Sanctuary, page 17
It was my own fault.
I clung to him. Let myself fall for him. Love him. Imagine a future with him.
And all along, I knew better.
Clint’s call just reminded me that I was living in fantasyland, but it was time to face reality.
Every time I’d ever heard my father’s voice, disaster followed. I was eight the first time I truly understood that. Mom had tried to get clean. She was sober for three entire weeks when he’d shown up at our door out of the blue. It was always out of the blue. He stayed off grid, only popping up when it suited him. He could play the system, even the internet. His dark web knowledge was almost as scary as he could be in a rage.
That day, he walked into our living room with three shopping bags full of groceries. Mom cooked dinner, and we sat down for a meal together as a family for the very first time. I’d been so happy, so sure that things were going to get better. As I’d stuffed my mouth full of mashed potatoes, I’d envisioned coming home from school each day to both my parents, a fridge full of food and milk, and going to bed every night with a full stomach, a happy heart.
But as I was chewing my last bite of steak, Dad handed Mom a baggie.
With a grin, he announced he’d picked her up some dessert, a special treat just for her.
Even at eight years old, I’d immediately known what it was.
Meth.
I was told to go to bed.
Mom got high.
And Dad left—like he always did.
The next morning, I found her in the living room. What was left of her stash was spread across the scarred coffee table. There was a new burn mark on the wood from her pipe and fresh blisters on her lips, a few red spots on her cheeks. She sat on the floor with her back against the couch, her head leaning at a painful angle. Passed out, with drool trickling from her open mouth.
I fixed myself a bowl of stale cereal, using the last bit of milk we had left. I didn’t cry, even though I wanted to. My eyes felt swollen, a little achy, but they remained dry. After I washed my bowl and spoon, I grabbed my old, tattered backpack and left for school. The visions I’d had only hours before, long gone.
Yet somehow, eleven years later, I still clung to hope.
God, I was so pathetic.
As soon as I’d heard Clint’s voice the night before, I should have just hung up. I didn’t know how he’d gotten my number, not that it surprised me. Not much did where he was concerned.
I hadn’t allowed myself to think about my mother much since arriving at Sanctuary. When she did flicker in my memories, I’d pushed them back. I had too many other things to worry about without the sharp pain directly to my heart that just her name could produce. My body had been healing, and that required too much energy to let thoughts of that woman distract me.
Not wanting to think about either of my parents, I carefully extricated myself from Jack’s hold. The moment his arm fell onto the bed, I felt cold and more alone than ever before. Ignoring the new hollow sensation in my chest, I walked into the bathroom and quietly shut the door.
While I showered away the remaining traces of tears and soothed the aching muscles of my neck and back with the massaging, hot jets, I tried not to let my mind drift to the man sleeping in my bed.
He hadn’t kissed me last night. I wasn’t even sure I still wanted him to. His betrayal made me feel raw.
Love made a person vulnerable. I should have fought mine for Jack. I never should have opened my heart to him.
Maybe there was a hidden switch somewhere inside me that I could flip and not have to feel all this…agony. Rinsing the conditioner from my hair, I tried to turn it off. But if I hadn’t learned how to do it by this point in my life, I doubted I ever would.
I craved being loved too damn much.
Once I was clean, I stepped out and wrapped a towel around my body. My hair dripped down my back and over my shoulders, but I just stood there staring at the steamed-up mirror above the sink, frozen with the humiliation of my own gullibility.
“Nishia?”
I jerked at the sound of my name in his voice. Why did it have to sound like a caress? So sweet and gentle in that rough, bearlike growl. I wrapped my arms around myself, to hold that feeling close just as much as to fight the hurt that tried to kick me yet again.
The bathroom door opened ever so slightly, but he didn’t try to push his way in, offering me privacy—and the illusion that I had control.
A laugh tried to bubble out of my dry throat.
Control.
Such a powerful word, yet something I’d lacked from the moment I was born.
