“Okay. I’ll stay in touch.” I turned to go.
“Cal?” he called after me.
“Yeah?”
“You know Seton’s gonna be pretty damn pissed off at you if you hurt that girl and she finds out about it.”
I nodded. “I’m not planning on it,” I said.
18
Andi
ANDI
That night, after I’d shown Cal my sister’s cryptic Facebook status and he’d gone to the clubhouse to talk to Grey about enlisting the Stone Kings’ help, I did something that I was praying wouldn’t turn out to be a huge mistake.
I private messaged Alyssa.
It was probably a long shot, I knew. Aly hadn’t posted or responded to any activity on her wall since the worrying status, so I couldn’t even tell if she’d been on the site since then. Not only that, I didn’t have a Facebook profile in my own name, and even though I was almost certain that my stepfather knew where I was, I still didn’t dare take the risk of making a profile and sending her a friend request. But sending her a message from a dummy account that she didn’t recognize might end up being an exercise in futility. Depending on how she had set her filters, any message I sent her might never make its way into her inbox.
In the end, waiting around without at least trying to communicate with her was driving me crazy. I had to at least try or I’d never be able to stop thinking about it.
The first thing I did was to change the name on my fake profile to “Amelia Bedelia.” It was the name of a children’s book character that Aly had loved as a child. Since my mom wasn’t really the type to spend her time reading to her children, I remembered reading Aly the books myself. I hoped that the name would ring enough of a bell to pique her curiosity, so that she’d decide to open a private message from a stranger:
Aly, this is your sister. Are you okay? I saw your last status and I’m worried about you. Message me please. Andi.
Then I hit send and hoped for the best.
Two days later, I checked my Facebook account for what must have been the fiftieth time, but Aly still hadn’t responded, and there was no indication she’d ever seen my message. I wasn’t sure how to interpret her silence. I’d ended up telling Cal about my attempt to contact her. He told me not to worry, that her lack of response probably didn’t mean anything. I knew he was right, but it was still really hard to just let it go. Part of me was sorry that I’d ever even tried.
So, in the absence of any other brilliant ideas, I just tried to go about my daily life like nothing was wrong. I went to work at Hammie’s, I went to practice. I lived in a state of perpetual apprehension that whoever had been watching me would leave another sign. But absolutely nothing happened. I bounced back and forth between starting to relax back into my routine, and suddenly becoming convinced that something absolutely terrible was about to happen. If I hadn’t had Cal to talk to about it all, I might have lost my mind.
Eventually, something did happen. But it was the last thing I would have expected.
Driving home after band practice one day, my cell phone buzzed on the seat next to me. I picked it up and glanced at it to see that my aunt Lori was calling. I don’t love talking on the phone while I’m driving, so I pulled over and hit the answer button.
“Hey, Lori. What’s up?” I switched the phone to my left hand, then reached over and turned down the radio with my right.
“Hi, honey.” Her slightly tinny voice came through the speaker. “Am I catching you at a bad time?”
“No, not at all. I just got out of band practice. How’re you doing?”
“Oh, uh, fine…” she answered. Her voice was hesitant.
I frowned. “Are you sure? Is something wrong?”
“Um…” There was a short silence. “Andi, are you free right now to come over? Something’s happened.”
My eyes widened. “Yes, of course. I’m in my car right now. I’m about ten minutes away from your place. But Lori, what’s wrong? You’re freaking me out a little.”
After a moment, she answered me. “It’s your mother and your sister. They’re here with me at the house.”
There was no strange car parked in front of Lori’s house, only B.J.’s pickup truck. Lori’s small SUV, which she usually kept in the garage, was sitting in the driveway.
I was shaking as I walked up the sidewalk toward the front door. I hadn’t seen my mother or my sister in six years. I had no idea what to expect. Worse, I had no idea how to feel.
I had missed my sister Aly horribly. And lately I’d been so worried about her that I could barely wait to see her now, to make sure she was okay. The years I had missed of her growing up still hurt terribly and made me feel guilty as hell. I was scared she’d hate me, that she’d blame me for leaving, and that I wouldn’t be able to explain why.
As for my mother…
It was almost impossible to put my feelings about her into words. I had loved my mother intensely as a little girl, and had accepted her weaknesses and lack of attention to me after her marriage to Anthony because I simply didn’t know any better. But her refusal to take me seriously when I tried to tell her about my stepfather’s inappropriate touching — her choosing her life of ease over protecting me — had opened up a chasm between us that would never completely close. And the fact that she hadn’t even asked about me when she’d called Aunt Lori a couple of months ago seemed to just confirm that she didn’t really care about me.
I had to admit it to myself. A tiny part of me hated her for it.
Now, after all this time, I’d be seeing the two of them again. I had so many questions, so many emotions. And I didn’t know what to do with any of them.
When I got to the door, B.J. was there to answer it. “Hey,” she greeted me, pushing the screen door open to let me through. Her eyes were kind and sympathetic. “They’re in the living room with Lori.”
“Thanks,” I said as I walked into the entryway.
“Andi,” she murmured, her tone concerned. “You okay?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I really don’t.”
