Twenty-Eight
Then
She was on the right side of the interrogation table tonight, playing the role of victim instead of juvenile delinquent.
Detective Richards set a cold Coke down on the table in front of her and sat. Smoothed his tie. Consulted the notes the responding officers had provided for him.
“Miss Lowe, I know you gave a statement, but if you would, walk me through it again.” He lifted his head from the notes and gave her a tight smile. He had to know who she was, she figured, the girl who’d attacked a classmate and spent a few hours in the drunk tank. He had to be thinking that trouble of all sorts had a way of following problem kids like her.
Hell, she was starting to think it.
“Sometimes,” he said, “people leave things out in these sorts of situations – not intentionally, they’re just rattled. And a few hours later, it makes more sense. They remember details a little better.” He tilted his head. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
Beside her, Denise cleared her throat again. She couldn’t seem to stop doing that. She hadn’t been crying when the cops cut her wrists loose, her eyes dry, but her voice wasn’t working properly.
“You said you heard the truck engine first?” Detective Richards asked.
“Yes…”
She repeated what she’d told the uniforms at the scene. A dry telling of the facts, her voice emotionless.
Partway through, Denise opened the Coke and slid it right in front of Maggie, wanting her to take a sip. The sugar and the fizz would help with shock, Detective Richards had said.
Maggie didn’t want it. She didn’t feel shocked. She felt…tired.
So, so tired.
This moment seemed to be happening on a screen she was watching, a movie that looked alarmingly like her real life. She couldn’t feel the uncomfortable chair beneath her, the chill of the AC that hummed through the vents; the detective’s question hit a filter in her brain somewhere, meaning nothing. She answered – she knew her lips moved and she formed words – but it was a script she read from; she described the attack, but didn’t relive it.
Her father was in another interrogation room now, lying about the second redneck – the one Collier had thrown in the back of a truck. Arthur was claiming that the man got spooked when his friend was shot and fled before the police arrived.
They’d all agreed not to say anything about Ghost.
Maggie had no idea why her parents went along with that plan. Later, when she wasn’t so numb, she might be grateful for it.
Time seemed to crawl, an unending stretch full of the droning of the light bulbs and Detective Richards’ monotone repetition of questions.
Finally, it ended.
Maggie forced her legs to work and they trooped out of the interrogation room into the bullpen, where her dad was waiting for them. He looked as blank-faced as she felt.
Detective Richards walked them to the airlock and left them there with a, “You folks take care. We’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you,” Denise said.
Maggie thought maybe she really was in shock, and maybe it was starting to wear off, when they stepped out the front doors and the cold night air hit her face. The wind tossed her hair, crept down inside her collar, sent immediate chills racing down her arms. She took a deep breath and the cold hurt her lungs. Stung her eyes. She started to shake.
When they started down the steps, she noticed there was someone waiting at the bottom. Someone in dark clothes, arms folded, faint glimmer of a wallet chain swinging at his hip.
Ghost.
Her knees went out. Chalk it up to relief, to the delayed effects of adrenaline, exhaustion, but her legs stopped working. She staggered down the next three steps and he came forward and caught her, her parents’ limp hands falling away from her shoulders as Ghost’s strong arms went around her waist and crushed her into his chest.
“You’re alright,” he said against her ear, his breath warm, the words soft, and it broke through the last of her trance.
She closed her eyes tight, buried her face in his neck, and let the tears come. It didn’t matter that the man she’d shot had broken into her home, smashed things up with a bat and threatened her – threatened her parents – she’d shot a man. The act had brought the stark brutality of the world into new focus. Humans were capable of horrible violence – including her.
Considering this whole mess was tied to Ghost, she shouldn’t have felt safe in his arms right now. But she did. It was a simple fact, one she couldn’t deny.
He rubbed her back and murmured quiet reassurances, letting her sobs run their course. It wasn’t until she finally pulled back, swiping at her eyes with her sleeve, that she remembered her parents were witnessing this.
Ghost’s hands shifted to her waist in a loose hold so she could turn to face them. Arthur had a tentative arm across Denise’s shoulders, tears standing in his eyes, bright in the parking lot lights. Denise was stony-faced, drawn up tight and straight like a mannequin. Both were pale and much older-looking than they had been a few nights ago, like they’d aged five years during the ordeal.
They seemed alien to her, in that moment. Not her parents, but bystanders.
“I’m gonna take her home with me,” Ghost said, matter-of-fact. “She’ll be safe there.” He added, “Sorry for the trouble tonight.”
Arthur bowed his head, a few glittering tears sliding down his cheeks.
