Maddox

Something about Tracy Plumb had me more agitated than normal. I didn’t want her here. I didn’t want anyone here.

People got in the way of what I needed to do.

I went back to what I’d learned about Jonesy C., the newly freed Hawk. I needed his real name.

I dialed Benz. He’d be the fastest way to find out someone’s record. His old lady was a cop and she did us favors. I needed a favor.

“Hey Maddox, it was good to see you last night. Let’s not make is such a fucking rarity.”

“No promises. For now though, I need you to find a name and a record for me.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

I described Jonesy C’s skinny ass and greasy face to him.

“He’s flown under my radar because he was in the joint.”

“Gotcha. You coming to the club tonight? We’ve got Church.”

“Mandatory?” I didn’t give two shits about most votes right now. Unless it was important, I was staying away.

“No, just a probie vote.”

“Then no. I’m sitting with Olivia.” I could say that whether it was true or not. No one questioned it. No one dared. They all knew my sister had paid for our beef with The Hawks. They all were trying to prove it with me. And none of them would force me to do shit I couldn’t do right now, maybe ever. Until I had gotten my payback.

I needed to check on Olivia. I hadn’t seen her today. If my Dad and I agreed on nothing else, it was that she wouldn’t be alone, ever. It haunted me to think of her by herself.

I walked downstairs to her room. So far, no sign of Tracy Plumb. That was a relief.

Relief too soon, however. I was about to walk in to check on Olivia when I stopped dead in my tracks.

There she was, Tracy Plumb, sitting at Olivia’s bedside. She was brushing her hair. The sight nearly knocked me over.

In all the months of sitting with her, holding her hand, wishing that I could have taken that bullet for her, I’d never thought to brush her hair.

That’s just not what brothers did. I’d been more apt to pull it, growing up. But there was Tracy Plumb, chatting on about something, softly, and running a hairbrush through my baby sister’s still pretty blonde hair.

I was paralyzed myself for a second, rooted to the spot. Dad and I didn’t have a clue about women, what they’d need or want. My Mom stepped up in a million ways for my Dad, and of course Olivia did too, for all of us.

Seeing Tracy offer this care brought a rush of tears I wanted to shed. I wiped them away, and instead I let the anger, at myself, flow. I’d failed Olivia in the biggest and smallest ways.

I took a step backward, quietly, and then another. I didn’t want to interrupt this for my sister. I didn’t want to ruin it.

Even though I wanted nothing more than to kick Tracy Plumb out of here today, this afternoon I couldn’t do it. She was offering kindness, or care, or a woman’s touch that Dad and I couldn’t. It was a stark reminder of where Dad and I fell short.

I walked back to my rooms upstairs.

I shouldn’t be around other humans right now. Other humans? What a joke. I hadn’t felt human since Olivia was shot.

I sat down at the desk in the den and looked up at the photos on the wall again: the crime scene, The Hawks I could ID, a map of Port Az and surrounding towns.

None of it was helping Olivia. I put my head down on my desk. I wasn’t sure the last time I had slept. Eating, sleeping, fucking – none of it was interesting to me.

I lived my life in two colors: the gray of my day-to-day life was only interrupted by white-hot blinding rage.

Both of those colors gave way to exhaustion and I slept where I sat in the middle of a sunny afternoon in Texas.

My shades were drawn. I never opened them.