by K. A. Tucker
Betsy, 2002.
“Is to . . .?” Gracie prompts.
“Ask questions,” I mutter absently, struggling to make sense of the pieces. My mother said the name Betsy that night. Why is it written on a picture of Dina? Does Dina have another name? What was it my mom said when I asked her who Betsy was? Something about her biggest regret, or—
“What the hell!”
Gracie’s panicked voice grabs my attention, even though my mind is swimming in all these bits of new information. Her gaze is locked on the sidewalk near the hospital entrance, where Dina rushes along in the pair of light blue pajamas that Gracie brought to her earlier, her arms hugging her frail body, casting furtive glances this way and that.
Looking every bit the escapee that she is.
“Stay here.” Gracie, her clothes and face and legs streaked with soot, climbs out of my Cherokee and goes charging toward her mother.
CHAPTER 19
Officer Abraham Wilkes
April 21, 2003
“I’ve noticed you around here these past few days, talkin’ to folks.” The man smooths his calloused hand over the ice-maker, frowning at the dent. The tool belt strapped around his wiry hips tells me he’s some sort of maintenance man for The Lucky Nine.
“Yes, sir. I’m looking for a girl.” With no luck, after five days of searching, before and after shifts, on my days off. Here, and every other motel, and on the streets. I’m beginning to think Jackie was telling the truth and Betsy doesn’t want to be found. “You spend a lot of time around here?”
“Every damn day.” The man shakes his head, muttering about fools as he rubs a motor-grease-coated finger over the vending machine next to the ice-maker, where someone tagged it with black spray paint. “If my mama caught me doing this, she’d tan my hide.”
I grin at him. “Our mamas sound about the same.” His skin is a touch darker than mine. He must be in his early fifties, and on the too-thin side, the jutting bones around his neck peeking out from beneath the loose collar of his wrinkly work shirt. I’d peg him as an uncomplicated, hardworking man. One of those guys who start their day at the same time without need for an alarm, who sit down to the same three simple meals delivered from a can or a frozen-food box, who buy new pants and shoes only when the current ones are beyond repair.
“Maybe we should have the two of them stand guard for the next time those hoodlums decide to bust this open.”
“That a common problem?”
“Almost every week, lately. Vending machine company tells me I’m the one who has to pay for it.”
“Hardly sounds fair.”
“Fair ain’t a word I’d bother using around here. But don’t you worry. I’ll catch them, all right. They wanna be stealing money, let them try and steal it from my pockets. We’ll see how that goes.”
“You be careful. I don’t want to be reading a story about you in the news. It’s best to call the police.”
The man guffaws. “If the police come out this way, it won’t be for vending machine vandals.”
I believe him. I’ve stopped by The Lucky Nine every day. It’s always the same—people darting from car to room to car, their heads down. Not wanting to be seen. Few linger around the poorly lit exterior of the three long rectangular buildings that make up this place. The ones who do, I’d keep a close eye on. I don’t doubt they’re up to no good, and it’s worse than stealing soda and small change. “Tell you what, you give me a call next time something happens and I’ll make sure someone pays a visit out here.” I hand him my business card.
He tips his head to peer at me, his wise brown eyes surveying my jeans and T-shirt. “So, who you lookin’ for?”
I hold up the picture.
He studies it long and hard—more intently than anyone else I’ve shown it to, as if he truly wants to help me—and then nods. “She hasn’t been here in almost a week.”
My heart skips a beat. “You know her?”
“Don’t know her. Seen her. Pretty little thing. She was staying over in A Block.” He nods to the building across from us.
“When did she leave?”
“Like I said, haven’t seen her in a week. Girls come and go around here. A lot. Never know, she might be back around.”
“Would you do me a kindness and call me if you see her again?”
He takes his time, leaning over to pick up his toolbox. “Who’s she to you?”
My stomach clenches with that gnawing guilt I can’t shake. “Someone I should have looked out for a long time ago.”
CHAPTER 20
Grace
“What the hell are you doing out of your room, Mom?”
“Grace! Oh, thank God. I was going to walk home.” She peers at me through wild eyes. Not the same wild eyes I’ve seen countless times before, when every thought, every action, every need is trained on her next high.
This is different.
It’s worse.
“It would take you an hour to walk there, and you look ready to collapse!” She’s hunched over, her arms folded around her chest, her face a deathly shade of pale. “Besides, there’s nothing to go back to, remember?”
She reaches out to seize my wrist. “Did you get the box?”
“Yeah. But—”
“Okay. Good. We need to get out of here.” She begins tugging at my arm. For a woman as frail as she is, she has more strength than I’d expect. Whether it’s adrenaline or fear or plain madness that’s fueling this, I can’t say, but I’m forced to grab hold of her forearm with my free hand to keep her put.
“No. You need to get back to your hospital room. Dr. Coppa is not going to keep helping us if you pull this shit!”
“He came to my room!” she hisses, scanning the parking lot again.
“Of course he did! He’s your doctor!”
“No, not him. Him!”
“Who?”
“This cop. I’ve never seen him before, but . . .” Her face scrunches up with her frantic head shake. “But I know it was him!”
