Give It All

by Cara McKenna

  And she was worried about breaking his heart?

  “Narcissist,” she scolded herself, flipping off the last of the lights. And she marched her chastised butt up the back steps, praying exhaustion might just let her sleep and forget these worries for a few hours.

  Chapter 26

  Since the initial story broke, Raina had been bracing herself for another round of questioning. She hadn’t been put through one, not yet, anyhow. A couple of feds rang her bell early the next morning, with a warrant to search Duncan’s things. She tried to get some sense of his situation out of them, but nothing. They were efficient and polite, and after twenty minutes, they left with only his computer and briefcase. By eight o’clock she was alone again, left to her cold coffee and worrying.

  At least I know he’s safe, for a change.

  Astrid was no comfort—she’d planted herself on top of the fridge and seemed unlikely to come down. Her only contribution to the household was an occasional, mournful wail from on high.

  “I hear you, kid. I miss him, too.”

  People would no doubt want to assemble early, so Raina headed downstairs at one. As she flipped on the lights and AC, she realized she’d got it wrong—people were already standing around in the front lot, gossiping. She let them file in without bothering to sweep or mop, barely able to keep on top of orders until Abilene arrived at three.

  The jukebox stayed dark, all ears trained on the news, and when Casey turned up she had him lug her heavy television down from the den, just to spread the crowd out so people could reach the bar to order drinks.

  The story began to unravel, one tiny knot at a time.

  The next tangle to come loose was the preliminary forensics report. After having the same old nonupdates regurgitated at them again and again, people fell dead silent when the breaking news bulletin came on.

  Ramon Flores himself appeared on-screen, standing before a cinder block wall whose pale blue paint turned white with every camera flash. A massive bouquet of microphones was set up before him, and Raina could feel the room leaning in, collectively, everyone starved for the details Flores held in his hands on a thin stack of papers. He took his glasses off, and read.

  “The victim was male, aged roughly twenty-five to thirty-five, standing approximately five foot six. One of the victim’s legs appears to have been crushed before the time of the body’s incineration. The victim’s dental records do not appear to match any files in the national missing persons database”—murmurs rose at that—“leading us to believe he may have been an immigrant. If anyone has any information about a male fitting this description, who may have gone missing sometime in July or early August of this year, we urge you to please come forward. Your identity will remain confidential. Thank you.” A phone number came on the screen, and that was that.

  The bar erupted with speculation, theories growing wilder by the hour.

  At the top of the eleven o’clock report, everyone went mute once again, now conditioned to shut up at the chime of the KCBN News jingle.

  “Coming to you live from the Brush County Sheriff’s Department,” said a local reporter, standing outside the building in question, “where it appears there may have been a break in the ongoing federal murder investigation in Fortuity. While dental records found on Wednesday evening from that now infamous skull failed to match any known missing persons, authorities say they’ve received a tip, and that it’s being looked into, though no details are currently being made public. Wes Wheeler, KBCN News.”

  The anchor appeared and began recapping the now-stale updates from earlier in the day, all but drowned out by a collective groan.

  “Fucking tease,” someone shouted, summing it up nicely.

  Raina went back behind the bar, to where Casey was mixing drinks. “You think it’s a good thing that Duncan’s not getting mentioned as much today?”

  “Dunno . . . All people care about are the bones right now. Seems like an improvement.”

  She nodded. She was dying for some clue to how he was doing, but getting nothing but crickets might be a good thing. It beat phrases like “Duncan Welch, former representative of the casino developers, currently under investigation for conspiracy.” Those had peppered last night’s news, but today it was all about forensics.

  Casey made change and turned to Abilene. “You still got that article up?”

  She handed him her smartphone, and Casey tapped at the screen. “You seen this, Raina?” He handed it over.

  She squinted at the tiny text. It was a short, fact-starved, hateful piece on Brush County’s online newspaper, a profile titled “Sleuth or Sleaze: Did Duncan Welch find the missing bones because he buried them himself??”

  “I’m not reading that. It’s designed to inflame the same sorts of assholes who threw a brick through my kitchen window.”

  “I dunno,” Casey said. “Double question marks are always a sure sign of credible journalism.”

  Raina wished it had been a real paper, so she could have burned the thing.

  Though it could have been way worse. And as the afternoon wore on, the frenzied speculation had definitively shifted to the identity of the victim. Thank goodness for short attention spans, Raina thought. At least nobody seemed to be talking much about Duncan anymore.

  Though that didn’t stop Raina from thinking about him. Not for a minute.

  * * *

  Though he was offered a ride, Duncan left on foot when he was released on Friday morning.

  He’d been afforded a shower the day before, but not a shave, not a change of clothes, and his jeans and tee had been dirty even before he was brought in. Flores had interrogated him for hours, confronted him with a text message Tremblay had sent to Levins the morning Duncan and Vince had visited one of the building sites back in August, asking after those bones. Keep him sweet, Tremblay had told Levins, and Duncan insisted a hundred times, Flores had it all wrong. Tremblay had probably wanted Levins merely to kiss Duncan’s ass, should he come around to Levins’s site, asking uncomfortable questions. Nothing to do with bribes. Duncan had talked himself hoarse, and seemingly for nothing.

