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“North,” Shaw said, “Emery, please, we’re friends. We love each other.”
“What’s too much is having to watch while the little circle jerk you’ve put together fucks up everything I hand them. I turn over Gid and the Moss family, and what comes up? Crackerjacks. I turn over Brey and Maleah, and what do I get? Zilch. I give you Welch on a silver fucking platter, even though nobody else could find him, and it’s like watching a clown college do a fucking search. He’s sitting there right under your noses, and you still wouldn’t have found him if we hadn’t done your job for you. Again.”
Emery opened his mouth, but before he could speak, John-Henry caught his arm and wheeled him toward the curtained opening. He made a furious sound, but John-Henry said, “Get out in the hall, and don’t come in here again.” The curtain flapped once, and Emery’s heavy steps pounded the linoleum, and then he was gone.
Something seemed to break inside North. He didn’t seem to be able to stand up straight, and he had one hand pressed low against his belly as he breathed raggedly. “Finally,” he managed to say. “Thank you—”
“Stop talking,” John-Henry said. Even the golden tan couldn’t hide his exhaustion, as though the fluorescent lights had peeled everything back. The lines at the corner of his mouth were white with pressure. One hand was a fist, and he kept moving the fingers as though he wanted to loosen them but couldn’t. Finally, in a voice that didn’t sound very much like John-Henry, he asked, “Are you all right?”
North nodded.
“We’re ok,” Shaw said, and the words sounded small. “We know Emery’s upset—”
North made a sharp gesture with one hand, and Shaw subsided.
Quick steps hurried past, and the curtain fluttered on its rings. Shaw could hear his heartbeat inside his head. His face felt hot, and his eyes stung. North was still taking those terrible breaths.
“Fine,” John-Henry said. “I mean, good. That’s good.” Then he stopped again. “You’ve done some good work on this case. You found Welch; thank you for that. I think this is the appropriate time to close out your part in the investigation. If you’ll submit an invoice, I’ll see that you get paid as quickly as possible.”
North made a noise that might have been a laugh.
Shaw opened his mouth, but nothing came. Finally, he managed, “John-Henry.”
“I’ve got a uniformed officer waiting to give you a ride back to the motor court,” John-Henry said.
“But we’re not done,” Shaw said. “You don’t have to pay us, that’s fine, but this isn’t done. We don’t know who hired Ezell. We don’t know if Brey was behind it or Gid or someone else entirely. There are still links to the Cottonmouth Club, and we need to follow them back, find a way to get someone to talk. Otherwise, they’ll keep getting away with it.”
John-Henry gave him a look that might have been pitying. All he said was “Officer Foley will get you back to the motor court, and Auggie offered to drive you back to St. Louis.” He caught the curtain with one hand, his back to them now, and said, “I’m sorry this is how things worked out.”
The curtain fluttered behind him.
North slapped a plastic pamphlet holder off the countertop. It cracked against the wall, and pamphlets went everywhere. He shouted, “Fuck!” and kicked a stool, and its casters screeched as it spun away.
A nurse yanked the curtain back—fortyish, Black, with either a great ponytail or an even better weave. “What’s going on in here?”
North was taking those awful breaths again. It was the way something hurt breathed, Shaw realized. Something hurting so much it couldn’t get all the air it needed. He glared at the nurse, but it didn’t seem to faze her.
“Nothing,” Shaw said, slipping off the exam table. He took North’s hand. “We’re leaving.”
21
North didn’t sleep that night (morning, whatever it was), or not anything that felt like sleep, anyway. He woke again and again with the heat of the fire on his face, confused by the darkness, the smell of damp cotton, with the echoes of gunshots fading in his ears. He saw Emery’s face, the fury animating it, and played their conversation a hundred different ways, saying all the things he should have said.
He didn’t wake until noon, and Shaw was still asleep. He showered, dried himself off, checked himself out in the mirror. Some circles around the eyes. Some bruises that were starting to stiffen him up. Nothing a few days wouldn’t sort out. He’d had worse, on plenty of occasions, after a bad night with Tucker.
After dressing as quietly as he could, he began repacking their bags. He’d text Auggie. Wouldn’t that be the cherry on top of all this fucking mess, having one of the Super Friends drive them home because the GTO was nothing but a slagheap? Shaw wouldn’t mind, of course; he and Auggie would probably watch TikTok the whole way, and North would have to drive, and while the Audi wasn’t a bad car, he could actually feel his balls getting smaller.
When the bags were packed, he knelt there, and he thought, It’s over. He recognized what he was feeling, that sense of detachment, the distance from himself and from that river running through him. He had felt this way before. He hadn’t died from it. Sleep, he thought. And food.
Food sounded good, so he checked Shaw once more—still asleep, some of that auburn hair curling across his cheek, the occasional snore slipping out of him—and let himself out into the blistering sunlight. Summer hung on him like one of Shaw’s cloaks, sticky and heavy and clinging. He checked his phone as he went down the exterior steps. There had to be a place close enough for him to walk and grab something for them to eat. Shaw would be starving, maybe even hungry enough not to drag North over the coals if North picked up some shakes to go with the—
The buzz of a window made him look up, and it wasn’t until that moment that he registered the sound of an engine running. A Honda Odyssey was parked in one of the stalls, and Emery sat there, drumming his fingers on the wheel. It might have been a full minute, the sun like a hand pushing down on North, that he stood there trading stares with Emery. Then he gave Emery the finger. The tension in Emery’s shoulders eased, and he tilted his head toward the empty passenger seat.
North climbed into the minivan as Emery buzzed the window up again, and a wall of air conditioning met him. The van had the usual parental clutter—abandoned cups, a pair of shoes that must have belonged to Evie, toys, stray French fries. A couple of paper bags were stashed between the front seats, and a heavenly smell drifted up.
“Breakfast,” Emery said. “Although I suppose it’s lunch by now. And it’s either a peace offering or a bribe. Both, I guess.”
North let his gaze slide up. Today, Emery was dressed in what North thought of as his usual outfit: tactical boots, jeans, a t-shirt. The t-shirt was Death Cab for Cutie, and it looked a little too small for him, and washed within an inch of its life. It was obvious Emery had showered, but he still looked like a wreck.
