by Brenda Novak
“Presley?” Cheyenne said. “Pres, is that you? If it is, say something. I’ve been so worried.”
Nothing.
“Please? I miss you! Tell me where you are. I’ll come and get you.”
Finally, she got a response. “You wouldn’t want me back if you knew the truth.”
It was her sister, all right. Was she talking about her involvement in Anita’s death? Or Crouch?
“I already know the truth,” Cheyenne said, but it was too late. Presley had hung up.
Cheyenne tried to call her back, but all she got was a recording. “This payphone doesn’t accept incoming calls.”
30
According to the conversation she’d just had with Chief Stacy, the police couldn’t do anything to help bring Presley home. She’d left of her own free will. She was an adult. She had the right to leave. But Cheyenne knew Presley couldn’t be doing well. She didn’t have any money, any clothes, any way to survive. Cheyenne shuddered to think how she must be getting by.
At least she was alive. If only they could find her and take her home before that changed.
She knew putting Anita’s funeral on hold while she searched for her sister was a problem. The undertaker wanted to have the service and get her buried. Anita was taking up space in his cooler. He’d said that once. He wouldn’t be making much money off the Christensens so he had no reason to be accommodating.
But Cheyenne couldn’t even consider burying Anita until Presley was back to pay her final respects. She saw Presley’s participation as a necessary part of her recovery. Presley had to come to terms with whatever happened the night Anita died, even if it meant going to the police to confess that she’d performed a mercy killing.
Cheyenne hated to think of everyone’s reaction when news of that came out, but she saw no alternative. She’d confess her role in covering it up, too. Keeping that secret, living in the shadow of it, would be too difficult for both of them.
“How will we find her once we reach Phoenix?” Dylan asked.
They were at the computer, where they’d confirmed that the area code Presley had called from was, indeed, Arizona. They’d arranged for Eve to watch Lucky, and Grady to take Aaron to a rehab facility in Sacramento, so they could leave first thing in the morning.
“She’s returned to Sunnyslope, where we used to live. Look at this.” She pointed to the computer screen. “I found the location of the payphone she called me from by putting the number in a search engine.”
“What kind of neighborhood is it?”
She zoomed in on Google Earth.
“I see,” he said with a frown.
“Not so pretty.”
His chair squeaked as he shifted his weight. “Do you mind if I tell Aaron she’s okay?”
Cheyenne frowned at him. “Does he care?”
“He doesn’t want to. He’s not emotionally prepared for a committed relationship. But he’s been worried. I think this news will help him go into rehab tomorrow.”
She wondered if she should tell Dylan about her sister’s possible condition. But, again, she couldn’t bring herself to share that information. She had no idea what Presley might do if she was pregnant—or what she might already have done. Cheyenne certainly didn’t want to make Presley’s return any harder. “Of course.”
She listened, petting her dog, who’d nudged her leg to be picked up, as Dylan called Aaron on speakerphone.
“Why hasn’t she contacted me?” Aaron asked.
Cheyenne wanted to say it was because he’d given her no reason to. That he’d provided nothing for her to hang on to. But she bit her tongue. Aaron had his own issues.
“You sent her away,” Dylan said.
“I didn’t want to deal with her right then. That didn’t mean I never wanted to see her again!”
Dylan’s gaze locked with Cheyenne’s. “We don’t know what was going on in her mind, Aaron.”
She’d needed him, and he hadn’t been there for her. Presley had been let down so many times it was hardly surprising that she had no self-esteem.
“Maybe I should put off rehab,” he said. “Go to Arizona with you.”
“No,” Dylan started, but Aaron cut him off.
“I won’t be able to concentrate if I’m wondering about her all the time.”
Cheyenne broke into the conversation. “You’ll be a lot more help to her if you get clean, Aaron. Maybe we’ll be fortunate and Presley will follow your lead. She’s going to need friends who don’t use. Maybe you can be that friend.”
“You think I’m capable of it?” he asked.
He was talking to her. That surprised Cheyenne. “I think you could be as wonderful as your big brother. But right now, you’re letting everything that’s happened to you stand in the way.”
“Just because you and Dylan have been able to pull your lives together doesn’t mean the rest of us can.”
“Yes, it does,” she said. “If you want it badly enough. I hope that’s the case. I hope you’ll get clean regardless of what happens to Presley.”
“Don’t talk like she’s a lost cause,” he said. “She’s not.”
“I pray you’re right.” Cheyenne set her dog down so she could start packing. Finding Presley would be a long shot. Just because she’d called from Sunnyslope didn’t mean she’d stay in those nine square miles. But Cheyenne had to take the chance.
* * *
The calendar on the clinic’s opposite wall had X’s through December 28. Where had the days gone? Presley felt as if she’d entered a time warp since leaving home. Even her stint with the semi driver who’d driven her to Phoenix seemed more like a dream. Only the bruises on her body and the busted lip Dick had given her felt real. She’d seen what he’d done to her face when she’d asked to use the restroom, since the house where she’d been staying didn’t have a mirror. With a black eye and a swollen mouth, she looked like she’d been in a fight....
