Eric cocked his head. “No?”
“No,” Brady confirmed. Then he grimaced. “And then the cops stormed the ER lobby, and George spirited me out the back door and told me that Ace or somebody would meet me, and I was like, ‘Wait,Jai’snurse?’”
George preened. “Yes,” he said simply. “Jai’s nurse. That’s a nice way to be known.” He sobered. “And Jai and I will be leaving early tonight so I can work here all day tomorrow. You can’t get hurt because I won’t be there, you understand?”
“We’ll do our best,” Eric said, and he glanced into the living room to see if Ernie had heard. If ever there was a time for psychic intervention, now was it.
But Ernie had retreated back to the bedroom, and Eric turned toward Brady and George in surprise.
“Something,” George said simply. “He won’t say what. He says Ace is a wild card, and it throws things off, and the storm is simply too big for him to see all of it.” George smiled weakly, and of all things, his eyes darted to the spot on the rug, the one everybody hated so much. “He’s only one person. This is gonna take all of us.”
Brady was the one who asked the question. “What happened there? You all keep looking at it. What—”
George shook his head. “I… I can’t.” He swallowed. “When you see people at their worst, you learn all sorts of thingsabout people you never wanted to know. It’s… it’s harder when it’s people you love. People you respect.” He sighed. “Let’s just say we all need Ace. In one way or another, we need to know somebody like Ace Atchison is out here in the middle of nowhere, doing his best. And Ace needs Sonny. So we protect Sonny and hope Ace can protect himself.”
Outside they heard approaching voices, Jai, Ace, and Sonny, and they all busied themselves with other things. As they entered the house, Sonny sounded fractious and unhappy, and Ace’s voice had taken on the patient tones of somebody trying to soothe a frightened child.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “You know me, Sonny, I’ll be—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Sonny muttered. “I don’t want to hear how you’ll be fine. You say that, and….”
Eric had his back turned, but he knew that Sonny, too, had looked to that place in the living room, where the carpet stain would never leave.
“This is a different sort of storm,” Ace said. “You, George, and Ernie are gonna do just fine. We knocked out all the other cars. Monday is usually our day off when Jai covers—it’ll be like switching days off is all.”
“Last time me and Ernie were alone together—” Sonny began, but Ace cut him off with a hiss and a quick, darting look toward Brady and Eric.
Sonny blinked. “You know, that’s how rattled I am. I forgot they wouldn’t know about that.” He turned toward Eric and Brady as he was taking off his boots and said, “And the important thing aboutthatis thatIdidn’t kill the guy. And I could have. But we got too many bodies out in the desert as it is.”
And with that he turned to stalk barefoot toward the bathroom, muttering to himself as he went.
It was Brady who broke the silence with a rusty chuckle. “You know, you all don’t have to worry about me telling a soulabout that conversation. I’ll be honest—I’ll let the worms in the desert do their job. I’m not opening that can.”
Ace gave a grunt and shook his head. “That’s probably best. I’d better run him some clothes. I hear the shower going, and he’ll stay in there all night when he realizes his only other choice is to run across the living room in a towel.”
WHILE ERIChad driven Ernie’s old sedantoAce and Sonny’s, the change of the roadblock location meant Eric could be recognized if he drove the SUVoutof the garage after already being seen in the Crown Vic.
It was confusing (they had to explain it to Sonny twice), but in the end, Eric left the sedan and Jai drove the SUV home—and loved it. As Eric and Brady crouched on the floor in the third row, sweltering under a tarp, tent, and sleeping bags and trying not to disturb the stuff too much, Eric was rather pleased with his choice as well.
He’d been thinking about this exact situation when he’d scoped the thing out, and sure enough, it held up.
Still, the roadblock was a tense moment—made even more tense by Jai’s unexpectedly pixilated sense of humor.
“Da, this is my vehicle. Here is the registration. Dimitri Gordotin, da.” It was the name Eric had given the guy at the lot, because Ace had texted it to him, as well as a picture of an ID with George’s photo on it. Apparently, Jai’s ID had the same name. Clever—very clever.
“Haven’t I seen you around before?”
Eric didn’t recognize the suspicious voice, but Brady apparently did. Eric could make out his rolled eyes, even in the darkness, and Brady put his lips next to Eric’s ear and muttered, “Schmuck.”
“I have one of those faces,” Jai said, so deadpan Eric could practically smell carrion. Next to him, he heard Brady’s sharp intake of air as they both struggled not to laugh.
“Yeah, buddy, don’t fool yourself” came the cop. “Your face ain’t nearly so common as all that.”
“I did not say it was common,” Jai said. “I just said you will see it everywhere.”
They couldn’t see what happened next, but Eric imagined it was that sudden flash of large teeth, but not bared in a real smile. Bared in the sort of smile one might see a predator give before springing on a gazelle that used to think it was tough shit.
The cough and the sound of shifting backward spoke for themselves.
