The Road to You

by Brant, Marilyn

He laughed deeply at that and acknowledged he’d had fun teasing me with all the waitresses on the road and especially with Vicky from St. Cloud. “She wasn’t even kind of my type, Aurora.”

  So, of course, we were exhausted. We woke up late the next morning, and only because the phone was ringing.

  Billy Neville.

  “The good news,” he said, “is that we’ve taken several positive steps in the right direction. This case has been on the FBI’s radar for years, so they were ready and eager to start making arrests—they just wanted to be able to do it in three states at once.”

  The police detective told us that Ronny Lee Wolf squealed on his contacts and sources like a trapped pig when he was busted for his part in the storage and distribution of the pipe bombs. The selling of illegal fireworks was a lesser charge, but he’d be facing that, too, thanks to the involvement of the ATF.

  And, between Ronny and the crooked police officer, Paul Earling, the manufacturing leg of the bomb operation—which had taken place in the basement of a fireworks factory several miles outside of Ashburn Falls—was exposed as well, implicating a number of Vincent Leto’s other associates in the process.

  “The FBI’s got quite a number of additional witnesses and pages of evidence against Leto,” Billy said. “Enough to detain him for a while, but he’s been clever about distancing himself from the actual bombings. The Feds are confident, though, that they’ll be able to get him one way or another now, indirectly if necessary, through tax and real estate records or through knowing the direction of the money trail and some of the people he paid off. Like William James.”

  Turned out, our hometown cop also squealed pretty fast when facing charges of bribery, tampering with evidence, hindering an investigation and colluding with his cousin on three homicide attempts and one murder.

  William admitted that his snazzy yellow VW Bug had been given to him as a “gift” from Leto for his help two years ago in masking Gideon and Jeremy’s whereabouts from the other Chameleon Lake police officers and for telling Sebastian James that the boys were headed to Texas in Ben Rainwater’s car. William had expected Sebastian and Leto to produce another comparable present for the information William had given his cousin regarding the location of Aurora and Donovan.

  “He didn’t know Leto had been apprehended and was facing a life sentence in prison,” Billy told us. “And he also didn’t know his cousin was dead. Which may be very good news for the two of you.”

  The police detective explained that William James might not have realized that Sebastian had found us in Amarillo or that we’d figured out the connection between the two of them.

  “We think Sebastian might not have even told any of Leto’s people in Chicago that he was searching for you in Albuquerque,” Billy said. “I’d intercepted Sebastian when he got into town, told him my partner and I had been following you and gave him enough insider information to convince him we were all on the same side. I think he wanted to present his discovery and silencing of you two to Leto as a done deal.”

  Billy said the bad news was that he still didn’t want us to leave Flagstaff yet. There were plenty of mob men waiting to jump into Sebastian James’s and Vincent Leto’s shoes, and he wanted to make sure we’d be reasonably safe before driving out of town.

  But he told us he’d give us another call the next day. Said it looked promising that we might be cleared to head home by the end of the weekend, so we could be back in Minnesota for the Fourth of July.

  Donovan and I both noticed that the Albuquerque cop didn’t mention yet what we’d be able to disclose—or not disclose—to our families. The burden of the information I’d been carrying and keeping from my parents was weighing on me a lot, and I knew Donovan had to be thinking similar thoughts about his mom.

  However, we pushed those worries aside for a while and spent the rest of my official birthday ambling around the NAU campus, which was still pretty charming and lively, even for a Saturday in summer. Then we hung around downtown Flagstaff, had a cozy dinner at a tasty Mexican restaurant near the Orpheum Theater and strolled along one of the tree-lined trails, hand in hand. Eventually, we wound up at the motel again for an evening of “Starsky & Hutch” followed by “The Love Boat.”

  The ABC television lineup had me chuckling to myself a little. So, the crime drama needed to be solved first before we got to enjoy an hour of romance, huh? Not that TV Land was usually anything like my real life but, tonight, I decided to make it so.

