“What?” Jason yelps and leaps back, nearly tripping over a log. “What makes you think that?” He is clearly insulted.
“The reason we were over your house to begin with the other day was because I read my daughter’s text messages from her friend,” I confess.
Jason simply nods.
“Her messages confused me and I thought she was doing drugs. And after you had said to keep an eye on her, I thought maybe you knew something about it.”
“I was speaking hypothetically, Amy. Because this drug ring was targeting high school students and our suspect had access to high school kids. I didn’t mean that I had knowledge of her actually-”
“I know,” I cut him off. “It was an assumption on my part. It turned out the friend was texting about make-up, of all things. But when I asked her about it, when I still thought it was drugs, she said she saw you doing it at the mall. And mind you I was still thinking drugs…”
“Wait a minute! She said she saw me doing drugs at the mall?” He is scratching his head vigorously.
“No, no. She was actually talking about make-up. And she said that she didn’t do it, but she saw the neighbor do it. Which I don’t understand why she was hiding it from me to begin with. None of it made sense.”
Jason’s face brightens. “She said the neighbor?”
I nod. “And I assumed it was you.”
He shakes his head. “I think you need to have another little chat with your daughter, Amy. You’ll find that things make a little more sense when you talk to her and find out what she was really texting about. I think I have a pretty good idea of what it is.”
“Oh.” I am stunned. Did Allie lie to me again? Her story made no sense…why did I believe her?
I turn to walk back to the cabin when Jason grabs my hand.
“Where are you going?”
Anxious to get to the bottom of this, I point toward our origin.
“Listen, I brought you out here to tell you something. I’m thinking that the cabin might be bugged,” he explains, eyes gazing upwards, scanning the surroundings like a swat team might descend upon us from the tree cover.
“Well, shouldn’t it be? It is a secret hideout, right?” I am confused. The idea that the cabin was bugged was pretty much something I had assumed all along and I’m just a lowly civilian housewife. It boggles my mind that this thought has just occurred to my agent man/knight in shining armor.
Jason shakes his head. “No, I think it’s bugged by a member of the…” he pauses and bites his lip, obviously searching for a word that a neophyte woman on the run like me would understand. “…drug ring that we are chasing. It seems like they have been one step ahead of us the past few days and I can’t for the life of me figure out how.”
He has now moved on from scratching his head to twisting his hair around his finger and tugging at it violently. The mother in me is afraid that he is going to pull his hair out, and I cannot resist reaching out and taking his hand away. He stares at me as if he can’t believe that I just did that. I can’t believe I did, either.
“Sorry,” I mumble, staring down at the boggy ground that is seeping into my cheap sneakers and chilling my feet.
“Uh, it’s fine. Thanks, actually. I have a twiddling habit…” Jason explains, face turning crimson.
“A what?” What he has just said sounds extremely sexual.
“I twiddle my hair when I’m nervous. My mother yelled at me for years about it.” At the mention of Mary, a wretched look crosses Jason’s face and I feel as if my heart is going to burst with sorrow for. It was bad enough finding Mary like I did; I can’t imagine what it was like for Jason, seeing his own mother like that.
Suddenly, without warning, I am overwhelmed with a desire to see and speak to my own mother. It comes out of nowhere, a feeling I don’t ever recall experiencing before. In fact, one summer when we went to sleep away Girl Scout camp, I remember Joey and Beth crying at night for Mom and I just stared at them in disbelief, laughing.
Still, I can’t very well bring that up now, can I? Jason just lost his mother and he brought me out here to tell me something…Wait a minute, what was he just saying to me? My brain is short circuiting all over the place; I have forgotten what this whole conversation was about.
Fortunately, Jason is determined to keep me up to speed. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets, quite possibly to prevent himself from twiddling his hair, and stares straight into my eyes. His gaze is unsettling, so I look back down at my ruined shoes.
