EPILOGUE
Soar
AXL
That evening, Axl walked into his house with his phone at his ear and his eyes scanning the refrigerator door.
“Ghost,” Jorge stated. “And I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know she’s been outta sight for months. People saying she just vanished. Word she’s a sex worker. Also word she’s a junkie. Can’t get a lock on it. Now, she’s just nowhere. She could be dead. She could have relocated. Vance is on it.”
They were talking about Dynamite, who he now knew was a ghost, something that didn’t help them. Also something they unfortunately hadn’t been able to ascertain before Hawk drove them down the mountain.
Now he knew why.
Because she was a ghost.
And Vance, Lee Nightingale’s man, was on it because he was not only Lee’s best tracker, he was the best tracker any of them had.
Which meant he was the best tracker not only in the state of Colorado, but the entire Rocky Mountain region.
As in, unless Dynamite was encased in lime, which she hopefully was not, and maybe even if she was, Vance would eventually find her.
“Brandi?” he asked Jorge.
Having gotten a greeting-non-greeting from Cleo, who saw him, took him in, established he was still capable of feeding her, then walked away, he continued looking for a note from his woman.
This because her car wasn’t in the garage and she hadn’t sent him a text to say she wasn’t going to be home when he got there.
“Still elusive. No one knows where she is. Cisco and Ally are still on that,” Jorge told him.
He was in his bedroom, seeing no note on his nightstand, so he stopped and looked around.
“I’m not having good thoughts about Brandi not being locatable. She’s not the sharpest tack and she’s been untraceable for weeks,” Axl remarked.
“I think we need to brace for the fact that we are far from the only ones who know that Brandi blabs for dollars. And it wasn’t long after you and Aug talked to her that you connected the dots on the setup and handed that shit to the police in an official capacity, which meant Hattie’s stalking stopped,” Jorge replied. “They took out two of their own. If Brandi becomes a liability, they wouldn’t blink in erasing her. And she might not be a bright bulb, but she knows this is ugly. So it might be her that decided on a new location that doesn’t include the Denver Metro Area or anywhere near it.”
If he was her, he’d be gone about ten minutes after he and Aug left her apartment.
He was not her, which was why he wasn’t stupid enough to be on her side of the game.
“So right now, dead in the water …again,” he finished.
“Yeah. For now,” Jorge confirmed.
Axl heard him, but he was focused on something else.
He’d found Hattie’s note.
As well as other.
“Lee’s got guys on the camera work,” Jorge said in his ear as Axl moved to his dresser. “Lynn’s feeds will come into our monitors. Heidi’s will go to Nightingale.”
“Right,” Axl murmured, staring at the top of his dresser.
“That’s it for tonight. Meet tomorrow with all the players to brief and reassess,” Jorge said. “Nine, at our offices.”
“See you there,” Axl said distractedly.
“Right, brother, uh …you good?”
Axl stared at the picture frame by Jordan’s flag, more precisely what was in it, and said, “Yeah, I’m great. Hattie left me a present and I just found it.”
“Cool.” Jorge sounded amused. “Later.”
“Later, man,” Axl said and disconnected, eyes still to the picture.
They’d been on leave.
They’d taken it in the Keys.
Beach bar.
A babe in a bikini top and short sarong who had a thing for Jordan took that shot of them.
Three inches taller than him, Jordan had been fucking around, got Axl in a headlock.
They were both pretty significantly drunk and laughing.
During that vacation, they’d sprung for separate rooms.
It had been a good call.
That night, Jordan had tagged the girl in the sarong.
Axl had spent the night, and the rest of his leave, hooking up with a tall blonde who gave shit head and he’d discovered had fake tits. But it wasn’t a bust because she was seriously funny and she was a local, so she knew all the best restaurants.
Call him crazy, but he’d take laughs, good food and good company during a vacation fling over good head and real tits any day.
Every once in a while, she still texted him. Mostly hilarious memes and gifs and pictures of the funny faces made by the baby she had with her now husband.
So yeah.
Definitely worth sloppy blowjobs.
Sarong girl had only lasted the night.
Jordan had fucked his way through the Keys, stating, “One day, I’ll find the right one. And then playtime will be done. Since I want a lot of kids, I’m gonna have to get on that. So I don’t got a lot of time to have this kind of fun. Which means I gotta get what I can while I can get it.”
Jordan had been wrong, he didn’t find the right one.
But he was also right, he didn’t have a lot of time.
So it was good he took what he could get.
And had fun while it lasted.
Axl had pulled out the photos yesterday, their Sunday, and shown them to Hattie.
And he’d laughed when he’d told her about their time in the Keys.
Today, she’d found a frame and put Jordan—the real Jordan, the one he needed to remember, the one he got drunk with and laughed with and caroused with, the one who knew he’d be faithful to his wife and make a lot of kids—that Jordan was now in his house.
There was also Hattie’s note on the dresser, and when Axl could tear his eyes from the picture, and his mind from the memories, he picked it up.
