All he said was to dress casually and be ready to see something he'd never shown anyone.
I knew exactly what Erika would say. That ruled out his massive cock.
Waiting for him, I wore jeans and a dark V-necked shirt. Not fancy, but nothing I'd be embarrassed to be seen in either.
Right on schedule, a car pulled into the driveway. Watching out the window, I felt my eyebrows furrow. It was a brown sedan with a rusty front bumper and dented hood.
As I watched, Lawton slid out of the driver's seat and started walking toward the front door. Still confused, I grabbed my purse and met him at the half-way point.
"What's that?" I said, glancing over at the car.
"Our ride," he said.
I gave him a dubious look. "You sure this thing runs?"
He grinned. "It got me here, didn't it?" He flicked his head toward the car. "C'mon." He walked around and opened the passenger's side. He waited.
I didn't move.
"How far are we going?" I said.
"Not far."
I still didn't move. I'd been stranded more than enough in my own piece of crap. I didn't need to be stranded in his piece of crap too. I glanced at my old Fiesta. It looked like a luxury ride in comparison. It was probably more reliable too.
"Wanna take my car?" I asked.
He laughed. "Not a chance."
I'm no car-snob, but I didn't understand what was going on here. He had a whole fleet of vehicles in his garage. Why on Earth would he want to drive this thing? More to the point, why on Earth would he want to drive this thing today? With me?
Was this some sort of payback for what had happened to his favorite hot rod?
"Trust me," he said, "it runs great."
I bit my lip. "I suppose you have a backup plan if we get stranded?"
"We won't."
"I must be insane," I said as I finally walked toward him and climbed into the car. He closed the passenger's side door behind me, and walked around to get in the driver's seat.
As I buckled up, I noticed something strange. The car's interior was obviously old, but not half as ratty as the outside. And it didn't have that old musty smell either. It smelled not exactly new, but definitely fresh.
When he fired up the engine, something else struck me. It didn't sound like an old beater either. I'm no car expert, but the way the engine roared to life and settled into a nice, steady purr, it made me wonder if there was more to this car than I'd originally guessed.
As soon as we pulled out of the driveway, I turned sideways in the seat to face him. "Alright. You know I'm gonna ask, so let's just get it out of the way. Why this car?"
"What," he said, "you don’t like it?"
"Am I supposed to?"
Laughing, he gave me a sideways glance before returning his gaze to the road. "Alright," he said, "as much as I'd like to mess with you, I don't want you to worry."
"Too late for that," I said.
"So here's the thing," he said. "Where we're going, I'd never take any of my other cars."
"Why not?"
"'Cause they're not as safe." He turned to give me another glance. "And since I've got you here, I'm not taking any chances."
"Oh come on," I said. "Be serious."
"I am serious. My other cars, they draw too much attention."
"I don't want to be mean," I said, "but this car? It'll get plenty of attention."
"Yeah? Well don't let the exterior fool you. The engine, along with everything else under the hood, is in prime condition. And it's fast too. A lot faster than it looks." He lifted a hand and tapped the driver's side window. "And see this glass? Bullet-proof."
I laughed. "Oh stop it."
"I'm not kidding."
I studied his face. Either he was telling the truth, or he had one hell of a poker face. "You serious?" I said.
"Yup. And the wheels – "
"Don't tell me," I teased. "Also bullet-proof?"
"Not exactly. But close."
"Oh c'mon," I said. "How can something be sort of bullet-proof?"
"It's the way they're constructed," he said. "Even if they're punctured, they'll keep going, at least long enough."
"How?"
"Polymer rings."
"What's that?" I squinted at him. "Oh never mind. You're just messing with me."
He didn't confirm or deny it. Instead, he asked, "How good are you at keeping secrets?"
"Pretty good," I said.
Probably too good, at least according to Erika.
"Glad to hear it," Lawton said. "Because I'm counting on that."
