Something Wilder(82)
Ignoring him, Leo put his hands on the sides of Lily’s face and bent to look at her. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She gripped his wrists, needing to feel his pulse under her fingertips. Strong and alive. “You?”
“I’m fine.” He was lying. She’d seen the way he’d absently cupped a hand over the ribs on his right side all night long. Even now, he worked one of his wrists free of her grip, lowering a hand to support his side. There were scrapes everywhere on his face, a nasty cut over his brow, and even in the lingering darkness, she could see bruises blooming under his eyes.
Leo was jerked away, and Bradley shoved the paper in his face. “Explain how you got that.”
Slowly, Leo explained the code, that it was called Fougère, named for the French spy who invented it, that it was a way to group numbers to form letters. He wrote out the code and explained how he got the answer, even though Lily was pretty sure Bradley didn’t understand any of it. Leo said he went through every alphanumeric code he could think of, and none of them spelled anything but nonsense. This code, though, spelled a specific phrase. And Fougère was definitely code that Duke Wilder would have known.
Leo’s exhausted words were cut off by the sound of someone throwing a flashlight against the stone wall.
“What the fuck do we do now?” Kevin said.
Bradley paced the length of the room. “Duke’s taunting us. It’s all a game to him.” He stopped pacing to narrow his eyes at Lily. “?‘Adventure over stuff,’ isn’t that what you said his motto was? Sanctimonious son of a bitch really thought people would be satisfied with the thrill of the chase and he could keep the money himself.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked at Jay and Kevin. “He got the money. We take them with us. We go back to Duke’s place and tear it apart if we have to.”
Chapter Thirty
SHUFFLING OUT OF the narrow confines of the slot canyons meant it took them all a few seconds to adjust to the brilliant morning light. The sun was fresh, the sky cloudless and almost blindingly blue. But even bloody and half-blind, Leo could still make out the blobby shapes of five people standing not ten yards away.
One of the figures burst forward. Leo startled, protectively shoving Lily behind him before realizing the body sprinting toward them was Nicole. She wasn’t headed for Lily, though. Instead, she stormed straight past them, barreling into Bradley and sending a brutal fist into his stomach. The hit sounded like she’d swung a baseball bat into a bag of flour. Literally blindsided, Bradley let out a sharp groan, doubling over.
Jay and Kevin went for their guns, but four other guns cocked in warning before they could reach them.
“Rangers?” Lily said, just as the uniforms registered in Leo’s brain.
“You fucker,” Nic seethed, grabbing Bradley’s hair and cracking her knee into his face. Blood gushed from his nose, and Leo’s old instinct remained—to move toward his friend, to protect one of his own—before he remembered. Bradley wasn’t included in that circle anymore. Finally, another figure jogged forward, dragging Nicole away swearing and kicking at the air.
Leo watched as a female ranger aimed her pistol and moved with purpose toward the man Leo thought had been one of his best friends.
“Let’s see those hands on your head, sport.”
Bradley did as she instructed but backed up a couple of steps. “Hey, whoa. I’m just here with these two”—he motioned to Leo and Lily—“following the same information everyone—”
“Hands on your head,” the ranger repeated calmly, “and get down on your knees. You can tell me all your stories back at the station.” With her free hand, she tugged a pair of handcuffs from her belt, flicking them open.
“What?” Bradley cried, teeth gory with his own blood. “Wait. Hold up. Leo. Tell them. I’m with—”
Leo’s voice was quiet but steady: “He’s not with us.”
Saying it felt like a knife to his stomach.
“You have the right to remain silent,” she told Bradley, extracting the gun from his waistband and handing it to the fourth ranger. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney…”
Leo turned from the sight of his oldest friend being arrested, and watched as Lily ran to Nicole. The two women embraced, and at Lily’s relieved sob, all of the tension diffused out of the moment. Suddenly Leo felt like he could breathe again, no longer holding it in, struggling to keep himself together long enough to get Lily to safety.
With the reprieve, however, came torment, and he now felt every punch, every brutal kick, every ounce of betrayal and disappointment. Beneath him, his legs seemed to morph into a different substance, no longer flesh and bone but shoddily built and rubbery. He fell gracelessly as the cops marched Bradley, Jay, and Kevin out toward the river, where, in the distance, a helicopter whirred to life, misting water everywhere.
“Leo,” Bradley called. “Dude, tell them we’re cool!”
Leo ignored him, pulling his knees to his chest, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Holy shit,” he mumbled over and over, trying to breathe more deeply. His head throbbed, his mind grappling with this new reality.
Voices rose around him—Lily telling the rangers what had happened, Nicole explaining how it hadn’t sat right with her that Bradley left, that the one person who was most enthusiastic about every part of this trip would just disappear right at the end.