Pinups and Possibilities

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  He was okay. At least for now.

  I turned a pleading gaze in my captor’s direction. “Can we at least—”

  Cohen cut me off. “Whatever you’re going to ask, save it. You’ve seen him. That’s enough for now. We’ll see how things are in the morning. Maybe you can eat your oatmeal together.”

  I slumped onto the bed, defeated.

  “Polly?”

  I looked up. Cohen had paused at my door.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you figure out that you’re the one who destroyed Painter, all those years ago?”

  “I just met Painter this week.”

  “Well. I guess that answers that.” Seconds later, he was gone, and a deep sense of dread slowly pooled in my stomach.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Painter

  “Goddammit,” I said out loud to the empty room.

  I rolled over on the bed, bringing into view the envelope full of cash. I’d been riding a guilt-laden low since the second I walked out of Cohen’s front door, and the sight of it made me feel a hundred times worse than I already did.

  Why am I feeling anything at all?

  I shook my head and flopped to my back, but my brain wouldn’t shut off.

  Why didn’t I take off the moment Cohen cut me free?

  I’d had hours to get out of town. I’d been dying to be rid of the man since he came into my life. Instead of getting the hell out of dodge, though, I’d checked myself into a hotel room just a few miles from his house in the country.

  I sat up and eyed the bottle of Scotch.

  Celebration, my ass.

  I was sure Cohen gave it to me as a cruel joke. Was it the same brand as the one I’d consumed before crashing into and killing the girl? Probably.

  I opened the bottle and took a cautious sniff. It smelled like battery acid. Still, it would do the trick. It would numb the rattle in my head and help me to get past…whatever the hell it was I needed to get past.

  I poured a small amount into one of the hotel-logo-inscribed mugs. I took a deep breath, shut my eyes, brought the cup to my lips, and tossed back the fiery liquid. As soon as it met with the tongue, Polly’s face floated to the front of my mind. There was something off about the memory, though, and my throat closed involuntarily. I was forced to spit the majority of the Scotch back into the mug. I stared down at it, trying to pinpoint what was different about the Polly in my head and the Polly in my life.

  I sucked back a tiny sip of the Scotch, swirled it through my mouth, and closed my eyes once more. The memory that hit was vivid and seemingly unrelated to Polly.

  A screech and a smash, followed by the blare of a car alarm, dragged me from an unconscious state to a semi-conscious one. I waited for the sound of sirens to come, as it so often did, but the alarm just continued its insistent shriek.

  I fought to wake up more fully, and to make sense of what I heard. I took a shallow breath. The air around me was cool and crisp and full of rain. Suddenly the smell of fire overrode it all. It wasn’t rustic, campfire scent that I associated with my childhood. It was different. It wanted to be absorbed into my pores and it wanted to fill my lungs.

  Where the hell am I? I wondered.

  The day’s events came flooding back.

  My dad’s funeral. The long drive out to this secluded road. The bottle of Scotch. The spiral of thoughts that led me to the spot—emotionally and physically—that I was in, right at that moment.

  My father was dead, and I’d never be able to ask him if he was proud of me. I’d never be able to make up for it if he wasn’t.

  I peeled my eyes open and stared at the night sky, dotted with stars. They were so pretty to me that I knew I must be beyond pissed drunk. They actually made me temporarily forget the fire smell. Until the lick of orange flames danced across the periphery of my vision.

  I sat up and the world spun.

  Definitely drunk, I concluded.

  Except when I turned my head, the flames were still there. In fact, they were brighter and more real.

  “Holy shit!” My voice carried through the air.

