores, filling him until he was heavy with it. It felt like cold lead ran through his veins as he turned to Julia.
“I gotta go. Watch over Angel,” he said. He waited for her to sit and hold Angel’s head in her lap before he stood. She grabbed his hand.
“Where are you going?”
Conor tried to pull away, but her grip tightened.
“Tell me what you’re going to do,” she said.
“I know the guy that did this,” he said. “I have to find him.”
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t, you’re gonna be next.
He left a note in my apartment saying he would kill everyone that mattered to me unless I fought him.
” Conor shifted his gaze from Julia to Angel, and then back to her.
“After we broke into the church, I went after the guys who put Sully in a coma. I hurt them pretty bad. One of them hired someone to kill me. I thought it wasn’t a big deal, until now. ”
The whine of an ambulance rose out of the night. Angel coughed, starting a trickle of blood from a nostril. Julia let go of Conor’s hand to wipe the blood off Angel’s face.