Kat was in the middle of telling us about this old historic mansion that rents out their ballroom when she stands quickly as she looks down the hall. “Missy?”
We all turn to see Tate and a very sad, but still very pregnant Missy walking beside him.
They come to a stop and he speaks. “Sorry guys, false alarm.”
Missy’s cheeks redden, and she tucks herself into his side. “I’m so sorry,” she says softly.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Courtney assures her with a warm smile. “It happens to all of us.”
“Well, crap.” Holly sighs. “I really wanted to see that baby today.”
“Me too.” Missy laughs as she rubs her big belly. “But the good news is that they said they would probably be seeing us later in the week.”
CHAPTER NINE
PARKER
We had all left the hospital and went to a late lunch when my brother called me and told me that he had a father call him needing legal help. His daughter had been picked up in Ferguson, which is only twenty miles from St. Louis. A car driving by saw the woman lying in a ditch and called the police. When they arrived, they found that she was high on something and needed emergency attention. The hospital had pumped her stomach, and the police planned to take her straight to jail upon her discharge due to the number of pills that she had on her. Yellow pills, to be exact.
I guess her brother has been into drugs for years and Braxton has got him off before, so her father called him to save his daughter from prison time. When I told him I was coming along with him, he tried to suggest I just wait to see what he finds out. Like that was gonna happen.
For the second time today, I walk into a cold and sterile hospital. I nod to a few nurses as they look at Braxton and me with curiosity. I don’t blame them. We look like night and day. Braxton is wearing another one of his expensive dark gray suits and tie. I still have on my black t-shirt and sweatpants from earlier and smell like sex along with eucalyptus.
We make our way down a long hallway and walk into the last door on the right. A man who looks to be the age of my father stands beside a hospital bed. He speaks low but harshly to a blond woman who lies in the bed. “I told you this would happen,” he growls.
“Shut up, Dad,” she snaps.
“Mr. Dawson,” my brother says to announce his presence since they didn’t notice us walk in.
The man turns to face him. “Thank God. Braxton.” They shake hands. “I’m so thankful you could make it on such short notice.” His dark eyes look heavy and his shoulders are slumped. You can see that his daughter is wearing on him.
“I told you I don’t need an attorney,” the woman hisses.
“Really? Looked like to me you need more than that.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “You are strapped down to a hospital bed, after all.”
I take the time to really look her over. Just as he said, her arms are strapped out to her sides as are her feet are at the end of the bed. It’s sad really. Because she could be very pretty if you could ignore the fact that she looks like complete shit right now. Her bleach-blond hair is matted to her head and looks like it hasn’t been washed in days. She has scratches on her forearms and chest area. She has a pretty good size cut on her bottom lip and a bruise on her right cheek as well.
Her big blue eyes are sunken. You can see her collarbone and even the bones in her arms. The only places she looks to have any fat are in her tits and lips. She looks like the Barbie doll that my niece Sadey once left outside for three days and the storm came and flooded the yard. She is what you would describe as rode hard and put up wet. She looks like the type my dad prefers over my mother. And I cringe at that thought.
“Mr. Dawson, why don’t you go and find me a nurse,” Braxton offers. “So we can get these restraints removed.” He looks at his daughter for a few long seconds and then lets out a sigh before he walks out.
“I don’t want you here,” she sneers to Braxton.
“So you prefer to be strapped to a hospital bed while they wait for your test results?” She goes to open her mouth, but he continues. “And once they get your results back, they are going to send you straight to jail. Is that what you want?”
She turns her head to the side and as if she finally sees me, she asks. “Who the hell are you?”
“Ignore him,” Braxton tells her. “He’s just here to observe.” I refrain from snorting. “So tell me why you were brought in.”
She shakes her head as she looks up at the ceiling.
I take a step closer to her, and her head snaps to look at me. I take another step closer. She starts to pull on her restraints. Her wrists are so small from probable malnutrition. Drugs will do that you. I swear they could snap in half if she pulls on them too hard.