  I clicked off the tube after the second show ended, put my arms around Donovan’s neck and kissed him, holding nothing back. Finally allowing myself to get lost in the beautiful contradictions of him. Hardness and softness. Darkness and light.

  We ended up on the bed, which wasn’t difficult since it was right there, next to us. And we continued kissing but, unlike last night, we didn’t break apart every few minutes to chat or laugh about something. And we didn’t eventually just fall asleep.

  It was getting more intense by the minute. I could almost count the number of seconds ticking until I knew Donovan would play the gentleman card and pull away. When that happened, I was ready for him.

  His breath came in ragged puffs as he jerked back from me and stared at my lips, my cheeks, my eyes. “This is…um, we’re…I mean, it’s too—”

  “Passionate?” I supplied. “Powerful?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, that.” He swiped a few beads of sweat off his brow. “We should really cool it, or else…”

  “Or else?”

  “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean,” he said with a laugh. “Believe me, it’s not that I don’t want to. I really want to. But, we shouldn’t. You’re still—”

  “I’m still what? A kid?” I shook my head. “But I’m not anymore, Donovan. I’m eighteen. A legal adult. And I know exactly what I’m doing. Here. With you.”

  “That’s bullshit, Aurora. You do not know.” He smiled at me, his heart and soul in his dark brown eyes as he reached to push a few strands of hair away from my face. “Maybe someday you’ll really want to, but I don’t think tonight’s the night.”

  “You don’t think so, so it can’t be true, huh?” I teased him. “Tell me something—is your only fear that you don’t think I’m ready?”

  He nodded. “But it’s a valid fear. I’m five years older than you. A few months from now, maybe you’ll go off to college in the Twin Cities or somewhere, and you’ll meet someone else…and wish you’d waited for him.”

  I listened to what he was saying, and I could see those possibilities for what they were: The excitement of the unknown. The daydreams we have of a shiny future, untarnished by the pain of the past. The promise of an uncomplicated romance.

  But I didn’t want the unknown.

  I didn’t crave girlish daydreams or anyone else’s vision of my future.

  And I didn’t trust anything just because it was uncomplicated.

  I rested my head against Donovan’s chest, and he held me there for several long moments, thinking—I was sure of it—that I’d come to my senses. That I agreed with his reasoning.

  Well, he was wrong.

  I pulled back and smiled at him. Confident I knew my own mind. Prepared to take responsibility for every one of my own actions.

  “If you don’t want to sleep with me tonight, Donovan, just say so. But let it be your decision about how you feel, not a projection about my choices and my emotions. Because I already know what I want.” I paused to make sure he was listening. “I chose you a long time ago. I’m not going to regret anything, no matter what happens after we leave here.”

  He swallowed a time or two and studied my expression for what felt like an eternity. “I think you’re maybe a little on the insane side to care about me so much, Aurora Gray.”

  “Maybe I am,” I said lightly. His wallet was on the nightstand, and I reached over to grab it. He watched me with interest as I rifled through a few of the leather folds until I found what I was looking for. I held up the foil pack
et with the rubber inside. “Had a feeling you might have one of these.”

  “Oh, yeah? Your intuition tell you that?”

  I shook my head. “I had an older brother, remember? I learned a thing or two about guys from him.”

  “Ah,” he said. I heard him draw in an uneven breath. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Because I can only keep fighting you—fighting us—for so long.”

  “Donovan, I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” And I meant it.

  He slipped away, turned off most of the room lights and, finally, climbed back into bed next to me.

  Then he half grinned and said something I truly hadn’t expected.

  “I’m putting my heart in your hands tonight,” he whispered. “Be gentle with it.”

  I AWOKE on Sunday morning to find Donovan’s arms encircling me. I snuggled closer to him, enjoying the scent of his very warm, very male body beside mine. Remembering the way he’d touched me, skimming his fingertips against the side of my neck and down my shoulder. And then further still—between my breasts, my thighs. Pulling me nearer. Holding me tighter. Pressing into me, our bodies joining together in a union that felt destined. Magical.

