by Jeff Shelby
“To here.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. To here.”
I had yet to meet a dealer who wasn’t ambitious. It was inherent in their business. Once they got a taste of the money involved, they wanted more. But the problem with expansion was that they were always infringing on someone else’s territory. And that usually led to bloody problems.
“So what?” I asked. “Did Evan die owing them money? They want it from you?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. At least not that I know of.”
“So why are they bothering you?”
She ran a hand through her hair and rubbed at the back of her neck. “Because I’m stupid.”
TWENTY-ONE
I reached for the bottle of water and moved around a bit under the covers, trying to shake the stiffness from my joints and limbs, waiting for Bella to explain.
“Before Jackson was born,” she said. “I thought Evan was…fantastic. Like, could do no wrong. Even though I knew everything he was doing was wrong.”
I drained the rest of the bottle and replaced it on the nightstand.
“So when he wanted me to do something, I did it,” she continued. “Without thinking very much. If he smiled at me, whispered in my ear, I was his.” She smiled, shook her head. “I was incredibly dumb.”
“Doesn’t sound dumb. Sounds like you loved him.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. But I was dumb. I promise.”
“How?”
She squeezed her knees tighter to her body. “You should sleep.”
“You should answer the questions.”
She made a face and sighed. “Right. Evan would have me…do things for him.”
The way she said it, I had no clue what “things” meant. About twenty came to mind, none of them good.
“I ran for him,” Bella said. “Made deliveries for him.”
“Ah.”
“Like I said,” she continued. “He could get me to do just about anything. And I don’t want you to think he was forcing me. He wasn’t. I was happy to do anything to make him happy, you know?”
She unfolded her legs and stretched them out next to me over the blankets. “But when I got pregnant, I started saying no. Evan wasn’t pleased.”
“Why not?” I asked, irritated at the idea of a guy who would send his pregnant girlfriend on drug runs.
“Because I was the perfect delivery girl,” she said. “No one suspected me and no one was going to mess with Evan’s girlfriend. And I wasn’t going to rip him off. I was no risk.”
I could see that. It made sense. It didn’t make me dislike him any less.
“But eventually, he got over me saying no,” she said. “And he was cool with it. Particularly as I got bigger and my pregnancy was pretty obvious. There was no push-back from him.”
Something passed through her expression that I couldn’t identify.
“Then I decided to leave him,” she said. “And he wasn’t happy about that.” She laughed. “At all.”
“But you said he didn’t want to be a father.”
She smirked. “He didn’t. But he wasn’t happy about two things. The fact that I was the one making the decision to leave and the fact that he was losing his delivery girl.”
I tried to push myself up on the pillows, but pain rocketed through my head as soon as I moved. I settled back into them.
“So he cut me off,” she said. “Cold. No money, no nothing. Because he knew I’d need him.”
“What’d you do?”
“At first, I resisted,” she said. “I tried to find a job, but it was impossible. I was about to have a baby. And then I knew I’d have the baby and would need to take care of him. My options were limited.”
I thought for a moment. “So you went back to work for him.”
She nodded. “Yeah. It was easy, didn’t take much time and the money was more than enough to live on. Evan was pissed I left him, but he was fair. Maybe it was his way of being a father. I don’t know. But he paid me fairly.”
Bella sighed and rubbed her arms. “But then…I just didn’t want to. I'd been doing it for a few years and I just got scared, afraid something would happen or go wrong. And I didn’t want Jackson growing up in that world. Didn’t want him exposed to all of that. So I told Evan no again. This time for good. He just kind of shrugged and said whatever. He was killed a couple nights later.”
I looked for something in her demeanor or expression that indicated that she was sad about Evan’s death, but saw nothing.
“My parents wrote me off years ago. When I got pregnant.” Her voice stayed steady as she said this, indicating nothing. “So when Evan died, I had no one to turn to. I eventually moved out here, scrounging for money here and there, waiting tables, a bunch of other crappy jobs,” she said. “But I was getting it done.”
Her expression clouded over, a mixture of anger, fear and a few other things I wasn’t sure of.
“Then, about six months ago, David showed up,” she said. “Out of the blue. No idea how he found me. Showed up at the restaurant. Just sitting there with that obnoxious smile.”
“And he wanted you to go work for him,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Not hard,” I said. “Not many reasons for him to come find you. You said he wanted to expand here. And when you had me watch Jackson the other day, you left with a backpack, but didn’t come back with one.”
Her cheeks reddened.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“No, it’s really not,” she said. “It’s ridiculous. And I don’t wanna do it anymore.”
“Wait. Go back. Why were you doing it in the first place? When David came here, why didn’t you just tell him no?”
