The After Party (A Badboys Boxset)

by Karr, Kim

Adam Lane’s theory is on my mind—things weren’t as they seemed. “What did he mean by open and shut?” I try to remain calm.

  “The fire marshal ruled the explosion an accident due to faulty safety measures. The police commissioner agreed with him, and the DA took a look at the plant account balances and all were in the red. Everyone signed off and the case was closed.”

  Feeling antsy, I glance around the table and notice Jake seems to be in his own head. Here’s the thing with Jake: he’s the bulldog in our group. Piss him off and he’ll bite you. And yet, he’s loyal through and through. Fuck, he saved Charlotte’s life. I owe him my own. I nod my chin toward him. “What are you thinking, Pretty Boy?”

  He tilts his head to the side. “Do you really want to know?”

  Annoyed now, I blurt out, “I wouldn’t fucking ask if I didn’t.”

  “Chill man, I’m just trying to think.”

  “Sorry,” I concede for jumping on him. “Go on.”

  “Well, if foul play was involved from the start, I agree with Will. Why would Tom do it—what did he have to gain? There wasn’t an insurance policy. No pay out. No money. So why blow-up your own plant?”

  I bristle. The plant didn’t only blow up. People died. My father died. “Who else could it have been?”

  “There are a number of people. The police commissioner of twenty years past, who has vanished somewhere in California. That DA from back then, who is now dead. The fire marshal who is retired and now lives in Florida with an unlisted phone number. Or any number of other people.”

  “I don’t know if it was any of them, but I think we should keep an open mind,” Will states.

  “Charlotte told us that Detective Hill mentioned he was just starting out back then. Maybe we turn the tables and ask him a few questions?” Jake suggests.

  Will seems to agree as he nods in agreement.

  I’m on the fence. I try to pull my feelings back inside myself so I can think clearly.

  Drew seems benevolent and in true form, he takes a bite of his sandwich.

  All I can do is shake my head.

  “And don’t forget—we know Tom was after the documents that Charlotte has. Maybe we should go through them,” says Jake.

  I glance around. Everyone is shaking their heads. “Yeah, good idea.”

  “You know, Jasper, Charlotte mentioned going home today, it’s not really my business, but do you think that’s a good idea?” Will asks.

  Blindsided by this information, it takes me a few minutes to recover. “When did she tell you that?”

  “She was talking to Whitney about her apartment at dinner last night.”

  I pick up the coffee stirrer and chew on it. “Well fuck, she might have wanted to mention it to me. I’ll talk to her about it.”

  “She should at least stay until she gets her cast off, don’t you think?” Jake offers.

  Drew raises his brows. “Why? So that hot resident can keep stopping by and you can continue to gawk at her with those puppy dog eyes?”

  “I’m not gawking at her.”

  “Are you fucking her then?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “That would be a no.”

  “How would you know, asshole?”

  “Because I fucking live with you, and you’ve been home every night, without any guests.”

  The two of them are like Mutt and Jeff.

  “Maybe I want to take things slow with her. She’s a nice girl.”

  “And what? You don’t want to scare her away because you’re a dirty boy?”

  “That’s enough,” Will cuts in having had enough.

  Always the referee.

  “What do you want to do about all this?” he asks me.

  I ponder the entire conversation, uncertain digging deeper will do any good for anyone. Sure, I want to know the truth—but at what expense will it come?

  “You’re the one who went through hell, so it’s your call,” Will adds.

  Chewing on the stirrer in my mouth, I glance around the table and speak without a second thought. “That’s just it, I’m not the only one who went through hell.”

  Three sets of concerned eyes look at me.

  Not wanting to drag Charlotte through this all over again, I do what I never do, and back down. For her. For these guys. And maybe a little bit for me.

  As far as Charlotte is concerned, Tom is the culprit her father spoke of, therefore she has accomplished what she set out to do—clear her father’s name. Knowing this is best I push my own doubts aside. “I say we keep our thoughts on the down low, and do nothing right now. It’s a police matter—let them handle it.” I look around the table. “Does everyone agree?”

