And still he clung to life. “I don’t want to die. Whatever I’ve done to you, I’ll fix it. I’ll make it right.”
“How are you going to fix it?”
“I don’t know.”
The stranger chuckled. “Don’t you see? The true fix is death.”
Rory swallowed. His throat burned. “It’s not too late. It’s not. I can make amends and fix what I’ve done. I’ve a brother who has money. He’ll make it right. Just tell me what you need.”
The stranger moved out of the shadows toward the tree, giving Rory a glimpse of a red ball cap and a heavy blue jacket obscuring a lean frame. His tormentor tossed his cigarette on the ground and summer grass dried from drought crackled under his feet as he ground out the embers.
Rory cut his vision to the left toward his tormentor who remained just out of sight. “Come on, man.” Pure desperation emphasized the words. “I can make it right.”
“You can kid yourself, but you can’t fool us, Rory. You’ll never get it right. It’s not in your DNA.”
His slight body trembled and he pissed on himself. “What the fuck do you want?”
“We don’t want to hurt you, Rory. We want to end your suffering.”
“I’m not suffering!” He managed the strained smile of prey facing predator. “I’m living my life as best I can.”
“It’s a sad, miserable life, Rory.”
His wrists strained against the unbreakable bindings. “But it’s mine, and I’ve a right to live it. I’ll get back on the wagon. Start over.”
“I know you’re scared.” The stranger’s voice gentled. “I know you don’t have the courage to see this through. Look at that picture, Rory. Even then, when your chances were at their best, you clung to young Elizabeth, who could barely take care of herself.”
“I don’t want to die!”
“Do you really think Elizabeth would think your life is worth saving, Rory?”
“Elizabeth was kind and gentle. She’d want me to live.”
“Really? You hurt her badly. Disappointed her when she needed you most. And then you proceeded to screw up all the good works your family did for you. You’ve been in one crap job after another for the last decade, and you managed to piss away two hundred and six days of sobriety in one night. You talk of your brother, but in recent years he’s refused all your calls.”
Rory had burned the last bridge with his brother last year when he’d missed their mother’s funeral. “I’ve never claimed to be a straight arrow.”
“It’s as if you feel you don’t deserve any bit of happiness.”
He’d never wanted to be a suit like his brother or be jailed by the family business. “I like happiness just fine. I have fun all the time.”
“Where do you think your trouble began, Rory? When did your life go off the rails?” The stranger’s voice was soft but clear. And a little familiar now.
Rory rummaged through his memory, trying to isolate the voice. When had they crossed paths? He’d been in that bar in East Austin last night. He’d had a lead on a job and had not wanted to go inside but the promise of work had been too tempting. Who?
“Just because I’m not a choirboy doesn’t mean I’m bad.”
A click of a lighter and then more smoke from a fresh cigarette. “I think you were done the day you were born, Rory. I think you could never hold a candle to your brother. He’s the one your parents loved. He’s the one that got all the attention and support.”
The stranger’s blistering truth rekindled the old anger that had chased him toward reckless choices, gotten him kicked out of a string of private schools and thrown into too many jails. “Did my brother send you to do this? I know he’s wanted me gone for a long time.”
“Face it, it’s time you left this world for the next.”
Panic extinguished the anger. “That’s not true!”
“Of course it’s true.” The stranger’s voice remained soft, steady and so reasonable. “You were the mistake. The child no one wanted. Sad your own parents wouldn’t want their own flesh and blood.”
Rory tipped his face up away from the picture and toward the moonless sky. “Stop.”
“It’s not good to bury the pain, Rory. Better to face it head-on and deal with it. Admit it. Your parents didn’t want you.”
Tears stung his eyes. He was thirty-one, could hot-wire a car, crack any lock and hold a gallon of liquor in his belly and still walk straight. He’d grown a thick skin, but the stranger’s words stripped away the gristle and left him feeling like the sad, pathetic kid he’d been. “Not true.”
“Come on, Rory, it’s Come-to-Jesus time. The moment of truth. The pain had burrowed deep inside you, and though it does a good job of hiding behind a bottle, it’s there.”
Rory stared at Elizabeth’s face. He fisted his fingers. “Who sent you?”
“We weren’t sent, Rory. We were summoned by you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You called us. Your pain and suffering beckoned us to find you. I’m only here to take the pain away.”
Rory twisted his head toward the stranger and stumbled on the truck’s tailgate. Heels skidded up to the edge. Heart racing, he shouted, “I don’t want you to take the pain away. I like my life!”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen Elizabeth?”
“How do you know Elizabeth?”
“I know all about her.”
Even now, here, hearing her name and staring into her lackluster blue eyes soothed him. “She told me she loved me.”
“And I believe she did. She was willing to go to the mat for you. And you sent all her letters back unread.”
More tears spilled. “I didn’t want to send them back. I loved her.”
“Our deeds define us, Rory, not our words.”
Rory tensed, shocked a stranger would know deep and intimate details. “How do you know so much about me?”
“I know a lot about you. And Elizabeth. And the others. I know all your deepest desires.”
“You don’t.”
“You once said you’d die a happy man if the last face you saw was Elizabeth’s. Isn’t that right?”
“Go to hell,” Rory spat.
“I’m here to grant that last wish. No one should go to their grave without getting their last wish granted.”
The stranger ground out his cigarette and opened the truck cab door. H
is body scraped across cloth seats before the cab door slammed closed. He turned on the engine and revved it.
Rory braced.
His gaze bore into Elizabeth’s smiling face. In these last moments he ignored her tension and saw only her smile, her smooth skin and her blond hair, swept recklessly over her right shoulder.
In these last seconds, he transported back to the night by the campfire. She’d raced to the fire laughing, and seconds before the image had been snapped, she’d pulled her hair over her left shoulder and nestled close. He’d hugged her tighter and attributed her tensing muscles to the evening chill.
Rory gritted his teeth and fisted his hands. He straightened. He’d die like a man for her. “I love you, Elizabeth.”
The truck engine roared and the bed moved slowly away from the tree. Even knowing he couldn’t escape his bindings, he struggled to free his hands and dig his boots into the rusted tailgate. His bindings clamped hard on raw wrists and his feet slid to the tailgate’s edge.
Seconds ticked like hours as the last inches of metal skimmed the bottom of his boots and his body fell with a hard jolt. The noose jerked tight and sliced into his skin. Pain burned through him. His struggles tightened the rope’s grip, crushing his windpipe as his feet dangled inches above the ground. He gasped for air, but his lungs didn’t fill. He dangled. Kicked. The rope cut deeper.
He was vaguely aware the truck had stopped. The scent of another cigarette reached him. The driver had stopped to have a smoke and watch him dangle.
Staying to enjoy the show.
And then his brain spun, spittle drooled from his mouth. As the blackness bled in from the corners of his vision, he stared at Elizabeth.
I love you.
His grip on life slipped away.
“Unbind his hands.”
Her voice had a shrill quality that made Jackson cringe. Out of spite, he ignored her and continued to stare at Rory’s dangling, lifeless body. Head tilted to the right. Eyes stared sightless at the sky. Tongue dangled out of his mouth.
“Unbind his hands,” she demanded.