Hellion

by Shannon McKenna

  “I’ll get the evidence techs on it,” Chief Bristol said. “Henry Shaw is good friends with the judge who’s likely to arraign you. The bail is going to be high. You’ll go straight to the Granger Valley Correctional Facility for Men as soon as you’re on your feet. Think long and hard about this, Eric. I’d be sorry to see you suffer more than you have already, but do not try to bullshit us. I know bullshit when I smell it. So will the judge.”

  Bristol was almost out the door when Eric sucked enough air into his sore chest to call out hoarsely. “Hey, Chief?”

  Bristol turned slowly. “Yes?”

  “Demi,” Eric said. “Is she, uh…okay?”

  Bristol’s eyes hardened. Eric was almost sorry he’d asked.

  “No, Eric,” he said. “She did not look okay. She looked about how you’d expect a girl to look if some charming young asshole had seduced her and humiliated her and made big trouble for her with her family.”

  “I need to get a message to her,” Eric said. “Could you tell her that I—”

  “No. I wouldn’t do it under any circumstances. And I couldn’t in this case, because she’s gone.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  Chief Bristol snorted under his breath. “Like it’s any of your business. Out of town. Far away from you. That’s all you need to know. She doesn’t want or need to talk to you ever again. Look to yourself. Leave Demi the hell alone.”

  He stepped through the door. The click of the door falling shut behind him jolted through Eric’s cracked, aching bones like a gunshot.

  17

  Three weeks later…

  Walking on the beach barefoot was the only activity Demi could stand these days. Every now and then she would jump in the water and fight the surging waves until they wore her out. Then she went back to walking. Far away from Mom’s preaching and fussing. She was sunburned and wind-blown, staring out at the horizon with stinging eyes.

  She tried not to think about it and failed miserably. He’d said he loved her. She’d felt the power moving them both when she heard the words. She’d felt so strongly that it was real. That he’d felt it, too. That magic couldn’t be faked.

  But in spite of those intense feelings, Eric hadn’t been able to resist a random, vengeful impulse when he was angry. He really was that small and petty. That stupid.

  It was a fucking tragedy. It made her physically sick. She could barely eat.

  Mom kept saying that it was better to be disillusioned now, right up front. Much better this way than after ten years and three kids. And Mom was right. About this, at least. If she could only stop thinking about Eric. Just for a few seconds at a time.

  Hours of sun, waves crashing, wind roaring in her ears, day after day. It made her tired, and that helped. It got her through to her evening glass of wine or three, and Mom was too attached to her own evening glasses of wine to criticize Demi’s. Small blessings.

  She got back to where she’d left her towel and beach bag right before sunset, and looked around at the empty sand dune. It took a while to find her long abandoned beach towel, mystery novel and water bottle. They had been buried by blowing sand.

  She unearthed them and shook out the sand. She retrieved the bike and made her way through the grid of roads through potato fields and luxury estates until she got to Aunt Helen’s weathered gray cottage on the outskirts of Bridgehampton.

  And saw another car parked next to Mom’s rental. Dad was here. At last.

  So. That meant plans had been finalized. Conclusions had been drawn. Tonight, she’d learn things about Eric’s fate that she wasn’t ready to know.

  At the same time, she was pathetically desperate to know more.

  Demi took a moment to steady her knees, trying to breathe calm into herself before she went inside. She found Dad and Mom sitting together at the kitchen table. He set down his glass of Scotch when he saw her.

  “Hello, Demetra,” he said stiffly. “You look very, ah…tan.”

  “Lots of beach time,” she said inanely. “Hi, Dad.”

  She walked in, dropping the bag and pausing awkwardly in the kitchen.

  “You’re getting sand everywhere,” her father said.

  Mom popped up instantly. “I’ll sweep it up.”

  “That’s not the point, Elaine. The point is, as usual, she’s not thinking. She’s just barging along with no thought for anyone but herself.”

  “How’s Eric?” Demi asked.

