“We have a story to tell you, so bear with us,” Asher said. “Ever since our arrival, we have been actively looking for your shooters. And once you identified the Brandt brothers, everything else began falling in place. We finally knew who did it, but we had no physical proof to back us up.”
“Dad, since I was the one with zero sleuthing ability, I asked to be the one to stay with you,” Dylan said. “We still had no motive for why it happened, and all three of us feared they would try it again. That’s why you had the security guards at your door.”
Jacob nodded. “I guessed that much. Truthfully, it made sleep a lot easier.”
Gunner picked up the story. “I ran most of the background checks while Asher was researching facts and sifting through new information. He was an awesome partner to work with, and still a not-so-bad brother, to boot. Little by little, things began popping up that began to make sense, but we couldn’t put our finger on what was missing until the night we all finally admitted to ourselves that we were overlooking the obvious. We rarely talk about Brenda, not even to each other, but when we opened that door…” Gunner paused. “You finish it, Ash. You’re the one who remembered.”
Jacob’s heart skipped when they mentioned Brenda’s name. What the hell else had she done?
“We were working around a theory. We knew Pete Brandt’s sons visited him only hours before he died. Wealso knew that it was only a week or so afterward that they showed up at the bar. Then when they came back and shot you, we still had no motive, and it was driving us crazy. So, one night, we were all home, sitting around the kitchen table, and we started talking about the day of Gunner’s birthday, and each of us told what we remembered from that day. And the last thing I remembered was Gunner waking up all bloody from losing a tooth, and howling to the moon about swallowing it.”
Jacob smiled, and patted Gunner’s hand. “I remember that day. You had your seventh birthday.”
Asher nodded. “All the crying woke me, and I kept expecting Mom to go see to it, but she didn’t, and I went to see what was wrong. When I saw all the blood, I went to look for her. I knew there would be sheets to strip, and Gunner would need a bath. I went all through the house calling for her, but she wasn’t there. I went back to the boys’ room long enough to give Gunner a cloth to pack in the bleeding gum, then made another sweep through the house, calling her name over and over. I was in the kitchen, thinking she might be outside, when she came out of the basement. I remembered the dirt on the knees of her jeans, and all over her hands, because she had to wash them before she went to tend to Gunner. And that’s when it hit us. What if Pete Brandt lied about hiding the money. What if he gave it to Mom to hide? And what if she buried it in the dirt floor of that basement? And what if that’s what Pete Brandt told his sons, and that was the reason they came to the bar, then came back and shot you? If they knew it was there, then that would be their motive for shooting you.”
Jacob went pale. His eyes welled. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Was it there?”
Dylan and Gunner reached for his hands.
Asher nodded. “We found it with a metal detector. Dugit up and turned it over to the FBI three days ago, and asked them not to announce the recovery until we got the men who shot you, to which they agreed.”
“All these years. God… The nightmare is going to start again. Everyone is going to think I knew it was there,” Jacob said.
“No, Dad. It’s exactly the reverse. Part of the Feds’ announcement will be that the discovery was entirely due to your sons’ investigation of the attempted murder. And that the exact location was unknown to everyone, because Brandt told her to hide it, and she did, but then the truth and the location died with her. We would never have known it was there, had Pete’s sons not come looking. During the Feds’ original investigation, they’d overlooked considering her part in the robbery. It was enough that she’d died on their watch. Asher didn’t trust them not to put a spin on the recovery to make themselves look better. He said if they did, he would hold a press conference of his own.”
“It won’t happen to you again, Dad. One lie from the media and I slap them with a lawsuit for slander so fast it’ll make their heads spin. Don’t worry. We’ve got your back. All we want is for you to get well enough to go home.”
Tears were rolling down Jacob’s face. He just kept shaking his head and clutching their hands until he finally pulled himself together.
“I am so proud of all of you. I don’t have the words to express what this means to me.”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Asher said. “I saw. I remember what you went through before. It won’t happen again.”
“And they’re in custody?” Jacob asked.
“As of midnight, last night,” Dylan said.
“Where? How?” Jacob asked.
And then they explained the trap they’d laid with Sheriff Reddick’s help, and how it all went down.
Jacob shook his head in disbelief. “I will never look at my kitchen in the same way. A treasure was buried in the floor beneath it, and you took down the men who tried to kill me where I eat my breakfast every day.”
“It was our home, too, Dad. You made it the best place to grow up,” Gunner said.
“Speaking of the kitchen and home, has your doctor given you any indication of when you might be released?”
Jacob nodded. “Probably tomorrow, but once I’m there, you boys do not need to play nursemaid. I can do for myself just fine.”
“Maybe so, but until you are well enough to reopen the bar, you will have daily home healthcare,” Asher said. “It’s the only way we’ll feel safe enough to leave you on your own.”
Jacob frowned.
“No, Dad. No frowning,” Dylan said. “Ash is right.”
“He is definitely right, and I am incapable of giving my own father a bath,” Gunner said.
They all burst out laughing, and at that point, Jacob agreed.
