Turn Me Loose (Paradise, Idaho)

by Rosalind James

  And finally, he called his partner again.

  “About time,” Jed complained. “You on your way?”

  “No. I’ll change it around to next week, or the one after.”

  “We’re going to lose this,” Jed said. “Venture capital doesn’t grow on trees.”

  Jed had been Travis’s chief programmer at the company that was no longer his. Travis had lured him away without much difficulty, because he’d been right—things weren’t going all that well there. It was Jed’s first time not working for a payroll, though, and he was nervous.

  “We aren’t going to lose it,” Travis said. “If it’s good enough, they’ll want it.”

  “Nobody’s going to go for it, man,” Jed said, “if you aren’t all the way in. You’re too far away, and part-time is no time. Six more weeks, right? You need to get here.”

  “Quit worrying. You’re doing your part. Let me do mine.”

  He hung up, then sat a minute before making his next call, to begin to reschedule the meetings that had been meant to be lining up the rest of their team. He rested an elbow on his knee and scrubbed a hand over his unshaven jaw, suddenly weary.

  The measure of a man is in the choices he makes.

  He shook his head irritably. Thanks, Dad. Way to get into my head. How about if you can’t even see your choices clearly? Or if none of them will work?

  Then think them through again.

  All right. Choice A: Stay here and do . . . something. Some teaching or lecturing, some lower-level programming. Work for somebody else, because it didn’t matter how much money you had, a man still needed to work. And give up his project.

  The interactive orienteering game had come to him during a long mountain bike ride through the hills of the East Bay on a foggy summer day, with the misty tendrils drifting between redwood trunks and welcome silence surrounding him. He’d seen it mapped out, because that was what it would be. Mapped out. Competition and virtual teams, all tethered to their phones, the GPS holding them accountable. Anywhere in the world you could map. In Toronto or London, the Colorado mountains or the Palouse hills.

  It was all there in his head, and it would work. He could feel it. But it was going to take a serious team of computing firepower. It was going to take marketing and finance and all the rest of it. He wanted to do it, and he wanted to run it.

  Choice B, then: Convince Rochelle to leave her home town, her family, and her job, every one of them precious to her, and move to San Francisco with him. That looked just about as difficult, in a whole different way. He didn’t think Rochelle would grow that well in the city. Her roots here went too deep.

  After thirty-five years of nowhere close, he’d finally found the woman he needed. Loving, strong, and loyal to the bone. The joke was on him, though, because those loyalties cut both ways.

  Or a third choice. Go back without her, which was the only reasonable answer, and didn’t feel like a choice at all, not anymore. Even though all along, he’d thought, Hey, plenty of people make long-distance relationships work, at least for a while.

  My eggs are drying up by the day, she’d said. I don’t have time to mess around.

  He didn’t think she’d go for it, not for any length of time, not without a plan for how it would end. And he knew he didn’t want to. Hell, he hadn’t wanted to leave for the weekend. He hadn’t even wanted to leave her for tonight.

  It was all too much to think about, so as usual, he set it aside, opened his computer, and got into his to-do list, which started with those calls. He’d do better after a full night’s sleep.

  But it would have been easier to sleep with her there.

  FALLING INTO PLACE

  Seven thirty on Monday evening, and Rochelle was sitting on the couch, watching a movie and, frankly, waiting for Travis to come over so she could fall asleep with her head on his shoulder, then go to bed with him holding her.

  It wasn’t about sex, not tonight. It was just about him being there. And he’d do it. She knew it.

  Her phone buzzed, and she reached for it with a lazy hand, her mouth already curving in anticipation.

  It wasn’t him. It was Stacy.

  “Ro?”

  Rochelle couldn’t help a sigh. She and her mom had taken Stacy to the doctor that morning, had gotten a referral to a psychiatrist and an emergency appointment for Wednesday, and then Rochelle had gone with Stacy to see her advisor. Stacy had been silent, white, and exhausted when they’d finished, and by the time Rochelle had driven Stacy back to her parents’ and gone to work all afternoon, she hadn’t been at her best herself.

