by Asia Marquis
I feel like I just woke up, partly because I did. But it doesn't make me less tired. Just woke up, and I'm already more than ready to join Ryan in the world of sleep.
Some time, we'll need to get back into town and deal with Scheck and her guys. But that's far away, now. We're near a two-hour drive out of town, and under false names.
The odds of anyone looking for us are pretty slim. The odds of them finding us, slimmer. In all the rooms in all the hospitals in Tucson, I can't imagine that they'll find us easy.
Ryan needs time, to recover. I need time. And his brother… well, I just have to hope that he gets out of surgery soon. For Ryan's sake, for mine.
Part of me wants to figure out what happened to Logan. I haven't heard from him. Then again, I never have before, neither. I add that to the list of things I don't want to talk to Ryan about.
If he was shot, I'd have heard about it, right? There'd be something on the police scanner about it. Probably on the regular radio about it.
If I didn't hear about it, then he's probably alright. Probably. The word rolls around in my head and doesn't sit right wherever it falls. Probably fine, but not definitely. Not 'he's fine,' but 'he might be alright, depending.'
I don't like it. Don't like it one bit. Especially if it turns out that Donaldsen shot him. Sure, trying to break out of your cuffs and escape is illegal. "Resisting arrest," I suppose.
But on the other hand, so too is taking a suspect to a god damned private hotel room. He should've been in the holding cell, or the interrogation room, or perhaps the Sheriff's office.
Which begs the real question; why was he in that room?
The minute they got Ryan, they were heading to Tulsa International Airport. The very second.
Yet, they get Logan, and he stays in the hotel room. I thought it was so that they could question him about something. Where Ryan was. Or perhaps they could hope to use him as bait, to bring Ryan in.
Instead, they'd used him as bait for me, maybe, but there were no guarantees with that. They did little more than guess that I might come in and try to help him.
That's not a sure thing, and sure as hell not enough to risk what it might look like if they got caught and I slipped the trap.
As for bait for Beauchamp, they already had the Crazy Horses on top of it. So why was he in that room? If you're picking up crooks, why not arrest him and send him on to D.C.? If you're looking to bait Beauchamp, why split your forces?
None of it makes any sense, and it's starting to sit wrong. There has to be some explanation. Why in that hotel room? Why didn't he have time to call his brother before Mitch caught him by surprise?
The pieces didn't fit. None of them did. And the more that I looked at the picture, at the ways that they did fit, the less that I liked the way that it looked.
Because the only answer I kept coming around to was that none of it made any sense. The only reason that they would put him in that room was so that they could bring me into the room with him.
If they were doing that, then they were doing it to bait me into showing my hand too early. But the reasons for using Logan? There aren't any. I can't think of a single one.
The more that I try to think of one, the less that I can. There's no reason that they would have picked him up. They wanted to see something, but I can't figure out what the hell it is.
There's one thing that doesn't fit with the rest of the picture. The wedge that keeps coming in between me and a good idea. Pollack and Donaldsen had to have been gone from that room for a good thirty minutes. I was in the car with them for fifteen minutes alone. If they'd come straight there, picked me up, and driven straight back, fifteen minutes. No less.
Thirty minutes is a god damned long time. Long enough to get into a lot of trouble, if you're trying to. Long enough to cause a lot of trouble.
Logan was trapped in a position where it would take a while to get yourself out. A good, long while. But that's a while in terms of minutes. Anyone watching would be able to see you do it.
If you had thirty minutes to yourself, it might hurt like hell, but you could be out the door inside of ten minutes, with twenty more to get real gone.
So why the hell was Logan Beauchamp there when I showed up with Donaldsen?
The answers seem to all lead in about the same direction, and it's a direction I don't even want to think about for a single second. Not until I can talk to Ryan about it, talk him through everything that's happened since we last met up.
There's been a lot to discuss. Some of it, at least on my end, is going to be a little hard to believe. Scheck just let me walk right the hell out of there? Never in a million years. But it happened.