  Her father looked irritated at being cut off in mid-rant. “How do you think? He’s incarcerated. He’s completely unrepentant. And he refuses to take the deal.”

  “What deal?” she asked.

  “My lawyers offered him a very generous deal. If he pleads guilty, it’s two years in a maximum security prison. Much better than the maximum of ten, to say nothing of the DUI. But he insists he’s not guilty. It’s stupid, considering his circumstances. If he had half a brain, he’d take the deal. But he doesn’t, as we know, so it’ll be ten years for him. The world will be a safer place once he’s sentenced. For a while, at least.”

  Demi stared down at her sandy feet. She realized in that moment that she could not stay even one more night under the same roof as her father.

  “Mom, I’m taking the last train back to the city tonight,” she announced. “I’ll stay at Aunt Helen’s apartment. I’m flying to Seattle in a couple days, so I want to do a little last-minute shopping before I go.”

  “Yes, your mother said you’d booked a ticket,” Dad said. “That’s one of the reasons I hurried out here. To talk to you first.”

  “You didn’t have to. We’d see each other on Thanksgiving. Or Christmas.”

  “Touching daughterly love,” her father said sourly.

  Demi gave him a stony look. “Really, Dad? You feel put upon? You want a remorseful daughter who’s seen the error of her ways? Because I’m not feeling apologetic.”

  “Oh, God,” her mother moaned. “You two are already at it, in less than five minutes. I can’t take this. Ben, you promised you wouldn’t!”

  Dad ignored her. “You dodged a bullet, Demetra! You should be grateful! We tried to warn you, and you still have an attitude!”

  “I was born with attitude, Dad.”

  “You’re still angry at me for taking away your toy! That’s all that a piece of meat like Eric Trask could ever have been to you!”

  She retreated toward the stairs. “Excuse me,” she said. “I need to pack.”

  “If you’re so convinced that he deserves a second chance, you can give him one.”

  Demi froze in place, chilled by his tone. He sounded triumphant. Pleased with himself. When she turned to look, he wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were bright with excitement. Mom’s looked pained and fearful.

  There was a trap here. A bad one.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked slowly.

  “You can stop this whole process right now. If you choose to,” her father said. “My lawyers will destroy him if he goes to trial. He’ll get the maximum. Or…I could drop the charges. And he walks.”

  “Why would you do that?” Her suspicion was growing.

  “To safeguard the future of my only daughter.”

  Dad’s voice had taken on that hateful, sanctimonious tone that drove her nuts.

  “Stop with the riddles,” she said. “Plain English, please.”

  “Okay,” Dad said. “These are the conditions. Give up this stupid restaurant internship. Forget the Culinary Institute. Commit to a job at one of the Shaw Paper Products facilities. Swear to your grandfather that you’ll prepare for leadership in his company. Swear that you will never contact that person again. Do all this, and he walks. Free to destroy his and other people’s lives in some fresh new way, far from you.”

  Demi finally managed to close her mouth. “Wow,” she said. “Just…wow.”

  “I think it’s a very reasonable offer,” Dad said.

  Demi thought about it for a moment. “I thought you’d reached the m
aximum of manipulative bullshit, Dad. I was so wrong. You have surpassed yourself yet again.”

  “I would pass on the smart remarks, if I were you. You’re in no position to make them.”

  “Is that part of your terms and conditions? I wash my mouth out with soap and be a smiling plastic doll from here on out?”

  “No. I know that’s too much to hope. I’ll settle for not having you destroy your own future and prospects, which is embarrassing to watch. If this shit-show was useful for anything, it’s this. Forcing you to behave like a reasonable adult, not a spoiled child.”

  “You hypocritical bastard,” Demi said.

  “Oh, God, honey,” her mother moaned. “Please, stop. Is this hostility all I have to look forward to? For the rest of our lives?”

  Dad’s eyes were cold. “I’ll be a bastard, if that’s what it takes to manage her.”

  “I can’t stand anymore of this.” Her mother tossed back the rest of her wine, slammed the wine glass down and stomped out onto the patio.

