Fighting For Air, page 11
When Elliot got arrested, it took them four hours to get a search warrant. I got out of the hospital in three. With my head spinning, I grabbed four thousand dollars from his dresser and a wad of hundreds from the safe. I left his gun, the cocaine, the heroine, and the rest of the money. I made sure there was enough to get him in trouble. Enough to get him away from me.
“It’s a small place, and I had some money saved up.”
“So your parents pay for your college even though you bailed when you turned eighteen?” He starts packing up the aid kit, letting me take my hand back.
“Yeah. Well, they were going to at least.” I wonder what he must think of all this. Of my crazy, messed up life. His parents are probably perfect and caring. The worst thing he needs to worry about is babysitting on a Saturday night.
“Your parents sound intense.”
“They’re all about appearances. No one ever knew I moved out early, besides Myla, who didn’t care. I didn’t have many friends back then. A lot of the girls I thought were my friends ended up turning their backs on me after I got, well, made my mistakes.” I avoid eye contact with him. “Anyway, they’re retired so they moved down south in June and played it off like it was all a part of the plan. They weren’t impressed when I decided to stay here for school but a daughter in college is better than nothing, so they offered to pay.”
“What about all the mistakes you made? They didn’t care about any of that?”
“Oh trust me, they cared.” I think back to my mother’s face in that hospital. I was so ready to tell her. To beg her for help. Then she turned her cold eyes on me and immediately started scolding. “It’s complicated.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I wave him off, my hand throbbing.
“Listen. Do you have any plans next weekend? Saturday night?”
“Oh, no. I’m not going to another party.” This gets him to laugh and I decide I want to hear that more often. I like the sound of it.
While I’m on a roll, I kind of like his eyes too. And his smiIe. And the way he- stop it, Aubrey.
I push the thoughts out immediately. He’s my trainer and he’s annoying. And I’m not ready for that. I don’t think I’ll ever be.
“It’s not a party. There’s a paper view fight that night. Jason and I are buying it at my place and we figured you’d like to come.”
“Oh.” I’m pretty sure it was fully Jason’s idea, but it still makes me blush a little. Geez. I confide in the guy about my mother and suddenly I’m in love? Gross. That’s not me. I’m way too emotional today. “That sounds great.”
“Great.” He looks shocked that I actually said yes. “Alright, now. Enough distractions. Let’s get this cardio over with.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Aubrey
Myla comes home to find me lying in the middle of the living room floor, dying. “Well, I’d ask you how your day went but I’m assuming not good.”
Just in case she’s not certain, I inform her that I am dying.
“You’re not dying.”
“Dead. Gone. Goodbye.” I look up at her. “Play Stairway to Heaven at my funeral and put a Harry Potter quote on my tombstone.”
“Sure thing. Can I keep this top, then?” She pulls at her blouse, which I realize is mine. I look away and close my eyes. The room is starting to spin a little.
“You go right ahead. Take the whole closet.” She makes a noise of acknowledgment as she walks past me. I’m too exhausted to open my eyes but it sounds like she’s heading towards the bathroom. I go to tell her that I was just about to head to the shower but realize it would be a lie. I was headed there an hour ago when I found this very comfortable spot.
An entire day goes by while she showers and gets dressed. Okay, not a day. Probably a half-hour, but I’m dying and it’s taking too long.
When she finally emerges, she’s dressed in sweatpants and an oversized dance shirt. She smiles when she sees me looking at her.
“Oh look. Still alive.”
I stick my tongue out at her. “You look comfy.”
“Yeah. I figured I could just stay in with you tonight.”
“Oh, no.” I take every ounce of strength left in me and push myself up to a sitting position. I’m not sure if I have the energy for this but I will try my best. “Gas station guy sucks?”
“He does.” I know it’s over because she doesn’t correct me on his name. She sits on the floor in front of me, her legs crossing to form a pretzel.
“But you spent the night?”
“Well, yes. He didn’t suck the other night because we were wasted. The only reason he stayed here was because he started to pass out in the cab and the guy wouldn’t drive him anywhere else. Then yesterday, he didn’t suck at the movie because he couldn’t talk. And he didn’t suck at the club because the music was so loud. And he didn’t suck in bed, because I haven’t been laid in a month and he sort of knew what he was doing.” I push that mental image out of my head and force myself up to my feet. I need water.
“So, what happened?”
“Siiigggh.” The word is long and drawn out, like a dramatic sigh would be. I grab both of us some water and head back to our spot on the floor.
“He turned out to be atrocious. I mean, seriously, he was terrible.” She chugs half her water before continuing. “He had this thing about calling me sweet bottom. Like, seriously, sweet bottom? And he was so clingy. Oh, and he wanted to know everything about me. I felt like I was trapped in a sappy romance novel. Like, what’s my biggest fear? Really? Oh, and then he asked me if I would make him breakfast. He claims it’s what woman do for their men.” She shakes her head and huffs.
“Wow. Sounds like a doozy.”
“Yup.” The bottle in her hand crinkles as she begins squeezing it. “I think I need to take your approach and just swear off men.”
