“If you would’ve waited, maybe I would’ve let you in on it,” he slings the touché, still begrudging that she duped him earlier. “Come on.” He offers up his hand for them to leave.
“I can’t go. I have to fix this. Johnny’s still locked up.” She stomps her foot, a small dust cloud puffing up around it.
“Not for long. Dr. Godfrey’s on his way,” Lon informs. “Now, come on. We need to get out of here before someone sees us.”
She stalls against his prodding hand. “You sent Dr. Godfrey?”
He counters her opposition by slinging her over his shoulder, briskly trekking back toward his Scout, hidden and awaiting just down the road.
“I didn’t
send
Dr. Godfrey,” he begins, drowning out her rebuttal to his manhandling. “He was Johnny’s one phone call. I bartered with the creepy little dude. Fingerprints for the safety of that damn skull,” Lon’s frustration with the oblong novelty surfacing. “I wish we had never found that thing.” He contemplates all of the bad luck since.
“Fingerprints? Whose?” She continues to interrogate, the information taking her mind off the fact that Lon carries her much like a feed sack.
“Dr. Shaw’s henchmen. The two responsible for cutting your parents’ brakes. That night at the marsh.” His words grow intermittent, the exertion from carrying her causing his lungs to crave air. “Their fingerprints are all over that lab.”
“Well, so are mine. Yours,” Brianna quickly recalls their testing only a few days ago. “Dr. Shaw’s and Dr. Godfrey’s, too. How will CSI distinguish which ones are hostile?”
“The skull,” he answers. “Dr. Godfrey gave it to me to plant in the henchmen’s home by way of the trunk of their car. Then he reports the skull is missing from the laboratory rubble.”
“CSI searches the homes and property belonging to each set of fingerprints found until they come across the skull,” Brianna keenly finishes his thought. “Where’s this car?” she prods, symbolism that she aims to help him in planting the chrome-dome.
“At the compound. Around the other side. Sitting in the middle of all of those other black Town Cars,” he says quickly, his focus in getting them out of dodge. Nearing his Scout hidden in the brush, he sees her silver coupe out in the open along the side of the road. Shaking his head, he scolds as he puts her down, “There are patrol cars all over this road. You couldn’t find a better place to park?”
“Don’t you think they’re going to search those cars. Everything on that lot is going to be combed over.” She ignores his reprimand. “What does it prove if the skull is found in the trunk of their car? On the property? Which I’m sure is owned by Dr. Shaw anyway. He could just vouch for them.”
“They already searched those cars. This morning. After the explosion,” Lon dismisses, growing perturbed at her reluctance to trust him. Equally concerned with their immediate departure, he assists her to her car as fast as he talks. “They have no use to search them again. Nobody’s allowed on that property without the proper credentials.”
“You got onto that property,” she argues, eyeing him, impressed. “How’d you do that anyway?”
“You and Johnny aren’t the only ones who can trespass.” He defies their adventures of old, opening her driver’s side door. “Now get in, and follow me.”
“Where are we going?” She can’t help herself from asking, needing to know the plan.
Lon exhales deeply, his patience dissipating. “Will you just for once in your life trust me? Let me lead.”
Brianna runs her hand alongside the attractively masculine angle of his jaw, her eyes apologizing for her penetrating behavior. “Yes. I can do that. Just one more question,” she probes.
“You’re killing me here,” he says, a quiet growl releasing.
“How does the skull make it from the car into the henchmen’s home?” The cogwheels of her brain surely would seep smoke through her ears if such a process occurred naturally.
Lon grins. Part of the reason he’s attracted to her—her mind—so curious, like the Energizer bunny, it never stops. “They’re running an errand for Dr. Shaw tomorrow morning. They’ll be allowed to drive right out of the compound in that Town Car.”
“The ‘proper’ credentials,” Brianna chirps, loving how this mystery plays out. “That establishes means and opportunity.” She counts off numbers one and three of the standard aspects of a crime that must be established before guilt can be determined in a criminal proceeding as she has learned in her pre-law courses.
Lon nods. “There’s a duffel bag in the trunk. One they have instructions to carry home with them. They never open these bags. They simply transport them to and from. True henchmen,” he remarks of their lackey, no-questions-asked behavior.
“Per Dr. Shaw’s instructions,” she continues unraveling the clues.
