The Road to You (43 page)

“Explains why your name was on the list with that bastard Sebastian James,” Donovan said. “And why Sebastian said at the church that you were all on the same team.”

“Yes. I’m sure Treak Bradley would have gotten around to investigating me eventually, but it helped that I lived so far away. He was a good enough reporter that he might have discovered the truth and blown my cover.” Billy topped off his mug of coffee—I’d lost count of how many cups he’d had since yesterday, but it was probably close to twelve—and then he broke open a bag of pretzel sticks for us.

Holding his pretzel like a cigar, Donovan asked him about the sequence of events. “Where did Sebastian James and his cousin come in? And how did Bonner Mill play into everything?”

“From what we’ve figured,” Billy said, “Bonner Mill was first targeted because of a union labor dispute. It wasn’t a site Julian Carello had a hand in himself, but the Bonner family was an ally of his, and Leto probably offered his help in creating trouble for them. The second blast was the night Rick Brice killed Treak Bradley and that Rainwater kid.”

The cop paced to the window and back, rubbing some sweat away from his deep brown forehead and sighing. “We know Brice had been sent up to Wisconsin to deal with Treak. The journalist had gotten nosy and had hit too close to the truth about the source of the pipe bombs, tying it to the fireworks manufacturing and transportation. Knowing it would be easy for a shipment of fireworks to conceal the illegal explosives. By that time, Brice had already had to turn in his badge, but he was high up enough in the mob himself that he had a few cops in his pocket. Many were in Chicago, like Sebastian James, but also a few others scattered here and there, including a fellow by the name of Paul Earling, the police commander in Ashburn Falls.”

“Is that how Rick got the squad car that night?” I asked.

Billy nodded. “The population of Crescent Cove is too low for them to have their own police department, so they hire out officers from surrounding areas to patrol and investigate—like Earling. He was instrumental in ‘losing’ some critical evidence and paperwork in regards to both of the Bonner Mill explosions. He was most likely the cop who confiscated Gideon’s car and all of your brothers’ belongings at their motel in Ashburn Falls. One dirty cop in a small police department can do a
lot
of damage,” he said with disgust.

“Any chance some of those Crescent Cove and Ashburn Falls people are related?” Donovan suggested. “We knew that Ben Rainwater was the cousin of Ronny Lee Wolf, but was there any special connection between them and this Earling guy? Or between any of them and Hal the truck driver?”

“We’ve done a lot of checking into Earling’s background,” Billy said, crunching on a pretzel. “The three of them—Earling, Wolf and Chaney—weren’t relatives, but they were friends. We think that it was through knowing Earling that Hal Chaney got the job with Americana Trucking. And Ronny Lee Wolf was moonlighting at the fireworks factory. He was the one providing the extra explosive material in Chaney’s shipments. So all three of them were definitely working together.”

I finally reached for a pretzel stick. “So, Rick Brice came up to put a stop to Treak Bradley’s investigation, but he ended up finding out about Ronny’s cousin, Ben Rainwater, who was on to his relative’s bad deeds. And then both of our brothers showed up, too, and got themselves involved with Ben, Treak and this whole mess.”

“Exactly. Gideon and Jeremy were on the good side,” Billy said. “When they got away, it created a huge problem for Brice and Leto. That’s where Sebastian James came on the scene.”

Billy spent the next hour and a half bringing us up to speed on Sebastian, his background and his motivations. Started out a working-class city boy from a big family who’d gotten into a lot of scrapes with the law as a teen. But, like an atheist who’d finally found religion, Sebastian discovered the police academy and, for a while, pursued it with fervor. Worked his way up to lieutenant.

Only the zeal began to wear off after a while, and the extra perks he could get by cozying up to Rick Brice and his mob buddies began to outshine the luster of his badge. He took some bribes under the table, looked the other way more than once and wasn’t above fudging a few documents when required.

