by Tracy Sharp
Taryn was silent for a moment, her brows furrowing a little. She reached over to a small, pink address book which sat on the side table next to her. “I’m sorry, but I still struggle with this. I don’t have it in me to contact these women. I need to leave that to you.” She handed me the address book.
“You kept this all these years.” I opened the little book and slowly rifled through the pages, marveling at how neat her teenage handwriting was. Mine had always been a chicken scrawl.
“Yes. On the bottom of a memory trunk my father had made for my sixteenth birthday. I haven’t opened it since I placed it in there. I don’t think I even looked at those phone numbers. They were the first and last entries I made in that address book.”
Jack nodded silently. He reached for another cookie. He was all but fidgeting, not knowing what to say.
I stood up and offered her my hand. “Taryn, thank you. We have their maiden names here. Even if they’ve married or changed their names for some reason, we have something to go on.”
She stood, offered her hand to me and then to Jack. “Thank you.” But I didn’t think she meant it.
She wasn’t happy that we’d dug up these old bones, and was treating our meddling as something she was resigned to. Something she’d always known would come to haunt her. But there was a little relief in her eyes as well. We’d finally showed up on her doorstep, and it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be.
Perhaps she was expecting the boy she’d given up instead of us. How would she explain things to him?
“Would you like us to let you know what we find out?” Jack asked her as we stood in the open doorway, the winter chill cooling the warm room.
She gave a little shake of her head. Then she crossed her arms over her chest. “No.”
***
We decided to go back home until we had more on Adrian. We were both tired, and not much into talking. Jack found a classic rock station which came in clearly, and I leaned back in the seat and let my mind drift as I watched the indigo landscape. The snow had tapered off to a light dusting, but still shimmered in the glow of the headlights.
After a long while Jack’s husky voice broke the silence. “You okay, Kicks?”
I didn’t answer for a minute. There was no rush for one. Silence was always easy with us. “I will be. Just a bit shaky.”
“Because of the case? Or because Callahan left you?”
I stiffened. Looked at him. His words felt like a slap. “What the fuck, Jack?”
“Leah, you never talk about what’s eating you. This shit’s going to come back and bite you on the ass. Talk to me.”
“Talking doesn’t make the situation any better.”
“What will? Distracting yourself with Lucas?” He glanced at me, his eyes serious.
“Maybe.” I lifted my chin.
“Really. And how long does that balm last? About as long as it takes for the afterglow to wear off, right?”
I glared at him. “What the hell do you know about it?”
He chuckled. “I know more than you think. Been down that road myself, more than a time or two.”
“No you haven’t. You’ve always been pretty together. You always have control.”
“I didn’t always, Kicks. I used to hit the bottle pretty heavily as a kid. You know that.”
“How is that the same?”
“You don’t think it’s the same?” He shook his head slowly. “You’re in more trouble than I thought.”
I fumed beside him, because I knew he was right. But I wasn’t willing to accept that. Because if I did, that would mean I’d have to accept that I had a tad bit of a problem, and that would be the first step in trying to fix that problem. And I really didn’t want to fix it. It was the only way I knew how to calm the chaos in my brain.
I needed that problem. I needed it so badly that my hands were shaking at my sides, and I balled my fists in my gloves to try to stop the trembling.
Jack looked at me. Reached over and placed one huge hand on top of my gloved fist.
“I love you, Leah. You know? You’re the only family I’ve got.”
I bit my bottom lip and swallowed back the lump that was rising in my throat. My eyes misted and I looked back at him and tried to keep my voice even. I almost succeeded. “Right back at you, my friend.”
His hand squeezed mine. “Don’t slip too far into that abyss, Leah. Okay? Call up to me. I’ll throw you a line.”
I nodded.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
He patted my hand and turned up the radio, and we both sang along to CCR’s Bad Moon Rising, and I thanked whoever was responsible for sending me Jack all those years ago, when I’d been sinking so low that I hadn’t even cared to get back up again.
***
Shoot somebody or have sex. I was lying in my bathtub full of bubbles, one arm thrown over my eyes as I slowly breathed in the steam. Since I didn’t have anyone to shoot at the moment, the alternative was sex.
But this was the abyss that Jack had been talking about. I craved the sweet, merciful oblivion that only sexual euphoria could sweep me into.
So what?
So it was a problem.
Again, so what?
I sighed and moved my arm so that it sank into the hot water. I sank a little lower into the bubbles and stared at the tile wall ahead of me. I heard the clicking of Pango’s toenails on the hardwood floor outside of the bathroom and smiled at her as she pushed the door open and walked through. “Hey, pretty girl.”
I pushed the faucet with my big toe and let hot water dribble into the tub. Now that the door was open, I’d lose the warmth in the bathroom quick, and the water would cool off.
What I needed was to settle in with my dog, cuddle up on the couch with some popcorn, and watch TV.
But I was pissed off at everything. The people who treated pregnant women as incubators and infants as commodities, and pissed at Callahan for leaving, even though he’d stayed longer than he should have with the likes of me. Someone, who had never deserved him. He deserved better.
