WON'T LET YOU DOWN
Cactus Road Motel – 11:41 PM
It was an evening of restlessness.
A healing process of no sleep, heavy drinking and pill popping when Shane wasn't paying attention to him. She had promised without restraint to help him find Lily, if it was the very last thing they did. But there were other things to worry about, such as the case, which was still left at a dangling end to a furious sort of string.
He had laid on that old motel bed since his wounds had first been tended to and since his consciousness had first been broken. He spent the time listening intently as Shane shuffled between here and there, attempting to better the reception on her phone. She made phone call after phone call to Jack, Dane, and every other freeloading son-of-a-bitch who ever got them involved in anything that was a death trap.
She fought. For him, for Lily, for herself, all afternoon long. And he was proud of her.
Just as he reached over to the bedside table for his smokes, with a wince of lower pain in his gut, Shane came bolting through the doorway again, with a soft grunt.
"Fucking pricks."
He tried not to laugh, sighed just as angrily instead, snatched his cigarettes and drew one into his mouth.
"Anything?"
Shane fell to the opposite side of the bed in a flop, throwing her phone across the floor.
He lit up and took a deep, necessary drag to ease his own demonic spirit.
"They're keeping secrets. I can feel it."
"What secrets?"
"I don't know. But Jack just keeps talking about this dinner deal or something. In Phoenix."
"Deal for what?"
"Drugs, prostitutes, how am I supposed to know?"
"Did you ask?"
He heard his sister growl beside him and get up from the bed again.
"They won't tell me anything." She began to hunt across all surfaces of the room as he listened. "Why bother putting me on the goddamn case if they aren't going to lend me 'intelligence'!"
Something broke with her screech and he felt continuous jolts on the bed at his feet. Piles of clothes hit his feet as she threw things into a duffel bag and zipped it closed.
"Fuck em'. I'm doing this myself."
Sands sat up as quickly as he could with dizziness and pain in his stomach and leg, then limped to stand as Shane rustled through a few last items.
"You don't have a lead, Shane."
"Phoenix. That's a lead."
When she brushed past him just enough, Sands grabbed his sister's arm gently and held her still for a moment, breathing heavily towards her.
"And what the hell happens when you get to Phoenix, Shy?"
"I don't know, but we have to get there. You want to find her don't you?" She struck him hard with the inquiry, not meaning to, but still hitting his heart. "She's wherever they are. I know it. And if Jack thinks they're in Phoenix. Then she's somewhere in Phoenix."
He breathed and released her arm as she stumbled back and grabbed her gun and the room key off the table. Sands was temporarily lost within the madness of the entire thing surrounding his head. They'd been so close when Tuzla's men were in Vegas, and they'd missed something, something that their intelligent buddies back in D.C had forgotten to mention.
Proximity. Equal awareness. And return vengeance for their run on Tampa Bay.
Jimmy was pissed and he could feel it no matter how he tried to think about the situation in a lighter note. Lily was with them, she had to be, who else would snatch her from this room? Bleeding and from right out of his arms?
As he heard the door squeak open and Shane sigh once more with the heat of the Vegas night, he tilted his head towards her general direction and did the exact same.
"Are you going to help me save your wife or what?"
His mind twisted with her words as he focused more clearly on stepping to the doorway from the bed. He hadn't thought to mention it, but he also hadn't thought to hide the truth from anyone either. He just couldn't let himself believe it that it was less than 24 hours since she said, 'I do.'
He heard a laugh come from Shane as she dropped her bags once more and return to him, more understanding, more released in frustration. Her small hand hit his shoulder, then his cheek, in a way he hadn't known from her in too long.
"I had a feeling that's where you disappeared to last night."
He chuckled a little and without fully knowing why, rose his hand to cover hers on his face, patting it softly.
"And you didn't try to call Lily and warn her before I stumbled here with the rock?"
"No need. Warnings don't work with you two. Never have."
Shane smiled past what she thought were coming tears and held his hand as she tugged him out the door.