“Hey, it’s treating me well.” If only she knew what I was up to. The thoughts I’ve been having about a certain trainer. I look at her, trying to hide my guilt. Her hair is wet and dripping onto her shirt, and her sweatpants have a hole in the knee.
I love her the most when she’s like this, all comfortable and easy. It’s the way I met her, at our first dance practice. It’s the way she always was at our sleepovers, or when I would wake her up at four in the morning by climbing in her window. She’s been my best friend for so long, I can’t imagine not having her around. She’s more stable than my family.
Shit. My family. “I spoke to my mother the other night.”
She must be able to tell from my face that it went bad. “How bad?”
“On a scale of one to ten? The newest Justin Bieber song.” Her eyes widen.
“That’s bad.”
“She told me she won’t pay for my college anymore.”
“What?” She sits up straight. I’m not sure why she’s surprised at all. If anyone, other than me, knows how shitty my mother is, it’s Myla.
“Sure enough, I checked and I’m on my own. I only have two weeks to pay for it.”
“Do you, um.” She pauses and gives me a somewhat nervous smile. “Never mind.”
“No, what?”
“It’s nothing. None of my business.”
“Myla.” I feel like I’m scolding a child.
“I was just going to ask if you still have money left over. To pay for the semester.”
“Not really. I’ve got enough for a few months of rent, and that’s more important than school.”
“You should have taken all of it.” I hear the anger flare in her voice.
“The money was part of his conviction. It helped prove he was dealing.”
“I know.” She huffs and finishes her water bottle. Then her eyes light up with an idea. “I could get you a job with me if you want? The manager loves me, and we’re hiring.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I couldn’t think of anything worse than working in an upscale boutique. Working with people like my mother. Well, I could think of a few, but they all involve severe injuries or being in a room with my parents. “I’ll let you know if I can’t figure anything else out. It would be hard to train, go to school, and work.”
“Well I know our rent is cheap when we split it but tuition is a whole other issue hun.” I inwardly groan when she calls me hun. It means that she’s concerned and it takes a lot to get her concerned.
“I’ll let you know, I promise.” I stand up and groan. This shower better be worth the pain. “I’m hoping she’s just trying to fake me out. If she doesn’t cough up the money she has no control.”
“God forbid Jessica Pierce loses control of anything.” She finishes what she started by crushing her bottle into a jagged stick of plastic. “God, Bree. If I was you I would have thrown what happened with Elliot right in her face. I would have made her feel like total shit for not paying enough attention, for not being there for you.”
“Myla.” I rub at my eyes, trying to combat the ache emerging. It’s not my favorite thing to think about. If we’re all being honest with ourselves, my mother knows. My mother knew. Instead of caring, I think she saw it as a lesson. Her and Elliot are similar in that way.
“I’m sorry. It just pisses me off that you got stuck with parents like yours, plus Elliot. You deserve a break.”
“I already got a break. I live with my best friend, I’m going to school for something that I think I’ll love, and I’m training at one of the best gyms in the country.”
“Still,” she leans in, and it feels like she wants to hug me. I itch from the idea of being constricted into a hug. Even with Myla, that wouldn’t be pleasant. Thankfully she knows this already and doesn’t go in for the kill. “I want you to be happy. You seem like you’re going through the motions and you deserve better than that.”
“I’ll work on it.”
“Try to find someone too.”
“Myla.” I feel my exhaustion setting in again.
“Never mind, I take it back.” She slaps my knee playfully and hops up. “I’ll find a movie on Netflix and make us some frozen pizza. Go shower. You smell like ball sack.”
“Fine. Grab some wine too.” I leave her behind to head towards the bathroom but I can feel her eyes on me the entire time. Will she ever accept the fact that I’ll never be the same person again?
I start to doubt everything. Myla knows me better than anyone. Sometimes, she knows me better than I know myself. Maybe Elliot changed me into someone else, but I could change again. I could at least try.
Chapter Thirty
Caden
The morning news gives me a pretty good indication of what kind of day I’m going to have. In the last week, there’s been five Heroin overdoses. This morning marks the sixth. And the first death. Shit.
The chief meets me at the door of the station, probably on the same page as me today. He immediately starts walking to his office, speaking as he goes. I speed walk behind him to keep up, taking in everything he’s saying and making mental notes of what I need to do.
“The investigation isn’t going fast enough. None of the victims are talking, and obviously our OD from this morning isn’t going to be saying anything. We need to know where they got their supply and who’s in charge of all the distributors. I want to take this guy down, Larson.”
“As do I, Sir.”
“You need to call Jameson and get him in today. I need him to step it up which means I need you to step it up. That boy isn’t delivering. He’s given us one lead and it turned out to be nothing more than a guy selling his medicinal marijuana.” He sighs. “Don’t get me wrong, the more drugs off the street the better but we need to have priorities.”
“Jameson claims that the guy was one of the biggest drug dealers he knew.”
