for a haircut, and with his baseball cap off the lank strands hung around his face in a dirty, formless mess.
“What have you done, Cade,” I cried. At the dread in my voice he threw me the uneasiest of glances, reaching into the hamper for a washcloth to wipe his forearm. “Tell me how you’re going to get out of this one. Tell me now, and then get me and TJ out of this house before they come to arrest you.”
He tossed the washcloth back into the basket. “Nobody’s coming. We’re all on our own here. And nobody’s leaving until we figure out what to do next.”
The weight of that notion was almost physical. The house, this drafty and rattling old place, seemed to snug around me as if shrunk tight by Cade’s determination. I clutched TJ tighter against my body to steady the shivers that rippled through my muscles, but it didn’t work. “How could you do this to us,” I stammered, my voice at a whisper, without any hope that he would offer an answer. “If you were going to do something this awful you never should have come home.”
“I didn’t intend to,” he snapped. “I’m not that stupid. The idea was to lure him into the truck and hold him while I went into the building with his ID. And then I walked over and the entire office building went on lockdown out of ‘an abundance of caution’ because of a bomb on the Metro. So I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I just told Dodge to drive and we’d figure the rest of it out once we got here. He was acting like I was supposed to have all the answers, and hell if I know how to cover our tracks.”
I waved a hand wildly toward the door. “Well, what are you going to do with him now?”
He squinted in a peevish way. “I don’t know, Jill. Fucking bury him in the backyard. I’m driving back to D.C. tomorrow. I’ll think about it on the way down.”
I started to cry again.
“Jill, knock it the hell off. It has to be this way. The tree of liberty must be refreshed by the blood of patriots and tyrants, and if it has to be mine and his, then so be it. I’m not just going to let Elias die for nothing. Let them stick a toe tag on him and shove him into their freezer.”
“He wouldn’t want you to do this. And it isn’t going to work. They’ll connect this to you in no time. You heard what Drew said. He knew who Dodge is.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting that. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. And you know why it all is.” He pointed savagely at TJ drowsing in my arms. When he spoke again, his voice sank to an aggressive hiss. “Why my life’s fucked up. Why Fielder’s downstairs. Why you’re stuck in this shithole, and why Elias is dead.”
“TJ’s got nothing to do with Elias.”
“Bullshit he doesn’t. Elias killed himself because I had you and he didn’t and he couldn’t stand it. Let’s just put it out there, all right? Let’s lay it all on the table. He came home from the Sandbox and he was doing okay in spite of it all—”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“Don’t cut me off! He was doing okay until I brought you home. I thought about this shit the whole way back from D.C., and there’s no point now in pretending it doesn’t exist. The VA had no business putting him on all those goddamn drugs and making it impossible for him to get up off his ass and get his life together. The fact that he couldn’t handle life anymore falls square on their shoulders. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say what it was that pushed him over the edge. It was him seeing that baby and knowing he was never, ever going to get a chance with you.”
“No,” I protested. But I knew it was probably true.
“And I love that kid with everything in me,” he continued. “I’d give him the world and it’s a damn good thing, because that’s about what he’s costing me. My freedom, my brother, my future, my loyalty to you—”
“That’s not TJ’s fault,” I snapped. “Back off the poor kid and take some responsibility.”
“That’s all I ever do anymore is take responsibility,” he shouted. “I’ve given all I goddamn can, and it’s time for the people who owe me