by A. Zavarelli
I didn’t know where I’d seen him before, but it felt like I had.
“You’re going to have to ask her,” Lucian said. “It’s the only way, Ace. Let me come with you. I can help.”
I dragged in a breath and shook my head. “No. This is something I need to confront on my own.”
My phone vibrated, and I glanced at the screen distractedly, noting it was one of my guys from the shop. I elected not to answer, but when I dismissed the call and saw it was the sixth time he’d tried to reach me, I called him back.
“Digger,” I grunted when he answered. “What is it?”
He cleared his throat, and I knew something wasn’t right before he even spoke. “You better get down here, man. Cops are all over the place.”
“What the fuck for?” I demanded.
He hesitated for a second before he told me what I didn’t want to hear. News that sent me careening back to my past and a time in my life when I had no control.
“Looks like they pulled a body out of the garbage in the back lot, man. I’m sorry, but they want you down here. Now.”
TROUBLE FROWNED AT THE SCREEN of her phone, reading the fifth text that had come through in the last ten minutes. I didn’t know what was up with her, but she’d been acting weird all morning. Truthfully, I was too wrapped up in my own shit to give it much thought, but when she looked at me, I had a feeling her problems were about to become my own.
“You need to go pack.” She stood and gestured for me to follow. “Quick. I’ll help you.”
“Why?” I demanded.
The last flame of hope flickered before me, threatening to die. This was it. Ace was getting rid of me. He’d seen the worst of me last night, and he couldn’t handle it. This was the thing I’d feared all along, and though I’d tried to prepare for it, I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready to leave. I would never be ready to leave.
Defiantly, I remained on the couch while my mind flipped through a million ways I could convince him to keep me. But Trouble’s next words sealed my fate.
“The cops are on their way out here, Birdie. We need to get the fuck out of here now, and we need to take any evidence you were ever here with us.”
What she was saying didn’t make any sense. I didn’t want to believe it, but how could I not? This morning Ace had disappeared, and now the cops were coming for me. Had he tipped them off?
The room spun as I stood and forced my way down the hall. I didn’t even know what I was doing. My body operated on autopilot while we shoved clothes and shoes and toiletries back into the pink suitcases from which they’d come. The entire process was surprisingly quick, given that I’d never bothered to unpack in the first place. I’d lived my life as a nomad, always on the run. But for once, I wished I hadn’t. I wished I’d unpacked and left it all here, so Ace would have to think of me whenever he saw it.
Tears blurred my vision as Trouble ushered me to the door of the only place I’d ever felt at home. The place where I was both a prisoner and a resident. The safety bubble had burst, and my heart squeezed as I looked around one last time.
I was never here. We had erased any evidence that I ever existed. And in my gut, I knew I wouldn’t be coming back. This was it for me. The final nail in my coffin.
“Come on,” Trouble pleaded. “We need to leave, Birdie. Get in the car.”
Her voice was weighted with a level of desperation I’d never heard from her before. It occurred to me as I fell into line and she drove manically toward the exit of the compound why she was so frantic. She was trying to protect Ace. If the police caught me here, it wouldn’t just be bad for me. He’d lied to them. He’d covered for me. And Trouble knew it.
I reclined my seat and closed my eyes while Trouble cranked up the radio. I didn’t know where we were going, but I didn’t even care anymore. All I knew was that if I closed my eyes, I could still see him in my dreams.
“Hey.” Trouble shook me awake, and I blinked away my exhaustion as I sat up and looked out the window.
“Where are we?” I asked though the question wasn’t necessary. One glance out the window, and I knew exactly where we were. I just didn’t know why.
“I wanted you to see this.” Trouble gazed down the street in the direction of my own personal hell, a place I’d never planned to return to.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded, my fingers inching toward the door handle. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Just watch,” she murmured.
“Fuck you,” I snarled, trying unsuccessfully to open the door. I needed to get out of here. Already, my throat felt like it was closing up. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think straight. Why would she bring me here?
“Child lock.” Trouble offered me an apologetic glance. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Birdie.”
I couldn’t understand her motive for bringing me back to this place. Had Ace told her to do this? Had he decided the best thing for both of us was to dump me back in the hell I’d crawled out of?
“There.” She pointed, and against my better judgment, my gaze followed her finger. What I saw coated my lips with the familiar taste of acid. The hands of time had reached out and pulled me back to the past, and in the reflection of that young girl standing on the rickety porch, I saw myself. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Yet she was a professional, welcoming a man in a suit before he quickly ushered her into his car. Her head disappeared while he reclined his seat, and she didn’t come back out for another fifteen minutes.
I hadn’t eaten anything all day, but I wanted to vomit. I begged Trouble to leave, but the car never moved. The girl exited the vehicle up ahead and walked back to the stairs, sitting down to wait for the next guy to come along. And they did. They came one by one in their slick suits and luxury cars. Some slipped inside the house, others preferred the sanctuary of their own vehicles, where they could drive away at a moment’s notice.
I didn’t want to believe it was real. In my mind, this house and everything inside it had imploded the day Gypsy and I ran from here. There was nothing left. It was an empty shell with no discernible heartbeat. A broken slab of wood in a concrete ghetto. But it was evident that time had not changed anything. Even Ricky’s death had not changed a thing. Monsters still lurked on these streets. Young girls still had their innocence ripped away. And everything I had done was for naught.
“It’s still happening,” Trouble said. “Every day, girls like you are still tortured here.”
“Why are you doing this?” My voice was little more than a whisper. “Do you hate me that much?”
“There’s only one way to fix this.” She turned to me, her expression a cocktail of shame and self-preservation. “You can make this all go away. You can still save Ace.”
“Ace?” I blinked through my cloudy eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Joe Crocker was pulled out of a dumpster behind Ace’s shop this morning,” she said. “Does that name sound familiar at all?”
My chest squeezed, and I blurted out a response before I could stop myself. “That’s impossible. I just talked to him last week.”
Jumbled thoughts ping-ponged around my brain as I tried to make sense of what she said. How did she even know who Joe was? And if it was true, how did he end up in a dumpster behind Ace’s shop? None of it seemed plausible. But then the worst of it hit me. The cops. Would they think Ace had done this?
Once Trouble saw that I was on the same page as her, she continued. “This looks really fucking bad, Birdie. Ace is an ex-felon with a history of murder that some people still believe he committed. He could go down for this.”
“How the fuck did this happen?” I rocked forward and tried to drag in a breath. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know,” Trouble answered. “But whoever dumped him there wanted this to come back on Ace. Someone who knows both of you, if I had to guess.”
My throat burned with the truth I was too ashamed to admit. My past was ruining everything, just as I�
�d always known it would. It was staining my future, pulling Ace into its poisonous grasp.
“What can we do?” I stared down the street at the rickety little shack I used to call home, hopelessness the only void in sight.
Trouble took a breath, her voice marked with regret for the only answer she had to give me. “I think you already know.”
I did know. No matter how many times I’d tried to avoid it, history kept catching up with me. I couldn’t outrun it. And now, I refused to let it ruin Huck’s life too. All I ever wanted to do was protect my sister. But I needed to protect him too. More than I needed air to breathe. There was only one way out of this nightmare, and it was through hellfire.
“I spoke with the detective who’s been looking for you,” Trouble said. “He told me if you turn yourself in for your crimes, you can testify against the men who hurt you when you were younger. You can get this operation shut down and save Ace too.”
What she didn’t say was that I’d also have to claim responsibility for Joe’s death. Her logic made sense. If I confessed to murdering Ricky, I’d be looking at hard time. Possibly the rest of my life. What difference would one more charge make? If it meant sacrificing myself to protect Ace, I already knew that regardless of how he felt, I would throw myself under the bus a hundred times over to save him. I’d already made up my mind, but Trouble’s next statement only cemented the deal.
“They already have Ace in custody.”
“ARE YOU SURE THIS IS where he told you to meet him?” I glanced around the empty parking lot again.
Trouble didn’t look any less skeeved out than I was, but still, she nodded. “This is exactly the place. Here, see for yourself.”
She showed me the text message from an unknown number, one that it appeared she’d been communicating with for some time.
“How did he find you?” I asked. “How long have you been talking to him?”
“He approached me in the casino after Ace took you to the compound,” she admitted. “I tried to cover for you, but he knew you were with Ace somehow.”
“So why didn’t he just show up there?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe he didn’t know where the compound was? I’m really not sure. It seemed like he was still trying to make a case against you. He never asked me to turn you in. Not until now.”
When I glanced at her across the car, I couldn’t even be angry with her. At that moment, she was the same young, tormented girl I’d first seen in the casino. She had a history, just like me. Maybe someday she’d see fit to share it with me, but I doubted we’d ever get that opportunity.
“I am sorry about this,” she said absently. “Believe it or not, I was rooting for you and Ace. You two were good together. He was never meant to be anyone else’s but yours.”
I swallowed and glanced out the window. “At least for a little while.”
Silence settled over us after that, until a pair of headlights finally glided into the empty lot and flashed us once.
“I guess that’s him,” she said.
I nodded, but something about this situation didn’t feel right. This detective had been chasing me for so long, so I didn’t understand the covert operation to bring me in. I was surrendering peacefully. So why not at the police station? Why here?
I gripped the door handle and hesitated, looking at Trouble. “Are you sure this is legitimate?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I asked for his badge. I wouldn’t bring you here unless I knew it was real.”
I glanced in the direction of the other car, where the detective now stood leaning casually against the side as he waited for us to get out. My instincts were still telling me to run, but the image of Ace in police custody had thrown a spanner into the works. Joe was dead, and someone had to answer for it. That someone had to be me.
With a robotic hand, I opened the door and stepped outside. California still smelled the same, at least in the broken parts. It smelled of desperation and crushed dreams, and I felt that deep in my bones as we walked toward the detective who would take me in.
