Page 93 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

“We saw the feds leave,” RJ said.

“The feds – those two and the team they brought, at least – won’t be a problem anymore. Agent Daniels spoke well of Alex’s friend Mike Chambers. They know that Hames and Sawyer are dead, and they were able to confirm that Boyle took Remy all on his own, without being under orders.”

“Officially, he’s suspended,” Aidan said. “And Daniels and Nowitzki aren’t worried about us anymore.”

“Even though they dug up somebody’s farm?”

“They left, didn’t they?” Walsh said. “We’ll be careful, and we’ll keep an ear to the ground, but as of right now, they aren’t our biggest concern.”

“What is?” Roman asked, and it sounded more like a prod than a question. Walsh met his gaze, saw his lifted tawny brows, and withheld the urge to shoot him the bird.

Instead, he took a sip of water, lit a cigarette, and said, “There’s something I need to tell all of you. Something…”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d groped for words. The last time he’d stalled out.

He’d even practiced. In his head. And, a half-hour ago, on the phone with Emmie.

With her, he’d let the shakiness bleed into his voice. Let it crack, and skip; let her hear, not by choice, but out of necessity, because the gentle sound of her voice an ocean away threatened to smash him to pieces, and he found that though he could control the words, he couldn’t control the way they left his lips. Ghost decided it was best to go north with Fox in secret. He wanted the feds to think he was out of the game, so that Abacus would think he was gone, and hopefully never see him coming.

When he tried to say that now, the words got jammed up in his throat, and he had to take another swallow of water.

“You okay?” Aidan asked beside him, and, yes, he looked so much like Ghost it was startling these days, but his eyes had always been, and still were, far kinder than Ghost’s. A natural sweetness that no amount of hardship had snuffed.

Walsh set his glass down with a thump, and the vise of tension around his throat loosened. “Yeah. I’m okay.” For now. He looked at Aidan, and then swept his gaze slowly around the table. “I have something to tell all of you, and you’re not going to believe me at first, and when you do, you’re gonna be mad as hell, and you’ll probably want to strip my patches right here and now. That’s your right. But I need to say it, and I need to say all of it. After that, you can vote on what to do about me.”

Rottie said, “What todo about you?” He looked baffled, and more than a little worried.

“Yeah.”

I don’t think it’s going to go as badly as you think, Emmie had said on the phone earlier.They’ll be upset, and angry, yes, but they love you, and they love Ghost, and this is a special circumstance. You didn’t have a choice.

He hadn’t, really, with regards to Ghost leaving. But he could have chosen to tell the truth from the start. He was telling it now.

“It’s true that we learned Boyle had hired someone to kill Ghost, and it’s true that it was Big Jonny. Big Jonny really is dead. But Ghost isn’t.”

He held up a hand, a reminder that he needed to get all of it out first, before they started shouting, but no one looked on the verge of doing that. There were some blinks, some bugged eyes – but there were some sharply-traded glances, too. Flat mouths, and subtle nods, likeyeah, we already knew that.

“He wanted,” Walsh continued, “to go to Virginia with Fox and handle the Abacus threat directly, and he didn’t want them to know he was coming. He wanted the FBI to be focused on Knoxville, and he wanted them to think we were dealing with a crisis. That we were weak, and too caught up in our own storm to be worried about them. The idea was to give him a chance to find some answers in Quantico, and for Mercy to get a head start in New Orleans

“But,” he pressed on, hand still raised for silence, “not everyone stuck to the plan.” Here he glanced down the table at Albie, who gave him the faintest nod, his expression encouraging. “When Ghost decided to send the women and children to London, Ava and Maggie roped Reese and Tenny into helping them get off the plane, and the four of them headed for New Orleans to join the search for Remy.”

He heard a few hissed breaths, and one muttered curse. The creaks of chairs and the lighting of cigarettes, but no one interrupted. He chose to take that as a good sign, whether or not it actually was.

“Alex and Colin headed that way, too, and they joined up with the others. When I spoke with Tenny last night, he saidthey’d rendezvoused with Mercy and his boys, and they’re all working together, now.

“The rest of the old ladies are, in fact, in London, and they helped conceal Ava and Maggie’s escape for as long as they could so no one here would try to stop them leaving.

“Ghost and Fox are responsible for Deborah Sawyer, and, in a roundabout way, Director Hames, though it was a sniper who pulled the trigger on him. Ian got a phone call from a man claiming to be the founder and director of Abacus. He wants a meeting. Ian took the jet to Viriginia, picked up Ghost and Fox, and now they’re headed to New York.

“That’s it, then. That’s where everyone stands.” When he was done, he let out a slow, unsteady breath, chest hollowed out, relief prickling cool and welcome across his skin. He’d said it. It sat on the table like a steaming, fresh-butchered body, and it was up to the rest of them to take what they would from it, and decide how furious they wanted to be.

Looks passed back and forth, side to side, but it was Roman who finally broke the silence. “Man. What an asshole. Ghost, I mean,” he clarified, when heads turned his direction. “Does he not get that we lie for a living? He couldn’t say, ‘oh, hey, by the way, I’m gonna play dead for a while. Maybe go along with that ‘cause I’m your president and I said so.’ Un-fucking-believable.” But his headshake, and the wry twist of his mouth said he believed every word, and wasn’t surprised in the least.

Dublin had his thick arms folded over his chest, and shot Walsh a narrow look. “And you knew about it, huh? The whole time? Was it fun pretending to be president for a few days?”

“Of course it wasn’t!” Albie snapped, leaning forward, finger stabbing through the air toward Dublin. “Look at the man: he spent all of yesterday hooked to an IV drip. He almost gave himself alcohol poisoning. He’s been more upset than if Ghost were actually dead.”

“You’re just defending him because he’s your brother,” RJ sneered.

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