Secondhand Sinners

by Genevieve Lynne

  “Sixty-four, sixty-five…I wanna eat macaroni and cheese! Sixty-six…”

  “That settles it,” Alan said as he pulled away from the curb. “Thunderbird Diner has the best macaroni and cheese. We want nothing but the best for our boy, right, Jack?”

  “He’s not our boy.”

  “I looooove macaroni and cheese. Sixty-nine, seventy…”

  The whole morning was evolving from a wonderful dream into a terrible nightmare. Her mother, who’d never wanted her, was losing her mind, and her father was getting worse. All Emily wanted to do was stay at Miller’s, talk things out, and see if there was a future there. She was a little surprised that they had clicked so well with so many years and hurt feelings between them. She thought being around Miller again would be a nightmare, yet it wasn’t it. It was like a dream, once lost and nearly forgotten, was coming true. Yet there she was, sitting in Alan’s squad car, and he was trying to make her and Jack become some kind of a “we” with him. Her mood was quickly deteriorating, and Jack’s counting was getting on her last nerve.

  She looked back at Jack. “That’s making me crazy. I’ll give you two dollars if you stop counting now.”

  Jack stopped counting immediately and held out his hand. “Three dollars, please.”

  “No. Two dollars. One to start counting and one to stop.”

  “You said one to count and two to stop counting. That’s three.”

  “Fine.”

  Jack wiggled his fingers at her. “Now.”

  She dug through her purse to find her wallet, which only had two twenties in it. “Crap.”

  “That’s your new catch phrase. Well I’ll be—”

  “Jack!”

  “Am I missing something?” Alan asked.

  “Yeah. About five years of mental exhaustion.”

  “Huh?”

  “I hate owing him money. He reminds me every minute until I give it to him.”

  “I got it.” He opened the ashtray and pulled out a five-dollar bill. “Here ya go, bud. You can keep the change.”

  “Yeeesss!” Jack snatched the bill.

  “Thanks.” Emily smiled without even trying to force the smile to spread from her mouth to her whole face. Owing Alan was worse than owing Jack. “I’ll buy lunch.”

  ***

  They parked in front of the Thunderbird Diner. It had a ‘Home Cooking’ sign posted on the door right above the “Hours: 6 A.M. to 9 P.M.” sign. When they walked in, heads turned in a slow wave, starting in the corner with the old ladies in plastic hair bonnets, probably taking a break from the beauty salon next door, and ending with the men by the door with grease-smeared arms and necks. Even though she didn’t recognize most of them, Emily knew if she studied their faces hard enough, she’d be able to. She kept her head down and followed Alan, with Jack in tow, to a table in the middle of the room.

  Alan pulled out a chair. “Here ya go, Jack. Wanna sit here so you can see cars go by on the street?”

  Jack sat in the chair without answering, pulled a Han Solo Lego mini-figure out of his pocket, and set it on the table. “She’ll make point five past light speed.”

  Alan sat next to Jack, and Emily sat across from them after she pulled some loose Legos from her purse and put them on the table in front of Jack.

  “Tell Jabba I’ve got his money,” Jack said.

  An old waitress with hair that looked more magenta than red brought menus and water glasses.

  “I need my usual appetizer please, Vicky.”

  The waitress narrowed her eyes at Alan, smacked her gum a few times, and then left. She was back within a minute with an open Miller Lite.

  “It’s barely eleven o’clock in the morning,” Emily said.

  “I’m on nights so this is more like eleven P.M. to me.” Alan took a drink from his beer and sat back with his arms crossed over his chest. “So, how have you been?”

  Emily pretended to concentrate on her menu. “Okay.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  She lowered the menu. “I’m okay given the circumstances. So why did you move back?”

  Alan narrowed his eyes. “You’re changing the subject.”

  “Humor me. Why did you come back?”

  “Wonderful girl,” Jack said in his well-practiced Han Solo voice. “Either I’m going to kill her or I’m beginning to like her.”

