I smile at how well she knows me. “Yeah.”
“Hello, Marie,” Deacon responds with little warmth.
“Deacon,” she says, “I need you to contact Tabitha for me. Do you still have her information? She’s off the grid.”
“I do,” Deacon replies. “I left her file with . . .” He pauses momentarily. “I left it with my brother.”
My heart stops dead in my chest and I look at him accusingly. Although I’m sure he can feel my stare, he doesn’t meet my eyes.
“Good,” she says. “Get it. Now, Quinlan, I want you to leave Aaron out of this, do you understand?”
“Wait,” I say, turning back to the phone, “why? Shouldn’t he—”
“Aaron isn’t part of this,” she says curtly. “He had his choice, and he chose to run. Don’t use his affection for you to drag him back in. We need to help the ones who are still at their positions. The closers.”
“Fine,” I tell her, although I have no intention of leaving Aaron out. He at least deserves to know what’s going on. I don’t look at Deacon, but I feel him watching me, waiting to explain about his brother.
“Let’s meet tomorrow,” Marie says. “There’s a diner called the Hash House out in Myrtle Creek. I’ll text you the address. Say ten a.m.?”
My mind can’t keep up with our conversation when I’m worried about Deacon and Aaron and just about everything else. “Yeah, that works.”
“Good,” she replies. “I’ll see you both then.”
Marie hangs up, and I set the phone next to me on the seat, my heart thudding loudly in my ears. My problems continue to add up.
I turn slowly to Deacon, heat rushing to my face. I was told he’d been in foster care when my father found him. I thought his parents were dead. In all our time together, Deacon has never once mentioned a family, a brother. And the casual way Marie said it made it sound like a known thing. Deacon’s been keeping this from me too.
“Your brother?” I ask.
Deacon studies my expression, and then, without giving away his thoughts, he turns to stare out the windshield.
“It’s complicated,” he answers.
My jaw falls open, and it takes everything I have to not grab him by the shirt and force him to face me. I hate having to jump to conclusions—I want to trust him completely. But he continues to prove that that’s a terrible idea. “Have you ever told me the truth about anything?” I demand, glaring at him.
“Yes,” he says, and turns to me. “I told you the truth about us, and about Arthur. I just didn’t tell you everything about me.” His tone startles me. It’s not defensive or hard. It’s not apologetic. It’s just fact.
My skin is electric with betrayal, even if he’s twisting his words so I’m not sure which part he’s lying about anymore. “I can’t keep doing this,” I tell him. “I need to know everything. Every detail. We can’t keep things from each other anymore. We won’t survive that way.”
Deacon doesn’t agree or argue. Instead he turns on the car and shifts into gear, checking his mirror before pulling onto the road. He’s shutting me down. I can’t believe he’d do this. I’m ready to beg for him to let me in this last door.
“I need to show you something,” he says quietly, not looking over. “You say you want to know me? I’ll give you everything, Quinn. Every single piece.”
His hands tighten on the steering wheel, and I watch him from across the car. He’s deadly serious right now. Suddenly I’m scared of all of his pieces, scared of the picture they’ll create. Scared they’ll scatter in the wind before I can put them together.
But this is Deacon. And for him I’ll take the chance.
Deacon gets on the freeway and heads south, the opposite direction of our motel. After twenty minutes of quiet, my initial anger tempers. The betrayal eases. He said this was about him. Not us.
“Where are you driving?” I ask. “I thought we were going to talk?”
“No, I said I had to show you something. It’s easier that way.”
“I hope you’re not planning to show me a shallow grave,” I respond, and then laugh when he looks over. Of course I don’t think that, but I want to shock him into responding. He bites hard on his jaw, but I see a flicker of a smile there for just a moment. Sure, I can hate him every second until he gives me a reason not to, but that’s just not us.
If we were normal people, a regular couple, this alone could be enough to destroy our trust. But we impersonate dead people for a living. We live our lies every day. We keep secrets, and we hide our pasts. Sometimes our pasts are hidden from us.