Inside, my mom and my sister were sitting at opposite ends of Lori’s long, brown leather sofa. Lori sat across from them, perched at the edge of the tan love seat. When I stepped into the living room, Lori immediately stood up and went to me.
“Andi, I’m so glad you could come right away.” She took my arm and led me forward. Suddenly, it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
My mom got up first. “Oh, my God, Andi!” she said in a tremulous voice.
I’d seen recent pictures of her on Aly’s Facebook wall, but she seemed to have aged a lot since the last vacations pics my sister had posted. Her normally perfectly-coiffed silver-blond hair looked straggly and unkempt in its loose ponytail. Her eyes were watery, and her mascara had run a bit. Just under her chin, some small, faint bruises were barely perceptible under her makeup.
She walked toward me and enveloped me in a tight, bony hug. I couldn’t make myself hug her back. “Hi, Mom,” I said.
After a moment she detached herself from me. “You look so beautiful,” she breathed. “So grown up!”
“Well, I am grown up,” I replied drily, a hint of bitterness in my voice. “I’m twenty-four.”
“Of course,” she said hastily, pulling back almost as though I’d slapped her. “Of course I know that, darling.”
Out of all the emotions roiling through me right now, the one that was threatening to burst through my veneer of calm was rage. Rage at my mother for letting me go, for not doing everything she could to protect me. But right now, I couldn’t let the rage win. I needed to know what was going on. Why they were here. And most importantly, that my sister was okay.
“Aly?” I said, looking over to the form still sitting on the couch.
She was wearing a small white T-shirt and tiny jean shorts, and hugged her arms to her as though she was cold. Her slim, still-coltish legs were folded under her, as if she was trying to take up the least amount of roo
m possible.
Aly looked up at me with wide, brown eyes. Her features had always been similar to mine, but where I was fair, she was dark.
“Hi,” she whispered.
At first, I was terrified that Anthony had done something to Aly, but that ended up not being the case. She was traumatized, but it wasn’t her that my stepfather had hurt.
It was my mom.
B.J. quietly went into the kitchen and got us all glasses of iced tea and lemonade, then sat down on the love seat beside Lori. I took a chair to off to one side. Then, my mother began the story of what had pushed her and Aly to flee their home in Denver and seek refuge with my aunt. My mom spoke in hushed, nervous tones, occasionally casting a quick, regretful glance over at Aly, as though it pained her to have my sister hear what she had to say.
Apparently, the past couple of years with my stepfather had been hard. In the wake of what my mother could only assume was a string of business deals gone wrong, Anthony’s moods and behavior had become increasingly erratic. Always a regular drinker, his boozing had become excessive, and his moods when under the influence more violent. My mother, usually able to avoid his anger, started to become the main target of his rage. When he was drunk — which was more and more frequent now — he would blame her for his money woes. He would call her disloyal, no better than a common whore. He would suggest that maybe she should go prostitute herself to start earning her keep, instead of sponging off of him like the gold-digger she was.
And then he started hitting her.
When my mother got to this part of the story, a small, wounded noise came from the corner of the couch. Aly had drawn her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, and stared fixedly at a point on the coffee table. My heart wrenched. I wanted to go to her, but I didn’t know how. I still didn’t know whether she hated me for leaving. If I tried to sit down next to her, to hug her before she was ready, I might just make things worse.
“I…” My mother cleared her throat as she struggled for words. “I tried to leave. More than once. But Anthony told me he’d find me if I left, and I’d be sorry. He told me I’d never see Alyssa again.” She sniffled and cast a quick look toward my sister, who wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I was afraid he meant it. I knew he had the money for the best lawyers, and I was scared I’d be out on the street, not a cent to my name, all alone…” She looked at us searchingly. “I didn’t know what to do! That’s when I called you Lori, the first time. I was trying to get up the courage to talk to you about it. To ask if maybe we could come and stay with you. But… I just couldn’t do it.” Her voice broke, and she hid her face in her hands.
Lori spoke up. “Karen. It’s okay. You’re here now.” She continued gently. “What finally made you decide to leave?”
My mom grabbed a kleenex from the box on the table and blew her nose. “It was Aly, actually.” Her throat hitched again. “She… she came to me one day, asking me what it was exactly her father did for a living. I didn’t know what to tell her. I’d tried to hide what I knew about his business stuff from her. From both you girls,” she sighed, glancing toward me. “I figured what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you. But I guess Aly had seen and heard some stuff, and she had questions. And she wouldn’t let me off the hook. So finally, I told her what I knew.”
“What do you know, Mom?” I asked.
A loud, shaky sigh escaped her. “I know he’s no good. I know he’s done stuff. Illegal stuff. Selling drugs, things like that. He used to keep all of that far away from us. But lately, people come to the house, angry people, demanding to see him. There are guards all over the place outside, when he’s there. So Aly, of course she could see all that. She could see her dad was up to no good.”
My mother blew her nose again. “And then one night… she saw her father choke me.”
One hand went involuntarily to her neck, and I realized what the bruises I’d noticed earlier were.