  The source of the screech and the smash and the gasoline-tinged fire scent were one and the same. My truck was on fucking fire. I forced myself to my feet and took a stumbling step toward it. As I got closer, I realized it wasn’t just my vehicle burning. An expensive grey sedan was crushed against my truck’s front bumper, its hood totally obliterated. The fire was highest inside the cab of my truck, with the flames reaching from the seats to the roof, but the engine appeared to be smouldering already, too. As I watched, a blue-tinged flame flicked from up from underneath the windshield wipers and played across the front window. I tried to blink away both four hours of straight whiskey and the bizarre scene in front of me. It didn’t work. The car didn’t disappear and the flames continued to crackle.

  I scratched my head. “I am totally screwed.”

  Then I saw her. Dark hair spread across the steering wheel, pale skin made paler by how still she sat. I stood there staring for a too-long moment before I clued in that she wasn’t safe.

  “Hey!” I hollered stupidly. “You gotta get up!”

  She didn’t move.

  Do something, asshole. The command came from some small, sober part of my brain, and it spurred me into action.

  I ran toward the two vehicles. I yanked on the driver’s side door handle. Locked. I slammed both hands against the girl’s window. It was completely unyielding. My banging also had no effect on the woman behind the wheel.

  I took a step back, and as I did, a sneaky green-and-yellow flame appeared inside the open glovebox of the car. In a burst of orange, it lit up a stack of papers that fanned out from the glovebox, then raced across them and began to burn the passenger seat. Smoke filled the car more quickly than I thought possible.

  Jesus.

  Hastily, I slipped my T-shirt over my head, wrapped it around my arm and slammed it into the window with a much force as I could. Nothing. I scanned the ground for a branch, a rock, anything that might help me break in. Nothing again.

  I shot my eyes heavenward.

  Please help me, I prayed.

  I looked back toward the mashed together vehicles. The front, driver’s-side tire suddenly popped and hissed, and the car vibrated and sank down several inches. My eyes found the cracked windshield.

  “Okay,” I muttered.

  I took a running leap at the crumpled hood of the sedan, ignoring the searing heat that hit me as I did it. I stood there unsteadily for a moment before catching my balance, then brought up one of my booted feet and drove it into the glass. It groaned under the impact. A thousand tiny fractures appeared where my boot hit, and relief surged through my body. I drew my foot back again and pushed my heel into windshield once more, and it shattered.

  I bent down and fought through the shards of glass to find the girl’s seat belt. The fire was moving faster now. The passenger seat was engulfed, and any minute, the flames were going to make their way to the driver’s side. I gritted my teeth against the agonizing heat next to me as I continued to hunt for the belt clasp.

  Thank God I’m wasted, I thought. Or this might really fucking hurt.

  My hands finally closed over the latch, but they immediately recoiled as the metal stung my palm.

  “Hot, hot, hot,” I muttered, and tried again.

  I found it a little quicker this time, and I clicked it open, momentarily triumphant before realizing the battle was only half over. I still had to get the girl out.

  I slid from one side of the steering wheel to the other. I shouldered aside the jagged edges of the windshield, fully aware that I was going to regret the self-abuse in the morning, and reached past the girl to depress the lock. As quickly as I could, I retracted myself from the car, jumped to the ground and came back around to the door. I yanked on the handle and as I flung it open, the girl fell sideways, and I had to catch her slumped form.

  I dragged her from the car and laid her down carefully o
n the pavement. I was breathing heavily and every part of my body hurt.

  I wasn’t done yet, though. I came to my knees and pressed my head into the girl’s chest. It rose and fell slowly but steadily, and I leaned back, incredibly relieved that she was alive. I brushed back her dark hair from her face. A tiny piece of glass was embedded just above her left cheekbone, and before I could stop myself, I reached down and pulled the shard away. A bubble of crimson quickly took its place.

  “Hey!”

  The voice, thick with concern, made me jerk my head up.

  A man with a white beard stood outside a dark-coloured sedan. His face was still with shock. His eyes found the girl, then me, then the girl once more.

  “She’s okay,” I muttered.

  “Like hell she is!”

  “She’s breathing.”

  “What are you doing here? No one was supposed to be here!”