  She didn’t want to talk to her sister tonight. But she’d said she’d be there for her, and that started right now.

  “Hey.” She tried to inject some energy into it. “How you doing?”

  “Um . . .” Stacy’s voice was trembling. “Did you see my text?”

  “Uh . . . hang on.” Rochelle scrolled, and froze.

  Forwarded. Hey know what got some stuff for you. Call me.

  She was back on the call so fast, she almost dropped the phone. “What the hell,” she said, so angry she could barely speak.

  “I wanted to . . .” Stacy said. “I wanted to call. I wanted to go. I was thinking, I could go out the back, take Mom’s keys off the hook later, once they go to bed. And then I thought, I can’t. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to do it to them, and I don’t want to do it for . . . for me. And he’s trying to put me back in the pot. Isn’t he?”

  “You bet he is,” Rochelle managed to say. “You bet.”

  “But it’s so hard,” Stacy said. “It’s so hard not to go, because I want them. I want them so bad. Can you help me? Please? I know I don’t deserve it. But . . . please?”

  “You bet I can. But hey, baby. Put Mom on the phone now, OK?”

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  “Yep.” No point in lying. That was what this was all about. About telling the truth. “I’m going to tell her, and she’s going to sit on the couch with you until I get there. She’s going to be proud of you for calling me instead of calling him back, just like I am.”

  How could Shane dare to do that? Break up with her, then yank that chain some more, suck her back in just when Stacy was pulling herself out of this? He was jerking her around, and Rochelle knew—she knew—that he was doing it on purpose. She’d kill him.

  “I have to tell you something else first,” Stacy said. “You’ve been so good to me, and I . . . I haven’t told you all of it.”

  “What?” Oh, God. What now?

  “It’s Lake,” Stacy said. “It’s . . . that I think things happen at Lake’s.”

  The cold dread was rising through Rochelle’s body so fast, it was like she’d jumped into a freezing river. “Explain.”

  “You remember that first night? When I was in the ER? And I told you I didn’t remember?”

  “Of course I remember. You’re saying you remember, too.”

  “I remembered a . . . a while ago,” Stacy said. “I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell you without telling you about . . . about me,” she continued miserably. “About the pills, and Shane, and . . . everything. I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Stacy. I don’t care about that. You’re telling me now. Good for you. So tell me everything. Right now. You’re telling me that party was at Lake’s.”

  Your place, Stacy had told her on the phone that night.

  Is my sister here? she’d asked Dave Harris, and he’d asked, Which one? With that same look on his face he’d used to have when he’d seen her after some “hunting trip” when Lake had come home wasted.

  And Lake hadn’t been there. Where had he been?

  “I only went that one time,” Stacy said. “But they were going into the back room. And there were . . . there were lots of drugs, Ro. Lots of drugs. Pills, like the ones I took that night. Party pills. And everybody was really . . . pumped. I think . . . I think he’s dealing. Lake. I think he is. I think al
l those guys are . . . whatever it is, they’re all doing it. All his friends, you know? Dave Harris, and Danny Boyle, and all of them. And . . .” Her voice shook. “Miles. He was there, too. I think something’s going on. I saw pill bottles, and I saw . . .” It was a whisper now. “Prescriptions. Slips.”

  It all slotted into place in Rochelle’s head, like a roulette ball falling into the one and only spot it would land. The Ziploc bag on Stacy’s night table. The pills, and Shane being with Lake the other night, and Lake’s friends in his living room, too late on a Sunday night during harvest. The card table, the Canadian whisky. And the snack-sized Ziploc bags.

  But her sister. Her little sister. How could he? How could Lake have hurt her sister?

  “How many times did you see it?” she asked Stacy.

  “Only then,” Stacy said. “Only that night. After that . . . Shane didn’t take me there again, and I wouldn’t have wanted to go anyway. Because I was scared. I don’t remember. I really don’t,” she burst out. “But I know I was scared. Somebody was saying something. A girl. I remember that, and being scared, but I don’t remember what she was saying.”

  “OK.” Rochelle took a breath. “OK. Now, listen. Thanks for telling me. You did good, OK? You called me, and you told me. You did so good. Now put Mom on, all right? And I’ll be there later.”

