The Solitude of Passion (49 page)

A loud pop explodes from nowhere. A spear of fire rips through my shoulder. I look down as a bloom of crimson spreads over my shirt.

Shit.

His tires scream as he rushes from the scene, leaving a plume of smoke in his wake.

My fingers magnetize over the warm stain. I hold out my trembling hand, glossed in a viscous dark slick, and it takes a second to register.

I’ve been shot.

Call Lee.

I scramble for my phone and twitch it in my palm until I hear it ring the other line.

Max picks up, then it occurs to me I may have called Max.

Great. I’m dying, and I’ve just given Shepherd a front row seat.

“Hello?” He gruffs. “Mitch, I know it’s you. Lee’s busy.”

The world starts to vanish in a sea of grey. I try to choke out a word, but my vocal cords are on lockdown. I try to get out a coherent thought, a sound, anything, but I can’t catch my breath.

Blood is everywhere. A warm river streams from my body.

It’s done. God answered my prayer and brought me back to Lee, and now he’s bringing me home.

I close my eyes. Lee smiles at me from behind my lids just before everything fades to black.

Max

He’s still on the line—I think.

“Mitch?” He’s probably putting in an order for a triple heart-stopper—doesn’t want to interrupt his flow, so I hang on a minute. The unmistakable sound of moaning comes through.

“Mitch?” It sounds sexual, but knowing Mitch, it’s not. For one, Lee is upstairs, and two, he’d never call to gloat.

“Mitch, can you hear me?”

Without thinking I shout up to Lee that I’m going to the store. I grab my keys, and head for the truck. If I told Lee there might be something wrong with him she’d lose herself in a tailspin, and I don’t want anything happening to that baby.
Nothing
can happen to that baby—might be the last one I ever have with her.

“
Mitch
?” I scream into the phone while I back out of the driveway. “Tell me where you are, damn it. I can’t help you if I don’t know where the hell you are.” I start making my way toward town. Major intersection? Maybe there’s been a crash. That doesn’t make sense. He wouldn’t be alone. Mono’s full of tourists. He’s obviously not at Janice’s, Lee and I left there an hour ago. Not at Colt’s because Colt’s most likely at a bar.

I pick up the phone again. Faint moaning this time. It sounds bad. Whatever it is he can’t breathe too well, sounds like he’s jonesing at the bottom of a cup with a straw. What if he tried to off himself? Fuck. He’s probably belly up at the base of a cliff somewhere.

“Last chance, Mitch. Pull your shit together and tell me where the hell you are, or I’m turning around!”

Nothing but silence, then the faint sound of whining—sirens come through on the other end of the line.

I roll down the windows to see if I can hear anything. Mono’s big but not that big, and there’s no wind tonight.

A light wail ignites in the distance.

I hear them. The unmistakable cry of sirens. I see the lights sawing through the night, rippling over the sky in flashes of crimson and blue. They’re headed toward the old river—it flooded out a few years ago, so no one bothers with those backward arteries—apparently no one but Mitch.

I race through a stale red light, honking my horn like an idiot. I cut through the overpass just this side of the river and find the strobe lights stopping up the air with their seizure of colors—a manmade rainbow of death.

Dear God, not tonight. If Mitch dies, Lee is going to crack a hatchet through my skull.

I park next to a fire truck blocking all access to the road up ahead. No sign of Mitch, but I get out and head over to a group of firemen to get some answers.

“What’s going on back there?” I try to sound casual as if I were simply making chitchat with the silver-haired firefighter.

“Accident. Road’s closed.”

I glance past him to find three firefighters working over a body lying limp on the ground.

Then I see it, Mitch’s pickup on the side of the road with the hazards on.

“I know that guy.” I push past him. My adrenaline kicks in, and for a second I think I’m going to pass out. I’m not exactly a hero when it comes to blood and gore. Not sure what to expect as I circle the front of the truck. My heart starts racing. It beats so damn fast it creates an echo in my throat.

Two EMT workers kneel over Mitch while one of them shines a giant flashlight onto his chest. I stagger over and find his bright red shirt sliced open, and I’ve got a sick feeling his shirt wasn’t that color to begin with. An oxygen mask is glued to his face, and his eyes track up to mine. He gives a hard blink before lifting his fingers toward me.

I drop to my knees. “It’s going to be all right, buddy.” I tremble the words out while trying to hold back a river of tears. I think I just lied, and I pray I didn’t because suddenly I want Mitch to live out a very long existence. “What happened?” I glance up at his truck. “Did he get hit?” I’m met with narrow gazes.

“Sorry, sir, it’s family only.”

“He’s my brother.” It comes out so fast I hardly have time to process the lie—only I don’t think it is one. I’ve always thought of Mitch as family, always. I lean in toward him. “Mitch, look at me.” His eyes roll back into his head, and he passes out momentarily before struggling to open them again.

“Sir, you need to back up. Your brother was shot. He’s losing a lot of blood.”

