by Tess Oliver
Chapter 17
Grass. I was smelling grass, and not the good kind. I opened my eyes and squinted up at the colorful object dangling above my head. It floated down toward my face, and I shot up out of the way. A piñata, I was looking at a giant paper donkey layered with every color in the damn rainbow.
“Sorry to wake you, but it was the only tree with a solid enough branch to hold it,” the man said. He was wearing a baseball cap and a t-shirt with a dragster on the front. “They put so much candy inside, I’m not even sure we’ll be able to break the darn thing open.” He tied off the piñata and leaned down. “I’m Ross. If you’re looking for Amber, she’s over there helping with the pancakes. We’re all so glad she made it here. We’ve heard so much about her from her great aunt, we were thrilled to see her this morning. She said you guys traveled all night and couldn’t find a place to stay. Shame you all had to sleep in the park.”
Apparently, I’d drunk myself into a coma, and this guy, for unknown reasons, had popped up in my unconscious visions. “Who?”
“Amber,” a familiar voice said from the opposite side of the tree trunk. Julian, still looking pale and shaky, was holding a plate of pancakes and bacon. “Our best friend, Amber, who we traveled with all night on a bus, so she could get to the reunion. But her great aunt is sick and couldn’t make it to the party. Isn’t that a shame?” Julian looked up from his food for the first time. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked like shit. “But everyone was anxious to meet Amber because they’d never met her . . . until today.” Julian blinked at me.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked under my breath.
Julian motioned across the way.
My head felt like it was being slammed against a brick wall as I squinted across the sunlit park to the group of people standing around the tables. Rainbow colored streamers, that matched the piñata, fluttered in the morning breeze, and two of the park barbecues were clouded with bacon smoke. A large banner had been stretched across the brick wall of the restrooms that read, ‘Sutter Family Reunion’. Country music was rumbling from a pair of gritty sounding speakers, and people were sitting around the park, on the walls, on the slide and the swings balancing plates of food. And, standing at the food preparation table with a bright white smile and that sunshiney attitude, was the girl I loved.
Ross gave the rope with the piñata a strong tug. “Looks like that’ll work. If you’re ready for food, come on over and get a plate. Hannah’s pancakes are the best in the state. She’s won blue ribbons at the state fair.”
My stomach tightened at the smell of food, but I wasn’t hungry yet. “Yeah, thanks. I just need to get my morning appetite churning.” Ross walked away. I scooted closer to Julian, who looked to be having the same appetite problem as me. “What the hell is going on?”
“We woke up, and they were setting up a party. One of the women asked Sugar if she was that pretty, twice-removed niece that Aunt Shelly had been bragging about and then she said how sorry she was that Shelly wasn’t going to make it to the reunion. Then they started cooking pancakes, so Sugar just decided to go with it. We’re her two friends who traveled with her from Colorado to make sure she got here safely.”
I looked back toward the tables. Two women were laughing heartily at something Sugar said. “My god, they love her already, the little con artist.”
“Not surprising. Everyone loves Sugar,” Julian said. “Except her mom, of course. The one person who should love her the most.”
My throat tightened as I thought about the story Sugar had told us so casually, as if every fifteen year old had their mom shove them out alone on the streets. “I’ve never met the woman, but she is someone who I never want to know, the worst the human world has to offer.”
“Yet, she raised a daughter who everyone wants to know, everyone wants to be around.” Julian dipped more bacon into syrup and then licked it. It occurred to me the only thing he was actually consuming was the syrup. He was still craving sugar. Something we had in common, only I craved a completely different kind of sugar.
“But why is she doing this?”
Julian lifted his plate of pancakes. I noticed he’d cut the outer edge off each pancake as if it was the unwanted crust of bread. “Free food.” He dipped a piece of bacon into a puddle of maple syrup and brought it to his mouth with a shaky hand. The aroma that drifted from his plate was slowly untangling the knot in my gut and my mouth watered.
“You’re more talkative today,” I said. “Are you feeling better?” Here he was, a guy who rarely left his room at the center, sitting under a park tree on a lawn that was no doubt sprayed with pesticide and eating a piece of bacon dripping with syrup. “I guess we’re starting to see the real Julian Fitzpatrick, eh?”
He wiped his maple flavored fingers on a napkin, instead of licking them like a regular person. “What you’re looking at is a hybrid Julian. There’s still plenty of benzodiazepine in my bloodstream, but it does feel like that outer shell I was wearing has broken apart some. My head is clearer, but my body feels as if it has been picked up and wrung out by giant steel hands. I’m still in shock from this whole thing, from discovering my father is even more of a monster than I thought.” He looked at me and made direct eye contact, a rarity for Julian. “Trust me, Tommy, when you’re looking at the real thing, the drug-free version of Julian Fitzpatrick, you’ll know.”
Two girls in their early teens giggled wildly and carried a plate of food across the grass. One had a peace sign on her shirt and the other had a tiger. They stopped directly in front of me and nearly giggled the food off the plate. “This is from Amber.” I took the plate. The girl with the peace sign whispered something to the girl with the tiger. “Amber said you used to be her boyfriend but that you weren’t a very good kisser.” They giggled again. I looked past them to Sugar, who waved my direction. I lifted the plate of food in thanks.
