Write Your Own Song

Chapter 29

"Did you know this was going to happen?" Jack asked, staring out the window at the small house and the ominous looking car parked across from it with two guys sitting in it, trying so hard to not be obvious that it might as well have been painted hot pink and decked out with flashing neon sign declaring Shady Hit Men Sitting Right Here.

"Was this part of your plan, Bobby? Because I swear to God …"

"Damn it, Jack," Bobby slammed his fist on the steering wheel, "give me some credit here. No, it was not part of my plan."

"Well, how did they wind up here?"

"No fucking clue."

The whole six hour drive there, Jack spent worrying about what to say, how to stand, should he shake hands, should he hug her, should he just vomit in the car instead of waiting to do it on her doorstep. The last thing he thought he should be worrying about was a couple of bad guys staking out the house of the woman who gave birth to him, waiting to off him to fulfill some whack job's idea of vengeance.

He could list a thousand reasons why they shouldn't even be there in the first place, but he had to go and let his brother steamroll over him and bully him into doing something he didn't want to do. He was fine just leaving it be. He had a family, fucked up as they were, and he didn't need to travel halfway across the country in some sort of misguided adventure like he was living life inside a Hallmark commercial, filling a void that could never be filled. Evelyn was gone. Finding the woman who let him go twenty-one years ago wasn't going to change that.

All of this because of a letter. Jack patted his pockets, dread settling in his stomach.

"Shit," he said.

"What?"

"The letter."

"Spit it out, Jackie, I'm not in the mood for twenty questions," Bobby said as he leaned over and opened the glove compartment, pulling out his loaded gun.

"The letter. I left it on the coffee table …"

"Yeah?"

"In Chicago."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"So, technically this is your fault."

The air in the car grew thick and he slumped in his seat, trying to keep his whole body from shaking. Fuck, he thought. The last thing he needed was a panic attack. "You think they searched your place?"

"If they even have only half a brain between the two of them, of course they searched the place."

The house looked empty, no cars in the driveway, not lights on inside. If they were lucky, no one was home. The whole street looked abandoned. It was mid-afternoon and there was a good chance almost everyone was at work or school.

Jack looked at the house again, really looked at it. It was nice. Your basic suburban middle class America. Yard was mowed, flowers planted in gardens that lined the front of the house, nothing special except that it wasn't Detroit and you couldn't hear sirens in the background, the typical inner city lullaby he'd grown up with.

"What are we gonna do?" Jack asked even though he knew his brother had been itching for a fight since before they even left Detroit and there was no way he was going to back down from this one.

"We ain't runnin'."

XxXxXxXxXx

Bobby drove the car to a quiet side street several blocks away so they could work through his plan and prepare to get shot at.