Unbreakable: A Section 8 Novel (A Section Eight Novel) (7 page)

Gunner looked him in the eye and started to make something up. Mike would believe it—and Gunner wished he could believe it too. Instead, he told the man, “I got out of something bad the only way I knew how.”

Mike nodded.

“I’ve got to get out of here. I won’t bring anything but trouble to you and your family.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Mike said.

Josie continued. “Besides, that’s what the ceremony was for. It cleared away the evil that surrounded you. Purified you.”

Josie said this as though everyone knew that.

“So what, I’m like new now?”

“In a way, yes.”

He’d gotten out of bed and nearly collapsed on her. She caught him, chided, “Come on, James.”

“How’d you know that?” Because if memory served, he’d been wearing cargo pants and nothing else, had no ID or money. Nothing else when Landon’s men dumped him from the car after beating him. Almost like a reverse gang ritual. He had no doubt they’d meant to kill him in one of the most painful ways possible.

“You told me,” Josie said simply.

She sat next to him on the bed and Mike asked, “Are they going to come looking for you?”

“Considering they dumped him in the middle of the swamp, I guess they figured local wildlife would take care of the body.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Two weeks.”

“And nobody’s come asking about me?”

“We’re pretty well insulated from strangers around here. Between the geography and the Cajuns, any outsider steps foot in this parish and it’s known before your shoe hits the dirt,” Mike said. “Which is how we found you.”

W
h
en Mike and Andy told her and Jem the story of finding Gunner barely alive in the bayou, Avery gritted her teeth together so hard her head ached.

“I don’t know how he was still alive,” Mike was saying. “He was . . . Jesus, I thought he was dead when the dog found him. Petey tried to drag him up the porch and then howled when he couldn’t.”

“Petey was a good judge of character,” Andy added. “He’d bitten over half the damned parish, but with Gunner, he wouldn’t leave his side, no matter how hard we tried to get him to leave the poor guy alone.”

Avery pulled the blanket farther around her shoulders and sipped at the strong coffee Mike had made. “Did he remember anything?”

“I think he remembered everything, but he didn’t tell us. Not then. Not until he’d realized he’d fallen in love with Josie. He came clean to us about his father and Landon then,” Mike said. “He’d been through hell. But he had a drive . . . after everything happened, we tried to convince him to go right into the military. I wish we’d convinced him.”

“He didn’t want to?” Avery asked.

“Partly. And Josie didn’t help. She wanted him here, with her. They were like two kids. I think it was the first time Gunner actually had a childhood.” Mike smiled as he remembered.

“They were good together,” Andy agreed, and then looked at Avery. “Sorry, hon—does this bother you?”

“No, it doesn’t. Anything that made Gunner happy . . .” She trailed off and Jem put a hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll get him back if I have to drag him by the hair,” he assured her.

She laughed a little, then pointed to Mike’s arm. “Did Gunner do any of those tattoos?”

He pointed to one. “This was one of his first. He learned from Josie.”

“I think I really would’ve liked Josie,” she said.

“You two are very different,” Andy told her. “But I think you would’ve been tight.”

That meant a lot to her. She felt as though she needed the dead woman’s blessing to move forward with Gunner.

“Gunner was a natural with the tattooing. He’s a great artist.” Mike pointed to the wall behind her. She turned to see a charcoal drawing of a young woman, hugging a dog and smiling.

Josie.
So pretty. So young.

I knew he loved you because he drew you,
Billie told her in so many words. And Avery would hold on to that with everything she had.

•   •   •

Jo
sie was the first person Gunner had sketched since he’d moved to Powell’s island. He couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d tried, found himself scratching the pencil on paper, watching Josie playing with Petey. She hadn’t interrupted him, not until he put the paper down and stretched his cramped hands.

He’d drawn several versions of her, because he’d been rusty—and determined to get it right.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful. My art needs work. Been a while.”

“Why’s that?”

He didn’t tell her that killing people and art didn’t exactly go together. “I haven’t wanted to. Not until now.”

“I can’t really draw,” she admitted. “I can freehand things when I tattoo, but it’s basic stuff. Charms and things like that. But you’ve got talent.”

She’d known some traditional tattooing methods, using sticks and ink and man, were painful but beautiful, and she was also handy with the tattoo gun. Her mother had dated a tattoo artist when Josie was small and she’d taken to it easily.

