A deep guttural laugh and he proceeds, “You haven’t put all the pieces together yet, have you, Mr. Stiles?” He tsks. “And Emma said you were smart. Pity.”
Hank strolls over with a tablet in his hand. He turns it on and starts up a news app. When it begins the live streams, Graham Black is holding a live news conference.
I look around for Green. You know, out of curiosity’s sake. I find her off in the background looking worse for wear and checking her watch. When she looks up and sees me, she tucks some hair behind her ear and looks away.
Typical.
“I’m guessing this is where you think I’m going to confess to my crimes. Explain my plan?” Now Connor’s baiting me? The stupidity of that comment makes me want to laugh. Too bad my ribs are aching too much to make it happen.
“Nah, I’m good.” I stretch my neck to wipe the blood off my face and onto my shirt. “Cops are making too much money off their drug rings. You want in with no middle man, so you’re staging drug theft within gangs and killing kids.”
Hank turns the volume up on the tablet.
“Simple, really. Pay attention, Mr. Stiles. You’ll appreciate this news conference.”
On the breaking news, Black’s voice has a solemn, grave tone to it. I make a note so when I hear it in the future, I know when he’s lying through this fucking teeth.
“Tonight’s shooting incident on the outskirts of Redemption just goes to show that drugs and corruption are a major threat in our community.”
A picture of Nick pops up on the screen followed by mine, and the kid’s.
“Detective Nick Stiles, the lead detective on the case, was gunned down in the line of duty.” His expression grows dark.
I look over. Nick’s clearly not fucking dead. I nudge him a little, and he groans, which is good. He’s conscious. Kinda.
“With the growing number of drug killings in this city, now including one of our own, we have no other choice but to legalize marijuana! It’s the only way to get drugs off the streets and stop the violence.”
Clapping and murmuring goes on in the background. The crowd has mixed feelings, clearly.
That’s when I read the captions on the pictures.
One of them, in particular, that is.
“You’re gonna make this look like one of your crime scenes.” I keep the conversation going because a) I need to think and b) I don’t want to fucking die. At least, not yet. I’ve already promised my liver it’s going to be the reason I croak. I never break promises.
Connor claps his version of a creepy, slow golf clap, and I am really getting irritated with this dickhead.
I raise my head to where it doesn’t hurt too much and tell him, flatly, “Lame.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand any of it.” He checks his nails for imaginary dirt. “These so-called children you say I murdered are nothing but criminals who would have, no doubt, corrupted the fine city of Redemption worse than it already is. I did them a favor. And the tax money Black will bring in by legalizing these drugs will improve roads, add benefits to our schools, increase─”
“Salaries?”
He doesn’t like my assumption. So he decks me again.
I guess I hit a nerve.
“Blah, blah, fucking blah.” I roll my eyes and spit out blood. But, seriously, how the hell am I getting us out of this shit?
“Regardless,” he says with a wave to Riley. “Too bad your so-called proof will be taken to your grave.”
Riley raises his gun. Probably one that can’t be traced back to him. “Now, who’d like to go first?”
He points the gun at me, and I gotta say, I’m a little ticked he didn’t wait for an answer from Nick. I mean, maybe he wanted out first. Not that I can see an upside to that, but hey, you never know.
As Riley clicks the safety off, I should be staring his ass down, but my eyes stay trained on Green who, I’m almost certain, flinches when she realizes what’s about to go down.
Out of the darkness, another voice interrupts the plan.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Hank.”
The slow and steady voice echoes across the room and sounds like a version of my father who might have existed a long time ago. It certainly doesn’t reflect the irresponsible, angry drunk I know today. But there he his, plain as day, standing about fifty feet from us with a loaded-looking piece of machinery that reminds me of something out of a war movie in his hands.
“At least, one of your boys will go down before you can get a shot off, Mr. Stiles,” Connor tells him.
“Not if my friend up in the rafters has anything to say about it.”
His steely demeanor is enough to make me wanna go clean my room without an argument as I peek up at the four-by-fours adorning the ceiling above and wonder if he’s bluffing or not.
Please do not be fucking bluffing.
When Hank’s eyes flash upward as well, a shot goes off.
Now, I don’t know what kind of a shot my father is or anything, but judging from the girlie scream that just came out of Connor, he’s not half bad.
Meanwhile, I take the opportunity to rush Hank and head butt him for decking me a few minutes ago. Fucking ow. He’s knocked off his game long enough for Walker, of all people, to point a gun in his face.
“Don’t. Fucking. Move, Riley,” he says. Hank complies, letting his face fall back onto the floor.
Maybe he needed a nap.
I hear sirens outside and realize that Dad was, indeed, fucking bluffing. A genius bluff if I do say so myself, but still…
The cavalry is still a ways away, probably out by the fence, but close enough to catch a glimpse of the red and blue lights flickering against the barn walls.
I look back at Green, who’s giving me the stink eye now.
“That’s right. I called them.” Her brow is angry.
“I─”
“Jackson.” My dad’s strong arms surround me, and he squeezes the life out of me for longer than I remember him doing in about twenty years or so.
