Chapter Forty-Five

 

DAVIS

 

I swallow hard, because for the first time in a while, I have no idea what the right thing to do is. Can Brian make it? How much risk would I be putting him in by not taking him straight to the hospital?

If I take him, though, how much risk am I putting Ryan in? For an instant, a small voice inside me says that I shouldn't be worried.

He's a criminal, after all. I got into this business to catch criminals. Not to fuck them. Not to get all lovey-dovey with them. Not to get attached to people. Getting attached was the whole problem in the first place.

I take a deep breath. But I can't let Donaldsen get away with this. With using an innocent man's injuries to capture the guilty.

I especially can't let him look the other way when the real bad guys are out there, and they're causing all sorts of problems of their own.

I look at Brian, who's now rubbing his wrists where the bracelets were on too tight.

"Can you wait?"

"We need to get Ryan," he pleads. I agree with him. I pick him up by the shoulder and stand up under his arm. He's as tall as his brothers, so it's not as much help as I'd like it to be.

Then again he's not standing as well as either of us would like him to be. He leans on me hard and I take him back to the car, slip him into the front seat so I can monitor his condition.

"Which way did they go?"

"North," he croaks out. I don't need to wonder where they're probably going. If I were Donaldsen, I'd get him right the hell out, and that means an airport. An airport means north.

I get the car turned around and start heading after them. A heading isn't much, but it's enough. I should let slow and steady do it for me. It doesn't. I'm doing ten over. Fifteen if I let my excitement do the driving for me.

Brian's not wasting away in the seat next to me. Now that he's sitting, he looks even a little bit less like he's going to die. He's got the seat back and the color is starting to come back into his cheeks a little.

"Do you see them?"

He shakes his head. "No."

I take a deep breath. We've got a ways to go until we hit Tucson. More than an hour. We don't need to catch them in the first ten minutes.

"Well, tell me if you do, alright?"

"Will do, ma'am."

I don't know if I like being called 'ma'am.' It's got a certain unpleasant professionalism to it. Then again, so does everything else I do, so I suppose I can't exactly complain, can I?

He leans his head back. For a minute I think he might be sleeping, and I'm about to tell him to wake up. As hurt as he is, he can't go to sleep—regardless how much he might want to. Can't afford it.

His eyes are open, though. A second later he leans it forward again. Pulls his seat up.

The road's long, and I need to keep him awake as best I can.

"So, how do you like Arizona?"

He takes a second to answer. "I don't know. Hot. Pretty, though."

"Yeah, I guess that's true. Thank God for air conditioning, though."

"I came down here because Ryan asked me to, you know. He's always been the tough one. Logan's the smart one, I guess that makes me the funny one."

There's nothing funny about the situation, not when he still looks liable to die right there, but the way he says it makes me smile.

"Yeah? Tell me a joke."

"Uh… shit." He rubs his head. "Okay, sure. Cop stops a guy. Driving a little slow, swerving in his lane. Looks like a drunk, but as he gets up to the car he can see the dude's eyes. Stoned out of his head." Brian takes a long minute to pause, lays his head back against the head-rest. "Jesus, I'm tired."

"I know, but you can't sleep right now, alright?"

"Stoned out of his head, right? Okay. So he says to this kid, 'How high are you?' And the kid's face gets all screwed up and he says 'no, officer—it's 'hi, how are you?''"

A smile spreads across my face. "Good one. Can you tell me another?"

He leans his head back. "I can't think of anything."

"Nothing at all?"

I step on the gas harder. He's not going to bleed to death right there, but he looks bad, and I don't know what I'm going to do if we don't manage to get Ryan damn soon after we get into Tucson.

The car speeds up under us. I have to hope and pray no cops run into us. The way we're whipping past the other cars, they'd pull us over in a heart-beat. I'd pull me over, and I don't even have the right to do that.

"Come on, Brian, I need you to stay awake."

He leans his head forward again. "I wasn't asleep."

"Good, and I need you to stay that way. What's the car look like?"

"Look like?"

"The car with your brother in it. Did you get a good look at it?"

"It was… black. Four doors. Um. Round-ish. Not square."

Thanks for the information, I guess. Not very specific. For a man who's lost as much blood as Brian Beauchamp obviously has, though, I can't blame him.

"I'm sorry, I know that's not very helpful. If it was a bike I'd know better."

"Do you like motorcycles?"

"Well, sure."

"But you're not a part of your brother's club?"

Brian shakes his head. A minute later he decides I probably wasn't watching. "No."

"Couldn't you be part of the club without, you know…"

"Without the business side of things?"

"Sure."

"Maybe. I don't know. I really don't. I just like to ride 'em. I like to look at 'em. I don't need to…" He stops talking and starts looking out the window, watching the cars pass by.

"Don't need to what?"

"I don't know. Don't need to prove it to anyone, or something. Don't need to worry about what my brother's doing all the time. Don't need to be part of some club that gives me permission to like what I like."

"That makes a lot of sense, you know?"

"I know."

Another few minutes pass. I make the turn onto the I-10, going a little too fast the whole time, and start going a lot too fast one I get on it.

"You have a girlfriend, Brian?"

"Not really," he says. "I know a girl, but I just haven't really—"

"Why not?"

"She's from work, which already makes things weird. Didn't want to start something and have to leave it half-finished if something came up with Ryan and Logan."

"That's a load of crap."

"I asked myself, what's my priority? Her, or them? It's simple, if you think about it that way. Don't need to constantly second-guess yourself."

"But in the mean-time, I know your brothers wouldn't want you to be lonely."

"I didn't say I was lonely, I said I wasn't dating anyone."

That shuts me up. I suppose he did.

"There." He points way up ahead. "That looks a lot like the car. Might be the same one."

The tint on the windows is dark. Dark enough to believe him. The car doesn't have much more to give me, but I ask it for just a little bit more. Just enough to get me close.