  He’d begun to despair, when all at once Flores’s partner appeared, and Duncan was moved from a private holding cell back to the old makeshift interrogation room. Jaskowski plied him with weak, store-brand tea and asked if he’d like a change of clothes. Duncan had declined. He waited for Flores to appear with an apology. He needn’t have held his breath. After twenty minutes or so, Jaskowski got a call, told his phone, “Okay,” and hung up.

  “You’re free to go,” he’d told Duncan. “Don’t leave town until you hear from us.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Can’t say—investigation’s still well under way. Hang on and I’ll find somebody to give you a lift.”

  “I don’t want a lift—I want to know what’s going on.”

  But Jaskowski had simply left the room, leaving Duncan with little choice but to follow, and no energy to protest.

  Jaskowski, at least, had had the courtesy to thank him. “You did good,” he said to Duncan, standing just outside the station.

  “And was treated like shit for it.” Duncan had felt as if the morning sun was going to fry his eyes.

  “You did good,” Jaskowski had repeated, and handed Duncan his phone and briefcase, the latter heat-sealed in an oversize plastic bag. “And you made yourself look remarkably suspicious in the process. I think Flores wanted to believe you were innocent all along, if that’s any consolation.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Fair enough. Your laptop’s in your briefcase. The boys in evidence said it was the dullest computer they’ve ever searched.”

  No doubt. Duncan was probably the only man on the planet with a folder full of video clips labeled “Opera” that was in fact stocked with arias, not pornography.

  “This has all been terribly
anticlimactic,” he’d said to Jaskowski.

  “You complaining?”

  “Not passionately.”

  “I hope we won’t need to call you in again,” Jaskowski had said. “Sure you don’t want a ride?”

  “Positive.”

  And with that, Duncan once again found himself walking toward Fortuity’s gritty little heart.

  The man he’d been a couple of weeks ago would’ve been mortified to be spotted strolling through the town center in dirty clothes, scruffy from two days spent being treated like a criminal.

  But the man he was now didn’t much care. He’d prefer to look half-decent when he walked up Raina’s steps and through her door, hopefully to be greeted by the woman he’d thought of, every moment when his mind wasn’t preoccupied with his predicament. But she’d cared for him when he was shaking and drunk and losing his mind. A bit of dirt and sweat seemed unlikely to dampen her affections.

  It was after ten and Fortuity was awake, but by some miracle of mercy, no one confronted Duncan on his short journey—perhaps they didn’t recognize him without a suit and a clean shave.

  His phone was stuffed with messages. None from any Sunnyside numbers, so his exoneration probably hadn’t made the news yet. He looked forward to when it did, and not just because his innocence might spell an end to the harassment; he was looking forward to telling his old bosses to go fuck themselves.

  A few days ago he might’ve considered taking his job back, if only for an excuse to stay in Fortuity another two years. To stay with Raina, if she’d have him. But there was more than just a reunion awaiting him at her place. There should be a package as well. Her gift. He’d tell her how he felt, and let her reaction dictate whether he stayed or went.

  His name should be cleared soon, danger abated, but his reason for living with her gone. If his feelings were reciprocated, he’d make noises about moving out, then wait with bated breath to hear her reply. An apathetic “If that’s what you want,” perhaps? He hoped not. Maybe fists on hips instead, and a demand of “And where exactly do you think you’re going to find a better deal around here?”

  Yes, let it be that.

  He checked the news, relieved to see the remains had likely been identified. There was little else to be gleaned. It would be a strange but memorable way to kick off his and Raina’s official courtship, he thought, camped out on her couch or down in the bar, glued to the news.

  He didn’t have the energy to listen to all those voice mails, but he read his texts as he walked. There were dozens from journalists who’d finagled his number, wanting interviews. One from Casey: they letting you use your phone? whats going on mf? dont get waterboarded.

  Duncan sighed. “You’re pure class, Grossier.”

  Vince had left one as well: Got your bike out of impound. It’s at the garage when you want it. Duncan couldn’t say if he’d ever get on that thing again—its original purpose had been served, after all. Plus, just now the pavement under his feet felt essential.

  No messages from Raina . . . but several missed calls from her, he noted, somewhat cheered.

  You tried to destroy me, he told Fortuity as he walked down Station Street. But you’ll need to try harder than that.

  Benji’s appeared down the block, growing closer with every step. He’d felt nothing but contempt when he first walked through those doors, but now it looked . . . not quite like home, but the closest thing he had to one. He imagined driving the Mercedes into the garage of his slick glass high-rise by the harbor, taking the elevator up to the thirty-eighth floor to his condo, after a long day at work. He’d be eager to see Astrid, eager to push his shoes off and loosen his tie, but the place itself . . . it had only ever been a picture frame, fit to contain the image he’d called his life.

  He walked quicker, the bar getting closer, closer.

