“Well, to be fair to the investigators,” I say, “you had the journals that outlined the partner's flaws. Without that, maybe they didn't realize the partner had a motive. Actually, they may not have even known there was a partner at all.”
“I guess,” Uncle Dan says.
“As I see it,” I say, “option three is to stay here while I try to broker a deal for Aunt Anne with John Roth directly. He obviously knows it may not hold if there's been some kind of revolution back in Galveston, but he might release one person on the chance of promising trade channels or tech. And if you're right and he's looking for a reason to save her. . .”
Uncle Dan shakes his head. “It probably would've worked, but you told him about the accelerant and he’ll think that through. An attack by a Port Head means you’re not in control, at least not fully. I doubt he’ll broker a deal unless he knows whether you have the authority to authorize it.”
I mutter under my breath.
“Galveston's closer and easier to reach than Nebraska,” Wesley says. “And the people will recognize you. They love you already. Maybe if Adam and your mom are in trouble, we can help them.”
“Or maybe we split up,” Rhonda says. “I don't like the idea, but it makes the most sense. If we have two options, we should try both. Dad, Job and I go to Nebraska. Ruby, you and Wesley take your guards and head for Galveston. Our goal in Nebraska would be saving the Marked kids, even though we want to focus on Mom, because we can do it while you head for WPN. Your goal is to save Mom, because that’s the best way to negotiate for her release.”
My stomach sinks at the thought of splitting up again. The last time we did that Aunt Anne got Marked and I went all the way to Galveston where Sam almost died. And this time, I'm not at all sure Sam's even coming. I told John Roth that Adam's assigned guards were just as good, but I don't feel nearly as safe about the thought of going without him.
“What about Sam?” I ask.
“He's in trouble,” Uncle Dan says. “He left his post without permission. There's going to be a hearing tomorrow. That's why he didn't follow you tonight. Unless he left at his father’s bidding with you, and you said you declined the offer, he won’t be free to leave.”
My heart sinks. He told me this would happen back in the truck that first morning. I forgot all about that conversation, our first fight. He said his dad wouldn't let it go that he took me to Galveston. I thought he was giving me space but really, Sam's in trouble. And it’s my fault.
“We had no choice when we left. The Marked kids caught us out in the open and we had to escape. I need to go tell John Roth.”
“You’re going to tell him that you and his son had to flee. . . all the way down to Galveston?” Rhonda raises one eyebrow. “They had every other path blocked?”
“If leaving was so wrong, why didn't John Roth hold me for a hearing?” I ask.
Uncle Dan sighs. “First of all, you were a minor when you left so you aren't accountable. Secondly, the real decision fell to Sam. But beyond that, you're the Queen of World Peace Now, and he wants to maintain a good relationship with you if he can. Charging you or trying you for leaving could start a war at this point. He’ll take his pound of flesh from Sam.”
I stand up and walk to the door. “Well, Sam's my Chief of Defense and Guards or whatever. He can't be charged without causing a fight either. I'll go tell his dad that right now.”
“I'd suggest you leave it alone. This particular hearing is more between a father and a son than a leader and subordinate,” Uncle Dan says. “John won't let them kill Sam, but he's going to make things miserable for him. And maybe he should.”
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Sam shouldn't have taken you down there alone. I told him to keep you safe here.”
I snort. “Nothing is safe, not anymore. Aunt Anne got Marked right here in town, remember?”
Uncle Dan stands up and shakes his finger. For the first time since I saw him on the side of the road, he looks like himself. “Sam disobeyed my direct order, and your aunt and I were worried we'd never see you again. He must be held accountable.”
Wow, I hit a nerve.
“Fine,” I say. “Then I guess it's settled. Wesley and I head back to Galveston with my sixteen tweedle dees and dums, and you three make the trek to Republican City.”
Uncle Dan sighs. “I'd like to go to Nashville and try to see my wife. But if she were here, she'd tell me to do anything I could to find Don's partner and save those kids.”
