“I’m sorry it’s so late,” she slurred. “I don’t know why I’m even calling. It’s just I’ve been out here, trying to do this thing and now all of a sudden it’s done. He’s in jail. I did it. But I don’t feel better. It was supposed to make me feel better. I’m staring at all these things on my wall and I should have done something. I should have helped them. I think I can help them now. I-I…” her voice cracked with tears. “I opened Pandora’s box and it was too much. I remember more than I thought. Maybe that’s what I have to do next. Maybe that’s what will make me feel better…” Her voice trailed off as she whispered something incoherent and then the line disconnected.
“What the hell is she talking about?” Jedda panicked, as his eyes circled the room as though one of them may have the answer.
“I don’t know,” Josh admitted, as he tucked his phone away. “I mean I guess now I know the thing she went out there to do was get Brad arrested.”
“That’s not possible,” Michael cut in. “What could she have done out there to get him arrested? She’s not capable of orchestrating something like that.”
Piper huffed out a laugh as she spoke, “I’d imagine you would have thought the same thing about me and what I was trying to do to Judge Lions. I don’t think anyone would have expected I was capable.”
“The other guy they named in Brad’s arrest is a gang banger, a notoriously violent one on the west coast,” Bobby explained, as he pulled up the information on the search engine on his phone. “He’s based out of the same area Willow is in right now. Maybe she had more to do with this than we think.”
“Did she get mixed up with them? I know she’s as stubborn as an angry mule, but could she do that?” Betty asked, her brows furrowed with worry.
“She had twenty thousand dollars,” Jules chimed in with a hushed voice as she bounced Frankie up and down rhythmically. “You can make a lot of things happen with that kind of money.”
“What else could she be talking about?” Josh asked, shrugging his shoulders. “The timing is too much of a coincidence. Brad gets arrested and then she calls me and says all that. I think she was involved.”
“If she would have been caught trying to do anything to Brad she’d be in violation of the non-disclosure agreement we signed with Thomas Angelo. I could have lost my license or ended up in jail,” Michael asserted loudly, before quieting slightly at the wave of Jules’s hand. “She can’t be that self-destructive or care that little about what happens to other people. Does she really have no conscience?”
“I’m sure it’s not that Michael,” Piper snapped as she felt a pang of empathy ring through her. “Sometimes it’s bigger than you think. You can’t just shake it and move on. Brad hurt her, brought her back to a place and a time in her life she had buried away. I can’t blame her for wanting to see him put away.”
“I understand that,” Michael seethed through gritted teeth, though his face was indicating he did not understand it at all. “I wasn’t too pleased letting him walk free either. But occasionally, and I know this is hard for you all to understand, we have to act like adults. That can mean losing sometimes for the sake of self-preservation. I don’t even want to imagine what she had to do or with whom she was associating with to pull this off.”
“And it sounds like it’s already done,” Betty emphasized, calling a quick end to Michael’s rant. “If she had anything to do with it then hopefully she’s done. What I’m more worried about is this Pandora’s box business she was talking about. She sounds like she’s a wreck out there.”
“I’m going to find her,” Josh asserted, straightening his back and looking ready to fight the arguments against it.
Bobby was the first to react. “She doesn’t really want to be found, Josh.”
“I have the phone number she called me from. Can’t you trace it? Just give me a location and I’ll go get her.”
“Me too. I’m going with you,” Jedda said, looking like he could slip into his boots and be ready in sixty-seconds.
“Stop,” Michael shot out, raising up his hands like he was directing traffic. “Jedda you can’t go out there. You are on a short enough leash as it is. You’re making incredible progress in your PTSD therapy and you’ve got a good thing going working at the restaurant. You have a routine and it’s working for you. Breaking that now, going back into an emotionally charged environment with Willow, that isn’t going to work. I’ve put my neck out for you and I need you to hear me on this.”