Denise nodded. “Fine.”
And that was that.
~*~
Collier poured out three cups of coffee at the kitchen island.
“Thanks,” Ghost murmured, wrapping his hands around the mug just to feel the warmth. It was cold out tonight, and only now that he was inside was he realizing how chilled he’d grown.
Maggie – freshly showered, hair damp, clad in a pair of his old sweats and a flannel shirt – stared uncomprehending at her own mug. She looked exhausted, ready to tip off her stool any moment. Ghost hoped he was alert enough to catch her if that started to happen.
“Forgot something,” Collier said, and fetched the Jack off the top of the fridge, poured a generous dollop into each mug.
Maggie put her hands around hers, then.
“So,” Collier said, “our friend…” His eyes slid to Maggie and then back, questioning.
Ghost shrugged. She shot one of the guys, what was a little info after that?
“Apparently,” Collier went on. “Duane found out what Roman was doing, according to Babe Ruth. He went and made a deal with the rednecks, had it all worked out. Sanctioned hit.”
“Jesus.”
“I’ve got no doubt somebody’s got hold of Duane at this point.” It was after three a.m.
As if on cue, the phone rang.
Maggie jerked, slopping coffee out of her mug.
“Don’t answer it,” Ghost said, reaching over and laying a hand on her arm.
The three of them sat, silent, while the call rang through to the end. When the answering machine picked up, there was only a dial tone.
“Duane. It’s gotta be.”
“Where’s Roman?” Ghost asked.
Collier sighed. “Dunno. He lit outta here after you left. Gone to ground somewhere, I guess.”
“Just as well.” Ghost took a long slug of his spiked coffee.
“Duane’s gonna be on the warpath. The Ryders too.”
“Yeah.” All Ghost wanted to do was sleep. For about a year.
“Will they come here?” Maggie spoke up, voice a bare scrape of sound.
“No, baby.” Ghost slid his arm around her waist. “We’re alright here.” Mainly because the Ryders would be regrouping, and Duane always made you come to him, never the other way around.
Collier threw back the rest of his coffee. “I’m heading home.”
“Thanks, bro.” Ghost said, giving him the most grateful smile he could manage.
“Night. Call if you need anything.”
When he was gone, Ghost slid off his stool – Maggie made a wordless sound of protest and he squeezed her hip in reassurance – and went to lock the door. He even doubled back afterward to check it.
At the island, Maggie had slumped down onto her elbows, one hand holding her wet hair off her face.
“Here.” He put his arm around her again. “Let’s go to bed, babe.”
“Not sleepy,” she protested, eyelids flagging.
“Uh-huh. Sure. You don’t look it.”
“I’m not,” she insisted, but went unresisting when he scooped her up in his arms and carried her down the hall.
For the first time in two weeks, his stomach didn’t flip with dread when he crossed the threshold into his bedroom. Most nights, he’d opted to sleep on the couch, rather than smell the faint traces of shampoo and lotion she’d left on the sheets. But now, he felt a surge of rightness, a gut-deep instinct to wrap her up in blankets and curl himself around her, try and keep out the inevitable nightmares.
He set her down carefully, like she was made of glass. Smoothed her damp hair back off her face. She looked drugged she was so tired, hit hard by shock and adrenaline.
“I’m gonna grab a shower,” he said.
She grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “No.”
“I’m gross.”
“Don’t care.”
He pulled away from her just long enough to strip down to his boxers and slid under the covers with her, letting her settle against his side, her head cushioned on his chest. When he flicked off the lamp, she sighed, sinking boneless, letting him hold her meager weight.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“How did they find my house?” she asked, hand smoothing tiredly across his stomach. A mindless gesture, something to soothe herself.
He felt his abs clench beneath her touch, stress instead of desire. Guilt. Anger. “They must have tailed you from Hamilton House.” He hated himself for not thinking of that at the time. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
“It’s not your fault.”
He snorted. “It’s all my fault.”
She didn’t disagree…but she didn’t agree either. Because she was clearly insane. Instead, she said, “What are we gonna do?”
“A lot of things. But for starters, we gotta teach you how to shoot.”
~*~
She slept poorly, mired in nightmares, rolling and twisting, waking each time in a cold sweat and reaching for Ghost. “I’m here, I’m here,” he said every time, and held her, hummed against the top of her head, talking her quietly back to sleep.
It was a relief when the alarm went off. They poured coffee into themselves and started the day with matching bags under their eyes.