The first several weeks when Gunner was hiding and healing, she’d noticed him doodling and drawing on any scrap of paper he was near. He hadn’t noticed—it was something he hadn’t done since his mother had died. Before that, his mother used to tease him that any available space would be filled with his drawings.

When she’d died, he’d opened one of her suitcases and found a large stack of his drawings, from some of his earliest doodles to some of the most recent. He’d lost that suitcase after moving to Powell’s. He had little doubt that Powell took one look at it, dismissed it as sentimental rubbish and burned it.

Thankfully, you couldn’t burn memories as easily.

Josie had let him give her a tattoo, the first one he’d ever done. He’d been nervous, hadn’t wanted to mar her beautiful skin. Hadn’t wanted to make a mistake. But the bold, funny, raunchy woman told him that mistakes were what made life interesting.

“We can fix anything, James,” she’d added.

He’d used the gun, not the sticks. It took him months before he was comfortable with that method, and it still wasn’t exactly his bag. He’d let the buzz of the needle mesmerize him. She’d insisted that he use it freehand, tattoo the first thing that came to his mind.

He’d drawn a butterfly.

“I love it, James,” she’d told him.

“I don’t think you want to get involved with me.”

“Then stop thinking,” she’d said, right before she’d kissed him.

They’d made love for the first time that night. Lying on her mattress stuffed with cypress leaves and smelling like lavender and other scents that would forever remind him of Josie, he’d told her that he loved her.

Didn’t know how he was capable of that still, but he hadn’t wanted to question it.

Those were some of the good memories. The escape he’d made from the life with Landon into Josie’s arms was one he’d never chosen, but he’d been happy with it. Would he have stayed that way?

He’d never gotten the chance to know.

“Maybe your past will just let you go,” she’d said. And, for a year, it had. And then it had sunk its claws back into his life with a vicious vengeance that rocked his life to this day.

Don’t go there,
he warned himself, but too much whiskey brought up too many memories, and he was in the right mood to torture himself.

Josie had been raised by two men who were both SEALs. She knew how to fight, how to use weapons. She hadn’t fought, hadn’t seen it coming. She’d never been given a chance.

He wanted to run out the door, follow a trail to her killer before it got cold. But all he could do was kneel in slow motion beside her body and gather Josie in his arms. He didn’t know how long he’d sat there holding her when he realized Andy was shaking him. Moving him aside so Mike could check the body.

“Look at me. You have to leave. James, do you understand? You have to get the hell out of here now,” Andy was saying to him. Somehow, even in his state of mourning, he heard that. Pushed himself shakily to his feet.

“I’ll go.”

Andy propelled him onto the back porch. Started stripping him, and it was then Gunner realized his clothes were stained with Josie’s blood. His body shook and he got sick over the side of the porch. Andy held him so he didn’t fall over.

He wanted to ask why Andy was helping him. Wanted the man to punch him out. To stab him, shoot him, accuse him outright. But the being nice was the biggest and most effective dagger that sank directly into his heart.

He was paralyzed with shame and fear. And he couldn’t admit to Andy where he’d been, although the man was far from stupid. He and Mike had to suspect something.

He let Andy strip him, take his clothes and burn them out in the swamp, where the remains would be quickly swallowed by the bayou. Mike brought out a packed bag, new clothes, while Gunner washed with the pump in the back so he didn’t drag any more blood through the house.

“I’m going to call the police in a couple of hours. We’re going to say this was a home invasion and that you’re away, visiting a friend. I have a Navy buddy who’ll provide the cover story for you,” Mike said. “You have to leave. James, do you understand?”

“I’ll go.”

“James.” He was forced to look into Mike’s eyes. “We’re not kicking you out. We’re protecting you.”

“Why?”

“Josie would never forgive us if we didn’t.”

He hadn’t seen Mike or Andy since he’d left that night. They hadn’t lied about helping him. They’d set him up to have shelter, to get new identification and paperwork, to create an entirely new life that led him into the Navy and then the SEALs and finally into a shop back in New Orleans where he tattooed people and helped mercenaries like himself in an attempt to pay back the penance he owed.

He’d learned lessons. Done what he could to erase a past he’d stepped back into.

But Avery was safe, and he’d never regret that.

•   •   •

It was almost midnight by the time they’d sat down to eat. Andy had cooked while Avery, Mike and Jem utilized different computers, Jem and Mike searching for any trace of Gunner, while Avery answered e-mails from Dare and Grace so they wouldn’t worry.

