Who Knows the Dark (12 page)

He didn’t answer, ducking his head to catch up with his stacking duties.

“Not as badass as your boyfriend, though.”

Cade sighed dramatically.

“I don’t know what we are, and right now I’m in no position to ask. Or offer,” Cade said finally, when LJ’s pointed silence was just too annoying. “I’m just… I feel like I’m supposed to be with him.”

LJ whistled; he stopped chopping wood and leaned the ax against the stump they were using. “That’s not like you.”

“Yeah, well.” Cade reached for another log, avoiding LJ’s eyes. “I’ve never met anyone like him before.”

“Don’t doubt that. Which should give you some sympathy for my struggle—put in a good word for me with Rachel.”

Cade threw some bark at LJ’s head. “It’s your funeral, asshole.”

R
ACHEL
,
IT
turned out, was setting the table when Cade and LJ got back to the house, sweaty and starving. The time with LJ had settled Cade down a bit; he knew he had to come clean about Billy to someone before it ate him alive—and Nox was the only person who could truly understand.

Amelia was at the stove, and his father was sitting in his easy chair, watching Sam sleep.

Hackles raised, Cade slipped into the living room and stood between Lee and Sam.

“What’s wrong with him?” Lee asked quietly, looking up at Cade with clear eyes.

“He got kidnapped, beat up, and caught in a collapsing building,” Cade said. “I think he has pneumonia.”

His father nodded. “Your mother’s Indian stuff’ll clear that up.”

“Why are you here?” He couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice.

“Your mother asked me to come for dinner.” With an air of dignity missing from last night’s confrontation, Lee stood up. He walked around Cade into the kitchen.

T
HE
ENTIRE
group came together an hour later; Lee sat at the head of the table, as if his drunken doppelganger hadn’t appeared last night. Amelia led everyone in grace, even though the majority of the table were card-carrying heathens. They couldn’t quite achieve the tableau of normalcy, even as they passed around bowls of mashed potatoes and platters of chicken.

A sleepy Sam poked at his food, every now and again resting his head on Mason’s shoulder. Cade could see his father’s eyes linger on Sam, then Mason, then over to Nox. Fingers tight around his fork, Cade tried to concentrate on the meal and not his father’s irritation.

Amelia attempted to engage people in small talk, though only Mason and LJ seemed capable of answering.

“So are you all heading out together?” Lee asked suddenly, bringing a halt to the conversation.

“Dad, please,” Cade muttered, matching his father’s hard stare with one of his own. “This can wait until after dinner.”

“It’s a simple question. You leaving together or not?”

“I can’t really speak for anyone else,” Nox said, breaking the stare between father and son. “But Sam and I will be gone as soon as he’s feeling up to traveling. Everyone else is free to make their own decisions.”

Cade caught the emotional look between Sam and Mason from his seat across the table; his stomach sank with the pronouncement. That didn’t leave much room for Cade in the equation—there wasn’t even a space for him to jump in and say
sure, I’ll go with you; what the hell else do I have to do
?

Lee seemed satisfied with Nox’s answer; in the end, he was the only person who bothered to finish his meal.

C
ADE
AVOIDED
Nox after dinner. He helped his mother clean up, watched his father bid her—and only her—a good night, then head out the door to return to his apartment.

Surreal.

“Sam’s all settled in,” Nox said as he entered the kitchen. “Your mother’s medicine cabinet is apparently full of magic.”

Cade refused to turn around, up to his elbows in soapy water as he scrubbed a plate, furiously determined to wipe the stupid flower pattern right off it.

“How’s the rollaway bed working out?” Amelia asked. He could hear the note of mischief in his mother’s voice.

“Perfect.”

The back door opened as LJ clattered back in after evening chores.

“Cade, you almost done? I want to show you somethin’.” LJ wiped his boots on the mat. “You too, Mr. Mullens.”

“Go on, I got this.” Amelia waved them out the door—personally hip checking Cade away from the sink and forcibly removing the sponge from his hand. “Wipe your hands and go.”

They grabbed their jackets from the hook and followed LJ outside. He led them toward the tidy guesthouse—where Rachel waited on the front stairs. Nox sighed heavily next to Cade.

