When Shannon wraps up, he says, “I need to tell you something.”
“What’s that?”
“The mine—it wasn’t an accident—someone tried to kill me.”
She chuckles. “I suppose it was only a matter of time.”
There with that asshole thing again. Studying him now, Shannon says, “Oh shit, you’re serious.”
“Someone pretending to be Roger sent me a text to meet him at Mine B. I thought it was the usual Maverick nonsense. But I called him this morning and he swears he didn’t send me a text.”
“And someone, what? Set off an—”
Nico nods, cutting her off. “After they impaled me with some weird weapon.” He gestures to his shoulder, which is in a sling.
She eyes him skeptically, and he gets it. Getting stabbed or shot might make sense. But pierced by a rod of steel projected through a weird weapon that looks like a Maglite? Nearly buried alive by an explosion?
“It’s all gonna leak soon,” Nico says. “The sheriff says he’ll give me time to duck out of town to avoid the circus, but he can’t wait too long. NIOSH and the other government agencies will figure out this wasn’t methane buildup, that the explosion was intentional.”
“Is that why you checked out of the hospital so fast?”
He nods again.
“Who?” She pauses. “Why?”
“I have no idea.”
Shannon gives him another skeptical look. She’s one of the few people who know about Nico’s gambling. She says, “The Feds have asked for any footage we have from security cameras, so maybe that will identify who it was.”
Nico doubts it. He doesn’t think there are any cameras outside the mine. And he doesn’t mention that Maverick told him he’d met a woman that night, “a hot tamale from out of town.” That she’d gone home with him and he doesn’t remember jack shit from the moment they had a drink at his place.
Nothing was stolen, so he didn’t think much of it. But Nico wonders if she used Maverick’s phone to lure Nico to the mine.
“Have you told the network?” Shannon asks.
“Nope. You’re it.”
Once the news breaks, they can expect a media onslaught. There’d been an accidental shooting on a movie set in New Mexico a couple years ago and it stayed headline news for months.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“I’m fine,” he lies. He thinks of those rats with their red eyes.
“You know everyone loves you. You may not remember, but there was a massive crowd at the rescue site. Maverick, Elmo, the lot of them were there. I swear Headboard had tears in his eyes. And there’s been an outpouring on Twitter.”
He shrugs. The cast was there for the cameras. The rest are keyboard junkies who don’t even know Nico. He’s checked his messages. Mostly reporters. His ex, Natalie, hasn’t called.
“I’m gonna be off the grid for a few days. Decline interview requests. Request privacy as I recover.”
“I’ll draft a statement.”
Nico nods.
“Where will you go?”
He flips his lucky silver dollar, which he isn’t so sure is that lucky, and looks at its face.
“Somewhere I hoped to never return.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DONNIE
Donnie and Reeves sit next to each other on the United flight. It has been a long time since Donnie has flown first class and it’s nice to have some legroom. Though, somewhere along the way, the airlines have managed to screw up first class. Back in the day, they’d be in mini-cabin-like pods where the seats would recline flat and a divider would make it so you didn’t even have to look at the person seated next to you. Now, at least on the flight from Miami to Philadelphia International, it’s basically a bigger seat, free wine from a box, and tepid beer.
“Thanks for buyin’ the tickets,” Donnie says to Reeves. “You’ll get reimbursed, I hope?”
“Me too,” Reeves says. The trip was last-minute, so he probably didn’t anticipate the expense.
“But don’t worry about the money. This gives us a little extra private time so we can work on the book.”
Donnie nods. The flight attendant offers him a beer and he gladly obliges. Better to make sure whoever pays for their tickets gets their money’s worth.
“So I thought we might step back, take things from the beginning. When you learned how to play guitar…”
Donnie rests his head back, a smile involuntarily spreading on his face. “I was in foster care in Chestertown the first time I ever touched a guitar.”
Reeves has his laptop out now. On the home screen there’s a photo of a woman. She’s in a hospital bed, tubes in her nose with monitors behind her, but she’s smiling, a haunting, beautiful smile.
Before Donnie asks who she is, Reeves says, “You’re originally from Fort Payne, Alabama?”
He’s already typing.
“With an emphasis on the payne,” Donnie says, grinning.
Reeves doesn’t seem amused. “How’d you end up so far from home, in Chestertown?”
Donnie’s already told him to drop questions about his childhood, but Donnie supposes he can throw the guy a bone. “You mean, how’d my mom get the idea to move from one of the poorest towns in the South to one of the poorest towns in the Northeast?”
Reeves doesn’t push.
“The short version is that my mom met a dude who, like all the dudes, convinced her he loved her and we’d be a family if she followed him. She did, we weren’t, and next thing I know I’m in foster care and my mom’s been arrested.” That should be enough red meat for the writer.
Reeves types on his laptop, eyes on the screen.
“Anyhoo, my first foster family, they were a nice elderly couple, the Jensons. Mr. J played guitar and still noodled around with the church band and he taught me to play. Gave me my first guitar. I named her Susie. I’ve still got her.”
“Susie, like the name of your second album.”
“You’ve done your research, Hemingway, hot damn,” Donnie says, smiling.
Reeves keeps typing. Not looking up, he asks, “How long were you with the Jensons?”
Donnie swallows down a lump in his throat. Not long enough.
“A year. They were a sweet couple, but not in good health. Mr. J had a heart attack and they couldn’t take care of me anymore, so I got sent to a group home.”
Savior House.
“Mr. J taught me the four chords I needed, and I took it from there.”
“Is the group house where you met Ben Wood?” Reeves asks, taking his chances.
Donnie doesn’t answer. Instead, he launches into a tired story about the time he got a DUI driving a golf cart on the way to a show in Dublin. He then excuses himself to the restroom.
As he tries to target the stream of urine into the small bowl, he’s startled by a memory: the four of them at the bank of the river, on their knees, the gun barrel put to the back of Donnie’s head.
Ben’s voice echoes in his head. You don’t have to be scared anymore, Donnie.
A tear rolls down Donnie’s cheek.
I’m not so sure about that, Benny. I’m not so sure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE