by K. A. Tucker
I decide to keep playing it cool. “That’s because I’ve never been here before. Do you know if anyone’s home?”
He pauses as if to consider my question, his mouth twisting up as he sucks on his teeth. “Dina’s ’round.”
So she does live here after all. I don’t trust this guy at my back, so I stay facing him as I knock again. After ten seconds and no answer, I say, “She must be asleep.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He smirks, like that’s somehow funny.
That settles that. I’ll have to come back later.
I’m a second away from heading to my SUV when a female yells, “Hey, you! On my steps!” I can tell she’s pissed before I even spot her charging toward me.
Her striking face tight with anger.
Her haunting pale green eyes locked on me.
A switchblade open and gripped in her fist.
CHAPTER 9
Grace
I pulled my knife from my purse the second I rounded the bend and saw the shiny SUV parked outside our trailer.
I’m going to catch one of the assholes who’s been enabling my mother’s heroin addiction red-handed. Finally.
“Let me guess, you’re doing it so you can pay for college?” I march past the black Jeep Cherokee, giving the quarter panel a swift kick with my heel. “And why the fuck are you here?” I sneer at Sims but don’t give him a chance to answer, walking right up to the steps. This guy’s big. Huge next to me, and built. But I’m banking on the fact that he grew up in a Stepford Wife subdivision with a basketball net out front and parents who think weed is the devil’s device, and he doesn’t know what to do with a crazy chick charging him with a knife.
By the wide-eyed look he’s giving me, I’m right. “What’s the matter? Poor little rich kid didn’t learn how to earn an easy living so he decides to sell smack?”
“Whoa.” He holds up his hands, his gaze shifting between me and the blade. “I don’t know what you think—”
“Come near my mother again and I will gut you like a fish,” I hiss, holding the knife inches away from his stomach for impact. “Get the hell off my steps!”
“Okay . . . I’m going. Can you give me room to get by?” he says slowly, calmly.
I take a few steps back, and he edges past me, his key ring dangling from his finger. Ready to fill this park with dust clouds as he speeds away in his fancy ride.
Wait a minute . . . “Why am I letting you go?” I step forward, waving the knife in front of his face, forcing the guy back until he’s pressed against his hood. “I should call the cops on you.”
Panic flickers in his bright blue eyes. “You don’t want to do that.”
“Actually I do. That’s one less dealer to help my mother get high. They’ll love you in prison.” I pull my phone from the back of my shorts. “I hope your mommy’s ready to send you tubs of Vaseline in your care package.”
“I’m not a drug dealer!” he exclaims, irritation flaring in his voice. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe him. But only Mom’s dealers come to our door these days. There was a time when child protective services would make random stops, but that ended when I turned eighteen and they could officially not give a damn about me.
“What do you think, Sims?” If anyone can sniff out another dealer, it’d be him.
“He told me he was a friend.” Sims steps forward until he’s inches away from the guy, taking on a menacing stance.
“I’ve never seen this guy before in my life.” I’d remember. Six-foot-two-ish, square jaw, sandy brown hair in that perfectly messy style. He also has that “I’ve got money” vibe, even in a faded black T-shirt and dark blue jeans. Not what I’d expect my mother’s heroin dealer to look like. And honestly, not the kind of guy I’d expect to come sniffing around a strung-out, haggard thirty-nine-year-old woman. If he were looking for blow jobs as payment, I’m guessing he’d have no issues getting it from the pretty blonde cokeheads on campus.
“Look, I don’t want trouble.” He’s doing his best to ignore Sims, who’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, ready to pounce. “I was coming to drop something off. No one answered the door, so I was going to leave and come back later.” I detect a slight accent, though I can’t place it.
“What d’you wanna give her?” Sims’s gaze drops to the guy’s pockets, looking for this “thing.”
The bastard will just as easily steal it as give it to me. This is the point where my drug-dealing neighbor is no longer useful to me here. In fact, he’s making me angrier. “Go back to your pen, Sims. I’m sure someone’ll be coming around for a dime bag soon enough.”
Taking two steps, Sims turns that menacing gaze toward me, his nostrils flaring. “You know, you’re awful mouthy for a little girl needing help.”
“Do I look like I need help?” I wave the blade at him. “You think I’m stupid? You’re not here to help me. You’re looking for an opportunity. And what’re you gonna do to me, anyway, huh?”
“You’ve always been a bitch,” Sims mumbles, taking a step closer to me, puffing out his lanky chest.
The guy adjusts his stance, looking ready to grab Sims and throw him to the ground.
“Relax, Rich Boy, Sims here is all talk. Plus he’s on probation and if he lays a hand on me, he’s going straight to jail for a long time. Isn’t that right?” I need to stop egging Sims on. I’m banking on him being smart enough to walk away, but I already know he’s an idiot.
Before I can find out how big an idiot, Vilma’s shouting pulls all our attention away. “iLa casa se está quemando!” I look to where she’s pointing, to the smoke curling from the kitchen window.
Oh hell. Mom’s finally gone and done it.
Shoving Sims out of the way, I snap my blade closed and toss it into my purse with one hand while I fumble with my keys using the other. “Mom!” I unlock the door and throw it open, bracing myself. A plume of dark smoke rolls out above me and sails upward.