Her body tenses as she looks up at me wide-eyed. “Come any closer and I’ll scream.”
I shrug. “Go ahead. No one will come and check on you. You’re just a druggie.”
Braxton clears his throat, but I ignore him. I need answers from this woman. I need to know where she got the pills. I continue over to her hospital bed, and she starts breathing heavy. The bed shakes as she starts to try to yank her arms and legs free, but she isn’t going anywhere. They got her locked down tight, and I’m grateful for that ‘cause I’m probably about to piss her off and I really don’t want her to bite me or claw my eyes out like she did the nurses. That is why she is strapped down to begin with, so I don’t put it past her.
“Parker,” my brother snaps, but I ignore him. I wrap my hand around her small forearm and press it down into the bed.
“Let go of me,” she yells as her body bucks.
I look down at her arms and the moment I don’t see what I’m looking for, I let go of her. “So you obviously don’t shoot up,” I say. “Just a pill popper?” I ask.
“Fuck you!” she spits.
“No thanks,” I say as I pull my lip back with disgust. “I don’t fuck whores.”
“Parker,” Braxton snaps as she inhales sharply.
I sit down in the chair next to her bed. “Do you want to go to prison?” I ask her. “From what I was told, you were caught with six pills on you. You know you can get seven years per pill?” Her eyes widen in fear for the briefest moment before she hides it. I can work with fear. Smiling, I add, “I guess you would rather spend forty-two years in prison than talk to us. Come on, Braxton. Let’s go.”
I get up from the chair, and she pulls on her restraints as she tries to sit up as well. “Wait!”
I sit back down slowly as she relaxes into her bed. Braxton and I exchange a look before she manages to speak again. “I can’t give you what you want,” she says softly.
“Yes, you can,” Braxton assures her. “We can get you out of this and protect you.”
Her blue eyes start to fill with tears as she shakes her head. “I won’t give him up,” she whispers.
“Your brother?” I ask, knowing he was just released from jail on bail. Driving under the influence.
She sniffs and closes her eyes tightly as a tear streams down her cheek that still has some makeup caked on it. What little mascara she had on streaks her face. “Someone will have to pay.”
“I’ll make sure the right person does,” Braxton adds.
She gives a dark laugh and I almost do as well. He is a defense attorney, after all. He gets the bad guys off. So him telling her he is gonna catch the bad guy sounds funny. She opens her eyes and looks over at him. “You think you can make it go away? You can’t. I knew what I was risking when I got involved. It’s time to pay up.”
“Involved in what exactly?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter,” she sighs getting tired of us being here.
I’m getting quite tired of it myself. “It does fucking matter,” I growl. “Because even though you chose this life, others who have not are still paying for it.”
“What the hell does that mean?” she demands.
“It means that the guy you’re getting your supply from
is making innocent people pay in order for him to keep his supply to allow little bitches like you to get high in order to get through your fucking miserable life!” I stand as I scream out in frustration. “Or do you just take them to help cope when he lays his hands on you?” I ask. Her tongue darts out and licks the cut on her bottom fake plumped-up lip. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for doing what you want to your body. Hell, my fiancée has fake tits and I absolutely love them but come on. Do you have to inject every single part of your body?
“Parker, you need to leave! Now!” Braxton demands. I stand there staring down at the weak bitch tied to the hospital bed. I call her weak ‘cause she needs drugs in order to survive. She’s willing to throw her life away, for what? One more pill? When Kat almost lost her life because of my father and Mason. I won’t allow that. I won’t stand for that. That was why I became a cop in the first place.
“Parker?” Braxton repeats. I do believe he may hit me if I don’t stop talking down to her.
I look away from the woman and at my brother. He nods to the door with thinned lips and fisted hands. I take a deep breath trying to slow my heart rate and decide that leaving is the best thing for me to do.
I turn giving them both my back and start to head to the door when the woman speaks. “Was it someone you love?”