“Baby.”
The condensation was slowly evaporating, and I was able to see parts of my reflection. As more of my face was revealed, I found myself staring into a pair of wide, pain-filled blue eyes that looked stark in a pale face. There was a blankness in that gaze, but still, the chaos of my life bled through.
I felt sick.
The world had dimmed, stealing away any glimmer of brightness. All my hopes and silly, little girl dreams had finally been stolen away.
“Nishia, sweetheart?”
Tears filled my eyes at the sound of Gracie’s voice. I choked back a sob, my throat already protesting after the mental breakdown I’d had in the early hours of the morning.
Pushing the door inward, Jack’s mom stood behind me. Her face was darkened with concern. Not the distrust and condemnation that should have been there.
Morgan blood ran through my veins.
She should hate me for what my father’s family had put her through. She should be on her guard around me, because I carried the DNA of people who had harmed her.
Instead, all I could see was understanding and…acceptance. Closing my eyes, I shook my head frantically, causing still-soaked hair to whip around me.
Her blue eyes tried to rekindle the hope that had always lived in my heart, when my brain knew all too well that it was a joke fate played on poor, unsuspecting people.
“Honey, let me help you dry your hair,” Gracie offered. “You need to put some clothes on before you catch a chill.”
Her soft hand touched my arm so lovingly. Like a mother should touch her daughter.
“No!” I jerked back as if she’d burned me. “You can’t do this to me. I won’t allow it.”
“Nishia—”
“Stop. Please, I’m begging you. Don’t. It hurts too much. I-I don’t think I’ll survive much more.”
Tears filled her kind eyes. “Survive what, sweetheart?”
“Getting a taste of something good. Pure. And then having it snatched away.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
jack
The tightness in my chest wouldn’t ease. The knot in my throat kept choking me, and all I could do was pace the bedroom while I listened to Nishia and Mom in the bathroom.
When she’d gotten out of bed earlier, I’d kept my eyes closed and reluctantly let her do what she needed. I heard her in the shower and ached to join her, but she wasn’t ready for that. Fuck, I hadn’t even kissed her yet. As badly as I wanted to dive in headfirst, she was still recovering from everything that had happened to her. She had to set the pace.
My ears strained while I listened to the water turn off, and then she’d just stood in there. Unable to stop myself, I’d gone to the door and tried to get her to let me in. With the door ajar, all I would have had to do was nudge it open, but I hadn’t pushed her boundaries. No matter how badly I’d wanted to comfort her.
All I could do was text my mom. She’d been in the kitchen and came running after I told her Morgan had called Nishia the night before. That was all it took to get her moving, and before I knew it, she was bursting through the front door and whooshing past me.
Every broken word that left Nishia, every sob, was a gut punch. My hands balled into fists at my sides, and I kept reminding myself that punching a wall would scare my little fairy. She was already upset with me enough; I couldn’t stomach it if she feared me too.
Feeling helpless was a sensation I had no experience with. Frustrated, I swiped my thumb over my phone and lifted it to my ear.
“Yo, biker—”
“How the fuck did he get her number?” I seethed.
“Good morning to you too, asshole,” Mieke said in a bored tone. “A little more context would help, ya know.”
“Clint Morgan.” I struggled to keep my voice low, not to bellow each word. It would scare Nishia or make her even angrier with me.
Fuck, I wasn’t going to survive this. She was never supposed to be upset with me. Not like this, not for anything, damn it. I had to fix it. I would fix it. But first, I had to figure out how the bastard had gotten so close without setting off alarms. Alarms Mieke was supposed to be monitoring.
“He called the little fairy?” Her surprise only spiked my agitation. The click-click-click of her typing fingers was like nails down a chalkboard. “Last call to her phone was from a burner cell. I fucking hate burners,” she muttered as if talking to herself. “Cell tower signals pinpoint the caller ten miles east of Creswell Springs. Right on the border of Trinity County. It has a Northern California area code. Do you want to call it?”