The kitchen is on fire. No surprise, the toaster oven is the source, angry flames spouting from it, igniting the threadbare curtains that dangle by the window. They go up in a rush, doubling the size of the fire as the flames reach for the cupboards and the walls.
I dive for the fire extinguisher, my heart pounding in my ears. “How do I even use this thing!” I shriek, panicked.
A strong hand yanks it from my grip. The guy I just held at knifepoint pulls the pin and aims the nozzle toward the toaster oven. White foam shoots out toward the flames. He seems to know what he’s doing and I don’t have time to wonder why the hell he’s helping. I turn my focus on Mom, sprawled out on the couch, one arm and one leg dangling off the edge.
As still as the dead.
I dive for her, shoving the coffee table out of the way to make room. Trying to ignore the chaos behind me, I press my ear against her mouth to check for breathing.
I feel nothing.
My feet pound against the floor as I run to my room, for the hollowed-out book where I hid the doses of Narcan and next to it, the breathing mask. The last time she OD’d, the doctor set me up with a course and sent me home with this stuff for when I needed it next.
I fumble to collect the pieces, my heart hammering in my chest.
I’ve been gone maybe thirty seconds, and yet when I return, it’s an entirely different scene. Flames crawl along the walls and ceiling of the kitchen, the intense heat from the blaze causing me to flinch as I step over the spent extinguisher that lies on the floor.
The guy is holding mom’s lifeless body in his arms. “It’s too late. Come on!”
Shit. This means firefighters and maybe police . . . I lunge for the used syringe, snapping the needle off the end. I toss the syringe into the heart of the fire.
“Forget that!” The guy grabs hold of my arm and tugs me out the door with him, forcing me down the stairs. I chase after him as he marches past where Vilma stands, phone in hand, spouting a bunch of Spanish words that I do understand, like ambulancia and fuego. She must have called 9-1-1.
“Put her down!” I grab the guy’s arm, his skin hot, his muscles tense under my mom’s weight, and wave the Narcan in front of him. “I need to give her this right now.”
He finally relents, setting her down on the dirt laneway, though I can tell he doesn’t like doing it.
I rip the cap off the nasal spray applicator and the tube. Steps I memorized but have never actually executed in real life. My hands are shaking as I shove the glass cartridge into the applicator and twist it into place.
“Come on . . .” Holding her floppy head up, I spray half into one nostril, and then half into the other, hoping I haven’t messed it up and put too much in one and not enough in the other. I set the breathing mask over her mouth and lean down to blow into it.
“You’re doing it too fast.”
I try to slow down.
“Here, let me.” Strong hands clamp over my biceps and pull me to the side. Normally, my fists would be flailing—a natural reaction to anyone manhandling me—but right now I’m thankful for the help. He’s the only one who’s offering any.
He drops to his knees, sealing his mouth over the tube to blow into it. He pauses, then blows into it again before shifting his gaze to her withered chest. With a slight shake of his head, he goes back to the mask, repeating the rhythmic pace.
“If she doesn’t start breathing on her own after three to five minutes, I have to give her another dose,” I explain, wringing my hands as I watch him, desperate to hear sirens. The fire station is around the corner.
Not close enough, I accept as I glance over my shoulder to see the angry flames dancing inside, eagerly charring every last, sad possession we have.
Unfastening his watch with smooth precision, he hands it to me. “It’s been about a minute.”
I take the watch without a word.
After another glance at her chest and a pause, he warns softly, “You might want to get the other one ready.”
I dig it out of my pocket and kneel beside him, my fists balled up tight.
“Your place isn’t well marked. You should head down the road to wave them in.”
“They’ll follow the smoke. Besides, they already know where we live.”
His eyes, the color of an Arizona summer sky at mid-morning, flash to me quickly before refocusing on his task, and I catch the pity in them. But he says nothing, continuing to administer breaths as I watch the second hand make its laps, waiting for her to wake up.
Fighting to keep the tears from letting loose as I take in her bluish-tinged lips and fingernails. “Hang in there, Mom—help is coming,” I whisper. It’s not help that’s coming, though. It’s just a Band-Aid until next time.
The fire department is the first to sail in, the paramedics on their heels.
And the next minutes are a surreal flurry of firemen trying to save our home, of EMTs giving Mom another dose of Narcan, their standard questions bringing an unsettling sense of déjà vu, because I’ve been here before.
“What did she take?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you gave her Narcan. . .”
“Maybe heroin.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t know.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“How much did she take?”
“Too much, obviously.”
The crowd of curious onlookers stands nearby, watching the spectacle but offering no help, no “Come on, we’ll get you to the hospital,” as I watch the ambulance speed away, whatever energy I had drained.
Is this the last time?
How many more times can she handle?
How many more times can I handle?
I’m so tired.
“Did they tell you where they’re taking her?”
His deep voice startles me. For a moment, I actually forgot the guy was here. “St. Bart’s.” That’s where they always take her.
“We should follow them, then.”
