Cavanagh - Serenity Series, Vol I (Seeking Serenity)

by Eden Butler

  Her best friend laughs. “I absolutely would not. I am lazy as hell.”

  Mollie agrees, remembering how often Layla’s mother has lectured her best friend about her lack of housekeeping skills.

  “Hey, what are you doing later? I’m in the mood for Chinese and I don’t…” She stops just outside of her door breathing into her phone. “Hmm.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  The splinter of light beneath her doorway is faint. It turns her Welcome mat a tinged yellow and Mollie instantly recognizes it as the low watt bulb in her tiny foyer. “That’s weird. I thought I turned everything off when I left.” Mollie takes a step and her confusion deepens as she notices that her door is open.

  “What is it?”

  She doesn’t answer her friend, feeling the cold prickle of warning inch up her neck. “My front door… it’s open.”

  “Huh? Wait. What’s going on?” Layla’s voice breaks Mollie from her steady creep forward.

  “Shh, hold on.”

  “Don’t you dare go in there. I’m serious, Mollie. Do not go in there if the door is open.”

  “It’s probably just the guy replacing the storm windows; you know that my Super never lets me know ahead of time when someone is going to working in my apartment. I’m sure it’s nothing…” There is no real clamor of noise as she listens at her door, no clear sign that tells her an intruder is still nosing through her home. But when her foot brushes against the door and the hinges whine, Mollie’s back stiffens, her grip on her phone clamps tight at the soft shuffle of feet, the slight moan of the floorboards. Her heart instantly races. “Someone’s in there,” she whispers.

  “Mollie! For the love of God, go call the cops.” Mollie’s not sure why Layla is whispering. It’s not like she can be heard by whoever is in the apartment.

  “Calm down, will you?” She drops her bag to the floor digging in her jeans for the pocketknife she is never without. “If there’s an asshole in my apartment, I’m gonna find out who he is before the cops show up.”

  “I’m calling Walter.”

  “Don’t you freakin’ dare, Layla. I don’t need your Rent-A-Cop boyfriend coming here and passing judgment on me yet again.”

  “Mollie, please. He can help.”

  She remembers Walter’s brand of help, which usually involves telling whoever he’s helping why they’re idiots.

  “I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself.” Mollie flicks open the knife’s blade and winces at the echo it makes in the quiet foyer. She hears the squeak of tennis shoes and furniture moving. Whoever they are, they are unconcerned about being discovered. And noisy as hell. She manages to take three full steps, ignoring Layla’s low whispered demands to retreat, before she sees two intruders darting across her living room. “Hey!” In the arms of one there are boxes of CDs, a few stray wires. But before Mollie can stop the guy from leaving her apartment, his accomplice turns toward her. “What the hell are you doing in my place?” she yells, then drops her phone as the bastard runs straight for her. “You son of a bitch!” She lunges, nicks his arm before she spots an iron pipe swinging right toward her face. There is quick crack against her head and then, everything goes black.

  “Mollie!” Layla screams from the downed phone. “Mollie, what happened?”

  She is in a tunnel, her body squeezed and her head throbbing. Her equilibrium is skewed. She feels as if she is floating, like there is a cloud absorbing her awareness and making her vision blur. Around her are voices, some familiar, some a cadence that sounds distant, unusual.

  “Ma’am?” one voice says, but the pitch is muffled as though the words are being spoken from yards away. “Miss Malone, can you hear me?”

  “Mollie, wake the hell up.” That voice she knows. No one can do jarring and bossy like Layla.

  “Miss, please. Let us handle this.”

  There are fragments of light and small, black dots scampering around her eyes when Mollie blinks. All is a hazy, unfocused vapor, the figures around her are large and small shadows and then, a man with a thick, black beard leans down inches from her face. His breath is a mix of coffee and spearmint gum.

  “Can you hear me?” The boom of this man’s deep voice has Mollie leaning away.

