The emergency room was overflowing with people. I pushed my way inside, searching unfamiliar faces for those that were familiar. I finally spotted Sue in a back corner, her face pale as she leaned against a wall. As I drew closer, I could see that Alli and Tommy were there, too, sitting in molded plastic chairs, looking just as pale and sickly as those around them.

“Where is he? What’s going on?”

Alli stood and came to me, her hands outstretched, one clutching a balled-up tissue. “He drove us home, and then I get a call…” She shook her head, tears sliding down her cheeks. “He drove off the road not four miles from my place. We passed the wreck on the way here.”

“He drove off the road?”

She nodded. “His truck was in a ditch, the front and side smashed pretty good. And they won’t tell us anything. Some nurse said he was in surgery, but I don’t know what’s going on! We’re not family, so they won’t really say.”

I slid an arm around her and searched the crowded waiting room with a quick glance. A cop—a sheriff’s deputy—was leaning against a far wall, watching us. I gently pushed Alli to the side and marched up to him.

“You investigating Harry Cravits’s accident?”

The man nodded. I glanced at his name tag and was somewhat relieved to recognize it as one a couple of people in town had told me belonged to an honest cop.

“What happened?”

The deputy—Willis—eyed me cautiously. “You family?”

“Harry and I were in the DEA together. He was something like a mentor, so, yeah, you can say we’re family.”

The cop hesitated, but then seemed to decide my theory was good enough. “Looks like he drove off the road on his way into town.”

“He drove off the road? You are aware, aren’t you, that Harry and his friends have been harassed recently by this group, these so-called Guardians, right? He’s filed enough police reports for you to be aware.”

A weariness touched the man’s face. “I am aware.”

“Was there any evidence that he wasn’t the only car on the road at the time of the accident?”

Willis glanced around the busy emergency room, then focused slowly on me. “I can’t really speak to the details until we’ve had a chance to look at all the evidence.”

“But there was someone else on the road.” I cursed under my breath. “Bastards! Do you realize what this means? Do you realize that it’s taken everything I have to keep Harry from declaring war on these people? Do you know that there won’t be any stopping him now that this has happened?”

I was truly angry. I knew Harry. I knew how pissed he would be when he got out of the hospital, the idea that this could have happened to Alli or one of her girls. But I was more pissed at the idea that someone could have balls big enough to do such a thing to my friend. The truth was, I looked up to Harry, always had. To have someone harass him was one thing, but to inflict physical harm? These people had better watch their damn backs!

“Look,” Willis said, leaning closer to me, “if I were you, I’d watch my back. Rumor has it that the Guardians aren’t just gunning for your friends, Mr. Stone.”

“You know who I am?”

“Everyone in town knows who you are. You’re the security guy who thinks he can set up a new security firm in the same town where the Guardians rule. You really think they’re going to allow you to do that? These people…they think they own this place. They’re not going to let you hone in on their business.”

“The thing is, Deputy Willis, this is America. I have the right to run my business out of any city I damn well choose. And Harry—he grew up in this town. He deserves more respect than being run off the road in the middle of the night.” I studied his face for a second, half believing that I saw respect and understanding there. “I will find the person who did this. And will take care of it.”

Willis hesitated a moment. “I don’t like this any more than you do. These people, they work outside the law, and that’s not what I got into law enforcement for. But the sheriff…” He sighed. “You find who did this, make sure you have irrefutable proof, and I’ll make sure they pay the acceptable price. But if you try to go outside the law, that makes you no better than these people.”

I started to nod, but then a movement off to my side caught my attention. A doctor had come out from some double doors, and he was headed toward Alli. I crossed the room, barely reaching them as Alli’s knees gave out and she let loose with the most dreadful moan I’d ever heard issue from a human throat.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor was saying, “there was just too much blood.”

“Harry?”

The doctor nodded. “He sustained massive internal injuries. We were pumping blood into him as fast as it was coming out. We just couldn’t repair the damage quickly enough.”

My body went cold. I could barely feel Alli in my arms. My only thought was how wrong this was. How I’d been through this so many times before, but it never got easier.

Harry was dead.

 

 

Alli handed me a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. I didn’t bother with the glasses.

The girls were in bed, and the house was so completely silent that it almost hurt, the weight of that silence on my shoulders. It had briefly crossed my mind to go find Ruth, to hold her in my arms and pretend that nothing bad could hurt me while she was there. But it was late, and she’d already been upset enough when I dropped her off before heading to the hospital. But it was more than that. I didn’t want to spoil Ruth’s light with the darkness that seemed to follow me around everywhere I went.

I took several swigs of the whiskey directly from the bottle, then handed it to Alli.

“Harry was too good for me,” she said after taking a few swigs herself. “He asked me to marry him. Did I tell you that?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“He did. A week after I first met him.”

“When was that?”

“About two months ago.”

I chuckled softly, retrieving the bottle to swallow a few more drops of oblivion. “Why didn’t you take him up on it? He would have treated you right.”

“Maybe that’s why. I wouldn’t know what to do with a man who’d treat me right.”

I nodded, leaning forward with the bottle dangling between my legs. A few more swigs, and I began to feel it in the center of my chest, that lovely numbness that came with liquid oblivion.

“Harry saved my life, and I couldn’t protect him from a bunch of religious fanatics.”

“It wasn’t your job to protect him.”

