It’s thinking like that, which made Dylan good at being a detective. “Doesn’t matter if it was or wasn’t, I ain’t got time to call them back and check.”
The stupidity in my words reflected back in the glare Dylan sent my way. We both knew I could go into the back office, close the door and look up the company’s name on the internet. Or I could call Austin and have the answer in less than a minute. If I was in the mood to talk with my middle brother, I might have considered it. When the look turned into Dylan pointing in the direction of the office, I knew this was where the argument needed to end.
Closing the door behind me, I contemplated sitting in here and letting him think I was calling Austin. But those two gossiped like a couple of old women and I knew Dylan had sent the fucker a text to expect my call. Sitting heavily in the chair, the computer screen and phone mocked me. I shouldn’t have to be the one to say something first, Austin dug around and created shit on me, not the other way around.
The longer I stared at the phone, the more my frustrations grew. Dylan was right, there was no reason for a credit card company to call a business, and specifically one I’m not listed at yet. Still, calling Austin would indicate I needed his help, something I wasn’t ready to admit. Things seemed to work out for him and Lainie, the truth about the—.
“Motherfucker!” My hand stings from hitting the wood of the desk as my own memories gave me the solution. Pulling my cell from my pocket, my thumb touched the screen as fast as I could. Austin wasn’t the only computer genius in this family.
“Hello?” I can picture the look of confusion on her face, Momma had given me Lainie’s number when she went to work for Austin. Priscilla Morgan wasn’t too happy with the riff between her boys.
“Miss Lainie, it’s Chase Morgan, Austin’s brother.” Rubbing the back of my neck, a nervous habit I’ve had my whole life. “I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time. I have a problem I’m hoping you can help me with.” There’s a brief pause before she assures me she is never too busy to help a Morgan brother. I tell her about the phone call and how the debt cannot be mine. I can hear the clicking of her fingernails against a keyboard.
“Okay, I’ve got your credit report and it appears there was an account opened on November seventeenth, with a credit limit of seventy-five hundred dollars.” The clicking continues as my heart crawls into my throat. “Chase, there were three more opened a month later, all with fairly high credit limits and all maxed out.”
I jumped to my feet, pacing the room like a caged animal. “Lainie, I was in the middle of a gun fight in late November and didn’t see the inside of anything but a makeshift tent and the side of a mountain ridge the whole month of December. There’s no way those are mine.” My voice rose as I kicked the leg of the desk. Something tells me, in the weight of her silence, there’s more to the story. My anger and frustration are running a close race to see what will explode first in my head.
“Chase, please calm down. There are a few things I can do to minimize the damage.”
I feel terrible for raising my voice at her. Lainie is doing something I asked of her and I have no call to act this way. “I’m sorry, Miss Lainie, I didn’t mean to fuss at you.”
“It’s okay, Chase. If I had twenty thousand dollars of credit opened in my name without my consent, I’d be upset too.” The amount sends the feeling of dread coating my body; I’ve always been able to pay for what I needed. Being in the military gave me a place to sleep and money in the bank. Being a Morgan, gave me a nest egg as a backup. “Listen, I’ve put holds on all of the accounts, so they cannot be used. I’ve also alerted the companies with a fraud warning, so you will most likely get a call from their investigative teams. I do recommend you contact your bank and other card companies to let them know, perhaps cancel your existing cards and issue new ones.”
“Lainie, thank you, for all your help. I would say let’s keep this between us, but that’s putting you in a place I have no right to.”
“I won’t say anything to Austin, unless he asks me. I won’t lie for anyone.” From the little I knew of Lainie, I figured she was a woman of her word. I’d have to talk with Austin; eventually.
Ending the call after thanking her again, I made my way around the desk and back to the front of the shop. Audrey stood in the kitchen area, stirring the cup of tea she had made. I watched as she put the tea bag into a plastic baggy, and then place it in the pocket of her worn sweater.
