I rolled my eyes at his words and yanked him by the arm toward the house. “Come on, this is crazy.”
That ridiculous grin only grew as we parted the space between my parents.
“Right. Thanks! Good to see you, Mum,” Amos called over his shoulder.
I smelled food the second I walked in. After what I’d endured, I wasn’t willing to wait. The kitchen was at the back of the house, beyond the family room with the couch we’d kept since my childhood, past the dining room with a table I didn’t recognize, and through a swinging door. Instinctively, I knew where the forks were and found them on the first try. I sunk it deep into the casserole and shoveled a steaming bite of shepherd’s pie into my mouth.
“A bit hungry, are you?”
“I’m starving,” I admitted between bites. Exhaustion prevented me from hiding the frustration in my voice. “And if I’m going to be forced to help you, I need some real food before we start working.”
“Is that shepherd’s pie?”
I handed him a fork before I stuffed another bite in my mouth.
Amos eyed me with suspicion. “You’re not kidding when you say you’re starving. You’re hardly much more than bones.” The fork tapped against his temple as if it would help him think. “Where did you say you came from? Off a case, but where?”
“You’re slipping if you can’t see it,” I teased between bites.
He dug his fork in and took a bite. His mouth pinched into a frown. “Americans. Going and ruining everything.” His fork clattered against the counter. I watched him take in my appearance again. There had been a time when he could deduce it, see what was there without a single word from me. He was that good. But he’d softened, certainly not in body, but in mind. He wasn’t in the game like he used to be.
“Sorry, I suppose I’m a little distracted, what with the murder charge levied against me. I fold. Where were you?”
My stomach was nowhere near satiated, even with the bottom corner of the casserole completely gone. “Cult,” was my only reply before I started in on the next section.
He brightened. Why did he brighten at that word?
“Of course! Should’ve seen it. Running it or following? I’ve done both.” His head tilted side to side as he considered his memories and weighed the experiences. “Running it makes a lot of money, sure, but you’ve got to get out before the chips fall. But following, blimey, that’s a Chinese finger trap if you try to leave.”
Understatement of the year.
“I can agree to that.”
“So it was bad?” Concern played on his features, a rare expression. I had to remind myself that it wasn’t real. Nothing about him was real. “Anyone get hurt?”
My appetite vanished as I thought of Ryder’s predicament and the distance between us. The clatter of my fork against the counter signified the end of our conversation.
“People always get always hurt. You taught me that.”
His mouth scrunched and shifted to the opposite side and then back again. “I suppose I did.”
“Come on, we need to talk about your case.” I pulled open a cabinet and snagged a bag of crackers and a sleeve of cookies.
“You’re just leaving this here?” He pointed to the mutilated casserole on the counter and our dirty forks.
“We have work to do.” I pushed open the back door and held it for him.
Amos pulled his wallet from his back pocket and tossed a couple bills on the counter. When he noticed my lips tighten into a scowl he shrugged.
“For her trouble.”
“She doesn’t want your stolen money,” I said as he passed through the doorway.
“How do you know it’s stolen?”
The door slammed just as I heard my mother’s exclamation at her kitchen.
“Because it’s you, and you don’t know how to work.”
“Well, she doesn’t know that, and it wouldn’t kill you to learn some manners, young lady. Your mum seems real nice. You shouldn’t treat her like that.”
“You’re one to talk about how to treat people. I saw you swindle an old lady out of her last quarters in a shell game once.”
“Maybe I’m reformed. Ever thought of that, Miss High and Mighty? After all, it’s been a few years, hasn’t it?”
“People don’t change. That’s the first thing you taught me.” My feet echoed on the porch of the small house that sat five hundred yards kitty corner to my parents’ home. “They can shift in the moment to get what they need, but they don’t change.”
I pulled open the door, but Amos held back, lips parted and brow furrowed.
“What happened to you, Little Sparrow? You’re nothing like I remember. Was this all me? Did I turn you into this?”
“Into what?”
“A pit of anger and rage. You used to be softer. A normal girl, wide-eyed and trusting.”
“I tried to be a normal girl, and I paid the price.” I let the screen door slam behind me, and left him there on the porch staring after me. I had no reason to be angry, not at him at least. I’d chosen to leave Ryder. I’d chosen to bail Amos out of his mess. I was mad at myself and the long line of stupid decisions that had gotten me to that exact time and place. I had a history of always choosing the wrong path and confusion had never been something I wore with dignity.
The screen door groaned once and clicked shut behind him, though I felt his reluctance. Any normal human might have felt excitement at the new home her parents had created for her, but I couldn’t help feeling like a hamster in a cage, staring at a shiny new running wheel meant to take me nowhere.
It was a simple layout, long and rectangular, unlike my cozy boxed two-bedroom in Washington. The living room was at the front, two couches, both pale tan, so I knew I couldn’t eat on them for fear of spilling, and a bookcase in the corner with a few generic knickknacks mom had placed to make it all homier. The kitchen was small and removed from the room, which was fine because all my specialties involved a microwave. A square table and two chairs were set in a space I deemed the dining room. Beyond that I knew the story, bedroom, bathroom, maybe a salt lick if I was a good hamster.
