by Brenda Novak
* * *
The steady beep of a heart monitor sounded in the otherwise quiet hospital room. Mack sat near his father, who was attached to all kinds of medical equipment. It was just the two of them; his brothers had gone home. They had families to worry about and/or they had to work in the morning, so Mack was the logical choice to sit up with J.T. through the night. He’d agreed to call the others if their father took a turn for the worse, but Mack was hoping that wouldn’t happen. The doctor had said, barring anything unforeseen, like an infection, J.T. had a decent chance of surviving.
Mack wondered how long it would be before J.T. could talk and tell them what had happened. The police hadn’t yet located Anya. He’d called them just a few minutes ago to check. And she wasn’t picking up her phone. He’d tried her at least ten times, but Officer Howton, one of the better officers on the force, told him that her phone had been found in J.T.’s house, which wasn’t comforting. That, if nothing else, proved she’d been there, and very recently.
He closed his eyes to give them a rest and was drifting off when his phone vibrated in his pocket. After his father’s surgery, they’d moved J.T. into a section of the hospital where there was cell service—which came as a relief since it was frustrating to be cut off—but Mack didn’t want to talk in his full voice in case it would disturb J.T. right when he most needed the rest.
Straightening his leg to be able to dig out his phone, he saw that it was Grady and left the room before answering.
“What’s going on?” he said once he was in the hallway. “What’re you doing up so late? You were supposed to go home and get some sleep. You told Dyl you’d open the shop tomorrow at seven.”
“And I will. But I’m too pissed off to sleep right now. I’ve been driving around, looking for that bitch, Anya.”
Mack winced at his brother’s response. Whatever courtesy they’d extended to Anya was gone. She’d bitten the hand that fed her, and that was so disloyal and unappreciative that his brothers would never forget it, never offer her help or protection again. “The police will take care of her, Grady.”
“Fuck the police!” he said, instantly enraged by Mack’s more tempered response. “Since when have they ever done anything for us? Even if we had a better relationship with law enforcement in this town, they aren’t going to waste their time if it gets too difficult. And it might already be ‘too difficult.’ If she’s left the area, it’s not as if anyone on the force is going to go after her. They’re going to clock out when their shifts end and go home to their families.”
Mack and his brothers had a deep distrust of the authorities, especially in Whiskey Creek. What with J.T. going to prison and Dylan taking over when he was young, hotheaded and defiant, they hadn’t had the best interactions with the law. They’d been dealing with a small force to begin with, and the old chief had tried to make an example out of Dylan, so there’d been a lot of friction over the years. “They won’t have to go anywhere. If we all just bide our time, she’ll come back.”
“Why would she come back and risk going to prison?”
“She lives here.”
“Doesn’t matter. Now that she’s shot Dad, there’s nothing for her here except possible arrest. She’s on disability, so she doesn’t have a job to return to. She rents a room in a house filled with other druggies and doesn’t have many belongings—none she couldn’t replace. She could easily drive off in that rattletrap piece of shit she owns—which is ironic because she wouldn’t have a vehicle at all if we hadn’t provided it for her—and head to Sacramento or LA, someplace much bigger than here, where she could dye her hair and drop out of sight. But I won’t let that happen.”
Mack swallowed a sigh. His brothers were always quick to defend the family. That was how they’d survived. And even though J.T. had caused a lot of what they’d been through, he was one of their own. “Don’t worry. I think Dad’s going to make it.”
“She’s not going to get away with this, even if he does. Call Natasha and tell her if she hears from her mother she’d better contact us immediately. After all, we’ve done more for her than Anya has, at least in the past fifteen years. We—”
“Grady,” Mack broke in.
“What?” he said, sounding surprised to be interrupted.
“Don’t ever threaten Natasha.”
This statement was met with silence. Then Grady said, “Wow. You sound pretty adamant. But you’d never choose her over us...”
“I don’t know what happened,” Mack responded. “So I’m reserving judgment. But even if it was Anya who shot him, Natasha had nothing to do with it.”
“Oh shit,” Grady said. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you. That’s what the past couple weeks have been about. Now that Natasha’s divorced, you’re going after what you’ve wanted all along.”
“So?” Mack said.
“Really, Mack? It’s got to be her?” Grady cried. “Why, for God’s sake?”
“Because she’s the only woman I’ve ever loved,” he said and disconnected.
* * *
Natasha danced until she was breathless and her feet hurt. And just for good measure, she had another drink. She couldn’t remember a night when she’d forgotten about medicine and her family and acted as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She’d needed just that, but she had to work in the morning, so she couldn’t let go entirely. Around eleven, she told Roger she had to go home and allowed him to drive her since she knew better than to get behind the wheel. She could walk to The Blue Suede Shoe to reclaim her car in the morning. It wasn’t that far. She’d just have to leave thirty minutes earlier.
Roger had been a congenial companion. He’d danced with her, talked with her, laughed with her. And he hadn’t brought up her background even once. She was relieved about that, hoped they were through with that subject forever.