Honey,
I’m at the studio.
Can you meet me there?
xx-Hattie
He felt a frisson trace up the back of his neck.
Because she didn’t text that or give him a call.
She put that note by that picture on her dresser.
And wanted him at her studio.
He dropped the note on the dresser, took another look at the picture in the frame, and calling good-bye to Cleo, who had no reply, he went back out to his Jeep and drove to her studio.
Her Rogue was parked outside of it.
She was starting week two of her time off from Smithie’s. There had been a lot going on before, with life, his mom and dad, another meet with her mom and boyfriend (that went a lot better, thankfully), Lottie’s bachelorette party, Mo’s bachelor party, and the wedding a week ago where Axl got to spend all day with her wearing that amazing bridesmaid dress celebrating their two friends getting hitched.
But when she could get there, she was in her studio a lot.
Including the last week, when she was up with him at six or earlier, and they kissed in the garage before getting in their respective cars and taking off for their days.
His meaning he’d go to work, and hers meaning she’d go to her art (his house, by the way, had become their default, and her two drawers were filled, his extra closet half filled—he dug her space, especially her bedroom, but his place had Pac-Man).
Sundays were the only days she took off.
Sadie had transferred several pieces to her back room in prep for the show that was happening in a few weeks, so Hattie had more room to create.
Axl hadn’t been there since the day she got her show.
He knocked twice before he went in.
The first thing he saw was scuttling across the floor.
Two balls of fluff with black faces, curled tails, one with black-tipped brown fur on her body, the other had a creamier coat, both had white chests.
His mom’s Pekingese.
Making up for lost time, and lost opportunities to spoil pets, Mom di
dn’t get one puppy, she got two. A sister and brother.
His mom had named them Molly and Wellington, or Welly.
Hattie called them Floof One (Molly) and Floof Two (Welly).
They jumped around his boots, so obviously he had no choice but to pick them both up and give them a squeeze.
He got puppy breath in his face and puppy saliva on his jaw as he walked in, wondering why his mother’s dogs were in Hattie’s studio and wondering where Hattie was in her studio.
But moving in, he circumvented a big crate, which probably meant Sadie was taking more pieces away.
And that was when he saw it.
He stopped dead with two puppies squirming in his hands.
And he took it in.
Life-size, a man made of steel. Some small sheets and triangles, but mostly ribbons and straws of it forming a body, head, face and hair.
The eyes, though, looked to be smooth aquamarines.
The figure was in a deep squat, one knee bent, his other almost, but not quite, on the ground.
His arms, though, were straight up.
And suspended precariously on rebar you could see running through the ribbons of steel that made up his body, his fingers were wrapped around the waist of a woman made of concrete.
And she was soaring.
Over his right shoulder, one leg front, one leg behind, her back, neck and head arched, arms out to her sides.
Him.
And Hattie.
“Your mom had a client meeting tonight,” her voice came from behind him.
He turned.
She stood there leaning against the crate in her work clothes, cutoff jean shorts and a tank, ratty old red Keds that were serious cool, her hair in a big bunch on the top of her head, curls dropping down the sides and around her neck.
No makeup.
Total pretty.
Her gaze went to the puppies in his hands, then to his eyes.
And she kept talking.
“She didn’t trust these little guys alone in her new condo with her new furniture as Welly is being stubborn about house training and she’s a pushover about not putting them in their crates because Molly hates the crate. So I told her they could come to the studio. I need to drop them off on the way home.”
His voice was gruff when he stated, “I told her the breed was stubborn.”
“No, you told her they were stubborn and sloth-like,” she corrected.
“Because that’s what the website said,” he reminded her. “She’s committing to hopefully a couple decades with these things.” He jostled the fur balls that were wriggling in his hands. “She needed to know what she was in for.”
Her face changed.
Fuck.
So goddamn pretty.
“Sometimes,” she said softly, “it doesn’t matter. If a being is precious, even the bad parts are parts you need.”
He swallowed.
And his voice was downright rough when he asked, “What’s that?”
She knew what he was asking when her eyes went beyond him to the sculpture.
But they came right back to him.
“You. And me.”
Good Christ.
Good Christ.
Fuck.
The puppies kept squirming.
Axl kept hold on them.
“I don’t hold you up, baby,” he said softly.
She tipped her head to the side. “You don’t?”
“No.”
She looked beyond him.
“Well,” she said to her sculpture, studying it as if attempting to decipher it. “I suppose one take is that he’s holding her up. Another is he helps her soar.”
Good Christ.
Good Christ.
He bent and put the dogs down.
They scampered.
Welly right to Hattie.
Molly disappeared behind some chunks of stone.
Hattie kept talking.
“Sadie saw it today when she brought her guys to do some crating. They helped me mount her. She weighs a ton. Not literally. But close. She looks strong, but she’s hollow. Though, only in the literal sense, not figuratively. Figuratively, she’s just delicate.”
Jesus.
She was killing him.
“Please come here,” he said.
She didn’t come there.
