by Makenzi Fisk
MAKENZI FISK
Copyright © 2015 Makenzi Fisk
Mischievous Books
www.mischievousbooks.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
First Mischievous Books Edition 2015
Cover Design: Makenzi Fisk
ISBN: 978-0-9938087-5-3
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Stacey, my love, you never doubted.
I couldn’t have done it without your support.
Wahnita, you have so many talents. May you realize them.
Thank you for your help with names and ideas.
Tracey, thank you for your friendship and guidance.
Thank you, readers, for entrusting me with your time.
DEDICATION
For all those who think they can’t,
just get up and do something.
CHAPTER 1
“Relax your shoulders. Now inhale. Bring your chin down. Head up and exhale.” The bare-chested yoga instructor sat before the class, cross-legged in baggy white trousers.
Allie closed her eyes and obediently followed his directions. Her shoulders sank but the insistent buzz in her brain resisted. The new lady beside her wore too much perfume.
“Inhale. Keep your head down.”
Allie drew in a lungful of the nauseating odor. Who would wear such a cloying scent? She opened an eye and peeked sideways. The woman looked normal enough, despite her penchant for inexpensive plastic jewelry.
“Bring your chin down more. Now push your head back and—” He stopped mid-sentence and shot Allie a dark look. “Focus!” Waves of energy pulsed in her direction.
She snapped her head forward. Where was the regular instructor? Tamara radiated utter tranquility. This man did not. If he was permanent, she might have to find a different class.
“Now exhale.”
Allie breathed out. Muscles knotted and joints kinked everywhere. What was wrong with her? She hadn’t been able to sustain attention on anything for such a long time and now her body suffered for it.
“Mommy. I need to go to the bathroom.” A little girl in a princess dress crept toward the lady with the perfume.
“Shhh.” The lady’s pink bracelet clinked when she held a finger to her lips. She was a mom. That explained the bracelet and the perfume. Gifts from her daughter. “Only a few more minutes. Go wait in the lobby.”
White spots fluttered behind Allie’s closed lids. I wonder if I ever made a bracelet like that for my mama?
“Inhale. Fill your lungs.”
“Now!” The girl’s face reddened. “And you said I could have a cookie.”
“Exhale. Head up. One. Two. Three… Would you please tend to that child?”
A titter of amusement flitted across the room when the princess’s mom grabbed her mat and hurried out.
The room blurred and Allie blinked her eyes. When she was six, she too had been a willful child.
“No Mama, I don’t want a sandwich.” My stubby finger points out the window to the familiar golden arches. “I want that.”
“Shhh, Allie.” Mama’s eyes frown at me in the rear-view mirror. “Stop kicking.”
“No. No. NO.” My pink glittery boots pummel the back of Mama’s seat. “I want the toy!” The car swerves left, then right. A blue van glides past my window. The buzzing in my head won’t go away. It makes me angry. Mama doesn’t care about me. She just cares about making sure that her car is ahead of all the others. I pound my fist against the foggy glass when the people in the van look over. Everyone can see how upset I am.
“I cut your cheese into squares, just how you like it.”
“I don’t want cheese.” The big yellow sign I yearn for has passed and the agony of loss overwhelms my six-year-old brain. “I need the toy.” That will make my head feel better. Sparks fizzle when I close my eyes. Something’s coming. Mama knows it too. She is rubbing her forehead.
I grind my knuckles into my brows. It hurts. I want Mama to make me feel better but she’s busy driving. I pull back my legs and kick the seat as hard as I can. “No!”
“Allie! Stop that right now.” Mama turns to me and her face is not angry any more. She’s frightened. She turns back and a dark shape veers onto the road in front of us. A truck. A big one. It’s too close. “Ohhh,” she sighs.
“Mama!”
We slide sideways and the truck’s black tires are at my window. I’m upside down, my body snapped tight into my booster seat. I focus on my pink boots while the road spins. For a moment, everything stops. The air is so thick I can’t breathe. Mama’s red hair is frozen in motion, wild ends tangled into angel wings. I stare with awe.
I wake in the car. My chest hurts. The sparks behind my eyes are gone. Outside, people are yelling. Blue and red lights flash everywhere.
“Hey, little one. Are you okay?” A strange man with a mustache looms through the foggy fist marks on my window. He pulls at the handle and then breaks the glass to release me from my seat. When he picks me up, his coat is rough against my cheek. He smells like smoke.
I’m carried away. Away from Mama.
“I’m sorry!” I sob into the man’s dark coat.
“Miss, are you ill?” The yoga instructor bent over Allie, his expression a mixture of annoyance and worry.
“I’m fine.” She sat up and covered her face with her hand. When had she curled up on her side like that? Oh my God! She had zoned out. In public.
“Are you sure?”
Allie rolled up her mat and jumped to her feet. “I guess I was too relaxed,” she fibbed. “I must have fallen asleep.”
“Uh huh.” The instructor shook his head.
Her cheeks warmed at whispers behind them.
“Let’s call it a day, ladies.” He clapped his hands in dismissal and the whispers were swallowed up by the simultaneous rustling of twenty yoga mats.
