“None of these things are your fault,” Brady said tonelessly. “You shouldn’t be sorry.”
“I am,” Eric told him. “I am, because you seem like a decent guy—a decent cop. But you’ve got a crossroads now. You know why they tried to kill you, don’t you?”
Brady nodded, his face still turned toward the blinds. “I… the day of the two murders. We found the phone by Roy Kuntz’s body. I found it—and it wasn’t locked, which was strange. One touch, and suddenly there were all the pictures. The deputy’s brother, the preacher, naked with a bunch of little kids, Roy with them too.” He turned toward Eric then, looking sick. “I-I didn’t see beyond that. I have no idea who else was on that phone. But Cuthbert grabbed it from me and I… the next day, I checked with the evidence locker, and it wasn’t there. Igave a murder caseto the FBI—you gotta know that isn’t done, right? We piss on our corners like tomcats. But I told the agent in charge there that I’d seen the phone, and it involved the deputy, and I didn’t know who else, and suddenlyshewas knocking down Cuthbert’s door.”
Eric knew most of this, but the FBI agent was an angle he hadn’t thought of. “Is she still interested in him?”
Brady shook his head. “Her calls stopped,” he said. “Day before yesterday. I… I called her, and she answered the phonein the bathroomand then told me she’d been warned off the case.”
Eric swallowed and cocked his head, waiting for Brady to say it for him.
Brady leaned back against the divider between the cab and the couches and allowed his legs to go out from under him until he slid down, leaning against the back of the driver’s seat.
“I gotta get that phone,” he whispered. Eric joined him, sitting cross-legged with his back in the corner of the passenger’s seat and the table/hideabed sectional.
“We do.”
Brady finally looked at him. “What do you mean, we?”
Eric lifted one shoulder. “Before I answer that, Brady, ask yourself this. Who stopped the bank robbers but left them all alive. I mean, yeah, the one who spilled to you may be dead, but not from his wounds, you can put money on that.”
Brady’s eyes grew wide. “Speaking of money—”
“No,” Eric cut him off, deeply disappointed for a moment.
Brady looked away again. “I didn’t think so,” he whispered. “It’s just so much easier to explain.”
“’Cause we’re not cops?” Eric asked bitterly.
“Because I don’t know what you were doing there,” Brady retorted. “What were you doing there, Eric?”
“Same thing I was doing in Walmart!” Eric retorted. “Ernie told me to buy olives, so they were in the cart, and I saw a thing I could do with them. Ernie told Ace to make the deposit at a different bank and to bring backup. So there we were, when your friends, Fuckers One to Four, waltzed in, and we each had a thing we could do.”
“Ace just walked up and stabbed people?”
Eric snorted. “Acethrew the knife. It was….” He let out a shuddery sigh. “It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever fuckin’ seen,” he said, not caring if his orgiastic appreciation of violence put Brady off in this moment. “Ace threw the knife. Jai… well, kicked people. I shot twice, not to kill. You saw the wounds. We ran out the back, and you weren’t in danger anymore.”
Brady pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his cheek on them, studying Eric carefully. “So that whole thing was for me?”
There was a moment of softness there, of gratitude, and Eric almost let him have it.
He needs to know, he thought.He needs to know who we are.
He pushed up from the floor, feeling stiff and older than thirty-seven years. “If it hadn’t been,” he said frankly, “we might not have been so careful.”
He had to get out of there. He wasn’t sure whether he was angry or regretful or defiant or sad—he needed to think, and it was hard with Brady just regarding him thoughtfully, knees pulled to his chest like a child’s.
“I’m going outside to check on the hookups,” he said, wishing he had a better excuse—God, wishing he had a cigarette for sweet hell’s sake!
Brady nodded soberly, but he didn’t move, and Eric went outside to see how charged up his appliances were and to make sure the sewage hookup was functioning and the water could be shut off at a moment’s notice.
And when he was done, he just opened the door and sat down on the steps, much as he’d been a few days ago when Ernie had come by to say hello.
I need to get a porch swing, he thought, glancing at the house he wanted to be his. In this moment, looking out at the sunset, he wanted it so badly.
I really want to stay.
He felt the camper shift first, and then Brady stepped gingerly around him, until he was standing firmly on the ground, his thighs between Eric’s knees. He bent down and kissed the top of Eric’s forehead, and in that moment, Eric felt a sort of blessing pass through him, a benediction he wasn’t sure he’d earned.