Once he pulled into her drive, he mentioned coming in for a final drink, but she knew he was hoping for more than she’d ever be able to offer him. He was lonely, wanted a relationship. And he’d been interested in her from the beginning. But she’d never really loved anyone other than Mack, and she wasn’t going to make the same mistake she’d made with Ace by settling for less. She’d rather be single for the rest of her life.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “But I think we’d better call it a night.”
“As long as I leave by midnight, we should get enough sleep to be able to work tomorrow,” he said, pressing her.
She rested a hand on his arm to show that she was trying to be as gentle as possible. “I’m not open to a relationship, Roger. I don’t want to give you false hope.”
He seemed surprised by her honesty. “You’re not attracted to me?”
“That’s not it at all,” she replied. “You’re a very nice man. It’s just that I’m in love with someone else.”
“Your ex?” he guessed.
“Sadly, no. I don’t think I was ever truly in love with my ex. That was the problem,” she said and got out of the car.
It wasn’t until they’d both waved and he’d driven away that she realized there was a light on in her house. The sun went down so late during the summer that she hadn’t even thought to turn one on when she left. She’d been too eager to find some way to get through what promised to be a very difficult evening.
Had Mack returned?
His vehicle wasn’t in sight. There were no vehicles parked at her place.
She climbed up to the porch and peeked in through a crack in the blind.
She couldn’t see anyone, but she thought she heard noises coming from within.
She pressed her ear to the door. Yes, she heard movement. What was going on? Someone was definitely in her house!
Heart pounding, she grabbed her purse, intending to get her phone so she could call 9-1-1, when she saw someone peering out the other window. With a yelp, she jumped back so fast she
nearly fell down the stairs. Then she realized the face staring out at her belonged to her mother.
Since she’d dropped her purse, she picked it up as Anya unlocked and opened the door. “Mom! What are you doing here?” she asked. “And how’d you get in?”
“Luckily, I found the spare key.”
Because Natasha had hid it where Anya had always hid hers—not that Anya had ever bothered to lock their house very often, when they had one. But... “Where’s your car?” she asked, still confused.
Her mother looked pale and rattled herself as she stuck her head out and looked both ways down the street. “I parked it a few blocks away and walked.”
Natasha was growing sober very quickly. “Why?”
Anya waved her in. “Because they’ll be looking for it. Hurry and come inside, where we can talk.”
“Looking for it,” Natasha repeated. Who was her mother talking about? Why would she feel the need to leave her car and walk to the house? Natasha figured Anya must be having a paranoid delusion brought on by the drugs she took. She’d had episodes like that before.
But then she saw the blood on her mother’s clothes and felt her heart drop to her knees. “Oh no,” she whispered. “What happened?”
“I think he’s dead,” she said.
Twenty
Frightened by what she was both hearing and seeing, Natasha grabbed Anya by the shoulders. “Who’s dead?”
“There was so much blood pooling around his body.” She shuddered. “I’ve never seen so much blood. Oh, God!” she wailed. “He must be dead.”
How Anya had managed to drive for so long—and find the new house—while in such a state was a complete mystery. “Mom, look at me,” Natasha told her. “Who must be dead? What are you talking about?”
Tears welled up in Anya’s eyes when she finally caught and held Natasha’s gaze, and for a moment, she grew lucid. “J.T.”
“How? What happened to him?”
“I don’t know.” She lifted her hands to wipe her tears, saw the blood on them and nearly swooned. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it.”
Anxiety caused Natasha to raise her voice. “Do what?”
Anya reacted as though it should be obvious by now. “Shoot him!”
Natasha felt her mouth fall open. “J.T.’s been shot?” The way Anya had been talking, Natasha had assumed he’d been in an accident or gotten in a fight. He had such a temper. Mack and the other Amos brothers acted as though he hadn’t been that way before prison, but she hadn’t met J.T. until after he got out, and the man she knew definitely had anger management issues.
Her mother’s eyes glazed over as she crumbled onto the couch and began to rock back and forth.
Natasha stood over her. “Mom? I’m talking to you. How did J.T. get shot?” And did Mack know about his father? What about Dylan and the others?
No answer.
Kneeling, Natasha got right in her face. “Look at me! Tell me what happened.”
She finally came to herself again. “I don’t know. I—I can’t remember.”
“Then tell me what you do remember.”
She began to wring her hands. “There’s not much to tell. I came home and...and found him lying on the floor.”
“You came home from where?”
Her mother didn’t seem to have a response. The question itself alarmed her, which came off as odd as everything else about this.
“Where were you before you came home, Mom?” Natasha repeated.
“I went to get something.”
“What? Groceries? Gas? Drugs?”
“Groceries.”
She spoke as if she’d chosen from the list Natasha had provided, which gave Natasha the impression it wasn’t true, but she was too eager to get the rest of the story to focus on that small detail. She just needed an anchor to get things started, would go back to that. “And then what?”
“I walked in and...and there he was in the entryway. I tried to lift him, to talk to him, to see what happened. But he was so heavy. Too heavy.”