“Anyway, there’s either a bug in the cabin or a mole somewhere. So I need you to make sure you’re not discussing anything you know about the case. And don’t ever say we are gone or anything like that. I don’t want anyone to know that you’re alone-”
“Wait a minute. You’re going to leave us alone again?” My voice squeaked at the end. It is darker in this part of the woods and a light breeze is shaking the trees. I feel a chill and all of sudden, I’m more nervous and frightened than I’ve ever been. I want Jason to wrap me in his strong arms and…stop, Amy!
Jason shakes his head. “I’m not planning to leave you alone. I will always leave you with an agent, whether it be Walter or Harding. But bear in mind, one agent is not as much of a threat to these guys as three agents are.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “If you are alone with one agent, they may seize the opportunity to take you and them out when you’re most vulnerable.”
I do not like Jason’s words. He is making this real right now and I don’t like it one bit.
He senses my apprehension and takes a tentative step towards me. I don’t move away as he reaches out and lightly brushes the hair off my shoulders with the tips of his fingers. His touch does nothing to control my trembling; if anything, it intensifies it.
In a low murmur, Jason explains to me, “Amy, please don’t worry. We are trying desperately not to put you in harm’s way. This whole thing is just a precaution, maybe not even necessary. We like to err on the side of caution at the agency, you know?”
As he speaks, he steps closer to me, his body so near that I can not only smell his scent, I can taste it. I feel heat radiating off of him and I don’t want him to stop touching me, but at the same time, I don’t want his hands on me. I am under a spell when he is near me and it frightens me.
Afraid to look into his eyes, I stare down at the ground, my heart hammering in my chest, my breathing becoming labored and difficult. He slips his hand under my chin and lifts my face so that I have no choice but to look at him.
His eyes are darker than usual, maybe because of the light, but somehow, it makes him look softer, more vulnerable. He says nothing to me; instead, he lowers his face to mine and without even thinking about it, I find my own eyes closing, my lips puckering in anticipation of his.
His kiss is soft and delicate, not at all what I would have imagined. His arms slide off my shoulders and he pulls me in for a deeper embrace. I find myself hungrily accepting his lips, his affection, my brain screaming at me to stop and my body completely ignoring its commands.
As quickly as it began, Jason’s kiss ends and I feel him backing away from me. My eyes fly open, startled at the abruptness. Jason’s expression is a mixture of concern and remorse.
“Shit,” he mutters as he runs his hands through his hair, stopping to feverishly tug at the ends. “Shit,” he repeats as he leans against the nearest tree as if he is trying to steady himself.
I am having no problem steadying myself. The shaking has completely stopped. Now I’m just frozen in place, in complete disbelief of what just happened. Did I really just kiss a man who wasn’t my husband? My hot neighbor? The undercover DEA agent? In the middle of the woods?
I look to Jason for guidance, an explanation, anything. His expression is akin to being slapped. “Shit. Amy, I’m sorry. I can’t…I didn’t mean to…” This is the most flustered and unraveled I have ever seen him. And for once, I don’t want him to be that way. I want him to take charge and tell me what to do, damn it! I
want him to explain to me, what just happened and what does it mean? But I can tell, he doesn’t know either.
“I’ve got to go,” he says in a clipped tone. “I’ve got a meeting. I’ll be back later.” Without another word, he spins on his heel and retreats out of the woods at a breakneck pace.
At first I am stunned by his hasty retreat, but then I realize, I have to follow him quickly or I will be lost in the woods and not have any clue how to get out. And God knows what’s in these woods. All sorts of dangerous creatures; bears and snakes and leaders of drug rings, I think to myself as I squish through the marshy ground. And don’t forget DEA agents, Amy.
~SEVENTEEN~
As I approach the cabin, I lightly touch my fingers to my mouth, feeling where Jason’s lips had been not ten minutes ago.
“Hi, Mom!” Allie pipes up from the corner of the porch. I startle, not expecting to see her there. She is reclining in an Adirondack chair that I had not noticed before, her feet propped up on the railing. In her lap is a giant sketchbook and she is holding a charcoal pencil in her hand.
