Golden Trail (25 page)

“He can’t take all the money like that,
Merry,” Layne clipped.

“He can until the powers that be tell him to
give it back,” Merry returned.

“You’re wrong, Merry, he can’t do that. He
pulls this shit, Rocky’s attorneys can move to have his assets
frozen.”

“I’m right, Layne, because Dr. Astley isn’t
just Dr. Astley. Why do you think their court date is buried for
five and a half months? She’ll be lucky to see that, big man.
They’ll postpone and delay until she’s desperate. He doesn’t just
make money, he
comes
from it. These boys who got Roc’s life
in their hands aren’t in his pocket, they
grew up together.
They’re brothers, brother, like
you
and
me
.”

“Goddammit!” Layne exploded, pushing back
and out of his chair, curling his fist around his phone, he turned
to the window and stared out at Main Street, his fists to his
hips.

“I’m guessin’ from that reaction she didn’t
share with you,” Merry noted.

“No, she didn’t share,” Layne told the
window. “She said he was playing dirty, she just didn’t say
how.”

“Now you know.”

Layne made a decision and turned to face his
friend.

“Names,” he growled.

“What?”

“You said he was bangin’ every nurse on
staff, I want names. I want the name of every woman he even looked
at too long since two seconds after he laid eyes on Rocky.”

Merry smiled and it was cruel. “Not enough
paper in the ‘burg for that list, Tanner.”

“I’ll order a box for you on-line, have it
delivered to your condo.”

Merry nodded, still smiling but the cruelty
had gone out and humor had seeped in.

“You might find time to walk across your
street,” he suggested. “Natalie Ulrich isn’t Dr. Astley’s biggest
fan considering he’s not just a dick, he’s an arrogant dick and, if
he isn’t bonin’ the nurses, he’s givin’ them shit. Emma’s friends
with Natalie and Emma tells me Natalie’s in throes of ecstasy that
Rocky’s Merc is in your drive. Apparently, she’s big into romance
novels and she’s thinkin’ one’s playin’ out on her very own
street.”

“Natalie just got scratched on the top of my
to-do list,” Layne muttered and his phone chimed in his hand.

He dropped his head, flipped it open and saw
that Rocky had sent him the number. Nothing else, just the
digits.

Fuck.

He flipped the phone shut, tossed it on his
desk, sat back down, looked at Merry and got down to the important
shit.

“Remember when I told you everything was
fine between me and Roc?” he asked and watched Merry’s body get
tight right along with his jaw.

“Yeah.” The syllable was forced out.

“Well it’s not.”

Merry closed his eyes and whispered, “I knew
it. Fuck.”

“I need answers, Merry.”

Merry opened his eyes but he might as well
have kept them closed because he wasn’t giving a thing away.

“Do not shut down on me, brother,” Layne
warned, his voice low and quiet.

Merry looked him in the eyes and then
whispered, “I can’t, Tanner.”

“You will, Garrett,” Layne returned.
“Somethin’ is
not
right and we can’t move forward unless I
sort that shit out.” Merry shook his head. “I’m not askin’ you, I’m
tellin’ you, I need answers.”

“Layne, I can’t give you answers.” Layne
opened his mouth to speak but Merry leaned forward quickly. “I want
to, right? Okay? I want to. But, seriously, she would not be pissed
if I gave those answers to you. She would be gone. Not gone as in
take off and move to Canada gone. Gone
for me
. She’d cut me
out, Tanner. No joke. She would cease to exist for me and, big
man,” he leaned further forward, his eyes glued to Layne’s, “you
know how that feels.”

“She’s in pain,” Layne informed his friend
and Merry’s eyes closed again. “Look at me, goddammit.” Merry’s
eyes opened. “I have no clue how to play this and the plays I’ve
been makin’ either do not work for her or they don’t work for
me.”

“Only advice I can give is proceed with
caution.”

“No shit? Thanks for that, buddy, that helps
a whole fuckin’ lot,” Layne clipped.

“You didn’t hear me, Tanner,” Merry said
quietly. “Proceed with caution and the operative word in that is
proceed.
”

Layne felt his chest get tight. “What?”

Merry sat back. “I can’t give you more.”

“You can and you will.”

“Tanner, seriously.”

“Yeah, Garrett, seriously.”

