“Yes!” This was a breakthrough, surely. “You are more likely to get shot if you have guns. They make things kind of dangerous—”
“No. Not everyone. Just you. You seem to get shot a lot. So maybe you shouldn’t have guns.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” Jericho agreed. Maybe the beach would have a no-weapons policy, and he’d be just fine with that.
They sat in peace for another couple of minutes until Wade and Nikki returned. Nikki gathered the kids without a word to Jericho and left without looking back.
“She seemed slightly less pleasant than usual,” Jericho said. “You tell her something she didn’t want to hear?”
“I told her I was out.”
Jericho stared at him. “Out?” Out of the closet? But that made no sense. “Like, out of business?” Wade’s expression answered the question, but Jericho added, “Entirely?”
Wade shrugged, then said, as if starting a whole new conversation, “You should see the way the town’s treating Kay—she’s their warrior queen, their hometown heroine. Jackson has oozed back into whatever swamp he came from, and no one’s interested in bad-mouthing an ex-sheriff who died heroically in defense of the community he served. So you’re free too, Jay. I mean, if that whole ‘I quit’ thing was just for the feds, I get it, but—”
“Wade. I’m quitting.”
Wade’s shoulders relaxed. “So . . . I am too. No more cops and robbers. I’m done.” There was a moment of silence in which they both seemed to be waiting for the lightning bolt to punish Wade for his offense against the natural order. But nothing came, so Wade added, “And that means Nikki is going to have to either find something else to do or do it all herself, and she’s not too pleased with either option.”
“That’s it?” No lightning indicated cosmic complaints, but even from Wade, surely there should have been more. More drama, probably. More of a fight. This felt too easy, and with Wade, easy tended to mean a trap. “Will the people you work with let you walk away?”
Wade shrugged. “I think so. I’ve been careful, built in some safety plans and favors and whatever—should be fine. Most of the bikers are in jail, most of the militia leaders are dead or in jail—honestly, this is a good time to get the hell out.”
“What about the feds?”
Another shrug. “I don’t think Hockley’s got quite such a hard-on for busting me anymore. Seems like saving his life wasn’t quite as much of a mistake as I’d been thinking it was. And since the unfortunate incident with the evidence room, they’d pretty much have to start their case over at the beginning. I don’t think they’ll bother, not if they’re sure I’m retired.”
“What unfortunate incident with the evidence room?”
Wade’s innocent look was always an excellent sign of guilt. “Oh, did I not mention that? The charges I laid in the sheriff’s building—one of them just happened to be in the doorway to the evidence room. Those wire cages do a good job of keeping people out, but—” he shook his head with exaggerated regret “—they really aren’t fireproof. And the sprinkler system wasn’t too kind to what was left, as I understand it.”
“Jesus Christ, Wade.” But Jericho didn’t want to fight about it. Wade’s charges had taken out more than half of the militia members who’d made it as far as the office. If he’d taken out a little evidence as well? Nothing came for free, not with Wade.
“The point is, yeah, I think I can walk away from it all.”
“So we’re both unemployed.” Maybe that was the trap. Maybe Wade thought he could starve Jericho into joining him in his criminal enterprises if there was no money coming in. “I’ve got savings. I never made that much money, but I live pretty cheap. As long as we don’t go crazy, we can live for quite a while on what I’ve got.”
“I’ve got some money put away too.” There was something strange in Wade’s expression as he added, “So, beach? Somewhere cheap? Or—” He stopped, and waited.
Waited for Jericho to change his mind. Waited for him to back out, or make an excuse, or in some other way make it clear that being with Wade came second, or third, or maybe even lower down the priority list. Shit. Jericho had done that. Jericho had made Wade expect that.
“Beaches are too far away,” he said. “And I’m not sure about flying while I’m still a bit messed up. How about the mountains? We’ve got a couple months of easy weather left—want to find a tent and a mountain lake and hide in the forest for a while? Living off the land is a good way to save money.”
And now Wade’s silence made it clear he was looking for traps as well. Which was maybe fair, considering how many times Wade had manipulated Jericho in the past. But Jericho wanted this to be about something more than fair.
“Your call,” he said. “We can get in the Mustang and drive, if you want. I don’t care where we go. You didn’t want to leave Mosely when we were kids, but if you want to leave now, I’ll come with you. Or I’ll stay with you. It’s the ‘with you’ part that I’m focusing on, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I should have come with you then,” Wade managed. “I was too chickenshit to do it, but I should have found the guts, and we wouldn’t have wasted all that time.”
“The larger world really isn’t that scary, you know.”
“The world?” Wade frowned at him. “It’s not the world I’m—I was scared of. It was just knowing that you and me made sense in Mosely. But out there, with so many other options? I figured you’d end up seeing how much better you could be doing, and— I don’t know. I guess I thought it was easier to not try, instead of trying and failing.”
“That is chickenshit.” Jericho didn’t want to be angry, but remembering how hard it had been for him to leave? Realizing he’d had to go alone because Wade had some stupid moment of insecurity and had been too stubborn to talk about it? “Damn it, Wade, you couldn’t have mentioned that to me then?”
“What would have changed? You needed to leave; I could see that. If I’d told you about it, what would have been different?”
“What’s different now?”
