Chapter Eight "The Truth"
"Tryin' to be perfect, tryin' not to let you down. Honesty is honestly the hardest thing for me right now. While the floors underneath our feet are crumblin', the walls we built together tumblin', I still stand here holdin' up the roof, 'cause it's easier than tellin' the truth."~Kris Allen
"So when did you find out about this Kyle person?" Danny asked. Kono had gone to get lunch and Steve was sitting at his desk, looking particularly official.
"Yesterday," Steve replied, not looking at Danny.
"Yesterday?" Danny raised his eyebrows. "She didn't tell you before?"
"They never talked about him."
"So what did he do?"
"You mean what didn't he do?" Steve looked up. "That list would be shorter."
"Okay."
"He never killed anyone." Steve turned back to the files on his desk. "No treason or acts of terrorism. He might have even paid his taxes."
"So how long has he been in prison?"
"Off and on since he was thirteen. McKenzie said the last time she saw him she was five. That would have made him eighteen."
"I think until then, it would have been juvenile corrections."
"Same thing."
"To an upstanding ninja like yourself."
"Yeah. Maybe I'm a little judgmental."
"Hardly. He sounds like a real piece of work. It's hard to believe they're related."
"No. It's actually pretty common. Good family, rebellious son. You should know."
Danny bit his lip. "Yeah." He looked down at his hands. "You want me to talk to her?"
"I'll let you know. I sent him to apologize last night. We'll see how that goes."
"You sent him?"
"I'm very convincing. He wanted to anyway. That's why I let him, actually."
"'Cause you would have stopped him?"
Steve met Danny's eyes. "If I felt it necessary."
Danny nodded. "Guess McKenzie would have been pretty upset."
"She was. She wouldn't even talk to him at the hospital."
"I wouldn't have either."
"You haven't even met him."
"I don't have to. If Matt were to come back after twenty years, I would be calling the FBI, not having a family reunion."
"But if he decided to make things right, you would forgive him, wouldn't you."
"I don't know. I guess... That's not likely to happen anytime soon though."
Kono came back with lunch which the three of them ate in silence. She wondered what the other two had been talking about, but didn't ask. She could see from their expressions it wasn't a conversation they wanted to continue.
H-5-O
McKenzie put her car in park and turned off the engine. She looked out at the waves crashing into the shore and running back out to sea again. Getting out of the car, she could smell the warm saltiness and feel the pounding in her ears. Her reverie was cut short by the sound of the other door closing and Kyle taking a deep breathe.
"It's really beautiful here," he said, almost as if he hadn't thought it would be.
"Not Cannon Beach," McKenzie said, "but it'll do."
"A lot warmer, I imagine."
McKenzie tried to bite back a grin. "A lot," she said and headed down to the sand.
Kyle followed close behind her, imagining nothing was wrong and they were just a brother and sister enjoying a day at the beach. As long as he didn't look McKenzie in the eye or hear her voice, he could keep up the fantasy. The thing he wanted most to be true was the lie that he would be there for McKenzie. Because he would have to leave, and probably wouldn't make it back for a long time. But he realized that that might be a good thing. It might very well be better for her if he disappeared.
"Kyle!"
He looked up to his sister's voice and saw her standing at the water's edge, motioning for him to follow. He pushed aside his worries for the moment. McKenzie deserved a day where nothing went wrong. So, he ran to her, splashing up water around their legs. Without thinking, he just kept running, pulling McKenzie into the waves with him. They went under, and for one beautiful moment, their hands were clasped together and the sun was reflecting off the surface above them.
McKenzie pulled away from her brother and as they surfaced, he saw a sad, distant look in her eyes.
"You okay, Macks?" he asked.
She only nodded and started swimming for the shore, not even bothering to tell him not to call her "Macks."
H-5-O
When Chin and Beckett returned they looked a little worse for the wear and they were herding along a young man in handcuffs.
"I think we found one of our masked men," Chin said. "He tried to take out Beckett as he was leaving."
Steve nodded, seeming almost happy. "What's his story?"
"Doesn't know Jennifer Lee and she doesn't know him. I figure you would want to talk to him while he still had teeth in his mouth, so I didn't go any further with the interrogation."
"Good call," Steve said, with a hint of a smirk. "You all right, Beckett?"
"Oh, yes," Beckett replied. "The kid was making a lot of noise. Probably never killed anyone before."
"We'll see."
Steve took the boy to the interrogation room and sat him down.
"Look, man, I don't know anything," he said.
"Let's start with your name," Steve said.
There was a pause, as if he were trying to decide whether to tell the truth or not. "Rex Rossi. And, yeah, I've got a record, so you don't have to bother asking any more of those questions."