“I can’t –”

Layne leaned forward. “We went out to
Swank’s, Saturday night. I walked into my house with her after,
knowin’ the biggest fool thing I could do was ask her to stay for a
drink at the same time thinkin’ about nothin’ other than how to get
her to stay for a drink. We walk in and the lights go on and we
find out a friend of mine from LA was payin’ a surprise visit.
She’s standin’ there wearing practically nothing but shoes and a
smile. Rocky sees her, she’s so fired up to get the fuck out of
there, she fell during her run for the door, went down so hard she
sprained her wrist. Before she left, she looked at me, Garrett, she
looked at me with pain and tears in her eyes and they weren’t from
hurting her wrist. That pain… that pain in her eyes shone from her
fuckin’ soul. I’d get it the next night when I threw her leavin’ me
in her face and she threw Gabby in mine. I’m tellin’ you right now,
people do not hold onto this shit. Not for this long. It’s like it
happened fuckin’ yesterday. I understand that pain I saw because I
feel
it every
goddamned time
I
look
at her.
It’s been eighteen fucking years. That shit is
not
right.
There is something I do not know, something that matters, it
mattered then and,
brother
, it still matters now.”

Merry stared at him and there was pain in
his eyes too, Layne saw it, pain for Raquel and pain for Layne.

“All I can tell you, Tanner, is that leaving
you broke her.”

“Then why the fuck did she leave?”

Losing it, Merry slammed a fist into his
armrest. “I can’t
tell
you, damn it!”

“Why?”

“I just can’t.”

“
Why?
” Layne roared.

“
I can’t tell you!
” Merry roared
back. “But I’ll tell you this, leaving you broke her but she did it
for a reason, buddy, she did it for a good fuckin’ reason. All
right? Then you knocked up Gabby and I get that, I’m a man, I get
it. Even Dad got it. Rocky did
not.
What was broken
shattered. I watched it, Dad watched it, we couldn’t do shit about
it. She didn’t pick up the pieces, man. She’s
never
picked
up the pieces.” Merry leaned toward the desk. “You wanna know why
Jarrod Astley is bein’ such a dick?” he asked but didn’t let Layne
answer, he kept talking. “Because he had heaven in his hands, he
knew it, but it was floating just above his reach. It was right
there, in his hands, but he couldn’t touch it. She never loved him.
She picked him
because
he was a dick, she knew he was a dick
and she knew she could hold herself clear of that. That didn’t mean
he didn’t want her but she never gave herself to him. But the
fucker didn’t try. He did everything wrong because he’s an asswipe,
that’s his problem. He might have been able to get in there if he
wasn’t such a dick. But he was. He’s the type of man who doesn’t
see his own faults, he blames others and he blames Rocky and, I’ll
bet my pension, brother, he also blames
you.
No one in this
‘burg over fourteen years old doesn’t know the Raquel Merrick and
Tanner Layne bittersweet love story, with Roc workin’ at that
school and bein’ how she is, that lore is passed on the first day
of freshman class. And Astley’s had that in his face for more than
ten years.”

Listening to Merry, Layne’s chest was moving
like he’d just finished a two hundred yard dash but even with all
he was getting, he was still getting nothing.

He informed Merry of that fact. “All you’re
givin’ me is more questions, Garrett.”

“Then find out the answers, Tanner, but the
only place you can get them is from Roc and, like I said,
proceed with caution
, but, fuck, man, whatever you do, for
your sake and hers, just… fuckin’…
proceed.
”

They stared at each other and Layne heard
what he was saying.

But he wasn’t twenty-four and life wasn’t
that simple.

“I got two boys who could get caught up in
this shit, brother,” Layne said softly.

“I hear you,” Merry replied, just as
softly.

“I put the effort into this, it goes bad,
I’m not the only one gets kicked in the teeth.”

“I hear you.”

“With that reminder, you got different
advice?”

Merry shook his head and repeated,
“Proceed.”

“Shit, man, do you know what you’re tellin’
me to do?”

Merry held his eyes. Then his face went
funny in a way Layne couldn’t read but the only way he saw it was
fear.

“I’m givin’ you a bonus,” he whispered and
Layne felt his chest squeeze as he waited for Merry to go on.
“Those wounds she’s got, they bleed and they bleed
deep.
Only once did those wounds dry up and that was for three years,
twenty-one years ago.”

