Give It All (32 page)

He nodded. “I could see how that might be a touch overwhelming.”

She gathered her hair in both hands, twisting it into a knot. “I’ve been with too many guys who had plans about how they wanted to change me—whether that meant convincing me I was the marrying kind, or talking me into stripping on a fucking webcam. I’ve been told too many times that I swear too
much, that I dress too cheap, hang out with the wrong people, that I’ve fucked too many guys to be taken seriously as ‘girlfriend material.’ Like I’d even asked, you know? Like I could even give a shit.”

“I made you feel that way? Like I wanted to change you?”

“I dunno . . . Maybe a little, when you gave me that gift. That’s why I flipped out on you. I’d really,
really
thought you liked me exactly the way I was.”

“And I did. I do.”

“Yeah, I know you do. You just wanted to give me a fucking bracelet.” She smiled at him, looking sheepish and weary. “Like I said, I’m sorry. I don’t usually let anybody get close enough to stand a chance at hurting my feelings. It stings way worse when you’re out of practice at it.”

“You hurt my feelings as well. The night of the photo shoot, when you snubbed me.”

She blinked. “Snubbed you?”

“I must have stood there like an idiot for five minutes or more, waiting for you to introduce me to people. Acknowledge me.”

“When did— Oh. Who was I talking to?”

“Tall woman, thin. Colorful.”

“That’s my friend Angie. Her husband just started radiation—lung cancer, same as my dad. It wasn’t the kind of conversation you just hit Pause on, I guess.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, though.”

“Well, thank you. Even if that does make me feel rather petty.”

Her gaze dropped. “You’ve got blood on your chin.”

Duncan touched the spot, feeling a small gash. “That’d be my chain lock.”

“Here.” She wadded her hand in the cuff of her jacket and spat on it, dabbing at his wound. It would have been gross, if it hadn’t so perfectly encapsulated their affair.

“This is giving me déjà vu,” he said.

“At least you get to keep all your teeth this time.” She finished fussing and stretched, then leaned forward to wrap her arms around her knees. Resting her cheek there, she blinked up at him. “I assumed you left the photo shoot because it wasn’t your scene. And I wanted you there, trust me. I was really looking forward to telling everybody I was sleeping with the Nordic sex god in the dusty jeans.”

He smiled at that. For a time they were quiet; then Duncan asked, “So you really want to close the bar? Really?”

“I don’t
want
to close it, no. But I can’t run it anymore, not when I know selling it would give me the time and the capital to try doing what I really want to. And I know that’s what my dad would want, more than all the stuff in his old notebooks put together.”

Duncan nodded. “And would you leave Fortuity?”

“I don’t want to. If I can make a place for myself here, if the casino comes and there’s a market for my work, great. But I’ll move on if I have to. That might be a relief, actually, if Benji’s gets turned into some awful chain.”

“That would be a shame—”

“Harper,” someone called. Flores. He walked over, offering Duncan a curt nod of acknowledgment. “You’re needed for further questioning. Welch, you’re free to go. You got someplace to stay aside from that busted-up room?”

Raina stood, fished in her pocket, and handed Duncan her keys. “Stay at mine. You can take my truck, too. I’ll get somebody to drop me off.” She shot Flores a look.

The man nodded. “Sure.”

Duncan got to his feet, wishing they had one more minute to talk before she was taken away. He needed to know what would happen when she got home. Needed to know which bed to climb into. Whether they were over, or just about to start up again. But she just smiled, then turned to follow Flores toward the clustered cruisers.

In an instant, Duncan was beat—exhausted to the edge of oblivion. With some effort, he talked one of the officers documenting the motel room into fetching his boots and socks and phone, though only after they’d been thoroughly photographed.

He found Raina’s truck parked haphazardly just inside the entrance to the lot, and climbed behind the wheel. When the engine woke, so did the ancient tape deck, and Jim Croce was singing about saving time in a bottle. Duncan hummed along, the lyrics long forgotten, and parked behind the bar just as the song came to an end.

