It would be better this way.
I rolled out of my sheets because I couldn’t fall back to sleep after that conversation. Instead, I headed toward the kitchen and filled the coffeepot with water. I glanced out the window to my car sitting untouched in the lot and then my eyes darted to the door to be sure the deadbolt was still latched in place.
Blowing out a breath, I reached for my jewelry supplies and sat down at the table. I absently began making bracelets using jade nuggets along with little hand-stamped silver pieces that had inspirational saying like dream or hope.
If I had the energy, I would laugh. Expectations were a crock. At least where my future was concerned. Now Joaquin was a different story. I could have faith for him.
I was doing all of this to support my family, I told myself. I’d continue to take extra shifts and sell my jewelry when I could. We would land on our feet one way or another.
I allowed the thought to sink in that Sparrow would no longer be calling or coming around. Hopefully that meant others would stay away as well. In our phone call, I had left out the part where a Federal Marshal was in town concerning his whereabouts. Alex hadn’t even questioned me about him yet, but I knew it was coming.
Besides, Gloria was bound to spill the beans. If they even still communicated.
So why didn’t I warn Sparrow? Was I protecting him or Alex?
Alex. So strong and persuasive. But in a different kind of way. A way that sent a sensual shiver up my spine.
Sparrow had become a dangerous man, I just didn’t want to know how dangerous. I might fall apart and my child needed me to stay strong.
I would pretend for Joaquin that his daddy was still checking in and then break the news to him when he was older.
The tears fell freely now wetting my cheeks and lap.
My body thrummed with undeniable tension as fear took hold.
In that moment, I’d never felt so alone.
6
Alex
It was time to pay a visit to Meadow. I was only prolonging the inevitable even though I already knew she’d be resistant. I checked in on my other leads—Sparrow’s childhood friends, his old drinking haunts, and came up empty-handed. Gloria was next on my list. But I wanted to speak to Meadow first.
Before I could even knock, Joaquin swung open the door. “Hey, I know you.”
“Joaquin,” I heard Meadow’s warning tone in the background.
“You do know me,” I said, bending down to his height level. “But you shouldn’t answer the door without your mom giving you permission.”
“How many times have I told you that, buddy?” Meadow said, rounding the corner from the hallway. She was stunning with her hair cascading over her shoulder like a curtain and her figure hugging T-shirt and jeans. I cleared my throat to shake my thoughts away. This was a business call, plain and simple.
“Sorry, momma,” he said, grabbing on to her legs, as she patted his head of curls.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, finally making eye contact with me. Joaquin released his hold and tottered away from the door.
“Official business,” I said. “Can I come in?”
Her eyes narrowed. “And if I say no?”
Joaquin returned clutching a cookie in each hand. Tiny black crumbs lined the edges of his mouth.
“Oreos,” I said, grinning. “Still popular today as ever.”
“You want one, Mister?” When he thrust a cookie toward me I fished it from his small fingers.
“Thank you,” I said. “And you can call me Alex.”
Meadow rolled her eyes and stepped aside to let me in, as if she didn’t have a choice now that her son was being friendly to me.
I ate the snack in one large bite and walked through the entrance. The first thing I noticed was that for such a small space, the trailer was decorated in soothing modern colors and the sparse second hand furniture seemed comfortable.
She didn’t seem embarrassed by my unannounced visit like others might’ve been, wanting to straighten or pick up before my arrival. It was a clean and neat space and a twinge of nostalgia flared in my gut at my own upbringing in a trailer park much like this one. Except ours was near a large urban city.
My dad was military and my parents had eventually relocated to a decent neighborhood before high school and their subsequent divorce. I saw the move as their last ditch effort to keep their marriage afloat.
“Joaquin, go play in your room, so that Mr. Flores and I can talk,” she said.
“Okay, momma.” I watched as he shuffled off to the other side of the trailer and slipped behind a door that was obviously his own private space.
“What is this about?” Meadow said, not wasting any time.
“About your ex, Frank. Sparrow.” As if she didn’t already know. But she made me say it anyway.
“What about him?” She folded her arms across her chest as if ready for battle.
“I need to know if you have any idea where he is.” I kept my gaze planted firmly on her eyes.
Her stance loosened slightly. “Why are so many people looking for him?”
I remembered that look of fear in her eyes at the casino, so I headed back to the door and bent down to inspect the lock. “You haven’t gotten this changed since somebody’s been in here?”
“No,” she said, as she bit at her bottom lip. “It wasn’t broken. And nothing was taken.”
“Looks like it was a professional job, minimal damage.” Fuck. I wondered who the hell was fishing for information.
She stared at me for a long beat until she finally nodded. I noticed the quiver in her fingers as she clutched the arm of the couch and tried to keep her composure.
I struggled between easing her into the information about her ex or jolting her with it. Either way, she might still resist giving me what I need. “To answer your question, Sparrow’s pissed some key people off in the drug trade. He keeps himself well insulated so that nobody can get to him.”