As I slowly wake up from my cat-nap, a lot of questions are starting to boil in my head. Questions I should have been asking at the time, but I was too God damned tired to think straight.
Well, now I'm thinking straight, and a hell of a lot about the past couple of days has been fishy as all hell. I don't like it one bit, and I'm going to have to get to the bottom of it.
Still, some of the things I'm thinking aren't going to be solved by just me alone. I need some kind of outside confirmation. Ryan's asleep, but he's restless. If I woke him now, he'd think he was awake the whole time.
I start to reach for him, but a noise at the door stops me. My hand jerks for my weapon on reflex, purely from being startled alone.
"How is he?" I turn. My hand goes back to the arm of the chair, real slow and real easy to see. I'm not causing any trouble, and I don't know anything. I try to look relieved.
"He's alright."
Logan Beauchamp pulls up a chair next to me and sits back in it. He looks good, considering that three hours ago he might have been dead man.
"What about you? You hurt? I know on that escape, things coulda gotten pretty hairy."
"I'm fine."
I don't like it. I don't like any of it one God damn bit, and now I've got a real good reason not to.
Chapter Fifty
RYAN
I don't know how long my eyes have been open for when I realize that I'm seeing the inside of the room, but it's been a little while.
I push myself higher in the bed. Sara and Logan are both sitting there. Both silent, watching me get up.
"How long have I been out?"
"A little while," Maguire tells me. Her voice is soft.
"You aren't careful, I'll think you were worried about me."
"Watch yourself, Beauchamp. They let me keep the gun just in case any dangerous criminals come around."
I can't help smiling at that.
"Logan," I say. My head feels pretty heavy. My whole body does, really. Feels like rubber or lead or something in between them. "You're alright."
"Sure I am. Can't kill me that easy, can they?"
"Naw, I figure not."
"You look like you got hit by a truck, man."
"No," I tell him. I wait a minute, lay my head back and can't stop myself cracking a little smile. "We hit the truck, actually."
"Why, you smart-aleck—"
"What happened after the accident? I remember… bits and pieces, but nothing much."
"Uh. Pollack is… probably alive. Haven't heard anything, but he's not in my unit. I wouldn't hear anything. Donaldsen wasn't moving when I pulled you out of the car. I think he's—"
"He's dead," I tell her. I don't know what caused the reaction she gives me, but it's not the one I would expect from a cop who I just confessed murder to. She looks happy, of all things.
"Okay, that's… what it is. So I drove you here, and got you into the room."
"Anything else? You didn't see anyone tailing you, nothing like that?"
"Nope. Nothing like that far as I could see. I was watching you and your brother, though." She turns to Logan. "I don't know where he is, but he should be out of surgery by now. They said he was pretty rough when I brought him in. If you wanted to check on him, I gave the name… Mitchell Blake, I think. Hell."
I don't need to say anyth
ing, the look I gave her says what it needs to say. She shrugs and make a face that says she doesn't have a good excuse for the name choice.
"Go on, Logan, have a check on him. I'll be fine in here."
"No way. I'm staying here. Bet you dollars to donuts that there's going to be some Crazy Horse bastard walking through that door any minute, and I'm going to be here when it happens."
"That's awful sweet of you, but I need a few minutes to myself, man. Go on out, stretch your legs." He doesn't look like he wants to, but I don't know why. "Go on, go find me a bag of M&Ms if you're so worried about it."
"That damn sweet tooth of yours," he growls.
"Yeah, that too."
Logan pushes himself up.
"You too, Maguire. I don't care if it's just down the hall and back, get out of here a minute. I just want a few minutes without someone starin' at me like I'm liable to croak any second!"
She pushes herself up, too. She's about as reluctant as Logan was. Something about the whole thing puts me on edge. I don't like any of this shit, but I like it least of all when both the people who say they're here to keep me safe are afraid to leave me alone for ten goddamn seconds.
