by K. J. Dahlen
She motioned Grayson to his feet. There they waited.
A couple more shots were fired before Ben yelled, “Agent Carlyle?”
“I’m around the back!” she called out. “I’ve got Grayson and he’s wounded.”
A man came out of the woods with a DEA jacket on. His gun was trained on Grayson. He grabbed his wrist and yanked it behind his back. Grayson growled in pain but before he could do anything, he was handcuffed. The DEA agent marched him to the front yard where more agents met them.
Ben and Chase were already there.
Grayson was handcuffed, kneeling in the driveway. There was the body of an older man lying in the snow next to him. Evelyn could see several bullet holes in his dead body. He looked enough like Grayson and Travis that she easily took him to be Seth Trainer. Chase looked ok and that’s all that mattered to her. This nightmare was over.
Steve and the rest of his men walked up the driveway. The agent forced Grayson to his knees beside his father. When he saw his father’s body lying in the snow, he turned to glare at Chase. “You’re a dead man, Rivers. I swear to God, you are dead.” He turned to Evelyn. “And you’re next. Even if you send me and Travis to prison, I’ll find a way to kill you both.”
“You’d better find a way to do it quickly, because your brother killed a cop when he shot my brother. We can tag you as an accessory to his murder. They’re going to give you the needle for that. It won’t take twenty years either. Do you know what they do to cop killers in prison?” she gladly informed him. “Your dad got the easier ride. He just went straight to hell but you boys will be joining him soon.”
Grayson spat in the snow at her feet.
She caught a whiff of his father’s aftershave on the wind. It was the same sickly over sweet scent she remembered from the alley. Yet not quite the same. Her nostrils flared as nausea overcame her. She had to back away from him. Evelyn told Chase with a frown, “I’m not sure but I think Grayson was there the night Travis shot Ian. I remember his aftershave. He was the man standing in the shadows.” The wind shifted bearing with it the same scent to another quarter. She looked closer at the body lying in the snow beside Grayson then stepped closer in order to study his face. The face she hadn’t seen so clearly flashed in her mind’s eye. She gasped in horror. Turning to Chase, she pointed to Seth’s face. “My God, it was his face I saw that night.” She pointed at Seth Trainer. “He was there that night too, both of them must have been standing in the shadows.”
“Are you sure it was Seth you saw in that alley? Are you sure?” Chase asked as he looked from Grayson to his father.
Evelyn nodded. “Grayson’s and Seth’s aftershaves were blended together on the wind. Seth moved close enough to the light that I could see his distorted, raging face. When he returned to the shadows, he turned to someone standing beside him. He told that person he wouldn’t go to jail because his bastard kids couldn’t do something right.” She shook her head. “That’s what I couldn’t remember from that night. There was a third person standing behind Travis. Only he never said a word or moved. He was completely hidden by the shadows but I heard Seth tell him that he wasn’t going to go to jail because of them. He said his involvement was protected. There was nothing in his name and no one could prove anything against him.”
Grayson struggled against his handcuffs. “If I had been a better shot that night, you’d have died in that alley.”
Chase nodding, stepped closer to Grayson. His gaze held the other man’s. “If you try anything, I’ve got some friends inside prison who would be very happy to teach you to do better. If you take one step out of line, you’ll find out what I’m talking about. You won’t see them if you behave, but you cross the line, they will make you wish to God the state would end it. My friends will see to it that your life is not worth living.”
Sweat broke out on Grayson’s face. He spit into the ground in front of Chase. “Your Special Ops threats don’t scare me. You still have to prove my guilt and not just on her word.”
“You dumb ass you just admitted being in that alley when Travis smoked my brother,” Evelyn reminded him. “I’m sure by the time you go to trial, we’ll have all we need to convict you and your brother.”
Steve’s group hauled Grayson to his feet.
“We’ll take care of this one. We got two more wounded ducks waiting to go along to jail with him. I have a special cell waiting for them.” Steve, aware of Seth’s lifeless body, nodded. “We’ll send the coroner for him.”
“I’ll go along with you, that way Evelyn can have the car.” Ben reached into his pocket for the car keys, threw them to her.
Smiling, she turned to Chase. “Well, it looks like you have your ranch back. The bad guys are going to jail. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me the last few days.” She wanted to say more but she didn’t know how to tell him what she was feeling. She needed time to figure out how she felt.
Chase said not a word as he watched her intently. The silence between them was turning awkward.
“I suppose I should get back to town. There’s a mountain of paperwork to get done,” Evelyn finally told him. She turned away, walking to the car and climbing in the driver’s side.
Chase watched as she backed up the driveway. He didn’t move at all.
Evelyn saw him in the rearview mirror. His expression reflected anger or some other emotion she didn’t want to decipher. Her chest hurt. Her head hurt and she paused. Is that my heart? I have felt pain like with Ian’s death, but this—this was different. She pushed it away. She couldn’t allow herself to feel weak. She still had a job to do. As she drove, she felt tears flowing down her cheeks. She was surprised that she’d shed then without even realizing it.
Angrily, she swiped them away, demanding her emotions to tamp down.