“Oh, hi,” I reply, hoping she didn’t see me touch my lips and wonder why I was doing that. “Where did you get that?” I ask, gesturing towards the sketchbook. When she was younger, before she went into middle school, Allie had a book just like that. She would lounge outside for hours, drawing her siblings, insects or trees. Anything, really. She would slip into an artistic trance, sketching for hours. Once she started middle school however, she stopped drawing. I had asked her about it and she had gotten really snippy and told me to mind my own business. What else is new, right?
Allie’s cheeks flush. “Sean got it for me.” She stares back down at the page, obviously embarrassed by this revelation.
“Well, that’s nice of Sean, but…where did he get it from? We’re in the middle of the woods.”
Allie starts scribbling away on the pad. “Um, he said it was in the car. He bought it last week to give to me for my birthday.” she mumbles, hair falling into her face so that she is barely audible. I’m not sure if Allie is more embarrassed by the fact that Sean went out of his way to get her this gift he thought she would appreciate or the fact that she is relishing his gift.
“That’s right. Tomorrow is your birthday,” I recall with gloom. Wow. It’s really going to suck if my daughter has to spend her fourteenth birthday here, holed off from the world.
She nods glumly, obviously thinking the same thing. Then, she turns her attention back to her drawing.
Plopping down in the chair next to my daughter, I lean back and shield my eyes from the bright sun.
“We never actually finished our conversation the other day,” I remark.
“Uh, which one?” Allie inquires as she studies a pinecone she has propped up on the railing.
“The one about the make-up and the neighbor? I was wondering why you would be so secretive about make-up, but Jason has suggested that I may have completely misunderstood what you were trying to tell me.”
Even out of the corner of my eye, I can see her flush.
“Mom, I’m really sorry about that,” Allie replied, chewing her lip nervously.
Patiently, I lay my hand on top of hers. “You want to tell me the whole story?”
She nods, laying down her charcoal pencil. “Victoria stole that make-up. She’s been…stealing things. A lot.” Allie stares at her fingernails as she explains.
“Oh?” This is not what I was expecting.
She glances up at me. “I swear I never stole anything, Mom. She wanted me to. She even pointed out Mrs. Donoghue stealing a make-up and a Coach bag from Macy’s last week and said that everyone does it…”
Mrs. Donoghue? Cammi? That’s the neighbor she meant?
Suddenly, everything is starting to make sense. The reason Cammi and Jimmy can afford expensive things, his job at the high school, her shoplifting. He’s running a drug ring and she’s giving herself a five finger discount! Shit! This is why Laura doesn’t want Kaitlyn hanging out with Allie! This is why Kaitlyn stormed out and why Allie’s friends consider Kaitlyn uncool! All this happening under my nose! I knew something was wrong…just didn’t fit the puzzle pieces together properly.
Allie clears her throat and I remember that she is still sitting there, looking like a lost puppy.
“Please don’t make me give up being friends with Victoria. I know she’s a little rough around the edges, but she’s had a tough home life. Her mom walked out on them when she was a baby and her older sister raises her.” She gives me a pleading look with those beautiful, truthful eyes that I haven’t seen in years. “She needs a friend like me, Mom. I promise I won’t ever steal anything.”
I pat her knee affectionately. “I hope so, Al.”
Just then, Sean comes bounding towards us, arms bearing gifts of leaves and other relics of nature. “Got you some things to draw, Allie!” he calls out enthusiastically. Allie beams as he drops the presents at the base of her chair.
I clamor to my feet, avoiding eye contact with my daughter, not wanting to embarrass her. She and Sean are content and occupied; my job is done here. For now. Roger and I can speak to Allie about Victoria and the shoplifting at another time.
I head into the house and sigh as I notice my abandoned salad prep. I open the fridge, half expecting a bottle of water to magically materialize and I sigh as I see there is still only soda.
Should have told Jason to pick up wine and rum and vodka on his way home. And a cake for Allie’s birthday. Too bad he dashed off so suddenly, I think to myself as I realize that I am the reason he dashed off.
I pour some soda into a glass and then wander out of the deserted house onto the front porch.