  Demi stared at her father. Marveling at him. Dad was prepared to use a man’s freedom as leverage to jerk her around. Make her behave exactly as he wanted.

  It was a devil’s bargain. Working for Shaw’s Paper Products would bore and suffocate her. It was light years from her dreams. The last thing she wanted.

  But there was Eric, sitting in a cage for ten years.

  She could just go her way. Be free and to hell with him. But she’d know, every day, every moment, that he was in there, trapped and miserable. She’d always be aware that she could have freed him. That constant awareness would poison her life.

  It would be unbearable.

  He deserved his fate. She hated that lying, thieving asshole for what he’d done. He didn’t deserve this sacrifice from her.

  But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t walk away and leave Eric Trask in prison.

  “Okay, Dad.” Her voice barely sounded like her own. “You win.”

  His eyes flashed, triumphant. “We have a deal?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Call whoever is managing the internship,” he said. “Right now. In front of me. Tell them you are declining it. After that, I’ll call my lawyer and get things moving.”

  Icy clarity settled over her as she considered that. “You first,” she said.

  “Demi—”

  “You’ve acted in bad faith before. You call the lawyer first. Or else nothing.”

  Dad stared at her stonily. She held his gaze without blinking.

  “Done,” he said.

  She picked up his smartphone and held it out. “It’s still business hours on the west coast,” she said. “Call now. And put it on speakerphone.”

  18

  Eric blinked up at the blinding white sky as the prison gate ground slowly closed behind him. He stood there on the empty road after it closed with a hollow clang.

  He still didn’t believe it.

  The news had come out of nowhere today. He’d been called in to talk to the warden.

  The charges have been dropped. You’re free to go. Good luck.

  He put on the clothes they gave him. Anton or Mace must have left stuff at the hospital for him before they left. A sweatshirt, some jeans that hung too low on his hips since he’d lost weight. His work boots and socks. Nothing else.

  The sweatshirt wasn’t quite up to the frosty wind coming down off the mountains, but he wasn’t complaining. He would have cheerfully walked out naked into a blizzard after two weeks in that place.

  Vaughan had boxed him in. Every detail had been thought of to disprove his story. Boyd’s alibi had been watertight. No traces of Army green paint had been found on the back of the Porsche. Even the smashed tequila bottle in the parking lot had disappeared before the evidence techs got there to examine it. All of it gone. Like it had never existed.

  He’d been lying broken and sedated in a hospital bed while his enemies had all the time in the world to set the scene and tweak it just how they wanted it.

  Now he was free. There had to be a catch. He kept looking over his shoulder, braced for who the fuck knew what.

  A shot to the head, likely as not. Someone wanted him dead. And that was pretty severe even for a prick like Vaughan. Eric kept racking his brains to understand it, and kept coming up blank. Why kill him, for fuck’s sake? He understood perfectly that he was not a promising prospect as a son-in-law, but hit men? Seriously? Goddamn.

  Still. Death out in the open air was preferable to prison. After all, death could find him in there, too. Even more easily. In prison, there was nowhere to run.

  There was no one at the gate to meet him. There had been no warning. Mace was off on a Force Recon mission. Anton was in Vegas working. Otis was being a hard-ass.

  Anton had come to see him in jail. At the end of his visit, he’d leaned over the table and murmured, “You know that if this goes south, Mace and I will bust you out.”

  “Don’t say it,” Eric said, through clenched teeth. “Do not fuck your lives up just because I fucked up mine.”

  “I like a challenge.” Anton’s eyes had that eager glow that made him uneasy. “Say the word. We’ll come down on this place like a sledgehammer. It’ll be beautiful.”

  Eric allowed him to imagine it for a few amazing seconds…and then shook his head. “Let’s work the system first.”

  “The system fucked you, brother. You want to play that game, fine. You can play it. But keep in mind that it’s just a game. Whenever you’re ready, your own personal army of the faithful will come in here and fuck them up so hard. Anytime, man. Anytime.”