Logan leaves with Sara in tow, and for about three seconds I get a moment of real peace. Then, like it was some kind of God damn comedy record, she comes back in a second later in a real hurry.
"Ryan."
"I told you to get out of here, Maguire, now get!"
"You gotta listen to me, Beauchamp. I don't know the details, just yet. But you have to keep an eye on your brother. Something fishy's up."
Then, again, she's gone. Now that I'd like to hear more about whatever suspicions she's got. I don't know any damn reason to be suspicious of Logan, nor of Brian.
But I know that Maguire wouldn't say it if she wasn't serious, and that makes me uncomfortable. Damned nervous, in fact. I lay my head back and turn towards the television.
It's showing some daytime television garbage. I don't recognize it, but I recognize the oversaturated colors, the too-sharp lines of cheap digital cameras.
There's something that's always been distinctly off-putting to me about seeing those shows, and seeing the way that they set up their video. Like there's something wrong with it.
Still, it's not my place. Not my show, not my video. So I guess they've got the right to do whatever the fuck they want. I want to change the channel, but if there was a remote in here, I never saw it. I'm sure they've got it hidden in a drawer somewhere.
I take a deep breath. Keep an eye on my brother? What the hell is that supposed to mean? He's always been reliable. The immediate-follow-through kind of guy. I don't trust anyone the way I trust him, or that's how I thought.
Maguire says "boo," though, and now I'm doubting him? I don't know. Maybe I'm taking trust a little too far for a woman I've known for all of a little more than a week. And I don't trust her assessment of the situation implicitly.
I just know that she's a cautious type, and if she has her doubts then they're based on something real, something tangible, and something that I must not have any knowledge of at all.
A minute later, Maguire walks in. She's got a bottle of water in her hands now. She doesn't offer me a sip, which would be pretty rude if it weren't for the fact that we're in a hospital and sharing damn near anything would be very foolish. That's how you get sick, after all.
Logan isn't long behind her. I follow Maguire's advice. I keep my eyes on him. I watch him go around the foot of the bed. I watch him settle into a chair that just about fits his broad hips.
I don't know what it is, but there's something off about it. Something that feels almost rehearsed, like whatever he's doing, he's doing it to show off.
That makes me damned nervous, because it means that whatever is about to happen, Logan doesn't think he can tell me, and Maguire thinks that I shouldn't trust it.
I learned a long time ago not to trust people when the chips are really down. People let you down all the fucking time, but they let you down most of all when you're in a bind.
At the same time, I learned a long time ago not to trust my own instincts. Not completely. If I have a solid idea, I know it's solid. But if I have any doubts, look at what someone else is doing.
I have doubts. I have a lot of doubts. He's my brother, for one thing. There's no way in hell that he'd do raise a hand against me. It's not the way with my family. We simply aren't that kind.
But when I look at someone else, all I'm seeing is Maguire telling me that I need to keep an eye on him. And that, by itself, is making me real damn nervous.
I hear someone coming. I don't know why I think they're coming here. Shoes walking by outside are about the most common noise I hear. But something tells me that they're heading straight for my room, so when I see someone filling the frame of the door, I'm not that surprised.
When he's holding a gun, I'm not that surprised. It's not until Logan grabs Maguire's hand as she reaches for hers that I get a surprise, and it's one that I don't like one damn bit.
Chapter Fifty-One
MAGUIRE
I know Ryan recognizes the big guy who walks in. Michael Carabello isn't a face you forget easily, but that goes double for people who got their faces smashed in by the guy for the better part of an afternoon.
Logan's got his hand on my arm, and I might be able to yank it away. Might even be able to get the gun. But not in time.
It would take precious seconds, and it wouldn't take half that time to turn that gun, point the dangerous end at my chest, and pull the trigger.
So I move real slow and force myself to stay real still and try like the devil not to think any aggressive thoughts.
"Hey, Beauchamp."