  “Yeah,” she manages. Her own voice sounds rough, a rasp caught in her throat as though it is not accustomed to use. She blinks several more times and her vision focuses, becomes sharp once more. She takes in the scene, the cops lingering by the door, talking to a frightened, worried-looking Mrs. Varela. Mollie gives the old woman a nervous wave, a quick smile that she hopes puts her at ease. The EMT helps her to her feet and Mollie spots Layla standing with her arms tight around her stomach, then to Autumn and her boyfriend Declan who are giving Mollie anxious frowns. “I’m fine,” she says to her friends, trying to alleviate their concern. Her head feels as swollen as an overinflated balloon and her face throbs like a heartbeat.

  She barely notices when the EMT takes her pulse, flashes a small light in her eyes, when his cold, gloved fingers press against her neck. Finally, his examination done, the bearded man with the coffee breath smiles at her and pulls the blood pressure cuff from her left arm. “You’ll need to ice that cheek and check in with your doctor if you experience any dizziness, but otherwise, you should be okay.”

  “We’ll make sure she does,” Autumn says, standing next to Mollie to grab her hand. All of her friends are worriers. Autumn is a master at it. When the EMTs have made for the door, Autumn draws Mollie’s attention to her. “Are you sure you’re alright? You got hit pretty hard.” The redhead’s chin jerks once, motioning toward Mollie’s cheek which is presently beating like a bass drum.

  Mollie instantly jerks her hand away from the tender lump she feels on her cheekbone. “Damn. Got me good, didn’t he?”

  “Don’t worry about that, love. We’ll find that arsehole,” Declan says. If Mollie didn’t know the Irishman personally, she’d be intimated by the sharp scowl that covers his face. Since he and Autumn began dating, actually just before that, Declan has made it his business to watch over each of them. He’s become a friend, an unofficial bodyguard regardless of Mollie and her friends’ protest that they can take care of themselves. Also, Declan’s has the finest collection of comics Mollie has ever seen. Couple that with how he looks running around the pitch shirtless and you have near perfection. Too bad he’s spoken for, Mollie thinks, smiling at what a lucky little bitch her friend is. Besides, Autumn and Declan are crazy for each other. Mollie finds it highly disgusting how they carry on.

  “Thanks, Deco,” she says to the Irishman, hoping her relief is not too obvious in her voice. “I appreciate the offer.”

  “That’s something you should leave to us,” Mollie hears behind her. She turns to see a cop nod at her and she can’t help it, her back instantly goes up. “Miss, we need your statement.”

  “Can’t you give her a minute, mate? She’s had a rough night,” Declan says, straightening his shoulders.

  Mollie walks away from the cop, doesn’t look him in the eyes and lets Layla fuss over her. “You should talk to them.”

  “I will.” A quick glance over her shoulder to reassure the officer. “I just need to figure out what kind of truck ran me over.”

  “Is anything missing?” The cop is young, a little pudgy around the middle, but his face is kind and if she could let the instinct of warning leave her mind, Mollie might be able to lose the bit of caution she feels seeing all the officers in her apartment.

  The thieves left her place in a mess. Her worn, green sofa is missing its cushions and the second hand steamer trunk she uses as a coffee table is open and on its side. She is thinking about the books scattered over the wood floors and how her own comic book collection has been haphazardly strewn from her now broken bookshelf, when her thoughts immediately focus on her missing DJ equipment.

  The alcove near her window is completely vacant. Stray wires from her DJ rack lay on the floor like a twisted coiled mess and speakers that thi
s morning were stacked and neat, are all missing. There are no cases of records or rows of CDs neatly arranged on the alcove shelves.

  “It’s all gone.” Mollie nods to the empty space that once held her equipment, trying to suppress the cringe on her face. She didn’t want her friends to see her so upset. “All of it. My records, my CDs, my speakers, media players, mixers, light board. Damn it. It’s all gone.”

  “So some stereo equipment is missing, anything else, Miss?” the young cop asks her.