She immediately looked behind her to see whether or not her child was still occupied. Her eyes were wary and I could tell that information had frightened her if the tremor in her hands was any indication. But her face didn’t hold any measure of surprise. So either she knew or had already guessed. He might’ve previously been a petty dealer in this town. That’s usually how it began.
I had more I could say but I didn’t want to throw it all at her at once. I definitely had a job to do, no matter how much I respected the woman standing in front of me, though I barely knew her. But it was a delicate dance to apprehend a suspect.
“Has anyone attempted to coerce you?” I asked, clenching my fists. “Tried to force information out of you?”
“Force?” her eyes grew as large as the sunflowers outside her window as her shoulders huddled closer to her ears.
“Listen,” I said, looking around the space for any other clues. “We’re dealing with a career criminal.”
“But Frankie was never . . .”
She stopped suddenly as if realizing how ridiculous her statement would sound now that he was on the fed’s fugitive list.
She sank against the arm of the chair behind her. “He didn’t used to be like this,” she finally said as if to herself.
I took a tentative step forward not wanting her to feel threatened but still having the unfamiliar urge to shield her from her own emotions.
“He grew up around here . . . with you?” I asked attempting not to lead her.
Her eyes flashed sharply to mine as if suddenly remembering I was still there, so lost she was in her own memories.
“Yes,” she said, straightening her spine. “Just down the road. We became really close in high school and he . . . I . . .”
She was overcome with emotion as her lips trembled and her gaze swung down to stare anywhere but at me. I hadn’t seen this kind of vulnerability from her in the handful of times I’d been in direct contact with her.
But she shook her head as if quickly getting her wits ab
out her. Then her eyes widened as if she couldn’t believe she’s allowed me that glimpse inside.
She stood up unexpectedly and trudged toward the coffeepot on the kitchen counter. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
“Meadow,” I said following behind and foolishly reaching for her forearm. Her skin was warm and soft and I became momentarily lost in the sensation. As her widened gaze sought mine, I thought about how she smelled like a storm.
When the air filled with an alkaline scent that mixed with the earth and the grass and lifted all the hair on the back of your neck in preparation for what was to come.
And come it did because as her turbulent gaze zeroed in on my hand it was as if thunder rumbled from her chest and lightening flared from her ears. I quickly released my tenuous grasp. “I’m not the enemy here.”
“Have you ever been hungry, Alex?” she asked, pushing past me and blatantly ignoring my comment.
Before I could get any words out or even reason through why she would be asking, she continued. “Ever been desperate for something? Food, flowing water, a clean place to sleep?”
I was rendered speechless. Of course my family had their share of struggles, I’d also been raised in a low-income development, but I couldn’t get my lips unstuck to tell her any of those things.
“That’s what our childhood was like around here. Not everything is so cut and dried,” she said, the sting of her words forcing me back a step. “I don’t know the details of what Sparrow has done and why you’re looking for him, but he’s Joaquin’s father and he used to be part of this community.”
“He’s trafficking drugs and making a pretty penny—”
She shut her eyes as if to ward off the information. “He used to be a man who changed diapers and rocked his child to sleep. To help hand him over to the very people who will place him behind bars . . .”
I held her fierce gaze, delivering one of my own.
“I understand your hesitation,” I said in a lower voice. “Though for all the trouble he’s in Sparrow might be safer in a federal prison. He’s made plenty of enemies who’d be more than happy to take him out.”
She gasped as I moved to the door, knowing this conversation was over. For now.
“And by the way, I was raised in a trailer park much like this one, in a Hispanic ghetto,” I said, motioning to the space she lived in. “My father was military, my brother was strung out on prescription drugs before he overdosed when I was still a teen. So I know a little something about suffering and desperation.”
Her mouth gaped open, and her gaze softened.
“Thing is, because of who Sparrow is in the drug world, he might be putting you and your child in danger.” I placed a fresh business card on the coffee table in case she threw the last one out, which I suspected. “Here’s my cell number again in case you need me. For anything. You only have to ask.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded grimly.
“In the meantime, I’m going to keep an eye out, in case somebody is up to no good,” I said. “I’ll do whatever I can to keep you safe.”
7
Meadow
To say I was stunned would be an understatement. I had never expected Alex to share those things, to actually relate to me in some way. The drug trade was personal, at least when it came to prescription drugs. His own brother, what a nightmare.
But I needed to resist that smoldering gleam in his eyes whenever he looked at me—as if he were rummaging around inside of my head.
It was probably a tactic he was trained for—to sympathize with women he thought were weak in order get information out of them. Well, it wasn’t going to work with me. No matter how much his news about Sparrow frightened me.
“C’mon buddy,” I yelled to Joaquin and he came darting out of his room. “Let’s go see your friends outside.”
“Did Mr. Alex leave?” he asked searching around the room.
“Yes, honey.” I was nervous about how perceptive my child was becoming with each passing day. I hoped he hadn’t heard any of our conversation.
