“Kelly and I never had a future.” Jake’s voice cracked to an octave so low it sounded as if it hurt to speak. “Was there an attraction? Yes. But that’s where it ended. For me at least. I know she wanted something more.”
“And how long are you going to keep that up, Jake?” Lena shoved him in the shoulder. “I know you, and you’re not built for the short game, no matter what you tell yourself. You don’t become the sheriff of a county because you have commitment issues. What are you protecting yourself from?”
Jake stayed quiet for a moment, and Lena didn’t think he would answer. But she was surprised when he did. “Do you remember when Mom and Dad went through their divorce?”
“Yeah. It was brought up quite a bit in my sessions at rehab.”
“All of the arguing, all of the madness, all of the bickering and back and forth and blah, blah, blah.” Jake worked his hand like a puppet. The hum of traffic had picked up the closer they moved to the city, and the truck rattled from a semitruck that barreled by. “They were just so angry all of the time. That’s all I remember from them being together.”
“They weren’t angry all of the time.” Though Lena conceded that their childhood wasn’t the most peaceful upbringing. But if either of them had used their parents’ marriage as a role model for their real life, then it was her. “You can’t blame Mom and Dad for your commitment issues.”
“I don’t. In fact, the only thing I remember more vividly about them arguing all of the time was when the divorce finally happened,” Jake said. “They were so happy. There wasn’t any more fighting or bickering. They were better alone, standing on their own two feet. That’s the way I am, Lena. I’m just better on my own. I’m happier that way.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“It’s not an easy truth, but it’s mine. And that’s the way I like it.”
The words resonated with Lena for a moment, pinging around in the depths of her mind. She thought of all the times she got high, alone, with other people, when she was pregnant, when Gwen was just a baby. She did it because it made her happy. She felt good. She felt alive. There wasn’t anything else like it in the world.
Lena ran the tip of her finger over the diamond of her wedding ring. She remembered what Mark had said about finding the perfect moment to ask her to marry him and realizing that moment didn’t exist. And that what was most important was a future together and creating something perfect out of the imperfect. “Just because something makes you happy doesn’t mean it’s good for you. I’m living proof of that.”
“You had an addiction. That doesn’t—”
“Everybody has an addiction, Jake.” The city’s skyline sprouted on the horizon, and they’d entered the outer limits of Bismarck. Lena looked out to the street corners, where they passed hundreds of people. All of them in a rush to get somewhere or meet with someone. She saw a few of the homeless people crouched and hiding down alleyways—the only ones that didn’t seem to have anywhere to go. “It just comes in different forms.”
The heavy congestion in the city slowed their progress and tacked on another hour through downtown. After spotting the gun store in the north of the city, they circled the block a few times to get a layout of the area. Both the parking lot and the store itself looked empty.
Jake parked the truck two blocks down. When she reached for the seatbelt, he nudged her arm. “Take it.” A small revolver lay in Jake’s palm, and Lena looked at it, confused. He thrust it closer. “We’re walking into a store with a man who owns hundreds of these things and provides shady characters with weapons for murders. Take it.”
Lena hesitated for a moment, her fingers dangling over the top of the weapon. When she reached for the pistol’s handle it felt heavier than she thought it would. She tucked the weapon into her pocket, and Jake once again grabbed her arm.
“You don’t use that unless there isn’t any other way. Got it?”
“Yeah.” Both stepped out of the truck, and Lena shuffled her feet quickly across the sidewalk. A heightened sense of awareness took control, and it stemmed from the weight of the pistol she felt clanging against the side of her leg. Lena recognized a few of the streets in the surrounding neighborhood. Flashes of her days as a user replayed in her memory. All of the wasted time and money she had spent down here was enough to make her sick.
An old woman passed Lena on the street. Her head was down, and her clothes were ratty and dirty. Her skin was weathered from a lifetime of street walking. The grimace she flashed was nearly toothless, and the teeth she did have were crooked and rotting in her blackened gums. She gave Lena the once-over then returned her dazed eyes down to her feet.
Lena shifted her glance from the old crow to Jake. In another reality, that could have been her on the streets. She was lucky to have had him when she finally decided to get clean. There wasn’t anyone else she could call. No one else that she could lean on. If it weren’t for Jake, god only knows what would have happened to Gwen.