“Yes. But, what they don’t know. Dr. Shaw doesn’t even know. Is that Dr. Godfrey gave me a new bag to switch out with the original. With some pretty incriminating documentation that makes it look like they were going to sell the skull to ETNA’s largest competitor.”
“Motive.” She snaps her fingers, number two now equally taken care of in the legal trifecta. “Oh, I love it,” her voice escalates in pitch prior to releasing her best villainous chuckle. “The henchmen think Dr. Shaw set them up. Dr. Shaw thinks his henchmen turned rogue. The skull goes into safe keeping as evidence.”
“Yes. Yes. And sort of,” Lon confirms. “Now, get in and follow me.” Gently pushing her down into the driver’s seat, he closes her in before hustling back to his Scout to lead the way for their departure.
“‘Sort of?’ What does he mean ‘sort of?’ The skull goes into police custody…right?” Brianna continues questioning as she pulls out behind him, her mind unwilling to give up. “Unless!”
Lon helps Brianna off the sturdy pirogue after docking it at his parents’ house deep in Bayou Country. A backpack slung over his shoulder, he quickly leads her to the backyard. The Louisiana night is dark except for a vibrant waning moon looming high above. Brianna clings to his arm, the sounds of the wetlands still a bit intimidating for a girl who grew up in
the burbs.
“Now will you tell me what you meant by ‘sort of?’” Her mind still chews over his unanswered indication. She nestles in across from him, kneeling on the ground, her anticipation bubbling over of what they are about to do (of which, she has no idea).
Lon takes a moment to relish in her undivided attention, enjoying having her on a string—a very strange turn of events considering he’s usually the one knotted up over her. Reining in his smitten grin, he places the backpack between them disclosing its contents. There in the twilight, the troublesome oblong skull takes on a most mystical appearance.
“You never put the skull in the duffel bag? Then how do you propose to frame Dr. Shaw’s goons?” Brianna reaches out her hand, the urge to touch the dingy white cranium enticing.
Lon intercepts her hand, a warning not to make contact with the troublesome novelty. “There
is
a skull in the duffel bag. An exact replica,” he informs. “But this skull,” looking at it as if it’s the cause of all the world’s problems, he continues, “needs to be buried six feet under. We tell no one. Not even Johnny. We forget about it, completely.” He looks to Brianna awaiting her acknowledgment.
“I don’t tell him everything.” Her expression grows annoyed with the insinuation.
“Good. You should watch yourself around him. And I’m not saying that from a jealous boyfriend perspective,” he explains. “I’m just saying, a person doesn’t go through all the things Johnny’s been through in his life and turn out to be a genuinely nice guy.”
“Then why are you even friends with him, if he’s so
bad?”
Her tone is doubtful of the easy-to-use adjective otherwise very fitting of the bad boy.
“Didn’t say I didn’t like him. He lived with us for a year, Brie. I think I know him…the real Johnny…a little better than you. And regardless of how many selfless things he does, like taking the fall for me…for
you.”
Lon knows who Johnny ultimately sacrificed himself for. “He’s still going to look out for number one. It’s in his nature. He can’t help it.”
“I know,” she agrees, contemplating his upbringing. “It’s just that he can be so good, Lon. I mean, he’s helped me. He’s helped you. I think he just gets a little misdirected, that’s all.”
He chuckles. “Misdirected is not the word for Johnny. If you think he doesn’t calculate every move like pawns on a chest board, you’re fooling yourself. The guy is smart. He plays it off well, but he’s in total control.” Lon pulls out a folding, survival shovel from his backpack. “He’s down there making deals with Dr. Godfrey right now.”
“But you did the same thing,” she defends. “And technically, you tricked the creepy little guy.” Her face crinkles up with the thought of the peculiar and petite hematologist. “If this is the original skull, Dr. Godfrey doesn’t even get what he wanted out of the deal. And how did you get a replica to put in the goons duffel bag?”
“I had that replica made awhile back. I’ve just been waiting on my chance to use it.” Lon shrugs. “This came up and he handed me the original. Just like that. Handed it right over to me,” he repeats, dumbfounded, considering how Dr. Godfrey is most protective of his
extraterrestrial
treasures. “So I took my shot.”
“Sounds pretty
calculating
to me,” Brianna makes a point of comparing him to his aforementioned description of Johnny.
