His Best Friend's Baby. Molly O'Keefe

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      The world swam from the drugs and he gave himself a moment to get his knee under him before he stalked into the dark house.

      He had been right to tell her to stay away. She had to or he wouldn’t survive. He was moving on with his life, putting the accident and Mitch and this town behind him.

      So he grabbed another bottle of water and headed out the rusty aluminum back door that had not been changed in all of Rachel’s meddling renovations.

      He’d been here two days and one night and so far all he’d been able to get done was write a list of all the things that needed to get done. The roof, the back porch, the kitchen floor—the list was a long one. And he was more tired than he’d thought. His long stay at the hospital had worn him down. The weakness was aggravating, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Slowly, each day he felt a little better, a little more as though he could get the work done.

      The only reason he’d needed the painkillers tonight was because he’d spent most of the day on the roof, climbing up and down the ladder.

      His knee was getting stronger and the work helped. He thought of it like conditioning for San Diego and the construction he and Chris were going to do. Preparation for his real life.

      The night was cool, the sky clear and deep, and the air seemed damp. Everything seemed damp after the Middle East, where the desert turned everything into grit. Human beef jerky is what Dave Mancino used to say.

      That’s all I am, walking beef jerky.

      Jesse smiled—Dave had been a funny kid. Cocky as all get-out, but funny. Five months after the accident and Jesse was just now getting to the point that he could remember anything about those boys other than their deaths.

      A million times a day he wished he’d backed Mitch instead of listening to his gut.

      The one time in my life I decide not to do things Mitch’s way and the guy dies.

      Jesse didn’t know whether to laugh or put a bullet in his head.

      He stepped onto the long grass and left footprints in the dewy lawn as he crossed the backyard to the garage nestled back amongst some pines and more weeds. The door had once been red but now was the faded gray of weathered wood. The whole structure leaned slightly to the left and Jesse figured gravity would soon take care of the rest.

      The garage had never housed a car. Inexplicably, his dad had once come home from the bar driving a golf cart and it had stayed in the garage for a week until the cops had come looking for it.

      They’d all laughed over that.

      What had always been housed in the garage—and Jesse was half hoping had been sold or lost or stolen over the years—were Granddad’s old woodworking tools. The planers and awls and chisels fit Jesse’s hand as though they had been born there. He had spent a lot of years in this garage with the tools, pretending that the world outside the sweet smell of fresh oak didn’t exist.

      He could do with a little of that pretending right now.

      The heavy door slid back on the nearly rusted rollers and the odor of sour, rotting wood poured out. He reached for the light switch, and was surprised when it flickered on, illuminating the cracked cement floor.

      Along the back wall was the workbench he’d made himself a million years ago and on the wall above it, still as neatly arranged as he’d left them, were the tools.

      When he was younger they’d offered him, if not a way out of his family and his home, a way to survive.

      Jesse took a deep breath and stepped into the musty familiarity of the garage looking for something, anything, that could be saved.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      “YOU’RE A KILLER,” David Mancino’s father said. “We trusted our boy with you and you brought him home in a body bag.”

      “But look.” Jesse tried to show Mr. Mancio what he’d brought in exchange for Dave. He held out his bloody palms and tried to give Mr. Mancio the still-beating heart.

      “What the hell is wrong with you, boy?” Mr. Mancio smacked Jesse’s hands away and the heart fell to the ground. “We heard you were crazy!”

      It’s ruined, Jesse thought, watching the heart pump blood into the dirt. No one is going to want that now.

      “Wait, wait. I brought more, just a second.” Jesse waved over the thin blond woman with the haunted blue eyes he’d never been able to forget and she, in turn, led Wain and a man in a black hostage mask. “See, you can have the dog, and the—”

      Jesse woke to the sound of a key sliding into the lock on his back door. The dream vanished and he traveled from sleep to battle ready in seconds—another little gift from the United States Army. He could kill a man in a hundred ways and he hadn’t fallen fully asleep in over six years.

      The pain meds he’d popped last night made his brain feel thick and stupid, but the well-honed instinct in him was still razor sharp.

      He crept from the couch, barefoot and in his blue jeans, toward the back door, where he had heard the distinct sound of a lock sliding open.

      Wainwright snored on his pillow.

      Some guard dog you turned out to be.

      He fully expected Rachel to be busting in, and he relished letting her know in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t welcome. Her days of coming and going in this house were over.

      But he yanked open the door only to find Mac Edwards, his arms filled with grocery bags. Jesse rocked back on his heels.

      “Help a guy out, would you?” Mac asked over the perforated edge of one of the bags. The look in his light blue eyes went through Jesse like a knife. It was the look his men used to give him—respect and a general gladness to see him.

      “I don’t—” Jesse started, but Mac stepped in and pushed the bags into Jesse’s chest. Instinctively, Jesse caught Mac’s burden and Mac used the opportunity to barge in.

      “Nice one,” Jesse growled, his throat rusty.

      “Old trick I learned from a nine-year-old,” Mac said over his shoulder. He walked past Jesse, through the small mudroom and into the kitchen.

      The nine-year-old Mac referred to was him. Jesse had used the trick to dog Rachel and Mac’s every step.

      Jesse shut the door with his foot and followed his old friend to dump the groceries onto the counter. He yanked opened the refrigerator door and began shoving the bags’ contents into the nearly empty fridge.

      “Just as we suspected, you’re living on road trip food.” Mac reached around Jesse to hold up a turkey sandwich Jesse had gotten from the gas station out by the highway. “Not fit for human consumption.”

      “Works fine by me,” Jesse said. He’d been avoiding the grocery store and all of the good citizens of New Springs.

      “Good СКАЧАТЬ