by Mj Fields
“Got your computer?” he asks.
I nod.
“Well, then, do the work, and if you don’t see an obvious link between them all, aside from your crew, forget you saw it. You see a connection; we take care of it before I leave for Columbia.”
Five hours later, my eyes are on fire, I’m sick to my stomach, and I have Tyler pissed at me for messaging him, insisting he stay in the house.
Gabrielle isn’t responding to my messages, but I know she’s okay. Tyler has had eyes on her.
The nuns would be proud, because I’ve never prayed more in my life, and I’ve also never wished I was wrong about something as much as I’m wishing I’m wrong about this.
Tobias sits up and looks at me. “You get any sleep?”
“No.”
“Figure anything out?”
“Fucking hope not. But I gotta ask you: any chance you’re full of shit about getting into that file?”
He shakes his head.
“Then someone else has access.”
“What the hell do you mean?” he whisper-hisses.
“I mean, I now get why you stayed clear of my sister. I now know shit about my mom I didn’t know.”
He looks down and shakes his head. “I—”
“Not pissed at you about that, Tobias, but I’m gonna ask you: did you know Gabrielle’s parents aren’t US citizens, that they haven’t been back to see her in over a year, that she hasn’t seen her mother, who she’ll never see again, in over a fucking year, and that her half-brother let Whitaker’s son do some shit to her?”
“What do you mean, do some shit to her?” he asks, which answers my question.
I shake my head. “Never mind.”
“You can’t just never mind shit like that.”
“There’s a fuck of a lot I can now never just never mind, so do me a favor and let me handle this shit.”
“Not gonna fucking happen.”
I look at him. “You find out if Whitaker’s son is in town.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“Deal with shit the best I can, and help her do the same.”
Truth sits up, stretching and yawning. “Everything okay? Anything else happen when I was sleeping?”
“How do we know? We’re in the same damn plane as you are, T.”
She reaches in the pocket of the seat in front of her. “You check the app?”
Tobias and I look at each other. “We need to check the posts; see who put them up.”
“An admin,” Truth says, scrolling through the feed.
“Pretty fucked up that everyone with admin access is with us.”
I look in the rearview mirror of Tobias’s ride and see Dad and Truth behind us. Even though Tobias and I haven’t said shit, except Gabrielle’s mom passed away and shit is sideways all along the shore, they know us well enough that they’ve both refused to stay back home with Mom, Aunt Taelyn, and Uncle Xavier. Patrick was heading to see what he could find out about Savvy, who he clearly has a thing for.
I had to promise Mom that we’d be back in time to fill our bellies and sleep off the jet lag, and I made her promise me that I’d have Gabrielle in my bed for a week solid without Dad giving me shit.
Pulling up Gabrielle’s driveway at five in the morning, I see the two moving vans still there, my vehicle parked halfway up the driveway where Gabrielle must have left it, and Ty’s old truck parked in front of them, vertically, blocking them from leaving the circular drive.
The truck isn’t even at a complete stop when I jump out, take the stairs three at a time, and pop my key in the door to open it.
Ty stands up from the chair, surrounded by at least twenty empty coffee cups littered around it and looking much like I’m sure I do with no sleep for about twenty-four hours.
“Where is she?” I ask, and he nods toward the stairs.
As I’m heading up, I hear Tobias tell him he can take off and Tyler tells him he’s hanging out.
Funny how he and I didn’t like each other less than two months ago and now he’s one of the people I would add to my crew without giving a shit that the bastard killed a man when he was sixteen. And yeah, I found that out from the ‘burn book,’ too.
When I try her door, I find it’s locked. And when I knock, she doesn’t make a peep, so I use the key to let myself in.
Looking around the room, it’s obvious she hasn’t slept in her bed, as it’s perfectly made. I open the door to what is her bathroom, but she’s not in there. Panic worsens as I open a door to a big-ass closet and hear sniffling.
“Queenie, you in here?”
I see ruffling behind a wall of gowns and spot little pink toenails sticking out for just a second until she pulls them back in.
“Gabrielle, it’s Justice, and I’m not leaving until I lay eyes on you.”
She clears her throat and whispers, “Give me a minute. Wait out there.”
“I’ll give you as much time as you need after I see your face, Queenie.”
When she peeks out and I see her bloodshot eyes and makeup stained down her cheeks, I break my promise.
When I push the dresses aside, her lip quivers, and she says, “Please, Justice.”
I reach down and pick her up. Briefly looking at the wall behind her, I see it looks like someone’s been keeping score with tally marks.
I kiss her head as I walk out into her room and sit on her bed, holding her tightly as she shakes with silent sobs.
Instinctually, I inhale her scent, and she whispers, “I stink.”
“You don’t stink, Gabrielle.”
“No more lies, right?” She sniffs.
“None, I swear on the sun.”
As eager as I am to find Whitaker and get fucking answers, to get her back to my house and make her sleep, I don’t want to let her go.
“Justice.” She sniffs, and her body shakes again in a silent sob.
“I’m right here, Little Queen, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“My mom …” She shakes a little, trying not to cry.
“I know, and I’m so sorry.”
“I didn’t get to say goodbye.”
