“No, Sally, wait. You don’t have to leave. You just caught me off-guard, is all. Take a seat.” I motion her towards the couch. It’s only when she sits down that I realize I’m still holding the package that the Feds had broken into the studio to deliver. It’s just a rectangular box, it’s not like it has “Secret FBI Wire” written on it in big red letters. But I feel too conspicuous just holding it so I shove it back in the refrigerator where I’d found it. “I would offer you a coffee or something, but we’re out of milk.” I smile apologetically at her.
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to put you out. I just wanted to come over to talk to you. I know that you and your mother had a few cross words the last time you spoke, but there’s no reason to let things fester. She loves you and she’s just concerned for you. She doesn’t want to see you get yourself into any trouble.” Sally’s earnestness on behalf of my mother is touching, but I have a sneaking suspicion that’s not the only reason she’s here.
“I know that, Sal. I guess we still have a few things to work through. It’s been a big change, her coming back to the land of the living. It’s hard.” I shrug, not knowing how else to explain it. “But I can’t focus on that right now. I just need to do what has to be done and then I can figure out whatever needs to happen between Mom and me. Is she alright?” I ask, abruptly, wondering if she’d had a relapse and was suddenly how she was before, a shell of the women we used to know.
Sally can obviously see the panic on my face and she shakes her head, waving her arms to show that what I’m thinking isn’t what’s going on. “Yes, she’s fine. It’s nothing like that,” she says gently, squeezing my elbow as I take a seat next to her.
“Good. Good.” I breathe a sigh of relief and then it’s time to focus on the real reason that Sally has come here. I had been pretty good at psychology in high school—I guess it had sort of become a bit of a hobby of mine—and what I’ve learned is telling me that Sally hasn’t come here to patch things up between my mom and me. She’s here to talk about something that’s harder for her than she probably cares to admit. “What’s up, Sal?” I ask, hopefully nudging her in the direction that she needs to be encouraged towards.
“What you said to me, about telling you the secret I’ve been keeping—I think I’m ready to do it,” Sally admits, looking down at her lap where she keeps fiddling with her hands.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I don’t say anything, because I’m scared that if I even breathe too loudly, Sally might lose her nerve and change her mind over what she’s going to tell me.
“I would have said something before if I thought that it would help Jake. It’s important for me that you know that.” She looks up at me for confirmation and I nod quickly, keeping my mouth shut. “But I don’t think it will help him. If anything it might do what I was most afraid of—that it would bring him closer to the Angels. I couldn’t let that happen.” Sally’s eyes start to fill with tears and I grip her hands tightly.
“Sally, you did what you thought was right.” It’s not exactly a declaration of absolution, but it’s as close as I can get to one.
“I think you’ve already guessed the headlines. You were always a smart girl. I suppose I should be more surprised that I managed to keep the secret for so long rather than that you found out about it.” She shakes her head like she’s berating herself and I squeeze her hand to encourage her to go on. That’s when she sighs like she’s letting go of something and starts telling her story. “Travis… or Scar, as he’s known now… we were together for a long time. All through high school we were an item, going steady. Bea and I were best friends and your dad and Travis were too, so it was like it was just meant to be that the four of us would create our own little group. He was so different back then…” Sally trails off as she travels back into the past, remembering less complicated days gone by.
“Scar?” I ask, prompting her, bringing her back into the story.
“Yes. He was funny and could be so sweet sometimes.” She smiles at some distant memory. “He always had a touch of the rebel about him, but nothing serious. Secretly, I liked the danger, I think. My parents hated him, forbade me from seeing him. Of course that just made me want to be with him all the more. It took me a while to see what he was becoming, I was the last to see it. He started hanging around bikers that travelled through the town and he kept talking about starting up his own MC. It became kind of an obsession for him. When he started recruiting some of the less stand-up members of Painted Rock to join the club that he’d named the Angels, he was a different person.”
“So you broke things off.” I know that I shouldn’t interrupt, that this is Sally’s story, but I can’t help myself. I’m desperate to know what happened next.
Sally nods. “Travis was angry, really angry, and for the first time I was really scared of him. I told your mom and dad what had happened. Your dad was already on the force and he tried to talk some sense into Travis, but he was too far gone. He was on a power trip. He’d seen how easy it was to take what he wanted, to do what he wanted, so he couldn’t see any reason in going back.”
“And then you met Bill?” I ask, trying to steer her into a happier direction.
“Yes, Bill.” She smiles and it’s filled with so much love that I feel a lump in my throat. “He was everything that Travis wasn’t. He was stable, dependable, loyal, kind. I’d had my fill of bad boys by then. I knew that when you found a good man, you had to hold onto him because they’re few and far between.”
“Don’t I know it,” I agree, thinking about Jake, and Sally spares me an indulgent smile.