"Okay, why were you trying to kill Detective Beckett?"
"Detective? No, I was after a guy called Burton."
"Why?"
"Just following orders."
"Whose orders?"
"I already said, I don't know anything."
Steve rolled his eyes, then in one swift move, dragged Rex out of the chair and pinned him to the wall. As his fingers tightened around the kid's throat Steve said,
"You are going to tell me what I want to know, or I am going to kill you and I will not lose a night's sleep over it."
He threw Rex to the floor, not bothering to mention that he hadn't really been sleeping lately anyway. Steve grabbed Rex by the shirt collar and put him back in his seat.
"You were saying?" he asked.
"Okay," Rex began, breathing hard. "I never saw her face."
"Who?"
"I don't know! She always talked in a real low voice and never took off her mask. She said we had to send a message for what that chick did to Arnold."
Steve bit down on his tongue and tasted blood. "So you killed them?"
"What? No, I didn't kill anybody. She shot the guy, but she said he'd live. Same with the lady. I mean, we beat her up, but she was alive when we left her."
"James and Michelle Carpenter are dead. So either you're lying to me or someone's making an ass out of you."
"They're dead? No, that wasn't the plan. I mean, she wanted to kill the other guy. The one who was protecting the girl. But she wanted to scare everyone first."
Steve hesitated, with the realization that he was the actual target. "What about Beckett?" he finally said.
"I got a call that this guy needed to be taken out. Said he was the face of the enemy."
"Who called you?"
"The woman. Look, I don't know who she is, okay? I think she might have been Arnold's girlfriend, but I don't know."
"So you were a follower of Arnold Hadley? You ever hear of Alice Beckett?"
"No."
"She was one of his first victims. A sixteen-year-old girl, going door to door with her youth group. She and her friend Ben were murdered after they visited Arnold Hadley. I guess they were the 'face of the enemy' too, huh?"
"I don't know anything about that."
"But you know Hadley killed anyone who got in his way?"
"Yeah. That's why he was here. Lee and his pals were trying to propagate their wishy-washy crap and he wanted to stop them."
"Did you come with him?"
"No. I came down a few weeks ago with my partner for this job."
"Who's your partner?"
"What, so you can go arrest him too? I don't think so."
"Or I could throw you out the window. Your choice."
"You can't actually do that."
"Yes. I can."
"Look, neither of us killed anyone."
"You beat Michelle Carpenter to death!"
"We didn't mean to!"
"That is hardly the point. You kidnapped and killed her. Now I want all the names you can think of. Everyone involved in this."
In the end, Rex gave up his conspirators. It turned out he was at the bottom of the food-chain anyway and would probably be killed for even telling Steve what he had, so spending the rest of his life in jail didn't sound so bad.
But they still didn't know who the woman was.
H-5-O
McKenzie sat in the sand, staring out at the water, where her brother stood up to his knees. This hadn't been how she had planned the day to go. But at the moment, she couldn't look him in the eye. She wasn't sure what it was that bothered her, but something was wrong. Very wrong.
Eventually, Kyle made his way back up the beach and sat down beside McKenzie. For a minute, he didn't say anything, and she was grateful. But the silence didn't last.
"I'm sorry," Kyle said.
"For what?" McKenzie asked.
"I don't know. Pretending everything was okay."
"Were you?"
"Yeah. It was nice for a minute. It was like when we used to go fishing."
McKenzie felt a lump rise in her throat. Fishing. That was the last promise Kyle had broken. The one she never forgot. Fishing on the Rogue. She hadn't been fishing since he left.
When the day started off, McKenzie thought she was doing well. She felt like he might be able to forgive and move on. She believed Kyle wanted to do the right thing now. But that one lie. What was it about that particular lie?
McKenzie knew it wasn't just fishing. It was all the things they would have done after that. All the times he would have been there for her when she needed him, but wasn't.
And now, it was the fact that he wanted to be her brother again, and she just wasn't ready for that.
"I love you, Kyle," she said through tears. "I thought I could forgive you. Dad always said you still loved me, but I never believed him. Not really."
"McKenzie." Kyle reached out to touch her arm, but she pulled away. "I do love you. I was stupid and selfish, but that never changed."
"I know. I thought once it would have been easier to hate you, but it wouldn't have hurt if I hated you. You can only hurt people who love you."
"I don't plan on doing that ever again."
"'The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry'."
"I'm not going to let myself hurt you again, Macks. I'd rather die."
"Don't say that." McKenzie's voice was hardly there. As much as she always felt like she had no brother, she felt even more like she had no parents. As long as Kyle was alive, there was a chance they could work things out. Maybe not much of one, but it was there.