“It’ll be okay.” Dick was sitting beside her wearing the new clothes he’d gotten for Christmas, presumably from his wife. When he wasn’t aroused he acted quite normal. Except he’d forced her to wear a dog collar in the car.
On second thought, he wasn’t normal. She was just too scared to care about anything other than what was about to happen.
“Presley?” he said.
She blinked, then focused on him. “What?”
“Did you hear me?”
She nodded. She hadn’t realized he’d expected an answer to that comment. She wished he wasn’t even there. Once they arrived, she’d told him he could drop her off, that she’d call him when it was over. He’d let her remove the collar at that point. But he’d insisted on coming in. He said she needed someone to support her.
She would’ve liked that someone to be Cheyenne. If she had to go through an abortion, she wanted her sister at her side. It was her first time in this situation. But she had no right to ask for anything from Chey. Not after what she’d done. Not after the lies she’d told.
We aren’t even sisters....
“You’re spacing out again.”
Her eyes cut to her companion. “What did you say?”
“I asked if you were scared.”
When? She hadn’t heard that. “A little,” she admitted.
“A little…what?”
Confused, she stared at him until he whispered in her ear. “Master.”
“Oh, right.” She’d forgotten that part. He wanted the playacting to continue. But with only two other women and one man in the waiting room, it was so quiet she hated to speak. The receptionist glanced up whenever they broke the silence. She preferred to go unnoticed, but the marks on her face made that impossible. Presley had witnessed the woman’s shocked reaction when she signed in. She’d mumbled a line about being in a car accident but she wasn’t sure the receptionist bought it.
“I don’t think she believed me about the accident,” she said, keeping her voice too low for anyone else to hear.
“Doesn’t matter,”
he responded. “It is what you say it is.”
“I guess.”
He leaned closer. “Bottom line, it’s none of her damned business. I’m your master, and I can do what I want.”
Ignoring that part, because she found it ridiculous, she changed the subject. “Seems like there aren’t a lot of women who get an abortion right after Christmas, huh?” She gazed around at the empty seats.
“People are celebrating. They’ll deal with their problems later on.”
A woman in a white jacket poked her head through a door near the reception area. “Ms. Christensen? The doctor’s ready for you.”
Dick got up to go in with her. He even took her hand. But Presley jerked away. “I’ll be back when it’s over,” she said. She would not have this stranger, this…twisted man witness her most vulnerable moment.
Anger flashed in his eyes. He couldn’t insist in front of the nurse and the receptionist. But he pulled her back and showed her the syringe he had hidden in his pocket. “This will be waiting for you,” he whispered, and kissed her as if that was what he’d intended all along.
* * *
“Do you think Aaron will stay in rehab?”
Dylan glanced over at Cheyenne, who’d been staring at Eugene Crouch’s card for several miles. Although Phoenix was a good fourteen-hour drive from Sacramento, they’d decided to take his Jeep so they wouldn’t have to rent a car or worry about flights.
He preferred to remain mobile and at the controls of his own vehicle. “He’s promised me he will this time, but…who knows?”
“Does he write to your father?”
“You’re whittling down the number of questions you have left. I hope you know that,” he teased.
“What number am I on?”
“You maybe have three left.”
“Then this can be one of them.”
“Fine. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t write.”
“He’s never said?”
Dylan thought of all the comments his brother had made over the years. If there’d been one common sentiment, it was I hate Dad. “In so many words.”
“So J.T. doesn’t hear from any of his sons.”
“Rod’s written him once or twice. Grady, too.”
“Mack?”
He turned down the radio. “J.T. doesn’t seem to matter all that much to Mack.”
“Because he sees you as his father.”
“He was really young when it all went down,” he agreed, slowing as he came into traffic in Los Angeles. With any luck they’d reach Phoenix by ten tonight. That was when Cheyenne felt they had the best chance of finding her sister, anyway.
“Eve called while you were getting gas,” she said as he changed lanes.
“At that last stop?”
She nodded.
“What did she want? Is Lucky okay?”
“Lucky’s fine. Eve’s taking good care of her. She just wanted to tell me she’s praying for us.” She grinned at him. “And to see if I thought any of your brothers might be fun for her to date.”
“Seriously?” he said with a laugh.
“I shouldn’t have told her you were so good in bed.”
“Does she think it runs in families?”
“With the way all you Amoses look, she’s willing to take the chance.”
He slung an arm over the steering wheel. “No way am I going to let that happen.”
She adjusted her seat belt. “Me, neither. In case it doesn’t work out. But it was a nice thought.”
Eve’s question, however teasing it was, told Dylan that Eve was trying to accept him, trying to change her prejudice against him. He appreciated that.
“She also said something else, and this has me sort of…troubled,” Cheyenne said.
“What’s that?”
“Do you know Baxter North?”
“That friend of yours?”
“Yeah. The one who wears the expensive suits.”
“What about him?”
She bit her lip. “Eve thinks he might be gay.”
“Might be?” he repeated.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He could hear her surprise. “He is gay. It’s obvious. But even if it wasn’t, I’ve seen him with a guy.”