“I wish I could change that for you. I really do.”
“I haven’t seen her in so long,” she cries into my neck.
“Gabrielle.” A male voice comes from the door, and I look up and see her half-brother. “I wasn’t aware we had even more company.”
“I’m not company,” I grit out.
“Well”—he gives me a curt smile— “I’m not sure who you are, but—”
“I’m her fucking boyfriend.”
She sits up and scowls at me.
“I find that hard to believe.” He gives a fake chuckle.
“Justice flew back from Italy—” she sniffles— “he heard about Mom.”
“You wanna tell good old Sam here what I am to you?”
“You already did.” She reaches in her hoodie pocket, pulls out a tissue, and wipes her nose.
“Dad and Truth are gonna take you to our place. Mom’s cooking up some food. Tobias and I will help Sam here with whatever he needs.”
“I can’t leave.”
“Queenie, this is one of those times I’m going to come off as possessive, but it’s the other, okay?”
“She said she wants to stay.”
“You’re welcome to come to our house and see her before you get back to where you were going.”
“This is one of those times a family needs to be together.”
“Don’t you fucking preach to me about family, you son of a bitch.”
“Justice,” Gabrielle gasps.
I stand up, still holding her, and tell him, “You’re gonna move. She’s going to get something to eat and let people who love her take care of her for a bit, and when we’re done here, you’re more than welcome to come say goodbye.”
“Hey, Gabrielle,” Tobias says from the hallway, and Sam looks back, shocked.
“Sorry I ruined your trip.” She smi
les weakly.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” Tobias says as he grips Sam’s shoulder and pulls him back.
Walking down the stairs, she tells me, “I can walk.”
“You don’t have shoes on,” I tell her as I walk toward the door where Tyler stands, holding it open.
“Thank you, Ty.” She sniffs again.
“Anytime, Gabby.” He nods.
“Ty can come over and eat with us when we’re done here.”
She nods. “Okay.”
Truth opens the vehicle door and hops out. “She can have the front.”
I slide her in the seat and buckle her while telling Dad, “She needs sleep.”
“Gotcha. Sorry about your momma, Gabs.” He leans over and pops a kiss to the top of her head.
“She died, you know.”
Dad looks up at me, concern in his eyes, and I nod, telling him, “Food and sleep.”
“See you in just a little bit, Queenie.”
“You’ll bring Sam and Ty?”
I nod. “If they don’t have other plans, then yes.”
“Oh, I remember the code to the safe now, I think. Sam and I tried to figure it out for so long and—”
“You have his phone number?”
She looks at me out of the corner of her eyes and shakes her head.
“Send it to me. I’ll make sure he gets it.”
As I shut the door, I hear her say, “I’m sorry I’m a mess.”
“You’re wearing Fendi, Gabs.” Dad winks. “I’m sporting two-day-old, transatlantic Nike.”
“My mom died.” She nods. “I already told you that, right?”
He shakes his head. “I’m really sorry.”
“I haven’t seen her in so long.” She sniffs. “I never will again.”
“Eat and sleep,” I mouth to Dad as he begins to roll up the passenger side window.
“Oh, shoot,” she says as she looks back at Truth. “Can you send Sam a message and tell him it’s 72272277 … I think?”
Before going into the house, I decide I need a few minutes to chill or I may kill Queenies half-brother.
I walk to one of the vans and open the back door. It’s packed full of artwork— paintings and vases. I take my time looking at the obviously expensive items. None of which I’ve seen before. I assume they were locked up behind one of the doors in the mansion that I’d yet to unlock and look in.
A few minutes later I hear the door to the house open.
“She was a painter,” Sam says from the doorway. “My father wanted me to bring back her work.”
I don’t say shit. I walk to the other van and open the back of it.
“She and Dad collected antiques and—”
“I don’t give a fuck what three people who leave a girl in this big-ass fucking house for nearly two years do, nor do I care what the fuck is in the back of those vans. What I wanna know is how the fuck you could all abandon a fifteen-year-old girl—”
“Not that it’s any of your concern, Justice, was it?” he asks condescendingly.
“Was and hasn’t changed, Sam. She is my concern. She’ll always be my fucking concern,” I say, stepping toward him, and Tobias steps between us.
“Now you’re gonna fill in some blanks, and if you don’t answer them correctly, I’m going to take one of those vases out of that van and smash it so you can go back to wherever the fuck it is you came from and tell your old man that he doesn’t get to have something that belonged to her, because his daughter wasn’t given the courtesy of being able to say goodbye!”
“You may want to rethink that, Justice.” Tyler glares at Sam. “Because that girl has done whatever it takes to keep the taxes on this place paid, and everything in its place for when her family comes home.”
“She has received a very healthy allowance to take care of the bills, the staff, the property, and feed her spending habits.”
“Not for nothing, but there’s been months she hasn’t had food in the fucking place.” Tobias shakes his head. “She was stealing peanut butter and bread after Thanksgiving, and I’m not thinking that’s because she was bored.”
I look at him, confused.
“Just found that out a couple nights ago.”
“Her car’s gotten repossessed a few times, too,” Tyler adds.