  Alan shrugged. “Nowhere else to go. Hoyt was a bastard, but he was the only family I had. Or have…for the time being.”

  “How is Hoyt?”

  “You tell me.”

  Emily shook her head. “I don’t—”

  “I’m not stupid. No one else in the entire world would care enough about that old bastard to send him candy, blankets, and pajamas except for you.”

  “I don’t really care about him. I wanted to help make him comfortable. You know, for Daniel's sake.”

  “You think Daniel would give a rat’s ass about Hoyt being comfortable?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll never know. I do like to think that eventually Hoyt would’ve pulled himself together enough for them to have a decent relationship.”

  The waitress came back and took their order. After she left, Alan leaned forward and reached under the table, hooking his hands behind Emily’s knees. “Why didn’t you call me when you got into town?”

  “I thought you were in Texas.”

  “Then why didn’t you call me when you thought I was in Texas?”

  “Alan, I know I handled things terribly, and I’m really sorry. Please hear me when I say I cannot do this now. I need you to respect that.”

  “She’s fast enough for ya, old man,” Jack quoted and then made a buzzing noise as he moved the light speeder he built out of the loose Legos through the air like an airplane.

  “Okay. Sorry. Changing the subject like you asked.”

  Jack stood up. “I gotta go to the bathroom!”

  “I’m going to take him. When I get back, can we please drop—”

  Alan grabbed her hand and kissed it. “No more talk about Texas. I swear. As long as you’ll eat something.”

  Emily took Jack’s hand and kept her head down again as they walked to the back of the building and followed the arrow on the sign that read ‘Restrooms.’ Once she got in the ladies’ bathroom, she sent Jack into a stall.

  “How you doing in there?” she called out to Jack and heard nothing but his light saber vocalizations. “Jack. Go.”

  The light saber sounds died out, replaced by the telltale light trickle. Emily checked her phone. Miller hadn’t called back yet. That was for the best. What she would say if he asked where she was? She wasn’t going to lie. She didn’t want to have to explain how she ended up at a diner with Alan when she said she’d be back as soon as she visited her mom, either. As truthful as He tricked me and then talked me into it was, it showed a weakness she didn’t want Miller to know about. Yet. If they were going to have any kind of a future, she’d have to be truthful about that night in Dallas with Alan, but she wanted to be in control of that piece of information. She’d tell him when the time was right.

  When she and Jack returned and sat down, Alan was still sitting there. The women in the plastic hair bonnets got up as she sat down. Two of them left. One of them walked over to her. “You’re Emily Collins, ain’tchya?”

  Emily faked a smile. “Yes, Ma’am. It’s Matthews now.”

  “You’re that Thornton boy’s girl ain’tchya?”

  “Yes,” Emily answered, no longer capable of even a fake smile. She would always be Daniel's girl to the people in the town. She knew that even when she was a teenager. Towns like that were real entities with their own morality, fed by the consciousness of those people who lived in them. Even after a hundred years, she’d still be Daniel's girl. Parents would introduce her legacy to their teenage daughters as the cautionary tale of what happens when you get pregnant while you’re still in high school—you’ll end up alone and scared, and your whole life will be ruined. That was okay. She’
d be the one with the stigma, not Daniel. She could handle it. He never could.

  “I knew his daddy, that foul man. That boy, though…now he was a sweetheart.” She pointed her frail, crooked finger at Emily and smiled. “And I remember…he loved you.”

  “Yes, Ma'am. He did.”

  She patted Emily’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry none. I’m sure it wasn’t your fault. There’re people in this world who go places the rest of us jus’ cain’t understand and weren’t meant to go. That poor boy had darkness behind his eyes.”

  “No, ma’am,” Emily said, thinking of Miller at Daniel's funeral, alone and having to listen to people talk like this old lady. “That wasn’t darkness you saw. That was copper build-up from going weeks without his medicine. It’s called Kayser-Fleischer rings.”