The motion sensor lights were still switched off, and with the truck locked, he squinted in the darkness, searching Raina’s loaded ring for the back-door key.

Prrrowwwp.

Duncan started, fumbled for his phone, and illuminated its screen. And there, in the corner beside the Dumpster, was Astrid, amber eyes wide and glowing.

“Fucking hell, you treacherous thing. Come here this instant.” He got the door unlocked and enticed her close enough to catch, then carried her, writhing, up the stairs. He crouched to set her on the kitchen floor, petting her with such aggressive relief he was shocked she didn’t run away. “I could throttle you, if you weren’t so beautiful.”

He filled a cereal bowl with water for her, then texted Raina.
Found Astrid in the back lot. I guess we know where her true loyalties lie.

Duncan patched up his various injuries, and two replies chimed as he was stripping to his shorts in the guest room.
She’s always had good taste.

Doesn’t seem like they’ll be done with me for a while. Don’t wait up, just leave it unlocked, if you’re okay with that.

He wrote back
See you for breakfast
and climbed under the covers.

Good God, this bed felt all wrong.

Yet he was asleep the moment his head found the pillow.

Raina was stuck at the BCSD until nearly sunrise, recounting her role in the night’s events over and over, until it was decided her arrival at the Nugget really had been a stroke of fortuitous timing, and not a hint at some nefarious, deeper plot.

“Three a.m.’s a strange hour to be attempting a reconciliation,” Flores had mused, tapping a yellow pad with the butt of his pen.

“I got off work at two thirty.”

“And it couldn’t wait until the morning?”

“If you’d ever had sex with Duncan, you’d understand my urgency.”

He’d rubbed his face at that, sighing. “You’re free to go, Ms. Harper.”

“Call me Raina.”

A patrol deputy had given her a lift home just as the sun slipped out from behind the horizon, and she found the back door unlocked.

Upstairs, she stooped to stroke Astrid, then tiptoed to the open guest room door, finding Duncan asleep. She was strung between wired and exhausted herself, and decided to start a pot of coffee. She didn’t want to fall asleep before they had a chance to talk.

Astrid followed when Raina carried a steaming mug and her small business book into the den, and they sat in companionable silence until just after ten, when the guest bed creaked. After some rustling, Duncan appeared in yesterday’s clothes, both feet wrapped in cotton gauze.

“Ouch,” she said, eyeing them, then the bandage on his chin. “This town just really loves to scar you, doesn’t it?”

He smiled, looking bleary, and dropped into the easy chair. The cat was on him a moment later. “Good morning, Jailbreak. And speaking of jailbreaking,” he said to Raina, “I gather they released you.”

She nodded. “Not till after five, but yeah. Flores says hello.”

“Have you been to sleep?”

“No. Later. You left your cologne—again. They wound up seizing it as an accessory to the crime scene.”

“Perhaps I just wasn’t meant to keep it.”

“Shame. It smells fucking amazing.”

He smiled, eyes crinkling, then asked quietly, “Are we all right again?”

Raina paused, then nodded. “I think so. Do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Let’s try to keep from getting too intense, for now. Since you don’t even know if you’ll be sticking around or not. Is that okay? Maybe you could stay here while you figure it out—”

“Of my own free will?” he teased.

She nodded. “No more blackmail, I promise. Just stay here, decide what you want, and you and I can get back to sleeping in the same bed. If you want that.”

“I think you know I do.”

“Okay. Good.” And with that settled, she yawned widely into her palm. ’Scuse me. I haven’t slept much, even before last night.”

Duncan nodded, gesturing toward her bedroom. “Go rest. Properly. I don’t want to see you until sunset.”

“Maybe not, but my patrons will.”

“I have Casey’s number; I’ll get him to open the bar.”

“It’ll be too busy for just one, and Abilene’s not in until seven.”

“I’ll help him,” Duncan offered.

Raina laughed. “You?”

“Have you any idea how rigorous the California bar is? I’m sure I’ve the mental capacity to make change and fill pitchers.”