  “Usually, no one is here. But I had a bad day. Then she crashed into my car,” I replied.

  I was vaguely aware that the slur was back in my voice and also vaguely aware that with adrenaline wearing off, parts of me were starting to hurt. Badly. I tried to stand up, stumbled forward, and the older man caught my arm. When he helped me to my feet, he really caught sight of me. His eyes travelled the length of my body in a clinical manner, then widened further and grew even more concerned.

  “You’re in need of serious medical attention.”

  I jerked my head toward the girl, ignoring the way it made every nerve ending on one side of my body light up painfully. “She needs it more than I do.”

  “Maybe as much as you,” he told me. “But not more.”

  “I’m calling an ambulance,” I announced. “And the cops.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Why not? My dad was a cop. I’d call him. But he died.”

  I reached into my pocket, fumbling for the phone I knew was in there somewhere. My entire left side was screaming with pain, and as my hand slid to my jeans, I brushed my hips and I had to stifle a holler.

  “I’ll help you,” the man said. “Give me the phone.”

  Something about his voice made me think he had no intention of helping me at all. We stared at each other until a groan came from the girl’s car, and then both of us turned toward the crash site. With a heave, the hatchback collapsed and the flames burst outward.

  I turned back to the older man just in time to see him raise one of those steering-wheel immobilizers and aim it for my head. I heard him mutter an apology as he swung, and then the world went black.

  My eyes jerked open. My breathing came fast and hard, making my throat burn. My eyes sought something solid, something reassuring. Anything that would tell me I wasn’t going crazy.

  The man was Howell. And the girl…the girl was Polly. No fucking doubt about it.

  The memory was brand-new and six years old at the same time. It was her in the accident. I jumped to my feet and paced the room. There was no way in hell Polly knew about my involvement in her accident. Because if she had…

  “No,” I said out loud to myself. “She wouldn’t have let me go on believing I’d killed her.”

  She was too selfless for that.

  Then my brain finally caught up with what the words I’d said really meant.

  I’m not a murderer. I never killed a girl in a drunken stupor.

  I stumbled backward and caught a hold of the dresser just before I fell to my knees.

  Everything Cohen had told me, every manipulation, all of it was utter bullshit. The past six years of my life were a lie. All this time, I’d been chasing the other’s man’s demons. All this time, I’d been running from my own. And now, to find out that it had all been based on a deception…I felt idiotic, yes. Used, undoubtedly. Furious, absolutely. But overwhelming all of those emotions was relief.

  I hadn’t killed the girl. She’d grown up, become a woman. And for that, I was deeply thankful.

  It didn’t make me perfect. Instead of facing the consequences of what I’d done, I chose to work for Cohen. In the six years I did that, I’d witnessed crimes and walked the line of committing them myself. It didn’t matter that I’d thought I was giving myself a worse punishment or saving my father, or whatever excuse I wanted to cling to. The truth is, I was terrified of looking at my own reflection and owning what I’d thought I’d done.

  And now you can wash your hands clean of the whole thing, I told myself.

  Except I couldn’t. Because the same girl who I’d thought I’d killed was the girl who I wanted more than anything else in the world. The girl I loved.

  The girl who’d made me believe that in spite of everything, I might deserve a second chance.

  Shock melted quickly into fury, which melted in resolve.

  I’m going to kill that asshole.

  I gripped the dresser and used it to pull myself to my feet.

  No, I amended. I’m going to do something much worse. I’m going to tell Polly the truth, then I’m going to take both her and his son from him.

  * * *

  I stood outside Cohen’s house in the nearly pitch-black, counting the guards and waiting for a break. One good thing about the man was that he was consistent in all things. His blind ruthlessness. His overconfidence. And in this case, his protection detail.

  Cohen hired based on two things—brute strength and sociopathic cunning. It was often a deadly mix, and it generally served him well. Intimidate those who could be intimidated and dispose of those who couldn’t.

  Neither will work with me, though.

