And that was when Greg realized Derek was crying, right along with Brenna. Tears rolled out of his bloodshot eyes and down his pasty white face, and he was rail-thin, emaciated, and his whole body was shaking like he’d been caught in a February blizzard with no coat on, and Greg stopped in his tracks, not so much from the force of the threat but out of shock at his little brother’s condition.
They’d last seen each other—when? Six months ago, maybe? Longer? Whenever it was, Derek had appeared in ill health then, too—actively using junkies always do—but even then he’d looked like a fitness buff compared to…this.
They regarded each other for a moment and then Greg said, “What’s going on, Derek? How can you break into your own brother’s home and take a knife to his wife?” He spoke quietly and moved to drape an arm around Brenna but she shoved it away and then slid laterally along the counter, putting more distance between the two brothers, still sniffling and sobbing but not saying a word.
“I told you already,” Derek said. “I’m in big trouble. I need money and I need wheels and I need to get the hell out of Boston.”
“You need a fix.” It was plain as day, but despite that fact Greg expected a furious denial or a barrage of self-serving junkie bullshit from his brother.
To his surprise he got neither. “Yes, I do. Very much. But that’s the least of my problems right now.”
“Jesus, Derek, what did you do?”
He shook his head. “I can’t—”
“GET OUT!” The shouted words exploded out of Brenna like a bomb.
Greg turned toward his wife and raised his hands in a warding-off gesture. He started to answer her, but she hadn’t finished speaking. She lowered her voice so she was no longer screaming, but the words were cold and hard and furious. “Your brother walks in here and threatens me with a knife and you come home and ask him what’s wrong? While I’m bleeding all over the kitchen floor? Get out. Get out and don’t come back.”
“Brenna…”
“Get out. Now.”
“Listen—”
“I said leave.”
6
“I’m sorry about Brenna.” They’d only been inside Greg’s Mustang for maybe five minutes, but up until Derek spoke the silence had been suffocating.
“You’re sorry? About which part, you assaulting her with a fucking knife or her kicking me out of my own house?”
“Both. Everything.”
“Wonderful. Thanks for that. What the hell is going on, Derek? And no bullshit. If you expect to take my money and my car and make a desperate dash for freedom, like some junkie Butch Cassidy, you owe me the truth.”
Derek stared out the windshield, running his thumb absently along the sharp edge of the knife. He was silent for so long Greg was certain he wouldn’t answer, but then he did. “I owed a lot of money to a dealer.”
“All this is because of a debt to a fucking drug dealer? Jesus, Derek, there are other things you can do than threaten to murder my wife and then skip town.”
“You said you wanted the truth. Are you going to let me give it to you or do you just want to rant and rave? Your choice. Either one’s fine with me.”
Greg looked away from the road and studied his brother’s face for longer than he should have, given the fact he was driving. “It’s a lot worse than just owing a dealer some scratch, isn’t it?”
Derek returned Greg’s gaze just as he turned his attention back to the traffic. “It’s not just a dealer, Greg. It’s the main distribution guy for this entire area.”
“The mob.”
Derek shrugged. “Something like that. It’s not that cut-and-dried anymore. Could be the Russians, could be the Italians, could be the Chinese. Who the hell knows? The point is this guy is connected and powerful.”
“So you owe money to a really bad guy.”
“Yes. A lot of money.”
“And you can’t pay it and so you’re looking to skip town for awhile. I get that. But why the desperation, why the knife and the threats and scaring an innocent woman half to death? Why not just come and talk to me like a human being?”
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“And it’s worse.”
“Tell me.”
“The dude gave me the chance to wipe my financial slate clean and earn a couple fixes, too. All I had to do was strong-arm some financial big shot who also owed money to this guy. But things—”
“Wait a second.” Greg looked at Derek incredulously. “He sent you to work someone over? You can barely string a coherent sentence together.”
Derek continued as though Greg hadn’t even spoken. He stared straight out the windshield and kept talking. “But things went bad. Really bad.”
Warning bells were going off inside Greg’s head as he listened to his brother’s narrative. A sense of impending doom had begun to envelop him, like a thick fog rolling in off the ocean. It was a sinking feeling and it was over and above the fury he’d felt at walking into his home and seeing Brenna being held at knifepoint by his own brother.
The warning bells clanged relentlessly and Greg felt his mouth becoming sticky and dry. He thought he knew what was coming and he didn’t want to hear it. But ignoring the problem wasn’t going to make it go away. Ignoring problems was what led people like Derek into situations like the one his brother found himself in now. Ignoring problems only made them worse, a reality Derek Weaver had never quite understood.
“Tell me everything,” he said, steeling himself for the worst.
So Derek did.
And it was even ghastlier than he’d imagined.
7
“You’ve got to go to the cops. Like, right now.” They’d been driving aimlessly while Derek spilled his guts, and now that he’d finished the story, the lack of reasonable alternatives seemed glaringly obvious to Greg.
He was no prude, and had had his share of run-ins with the police, especially as a kid. But it was one thing to run from the cops after tagging a bridge abutment, or get busted for smoking weed at a high school party. It was another matter entirely to walk away from a man’s house leaving behind two dead bodies and a little kid lashed to a chair.
