“It’s James,” the voice went on. “The brother who ain’t a brother.”
Erin moved to try to see into the room. Vic finally seemed to break free of the paralysis that held her there.
“Joseph.”
Vic moved into the room toward her older brother. Then Erin could see him. A man quite similar to Jeremy in looks, but broader and older, without Jeremy’s laughing expression. Vic approached him and held her hand out stiffly, not hugging him as she would have Jeremy.
“Hi, how are you doing?”
Joseph gave her hand a couple pumps. He slapped her shoulder with his other hand, looking away from Vic as though he were uncomfortable with her. “How’s it going, little bro?”
Vic looked at Jeremy, her eyes hurt.
“Come on, Joseph,” Jeremy said roughly. “How would you like it if she refused to call you by your name? I don’t care how awkward you think it is. Just start. It will get easier.”
Joseph was a little flushed. He looked at Vic again, not sure what to say to this.
“Vic,” Jeremy said. “Just call her Vic.”
Joseph cleared his throat. “I don’t know,” he said. “This is all just… I’ve never called you that before. It’s just not your name.”
“I was named James Victor when I was born,” Vic reminded him. “So, you can’t complain that it isn’t really my name, even if you aren’t comfortable with my gender identity. I am Vic.”
“Okay,” Joseph nodded slowly. “Vic. How are you, Vic?”
Vic nodded graciously, as if she hadn’t had to prompt Joseph with the proper etiquette. “I’m right as rain. How about you?”
Joseph forced a smile. “I can’t complain. You taking care of this old guy?” Joseph indicated Jeremy.
“Who are you calling old?” Jeremy shot back. “I could still beat you.”
“Huh. Doubt it,” Joseph disagreed. “You’re looking pretty poorly.”
Jeremy shifted, sitting himself up taller on the bed, drawing himself up to look bigger and stronger. “I’ll be out of here in no time. The doctors are just being extra careful.”
Vic nodded at the repartee between her brothers. “What’ve you been doing lately, Joe? Haven’t heard anything from you.”
“Been busy on the farm,” Joseph said curtly. “You know how much work it takes to run the place.”
Vic looked at Jeremy, who had informed her that the family was no longer running the farm at full capacity, but was merely keeping it running as a front for the Jackson clan. Jeremy shrugged and didn’t challenge Joseph.
“Which one of you was it I saw in Bald Eagle Falls a few weeks ago?” Erin asked. “Back when one of you was at the bakery. Before it burned down. Was that you?”
Joseph looked at her, his expression veiled. He wasn’t about to give away whether it had been him or not.
“I didn’t burn down anything.”
“I didn’t say you had. I just asked whether it was you I saw. You didn’t exactly stay around to talk.”
Joseph clearly wasn’t about to be drawn into admitting it was him. Erin and Vic had avoiding discussing the fact that it might have been one of her own brothers who had burned down the bakery. Erin didn’t want to make Vic feel any worse than she already did about her family situation and what had happened to Auntie Clem’s Bakery, but they both knew in the backs of their minds that since one of the brothers had been seen there before the fire, it was probably one of them who had set it. Terry had questioned both brothers, but they had denied being in Bald Eagle Falls or having anything to do with the fire. Erin hadn’t gotten a good enough look say which of them it had been.
“I’m just here visiting my brother,” Joseph said, gesturing toward Jeremy. “I didn’t come here to get into it again with you two about the bakery.”
“Get into it again?” Vic repeated in disbelief. “Neither one of us has ever talked to you about the bakery. Don’t make it sound like we’ve been throwing accusations around.”
“Maybe you haven’t talked to us about it, but that doesn’t mean no one has. The cops have been around enough times, and don’t think I don’t know that it was you two who set them on us.” Joseph nodded toward Erin. “It’s your boyfriend who’s the town cop, right? You can just tell him you were mistaken and to stay out of my business. He’s a cop in Bald Eagle Falls, not in Moose River. He’s got no jurisdiction out there.”