Sure, I could get caught up in the moment. Hug the old man back, let bygones be bygones. Right now, though, all I see is Walker standing in the sidelines, making like he just saved the fucking day, talking into his cell phone to some unknown person.
I stalk toward him. I kinda want to shoot him, but I also know that would be a really stupid fucking thing to do.
“Jackie.” Nick, who’s visibly in a lot of pain, might be using my nickname but his voice is stern. Urgent, even.
I stop. “What.”
“Walker was head of the sting, man. He’s not with Hank.”
“If you say so, bro.”
Then Green gives it a go.
“It’s true, Stiles.”
I peek over at her.
“He’s on the up and up.”
Unbelievable.
“He filled me in on the way here tonight.”
Seriously?
Walker watches me while he finishes up his phone call.
There are a few cops putting Riley into handcuffs, and another few who surround Walker to interview him about what went down here.
“Where’s Connor?” I ask them but all they do is shrug like they haven’t got a fucking clue.
EMTs jump out of an ambulance with a gurney. Nick is rushed over to the truck for full-on attention.
Stix finds me pretty quick. His tall, skinny frame wraps everything it’s got around me and holds tight for a long time.
“Mr. Stiles?”
“Yeah?” My dad and I both answer at the same time.
“Mr. Reed appears to be gone, sir. Are you sure he was here?”
“He was here.” Green answers before I do. “He must have taken off during the fight.”
“Mother of…”
“We’ll keep searching. He’s got to be around here somewhere.”
Or maybe not. Maybe Anonymous was waiting for something like this to happen and swooped him off to who fucking knows where.
; Stix is still holding on for dear life. Try as he might to hold back the tears, it’s time I guess because they come gushing out.
This might have, once upon a time, been the moment where I tell him to grow up and grow a pair. That shit isn’t really playing into my mentality, though.
We stand there, as he lets it all out. I put an arm or two around his shoulders while he does it, wishing I hadn’t been such a fucking dick to Mikey.
Maybe he’d still be here if I hadn’t been.
Maybe not.
The suck-ass thing is, I’ll never know.
Green watches the two of us. She’s flushed and visibly shaken. Maybe because she’s glad this is all over, or maybe because she’s afraid the jig is up.
Time to figure out, once and for all, which side she’s on.
I WAS NEVER WORRIED
BY THE TIME the kid lets me go, and I’ve given it the official Jackson Stiles effort at telling him shit’s gonna be okay, the place is a little less crowded. Up to and including the fact that there are a couple of troopers leading Bulldozer outside and into a mobile trailer.
You don’t see that kinda crazy every day.
Stix wipes his face, and I tell him to go grab some water or something from one of the EMTs. Green and I keep eye contact for a minute, only to be broken by my father approaching me.
Suddenly, my demeanor is a little less thoughtful and a little more, well, let’s face it, bitter.
“They haven’t found any trace of Connor.” He checks his watch. “And Graham Black was forced to backpedal in the middle of the speech he’s still giving.”
His amusement almost makes me wanna join in on his happy.
Almost.
I’m dying to see how Black talks his way out of this.
Later.
“What the hell are you doing here, Dad?”
I can’t help but be a little bit in awe of the man, despite our complicated history.
“I almost wasn’t.” He seems impressed with himself. Or someone, at least.
“The fuck does that mean?”
“Nick didn’t explain? I figured he’d─”
“He explained.” I give my father a cold stare. Waiting.
For what?
“Then─”
“I guess what I’m trying to understand is how you managed to stay sober long enough to even pull this shit off? And why didn’t you mention this when you saw me?”
“It was a covert operation, son. I had no idea you were in on any of this until I saw you at the gate. Nick never mentioned─”
“He didn’t know either. Until tonight.” Beside the point. “Did Ma even really leave you?” Because it wouldn’t surprise me if he was a liar on a top of being a dick.
“She did.” His voice is gruff and stressed. Fine. I’ll give him that one. His expression hit the emergency brake. And, yes, I question every fucking thing.
Always.
“It was ugly and happened at the worst time.” Of course, he’d see it that way. “She made me wonder if I was going through with this whole thing tonight.” He wears a cloak of wonder now. He looks about twenty years younger all of a sudden. “Then you said something.”
He doesn’t even know what the fuck he’s saying any more.
Clearly, he’s mistaken.
“Catching perps, taking down the bad guys.”
Yeah. I said that, all right.
I’m so confused right now. Was that a compliment?
“That’s why I started this all those years ago, Jackson. I wanted to end it that way. Even if I’ve screwed everything else up along the way.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re not just talking about your family?”
His face falls into a sad, painful smile. “You always were the smart one.”
Okay that definitely was a compliment.
Right?
“You gonna explain yourself?”
He sets a hand on my shoulder.
It’s heavy.
“That’s a story for another time, son.”
The way he carries himself right now doesn’t look like a man who’s had a drinking problem for the majority of his life. He looks like someone who’s been dragged through the wringer about a hundred times over.
He’s not getting any sympathy from me, if that’s what he’s after.
