Chapter 9 #2
“I’m a little short, is all. Figured I’d have it covered by now. I just need a few months. My business is so close to taking off, I can taste it. Couple more deals and I’ll be there. Then we can make bigger plans.”
When he’d heard Mackenzie’s approach, he startled like a deer, flashed her a jaunty smile, and covered the phone with his palm.
“Boring business stuff, Zee,” he’d said before he walked off to finish his call. But she’d noticed his hand was shaking as he covered the speaker.
The sneaked cigarette, the secrets, the desperation. What was Aaron willing to do to make his dreams come true? Sell drugs? Work for a man who’d polluted a community? The walls seemed to grow closer. She blinked to find Gideon had climbed out of the bunk and was facing her, arms folded.
“Was Aaron dealing, Zee?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I think you are.”
She looked away. “You don’t know what I think, so don’t pretend you do.”
“You were almost a cop. You saw the signs in your brother’s behavior, I can tell by the look on your face. You didn’t recognize them for what they were, maybe, but now you do.”
She stalked away a few steps. “So what if he was, Gideon? None of this matters anyway. My brother was murdered.”
“I know that, but it does matter.”
She whirled on him. “Why? Are you implying he deserved what he got because he might have been dealing drugs?”
“No, you’re picking a fight to derail this conversation.”
The blood rushed to her face. “I’m not derailing anything.”
“Yes, you are. Know what I think?”
She tipped up her chin. “No, do tell. What does Gideon Landry think?”
He took a breath, his words softer than a caress. “I think you feel guilty, deep down, like his death is somehow your fault because of what you saw or didn’t see. You haven’t dug into Aaron’s motivations with the same vigor you do other cases because you don’t want to know.”
She flinched. Anger felt like a live wire touching her tender skin. She burned with it as she glared at him. “Really? Well, maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe you don’t want to feel the guilt of not showing up for him.”
“I’ve got my share of guilt. Always will, both for what I didn’t do in high school and when I came home that Christmas. I’m not dumping guilt on you, Zee, that’s not what I’m after. I just want you to see what you’re doing to yourself.”
She folded her arms, not trusting herself to speak. She wished she was anywhere but here with the emotions popcorning inside and threatening to break through the thin crust of her resolve. This was about justice, nothing more or less.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “it’s hard to see the truth about people you love.
I didn’t want to acknowledge anything bad about Aaron either.
I loved him, and nothing he did or didn’t do will change that.
If he messed up, got involved with dangerous people, that was his choice. But it doesn’t have to be yours.”
Unable to face him, she stared out the window, his reflection joined with hers.
“This conversation isn’t changing anything,” she managed.
“I’m sorry my brother behaved badly during high school.
I’m sorry he might have been dealing drugs, but none of that earned him a bullet in the head.
I am going to make sure Aaron’s death wasn’t meaningless.
I’m going to destroy Bullseye. Nothing has changed. ”
She was breathing hard, trembling, fighting tears.
“But it could, Zee. You could change things.” He touched her shoulder, and she froze. She could not, would not, turn around and look at him.
“Your mission is going to get you dead. Can’t you see that?”
Face hot, she gritted her teeth. “I don’t want to die, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay.”
He squeezed her shoulder hard, his breath warm on her cheek. “You shouldn’t be. God will bring justice in this world or the next. In his time, not yours. You weren’t responsible for Aaron’s death. I wasn’t either. Don’t let your guilt cost you your life. It’s not worth it.”
His hand dropped away, and she stood there in the dark and frigid space, mind reeling, spirit crushed.
It was as if she hadn’t grieved her brother until that moment, until she’d learned the truth of who he was and what he’d done.
Maybe she’d only grieved the caricature of Aaron, the funny little sketch of him she’d allowed herself to see.
Happy, bubbly, amusing, generous, drug-dealing Aaron.
Above anything else, she felt a terrible pain that Aaron hadn’t shown her who he really was, the insecurity that made him need friends so badly, the desperation that caused him to seek out Bullseye’s easy money.
Why didn’t you let me in, Aaron?
I loved you. Why didn’t you let me help?
She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt Gideon drape a blanket around her shoulders and hold her close.
She let him, for just a moment, until she curled in on herself and he guided her to her bunk.
“Get some rest, Zee,” he whispered.
She didn’t have the strength to resist anymore. Like a child, she allowed herself to be tucked onto the cot, the blanket settled over her. He stayed there for a while, praying, she suspected.
She should pray too, for the agony to diminish, for peace in her soul. For something to make sense to her shredded heart.
But she prayed something else instead.
God, help me find Bullseye and destroy him.
Because the only thing she could feel under the grief was her soul burning for revenge.
It was all she had left.
The only thing that made sense.
****
Gideon slept some, maintained a recon schedule every few hours, and fretted in between.
Why had he allowed himself to get into the weeds about Aaron?
And while they were in such a precarious position.
Mackenzie thought she wanted the information, but how had that helped in the slightest?
Now her image of her brother was tarnished, and bringing up the whole drug-dealing thing?
Was it really important for her to know that, even if it was the truth?
Aaron was dead. Nothing could alter that awful fact.
Restless, he walked around the tower again, avoiding the squeakiest boards he’d identified during previous rounds, his portable radio pressed to his ear as he listened to reports.
There were no encouraging factoids at the lonely hour of four thirty in the morning.