“All right, then, if you insist. It’s probably good public relations, you getting seen behind that counter. Even your detractors will be forced to forgive you, if they want to get served. Just be prepared to have your ear talked off about the case.”

“I’m sure I’m the worst-informed person in town on the matter. Perhaps I can finally catch up. Now go to bed.” They owed each other a proper reunion, later. Rested, showered,
free to get lost in each other’s bodies with no other obligations nagging. Duncan rounded the table and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“That you will.” Her chair scooted back with a squeak, and she headed for her room.

Duncan texted Casey, and was surprised to be met with no resistance. The reason for his cooperation became clear once he and Duncan were downstairs, readying the bar.

“So, what the fuck went down last light?” Casey asked. “Raina shot that guy who accused you of taking bribes?”

Duncan laughed. “Not quite, no. Where do you get your news from?”

“What happened?”

“My harasser paid me another visit, late, just when Raina was coming to the motel. We’d had a spat.”

Casey snorted.

“Anyway, she tackled him. She wasn’t armed, she just got him to believe she was. It was all very dramatic for a few minutes. Then we spent the rest of the night giving statements.”

“Guess you made up, then, if she’s got you working.”

“This was my idea. Though yes, I think we’ll be okay.”
For as long as I’m meant to stay here, anyway.
With Sunnyside off the table, he was left with few options. He could take the Nevada bar . . . though the thought didn’t rouse anything in him besides apathy. Still, he had plenty of money. He could afford to be idle for a time, to see where things went.

Though of course, Duncan plus idleness never added up to superior mental health.

It was a Saturday, and a busy week, and twenty minutes after they unlocked the door, Duncan had mastered filling pints and pitchers, opening longnecks, and navigating the medieval cash register, as well as deflecting questions—curious and hostile alike—about his role in the investigation. Casey helped with the more aggressive approaches, having no qualms about telling trumped-up customers to “Shut your face and tip your fucking server.”

Duncan smiled at the latest such exchange, eyeing Casey as he carried four dripping pints to the other end of the bar. When he returned, Duncan said, “You seem rather at home in this setting.”

Casey shrugged. “I worked here ages ago. The drill hasn’t changed.”

The bar may, though.
Benji’s might be unrecognizable in a year, or nonexistent. Though that certainly wasn’t Duncan’s news to spread.

“Would you ever consider managing this place?” he asked. “If Raina wanted to pursue her tattooing full-time?”

Casey laughed. “Yeah, because she can totally afford to pay a manager.”

Duncan mixed what he hoped was a potable whiskey and Coke, then turned back to Casey. “But if she could. Would you consider it?”

“I dunno. I’d—” Casey stopped, turning at the sound of twenty people all shushing each other. “News,” he murmured, and Duncan went still, straining along with everyone else to hear the TV. He could see one of the sets from where they stood.

“There were two big breaks overnight in the ongoing murder and conspiracy investigation here in Fortuity,”
said Michelle Pastor, the stern-yet-perky Latina weekend anchor.
“KBCN has just been told that the identity of those human remains at the center of this stunning case have been made public.”

Murmurs moved through the room like a brush fire, chased by an eerie hush.

“The victim, we now know, was an undocumented migrant—twenty-six-year-old Luis Alvez, of Mazatlán, Mexico.”

From somewhere in the crowd, “Goddamn illegals—”

“Shut your shit, dumb-ass,” Casey shouted.

“Alvez’s remains were identified by his older sister, Cecilia Alvez, who lives in Reno on a student visa. She says she’d been worried about her brother, having not heard from Luis in weeks. Cecilia Alvez has declined all interviews, but was quoted as saying, ‘I knew something wasn’t right—my brother always called on Sundays. I was afraid to report him missing. I knew he was here illegally, and I didn’t want him to get deported over nothing. But when I heard about the bones, that the person had been his age, his height, I just knew. I knew it was Luis.’

“Ms. Alvez was apparently shown a scrap of fabric, collected from the disused mine where the victim’s dead body was believed to have been burned last month. She confirmed for authorities that it
had
been her brother’s—a distinctive handkerchief that could have only been given to him by their mother.