His words are drowned out by the blare of a siren. I wobble over Mitch, and his vulnerable body. A long yellow arm reaches up and pushes my head between my legs, tells me to breathe.

I don’t need any other explanation. I turn my head and vomit.

I have a feeling I know exactly what happened.

The EMT’s try to convince me to come along for the ride, but I assure them I’m fine. They need to take care of Mitch, not my pansy ass. As soon as I heard the word surgery it made me sway again.

I pull one of the EMT’s aside before he hops into the truck.

“He’s going to make it, right?” I’d die in his place for that to be true.

“We’re doing everything we can.”

I watch in horror as they scream away. His words didn’t sound too promising. I get on the horn and call Colt and fill him in, tell him to get Janice and Lee and head to Mono Bay Memorial, then call Mom and ask her to watch the kids.

I jump in the truck and head in the opposite direction.

There’s one person I’m guessing who won’t want to visit Mitch on his deathbed anytime soon.

All of the lights are on at Hudson’s. I can’t help but note how cheery everything looks inside. Just throw my life in the shitter and get on with yours like it’s fine and dandy. I haven’t spoken to him since he slammed me into the wall and filled me in on yet another one of my wife’s indiscretions. I try pounding my fist through the door and wait for someone to answer.

Candi swings it open, and the smell something burning in the kitchen blasts over me like a necrotic heat wave.

“Where is he?” I barrel past her, grazing over her belly in the process.

“He’s in the shed.”

I bolt out the door, hurdling a dozen rotting tires on my way to a suppressed beam of light shining through the old tool shed. He builds million dollar garages for rundown pieces of shit and refuses to knock down this glorified outhouse. That’s Hudson in a nutshell.

I peel open the door to a fog. The stench of stale pot stagnates in the air. Hudson is lying back with his eyes partially closed as he blows smoke over at me. I reach down and pluck him off the floor, limp as a ragdoll.

“Someone shot, Mitch. You know anything about this?” I squeeze my hands around his neck until his eyes bulge from the pressure. He claws at my arms until I relent.

Hudson breaks out in a coughing fit, spitting in the dirt behind him. “I’m not qualified to say anything until I have an attorney present.” He gives a goofy grin.

“
Shit
,” I bark in his face before knocking him into the grass. The sound of his laughter lights up the night as I sprint back to my truck.

Stupid. I’m so
fucking
stupid to have anything to do with my brother—let alone speak to him—insinuate criminal activity. I bang my hand against the driver’s side window.

“Everything okay?” Candi shouts from the porch.

I don’t bother answering. Instead, I burn up the dust on the back of my tires as I leave Hudson’s metal graveyard for what I pray is the very last time.

Tears blur my vision.

I put this whole thing in motion. I think I finally did it—killed Mitch.

Please God—don’t let him die. I swear to you I didn’t mean it.

Mitch, who I would trade a thousand Hudson’s for, we would have been good brothers. We were at one point, but we let a girl get between us once.

Still do.

Lee

Peppermint moon.

Those were the last words my mother whispered as she ran out to the soon-to-be wreckage of my father’s hatchback.
Peppermint moon
. It hangs bright over the hospital as Colt speeds me in by the arm, but I’m resisting. It happened this way that night—my sister and I were taken to the emergency room by the sitter to see if there was a chance my parents had survived.

That’s what we’re seeing tonight—seeing if Mitch has a chance.

Colton scrambles out a word salad to an orderly behind a big gleaming desk and he points a crooked finger upstairs to the ICU.

My heart races as we stumble down the hall. Colt leads us in a panic until we land in front of a nurse’s station that greets us with a bevy of women huddled around a patient’s chart.

Mitch is still in surgery, and we’re forced to wait in a small, crowded room that holds the odor of stale coffee and crisp newspapers.

“We’re not going to lose Mitch.” I say it to myself, but Janice moans in agreement.

Colton tucks his head between his legs, until his face swells, red as vinegar. The veins in his neck plump like cables.

I close my eyes and busy myself with the task of begging God to let Mitch live. There’s no way I could lose Mitch—not after everything I’ve been through. I can think of a thousand things I’d like to say when he finally wakes up. I’ll rectify this entire situation with Max and Mitch, right here in the ICU. I refuse to let Mitch go. I’ll be his dutiful widow if I have to. I just need him to hear the words he longs for, coming from my lips.

A shadow darkens the doorway, and Max comes barreling in like a dark knight in shining armor.

“What happened?” Colton snaps.

“I don’t know.” Max pulls me in tight and lands a hard kiss on my mouth. I can feel his lips trembling over mine. He’s just as frightened for Mitch as I am. Max runs his hands over my back warming me. It feels good, safe to be held by him like this. “I got a call—it was from his phone. He never said anything. I didn’t want to worry Lee, so I took off looking for him—heard a siren and followed it.” He swallows hard and his Adams apple rises and falls. “They said he was shot.”

Max looks bewildered, his eyes dart around the room as if he were still trying to piece it together, but there’s something layered beneath his concern. I could always tell when Max was trying to stretch the truth... Oh God.