One good deed doesn’t make the fuck up for all the shit he’s put us through over the years.
Am I a tad impressed that he pulled this shit off? Quite frankly, yes. Okay, maybe more than a tad. He doesn’t need to know that, though.
“For now, I’m just glad I didn’t lose another son through all of this.”
My breath catches with those last words of his.
Simple. Yet perplexing.
Everything is muddled right now, between what I expected to hear come out of his mouth, which was a whole bunch of self-righteous bullshit, and what he actually said. For the first time in a very long damn time, I’m caught off guard by the old man.
“I don’t understand.” I’m not sure why I let that slip out. But there it hangs, like a fucking matzo ball, for all the world to see.
I search his eyes for the punchline, but he doesn’t give it to me. Instead, he gives my shoulder a tight squeeze and tries to grin—only it’s more like he’s forgotten how.
“We’ll talk more, soon,” he tells me. “Let’s just say your mother made a few things clearer for me.”
I am still so confused.
“Women do that to ya,” he jibes, and instinctively, I find Green again.
“Excuse me, Dad.” I stride past him. We’ll pick up on this conversation again at some point. I’m not sure I can process any of it right now anyway.
I eye Nick getting taken care of, and Stix, who’s talking easier than you’d think with one of the men in blue. And Walker, of whom I have serious fucking doubts about. For now, everyone else becomes a blur until I’m up in Green’s personal space. Her, I can see.
She opens her mouth to say something, but I stop her.
“You confuse the shit of me, Green.”
She nods. “I know.”
“I don’t like to be confused.”
“I know that, too.”
A grueling minute goes by. She doesn’t make it easy to be ticked off when she freely admits to what she’s done to make me ticked off.
“Who are you?”
“I’m the same person I was earlier.”
She’s right. She’s still the same confident, smug, infuriating woman I’ve come to know over the past couple weeks.
I’m still ticked. Don’t get me wrong.
“Did you know about Connor?”
She shakes her head. “Not a damn clue. Not until I got here.”
“That’s gonna be an interesting conversation someday.”
“If I ever see him again.”
“I have a feeling you will.”
She lets out a shaky breath.
“And Walker?” I push because come one, it’s what I do.
She looks over at the dick himself. “He’s not as bad as you think, Stiles.”
“Jesus. Fucking A. You, too?”
A hand reaches out and hooks itself around mine. When I look down to see us connected, I think how easy it would be to let the feeling of her in my arms take over and just forget about tonight.
Move on.
Only I’m not like every other schmuck on the street.
I need some fucking answers.
“What the hell happened tonight?”
I’ll decide whether this can even happen or not.
“Where do I start?”
“Wherever you need to make this shit make sense.”
She nods and takes a deep breath before she begins.
“At the bar.”
“Fine.”
I notice something as she starts to tell me her story.
“Walker confronted me about the texts from Anonymous.”
I haven’t let go of her hand.
&nb
sp; “So he does know the guy.” I goddamn knew it.
“Only because he’s been tracking him for about a year now.”
So he says.
“Anyway, he doesn’t call him Anonymous. He calls him Nathan Threshold.”
Threshold. Threshold. Where the fuck do I know that name from?
“And how did he know you had anything to do with it?”
“He tied him to my dad. I’m not sure how, but it wasn’t difficult for him to figure out who I was after that.”
“So he’s been planning this shit all along.”
But exactly how long? That’s the million-dollar question here.
“I don’t know, Stiles, but he’s definitely given it some thought.”
“What does that mean?”
“You sure you wanna hear this?”
I find a bale of hay to sit on. Something tells me I’m gonna need to be sitting down for this shit. “Yeah.”
“Apparently, there’s some history there, with your dad and Threshold.” She hesitates when she says the word dad, and when she’s done, it takes me a couple seconds to compute what she just insinuated.
“I’m sorry. Did you just fucking say my father is personally acquainted with the douchebag who’s been wreaking havoc in Redemption?”
“I didn’t say personally,” she corrects me. “I just said there was some history there. Enough to make Threshold think Walker wanted in on an illegal operation that’s been going on under his direction for at least five years or so.”
Definitely longer.
“I don’t know all the details, yet, but─”
“What do you mean, yet?” I interject. And why do I have a bad feeling about this shit?
“I mean Walker kind of promised me an exclusive on the story if I promised to play tonight through like I was on Threshold’s team.”
Awesome.
“Another exclusive, you’ll be set for life.”
“Or at least get a real investigative reporting job somewhere, right?” Her face beams with excitement.
I’m not feeling it so much.
“Sorry,” she tells me. Her voice is low and soft.
I shake it off, though. “Keep going.” I peek over at my dad, who’s chatting it up with Walker on the down-low. I’m gonna need to dig into that BS later.
“All I really know is Walker needed an in to get to Threshold. He’d already made some sort of connection with your father a while back, and once I came into the picture, it was a done deal. Tonight was a test for both of us. He thought we’d passed until you showed up. And then your dad pulled out the Uzi.” She laughs. “Guess he didn’t see that one coming.”
Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption Page 30
