“We chose you, Brady,” Ernie said. “You’d better choose us.”
Brady didn’t know what that meant, but he remembered that relief, that joy, in finding his way to a place with light and warmth and kindness.
Brady nodded, wishing he knew more what Ernie had meant in that gesture, and soon he took his leave.
He lived in a small apartment complex in Victoriana proper, which nobody at his station house did. Too remote, they complained. Not enough good food places. Too far to drive.
Which were all good reasons why Brady had chosen it. He loved patrolling the desert. And he loved that nobody knew about Victoriana but people who lived there. His family had been horrified. “What about all the immigrants?”
“You mean my fellow citizens?” he’d asked, making his point as he always did. Once his parents had died, there’d been more than one reason he’d felt more comfortable moving far away.
Tonight he listened to the babble of his neighbors at the small pool in the quad—most of it was in Spanish, but he was wrapping up a year on Duolingo, and while he was sure he sounded stiff and awkward, he could understand a lot more than he spoke, and the talk today was happy. Somebody was having a birthday, and as Brady gazed out of the bay window, the one that looked toward the freeway, he felt a little like it had beenhisbirthday. He’d had cookies and ice cream, and he’d made new friends.
It was as close to home as he’d felt since before his folks had passed.
So his mind was relaxed as he stared out over the lights of the small town to the highway in the distance. The night was so clear he thought he could make out a line of cars, driving in concert, almost connected like beads. As one entity they pulled onto the road, turning toward Las Vegas and driving for what was probably two or three miles, and then—he could swear it—they all made a left turn into the desert and disappeared.
He gasped, because it was almost a magic trick, and then he scowled and tried to make sense of what he’d seen.
There was probably a rise there, he thought. Often, because so much of the desert was flat, having a rise or a dip in the sanddunes or the hardpan acted like sorcery. Things appeared and disappeared because of a rise or a hill or a hole in the desert.
Those three cars—and he’d been sure there were three—had all turned off on one of those elusive side roads that were almost always forgotten about until they were passed.
And they had emerged—he was almost sure of it—from Ace and Sonny’s garage across from the one gas station with the Subway connected.
Them’s my people. There’s more’n you think.
Unbidden came Charlie’s—no, dammit,Eric’s—ice-blue eyes and the casually seductive way he’d come on to Brady.
Tempting, Brady thought—very tempting. And he’d already proved he had Brady’s back.
But these were people who walked out into the middle of the desert alone at night without worry. While none of the people in that little house tonight had been law enforcement, he’d seen telltale signs in all of them—even the dreamy, discombobulated Ernie—that they knew how to handle themselves. He hadn’t missed the folded and highly illegal knife in the sheath at Ace’s waist.
They’d have Brady’s back. But Brady was law enforcement—had promised his father he’d bleed blue, through and through. Could Brady feasibly havetheirbacks?
For a moment he was spinning dizzily in a velvet sky with no light, and then he was surrounded by stars.
Yeah, he realized with a stark swallow. If it meant he wasn’t alone, he suspected he could.
9-1-1
ERIC HADinvested in averynice mattress for his RV, and he was deep into some seriously cozy dreams involving the handsome square-jawed police officer when a pounding on the front door of the camper threatened to shake his teeth out of his head.
The kittens both squawked and screamed, and he had to beverycareful when he stepped out of bed. Before he went to sleep at night, he took Katie out of her little cart apparatus that gave her mobility and set both kittens in a high-sided pet bed that he placed in the camper bathroom (unless he was using it, and then he tucked the bed under the kitchen table). If he didn’t watch his feet, it was very possible for one of them to make his or her awkward way to the foot of the pedestal the bed was mounted on, and he’d been saved (or rather a kitten had been saved) by his quick reflexes more than once.
In this case, Oliver/Eddie-Puss was right there, under his right foot, and he shifted on the bed and picked the creature up before getting out of bed and making his way to the front of the camper. For his part, Oliver/Eddie-Puss started purring almost immediately, which, Eric had to admit, did nothing for his dignity when he flung open the door.
“Hello?” Eric blinked rapidly. He was not often caught flat-footed. Uncomfortably, he realized he must have, in some way,relaxedover the last week since he’d been welcomed into this little desert enclave and allowed to be… himself. Allowed people who knew what he did—good people—to be a part of his life.
The day before, working in Ernie’s cubicle, should have been boring. Demeaning. Far beneath him.
But the only times he’d ever done menial jobs were when he’d been in disguise, working to not be noticed. This had been different. His friends had needed him to actuallydothe job—take the money, talk to the customers,notbe an asshole. He’d even changed the toilet paper in the small bathroom that was available to customers. It was surprisingly well kept, and he realized that somebody—Ace, Sonny, Ernie—somebodyprobably washed it and scrubbed the toilet and cleaned the mirror at least once a day.
He’d been a paid killer for twenty years, and he was proud of his skills but not exactly proud of his end result.
He’d been a clerk in a garage for a couple of hours and realized his presence there was vital.
And watching Sonny Daye’s takedown of that entitled piece of shit who had pissed his pants had been one of the most delightfully honest things Eric had seen in a long time.
