Blood, Ash, and Bone (29 page)

I took a deep breath, blinked the last of the tears away. “Okay. What do I do?”

He stood. “Whatever I tell you to.”

He motioned for Jefferson and Jasper, and they met him in the corner. They talked, their voices low and urgent. I watched, numb. My hands were cold and wet. I resisted the urge to wipe them on my jeans. I resisted the urge to scream. Boone motioned me over, and I went to his side.

“Jasper will take you to the dockhouse,” he said. “You go inside, lock the door, and stay there. That leaves you alone, which I don’t like, but I need all hands on deck. He’ll leave the boat keys with you. Take it if you need it, but if it comes down to that, get the hell away and don’t come back to the house, got it?”

I nodded.

“And you stay there until I come get you myself, understand?”

“But…” I gestured toward the ankle cuff.

“Jefferson can cut it off in five minutes, but not until it’s time. No sense letting them know what’s up until we have to.” Boone touched the side of my face. “I’ll come for you myself, or I won’t be coming at all, you hear me?”

I nodded. I could feel the beginning of tears again. If I let them, they’d ambush me. But I wasn’t giving them an inch.

Boone moved closer. Something young and vital sparked in him despite the pallor and shortness of breath. His eyes gleamed bright like the mouth of a spring.

“I won’t come back without him,” he said. “One way or another. I promise.”

I stared at him, this killer and thief and smuggler, the raw-boned rebel, this man who was my kith and kin, all the history I’d tried to whitewash. Who was fighting for me. Who was showing up.

“Whatever it takes,” I said. I didn’t recognize my voice. But I knew it was me talking.

Chapter Forty-one

I followed Jasper out toward the dock. He was all business, and angry to the point of fury. “Daddy shouldn’t be messed up in this thing. I told Jefferson that, but does he ever listen to me. No.”

He moved quickly down the trail. I was having a hard time keeping up. I’d known this land once, a long time ago. But Jasper moved fast, without any consideration. The rain didn’t help either. It beat a steady tattoo on the ground, on the wide palm leaves, on the two of us.

“What’s the plan?” I said.

Jasper pulled his rain hood lower over his face and kept walking. “Make the meet with that Hope woman. Get the document and give her the money. Wait for the kidnappers to call back. Then Boone makes the trade while me and Jefferson make sure they deliver their end.”

“What if they just take the document?”

“They won’t.”

“What if Hope doesn’t show?”

“She will.”

“But—”

Jasper spun around and faced me, flinging raindrops. “You act like we ain’t never done this before. That’s why you’re in the dockhouse, and we’re dealing with the hard stuff. Now shut up and keep moving.”

He wasn’t happy to be mustered on my behalf, but he’d soldiered up. He’d always been clever in a mercenary way, and I suspected he saw an opportunity to move up in his father’s ranks, usurp Jefferson even. I fell in beside him, huddled inside Trey’s jacket.

“They’re cops, you know. Bad ones.”

“I know.”

“Why would cops want an old Civil War document?”

“There’s paper worth killing for. Dying for too.” His voice dripped with contempt. “You wouldn’t know, though, would you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You abandoned your people. Now you want back in when things get tough. It don’t work that way, cuz.”

I didn’t take the bait. He could dangle that KKK propaganda all he wanted. He was helping get Trey back; the rest didn’t matter. But there was no way in hell I was standing around waiting while Trey’s life hung in the balance. And it was time Jasper knew that.

I stopped. “I’m not gonna do it, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Stay locked up in that dockhouse.”

Jasper kept walking. “Daddy said—”

“Boone thinks I’m still twelve. But you know better. You know what I can do.”

Jasper stopped. He examined me over his shoulder. “I reckon I do.”

“I can drive, I can play lookout, I can shoot, I can fight. Let me help get him back because I swear to God, Jasper, nothing means as much to me as that man. Nothing.”

He didn’t reply at first. I couldn’t see his expression in the dark, but I saw him nod.

“Sure, cuz. Whatever you say.” He started walking. “Come on. But you gotta do what I tell you to do, you hear me? None of this go-your-own-way bullshit.”

“Whatever you say.”

As we neared the next clearing, a group of Boone’s other men were coming up the path from the dock. They were ready for action too—dark rain slickers covering a multitude of weapons, heavy boots, gloves.