Allie grabbed hers and dashed to the parking lot. Alone in her Jeep, she wiped beads of sweat from her forehead and let her hair loose from its ponytail. She was trying so hard.
Her hand on the wheel grounded her. Her foot on the gas was control. Allie took a breath and straightened in her seat. She rammed the shifter into gear and squealed out of the lot. She didn’t stop until she reached home.
Erin’s truck wasn’t in the driveway but that wasn’t unusual. A police officer’s hours were erratic. Allie turned off the engine and stared at the house. It would be quiet, the cat asleep somewhere. There would be echoes of her previous life where furry canine feet skittered just inside the door. Those were gone now. Her seatbelt was suddenly tight. She unsnapped it but the uncomfortable pressure remained.
She plucked her cell phone from her bag and dialed the numbers she knew by heart since she was a child. Her foster mom answered on the second ring and she choked back a sob.
“Allie? Sweetheart, is that you?”
“Yeah.” Her voice cracked. “I was just calling to say hi…”
“What’s wrong?”
There was no fooling Judy, the pragmatic woman who had raised her since her mother’s death. “I’m having a hard day.”
“Flashbacks? Nightmares? Premonitions?” Judy knew all of Allie’s quirks and still loved her.
“I zoned out in the middle of a yoga class. Thinking about the car accident and… and about Mama.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
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“I know,” Allie sniffed.
“Sometimes things happen. No matter what you do, you can’t change the outcome.”
“You mean fate.”
“Some call it that.”
“Well, fate does not like me. I’m a mess. I can’t concentrate on anything and I can’t keep it together.” When tears threatened, Allie rifled through her bag and found the package of tissues beside her Swiss Army knife. One thing Judy had taught her was to be prepared. She wiped her tears and blew her nose.
“Are you getting enough sleep? Eating right? You’re not drinking alcohol are you?”
“No, mom.” Allie rolled her eyes. A half-grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I’m not completely insane.”
“Are you and Erin okay?”
“I… I think so.” Her relationship with Erin was just fine, wasn’t it? There hadn’t been any disagreements, but things hadn’t been quite the same since last year.
“I like that girl. She’s good for you, sweetie.”
“I know.” Allie extended each tool in the knife and examined it. She’d never had cause to use the toothpick thing. Perhaps someday she’d be stranded somewhere with no dental floss and she could rejoice. She smiled and slid it back into its notch. Judy’s calm presence on the other end of the line already made her feel better.
“I think you two have some unfinished business. You’re stuck. There’s no going back and you can’t go forward until it’s resolved. Talk to Erin. The two of you need to find something you can do about that girl.” Judy couldn’t even say Lily’s name.
Her foster mom always said she’d heard it all, but no story had disturbed her like the one Allie told her last year. The story of a child who manipulated adults. Professionals even. A child? Arson and murder? It was beyond comprehension.
Allie nodded. Through the tears, through the emotion, Judy had homed in on the crux. She was right. They were stuck. She was holding on to the past. She couldn’t change the fact that she’d lost her mother, nor what had happened with Lily. But there was a future. She and Erin needed to talk.
Allie raised her hand when Officer Chris Zimmerman pulled up in his police cruiser. The passenger door flew open and Erin lurched onto the sidewalk. Zimmerman hurried around to guide her. Was she drunk?
“Judy, Mom, I need to go.” Allie gathered up her bag and got out of the Jeep.
“Bye. Remember Marcel and I love you… and make sure you tell Erin how you feel.”
“I’ll definitely tell her.” She stuffed the phone into her bag and met Erin on the step.
“Hi Baby. I hope your night was better than mine.” Erin pulled herself up the stairs by the rail and fished in her pocket. “I can’t seem to find my keys.”
The odor of liquor stung Allie’s nostrils when she opened the door. “You’ve been drinking.”
“A bit.” Erin forced a smile and waved off her best friend. “I’m good, buddy. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”
“You should take a day off, girl.” Zimmerman nodded to Allie and backed down the stairs to his car.
Erin hobbled through the doorway and headed for the sofa. Murky clouds churned around her. She plunked one running shoe on the coffee table and eased the other beside it.
Allie sat across from her and waited.
Erin’s strained smile disappeared and she stared at the ceiling. “I twisted my ankle at a break and enter and the suspect got away. I’m losing it. I can feel it. He was right there. Right in front of me, but I couldn’t catch him.”
“Can I get you some ice?”
“Naw, I wasted the last part of my shift with my foot in a bucket. The Emerg doc said that was all I could do for a sprain. After work, the guys bought me a few beers. Z-man thought it best that he drive me home.”
“Did the doctor tell you how long to stay off that ankle?”
“I don’t need time off, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m sure the desk officer wants some fresh air. I can swap with him.” Erin sat up. “I was awake all night but you’re the one who looks tired.”
“I zoned out in yoga class,” Allie blurted. “In front of everyone. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it at the grocery store.”
“What a pair we are,” Erin snorted. “Maybe we need a vacation.”