  I was already way closer to the house than anyone should be, and I knew how Cohen’s system worked.

  Two men prowled the grounds, using their unmarked sedan as a meeting place every thirty minutes. I knew without checking that Cohen would have another man positioned at each of four outside doors.

  He’d not have left Polly totally unguarded, either. Unlike Smith, he wouldn’t underestimate her just because she was a woman. Jayme though…

  I tapped my chin thoughtfully. I was close enough to see one of the men outside light a cigarette, and close enough to smell the exhale. I watched him relax and lean against the car.

  I was sure Cohen didn’t know a damned thing about kids. Would he have someone outside Jayme’s door? Maybe. Would it be somebody I couldn’t handle? Unlikely.

  I stared up at the second-floor windows. I knew which one belonged to Cohen. I knew which room was Polly’s. Cohen had been careful to walk me past it so I could see how close to his bed she’d be.

  But Cohen would’ve placed Jayme as far away from her as possible.

  So I turned my gaze to the other corner. Two of the three windows glowed a little behind the blinds. A third was dark.

  That one has to be it, I decided.

  The second outdoor guard came skulking around the side of the house. He joined the first, lit his own cigarette and said something that made the first man chuckle darkly. They angled themselves toward each other, paying no attention to the house or its perimeter.

  So I made my move. Casual and calm-as-you-please, I sidled up to the bushes on the edge of the driveway, and walked straight past the two men at the car. I kept going, right up to the front steps. Then I stopped, cut sideways, and pushed my way past a vine-laden trellis. I was flush against the exterior of the house with barely an inch between my body and the wood siding.

  In the months that I’d been holed up at Cohen’s—not yet fully physically rehabilitated, but no longer bedridden—I’d had a lot of time to kill and spent it exploring the exterior of the garden. Anything was better than being cooped up inside with Cohen’s questionable friend set.

  I’d noticed the little inconsistencies in the structure of the home almost right away. A wall too wide here. A step too narrow there. Then I’d started on the inside and found even more odd things. Closets that were half as small as they should be and hollow-sounding spots on the floors.

  With great subtly, I deduced that Cohen was cluel
ess. Then it didn’t take me long to find the series of hidden passageways and secret rooms.

  Now, I slid my hand up the wall until I found the unnatural, waist-level notch, and pushed my fingers into the depression. When they closed around the latch there, I pulled gently to reveal the hidden door. I slipped inside the narrow space, barely big enough to hold me, and closed the exterior door. The second I did, a click sounded at my back. I waited. In just under a minute, the whir of gears signalled that the false panel behind me was lifting. I exhaled thankfully when it rose all the way up. Once before it had jammed halfway, and it had been very difficult to get it unstuck. It took me a sore, sweaty hour to get to the other side.

  As fast as I could go while still keeping quiet, I jogged through the wall space, then up a narrow set of stair to the second floor. When I reached the top, I paused.

  Polly first? Or Jayme?

  My instincts told me it had to be the boy. Even if it hadn’t been for the fact that Polly would never forgive me for coming after her first, I knew it had to be him. If I had a chance to get him out, to stash him before Cohen noticed anything was wrong, I had to do it. If we did get caught…it was far better that Polly or I face Cohen than Jayme. My heart twisted at the thought of the tyrant anywhere near the kid.

  I moved through the walls at a near run.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Polly

  The digital clock in my bedroom—the same one that had been there when I lived with Cohen—clicked over to midnight.

  Time to move.

  After a very long five minutes of panic, the plan had come to me.

  I’d had to wait long enough for the men outside my door to conclude that I wasn’t going to try to break through the door in a crazy attempt to get away.

  After ten minutes of silence, they’d relaxed enough to have a casual conversation that carried through the walls.

  Three hours had gone by, and the last time they checked in on me, five minutes earlier, I’d feigned sleep. I knew I had more than time to go through with my escape plan.

  Except my feet didn’t want to move.