“We got married and everything was sailing along nicely. It was the most stupid thing. You don’t know how many times I think about that night, over and over again.” I don’t tell her that I know exactly what she means—it’s the way I feel about the day I went to see Ryan, to do what he wanted me to. I know what it’s like to regret something stupid that you did. “Bill and I had a fight. You know what the funniest part is? I don’t even remember what it was about. We’d been trying for a baby and it just wasn’t happening for us. My emotions were all over the place, so any little problem became a huge argument. That’s what happened that night. I stormed out into the rain, walking down the side of the road, without any idea of where I was headed to. It was just chance. I heard a bike pull up behind me and I got ready to make a run for it. There were already rumors going around about what the Angels were doing to girls in the town if they found them alone. But it wasn’t just any biker, it was Travis.”
“Wrong place, wrong time.” I wonder how many events that we wish we could erase can be put down to that simple phrase.
Sally nods in agreement. “I was upset and he was familiar and comforting. I didn’t want to go home. I hadn’t cooled off yet. So Travis took me back to his place. I had a few drinks to relax and to warm myself up—I was soaked through. Then, one thing led to another...” Sally trails off, clearly embarrassed at having a conversation about her sexual behavior with her son’s girlfriend.
“And afterwards?” I ask, nudging her to go on with the story.
“I told him it was a mistake and that it wasn’t going to happen again. Billy never knew. When I found out that I was pregnant, it was such great news, we were so happy. I didn’t want to believe that the baby could be anyone but Bill’s. But when I had Jake, I saw Travis in him. Even as a little kid, there were gestures and looks he would give me that were the spitting image of Travis. It was the kind of thing that only a mother would notice, but slowly, I wasn’t the only one that could see it.”
“Scar figured out that Jake was his son.” I say aloud what I have been thinking for so long now.
“He had his suspicions.” Sally nods. “That photograph—do you still have it?” Sally asks.
I don’t have to ask her which photograph. I grab my copy of Great Expectations from the shelf and hand it to her. The irony of the title doesn’t seem lost on her. The book falls open naturally where the photograph is
hidden.
“Was that when he confronted you? At Jake’s birthday?” I ask, prompting her to go on. We haven’t finished the story yet.
Sally looks hard at the photograph and swallows, building up her strength for the next part. “He had a bit too much to drink and came storming in. Bill tried to throw him out but I knew Travis well enough to know that he’d just come back with ten of his buddies. So I tried to talk to him. He asked why I was hiding that Jake was his. He demanded a paternity test. He said that Jake was the son that he should have had. By that time, he’d had Ryan. I didn’t know the mother—she skipped town pretty much as soon as she gave birth. I don’t think I can blame her. I probably would have done the same if I was living with Travis. He shouted about how Ryan was weak and that Jake was the special one. He said awful things about Ryan. Sometimes I wonder how much of what he heard that day and how much of it has made him the way that he is today.”
I keep my expression blank. There are people that I can feel sorry for, people that have had a hard time of things. But even if the things that Scar said are partly what’s turned Ryan into the sadistic sociopath he is now, it’s not enough to make me excuse the things that he’s done.
“So then what happened? I can’t imagine that Scar would just give up.” I’ve only met the guy once, but it’s clear that he’s not the kind of person that will just back down with a pretty please.
“Well, like I said, he’d been drinking. I took him somewhere quiet where he wouldn’t disturb the kids and told him that Jake wasn’t his, that his father was my husband, and that he just had to deal with that. But he wasn’t happy. He lashed out at me. It was the one and only time he’s ever hit me and I remember the feel of it to this day.” Sally holds her palm to her cheek, almost exactly to the centimeter where Ryan hit me. Like father, like son, I think ruefully. “He pulled me up, screaming that he was going to kill me, that I had no right to keep him from his son. I was terrified. I knew what the Angels had become. The stories of bodies found out on the highway were more than just an urban legend. I saw the knife that he kept in his belt and grabbed it. I wasn’t even thinking, just reacting. We fought for the knife and, in the struggle, I cut his face.” Sally covers her eyes with her hand, as if she can still see what she did to him.
“That’s how he got the scar,” I muse aloud, mostly to myself.
Sally nods. “I’m not proud of what I did. I was just trying to protect myself. He was—still is—a dangerous man. I couldn’t hand Jake over to him. I couldn’t let my sweet boy be raised by that monster. There was no way.” Sally’s voice is filled with determination and she reminds me of a momma bear, protecting her cubs.
“But he never tried again after that? He just waited until Jake turned twenty and then took him like he was just another kid from Painted Rock?” It seems unlikely that Scar would have given up so easily.
“He came back a few weeks later, his scar was still healing. He apologized.” Sally looks at me as if she knows how difficult this is to believe. “He never wanted to hurt me; he was angry at himself. He promised me that as long as he was alive, our family wouldn’t come to any harm. It was only a little while after that when the Angels became the Bleeding Angels, and that’s when they started taking boys when they turned twenty. It didn’t take much to connect the dots. He’d done it for Jake, so that he could take him. It was his way of getting exactly what he wanted.”