"Come on. Let's go rescue your damsel in distress."
Sands nodded in agreement and for some odd reason that he couldn't quite explain, thought instantly of the night she got on the plane with them in D.C.
"I know who you're after."
"Good for you. Now go home."
"Jeff…"
"What?"
"I need to go. I need to help. For Tommy."
And he'd let her follow. He'd let her get right on that plane, headed for eventual disaster.
As he hobbled to the SUV in the purest of darkest, the starkest of loneliness now, he could only tell himself one thing, over and over again.
'I'm getting that girl back. I've worked too hard not to. I'm getting my Tiger Lily back.'
Mojave Freeway – 6:01 AM
There was no more holding back, no more lying, no more secrets.
He told her everything.
"I want you to start at the beginning."
"You mean the end."
Lily just scowled at him from across the table in an all night diner on the California borderline. Not that she was even thinking about where they were. It was the furthest thing from her mind in that moment actually.
"The end of who you were to US, yeah. But the beginning of who you are now."
He sighed and shook his head low.
"I'm still the exact same person, Lillian. I just got an ultimatum to be a ghost for a while."
A while, had become seven years, ten months and now twelve days as they sat watching the sun come up over the distant plains and mountains. Between sips of stale coffee and nervously shared bites of blueberry pie, Lily got every detail she ever thought she'd never need in life.
To break it down in her mind though, it was as simple a story as such.
Her brother Tommy was nearly killed on that rooftop in Brooklyn, that rainy night in March. Jeff and Shane were both well aware he was still conscious and breathing when they arrived at the hospital with the DA and authorities. But while they sat in the waiting room for news that regrettably turned tragic, New York's finest doctors were repairing every last broken bit of him in an undisclosed ward of the hospital.
It had been a higher power, one from behind a desk in midtown D.C, that had kept him alive.
A power called Intelligence.
"So what, they wanted to use you for some special assignment?"
He swallowed a forkful of pie and whipped cream, "Sort of."
"What then?" She filled her mouth the same way with a crooked brow.
"Intelligence needed what they like to call a 'Poltergeist OP'."
"Meaning…?"
"Meaning, that I would be in the shadows, collecting information for them until I didn't need to be in the shadows anymore. Until my enemy was finally killed."
Lily's eyes grew wide for a second as she wiped her lip.
"Tuzla?"
"Oh good, you know all about him," Tommy laughed warmly.
So he was a phantom, from May of 1996 until now, and still flourishing through this desert valley around them. He explained that it was a sworn deal, that the second Jimmy Tuzla's operations were torn to pieces, the very millisecond the bastard was caught up on, he would be officially free.
Unfortunately, as Lily already well knew, Jimmy Tuzla wasn't just some ordinary fish to catch.
As she recalled, he was a shark.
"Let me get this straight. You all are purposefully walking into the lion's den, basically doing a tap dance on his boots, and then waiting to see how he'll react?"
Sands hummed with relaxed laughter behind her as she glanced back to see his smile. Danny was nodding when she returned to him.
"And this is what the CIA does all the time? Instead of scaring the guys you want to catch, you piss them off."
"I could have warned you earlier, but figured you would lose your damn mind over it. Come to think of it," he smirked as he stretched out, legs around her, "You may still go nuts on me."
"Well it would have been nice to know that we were going to be shark bait for the afternoon…"
"Don't worry. These won't be the big sharks. Not yet."
He was right when he said 'not yet.'
There had been no consequences in Florida, no one hurt, nothing to worry about except their own dangerous emotions running wild. Out here though, in the middle of gun country, where too much went unnoticed if you were smart about it, Tuzla was king. And judging by where she was now, with her still undisclosed, spirit like brother, it was a most assured, monarchial land.
Tommy explained that the CIA had scouted Jeff at his own request from within. He had asked them to bring in his old partner, the one guy he knew could get the job done and finally finish off Tuzla for good, thus in return, freeing him from the underworld of agency protection.