The chief scoffs and looks at me like he can’t believe I believe that. I don’t, I’m just stating a fact. “Tell him his ass will be back in prison if he doesn’t buck up. The charges he got brought up on? The things we found in his apartment? He wasn’t the top guy but he was high up, and he knows more than he’s telling. He’s on a clock here. We have people dying.”
He pauses at my cubicle to drop me off like a child. The entire atmosphere of the station is different today. Everyone is moving in a quiet rush, the air thick with tension. The pressure is officially on.
I call Jameson, pleasantly surprised when he answers on the first try. Even more surprising, he says he’ll be in right away, instead of the usual back and forth involved in dragging his ass here.
To pass the time, I check a few files and get some questions prepared. He shows up right on time but I’m less than impressed with his appearance. Instead of his usual nice jeans and dress shirt, he’s wearing a pair of jeans with grease stained thighs and a plain white shirt that’s so thin, you can see all his tattoos through it.
“You beckoned?” He looks angrier than usual. I wonder what he was up to and, since I’m supposed to be supervising him, I ask.
“Where were you?”
“At work?” He gestures to his jeans. “I’m helping out at my dad’s auto shop.”
“I didn’t think you worked on Sundays. I apologize for interrupting.”
“Don’t worry about it. We aren’t open on Sundays so I was just doing some extra work. He won’t mind.”
“He doesn’t know you’re here, though?” He’s not supposed to tell anyone about his arrangement, not even family. Not until it’s over.
“I told him I needed to come in for a piss test. He didn’t argue it. My whole situation makes him uncomfortable.”
“You getting arrested, or you getting out?”
“Getting arrested. He didn’t expect me to go to fucking Harvard or anything but he expected a little more than getting arrested for dealing drugs and,” he pauses, like he’s not sure how much I know. I hide my smile. He must be afraid of spilling something that we didn’t get him for yet. Must be stressful to be a criminal around so many cops.
“Well, glad you could come in. You see the news this morning?”
“No. I don’t watch the news.” He stops short. By the look on his face, I have a feeling he wants to say something. It takes him a second, his eyes looking anywhere but me, before he speaks again. “Was it about Lily dying last night?”
I force down any physical signs of excitement. “You knew Lily Johnston?”
“Kind of. She was a regular for me.” He shrugs it off but I don’t at all. This is good. This will get us somewhere. I pull out a chair for him and he sits down without being prompted.
“Alright. I need you to tell me everything you know about Lily.”
He looks at me skeptically. “How far does that confidentiality run?”
“It’s a fine line. You can’t tell me if you’re doing anything illegal right now, since the deal began. You shouldn’t be doing drugs, dealing drugs, or in possession of a gun. Among other things. You can’t tell me anything that would break your probation because I would have to report it.”
“What about what happened before?”
“I know what happened before.”
He pauses. It’s clear that I don’t know everything, which I figured. There were gaps in his case, gaps that he obviously wasn’t going to fill until now. His immunity covers the gaps. “You don’t know everything.”
“Well, anything that happened during the time before your arrest is under your immunity agreement.” I pause. I’m not sure if I need to say this but I figure it should be addressed. “There are some exceptions, one of them being murder. If you killed someone, yourself, we can get you for that.”
“I never killed anyone.” I study his face and try to decide if that’s true. He doesn’t seem like he’s lying, but that could just be a skill of his. Then again, he was high up. He probably never needed to get his hands bloody. There were people for that.
“Well, then. Go ahead and tell me about Lily.” I pull out a tape recorder from the drawer and he pales. “Don’t worry. It’s just for my own records.”
He sighs and steadies himself. I prepare for what I’m about to hear and hope to God it doesn’t make me hate him anymore. “I met her a few years ago. She was nineteen, I think, when she started hanging around the group. She dated,” he pauses and looks at me. It’s a name he’s afraid to give. “She dated this guy in our group, one of the bigger dealers. We called him Jack.”
“What would I call him?”
“I don’t know.”
“His name wasn’t Jack?”
He laughs to himself, like he’s thinking of a fond memory. “No, his name wasn’t Jack.”
“Why was he called Jack?”
“Because if you fucked with him or his boys, he’d jack you up.”
“Interesting.” I make a mental note about Jack. If someone as high up as Jameson didn’t know his real name, he’s probably one of the top guys. Either that, or Jameson doesn’t want to snitch on this particular person.
“So, do you think he’s who gave her the drugs she overdosed on?”
“No.”
“That was quick. Why so sure?”
“He’s dead.” His face is void of emotion, as if he didn’t know the guy at all. As if he could care less.
“Even when he died, you didn’t know his name?” He scratches at the stubble on his jaw. “Didn’t you go to his funeral? Or read the report in the paper?”
“No. He died in Chicago.”
“That doesn’t make a difference, there would still-”
“I don’t think his body was ever found. I don’t think he had family to look for him. We sure as hell weren’t going to look for him. There’s probably no record of him, but I’m telling you. He’s dead.” His nostrils flare as he tries to breathe through his unnecessary anger.
“Why wouldn’t you guys look for him?”
“Because he was a dick who made a lot of enemies. I don’t know if one of us offed him, or if one of his clients in Chicago did. I don’t really care.”