Jake stopped at the corner of the store and waited for her to catch up. “You ready?”
There was a flutter in Lena’s stomach, and her pulse had skyrocketed. “Yeah.” Jake stepped inside first, and she followed close behind. The plan was to speak as little as possible. All they needed was confirmation of who had purchased the bullets. Once they had that, then they’d be gone.
The inside of the store was small. A scent of metal mixed with old wood filled the air. Near the cash register, an old man flipped the pages of a newspaper. Hundreds of guns were planted on the wall behind him. It wasn’t until both Jake and Lena were at the counter that he finally acknowledged them. “What do you want?”
Jake placed both hands on the edge of the countertop. “We need to take a look at your security tapes.”
The old man scoffed, and Lena saw that he had a few missing teeth of his own. “Who the fuck are you?” He squinted his eyes at both of them. “I don’t see any badges. Get the fuck out of my store.” The newspaper crinkled as he turned the page and returned to his articles.
Lena watched Jake’s right hand curl into a fist and then strike the old man in the face so hard that it knocked him off the stool he was perched upon. Blood poured from his crooked nose and onto his shirt as he moaned in pain. “What the hell?”
Jake hopped over the counter and lifted the old man off the floor and slammed him against the back wall, where a few of the guns fell from their perches. He looked back to Lena, who stood there with her hand in her pocket and realized that she gripped the pistol’s handle. “Go lock the door.”
Lena froze for a moment, staring at the old man squirming under Jake’s hand. She released her hold on the steel in her pocket and flipped the Open sign to Closed and slid the bolt lock into its secure hole.
Grunts and crashes echoed behind her, and when she turned, Jake had flipped the old man to his back across the counter, where he flapped his arms and legs like a turtle on its shell. Jake gripped his throat. The old man’s face turned a bright red.
“Now, this is what’s gonna happen, old man.” The muscles along Jake’s arm rippled, keeping the squirming gun-store owner in place. “We know you sold some armor-piercing rounds a few days ago. All we need to know is who bought them. We’re going to show you some pictures, and then you’re going to tell me if they’re the men who purchased the bullets. Got it?” The old man gargled something, and Jake released pressure on the man’s throat. “What was that?”
“Fuck you!” Spit flew from the old man’s lips along with the curse.
Lena hovered close by. She reached into her pocket, past the revolver, and removed her phone. She showed him the first picture. It was Ken Lang. “Was it him?”
The old man stayed quiet, his cheeks a light shade of purple now. Jake picked him up and then slammed him back down on the wood. “Answer her!”
Lena gripped the old man’s collar as well, shoving the phone’s screen closer to his face. All of the desperation and fear and anxiety and frustration transformed into an anger that she hadn’t felt since her days as an addict. The grip of addiction curled its bony fingers around her mind, and she reached into her pocket and removed the pistol. She felt Jake’s eyes on her as she placed the pistol against the man’s temple, but he didn’t stop her.
The old man stopped shaking once the barrel was pressed against his skin, and he winced when Lena jammed the pistol harder into his skull. She showed him the picture one more time. “Was this the man that bought the bullets last Tuesday?”
The old man paused for a second then shook his head. Lena felt the grip of madness loosen slightly. At least she knew Ken was telling the truth now. She thumbed through the photos until she came upon a picture of Scott Ambers, which she showed him. “Was it this man?”
The old man squinted then shook his head.
Lena frowned, moving the picture closer. “You’re sure?”
The old man nodded.
Lena removed the pistol from Pete’s temple, and her arms fell to her sides as she slowly backed away. Who else could it have been? If it wasn’t either of them, then the line of suspects that wanted to harm her and her family stretched for a least a mile. And she didn’t have access to the photos of every employee of New Energy.
“Lena,” Jake said, still holding the old man down. “Get the cuffs out of my back pocket.”
She nodded and fished the pieces of steel out. But when Jake reached for them the old man thrashed wildly and slipped out of Jake’s hold and ducked back behind the counter.
The next few seconds happened faster than any moment of Lena’s life. The old man leapt from behind the counter, wielding a shotgun. The barrel was aimed at Jake, who had lunged forward to try and stop him. But the gap between the two was just too far.