Erin just looked at him.
“You guys just leave Vic and Erin alone,” Jeremy told Joseph. “They’re family, and you shouldn’t be doing anything against family.”
“They’re not family,” Joseph said slowly. “James—Vic decided that when he—she—decided to leave the family and to become…” he motioned widely to Vic’s body and went on, uncomfortable. “And I don’t know whether the two of you are an item,” he included Vic and Erin both in his gesture this time, “but even if you are, that still doesn’t make Erin Price family when James—Vic—isn’t anymore.” He scowled at Jeremy. “They’re not family. So, I don’t know why you’re trying to protect them. If they don’t want bad things to happen,” he paused, letting Erin think about the bakery burning down, “then maybe you ought to stay out of the way of the clan.”
“Staying out of the way of the clan isn’t any guarantee of bad things not happening,” Vic said. “Just ask Jeremy. He gets an honest job, and what happens? He gets shot by poachers.”
Joseph gave an amused grin, his body language loosening a bit. “Well, that ain’t nothin’ to do with me. I can’t help what other people do.”
They all stood around for a minute, saying nothing, stuck in an awkward moment where there didn’t seem to be anything appropriate to say.
“Well…” Joseph brushed his hands as if they were sandy. “I just came to see how my little brother was doing. I’ll tell Mom that you’re still in one piece.”
“Say ‘hi’ for me,” Jeremy agreed. “I’ll be okay. She doesn’t need to worry.”
Joseph looked at Vic.
“I won’t ask you to say ‘hi’ for me,” Vic said slowly. “Since that would just cause more trouble than it’s worth. She knows how to find me if she wants to talk. Until then… I guess she’ll just have to be in the dark. I love you guys… but things are pretty screwed up right now.”
The three looked at each other. Erin remembered a phrase that she’d heard used to describe the revolutionary war, about how ‘brother fought against brother’ and thought it apt. The three wanted so badly to just be family and be friends with each other again, but prejudices and criminal activities were keeping them apart.
They had once been so close, working and playing together. Erin could picture them all gathered together around the kitchen table, breaking bread together, maybe with a word of prayer or their pa reading a scripture to them. They had once been united, all working together. But circumstances had twisted everything apart, leaving them broken and unsure how to pick up the pieces.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” Joseph finally said to Jeremy. He punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Watch out for flying bullets.”
He looked at Vic, then walked out without saying anything else to her.
Chapter Nineteen
W
hen Beaver arrived, Vic was sitting on the edge of Jeremy’s bed, still looking stricken after her encounter with Joseph, in spite of Jeremy’s and Erin’s attempts to cheer her up again. It had been a long day, and Erin figured Vic was just too tired to bounce back. She would feel better in the morning.
Beaver looked at the glum faces and raised her eyebrows.
“You’d think I was walking into a funeral,” she observed. “Was there bad news? Did the doctor say Jeremy only has a few more hours to live?”
Jeremy rolled his eyes at her. He squeezed Vic’s hand and let it go again. “Joseph stopped by for a visit,” he said. “It was just a little rough on Vic.”
Beaver dropped into a visitor’s chair, chewing on her gum. “Why?”
Erin
looked for a way to answer and steer the conversation in another direction. Vic didn’t need to keep going over the same ground. Jeremy too seemed to be trying to tell Beaver not to pursue it, shaking his head at her. “Nothing. It’s fine. How was your day?”
“Joseph is a bully,” Beaver said, not to be dissuaded. She kept her eyes on Vic. “Those boys know that turning you out on the street wasn’t right, and that shunning you isn’t right. But they’re being indoctrinated and that’s not something that is easy to break free from.”
Vic looked at Beaver, her brows drawn down. “How do you know all of that? From Jeremy?” She turned her head to look at her brother.
He gave a self-conscious shrug, looking down at his hands. His normally ebullient manner was muted. “We talk,” he admitted. “And Ro hears things through work.”