Derek shook his head bleakly. “I’ll get the needle.”
“Massachusetts doesn’t have the death penalty, dumbass.”
“Then I’ll go to jail for the rest of my life.”
“At least you’ll be alive. You stay on the street and Crowder’s going to get to you.”
“You don’t think he can get to me in prison? Wake up, Greg. I told you already, this is one bad dude. That’s why I have to run.”
Greg felt his anger rising again and he tried to control it. “Wake up? You want me to wake up? Jesus Christ, Derek, you’re living in a fantasy world. You killed two innocent people. Worse, two people with money. Crowder is the least of your problems. You have to worry about the cops. Do you understand you can’t run far enough to escape them? They’ll never stop looking for you. Your best bet is to turn yourself in, and the sooner the better.”
“And get shivved in jail.”
“They can protect you.”
“They’re not gonna protect me. What possible motivation would they have to protect a junkie murderer? They’ll be glad I’m dead. One less killer to feed and clothe and incarcerate.”
“That’s not true,” Greg said. “The cops are masters at using the little fish to hook the big fish. They’ll protect you because if this Crowder character is as bad as you say, they’ll want to nail him more than they want to be rid of you.”
“I can’t prove anything I’ve told you, Greg. It’s my word against his that I was working for him when I went to that house last night. And I guarantee he’ll have better lawyers than I do if it ever goes to trial. I wouldn’t stand a chance against Crowder in a courtroom. Or anywhere else.”
“But—”
“And say for the sake of argument the authorit
ies did believe me, and used me to build a case against Crowder. They’d protect me only as long as I was of value to them. Once the trial was over, win or lose, I’d be on my own. And then I’d be dead within a week.”
They stared at each other, Derek’s eyes wide and frightened. Greg realized his brother was right. “So that’s your plan: hit the road and try to elude both sides. You’re going to hide from law enforcement and this badass dude Crowder.”
“It beats anything else I can think of.”
“But you don’t have any money. You have nothing. Even if I give you everything in Brenna’s and my bank account, it’s only a couple grand. You can’t travel very far or hide for very long on that.” Especially if you’re going to inject most of it into your veins, Greg thought but didn’t say. “What happens when the cash runs out?”
Derek shrugged.
Shook his head.
Said, “I don’t know, Greg. I’ll figure something out. I’m making this up as I go, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I had. It’s kind of hard to miss.”
“Maybe this is a blessing in disguise,” Derek said thoughtfully. “I’ll have no choice but to get clean now.”
Traffic was slowing up ahead and Greg tapped the brake and then shook his head. “That would be great, Derek, but how can you consider anything a blessing when two people are dead and you’re going to be hunted by basically everyone?”
“Obviously the dead family is no blessing. I didn’t mean to kill anyone, Greg, you have to know that. I know it’s real easy to judge me—hell, I judge myself every goddamned day—and there’s no question my life has been one bad choice after another. But regardless of what you think of me now, you’ve known me my whole life and you have to realize I never meant to kill anyone. Hell, I would never intentionally hurt anyone.”
“Tell that to Mom.” It was a visceral reaction, the words spilling out before Greg could stop them, before he even gave them conscious thought. He felt bad for saying them as soon as they came out.
But they were accurate. If Greg had disappointed their mother with his small-time punk bullshit as a teenager, Derek had devastated her with his drug use and all the criminal activity that accompanied it.
Derek hung his head and said nothing.
Greg opened his mouth to speak without having any idea what was going to come out, but before he could say anything, Derek beat him to the punch. “Can I get some cash from you and use your car for awhile or not?”
“You’re the one holding the deadly weapon,” Greg shot back. “If you were willing to use it on Brenna, I can’t imagine you’d hesitate to use it on me, so what choice do I have?”
He wasn’t sure whether he believed his words or not. What Derek had said about being basically harmless—except to himself—was true, at least about the Derek Greg had grown up with. But this Derek had been living on the streets a long time, and had shot up, swallowed, drank or otherwise ingested who knew how much poison over the last decade or more. Plus, he was truly in a tight spot and he was desperate. Greg wanted to believe his brother wouldn’t plunge the knife into his ribs, but he wasn’t a hundred percent convinced of it, either.
“I’ll get it back to you,” Derek mumbled. “I’ll pick up another car and I’ll leave yours somewhere and then I’ll call you and let you know where it is.”
There was so much wrong with Derek’s statement, Greg didn’t know where to begin. Where and how would Derek get another car without a job or any money? And even if he could manage that, how was Greg supposed to get to Jacksonville or Fargo or East Bumfuck or wherever Derek ditched the car in order to pick it up? And how was he supposed to stand any chance of salvaging his marriage to Brenna—which he suddenly, desperately wanted to do—if he gave their meager savings away to a confessed murderer, even if that man was his own brother?
But detailing the absurdity of Derek’s statement would be pointless. It would be like talking to a brick wall. Greg was familiar enough with addictive behavior to know that junkies can rationalize anything. They learn the skill early in their drug use because it’s the only way to live with the pain they bring to their family and friends.
