HOLD (19 page)

CHASE

If I could pick him up and cradle him against my shoulder until he stopped shaking then I would. 

If I could soothe him with promises that everything would be okay then I would do that too. 

But it all would be a lie.  And it would cheat him out of the chance to feel what he needed to feel. 

I knew from the harsh master of experience that the only way to handle pain was to let it run its course.  Numbing it, dulling it, hiding from it, all of that only lead to a volcanic buildup.

Conway refused to call his mother and he refused to go home, becoming even more agitated every time we mentioned it.  From what little I’d gathered of Tracy Gentry, she wasn’t close to her sons but even a distant mother was probably better than none right now

“I told you,” grumbled Conway.  “She won’t give a shit.” 

Most of the onlookers had dispersed.  A few had paused, watching us on the bench we’d been sitting on since Con hammered his hand into a metal light pole.  They looked like they wanted to say something to Conway.  If he knew any of them personally he gave no indication.  There was one strange moment where I locked eyes with a thin, attractive woman who was probably in her mid forties.  She seemed very familiar but it wasn’t until she sneered and turned deliberately away that I realized I was looking at Saylor’s estranged mother.  I glanced over at Cord to see if he’d noticed her but he hadn’t.  He stood on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, consulting quietly with Creed. 

“We’ll wait with you,” I told Conway, again trying to convince him that a bench on Main Street was not the best place for him right now.  “We’ll stay there with you as long as you want.  You don’t have to be alone.” 

The kid just shook his head.  “She’ll be done with us.  She said so.” 

“Conway.  You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

He frowned.  “Didn’t I?”  His voice was vague, like he honestly couldn’t remember. 

His hand was sitting there useless on his knee.  Even through the bandages I could tell it was horribly swollen.  There are dozens of bones in the human hand and that raging assault on a street pole had likely shattered a few of them. 

“At least let us take you to the hospital,” I said.  “Get that hand taken care of.” 

Conway looked at his hand.  He lifted it, trying to flex the fingers and winced over the pain. 

“It’s probably broken,” I said.  “It won’t heal right if you don’t get it set.” 

Cord and Creed were looking our way and I realized they were hanging back on purpose, figuring I had the best shot at getting through to him. 

“Come on,” I tried again, trying to lift him up by the elbow. 

Surprisingly, he allowed it.  He kept his head down and his damaged hand close as he followed me to Creed’s truck. 

“Emblem Medical Center?” Creed asked me once I’d loaded Conway into the passenger seat. 

“I guess,” I shrugged.  “We can try and track down his mom while we’re waiting.”

Cord sat beside me in the back and Creed started the truck, taking care to turn the stereo volume to mute before he did.  This was not a moment that needed a soundtrack.

The medical center was still fairly new.  It hadn’t been built until after we’d been out of Emblem for a few years.  It was small, but a good addition to the town.  Before it came along everyone had to drive a good thirty miles away just to get an infected hangnail treated. 

Luckily the woman behind the front desk recognized Conway so she helped him get all the paperwork filled out.  There were some insurance questions that none of us knew how to answer but when it looked like it was going to be a problem Cord grabbed the clipboard and signed it, agreeing to be the responsible party. 

The waiting room was nearly empty.  An unwashed drunk slept in a corner, exhaling eighty proof with every wheezing breath.  I stayed close to Conway although he waved me off when the nurse arrived to bring him back for x-rays.

Reluctantly I sat down and watched him go, feeling protective and sad.  There was no way to have a good outcome to this night.   And a kid that age wouldn’t really know how to quiet all the raging conflicts tearing apart his soul.  Once upon a time things went really dark for me.  I had a ticket to the same terrible place that had captured my mother.  But my brothers had put their arms around me and pulled me back. 

“Don’t crawl into the hole, Chasyn,” Creed whispered.  “But even if you do we’re coming in after you.” 

“Every goddamn time,” Cord said, hugging me.  “Always.”

If Conway Gentry found himself sinking, who was left to go after him?

Cord must have read my thoughts.  “We’ll help him, Chase,” he said soberly.  “We will.” 

I sighed.  “Maybe we can talk to Tracy.  Ask her to let him spend a chunk of the summer with us.  She might go for it.  It’ll be tough for him to be here right now.”   

“Yeah,” Creed nodded, stretching.  “Let’s just hope she doesn’t remember the time I pissed in her ceramic birdbath.” 

“Why the hell did you do that?”

He shrugged.  “I had to go.  It was there.” 

“Creedence logic at its finest.” 

He was staring at me thoughtfully.  “I got the feeling Con was all kinds of angry at his brother even before Gaps told him that Stone was the driver.” 

“Really?  I hadn’t noticed.” 

Creed continued to stare at me.  It was like being on the receiving end of an alien mind probe.  Creed always knew when something was up.  He knew when I was using, when I was lying, and when I was hiding something. 

“I saw them,” I said, lowering my voice to nearly a whisper since Emblem had busybodies in every crevice of the town limits.  “As we were driving away from the house this afternoon I saw Erin come out of the house and ah, let’s just say she and Stone seemed to be inappropriately cozy in a ‘I hate you but I love you’ kind of way.” 

Cord’s eyebrows shot up and let he let out a low whistle. 

“You think he knew?” asked Creed, gesturing to the door Conway had disappeared behind. 

“I don’t know.  I’m not going to ask.” 

Creed nodded.  “Right.”

The drunk in the corner kept snoring and the minutes marched right on past. 

When an hour went by without anything changing but the hands on the clock I got heavily to my feet and approached the front desk.  The woman who’d helped Conway check in had been replaced by one who was decidedly less patient.  She was making a mess by cutting out little squares and it took me a minute to realize they were coupons. 

