by Tess Oliver
I thought about the whole thing and the explosive and heartbreaking prospects that he’d pushed into my head, but as much as I loved him, I wasn’t sure if I could endure all of this. Luke had fallen into my life and nothing had been the same since. But now it seemed my entire existence would be ripped to shreds, and nothing about me would be real anymore.
I pressed my cheek against his chest. The sound of his heartbeat and his soapy scent were comforting, but this was a potential reality even his strong arms couldn’t protect me from. “I don’t know, Luke.”
Chapter 13
Luke
Angel had hardly spoken two words to me since the day before when I’d confessed to her what I’d been up to. She’d become quiet and withdrawn, only leaving the bedroom long enough to check in on Cash. Both Cash and Jericho wanted to know what was going on, but I’d abruptly shut down their questions with a shake of my head.
I was sitting on the couch staring absently at the television when Angel walked out and sat next to me. I didn’t try to touch her. There was nothing worse than having her pull away from me. Anytime it happened, it felt as if someone were driving a knife through my heart.
“Cash has to go to a hearing tomorrow,” she said quietly. “I know he’s too proud to ask, but I think he’d like it if you went along.”
I turned down the sound on the television but didn’t turn to face her. Looking at Angel in this state of sadness was too hard, especially since I’d been the one to cause it. “I’ll go with him. Is he physically up to it?”
“Not really, but I think he wants to get it over with.”
“No problem. I think his injuries will only help his case.”
She sat silently next to me and stretched her long legs out to rest her feet on the edge of the coffee table. We both gazed at the muted television. I’d realized that the only thing I could do was wait to see if I’d made a compelling enough argument for her take a paternity test. I’d laid something so big on her, there was no way that it would just fade away. It wasn’t one of those things you could just ignore until it stopped picking at you.
“When I was a little girl—” Her soft voice filled the quiet room. “My mom used to wake me in the middle of the night, even if it was a school night. She’d hand me my coat and slippers and we’d scurry across the compound yard to the kitchen.” The faint, hollow sound of homesickness edged her tone. “She’d cut off huge chunks of raw cookie dough from one of those slice and bake rolls and then we’d sit out on the porch eating it and watching the stars. And the whole time, I would wonder if all moms pulled their daughters out of bed for a midnight raw cookie dough run. It was those moments, when she was just wild and fun, and not in one of her strange distant moods, that I thought I was lucky to have her.” Angel scooted down and crossed her thin arms tightly around herself. She peered over at me and looked lost in despair. “What would become of those memories, those sporadic but awesome memories of my childhood, if it turned out everything was a lie? What would happen to those memories of my mom if it turned out she had committed a crime so horrible it had no equal punishment?”
“You have to remember, she was sick. I expect in time that would help make it seem less villainous and more the act of woman who was not in her right mind.” I knew my words were like tossing a glass of water on a forest fire, but I’d started this and I needed to find a way to make it less explosive.
“I need to do this now,” she said. “Let’s get it over with before I go nuts thinking about it.”
***
As we walked through the automatic glass doors, I briefly wondered if there was a possibility of running into Dr. Palmer at the hospital. I hoped that we wouldn’t. The lab was on the fourth floor. Angel stepped into the elevator next to me. She’d been silent on the entire car ride. It seemed almost as if I’d severed every tie between us with this. She was distant and angry and while I couldn’t blame her, it still didn’t make it any easier for me to accept. I glanced down at the doctor’s note. We were to ask for a woman named Carol.
The waiting room of the lab was crowded with people. We walked up to the desk, and the guy behind it scooted a clipboard in front of us without even looking up. “Just sign in.”
“We need to talk to Carol,” I said.
“Your name?”
“Luke Barringer.”
He slid over to the phone and picked it up. “Luke Barringer is here to see you.” He hung up. “She’ll be out in a few minutes. Have a seat.”
There were no two seats together. I sat next to an elderly woman with a walker, and Angel squeezed herself in between a man with a massive belly and a little kid who was whimpering, most likely having realized that some type of needle was waiting for him behind one of the closed doors.
Angel stared down at the hands in her lap. She looked pale and thin. I hadn’t seen her eat or drink anything since the day before. It seemed I had managed to find the one thing that scared the hell out of an otherwise dauntless girl.
A woman walked out in a white lab coat. Her large eyes glanced quickly around the waiting area and landed on me. “Luke Barringer?” she asked. Then she shot a puzzled look at the elderly woman next to me.
I stood and glanced over at Angel. She pulled in a deep breath and got up. We drew some angry scowls from people who’d been waiting longer.
The woman motioned for us to follow without another word. We stepped into a small room that was filled with trays of implements, microscope slides and glass vials. Carol’s mouth tightened some, and there was a glimmer of anger in her blue eyes as she looked at me. Then her harsh gaze fell on Angel, almost as if she’d had to will herself to look at her. That’s when I noticed that her nametag read Carol Palmer. One glimpse at Angel and her entire demeanor changed from cold and confident to distressed, as if something had just thrown her off her stride. She shook it off quickly.