  Eric hadn’t seen Anton’s eyes look so lit-up in years. Not since the night they spirited Fiona away from Kimball. This latest clusterfuck had stripped away the thin veneer of civilization his brother had put on since GodsAcre.

  Twenty long miles of winding highway from Granger Valley to Shaw’s Crossing. No cash for a bus. Hitchhiking never worked for him. He was too physically intimidating.

  From the highway exit, he cut cross country and hiked over the ridge to Otis’s place, turning eleven miles to six. Even so, his legs shook and ached from exhaustion and his injuries from the accident. It was after sunset when he stumbled up to Otis’s house.

  It was deserted. Otis’s truck was gone. The house was dark. As he got closer, he saw the Monster parked out behind the shed. Her tires were entirely gone now, and her windshield had been smashed into tattered, milky cobwebs of caved-in glass.

  There was a small pile of stuff at the top of the porch steps. A rolled up Army blanket, a tarp and a backpack. In it was a flask of water, MRE military rations, matches, soap, a spoon, a pocketknife and a small, battered saucepan. A duffel bag had all of his clothing shoved into it. His laptop, tablet, cables and drives were on top of them. An envelope with his documents. Passport, military ID, driver’s license. Even his library card.

  On top of the whole thing, weighed down by a rock, was an envelope. Inside were seven twenties, a five, and some change, and a sheet of paper with just a few words scrawled on it, in Otis’s jagged handwriting.

  Cashed your paycheck. Don’t bother the girl. She doesn’t want to hear from you.

  OT

  He tried the front door. Locked. He checked the place in the loose board behind the bird feeder under the maple where Otis had always left a spare key. No key to be found.

  He was not welcome in the house. Otis didn’t want to see his face. He hadn’t seen Otis since that brief, drug-addled glimpse of him in the hospital. The MREs, water, blanket and money was as close to a love note as he was ever going to get.

  He’d take it and be grateful.

  He camped in the deep woods that night just over Otis’s property line, out of respect for his adopted father’s banishment. He made a fire, ate an MRE, drank up all the water, then slept like a dead man wrapped in the blanket.

  In the morning, he loaded up the duffel and pack for the long slog back into town. He stopped when he got to Kettle River
and used the soap Otis had given him to wash up. Tried not to think of Demi’s eyes when he looked at the blue-green water. Demi’s ring.

  When he had to leave the cross-country route and get onto the roads, cars slowed down as they passed him. People gawking, rubbernecking. He was a local spectacle.

  He didn’t make eye contact as he walked to the bus station. No one spoke to him.

  A bus was leaving for Tacoma. From there, he’d get one to Las Vegas.

  In spite of Otis’s warning, he tried to contact Demi with his laptop with the first free Wi-Fi he found. He’d written her letters every day from prison. No reply.

  Online, he found himself blocked from all her social media accounts. He’d tried calling the phone number she’d given him, but it was no longer in service.

  It could drive a man to desperation. But a few weeks in jail had taught him a lot about desperation. The dust-and-ashes taste of that place was fresh in his mouth.

  He wouldn’t risk going back. He couldn’t force her to listen to him.

  He spent the bus journey in a nightmare-studded doze. Watching the country speed by when his eyes were open, drifting into uneasy dreams when they weren’t. Sometimes he saw Demi’s face. Sometimes it was the Hummer, nudging the back of his car over a cliff.

  Sometimes he defaulted to his classic stress flashback standby. The flames, people screaming. Trees ablaze, like huge torches in the dark.

  He got to Las Vegas at four-thirty in the morning, blowing his last few bucks on a taxi to Anton’s place. He buzzed his brother’s intercom, staring up into the camera.

  A burst of static, then, “Holy shit. You’re already here? Come on up.”

  The gate snapped open, and Eric made his way up the stairs. Anton’s apartment was one side of a big building with a central courtyard that featured a garden of desert plants. The cacti looked eerie and alien down there in the dim, moody lighting.

  Anton’s front door was ajar. Eric pushed his way in, and stopped when he saw a leggy redheaded woman perched on a chair, struggling with the strap of her sandal.