Page 5 of Shadow Strike
In the kitchen, his cousin Ryder had his phone out, showing Wade something on the screen.Wade was leaning forward in his chair with the engaged attention he got on good days.He had on sweatpants and a t-shirt that needed to be washed.His hair needed combing.Still, at sixty and post-stroke, Wade Briggs remained a substantial presence.CB had gotten his size honestly.
“You’re here,” Wade said, sounding surprised.
“I always come on Thursdays, Dad,” CB said, even though he knew Wade rarely knew what day of the week it was.
Wade nodded.“Ryder was just telling me about the Harlan County rally.”
Tension coiled in his gut.He shoved it down.“How was it?”CB said, keeping things polite.
“Good turnout.”Ryder leaned back in his chair, all ease and confidence.He wore expensive slacks and had gelled his shoulder-length hair back.“You should’ve come.”
“I was working.”
“Right.”A half-smile.“The security business.”
CB set the bags on the counter and started putting things away.SPS was more of a family to him these days than the two men in this kitchen.
He knew the cabinet that stuck, the drawer where the good knife lived, and the spot on the floor near the stove that creaked if you stepped on it.His mother had cooked in this kitchen every day of her marriage to Wade.CB still caught himself expecting to find her here sometimes.
“Groceries,” Wade said, noticing.“You don’t have to do that, Clive.”
That was code for ‘I don’t want you to do things for me.’He’d made it clear to CB that he preferred Ryder to fill that role.
“I was at the store anyway,” CB lied.His dad would accept help more easily if it were incidental.
“How’s the shoulder?”Ryder asked Wade.“You were saying it’s been bothering you.”
And just like that, CB was forgotten again.Wade turned back to Ryder, and the conversation picked up where they’d left off.
He finished putting the groceries away and listened to his father talk with the ease of a man in his own home, in his own life, with the person he’d chosen to fill it.
Not his son, but Ryder, his nephew.
Ryder had been good at this since they were boys—knowing how to command a room.Knowing who to aim his attention at to make that person feel like the only one in it.CB had always recognized it was a skill, genuine and honed, without being able to fault him for it.You learned early in the Outlaws to use the tools you had.
He just wished the tool wasn’t aimed at his dad.
Wade looked up when CB closed the pantry door.He looked at CB the way he used to, direct, assessing, and fully present.“You staying for coffee?”
“Can’t today.I’ve got a consult.”
Wade shook his head, frustrated.“You can’t even give your old man five minutes?”
CB held back his own frustration.“I’ll be back Sunday.We’ll have coffee then.”
“Bring those cookies I like,” Wade said, already turning back to Ryder’s phone screen to replay the video.
Ryder left Wade the phone and walked CB to the door.
But a walk with Ryder was never just a walk.“Your dad’s having a good stretch,” Ryder said on the porch, easy and conversational, like they were two men exchanging news about a mutual friend.“Three, four good days in a row last week.”
Letting CB know he’d been here while CB was handling the Halverson case.“Good.”
“He asks about you when you’re not here.”
CB took the subtle dig, let it spool out with nothing but a glance in Ryder’s direction.Ryder met it with the same surface ease, and underneath it, the old score, running and running, a tab that never got settled.
“But he’s got you, right?”CB said—a dig for a dig.