But it’s in rare moments when we get to live in the present that the real us comes through. So I shouldn’t have expected Deacon to tell me everything about himself. It just hurts a little that he didn’t want to.
“Joking aside,” I say, “we can go back to the motel and talk. We have to meet Marie.”
“Not until the morning, and this can’t wait,” he says. “We need to trust each other, and I need to prove to you that I’m trustworthy.” He pauses, and I hear the hitch in his voice. “I need to give you a reason to stay.”
“I won’t leave you,” I say truthfully. I’m not sure what the breaking point is for us. I’m not sure we have one.
“You’ve left me twice in the past week. I don’t think I’m being dramatic here.”
I don’t tell him that I do trust him—deep down I do. Despite everything I always will. Instead I relax back against the seat, and Deacon turns on the radio. And when he takes his hand off the wheel and rests it on his thigh, I reach over and thread my fingers through his, destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over. But willfully deciding to do so.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DEACON TAKES US ABOUT AN hour away to an old neighborhood just north of Grants Pass. The houses have chain-link fences in the yards and there are stray dogs loitering along the curbs. Deacon parks in front of a small bungalow with missing slats of siding, crooked black shutters on the window, and a porch pitched heavily to the right.
Uneasy, I get out of the car and wait on the sidewalk. Deacon walks around the front of the car and comes to stand next to me. I look sideways at him as he surveys the house.
“So . . . ,” I say. “Whose house is this?”
Deacon smiles to himself, something sad and lonely. And then he shrugs one shoulder as if he’s resigned to tell me. “This is where my mom lives,” he says, and starts up the walkway toward the porch.
Speechless, I jog to catch up with him. He knows his mother. I have no idea how he could have kept that fact from me—that’s a heavy secret to carry. Once on the porch, we stand together underneath the bald hanging lightbulb.
“So you know your mom?” I ask quietly, not looking at him. “Your family?”
He leans forward to knock on the door, staring straight ahead, his body stiff. “Yeah,” he says. “But it doesn’t matter. I chose another life.”
“ ‘Chose’?” I turn to him. “You were a ward of the state. My father said he found you in foster care. Have you been lying about that this entire time?”
“Your father lied,” he says. “You never asked me.”
“You—”
The inside door opens. Deacon rocks back on his heels before plastering a pleasant smile on his face, staring at someone I can’t see through the mesh of the screen door.
“Hi,” Deacon says simply. There is a tug on my heart, because despite his comment about it not mattering, the vulnerability in Deacon’s tone hurts me to my soul. I turn to the screen, waiting for it to open so I can get a look at whoever would have given him up—or whatever it was that happened here. And with that want comes a fierce need to protect Deacon. Where he’s leaving himself defenseless, I’m solidifying my courage and wrapping us up to keep us from harm.
“Well, isn’t this a big fucking surprise,” a gruff male voice says. Deacon wilts slightly, and it’s all I need to spring into action. I step forward and open the screen door, unable to talk to a facel
ess entity.
I startle the guy standing there, and he takes a step back into the shadow of the house. He’s wearing a white undershirt and khaki pants, and I guess he’s in his twenties. His hair and beard are blond, but his brown eyes—they’re the exact shade and shape as Deacon’s. This must be his brother.
The guy quickly runs his gaze over me and then turns back to Deacon. Behind him I smell stale cigarettes and musty air coming from inside. He crosses his arms over his chest as if waiting for Deacon to ask permission to come in.
“I need to talk to you, Brandon,” he says.
His brother laughs, shaking his head. “Are you kidding?”
“It’s important,” Deacon says. He stops, and swallows hard. “Is Mom home?”
“Oh, let me go fetch her for you,” Brandon answers in mock graciousness. He steps out onto the porch instead, and closes the door behind him. He walks up to Deacon, slightly shorter, and for a moment I’m scared I’ll have to break up their fight. Deacon holds his ground, though, staring down into his brother’s eyes.
“I gave you a file a while back,” Deacon says. “Do you still have it?”
“Probably.”