Sean is crouched on his knees, inspecting the ground for heaven knows what. He is creeping around, occasionally picking up a leaf and inspecting it, before tossing it aside or tucking it in his pocket.
Walter and Agent Harding are standing by the tree I thought that Allie and Sean were smoking next to last night. As I pass them I can see the men are deep in conversation, Walter facing me, looking rather animated, and Agent Harding with his back to me.
I wonder about him, I muse as I slowly sip the noxious drink and wander towards the side of the house, out of sight. Wonder how old he is and where he lives. He mentioned a wife and daughter, but does he have other kids? Hell, I don’t even know what his first name is. I should ask him…oh Amy, who cares?
I know I am just distracting myself from thinking about what just happened with Jason. I lean back against the house; the sun is just starting to graze the horizon. Within the hour it will be dark. I close my eyes, letting the last bit of the October sun warm my face. And the lips that Jason has just kissed only an hour ago.
Roger and I have been married for well over fifteen years. When we first met, I swore it was love at first sight, even though, Roger wasn’t anything extraordinary. In fact, many of my friends turned their noses up when they met Roger, telling me I could certainly do better. But I was drawn to that man like a moth to a flame, to borrow an overused cliché. He fascinated me for some unknown reason and I wanted to be with him. I craved him when he wasn’t around; my wandering thoughts always turned to him when I wasn’t with him during the day. In my mind, this was love.
Maybe it wasn’t him, per se, but the way he perceived me, the way he treated me. Nobody had ever really taken such an interest in me before. Most of my high school boyfriends had only one goal in mind and while I claimed that was fine back then because I was as horny as hell too, maybe I was really looking for someone who got me. At one point in time, Roger, the man who couldn’t understand why I didn’t appreciate his dirty underwear on the bed, got me. He was capable of getting me to think on a level I never thought possible and what’s more, he understood me. He made me feel safe, secure, loved and understood. And all at once, that was gone. Did he still get me? And who was I anymore? Was I completely overwhelmed with the daily minutiae of my life that I wasn’t even a real person anymore
? If I didn’t get me, how could I expect Roger to get me? And if he didn’t get me anymore, what did we have left?
I shiver as a gust of wind whips past, but somehow, I have the feeling that is not the only reason for my goose-bumps. I open my eyes and see that it has become extremely overcast and the sun is completely gone.
I wrap my arms around myself as I hear a high pitched scraping sound, like a chair being moved across a patio. My pulse quickens as I crouch down. I find myself creeping towards the back of the house, curious, despite my mind screaming, what are you doing, Amy! Are you trying to get yourself killed? That’s why you have agents watching over you!
Even with my logical brain warning me, I continue to creep towards the back of the house. I hear the sound of a cell phone ringing and then a very quiet whispering voice.
“Yeah, he’s gone,” says the voice. It is vaguely familiar, but because the person is speaking in such a low tone, I can’t place where I know them from. Is that Jimmy Donoghue? I’ve only spoken to him twice. Once when I hit his rosebush while backing out of the driveway and once when I asked him if recyclables were being picked up on Christmas week.
I chew my lip trying to remember if this particular voice is his. The wind is picking up, disguising the voice even further. I can barely make out the words, let alone figure out where I’ve heard that voice before.
I crane my neck, resisting the urge to peek around the corner and see who it belongs to. “Yeah, he’s going to the office to meet with Anderson. You need to warn him that they’re getting close to his location. They’re trying to…” the wind starts howling at this point in time and I can only make out snippets of the conversation. But what I do hear crystal clearly is, “Well, I’ll kill Collins if I have to. He certainly won’t be as easy as the old lady was. She was just sitting there, taking a nap. Simplest hit ever.”
My blood runs cold as my body locks up, unable to move. Run, idiot! Run! Get Harding and Walter so they can catch this creep! He’s obviously the one who killed Mary. And he’s part of the group they are looking to catch and he’s HERE! And you’re standing still like a moron, Amy! Run!
The 8 Mistakes of Amy Maxwell Page 21