She was starving and the food was delicious. Reminded her of how Gunner would co
ok for her.

“You should both stay here for now. Safer for all of us,” Mike told them as he gave her and Jem seconds.

He was right and Jem, who knew it too, said, “I’ve got to move my truck.”

Andy pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out keys, tossed them at Jem. “I already put it into our garage and brought your bags in.”

Jem grunted. “Could still take you out, squid.”

Andy snorted and Mike looked over at her.

“Thank you,” she said. She’d been quiet after they’d talked some more about what Gunner was dealing with. She was trying to absorb everything, and it proved overwhelming. “I should call the hospital about Billie Jean—let her know we’re okay if she comes through. When she comes through,” she corrected.

“I’ll make sure she knows you’re okay,” Mike said. “I already checked with my contact from the hospital. She made it through surgery. Still critical, but they’re hopeful. She’s opened her eyes and she’s spoken to the police briefly.”

“What about his other ex-wives?” she asked, assuming that Mike and Andy knew about that too.

“I’ve got guys on both of them. One’s in Europe—hard to find. The other’s in Colorado. She’s staying with friends, being careful.”

“Good.” She finished the rice and beans and sausage, ate more fresh bread and finished her beer. Now that her stomach was full and she knew that Billie was okay, it was time to turn her mind back to Gunner and the rescue effort. “How do we bring a man back who doesn’t want to come back?”

“I’ve always found waterboarding to be pretty effective,” Jem said, then stopped when they all just stared at him. “Not what we were going for?”

Mike and Andy looked at each other and shrugged. “We were about to try it on you,” Andy told Jem.

“Not the worst idea I’ve heard,” Mike agreed, and Jem nodded sagely, as though he agreed with the fact that they’d been planning on torturing him.

She took a long drink of beer, then asked, “You think that’s really going to work on him?”

“I think it’s the only thing he’ll understand at this point,” Jem said.

“He’s only been with Landon for a couple of weeks, at the most,” she pointed out.

“That’s more than enough,” Jem told her.

She asked the question she’d been dreading, the one she knew the answer to. “Do you think he agreed to go back because they threatened him?”

“I think he went back because they threatened you, Avery,” Mike said.

“That’s what I was afraid of. Excuse me.” She pushed away from the table, went into the next room for some space. She blinked back tears, held herself together as she looked around at the pictures scattered on the table.

They were mainly of the men and Josie. A woman who was most likely Josie’s mom. And, if she looked closely, there were a few of a younger Gunner. The fact that these men kept his pictures here after what had happened . . .

She turned away. This was like sneaking into someone’s past, uninvited.

Can’t change the past, Avery,
Mom would tell her.
What’s done is done.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t change the future.

“What’s going on, Avery?” Jem asked.

“Nothing.”

He stared at her and she got the distinct impression she’d be next in line for light waterboarding if she didn’t talk. “I saw him, Jem. Recent
ly.”

“When?” Jem demanded.

“A week ago. He came to my hotel room and . . .” She trailed off. “I didn’t ask him where he’d been and he didn’t offer. I didn’t want to freak him out by asking him to stay, so . . . dammit. He made love to me and he left.”

“That doesn’t mean you suck in bed or anything,” Jem said.

She crossed her arms and stared him down. “Thanks.”

“Aw, come on, you know what the deal is with him now. The fact that he came back, even for a little while, is good news. But you have to stop holding shit back from me. I’m the king of shitty choices, Avery. I won’t judge you.” Jem put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re still the key to getting Gunner back with us.”

“Thanks for saying that.” She paused, considering. “Maybe Gunner doesn’t know Landon’s trying to kill us.”

“Or maybe Gunner sent them,” Jem said.

“I can’t believe he’d do that.”

“I don’t want to either.”

She glanced at the picture of Josie and Gunner. “They both look so young. Innocent.”

“Yeah, they do.”

The fact that Gunner might’ve done this, given up his life, his love of tattooing, and gone to work with the worst kind of criminals because of her made her ache. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the picture of Josie.

“I won’t let him down, Josie,” she whispered as she ran a hand along the picture like a promise. “I swear I won’t let him down again.”

“You didn’t let him down,” Jem told her, but she knew better. She hadn’t begged Gunner to stay with her out of some misguided notion that it had to be his idea to stay.

Gunner had been waiting for her to ask. When she hadn’t . . .

“Let’s go find him,” she told Jem.

“Atta girl.”