Over the course of the day, I noticed her several times come into the kitchen, stand before the sink, remove the same tea bag from her pocket and use it over and over again. I couldn’t understand why she was milking that bag for all its worth, Momma kept the kitchen stocked with everything imaginable. More importantly, why am I watching her?
Loyalty is what gives us trust. Trust is what makes us stay. Staying is what makes us love, and love is what gives us hope.
—Glenn Van Dekken
When Lucas first brought me to the trailer I now call home, I grew nervous at the prospect of how he could afford something so new and pretty. His excitement of having a home for the two of us clouded my better judgment, until the first bill arrived in the mail, my name in block lettering and a sizable debt listed in the box at the bottom.
When I questioned Lucas as to how this was possible, he set his beer down, picked up the rolled joint he seemed to always have on him, and said it was “none of my business.” That was the first time I lost my temper with him, and the last time I ever let him know about it. As I crossed the room, the bill from the finance company crinkled in my hand. He stood from his leather recliner, tossing the side table and sending the lamp crashing to the floor. Lucas had never showed his ass like that, granted he yelled and screamed when he wanted to get his point across, but he’d never destroyed anything before.
The next day, I dragged the table and broken lamp out to the trash, and called the number listed on the bill. After a brief conversation with a nice lady, I cried into my hands as she confirmed the Audrey Helms listed on the bill was indeed me. That afternoon, I walked the four miles to the coffee shop and applied for another job. After the way Lucas had reacted, there was no way in the world I was going to ask him for money.
I came home one night to find Lucas and several of his friends partying. Loud music blaring and the pungent aroma of pot hit me as I came around the corner. He had been tinkering In one of the back bedrooms, telling me to stay the hell out of his shit as it was no concern of mine. His friends littered the house, some doing drugs while others watched a girl dancing on my coffee table.
Lucas was wrapped around a tall blonde, pinning her against a kitchen wall. As he moved his head to kiss the other side of her neck, her face came into view. Amy, his wife, had been let out of jail. Life with Lucas was night and day different when she was with him. She demanded his attention, pulling it away from me, and his dislike of nearly everything I did.
She looked up in time to catch my staring. With a smirk on her face and keeping her death glare honed in on me, she slid her hand inside Lucas’s pants, wrapping her fingers around his tiny dick. Lucas was a contradiction in terms, where he stood at over six feet tall, with huge hands and the same to be said for his shoe size, his dick however, was barely four inches long; hard. His lack of endowment didn’t deter him from sticking it in as many women as he could find. Amy didn’t seem to care, as long as she got hers and, on occasion, was invited to join.
I knew this party would last until the sun came up and I had to be at work in a few hours. Bypassing the happy couple, I wove around the line of people waiting for their turn to do a line of cocaine. I didn’t have to guess who sat at my kitchen table, dealing the small baggies Lucas had put together earlier in the day—they were partners. It’s sad if you think about it, aren’t parents supposed to teach you to stay away from drugs? Lucas’s father must have been absent that particular day of parenting class.
As I opened the refrigerator, my heart sank as the empty shelves stared back
at me. Gone were the groceries I had purchased the day prior, using the last stitch of money I had for a few weeks. Closing the door, I looked to the floor beside the stove, where two girls sat, a bong between them, and empty bags of what would have been my dinner for the next while.
Amy came up behind me, laughing as she pushed past the two girls on the floor, tipping over the bong as she circled around the kitchen table. Leaning over, she kissed one of the girls who sat beside Lucas. Men standing in line began cheering as the two moved from simple pecking to full on tongue flicking. Their jeers grew louder as the clothes started to come off and the music changed.
Amy straddled the young girl as the movement of the line stopped, people filling the tiny kitchen, ignoring the stripper on the coffee table for the porn movie being filmed in the kitchen.
“Y’all know better than to start without me.”