“About Joseph? They aren’t into drugs, are they? I don’t want to hear that they’re part of this drug trade.”
Beaver didn’t give any indication.
“I know Joseph was being a jerk,” Jeremy said to Vic. “But she’s right, they’re being told all the time what to do and what to think. That kind of… brainwashing gets under your skin and into your brain. They want to do what’s right, but it keeps getting twisted around.”
“But you didn’t turn out that way,” Erin pointed out. “You’ve been really good to Vic. You came last Christmas and you came this summer when you thought she might be in danger. You treated her better than that.”
“I wasn’t there as long either. And me and James—Vic were closer. We were the two youngest, so we did everything together. The others were older, and they didn’t really want their annoying little brothers getting underfoot all the time. So… we were closer to each other than Joseph and Daniel were to us.”
“They’re responsible for their own choices,” Beaver said. “But they’re older now, they’ve had to prove themselves to the clan, which means they’ve had to do some pretty bad stuff. And once you’ve got that on your conscience, it’s easier to just believe the party line that what you’re doing isn’t really wrong. You go all in, because it’s safer and feels better. You want to either be all in or all out.”
Erin looked at Jeremy. “And you decided it was time to get out, before you… had to prove yourself.”
Jeremy nodded. “I just… I dunno. I’m kind of a baby, you know. I’ve always had a soft heart. And that’s not so good when you’re dealing with a group like the Jackson clan. Those people have to be rooted out.”
Beaver nodded. “A soft heart is a liability. If you can’t break someone of it, you’ve got to get them out some other way.”
Jeremy shrugged. Vic touched his arm, nodding.
“In the rest of the world, it’s not such a bad thing to have a soft heart.”
“The world still thinks that a man should be macho and not cry at chick flicks. But it’s getting better. I feel… more free now that I’m away from the family. While I was there, I felt like that was the only way to be, and that was the only place I’d ever belong. But it wasn’t really true. That’s just want they wanted me to think.”
There was silence for a few minutes while everyone pondered this.
“Do you know about everyone in Bald Eagle Falls?” Erin asked Beaver, “or everyone who is from Bald Eagle Falls?” She was thinking about Beaver knowing details about Mary Lou’s son Campbell.
“How could I?” Beaver laughed.
“It’s not that big a place. It just seems like… you know about everyone, even people who aren’t connected to your job. To drugs and whatever else you investigate.”
“I’m not snooping into everyone’s backgrounds, if that’s what you’re asking. We’re not allowed to just investigate anyone without a reason. There has to be a reason to start looking at someone. You can’t just look up your boyfriend’s boss or sister because you’re curious.”
That somehow made Erin feel more uneasy instead of less. “So you would need to have reason to think that we were doing something illegal before you could look into our records?”
Beaver studied Erin, one corner of her mouth quirked into a smile. “Do you have something in your past that you would rather keep quiet, Erin Price?”
Erin looked at Beaver, her stomach tight and a little nauseated. She did have a past, and she didn’t want anyone who felt like it digging into it to find out where she had come from and what she had done in her life.
“Doesn’t everyone?” she asked, forcing bravado.
Beaver chuckled. She looked at Vic, who turned red.
“Okay, so I don’t exactly like the idea of anyone investigating me, either,” Vic admitted. “Everyone makes mistakes. No one wants people looking into their past and judging them by what they’ve done in the past.” She looked at Jeremy, as if challenging him to ask what she could possibly have to be worried about. Jeremy didn’t say anything. “I ran away. I was on my own. And there’s not a lot of ways for an eighteen-year-old to make it on the streets alone without breaking a law or two. Erin knows I was down and out. I was squatting in the bakery. I didn’t know where else to go. And yeah, I might have helped myself to something to eat or drink, and I know I wasn’t supposed to be in the bakery, even if I did have a key. I mean, the key wasn’t exactly mine, and Erin had no idea that I had it. She hadn’t given me permission.”