“Detective Brentwood,” Trouble greeted him.
I whipped my head in her direction, confused. Brentwood wasn’t a name I was familiar with. The entire time, I’d been running from Taylor, but I realized this must be his partner.
“Guilty as charged.” He nodded and turned to me. “And so we finally meet, Miss Birdie Kay Blue. You know, I didn’t actually believe your friend here when she said you would hand yourself over. Yet here you are.”
The detective had a slight Southern drawl and bad taste in clothing. From the dim street lighting, I could make out a cheap off the rack suit that hung from his body in a way that felt familiar. As my eyes traveled over his face, I understood why.
“You were in the casino,” I blurted. The day that Ace took me, I saw him. I talked to him. I was on my way to meet him in his room when Ace intercepted me.
“You got me.” Brentwood shrugged and flashed a crooked smile. “I almost had you.”
“Jesus.” I shivered as I considered how much differently the past couple of months could have gone. Ace had saved me, even then, and I wondered if somehow, he’d known that. The time we’d spent together almost never happened, and that reality split my heart wide open.
“You best say your goodbyes now.” Brentwood checked the time on his phone. “I’ll take her into the station and get her statement.”
“I want a guarantee in writing,” I declared. “Ace is untouchable. He has nothing to do with this. And you shut down every one of those assholes running the operation out of Ricky’s house. Those girls go free and get the help they need.”
Brentwood’s jaw flexed. “You want a guarantee?”
I looked at Trouble, wondering if she’d noticed the way his voice had changed too. She said this was a done deal, but suddenly, I wasn’t so sure.
“Here’s your guarantee,” Brentwood pulled out his weapon, and my heart dropped.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked.
Beside me, Trouble froze, her fear radiating around her like a beacon. This wasn’t the plan. At least, not the one she’d agreed to.
“Here’s your fucking guarantee.” Brentwood fired his pistol, and I stumbled backward, too terrified to process what was happening. I thought I’d been shot, but when I looked beside me, I realized with horrifying clarity that wasn’t what happened at all.
Trouble was crumpled onto the ground beside me, her head cracked open like a watermelon. Blood and pieces of her skull littered the pavement, and I couldn’t even make out her face anymore. She was gone. She was fucking dead. Just like that.
I screamed, and Brentwood shook his head as he leaned down and jabbed me in the arm with something. His mouth moved as though he’d spoken, but I couldn’t understand. Everything was slowing down. Fading away. And I was coming apart at the seams.
The last thing I smelled was his cologne, the sickly cloying scent of black licorice.
“SO THAT’S IT?” THE DETECTIVE leaned down into my face as he spoke. “You’ve got nothing else to say?”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” I smirked. “How about fuck you.”
“Ace,” Lucian warned from beside me. He’d told me several times already to behave, but I was past the point of playing nice with these motherfuckers.
“He has nothing else to say,” Lucian informed the detective. “Either charge him or send us on our way.”
There was a knock on the door, and the other detective popped his head in, shaking it in disappointment. Obviously, they hadn’t turned up anything at my house. They hadn’t found any evidence to hold me, and more importantly, they hadn’t found Birdie. I felt like I could breathe again as I leaned back in the chair. Trouble had done what she was asked. She’d taken her somewhere safe.
“We’ll be in touch.” The asshole playing bad cop snarled as he opened the door and gestured for me to leave. “In fact, I’d say you can expect some regular visits from us.”
Kodiak met us in the parking lot, and none of us said a word. Lucian drove us to the church where he often divulged his own confessions, and Father Hawk allowed us inside and lent us the privacy of the space while he disappeared.
“What did you find on Joe Crocker?” I asked Kodiak.
His eyes darkened, indicating whatever he’d discovered about the dead man wasn’t good. “He was a sketchy ass motherfucker. Rap sheet a mile long. A lot of stupid shit… drug charges, theft. Got caught up in a few prostitution stings in his younger days.”
“That’s it?” I asked, knowing it couldn’t be the end of it.
Kodiak shifted, his fists curling at his sides. “He was never convicted, but there were accusations. It seems he has a thing for little girls. Conveniently enough, the few potential witnesses either refused to talk or ended up disappearing.”
“Is he from California?” Lucian asked what we were both thinking.
“Yes.” Kodiak nodded in confirmation.
Lucian looked at me. “We need to talk to the girls. They must know who he was.”
I didn’t feel good about breaching that subject with Birdie. She would get defensive and probably just shut down. But Lucian was right. Someone was trying to fuck up all of our lives and take her down. There was no way in hell I would allow that to happen, even if meant prying Birdie’s secrets out of her by force.
“You talk to Gypsy, and I’ll handle Birdie,” I grunted.
Lucian agreed, but Kodiak reached out and grabbed me before I could leave. “There’s just one problem, Ace.”
“What?” I stared at him, trying to decipher the unfamiliar tone of his voice.
“Trouble hasn’t responded to any of my texts or calls for the past three hours.”