  “I see.” The old lady nodded, removed her hand from Emily’s shoulder, and walked away.

  Emily lowered her head and rubbed her temples.

  Alan cleared his throat. “Wow. That was—”

  “Bitchy, I know. That lady was trying to be nice.” She pushed her chair out and stood up. “I should go apologize.”

  Alan took her hand and coaxed her down. “She wasn’t trying to be nice. She was being nosey. Was probably one of those ladies who gossiped about you getting pregnant by the town drunk’s son after you ran away. They did that, you know? And it really upset Mom. She cried for months over how the whole town was talking about her dead son and his loose girlfriend. So don’t waste your breath apologizing to her.”

  “No. She was so complimentary to Daniel. I don’t want her to think ill of him because I was such a bitch.”

  “Good God, Em. Don’t you ever get tired of running from ghosts?”

  “Ghosts? You mean Daniel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m not running from Daniel.”

  “Admit it.”

  “Admit what?”

  “You’re still in love with him.”

  “No. I’ll always love him. I was never in love with him.”

  “You still haven’t gotten over him.” Alan leaned in closer. “He wasn’t as great as everyone thought he was, you know? I was as good as Daniel, but no one ever saw it.”

  “Yes they did.”

  “Mom and Hoyt didn’t.”

  “Your mom was a drug addict and Hoyt was an alcoholic. They couldn’t see anything.”

  “I never understood why you chose Daniel over me, even after he died. That night in Dallas, I kept thinking Finally. Someone’s choosing me, and it’s Emily. To me that was better than Mom or Hoyt. Then you left.”

  Rejection from one’s own family was painful. Emily didn’t realize until then how much she and Alan had in common. She felt terrible that a secret she held for so many years could have saved him from some of the pain he’d lived with for so long. It was time to set him free. “I didn’t choose Daniel. He was gay.”

  He sat back in his chair and studied Emily. “He couldn’t have been gay. You were pregnant with his baby.”

  “I was pregnant with Miller’s baby.”

  Alan gaze swept back and forth across the table like he was studying some unseen landscape. “So that’s what…” He looked at Emily.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. When she looked at the caller ID and saw Miller’s name, she froze. She really wanted to answer it. Not there, though, and not in front of Alan. She ignored the call and put her phone back in her pocket.

  The waitress deposited their food, putting a sandwich in front of Emily.

  “I told you I didn’t want to eat.”

  Alan didn’t answer. He was lost in thought, concentrating on the blank space over her shoulder.

  “Hello?” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. He didn’t even flinch. First Miller and now Alan. She was two-for-two with dropping the gay bomb. “Hey.” She reached across the table and slapped his cheek lightly. “Snap out of it.”

  Alan blinked. “So you still don’t know why your brother slammed your father’s head into the ground?”

  “Wow. That was a quick recovery.”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “No. If I did I wouldn’t tell you. You’d probably have to tell the sheriff or something.”

  Alan swallowed a bite of his sandwich and took another drink from his beer. “Something like that.”

  “So don’t bother trying to get any information out of me.”

  “Doesn’t matter, right? Because Levi’s not talking to anyone?”

  “What the hell, Alan? How many times do I have to say it? Levi’s not talking to anyone.” Then it hit her—Alan knew something she didn’t. Of course he did. He just got off duty. “Is he?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

  “Why didn’t you tell me when I was at Miller’s?”

  “Who do you think Levi was talking to?”

  “Miller? How do you know?”

  “It’s amazing what two men will say to each other when they don’t know that smoke detector installed in the back corner of the ceiling is really a camera.”

  “You guys record the room with the holding cell?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’ve seen the recording?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did Levi say what happened with my dad?”

  “He said he bashed his head in.”

  “No way.”

