Until Ben.
Ben worked at it. He talked to me at the mailbox; he engaged me in conversation on the balcony on the weekends; he invited me over when his 'eyes were bigger than his stomach' and he 'bought too much pizza'. The well of loneliness in him was as deep as the one in me. We'd connected. And he was every bit of a recluse as I was. He was safe. So I let him in. He helped fill the void a little.
Then he was gone. And not only was I dealing with his loss, I was becoming reacquainted with the hollowness inside.
And in walks Johnnie right when the misery felt too much to bear. He helped fill in the void in a smaller capacity than his father.
Now that was gone too.
I was alone as alone could get, with just Luis and his unwanted attentions to keep me company.
Maybe it was time to move on again. Maybe I was done with Alabama. Maybe it was time to try the midwest or California. Maybe I needed to get lost in the snow-capped mountains of Vermont. Maybe it was time for a change.
I walked back to my apartment, sorting through my mail so I didn't see him until I heard him. "Good evening, darling."
My head snapped up and there was Luis, leaning against my door in cream slacks (yes, cream) and a lightweight blue shirt. Everything about how he carried himself and dressed was out of place. Why he was living there was completely beyond me. It didn't seem to suit him.
"Hey Luis," I said, not even bothering to hide the displeasure in my tone.
"I brought wine," he said and, sure enough, there was a bottle of red in his hands.
Great. Just wonderful.
"Just twenty minutes, Amelia. I won't keep you from your plans."
Right, my plans. If eating a frozen pizza and re-grouting my tub counted as plans.
"Fine," I said, unlocking my door and letting him inside.
He closed it behind him as I made my way to the kitchen for glasses. I didn't own any wine ones, but I had nice glass tumblers at least. "You added locks," Luis observed and I looked up to see him inspecting the locks. "Were the ones installed not working properly?"
Gosh, he was so weird. I put the tumblers at the end of the counter and went in search for a corkscrew. "Ben installed them. He said it wasn't right for a woman living alone to rely on doorknob locks and a chain or something like that. He insisted on putting on some deadbolts."
"Two of them," Luis observed, making his way toward me and reaching for the corkscrew I was holding out to him. I hoped my message was clear: let's get this over with.
"He said you could never be too safe."
"Indeed," Luis said, jerking his head toward the sliding door to the balcony where I had a metal pole in the track, keeping it from being able to be pulled open.
"I'm not from around here," I shrugged. "It's not weird to me. I think it's weirder that no one else locks their doors than that I have multiple locks."
"Good point," he said, pouring the wine into the glasses. When I went to reach for mine, he brushed my hand away. "Let it breathe," he said in a tone that made me feel like a scolded child. "You know, I'm not from around here either."
Well then. There was my opening. "I know," I said, trying to soften my tone into friendly interest. "Where are you from originally?"
"New York. Then I spent some time in Boston, Austen, Miami, Raleigh."
"Big traveler."
"Business," he said, waving it off. I nodded, unsure where to go from there. Luis grabbed both glasses and moved toward the living room and sat down on my couch. I followed, choosing the opposite couch, not wanting him to get any ideas, and reaching for my glass. "You have an eye for interior decorating," he said and I felt the compliment lighten my mood slightly. "Normally, I wouldn't think this... lilac color would ever work, but you have somehow made it happen."
"Thank you," I said, sipping the wine, the flavor exploding across my taste buds in a way that only expensive wine could do.
"You've done some recent rearranging," he said.
"What? Like the furniture?" I asked, confused.
"Yes."
"No," I said, shaking my head. I hadn't moved anything since I got it the way I liked it... a year ago.
"Oh. Fresh scuff marks underneath your television cabinet," he said, waving a hand dismissively.