“I did,” Bella said. “I did. But he…wasn’t interested in that response.”
I shifted under the sheets, my back aching. “How did he leverage you?”
She looked away from me, her eyes staring at something I couldn’t see. “Jackson.”
TWENTY-TWO
Bella slipped off the bed and turned on the small lamp on the nightstand. I squinted into the light for a few seconds, letting my eyes adjust. The pain in the side of my face didn’t grow and I took that as a good sign.
She resumed her place at the foot of the bed. “At first, it was kind of a soft sell, I guess you’d call it. I dunno. He’d show up, ask me to do a favor, I’d say no. He’d leave. No problems.” Her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted. “Then he started showing up more regularly. Or he’d send Colin. The sell went from soft to medium. But I still said no.”
She crossed her legs Indian-style again and rested her elbow on her knee, her chin in her hand. “Then David started making noise about Evan’s parents wanting custody of Jackson, that they wanted to see their grandson. He’d been in touch with them and they were asking questions. David hinted at letting them know where I was if I didn’t help him out.”
“So you said yes.”
“Not then,” she said, shaking her head. “I had no issue with Jackson having a relationship with his grandparents and I knew the law well enough to know that my custody was rock solid. So I found them. We drove over to Jacksonville for a weekend. Had a nice visit.” She smiled. “They’ve started a college fund for him. They’re good people who just wanted to know their grandson. We’re talking about visiting them at Christmas this year.”
I admired her guts. A lot of people in her situation would’ve panicked and caved immediately. She believed enough in herself and in her ability to provide for her son to put her son’s needs first. Not always an easy task.
“So then?” I asked.
She shook her head. “So then I opened my big mouth. I told David I’d gone over his head, that I knew his story was bullshit. Stupid mistake.”
“Why?”
“Because David is arrogant,” she said. “A lot like Evan in that way. And he didn’t like that I’d shown him up. So he decided to go a more dire
ct route.”
“Which was?”
Her mouth twitched and her shoulders rose with tension. “Threatened to hurt Jackson. Or worse. Told me I better not leave him alone, something might happen. That kind of crap. Scared me at first, then figured he was bluffing. Told him to go to hell.”
She lifted her chin out of her hand and folded her hands together. Tightly.
“But he wasn’t bluffing,” she said, her voice cracking. “He’d show up at the restaurant and be sitting in the booth with him. Jackson would be outside, riding up and down on his Big Wheel and David would be sitting on the curb, talking to him.” She swallowed hard. “But that was just a teaser.”
“How so?”
“Jackson was outside one afternoon and David showed up,” she said, tapping her fingers against her leg. “He was sitting in the driveway, just showing me he could be here. Or so I thought. I went out to tell him to leave. And he’s just being David, chatting with Jackson, smiling at me, ignoring me. Basically showing me he could do whatever he wanted.”
Her fingers stopped tapping and she shook her head. “I was flustered, frustrated, pissed off. I couldn’t make him leave. I wasn’t thinking right. And my cell rang. I’d left it in the house. So I went back in to get it, just totally pissed off and trying to figure out how to get him to leave.”
The fingers started again and anger filled her eyes. “It was work. On the phone. They wanted me to cover a shift. And I thought that was actually perfect. Gave me an excuse to take Jackson and leave. So I said yeah, I’d be there in half an hour.”
Her fingers stopped again and dug into her thigh. “I walked outside and they were gone.”
The anger on her face morphed into a cocktail of pain and fear and anxiety.
“I freaked,” she said. “I started yelling for Jax, crying my eyes out, running around, just completely insane. Neighbors came out, trying to calm me down, helped me walk up and down the streets. His Big Wheel was gone so someone convinced me that maybe they’d just gone for a walk.”
She hung her head for a moment and stared down at her lap. Her shoulders sat high, her muscles rigid with tension as she relived it.
“After about twenty minutes we still couldn’t find them, so we went back to the house to call the police,” she said, looking at me again, tears huddling in the corners of her eyes. “I was hyperventilating and out of my mind. Literally, as I got the police on the phone, they come up the street in David’s car. With ice cream cones.”
The anger came back in a flash. “They got out of the car. Jackson was excited. Because he had ice cream. And David was apologetic, saying he thought Jackson had gone inside to tell me they were going to run for ice cream and be right back. He apologized profusely to me and the neighbors, made sure everyone knew it was just an honest mistake.”
She shifted on the bed and blinked several times, trying to clear the memory. “But I knew it wasn’t. I knew exactly what he was telling me. That he could take him anytime he wanted. Even if it was just to scare the shit out of me.” She shrugged. “That was enough for me. I finally said yes.”