The police? Is that what this is about? Vilma did say that some man—maybe a cop—came by the trailer park. To do what, exactly, I don’t know because I didn’t see any caution tape. “Did he say anything about arresting you?” I ask as calmly as I can.
“Arresting me . . .” A nervous laugh escapes her. “If only.”
“What does that mean?”
“After all these years, they’re still watching.” Drops of sweat trail down the side of her face.
Jesus. “Did you get your dose?” Given how crazy she’s acting, she must be overdue.
“Don’t you patronize me, Grace. I know what I sound like, but there are things you don’t understand.”
Such as what’s in that box?
Again, she casts a furtive look around. “I can’t stay here.”
“And where are you gonna go? Back to our burnt-out trailer? In your pajamas?” The cops would have picked her up in minutes. Maybe that’d be for the best.
Heavy footfalls sound behind me and Mom’s eyes widen.
“Is everything okay?” Noah asks smoothly.
Dammit. I grit my teeth to keep from snapping. “It’s fine. I told you to stay in the car.” Mom’s already a loose cannon. The last person she needs to see is Jackie Marshall’s son.
“Who is this, Grace?” Despite the shameful things she has done for a high, during these brief post-overdose interludes when she’s convinced herself she can stay clean, she’s embarrassed about her addiction. She doesn’t want anyone to know.
“A friend. Mike.” I shoot him a warning glare. She hasn’t seen Noah since he was a gangly eleven-year-old. There’s nothing left to recognize, besides his striking blue eyes, which are hidden behind his aviators. “Why don’t you wait for me in the car. I’ll be there as soon as I get her back inside.”
“I’m not going back inside. I have to leave. It’s not safe here.”
“I can help.” Noah reaches for her and she flinches away. He lifts his hands in a
sign of surrender.
People are starting to look. Soon, someone will come and intervene, and it’ll upset her even more. “This is my problem. I’ll handle this.” I plead with him, “Just go. Please.”
The muscles in his jaw tense. “I’m sorry, Gracie. But no. I’m not going anywhere.”
He slides off his sunglasses.
CHAPTER 21
Noah
Gracie said the Dina Wilkes I knew is dead, but I don’t buy it.
I can’t.
Because I’ve already lost so much—first Abe, then my mom. And while happier recollections of this frail, terrified woman may have been pushed to the recesses of my mind for years, she still exists there, in my fondest childhood memories, humming a soft tune as she picks through ripe cherries to make Abe’s favorite pie; brushing my tears away as she blows against the scrape on my knee; ruffling my hair with a loving pat as she walks by.
In many ways, she was a second mother to me, my own mother often too preoccupied with her career.
Yesterday, Dina was a lifeless body on a couch that I had to save. Seeing her conscious, her green eyes—not quite as vibrant as Gracie’s but pretty nonetheless—staring up at me, brings all those childhood memories rushing back.
But those eyes are filled with fear and mistrust. With pain and suffering. With fourteen years of knowing something about what happened to Abe and not telling a soul—not even her daughter—because I’ll be damned if that box I just went through doesn’t have everything to do with Abe’s death.
I came to Tucson, telling myself it was to drop off a bag of money. Trying to convince myself that my mother was caught in some confused, suicidal fog, nothing more. But deep down I think I always knew I’d never be able to let these questions around Abe’s death go, no matter what Silas or Canning is convinced happened that night.
My mother held on to a secret that ended up killing her.
A fate Dina will share, if I allow it. And then won’t her death be partly on my hands, too?
I look down at the woman, hoping she’s not too far gone, that she’ll see the little boy she gave so much love to. “You don’t have to deal with this alone, anymore, Dina.”
“Oh, my God.” Her knees buckle.
I dive for her, my hands gripping her emaciated body beneath her arms before she folds to the pavement.
Shock fills her face as her gaze flickers over my features. “Noah, is that you? You’re . . .” Cool fingers graze my arms, trying to squeeze but lacking the strength needed.
“It’s me.” A lump swells in my throat.
“You’re here.”
“I am.”
A light gasp sails from her chapped lips. “Are you here to keep me quiet? I won’t say a word, I swear!”
What? “Dina, it’s me, Noah. I’m here to help you.”
“He showed up yesterday,” Gracie admits, her jaw clenched tightly, her eyes shining with resigned anger. “He’s the one who carried you out of the trailer.”
Tears stream down Dina’s cheeks as she reaches up to paw at my cheek, her fingers scratching against the stubble. “You look so much like her.” By the pained expression in her face, I can’t tell if that’s good or bad.
How could my mom let Dina get like this?
I have to squeeze my eyes shut against the flash of rage that stirs inside me. When I open them, she’s still staring at me, almost in awe.
“What did she tell you, Noah? About Abe. She knew what happened, didn’t she?” Desperation fills her face as she pleads with me, to hear what I suspect she already knows.
I hesitate.
For fourteen years, Abe was nothing more than a memory. A life lesson. Someone who taught me so much good, and then, through his alleged actions, so much bad.
And now I’m holding back the one thing I desperately wanted someone to tell me all those years ago: that Abe might be innocent.
“Noah. Please.”