  Three nods and it’s unanimous.

  Really, this is the best way.

  “So, who’s up for Jobbie Nooner?” Drew asks with a shit-eating grin. “I’m taking Hank’s boat.”

  “Does he know?” I ask.

  “Yes, he knows. I talked to him this morning and he offered, smartass.”

  “I’m in,” Jake says.

  “What about Shannon?” I ask.

  “I’m bringing her.”

  “To Jobbie Nooner?”

  “She told me she’s gone for the past three years.”

  Wow. Okay.

  “Count me out,” says Will.

  Knew that.

  Drew nods in my direction. “What about you?”

  “I don’t think Charlotte would be into it.”

  “Pussy,” Drew mutters.

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Then don’t act like one. Just because you have a chick doesn’t mean you can’t do things that are fun. Bring her. She knows she has you wrapped around her finger. She’s not going care if some chick flashes you her tits.”

  “Hey man, do what I’m doing and just stay on the boat,” Jake tells me.

  “You’re what?” Drew’s jaw drops.

  I shake my head at him. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Yeah, you do that, pussy.”

  Standing up, I toss some money down and then put Drew in a headlock as I pass by just for being such a douche.

  It feels good to be able to joke around.

  CHAPTER TEN

  RED LIGHT

  Charlotte

  DETROIT’S REPUTATION CAN pretty much be summed up in four C’s: crime, corruption, capital, and cars. And I’m not even so sure about that last one anymore. Although, if Jasper has anything to say about it, he’ll have Detroit back on the map for auto production in no time.

  There’s a very small park across the street from the Kales Building Lofts, and I’m sitting on a tree-covered bench with my computer on my lap thinking about those things. Really, I’m trying to write a blog post for Lightning Motors, but my mind is everywhere, except on my words. So instead, I’m sitting here watching the cars zoom past me down Adams Avenue wondering why they are speeding without recourse.

  But I know why.

  It goes back to the four C’s. They are all related in one way or another. The city lacks capital. That is first and foremost. Lack of funds forces corruption, corruption breeds crime, crime leads to more corruption, and in a city built on cars—everything comes back to them.

  My thoughts are mucky as I start to type them. ‘Did you know that in Detroit it’s okay to run a red light? Not really, but last year alone, the city put over 150 traffic lights under study for removal, and even more lost their traffic cams. Sadly, lack of capital has led to less city support personnel. Bottom line—there is no one to monitor them. So as you sit there waiting for the light to turn—consider this, if it’s clear, just go. Only please, make sure you check twice and proceed at your own risk. You have nothing to lose.’

  I reread it and then run it through the fact checker in my mind.

  Is it true? Yes.

  Will people learn something from this post? Yes.

  Will it be helpful to Detroit? No.

  Will it benefit Lig
htning Motors? No.

  Hitting my delete key over and over, I erase it and try for something more cheerful. ‘The Storm will be able to handle any terrain in Detroit, even the roads that are . . . well, in really bad shape. It’s one of the great ironies of the Motor City—wouldn’t you say?’

  This one I don’t even have to run through my mental fact checker. I just delete the entire paragraph.

  What is wrong with me?

  I don’t want to go home. That’s what’s wrong.

  Jasper hasn’t told me I have to leave his loft, but I can’t stay at his place forever. After all, it’s been a week. Tomorrow things go back to normal, and the team will be hard at work getting the factory off the ground.

  I just think it’s time.

  Someone sits next to me, and the hairs on my arms rise.

  A throat clears.

  The sound stabs me.

  “Hello, Charlotte.” There is no need to turn my head, although I do. It’s a voice I’d know without even looking over to see that it belongs to the woman who has been plastered all over the television. Allison Lane. My mother. She is wearing a black hat, big sunglasses, a black dress, and if possible even darker high heels.

  Makes me wonder if her heart is black.

  Flick. Flick.

