Chapter 23
“Fear cuts deeper than swords.”- George R.R. Martin
Roanoke Hospital is huge. The cabin was about an hour's drive from the hospital and it was a tense and quiet ride. It sets my mind at ease that Brock is somewhere that isn't Podunk though. Bentley informed me that he hasn't come to yet but that there is a good chance he will.
“Brock!” I run into the room intending on squeezing him tight, but stop short at the sight of him. He’s banged up. His head is wrapped and his normally huge frame looks small and weak. His skin is ashy and machines and tubes seem to be entering and exiting him everywhere. I grab his hand and let the tears fall freely. “I’m so sorry I distracted you with that stupid game. I’m so sorry,” I whisper brokenly into his ear. I turn to face Bentley. “Where’s Cane?” His lips form a thin tight line and his shoulders tense. “Where. Is. Cane?” I repeat slowly.
“We don’t know,” he admits.
“Who’s we?”
“Me. The ATF. We lost him. Last sighting was here, when they brought Brock in, but he’s disappeared.”
“Why? Why would he do that?” I ask, feeling light-headed. He can’t be gone. The last words we shared were in anger and frustration. It can’t end like this. He needs to know I love him.
“I don't have answers, Mags.” His shoulders slump and he looks at his toes like they’re the most interesting thing ever.
“Your fucking feet sure as shit seem to know something!” I shout. “What aren't you telling me?”
“Ezra is on the video footage from the hospital surveillance, just before the last shot of Cane.” My stomach lurches.
“I’m going to be sick.” I head for the door but Bentley stops me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. The last thing I want is a hug, but I can’t pass up the opportunity. I snake my arms around his middle, letting my hands rest on his back pockets, and squeeze tight. “I need the ladies room. I saw it just down the hall,” I mumble, pulling away and scurrying towards the door.
When the door clicks closed behind me I turn left and jog down the hall towards the exit. Bentley is going to kill me when he finds out what I’ve done, but I need answers. I walk out of the hospital, clinging to the keys I swiped out of his pocket when he’d hugged me and trot to his truck.
Roanoke to Blacksburg takes me about an hour with the current traffic but it’s an hour's head start and that’s all I need. I pull up to the London Underground just shy of eleven pm. I leave the truck parked out front in a no parking zone and jog inside. The crowd is thick tonight as I weave through, trying to get to the bar which is currently six people deep all the way down. I head to the end and hop over the bar.
“Hey! You can’t be back here!” a pretty girl about my age yells at me as she finishes pouring beers.
“Migs!” I shout. The scruffy middle-aged man turns in my direction. “It’s time!” I shout. He pushes past the bartender, who scolded me and reaches under the back bar. It takes him a few minutes of rummaging around but he pulls out a black satchel and tosses it to me. I give him a quick head nod and small grin and hop back over the bar to get the hell outta there. Folding back into the truck I lock the doors and start her up. I flip open the satchel and dump the contents onto the seat next to me. Everything I asked for is here, a pistol, loaded, two hundred in cash and a burner phone. It’d been tricky lifting four hundred dollars off of Cane during our trip but he hadn't seemed to notice. I guess when your wallet houses endless amounts of cash in large bills it’s easy to lose track. Migs had come through with the rest, securing a gun, phone and leaving the remainder cash for my disposal. Sometimes knowing seedy bar owners has its merits. I throw the truck in drive and head to the I-40 W. It’s an eleven hour drive to Beebe and I’ll need to sleep soon. I’m just hoping I can make it to Knoxville before passing out.
“Hello?”
“Aster, it’s me,” I say.
“What the hell is going on? For the record you need toilet paper. I got food but that’s not really great for ass wiping,” she quips.
“I’ll be there tomorrow and I'll bring a roll for us. Just don’t open the door for anyone. Got it?”
“Yes, Ma, I got it. God, how did you live here? It’s a trailer for Christ's sake,” she jokes.
“I’ll have you know I quite like my rotten little trailer. Go watch the neighbors from the window and have a good laugh till I get there,” I laugh.
“Oh trust me, crazy cat lady has been thoroughly entertaining. Although I’ve yet to see an actual feline.”
“There isn’t one,” I deadpan.
“That’s just sad,” she muses. I hang up the phone, shaking with laughter, and keep driving. Thank God for Aster. Somehow she always manages to make feel sane in the most intense moments of my life.
*****
I’d pulled over at a rest stop and slept in the truck for a few hours around two a.m. By six I was up and back on the road and by three in the afternoon I'd pulled into my familiar spot at home. The door to the trailer blew open as I walked towards it and Aster rushed me, hitting me with such force that she knocked us both over. I squeeze her back as she lays on top of me squealing.
