Page 58 of Fury
As an active federal agent, she hadn’t claimed a relationship with Morgan, and he wasn’t listed anywhere in her personnel file. Since the shooting was still at the local level, it hadn’t hit her radar for a couple of days other than a ten-second blurb on the news. That meant with a little influence from a few Benjamins, Morgan’s autopsy had been completed and his body released to family before she knew about his death. Mason had arranged for a quick cremation of Shooter’s body, and with Myron’s assistance, Morgan’s as well. Justine hadn’t seen the body. After watching over her shoulder for decades, it was natural for her to not trust the news.
“Yeah, honey, he is.” Mason laid a hand on her shoulder, thumb and fingers digging in, holding on. “Very much dead.” Fury didn’t know what kind of details Justine had been given, but he doubted very much that she’d ever know Mason’s had been the finger on the trigger.
“It’s just hard to wrap my head around.” She sounded apologetic, and Mason shook his head.
“Nothing to worry about. If you want the ashes, I’m happy to hand the urn over, honey.” His gaze landed on Fury as he said, “I got no love for the man. Got no need to have anything around to remind me of him.” He looked at Bethy, then at Mikey, and finally at Justine. “I got only to look at the two of you, and my boy or yours”—he nodded at Bethy—“to see the mark he left on us. None of us are hard on the eyes, ‘cept me.” Everyone laughed. “Let that be his only legacy.” Fury saw the fabric of her shirt move and knew Mason had squeezed her shoulder again. “How’d they get Chris?”
Her chin dropped. “Jimmy missed…pretty much everything to do with the club. He fell into a group of friends in Lexington who wanted to start one. He reached out to Daddy, who granted whatever approvals were needed. It wasn’t long before Ezra—” She stopped talking and stared at Fury when he reacted to his father’s name. “You know him?”
He nodded, glancing at Mason and Bethy. “We all do.” He hoped they wouldn’t make him claim the man, not until she got everything out without filtering anything.
She stared at him for a moment longer, then picked up her story. “Ezra and Irving came to the house. I didn’t have anything to do with the club. Had no desire after what I’d seen in California. I’d just passed my GED and was starting to work on college applications. Chris was in his high chair in the kitchen and I went to answer the door. They stood on the stoop and wanted to talk religion. I didn’t know who they were, didn’t know that was the man Daddy would rage about for days on end. Had no idea. There was a noise, so small I nearly missed it, but I turned to look in time to see the back of a man walking out my kitchen door. I had the high chair where I could see it from where I stood.” The coffee in her hands trembled, threatening to splash out, and Fury plucked it from her grip with one hand, the other closing around her frozen fingers. She didn’t seem to notice, continuing with her story.
“The high chair was empty. I screamed and started running, but they grabbed me. Irving put his hand over my mouth and told me if I knew what was good for me, I’d shut up and listen.” She paused, breaths coming fast, mouth open as she panted through the pain of the memory. “‘You want your boy to live, you say nothing.’ His mouth was by my ear, on it. His breath smelled like a septic tank. I smell that in my dreams, sometimes. Foul and dank. Like death. I always thought Irving smelled like death. I didn’t know who he was then. Not then. But I learned, oh yeah, I learned. ‘You want your boy to live? You’re a good momma? Tell Justice this evens the scales. You go to the cops, your boy dies. You do what I tell you to do, and you’ll do it without him in your arms, but knowing he’s warm and breathing somewhere. Tell Justice this evens the scales.’ I didn’t know what that meant. Didn’t know why he’d want me to give Daddy a message. Why he’d even know Daddy.” Her posture had changed as she’d spoken, back rounding so she was hunched over in the chair, protecting herself from a danger decades in the past.
“I knew, though. Knew better than to call the cops. He didn’t even have to tell me, I just knew. I called Daddy and told him. Told him everything. Told him how my baby boy was crying as they took him away. Crying out for me, wanting his mother. All my daddy told me was to stick tight, stay close to the phone, and not tell anyone anything. I did that. Not sleeping, not eating, even when Jimmy tried to force me, I stayed with my hand on the phone, waiting for his call. Five days later he called. Five days.” She looked up into Mason’s eyes. “Do you know what it’s like to lose part of your soul for five days? For twenty-five years? He called, and all my daddy had for me was sorry.” Her voice changed, pitching lower in register. “He said, ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. He’s alive, that’s all I can tell you.’ I asked him, what can I do? How do I get my boy back, my son? He didn’t have any answers for me. I did everything I could think of, short of going to the cops. Jimmy left. He told me I was obsessed and he needed a wife, not a scarecrow mourning something that never should have been born. He said that to me. Chris is our son. How could a father say that to the mother of his child?” She took a deep breath, mouth covered by one shaking hand.
“I didn’t find him. You know that much. Never found him. After a while I told myself he was dead. That was better than wondering what was happening to him. I’d looked for a long time, asked all kinds of questions. So I knew, better than most, what kind of outfit Irving had on his mountain. His kingdom, where he thought he could do anything he wanted and no one could touch him. Better dead than there, that’s what I told myself.” She leaned away from the table, taking long moments straightening her body out, shoving her shoulders against the seatback.