I stop and turn to face her. “You said an innocent. Did someone you know have to pay? Did he hurt them?”
My knees threaten to buckle when she says he. Is it my father? Could it be this easy?
“Yes,” I say softly. “My fiancée.”
She swallows and then asks. “Did he kill her?”
“He tried. But she survived,” I say proudly.
She looks down at her hands strapped to the bed and a silence falls on her cold room. “What did he do to her?”
I run a hand through my hair and let out a deep sigh. “He had a man who worked for him kidnap her. He beat her. Four hours of surgery and six weeks of having her jaw wired. But she recovered fully.”
She looks up at me, and a single tear runs down her face. “She must be very strong.” I nod. “I wish I would have been that strong.” She looks at me with her big blue eyes. “I wasn’t always this person,” she says softly. “I remember my brother doing drugs and getting in trouble. I promised myself I would never let myself be that person. I didn’t want to disappoint my parents.” She laughs at that, but it holds no humor. “Obviously, I failed.”
I walk back over to the seat next to her bed and sit back down. “Tell me who got you involved in it,” I pry. This part really isn’t that important, but if she tells me this, then maybe she will tell me more about who he is.
She licks her dry and cracked lips. “One night, my friend called me and told me to get ready. Her boyfriend’s father owns a hotel and they were hosting a big party. She said we could get in. I was introduced to one of his friends.” She closes her eyes as tears run down the sides of her cheeks. “I was so stupid,” she says angrily. “He offered me a pill, and I wanted to impress him and thought why not? It’s just one pill. Well, one pill was all it took. A week later, I was begging for more than he could give me. I was eating them like candy. I had gone to another party and met …” She swallows. “A very powerful man.”
I look up at Braxton. He stares down at her with thinned lips and hard eyes. I place my attention back on her.
“It really didn’t matter if he whispered the sweetest things in my ear. All that mattered was if he had that yellow pill.” Tears roll down her face. “I told him what I needed, and he supplied it.”
I run a hand down my face nervously. I then shuffle around in my seat uncomfortably.
“We can get you help,” Braxton says not sounding as awkward as I feel.
“Don’t you understand? You can’t fix me. No one can fix me,” she cries shaking her head.
“I believe that not everyone can change,” he says, and I know he’s referring to our father. “But you can change.” She starts to sob. “And I give you my word that we will be there every step of the way.”
CHAPTER TEN
PARKER
I drive back to St. Louis with my brother sitting in the passenger seat of my truck. We both sit in silence as we mull over what we just found out. She had been with my father. Of course, she was high on drugs, and they had got into a fight. When he was tired of listening to her, he had his limo driver pull over and he threw her out of the car. Luckily, she suffered only minor injuries.
We ended up spending over two hours there and got what we wanted, but it’s not comforting. And some cracked-out whore’s testimony isn’t gonna be enough to put Dick away. I mean, ideally spending the rest of his life in jail will be more satisfying than just killing the bastard. Death is too quick and easy. I want him to sit in a little cell with nothing but time and silence. Forcing him to think about what he did and how his sons brought him down. But he has too many cops on the payroll. Hell, maybe even judges. So no, her testimony won’t be enough.
My phone ringing through the speakers of my truck interrupts the music. I lift my finger to my lips to motion to Braxton to be quiet when I see it’s Kat.
Reaching up to my dash, I press answer on my hands-free. “Hey, babe,” I try to sound happy.
“Hey, sweetie. How did it go?” she asks.
I had told her that Slade needed me to help him with something at his house. I couldn’t tell her I was going to another city to see a woman with Braxton. Too many questions would have followed that. “It went well. On my way home now.”
“That’s good. I wish I could have seen you before I went into work.”
“Me too.” I had hoped it wouldn’t take that long and I would have made it back home before her shift had started. But nope.
“Well, uh …” The tone of her voice has changed from warm to unsure.