“So much for not opening the door,” I grunt as she rolls off me. Seeing her in the flesh makes me heart swell.
“Whatever, fool. There is no way a stupid door is going to stop me from hugging you after fifteen months. I had to make sure you were real.” She sighs and stares up at the clear blue sky. I poke her side from my spot in the Astroturf and smile. Home is a feeling and sometimes only family can make you feel it, no matter where you are.
“It’s really good to see your face,” I sigh, staring at her.
“Yup. I’m definitely worth the wait, yeah?” she chortles.
“It baffles me that you haven't been proposed to a million times over yet with that attitude.”
“Shut up and help me up. I need details.” She rolls her head to face mine and narrows her eyes at me pointedly. Her blonde hair shines in the sun and her eyes are lively and light brown with flecks of gold; combined with her porcelain complexion, she's stunning. We couldn’t look anymore opposite outside of our brown eyes but I suppose that’s what you get with two different mothers in the mix, and brothers for fathers. I tug her hand, pulling her up, and follow her inside.
Walking into the trailer feels like a strange time warp. Everything, mostly, is where I left it after Bentley and I wrestled and then left. It’s obvious that Aster has picked up the broken glass and larger pieces of debris but that’s about the extent of her cleaning. I pour myself four fingers of bourbon from my secret bottle hidden with the pots and pans. I took a sharpie to it and actually wrote In case of emergency, drink. I never thought I’d have to actually resort to opening it.
“What the hell is that?” she points, her face contorting with disgust.
“Bourbon.”
“Jesus. That was the drink of choice?!” she squawks, inspecting the bottle, her face in a scowl. When she sees my note she snorts and sets the bottle back on the table.
“It did the job. I’ve grown pretty fond of the stuff.”
“Is this a drinking story?” she asks.
“Probably,” I admit.
“Let me get my wine then.” She heads for the fridge and pours herself a glass of white wine before rejoining me on the couch. “PS: I love this couch,” she gushes as she settles in.
“So...Cane. I’ll start there.” She nods and sips her wine. “He’s alive. It’s all a huge mess, Aster. I was, uh, just starting to kinda get into a relationship with Bentley, but then we thought Ezra found me, but it was Cane he sent.”
“Cane was supposed to bring you to Ezra?” Her eyes are wide and disbelieving.
“No, Cane was supposed to ‘take care of me’ and bring the backpack I stole to Ezra. But, he couldn't. I...I think he still loves me. I think I still love him. There is so much betrayal and hurt and confusion, Aster. We've both changed so much. I want to believe that we can still find a happily ever after but it seems so farfetched.” She pats my knee and motions with her hand to continue. “Okay, right, so he took me. It was bad. Scary. I wasn't prepared to ever see his face again and it threw me. But he couldn't hurt me, not in the end. I begged him to just bring me to Ezra instead. I wanted our time together to just be as it was. He agreed.”
“Oh come on...” Her nostrils flare with disbelief.
“I shit you not. So we drove to Baltimore, but those four days, crap, those four days were good. As good as they could have been given the circumstances. Honestly I think I was more guarded than he was, but mostly it was as if nothing ever happened. He proposed for fuck's sake!” I thrust my hand toward her so she can inspect the ring.
“It’s the ring!” she states.
“Huh?”
“That’s the same one. I was with him when he picked it out. I met him at the store.”
“You never told me,” I state.
“What did it matter after he was dead? It would have hurt you more to know he was planning on proposing.”
“You’re probably right.” I stare at the ring and twist it around on my finger. “So when we got back, Cane shot Ezra, but apparently Ash men don’t freaking die when they take a chest shot. Cane saved me. Drove me to a ‘safe location’,” I mimic with air quotes, “and when we get there Bentley walks out. Bentley...he’s ATF. He’s been watching me for two years or some shit like that and Cane was working with him to put Ezra away before I shot him. I had no idea they knew each other. I mean crap, one's my soul mate and the other one I was falling for!” I crow. “I’m so mad at them. Neither came clean about it - not truly. ”
“Boys suck. Have I taught you nothing? Now carry on, I’m saving all my commentary for the end.”
“Uh, okay so, Bentley said we needed to move, so Brock came up and I drove with him while Cane and Bentley rode in front of us separately. We got T-boned I think. The accident was bad and Ezra pulled me from the wreckage and well, he left me to die in a hunting cabin. Brock's in the hospital, and Cane, we think, was abducted by his uncle at said hospital and ahh...Oh. Bentley saved me at the cabin, and then I stole his truck to come see you and figure out what, besides the money, is so important about Cane’s old ratty backpack that I took when I left.” I finish. I watch as Aster’s brain works double time to keep up with everything that’s happened. She opens her mouth twice but snaps it closed, takes three sips of her wine and finally sets it on the little coffee table.