Jedda looked away and nervously cracked his knuckles. “She’s my sister. You heard her on that voicemail, she’s a mess.”
“I know and I don’t disagree that someone should check up on her, I’m just saying it shouldn’t be you. I’m sorry.”
Crystal took Jedda’s hands and calmed them in her own. “She’ll be okay,” she assured quietly.
“I’m going,” Josh said again, this time even more definitively. “I’ll make sure she’s okay, I promise Jedda.”
“Wait a second,” Bobby cut in again. “What happens if you go out there and she bolts? What if she doesn’t want to see you, doesn’t want anyone to know where she is and so she takes off? She’ll ditch the phone and we lose our only connection to her.”
“She called me,” Josh insisted. “That means something. I know it does.”
“She sounded drunk,” Bobby retorted, as though it discounted her call all together.
“Isn’t that when people say what they really mean? I just need her location and I promise I won’t scare her off.” Josh’s voice shifted from demanding to pleading.
“I don’t see how you can make that promise. Nowhere on that phone call did she ask for your help.”
“Bobby,” Piper interrupted, putting her hand on his tense shoulder. “I never asked you to come to New York, but if you hadn’t shown up in that alley, who knows what would have happened to me and Jules? You knew I needed you even before I knew it. We all need to be saved sometimes, even if we don’t want to admit it.”
“Careful girl,” Betty sang through a smile, “you’re starting to sound like me.”
“There are worse things, Betty,” Piper retorted, as she clamped her hand down tighter on Bobby’s shoulder and winked at Betty.
He let the corner of his mouth curl up slightly as he spoke. “I don’t know, two Bettys seems pretty scary to me.” Everyone, excluding Josh, let out a small chuckle at the idea.
The room fell quiet as they all looked from one to another. Josh finally broke the silence. “I care about her and she called me. I think she needs some help.” The heartbreakingly earnest look on his face caused a lump to grow in Piper’s throat. Despite Josh’s normally sweet demeanor, Piper could glimpse something fierce about him. And she couldn’t help but root for him. He was likely Willow’s best shot at coming out of the fog she was in.
“I’ll give you the information we have tied to the cell phone,” Bobby grudgingly relented. “But you have to be tactful. Don’t go stomping in there and telling her she has to go home. That won’t work with her. You have to be patient and give her space. If she feels pressured, she’ll run. Life hasn’t been easy on her, she’s got a broken heart and the reflexes of a wild horse.”
“You seem to know a lot about her,” Josh said torn between wanting Bobby’s opinion and telling them all to go to hell so he could get to Willow.
“I don’t. But I have a lot of experience trying to love someone like that.” Bobby wrapped his arm affectionately around Piper and looked down into her face.
“I’m sorry,” Piper demanded, narrowing her eyes as she shrugged his arm off of her shoulder. “Did you just call me a horse?”
“No,” Bobby stuttered, “I was saying you were skittish… You know what I mean. It wasn’t easy.”
“Loving me?” Piper asked, arching an eyebrow as the room let out a low rumble of laughter. She let her face break into a smile as she turned toward Josh. “He’s right. I’m giving him a hard time, but he knows what he’s talking about. E
verybody is different but I see a lot of similarities between Willow and me. Judging by that message, she’s feeling like she’s got to do something in order to feel better and that wasn’t the case. Maybe you can convince her that real happiness doesn’t come from some mission. It comes from the people you surround yourself with. It’s not captured and kept in a jar. You have to let it go to see how amazing it can be.”
“Someone get this girl an apron and stick her in the kitchen. She’s Betty Jr.,” Michael jested, scooping his daughter up and holding her high in the air as he made a silly face at her. Piper stepped forward and snatched the baby from his arms with a wide grin.
“Come on, Frankie, better come with me in case your daddy’s sense of humor is contagious. I’d hate for you to have to go through life with that burden.”