Chapter 32
I watched the road ahead, looking for clues to our destination. "Is this where you tell me where we're going?"
"Call it a trip down memory lane," he said.
Considering his choice of car and his veiled comments about wanting to keep me safe, I should probably be been scared. But somehow, I wasn't.
It was like standing on the edge of some cliff and looking down, feeling the danger, but clinging to safety. I let my gaze shift to Lawton. He was sitting back in the driver's seat, one hand over the steering wheel as he navigated the afternoon traffic.
He was solid. And dangerous. I felt myself swallow. And that's when I knew. If this thing were a cliff, I was in big danger. Because so help me, I wanted to jump.
I turned sideways in the seat to face him. "C'mon, give me a hint," I said.
It wasn't quite the peak of rush hour, but it was getting close. We'd just made it out of the residential section and were pulling onto I-75. Lawton slid into traffic, and eased into the fast lane.
"You haven't guessed?" he said.
I had a rough idea of where he supposedly grew up. From the street signs, it was easy to see which direction we were heading. "Detroit?"
"Yup."
"Which part?"
As for me, I'd grown up in Hamtramck, a city almost completely surrounded by Detroit. But I'd been avoiding Detroit itself for years.
In high school, I used to spend a lot of time in Greektown or sometimes on the Riverwalk. And once, I spent an entire afternoon in the Institute of Arts, admiring the marble structure outside, and hundreds of paintings inside.
But after Kimberly Slotka, a girl from my American history class, got carjacked and pistol-whipped for her used Camaro, I guess I just stayed away from the whole area. Most of us did. Mostly we stuck to our own neighborhoods, or ventured out into the suburbs.
Downtown was supposedly on an upswing, with young professionals and hipsters moving in where others had left. In my few recent visits, I'd seen some of this firsthand. But then there were the parts I would never visit, places where pizza deliveries required an armed guard, if they delivered at all.
Today was a weekday, and it was still light out, so there were parts of the city that wouldn't be too bad. But other parts, they weren't good at any time.
The cars on the highway were an interesting mix. I saw late-model Cadillacs and even a couple of Lexuses, along with too many Fords and Chevys to count. Cars, trucks, SUVs. Some old, some new. Way too many were beat up or rusted around the wheels.
Motor City or not, Detroit was hard on cars. All of Michigan was. In the winter, rock salt fell in torrents from giant trucks that rumbled through snowstorms, dropping their payloads onto the slick pavement.
All winter long, the battle went on – the salt trucks on one side, snow and ice on the other. Caught in the crossfire were all those cars, screwed no matter who won. Either they'd slide, or they'd rust. Most did both.
It was early November. We'd see snow before the month's end. I was sure of it. My tires were bald, and my battery was iffy at best. If winter never came, I'd be a happy girl.
We spent a few minutes on Woodward, and then turned off on some side street, and then another, heading deeper into the guts of the city. I saw boarded up shops and burned-out buildings, and houses that looked like no one had lived there for decades.
"Welcome to Zombieland," Lawton said.
He had a point. I saw stately brick buildings with overgrown shrubbery and broken windows, burnt-out shells of others, and charred roofs falling over the brick-and-mortar remains of once-majestic structures.
The streets were nearly empty, with random, beat-up cars parked haphazardly along the curbs and almost no traffic at all. For such a large city, it was eerily quiet.
"Zombieland," I said. "Or a war zone."
"Yeah, and we lost."
I looked around. "Where is everyone?"
"Moved, holed up inside, still asleep. Hard to say."
The further we drove, the worse it got. I saw boarded up-buildings covered in graffiti interspersed with bare fields of tall, scraggly grass and scattered tires. Telephone poles leaned at odd angles, and vines crept into the missing windows of vacant buildings.
Then, it got worse. The large, majestic structures gave way to tiny homes, some burnt, some boarded up, and others missing patches of siding and their front doorknobs.