“I’ve never blamed you for any of that,” Erin reminded her. “I know what it’s like. I remember having to take care of myself when I didn’t have anything.”
“Vic…” Beaver shook her head, losing some of her amused demeanor for once. “I’m not investigating you. I’m just teasing. I told you, I can’t just investigate anyone I feel like. If I did want to look into your past, I’d have to have a reason. A good one. I really don’t think you need to worry that someone is going to slap you into jail for stealing a loaf of bread when you were out on the street.”
Vic shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m not proud of everything I’ve done. I haven’t always made good choices.” She looked over at Jeremy. “Nobody makes good choices all of the time.”
“No.”
“So, when are you getting out of here?” Beaver demanded, changing the subject abruptly at the same time as she crossed one leg over the other and spread out to command as much space as possible. “Aren’t those doctors tired of you yet?”
Vic nodded. “They must be. I can’t imagine having this guy underfoot for more than a few days.”
“They’re promising me another day or two,” Jeremy said. “If they change their minds, I might just have to check myself out anyway. It’s really not much fun just sitting around here all day long. I want to be home. In my own space and able to sleep in my own bed instead of this thing, and not to have to listen to pages over the public address system and people walking up and down the halls at all hours or screaming that they want painkillers. It’s bedlam.”
“You’ll be out before long,” Vic assured him. “Just stick it out for a day or two longer until they say it’s safe to leave.”
“I’m with Jer,” Beaver said. “I don’t think I’ve ever stayed as long as the doctors wanted me to. You don’t want to end up with some hospital infection and have them talking about wanting to cut off an arm or leg because of it. That’s just… annoying.”
Erin couldn’t help laughing. Vic and Jeremy were smiling too.
“How many times have you been shot?” Erin asked.
Beaver shrugged her shoulders. “I wouldn’t want to say. You know that most federal agents go through their entire careers without ever having to draw their weapon or be injured? Their whole careers.”
“How long are those careers?” Jeremy asked.
“Well, that’s a good question. I mean, if you decide it’s not for you after a year or two, that’s different from an agent who’s been in for thirty or forty years.”
“Do you know anyone who’s been in for thirty or forty years?”
Beaver pursed her lips. “No, can’t say I do. I don’t kno
w how long our director has been in… maybe he has… but I think they all move on to other things after a decade or two.” She shook her head. “How about your new adventure? Any closer to getting that treasure?”
Erin looked at Vic, wondering if she should say anything. Vic shrugged and nodded. Erin started in on the latest details about Orson and his unexplained wealth. Beaver’s eyes were alive with interest.
“Were you able to find any mines?”
Erin took out her phone and brought up the pictures they had taken at the farm. Beaver flicked through them.
“Well, well, well. Maybe Orson was getting more out of the ground than potatoes. When are you going to go down?”
“I don’t know.” Erin received her phone back from Beaver. “I’m not going down there. Vic is going to talk to Willie about getting the equipment they’ll need and having a look. We won’t be able to get back there for a few days, and we don’t know what kind of shape the mines are going to be in. They haven’t been maintained, so it might be a lot of work before we can find anything. If there’s anything to be found.”
Chapter Twenty
E
rin hadn’t actually taken a shift with Charley before, so having Vic leave after lunch and Charley take over was a strange feeling. She wasn’t exactly worried about it, but wasn’t sure how they would get along together and whether it was going to be awkward the whole time Charley was there.
Erin tried to push aside any doubts and to pretend that Charley was just one of her other employees, someone who needed to be taught and trained but was perfectly competent and able to take it all on. She didn’t need to worry about whether Charley was her boss or her partner, she just needed to show her the ropes. Erin was the one with experience, so she was the one who needed to show Charley how it was all done.
After the initial awkwardness, they had fallen into a rhythm. Not like the rhythm that Erin had with Vic, but she couldn’t exactly expect that the first day, either.
Apple-achian Treasure (Auntie Clem's Bakery Book 8) Page 12