Her jaw dropped. “What? When?”
“Maybe a year ago.”
“Where?”
“I met Manny from the gym and his sister at the Devil’s Lair in Jackson for a drink. It was a weeknight, not too crowded. Baxter was there with someone.”
“Did he see you?”
“Not at first. Which is why I’m quite clear on what was going on.”
“What did he say when he realized you’d seen him?”
“We pretended not to recognize each other. I didn’t see any point in embarrassing him. His sex life is his business. But he never touched his date afterward.”
“That could’ve been a friend,” she said.
He threw her a look. “I know the difference. What does it matter, anyway?”
“It doesn’t. Except that we can’t figure out why he wouldn’t tell us. Eve thinks it might be because he’s in love with Noah.”
“Rackham? Hmm. He might be. I’ve seen them together, too, although not in that way. Rackham’s straight, isn’t he?”
“Sure is.”
“If that’s true, it won’t be a pleasant revelation for either of them.”
“Exactly why we’re worried.”
He touched her hand, which was still holding the business card. “You tempted to call Crouch?”
She rubbed the embossing, allowing herself to be distracted. “Every day.”
* * *
Presley was shaking by the time the doctor walked into the room. The clothes Dick had purchased for her were folded neatly on a chair. She was wearing a paper gown that left her feeling completely exposed.
“Good afternoon.”
The doctor was an older woman with gray hair. She seemed kind. Presley told herself a gentle female doctor should put her at ease. This woman looked like someone’s grandmother. She leaned against the counter, wearing reading glasses as she perused the forms Presley had filled out. But there were so many conflicting thoughts and feelings whirling through Presley’s head she couldn’t relax. Her love for Aaron. Desire to keep the baby. Fear that she wouldn’t be any better as a mother than Anita had been. That syringe in Dick’s pocket. If she could just get through the next half hour, she could escape the fear and pain—forget all her troubles. At least until she needed another fix. But as long as she was willing to do Dick a few favors, he seemed happy to supply her.
He was waiting for her with that syringe. Escape was close.
Or was it really slavery? She had a terrible feeling she’d never have children if she went through with this, that she’d drift into obscurity. Already, she could see the track marks on her arm, felt self-conscious enough to hide them from the doctor. Was this what she really wanted to be? A drug addict? Someone who couldn’t contribute to life? Who had no one to love and no one to love her?
“Is that your boyfriend out there?” the doctor asked, interrupting her thoughts.
Presley had to clear her throat in order to speak. It felt as if she’d swallowed an orange. “No.”
“A friend?”
“More or less,” she replied.
The doctor continued to study her chart, then set the clipboard aside. “It appears you’ve sustained some injuries.” She came over to examine Presley’s black eye. “Want to tell me what happened?”
Presley averted her gaze. “Car accident.”
When there was no response, she looked back at the doctor. Eyes slightly magnified by her glasses, she studied Presley without responding. Then she said, “Are you going to stick with that story?”
Presley bit her lip. “It’s as good as any other.”
The doctor’s fingers curled around her upper arm as a way to gain her undivided attention. “If you need help, I know of a shelter nearby,” she
said softly. “After we finish here, we could sneak you out. He’ll never know where you went.”
Presley opened her mouth to deny that it was Dick who’d hurt her. But what was the point in lying? “I—I’m fine.” It wasn’t as if he’d ever forced her to stay. And there was that syringe in his pocket. How could she get by without it?
“You can have a few minutes to decide. Consider doing yourself a favor, giving yourself a chance at a better life.”
When tears suddenly welled up in her eyes, she tried to blink them back, but they streamed down her cheeks, anyway.
The doctor bent her head to see into Presley’s face. “Is there any family we can call?”
Presley thought of her sister. Cheyenne had always been there for her. But how could she turn to Cheyenne after what she’d done?
“No,” she murmured.
“Okay.” The doctor gave her a gentle pat. “Just relax. This won’t hurt a bit.” She encouraged Presley to lie back and place her feet in the stirrups, but a jolt of sheer panic made that impossible. Her heart had jumped into her throat, racing so fast she was afraid she’d pass out.
The doctor paused. “It’s a relatively simple procedure.”
But her baby—Aaron’s baby—would be gone when it was over. That meant she could go back to life as she knew it. But was that really worth the trade-off?
“Are you having second thoughts?” the doctor asked.
Presley pictured Aaron. He didn’t care about her, and he definitely wasn’t ready for a child. As far as he was concerned, they’d just been having fun, getting high, having sex, laughing. He’d said so, many times, whenever she wanted to get serious.
Raising a child was a lifelong commitment. But she was thirty-three years old. When was she going to grow up?
“Ms. Christensen, I’m getting the impression you don’t really want to go through with this,” the doctor said.
“If I don’t…if I decide to keep the baby…do you think it’ll be okay?”
“You’re not even showing, so you can’t be very far along. That’s good. Are you using?”
She nodded and turned her arms.
The doctor examined the track marks. “You’d have to stop. Now. No alcohol, either.”
“And then you think my baby would be healthy?”