“She said that, did she? Well, you tell her, if she’d just give me a chance to give her a proper kiss, then I’d knock her socks off.”
That produced even more giggles. “She’s right. You’re a hunk,” the peace sign girl blurted before they scampered off.
“A hunk who’s a shitty kisser, apparently.” I picked up the fork. Sugar smiled slyly at me as she stood at a portable griddle with a red and white apron tied around her waist and a spatula in her hand. I waved at her.
The pancakes were good. “Shit, I’m so damn hungry, this food is making my eyes water.”
The same second I commented about the tasty food, Julian dropped his fork onto the paper plate. “I can’t eat it. My stomach keeps rolling back and forth between bouts of hunger and nausea.”
“Sorry to hear that, buddy. This is good stuff. Maybe you should take little bites. Who knows when we’ll be able to eat again.” I had to mentally tell myself to slow down and chew or risk choking to death on a pancake.
Sugar placed down her spatula and ran over to help someone move an ice chest across the cement to the shade of a tree. “I wonder where she gets it— that innate need to help people.”
“She’s trying to make things right,” Julian offered.
I looked over at him. “You going to add anything to that little theory?”
Talking seemed to take more energy than he wanted to give but he continued. “She’s trying to erase what happened, to make things right by helping others. She can’t help the little girl or her family, but she can do the right thing by others. Sugar and I have that in common. We both took a life before we even knew what death was.”
“You had no fault in your brother’s death. You weren’t even out of the fucking womb yet.”
“Trust me, my dad never let me forget that it happened. That’s why Sugar and I deal with it differently. She was conscious and technically responsible for the girl’s death. I wasn’t. And while I don’t feel guilt about it, my dad wants me to remember that it happened.”
“See, this is all new, a new side of you. I knew you weren’t overwhelme
d by love for your old man, but I didn’t realize things weren’t good between you. I guess that’s where we share a common bond.”
He placed his plate on the grass and stretched out his legs. “It’s not that things aren’t good between us. There just isn’t anything between us— period. No hate. No love. No emotional ties at all. My mom doted on me for the first ten years. I was already having problems with anxiety and depression and every other ailment a chemical imbalance could give a growing kid. Then she stopped. My dad told her she was coddling me too much, so she stopped. By then, I was starting to take a lot of different things to curb my idiosyncrasies. My own emotions were shrouded by the pharmaceuticals. So, having my mom turn off her attachment wasn’t all that bad.”
I stared at him for a long second. The strange guy with the climbing obsession and hat collection had a much deeper psyche than I’d given him credit for. Sugar was right. I was too self-absorbed. I’d always just figured I had bigger problems than everyone else, but it turned out my two best friends were right on par with me. Hell, they were even worse off in some ways. They just didn’t deal with it through anger.
I ate all that my stomach would allow and then rifled through the backpack for my sunglasses and toothbrush. The odds were good that someone in this crowd of people had at some point read the paper. And, while they would hardly expect the traveling companion of their dear, sweet grand niece, Amber, to be a fugitive, I was sure it would be better for me to keep a distance from people.
Julian and I kept to ourselves in an area that was closer to the parking lot. We took turns dozing off and watching with amusement as Sugar warmed her way into the hearts of the entire Sutter clan. After a long round of relay games, where everyone fought to have Amber on their team, Sugar wandered off to a shade tree with several of the guys, the eighteen to twenty year old set of the Sutter clan. I wasn’t happy about it, but I also wasn’t willing to join in on the conversation.
While Sugar had fun with her newly adopted family, Julian and I made plans. We needed to get to a motel with free wi-fi. We were in desperate need of showers and beds and Julian needed to get to his email. Dr. Kirkendall had sent him something, and now, more than ever, we were sure it had to do with her murder.
Sugar sashayed over, keeping the undivided attention of the Sutter boys. “Are you guys going to want hamburgers? I need to let Francine know. She’s the lady in the yellow apron smacking ground beef into patties.”
“I never turn down a burger,” I said.
Julian nodded half-heartedly.
“Hey, Amber,” one of the guys called to her. “Are you coming back?”
She waved. “Be right there.”
I raised a brow at her. “Those punks might be relatives, but they aren’t looking at you like a cousin.”
She smiled coyly. Something she was very practiced at. That’s when I caught a whiff of a familiar aroma.
“Hold on there, Daisy May, you smell even better than usual.”
Her teeth bit down on her bottom lip.
“Fucking hell, you’re over there smoking weed with them? Damn, I’m jealous.”
Sugar shrugged and walked back to the tree.
Laughter and a thin trail of smoke circled the group in the shade. “That brat. She’s over there getting high without me.”
Julian had been stretched out under full sun. It seemed to have relieved the chills he’d been experiencing. He’d pulled his hat over his face. He lifted it and squinted up at me. “You were free of the stuff for a few months. Is the craving still as strong?”
