Let It Go (27 page)

“Yeah, listen, I’m sorry about that. And thanks, you know, you probably saved my life.”

“He was your uncle, Eli, how can you sound so damned—I don’t know … happy. You sound happy.”

Eli leaned forward and pulled his shirt up to his armpits and turned his back to Randy. “Because he did this to me. Because he’s put me in the hospital more times than I can count. Because he raped Creed. Why the hell should I be sad that the bastard is gone?”

When he sat back in the seat, his shirt back in place, he looked over at Randy. The deputy’s face was pale, his lips drawn tight, eyes straight ahead. “I knew back when you first came home. I suspected. No one looks like you did from a one-time attack. It was long-term wasn’t it? The abuse?”

“The first time was about a month after he took me away. I wouldn’t stop asking to come home so he backhanded me. He broke my arm a few months later. Told the emergency room that I fell off my horse. At least two of my head injuries came from him.”

“Why didn’t you fight back?”

“I was thirteen, Randy; he could pick me up and throw me across a damned room. After a while I learned to stay out of his way. I did what I was told. The daily chores. My homework. And I raced the horse or whatever he wanted me to do for rodeo that year. It was about winning. I had to have straight As and win events. I had to keep up appearances, and if a bruise showed up on my face or a cast on my arm, the answer was always I fell off my horse. I’ve never fallen off a horse in my life. I didn’t fight him Saturday because it’s ingrained in me not to make him angrier.”

“I’m sorry, Eli.”

“And I’m not sorry you killed him. In fact, I forgive you; you saved my life. You saved Creed’s life. I forgive you.” Eli couldn’t look at him; flashes of the day before wanted to fire through his memory. Specifically of Creed on his knees in front of his uncle, and he didn’t want that image in his head.

Randy turned into the parking lot of the motel. Eli’s truck was indeed parked in the back next to the red dually that his friend Sly drove. Relief washed over Eli. It wasn’t too late. He was still here; it wasn’t too late to convince him to stay. As they climbed out of the truck, the door in front of the trucks opened and the older man stepped out, a newspaper folded under one arm and a cup of coffee in hand. He seemed surprised to see them.

“I was just heading over to the courthouse. Is there something I can do for you fellas?”

“Is Creed here?” Eli held onto the truck; he was too late. He could tell by the surprise on the old man’s face.

“No, son, last time I saw him was out at your place,” Sly said, shaking his head as his gaze landed on Eli’s truck.

Randy didn’t say a word. He took a slim jim from his toolbox and popped the driver’s door lock on Eli’s truck. Eli leaned hard against the side; he couldn’t catch his breath. His keys and the black monitoring anklet lay on the seat. Creed was gone.

“Come on inside,” Sly said, taking Eli’s arm and maneuvering him out of the parking lot and into his small, tidy room. Eli looked back to see Randy with his phone to his ear. Sly continued to move him forward until Eli found himself seated in the hard-backed chair at the small table in front of the window.

Sly sat on the bed, his face grim. He looked older than he had a few moments before.

“Dad’s on his way,” Randy said, leaving the door open as he leaned against the wall.

“You need to find him.” Eli dug his nails into the palms of his hands. He couldn’t bring himself to look up. His stomach clenched in knots. Pain welled in his chest, in his head, behind his eyes. “You need to find him, Randy. He can’t leave like this. He can’t.”

Eli wasn’t aware of time passing; he fought to stay seated. He fought for control. He fought to keep his heart from screaming in agony. The judge walked in. Silence greeted him.

“Eli?”

Eli came off the chair at the calm, always so damned reasonable voice. “He can’t leave. Send someone to look for him. He left his horse; he’s around, probably at the bus station. Just go look.”

“Eli.” It wasn’t the judge. The old man sounded like a wounded animal who’d forgotten to care. “He won’t be at the bus stop, son. He’s long gone by now. And without that tracker on him, you’re not going to find him until he’s ready to be found.”

“You don’t know that, old man. What do you know anyway? What the hell are you, another one of his—”

The older man pushed Eli against the wall, his face so close Eli could smell the coffee on his breath. “Look at me. Look at me, damn it. Do I look like one of his tricks? Do I look like I molest little boys for pleasure? Look at me, you son of a bitch.”