My eyes darted over to the cabinet in question to find he was right, there were scuff marks. Weird. "You're very observant," I said with a smile I didn't mean. "I clean a lot. I must have moved it while vacuuming," I said, hoping the lie fell true. Fact of the matter was, I knew with certainty I had never moved that cabinet. First, because it weighed a ton. Second, because I knew it would leave scuff marks on the nice wood floors. So that was really weird.
We sipped the wine. Luis asked me questions about college, about my work at the church, about the possibility of a date over the weekend. I answered college questions cryptically, work questions as honestly as confidentiality would allow, and told him I would have to check my meetings schedule and get back to him. Then, twenty minutes later, as promised, he put his glass down and stood, declaring he had taken up enough of my time and made his way to the door. He kissed me on the cheek again and I closed the door behind him.
I stared at the closed door for a moment when Ben's words came to me: Lock up, Amy. Gotta look out for yourself.
My hands flew out, sliding all the locks into place before I turned to rush to the balcony. If I leaned over the railing slightly, I could watch the street. So I did, eyes following Luis' car until he disappeared before rushing back inside, putting the bar back in the sliding door and rushing over to the cabinet. Why was it out of place? If I didn't move it, and I knew I hadn't, who had? And why?
I grabbed the bottom, throwing my shoulder into the side and push, push, pushed until it finally moved, making new scuff marks all over my floor that I wasn't even thinking about because there was a swirling pit of uncertainty in my stomach. Something was off. Something was very, very wrong.
And it didn't take long for that swirling uncertainty to turn into a cold sweat of sureness. Because there, behind my television cabinet, was a large square cut-out in my wall. As in, someone removed the drywall in a huge spot, then slipped it back in. It didn't take a criminal background to know that there was something in my wall, something I didn't put there, something that didn't belong there. My heart was thumping so hard in my chest that it was making me feel lightheaded. My hands shook as I reached for the finger-sized indent at a corner, obviously put there to make it easier to remove the wall. Taking a deep breath, I yanked the square, pulling it down onto the floor. The inside was dark and I scrambled for my phone, flipping on the flashlight app on and flashing it in the hole.
If my heart was pounding before, it stopped dead right then.
Because there, nestled in my wall, was eight blocks of plastic. I leaned closer, knowing, already knowing what it was, but needing to make sure. The fluffy, brown powder was wrapped up tight and stamped with some sort of bird emblem.
"Oh my god. Oh my god," I whispered, my butt falling back onto my ankles.
There was eight kilos of heroin in my wall.
A kilo of heroin went for close to sixty-thousand dollars.
Sixty-thousand times eight.
"Oh my god."
There was almost half a million dollars worth of heroin in my wall.
"Okay. Alright," I said to myself, needing something to drown out the frenzied pace of my thoughts. "Okay."
I scrambled away from the wall, all paranoia as I checked the locks again. What were my options? I could go to the police. I could hand over the drugs, explain my innocence. But what were the chances of success there? I knew the sheriff. He was an idiot. Worse yet, he was an idiot who never got any kind of action in his career and he was looking for his 'big bust' before he retired. He would see me with eight kilos of heroin in my wall, realize I was someone who led the narcotics meeting in town, and think that was all too perfect, too sordid. Maybe I was supplyin
g to my people in my meetings. Who would ever suspect the one who was supposed to help them anyway, right?
Okay. I didn't want to do that.
I could get rid of the heroin. But where? Where the hell could you get rid of that much product without risking someone coming upon it and turning it into the authorities or, worse yet, using it?
I could leave it in my wall. But, if someone put it in my wall, someone was sure to come back for it. What if they came back when I was still there?
No. That wasn't an option.
My eyes drifted around my apartment, landing on the red wine bottle on my counter.
"Oh you son of a..."
That was why he wanted in my apartment so badly. Not to sleep with me, to retrieve his drugs. That's why he was asking about the added security measures. Hell, he probably had a key to the original lock he installed!
"I'm so stupid," I hissed to my empty apartment.