“I just need to swab the inside of your cheek,” she said in a businesslike tone.
Angel walked over to the chair and sat in it. For the shortest second, she looked my way, and it seemed every emotion in the world was rushing through her. Somewhere in that fleeting glance was a ‘how could you do this to me’ expression, and it went straight into my chest.
The swabbing took only a few seconds. I was sure I’d detected Carol’s hands shaking a bit as she labeled the sample. There was enough tension in the tiny room to fill a concert hall. Angel got up from the chair, and Carol looked at both of us.
“This is not the first time my brother has gone through something like this, and I can tell you it takes a huge toll on him.” There was an edge of warning in her tone that seemed to say ‘if this turns out to be wrong then fuck you both for doing this’.
I nodded and we left the room. I’d become the demon in so many people’s lives almost overnight that it would have been comical if it hadn’t been so shitty. There were moments when I’d almost convinced myself that I was being stupid, that I was only seeing the connections because I wanted to solve this one case for my dad. And with Angel so pissed at me, it seemed that even if I was right, it still might have been better just to have left it alone.
The elevator bell rang, and Angel and I rushed down the corridor. A woman in a white lab coat stepped inside the elevator and noticed us hurrying toward it. She held the door for us.
“Thank you,” I said.
“No problem.” She was wearing a doctor’s necklace, the stethoscope. She flashed us a gracious smile and as her gaze fell on Angel, the doctor looked struck for a brief moment. But Angel had that affect on almost everyone. There was no real reason for my attention to land on her nametag but it had. Dr. Haberwood. It was an unusual enough name that it left no doubt in my mind. The elevator stopped, and the doctor stepped out and strode purposefully toward the patient rooms.
Angel walked out still steeped in her own deep thoughts, with
, of course, no inkling that, if my wild hunch proved true, she’d just been standing in the elevator with her real mother.
Chapter 14
Angel
Luke and I had slept in the same bed, but there was an invisible barrier between us at the moment, a barrier that I’d erected. The strangest part about feeling so distraught and so inexplicably estranged from Luke was that I yearned for the comfort of his arms every minute of the day. But I couldn’t bring myself to go near him. I felt as if I was dangling from a thin piece of string hundreds of feet above Earth, a string that might snap at any time and send me crashing to the ground. And even Luke wouldn’t be able catch me.
Cash had struggled to dress. He hadn’t really gotten out of bed since we’d brought him home from Lauren’s, and that seemed to have less to do with pain and more to do with the cloud of depression that had settled over him once the bleak reality of his situation had sunk in. But from the stiff way he’d held himself as he got ready, it was clear that the injuries still bothered him plenty. Still, he improved daily, and the glue was doing its job of healing up the cut over his eye. Luke’s dress shirt fit Cash well enough, but he only had jeans for the bottom half. With his long hair combed back neatly and a close shave, he looked presentable enough for the courtroom.
I walked up and straightened the collar on the shirt. “It’s nice to have you smell like soap for a change.” I punctuated my compliment with a kiss on his cheek. “You clean up nicely, Cash Tremaine.”
Luke came out of the back with a small handgun. “I’m going to leave this on the top of the refrigerator, just in case. Don’t let Jericho sleep too long.”
I nodded, and, as usual, my silent response seemed to strike him like a slap in the face. Jericho and Cash knew something significant had happened between us, but we’d kept the entire thing to ourselves. They seemed to know not to ask anything about it.
Cash pulled a small knife from his pocket. “Keep this blade tucked into your boot if you happen to go outside.”
“But don’t go outside unless the house is on fire,” Luke amended. “And deadbolt the door.”
“Yep, go before you’re late, and good luck.” They walked out. Luke’s car started and rolled out the driveway and down the street.
It was still early enough that the floors in the house were cold on bare feet. Jericho would sleep for several more hours, and there would be no point in waking him early. He’d just be grouchy about it. He had nothing to do and nothing to occupy his mind. I knew he’d been spending time on the phone talking to other club members, and I feared that he wouldn’t stick around much longer, Dreygon threat or not. His old life was calling him back, and with the complete and utter boredom that was consuming him these days, I couldn’t blame him. His leg had healed to a slight limp that was most noticeable after he stood up but that lessened with each step.
I laid Cash’s knife on the counter and smiled, knowing full well that I would be just as likely to use it as the gun. It wasn’t in my nature to do harm, no matter what the threat. But for the time being, and thanks to the men in my life who were always prepared for an attack, I was armed and ready for whatever hazard came my way.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and leaned over the counter, flipping the pages of a tool catalog. The woman who’d swabbed my cheek had said nothing about the time frame for results, but I knew it was a common enough test that it wouldn’t be long before we heard something. I’d tried, in vain, to push the whole thing from my mind, but it crept back during every unguarded moment. In the lab, the conversation had been short and confusing, but I’d gathered that the woman who’d taken my cell sample was the aunt of the lost baby. She’d looked at me with a flicker of something that was more than just two strangers meeting for the first time, but I’d convinced myself it was only out of curiosity.