“Wait,” Wesley says. “You read the journals way back when, or at least your wife did. You knew the partner was pressuring Don. Wouldn't you have seen him as a risk for releasing Tercera and murdering Donovan? Wouldn't you have looked over the financials in that briefcase before you left to figure out who he was?”
Uncle Dan shakes his head. “You're confusing the timeline. When Don died we assumed it was Solomon who killed him. Don told Anne he was worried about being found. We hadn't taken the time to read through all the journals, so the thought of a partner hadn't entered our heads.”
“It was David Solomon who shot him,” I say. “He never even denied it. Solomon said Dad shouldn't have died from it, but I don't know whether I believe that.”
“Your aunt and I assumed David Solomon shot Don, so we didn't worry about other leads. We couldn’t pursue that one without being sure, because testifying about his motive exposed that you weren’t our niece. Or that you might not be.”
“Which is why you ran.”
Uncle Dan nods. “The partner has to be someone he knew from Pfizer or through his connections there I'd think. Someone who knew how brilliant he was and had enough money to take a gamble on it. By the time we read the journals, years had passed since the Marking. It didn't much matter then who released Tercera, only that we escaped infection. We were way past trying to pin this on someone, not that we'd have been able to do anything about it if we had been able to prove blame.”
“Why didn't you want to locate the hacker virus?” I ask.
Uncle Dan tilts his head. “You're tired Ruby and you need some sleep. We didn't know the partner stole it. You found that information in the journal you recovered in Galveston.”
Duh.
He's right. I'm tired, probably too tired to be making any big decisions, but we don’t have time for a siesta.
“We all need a few hours sleep,” I say. “But I don't want to sleep until we’re on our way. Then we can take shifts. Uncle Dan, can you draw me a map to get to the cabin in Nebraska? Mark the route you're taking for me. I hate the idea of splitting up, but this way if anything comes up, at least we know where you're headed.”
Dan nods. “Good plan. Rhonda and Job and I will leave now and drive in shifts. John Roth may not let us leave if we wait for morning. He’s wrong about the twenty hours. It's a fifteen-hour drive with good roads, but I imagine it'll take us much longer. Probably even more than the twenty John mentioned.”
“Yeah the roads are going to suck this time of year,” Wesley says.
“I'll have the guards drive Wesley and I in the vans,” I say. “You can take the jeep since it's in way better shape than that crappy truck, and it's still got three full gas tanks in the back. That should be enough, or at least close to enough.”
Uncle Dan nods. “I've got another tank or two for emergencies. Combined it'll be fine. Please be safe.”
I smile. “I'll be okay. I outmaneuvered the Port Heads last time, and I'll do it again. I hope we can find something useful. Solomon mentioned he had the police file. Maybe it'll say who Dad's partner was.” Could it be that simple? Was the answer at my fingertips down there and I didn’t even think to look?
Wesley and I have to hike down south of the city, but Uncle Dan tells us exactly where to walk to avoid detection. It's nice to be leaving with his blessing for once.
“Your dad's going to be mad,” I say. “Do you feel a little guilty about leaving so soon?”
Wesley shakes his head. “My dad's a
good person, but he gets confused a lot. He should never have convicted Anne. I think he was upset because I got Marked and you didn't. He took it out on her unfairly. He told me he wished he could take it back, but it was too late.”
“But still, he's going to be upset you left. He may have done some dumb things, but we all do. At the end of the day, he's still your dad.”
“If they'd do what needed to be done instead of hiding back here.” Wesley frowns. “We wouldn't have to do this if he would listen to me. Or if any of them actually cared about the Marked kids. But they haven't met them or seen what we've seen, so it doesn't feel real to them.” He squares his shoulders. “The answer is, I do feel bad about leaving my mom, but this is important.”
“It's going to wreck her when she realizes you’re gone again.”
“At least this time I’ll be coming back.” Wesley walks in the dark without stumbling or tripping. “What about you?”
“What about me?” I ask. “I'm headed back to see my mom.”