Okay. I needed to focus. I needed to... close up the wall. Right. That was what I was going to do. I was going to act like I knew nothing. Let Luis sneak in when I wasn't around and take his drugs back. Let him think I was clueless still. I grabbed paper towels off the counter and knelt back down by my wall, using the paper towels to pick up the piece of wall and slip it back, scrubbing at the corner where I had touched it before. I sat back up, pushing the cabinet back into place. All my movements were stiff and awkward as I went into my kitchen and got cleaner and wax to get the scuff marks out of my floor. I did that with my usual OCD perfection, not stopping until the tips of my fingertips hurt, before cleaning up all evidence that I had done it at all.
Alright. That was done.
I dumped the rest of the red wine down the drain, washed the glasses, recycled the bottle.
He could have his drugs back, but what was to stop him from storing more in there again? What would that mean for me? Who the hell was Luis anyway? Obviously a drug dealer. But what else? Was he a bad guy, as in a really bad guy? Was I in danger? I needed answers. I needed to know if I needed to get the hell out of town right then. Hell, maybe I should just get out of town in general. I could just... leave all my stuff, pack a small bag, point my car in a direction, and never look back.
I took a deep, steadying breath.
Answers.
I was right about that. I needed answers.
Why don't you ask your boyfriend how he knows me, huh, angelface?
Johnnie knew him.
That didn't surprise me. They were both criminals. But if Johnnie knew him, Johnnie could maybe tell me what kind of trouble I was in for. Was Luis the kind of man who would follow me wherever I ran? Was I too loose of an end to let go?
I walked toward my bedroom, hauling out one of those oversize reusable plastic bags you buy for the grocery store, and throwing a bunch of clothes inside. I threw my purse in the bag as well, grabbed my keys, and tried to keep my pace calm and casual as I walked out into the hallway, suddenly more paranoid than I had ever been in my life, even though I hadn't technically done anything wrong.
I got into my car and drove slowly out of town, checking my rear view frantically, convinced Luis was going to come shooting out of nowhere and take me down. I felt better when I crossed the town border and hadn't seen a single car following.
I pulled off into a gas station, filled up, grabbed some junk food, and took the time to do a quick search online. I didn't know Johnnie's address, but I knew he lived in someplace called Navesink Bank in New Jersey. That was a fifteen hour drive, but judging by the way my nerves were frantically threatening to burst through my skin, I was pretty sure I could make it in one trip. Once I got there, well, I would just find a way to find him.
There was no other choice.
I needed him.
Ten
Shooter
"Shoot!" Cash's voice called as soon as I walked into Chaz's, the biker bar in town and, therefore, the place where the members of the local biker gang, The Henchmen, hung out. Cash was a member; he was also a close friend. He and his woman, Lo, the leader of some badass survivalist camp slash bounty hunters slash private security slash a hundred other things, were yet another of the reasons I needed to be home. I needed to be with my people, people who didn't even know my name was Johnnie Walker Allen, people who just knew me as the man I had become: Shooter.
"Cash," I said, giving him a chin jerk. He was tall and a thin kind of strong with blond hair he kept shaved up one side and long down the other, his green eyes similar to mine, as was the sheer amount of ink he was covered in. "Lo, sugar, honey, darlin'," I said, falling to a knee in front of her, taking her hand and kissing it dramatically, making the brown-eyed, blond-haired badass bombshell blush like a schoolgirl. "Willow, keeper of my heart, beauty of the Navesink Bank area," I went on, getting to my feet and taking both her hands in mine. "Dump this schmuck and come live with me."
Lo's head tipped to the side, watching me. "Your accent is really strong right now," she observed with a small smile.
"Yeah, fuck man, you been taking speech lessons? Your normal voice ain't drawin' in the pussy like it used to? Needed to get an accent to shake things up?" Cash asked, waving a hand toward his drink and holding up three fingers.
"Fuck off," I laughed, accepting the drink he passed toward me. "I just got back from Alabama," I said with a shrug.