  My stomach growled, disrupting the memory and breaking the spell.

  Donovan blinked open his eyes and laughed. “I’m starving, too,” he admitted.

  And, so, reluctantly, we began the day.

  As Donovan showered and shaved, I smiled to myself, reliving even more images and sensations from the evening before, as if it were a romantic movie playing on a continuous loop in my brain. As long as I lived, I knew I’d never be able to explain how much being with him last night meant to me. Truly, I was happy...contented in a way I hadn’t thought possible. A near miracle, actually, for someone like me who lived so much of her life in her mind, rather than in her body.

  I wriggled and stretched in bed, slowly working my way up to a sitting position. Still, I wasn’t quite ready to step out of my cozy cocoon or leave the afterglow of the night completely behind me yet.

  So, I reached for yesterday’s newspaper, which was on the side table, trapped underneath our half-eaten box of Good & Plenty. I nibbled on a few licorice candies to quell the hunger pangs as I thumbed through the pages of the paper, at least until I came to my favorite section—the puzzles.

  Growing up, Gideon and I used to fight over who’d get first crack at this page in our daily newspaper. I often got to it soonest because I tended to wake up earlier than my brother did. Sometimes I’d start with the crossword, other times the cryptoquote. If I really wanted to annoy him, I’d tackle the word jumble. That one was Gideon’s hands-down favorite.

  For old time’s sake, I began unscrambling the individual words in the puzzle before me, rewriting the clues into a disordered constellation of letters on the edge of the page and trying to imagine them anew. As words that were surely familiar but, as yet, unseen.

  And, suddenly, I did see something. Something that made me bolt out of bed.

  I couldn’t say for sure which of my word doodles was the one that sparked my insight, just that I wrote and rewrote a completely different pairing of words in the newspaper’s margin. A duo that had nothing at all to do with the puzzle on the page.

  Then, with my pulse sprinting, I reached for the phone.

  “I’m sorry for calling so early on a Sunday,” I said to Billy Neville, “but I need to speak with your partner, Andy. It’s important. Could you please ask him to give me a call here?”

  “I can try,” the police detective said. “What’s this about, Aurora?”

  “I think you know,” I told him. “And thank you—for all you’ve done.”

  Not even ten minutes later, the motel phone rang.

  I smiled and said, “Hello?”

  Then I listened to Andy Reggio’s heavy Texas drawl as he told me that he’d just gotten a call from Billy. “Said you wanted to speak with me?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “You know, you almost fooled me with the anagram. Same ten letters, just jumbled into a different name. I hadn’t expected that, but I guess I should have...considering you were involved.”

  Suddenly, the faux accent disappeared and I heard a rueful chuckle on the line.

  “I think you did really well figuring out so much, Sis,” my brother said. “And, by the way, sorry to be a little late with it, but happy birthday.”

  San Bernardino, California ~ Tuesday, July 4

  WITH BILLY Neville’s help, we had a short but incredibly joyful family reunion in San Bernardino, California just two days later.

  It was the Fourth of July.

  We called my parents and asked them to fly down—not telling them the reason, just that it was important—and, of course, they came.

  Donovan, Billy and I met them at the airport, and Gideon, who’d been on the road somewhere in Southern California, drove his motorcycle to the secluded picnic site Billy had reserved just for us that day.

  The moment when Gideon took off his helmet and ran toward Mom and Dad, the world stopped spinning for a second. And then...everyone cried. Both of my parents. Me. Gideon himself. Donovan. And even Billy Neville.

  My brother looked different. There were some similarities, of course. His build hadn’t changed too much, although I could tell he was more muscular and a bit broader than he’d once been. His skin was tanned and starting to approach leathery. Like a California boy, rather than a Minnesota son.