"Is this where you grew up?" I asked.
"Almost," he said. "It's a few blocks up." He gave me a sideways glance. "We're gonna stop. But don't roll down the window, and don’t open the door."
"Trust me," I said. "I wasn’t planning to."
When we rolled to a stop a few minutes later, we were in front of a narrow, two-story brick house with a covered front porch.
Lawton flicked his head toward it. "My Grandma's house."
Chapter 33
He made a noise that probably was supposed to be a laugh, but didn't quite make it. "Nicest one in the neighborhood."
I glanced around. Actually, he was right. The home wasn't any larger than the neighboring houses, but it was definitely nicer, like someone not too long ago had actually cared. It had white shutters and a matching porch, peeling in places, but noticeably fresher than its surroundings.
"She loved that house," Lawton said, his voice quiet.
"Is she, uh –"
"Still alive?" Lawton shook his head. "No. She died a few years ago. I grew up here though."
"Just you and your Grandma?"
"Sometimes my Mom lived here too. But most of the time –" He shrugged. "She was off doing other things."
"Like what?" I asked.
He gave another bitter laugh. "Drugs, mostly. My Grandma, she was a school teacher at St. Mary's. She always said she should've done better, especially with Mom being her only kid."
He looked off into the distance. "But I dunno. Mom was just wild, I guess."
"Like mother like son?" I teased, trying to lighten his mood.
"No." His gaze snapped in my direction. "I'm nothing like her. She never looked out for us, never gave a shit one way or another what happened to us when she was off doing fuck-knows-what."
I shrank back, surprised not only by his language, but by the venom behind his words. Sure, I cursed like a sailor, but – . No, I used to curse like a sailor. Now I just cursed like…well, Lawton, actually.
His gaze softened. "Sorry."
"It's alright," I said. "You said 'us'? You mean you and Bishop, right?"
Lawton shook his head. "No. I didn't even know about Bishop 'til I was a teenager. We're half-brothers. Same dad, different cities."
"So how many kids did your Mom have?"
"Two. Me and a sister."
"Where's your sister now?" I asked.
"College out East. Working on her master's in social work."
"And your Mom?" I asked.
"Dead."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," I said. "How?"
"Overdose. Finally. Best thing she ever did."
Even knowing more of his life story, his icy demeanor was a shock. What kind of guy was actually glad when his mother died? Even with my Mom, as crappy as she was, I'd still be sad if anything bad happened to her.
He studied my face. "I know what you're thinking."
"I'm not thinking anything," I said, "just taking it all in."
"Let me ask you something," he said. "Your brother. He's thirteen, right?"
I nodded.
"Well, I'm the oldest," he said. "My sister, she's maybe three years younger than me." He smiled. "Probably about your age, come to think of it." The smile faded. "When she was thirteen, Mom tried to sell her."
I felt my body grow still. "What do you mean?"
His gaze hardened. "You know what I mean."
I blew out a breath. I guess I did, but I was hoping that I'd just misunderstood him.
"That's when Grandma kicked her out for good," Lawton said. "Told Mom if she ever came back, she'd be dead before she hit the door. And Grandma meant it. She never said anything she didn't mean. She had this old Remington. She was a hell of a shot too. Took me deer hunting up north once."
"She sounds like an amazing person," I said.
"She was," he said with the trace of a smile. "She'd been a widow forever too. I never knew my Grandpa. Neither did my Mom, come to think of it. He died in some factory explosion a month after she was born. So I guess my Mom didn't have it so good either."
Lawton shook his head. "Anyway, even with Mom out of the house, I couldn't let the thing with Kara go. I mean, what kind of man does that? And why the hell should he get away with it? So I ask around, and I find out who the guy is."
"Then what?" I said.
"Then," he said, "I go after him."
I did the math. "So were you what, about sixteen?"
"Yup."
"So what'd you do?"