But Tuzla disappeared. And not only did he disappear, but he did it for seven long years, leaving Tom to wander aimlessly between other task force operations in Texas, California and even South America. He was used as a spy, the collector of all things 'intelligent', living out an endless sentence in a purgatory he couldn't shake and one his friends and family couldn't either.
"You know, they had me on this one short job over in Boston during that first year. They sent me in to grab some information on a nuclear warfare threat that was circling a few crazy immigrants down on the docks." He smiled and took a strong sip of his coffee, dwelling into what Lily could see was unexplainable sadness. "While I was in town, I drove by Harvard Yard and your dorm building."
Her lips quivered as her eyes focused on twitching brow, "You did?"
"Yeah. I saw you walking with a group of friends between classes."
"Why didn't you--"
"I couldn't." He cut her off gently and she knew well enough why. "Don't think I didn't want to. I would have given whatever life I had left at that point to get out and run to you, Lily."
She was crying when he removed his focus from his cup and to her eyes again.
"I was always there. I was always around, you know."
"You were?"
He nodded swiftly and reached across the table, pulling her hand into his, squeezing, remembering how it used to feel smaller to him.
"I was there the day you graduated. And I was there the day of Sean's funeral."
She thought about tiny things, memories of her own, of her college days, of her once-was fiancé, of her life that he apparently hadn't missed as much as she had believed. And every bit of it, brought stronger, more resolved tears.
"I've been watching out for you and mom all this time. Any way I can. I've been so scared that something would happen. That if they ever found out about me, they'd be after you. Or even just out of spite for not getting glory enough from 'killing' me. I couldn't let that happen. And I couldn't miss the life that went on without me."
Lily wiped her face with her free hand and then brought it down to cover both of theirs together, while he did the exact same. After a minute of deep crying, she eventually spoke in return.
"I followed Shane because I wanted to avenge you. Did you know that?"
He smirked lightly, "I assumed as much when I heard you were trailing behind."
"I couldn't let them do it. Not without me. I wanted to be the one to--"
Her voice cracked with solemn fear, anger and he moved both of their tangled hands up to reach her cheeks with his thumb, brushing back her hair and tears.
"Be the one to what?" He finally pushed.
Lily's eyes softened with a wet turn up again, "I wanted to be the one to kill him. I wanted to do it, put the bullet through him."
"You?"
His sarcasm was playful, the way she remembered and she giggled away the tears.
"Yes, me. I have exceptional aim now, according to my own 'personal' CIA trainers."
He laughed out louder and carefully stood to walk around to her side of the booth. Tom slid in and brought his arms to cover her entirely, a million times stronger than she remembered them, but no less protective, no less caring or warm for that matter.
Lily's wet face was pressed into his chest, hidden under his swarming hug, breathing him in, recalling to her memory everything she'd ever known about her older brother, all the things she'd ever taken for granted.
"You don't have to worry about raising the dead anymore, or getting revenge for me. I'm right here," he whispered as he brushed her hair back and rubbed her shoulders, "I'm not going anywhere but back home with you. Just as soon as I get my call. And trust me," he kissed her head and waved the waitress over for the check, "It's coming sooner than you think."
Lily clung to him tighter, not wanting to see the world again. The blackness that her hidden eyes in his chest created was enough for her and more. It was her own blackness, finally. to matched the one Jeff constantly stumbled in, and the one that Tommy had been wandering through all alone for seven years.
"I know it sounds cheesy, considering how weak a point it is, Lil," he gently brought her face back to see her eyes then, to see every bit of the emotion covering her face, "But I've missed you every single second, of every single day."
There was a smile. A check. And a whisper.
"I missed you more, Tommy."
And so she probably had.
Lily had missed her brother like there was an entire half of her body missing for all those years, only now being returned to her by the thieves who had also sucked her husband into a Mexican torture fest, and risked the life of her sister in law countless times before that as well. Admitting all of it, was more than she ever thought she would have to.