God I hated her voice. Ginny, or Dragonfly, as her fans called her, came bouncing in the room, naked as the day she was born, glitter reflecting in the light from overhead. Ginny came by her stripper name originally from the colorful dragon tattoo over her left shoulder. With the peacock blues, deep oranges, and fire reds, it was something to see. The body of the tattoo came over her left shoulder, the neck wrapping under her arm, and then circled itself around her breast. The forked tongue of the intricate creature separated around her nipple. On her back, the arrow shaped tail pointed to the crack of her ass, appropriate as to the direction she wanted the attention focused on.
Lucas encouraged her to have another one done, since she’d boasted her tips at the strip club had tripled after the tattoo was finished. So, she found some guy in Myrtle Beach who was willing to give her the second dragon. Its tail wrapped around her right thigh, circling around her ribs until the mouth opened, appearing as if the tongue was licking her clit. I heard her tell Lucas the guy charged her out the nose to put the tongue in such a sensitive area, but that wasn’t the most noticeable thing. The eyes of both dragons, the guy had place skin divers where the eyes were, made from some crazy material, they glowed bright red when the light went out.
Amy loved the way the mouth of the dragon opened in a split over Ginny’s bare lips, said if she were to ever quit shaving that pussy of hers, it would give new meaning to the definition of bearded dragon.
With her arrival, I knew the porn show was about to turn into a full on orgy. Amy had already tossed her clothes as she snorted the line she took from the table. Ginny, ignoring the sale going on, crawled on the table, placing her bare feet on either side of Lucas’s Dad, as she lowered herself onto his waiting tongue. Some guy standing in line, wanted his turn at one of them, pushed past me and knocked me onto the bench seat under one of the kitchen windows. I knew this was thirty seconds from being out of control, so I pushed myself up. I felt a pinch to the back of my leg and turned back to make sure it wasn’t a discarded needle. I couldn’t see what the problem was, so I edged my way out of the house and back to my car, trying to catch a few hours of sleep before the misery of my life would begin again.
The cleanup was always my responsibility; Lucas, Amy, and the rest of his friends would be long gone. It would be hours before the floor or counters could be seen again. I tried not to think about the stains and where they came from, or how the broken glass crunched under my shoes. The floor was sticky from what, God only knew. As I filled yet another trash bag with empty beer cans and the containers my food once waited in for me to prepare, I remembered the pinch from the night prior. I dropped the trash bag to the floor and rounded the kitchen table, placing cleanup on hold temporarily.
Nothing seemed out of place, there were no holes or loose boards, but as I ran my fingers along the cushioned seat, I noticed a hinge tucked under the fabric. Lifting the pillow top, the Velcro strips protested about being separated from their other half, I found a recessed handle. Pulling at the metal ring in the center, a large storage space revealed itself as I opened the lid. I wondered if the space was large enough for me to climb into and lay down. Raising my leg over the edge to test out my theory, I let the top of the box rest against the window frame. Bending my knees, I descended into the wooden box. Sure enough, I could lie down with room to spare.
As I looked up from my position, I noticed bloodstains on the ceiling, remnants of a fight, which broke out during the last party. I can’t help but let my mind wonder, if I had no clue this hidden storage was here, then chances are Lucas is clueless to it as well. Making a quick decision, I began running around the house, collecting the few items of value I would grab in a fire, shoving them, and several bottles of water, into the corner of the box.
Now I lay still, listening to Lucas tossing around the last few pieces of useable furniture left in the trailer, spewing threats of what he will do if he finds me here next time. I keep as quiet as a church mouse—which is hard with no electricity. There is no noise from the appliances running and no air conditioning in this box, it’s hotter than a billy goat’s ass in a pepper patch. As soon as I’d heard the sounds of his truck coming up the gravel drive, I had jumped into my hiding spot, as I have the last few times. I know what he’s after; it’s the same every time.
Amy is back in jail; I’ve kept close tabs on prisoner lists at county, always hoping to come across his name. But since his fight with Chase, Lucas has avoided trouble, which causes him to come looking for me, and the money he needs. By not paying the electric bill, the company shut it off, and without electricity, he can’t make his product.