  Mollie wants to cry. She wants the quick burn in her stomach to settle so she doesn’t feel so near to vomiting. Stereo equipment? This guy had no clue. “It’s not just stereo equipment.” She faces the cop, frowning. “I’m a DJ. It was my livelihood. There is about fifteen grand in equipment missing. It took me years and years to get this stuff together.” She picks up a cord from the floor, trying to suppress the sinking feeling in her chest. A few cords and lonely plugs is all that is left of the years she saved and bartered to build up her equipment. There was a first pressing Bessie Smith’s “Downhearted Blues” that took her two years to track down. Gone. The light board she sweet talked a retired Rolling Stones sound engineer into selling to her three years ago, yeah, that’s gone too. She wants to cry. She wants to punch something. Instead, she lowers her shoulders and levels a stare at the curious cop. He’s got a small note pad in his hand and is giving Mollie an expression that tells her he doesn’t understand what she’s getting so worked up about.

  “They took everything.” She starts to tear up, unable to suppress the quick shake in her hands. Layla is at her side, touching her elbow. “Did y’all catch them?” she asks the cop.

  “Them?” The pudgy cop moves forward, clearly surprised to discover this robbery wasn’t a one-man job.

  “Yeah. Two of them. One lifted my stuff, the other one came at me with some kind of pipe. If it had been one guy maybe I could have taken him, but I was caught off guard.”

  The cop’s pen moves in furious scribbles across the page of his small notebook and Mollie rebuffs Autumn’s immediate gestures toward her injured cheek.

  “We didn’t know about the second guy, but we dusted for fingerprints, got a few good ones. Did you get a good look at either of them?”

  “Not really. It happened so fast and they both were wearing hoods.” The sharp ache in her cheek throbs and Mollie touches the tender skin there. “The one that swung at me was a white guy from what I could tell. Tall, probably around six feet. Stocky, but not fat or built.” She sits down on her recliner, slumping. “The other one got out of here too fast for me to notice much else but his arms full of my shit.” She looks at Layla and Autumn. “Damn it. What the hell am I gonna do now?” Right then, when she looks at her friends and the small dips of worry pulling down their mouths, Mollie thinks she won’t be able to hold back her tears. God, what would Daddy say about this? she thinks. Well, he’d be angling to find those punks and kick their asses, but first, he’d tell me to suck it up. To get even, not mad. He’d tell me there isn’t time for tears. Especially not in front of a bunch of cops.

  Autumn nods Declan away and he guides the cop from them, likely grilling the man about what their next move would be. But Mollie isn’t naïve. She knows they won’t look too hard. Burglaries aren’t uncommon in Cavanagh. College town, lots of kids, it’s not unheard of and for the most part, the local cops rarely solve these cases, unless, of course, something from the University has been taken. A single girl with a bunch of “stereo equipment” won’t matter to them. She isn’t like Layla or Autumn. Her folks are nobodies and her name pulls zero weight.

  “You’ll stay with me tonight.” Layla’s voice goes soft, a bit demanding but Mollie knows the sincerity isn’t forced. Her best friend is genuinely concerned. When she starts to protest, Layla shakes her head. “No, don’t argue. You’ll stay with me and we’ll go in the morning to file your report. Walter said—” one small glare cut to Layla at the mention of her boyfriend’s name and the blonde goes mute. Mollie doesn’t like him. Layla knows this. “Anyway, we’ll figure this out.”

  “How?” Mollie knows there is a whine attached to the question, but thoughts of her having no livelihood, no means to support herself has left her at a loss. The lingering burn in her eyes quickly disappears and she is struck by a consuming sensation of anger. “I have two gigs scheduled for this weekend. Fifteen hundred a piece. That’s rent and bill money for two months.”

  “You don’t have anything saved up? What about your insurance?” Leave it to Autumn to sound like a grown up. But Mollie doesn’t snap at her friend, doesn’t pull back from her when the redhead kneels next to her and takes her hand.

  “I do, but that’s not going to last forever and the insurance claim will take at least a month.”

  Layla comes to sit on the arm of the recliner and moves the hair out of Mollie’s eyes. “What about your mom?”

  She can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of her throat. God, her mother will be freaking giddy when she hears about this. She’s forever telling Mollie about the dangers of living on her own. Not to mention the disapproving frown she always gives her when anyone mentions her DJing. “There is no way I’m asking her for shit. It’s not worth the lecture.”

  Layla opens her mouth again, likely trying to suggest something else that Mollie finds ridiculous, but Autumn cuts her off with a wave of her hand. “We’ll get it straightened out, honey. Don’t worry. Not tonight anyway.”