  His hair color was noticeably lighter, and he sported a beard I’d never seen before. He no longer wore his ruby graduation ring. Honestly, at first glance, I might not have recognized him. (After all, I hadn’t when he’d been clad in biker gear in Amarillo or at the church cemetery in New Mexico.)

  But his voice—without that phony “Andy Reggio” accent—was the same as always. And when he smiled at me again and hugged me close, I knew I’d gotten my big brother back.

  There was nothing insignificant about the day. It was as if we all fully understood what a rare and precious gift this moment was and knew better than to waste a single second.

  We conversed as a whole group but, also, in smaller, intense configurations. Billy, my mom and Gideon. My dad and me. Gideon and Donovan. We grouped and regrouped all day long.

  My parents needed the most time with my brother, of course—both alone and, also, with Billy, who could so expertly provide explanations of the case. The police detective filled them in on what had happened over the past several years and, in particular, all of the events that took place involving their children.

  I was relieved not to have to hold that secret anymore, and I could tell this was exponentially true for Gideon.

  Even so, Billy still insisted upon strict confidentiality as we moved forward. He invited my parents to discuss anything else with him at any time but, despite the fact that William James seemed to be operating alone in the Chameleon Lake Police Department and the other two fulltime officers there had been cleared of general suspicion, Billy and the FBI preferred to keep their circle of confidants extremely small.

  Donovan and I were told we were free to return home.

  Gideon’s safety was much less assured if he went back, but Billy told me privately that the final decision was really up to my brother.

  “There will always be a risk,” he said. “But I think the choice for Gideon is more complicated than that.”

  I didn’t really understand what the police detective meant, though, until later, when I finally got a half hour alone with my brother.

  I asked him a few of the questions I hadn’t been able to on the phone: What made you so certain I’d correctly follow the clues in the journal? Were you trailing us from city to city to make sure? Now that this is all over, will you come back home?

  He answered each of them, but in his own meandering and somewhat mysterious way.

  “You’re my sister, Aurora,” he said with one of his flash grins. “You think I wouldn’t remember how persistent you could be when you wanted to fig
ure out something? I lived with you for sixteen years.”

  But then the deeper truth emerged. He confessed it had been his instincts that had saved his life in Amarillo, along with a little knowledge of explosives. He’d been only a few perceptive seconds ahead of Rick Brice and Sebastian James. “Still not quick enough to save Jeremy,” he lamented, but it was enough for Gideon to get away, even though he’d had to kill a man to do it. The experience changed him, and he was reminded of the intuitive gift he knew I possessed.

  “Once I’d sort of gotten my head together again, I tried to come up with a creative way to help Billy—and the special unit of the FBI—so we could get those bastards.” he said. “And I remembered the journal.”

  It was, as I suspected, an object he just happened to have with him in his backpack when he and Jeremy took Ben’s car to Bonner Mill. Slowly, months after the incident in Amarillo, the idea to use to journal took hold. He came up with the coded messages, wrote them down, brought the journal up to Chameleon Lake and planted it in the cedar box where he knew only I would find it.

  “My main concern was to keep you safe, even as you worked to solve the puzzle,” he said. “I knew, though, if anyone would be capable of skirting danger while piecing together the clues, it would be you.”

  And so, yes, he tracked our progress whenever he could. In Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma for sure. “Not nearly well enough in Texas,” he said with an apology. “Sometimes you and Donovan were faster than I’d expected. In fact—” He paused. Studied my face silently for a few seconds and glanced at Jeremy’s big brother, who was having a private discussion with my dad. “I didn’t know for sure that you’d even involve Donovan until the two of you went to Crescent Cove together. I thought it was at least fifty-fifty that you’d go it alone.”

  “No, I needed his help,” I admitted. “I did from the very first day.” Then I pulled out Gideon’s leather journal, which had been my constant companion for the past month and my touchstone of hope, and I offered it to him. “Would you like to have it back?”