They were slow getting Aidan out the door; he was ecstatic to see Maggie again, trying to swipe stealthily at his emotional tears. Maggie packed his lunch while Ghost packed a heavy, bulging, clanking duffel that he toted out to the truck.
They dropped Aidan off at school – “Bye, sweetie,” Maggie said, kissing his cheek as he slid out of the cab – and then Ghost turned the truck toward the edge of town.
“Where are we going?”
Behind the wheel, he made a face. “My parents’ place, actually.”
“Oh.” She knew his parents were both dead, but she hadn’t thought there was a house still in play. “You still have it?”
“Yeah.”
She waited a beat, and when he didn’t elaborate: “Can I ask why you don’t live there instead of…”
“My shithole apartment?” He sent her a wry look. “The cattle property’s not exactly fit for living.”
“Cattle property?”
“I didn’t tell you? I grew up on a hundred acres of cow pasture.”
The trip took them outside the city and past the suburbs, into stretches of field and forest criss-crossed with barbed-wire and four-board fence. Autumn-brown grasses, brilliantly-colored leaves, herds of horses and cows that swished lazily at the last few flies of the year.
They passed the gates and stone columns of a place called Briar Hall Farm, flickering gas lanterns on the gateposts, a glimpse of black fence and a tree-lined drive, and continued on another mile until Ghost slowed when they reached a battered tin mailbox. The driveway they turned into was gravel and badly rutted, in need of grading. The truck swayed, struts squeaking as they left the road and pulled up to a locked metal gate.
“Just a sec,” he promised, and hopped out to unlock it.
He moved the truck forward, and then relocked it behind them. She found she was grateful for the barrier: no one would drive up on them this way.
“Does Duane–” she started.
“He doesn’t have a key, no, and the only way up to the barn is by the driveway…or a really long walk through some nasty-ass briars. You’d have to cut your way through with a machete.”
A relief to hear.
The driveway rocked and jostled them the whole way up, stray branches slapping at the windshield; Maggie thought the radio antenna might snap off.
“Needs worked on,” Ghost said with an apologetic frown. “I keep thinking I’ll get up here and do some work…but then I don’t.”
“Are there any cows, still?”
“No.”
The hill came to a crest and the view opened up, rolling pastures full of waving brown grass. The fields went on and on, disappearing into the distance, framed by dark green tree lines.
“Wow,” she breathed. “It’s gorgeous.”
“That’s the house,” Ghost pointed out as they passed it, a two-story white farmhouse with a rusted metal roof and a sagging porch. The longer she looked, the more she could see wrong with it: the broken windows, a tail of stained curtain trailing from one; the missing porch rail; the mold and mildew crawling up the shady side; the bird that fluttered from the eave, leaving its nest, no doubt.
“Oh,” she said, sadly, and he patted her knee.
“It doesn’t bother me anymore,” he assured.
But it bothered her. No one should have to see their childhood home so dilapidated.
“Dad let it get way outta hand before he died, and then.” He shrugged and didn’t explain further. She knew what he meant, though: he hadn’t had the heart to fix the place up.
The drive moved around a bend and started up another hill, passed through a clump of dense trees. It ended at the base of a towering wooden barn, its doors hanging open, the interior cavernous and dark.
Maggie peered up at it through the windshield, craning her neck. “Not that this isn’t cool – it is, really – but please tell me we aren’t going to live in a barn.”
He snorted. “Nah. Target practice.”
Ah yes, the aforementioned teaching her how to shoot.
She felt a nervous flutter in her stomach, which was stupid, considering what she’d done with a gun just last night.
Outside the truck, the air smelled of crisp fall things – crispy leaves, wood smoke, the promise of snow in the months to come – and also of something wilder, denser, greener. A farm smell.
Ghost put down the tailgate, and began removing things from the duffel, laying them out in the bed of the truck. Gun, after gun, after gun, after knife, after box of ammo.
“Crap,” Maggie said, surveying it all. “Do we need all this?”
“Yep.” He sent her a smirk. “Welcome to boot camp, baby.”
~*~
“The thing about it is,” Ghost told her before they got started, “the other guy’s always gonna have a gun. So you have to ask yourself: ‘Do I wanna die? Or do I wanna fight?’”
Put that way, there wasn’t much of a decision to be had.
She was scared at first. The noise and the recoil and the knowledge of what a weapon could do – what she’d done with one last night. When she lined up her sights, she saw Chuck the redneck in her mind’s eye, replayed his grunt and his fall and the spill of bright blood across her bed. God, she’d never be able to sleep in that bed again as long as she lived.