“Sure it was. It was the whole reason I came out here.”

“You really think he called you out here for himself? He never really cared all that much for that gun shop. It was just something to do. He offered dozens of times to cash it in, sell the place and join me at my shop.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. The man had it bad.”

I snickered. “He did. I saw the way he looked at you.”

She smiled softly even as tears began to drip down the length of her face. “I wish I could have felt the same way about him.”

“Why couldn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always had a soft spot for guys who treated me bad, you know? Tommy’s father was a real prick. Beat the shit out of me every single day. And Sue’s? He ended up in prison before she was even born. Still there, far as I know.”

I nodded. It was a familiar story. Some people just couldn’t help who they fell in love with. Like me.

“The women in my life seem to find it impossible to be with me. The woman I thought I loved and with whom I wanted to start a family broke up with me when I asked her to marry me. And this girl I’m seeing now won’t go to bed with me because of her religious beliefs.”

Alli’s eyes widened even as she reached over to steal the bottle of whiskey from me. “I don’t know if I could keep my hands off of you even if I believed what those freaks believe.”

I chuckled, taking the bottle back and swallowing a healthy swig. The bottle was nearly empty now, and I was definitely feeling it.

“It’s not her beliefs that bother me so much. Hell, I think it’s kind of nice that people can find something to believe in with the country turning so much to hatred these days. It’s getting used to returning to that constant state of frustration that marked my teen years.”

Alli reached over and ran her hand over my thigh. “A man like you shouldn’t have to experience that sort of frustration.”

I shook my head, finishing the last of the whiskey before tossing the bottle away. “Listen to you talk. I saw what you were doing to Harry.”

A dark cloud floated over her face. “And I regret all that time lost. If I’d known this would happen…” She choked a little. She stood and moved away from me, burying her fingers in her hair like she wanted to tear it all out by the roots. “How could they do that to Harry? He may have been a little rough around the edges, but he was a fucking good man! I’ve never known anyone like him before, and I’m afraid I’ll never meet anyone like him again.”

“He was a good man.”

A heaviness settled in my chest that had nothing to do with the liquor. I leaned forward and buried my face in my hands. I couldn’t imagine a world without Harry in it. We weren’t close these last few years, but when I was on his team in the DEA, he was a force that couldn’t be ignored. I wouldn’t be doing what I was now if not for him and all that he taught me.

“What happens to his shop?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. He doesn’t have any family that I’m aware of.”

“An ex-wife in Tulsa.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think they’ve talked in years.”

“And the funeral. I can’t…my finances are all wrapped up in the shop.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s the least I could do.”

“You’re a good friend, Jack.”

“If I was really a good friend, I would have seen this coming and done something to prevent it.”

“No one could have seen this coming. Despite everything, I still believed that these people would stop short of murder. Isn’t that in the Ten Commandments? Thou shalt not kill?”

“Yes, well, these people believe they’re above the law, even God’s law.”

“I suppose so.”

I stood a little unsteadily, reaching down to catch myself on the coffee table. “I should get out of here. You need sleep.”

“I need more booze.” She wandered over to a cabinet above the refrigerator in her narrow galley kitchen. “Stay. Have another drink.”

“I should go. I’ll have to be up early to make arrangements.”

I was at the door, standing half on the front porch and half inside the house, when she caught up with me. She tugged at my arm and pulled me partially around.

“Stay,” she said, her hot, whiskey-scented breath washing over my face. “I’ll make it worth your while.” She kissed me roughly, her tongue snaking its way into my mouth without invitation. Her hands moved up over my chest, one palm pressing itself against my heart while the other wrapped itself around the back of my neck. I held up my hands, backing up without laying a hand on her.

“Alli—”

“I don’t want to be alone tonight, Jack.”

There was such sadness in her eyes that I couldn’t help but feel it deep in my soul. I knew that sadness, had been in her shoes more often than I cared to count. Loss and I were old friends. But when I ran my hand over the side of her face, and she responded by pressing her head against me, all I could think of was Ruth.

“You were Harry’s girl, whether it was what you wanted or not. I can’t disrespect him this way.”

“He would want you to take care of me. You know that.” She sidled up against me, her hands slipping around my waist, one taking a great handful of my ass. “And we both know how blue your gorgeous, huge balls are. Why don’t you let me offer a little satisfaction?”

I lifted her jaw and couldn’t help but fall into her kiss. There was something familiar about that kiss, something familiar about the desperation behind it. She reminded me of Rae and so many of the other women I’d known before her. There was such a drastic difference between this and the sweetness of Ruth’s kiss.

Her hand slipped under my shirt, lifting it to the coolness of the night air. I shivered slightly, my own hands wandering over her narrow hips. I pushed her back slightly, moving to cup one slightly stiff, artificially full breast. Her nipple was stiff, pressed hard against my hand in response to my touch. Certain parts of my own body stiffened in response, desperate for the relief she was so openly offering me. And, for a brief moment, I was more than eager to lift her up and carry her into her bedroom, to take everything she’d been offering since the moment she set eyes on me.

But I couldn’t do that to Harry. And I couldn’t do it to Ruth.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered softly against her lips as I extracted myself from her arms. “It’s not right.”

I walked away, stiff and aching all over, an ache that even the booze couldn’t cure. Not even standing in a cold shower for what felt like hours didn’t help. Nothing was going to help, not tonight.