I sank into the plush comfort of one of the couches and nearly purred. It’d been far too long since I felt something soft. Stumps and logs and rocks had been my normal. I’d forgotten what it felt like to sit without something cutting or jabbing into the back of my thighs.
“Tell me what happened, Amos. What was the con?”
Air whooshed from the opposite couch as he slumped onto it. His head tilted back. His Adam’s apple bobbed once as he considered his words. I knew the dance well. He was considering how much of the story to tell me, not a lie exactly, but certainly not the whole truth.
“It wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone, not really.” His exhale pushed his lips out to a pout. He ran his teeth over his bottom lip to recapture it. “I went to the karaoke bar twice a week. I would sit and listen, not up front, but in the back, all mysterious-like.”
“You were looking for a mark.” Since I’d once been one of the girls he’d tried to swindle, it was impossible to keep the distain from my voice.
“Yeah, right, well, that’s what I do.” He only looked at me for a second, and then sank deeper into the couch, his slouch fully pronounced. “I would listen for the okay girl, not the remarkable girl with real talent. No, I listened for the girl who could carry a tune, but not so much that anyone else would want her.”
I read between his lines. “You looked for the desperate ones.”
The words pulled his frown. “That’s harsh.” He weighed it and agreed. “But true. I needed a girl that would do anything to get a deal.”
“You promised her the world?”
“Well,” that dimple peeked through from the corner of his cheek again, “at least a contract. I made friends with a studio owner. I would take my pretty muppet to the studio, record her songs, and then ask her upfront to pay for the studio fees and record production.” He noted my narrow glare, but my di
sapproval had never bothered him. “Like I said, these girls will do anything. But before you glower all that judgment, let me tell you, there are far worse out there asking for unsavory payment.”
“Oh, so leaving them destitute makes you some kind of saint?” The plastic sleeve of the cookie package crinkled beneath my fingers as I struggled to open it.
“I never claimed sainthood, not really. So if you’re going to try and pin every problem in your life on me—”
“What happened to Honey B?” I asked, interrupting his tirade.
He fell back against the couch again. “I still don’t know. The bar was clean. I hadn’t been there before, it’s not like I burned it in my past. She was a nice kid. I had nothing against her. She was ready to record. She had the guitar, and the music, and then out of nowhere went mad.” His eyes moved far away, lost in the memory, likely dissecting it, desperately trying to see something he’d missed. “I went to her place to talk. She’d given me half the money, but you know me, I hate leaving things undone. She was illogical, all bent and ferocious. I swore she was packing, but I don’t know where to. She wanted her money back, but I wasn’t about to let that happen.”
“Did you hit her?” I thought of the abuse I had seen at the compound, the abuse I’d endured. I wasn’t sure if I could help him if he’d been like those men.
“I was stupid, that’s all. She clawed at my face, cut real deep on my neck while she was screaming. I grabbed her wrist just to get her off me.” For the first time I saw the deep, jagged marks near the collar of his shirt. “I guess I left bruising. My skin was under her nails. Prints on the doorknobs. It doesn’t look good.”
“Did you kill her, Amos?”
I’d looked into his hazel eyes I don’t know how many times before, but never had I seen so much truth and sincerity.
“No, I swear to you, Lindy, I didn’t kill her.”
I believed him. For some asinine reason, I believed him.
“Then we’ll have to figure out who did.”
Two weeks, I thought, two weeks to find a killer.
Chapter 3
I couldn’t go to bed, not without checking on Ryder first. I waited for Amos to lose himself in some sitcom on the small television in my new living room before I stepped out on the front porch, cell phone in hand. I stared at the hospital number for a couple of minutes. The temptation to call him and hear his voice hurt, but the consequences could be dire.
Two weeks, I thought again, and I dialed Uncle Shane’s number instead.
He answered on the second ring. “Lindy?”
I’d always appreciated his direct approach. It took the sting out of my own lack of social skills.
“How is he?” I asked.
For once I felt his need for small talk or chit chat, just to put off his news a little longer.
“There’s not much new, Lindy.” He heard my sigh and tried to smooth it over. “He’s recovering. The wound is healing slowly, but he’s sleeping most of the time.”
“How did he react to the note? Does he understand why I’m not there?”
His breath fuzzed the phone as he exhaled. “I haven’t given him the note yet.”
My heart sank, or my spine disintegrated, or some part of me died to the point that I folded over into my thighs and clung to the strongest parts of me that wouldn’t cry.
“Why?” My voice remained strained, a tiny sound shoved between two immoveable boulders.
“He’s hardly conscious for more than five minutes. It doesn’t feel like the right time.”
“Has he forgotten me? He’s not asking where I am anymore?”
“No, he asks where you are as soon as he wakes up.”
“Then tell him!” I sank deeper into my legs, resting my face against my thighs.
He waited for my anger to dissipate before he spoke again. “I told you before, he’s fragile right now. This isn’t your average amnesia, this is repressed memories. Every move we make has to be calculated.”
“You’re hiding something from me. I can hear it in your voice.” Shane had done it for years with Aunt Stella. There was this soft tone he adopted when he edited the truth. He should have known better than to use it with me.
