“It’s a two-hour car ride,” Emery said, “not the Met Gala. Close your suitcase so I can put it in the fucking car.”
Three days later, everyone was going home. Everyone, in this case, being North and Shaw and Jem and Tean. They had waited for a new development, some break in the investigation that might give them an angle on the organization operating out of the Cottonmouth Club. But nothing came. And, if North were being brutally honest with himself, maybe they had spent enough time chasing their tails.
“This is why I said you didn’t need to come say goodbye,” North said as he yanked the zipper shut.
Shaw, meanwhile, was completely ignoring Emery by pulling what had to have been the third Renaissance Faire tunic out of his suitcase and saying, “But I just don’t have the right breechclout.”
Emery started to growl.
“Why don’t we step outside?” John-Henry said, touching Emery’s arm.
“Because, John, I’m helping.”
John-Henry sighed.
“You know what you could do?” Auggie was saying from where he sat on the motel bed. “You could sew your own breechclout. That way, you could pick out the right fabric and everything.”
Shaw’s head came up with excitement.
“Don’t these places provide a pack-and-play?” North said.
At the same moment, Emery said, “Isn’t there some sort of institutional daycare—” He cut off, glowering at North, of all people, and went back to haranguing Shaw.
“Or we could go on another dream-quest,” Auggie said.
“All right,” Theo said quietly.
From the way Auggie smirked, he must have gotten what he wanted.
One flight suit, two pairs of clogs, and a near-life-ending encounter with a scarf later, Shaw was packed, and Emery headed for the stairs with the bag.
“What the fuck do you have in here?”
“My bronze dildo collection,” Shaw said, hurrying after him. “Be careful, they’re antiques. Oh, let me tell you about them. The first one I found at a garage sale, only it was a witch’s garage sale, and—no, wait, it was a harem—”
“I changed my mind,” North said as he grabbed his bag. “I’m staying.”
“Does he really have a bronze dildo collection?” Auggie asked.
“How the fuck should I know? A little help here, sweet cheeks?”
Auggie grinned and grabbed North’s bag, and his steps rang out on the stairs as he called after Shaw.
North did one last sweep of the motel room. John-Henry lounged against the mini-split, in a lightweight, long-sleeved tee that covered the tats, athleisure shorts, and flip-flops. He looked like he’d finally had a decent night’s sleep and deserved a few more. Theo, in shorts and a tee, had propped himself against the door, arms folded like he was doing bouncer duty.
Hands on hips, North said, “I guess this is it.”
Theo’s face was hard.
John-Henry said, “I’m sorry.”
North shook his head. “Not your fault.”
A grin skewed John-Henry’s good features. “Yeah? It sure as hell feels like it is.”
But it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, North knew. Sometimes a case just went belly up, and there was nothing you could do about it. Everything had ended with Adam’s death and Gid’s suicide. Welch’s escape, and the murders of Dalton Weber and Sheriff Engels, had been blamed on a corrupt deputy. Gid’s suicide tied up Ambyr’s death. Sure, there were still questions—what were the odds, for example, that Welch would be forced to kill not only the sheriff but also another inmate during his escape? But aside from John-Henry, no one seemed interested in answering those questions. And even if they had, what were they going to do? All the leads had gone cold.
“I’m going to watch Brey like a hawk,” John-Henry said. “He might be a state rep, but I’m going to camp out on his ass, and the first time he fucks up, we’ll have him. Same goes for Cassidy.”
North nodded. “I guess you’ve got Maleah, too. That might go somewhere.”
John-Henry gave an unhappy shrug. “Maybe.”
He thought about that for a moment. Thought about how nothing had happened yet. And then he let out a tired “Fuck me.”
“It’s not over, North.”
North nodded.
“I promise, I’m not going to let Brey—or anybody else—get away with this.”
“I know, man.” North surprised himself by squeezing John-Henry’s shoulder. “I know.”
John-Henry shook his head.
“Come on,” Theo said. “They’re waiting.”
Waiting might have been a loose definition, in North’s opinion, but the other guys were gathered around Jem and Tean’s rented Jetta. Shaw and Auggie and Jem were laughing and showing each other things on their phones, but it had a forced quality, like they were trying too hard. Emery and Tean stood in the shade, faces dour.
“I’m sorry,” Tean said when North reached them. “We’ve got to go back. The girls need us, and work—”
“Don’t apologize,” Emery said. “You’ve got your own life to live.”
“And you’ve done so much,” Auggie said as he led Jem and Shaw over. “We wouldn’t be here without you.”
“In this mess, he means,” North said, but his grin felt tired.
“Or alive,” Jem said, and it might have been a joke, but Theo nodded emphatically.
“This is for the best,” John-Henry said. “Jem’s been a target from the beginning. We should have sent you away sooner.”
No one said anything to that.
“I’m sorry,” Tean said again, and his voice was very small.
“No more saying sorry,” North said. “We did the best we could. Sometimes, you just get fucked.”
Shaw started to cry. Not big tears, not sobbing. But he wiped steadily at his face. For a moment, no one seemed to know what to do; they all stood there. Then Emery crossed the circle and hugged Shaw.
Everyone moved then. Hugs and handshakes, clapping each other on the back, weak attempts at jokes that everyone laughed too hard at. And then it was over, and North and Shaw climbed into the Jetta with Tean and Jem, and they drove away from the motor court. It was another shining day, swimmy with heat, like all the others. North settled into his seat. It was all right, he thought. They’d done what they could. And now everyone had to get on with their lives. He and Shaw would go back to St. Louis, and Tean and Jem would fly home to Utah, and the rest of them would pick up where they’d left off—doing their jobs, living their lives. And the world would keep spinning. The world always kept spinning.
And then, because he couldn’t help himself, North looked over his shoulder. The four men made a ragged line, and at that distance, they were nothing more than outlines against the sun-bright brick of the motor court. And he thought, with breaking clarity, We’re leaving them behind.