The storm hadn’t let up and the weather reports called for four inches of rain in the next eight hours.
He spent the following hours planning, trying to decide if it was better to depart at dawn or hold out and give themselves another few hours to rest when a new alert came over the radio.
He listened, standing at the window, looking down on the valley, his heart sinking with every word.
“In an effort to avert catastrophe . . .” He was running for his boots before the report was finished. His pack was already full, organized and filled with his still-damp clothes and the meager items he’d acquired from their hiding spot.
Mackenzie raised her head from the cot, her hair a wild tangle. “What?”
“We gotta go.”
She sat up. “Why?”
“Emergency alert. They’re going to release water at ten this morning to try to save the dam from crumbling. We’ve got a few hours to get out of this valley or we’ll be swimming.”
She hopped out of bed and scurried to pack her supplies.
He tossed her a bundle. “Here. Another fire tower goody.”
She hefted the clear rain poncho. “Did you find one for yourself too?”
“No, just the one. My pants are water resistant, but those sweats are going to soak up the rain as soon as we step outside. The poncho will cover down to your knees.”
“It’s okay, you wear it.”
Rejecting it, rejecting him. “Just put it on, Mackenzie.” His clipped tone produced the desired result, though she gave him a sour look.
It would be unwise to delay for breakfast or anything else.
It would take hours for them to climb down and trek their way out of the lowlands.
The whole expedition would be perilous from the get-go, hiking the wilderness in the dark.
But if they didn’t beat the water, it was lights out anyway.
He was sore and tired, but at least Mackenzie had gotten some sleep.
After they each used the waste bucket again, she yanked her hair back into an elastic, jammed on a baseball cap she’d found under the bunk, and donned the plastic rain gear.
The poncho sleeves could be rolled up, which helped, and her borrowed boots would be better than Kevin’s wife’s sneakers. It would have to be enough.
They didn’t need to discuss their goals.
For him, the Jeep. For her, the airstrip.
And he would get her there if she’d allow it. He was no longer sure since their frank conversation. He wouldn’t be surprised if she took off on her own at the first opportunity, because in presenting her with the truth about Aaron, he’d broken something inside her.
Lord, I’m sorry. He’d thought the truth would set her free from her deadly pursuit.
Instead, it seemed it had only sped her on her way.
Focus, Gid. For now, they were together and moving in unison. It remained to be seen how long their synchronicity would last.
“Ready?” He grasped the door handle.
She didn’t look ready to face the tempest. It struck him how small she was.
She looked like a beautiful bird, fragile yet fierce, unable to fly but unwilling to give up.
He wanted to slam the door, wrap her in an embrace, and hold her there until they both felt the warmth of it.
But there was no affection in her eyes, only stony strength that masked a fathomless pain.
“Yes,” she said, and he lifted the latch.
The gust would have ripped the handle from his grasp if he hadn’t been braced against it. An out-and-out wail of wind and moisture slashed at them. The trapdoor was next, and then they were climbing down, holding each rung in a death grip as they descended.
He’d gone first, not that there was much he could do to protect Mackenzie if Al and Jerry were waiting in the tempest to pick them off. The skin between his shoulder blades crawled. Nothing like clinging to a ladder a hundred feet in the air to underscore a person’s vulnerability.
“Gideon.”
He jerked a look up. She clung there with the raincoat flying around her as if she were the figurehead on a ship lashed by a typhoon. Her first attempt at communication was snatched by the wind, but he caught the second.
“Car.”
He stared in the direction she pointed, where a slender trail snaked in loops through thick trees. That was all he saw, trees, until a quick flash of movement, the bare flicker of metal mingling with a drop of moonlight. Truck or car, he couldn’t be sure.
His chest went tight. The vehicle was probably two miles in the distance, but that safe cushion wouldn’t last.
They scrambled as fast as they could down the ladder. It was only minutes, but it felt like days before his boots hit the bottom, squelching into the mud that threatened to grab hold.
She landed next, more gracefully.
They dashed to the slight shelter of a gnarled oak.
Mackenzie’s eyes were wide but not panicked. “If we take the trail we planned, they’ll catch us.”
“Agreed, but deviating will cost us more time in this valley.”
She nodded. “We have to risk it. Retrace our steps back to the stable and get to the bridge from that direction.”
“You realize we’ll be heading right into the path of our pursuers and the people who probably betrayed us.”
“That’s what you’re good at, right? All this tactical stuff?”
He quirked a grin at her. Survive, evade .
. . He hoped there would be no need for resistance because on that count they were outmanned, outgunned, and surrounded.
Talk about surviving in enemy territory.
“Yes, ma’am. That’s it exactly. We’re going to evade them in the most unexpected way possible. ”
Onward they trudged, sticking to the woods as much as they could.
The sun rose, lifted higher in the sky, but the light was so weak, it was as if it were in a permanent state of withdrawal.
Without his waterproof watch, he would have lost all sense of time, but his stomach reminded him that they’d missed breakfast and his feet throbbed from traversing the long stretches of uneven ground.
There could be no stopping if they were to outrace the water release.
After they diverted around a partial ground failure, he brought out his compass and surveyed the most direct route. There was no way to tell what specific obstacles lay in their path, topographical or human. One thing was for sure. Time was as big an enemy as Bullseye’s men.
He settled his cap more firmly on his brow.
“Let’s pick up the pace, shall we?” He’d hardly gotten the comment out of his mouth when everything changed.