Almost on instinct, Lena raised the revolver from her side, the sights of the gun lined up at the old man’s chest. Just before he managed to shoot, she squeezed the trigger. The gunshot blast and the old man’s grunt of pain were simultaneous. The shotgun fell from his hands, and he dropped to the floor with it.
Jake jumped over the counter and snatched the weapon out of the old man’s reach, but it wasn’t necessary. Blood oozed from the wound and a lifeless stare was plastered on Pete’s face. Lena clutched the revolver with both hands, her arms still rigid and aimed at the wall where the old man had once been, where there was now only a splatter of blood. There was a slight ache to her ears and head from the noise of the gunshot, but there was also an overwhelming sense of numbness.
When Jake stood from behind the counter, there was blood on his sleeves. He picked up the cash register and slammed it on the ground. The crash snapped Lena out of her daze, and the pistol dropped from her hand. “Oh my god.”
Jake removed the cash from the register and stuffed it into his pockets. “We’ve got less than five minutes before police show up, maybe more if no one heard the gunshot, but I doubt it. Give me your phone.” He held out his hand, but Lena didn’t move. “Your phone, Lena, now!”
She reached into her pocket and handed it to him. He dialed a number, and she watched him untuck his shirt and wipe down the register, cleaning it of his fingerprints. He kept the phone pressed to his ear for a few seconds then hung up and tossed the phone back to her. “What was that?”
Jake walked over to the door and started wiping down the edges of the handle where Lena had grabbed it along with the closed sign. He looked in the corners of the room for any cameras but found nothing. “When the authorities check your phone records after this is over, they’ll see that you called 9-1-1.” Jake picked the pistol off the floor and stuffed it into his pocket. “C’mon, we need to go.”
“But why—”
“We have to go now, Lena!” Jake grabbed her arm, but Lena couldn’t take her eyes off the bloodstain on the wall behind the counter. All of the drugs she’d taken, all of the alcohol she had drunk, all of the times she’d blacked out, only a handful of them involved violence, and even those instances were nothing more than some shoving or a few punches thrown.
But now there was a dead man behind the counter. It wasn’t over drugs, or alcohol, it was to protect her children. She had done that. She had killed him. Now, even if she found Kaley, the authorities wouldn’t let them stay together.
***
Ken kept his distance from Mark at the house. He always made it a point to make sure there was some form of a barrier between the two of them. But with Mark seemingly refusing to move from the kitchen, and Ken’s growing thirst, that rule was about to break.
Mark’s eyes followed Ken all the way to the cabinet, where Ken removed a glass and then stepped over to the fridge. Ken glanced behind him as he filled his cup and saw Mark’s eyes still locked on him. With his cup full he quickly turned on his heel and made a beeline for the couch.
“It’s more than just your life that’s at stake.”
Ken stopped just before he reached the edge of the living room. He turned around. The lamp hanging from the ceiling cast the features of Mark’s face in harsh shadows. He clutched the glass of water with both hands and took one step forward. “Mr. Hayes, I can’t imagine—”
“No, you can’t.” The words were cold and harsh. Mark stood up and stepped around the table. Ken looked back to the door and the deputies out front. Though he wasn’t sure how much help they were going to be. “The people you work for are evil men. Some of the worst bastards I’ve ever seen. And you
chose
to work for them. You
chose
to help them. You used your slick words to trick people into thinking that what you were doing was helping them. But you weren’t. You were only helping yourself. Just like you’re doing now.”
Ken bumped into the recliner on his retreat. “You’re right. I knew the type of people I was working for. I’ve always known it. I didn’t care about who was in the path of my steamroller. It was a job. And the job needed to be done. But you want to know another truth?” He paused. Anger took hold, and after all of the shit that he’d been through he didn’t care about the man in front of him. He didn’t care about Lena Hayes, or Kaley Hayes, or the oil company and the profits they hoped to obtain with their land deals with some foreign investor half a world away. He just wanted to get to his family. “I can imagine what this is like for you. I know the fear that’s gripped your senses and controls everything you do. You can’t escape it, you can’t stop it.” Ken clenched his fist tight and raised it between the two of them. “You just have to take it.” He lowered his hand. “Yes, your family is in pain. And, yes, I helped the men who most likely took your daughter. But if I had been told that’s what they planned on doing, I would have walked out a long time ago.”