“Luis Alvez had been employed by Virgin River Contracting as a manual laborer, and stunning police interviews with his
former coworkers reveal that a cover-up has been in effect for weeks. KCBN was able to speak with one of those men.”

The screen switched to previously recorded footage of a dark-skinned, nervous young man standing before a trailer in the bright noontime sunshine, clutching a baseball cap in both hands. He spoke in rapid Spanish, and a voiceover translated.
“Luis just disappeared one day. Another guy, he said Luis ran off with this woman he met a couple towns over.”
Another guy—Duncan couldn’t help wondering if that man might be the very same one who’d been coerced into harassing him.
“A foreman said the same. Luis was young, girl-crazy. He hated this job, so we all assumed it was true. Now we hear the truth? I can’t believe he was murdered. I can’t believe it.”

The anchor reappeared.
“Except it appears that Alvez wasn’t murdered. Late last night, another worker was apprehended in Fortuity, and his confession broke this case wide open.”
Duncan’s assailant, no doubt, though it seemed the man’s identity was being kept confidential.

Luis Alvez had been the victim of a negligent industrial accident, his left leg crushed when a piece of heavy machinery fell into a ditch he was clearing. Forensics experts believed that he’d died of shock, or massive internal bleeding.

The man who’d corroborated Levins’s accusation against Duncan might’ve been a false witness on that count, but apparently he’d seen Alvez’s accident. Levins had told him not to speak of it, on threat of deportation.

“Fuck of an effort, just to hide an accident,” Casey muttered.

“Not if it was negligence, on the contractors’ part. If it came under investigation, Virgin River could have lost the entire project. It’s a huge contract. Big enough to ruin a company.”

“Levins allegedly also ordered that worker to tell others that Alvez had run off with a girlfriend. After Levins was apprehended last week, the worker was approached by another employee of VRC, a man whose identity has not yet been made public. That man allegedly threatened the worker and his family with bodily harm unless he agreed to testify that he’d seen Duncan Welch, an employee of the casino’s development company, accepting bribes from Levins.”

Duncan glanced around, all eyes now riveted to him. He waved awkwardly.

“Welch, who made headlines Wednesday night by locating
Alvez’s remains, is now believed to have been framed by Levins and his coconspirators, as retribution for his involvement in exposing Levins’s part in the August murder of Alex Dunn. The unnamed worker was apprehended after throwing a flaming rock through Welch’s motel room window, one of an escalating number of intimidation tactics orchestrated by the man’s extortionists. Michelle Pastor, KCBN News.”

If people had been curious before, they were positively hypnotized by Duncan now.

“It was a brick,” he offered the still-quiet barroom. “Not a rock.”

And in the next five minutes, no less than twenty people tried to buy Duncan a drink.

That bulletin and others steadily filled in the blanks over the course of the afternoon. Alvez’s body had been burned, his bones buried by the foothills, but hastily. Another worker discovered them, and Alex Dunn had been dispatched to the scene. Sheriff Tremblay, who’d been receiving kickbacks from Levins, was already aware of the accident, told Alex he’d been taking over the investigation. Of course then Alex had been murdered, to keep the secret buried. Tremblay’s own murder was still under investigation.

It seemed the laborer who’d discovered the bones had been informed that they belonged to some anonymous victim of the narcotics trade, and that had been that. Until now. With Luis Alvez identified as the casualty, workers had come forward by the dozen. They accused Levins and other managers at VRC of routinely hiring undocumented migrants, paying them less than minimum wage, and threatening them with deportation to keep them quiet.

So, in the end, it seemed Luis Alvez had died in an accident, caused by carelessness, fueled by pressure on foremen like Levins to meet outlandish construction deadlines, in the pursuit of early completion bonuses. He and Alex Dunn had both died so their bosses could keep getting paid. So a construction outfit wouldn’t lose a lucrative contract. Nothing more than greed, in the end.

The saddest fucking truth in the world.