  Mollie bought her first mixing board at nineteen. She’d worked at Dillinger’s Mortuary for a solid year, assisting Mr. Dillinger in funeral prep because he paid her a lot of money since he couldn’t find anyone willing to work over night. Mollie hated that job, but it allowed her to save her cash quickly. When she bought that first board and landed a few gigs, she’d made enough to quit the funeral home and DJ whenever she wanted. She loved the loud thump of the music mixing with her heartbeat, the rhythmic movement of her body swaying with the crowd, with the pulse of each track. It was freeing. It was real and the sound of laughter, of cheers was worth that year of putting make-up on dead bodies and repressing bile at the sight of crash victims.

  Now, it was over. All gone. She knew it wasn’t a forever occupation, she was in college for a reason, but she wasn’t quite ready to leave it behind. These assholes came into her home tonight and rocked her world. They’d stripped away the joy she’d secured for herself, that hard fought struggle of doing something that actually left a smile on her face. It was done. Thieves came into her home and stole her freedom, took away her comfort, her solitude in this place.

  “I’ll call Marco,” his face immediately coming to mind when she thought about the other DJs and how’d they react to this robbery. “He’s been looking for some gigs and I know he’ll hear about anyone trying to sell equipment.”

  “Cavanagh is tiny, Molls. If someone’s trying to sell your stuff then you’ll hear about it,” Autumn says.

  “Who’d be stupid enough to sell it here?” It’s not what she would do. Hell, that was common sense. Her dad had taught her the finer points of selling things you weren’t supposed to have. “They’d probably try Knoxville or even Chattanooga.”

  “Come on.” Layla helps her out of her chair. “Pack a bag and let’s get you home.”

  Home. Mollie glances around her disaster of an apartment. This was her home, her first brush of independence, the first place she felt truly free from her mother’s domineering commands and expectations. Now it felt awkward and suspect. The thieves took more than her livelihood; they had taken her peace of mind.

  TWO

  Marco Martinez is a shifty character. That’s what Mollie thought the first time she met him anyway. He is too lanky, the gums of his mouth too wide, his teeth too narrow. But three years ago when Mollie got jumped outside of the club she was gigging at in East Knoxville, Marco came to her rescue. Well, she thinks as she sits next to Marco in his beat up El Camino, rescue is being overly generous. He slammed his face
against the robber’s fist over and over until the punk got bored and left. That night, Mollie took Marco to the ER and paid for the ten stitches he needed across his cheek. They’d been friends ever since.

  When he called yesterday afternoon to tell her he’d heard about a Cavanagh U drop out who’d bought her mixer and light board from a guy out of the trunk of his ‘67 Shelby, she could have kissed him. Instead, they made plans to stake out the kid in Sevierville at some fancy banquet.

  “What time is it?” she asks Marco.

  For the fourth time he looks at his cell, but doesn’t make a face or complain about her impatience. “Nine-fifteen.” When he looks at her, Mollie sees the faint scar under his cheek shine against the console light. “It’s gonna be a while, chica. Be cool.”

  “You’re funny. ‘Be cool’ he says. This asshole probably got my stuff for less than half of what I paid for it. I’m not capable of cool right now.”

  She looks out at the parking lot of this uptight-looking place and frowns. The building seems too white, the columns too high as though it belongs on some sprawling plantation estate and not on the outskirts of tourist central. There are sleek, black luxury cars lining up to drop couples decked out in finery; they all look affluent, all dressed in clothes that likely haven’t seen a rack. Without realizing she’s doing it, Mollie tugs on her plaid skirt. It is too tight, second hand, and doesn’t cover the small bruise above her knee. Her combat boots are worn on the tips and her white Ramones t-shirt is threadbare, barely covers her belly button.

  In every row of parked cars is a state trooper cruiser. Converging around the entrance are men and women dressed in trooper garb, fine blue formal suits with gold lapels and badges that gleam against the moonlight. Great, Mollie thinks. Fabulous. This idiot buys my stolen property and I get surrounded by troopers.

  When Mollie hears the sharp click of a lighter and then smells the sticky sweet whiff of a blunt, her gaze jerks to Marco.