I went into the bedroom and got dressed. I pulled my boots on to shield my bare feet from the chill of the wood floor. The weather was cooling, and I, for one, was glad to see the sweltering hot backside of summer.
More than once I’d considered going into the office to peruse the file on the Starlight Baby and then thought better of it. For now, I told myself that this would pass and only be remembered as a few stressful days in a life that was already flooded with problems. I sat on the couch, and just as I reached for the remote, a weak knock sounded on the front door. My heart jumped. I waited quietly for whoever it was to go away.
The curtains on the front windows were still shut, and I heard nothing more. Just when I’d relaxed, the knock came again. This time a thin, shaky voice followed. “Angel?” It was a woman’s voice. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it at first. “Angel, it’s me, Candy. I need your help.” She ended her plea with a sob.
I crept from the couch and picked up the knife. I slid it down into my boot. Then I walked to the window, lifted the edge of the curtain and peered out. Candy stood at the front edge of the porch, bent over and holding her stomach. Blood dripped from her mouth. She was all alone.
I quickly unlocked the door and opened it. Candy’s face lifted. Someone had given her a fat lip, and a bruise was forming on her cheek. She looked ready to fall on her face. I stepped forward, but as I reached for her, someone’s thick, strong arm went around my neck. I opened my mouth to scream, but a calloused palm muffled it, nearly blocking my nose and all my air passages at once. I struggled to suck in a decent breath. The hand didn’t belong to Dreygon.
Stale breath tickled my cheek as my captor spoke. “We already saw the cop leave with the snitch, but I know Jericho is still inside. If you wake him, then this time I’ll shoot to kill,” J.D. hissed in my ear.
He closed the front door carefully and forced me down the steps. Candy looked at me apologetically. Judging by the shape she was in, she’d had no choice but to participate in this scheme. I glanced around. It was still early, and the neighborhood was quiet. A black truck rolled forward, and even with most of the oxygen being kept from my brain, I still had enough focus to see who was behind the wheel. One of his silver earrings glinted in the light pouring through the front windshield.
Candy opened the back door for me before reluctantly climbing into the passenger side. J.D. shoved me hard into the backseat, and I fell to my knees on the floor. His hand slapped my ass hard. “Get up on that seat.”
Dreygon was on the phone, but his cold as steel gaze watched me in the rearview mirror. I scowled back at him, and he laughed but kept his conversation going. “Don’t follow too closely,” he told the person on the other end. “Barringer will notice, and that sonavabitch can shoot the nose off a jack rabbit from five hundred feet. Keep me posted.” He hung up and twisted back to look at me. He’d aged some, and there was nothing in his face that reminded me of the grandfather I’d grown up with. The shell of the leathery, drug-withered man was still there, but that was it.
“Well, Missy, you sure have taken your grandfather on a goose chase. But you’re back with me now, and that’s where you’ll stay.”
“I think you’ll just have to kill me then.”
“That can be arranged.” He started the truck and pulled away from the curb. “In fact, that might be the easiest solution of all. I’m tired of wasting time chasing you down.”
“Then why the hell don’t you just stop chasing?”
We turned the corner away from Luke’s street. “That’s not possible.”
“You’ve never given a damn about me, have you?”
His eyes flinched in the mirror, and he didn’t answer at first. “You were my granddaughter, Angel. You’re my only flesh and blood. Of course I cared for you. But you are more trouble than you’re worth now. You’ve destroyed everything we had at the compound because you couldn’t resist helping a complete stranger.” He looked over at Candy, who had her hand cupped beneath her chin to catch the drips of blood that flowed from her mouth. “That’s why
I knew you’d come out to help Candy. An easy lure, just like when we messed up Jericho.” He lifted his eyes to the mirror. “How is the boy? I had such high hopes for him.” He shook his head in disappointment.
“The only person you have high hopes for is yourself. You don’t give a damn about anyone, and only the true idiots—” I looked pointedly at J.D.. “—would still do your bidding.”
“Why, Evangeline, such harsh words for your grandpa.”
I stared out the window. We were getting on the highway that would eventually take us back to the compound. So much had happened in the last thirty-six hours that I felt nearly sick thinking about it, but one thing kept repeating in my head— why was Dreygon so obsessed with keeping me his prisoner? “I’ve been out from your supposed protection for awhile now, and I have never been approached by a rival club. Growing up, you had me scared to death of the enemies that lurked in the shadows. I was a big target, remember? You had to keep me from their clutches because rival clubs would use me against you. Those threats have never materialized, so either you are just paranoid and delusional enough to believe in your own power and worth, or you have some other darker motive.”
His eyes lifted to the mirror again. “What are you rambling on about, Angel? Sometimes I think you are just as crazy as your mom.” His thick fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter. I’d struck a nerve. Holy fucking hell, I’d struck a nerve. Could it all be true?
“If she was my mom,” I blurted before I had time to rethink it. A rush of nerves went through me, and I suddenly feared his reaction.
He was strangely silent at first and then a monstrous, harsh laugh shot from his mouth. “Just as crazy as your mom,” he repeated.
J.D. laughed with him, but it was clear he hadn’t really understood the humor of it all.