She went on, “She wants it for the show. Sadie does. I said I have to ask you.” She looked at him again. “Is it okay it’s in the show?”
“That’s your call,” he told her. “Now, please come here.”
She looked back to the piece. “I think, if Sadie has the space for it, it should be in the show. Kind of before, with all the other stuff, and after. You know, a then and now. That’s its title, by the way. ‘After 2.’ There’s after Dad. And now after you. The title isn’t original. But it is apropos.”
After you.
“Baby, please come here,” he begged.
She came there.
He pulled her in his arms and shoved his face in her neck.
“It’s not for sale,” he declared to her skin.
“No. I called Dad. He told me he’d keep it in his backyard until …”
She didn’t finish that.
He did. “We get our place and it has its place.”
“Yes,” she said softly.
He lifted his head. “Until then, as you know, I don’t have a backyard. My place butts the fence and the fence butts the alley.”
“I know, but as much as I love your pad, Axl, you can’t raise kids in it. They need their own space. And we’ll need our own space. And your place will really only be just our space until we find a different space when the concept of ‘our’ expands.”
Their kids’ll need space.
And they’ll need space.
His throat felt tight.
“Right,” he pushed through it.
“My mom’s backyard isn’t big enough for it either. Your mom has no backyard. So it’s Dad’s. For now. He sounded kinda excited about it. Even though I made sure he knew eventually, it’d be moved.”
“Right.”
“I’m supposed to get you a plaque,” she said confusingly.
“What?” he asked, not following.
“Evie and Ryn told me when I showed them this today,” she tipped her head to the sculpture. “Now that it’s official, you know, you and me, you need a plaque for your workstation.”
He felt his lips curve up because this had become a thing.
Evie started it with Mag. Got him a #1 BOYFRIEND plaque to sit at his workstation. It changed when they got engaged. It’d no doubt change again when they got married.
Ryn did the same, and the plaque Boone had declared him her hero.
“They suggested, ‘Axl Pantera, The Wind Beneath My Wings,’ ” she told him.
“Please, fuck, do not give me a plaque that says that.”
She grinned up at him.
Her grin faded and she traced his cheekbone with her thumb, murmuring, “I’ll figure out something.”
“Baby,” he called, and her gaze went from her thumb, which was now at the corner of his mouth, to his eyes. “I love it.”
“Good,” she whispered.
“And I love you.”
“Good,” she repeated, still whispering.
“Thanks for adding Jordan to my house.”
Her warm brown eyes melted.
“You’re welcome.”
“Wanna move in?” he asked.
She did a slow blink.
When she was done doing that, there was no describing what was in her eyes.
It was just a feeling.
And that feeling had a focal point in the left side of his chest.
And then she said, “Absolutely.”
And when she was done doing that …
Well, that was when he kissed her.
While he was doing it, Molly started yapping.
And Welly used the distraction to pee in the corner.
; * * *
HAWK
Hawk folded into the backseat of the town car next to Cisco.
“Joe,” Cisco said the minute he closed his door.
The car started moving.
Hawk had taken in that Cisco had come prepared for this late-night meeting.
Gone was the man’s usual suit, he was in jeans, boots and a sweater.
They were nice jeans, boots and sweater. Hawk knew they cost more than he would ever pay for clothes (not more than his wife would pay for his clothes, which was why he had jeans, boots and sweaters in his closet much like that).
But Cisco wasn’t going casual because the workday was done.
He wasn’t feeling anything hindering his movements tonight.
“Don’t got a good feeling?” he asked.
“I never enjoy a chat with Brandi,” Cisco replied.
They agreed on something.
“You get why she wanted this talk, just you and me?” Hawk went on.
For the first time since he entered the car, Cisco turned his head to look at Hawk, “I have no idea.”
“Credit where it’s due, you’ve been solid through this, man,” Hawk said to him.
Cisco turned again to face forward. “I had motivation.”
“The women.”
Cisco didn’t reply.
Hawk faced forward as well and murmured, “Heard rumors.”
“Never believe rumors.”
These ones, considering Cisco’s recent behavior, Hawk was prone to believe.
“It’s happened in Denver before,” Hawk stated.
And it had.
Twice.
When Darius Tucker and Shirleen Jackson exited the game and went legit.
And when Marcus Sloan and Ren Zano did the same and became partners in a legal operation.
“Yes, and when that happened, we got Benito Valenzuela,” Cisco reminded him.
Not much surprised Hawk Delgado.
That surprised him.
He turned to the man again. “You’re saying—”
Cisco also turned to him. “I’m not saying anything.”
“No,” Hawk stated firmly. “You’re saying you’re making moves to get out, doing it protecting Denver from a psychopath like Valenzuela.”
What Cisco said next didn’t confirm.
And it absolutely did.
“Hypothetically, if one were to endeavor not to make the mistakes made before him, actually learn from history for once, in reviewing how those before had taken their bows, one would note that the mistake they all made was that they didn’t select then train their successor in the proper way to go about things.”
Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3) Page 38