"Alabama?" Lo asked, her face scrunching up.
"Can't be much work down there," Cash added.
I shook my head. "Nah it was personal shit I needed to take care of. Five minutes 'round them and my drawl comes back with a vengeance. Though, it does have its perks," I said, winking at Lo.
"Everything alright?" she asked, looking concerned.
"Yeah. Just needed to show my face, throw some money around. Everything is fine."
"Then why does it look like you haven't slept in days?" she asked, brow raised, knowing smile tugging at her lips.
"Was up late with an old buddy," I hedged, not wanting to go there.
" 'Old buddy' is the strangest synonym for 'hot chick' I've ever heard," Cash said, not bothering to fight the smile.
"That's what that look is!" Lo declared loudly, making the guy behind her jump and lose balance on his barstool.
"What look, sweetcheeks?" I asked, motioning for another round.
"Sweetcheeks? Really?" she asked, shaking her head at me. "I know that look, Shoot. Know how I know that look?" she paused. "Because I'm familiar with it. I saw it on Reign's face a couple years ago, then on Cash's, and Wolf's..."
"Way off base, honey," I denied, knowing she knew I was lying.
"By the balls," she said, biting her lip to keep a smile a bay.
"What's by the balls?" Repo, one of the younger members of The Henchmen asked, reaching between me and Cash for his next round on the bar.
"Some girl has Shoot by the balls," Cash declared loudly, making a few faces turn our way.
"Fuck, really?" Repo asked, shaking his head on a sigh. "What the fuck is it with all of you lately?" he asked, but walked away without further comment.
"No one has me by the balls," I clarified. Maybe I had some blue balls, but I didn't know her well enough to be had by the balls. The fact that I didn't sleep the night before had nothing to do with Amelia. Even as I thought it, I knew it was bullshit.
"What's her name? Is she pretty? I mean I know she's pretty," Lo went on, a hopeless romantic despite all the hardass vibes she gave off. "But what does she look like? Is she a redhead? I kinda picture you with a redhead."
"Brunette," I said without thinking. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I looked up at the ceiling and chuckled at myself.
"I knew it!" she gushed. "Nothing else puts that fucking look on a man's face."
"What look?" I asked.
"It's hard to describe. It's a sort of wistfulness mixed with confusion and anger."
"Anger? Don't sound like me."
"Not usually, no," she agreed. "But it's
there. So what happened?"
"She thought I was fucking Alex. Wouldn't let me explain. Besides, I was leaving."
"Chickenshit," Cash said into his glass.
"What?"
"You're a chickenshit," he clarified more loudly.
"Hey not all of us get as lucky as you."
"Oh yeah lucky. Like our story didn't involve beatings, torture, and a contract kill that you, my friend, carried out," he said with a grin.
They really did have a mess of a time getting together. That being said, their story paled in comparison to the shit that his brother, Reign, and his girl, Summer, got themselves into. "How's your brother?" I asked, happy for any other direction to steer the conversation into.
"Miserable," Cash said with a laugh. "If he thought Summer was a handful before, he had no idea what a post-baby, sleepless Summer was capable of."
"Hope he locked up all the guns," I smiled, throwing back my round. Summer had a history of loving the guns her husband ran. She once shot up the side of their compound with an AK. Fucking priceless. "And banned her from the compound."
"You know Summer. She finds her ways around. Especially when she has help," Cash said, jerking his head at Lo.
"Hey, we are all surrounded by men. We girls gotta stick together."
Cash wrapped an arm around her shoulders, hauling her up into his side and kissing the side of her head. "So you looking for a palate cleanser?" Cash asked, gesturing out to the bar where several women were hanging around, taking in their options.
"Been through reunions, a wake, a funeral, and two plane rides... I'm fuckin' wiped," I made excuses that Cash was nowhere near buying. We used to tomcat around way too much back in the day for him to not see right through that lie. "Besides, I need to go buy some cat food."
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