Lon plays her off, digging into the ground with his shovel in preparation to get rid of the skull indefinitely.
“So, how did you get a replica? And then, how did you get the fingerprints on it?” She continues probing as she watches him intently, a new affinity surfacing at his resourcefulness.
“I made the replica. At school. In the lab,” he says nonchalantly as if anyone could do it. “What good is a mechanical engineering degree if I can’t make a simple replica?” Considering the ease with which he aces his courses, he is sincere in simplifying the process. “The fingerprints…they came compliments of Johnny’s cousin.”
“But won’t that interfere with your plans of keeping this skull thing a secret?” Brianna leaves no question unanswered, her mind molding into that of a critical thinker with her law education.
“His cousin has no idea that the skull he duplicated fingerprints on was fake.” Lon continues to throw mounds of grass and dirt off to the side, his trench growing deeper. “You and me. We’re the only two people who know about this skull and its whereabouts.”
On the heels of his sentence, a howl of a far-off neighboring dog is released, echoing through the afterglow of the night sky.
Brianna flinches, her lips curling upward into a reminiscent grin. “You, me and the giant winged dog,” she boasts spookily, reliving Lon’s Milky Way story of old, her eyes trailing above in search of the dim glowing band.
He stops digging momentarily. “You remember that story?”
“I remember everything about you,” she answers bashfully.
Her mind recalling the most recent memory of their bodies becoming one last night, images of their heated, glistening skin grinding one against the other cause her to release an involuntary moan eager for a repeat. Her chin descends toward her chest, the ability to maintain eye contact having failed her with her salacious reply.
Already up on his haunches from digging, Lon lays his shovel down to the side. Supporting his body weight on closed fists, he walks them toward Brianna. She welcomes him, her hands meander the length of his bare and flexing arms.
“So many long, torturous days passed me by. And I thought of you, each and every one,” he returns the affection, his lips thirsty in indulging in the moisture of hers. “Your taste. Your touch.” He shivers momentarily, goose bumps forming on the skin of his arms as she trails her fingernails over it. “Your smell.” His face hovering about hers, he inhales her from her neck to her ear filling his lungs with the sweet scent. “You haunted me, Brie.”
“I know,” she emits through a whisper, having felt her own pain with his absence. “But I’m here now. We never have to be apart again.” She cups his face in her hands, pressing her lips to his, kissing him slowly, deeply, hungrily, the flawless contact making right the wrong in Johnny’s kiss at the jail cell. Withdrawing her mouth, her lungs search for air, picking up on the scent of his five o’clock shadow rich with marijuana. “You been smoking? You carry it with you? Lon?” Her passion turning to concern, quite inconvenient in ruining the moment.
He disengages from her, picks up the shovel and carries on with his digging. “Yes. I smoked. On the way over here. In my Scout. I can’t do it here. At my parents’,” he reasons.
“You can’t go one night without it?” She wonders how strong his addiction is.
“Yes. I can go without it. I just don’t want to.” He shrugs. “Brie, it’s a part of me. Who I am. What I do. It’s no different than having a drink every night or smoking cigarettes or overeating,” he justifies. “It’s an indulgence and I like the way it makes me feel. Now, can we just drop it,” the plea comes out as more of an order than a question.
“Sure,” she huffs, instantly turned off by his tone and his weakness for Mary Jane.
An awkward silence passes between them as Lon finishes up his digging. Having created a sizable grave, more deep than wide, he gently picks up the skull in preparation to put it in its final resting place.
“Wait,” Brianna petitions. “Today. When you and Johnny were fighting. Well, after you were done fighting,” she corrects, “remember, you spit in the grass and then he did?” Her face contorts at the primitive gestures.
“If you say so.” He is unsure of exactly what he did in the heat of the moment.
“This might sound crazy…” She stops herself, considering how pretty much every event that has involved the corrupt skull seems like some drummed-up, cockamamy, whopper of a story. “But anyway. Today. When you two spit in the grass. On the same spot. I swear to God, Lon, it sparkled that same fluorescent emerald green color that you and I saw on our palms that night at the marsh.”
He tilts his head as if he wants to disbelieve her confession, yet somehow halfway buys it, all things considered. “Johnny wasn’t there that night at the marsh. And you told me yourself that you haven’t seen that glow since. Neither have I.”