I listen as he calls someone, no doubt in my mind who is still awake at this hour. He and Ginny have had eyes for one another since his friend Largo started bringing her around. Lucas and Ginny are like two peas in a pod, always trying to get as much as they can from people before they toss them away.
“I don’t care who she’s fuckin’! If the bitch don’t turn up soon, I’m going to remind her how bad things can get, and what will happen if she keeps crossin’ me.”
There was a moment of silence and then I heard, “Maybe I’ll pay her a visit, remind her why she best be keeping that fucking mouth of hers shut.”
I slap my hand over my mouth, as the sting of tears collected behind my eyes and sweat drips off my body like raindrops in a spring shower.
This had to stop. I have no money, no credit and the only friends I had, left long ago when Lucas became too demanding. I had only one option left, but I needed more time to earn enough money to get as far away from here as possible. But this trailer wasn’t safe any longer.
As quietly as I could, I raised the lid on the bench, listening for any movement from the hall. When I was certain the house was empty, I grabbed everything I could, ran down the dirt path to where I parked Dylan’s car, and then began driving down the side road, without headlights until I reached the main road.
When I’d first gone to work for Absolute Power, I had tasked myself with organizing the back storage area. As I was moving a wood pallet, I caught the corner of the wood plank on the seam of the paneling on the wall. At first I’d jumped back, thinking I had ruined Dylan’s wall, but as I took a better look, the paneled wall was nailed to what turned out to be a door, leading to storage under a set of stairs for the attic.
The closet was unfinished, bare two by fours coated with dust and cobwebs, and dirt so thick on the floor I could write my name in it. A single light bulb suspended from a wire attached to the ceiling. Feeling around on the wall, I had failed to find an electrical switch, but as I looked closer at the light bulb, I caught sight of the tiny pull chain. Growing up, we had a similar system over our washer and dryer. Tugging on the chain, the ancient bulb blinked to life, illuminating the tiny space and sparking a ray of hope inside my chest. It was big enough for a single bed and even a table and a lamp. Too bad the only source of electricity was the dangling bulb.
I drove across town, knowing the safest place for me was inside the shop and more specifically, the hidden closet. After Lucas had stirred up trouble, Chase had installed a homegrown
system of trip wires and several panic buttons around the shop. I could hide myself in the closet I’d found at night, secured by the alarm Dylan had as well as the trip wires, which ran the perimeter of the shop. Guess it payed to have to have someone in the family who knew how to create silent alarms and big explosions.
Living with Lucas, I’d learned to listen, take in every word and know who you could cross and who to avoid. Working for the Morgans, I learned how to take information and investigate what you knew, learn more and use it to your advantage. Chase was more than your standard issue Marine, just as Austin did more with his computer than create software, and Dylan—well he didn’t wake up one day and decide to build bikes. All three served a better purpose and were using everything they had to make the city better.
Most traffic lights in the city flashed yellow as I crossed town, all except for the largest intersection I had to pass in order to get downtown. Pressing my foot on the break, my hand slips from the wheel, resting on top of my thigh and the fabric of the shirt Chase had taken from his back to stop my nose from bleeding. Glancing around the deserted streets of Charleston, I slowly lifted the shirt to my face, breathing in deep the masculine scent of Chase, mixed with whatever he used to wash his clothes. I’d taken to sleeping with this shirt across my pillow, erasing the stench of cigarettes and body odor the trailer had adopted. It was as close to sleeping beside the man as I would ever get.
I parked in the same spot Dylan had first shown me where the car was when he hired me. I hated taking this car, afraid Lucas would decide he needed to use it for something, and then I would be forced to talk about what waited for me at home—or at least what used to.
Everything I owned fit into a box small enough to set on the front seat of the car. Three dresses, two skirts and a handful of button down tops, all of them as threadbare as my favorite sweater, which was three sizes too big. But I didn’t care. It had been my mother’s; a gift from one of the church ladies who came by to pray with her.
Absolute Valor (Southern Justice #3) Page 4