~*~
The next few days were busy ones. The Trainer brothers were charged with murder and drug trafficking; all the players were finally sorted out. The evidence the DEA recovered at the warehouse was enough to track and shut down a major drug artery. Fifteen people were arrested and when the charges were read, accused couldn’t spill the beans fast enough on one another, all for the promise of lesser charges.
Evelyn and Ben went to speak to Mrs. Trainer. Her husband had implicated her in the whole mess. He’d hid himself and laid everything at her doorstep.
Margaret Trainer hadn’t even been surprised by her husband’s manipulations.
They were sitting in her less than perfect home, which in all reality was nothing more than a trailer house. She sat there looking like such a sad woman. She was wearing a nice dress though and her hair was nicely combed. She had been a pretty woman at one time but she had a look in her eyes that radiated her despair. Looking at Evelyn she said, “You know I loved Seth Trainer when I was a younger woman. Shortly after we were married and he began to beat on me, those feeling of love I had for him turned to fear, then they turned to anger and resentment. I look back on it now and realize that monster never did love me back. Not once in the thirty five years we were together, did he ever have a kind word or thought of me. I was just someone he needed to have his babies and clean his house. That’s all I ever was to that man.”
Evelyn almost felt sorry for her. “I am sorry for that but he completely laid the blame on you for everything. He put everything in your name not his own.”
Margaret nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me a bit. He always was a bastard. He was so proud of his boys though and now look at them. They’re sitting in jail where they belong and he’s dead.” She shook her head. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Evelyn watched her for a moment and it seemed like the longer Margret spoke the more animated she became. “I hate to tell you think but the DEA wills seize all your assets until it has been determined what his involvement was with the drug ring.”
Margaret nodded. Looking around the trailer that had seen better days, she smiled. “It isn’t much but it was at one time a home. You can have it. I am fi
nally free of that monster who called himself my husband.” She took a deep breath and whispered, “I’m free. Lord help me, I am free of that man.”
“Where will you go?” Evelyn asked.
“Oh, don’t you worry about me.” Margaret chuckled softly. “I’ll be just fine. Old Seth Trainer thought he had me beat but I still have an ace stuck up my sleeve. I’ll be just fine.” She reached over and patted Evelyn’s arm.
“Are you sure?” Evelyn felt worried for a moment but Margaret smiled and nodded at her.
When she and Ben got up to leave Evelyn noticed a car down the road a ways. Inside was a man waiting for them to leave. She chuckled. “Well I’ll be. Miss Margaret has another man on the line. I hope this one treats her better than the last one did.”
A few minutes later, Margaret Trainer came marching out of the house with a suitcase in her hand. She walked right past both of them and joined the man in the car. She leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips.
He started the car and drove them both to a happier life.
Evelyn glanced over at Ben and shook her head. “You just never know about some people do you? If the man I married ever treated me the way Seth Trainer treated her, I think I would have killed him.”
Ben nodded. “Yeah, but that woman is old school. She was married until death do them part. All she had to do was wait him out. I think she knew he was going to go first.” Shaking his head he told her, “I hope she find her happiness now. God only knows she’s already lived through hell. The one thing she has going for her is Seth Trainer couldn’t break her. She was stronger than he ever gave her credit for.”
Evelyn had to agree with this summation as she chuckled again. “A survivor for sure.” She nodded and got into the vehicle. Ben drove them away from the sad little trailer and Evelyn like Margaret, never once looked back.
Evelyn didn’t have time to think about the days she’d spent with Chase until almost Christmas. They were too busy making the state’s case against the Trainer brothers for their part in the drug ring, corruption and the murder of Ian Carter. While Travis had been the shooter, Grayson was also there that night. He’d tried to make a deal for a lighter sentence but the state wasn’t having anything to do with that. They would both face murder charges. And that suited Evelyn just fine.
The rest of Grayson and Travis’s men were charged with lesser crimes but they would all be doing time behind bars on the drug ring charges. The DEA had been able to track the drugs back to the supplier and the whole ring had been taken down. When they had removed the trailer on the Trainer property, they found a sub-basement that had been completely hidden from view. Inside, there they found records of drug shipments going back fifteen years. They also found millions of dollars that no one knew about. Where the money had come from was anybody’s guess but somehow, the DEA couldn’t prove it to be part of the drug trade so they turned it over to Margaret Trainer.
At first, she didn’t want it but then the more she thought about it the more she liked the idea of having something Seth thought he’d hidden from her. She told Evelyn that old Seth would be turning over in his gave if he thought for one moment that his wife might have something that should have been his. She accepted the money then with a smile. She did go to the trial of her sons. They tried to talk to her but she ignored them the same way they’d ignored her all those years. She had been the only member of the public that had been allowed inside the courtroom.
With all the evidence along with Nick Taber’s testimony as well as her own, the trial went on the docket quickly, especially after the defense attorney’s motions for delay had been denied time after time. The Judge had pushed up the trial as he didn’t want the public to get a good hold on their emotions all juiced up. He wanted this situation taken care of quickly. The Judge was aware of the facts that sometimes things got out of hand in a hurry. He didn’t want riots and mayhem brought to his town.