“She’s freaking everywhere.”

“Well, it won’t be much longer now. You can take Sam and disappear pretty soon, right?” Cade hurried past LJ, then up the stairs past Rachel as she stood up.

Irritated, Cade stepped inside the house—and did a double take.

Whatever he had been expecting behind that door, this was not it. The entire main room of the house, floor to ceiling, was filled with equipment—computers, scanners, monitors, printers, and cables of every possible color snaking around. The only furniture other than that supporting the computers was a futon covered in a quilt Cade recognized from the house and a rolling chair near one of the desks.

“What the hell is all this?”

LJ stepped in behind him and clapped Cade on the shoulder. “I’m a disinterested farmer, but fuck if I’m not a great hacker.”

“Tell me you can make IDs,” Nox said, stepping into the wonderland of computers.

“Oh sure, whatever you need. I figured you guys would be needing stuff.”

“Yeah, Sam and I….”

Cade stifled a sound of irritation as he went into a far corner to poke at some laptops lined up on a wide shelf. He recognized his old one from college right up to the most recent model on the market. Each one ran a program, code scrolling by at a rapid pace.

“Why didn’t I know you were a nerd, LJ?” Cade called, interrupting whatever LJ and Nox were talking about. “You didn’t do this in high school.”

He remembered field parties and some drag racing, football and baseball, and always girlfriends that changed with the seasons. The only time he saw LJ at the computer was when he figured out how much free porn there was.

“Nope. Community college.” LJ came to stand next to him, hands tucked into his back pockets as he admired his setup of computers. “Business management and accounting were freakin’ boring, so I started tinkering around with programming…. Then I uh… got a little obsessed.”

Cade narrowed his gaze. “How much of this shit came from my money?”

“Enough that I’m beholden to you and your friends for whatever you need.” LJ coughed, then elbowed Cade in the ribs. “You need a new ID?”

“We all do,” Rachel said. The brothers turned in unison to regard her, lazily leaning on the chair like a ’50s pinup. “Birth certificates, government identification cards, passports would be nice. I’ve always wanted to see Paris.”

“Hmmm—me too.”

Cade needed a drink, watching as LJ sashayed over to Rachel’s side, voice honey-sweet. He stole a glance at Nox, who was regarding the entire scene with a measure of distaste.

“We need credit as well.” Nox spoke loudly—clearly trying to wrestle LJ’s attention from sampling Rachel’s wares. “But that might be more complicated.”

“They’ll be watchin’ your accounts.”

Nox shook his head. “They don’t know about the accounts I’m speaking of. They technically belong to someone else. Someone, uh… someone who is presumed dead.”

Now he had Rachel’s attention. The flirty air disappeared, a serious scowl turning her face older and harder. “That’s crazy.”

“It’s been seventeen years. If it’s still there, it’ll buy us some safety.” Nox took a breath, then finally met Cade’s penetrating stare. “All of us.”

Cade unhitched his anger by about 1 percent. He nodded. “Thank you. But exactly how dangerous is accessing this money?”

“If it’s still there,” interjected Rachel. “
If
.”

“Even if they follow the dots, I’m Patrick Mullens. That’s who they’re after,” Nox argued. “Even if they run my prints, they’re not going to get anything. I’m not in the system.”

“I am, and so is Cade. You work in the District and they fingerprint you.”

“How’d you get around that one?”

Rachel didn’t even blink. “I have my ways, just like you do. We might have used the same guy,” she said dryly. “Although I left him with a smile on his face. You probably shot him.”

LJ watched them like a great tennis match was going on right in front of him.

Cade rubbed his eyes wearily. “Would you two please…?”

“So our prints can’t be connected to those accounts,” Nox went on, ignoring Cade’s warning. “Which means they’re fair game.”

“They know who Cade is! They’ve already been here. That means if they’re watching this farm, they’re going to think it curious if bank activity begins in earnest and we start draining money from the accounts of dead people.” Rachel all but threw her hands in the air. “It’s too risky.”

“Uh, excuse me. Hate to interrupt this little back and forth, but….” LJ looked at each of them, barely hiding a smirk. “What if I’m able to bypass their trace?”