  The snap of her lighter forces me to avert my gaze. In that one moment it takes me to catch my breath, she’s already lit up a cigarette and the wind is blowing the smoke my way. I freeze up. My mind returning to the days when she had all the control.

  We’re driving down the road in her station wagon. She hates this car. “I hate this car, I hate it.” She says it over and over.

  “I like this car, Mommy,” I say.

  She turns and looks at me as if she’s bitten into a sour apple. “What on earth do you like about it?”

  “It’s big, and I have a lot of room.”

  “Why do you need room when we’re driving?”

  I like that she’s having a conversation with me and I want to keep it up. “So I can change seats when the smoke bothers me.”

  Her hands clench the wheel. “Well, the smoke wouldn’t bother you if the air-conditioning worked and I didn’t have to leave the windows open.”

  I want her to be happy. “I like the wind in my face too, Mommy.”

  “Oh,” she says with another gust of smoke, and then she closes the windows and says, “I want you to stay in your seat. Then we’ll see how much you like this piece-of-crap car.”

  I’ll never tell her how much I like anything again.

  She’s silent, as if waiting for me to greet her.

  I won’t give her that control.

  The hostility I’m feeling toward this woman is rolling off me in rough waves, and I have to force myself to speak. “What are you doing here?”

  She inhales and holds the smoke in her lungs.

  I’m watching her.

  She looks the same. Always so put together. I notice her red painted nails and matching lips. The tip of the cigarette she’s holding between her fingers is red as well. “I wanted to see you,” she says.

  The snort that escapes my throat isn’t intentional, although deserved.

  Smoke pours from her nostrils in two streams of air. “Sweetie, I know you might not believe me, but I’m worried about you.”

  Sweetie?

  Really?

  Picturing her with her coffee and cigarette, hair in rollers to calm her frizzy curls, sitting at the kitchen table every morning when I wandered out of my room, saying to her, “Good morning, Mommy,” and her returning with a “Good morning, sweetie,” is the only happy memory I have left of her. “Please don’t be.”

  She nods. “Well, I am. I came to warn you to be careful.”

  The problem with wishing for things is that when they happen, they aren’t always the way you dreamed they would be. This mother/daughter reunion is nothing like the one I’d dreamt about so many years ago. Feeling like that eight year old again, unnerved and unsure, I can’t find the words to respond to her. To tell her she doesn’t get to warn me, or worry about me, or do anything for me. She gave that right up long ago. “Of what?” I ask with a laugh, considering it was her lover who I needed to be careful of.

  She pushes her sunglasses up onto her head, and with that same way she always had, she turns the conversation into whatever direction pleases her. “You’ve turned out to be a really beautiful woman.”

  Eyes the same color as mine stare at me. I’m speechless. Wordless. Lost. Alone. Suddenly, I’m that same girl I was who couldn’t stand up for herself.

  “I’m sorry to just show up like this, but I’ve been going to your apartment and you haven’t been there. I’m headed home today and thought I’d stop by here first.”

  Feeling small and helpless, I somehow manage to say, “That’s great, you managed to find me after all these years.” The bitter tone sounds nothing like my voice.

  She draws the smoke into her lungs one more time and holds it before letting it out. “I know you don’t want to talk to me and I can understand that, but I think you should know Tom had nothing to do with the reporter’s death or Tory’s death. He was framed.”

  I’m staring at a reflection of myself. Same face shape. Same hair. Same eyes. Yet, she’s a stranger. I don’t even know what to call this woman. Mom. Mommy. Mother. Allison. Mrs. Lane. Mrs. Worth. My throat locks with bitter emotion. “Yes, I’m sure he was.”

  “Charlotte, listen to me. Tom was not involved with any of this. Tory came to Detroit on her own. She didn’t tell us. I have no idea what she was up to. Out of the blue she called her father and said she’d gotten herself into trouble and asked him to come help her, but he arrived too late.”

  “Not involved! Tom was not involved! Are you kidding me?”

  “Charlotte, please, calm down.”