“Abe was set up. He was made to look guilty.” Jesus. There, I said it. I can’t take it back. I exhale deeply, my breath ragged.
“What?” Gracie’s face pales. She couldn’t look more shocked had I slapped her across the face. “You said . . . You lied to me?”
Dina grabs my shoulders, pulling my attention back to her. “Jackie must have said something, if they’re coming after me again. What did she say?”
“Who’s coming after you again?”
Her lips press together, and she glances around. “It wasn’t him. But . . . it was him,” she whispers.
“Who, Dina?”
Another glance around. “Why is he coming after me again, Noah? All the way out here? I told him I didn’t have the video.”
“No one’s coming after you,” I say as gently as I can, hoping it will calm her growing agitation, even as I try and process her rambling words.
A man was looking for a video, and he thought Dina might have it?
What’s on this video? Something that someone didn’t want seen?
By the way she’s reacting, I’m going to take a wild guess and say the person looking for it wasn’t too casual about it the first time around.
Did Abe have this video? Was what was on it serious enough to get him killed?
“I’m not going back in that room.” Dina’s limp hair swings as she shakes her head furtively. “I’m a sitting duck in there. I’m telling you it was him. He wants—”
“Okay. Let’s get you somewhere comfortable and safe, where we can talk. We can figure this out, together.”
“No, I can’t tell you. He said if I talked about it with anyone again—”
“No one’s going to do anything to you, Dina.” I grip her hands within mine. “You’re not alone in this anymore.”
That seems to calm her a touch.
I scoop her up as gently as I can and start moving for my Cherokee. She’s so small, a collection of bony limbs within my arms.
“Noah!” Gracie hisses, grabbing onto my arm, her nails digging into my bicep. “She can’t leave. Look at her! She’ll be hunting down a hit by tonight without her meds.”
“Then find that doctor and get what you need.” I keep walking.
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with here.”
“You’re right, I don’t. But trust me, neither do you.” I unlock and open the back door, and settle Dina in. She startles at the one-eyed dog perched next to her. “Sit tight. The motel is five minutes away.” Shutting the door, I head for the driver’s side, intent on getting out of here and dealing with Gracie’s explosive anger in the privacy of our rooms.
But Gracie shoves me against the back of my SUV with surprising strength. “You don’t get to swoop in, lie to me, and then take control!” Her small fists slam against my chest.
“Not here, Gracie.”
“Yes, here, Noah. I want the truth!” she hisses.
“I don’t know what the truth is. Honest.”
“You obviously know a hell of a lot of something that you’re not telling me!” Her eyes shine as she fights against her tears. She’s furious with me, and I don’t think picking her up and tossing her into the passenger seat will work.
“Okay, fine.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “The night my mom killed herself, she was blind drunk and rambling all kinds of nonsense about how someone set up Abe and about how he was a good man and she needed you to know that.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me that when I asked?”
“Because I don’t know what’s true and I didn’t want to get your hopes up. Besides, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Who says?”
“My uncle, who’s also the district attorney.”
“Well, good! If he’s the DA then he can make the police reexamine the evidence, right?”
“That’s the problem; there isn’t any evidence to reexamine!” I quickly explain the incineration mishap.
By the time I’m done, tears of anger are streaming down her cheeks. I reach up to brush them away, but she jerks he
r head out of reach.
“I’m sorry. I thought it might do more harm than good, telling you.”
With rough strokes, she rubs her tears away. She backs away from me. “I’ll go and see what Dr. Coppa will give us, if anything.” Her voice has turned steely, a mask for the simmering rage hiding beneath.
And the hurt.
I watch her march for the hospital doors, feeling the chasm between us widen. Getting her to trust me at all again will be an impossible feat. I can’t worry about that right now, though.
I need to focus on finding out what Dina knows.
CHAPTER 22
Grace
Noah’s SUV bounces over the speed bumps into the motel’s parking lot, jostling me in my seat. “I’ll see if there’s an extra charge to bring him in. You should carry him to your room, though.”
“Does he look like a dog that lets people carry him?” I snap. I haven’t said a word to Noah since I climbed into the passenger seat, my mind too busy replaying all of his words, trying to pick out fact from fiction. What else hasn’t he shared with me? What other lies might he have told?
He sighs. “He can’t run loose around here. He’ll freak people out, and we don’t need to be looking for a new motel.”
“Did she force that dog on you?” my mom asks from the backseat. She hasn’t spoken much either, whether it’s from the shock of Noah, the nausea that’s likely overwhelming her, or the thick, choking tension swirling around us, I can’t be sure.
“No, ma’am, but your neighbor did. The dog catchers were hunting him.”
“Vilma?”
“Yes, ma’am. And I have a soft spot for the elderly, so I couldn’t say no.”
“Of course you do.” There’s rare delight in her voice. It’s not a wonder; Noah is oozing Texas charm. I would have thought it would agitate her, but now I see she’s smiling. And she’s so much calmer than she was when I found her in front of the hospital.
Cyclops lets out an excited bark.
“Actually, Noah was talking about adopting him. He loves strays.”
I meant it to unsettle him, but Noah only chuckles.