  When she’d hung up, she clicked the remote and turned off her movie, then sat still and thought it through until she had to move. She stood up, paced the room with her arms wrapped around herself, and thought some more. She thought about everything Stacy had said. About a girl everybody had been questioned about, a girl Miles and Danny and Dave had talked to out at Macho Taco, a girl they’d danced with at the Back Alley. About the other night at Lake’s. What she’d seen, and what she’d felt.

  She thought about Miles Kimberling, about the sweet little boy she’d used to babysit. About how he’d followed the older boys around, and how he’d been following Lake ever since. About his car falling off the jack, onto a level concrete driveway.

  There was something she had to do. She had to take care of this. She was sure she was right. But just in case she was wrong . . . she’d be prepared for that, too.

  She was stopped by a red light at the highway. A semi blew by, rocking her car in the wake of its passage. It was a black night, the moon behind clouds, the air autumn-chilly and the wind picking up. Bleak. Spooky, even. The thought that had nagged at her popped up again. She sighed, backed, pulled over, and called Travis.

  She wasn’t used to asking for help, but that wasn’t what she was doing, exactly. Just another precaution.

  Voice mail, but maybe that was better.

  She left a quick message and hung up, the light turned green, and she pulled out and turned left onto the highway toward Union City.

  Twenty minutes to think it through, to make sure she’d been right. Twenty minutes to rehearse it.

  And when the phone rang, she ignored it. She’d call back later, once she was done.

  Lake’s rig was out in front of the shop instead of behind it tonight, for some reason, and lights were glowing through the front windows. Of course he’d be home, eight o’clock on Monday night. She got out of the car before she could change her mind, climbed up the splintery stairs to the porch, pulled back the screen door with the hole through the bottom . . . and didn’t have to knock. Because the porch light had come on, and the door was already opening, Lake alerted by the sound of her car out here in the quiet of the country.

  He stood in the doorway, stared at her hard and cold, and said, “Go away.”

  Not the best start. Well, she didn’t have a burning desire to see the filthy inside of her former home anyway. It was freezing out here, but who cared? She wasn’t staying long.

  “Did you know Stacy almost died the other night?” she asked him.

  “What?” Something flickered across his face. Still good-looking, but the weakness in it so apparent to her now.

  “She was in intensive care for hours. Seems she took a whole bunch of drugs. Just like she did that other night, the night she was out here. You almost killed my sister, Lake. Twice. And you’re in so much trouble.”

  “You need to leave,” he said. “Right now. This is none of your business, and you need to stay out of it.” He shifted his weight, moved forward, forcing her back a step, and pulled the door shut behind him. “You can’t come to my house and tell me what to do. I told you the other night, remember? You don’t live here anymore, and I’m not that pussy you used to kick out of the house when I got drunk. You’re the one who’ll be in trouble if you don’t get out of here.”

  Maybe I’ve changed, he’d said that night on the phone. You might be surprised.

  People didn’t change, though. Lake was the man he’d always been. Good-natured most of the time, unless he was drunk. Good at making friends, and keeping them, too, such as they were. Loyal in his fashion, at least to his buddies. And lazy right down to his bones. Sure that there should have been a way for him to end up on top, and that other people had been given an easier path.

  And no kind of a criminal mastermind.

  “I’m not going to leave,” she said. “I know what’s going on. I know you’ve gotten in way over your head, too. You’re going to end up holding the bag, Lake. You need to get out of it now, and tell the cops what you know.”

  He started to laugh. Dismissing her, like he’d always used to do, once things had gone bad between them. “You got a whole theory going here? That powerful brain of yours tell you so?”

  She held her temper, and she held her ground. “I know what they’re doing. I know that your friends are the ones getting the pills. Getting prescriptions filled, or whatever it is.” She didn’t know, actually. She was guessing, but she was pretty sure she was right. “I think the . . . the distribution happens here, because you’re single, and you don’t have neighbors. I think you’ve been letting somebody use your shop to package the pills, and I’ll bet you’re getting rid of the bottles in the burn barrel. Somebody’s selling those packages, but that somebody isn’t you. All you’re getting is a cut.”

