“Traps,” I growled, closing the remaining distance between us and keeping my voice low. “You installed traps in four cars, for the Iron Order, so they could run drugs without getting caught.”
Jethro’s eyes widened even as his brow pulled low. “How do you—”
“Because, dummy, they videotaped the whole thing. And now Repo is exploiting your shitty decisions as blackmail. He wants to use the Winston Brothers Auto Shop as their new chop shop, or else he’s sending you to federal prison.”
“Oh shit…” Jethro said on a shocked and defeated exhale, then sunk to the rocking chair to his left. I watched dispassionately as his elbows came to his knees and he buried his face in his hands.
I was quiet, something I knew how to do well, and waited for my brother to process reality.
“Did you do it? Did you agree?” He didn’t lift his head, so his words were spoken to the wooden porch floor.
“No. We’ve been stalling.”
Jethro’s shoulders rose and fell, and he nodded. “Good. Good.” He was silent for a beat, then asked, “And Cletus doesn’t have a plan?”
“No. Cletus doesn’t know.”
Jethro lifted his head from his hands, his eyebrows knit together. “What do you mean Cletus doesn’t know? You didn’t tell Cletus?”
“No, Jethro. I didn’t tell Cletus. Why would I want to bring him into this godawful mess of yours if he can keep his hands clean? Isn’t it bad enough that Beau and I have to deal with it?”
My oldest brother jumped to his feet. “Duane, Cletus installed the traps.”
Now he’d surprised me. I straightened from the wooden beam where I’d been leaning and stared at him. He was half smiling.
“Come again?”
“Cletus was the one to install the traps in those cars, not me. Do you think I’d be able to install those contraptions? Did you see how they work? You have to…” He appeared to be searching his memory for the description. “You have to wire them just so—where they won’t open unless the car is off, but the key is in the ignition, and the seatbelt is fastened, and there’s a hurricane in Florida, and no beer left in the fridge, and everyone’s favorite dessert is banana cream pie—or some such complicated nonsense.”
I was still stuck on the fact that Cletus—not Jethro—had been the one to install the traps, too stuck to admire the genius of how they worked.
“So…Cletus knows? He knows all about this? How you got out of the Order?”
Jethro nodded. “Yeah. When I decided enough was enough, and those biker boys told me what I needed to do, the cost of my freedom, the first person I thought of was Cletus.”
I frowned at my brother. “Was he there? When you showed them how the traps work?”
“No. He installed the traps, showed me how to use them. I went to the Order on my own, took credit for the installations. I was trying to minimize his involvement.”
“So he doesn’t know they’re being used to smuggle drugs?”
Jethro made a sound in the back of his throat and shifted on his feet. “I mean, he probably guessed it. I knew, of course, even before the Order told me so. Why else would they want secret traps?”
“But on the video you start cussing them out when they tell you.”
“Because I had plausible deniability up until that point. Once they told me, and I knew for sure, I became an accomplice. That’s why I was so pissed off. If they didn’t tell me, then I could always claim ignorance.”
Jethro was good at that, claiming ignorance, shifting blame. Or he used to be, before he got himself straight.
“We need to tell Cletus,” Jethro said with a kind of certainty that gave me my first glimmer of hope. “He’ll definitely know what to do.”
***
We took turns in the downstairs bathroom wiping blood from our faces.
I walked into the kitchen once I was finished assessing the damage and rehanging fallen pictures. I found Jethro making coffee and icing his lip. Thus, after grabbing myself a bag of peas for my eye, I set to work making enough blueberry pancakes to feed a small army.
Without prompting, Jethro good-naturedly related his adventures trekking the Appalachian Trail. I was amazed how he was able to keep from fretting about the Iron Order’s blackmail attempt.
I’d been twisted up, either thinking about how to outsmart the Iron Order, or debating what to do about Jess. Or counting the hours until I could see her again. Or trying to figure out how to get her alone. Or wondering how the hell I was going to survive without her. Thus, Jethro’s tall tales were a welcome distraction.