“Text it to me,” I barked. From the bathroom, I heard Nishia give a little scream as she yelled, and I gripped a handful of my hair at the roots, my pacing speed only increasing. “How did he get her fucking number, Mieke? It’s unlisted.”
“Who knows her number?” She was still typing away, and a throb in my temple began to tick to the rhythm.
“Shit, I don’t have a list. Any number of people. She gave it to a few of my cousins, their wives, and most of the residents at Sanctuary.” I paused my pacing and inhaled slowly, my rage burning like an inferno. “He sent her pictures of her mom’s body.”
“Yeah, I saw the messages. The pictures were grotesque, let’s just say that,” she said with a sigh, still clicking away. “I would have lost it. Of course, my mom is, hands down, my favorite person, second only to my husband. And some days, second to no one. Doc can be a real pain in my ass. Nishia’s relationship with her mom wasn’t a good one at all. I can’t imagine what she’s going through right now on top of everything else.”
“Could he have gotten a hacker to find her number?”
“Unless he hacked it the instant you got the phone plan, then no. I locked it down tight when you gave me the details. I did a full search on all the staff and residents at Sanctuary. No one stood out. I gave you the details as I vetted each person.” She made a humming noise. “But burner phones are tricky. Unless I have a phone number or a serial number to trace, I have nothing to look for. Now that I have the number Morgan called her from, I can do a little more, but I’m not making any promises.”
“Anything,” I gritted out, continuing my pacing. “Someone gave him that number, and it sure as fuck wasn’t Amy.”
“Are you sure?” Her voice was full of curiosity. “I haven’t seen much on her digital footprint.”
I paused midstep. “What do you mean, much?”
There shouldn’t have been anything because the bitch was fucking dead.
“Well, I have a few transactions on her debit card each week. The necessities. Groceries. Dinner at that diner in town, Aggie’s. The shop near the college, WomanLand. Violet brought me back a really beautiful top the last time she went to visit her brother-in-law, and I’ve been kinda obsessed with that place ever since. But there has been minimal activity on Amy’s phone. She turns it on once a day, plays a few mobile games, checks her social media, but hasn’t posted anything in at least six weeks. Guess she’s been keeping a low profile…”
Her clicks seemed to grow a little more aggressive. “She hasn’t made any calls to Morgan, not even to this burner number you provided.”
My heart rate slowed, a new calm coming over me. The monster inside me wanted to play. I hadn’t let him out since Arizona. There had been no need to release the darkness that normally built until it was about to explode out of me, taking everyone in the immediate vicinity with it. Nishia was my light, my peace, the only person standing between me and the evil that festered inside me.
And someone had caused my precious little fairy pain.
The darkness and I were at one with the idea of destroying every last motherfucker who caused her to so much as flinch.
“Is the phone on now?”
“No, but did you know that the newer phones can be traced while they are off unless you deactivate that feature?”
“I wasn’t aware of that, no.”
She made a disapproving sound. “Not everyone does, but I’m disappointed you didn’t, Jack. I need to teach you better.”
“Can you track the phone?”
“Of course I can. Apparently Amy didn’t realize her new phone had that capability.” Her fingers abruptly stopped typing. “I thought you said Amy no longer worked at Sanctuary.”
“She doesn’t.” Because her liquefied body was swimming in a sewage drain in Oakland.
“Her phone is currently at Sanctuary.”
The sobs only escalated in the bathroom, not just Nishia’s, but my mom’s too. I let those pitiful sounds wash over me, teasing the monster who was ready to play. Whoever had hurt Nishia would pay in blood.
“Can you pinpoint where?”
“The shelter takes up some serious space,” she muttered, back to talking to herself more than me. “Looks like…south side of the property. One of the cabins?”
“Is it possible to tell which one?”