Chapter Three
Josh’s life was getting a whole new kind of perspective as he walked the streets of Southern California. He’d known he was boring, that his life was routine and stagnant, but now as he passed a transvestite on roller skates he realized how sheltered his life had been. His father had been a dedicated obstetrician for over forty years when he handed his well-established practice off to Josh. It was the passing of a torch that Josh wasn’t convinced he even wanted. Sometimes in a small town, you can get lulled into complacency and when someone offers you a complete life all boxed up and ready to take, it can be hard to turn it down. The free tuition, paid by his father and the connections he was able to maximize during his internship proved too hard to pass up. His father did everything for his future and while Josh had always been grateful, he also felt trapped.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love being a doctor, as a matter of fact, he was sure it was the exact thing he was meant to do. But being a doctor with his own practice in a small town was watching grass grow kind of dull. He’d spent some time doing rotations in the ER in his younger days and that was where he felt truly alive. The night a man came in with a chainsaw lodged in his neck was still the most thrilling seventeen hours of his life. The adrenaline. The accomplishment.
Bringing babies into the world had its own kind of excitement but lately all it seemed to do was remind him how far outside that club he was. Having kids wasn’t even on his radar yet, no matter how badly he wanted it to be. Every cute squishy-faced child he wrapped up and tucked into the new parents’ arms was a harsh reminder of how empty his life was.
The only spark of heat he’d felt lately was when he was with Willow. Something about her made him feel alive, as vital as he was in the emergency room that day. Maybe it was just the drama she brought with her or the look of need in her eyes when she and Jedda first stepped into his office for help. Maybe it was the edgy way she talked and moved that had him pulsing with excitement. Either way, he knew he needed more of it in his life. He let her stay out here alone, completely unbothered by him, for months. He went back to his routine and the excruciating boredom. But that phone call, that voicemail, had reignited his desire for her.
He looked down again at the address Bobby had written down for him. The phone they were tracing led to an approximate location that led to a lease written under an assumed name, Claudia Talaveriti. With some research, Bobby was able to uncover the fact it was a fake identity with no history. This was where Josh was headed and all he could hope was the girl who left him that voicemail was still someone who wanted his help.
He approached the apartment building that looked like a row of dismal dorms. It was three levels high, all beige and block shaped. Imperial Beach was far different than he imagined. Landing in San Diego, he judged too quickly how nice it might be where Willow was staying. The drive south had opened his eyes. The number of windows with bars on them and the number of houses in disrepair seemed to grow with every passing mile. Now as he drew in a deep breath and readied himself to walk up the cement steps toward the building he thought about what it must be like for her to live here alone.
He paused with his hand on the rusty metal door as a frightening thought hit him. What if she wasn’t alone? It wouldn’t be so strange to think that after months of being out here, maybe she’d met someone. Maybe that drunk phone call was just that, a drunk mistake. He looked up to the windows above his head and saw the cracked glass and half dismantled fire escape and convinced himself he had to find out.
The three flights of stairs were narrow and dark, each door numbered though most were missing the actual metal numbers and only the dirt that had darkened the door could distinguish where it used to be. As he reached her door, he gave himself one more out. This could be it. He could still turn around and go back home. Back to his unobtrusive office and his quiet apartment. But there was no comfort in those thoughts. Just the opposite really.
He knocked lightly on the door and then listened carefully to hear what type of footsteps might be coming in his direction. Two sets? One? There were none. He knocked again a little louder, but there was still nothing. In any other situation, it wouldn’t even cross his mind to turn the knob. But he didn’t have a backup plan. He’d rented a car to get here, but hadn’t booked a hotel. Finding Willow was his first priority and leaving here without seeing her wasn’t an option. To his surprise, the knob turned freely and the door creaked open. Who the hell didn’t lock their door in a place like this? he wondered as he stepped in quickly and shut the door behind him.
