“That works for me. When and where?”
“There’s a bar downtown called Majors. I’ll meet you in the basement level.”
“I know it. When?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“An hour and I’m bringing my right-hand man with me.”
“An hour,” he agrees and hangs up.
I replace my phone in my pocket. “We’re meeting at Majors downtown in an hour and he knows what I want to talk about.” I stand and Seth and Nick follow.
“What’s your read on him?” Nick asks. “Is it a warning or a solution?”
“Brody isn’t the kind of guy you send to deliver a warning.” And a solution sounds really damn good right now.
* * *
An hour and a half later, Seth and I sit in the dimly lit lower bar area of Majors, sitting against the wall, and watching the door, while Brody is nowhere in sight, nor is he answering his calls. I punch in his number one more time, with the same direct-to-voice-mail response. Frustrated, I set my phone down and reach for my freshly filled cup of coffee. “Why call me at all if he was going to do this?”
“He got spooked,” Seth says, flagging down the waiter and pointing at his cup. “The question is by who? Your brother, or the middle man, who’s most likely the supplier he would have given up tonight.”
The bartender, who’s serving as the only waiter on this level, appears, warming up my cup and refilling Seth’s. “We’re inside his team locker room now,” Seth says as soon as we’re alone again, tearing open sugar packets. “We’re going to find out how he’s getting his drugs.”
I lift my cup, my gaze catching on Nick as he strides across the room toward us. “Looks like Nick gave up on being our front-door guard.”
Seth’s gaze lifts and catches on the other man. “Walking with a purpose. That’s never good. I need the real drink I can’t ever afford to take.”
“Right there with you,” I say, and we both lift our cups, taking drinks and setting them down at the same moment Nick claims the seat across from Seth and to my left, setting an iPad down on the table.
“I’ve got another man on the door,” he announces, as if we’ve asked. “And we’ve had someone watching his house for days. He hasn’t shown up there, either.”
“And yet you’re sitting here, for a reason,” I say. “Why?”
“My man has been on the ground in Austin for the past six hours, and it’s been eventful. We haven’t located Emily’s brother, but we’ve confirmed her story with physical evidence.” He keys his iPad to life. “He went to the stepfather’s house, which was dark, and invited himself inside. Everything appeared in place, until he found this.” He turns the iPad in our direction and the image is of a floor and wall splattered with blue color.
My brow furrows. “What is that?”
“Blood,” Seth answers. “Emily’s brother wiped up but didn’t know how to get rid of the residual blood.”
“My man cleaned it up, to keep it from leading back to Emily,” Nick says. “The brother’s house is dark, and there were papers stacked up. If he told Emily the truth and he’s out of the country, he didn’t leave on his own passport.”
“I can’t believe these words are coming out of my mouth,” I say, “but where is the body?”
“That’s my question,” Seth agrees. “Because considering the way he handled the blood cleanup, I don’t have a lot of faith about how he handled the body.”
Nick’s phone buzzes where he’s set it on the table and he grabs it, reading his screen before he curses softly. “We didn’t find Brody, but he found us. He’s been in a car accident. It’s all over the news.”
Hating where this is leading me, I bite out the question I’m needing answered. “Are we sure it’s an accident?”
“My question exactly,” Seth agrees.
“I know as much as you two do,” Nick replies, rotating in his chair to look around the room, and then stands to make a beeline for the television.
Seth and I quickly follow, all three of us lining up at the bar, while the bartender flips channels. “There,” Nick says, as the news flashes with an image of what I think used to be a sports car, and at the sight my hands land on the bar, my head sinking low. He’s dead and somehow, some way, it’s related to me and my family. As if confirming my assessment, or driving it home with vicious precision, the reporter’s voice lifts in the air. “I repeat,” a female voice states, “Brody Matthews, star pitcher for the Denver Eagles, is dead at the young age of twenty-eight, and at the height of his career.”
That tightness in my chest is now full-blown anger, an emotion only Derek has stirred in me in my adult life. I push off the bar and walk toward the stairs and I don’t stop until I’m on the street, where I am blasted with freezing cold wind that didn’t exist thirty minutes ago, because that’s the fucked-up way of Colorado. And fucking up everyone else’s life is the way of my family. My hands go to my hips and I look skyward, letting the wet flakes of snow hit my face, the cold doing nothing to soothe the burn inside me. I inhale a chilly wet breath, fighting down anger that wants to go to Derek right now and handle this like we did as kids. Gloves off, balls to the wall. But we are no longer those people and I don’t let anyone force my hand or my temper.