Eli looked into a pair of startlingly green eyes. So clear he could see himself in them. He could see Creed. In the man’s eyes, in the shape of his face, his height, his build. “That’s right, Red, he’s my son. I’ve tried to protect him for years but I was too late. My brother fucked that boy over before I found him. After his mother died—”

The old man let him go and turned to the other two men in the room. “He’ll be in the back of a semi probably already in Alabama by now. He knows how to disappear. The last time, I looked for him for a couple of years. He found me when he was ready.”

“And you knew he was hustling? You let him go hungry—”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything until that night in Vegas. He had money, I thought his dad … my brother was doing his job. No one knows he’s mine. Creed doesn’t know. Charlie never even knew. What the hell was I supposed to do? Charlie was a druggie, but I thought he was taking care of Creed. A few days after Creed was attacked in Vegas, I walked into the room they shared; Charlie was on him, using him. Creed’s arm was in a cast from the surgery to fix his thumb. He was on heavy painkillers and Charlie said it was payment for the hospital bill.”

It was Sly’s turn to sit and stare at the floor. Eli couldn’t process what he’d heard.

“Charlie is your brother and you’re Creed’s biological father?” It was the judge, so Eli wasn’t the only one confused.

“Something like that. Charlie was my half brother. Eighteen years younger than me. My father never married my mother, just Charlie’s. Charlie was just like the old man. Nothing but rodeo. He would sell his soul for rodeo. Rodeo killed our father; drugs took Charlie. I stayed out of it. Went in the service. I retired at thirty-six and came home. Charlie was eighteen and he’d married a beautiful woman. And left her in Cheyenne to chase bulls. A couple of years after I came home Sofia and I… I fell in love with her. Creed’s mother. Oh, she was a beauty. Long brown hair, petite, with huge brown eyes. It was best that Charlie think Creed was his. Her family didn’t believe in divorce. So I left. Went down to the oil rigs in the gulf and worked as a roughneck. It was best so that Charlie didn’t notice that the kid had my eyes. I found out she died about six months too late. I couldn’t find Charlie, I needed the job and couldn’t go searching for them, and he thought Creed was his kid, he would take care of him. I thought he’d take care of him.”

“But he didn’t.” Eli finally found his voice. “He left him with distant relatives. Left him alone to take care of himself. Left him with bullfighters who need to be locked up for what they did to a twelve-year-old boy. He sold himself when he was twelve years old. And no one cared enough to save him. You should have done something to save him.”

“Creed doesn’t need saving, Eli; he knew what he was doing. He’s not stupid. He’s cold, calculating, and he can lie so damn smoothly… He plays tricks with your mind, gives you these big innocent eyes and lies to your face. I couldn’t save him. I tried to save him. I found my brother balls deep in him. Payback for the hospital bills. Charlie chose the payment when Creed was thirteen. By then Creed was already whoring himself. Charlie decided Creed owed him room and board and for the horse he paid to have driven around the country, and Charlie took it out in trade. Then he took Creed’s winnings when the stakes grew higher. Entry fees, better tack, it all added up that Creed owed him more and more. When he was nineteen I made sure the prize money went straight into Creed’s hands. That much I could do for him. The rest I didn’t know about until that night after Vegas. I knew he ran around at night. I caught him coming back more than a few times. I didn’t know he was at the truck stops, or the clubs; I just knew that he had money and he could take care of himself. That night in Vegas he told me about Mason. He told me that Mason was obsessed with him. I thought he was head over heels in love with you. I thought he was sneaking out to meet up with you. I thought the fights and everything was to throw people off. To keep them from thinking—But it was your uncle. He’d started seeing him a few years back and couldn’t break it off. Owen Mason wouldn’t let him go. He snapped his own thumb free from his hand to escape the bastard. That’s the story, Eli, that’s what he told me. After I pulled my brother off him, I found out the truth. Charlie knew. Charlie encouraged him and used him when he was high enough not to care that he was his kid. Creed didn’t say a word. He just looked at me with those cold dead eyes of his and locked himself in the bathroom. The next day Charlie was dead from an overdose and Creed was gone. I found his hair on the bathroom floor. He shaved it all off. Left me a note to take care of Kip and I didn’t see him for nearly three damned years. What do you want me to tell you?”

“He told me he loved me.” It was all too much to absorb. He didn’t understand anything he’d heard. Just that Sly was an asshole and that Creed had done this before.