If the subject had been a little lighter he might have laughed, but all I heard was another sigh. “They had to sedate him yesterday. A nurse wore a gold necklace, and as she leaned over him the medallion fell in front of his face.” He paused for a moment before he continued. “It was a little golden bird pendant.”
“What happened?”
“He went crazy. He started screaming that it wasn’t safe, we had to get out. With all his whipping around and fighting the staff, he pulled some stitches and went back in for surgery last night. They’re keeping him sedated until they figure out where he’s at.”
I pushed my palm over my head, smoothing my frizzy hair back like it might give me control over something. “I should be there. He needs me.”
“You’ll make it worse.”
“From what you’re saying, that’s not possible. At least if I was there I could help him remember that we won. I could tell him that it’s over.”
“It’s not that easy,” Uncle Shane said. “His realities were blurred. He wasn’t just talking about Eden’s Haven. He said he had to warn his mother that his father was coming home. Ryder doesn’t know what’s real and what’s false. He’s caught in a nightmare.”
That phrase clung to me even after I hung up the phone. I understood nightmares. But more than that, I was reminded that the one person who had consistently pulled me free of them was Ryder. I ached to repay the favor.
I moved back into the house, no desire to talk to anyone, especially not Amos. He didn’t look at me, but I felt the mechanical precision, the wires probing my mind and searching my expression for any clue of what I was going through. I had no patience for it, and I didn’t care one little bit if he figured it out. The previous day, the straight thirty-six hours plus that I’d been awake, wore on my mind and body.
I walked past Amos, past the small kitchen, down the four steps worth of hallway and fell face first into my bed. I think I was asleep before I even started to fall.
♦ ♦ ♦
The light streamed in through the windows. I tucked my eyes into the crook of my elbow in a childish attempt to hide. I’d never had a drop of alcohol in my life, but my head pounded and my eyes screamed in perfect harmony. Life had somehow given me a hangover, despite my permanently sober status. I kicked off the sheet I’d dragged over my legs in the night and slithered from the bed to my bag I’d packed before I left Ferndale. I changed into my running clothes and laced my shoes tight. Every muscle groaned and protested. It was tempting to scold them out loud.
My feet were silent as I snuck by Amos on the couch, still sprawled in his suit from the night before. The suit jacket splayed across the floor, and the tie hung from his fingers as if he’d fallen asleep right as he’d pulled it free. Though I didn’t have any rock-solid plans for the day, I knew finding Amos some real clothes would have to be a priority.
My compassion had increased in the night, a sure sign of better rest. The door clicked shut behind me. Amos hadn’t so much as twitched. It was all or nothing with him. He was either dead to the world, or trigger sensitive and ready to strike like a jungle cat. There was no middle ground. It wasn’t just sleep either, Amos didn’t believe in middle ground except in issues of morality.
Issues of right and wrong turned the world to a fuzzy gray shade for him.
The dewy grass dampened my socks on my way to the main house. By June, water in the air would be a distant memory, but in the winter it was part of the norm. It was a love-hate relationship I had with Central California. Half the year it was paradise and the other half it was the bane of my existence.
I knew by instinct my parents were awake and talking about me over breakfast. Mom would have oatmeal. Dad would have black coffee and a slice of buttered sourdough toast. The conversation would likely
involve how stubborn I was and how I never change. Dad would remind Mom that I’d been up for days, maybe in time I would see it from their side.
I pushed the prickling emotion back into the dark ether of my mind. I didn’t know how to feel about them. Not anymore. They’d lied to me about Jackie, a sister I thought had died, for years. They bought the house with the intention that I’d move home again without even a thought to ask if it was something I wanted. But my mother had dropped everything to nurse me back to health after my near-death experience at the Rockin’ B, so I couldn’t stay mad, at least not completely.
I’d always had a hard time seeing the difference between pity and compassion. The line was too thin and blurred. Rather than deal with all the emotions simmering inside the house, I opted to run.
My feet remembered the motions with perfect accuracy. One fell right in front of the other, the sound of my feet slapping the asphalt was better than any symphony I’d ever heard. But that was where it ended. My feet remembered, but my body failed. It was a fast scramble just to keep my legs underneath me as my strength gave out. Black asphalt grated my fingers as I braced my weight. For a moment I stayed suspended, hunched over, staring at my hands while the world spun. The center yellow line blurred for a moment before it righted itself. I rose once more and settled for a walk. Reality wasn’t on my side.
I’d been sequestered in a place that believed women should be dominated and remain weak. My nutrition was out of balance. My muscles were eroded. I was asking more of them than I had to give. Weakness had always been my least favorite accessory. I lengthened my stride and concentrated on the muscles I needed and how they should respond. Should was the operative word. I’d felt some fatigue the day before while securing Amos’ release, but running took more. Running had always been my ace in the hole, the one thing the monster should have stolen from me, but I kept in reserve. But after Eden’s Haven, it felt outside my reach for the first time. The thought crept under my skin like foreboding music warning me of what sat waiting on the horizon.
Fables & Felonies Page 2