Layne closed his eyes.

He opened them again when Merry spoke and he
saw Merry was standing, coffee cup in his hand.

“You heal her again, Tanner, you got my
eternal gratitude,” he whispered then smiled, it was small and it
was shaking. “And I’ll throw in my Harley.”

Then without another word, he left Layne’s
office.

Layne turned his head and, on the monitors,
he watched Merry walk down the stairs.

Then he sat back in his chair and rested his
head on the back of it to look at the ceiling.

He closed his eyes.

Then he made a decision.

He grabbed his phone, flipped it open and
called the management office at The Brendel, identified himself as
Rocky’s boyfriend and told them to get their security firm to her
apartment to set up the sensors and change her locks. They
demurred, he convinced them.

Then he disconnected, scrolled down his
phonebook and hit go on Devin Glover, a PI he’d worked a variety of
cases on a variety of occasions in a variety of locations. Dev was
long in the tooth; he was a spy during the Cold War; he taught
Layne everything he knew that was worth knowing; and he was the
best friend Layne had ever had.

When he disconnected from Dev, he texted
Rocky. “Sensors will be set up. Contacting you. I’ll be there when
they do it.”

He was in his SUV, navigating his
development when his phone chimed.

Rocky’s text, “Fine. I’ll let you know.”

He drove to his house, parked in his drive
but didn’t bother with the garage door.

His text back, “My place. Tonight. 6. T is
making Hamburger Helper.”

He was walking across the cul-de-sac to
Natalie’s house when he got her quickly returned text.

“Sorry, papers to grade. Tomorrow. Six.”

He smiled at the phone, flipped it shut and
lifted his fist to knock on Natalie’s door.

He checked it because it swung open before
he could connect.

“Hey Tanner,” she smiled.

“Natalie,” he smiled back. “Got a
second?”

She moved back, opening the door.

Layne walked in.

* * * * *

“You set up?” Layne said into the phone.

“Your couch in your office is shit, boy,”
Dev said back.

“I offered to put you up at a hotel,” Layne
reminded him.

“Hotel beds are shittier than your couch,”
he shot back.

Dev would know, he’d slept on enough of
them.

“Tomorrow night, at dinner, you meet Rocky,
you’ll quit your bitchin’,” Layne told him. “And once I introduce
you to the boys, you can have the couch in the living room.”

Dev could be intense, his mood always
unpredictable and Layne was working, not around to run interference
during an introduction to Jasper and Tripp and he didn’t want Dev
showing up at the house and doing something, which Dev would do,
and freaking out his sons. So he left Mimi the key to his office
and gave Dev his security codes.

“She a looker?” Dev asked, his curiosity
piqued. Dev was sixty-four years old and still a ladies man.

“You remember Eva?” Layne asked.

Silence for a beat then, with disbelief,
“Better?”

“Oh yeah,” Layne answered.

“Fuck, boy,” Dev muttered then disconnected
without a good-bye.

Layne threw his cell on the seat next to
him. He’d just sealed the deal on his latest case and he’d been
right, it hadn’t taken long, less time than he expected. He just
had to pull together the file, hand it over, send the invoice and
get paid and he was glad to be rid of it. It was sucking all his
time. Billable hours but, with all the stuff raining down on him
and Rocky, he needed to be shot of it and was pleased as fuck he
was.

The entrance to his development was coming
up on his right but he didn’t indicate. He’d called Jasper earlier
to tell him to set up pasta bake for Keira on Tuesday but they were
on their own that night and he’d see them in the morning. He also
shared he was spending the night over at Rocky’s because her
security was shit. Jasper didn’t ask questions but, after informing
him of this fact, Jasper’s voice took on a “you the man” tone.

Layne looked at the clock on his dash. It
was after midnight and he reckoned Rocky wouldn’t be real fired up
to answer her door to him at that hour.

Or, possibly,
any
hour.

But he couldn’t give a fuck. He’d sleep on
her couch tonight. Tomorrow and for as long as it took, he’d work
on getting in her bed.

Or Rocky in his.

And eventually both.

He was just passed the entrance to his
development and about to flip his indicator light on to take the
left into Rocky’s complex when he saw a Mercedes of her make, model
and color pull out in front of him and when his eyes swept the
plates, he saw it was hers.