The CIA had pulled every bit of life from her family that it ever could, despite their best efforts to 'retain' life on a whimsical contract. Tom was dangling on a loose wire with both his feet tied over his head, just waiting, praying minute by minute, that someone would cut him free again.
He was ready to be a free man instead of a just covert puppet.
There was only one minor detail in the scheme that Tommy had failed purposefully to mention.
Lily stood at the front counter beside him as he paid for their pie and coffee, toying quietly with a rack of brochures and tourist attraction ads. She leafed through half a dozen or more before she realized they all had one thing in common.
They weren't for Nevada anymore. They were ads for California.
Ads for Disneyland and Grauman's Chinese Theater and the San Diego Zoo.
"Tom?" She asked softly, lifting one of up with a view of Monterrey Beach. "Why are we in California?"
He turned and accepted his change, shoving it into his pocket.
"We're going to San Francisco until everything's clear."
"What?"
She didn't like that answer. Especially because she had to reprimand herself for not paying attention to the driving they had already been doing and the road they'd already put between them and Vegas. She'd been so concerned with him, with the rising past, that she'd hardly noticed the change of zip codes for two hundred miles.
"We need to go back to Vegas and help Shane."
He just shook his head with a disbelieving laugh and walked her towards the door, thanking the waitress as they went.
"We're not going back to Vegas. We're not going anywhere near this thing. You're done."
"No, I'm not. Not even close."
Lily stumbled down to the dusty pink desert lot of the early morning, heading backwards for the Mustang as she tried to reason with him.
"I have to help Jeff and Shane and the guys. They're all still stuck in the middle of it."
"Yeah, and they're trained agents. It's their job."
"Tommy." She stopped him abruptly in the middle of the lot, her hand pressed to his chest as she stared up at him desperately. "I want to back. Now."
"No, Lily. No."
She wasn't taking it, that answer. She'd already heard it far too much for a two week stint.
Before he could pull the keys from his jacket pocket, she managed to force her hand inside and grab them herself, darting off in a kick of dust when he tried to stop her.
"Lily! Damn!"
She ran for the car on the other side of the lot. A hand to her pain stricken but bandaged stomach, dirty jeans and sliding boots were all she knew as she made it to the tail end and slid across to the driver's door. Lily ripped it open, jumped inside and locked it, all before Tom came anywhere near the vehicle.
She could hear every one of his screams but could only smile.
"Lillian!" He jogged to the driver's window as she turned the car on in the morning heat. A tap startled her only slightly on the window. "Open this door. You're not going anywhere."
It was faint from the closed in space, but he heard her say with a twisted smirk, "Wanna bet?"
"Lily, don't even think about--"
But mere seconds before he was able to finish, she had slammed her foot into reverse and the tired old car spun out in a 180 towards the highway exit again. Tom stumbled in front of the headlights, his warning silhouette making her laugh as it played against the purple shade of the sky at a distance.
He was already dead to half the world, and the other half wanted him dead. And yet there he stood, testing her, not realizing the risk that lingered overhead with her after all this time. The Lily he remembered was a medical student, a book worm, a deviant sort of beauty queen in their small home town.
Same as Jeff though, he had a lot to learn again.
"Get out of the car! You're not going anywhere!"
She shook her head and revved the engine, pressing her boot toe down on the gas just enough to make him squirm out in the grassy patch of dust lined road. He caught his breath as she watched for a single moment. Then, when he shouted her name, she did it again.
"Jesus Christ, Lily!"
He leapt three feet in the air and she laughed out, begging him to reconsider with eyes alone through the sandy windshield. And almost before she believed it, and after one more attempt to run over his feet, he gave in with surrendering hands raised and a cautious swagger to the passenger's side.
Tom had seen his life flash before his eyes plenty of times already. But having it at the hands of his sister, the one he hadn't seen in a sure fire decade, one that had become a force he could hardly reckon with, he had no choice but to shake his head with a smile as he approached the car, laughing to himself alone.
'God love her. She's still Sands' girl all over.'