I didn’t blame her. I didn’t have a child, but I could imagine the fear of losing one. It probably paled in comparison to what it really felt like.
“So it was only supposed to be a couple of times, which I knew was a joke,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But I figured it would buy me some time to figure out how to get out from under him. And I’m no angel. He paid me and I needed the money. I still do. I just don’t like doing it and I don’t like being controlled. But short of moving, I haven’t come up with anything. So I’ve just started being a real bitch about it.”
I cracked a smile and a tiny bullet of pain shot through my cheek. “Nice.”
A slim smile settled on her lips and she nodded. “Showing up late for deliveries. Telling them I wasn’t gonna go. Anything I could think of. And they’ve gotten pretty pissed off at me. But they haven’t let me go yet.” She sighed. “So I basically told them I’m done and they can do whatever they want, but I’m not doing it anymore. And each time I say I’m done, they show up, threaten me and I give in.” Her eyes softened. “If you hadn’t showed up today, I would’ve made the run. Because I’m afraid of them. No matter what I say to them, I’m still afraid.”
I nodded. “Understandable.”
She shrugged and her expression indicated that she didn’t believe me. “Maybe. But after today, I’m done. All of that stuff in front of Jackson, then what they did to you.” She shook her head. “I’m done.”
“What about what they did to you?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I dunno. I could explain that away. Jackson didn’t see that, you know? I could invent something, tell him I tripped, tell him I fell, whatever. But what happened to you? They did that right in front of him. Pulled out a gun and threatened to kill you and then bashed it into the side of your head. No one does that in front of a kid. In front of my kid. So I’m done. I’ll go to the police if I need to.”
The mention of the word police kick-started my heart. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t want her going to the police. And that felt horrifically selfish on my part.
Because it was.
“So I’m sorry,” she said, squinting at me. “For bringing all this on to you. I just wanted to say thank you for being nice to my son and because I liked you. I’m not sure why, but I immediately felt comfortable with you. Like you could make things okay.” She rested a hand on my foot. “And you seemed lonely.”
I looked away from her, unsure of how to answer. I may have been lonely, but I was no longer someone who made things okay. I made things worse and I had to wonder if I wasn’t doing exactly that for Bella.
“You should rest,” she said, patting my foot. “I’m gonna sleep in Jax’s room, but I’m going to have to come wake you up every couple hours. That’s what you’re supposed to do with someone who has a concussion.”
“You a nurse or something?”
She smiled. “Tonight I am.”
“Okay.”
She slid off the bed and pulled the sheets up around me, making sure I was comfortable. She leaned down and kissed my cheek, her lips lingering against my skin.
“Thank you, Noah,” she whispered. “And I’m sorry.”
Her face stayed near mine and I was immediately uncomfortable, thinking she wanted more from me. Even if I’d been capable, it wasn’t going to happen. For reasons I couldn’t explain to her. And I felt badly about that, that I couldn’t tell her the truth, be honest with her in the way she’d just been with me.
“I’ll help you,” I said. “I’ll get you out of it.”
“That’s not what I’m asking for.”
“I know,” I said. “But I’ll get you out of it. You and Jackson.”
She kissed my cheek again. “Sleep.”
I closed my eyes, shutting out thoughts of Bella and Liz and David and everything else, sleep washing over me like the waves I used to dive into.
TWENTY-THREE
I slept soundly, no visions of Liz or anyone else jarring me awake.
Sun warmed the side of my face. And something warmed my body. Something soft and solid and decidedly feminine.
I twisted my head to the side and found Bella pressed up against me, my arm around her. She was snoring softly, her mouth half-open.
I lay still for a moment. She’d said goodnight to me, told me she was going to sleep in Jackson’s room. She’d mentioned waking me up during the night, but I didn’t recall her doing so.
Was there anything else I didn’t recall?
No, I didn’t think so and I immediately shook the idea from my thoughts. I was under the covers and she was on top of them. And no matter how she felt about me, I didn’t think she would’ve taken advantage of the fact that I wasn’t thinking too clearly.
Her legs twitched and her eyes fluttered open. She closed them again once, then reopened them.
“Hey,” I said.
She looked up at me, s
tartled, her eyes clearing. “Oh my God.” She sat up. “I’m so sorry. I fell asleep in here.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“I came in here to wake you up and I could barely get myself off Jackson’s floor when the alarm on my phone went off,” she rambled, sitting up. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I repeated.
“I tried to shake you awake and you sort of stirred,” she said. “And I was talking to you and you were mumbling…and I think I just passed out.” Her entire face was flushed red. “I’m sorry.”