by Willow Rose
Penelope scoffs. “How can you say that? She might die if she doesn’t get the surgery now! Look at her. She is very sick.”
The doctor sighs again. He touches the bridge of his nose.
“I think we should wait and see, maybe give it six months, then run more tests. She needs to be at least three years old before I would dare to do a procedure like this on her.”
Penelope stares at the doctor. How can he say that? Three years old? That is two years from now.
“But…but, Doctor…just this morning she threw up again. She can hardly hold anything down. She is so weak. I can’t stand it. Please. Could you just perform the surgery? I’m willing to take the risk. Any risk. Anything to help my baby get better. Please, Doctor. I’m desperate here.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t. I won’t risk her life. Come back in six months and we’ll have a look at her and see how she’s doing. We’ll monitor her closely for the next couple of years. If she’s not better by the age of three, we’ll do the procedure.”
“You can’t risk her life?” Penelope says and stands up. “That is exactly what you’re doing. If my baby dies, it’s your fault.”
The doctor gesticulates, resigned. “I’m sorry, but…”
Penelope snorts angrily as she opens the door. “Well, if you won’t do it, then I’ll find a doctor who will,” she says and walks out.
Chapter Thirty-Four
September 2015
We end up getting drunk. Danny and I sneak outside on the porch to get away from the others and all their pity-looks. They mean well. We know they do, but it’s just not what Danny needs right now.
Danny decides it is all right to get wasted, and he is in charge tonight. I find a bottle of whiskey in Alex’s kitchen and start spicing our drinks up a little. I figure we both need it.
The more drunk Danny gets, the more he opens up to me about his marriage and how awful it was. It is a relief for me to hear and I can tell it helps him to talk about it.
“I wanted to leave her, Mary,” he says. “I did. I thought about it so many times. But I was a wimp. I should have left her years ago. You want to know the funny part?”
“Sure,” I say and pour each of us another whiskey. We both drink and he looks at me with his bloodshot eyes.
“I was afraid of her. Can you believe that? I was such a wimp, I didn’t dare to leave her. I was terrified of what she would do. I was so scared she would keep Junior from me, you know? I would never be able to handle that.”
“You probably shouldn’t tell this to the police,” I say, laughing. “It kind of gives you a motive.”
Danny stares at me, then bursts into laughter. We laugh for a little while, then stop and sit in silence. Each lost in our own train of thought.
“So, how’s Blake?” he finally asks.
In the distance, I can hear the waves crashing. I think about my dad and Laura. They are going to be pissed that we’ll be getting back so late.
Screw them. I’m not a child anymore.
“Awful,” I say. “He’s in that terrible prison halfway to Orlando, and I don’t think he will survive it. I’ve got to get him out somehow. The thing is, they have a murder weapon and a witness. Pretty solid case, if you ask me. I’m spending all my savings, the last of my money, on his lawyer.”
“What do you mean the last of your money?” he asks. “I thought you were a big time reporter at The New York Times?”
I scoff. “Not anymore. I just got sacked a few days ago.”
“What? You got fired?”
“Keep it down,” I say, and look through the sliding glass-doors behind me. The others are sitting around the table. Alex’s daughter, Ava, who I met earlier, is playing on an iPad. Three of Marcia’s kids are sleeping on the couch, the last playing with a truck on the floor. Junior and Salter are watching TV.
“I haven’t told anyone. Not even my dad and Laura.”
I sip my whiskey and enjoy the burning sensation in my throat. I close my eyes, hoping it will make it all go away. My brother in jail, my separation from Joey, me fearing the future since I got fired, the terrible memories being brought back to life ever since I stepped into that house again. All of it. I just want it to be gone.
“There you both are. Hey, guys, they’re out here!”
Marcia has opened the door and peeks out. “We were all wondering where you two were.” She is holding a plastic cup in her hand. By the look of how she is swaying from side to side, it isn’t soda she has inside of it.
Well, who am I to talk? I suddenly feel nausea overwhelm me. Danny doesn’t look too well either.
“Maybe we should go inside,” he says, and gets up from the small couch where we have been sitting.
When I rise to my feet, I feel dizzy and have to hold on to the wall behind me. “I think I’ve had enough,” I say with a giggle. I am way more drunk than I had thought.
We follow Marcia inside, where the rest of the crew is sitting around all the food and chips. They’re talking. Sandra smiles when she sees me. We used to be inseparable in high school.
“Come, join us,” she says.
I shake my head. “I think I’ve had enough. We need to go home.”
Danny stumbles towards me and gives me a heavy bear hug. I close my eyes and enjoy it. Danny has always been one of my favorites. Always so kind to others, so loving. It isn’t fair that he has had such a lousy life as a grown-up.
“Let us know if there is anything we can do to help you with Blake,” he says when he lets go. “Have you spoken to Olivia yet?”
I frown. “Olivia?”
Danny look surprised. “Blake didn’t tell you about her?”
“No.”
“He was seeing her. You remember Olivia, don’t you? I think she is married now, right, Alex?”
