Dirty South Drug Wars

by Jae Hood

  “I’ve never had to choose Tanner over Lucy.”

  Josie’s face blossomed into a brilliant red. “You have to admit that if you never met Tanner then Lucy would still be here. I can’t believe that means nothing to you!”

  “You’re crazy.” I threw my hands up in aggravation. “What does any of this have to do with Lucy? The Montgomerys helped Lucy and so did Chance. She’s safe with him, somewhere up north. Why are we going over the coulda, shoulda, wouldas? We can’t change the past. I feel horrible for Olivia, but she double-crossed us. That’s not our fault! And Lucy, Lucy was an innocent bystander who is lucky enough to have gotten away undetected by Amos and the others.”

  Josie stared at me for a long moment before slowly shaking her head. She pressed her hand to her wrinkled brow, rubbing it in frustration. “Don’t you get it? Lucy isn’t coming back, Rue! Lucy is gone! She’s never coming back!”

  I chuckled, rolling my eyes at my cousin’s dramatics. “Of course she’s coming back. She’s my sister. She loves me. I’ve always taken care of her. She won’t forget that.”

  “Lucy is dead, you moron!” Josie screamed. “Why can’t you process it? She’s dead! She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!”

  Chapter 27

  I needed Tanner.

  I needed him like I needed the sun. All living things depended on the sun for survival, and he was my sun, orbiting his way into my life without my permission, skyrocketing into my once unwilling heart. I needed him to tell me everything was going to be okay, that my sister was alive, and it was all a huge mistake. I needed him to tell me Josie was lying to me, that Brodie was lying to me, that everyone was lying to me.

  But he wasn’t there.

  He wasn’t there.

  Two days.

  It had been two days since Josie had uttered those fateful words.

  Lucy is dead.

  Life continued. The rain set in. People shuffled in and out of Tanner’s bedroom where I holed myself up for those two days, knees tucked to my chest as I stared past the window, cell phone in hand. I searched for any sign of the river that churned past the trees; I saw nothing but relentless rain and occasional bolts of lightning flashing through the pines.

  My mind traveled back to the night Josie had screamed at me, revealing what she claimed was Lucy’s true fate. She became violent in her words as she verbally thrashed me. Anger brewed inside, the white-hot heat intensifying within me, rising up from the pit of my stomach, clawing through my chest, and burning my throat. My hands balled into two hard knots, and suddenly I was hitting her. I was hitting and punching, pulling her hair because that made her cry out in pain the most; if she was crying out in pain she couldn’t form a cohesive sentence, and couldn’t continue spitting out her dirty lies.

  I clawed at her face, leaving four bloody trails of open flesh across her cheek just as the space behind me seemed to collapse. My cousin’s blood, and probably skin, was beneath my nails.

  Brodie retrieved me from Bryce’s truck and guided me inside the house, his thick arm around my waist. His normally boisterous voice was stern yet comforting, although the words were nothing but a jumbled mess inside my mind, hidden by thick clouds of confusion.

  I vaguely remembered Detective Holloway receiving a phone call when we passed by him on Graham and Melissa’s porch just as the mist began to swirl about. I heard the words “trespassing,” “breaking and entering,” and “misdemeanor” fall from his muffled lips, but it wouldn’t register until later what or who he was talking about.

  There was no way Lucy was dead. I saw her. I saw my sister the day of the funeral. She stood next to the grave as clear as day wearing a black veil and red lipstick. The key we found hidden in Nana’s safe was hanging from a necklace, dangling from her neck against her pale flesh. Hadn’t anyone seen her? Hadn’t anyone seen her on that grassy hill, standing right beside me? Looking at me? Speaking to me?

  That day was so vivid. I remembered Tanner and the others waiting for me to return from the graveside. I remembered Chance standing near his truck.

  But I didn’t remember Lucy following me down the hill. I didn’t remember her getting in Chance’s truck and driving away.