“Judy thinks we’re stuck.”
Erin eyed her. “Whaddyamean?”
“We can’t move forward until we resolve what happened with Lily.”
“Aw, you’re not suggesting a stuffy old counselor?”
Allie’s eyes widened. “God, no. We just need to figure out if there’s something we can do.”
“Fair enough.” Erin wedged a pillow under her ankle. “I’m sure I can get time off. But you know this means I’ll have to talk to Derek.”
CHAPTER 2
It was like the high school cafeteria all over again, but this time Derek was not king. This time he swam at the bottom of the pond, and the big fish up top were hungry. Something was up. He could smell it in the sour odor of the men around him.
Sweating under his inmate’s uniform of denim shirt and jeans, he nonchalantly slid his empty tray onto the conveyor and sauntered past the guard’s pod. He kept his eyes on the floor and his limbs loose but anxiety writhed in his gut. Two more doors. Make that two doors and one stairwell before he was safely back in his cell.
The first door hummed. He nodded at the security camera and passed. Best to keep your polite face on when dealing with the guard. You’d hate for his finger to stall on the button at the wrong moment. The absence of cameras in the stairwells made him nervous. He bounded up the steps two at a time. At the top door, he pushed the buzzer but heard no answering hum. What happened to the guard? He thumbed it again. Laying his cheek against the reinforced safety glass, he peeked as far as he could around the corner to the next guard station. He couldn’t see a damn thing.
The bottom door hummed and two sets of soft-soled inmate shoes entered the stairwell. Sweat soaked his armpits. He pressed the buzzer twice more. Footsteps pounded up the stairs behind him and he turned to face his attackers.
Ethan Lewis and a giant tattooed man stopped two steps down. Derek backed up to the steel door. He waved a hand in front of the window and Ethan snorted. He’d arrested Ethan years ago for nearly killing his wife. In here, everything was personal.
“Ain’t nobody coming today, pig.” He tilted his head sideways and glared at Derek with his good eye. Fine scars knotted the opposite side of his face.
“It doesn’t have to go down like this, Ethan.” Head-on, Derek faced the man in charge of this duo.
At six foot five, Ethan’s henchman towered over them. Recruited as today’s muscle, he punched his fist into his palm. A cartoon bad guy.
Derek flicked his eyes to the giant, and back to Ethan. He alerted to the way Ethan held his hand at his belt line.
“Don’t call me that.” Ethan’s body tensed, shoulders cockeyed like a sidewinder. “My name’s Badger.”
“Okay, Badger.” He held up both palms and kept the big guy in his peripheral vision.
“We ain’t in back alley Morley Falls no more. No more badge. No more gun. You’re nothin’ in here.”
“Yeah, nothin’,” the giant parroted, bobbing his head. His long dark braid swung behind him. “A bitch pig already kicked your ass. Now yer gonna find out what a couple of real men can do to you.”
Derek shifted his weight and bent his knees slightly. Steel glinted in Badger’s hand when he came at him. The big man dove for his ribs at the same time. Derek was ready, ducking the worst of the force and coming up behind. He grabbed hold of the giant’s braid and used it to slam his head onto the top step. His skull bounced like a jackhammer on concrete.
Lights out. One down, one to go.
Badger sucked air through his teeth and his nostrils flared. Without a downward glance at his fallen partner, he lunged. Derek dodged and a sliver of sharp steel flashed inches from his face. He pivoted and kicked his assailant hard in th
e knee. There was a loud pop. Badger crumpled, a marionette with clipped strings. He groaned and clutched at his deformed leg.
Derek glanced down at him. He’d likely suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Not many fully recovered from that kind of soft tissue injury. He’d be able to predict the weather with that knee in a few years.
Before he’d wound up on the wrong side of the bars, Derek had used the same knee-popping move on a dirt bag named Randy Walker. He’d caught Randy a block from a break-in at four in the morning, a trail of cash and cheap jewelry in his wake. At a skinny five-foot-five, Randy was no match for the policeman and he knew it. He’d dropped the loot and put up his hands.
It had been a tough week. Derek’s wife had been bitchy. He’d been sleeping on the sofa in the police lounge. He really didn’t feel like chasing the dirt bag all over town if he bolted. He had raised his size eleven boot and crushed Randy’s knee.
Of course, that’s not the statement he’d given to the PD’s Internal Investigations Unit when Randy’s parents filed an official complaint. Randy Walker had resisted arrest. The force was necessary and reasonable. Derek had seen the medical reports. Over and over. He could spell the name of that ligament in his sleep. Randy would walk with a limp forever. It had taken a year of internal investigation, and a sizable bribe, before it all went away.
In here, men played by a different set of rules. There would be no complaint against him, and no investigation. If you failed while taking a run at another inmate, you didn’t go whining to the guards afterwards. You took your lumps and didn’t squeal or you were the next target.
Derek bent and picked up the weapon. He slid the homemade shiv into a fold in his cuff and jabbed the buzzer one last time. It hummed. He stepped through the door and strutted past a clearly surprised guard and into his cell.