“Aly told me we had to leave, no matter what. I knew she was right. But I didn’t know how to do it. Then, Anthony left on a business trip. To where, I don’t know, he never tells me anything. I told Aly to leave everything except what she could pack in a small bag, like if we were just going shopping or something. And we got out.”
My mother had begun to tremble. “The whole time driving here, I was half-afraid they’d be coming after us. I thought they’d nab us on the way, and take us back home. I don’t even know if Anthony knows were gone yet.” She looked at me with panic in her eyes. “Lori put our car in the garage so they wouldn’t see it, but I’m scared we made a big mistake. Your stepfather’s powerful, Andi. He’s got men, with guns. What if they come for us? What if they hurt you, too?”
“Don’t worry about us,” Lori cut in. Her loathing for Anthony Conley was etched clearly on her face. “The important thing is that you’re away from him now.”
I looked over at my sister, who still hadn’t said a word. Silent tears were streaming down her face. I had no idea how many terrible things must have been going through her head. How traumatizing it must have been to be terrified of her own father.
“I can protect us,” I said suddenly. “I know a way.” I stood quickly, and grabbed the bag I’d placed on the floor next to me. “Lori, B.J., lock yourselves in behind me. Sit tight, and make sure you don’t answer the door for anyone but me. I’ll be back.”
Lori called after me, but I didn’t have time to answer her. I needed to talk to Cal.
On the way out the door, I sent him a text, then called him a few seconds later. The call went straight to voicemail. Frowning, I got in my car, locked the doors, and pulled the gun out of my bag, placing it on the passenger seat next to me. Then I started the engine and headed straight for the Stone Kings clubhouse.
I was so focused on finding Cal that I barely looked at the parking lot as I pulled up. If I had, I would have seen a familiar vehicle there and might have had more time to prepare myself. I stuffed the gun back inside my purse, got out of the car, and steeled myself to walk into the clubhouse. I’d never been there before and had next to no idea what I would find inside.
I pushed open the heavy oak door and waited for a moment as my eyes adjusted to the difference in the light. Before I could get a good look, a familiar voice greeted me.
“Andi?”
It was Seton. As I blinked and looked over toward the voice, I could see that she was standing with one arm on the bar. Seated next to her was Monica, who I’d met at Seton’s baby shower.
“Andi, what are you doing here?” she asked as she walked toward me. “How did you know to find me here?”
Oh. Of course she thought I was looking for her, I realized dimly. What else would she think? My mind raced for some sort of explanation, but nothing came.
“Actually, I’m…” I began, and stopped.
“What?” She frowned in confusion.
“I’m uh, looking for Cal.”
19
Cal
CAL
I’d got a text from Grey less than an hour ago telling me something big had happened, and to get my ass down to the clubhouse ASAP. When I got there, the brothers were already filing into the chapel. I made my way over to Trig and asked him what was going on, but all he said was he’d heard there’d been a break in the drug trafficking situation going on in Lupine.
As the others were taking their seats, I approached Grey, who was standing near the window, a fierce look in his eye.
“Hey, what’s so urgent?” I asked him. “I thought maybe this had something to do with Andi.”
“It does.” He nodded toward the table. “Grab a seat. You’re gonna want to hear this.”
I took my place at the table and turned off my phone. The gavel banged.
Grey wasted no time giving Pig, Tiny, and Moose the floor. The three of them had been spending a fair amount of time watching Dylan, the kid from Lupine High we’d been keeping an eye on. It had been over a week with no activity we could see, and they were starting to think his su
pplier had gotten wise and skipped town. Then one day after school, Dylan broke from his normal routine and pointed his car out of the parking lot going in the opposite direction from his house.
They followed the kid out to a trailer park out on the edge of town. There, they’d managed to stay out of sight long enough to nab Dylan in the act of accepting high purity crack cocaine and heroin from a dude in a scrawny beard and a brown hoodie.
The brothers had put the fear of God into young Dylan, telling him that he was being watched and that if he ever tried to deal in the city limits again, his parents would be receiving pieces of him in the mail every day for a month. Then they hauled the dude in the hoodie into a van, and took him out in the country to beat on him until he told them everything he knew.
“So, what did you get out of him?” I asked.
“The guy’s a petty goddamn thug,” Moose spat. “Out of Denver. Said he and another guy got sent out here a few months ago to set up shop in the area. Said he’s been selling mainly to kids and some of the people in the trailer park.”
“What the fuck, that seems pretty small-time,” Trig remarked. “Who’s he working for?”
“He said he didn’t know,” Pig said. “Said he got approached by a dude that was supplying him with product up in Denver. Offered to pay him top dollar, enough money he couldn’t refuse. But here’s the weird fuckin’ thing. Apparently, he was also sent out here to keep an eye on someone in town. A chick. Every once in a while he’d get an order to go to this chick’s house, make it obvious somebody’d been there. To scare the shit out of her.”
What.
The.
Fuck.
When I cut my eyes to Grey, he was staring at me intently.
STONE KINGS MOTORCYCLE CLUB: The Complete Collection Page 67