“And he probably does. I used to watch him around you when he was still a kid. I caught up with them the first year he turned pro, that’s how I found him. He let his guard down around you. The way he looked at you, like you were, I don’t know, he smiled when he looked at you. He never smiled. But he stayed away from you. And you picked fights with him. Every damned time the two of you met up, you were in his face. That he didn’t lay you out cold on any of those occasions told me enough.”

Eli snorted in disbelief; the old man didn’t know a damned thing about Creed. “Creed didn’t want to fight; he hated fighting.”

“Just because he didn’t beat the shit out of you doesn’t mean anything except what I’ve been telling you, son. Creed didn’t spend ten years of his life picking up truckers without being able to defend himself, Eli. I’ve seen him in scrapes that makes those drunken dustups between the two of you look like a fucking square dance. He’s deadly with his hands. And he’s cold. He’s not this innocent little boy you seem to think he is; he knew what he was doing. It wasn’t his fault; Charlie gave him no alternative. Creed had to grow up in a hurry, and he had to survive on the only path open to him. And right now he’s made his choice. He’s gone. And son, it would be best if you just let him go.”

“You’re a bastard. He’s your kid and you don’t give a shit about him.”

“I might be a bastard. I live with the guilt and the secrets. Secrets that his mother wanted kept. She feared Charlie. She feared what he’d do if he found out Creed was mine. I did what I thought I had to. Just like Creed is doing now. Don’t tell me I don’t give a shit. Don’t…” Sly stopped shouting. He clenched his hands into fists, and for a moment Eli thought he’d come after him. Sly blew out a breath, his voice tight when he continued. “Red, I know him. He’s just like my father, he’s just like my brother, hell, he’s just like me. We all have our vices; Creed’s is survival. He’ll do and say what he has to, to get what he wants. He lies, Eli; he will look you in the eye and tell you exactly what you want to hear. Son, let him go. You need to let him go, and you need to get on with your life. Find some nice young man. Get over the shit your uncle put you through. You need to save yourself, Red.”

In the middle of all this the judge and Randy stayed quiet. Eli looked around the room but he didn’t really see anything. “I don’t need saving. I was fine before I met him. I’ll be fine again.” He moved toward the door with every intention of going home and taking a couple more of those pills and sleeping for the next week or two. “I never have to worry about my asshole uncle again, I’m finished in rodeo, and the one man I could—” He slashed his hand violently through the air to cut off the thought before it finished forming. “Why the hell were you dragging me to town anyway?”

He turned to the judge this time, waiting for him to insert some of his wisdom. He just looked old and tired, and Eli didn’t like the pity he saw in his eyes. “A video of your fight turned up on YouTube. The DA brought the girl in for questioning. She lied; she wasn’t between the two of you at all. She did pull on your arm and you shook her off. That’s why Creed didn’t remember her. She stumbled backwards and tripped over a chair. Nothing that constitutes assault. We’re dropping the charges. I was going to have the ankle jewelry removed this morning. Except…”

“Yeah, except Creed knew how to do it all along.” Eli shook his head and shrugged. “I’m going home. Send a deputy out later to get your monitoring crap. And Tom, I want full access to my money. I’ll get a lawyer if I have to. I’m not a kid who needs protecting; it’s mine.”

“Okay, Eli, come to my office and we’ll talk about what you want to do with your dad’s half of the practice while you’re there. It’s yours, I’ve held it waiting for you to decide to pass the bar and get serious.”

Eli hid the surprise that hit him like a punch in the face on that. “Sure, just not today. I’m not in the mood to talk about anything, and I need to arrange something for Owen and other things. But right now I’m just going home.”

“Okay, son, we’ll get past this. It’ll be fine,” Tom said in that voice that made Eli’s teeth hurt.

“Sure, sure, it’ll be fine. We’ll talk tomorrow. Send someone out. He left all of his clothes and his horse. He took the buckle. He knew he wasn’t coming back. Told me he loved me. Lied to me. And I fell for it. I fucking fell for it. Well, you know what? Fuck him. I don’t need him.”

Eli stormed out of the small motel room. No one followed. He didn’t care; he just wanted to be alone. In that damned cold house with all those damned ghosts. And now there were two more. He found the other ankle monitor and threw it as hard against the building as he could. “Son of a bitch. Fucking son of a bitch.”