  The bar where he’d found a strange breed of salvation, amid the storm of these past few weeks. The bar where the woman he loved had grown up. The bar built by a man whose dreams had been watered down and abandoned in the worthy name of raising his daughter, by himself, helping her become the strong, stubborn, bullshit-proof woman she was now. Duncan had given that man a lot of thought these last couple of days, and had wished more than once he could shake his hand, tell him what a fine job he’d done, tell him how central his business remained to this town. He couldn’t, of course. But there was plenty Duncan could do. Or that his money could do, at any rate. A gift that would make the one he’d ordered look like the token it was, if only Raina would accept it.

  He’d first set foot in that bar knowing the progress he represented was going to wind up dismantling it, and feeling not an ounce of remorse about that. He’d felt pride, in fact, to imagine he played a key role in the betterment of this town.

  But it was Fortuity that had dismantled Duncan, in the end, and put him back together again, worse for wear yet more whole than he’d ever felt. This place had rewritten his plans, just as Raina had rewritten her father’s. And now—with her blessing—he’d take a load of the money he’d once been paid in the service of endangering that bar, and he’d implement every last goddamn plan sketched and listed in Benji Harper’s notebooks.

  Those thugs had called it—Duncan had trotted into town as a jackal. He couldn’t stop the casino, couldn’t say for sure whether it was even good for Fortuity or not, but he could save Benji’s. Take the place he’d once wished to euthanize and do everything in his power to help it thrive, come what may.

  The woman who’d been raised there had saved his soul.

  The least he could do was save her goddamn bar.

  Chapter 27

  Duncan strode through the front lot and around the side of the bar, hand trembling to the stutter of his heart as he took out his key. When he was halfway up the steps, he heard it—footsteps overhead, running. Raina yanked the stairwell door open just as his fingers were about to clasp the knob.

  “Oh my gosh.” She sounded breathless, gaze traveling the length of his body, then back up. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  She stepped back, and Duncan entered, shutting the door. For a moment they merely stared at each other as Astrid dropped from the fridge to the counter to the floor, mewling her alarm. The both of them were surely surprised to see him, after nearly two days’ radio silence. He was struck by the familiarity of this woman standing before him. That face and body and voice; her clothes, her smell. Her home. It all felt so strikingly like his; he was lost in the shock of it.

  She snapped out of it first, laughing. “Jesus, come here.” She drew him close, clutching his shirt tight, burying her face against his neck. “Call a woman, why don’t you?”

  “I had my phone confiscated until this morning.” His heart rose and his throat ached and he doubted heroin felt half this good. Not to be left out, Astrid drove her body into his calves, again and again.

  Say you missed me, he willed Raina. Say you love me, that I’m all you’ve thought about.

  But all he got when she stepped back was “Congratulations.” She rubbed his arms. “You’re officially innocent, huh? A hero, even. And a free man.”

  “I don’t know about hero, and I’m only half-free for now. I have to stay in town until I’m told otherwise.” Soon he would be free, though—free to leave, yet incapable of doing so for as long as this woman made him welcome in her life. Nerves crept in to temper Duncan’s pleasure.

  He hefted his turbo-purring cat and kissed her head. “Yes, your primary food dispenser’s returned. How about that?” To Raina he added, “Thank you for feeding her.”

  “I don’t think she’s even looked at her bowl, since that night you didn’t come home.”

  Home? Is that where I am? Dear God, he hoped so.

  “I can’t fucking believe you found those bones,” she said, laughing. “Or that you didn’t bother telling me that’s what you were up to.”

>   “I felt foolish that I was looking at all.”

  “Paid off in the end, though. Has Sunnyside come groveling yet?”

  “No, not yet. I imagine they’ll wait until my exoneration’s a bit more official.”

  “Maybe you could score yourself a raise.”

  “That would come with negotiation . . . but I’m not certain I’d pursue it, either way.”

  “No?” Her expression was impossible to read. Was that surprise? Relief? Disappointment?

  “They’ve rather injured my feelings,” he said simply, setting Astrid down. She rushed to her dishes, not looking likely to resurface soon.

  “What would you do instead,” Raina asked, “if you didn’t go back to them?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve not decided yet.” Ask me to stay, and I’ll do anything. I’ll chase ambulances, flip burgers, break rocks. Anything. Just ask me to stay.

  “Well, one step at a time.” She looked around, seeming awkward somehow. “A courier came with an envelope for you this morning—a big fat one. I signed for it and left it on your bed.”

  My bed. The guest room bed, more like. If he couldn’t count Raina’s bed as his own, none would do.

  “I’m guessing it must be legal stuff,” she went on. “But sounds like you won’t be needing it, huh?”

  How could she so easily be chatting with him, this way? All Duncan wanted was to wrap his body around hers and stay that way for a week.

  How? Because she’s cautious, same as you. Neither of us can seem to bare our hearts without first cracking each and every one of our ribs open. Why expect that of her, when you’ve been too cowardly to offer it, yourself? He would, though, and soon.

  “I need a shower,” he said, “and a change of clothes. Badly.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “And a shave.”