  Scrolling through the photos on my cell, I found a picture of my sister, her head thrown back in laughter. The photo wasn’t that old—just a few months, really. It was taken the night Lucy, Mia, Peyton, Brodie, and I had partied at my house. The night we were lured to the old train station. The night my sister stood beside the pool and announced the impending storm.

  I shoved the thought aside and tossed the cell beside me on the bed. They were wrong about my sister. How could I simply not remember her death? How could my mind weave together such a story, such an elaborately confusing web of hidden truth, of someone else’s body resting in her casket, buried in the earth?

  I struggled to remember who’d told me, who had explained the fire was a ruse, that Lucy was really alive and well, living with Chance somewhere up north, but I drew nothing but a blank. I remembered absolutely nothing of who told me those things and I wondered … could it be true? Could Josie and the others be telling me the truth about my sister?

  It explained so much. Was this why my sister, who was always dependent on me, never called and never returned any of my calls? Looking back, I should have known something was wrong. It wasn’t unusual for Lucy to take flight and disappear for a day or two, but to completely abandon her family to travel north with Chance and never return my calls? It didn’t make sense.

  I felt like a fool, a complete and utter fool.

  Melissa and Shelby offered unwelcome comfort. They came and went, finding me on Tanner’s bed each time, wearing his oversized shirt which still smelled of him. My time was spent staring through the window and clinging to my cell phone. Melissa and Shelby couldn’t provide the comfort I needed. I needed something more, someone I could trust.

  I needed Tanner.

  The thought of “trust” intermingled with thoughts of Tanner brought forth a bitter laugh. It crackled across the staleness of the room like the lightning outside. Trust Tanner. It was a humorous thought, considering he’d allowed me to believe my sister was alive all that time and that he’d been working with Holloway, never mentioning his involvement with the FBI to me. Not even once.

  I stood and walked to the window. The large pane of glass separated me from the outside forces of the torrid wind whipping and bending the pines. I pressed my hand against the glass and raised my eyebrows at the coolness under my fingers. October had crept up with little warning.

  Holloway’s car was no longer in the driveway. I spied Graham’s Caddy parked just outside the garage, spattered with rain, glowing with the occasional bolt of lightning slicing through the sky. The woods lining the churning river looked ominous, but I was never afraid of the woods at night. I was never afraid of much of anything, at least not until now.

  I was afraid of myself.

  My mind was, to an extent, gone. There was no sense denying that anymore. It took two days to comprehend that it wasn’t some psychotic scheme, some well-orchestrated plot against me. There was no reason for anyone to lie to me about Lucy’s demise.

  I’d lost my mind, plain and simple.

  It wandered away sometime between here and there, and I didn’t know where I stood anymore.

  The lines between fantasy and reality were fuzzy at best. The words of our relatives mattered little when I knew the truth. The truth was that I saw her. I saw her.

  I saw her that very second.

  She stood there beside Graham’s car, illuminated by the flash of lightning, silhouetted by the sooty forest just beyond. The dress she wore to her own funeral was unchanged, black and lacy, chic and sophisticated, much fancier than we could ever afford. How had I not realized that before? How had I not realized that to begin with?

  The veil was gone. In its place was moon-white skin, unmarred by the sun. The bright redness of her lips remained, although those lips were no longe
r curled into a smirk or turned down by a scowl, but were as straight as an arrow. It was such a resolute look for my little sister as she peered up at me through the wind and rain.

  I staggered backward, heart in my throat, until the back of my knees hit Tanner’s bed. Landing with a soft sigh of the mattress, my fingers found a loose tendril of hair and I tugged it out of habit, out of fear, out of uncertainty, because they were correct. They were all right.

  I’d really lost my mind.

  The bed dipped beside me, shifting my weight to one side. My heart found its way into my chest again, dislodging from my throat and forcing itself against my ribs. I thought it was her, but it wasn’t. The speed of my heart slowed, but only by a baby’s breath.

  I felt him. I felt his warmth. I felt the hard planes of his body press against mine as he sat beside me, pulling my limp body into his arms. I could smell his skin, kissed by the rain, all wet and earthy and alive.

