Page 71 of Prohibited

“But unlike you, I have a sense of honor that comes from somewhere other than my own self interest,” Ryan went on. His eyes were so bright that they seemed to glow. It took Alex’s breath away. With a final shake, he released Alex who staggered a little. With as much dignity as he could muster, he straightened his shirt and his waistcoat.

“Then you’d better hope this nice girl act isn’t an act at all,” Alex said. “Because I don’t deal very nicely with traitors. And if it’s so easy for her to suddenly turn on Walter Stanley, why wouldn’t she turn on us?”

“If she betrays us,” Ryan said, his voice so cold it gave Alex chills, “it’s the last thing she’ll ever do.”

Alex smiled.

Chapter twenty-five

Evie

The drive out to the Orchard felt like it took years, though it couldn’t have really been more than an hour. As they drove into the twilight that deepened rapidly into inky black night, she realized that while she had roved around in the countryside just outside of Tulsa in her younger years, petting with boys in buggies and telling secrets by moonlight with the other girls, she had never been this far outside of the city by horse or by car. She simply had no business. She didn’t know any people who lived in the rural areas, or on the Reservations.

The open windows allowed the hot, sodden air of the summer night to pour through the car and whip her hair gently around her head. Silence permeated the car, though it didn’t feel awkward. Each passenger was engaged in his or her own thoughts. Alex sat behind the wheel, with Lindsay drowsing in the passenger seat next to him. And next to her on the luxurious leather seat in the back of the car, Ryan sat smoking a cigarette and looking out the opposite window at the dark land thatstretched on either side of them as Tulsa fell away behind. The half moon was high, pouring some light onto the landscape around them, but outside of the bright spill of the headlights that lit the way just ahead of them, the night still felt eerily dark and full, as if something waited for them beyond.

She had seen too much in the war to not believe in ghosts. She was haunted by them. By the man she loved. By the men she couldn’t save.

Against her will, she thought of Tommy. The one she helped to kill, however inadvertently. Cold poured through her, like a glass of water dumped over her head. The thought had started to trouble her that perhaps he would haunt her too. She didn’t know what he looked like, but her mind sketched a shadowy blend of Ryan and Alex both. Her imagination had a sense of him, and this shaded figure had begun to crop up in her mind’s eye throughout the day. She was starting to wonder if it was really her imagination at all.

She’d done her best not to think of him, to erase the whole terrible ordeal from her mind, but in talking about it with Ryan that morning and expressing her sincere remorse, she’d been forced to examine it again.

The murder.

A tingle went down her spine and she surprised herself with the urge she felt to shift across the seat, closer to Ryan. As if his large, warm body could protect her from the ghost of his brother. As if it could protect her from herself.

She leaned her head out of the window just slightly and let the night air rush over her face. Closed her eyes and willed herself to be rational, to stop thinking of ghosts. Of the past. Always, she was a prisoner of the past and she longed to be free of it. Somehow, being kept in a cage for days hadn’t felt unfamiliar to her. She was so accustomed to being trapped in the first place.

Finally, Alex turned onto a gravel road that she hadn’t even noticed. The car bumped along so precariously that both of her hands shot out to steady her. Ryan’s large, warm hand finding its way onto her shoulder surprised her. And though it was gone almost as quickly as it arrived, it left a lasting burn on her skin, the heat of which seeped through her like a poison.

Lights sliced through the darkness ahead of them and they slowed as they approached the large house that loomed out of the night.

A cabin, but quite large. It was difficult to see in the dark the whole of it but she could make out lights blazing in the downstairs, and lights blazing on the floor above. The dark outline of several figures on the large porch that wrapped around the house were surrounded by cigarette smoke. As they approached, several of the figures straightened up and began to wave their arms, shouting.

In the passenger seat, Evie nearly lunged forward to scold Lindsay as he leaned out of the window and began to wave his good arm, calling, “What are you doing up past your bedtime, yougrannies?”

The car came to a halt and with the crank of the parking brake, Alex killed the gently ticking engine of the Ford.

Some of the dark figures on the porch vaulted the railing and pelted across the turf toward the car. Though they looked like shadows and all of her thinking about ghosts put a prickle of fear through Evie, they proved to be tall men in henleys with their suspenders hanging from their trousers. Three of them gathered around Lindsay’s side of the car.

“Good God, look at you–”

“What have you done to yourself–?”

“You look like shit–”

Evie shrank back in the seat, feeling perplexingly shy. She felt like an interloper among friends and family. It didn’t surprise her at all to see Lindsay so warmly greeted. Beyond the three men gathered around the car, chatting and clasping hands with both Ryan and Lindsay, she saw another figure coming down the gentle slope toward the car. He was much bigger than any of the other men and they parted to make room for him as he approached.

“Mal,” Lindsay drawled at the big man, who put his hands on the lip of the window and peered into the dark interior of the car.

“Is Saoirse with you?” There was a note of tension to the big man’s voice as he ducked his head, looking through the windows of the car.

“No,” Lindsay said with a solemn shake of his head. “No one’s heard from her.”

A heavy silence fell over the car for a moment. Evie itched to ask who Saoirse was, but she clamped her mouth shut. Later, she would ask Lindsay.

The big man sniffed.

“Bring all your miscreant friends, did ya?” Mal said, his voice carrying the musical twang of Oklahoma.