“You’re fucking life is psychotic. I’m sorry I made you stop drinking,” she deadpans. I am completely powerless to stop the giggle that bubbles up in waves from my belly but she doesn't seem to mind. I laugh so hard that I end up scurrying to the bathroom only to find no toilet paper. Aster knocks at the door. “Forgetting something?” I groan and start laughing all over again. I never stopped for toilet paper. “I'll slide some paper under for you. Sorry, but your ‘To Do’ pad will have to do.” She laughs loudly as a pad of paper slides under the door. I look at it like it might bite me before replying, “Ew! I’ll drip dry, thanks!”
Aster and I spent a little while longer catching up. Seeing her face in person, hearing her voice and being able to touch her momentarily distracts me from the task at hand and it's nice. Things feel safe, fun, easy even, for a little while. Finally, as the afternoon turns into evening and Aster and I are more than just buzzed from drinking and gabbing, I pull us back to task.
“Ready to rip apart this bag with me?” I ask. She holds up a pair of scissors and gives me her best mischievous expression. I chuckle before leading us to the bedroom to get the bag. I pull it up out from its hiding spot under the floorboard near my bed and flop to the floor with it in my lap.
“Be prepared,” I say, knowing Aster will flip out when she sees the cash in there. Unzipping the bag I let all the wads of cash dump out around us. Her eyes bug out of her head and she picks up a couple of banded stacks to inspect them.
“It’s real, right?”
“Yup!” I chirp.
“Can we unband it, throw it around and roll in it?” she asks seriously. I reach forward and grab the stacks from her hands.
“No. It’s probably evidence, or will be,” I mumble, hopping over the money piles to sit next to her with the backpack. “The money wasn’t what he seemed concerned about. It was this.” I hold up the worn pack. She looks at me like I’m nuts but starts unzipping pockets and sweeping the insides, feeling for anything I missed when I first settled here. I’m going through the straps, inch by inch, feeling for anything that feels out of place.
“Turn it inside out,” she commands when we’ve turned up nothing. I flip the pack wrong side out and stare at her with a ‘now what’ face. She takes it from my hand and scoots closer to the lamp on the nightstand to inspect it closer.
“There!” she says eyes lighting up. “There’s a seam out of place. Like someone re-stitched.” I crawl over to her and look to where she's pointing. She’s right; where the top of the shoulder strap meets the bag the seam looks like it’s been altered. She snaps the threads with her scissors until the strap detaches from the bag. At the very top of the padded shoulder strap is something small and plastic looking. I pull it out carefully and put it in my palm for us both to see.
The USB drive measures about one inch long, a half inch wide, and is about the thickness of a penny. “There is no way you’d have ever known it was there,” I breathe. Aster scrambles up, darting to the living room and brings back her laptop. I pop the flash drive into the allotted slot and wait. A text box pops up onto the screen.
“Dammit, it’s password secured,” I grumble.
“Well now what? That’s like the biggest tease I’ve had in years. All the buildup and none of the release!” she crows. I can’t help but chuckle at her. I was feeling the same way.
“There’s only one person I can ask for help with this and I’m not sure we’re on good terms at the moment.” I tell her. Bentley is the only person I can think of who might need this information, one, for his case, but two because he’s already mixed up in this mess and with Cane missing, my options are severely limited.
“Bentley?” she asks curiously. I sigh and nod my head in affirmation. I stand and grab a phone from the appropriate basket and dial Bentley’s number.
“Tell me you’re not at the trailer,” he demands when he picks up.
“I’m not at the trailer,” I answer snidely. “But how soon can you be here?”
“Dammit. It’s not safe there, princess. What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I could settle this without you, but...I can’t. I was thinking we all needed to know what the hell was in that stupid pack, and my cousin was here, so I needed to be here, too.” My frustration is evident in my voice.
“I’m thirty minutes out. Sit tight,” he sighs.
“What?” I crow.
“It wasn’t hard to figure out what you were doing once I realized you bailed on me.”
*****
Bentley arrived as promised within the hour. I see him on the monitors and for a moment wish I felt more for him. I care for him, more than just a friend but not enough to call it love. I wish I loved him the same way I loved Cane. I wish things had turned out differently. Aster pipes up from beside me, asking who the hunk of man beef is and I laugh at her as I scramble to the door to let him in.
“Aster, Bentley,” I introduce them. All of a sudden my loud boisterous cousin is quiet as she takes him in.
“Hi,” he says in that voice that sounds like sex and sandpaper.
“Wow,” Aster replies. I nudge her and roll my eyes at Bentley as he grins lopsided at her.