When word reached him that the two witnesses who’d gotten away were Minnesota boys from Crescent Cove, though, he knew he’d hit payday. Sebastian got himself a meeting with Leto and proudly told the mob boss that he had a connection there. His younger cousin, William James, was on the force in that little town and, with some cash to grease the wheel, good ole Willie could be “persuaded” to help them out.

I found myself hating Officer William James with every single fiber of my being. Even more than I had during his phony “investigation” of Gideon and Jeremy’s disappearance.

Billy must have seen the steam coming out of my ears because he was quick to try to reassure me. “Don’t worry, Aurora, we’re going to get him. We’ve only been holding out because we’re hoping to snag some of the bigger fish, too. Truth is, the extent of William James’s involvement was part of what we didn’t know for sure until after you and Donovan started following the trail your brother had set up in the journal.”

I needed him to explain that. “Are you saying the journal is something you and the FBI were involved in writing, as well as my brother?”

“No, that was all Gideon’s idea. He told me he couldn’t figure out how it was that he and Jeremy were tailed to Amarillo. They’d hidden out in St. Louis for a couple of weeks, just waiting to hear the news reports. At the time, they were most worried that they were going to be wanted in connection for that second Bonner Mill blast, but the story didn’t even make a blip on the news. The few reports they found attributed it to a furnace explosion. They got ahold of some local Minnesota newspapers and discovered the only things out on them were missing persons’ reports. People with information were supposed to call the police. Since they didn’t know how much danger they were still in and they didn’t want to put the lives of their families in jeopardy, they called William James.”

Donovan swore under his breath.

“Then Officer James, who’d already covered up any evidence that might have led to the police tracking our brothers to Crescent Cove,” I said, “called his cousin and let Sebastian know where they were.”

“That’s right,” Billy said. “Gideon had explained to William James that he and Jeremy didn’t really know what they’d stumbled onto but that it was a major operation. They wanted to make sure the few members of the Chameleon Lake Police Department protected their parents and siblings. They asked the officer to let their families know they were okay, but to keep their reappearance quiet until they were sure they really weren’t being followed. They told him about driving Ben’s car and gave William James enough information to initiate a real investigation of the Bonner Mill explosion. Your brothers also said they’d call again in a couple of weeks to check in on how everything was going from his side. To see if it would be safe to return.”

Donovan took out his anger on a couple of pretzels but didn’t say anything.

“What happened then?” I asked.

“Then Gideon and Jeremy told William James they were heading toward Texas because, in having the time to think about everything Treak had disclosed to them, there were some hot spots along the way—Joplin and Amarillo, for instance. Places to which the journalist had told them he was following truck shipments. So, they wanted to check these cities out for themselves. And, knowing what they did about explosives, they also wanted to see if they could figure out from talking to the locals what was really going on with them. You can imagine how much the mob wanted
that
. But your brothers were friendly and resourceful. They were good at getting information. Somewhere along the way, they ran into Hal Chaney and tried to talk some sense into him. Tried to be heroes and bring him back from the dark side.”

“But he went in the other direction,” Donovan said. “Wanted to blackmail the mob into giving him more money.”

“You got it.” The cop reached to refill his coffee mug yet again and muttered, “One of these days, I’ll stop living on caffeine and snack food.” He rifled around until he found his box of Girl Scout cookies. “But not today.”

Billy told us much, much more after that, confirming details we already knew to be true—that Sebastian James and Rick Brice hunted down our brothers in Amarillo and were responsible for burning up Hal’s truck. That Sebastian killed the foolish man who was driving it, then he murdered Jeremy and shot at Gideon.

The Albuquerque cop also explained something we didn’t know, that Gideon was the one responsible for killing Rick Brice.

“Sebastian said that Gideon ‘did a number on Rick.’ Those were his exact words. He never said anything about my brother killing him,” I said.

And even though I knew what a piece of scum Rick Brice must have been, I couldn’t help but hurt for my brother. Feel his shock at what he’d had to do. Gideon had a laidback, peace-loving soul. As a kid, he’d had a contradictory streak—imagining himself as a superhero or a battleship commander or a proud Marine like our dad—but he hadn’t ever really wanted to harm anyone. He was a lover not a fighter.