“Just go on back,” she scowled with a wave of her scissors when I asked her to check into Con’s status. 

I hoped my brothers wouldn’t follow me and they didn’t.  I found Conway lying down on a bed in the triage area.  His eyes were closed and his hand had a fresh bandage.  I grabbed a nearby metal folding chair and parked it next to the bed. 

“You’re still here,” said Con.  His eyes remained closed. 

“Of course I’m still here.  Cord and Creed are too.  We’re your cousins. We weren’t just going to dump you off and leave you here alone.”

His eyes opened.  They were blue.  Like mine.  Like my brothers.  He stared at me with all the wounded confusion of a boy who’d just lost everything.  Then he closed them again. 

“I
am
alone now.” 

I patted his shoulder, an inadequate gesture. 

Then he suddenly shot upright and sat on the edge of the cot.  “I can’t even be fucking mad, Chase.  At them.  For what they did.  I can’t be fucking mad because she’s dead and he’s going to fucking prison.”

“You have the right to be angry, Con.”

He coughed, looked away.  “You don’t even know.” 

“I have an idea.” 

“You have a girlfriend, Chase?”

“A fiancé.”

“And you love her?”

“More than anything.”

“As much as you love your brothers?”

I was slow to answer.  “Yes.  I don’t know what I’d do without any of them.” 

Conway’s shoulders slumped and a tear rolled down his cheek.  “We were together for a long time.  Two years.  Of course, she grew up next door so she was in my life long before that.  When we were kids the three of us would hang out together but then Stone and I started hanging around with a rougher crowd so she wasn’t around much.  That all changed two summers ago.  She was the only girl I’ve ever loved.”  His voice cracked and he grimaced.  “And Stone, he’s the only brother I’ll ever have.”

There were things I could have told him, about how one mistake can reverberate for eternity in ways that nobody could have foreseen.  But it would have sounded shallow right now in the face of such treachery and loss.  I couldn’t imagine what reasons there could be for one brother to betray another, or for a girl who was clearly in love to turn toward the last person on earth she could have. 

Maybe there was more to the story.  But all we had right now were the broken shards of its aftermath. 

“Conway?  Is there anyone I can call for you, anyone you want to see right now?”

He shook his head.  “No.  Stone was my best friend.  And Erin was my heart.” 

I put my hand on his head.  “We’re here, kid.” 

He looked at me with lost, haunted eyes.  He didn’t say anything. 

A nurse dressed in scrubs printed with pink teddy bears wheeled over a silver cart full of medical stuff and announced it was time to wrap Conway’s hand.   Apparently the breaks were simple ones and six weeks in a cast would be enough.  The other wounds would take much longer to heal, if they ever did. 

The nurse started her efficient business of wrapping Conway’s hand up.  He looked a little glassy-eyed and I wondered if they’d given him something for the pain. 

“You’ll just have to wait here for a little while longer while it sets,” she told him, gently placing his mummified hand in his lap. 

“Conway,” I said, “I’m just going to go talk to the boys for a few minutes.  I’ll be right back.” 

As soon as I returned to the lobby I noticed two things immediately. 

Cord wasn’t anywhere in sight. 

And Creed looked tense.  Downright grim.  This hadn’t exactly been the most cheerful day ever but he definitely seemed more disturbed than he was the last time I saw him.

“What did I miss?” I asked, sinking into a plastic chair with a grunt. 

Creed gave me a tight smile.  “We had a visitor.” 

“Oh yeah?”

“The kid’s mother heard he was here.”

I looked around.  “Well, she obviously didn’t stay long.” 

“No.  She didn’t.”

“You two must have had a nice chat.” 

“Yeah.  She knew who I was right away.  Well, actually she called me Chase, but whatever.  I told her I was sorry about Stone and that Con was getting treated for the hand he’d broken fighting a Main Street pole.  She told me that Conway could pick up his stuff at the Mitchells’ house.  She told me to tell him that.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“That’s exactly what I said.  Tracy crossed her arms and said she was done with all things Gentry and that those two little punks were on their own.  I reminded her that Conway was under eighteen and she should think twice before just kicking him to the curb.  She told me if I cared so much then I could keep him.”

“Holy shit.”  I shook my head.  “What a piece of work.”

“No kidding.  When it seemed like she was heading back there to wring him out I stopped her. I asked her not to.  I was completely polite about it too.  Only used four letter words about sixty times.”

“What did she say?”

“She told me to fuck off.  Said she’d had enough abuse and was leaving.  Then she smacked her face on the door.  Limped out of here with her mouth bleeding.  Good thing there are cameras everywhere.  I wouldn’t put it past her to file some kind of bullshit police report.”

“You think she meant it?”

Creed shrugged.  “Who knows.  She might have a change of heart when the sun comes up.  But in the meantime I don’t think he has anyplace else to go.” 

“We can help with that until this gets sorted out.” 

“I don’t think it’s going to get sorted out, Chase.” 

“Hmph.” I grunted and rubbed my eyes.  Then I looked around.  “Where’s Cord?”

“Cord.”  Creed glanced all over the room as if Cord might be curled up in a corner somewhere.  “He forgot his phone in my truck so he went out to get it and call Saylor.” 

I rose and stretched, hearing bones crack.  It had been such a long day.  “I’ll catch up to him out there.  I need some air anyway.  Can you wait here?  I don’t want Con to walk out and see an empty room.” 

“Yeah, I’ll wait.” 

As soon as I walked outside I could hear the Sonoran desert toads that always returned during the summer rains.  You didn’t see them too often in the city but out here they were thick as carpet when it rained.  And I smelled rain in the air. 

I’d thought Creed had parked right near the door but I must have been wrong.  I scanned the parking lot, looking for any sign of Cord or of Creed’s truck.  I saw neither one.