Jasper held out a hand. “Wait here. I’ve got to get some things straightened out.”

The three men met Jasper in a huddle under the single light. Two were brawny hard men, but one was small and slim. Unlike the others, his face was pale and tight, and he looked sweaty, maybe even sick. Jasper talked, they listened. They nodded, agreeing to do what he told them. They did it resenting the hell out of me, but they did it.

They continued on to the house, leaving Jasper and me to head for the dock alone. I turned to watch them walk up the narrow path. The biggest one was laughing, but his friend was serious. The pale one shot one last look over his shoulder, glaring at me with more than resentment, more than hate even.

Satisfaction.

“Come on,” Jasper said.

He hurried down the path into the woods, out of the light. I followed, Jasper’s shape indistinct in the diffuse darkness. He moved swiftly and surely, accustomed to being in charge.

The realization came like a jolt of electricity. It left me heady, dizzy, almost paralyzed.

I stopped. “Wait.”

Jasper turned around. “What’s wrong?”

I put a finger to my lips, Trey’s gun heavy at my side. The night and the wind and the rain played tricks. Half-light and half dark, shifting and impossible to trust. I moved closer to Jasper.

But not too close.

I lowered my voice. “Did you hear that?”

He froze. “Hear what?”

“Somebody’s coming.” I pointed. “Over there.”

He peered into the dark marsh, his face obscured by the rain hood. I took one deep breath and slammed my heel sideways into his knee. He screamed and went down, one hand going for his gun, the other grabbing at me.

I snatched free. And I ran.

Chapter Forty-two

I ducked into the dark woods, branches slapping me, Spanish moss sloppy and wet in my face. I tripped and wrenched my ankle, dragged myself up, kept running. I heard Jasper behind me. The first shots rang out, and I ran harder, trying to get my bearings.

The dockhouse lay ahead, the main house behind, my car outside its gates. But the three men were there too, and Jefferson. And Boone, I admitted, whose allegiance I could no longer trust.

So I ran for the dock, lungs burning, chest tight. Behind me, Jasper crashed through the thickets.

The woods opened into the cove, and I saw the dock, Boone’s sport fisher tied up at the end. I bolted for it, my footsteps pounding the wooden slats, just as Jasper cleared the woods. More bullets, two of them at my heels.

Too late for the boat. I ran for the dockhouse instead, yanked open the door and threw myself inside. I slammed the door shut, dead-bolted it. The dark loomed thick and heavy, and I crashed to the left, into the gear room. I heard Jasper’s boots on the dock, his footsteps uneven from the injury, but leisurely now, no hurry.

I had to move quickly. I slid open the outside window and squeezed through the spider webs and dust, scraping my skin. I couldn’t jump—the splash would have been a dead giveaway—so I shimmied down the piling into the dark water. It was high tide, but still the splintered wood and oyster shells tore the flesh of my hands.

I lowered myself into the water as lightning flicked cloud to cloud downriver. A few strokes took me under the dockhouse, then under the dock, where I surfaced beneath the slatted wood. Here it was shallow enough to stand, submerged up to my nose, the river bottom sucking at my sneakers.

Jasper limped down the dock. “I know you’re in there, cuz.” He reloaded, racked the slide. “And when I find you, you’re dead, you hear me?”

Shaking violently, I put one hand on the butt of Trey’s gun. I remembered the cell phones, both of them ruined now, and tears welled again. I prayed Jasper wouldn’t look down.

He remained calm, relaxed. Boone’s boat bobbed in the fractured waves, a thirty-footer with enough space to hold fishing gear for ten or marijuana for a hundred. Weapons too, guns and ammo and knives. And Jasper had the keys.

His voice echoed on the lake. “You run and your boyfriend dies, you know that?”

A crack of lightning, a roll of thunder, the rising wind, bladed and cold. The boat’s bumpers rubbed against the dock, and I heard the slap-slap of water against its hull, the ticking of its engine.

“He’s still alive, you know. For now. We had to hurt him pretty bad. And if you don’t get your ass out here right now, we’ll do worse.” Jasper raised his voice against the wind. “I will make him die so hard, cuz.”

The shivering intensified. I kept my hand on the gun.