Could the evidence Alex has shared about Sparrow be true or was he only attempting to divulge information from me? I’d been trained from an early age to use caution around the authorities—there was already an ingrained prejudice that shaped how many of them they perceived us. I shook my head to ward off those thoughts. I needed to keep a level head with my child.
I helped Joaquin pull on his coat as he squirmed, barely able to contain his excitement about seeing his friends. Jayden was already in the park that was directly behind our trailer with her two girls. Her husband had been overseas for nearly a year this time. She had to fend for herself like I did but at least she received steady income to support her girls. I didn’t begrudge her that, I was making money too, and I liked that I was taking care of my own family.
I never wanted to end up like some of the older neighbors on the rez, without any resources, because we had relied too heavily on government help. The Indian people would always feel bitter about reparations that didn’t quite cover what they needed. My own parents had also been resourceful with their income, selling handmade wares on the side, similar to Mr. and Mrs. Black, and I hoped they’d be proud of my efforts as well.
Jayden worked at one of the diners on the reservation and I watched her kids when my schedule would allow it. She enjoyed working the lunch crowd where she brought in good tips, but she sometimes stayed through the dinner hour as well.
My gaze skimmed across the vast fields of the reservation to the housing developments lining the east end near the commercial center of town, and then west to other trailer parks like my own, feeling a touch of nostalgia. The land my people had been given wasn’t great, it didn’t even produce fruitful crops, but we’d come a long way and had made it work for us.
“You had a visitor,” Jayden said, as Joaquin charged across the grass to the swing set. “A very attractive visitor. Same man I saw in the tent.”
“Right,” I said. “He’s . . . um . . .” It was difficult to admit what was happening in my personal life, though Jayden had come to expect that from me. I’d become a private person—especially after being reviled in the community for being the other woman in Sparrow and Gloria’s marriage—and that wasn’t always great for friendships. Mrs. Black had been my mother’s dearest friend, as close as a sibling, and she checked up on us often back then.
Most residents never understood my relationship with Sparrow to begin with, even my parents had been skeptical, and that should’ve been my first clue. But I was young and filled with wanderlust. Though Sparrow was known as the mischievous boy in this town, I thought I had seen a different side. And that had been my downfall. But my sweet boy had come out of all of that heartache, so I had few regrets.
“A friend?” Jayden wiggled her eyebrows and I laughed. If she only knew how far from the truth that really was.
“Indirectly,” I said. “He’s a friend of Shane’s, Dakota’s fiancé from the casino.”
Dakota and I had never been close, even though we’d grown up on the same reservation. She didn’t share the same struggles though I could never fault her for that. She was my boss and I had a lot of respect for her family, who had been instrumental in bringing our reservation out of extreme poverty. After Sparrow left and I had to raise Joaquin alone, she’d tried to help, going so far as seeing to my schedule herself. I had grown to appreciate her as a manager.
“Ah, got it.” I could see the question dangling from Jayden’s lips. A federal marshal friend? But she could tell I wasn’t going to say much more, so she let it drop with a final word of caution. “Just be careful.”
My parents were no longer alive so when it came to people I could trust, she and the Blacks were on the short list. The trailer belonged to my parents and I had taken care of my mom after she fell ill, right before I became pregnant with Sparrow’s child. It was one of the worst years of my life, had it not been for the bright spot of raising Joaquin.
“Look Momma,” Joaquin yelled from the playground as he pumped his legs up and down. I observed Joaquin on the swing for a while longer before I got ready for my shift at the casino. Slogging around a mop in a public restroom was not something I ever aspired to do, but it did pair well with my cleanliness side. I kept my home as neat as the casino on my watch and I was always applauded for my work ethic.
That was an admirable trait to pass on to your child—as opposed to desertion and illegal activity. I shivered imagining the crimes Sparrow had committed. He’d begun dealing weed in this town, but I had turned a blind eye. I had smoked it myself, not something I was proud of—but it was always available at parties in the field. Along with alcohol. But that was my past and I had left all of that behind.
Sparrow was always a smooth talker and it was probably what attracted me most back then. He was confident, sexy, and could likely convince me to do most anything. Until I matured and began pushing back. He enjoyed that though because he saw me as a challenge.
My mom always wanted me to find a soft-spoken, hard-working Indian boy, but I was always drawn to the danger of Sparrow I guessed—or maybe how perilous my heart felt around him. And I’d gotten exactly what I wished for.
But I’d beaten myself up enough for my mistakes. I had turned my life around for my child—I wished I could say the same about Sparrow. I held my breath as anger coursed through me. He didn’t deserve any more of my tears.
I kissed Joaquin good-bye, told Jayden I’d call to check in at bedtime, and rode into work. As I trudged past the gift shop, I waved to Dakota who stood in the center of the floor talking to Stuart, her right hand man. He was a good person and had become like a paternal figure to me. Probably to all of the young workers here who needed somebody to turn to when things became rough. When my mother died, he helped me arrange the funeral and I could never thank him enough for that.
Three Sacred Words (Golden Arrow #2) Page 4