  Alive.

  “Rue,” he whispered. “Come back to me, baby.”

  “You’re home.”

  “I’m home.” He chuckled, the sweet, deep tenor rumbling from his chest, the familiar sound tugging my heartstrings.

  “How?” I asked, still unable to meet his gaze as I stared out the window. “How did you get out? Graham said they had a bunch of trumped-up charges against you. Besides the legit ones.”

  “Yeah,” he said in a slightly arrogant tone. “They did. I didn’t exactly … make bail. I had a little help from someone on the inside, thanks to Detective Holloway. Wes, his brother, has been posing as an officer in the county jail for months now, trying to get intel on our families.”

  “Hmm, seems like you have lots of friends on the inside. Must be nice to always be in the know of things, working with someone in the FBI, knowing who’s really dead and who’s really alive.”

  The arrogant chuckle had long since faded away, replaced with a stagnant silence. The air grew thick and uncomfortable, so thick I found it difficult to breathe.

  “Did you tell me the truth?” I blurted after taking in some of that humid air. “About Lucy? Because I don’t remember.”

  There was a moment of hesitation, a long moment of silence except for the patter of rain against the wooden house and the occasional rumble of thunder in the distance. My gaze remained fixed on the window, anxious to spy my sister’s face. Terrified to spy my sister’s face.

  “I tried,” he said. “But you wouldn’t listen. You were convinced Lucy was alive, that we were all playing some crazy trick on the Monroes.”

  “And Chance?” I asked. “I’m assuming he’s not somewhere up north.”

  I turned to face him and cringed at what I saw. His arm was wrapped in white gauze. There was a light dusting of dark circles under his eyes and his normally tanned skin was a bit pale. With the bandage on my neck and the one on his arm, we were quite the banged-up pair.

  “Chance went back to MSU.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’s coping,” Tanner replied. “He has his bad days, but for the most part he’s doing well, considering.”

  Considering Lucy is dead.

  “Rue …”

  “Where’s Davis? If he’s not buried in Lucy’s plot, where is he?” I slumped against his body, giving up the struggle.

  “Dead.” He buried his nose in my hair, leaving a light kiss against my temple. “No one will ever find him.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “I just don’t understand how you tried to tell me about Lucy, but I have no memory.”

  “Graham consulted a doctor,” he explained. “A friend of his in Oxford. He specializes in this sort of thing. He said that sometimes the human mind plays tricks on a person, fabricating a lie to protect itself from the truth. You were too fragile to accept what really happened, so your mind fooled you into believing your sister was still alive. It happened just after the fire. That’s when you began having these delusions about Lucy still being alive.”

  Delusions.

  I was delusional.

  “What really happened? At the hospital?” I asked. “Graham didn’t set the building on fire as a distraction?”

  Tanner shook his head. “No, baby. Amos started the fire. He set out to kill Lucy one way or the other. She had too much on him. Only Lucy and Drew knew what happened the night she overdosed, but I’m sure he’s involved. If she’d lived, everyone would know. They’d link it all back to him, the drugs and the fact that Drew was working with him. Who knows what Drew told Lucy that night? Who knows what even really happened? Only Lucy and Drew, and, baby, neither one of them are talking.”

  I thought about the night of the fire. I remembered the flames and the smoke and scared, confused people, but that was it. That and Tanner standing beside me, consoling me as the building stood ablaze.

  I shook my head, muttering below my breath. Fresh tears formed, but I foolishly wiped them away. I should have just let them flow. The more I attempted to hold things together, the further I felt myself slip back.

  I didn’t want to slip back.

  I couldn’t return to that place of denial, because it wasn’t safe. It wasn’t safe for my mind to believe something that just wasn’t real. I had to escape from this place, had to flee from whatever warped dimension I found myself in. I had to do it.

  And it had to be me to end it.

  “Is there anything else my mind made up? Or is it just Lucy?”

  “It’s just Lucy,” he replied. “I swear, Rue. I swear on my parents’ graves.”