Alex nods. “Yeah. To some general in the army. What’s his name?”
“Hartman,” Joey says.
“That’s it.” Alex snaps his fingers. “Olivia Hartman is her name now. It started out being all about the sex, but I think Blake was in over his head a little here.”
“What do you mean?”
“He committed the only sin you cannot commit when being with a married woman,” Danny says. “He fell in love with her.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
March 1992
“Wow! Did you see the face on that woman?”
The four girls run down to the beach and hide in the dunes while they hear wailing sirens throughout the city. Ally’s hands are shaking. She can’t believe what just happened. What she has just done.
“Help. Help. Police,” the girl with the Mohawk who calls herself AK says, imitating the woman. Then she laughs again.
AK is the leader of the group and impressing her means a great deal for Ally. Seeing the look in her eyes now makes Ally feel better about herself, about what she has just done.
“You’re badass,” she says to Ally. “I like you. From now on, we’ll call you AL. Like in the song, right? You can call me AL?”
AK laughs. So do Double O and JJ. It is AK who has given them their street names, as she calls them, and apparently, Ally is now AL. Ally has been waiting for AK to give her a new name. She wonders if this means she is now officially part of the group. If it is enough.
The next day, the police arrive at the school and start asking questions about the students’ whereabouts on the day of the attack on the tourists. Ally is worried that someone might rat her out, but to her surprise, the girls all stand up for each other and give each other alibis. The police suspect them, the girls all know they do, but they can’t prove anything. AK even pays a teacher to tell the police that they were in class all day. AK always has a way of getting away with things. No matter how bad they are. Ally admires her for that. She admires her for many things. Her strength, her courage, her looks, the way she doesn’t care what people think about her. She can terrorize the kids in the school without anyone daring to tell on her. Just by walking down the school hallway with he
r, Ally can hear the student’s teeth clattering in fear. No one even dares to look at her directly. Kids flee from her presence. Even teachers fear her.
AK is one of those kids who has nothing to lose. She has no parents and lives in a home with other children that have no parents. She never thinks about the future or growing up or getting good grades. She knows she will never make it to college, since no one can pay for it, so there is no use in trying. No one believes in her, so why should she? She has a fire in her eyes that makes people tremble in her presence. Even the grown-ups.
AK is untouchable. And by being her friend, Ally becomes superior as well. Together, they kick the garbage cans in the school cafeteria and tip them over and throw garbage at the other kids. They terrorize students and tourists in the streets, they knock bicyclists off their bikes on A1A and make them fall, and then threaten to kill them if they ever tell anyone. They smoke cigarettes and place the burning butt on the arm of a woman if she tells them they can’t smoke somewhere, then chase her off by threatening to burn down her house with her family inside of it.
That’s who they have become now.
A few weeks after the incident with the tourists, AK approaches Ally in the schoolyard and tells her to walk with her during their lunch break.
“It was awesome what you did that day,” she says, referring to the day when they beat the tourist. “I believe you’re probably the strongest member we’ve had in our group. I believe in you a lot, but I need you to prove yourself to us. Your loyalty to our group,” she says. She turns and looks Ally in the eyes. Ally sees the flame inside of them.
“I need to know that you’re with us. With me. All the way.”
“Of course I am. You know that I am, AK.” How can she not know by now? With all they had done?
“Good. I need your complete loyalty. I have something I want you to do. With me. Just the two of us, alone.”
AK then asks her to meet her at an address that coming Friday evening at midnight. She isn’t allowed to ask any questions or to even speak to the other girls about it. Ally feels special sharing this secret, this upcoming event with AK.
Ally goes home that day, wondering what AK wants her to do. Will it be like some kind of initiation ritual? What will she have to do? Get drunk and run around town naked? She can do that. As a matter of fact, she is willing to do anything right now to be accepted by AK, to prove her loyalty. Moving around as much as she has while growing up, this is the first time she has actually made some friends, the first time she feels like she fits in. She will do anything to stay with these girls. To finally feel accepted.
Chapter Thirty-Six
September 2015
Blake was seeing a woman? Why didn’t he tell me? Why has no one told me about this?
I am lying awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling of my father’s house, wondering about my younger brother. I can’t believe he hasn’t told me anything about this. Maybe he thinks it isn’t important, and maybe it isn’t, but still.
I sit up and grab my laptop. I Google her name and find various articles about her husband and a lot of pictures of the two of them together. Apparently, they are sort of a celebrity couple within the military.
I grab the phone and call James Holland to hear how he is doing on the case. It is almost noon Monday and my head is throbbing heavily as I wait for his reply. I badly want to go down for a meeting, but he tells me there is no need to. Not yet.
“There is nothing new to tell, Miss Mills, I’m sorry.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“We wait for the State Attorney to charge Blake. Once we know the charges, we can start to build our defense.”
“So, let me rephrase. What can I do?”
“There isn’t much you can do at this moment,” he says. “We have to wait. I’m sorry, but that’s all we can do right now.”
Is that what I am paying you those big bucks for?
“Did you know anything about a woman he was seeing?” I ask.