  “He attacked me. Tried to kill me!” I cry.

  “Listen,” she tells me, her body shaking, “I spoke with Tom just before the incident. He told me he overheard a conversation at Hank’s office, and that you had somehow gotten information that could look very bad for him, and that it was misleading. He just wanted those documents back. He felt they were his, after all.”

  “He broke into my apartment and tried to kill me when I walked in on him looking for those documents, did he tell you that?”

  She shakes her head no. “I never spoke with him after that conversation.”

  “Well, he did try to kill me.”

  “I’m not disputing that. But he is the one who died.”

  “Because of what he did,” I say sharply.

  Ignoring that very real fact, she goes on to say, “Charlotte, there is something going on. Something far beyond what you think. There’s too much at stake for so many people. Please destroy whatever evidence you think you have.”

  So she does know there is more than just something that could make him look bad, and obviously so did Tom. It has to be able to do more than make him look bad. It must make him look guilty. That is what he was doing at my apartment, shredding whatever he could find, as if he could destroy it all.

  She goes on. “You have to stay away from Hank Harper, or anyone he is close with, which includes that troublemaker boy from next door.”

  Anger bubbles through my veins. “Don’t talk about Jasper.”

  She nods, conceding.

  A nod isn’t enough. “You don’t get to talk bad about him.”

  “Very well,” she says.

  I swipe at a stray tear.

  Shocking me, she reaches over and places her hand on my knee. “There are so many things I want to tell you, Charlotte, but now is not the time. You might not believe me, but I have always loved you. I just couldn’t take care of you the way you needed, and especially not with your father as my husband. I have many regrets in my life, and how I left you will always weigh heavily on my shoulders.”

  Finding the courage to stop her, I raise my hand, showing her my palm. “Please, please don’t do this. Don’
t apologize like an I’m sorry can make up for everything.”

  Dropping her cigarette to the ground, she stands and puts it out with her sole. Her red sole. Thanks to Eve Harper, I know she’s wearing a pair of Louboutins.

  Seems fitting.

  Nice shoes is what she got out of life instead of me.

  “I know I hurt you,” she says standing over me.

  I look at her. “Hurt me? Are you kidding me? I was a little girl who needed her mother. You crushed me.”

  She hands me a card. “This is my address and phone number. If you ever need anything, or just want to talk, I’m here for you.”

  I stare at the smooth linen card scrolled in gold, but don’t take it.

  She shoves it inside the purse I have on the ground beside my feet. “It was good to see you, Charlotte. Please remember what I said,” she tells me and then heads toward the corner and stops at the red light along with the cars.

  Shaking, I stare at the card for at least two long minutes. When I look toward the corner, I see her getting into a cab. Then she’s gone and I’m left sitting here with my insides torn apart. Melancholy coils around my heart and I try hard to unwrap it.

  Reverting to old habits, faster and faster my fingers twirl in my hair.

  She’s gone. Forget about her. Anything she said was to make herself feel better.

  Time passes. I have no idea how long I sit here as I watch the cars go by and replay this encounter with my mother a thousand times in my head.

  Ring. Ring.

  The sound of my cellphone has me jumping off the bench. Fumbling through my bag, I find it and see Jasper’s name flashing on the screen.

  I take in a deep breath and answer it. “Hi.”

  “Hey, where are you?”

  “Are you back so soon?”

  “Yah, I’ve been back for a while, and I was starting to get worried about you.”

  A gust of wind blows my hair in my face. “I’m across the street sitting in the park, trying to get some work done.”

  “Oh yeah, are you?”

  Feeling a little off kilter, I’m not following him. “Am I what?”

  He gives me a half-hearted laugh. “Never mind. Just stay there. I’ll be right down.”

  The line goes dead.

  Shoving my laptop away, I try to collect myself before he arrives. Breathing in and out, I count the cars that pass. Soon enough, that long, lean body is striding my way. With his tousled hair and long bangs, he could have been a model for Abercrombie and Fitch.