Jasper moved from shadow to shadow, letting the darkness provide concealment. So he remembered I had a gun. He kept his own gun in low ready, like Trey did. Like professionals did.

“And it’s not like you’re going anywhere without the boat keys.” He examined the dockhouse, then plinked one shot into it, shattering a window. Trying to flush me out.

I wanted to hurt him, kill him, over and over and over. I fingered the semi-automatic. It would be smooth and accurate, even wet. I could kill Jasper, take the keys and head for…where? Until I knew where Trey was, shooting Jasper was his death sentence. But we were already dead, it seemed, both of us. The rush to the inevitable, one agonizing second at a time.

Jasper kicked in the dockhouse door, punching the light on as he did. He disappeared inside, confident now that he could get the drop on me. He kicked the door to the gear room open next.

I swam silently to the swim ladder and hauled myself up with my mangled burning hands. My sneakers squished as I took my stance with Trey’s gun—arms straight, chest forward, feet apart. I waited, dripping.

Jasper came out, framed for a second in the backlight. I squeezed the cocking mechanism, and he froze.

He gave me a twisted smile. “I knew you were around somewhere, cuz.”

I waved the H&K at him. “Drop your guns, both of them. Right in the water.”

He did, still smiling.

“Now the knife.”

“I don’t—”

“I know you got a knife. Drop it.”

He reached for his ankle. I held the gun on him, cocked and ready, finger on the trigger. Trey’s gun was like him—reliable and obedient and relentless. It would not fail me.

Jasper pulled out a hunting knife and dropped it in the water, where it disappeared with a soft plunk. He was being too submissive. Something was wrong.

“All this for a little old book,” he said.

He opened his jacket. I caught a glimpse of burgundy velvet peeking from the interior pocket. He pulled it out with two fingers, carefully, its gilt-edge dull in the night. He tossed it on the dock. It made a thump as it hit the boards.

“There,” he said. “All yours. You happy?”

I didn’t reply.

He kept his eyes on me. “It’s a piece of desecration. That old man in Florida took the Good Book and ruined it with the names of those traitors.”

“You’ve had it all along.”

“Only since my boys took it off of Winston’s dead body. Found it in the briefcase instead of what we were looking for. I had plans for it, but not anymore. Not since your friend Hope called you.”

He kicked it into the river. It splashed and hung at the surface, slowly soaking up the dark water, soon to sink and be gone forever.

“It’s a fake,” I said.

“I know. It would’ve been worth something, though, to somebody who didn’t know better. But this ain’t about money, cuz. That’s what you’ve been missing all along.”

“What’s it about then?”

“Honor. Justice. By any means necessary.”

“You’re quoting Malcolm X.”

The insult didn’t hit home. “He knew that much of the truth. The races must be separate because they are not equal. And I will no longer swear allegiance to those who have abandoned the fight for the white man’s rightful place.”

“You mean the Klan?”

Jasper’s eyes blazed. “Traitors. Prostitutes. Selling our name for profit, hiding behind the ACLU.” He spat the words out like bitter poison. “They’ll see. Judgment is coming.”

“Oh it’s coming, all right.” I held the gun on him with both hands. “Right in your face unless you tell me where Trey is.”

I squeezed the handle, and the cocking mechanism responded. Jasper shook his head, that infuriating half-smile twisting his mouth.

“You shoot me, and your boyfriend’s dead.”

“So you’ll be telling me where he is now. And handing over your cell phone and boat keys.”

Jasper pulled the phone and keys from his pocket. Before I could take a step, he dropped them, and the black water swallowed them whole.

“Doesn’t matter where he is now,” he said, “you can’t get to him.”

My vision reddened at the edges. I leveled the gun at his chest. He shook his head.

“You got a choice, cuz. We can go back to the house, get the car, and go get your boyfriend. Or you can kill me here, and he dies alone.”

I tightened my grip. Here at least it was one-on-one, and until I figured out where Trey was…

And then I knew. I knew it as clearly as I’d known anything in my life. The dropped keys, the ticking engine, the three men coming from the dock. Jasper’s calmness, Trey’s explanation of the one security hole at the ball.

I steadied the gun. “Get in the dock box.”

“What?”

“I said, get in the dock box.”

Jasper didn’t move. I put one bullet into the board in front of his feet and leveled the gun at his chest again.