“So all of this, all of the pain that he’s been putting families through for years. All of it was for Jake?” I can barely conceal my shock.
“If I could go back in time and do it again, I would have behaved so differently.” Sally shakes her head, angry at herself, angry for the part that she obviously believes she played.
“But then you might not have had Jake,” I point out, hoping that this will give her some kind of consolation. “I wouldn’t have Jake.” The thought of him not being around, of not even existing, it’s hard to take. “That’s worth everything that’s happened. Everything,” I assure her.
We sit in silence, both absorbing this huge bombshell that’s just landed in the tiny studio. “Sally, can I ask you something?” I say eventually. She nods. I guess there aren’t any more secrets to keep. “What made you decide to come here and tell me all of this? Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, but what changed your mind?”
Sally looks down at her lap again and pushes her hair behind her ear, a nervous gesture I recognize from being an extra pair of arms and legs in the Summers’ household for years. “Your mother told me about what you did… What you were willing to do for Jake.” I go stock-still, knowing that she’s talking about the night with Ryan. I’m angry at my mother for betraying my confidence, but if it’s made Sally come here, then I can let it go. “I decided that if you could be brave enough to do that for Jake, then I could do this.” She says the words so simply and genuinely that it breaks my heart.
“You’re a good person, Sally.” I tell her, and we hold each other in an awkward side-hug.
“Are you going to tell Jake?” she asks eventually, her eyes full of fear.
“No, it’s not my place. This should come from you, not from me.” I’m clear about that. No matter how much I want Jake to know the whole story, it’s not my story to tell. “I just hope that Scar doesn’t get there first.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Suzie repeats the same process as she did the night before, managing to distract the bikers guarding my room so that I can sneak out to go and meet Aimee. On the ride over I wonder if Rohypnol has any lasting effects—she must be giving these guys a serious dose to knock them out until the early morning. I know that this isn’t something she can do every night. Sooner or later someone is going to find out about her drugging the men, and when that happens, it’s not going to get pretty. All the more reason to make the most of the time I have with Aimee. Who knows how long we’re going to have to wait after tonight until we can be together again?
I think back over the events of the day, and they seem so surreal that it’s hard to believe they actually happened.
“You’re a natural, Jakey-boy,” Elvis had said after I’d finished my fifth round of target practice.
They’d given me a gun to use, but made it clear that, as a newly Patched member, I wouldn’t be getting my own for some time. There were tin cans set up on a wooden fence about twenty yards away and I had to shoot them down. The first shot I missed and the men rolled around on the floor laughing like this was the best entertainment ever. That’s when my competitive streak took over. After that, I didn’t miss.
“You sure you never done this before?” Grey, one of the older bikers looked between me and the tin cans that I’d just shot down in quick succession.
“Beginner’s luck.” I shrug, feeling strangely elated at having made an impression. I remind myself again that these men aren’t my friends. I have to repeat to myself all the terrible things that the Angels have done to this town. I think again how easy it would be to get caught up in the comradery and the power, and to forget about right and wrong.
As I pull up to the body shop, I can see that the light in my dad’s office is still on. It’s well after midnight, and I ask myself what he’s still doing there. I desperately want to talk to him, to let him know that I’m alright, but I know how dangerous that would be. The less people that know about my nightly visits to Aimee, the better. If I showed myself to my dad now, he’d do everything he could to make sure I didn’t go back to the Angels and, if that happened, Aimee and I risked losing our chance of getting them for good.
I peek through the office door that’s half-open and find my dad asleep, hunched over his desk, covered with streams of paper with scribbled figures all over them. I know he’s been going through the accounts, and from what I can make out, it doesn’t look good. “It’s alright, Dad. We’ll get it all back on track.” I whisper the words and lay my hand on his shoulder. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him up until now, when I’m right next to him, but can
’t speak to him. “Sleep well.” I switch the desk lamp off and creep out of the office, closing the door softly behind me.
As I make my way up to studio, I can feel myself tingling with anticipation at the idea of seeing Aimee. So when I open the door and don’t find her there, the disappointment is like a punch to the gut. I reason to myself that she had no idea I was going to come here tonight, so I shouldn’t be surprised that she isn’t here. I figure that there’s only one other place that she’s going to be.
Sunny Side Up is winding down. I can see through the windows that there aren’t any customers left and that’s when I catch sight of Aimee. She looks so cute in her little yellow uniform and I have to resist the urge to just go inside and grab her and kiss her. If the diner is open then that means Big George is still inside and I can’t have anyone seeing me—not even a friend. Automatically, I go to the front pocket of my jeans, where my cell usually lives. But, of course, it isn’t there. That was the rule, no contact with the outside world unless the Angels okayed it.
A Dream of Summer (Bleeding Angels MC Book 3) Page 14