“It seems that way.”
A car had pulled into the parking lot behind us, but I didn’t pay any attention. My full focus was on Sugar and her little circle of male admirers, who were gazing at her like she was a friggin’ movie star. She smiled at something one of them said and then looked my direction. The smile faded, and she said something to her new friends. They looked back over their shoulders. With movements that were so obvious they were laughable, they put out the joint. Sugar’s tense expression flashed my way again. I looked over my shoulder. A police car had pulled into the lot. Two cops climbed out of the cruiser.
“It’s about time,” one of the women called to the officers. “We’re just about to cook the burgers.”
The cop with a shaved head and round belly pushed his shades up onto his head. “Some of us Sutters have to work. I want mine medium-rare.”
Julian and I picked up our things and walked casually to the far side of the parking lot where we were out of view of the party and its newest attendees. “We need to get Sugar out of there,” I said. “The party is over.” Just as I said it, she came running toward us, looking slightly alarmed, but, at the same time, laughing.
“Go,” she called before she reached us. We turned and ran down the street, away from the park and out of sight of the Sutter family reunion. Out of pity for Julian, who was having a hell of a time keeping up with us, we slowed. When it seemed we were far enough, we walked.
Julian stopped suddenly and, still holding his precious computer, he stooped down and puked up what little food he’d had inside of him.
“You poor thing, Jules,” Sugar said. “I’m sorry about that, but while we were getting ready to put burgers on the grill, my dear great aunt called. I ran.”
I laughed. “They were probably more upset than pissed. Something tells me the real Amber wouldn’t have won them over like the counterfeit one.”
“They were super nice people. It would be cool to belong to a big family like that. Oh, one good thing though . . .” She fished something out of her pocket. It was three joints. “My cousins were very generous. I left with some party favors.”
I grabbed her, and she laughed wildly as I spun her around. “I fucking love you, Amber Sutter.”
Chapter 18
It turned out that hiding in plain sight was easier than I’d expected. We strolled through another small town and along the highway, with hardly a glance our direction. And the small towns were not overrun with police, which helped. We were probably in more danger of Frank finding us than the cops. The latter would be much less deadly.
Before her act had been uncovered, someone from Sugar’s adopted family had let her know where the best motels were. Although the information had been more for her two unsocial traveling companions because just as they’d fought over having her on their relay team, they’d also argued about who she would stay with during her visit.
I was a fugitive, and Julian looked like what he was, a man who’d run off from a hospital. So Sugar took the money and went inside to get us a room. A good night’s sleep and showers would clear our heads enough to decide what to do next. With luck, there would be something incriminating in Kirkendall’s email, and this would all be over soon. I wondered if my parents had already disowned me completely. Couldn’t blame them if they had, except it would have been nice if my dad had actually listened for a change so I could have explained this nightmare.
Sugar came out with two keys in her hand. “There’s only one double bed in each room, and the manager said for three people I had to rent two rooms. Forty a night for each.”
“We’ll be out of money fast at that rate. I’m pretty sure using my credit card is out. Damn the internet. Nineteenth century fugitives had it much easier. And they got to swing from the gallows.”
“Shit, Tommy, don’t start that subject again. I just want a shower and a bed.” Sugar tromped along the covered hallway that led to our rooms. They were next door to each other, and there was a connecting door between them. Each room had a hard, uncomfortable bed, flat pillows, flowery bedspread and faded curtains. The televisions looked like the kind that would need antennas to work properly. But, while the decor of the room was straight out of the last century, surprisingly, the room came with free wi-fi. We stood there looking around at our accommodations, and suddenly, the awkward question of who slept where came up.
I looked at Julian. “I guess we’ll be roomies?” My head
was thinking only about Sugar sleeping in the room next door and how that would be nothing short of torture.
“Looks like there isn’t much choice,” Julian grunted.
Sugar picked up the backpack, our communal suitcase. “I’m going to my room to shower. I smell like pancakes and bacon. You boys have fun.” Sugar standing naked under running water just a few feet away, another notion to slowly drain the life from me.
She disappeared into the next room, leaving the door between open.
Julian set his computer up on the small table in the room. The motel paperwork had come with a password for the internet. “There’s still battery power,” Julian said, as he turned on the laptop. “Then I’ll need a power cord, or this thing will just be a paperweight.”
I pulled a chair up next to Julian. He glanced back at me with an annoyed expression. I lifted my hands. “What? Would you rather I didn’t look?”
He didn’t need to answer. I backed up the chair and crossed my arms. “Fine, just let me know if it’s something that will help save my ass.”
Julian hunched down to look at the monitor. The muscles in his back relaxed. He’d found his drug of choice. His computer. He’d carried it with him just as I’d carried the whiskey. He clicked around for a few seconds and then stopped to read something. His shoulders bunched up again. “Dr. Kirkendall’s mother was a professional midwife. They help women deliver babies at home instead of in a hospital.”
“I knew all that. She told me about it during one of our sessions. Her mom was hit by a car when she was a little girl.”