Although she hadn’t met Nick yet, as his testimony had been given in a closed courtroom, in fact all the testimony had been given in a closed courtroom, she hoped she would get the chance to thank him one day for having the courage to change his life. Ian had given him a second chance and Evelyn prayed it would be enough.
Even Travis and Grayson’s attorney request for change of venue had been denied after the news of Grayson and Travis’s arrest made the papers. Apparently, they were not very well liked in their home towns. He tried to argue the brothers wouldn’t receive the chance for a fair trial here, the judge told them they had committed their crimes here and here was where they would stand trial. They would stand before the very people they’d wronged and be judged for their disregard for the very laws they were supposed to uphold.
No one, not even his wife showed up for Seth Trainer’s funeral.
Evelyn watched from inside a parked car along the road leading into the cemetery. She didn’t even want to be here but Ron had sent her anyway. “For the sake of protecting the public,” he’d told her. She’d rolled her eyes but went anyway. With both his son’s in jail and his wife, finally free of his brutality Seth was buried alone under a stormy sky.
~*~
It was on December 23 at the memorial for Ian when Evelyn finally allowed herself to think about Chase. Maybe feeling about him would have been a better way of saying it. She missed him so much. She kept it under wraps, and wouldn’t allow it in. But it was deep down in there, beneath all the logic and work of her job.
She’d been so busy with getting ready for the trial and everything that went along with that it wasn’t until after she buried her brother when she’d allowed her thoughts to go to him. It had been at the service when she realized only a handful of people, other than his coworkers had come to pay their respects. She knew she didn’t want to end up alone in life as Ian had. Life was too short not to go after what you wanted, and she knew she wanted Chase. With every fiber in her being, she wanted him. There was only one problem with this realization.
She didn’t know if he felt the same way. If their shared passion was anything to go by, she knew he desired her, but would that be enough for them to build on? Then the way she’d left him, and didn’t look back. Did he get angry? Did he care? Standing at Ian’s gravesite, she knew these thoughts were being disrespectful but she couldn’t help it. She had a feeling her brother would understand.
If fact, the longer she stood there thinking about it the more she could almost hear Ian yelling at her in her mind.
“What the hell are you waiting on girl? This could be what you’ve been looking for all your life. This could be that part of you that’s been missing since you were a little girl and you lost your parents.” She could almost see him shrug. “I know you were happy with my family but we weren’t dumb, you know. You fit in with our family like you were meant to be one of us but there was always a little something missing. We knew we didn’t complete your soul. We knew something was wrong even if you didn’t.
Go to him. The fact that he makes you feel the things that make you whole should tell you all you need to know.” She heard his laughter on the wind. “Also the fact that you’re standing over my grave thinking them should tell you, you need to go back there and at least try to find out if he’s the one for you.” There was a pause then she heard him bellow, “Girl what are you waiting on? Christmas? It’s only a few days away, Get in your car and go to him, NOW.”
She had to find out. Evelyn could still feel the sizzle from his kisses on her lips. Her whole body tingled when his lips had met hers. His kiss kindled something inside her. She couldn’t help herself, she wanted to nurture that spark. She felt herself blossom in his arms, and she wanted to wake up in his arms for the rest of her life.
After the service, a car pulled up in the parking lot and a young black man got out of the passenger seat. He smoothed his long hair, hitched up his jeans then deliberately walked up to Evelyn. As he shook her hand he said, “Hey man, I’m sorry I missed the service. Ian was a friend of mine. I wanted to pay
my respects.”
She knew who the young man was the moment she saw him. This was the mysterious Nick she couldn’t remember until now. “Your name is Nick, isn’t it?”
The young man nodded as he turned to stare at the coffin being lowered into the cold unforgiving ground. “I’m sorry about Ian. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near the alley that night. I should have been there instead.”
Evelyn shook her head. “Ian wouldn’t have allowed that. I know if he hadn’t thought a lot of you, he wouldn’t have taken your place.”
Nick considered this. “He died that night in my place. I don’t think I can forget or forgive myself for that. He took a bullet because I made a stupid decision to sell drugs.”
“No, he died doing the right thing for the right reason. Ian was like that and had been all his life. He only ever wanted to make a difference. He saw what drug use did to a person and he made it his mission in life to try and stop it. He stepped in and saved your life because he felt it was the right thing to do. The only way he would have died in vain, is if you go back to that way of life.”
Nick shook his head. “That won’t happen. Ian taught me better than that. He taught me my life is worth more than that. We had many talks. We’d talk about what we wanted out of this crazy thing we call our life. Hell, I told that man all my secrets and he told me some of his. Because of him I have a chance to get out and I’m staying out.” He paused then added, “The DEA has offered me a bigger chance then I deserve but before Ian died that night he made a deal for me. He asked that they set me up with a new place to live and a new name. He gave me a fresh start and for that, I vowed to continue his mission in life. I may never be an agent but I can steer young people away from using.”
“Then as hard as it is to accept, Ian died for the right reason.” Evelyn smiled sadly. “He knew what he was doing that night. I followed him into that alley but even I couldn’t change the outcome of what was meant to be. Neither of us could have saved him and nothing could stop him from doing exactly what he did.”