Ghost was a good, and oddly specific teacher, though, and before long she was caught up in the minute details of the process. Stance, grip, sighting, loading. He taught her the makers and calibers of each gun he’d brought. Showed her how to empty the spent cartridges from the .38 and put new ones in. Taught her to rack the slide on the 9mm, to eject the mag and load it up with new rounds. She had a whole new vocabulary now: hollow-point, shell casing, safety. She knew what cordite smelled like, after.
They practiced until she could take down an entire row of beer cans. Until she could hit within the innermost ring of the paper bullseye targets every time.
And then it was on to knives. How to open and close them, how to hold them, where to use them on a man.
By the time the lesson was over, and they’d packed up the duffel, Maggie was sweating despite the cool weather. She was pleasantly tired, her muscles burning after their pretend-grappling with the knife.
“Do I pass muster, Sarge?” she teased.
But Ghost wasn’t smiling. “Come on. I wanna show you something.” She noted he tucked his Colt 1911 in his waistband first. Force of habit, or precaution? She wasn’t sure there was a difference anymore for him.
He led her into the barn – big box stalls strung with cobwebs, bundle of rakes and forks in a corner, rotted hay bales, inches of dust and the lingering tang of animals in the air – and to a wooden staircase in the rear corner.
“Watch out, there’s no rail.”
“Okay.”
The stairs led up into the loft. With its high, vaulted ceiling and incoming beams of sunlight, it had the air of a cathedral about it. A dusty, hay-strewn place of worship.
Ghost took her to the window and sat down, legs hanging over the edge. He swept off the floor beside him, dust flying, and Maggie sat down, her stomach swooping as she dangled her feet out into the open air. The barn had looked tall from the ground, and now it looked even taller as she stared down at the grass below.
“Afraid of heights?” he asked.
“I didn’t think so, but…” She was sure she’d break one or both of her legs if she fell.
His arm went around her waist. “I’ve got you.”
She leaned into his side.
“Look out there.” He pointed straight ahead.
She’d been so worried about pitching headfirst out of the wide opening she hadn’t bothered to scope out the view. She did now, though, and wow.
From up here, the rolling pastures looked like a gently-moving ocean, deep green and soft brown, all of it alive in the wind. She could see copses of trees, the hardwoods brilliant in yellow, and orange, and red. The house didn’t look so sad from a distance, its rust-streaked roof almost charming. The sky arced above them, a washed-out blue smudged with cirrus clouds.
“This was always my favorite spot,” Ghost confessed, tone wistful. “Still is, I guess. I come up here and sit sometimes when I need to clear my head.”
“It’s beautiful,” Maggie said. “I just…wow.”
“When I was a kid,” he continued, “and we had cows, they’d all cluster up down there.” He pointed to the ground below. “I’d toss handfuls of alfalfa at them.” He grinned. “They’d moo at me, begged like dogs.”
She smiled to think of Ghost at Aidan’s age, curly-headed and skinned-kneed.
“Collier and me would drag our toys up here – soldiers and tanks and shit. Make forts out of pallets and rat traps. Got my finger once.” He help up his left pinky for demonstration, and for the first time she saw the faint scar there.
“Ouch.”
“I cried like a girl, and then Mama swatted us both for being up here. She was always afraid we’d fall out the window,” he said with a chuckle.
Maggie swung her feet in slow circles. “She had a point, there.”
“She always did.”
She didn’t know what to say. She was thrilled to see him open up and share bits of his childhood with her, but she was afraid if she pushed, probed at the wrong scars, he’d clam up and that would be it.
He spoke before she could come up with anything. “I shoulda sold it a long time ago,” he whispered, like a confession, gaze fixed on the house. “Right when Dad died, when the lawyer came ‘round, I shoulda put it on the market. Hell, the guy who owns the place next door wanted it. I coulda made three-hundred grand, easy.”
“Why didn’t you?” Maggie asked, gently.
He shrugged. “Couldn’t. Just…yeah. Couldn’t do it. Ain’t that stupid?”
“No.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s not.”
“I keep telling myself it’ll come in handy one day.”
To her, the fallow fields seemed alive with possibility. She could envision the house whitewashed, with a new roof and a reworked porch, a new board fence along the driveway, white-faced cows lowing at dusk. Flowers in clay pots and the jangle of windchimes. It could be made new. It could be a home again.
But that wasn’t for her to say.
Instead, she said, “Ghost, what are we gonna do?”
He sighed. “For starters? Not get killed. After that…we’ll see, I guess.”
His arm tightened around her, and she knew that whatever they did, they’d do it together. That was the only way out of this mess.