"Sorry, you got the wrong guy. My name is Blake."
"Oh, sorry. You're right. It's written right there by the door. 'Blake.' My mistake. I have trouble keeping up with all the name changes."
He doesn't lower the gun. I let Logan guide my hand away from the butt of my pistol, let him put my hand on the arm of my chair. I don't like when he pops the pistol free of its holster, and I don't like it when he points the thing at me.
But I don't have much choice.
"What are you doing here, Carabello?"
"You know, Maguire, Marissa likes you. You've got balls, yanno? Real cast-iron balls, to walk into our place and walk out with our hostage. All with big promises of bringing Beauchamp in and getting him out of our hair."
Logan cuts into the silence. "Ryan, stay calm. Listen to them, alright? Just listen, it's all going to be fine."
Carabello sits down on the foot of the bed, twisting to keep the gun pointed at Ryan.
"It's all going to be fine, Beauchamp. Long as you don't do anything stupid, we won't have any trouble. None at all."
"Good," Ryan growls. "Because I would hate to have trouble, you know. Trouble's the worst."
"I know."
Logan starts in again. "They just want you out of the picture, man. Nobody has to get hurt. We can all walk out of here. They'll even pay—"
The look that Ryan shoots over at Logan shuts his mouth real fast. Shuts mine, too, though I think the gun in my ribs might have played into that as well.
The big guy takes a deep breath and looks at Ryan. From the pictures, I expected something different from Carabello. Something rough. He seems tired. Like he's trying to make this go as smoothly as possible, not trying to be a real cunt about it. Better than I gave him credit for.
"Is that true, Michael? You'll let us walk out of here, money in everyone's pockets?"
"Your brother knows it is. Just ask him."
Ryan lays back in bed. "Logan? You want to tell me what the fuck's going on?"
The gun jabs into my ribs harder as he tenses up under his younger brother's scrutiny.
"Hey, man, it's not what it sounds like. I didn't do anything. Nothing at all. I just, you know, they said… look—" He cuts himself off, and for a long time he doesn't say anything. "Look, I h
ave to do what I can to keep myself alive, man."
"I understand," Ryan says. He doesn't look like he's feeling very understanding, but he lays his head back and closes his eyes. "So, you're the man with the gun. What are my terms?"
"You'll be escorted out of the hospital. By me, of course. Logan's going to see that miss Maguire gets on her way back to D.C. We'll give you five thousand to walk away from your house. You'll have four hours to pack up. You want to sell the place, you can sell it to us. We'll pay you a fair market rate for it. I've seen the place from the outside, and I'd guess we can do a hundred grand for it. You show your face back in Arizona again, and we come for you."
"So where am I supposed to go?"
"That's not my business, Beauchamp. I don't care where you go, and neither does Scheck. All we care is, you see a Crazy Horse, you see our colors, you see our badges, and you walk the other way."
Ryan takes a deep breath. He should take the deal. I know he should, and more than that, I know he knows he should.
That's what worries me, because he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who does what he's supposed to. Not ever. But hopefully, the pair of guns in the room will demonstrate well enough that we're not in any position to negotiate.
"And what about Sara's deal?"
"Don't call me that."
His face tightens into a little grimace. I shouldn't have said it, but I wasn't thinking.
"You're right. What about Maguire?"
"For the girl? No deal. She gets to walk away. I think that's more than generous. It's downright giving away the farm."
"What proof do you have that she won't come right after you?"
Carabello looks at me for a long time. I don't like it. The way he looks at me like he sees right through me. He's got a flat expression, like a mechanic might look at a car he was checking out.
"I think we've got that covered. Scheck's not worried about it. Neither am I."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Don't worry your head about it, Beauchamp. Take the deal. I don't want to have to shoot you, man. This is a hospital. People get better here."
Carabello lowers the gun a fraction. The rest of his body hasn't moved, though. All it would take to bring it back into line would be a little jerk in his elbow, and then blam.