“If there was a lot of blood, how do you know he was shot? How do you know it wasn’t something else that was causing all that blood?”
Anya shook her head. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. He could’ve been in a fight, could’ve been stabbed—”
“The gun was right there. I saw it.”
Natasha sat on the couch next to her while struggling to process what she’d learned. “Please tell me you called for help right away.”
“I did.” She stared at some point across the room. “I called 9-1-1.”
“And what did the paramedics say when they arrived?”
Fresh tears began to streak down her cheeks. “I didn’t wait for them. I panicked and...ran. I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me. That they’d think I did it.”
A chill went through Natasha. “Why would they ever think that?”
“Because I was the only one there!”
“But running will only make you look more guilty!”
“I didn’t shoot him,” she said again. “You have to believe me, Tash. I would never do anything like that.”
Natasha wanted to believe her. But could she even trust that Anya accurately remembered what had happened?
Part of Natasha—the part that sympathized with J.T. and Mack and his brothers—was outraged by the fact that Anya had left J.T. like that. But on the off chance that her mother was telling the truth, she deserved to have someone listen to her, didn’t she? At the very least, her own daughter should do that. “When was this?”
“Earlier.”
“When?”
Her mother got up and began to pace. “Do you have a cigarette?”
“Of course I don’t. I’m a doctor.”
“I’m shaking. I can’t concentrate. I—I have to have a cigarette.”
Natasha needed Anya to remain sharp and focused, and for that she was willing to forgo the whole “smoking isn’t good for you” argument and simply accommodate her. “Do you have a pack in your purse?”
“I don’t know where my purse is.”
Natasha glanced around. “I don’t see it. You must’ve left it in the car. We’ll go look. But first, answer my question. When did you find J.T.?”
“I don’t know!” she said, growing even more agitated. “About three o’clock, I guess. J.T. wanted me to...to go with him to watch Kellan at football practice. He was mad that I was going to make him late.”
How did she know he was mad if he was already shot and bleeding on the floor when she got there?
Natasha hoped Anya had a good answer for that, that she’d spoken to him on the phone or something they could prove, if necessary. “Did you have an argument?”
Anya hesitated before she said, “No. I told you. I found him on the floor when I got there.”
Leaning forward, Natasha squeezed her forehead. Was J.T. dead? Had Mack been given the news that his father had been shot?
He had to know by now. She felt terrible for him. She knew he struggled to respect J.T., but he’d already lost his mother.
Why hadn’t he called her? Why hadn’t any of the Amos brothers called her?
The memory of the past few hours, drinking and dancing to loud music, flashed through her mind. Maybe they’d tried while she was at the club.
She felt damp, clammy even though it was plenty cool in the house as she reclaimed her small clutch, which she’d put on the counter when she walked in, and dug out her phone. Sure enough, she’d missed several calls. One from Dylan, one from Aaron, two from Rod, and there were multiple missed calls from Grady.
But none from Mack.
Feeling strange and a little shaky herself, she began to listen to the various voice mails.
Dylan: Hey, Tash. Listen, I need to talk to you, okay? Call me w
hen you can.
Rod: Have you heard from your mother? If so, can you please let me know where she is?
Grady: Are you kidding me, Tash? We’ve been good to your mother. You know we have. And this is how she repays us? If you hear from her, you’d better give us a call and tell us where we can find her.
Grady again: Where are you? Why aren’t you picking up? Avoiding me is only making me madder. I hope you know that. If she did this, she’s going to prison. You can’t protect her. Mack can’t protect her. No one can protect her.
That Grady would suddenly treat her like an enemy stung. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She wasn’t even sure her mother had. The only thing she knew for sure was that Anya had once again put her in a terrible situation.
She’d also missed a number of texts from the Amos brothers. Dylan: CM... Grady: Why aren’t you answering?... Aaron: Tell me she didn’t do it.
It was so late Natasha felt she might, without looking too bad, be able to put off returning their many calls and messages until morning. But time was ticking away and soon she’d have no excuse. If she didn’t respond fairly soon, the battle lines would be drawn, and she’d find herself standing on her mother’s side—against the men who’d protected her from Anya and Anya’s lifestyle at a very critical point.
“Did anyone see you at the grocery store?” she asked. “Do you have a receipt? Anything to prove the time you were there?”
Anya seemed too flustered to be able to remember. “What about that cigarette?”
“In a minute. Do you have a receipt? Maybe in your purse?”
She stared at her bloodstained fingernails as though they didn’t actually belong to her. “I don’t know.”
“Have you heard from Dylan or any of his brothers?”
“I don’t have my phone. I—I must’ve left it behind.”
“Left it where?”
“At J.T.’s.”
“When you found him?”
“Yes.”
The implications of that were not lost on Natasha. Dropping her head in her hands, she massaged her temples as she tried to think. If her mother really had shot J.T., Anya would have to pay the price. There was nothing Natasha could do to save her from the consequences. It wouldn’t be right to even try, especially after all the Amoses had done for both of them.