  “Admitted to it and everything.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  “All right.” Alan motioned to the waitress for the bill, finished off his beer, and wrapped his sandwich in a napkin. “Let’s go to the station. You deserve to see for yourself.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Miller

  Miller didn’t even realize how tight his grip on the steering wheel was until he had to pry his hands away to rub his aching temples. He was still so disturbed by the demonic noises Violet had made that he considered calling a priest to see if he’d perform some kind of cleansing on him. He smiled for a second when he remembered that night he, Emily, Sara, and Daniel watched The Exorcist at Sara’s house and Emily had asked, “How come only Catholic people become possessed?” No one had an answer. He never did believe that kind of stuff really happened, though now he wasn’t so sure.

  He drove around the block to get to Main Street. When he reached the intersection, he didn’t know which way to go, right to home or left to town. Where was he going? Who could help him? A horn honked behind him so he gave a quick wave and veered left toward town.

  He was driving down Main Street when he saw Alan's squad car. If Alan was in the diner, where was Emily? Maybe he dropped her off at the hospital and was going to go back for her when she was finished. Miller pulled out his phone as he got out of his truck. He had a missed call from Emily. How had he missed that? He discovered the volume on his phone was on silent. Abby probably did that last night to keep him from getting distracted from Emily. He listened to her message as he walked up to the diner and was about to call her back when he spotted her sitting across from Alan at a table in the middle of the room. He knew it was her because she still had on his shirt, and Jack was at the table.

  Alan, whose hands were on Emily’s legs, glanced his way, and for the briefest moment they locked eyes. Miller hoped for some sign that Emily didn’t want Alan’s hands on her, but she let him kiss her hand.

  Emily and Jack left the table and went around the corner in the back of the diner. Then Alan twisted the beer bottle in front of him so that Miller could see the label. Miller Lite. Alan held it up like he was a winner toasting a loser. Sorry chump. Better luck next time.

  Miller stepped away from the window. What the hell was going on? Emily’s car was nowhere in sight so she must have stayed with Alan instead of going back to Levi’s to get it. Why was she at the diner and not at the hospital? He thought he was glad she hadn’t called him yet because he wasn’t ready to have a conversation. He was too mixed up to make any sense. Now, he didn’t know what he wanted. He stood off
to the side of the building and thought. Why not go in there and ask Emily why she was there with Alan instead of at the hospital with her mother? Because he was afraid that would lead to a confrontation that would lead to gossip that would get back to Abby.

  He stepped back up to look through the window. Emily was back, and she and Alan were talking, intensely it seemed. Miller pushed the send button to make the call he was going to make before he saw the creep’s hands on her. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at it for too long. Was that a frown on her face? Then she pushed a button and put it back in her pocket. She didn’t want to talk to him? What had happened within the course of a few hours to make her ignore his phone call? What was Alan telling her? Did he know something? Miller wanted so badly to walk into that diner and tell Emily the truth about everything. In that moment, like many other times in the past, Miller hated himself for ever lying about anything. The lying held him hostage, chained him to its prison, and would never let him free.

  He walked back to his truck, got in, and slammed the door so hard it bounced out of the latch. He grabbed the handle and slammed it once…twice…three times. Nothing made sense. He couldn’t think straight.

  What exactly did Levi mean when he said he knew what Miller did? Who did Levi think Abby’s biological parents were?

  “Shit.”

  He turned his key in the ignition and then opened his door and slammed it one more time. He was going to have to go talk to Levi.

  ***

  After sitting in the parking lot of the police station for twenty minutes, Miller forced himself out of his truck. When he reached the door he stopped. Did he really want to go in there and talk to the person who was threatening him? Could he trust him? He had to. At the very least, he needed to get Levi off his back. Levi could know something he didn’t that would lead to a simple explanation that didn’t involve Hoyt. Although simple didn’t necessarily mean easy, that didn’t matter. He pushed the door open and went inside. He had to find out the truth.

  In his first break of the day, some young rookie was alone at the front desk.

  “Hey there…” Miller said, walking up to the counter and checking the kid’s name tag, “…Sonny. I’m Miller Anderson. I need to see Mr. Collins.”