He’d loved me, but I never knew why, and I was suspicious of that love because I had never felt worthy of it.
A hole was opening up in my chest. It was barely closed most days. But tonight it was yawning open again and the gaping emptiness I felt made me sit up and lean over, one hand over my chest.
“Christ,” I breathed. I couldn’t take it. Not one more moment of it.
And at that very moment the heavens took mercy on me and my cell phone sang Fuel’s Shimmer from the floor beside the tub.
I wiped my hands on a corner of my towel and snatched up the phone.
I grinned. A rush of excitement moved over me.
And as I murmured his name into the cell, “Lucas”, the gap in my chest winked shut.
Chapter Thirteen
“I need to see you,” was what he’d said. What I responded to were the “need” and the “you”. So what I heard was, “I need you.” He needed me, which my wounded self-understood as, “I’m worthy, lovable, interesting and exciting.”
So I invited him to come over.
I pulled on a pair of black Levis which hugged my curves and a snug long sleeved t-shirt. I let my black hair down and shook it, running a brush through the wavy tangles, then started down the stairs, aware of the spring in my step, with Pango behind me. She knew something was up, I could tell by the quizzical look on her face. I patted her head, threw a couple of dog biscuits into the air just to watch her leap up and catch them, her mouth snapping shut each time.
I set about pacing in the kitchen while peeking out the window every few seconds. Hugging my forearms, I moved my hands up and down over them. I wasn’t cold, exactly, but I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. It was a strange feeling of wanting to leap out of it. Of wanting to get out of myself, escape for a while.
When the headlights of Lucas’s Mercedes SUV swung across my snow laden lawn, I felt a momentary revulsion
with myself. He was foreign to me. The brand spankity new, GLK 350 in pearl white, was completely at odds with who I was. The class rage I’d been nurturing since I was a child reared up and I felt like I was betraying myself. It was a ridiculous thought, considering that I’d betrayed the one person in my life who actually loved me for who I was.
I watched Lucas’s silhouette emerge from the SUV, the designer coat covering the tailored clothes, making him the most ill-fitted lover for me. But I still wanted him. Some part of me needed him, despite who he was and what he represented to me, and I couldn’t figure out why.
Some part of me sensed, in the stiffness of his shoulders, in the slightly defensive way he carried himself that he didn’t come from what he presented to the world. That somewhere inside him, fairly close to the surface, was a person who had known what struggling was about. What going without was about. That it wasn’t foreign to him and perhaps never really all that far away from him in his mind.
As he made his way to the front door, I hesitated for a moment before opening it, aware that in the action of opening the door to Lucas, I was in fact closing another door inside myself.
But the space in my chest was mostly closed for the moment, and feeling his touch, his kiss, kept it tightly closed, if only for a little while.
I opened the door just as he got to it and stepped aside, letting him in.
He kept his face tilted downward as he looked up at me, an unsure little smile on his face. The frigid cold clung to him as he walked in. “It’s downright balmy out there.”
I offered a small grin. His attempt as being light was falling flat. We both knew what he was here for, and it wasn’t pleasant chit-chat about the weather.
I didn’t bother offering him something to drink, but set about helping him with his coat, which I dropped onto the kitchen table.
“It’s warm in here,” I said, and went for his mouth. He kissed me back, releasing a sigh. As soon as his lips touched mine, my mind went foggy, and I was instantly dizzy with the wanting of him. Natural feel-good chemicals flooded my brain and made me feel drunk, and I reveled in the feeling. Everything felt good, from head to toe. I’d forgotten about the bad things in the world. About cults and baby thieves, and missing pregnant women and lovers who left you because your job had tainted you forever, and you still couldn’t stop doing it.
His hands found my waist, and then moved over my ass as I fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. A shirt I had no business touching. Yet I couldn’t seem to help myself. I pushed it off his shoulders and caught it in my hand before it dropped to the floor, where his shoes had left melted snow puddles. I placed the shirt carefully over a chair without breaking the kiss. He kicked off his shoes and his hands moved over my back, making me shiver.
Rather than letting the bottoms of his pants get wet, I took his hand and led him to the staircase leading to my bedroom. I turned as we got to the stairs and found his mouth again, taking his bottom lip gently between my teeth then moving my tongue over his. I was moving up the stairs backwards, one at a time, but the heat between my legs and the rush moving over my body wouldn’t wait.
I stopped, fumbled with the button and fly of his pants. He smiled against my mouth as he pushed them down and stepped out of them. A soft chuckle escaped his lips as he kicked them off.
“They’ll get wrinkled. I hope you don’t have anywhere you need to be,” I whispered.
“Actually, I do. But screw it.”
I turned around, going on my knees on the stairs, leaning on my elbows on a step in front of me. “Please.” I was breathless, and felt my entire body flushing.
“As you wish,” he said.
I cringed inwardly. His reserved, polite way of speaking contrasted with what we were about to do, and highlighted how fucked up I really was at that moment. But he was behind me now, sliding into me, and it didn’t matter.