“Willow?” he said in a hushed voice, not wanting to scare her if she were here. He tiptoed through the small studio apartment and realized quickly that if he couldn’t see her, she wasn’t here. There would be no place to hide. The one room apartment left nothing to the imagination. Everything was crammed into a few hundred square feet and Willow hadn’t done anything to make the place even marginally comfortable. There was a twin bed, a small kitchenette, a desk and a chair. Her clothes were stacked up on the floor and her guitar propped against the wall. At least he was in the right place. He’d be able to spot her guitar case from anywhere, even though he’d never seen it before. She must have bought it out here. But they’d talked endlessly about music and the case had the stickers of all the bands she loved. It was like her own skin, her own identity right there propped up in the corner of the room. A little tattered but beautiful and full of soul.
He took a quick spin around the room and then his eyes settled on the wall over the desk. He had to move in close to make out what was in front of him. There were pictures of people that had been cut out of photocopies of newspaper articles. There were phone numbers and notes all pinned up together. There were hundreds of tiny slips of papers with one or two lines written on each. A handmade calendar of 1998 with events written in the different squares.
“You’re lucky I recognized your cologne,” Willow’s voice cut in behind him and sent him jumping.
“What the hell?” he barked back as he threw his hand over his racing heart. “You scared the shit out of me. You look so different.” He eyed her from her black combat boots up to her even darker hair. He noticed her cheeks flush as she pulled the wig from her head and ran her fingers through her short blond hair.
“How rude of me scaring someone who’s broken into my place. If I hadn’t known it was you, you’d be dead right now.” Willow flashed him a switchblade and then with a frightening level of expertise flipped it closed.
“Your door was unlocked. I didn’t break in. Don’t you think you should lock your door? It’s not like this is the best neighborhood.”
“Every place can’t be Edenville,” Willow snapped back. “Is that what you came all this way for? To give me lessons on home safety? How did you even find me?” Willow tossed down her bag onto her unmade bed and folded her arms defiantly across her chest.
“You called me,” Josh said, raising an eyebrow at her, wondering if she even remembered.
“No, I didn’t,” Willow insisted, but he could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t entirely sure.
“Do you want to listen to the voicemail you left me two days ago? It was pretty
unsettling, enough to make me get on a plane and come out here.”
With a roll of her eyes, a flare of recognition fell over her face. “I was drunk.”
“Yes, you were. But you still called me,” Josh said, widening his shoulders and trying to look as unmovable as possible. Hoping to appear too formidable to kick out.
“Did I ask you to come out here? Because I don’t even think drunk me would do that.”
Josh considered lying. Would she be more willing to accept his presence if she thought in a drunken stupor she’d invited him? As he thought through his decision, she answered for him.
“No, I guess I didn’t invite you since you hesitated. So then I appreciate the advice about the door and goodbye.” She gestured for him to go but he didn’t move. He thought back to Piper’s words about not pushing too hard. He’d prepared himself for a much more forceful ejection from her apartment. The fact that she hadn’t physically tried to toss him out was a good sign in his opinion.
“Is this it?” Josh asked, as he turned away from her and back toward the wall. “This is what you were talking about in your voicemail? This is Pandora’s box?”
“I said that?” Willow asked, sounding like she’d just lost her breath and she wanted to kick her own ass for the comment. She recovered from the show of weakness with a harsh rattlesnake like lunge. “It has nothing to do with you. I shouldn’t have called. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again. I don’t need you here.”
As much as those words irritated him, he found a way to look past what she was saying. “I know you don’t. I’m not here to try to convince you to go home, or even back to Edenville. I’m not trying to hook up with you or make you fall for me.”
“So why are you here?” Willow asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Because you called me and that means something to me. I know you don’t need me here and you don’t need me to help you with whatever you are trying to do, but I’d like to stay.” He felt the urge to step forward but he fought it. That is what it would be like with Willow, wanting to go toward her but waiting for her to step forward instead, and never really knowing if she ever would.
Settling Scores (Piper Anderson Series) Page 3