“I mean, how do you feel about Sam?”
I stop moving. “I think I should do something to try and help him, but if I do the wrong thing, it could make everything worse. I should probably let him give me space like he said.”
“What does that even mean?” Wesley asks. “Space, like you want a restraining order?”
“I think it means he's trying to put no pressure on me. Life has been boxing us in, and he doesn't want me to be with him just because I don't feel like I have any other choices.”
“Um lady, I think you know what your options are.” Wesley grins. “But his suggestion doesn't make sense. Deciding things in a floating cloud of no pressure and no hard calls is a precious idea, but we don't show who we really are until we're being crunched.”
“True, but you can’t make the best decision if someone’s rushing you either.”
Wesley kicks a rock. “Nah, those are the decisions that matter. Think about it. Let's say there's some guy and he seems pretty nice. He wants people to like him, so he says please and thank you, and drags his neighbor's trash out to the road. Only, the neighbor has a nicer house, a motorcycle, and an amazing book collection. One day Guy Smiley finds his neighbor on the edge of a cliff, dangling by one hand. He can save him or shove him off. Or even less sinister, he can simply watch while the neighbor's fingers slowly loosen and he falls over the side. He didn't do anything wrong, but he didn't save him. Now Guy Smiley can take the fancy house, the book collection, and the motorcycle. Or he could save this fantastically blessed guy who makes him jealous. What does Guy Smiley do? That decision tells you more about who he is than you'd learn from a year of Sunday dinners and hand holding and slow kisses on the porch.”
“Wow, I'm glad I don’t have a motorcycle or a fancy book collection,” I say.
“Yeah, all you’ve got is a pile of tiaras and ball gowns laced with rubies.” Wesley bumps my shoulder with his. “My point is, when there's pressure you know what you want and your desires define you. When you thought Sam died, you left the island and completely ignored me. You were devastated. Once you realized he might have survived, all you wanted was to return to him. When Sam caught you running away, he should have hauled you back by the ear. Even after the Marked attacked, he should’ve turned right around and tossed you back into your house like your uncle told him, like his boss ordered. Instead, he drove you down to Galveston. He saved you on the way, and then rescued you when your attempted rescue failed.”
“What's your point exactly?” I ask. “Because that’s a lot of jabbering.”
Wesley grabs my hips, one hand on either side, and pulls me toward him until our bodies are flush from my thighs to my shoulder. He leans down slowly, his eyes meeting mine, calm and sure. He closes the gap between our heights, his lips moving toward mine, his eyes flashing. “No matter what, no matter the pressure, you’re all I want.” He lowers his head further. “And this is my point.” His mouth closes over mine, his lips warm in the cool night air.
My heart lurches, but not in a good way. I can't be doing this, and I don't want this. I love Wesley, but not like this, not anymore. I shove him back. “Wes I'm sorry, but I can't. It’s wrong.”
Wesley smiles, but his eyes are sad in the moonlight. “I know you can't. It kind of pisses me off, but it's so obvious. You don't need space. You just need to accept that you need Sam. It’s scary to need someone, and if you’d lost a lot of people and had no one to rely on, you might struggle with doing that. But it doesn’t mean you should give up.”
“Then I can't leave him here,” I say. “I can’t let him be tried as a criminal for helping me out.”
“You can't waltz in and save him either,” Wesley says. “He'd resent you for thinking he needs to be saved. You spend all your time saving everyone else, but you can't go save him. Not this time.”
“That's stupid,” I say.
“Boys are stupid.”
I swear.
“Besides, we've got to get to Galveston and make sure Adam and Josephine are okay. And then figure out how to apply pressure to save your aunt. And dig up the police file so we can see who your dad's partner might have been. Wow, we have a lot to do.”
It hits me then, a thought I would likely have had earlier if I'd been less exhausted. “The police file won't help us.”
“Huh?” Wesley runs his hand through his hair.