  I nodded, hoping he was telling the truth, although he’d never lied to me. Not really.

  “Are you hungry?” he whispered, the concern thick in his voice. “Melissa says you haven’t been eating well. Do you want some soup or something?”

  “Soup.” I might have even nodded as I said the word, although I wasn’t completely sure. The mention of food made my stomach clench in pain.

  Tanner wasn’t gone two minutes when my cell rang, the standard ringtone cutting through the air. It had rung constantly for two days, since the night in the woods, the night my cousin was flown to Birmingham.

  For the first time in two days I answered it. I listened as Nana’s voice spoke softly through the phone asking if I was all right, snapping at me because I hadn’t answered the phone, and then ending in a tremor when she spoke of Olivia’s condition.

  No hope. There was no hope for my little cousin, the girl who resembled me more than my own sister.

  She wasn’t going to make it.

  I supposed I should have felt some guilt about that fact, should have felt an inkling of remorse and pity, and maybe I did, but mostly I was tired. I was tired of weathering the storm.

  “This needs to end,” Nana said.

  The words caused me to pause. I twisted a strand of hair between my fingers, the memory of the last time I saw Olivia’s face playing in my mind.

  “Yeah, it does,” I confirmed, dropping back onto the bed with a pounding chest, her odd tone striking something within me.

  “You hold the key to end it all.”

  It was a riddle. And I was tired of riddles. I was tired of secrets and safes, riddles and Southern royals. I was tired of it all.

  “I’m about to eat supper, Nana,” I told her, my throat tightening. She sat silent on the other end of the line. “Call me if anything changes.”

  “Okay.”

  “‘Night, Nana.”

  “‘Night. And, Rue?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.”

  My body turned rigid and I sat straight up on the bed, hearing those words uttered from my grandmother’s lips. I opened my mouth to respond, but I no longer heard the beeping and whooshing sound of machines or chattering of nurses in the background. Pulling the phone from my ear, I stared at the screen.

  Love.

  Love made us all do silly things. Love made us take chances and draw lines, only to blur them and cross them, and sometimes burn them. Love took away the ones c
losest to us, only to give us new ones in return. Love made us irrational. Love made us delusional, believing in people who were no longer alive, wanting to tuck them safely inside our hearts and minds and hold on to them forever, never letting them go.

  I tossed the phone back on the bed and stared through the window. The rain continued to beat down, but the dark clouds suddenly parted to reveal the moon. As I crossed the room I remembered Tanner’s gift of Moon Pies.

  And the little white lies.

  Those lies brought us to that place: the little white lies to my sister as Josie and I snuck over the bridge into a forbidden town, the lie I told my uncle the day he shot his trusty Coonhound, the lies inside my head, forcing me to believe something they all claimed wasn’t real.

  I needed it to be real.

  If I could touch her, I’d cradle her in my arms, just as I had when she was younger when the dreams would scare her at night, when the things she saw became real.

  Real.

  “Why didn’t you see this?” I asked her, seeing nothing as I stared through the glass. “Why didn’t you see this coming?”

  And then it struck me, harder than the bolt of lightning that flashed through the sky, smashing into the forest across the river. Electricity spiraled down the tree, ripping the bark along the way in one long, winding twist as the world illuminated before me. It was louder than Melissa’s startled shriek from the floor below and darker than the house as the lights went out.

  She had seen it.

  “A storm’s coming,” I whispered.

  Shuffling of steps crept from somewhere behind me. A shiver crawled up my spine.

  The steps grew closer. Concerned, muffled voices crept up the stairs, but that wasn’t what caused the quiver in my bones. It was the voice, the ghost of a voice tickling my ear.

  “Time for Daddy’s gun.”

  Chapter 28

  A startled gasp lodged in my throat at the sound of my sister’s voice. Spinning on my heel with my hand pressed against my rapidly rising chest, I looked for her. Darkness surrounded me. Still, I searched, praying she was there and alive, proof I wasn’t crazy.