CHEVY

“I DON’T OWN the place.” Ruth is a rambler. Hasn’t stopped talking since we walked through the door. “I just work here, but the owner feels like I do a good enough job that he lets me take care of the place after nine on my own. We get real quiet after nine, but I don’t mind.”

Ruth peeks over at Isaiah as if she’s searching for his approval and she twists her hands together. Odd how she’s the mom and he’s the son, but he’s definitely the more mature of the two. Isaiah leans against the wall as Violet and I sit at the breakroom table.

“Are you going to get into trouble for having us here?” Violet asks.

“No. I called and told my boss and he was fine with it as long as I don’t make a habit of inviting people in. I told him that my son needed to speak to me and he knows that Isaiah and I don’t meet often.”

Isaiah’s lips thin out. “Why don’t you tell them about James, so I can get to work.”

“Okay, but it doesn’t feel right. James never wanted anyone else to know and I promised him I wouldn’t tell. I broke way too many promises with James and I wanted to be able to keep one.”

“You told me,” Isaiah says with strained patience.

“Because you’re my son and I’ve made mistakes with you and...”

The bell at the front rings and the expression of relief on her face makes me feel worse for her and for me. I just want the truth, but I don’t want it if it causes her a mental breakdown.

“I bet you it’s him.” She brightens.

Isaiah narrows his eyes on her. “Him who?”

“Him.” She jumps up and touches Isaiah’s arm. “He’ll tell them and I won’t have to break this promise to James. He’s a good man. I disappointed him when I...” Her face turns red. “When I made mistakes, but he helped me as much as he could then, too. Just wait right here.”

She leaves. Isaiah pinches the bridge of his nose, then cracks his head to the side. “I’m sorry about this. My mom tries too hard when I’m around.”

“Moms can get that way,” I say, but I honestly don’t know. My mom has always been a rock.

“I’m sorry for calling you in,” Ruth says, “but I thought about how you used to help me some after James died because of Isaiah and that maybe you wouldn’t mind.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” The familiar voice causes my body to jolt as if struck by lightning and Violet reacts the same way. We both turn our heads to the door and we’re met by the rising eyebrows of the detective.

“This is Detective Jake Barlow. Isaiah, Jake knows who you are because he met you as a baby, but he doesn’t know Chevy. Jake, this is James’s other son, Chevy. He found Isaiah recently and had questions about James. I thought it would be best if you told him.”

A muscle in the detective’s jaw jerks. “Why couldn’t you have told him?”

Ruth’s face falls and the detective nods like he understands. “Everyone but Chevy needs to leave.”

Isaiah doesn’t push away from the wall. “So what Mom said about him wasn’t full of shit?”

“If she told the truth, then no.”

Violet stands. “You know he’s just going to tell me everything anyhow, so I might as well stay.”

The detective tilts his head to the door. Because she respects him, she follows Isaiah and his mother out. He shuts it, then takes Isaiah’s place at the wall.

Fuck me, I need a beer. “So you knew my dad.”

“Yeah, I knew your dad. He’s the reason why I’ve spent the past eighteen years of my life with the gang task force.”

Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe my first instincts were right. “Because he was a member of the Riot?”

“Because he went undercover in the Riot.”

All the scattered thoughts in my brain disappear. “What?”

“Your father was a cop. He graduated a year early from college with a degree in criminal justice. He told your family he was in liberal arts because he didn’t know how to break it to your grandfather quite yet. He always intended to go home and work on the force in Snowflake, but then things heated up between the Riot and the Terror and he asked the right people if he could find a way to legally bring the Riot down and they put him undercover. It was dangerous, it was risky and it’s because of his work that I’m able to build a RICO case against the Riot. With what you, Violet and Razor have given us and what your father gave to me years ago, there are members of the Riot who will die in jail.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why not tell Cyrus or Eli or anyone?”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “We kept it secret to preserve the integrity of the case. Plus he was scared if it got out, even if he died, it would cause problems for the Terror, but mostly he was scared of the repercussions for you and Isaiah.

“The Riot knew about Isaiah because James’s life here in Louisville had to be an open book to the Riot. They knew Ruth was his girl and they knew she had his child. After James died, Ruth and Isaiah meant nothing to them. They were never associated with the Terror or the Riot.”

I rub at the slow throb in my temples. “The Terror would have taken them in.”

“I know, but I was also scared sending them to the Terror would paint a bull’s-eye on their backs.”

“You’ve been toying with the Terror all year. You fucked Razor up royally with the bombshell you dropped.”