“Think about it. The police investigation turned up nothing because Dad's dumb secretary sent everything to Aunt Anne. They would've pursued any leads on a partner, at the very least apprising Aunt Anne that they interviewed him. Uncle Dan said they did nothing, which means they knew nothing, which means. . .”
Wesley stops dead in his tracks. “The police file's useless. Solomon would’ve told us the partner's name if he knew, and he'd have known if it was in the file.”
I nod my head. “If our main goal is saving those kids, we're going the wrong way.”
“What about your aunt?”
I smile. “We send my guards back to deliver a message to Mom and Adam telling them about Aunt Anne. If they don't know about the accelerant, my message will alert them to the possible problem. If there's been a coup, well my sixteen guards wouldn’t have made much of a difference, and at least I won't die down in Galveston before we can try and help the Marked kids and my aunt. But if everything there is fine and the accelerant came from somewhere else. . .”
“Then what?” Wesley asks.
“I’m going to order Adam to send a formal message to the Unmarked. Release Anne Orien into the custody of their queen and negotiate a trade agreement, or WPN declares war.”
Wesley’s eyes widen. “Are you sure?”
I smile grimly. “Only because it would be so very lopsided that I know what John Roth will say. The Unmarked can’t withstand a fight with WPN and they know it. They’ll hand her over. No one is worth that possible threat.”
“And after we dispatch your guards?”
“John can't know I didn't head for Galveston with them.”
Wesley frowns. “How's that going to work?”
“I'm going to need a little favor.”
“What exactly did you have in mind now?”
I try to smile my prettiest smile, but I'm afraid I might look like a deranged beauty pageant contestant. “Your dad is on cloud nine right now. He’d forgive you of most anything, right?”
Wesley huffs. “I don’t like where this is going.”
“How do you feel about breaking Sam out of your house and stealing his dad's Range Rover?”
13
“Not very good,” Wesley says. “Actually, I'd say I feel terrible about that idea. It's got to be the worst suggestion I've heard in weeks. And things have been whack, so you're being compared to like, replacing hormone suppressants with prenatal vitamins. It's a high bar, but you've managed to clear it.”
“What's your brilliant plan then?” I ask. “We've got to help Sam without letting his dad know I'm not en route to Galveston
. Plus, somehow we need to get up north to Nebraska. My jeep's already gone, and the guards need the vans... so.”
Wesley mumbles the entire walk south of Port Gibson. He grumbles while I convince Frank, Paul, Greg and Demetrius, the four commanders, to sign off on my plan to send them back to Galveston while I travel on without them. To Nebraska. Wesley mutters while we sneak back to College Street, where of course the jeep is already gone.
I lean on the old red truck. “Sam's already in hot water. How much worse can it be?”
“Stealing the car that belongs to the head of the Unmarked's DeciCouncil won't help him. Plus, they might actually hunt us down like dogs and shoot us.”
“Fine, then we take this.” I kick the tire of the truck Rafe gave Uncle Dan. “It runs fine, mostly. And really we only need to catch up to Job and Rhonda. After that, we'll all fit in the jeep.”
“So we aren't taking Sam?” Wesley asks.
I swear. “Only five seats in the jeep.”
Wesley nods.
I sigh. “Okay, we take this the whole way. It's a good idea to have two cars anyway, in case something happens.”
“How are you planning on breaking Sam out?” he asks.
“I have no idea. Think he's still at your place?”
Wesley shrugs. “There or in a cell.”
I really hope his dad didn't lock him up.
“I guess we'll go to your house, see if he's there, and kind of go from there. I figured he'd be there, and we'd tell him the plan, and we'd all hop in his dad's car and go.”
“Yeah, I'm not going to be an accessory to presidential grand theft auto, but we could take this old rust bucket. Let's say we do find him, and he can Sam his way out. What about gas?” he asks. “Rafe gave Dan and I a full tank, which got us here, but it's half gone. It won't go fifteen hours up and another fifteen back.”
Wesley's turning into a real pain.
Sins of Our Ancestors Boxed Set Page 65