“I’m sure you’re very good, LJ, but this is the government we’re talking about.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, little brother.” LJ poked at the keyboard behind Rachel. “But while you were off making friends with people havin’ disreputable backgrounds, I was makin’ friends with people who can get around a government trace.” He sounded so proud that Cade’s frown faded a bit.

“How do you know they won’t turn you in?”

LJ gave Rachel a disarming smile. “’Cause they don’t hate anything as much as they hate the federal government. I could tell ’em I was helping Satan run coke to an orphanage and so long as it was government run, they’d give me the passwords I needed. Probably throw in some beer too.”

“Well, that’s terrible,” Cade sighed, even as Rachel and Nox looked interested.

“So am I getting a dead guy’s money?”

Nox rocked back on his heels; Cade watched the muscles jump under his left eye, his hands twitching at his sides.

“Yeah. I’ll give you the name and social security number,” Nox said slowly.

Rachel’s lips went into a straight line, and then she nodded. “And when you’re done with the family fortune, I might have somewhere else you can look for money.”

LJ gave an actual fist pump at the news. He gently scooted Rachel from his chair and pulled his keyboard to the edge of the desk. “Fire away.”

C
ADE
WAITED
for some indication from Nox he should stay, that they had something to say to each other, but when his—whatever he was exactly—went deep into conversation with LJ and Rachel about overseas transactions, Cade left the guesthouse and slammed the door behind him.

Fuck this, all of it. Clearly his first mistake was believing Nox thought of him as something other than just a helper monkey he fucked on occasion. Cade had given up everything—willingly—to help Nox and his son, and this? This was the thanks he got. Dismissed as soon as he wasn’t necessary.

Cade should have known better.

He breathed in the cold air, kicking rocks as he headed for the barn. Where did this leave him? Nox and Sam would disappear into the world with new identities, and what would Cade do? Stay here at the farm and wither away? Get his own fake identification and follow suit? Maybe somewhere warm, maybe a place no one knew he was a failed whore and everyone’s second choice.

At some point—probably in an hour or two—Cade would hate himself for being so self-defeating and possibly irrational, but fuck it. Right now, he was going to wallow.

Then a flash of movement caught his attention up ahead. Every bit of anger drained out of him, turning to a knee-knocking fear as a figure walked through the shadows down the sloping hill. Cade was out in the open; his options were turning, running, throwing himself into the bushes, and raising an alarm—but panic locked him into place so his only choice was to wait.

The spill of light from the security floods meant he was seen, meant that this person could….

“Caden?”

Cade’s heart thumped violently—he nearly tripped on the grass under his feet. It was his father.

“Yeah,” he called weakly. “Yeah.”

“You shouldn’t be out walkin’.” Lee Creel came into the light; he stood a few feet downslope from Cade, bundled in his heavy jacket and carrying a shotgun over his shoulder like the freaking Marlboro Man. “You don’t know who’s around here.”

“You just called out my name, so even if they didn’t see me, they heard you,” Cade muttered. “You hunting in the dark?” he said, louder this time.

“Patrollin’. You brought dangerous things to this house, Caden Lee. I’m makin’ sure your mother is safe.”

“She’d probably be safer if you still lived here—or wait, is that why she kicked you out?” Cade laughed at himself. A few moments ago, he was afraid for his life; a few minutes before that, he was watching LJ start the process of fucking with the government. And now? Picking a fight with his father.

Maybe he had a death wish.

“That’s none of your business,” Lee said finally, his voice low and dangerous in a way that Cade had firsthand knowledge of. Usually the sound his father made right before Cade got a smack to the side of the head. “You’re not in any position to be makin’ judgments about other people’s lives.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Cade snapped. “I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t set off that bomb. Shit, I helped people, okay? Got them out of a goddamned burning building. But you didn’t even ask, did you? Just assumed.”

“You went up there to whore yourself out and got mixed up with the wrong people—that wasn’t an accident. If you stayed home—”

“If I stayed home, what? I could play disappointing second son to you for the rest of my life? No thanks.” Cade turned to walk away but couldn’t resist a parting shot. “The only good part of all of this is you finally lost your cash cow. No more pimping me out. Now you’re going to lose this shitty farm, Momma’s gonna leave you for good, and you’ll be stuck with nothing.”