The police detective nodded. “That was how Gideon got away. He’d stolen a stick of dynamite and a pipe bomb from Hal’s truck before Rick Brice blew it up. After Sebastian killed Jeremy, Gideon lit them both, and threw them—one at Brice, the other at Sebastian—half expecting to blow himself up in the process. He told me, by that time, he didn’t care. That a part of him had died that day, alongside his friend. He just wanted to stop those two bad men once and for all. The blasts killed Brice and knocked out Sebastian. Gideon was thrown to the ground, too, but he managed to recover faster, even with a gunshot wound to his side. He got Jeremy’s body in the car and drove away.” Billy sent a half smile my way. “Your brother was a lot tougher than he looked.”

“I guess so,” I whispered. Then, because I just had to ask, “Is there any way I’ll ever be able to see him again? Any time when it’ll be safe enough for him to come out of hiding? When things will get cleared up enough so he can come home?”

Donovan came over to stand by me and to lend his silent support as Billy thought about my questions. The Albuquerque cop who’d been so kind to us looked very uncomfortable in that moment.

“It’s not quite as simple as all of that,” he began. “At some point, maybe Andy can explain it to you. Maybe be an intermediary of sorts between you and your brother. But I can tell you this…Gideon is still very concerned with the repercussions of returning home.” He fiddled with his snack and his coffee.

“He needed some serious medical attention when he drove into town. He might have died without it, and I was able to get him cleaned up and bandaged on the sly. And, Donovan, as you and Aurora guessed, we were also able to privately bury your brother at St. Christopher’s. I wish there had been a way to get help to them both sooner.”

Donovan’s face was shuttered against emotion, but I could tell he appreciated knowing this. Knowing that his brother’s body had been laid to rest by a caring policeman and by Jeremy’s best friend.

“The problem for Gideon is that, while he’s still alive, the mob’s interest in him may not go away, and anyone near him could likewise be in danger,” Billy explained. “He’s seen death firsthand already. The mob doesn’t know how much he knows about their operations, and we don’t know how much Rick Brice and Sebastian James told Vincent Leto about Gideon before they died.”

“So, even though Rick and Sebastian are dead now, they may have passed the torch to someone else?” I said.

“Typically, mob crimes are very bad, but their cover-ups can be even worse. Gideon’s afraid, and not without reason, that they might use his family as leverage to get that information out of him. But if he stays away from all of you, you’ll be safer from Leto and his associates. If, in the view of the mob, you and your family were convinced Gideon was dead, he couldn’t have been in contact with you. Therefore, he couldn’t have told you anything.”

I gulped back my frustration. I understood this, but I still didn’t want to hear it. “What should we tell our parents, though?” I asked. “Is there anything we can say? Any fragment of explanation we’re able to give them?”

Billy’s face filled with compassion and I felt Donovan’s arm reach around me.

“I don’t know yet,” the cop said. “But we’ll work on that. I promise.”

What he told us we could and should do, however, was get out of Albuquerque for a few days while the police and the FBI worked to wrap up whatever they could at this stage.

“Don’t go too far away,” he said on Thursday morning, “just far enough that any of Leto’s thugs, who might be lingering in this area, can’t find you. We still need to arrest William James in Minnesota and Paul Earling in Wisconsin and piece together what the two of them know. We’re compiling as much evidence as we can and making sure it’s airtight. We may not be able to make the world secure enough for Gideon to resurface, but we’d like the two of you to feel safe returning home to Chameleon Lake. I can tell you, having proof that William contacted Sebastian after you two called him was one of the linchpins to this segment of the investigation. We have verifying phone records, so we’ll definitely proceed with his arrest. Fingers crossed we can prosecute a few mobsters while we’re at it, too.”

Donovan nodded at Billy in approval before glancing at me. “You keep talking about Colorado, Aurora. You wanna go there for a couple of days?”