He grabbed my hips and started slowly, painfully slowly, and I pushed myself back, trying to feel him more deeply in me. He pulled me back, burying himself in me, and the pleasure was almost excruciating as it moved through me. I tilted my head back and felt one hand leave my hip as he gathered a handful and pulled my head back. He began a slow, steady thrust, pounding into me.
I forgot everything. All that existed was all consuming pleasure. Of being filled by him.
I felt him grow larger inside of me, close to orgasm, and he dropped my hair and grabbed hold of my hips again, quickening his pace. Small ripples moved through me, and I felt myself closing rhythmically around him, until my own luscious orgasm crashed over me. I closed my eyes, leaned my forehead against my arms, and cried out, letting benevolent rapture cradle me and rush me away.
***
Most people feel the afterglow as a relaxing, sedating, wonderful thing. I feel it as coming down from a high. Without the euphoria numbing me, the empty feeling, the feeling of loss, seeps back in. I feel hung over. When I was with Callahan that feeling faded for a while to an occasional, barely noticeable dull ache, which most times wasn’t even there. I felt safe with Cal. Emotionally safe, because I knew he’d never hurt me. But he was gone now, and that empty feeling was back, full force.
The beginnings of a splitting headache started taking hold, but I tried to stave it off with conversation. “So tell me, are you from around here. I really don’t know much about you, Luke.”
He blinked, clearly not used to being called “Luke.” “Not far from here. Harland, actually.”
I felt my brows lift. He didn’t look up at me, and his body seemed to stiffen.
Harland isn’t known for having a lot of money, though there were some gorgeous old houses in the area surrounding the town park. The kids from my area used to call it Park Avenue. “Which part? The Park Avenue?” I smiled.
He was silent for a moment. “No. Riverfront.”
It was my turn to blink. Riverfront was the working class area. If you continued down that road to just before it turned off onto Blackwater, you would be in the poor area.
My surprise must’ve shown on my face, because he glanced down again, leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “I come from the worst part, Leah.”
“Hey, it’s okay. I don’t come from much either, Lucas.”
I detected shame in his downcast eyes. He’d made a mint with his firm, and with the books and television appearances he’d made. Still, he would never shake where he’d come from.
I wear where I come from like a badge of honor. Something I survived and am damned proud of. Apparently this wasn’t true for him.
I could only imagine what his current house looked like. But then I didn’t want to know. If it looked anything like what I thought it might, it would do a dandy job of separating me from him in every way. Shiny things are lovely, and Lucas had earned them, every single one of them. But they were alien to me. It would remind me of how far apart we really were. Worlds apart. I couldn’t relate to it. He’d pretty much instantly become alien to me. And although that might be for the best, it wasn’t what I wanted. It would be a shame.
“I just don’t have a lot of fond memories of that time.” He looked down at the stairs.
“I hear you. But then, it’s made you who you are.”
He nodded, gave me a small smile. “That it has.”
“You save lives, Lucas. You do a lot of people a world of good, you know that.”
“I do. And I’m so grateful and honored to be able to do that. I just don’t like visiting memory lane.”
“Okay. Got it.” No discussing his childhood with him or where he’s from. Christ. The guy would be next to impossible to get to really know.
Perhaps that was the point.
Hello unavailable, noncommittal male.
I’d met my match.
Chapter Fourteen
Jack had dug up two of the women from Taryn’s address book. One of the women had agreed to come to our office. Hailey Jacobs. She had a new life now, and didn’t want her past to come bleeding in
to it. I was certain that it had already bled into it, and had left crimson stains all over her new life. You can’t just shove pain away and expect it not to come back and bite you on the ass. It came back in all kinds of insidious ways. I was living proof of that.
She stood in our office now, brushing a blonde lock of hair behind her ear. She was a gorgeous woman. Leggy and regal, with perfect posture as she regarded Jack and I with a look that suggested that we were more than pains in her well-shaped ass. This woman put time in at the gym.
“Thank you for coming, Mrs. Jacobs,” Jack said to her, by way of trying to break the ice.
She shifted her weight to one leg, making her hip strain against her fitted grey skirt. “What do you want, exactly?” She wasn’t screwing around. She wanted us out of her sight and out of her life as soon as possible.
“We don’t want to intrude on your life, Hailey. We just need some information about Adrian Mandell. You were in that home for pregnant girls eleven years ago. Can you tell us what you experienced there?”
She pinned me with an icy glare. “What do you think I experienced there?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t a laugh riot,” I said. “Taryn says it was a nightmare.”
She watched me for a moment, her gaze warming slightly. “How is Taryn?”
“She’s doing fine,” I said. “She’s a school teacher. She has a new life, just like you do.”
“Have a seat,” Jack said, gesturing to a chair beside his desk.
She looked at the chair, hesitated, then the fight seemed to seep out of her and she sat. “Taryn made my stay there bearable. She was a really nice girl.”
“She’s a very nice woman,” I said. “How did she make it more bearable?”
Hailey fiddled with a fingernail. “She was warm. She reached out to me. Most of the girls there were too frightened. Commiseration wasn’t exactly encouraged.”