“Hey, love birds, flash drive? Cane in danger? Ring any bells?” I squawk. Bentley snaps his gaze to me and smiles. I point to the laptop and the password box and shrug.
“I don’t know it, obviously.”
“Lemme make some calls,” he grunts, and rounds the corner to the hall, disappearing into the bedroom.
“I really hate you right now,” Aster squeaks at me.
“What?”
“Cane mother fuckin Ash, was the bees fuckin' knees back home and you didn’t even have to try to snag him, he pretty much commandeered you the second you were available, and now him?” She thrusts her thumb in the direction of the bedroom. “Alpha Male ATF might actually be hotter than Cane mother fuckin' Ash, and you’ve had him too! Please tell me how you do it?” she wails dramatically. I snicker at her and shake my head.
“I have no idea but let’s be honest here, it’s not looking like either one is going to work out,” I huff. The truth in my statement sends panic rushing through me. I don’t want to be alone and I do want a happily ever after but there’s so much that’s happened with both men that it seems preposterous to think I could have that with either. Bentley comes stalking down the hall, phone pressed to his ear, types something into the laptop and hits enter. File folders start downloading at an alarming rate. He unzips each one as they finish and starts sifting through the contents. It looks like random emails, medical records and bank statements. None of it looks badass enough to be worthwhile.
“What the hell?” I say, peering over his shoulder. “It looks like a whole lot of nothing,” I exasperate.
“No. It looks like the goal of a sting operation, run by the Phoenix office of the ATF, to allow straw purchasers to illegally buy weapons in the U.S. so agents could learn the traffickers’ routes into Mexico. The agents were supposed to intervene before the guns were sold to drug cartels. But agents lost track of roughly seventeen hundred weapons. The ATF’s field supervisor on the southwest border sent a series of emails last year to the director of North American Affairs on the National Security Council detailing the agency’s efforts to stop weapons trafficking into Mexico, and there’s mention that a botched sting operation already allowed hundreds of guns to flow to drug cartels. That field supervisor is dead and ballistics put the bullet that killed him on a gun legally registered to Ezra. There are files on here that list wire transfers to the supervisor's bank account as well. He took payment for those missing guns and Ezra supplied them. They were working together. If this information leaks out it puts the credibility of the Phoenix office at risk and ties them to a big scandal, not to mention putting Ezra away for life. How he managed to get this ballistics report is beyond me. There’s got to be a mole. That officer's death was ruled unsolved. This is fucking huge, Magnolia.” He turns to me, smiling triumphantly. “You’ve been sitting on a landmine of evidence for almost two years.” He stands abruptly and circles his arms around me, lifting me up. Aster sighs as she watches him manhandle me.
“Bentley, stop.” He sets me down and looks me over. “Oh no. NO, Magnolia.”
“Yes,” I nod. “I need the leverage to get Cane back alive. Give me contact information for him.”
“NO. This information will be sent to my boss and they will handle this. You’ve had a Goddamned death wish for too long now,” he growls.
“No, Bentley, Cane is in danger, Brock is unconscious and I have the one thing he wants. I have to do this. Copy all the data and put it onto a new USB drive for me to give him, but I’m taking him what he thinks I have. I am going to make this right by everyone. You will get all the evidence you need to put him away, I will get Cane back, and God-willing Brock will pull through this. It’s a win-win for you all.”
“What about you?” he asks, slightly shocked.
“My win is him dead, but I doubt I will get to kill him at this point,” I say bluntly. “Now make the call, Bentley, I need Ezra's number.”
“Damn,” Aster whispers. I forgot she was even in the room with us.
“What?” Bentley and I crow in unison. She throws her hands up in mock surrender.
“I didn’t know how hot it could be watching two badasses bicker. Plus, Cypr...Magnolia, is like totally amazing now that she’s clearly embraced her inner bitch,” she chirps lightly. Her whole face is lit up with awe and excitement like this is just a rehearsal for a movie instead of reality. People’s lives will be in danger, are in danger. Bentley shakes his head and rolls his eyes at her before swatting my ass hard and pouring himself some bourbon and retiring outside to his usual spot. I squeal with surprise as it happens but a small piece of me almost misses when it was just him and me accepting each other in silence, that is until I remember that he knew me all along and I was the only one in the dark.
“I’ll call in the morning!” Bentley shouts from the stairs.
“Come on Aster,” I call to her after pouring myself a drink and heading to the door.
“Welcome to the world of Bentley and me.” I plop down next to him and let my head rest on the back of the chair and gaze up at the velvety night sky lit up with tiny diamond stars. Aster sits on the ground in front of me, letting her head rest on my knees, and Bentley’s hand finds mine on the armrest and gently holds it.