“Look, this is important,” Deacon says. “Do you have it or not?”
Brandon exhales heavily, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, it’s still here,” he says.
Deacon nods stoically, hiding how appreciative he really is. Reading the situation, I’m guessing Deacon is afraid his brother would use the whereabouts of the file against him—exploit any weakness. It makes me toughen my stance.
Deacon glances at the night sky and then steadies his eyes on his brother again. “I want to see her,” he says as if expecting an argument.
“It’s not a great time,” Brandon says.
“Is it ever?” he asks.
For the first time I see a small bit of sympathy in Brandon’s expression. There’s another moment of silence before Brandon turns and pulls open the screen door.
“We need a place to stay tonight,” Deacon adds, surprising me. Brandon looks back at him and scoffs.
“This isn’t a hotel,” he says.
“I know,” Deacon responds. “I paid off the mortgage, remember?”
Brandon stops, crowding the doorway. “So now we owe you something?” he asks, tilting up his chin defiantly.
“Yes,” Deacon replies simply. “And you know she owed me long before I paid off her house. She’s owed me my whole life, but I’m not here to collect, Brandon. I just need that file and a room for the night. Also, this is my girlfriend,” he says, hiking his thumb in my direction. “Be nice to her.”
Brandon huffs a small laugh, clearly unable to hate Deacon as much as he wants to. He tells us to come inside but lets the screen door slam before Deacon can catch it.
Deacon looks at me, apologetic, but I can’t even manage a smile. I’m too shocked—my mind is spinning as I try to understand this situation.
“Sorry,” he whispers, holding the door as I walk past him.
“For which part?” I murmur back.
The inside of the house is dimly lit, the smell of cigarettes thicker inside. The fabric on the arms of the plaid couch has worn off, but the living room is tidy enough. I close the door and follow Deacon as he and Brandon walk toward the kitchen.
Once there, the light improves slightly, and I find a small gray-haired woman sitting at the kitchen table. She’s smoking a cigarette, and there’s a beer can resting next to her ashtray. She’s older than I expected, well into her fifties, and she looks as worn as her couch.
She lifts her watery eyes to me first, and then she turns to Deacon. She takes a long drag of her cigarette so that the ashes fall to the table, burning a new tiny hole in the plastic tablecloth. She swipes at the area and blows the smoke out of her nose before she smiles. One of her front teeth is missing.
“It’s my boy,” she says in a smoker’s voice. “Look, Brandon.” She turns to him. “It’s your brother. Little bastard’s come home.” She says it with humor, and Brandon nods, looking incredibly uncomfortable in the small room.
“Hi, Mom,” Deacon says. He studies her, his expression betraying how her condition hurts him. Hell, it hurts me.
I see little resemblance between Deacon and his mom. Her skin is jaundiced, and she has swollen black circles under her eyes. A quick look around the room shows at least a dozen empty cans and a liter bottle of Jack sitting on top of the trash.
Deacon pulls out a chair to sit next to her, and his mother drops her cigarette into the ashtray and immediately puts her small hand over his, gazing at him.
“You look real nice,” she says, nodding. “Real nice.”
Deacon bites down on his jaw and looks at her hand, her skin spotted and weathered. “Thanks,” he says. “Although Quinlan may not think I’m so nice right now.” He glances over his shoulder, giving me a sad smile. His mother examines me, but I’m not sure how well she can see; I think she may be drunk.
“Oh, is this your girlfriend?” she asks, waving me over. I go and sit on the other side of her, and up close I see the deep ridges of wrinkles above her lips, the yellow tint to the whites of her eyes. She seems unwell. “You’re so pretty,” she tells me, reaching to touch my chin. Her fingers are dry and rough against my skin. “I hope Deacon’s good to you. Better than he was to me. Little fucker.” She cackles.
I hear Brandon exhale behind us, like he’s embarrassed by her words. Deacon doesn’t even flinch, but my stomach is knotting up. I’m boiling over with anger and, at the same time, sympathy.