James Holland scoffs. “No.”
“I need help getting the details straight,” I say. “Why doesn’t he have an alibi for the night of the murder? It happened on a Thursday night, right? Thursday the week before he was arrested?”
“Yes. According to the eyewitness, Blake picked the two girls up at Grills Riverside in Melbourne and took them back to his studio, where they arrived at eleven o’clock at night. According to the eyewitness, they were all three of them engaged in some sex game and that suddenly Blake stabbed Jamilla Jenkins using the chisel. The eyewitness screamed and ran out of the studio and into the street, where she grabbed a taxi. Afraid that Blake might kill her as well, she kept quiet until it was all over the news that the body of her friend had been found. Then she came forward. She is still terrified of Blake and her name has been kept a secret so far.”
“Could she be lying?” I ask.
He sighs. “It doesn’t matter if she is. She’s army, a decorated war hero from both Iraq and Afghanistan. No one will believe us if we claim she is lying.”
“Alright. What else do we have? What has Blake told the police?”
“In his statement given to the police, Blake has declared that he was at the bar, the same bar where the girl claims he picked them both up, at Squid Lips in Melbourne on the evening of the murder. He was drinking heavily and was seen by a lot of people. People that have testified to seeing him drinking and dancing and being very loud, making quite the spectacle of himself. Apparently, the establishment was used to that from him. He is known around here as quite the party monkey. Anyway, the last thing he says he remembers is the band going on at seven o’clock. Some one-man-band named Johnny Danger took the stage. Your brother remembers it specifically because he loves Johnny Danger. The strange part is that after that he doesn’t remember anything anymore. Not a single detail of what happened the rest of the night. It’s all black, he says, which makes this case even harder. The problem is that is not unusual for your brother…to drink till he blacks out. He claims he woke up the next morning in his own bed. A week later, he goes to Starbucks to see his painting get hung up on the wall there. When he gets back to his own place, the police are waiting for him there. They found the bloody chisel under his sink. That and the eyewitness, who states she saw him stab Miss Jamilla Jenkins during a sex game the night before, is probably what they’re basing their charges on.”
“And the body? Where was it found? If I remember it right, there was no blood in the studio?”
“That’s one thing I don’t understand,” he says. “The body was found in a hotel room at a Motel 6. How was Blake supposed to take her there, rent a room, and carry her inside after he stabbed her?”
“And, why would he do that?” I ask. “It’s not like it’s a great place to hide a dead body.”
“Exactly. I have found no one at the motel that remembers him or her, neither is his name found anywhere. His credit card wasn’t even used to pay for the room. It was paid with cash. There is no evidence in the car, no trace of blood, or even any of the girl’s hair. That’s the angle I’m working on right now. That’s where the police’s investigation is inconsistent. And that’s all I can do with what I have.”
I write everything down on my notepad, then tell James Holland I will be in touch before I hang up. I grumble while going through the details once again. I have been over it so many times and can’t make it work. The part about the motel room is new to me. So is the girlfriend I never knew he had.
I circle the name Olivia Hartman a couple of times, wondering about her and Blake. I get that he has kept her a secret because she is married and all…to not get her in trouble. That makes a lot of sense. Especially if he really likes her. But he told Alex, Danny, and Joey about her, apparently. Why only them and not me? I can’t help feeling a little offended. He and I aren’t close, but we talk over the phone every now and then. Is he more comfortable talking to the boys? Is that what this is all about? Or is he bragging maybe? Maybe it’s a boy th
ing that I wouldn’t understand. Well, I can’t blame him if he is bragging, I think to myself, looking at her picture on my computer screen. She is quite the beauty. But she is old. Much too old for him. I remember her vividly from when we were teenagers.
I decide to get moving, despite the headache and nausea. I, for one, am not going to sit here and wait for my brother to rot in that jail. I want to figure out what the heck is going on. I only have around eight days till Salter has to be back in school, and besides helping my brother get out of this mess, I have to find a new job. With the reputation I have by now, it could prove to be just as hard as getting my brother acquitted.
Salter has already walked Snowflake and comes back with a big smile on his face. I am just getting out of the shower. Snowflake jumps me and licks the water off my legs. His fur is filled with sand. I give Salter a look.
“Did you walk him on the beach?”
“Well…he…”
“You know you’re not supposed to do that. Grandpa and Laura would kill you if they knew. And look at all that sand that he dragged inside the house. Oh, my God, Laura is going to kill me.”
Salter is still smiling.
“What are you so happy about?” I ask.
“Dad called while you were sleeping. His job today on that roof has been pushed because of the high possibility of rain later today. So, he told me he would take me fishing again.”
“That’s great, honey,” I say, longing for a cup of coffee to kill this hangover. “I’ll drop you off on my way to Starbucks.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
September 2015
I drop Salter off outside his dad’s place and don’t bother to say hello to Joey. I don’t want him to see me like this. He’d be able to tell right away that I am hung over. He knows me too well, and I would never hear the end of it. Besides, I am not in the mood for a new confrontation with him. I have no energy, nor the will to argue.