So he ignored Derek’s words and instead said, “If you want to skip town, why not just use the car that’s sitting out front of my house? Why involve me and Brenna at all?”
Derek scoffed. “Did you see that thing? I’d be lucky to make it to the state line in that piece of shit. Besides, I need money, too.”
Greg pursed his lips, thinking. “You look like death warmed over. Let’s get you something to eat and then we can head to the bank, I guess.”
“No. I might look like shit but I feel even worse than I look. There’s no way I could keep any food down right now. Besides, I just got done telling you about Crowder. He’s got his goons scouring the city for me.”
Greg shook his head and sighed.
Derek huffed angrily and said, “I can’t afford to sit in a restaurant eating eggs and drinking coffee. I have to get out of here while I can, and before the cops figure out who killed those two people last night in Boxford. It should take some time to connect me to them, but if I’m anywhere near here when that happens, I won’t stand a chance. Please, Greg.”
He shook his head again and hit the gas.
8
They were in the parking lot of the diner, Greg knew, before Derek realized what was happening. He’d more or less zoned out, staring through the windshield while keeping his knife handy, still fingering it nervously on his lap. Greg didn’t even feel badly about tricking him; if his fuckup brother intended to take his car and his money and split, sitting down to breakfast with him was the least he could do.
Maybe the extra time would allow him to figure some way out of this mess, and even if not, God knew Derek could use some nutrition. He’d never been stocky, even as a kid, but years of drug use and street living had rendered him beanpole-thin, all bones and angles and bad skin.
Greg pulled the Mustang to a stop and Derek blinked rapidly, as if roused suddenly from a deep sleep. “I don’t see any ATM,” he said. “Where is it?”
“The ATM’s next. First we’re gonna eat.”
“I told you I can’t eat,” Derek spat. “I’ve gotta get the fuck out of here.”
Greg ignored him and stepped out of the car. He thought about escaping, just slamming his door closed and sprinting off along the sidewalk. It would be a simple matter to get away with his brother still climbing out of the car and the vehicle taking up space between the two of them. He probably wouldn’t even have to run if he didn’t want to; Derek was so obviously dopesick he likely couldn’t match a brisk walking pace. Greg held his keys in his hand, so he wouldn’t even lose his car.
But taking off would accomplish nothing. Derek would be stranded, and even more desperate than before, when he’d taken the extreme step of threatening Brenna with a knife. If Greg were to save himself it was almost a sure bet someone else would get hurt.
He was nobody’s idea of a hero, or even of a selfless individual for that matter. Most of the time he knew he acted like a selfish, egocentric jerk. But he simply couldn’t take the chance that another innocent person would be injured or killed by his own brother just because he couldn’t deal.
“Goddammit, Greg.” Derek shot out of the passenger side faster than Greg would have predicted, and he glared over the Mustang’s roof, his bloodshot eyes hooded and furious.
Across the parking lot a cop was approaching on foot. Greg hadn’t seen the man when he pulled into the diner’s lot and he immediately wished he’d kept driving. Derek had said the police would have no way of knowing the identity of the killer who’d slain two people in Boxford in a botched home invasion, but he wasn’t exactly a criminal mastermind. There were lots of ways his assessment could be way off base.
Maybe he’d been caught on video surveillance. Plenty of people, especially rich ones, used CCTV for security now; it was relatively cheap an
d always on duty.
Maybe he’d left fingerprints at the scene. Hell, it was likely he’d left fingerprints at the scene. And shoe prints and probably DNA, to boot. And as a homeless vagrant addict, Derek was almost certainly known to the local police. Maybe it would take awhile to identify the killer, maybe not.
And there was another possibility. It apparently hadn’t occurred to Derek but it was the first thing that came to Greg’s mind when his brother had said Crowder was looking for him.
He pushed the negative possibilities away for the moment as he waited for the cop to pass them and continue to the sidewalk. One thing at a time was about all he could handle right now.
The officer was approaching at an angle, and Derek hadn’t spotted him yet. Greg wondered where the steak knife was and whether the cop could see it. He didn’t think so, because it looked like Derek’s hands were shielded from the cop’s view by the open passenger door.
Derek glanced right as the cop entered his peripheral vision and did a double take. He froze, standing at the side of the car, trying his best to appear nonchalant but succeeding only in looking guilty of something.
The cop did exactly what Greg knew he would do. He did exactly what cops everywhere do a hundred times a day: he checked them out as he plodded past. First he studied Greg’s face for maybe half a second, and then he turned his head to do the same with Derek, seemingly not suspicious of them beyond the typical cop suspicion of everyone and everything.
He took another two steps and then stopped, and for maybe half a second Derek and the cop stood staring at each other, separated by no more than six feet, as the cop’s eyes narrowed and Derek’s widened. Greg watched it all unfold almost in slow motion.
The cop began reaching for his gun as he opened his mouth and said, “Stop right there. Don’t you move.”
But Derek moved.
He stepped around the still-open Mustang door as the cop grabbed for the gun in his holster.
Chasing China White Page 8