“Give me a second, I have to adjust the satellite…” Her fingers were typing quicker than normal. “Ugh. I’ve got it narrowed down to the last two cabins on the south side. If you can give me another ten minutes, I can tell you the exact one.”
My breathing increased, the thrill of the hunt taking over. “I’ll call you back.”
“Wait, Jack. Let me—”
I hung up, cutting her off. Pocketing my phone, I walked out of the apartment and through the house. There were residents in the kitchen, but on Sundays, everyone came and went at their leisure. Sometimes they didn’t make it to the kitchen until noon for their first meal, so Marcy left out pastries and fresh fruit, or they could get cereal. Dinner was a bigger deal on Sundays, though. She always made prime rib. Many of my MC brothers fought over who was going to take the security shift at Sanctuary so they could have a plate.
“Morning, Jack,” Suzanne greeted. “Is everything okay? Gracie ran out of here—”
I didn’t pause to answer her question. Slamming through the back door, I stomped down the three steps. There were two stone paths, one that led to the five cabins on the north side of the property, and the one that took me to the south. The first one belonged to Marcy and her wife; the second was Suzanne’s. I didn’t even look at them as I passed, my gaze drifting between the last two in the distance.
As I neared, the door to the last cabin opened, and Deborah stepped out with her medical bag in hand. I stopped in my tracks, waiting to see what she was doing. The last cabin belonged to another longtime resident. Tina was a little woman in her midforties who had come to us almost a decade before. After the nightmare her ex had put her through, she was still scared of her own shadow and had gotten a job as a medical transcriber that she was able to do from home.
Tina went to group therapy throughout the week and had a standing appointment with Dr. Cainfield, but she didn’t socialize beyond that. Mom didn’t press her, though. Her anxiety was always too high, which drove up her blood pressure. One of the nurses always checked on her every morning and evening, monitoring her BP even though she was on two medications to regulate it.
Deborah didn’t notice me at first, and as she turned away from the door, she pulled something out of her bag. When I saw a bright-yellow cell phone case, my brows pulled up even as the monster inside me gave a manic laugh in my head. I might not have remembered Amy’s name most of the time in the past, but she was the only person at Sanctuary who had that ugly-ass case.
And now Deborah had it.
Quickly, I tried to remember everything I knew about the nurse.
She’d grown up in Creswell Springs. Someone told me once that she’d been a regular at the clubhouse, warming a different single brother’s bed every night of the week. She was older than my mom but younger than my dad. All I’d ever cared about was that she did her job and did it well. There had never been any complaints from our residents about her skills and bedside manner. She’d always been professional, but I wasn’t sure any of the women had actually gotten close with her.
I shifted noisily on purpose to gauge her reaction. Her head snapped up from the phone screen, her eyes narrowed for a moment before she put a small smile on her face and casually tucked the phone back into her medical bag.
“Morning, Jack,” she called as she descended the porch steps. “What brings you out this way? Did Chance not show up for his shift again?”
Movement past the cabin caught my attention, but it was only Chance doing his perimeter check. He’d obviously heard her and didn’t like that she’d assumed he had been a no-show. It had only happened once in the past, a few months before when he’d been too sick to lift his head. He’d had a 104-degree fever and spent three days in the hospital with double pneumonia.
Catching my MC brother’s gaze, I gave him an all too familiar but discreet signal, and he reached behind him, his hand going to his gun without hesitation.
“Nishia had a rough night.” Knowing Chance would have my back, I turned my attention to the nurse. “Can you come give her something to help relax her?”
She walked closer, not sensing the danger. “Oh no! She doesn’t normally have issues. Did something happen?”
“She received an unexpected call. Mom is with her now.”
For the first time, I saw a flicker of annoyance in her eyes, but she quickly masked it and gave me an understanding nod. “Your mother is really attached to this one.”
“She should be,” I said as I turned to walk back to the main house with her. “Nishia is going to be her daughter-in-law soon.”