“Something wrong?” I ask shifting in my seat.
“No,” she says slowly. “But, well, your mom …”
I stiffen. “What about my mother?” I demand feeling uneasy.
“She came to the hospital and …”
“Why the fuck was she up there?” I snap, interrupting her.
“Geez, Parker. Calm down,” she says. “She’s okay. If that’s what you’re worried about.” If she only knew how much I didn’t care for my mother. “It was just … awkward,” she decides.
“Why was she there, Kat?” I demand wanting her to get to the point.
“She just wanted to see me,” she says simply.
I open my mouth but close it. I look over at Braxton, and he looks as surprised as I feel. “She came up there just to see you?” I ask.
“Yes. And well, she said that she hasn’t spoken to you in a while, and for some reason, your brother, Braxton, is also ignoring her. I told her that we had just seen him the other day …”
“Shit!” Braxton hisses, and I look over at him with narrowed eyes.
“What?” she asks. “Was that supposed to be a secret that he came over?” Did she think that was me and not Braxton? I flip on the blinker and switch lanes. “It’s fine,” I say, but it’s not. If she tells my dad that Braxton and I have been hangin’ out, he’ll know something is up between us. “What else did she have to say?” I growl.
“She invited us over for dinner. Tomorrow night …”
“Absolutely not!”
“Parker,” she snaps getting frustrated. “Quit interrupting me! And I already told her we would.”
I tighten my hands on the steering wheel as I shake my head. “Anyway,” she adds her voice softer now. “I gotta go. We have a trauma coming in. I’ll see you when I get home. Love you.” Then she hangs up.
“What the fuck is Mom doing?” Braxton asks.
I shrug. “Maybe she knows we’re on to Dad,” I offer.
He shakes his head. “There’s no way for her to know that.”
“Maybe she should know,” I offer.
His head falls back onto the headrest. He closes his eyes and sighs heavi
ly. “Shit is about to hit the fan.”
Yes, it is. And I wanna make sure that Kat is as far away from it as possible.
He opens his eyes and looks over at me. “You have to tell her, Parker. There’s no way around it now.”
“I know.” She needs to know who was responsible for almost taking her life. She needs to know that my mother and father are bad news and to stay clear of them. Her safety depends on that.
******
After I drop Braxton off at his house, I decide to make a stop before I head home. As I pull into the circle drive, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I haven’t been here in over six months. Even after I moved out, I never came back very often.
Getting out of my truck, I take a deep breath and walk up the six white steps. I ring the doorbell and bow my head, waiting for her to answer.
“Parker?”
I lift my head to see my mother standing in the doorway with a smile on her face. Her dark hair is up in a perfect twist like always. She has on a light blue blouse that matches her eyes and black slacks. She always did make sure she looked her best. She would wake up hours before anyone else in the house and do her hair and makeup in order to look perfect. To make the world think that she wasn’t an ugly bitch.
“Come in,” she says stepping to the side of the stained glass door.
I shake my head. “This won’t take long.”
Her smile falls off her face. “Stay away from Kat,” I demand.
“But …”
“No!” I interrupt whatever bullshit she was about to feed me. “I don’t want you anywhere near her.”
“Parker …”
“She may not know what kind of person you are, but I do, and I don’t trust you.”
Her bottom lip quivers and her eyes fill with tears. “I would never hurt her,” she says placing her hand over her heart.
I take a step toward her, and she takes a quick one back. “You already have!” I say through clenched teeth. “When I called you and told you what he had done to her, you didn’t even apologize for what he did. You didn’t even ask if she was okay! All you did was make excuses for him.” I look aimlessly around the entrance of their mansion. “For this life that you have grown accustomed to. Maybe you don’t mind him fucking hookers.” She gasps. “Or letting him beat up other women for fun, but I sure as hell am not gonna stand by and allow it. And I sure as hell won’t allow Kat around a woman as spineless as you!” I shout.
The UN Series Complete Box Set Page 190