"I showed up at his house, knocked on the door, all nice and polite. And then, when he answered, I beat the piss out of him. The guy was in I.C.U. for a week."
"Good," I said.
He gave me a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Oh c'mon," he said, "no warnings about vigilante justice?"
Thinking of my own brother, I could only shrug. I knew exactly what I'd want to happen if anyone tried that with him.
I glanced again toward the house. "At least you didn't kill him," I said.
"Yeah. But it didn't end there. The guy was a city councilman. Had a wife, a couple of grown kids." His voice grew sarcastic. "A regular pillar of the community."
"So he pressed charges?"
"Yup."
"What were they?" I said.
"Attempted murder."
My voice was quiet. "Wow."
"Yeah." Lawton shrugged. "But hey, it was true, right?"
"You wanted to kill him?"
"Wouldn't you?" he said.
"If you really wanted to kill him," I said, "you would've grabbed the gun. Right?"
"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe, shooting the guy seemed too easy."
"But with what happened to your sister, I mean, that had to count for something, right?"
He gave a bitter laugh. "Not when Mom wouldn't testify. And Kara, she didn't even know about it. And I was damned determined to keep it that way."
He looked out over the street, marred with potholes and weeds. "And let's say the thing with Kara got out. She'd be the girl who almost got molested by some forty-year-old. School was hard enough already. She didn't need that."
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Our school? It was the worst in the district. But it was the only one we had. And Kara and me, we got enough shit already because of the way we talked."
"I don't get it," I said.
"Like I mentioned, Grandma was a teacher. English mostly. And she didn't put up with any sloppy talk."
"You mean swearing?"
"Or bad grammar."
I felt myself smile. "But that's a good thing," I said.
"Yeah, well people didn't like it, especially other kids."
"Why not?" I said.
He looked around, taking in our surroundings. "Wherever you live, you gotta fit in, right?"
I thought of myself at the Parkers'. Slowly, I nodded.
"Well, we didn't fit in," he said. "It was a problem. And the older we got, the bigger the problem."
"So what'd you do?" I asked.
"Well, you sure learned that good," I said. "But what happened with that councilman?"
"Officially, I was a minor. But at first, the guy worked like hell to see me tried as an adult."
"At first?" I said. "So he changed his mind?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"With that," Lawton said, "I had a little help."
"From who?" I said.
"Bishop."
"But he couldn't have been much older than you."
"He wasn't. But he was old enough."
"What'd you guys do?" I asked.
"That, I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because," he said, "it wouldn't be right. My secrets are one thing. But his?" Lawton shook his head. "They're not mine to be giving out. Even to you."
"I can respect that," I said. And I could. Somehow, it made me think more of him, not less. "So tell me in general terms," I said. "What happened with the case?"
"Plea bargain," he said. "I spent a couple years in juvie, got out when I turned eighteen. And you pretty much know the rest."
I tried to smile. "I seriously doubt that."
"Wanna know something funny?" he said.
"What?"
Lawton's gaze took in the neighboring houses. It suddenly occurred to me that we hadn't seen a soul since we'd stopped. It was kind of eerie, actually.
Lawton returned his gaze to me. "Juvie was a cakewalk compared to this."
"Why didn't you guys move?" I asked.
"Because Grandma had a bad hip and a pension that barely paid for groceries. And besides, where would she go?"
I looked around. "Anywhere but here," I said.
Lawton gave a bitter laugh. "Easy for you to say. When I was born, Grandma owned that house outright. But when I got in trouble, she mortgaged everything to pay for my legal team, sorry as they were."
"But what about a public defender?" I said.
"That's what I told her. But Grandma wouldn't hear of it. She said I deserved better."
"She was right," I said, thinking of the worst-case scenario. If things had gone badly, Lawton might be sitting in prison right now, as opposed to sitting with me.
"By the time it was done," Lawton said, "she owed more than the house was worth."
Rebelonging (Unbelonging, Book 2) Page 11