Their mother sniffles and picks up her cigarette from the ashtray, alternating puffs and sips from her Miller Lite. After a moment she looks at Deacon and smiles, as if she’s already forgotten her harsh words.
“Run out and get me some more beer, will you, doll?” she asks. “I don’t have any money, so you’ll have to—”
Deacon lowers his eyes. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “I’ll take care of it, Ma.” He pushes back from the table and motions for me to follow him.
I do, wondering if I should say good-bye to his mother. But when I look at her, she’s gazing out the window like we were never here. I pause at the door, wishing she would call for Deacon and say something kind—he seems to need it. But she doesn’t.
Deacon takes us back through the living room, and although he tries to hide it, I see him wipe at his eyes. We walk to the staircase with the missing bannister, but Brandon jogs after us.
“Deacon,” he calls. I’m afraid he’s going to start an argument with Deacon, but instead he leans against the wall, fighting back the emotion in his voice.
“You know she doesn’t mean it,” he tells Deacon. “It’s just . . . her health has gotten worse.”
“I noticed,” Deacon says, his teeth clenched.
“New hospital bills just came. They told her to quit drinking, but—”
“I’ll take care of them,” Deacon says, keeping his head down. Brandon shifts uneasily, and his guilt is evident.
“Yeah,” he says. “Model son, right?”
Deacon lifts his eyes, silencing Brandon with the look. “You could have left too,” he tells him. Brandon sneers.
“I was never as good a liar as you,” he says.
“You sure about that? Because you’re still making excuses for her.”
Brandon holds Deacon’s glare, and after a moment he nods up the stairs. “The file’s in the closet in your room,” he says, like he knew exactly where it was all along.
“Thanks,” Deacon says. He takes my hand, and we’re halfway up the stairs when Brandon says his name again.
“You in trouble?” his brother asks.
“Yeah,” Deacon says, not looking back. “I guess we are.”
Brandon considers this, and then turns away. “Well, then don’t stay too long,” he mumbles, and heads into the kitchen.
* * *
I let go of Deacon’s hand when we get upstairs, and he stops at a closed door at the end of the hall
. The carpet runner is worn so thin it’s to the wood, and there’s only one dusty frame on the wall. It breaks my heart when I realize that the child in the picture with the messy hair and ill-fitting clothes is Deacon. His expression is solemn, and his limbs are frightfully skinny. He notices me staring and follows my line of sight to the picture, flinching when he sees it. He turns away and opens the door, peering in first as if scared there will be someone there. He pushes it open all the way and goes to sit on the bare mattress.
The room is sad and dreary. There is a small metal frame with a full-size mattress, a tall dresser with one of the drawers missing, and peeling paint along the window frame. There are several fist-size holes near the closet door.
Deacon leans forward, his elbows on his knees, as he watches me study his room. He understands what I’m doing. As closers, we’ve been in dozens of bedrooms, and we know how the little details add up—the things we take for granted. All the damaged pieces in this room reflect his broken life. His neglect.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, thinking back to all the times he and Aaron would say that kids without parents made the best closers. Although I never asked, I assumed Deacon didn’t know his family. He certainly never mentioned them.
“Because these are my demons,” he says.
I can see them on his face, a dark cloud of pain that haunts him. I have a moment where I can decide just how much I want to know. Is it my right to ask? Do any of us have the right to other people’s secrets just because we’re in a relationship?
I walk over to the bed and sit down next to him, both of us quiet. I wonder if part of the reason we’re here is because Deacon wanted to see his family. Or maybe he needed the reminder of where he came from.
“You said you chose to leave,” I start, not wanting to press too hard. Deacon turns his soft brown gaze at me.
“Did he ever tell you how he found me?” he asks. I know he’s talking about my dad.
“No,” I say. “Only an offhand mention of foster care.” It would have been rude to ask for details beyond that.
“I was never in foster care,” he says in a low voice. “I was a runaway. My mother’s an alcoholic. It can make her mean, but mostly just negligent. I’d like to say she’s better when she’s sober, but I could count those moments on one hand.”
The Epidemic Page 17