“In college I focused on criminal justice. Everyone always laughed, Justine studying justice. I wanted to make a difference, to help some young mother who had her child stolen, help a child find their way home. Those were the worst dreams, you know? When I’d dream of a five-year-old or ten-year-old Chris crying, screaming out for me, looking for me as desperately as I was trying to find him. I got assigned to the Florida office after I graduated Quantico. About three years later was the first time Daddy showed up. I thought I was clear of him. I thought we were clear. The next time he came, Jimmy’s dad was with him. I learned Jimmy had a wife and three kids. He’d moved on from his failure with me. Mr. Camp’s words meant to hurt, and they did. That’s the last time I saw Daddy.”
“Why did you let Suches go?” Fury asked his question slowly, taking time to formulate the right words to hit the tone he wanted. “We’ve heard from his associates that you had him on house arrest at one point, and then arrested him again, several weeks later. Both times he was released, and when I look for the papers on the actions, I not only can’t find a warrant, but I can’t find any kind of record of his arrests.”
Justine’s gaze landed on him, heavy with anger. Not at him, but at something in the past.Suches? Morgan?Fury waited.
“I have a good team.” Her mouth drew sideways, the smile as familiar as anything because it was one he’d seen on Bethy’s face more than once. Wry and crooked, with Bethy it meant she was being self-deprecating. “My team had word that Suches was teamed up with another man, Gordon Tucker—” Once again she interrupted herself to stare at Fury, his reaction unmistakable. He carefully unclenched his fist from around the crumpled cup, shaking drops of liquid from his fingers. “You know him, too, don’t you?” He nodded.
“We’ll talk about that later.” With that promise, she continued, “So Suches and Tucker were teamed up and seemed to be set to stir trouble all across the south. Suches connections in Mexico were tightly associated with one of the Mexican drug cartels, and he was bringing in all kinds of drug components that were then processed into one of a dozen designer drugs. They’d sell to US dealers, who would in turn sell to the local addicts. Tucker had different connections. He was in tight with Camp and his ilk, including my father. The two men together were building a business that threatened the stability of communities all across Florida’s panhandle.”
She made a noise, and he caught the tail end of an eye roll. “We federal types know we can’t kill the drug trade. So we try to unofficially regulate it in lots of ways. Tucker was disrupting everything we’d worked out with the locals about safety and quantities. I wanted to see if there were vulnerabilities I hadn’t considered, but I knew pulling Tucker in would get people involved I didn’t want to see. Namely Daddy and Camp. So, I picked Suches to discuss things with. It was a waste. He didn’t know anything of note. Tucker, however, had all the connections we needed to break. I never did get my hands on him. Last I heard he’d retreated to Mexico, but relations between the countries has deteriorated to the point I can’t even pick up the phone and call folks I used to work with weekly.”
“You think Tucker’s in Mexico?” Mason’s question sounded offhand, but Fury was looking at him and could see the tension in his face.
“I know he is. Border agents on this side of the line are all primed to tell me when he moves back across to US soil. I’ve not heard anything.” She shrugged. “So, he’s still in Mexico.”
***
“It’s just so weird.”
Fury was toweling off after a shower when Bethy’s comment came from the master bedroom of the suite they’d booked at a local hotel. Michael was in the adjoining bedroom, talking on his phone and doing whatever it was teenaged kids did these days.These days. He snorted.I sound like an old man. Staring into the mirror over the sink he focused on his face in a way he normally didn’t take time to do. Tanned and weathered skin; wrinkles at the corners of his eyes because he didn’t like sunglasses, preferring to squint into the sun instead. Reaching up, he ran his fingers through his hair.No gray. He snorted.Not yet. Smoothing his beard down, he examined it and found only the same deep red color he’d borne all his life.
“I look at Justine—and man, that name’s a mouthful, don’t you think—and she looks just like Davy. Different mothers, but you’d never know it. I always wanted a sister, and now I have one full grown. So weird.”
“Mmhmm.” He picked up the shaving cream and stared at his face again.What’ll she think when I’m old and gray?There were only four years between them, which amounted to a drop in the bucket. Tipping his chin up, he squirted lather in his hand, then smoothed it on his neck. He was just starting to work it into the skin when his hand was slapped away. Backing up quickly, he turned to face Bethy and saw she was scowling at him, razor in hand.
“You,” she leaned closer as she shoved the razor behind her back, “are not shaving—” With every word her voice increased in volume until by the end she was shouting. “Your beard!”
“Baby, no.” He shook his head, laughing. “I’m just cleanin’ up my neck. I’m not shaving.”
“You’re not?” She looked abashed, then pushed, “Promise?”
“Promise.” He reached around her and plucked the razor from her fingers. “I like it too much. It makes me look…like me.”
It was there and gone before he could isolate the expression, but he saw it. A fleeting change in her face that told of pain and anger, betrayal and hopelessness.I put that there. In that moment, he knew she was remembering him as Derek, scruffy and bald, and playing her in a way that had left a deep and lasting scar. Written in that short-lived expression was the story he most feared for their future and he knew. Down to his bones, he knew. She wasn’t over it, hadn’t forgiven him. No redemption.
I can work for it, he promised himself.Iwillwork for it. He was willing to do whatever it took to earn her trust.
She was worth it.