“We?” I turn to regard him. He’s shifting from foot to foot, keys already dangling in hand, looking ready to bolt. I can’t blame him. “I’ll find my own way.” That’s probably what he’s waiting to hear.
“Come on. I’ll drive you.”
“Why?” It’s a loaded question. Why is he offering to drive me? Why is he even here? Why did he help me? “What do you want from me?” Everyone wants something.
He heaves a sigh. “Just . . . come on. Please.” He punctuates that plea with a hand floating so close to the small of my back that I can feel the heat without his touch. I tense automatically.
This guy’s a complete stranger, but surrounded by people I’ve known for years, he’s the only one who reached for the fire extinguisher, who carried my mom out, who helped me try to keep her from dying. So instead of walking the three miles to the hospital, I climb into the passenger seat of his Cherokee.
The guy hastily grabs a lined sheet of paper from the dashboard, folding and tucking it into his back pocket, but not before I catch the word Tucson and my zip code scrawled across it. Then, without warning, he leans over the console, his long, muscular arm reaching to my feet to collect the pile of empty coffee cups. “Sorry. It was a long drive,” he mumbles.
I fold my arms around my ketchup-red QuikTrip work shirt, acutely aware of every time his forearm brushes against my bare leg. My gut tells me he’s being polite by cleaning up the trash. That he’s not taking advantage of the opportunity to touch me. And that reminds me that I haven’t thanked him.
“You didn’t have to do what you did,” I whisper. Not exactly a thanks, but I’m still wary of this guy.
“Yeah, I did.” He twists in his seat to stuff the coffee cups into a plastic bag in the backseat, a waft of burnt wood and melted plastic catching my nostrils. His clothes reek of it. Mine must, too.
Starting the engine by pressing a button—I’ve never been in a car that can do that—he guns it, creating a cloud of dust as he passes Sims, a quiet mutter of “fuckhead” slipping from his lips.
Despite the dire situation, I struggle to hide my smile.
“Right or left?”
“Left.” His earlier words finally catch up to me. “You said long drive. From where?”
“Austin.”
My heart skips a beat. “Texas?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
An odd sense of familiarity washes over me. I clear my throat, hoping to dispel the huskiness I can feel growing in my voice. “I didn’t catch your name.”
There’s a moment’s hesitation, before he says, “It’s Noah Marshall.”
CHAPTER 10
Noah
“You have to wake it up,” a man in standard-issue hospital-green scrubs says on his way past, pausing long enough to smack his palm against the vending machine. A hair-raising metal-against-metal sound kicks in and then, a few seconds later, a steady stream of brown sludge begins trickling out.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me. After you taste it, you’ll want to make a right turn out of the parking lot and drive to the nearest Waffle House.” His chuckles trail him down the dimly lit hall as I wait for the paper cup to fill.
If this coffee matches this hospital, I’ll be taking him up on that advice.
I can’t put my finger on what it is about the emergency room that bothers me. Is it the unwelcoming waiting-room chairs—the color of canned peas and as comfortable as a plank of wood—or the dim lighting that screams of cutting overhead costs, or the dove-gray tile floor that can’t hide the thin layer of dust coating it?
Or maybe it has nothing to do with the hospital’s lackluster décor and everything to do with being here with Abe Wilkes’s daughter, waiting to hear if her junkie mom managed to kill herself this time around. After fighting a kitchen fire that ended up burning down their home.
I don’t know how I saw today going, but it definitely wasn’t like this.
The vending machine takes forever to dispense my order, so I use the time to study
Gracie from afar, tucked away in the corner, her smooth, caramel-colored legs crossed at the ankles, those hands that brandished a knife to my stomach mere hours ago now folded daintily in her lap, her profile a stone mask as she stares out the window.
She hasn’t spoken to me since the car ride, except to give directions and numbly agree to my offer of coffee. Given what she just went through, I’ve respected her silence, keeping quiet as I trailed her through the emergency-room doors.
But now I need to know more. Specifically, how the hell did Abe’s family end up living like this—and did my mother know about it?
She must have. Her note said Gracie needs this money.
Holding two cups filled with the lukewarm tar-like substance, I make my way over to the corner.
She’s on the phone. “I can’t make it into work tonight . . . No . . . My mom is in the hospital . . . Still waiting to hear . . .”
She’s wearing a red polo shirt with a label that says QuikTrip and she told the paramedics that she was at work all morning, so either she was supposed to pull two shifts today or she has two jobs.
When she hangs up, I hold out her coffee for her. “I forgot to ask you what you wanted in it.”
She stares blankly at it for a moment. “That’s fine.”
I set the cup down on the small table between us, emptying my pockets of all the cream and sugar I scooped up. “You might need the sugar anyway.” The adrenaline that’s kept me going is waning. I fall into the seat kitty-corner to her, stretching my long, tired legs out.
She glares at them. “Do you have something against personal space?”
“No, ma’am.” I adjust myself so I’m angled away from her. And remind myself that she did just come home to find her mother overdosed and her shitty-ass trailer on fire, so she’s entitled to her foul mood.
Uncomfortable silence hangs between us.
“Where’d you learn about rescue breathing?” she finally asks, her voice softer, almost conciliatory.