  “How do you know?” He looked . . . offended, now. Like he’d used to look when she’d made a suggestion about how he might get ahead. Like she was insulting his competence. At what? At crime?

  She went on and insulted it some more. “Because if it was you,” she said, “if you’d been getting the big bucks? You’d have bought a new rig already, or a boat, or both, even if you were trying to hide it, parking it behind the shop. And you haven’t. You’re probably saving up until you can pay cash, because you wouldn’t be able to get a loan.” She could see from the startled expression on his face that she was right, so she pressed on. “You’ve been suckered into all of it, and you have to get out. The cops are going to know everything soon. They’re not stupid. Even if you don’t care about yourself, what’s that going to do to your folks?”

  Lake’s expression changed again. Alert. Alarmed, maybe. “Yeah,” she told him. “I know all about it. I think that’s why that girl died, too. I think she was pregnant, and she knew what was going on, because she slept with too many guys, and guys talk to women they sleep with. They brag to them, and I’ll bet all your buddies bragged to her. I’m guessing she came out here and said she was going to talk about what she knew unless somebody paid her off, and she got killed for it. But you wouldn’t have done that. You never hit me, even at the end.”

  She didn’t tell him that Stacy had been the one to help her connect the dots, because it didn’t feel like a good idea. Two things had happened on the same August weekend, though. Stacy had taken too many prescription drugs at Lake’s house at a party with a bunch of his friends, and a girl had been killed. A girl who’d dated a bunch of Lake’s friends, had walked out of her job on that last day knowing she was pregnant, and saying, “That bastard is going to get me out of this. He can’t afford not to.”

  Somebody was saying something. A girl. And I was scare
d. It didn’t take a huge leap to figure out that it might have been the same girl.

  “You need to leave,” Lake said, “or I’ll hit you right now. And I won’t stop.” He took a short step forward, and she still didn’t move back.

  “All your buddies have been questioned about her, haven’t they?” she asked him. “That’s no secret. And you know who did it. You have to know. He killed a pregnant woman and dumped her body, and that isn’t you, Lake. It isn’t you. You can’t be part of that. Miles Kimberling, too. You went to school with Miles. He followed you around like a puppy his whole life. Now he’s dead, just like that girl’s dead. Why?”

  “Because his car fell off the jack.”

  “Really? You really think that? I don’t. I think somebody shoved his car off that jack while he was working on it. I think it was the same person who killed that girl and put her in Cal Jackson’s ditch, and I know that person wasn’t you. At first I couldn’t figure out who it was. I thought it could be Dave, but he’d know a lentil field when he saw one, as well as you would. And then I realized that there was one person at that party who probably wouldn’t know that. One person who wasn’t there when I showed up, but who was there earlier. One person who I bet has been in this thing all along. I think he’s dragged you into this, and he’s going to drag you right down with him unless you do something about it.”

  “You need to shut up. You need to keep out of it. I’m warning you.”

  The skin was prickling at the back of her neck, the same cold menace she’d felt out here before. Turned on like a faucet. Could she have been wrong? Not just wrong. Horribly wrong.

  “I won’t keep out of it,” she said, working hard to keep her voice from trembling, “because I know this isn’t the man you are. When I had that miscarriage—” Her throat wanted to close at that, but she forced herself to keep going. “You cried. And you loved Stacy,” she went on in a hurry. Why had she even said that? Maybe because she wanted to remember Lake differently from this. To remember the man she’d fallen in love with, and not the man who was looking at her with that . . . that glazed expression, like he was checking out, like he wasn’t even hearing her. “You used to give her piggyback rides,” she said desperately. “I’ll bet you told him not to bring her back to your house, because you didn’t want her mixed up with this, but she’s mixed up anyway. She’s so mixed up, Lake. So messed up. You’re not a bad person, I know you’re not, but you’re ruining all these lives. I know it sounded like parties, and recreation, and nobody gets hurt, but Stacy almost died, and that other girl did. And so did Miles.”