I walk back to the van, pick up a vase, and drop it on the brick driveway.
“You’re trespassing, and that was worth more than—”
He stops when I reach in to grab another one.
“What do you want?” he yells.
“I want you to come upstairs and look in the closet she was sitting in when I walked in, hiding behind racks of clothes, and tell me why the fuck you think—”
“She’s always had trouble sleeping. Nightmares since she was little.”
“So, you leave a girl alone in a house this size, knowing she’s got problems sleeping? Problems so big she’s hiding in a closet?”
“She has medication,” he says, and I drop the vase. “Jesus Christ, that’s more than a year’s salary for any one of you!”
I see Dad pulling up the driveway and look at Tyler and Tobias. “We need to wrap this shit up.”
Dad gets out of the vehicle and asks, “Justice, you need a broom and dust pan?”
“No, I just need about an hour alone with this piece of shit.”
“You Gabrielle’s family?”
“He’s no more family than his parents are to her.”
“You don’t know what you’re—”
I grab another vase.
“There a point in breaking shit?” Dad asks.
“Dad, I told you I can handle this.”
“Dad?” Sam laughs. “Your son is dropping fifty-thousand-dollar vases, and you’re just going to stand there and let him handle it?”
Dad looks at him, then at me, then back at him. “There a reason Gabrielle hasn’t seen any of you in a couple years?”
“It’s family business, and you’re not family.” Sam looks at him with disgust.
Dad reaches over and smacks the vase from my hand.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Sam yells.
Dad walks over and grabs another. “Try again. Tell me why Gabrielle hasn’t seen any of you in that amount of time and tell me why she’s fucking dehydrated but won’t go to the doctor because she doesn’t have health coverage.”
“She’s had plenty of money to pay her bills. If she chooses to spend it frivolously, then—”
I reach over to smack it out of Dad’s hand, but he beats me to it by dropping it.
“You stupid lowlife motherfuckers!”
Tobias shoves him with two hands, knocking him to the ground. “You remember me?”
“No, I don’t fucking remember you,” he says, jumping to his feet and pulling his phone from his pocket.
Tobias bats it away then shoves him again. “You sure about that?”
Tyler grabs his phone.
“That’s mine!” Sam snaps.
Tobias slaps him in the face. “Focus.”
“What the fuck is wrong with all of you?”
“You’re asking four guys, who all outweigh you by a good fifty pounds, what’s wrong with us?” Dad laughs. “Gonna have to ask you the fucking same.”
Tobias grabs the back of Sam’s head and walks him to Dad. “He’s fucked up.”
“I am not.”
I grab his shirt and bring him to my face. “Never done a drug in my life, but I’m pretty sure pupils aren’t supposed to look like that.”
“Well, it’s hard to stay awake all night, trying to console your sister—”
I shove him against the van. “Trying to console or get the safe combination?”
When he doesn’t answer me, I lift him and shove him against the side. “Fucking answer me!”
“Fine, I need some documents for my father so we can sell the shit you’re busting up to bury his wife!”
“Keep going,” Dad says, jacking me back.
&nb
sp; “She was sick for over a year, wouldn’t let us sell any of her precious art, wanting her only child to be taken care of while she was sick. She never got better.” He stands up and straightens his shirt. “A year’s worth of treatments cost a lot of money. So yes, there were times we couldn’t get Gabrielle the money she needed to live the lifestyle her mother wanted her to have. There were months we didn’t have enough for necessities, either. We struggled, too.”
“At least you knew why,” I sneer.
“If Gabrielle had come to Colombia, she wouldn’t have gotten the education she received here. She wouldn’t have left if her mother was ill. She would be rotting, just like we have been. Like we still are.”
“Just curious how someone who’s rotting can afford to get high as fuck.” Tyler shakes his head.
“It’s a benefit of the business I’m in.”
“You stood there, fucked up, while Whitaker’s kid beat the shit out of me,” Tobias snaps, “after you and he tormented me for weeks for not having clean clothes or nice shoes. You remember me now, shitbag?”
Sam glares at him.
“That’s right; I’m the man with all your dirty little secrets. Little secrets your strung-out buddy gave me to bury his father with. You never went to Seashore, but you were always around. Guessing you supplied drugs all up and down this coast. Also guessing that’s why you took off to Colombia when the law caught on to you.”
“I was a kid.”
“You’re still doing the same shit, man. You’re still fucked up and trying to take advantage of others.” Tobias spits on his shoes.
Two and two come together really quick, and I ask, “How fucked up were you when you let some shitbag take pictures of your sister when she was knocked out on sleeping pills?”
“I didn’t let him do that. I’m not that …” He scowls and looks down. “He took them and emailed them to his father from his home computer. He did that to set him up. And guess what? That is why Gabrielle goes to school at Seashore still when tuition isn’t paid. So don’t tell me she hasn’t had the world by the balls. Don’t tell me she hasn’t been treated like the little fucking princess her delusional whore of a mother—”
I throw a punch that knocks him on his ass, and then I lunge on him to throw another, but Dad pulls me back.
“JT, what do you or she have to gain from toying with a little bitch like him?” Dad asks.