by Lili Valente
“He’ll do the case pro bono,” Gabe says. “He does a few of those every year, and he likes you, I can tell. He’ll be glad to help.”
My mouth opens and closes with no words coming out, not sure how I feel about what Gabe’s suggesting. On the one hand, it feels like charity, and I don’t want that from Gabe. But the thought of having the legal right to tell Chuck to stay out of our lives if he won’t behave is insanely tempting. How much easier would life be if I didn’t have to worry about Chuck screwing things up every time he doesn’t get his way?
“She wants you.” Danny appears at my side, a sniffling Emmie in his arms.
The moment I see her splotchy red face and eyelashes matted with tears, I know what I have to do. I can’t let her grow up under Dad’s reign of terror. He’s only getting worse. The sweet Dad who used to play the fiddle for us at night, and sneak a few bucks of candy money into your pocket when you least expected it, hasn’t been around in a long time. It makes me sad to know Emmie will never know that side of Chuck, but I can’t keep sticking my head in the sand, and pretending things are going to be okay.
Things are only going to be okay if I make them okay and that means making sure Chuck doesn’t have the power to swing a wrecking ball through this family.
“Okay.” I turn back to Gabe as I stroke Emmie’s back. “If your dad’s okay with taking the case pro bono, I can meet with him one morning this week. Wednesday or Thursday would be best. I don’t have to clock in at the diner until nine forty-five on those days.”
Gabe smiles, that devilish smile that makes him even more handsome. “Unless you decide to quit.”
“I can’t quit.”
“Can’t quit yet,” Gabe corrects with a wink before turning to the boys. “Who wants to go for a ride? I’ve got room for three.”
“I’ll come,” Danny says, clearly having experienced a change of heart where Gabe is concerned. I’m not thrilled that the change was inspired by violence, but…I guess beggars can’t be choosers.
“I’ll go.” Ray steps up beside Danny, hanging close to his big brother, the way he always does in the aftermath of a Chuck-splosion.
“Me too! Me too!” Sean’s arm shoots up as he bounces on his toes, the smile on his face proving he’s put the dark part of the evening behind him. But Sean is usually the swiftest to recover, and it’s not like we haven’t been through this with Chuck before.
The kids aren’t used to seeing Dad pounded by my boyfriend, but they are used to seeing Dad wasted and causing trouble, doling out cuffs to the head when Danny talks back, or Ray spends too much time in the bathroom. It’s the worst kind of routine, but one I haven’t known how to break free of. There was never enough money or time or support for me to dream that I’d have a chance at getting custody, there was never…Gabe.
“See you soon,” he says, as the boys race each other around the house to the Beamer. “I’ll take them for a ride down to the old mill, and get ice cream before we head back.”
“They’ll drip in your car,” I warn.
“It’s just a car.” Gabe leans down to kiss my forehead, making my chest tight, a condition that only gets worse when Emmie laughs and pats his cheek.
“She likes you.”
“I like her,” Gabe says, smiling at Emmie before his gaze shifts back to me and the smile becomes something more intense. “And I like you. I’ll fix anything I messed up tonight, we’ll finish what we started with Pitt, and everything will be fine. I promise.”
“I believe you,” I say, meaning it.
It scares me, but I do. I believe in Gabe, and maybe, even more dangerously, I’m starting to believe in this dreamy future he’s spinning, daring to imagine what it might be like to not only survive, but to break free, and take the people I love with me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Caitlin
You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind. –Irish proverb
I ignore the way my skin has already begun to sweat in the unrelenting heat of the June night, tug my long-sleeved black shirt down to my wrists, and pull on my gloves. The gloves are black leather, softer and suppler than anything I’ve ever owned.
They arrived in the mailbox yesterday, unwrapped, without a note saying who they were from, but I knew. Just like I know that Gabe will be here in exactly two minutes. He’s always on time.
I have two minutes to decide this is insane, turn around, and run back to the van as fast as my legs can carry me. I know I should. But instead, I tug the back of my black sock cap lower on my neck, making sure every strand of blond hair is tucked safely beneath, before sliding the mask over my face.
As soon as the soft knit smoothes over my skin—concealing everything but my eyes and mouth—I feel something shift inside of me. The black uniform helps silence the voices warring in my head, reducing me to the simplest version of myself, the one who wants to survive and won’t let anyone stand in my way. The anxiety that has followed me since I crept out of the house fifteen minutes ago vanishes, leaving cold, steady certainty in its place.
Pitt deserves this; he deserves this and more. The man tortured and abused his mother for eight years before administering a lethal overdose, all while filming the misery he was inflicting so he could relive the nightmare over and over. Now, he lives to torment the kids he’s supposed to be helping, staying on as a teacher for the joy of making preteens suffer, when his inheritance was more than enough to set him up for life.
At our conference after school yesterday, Pitt threatened to fail Danny, even though his grades are all B’s and C’s. After spending the entire year riding Danny’s ass, I would have assumed Pitt would be glad to see my brother go, but the bastard wants to keep his favorite punching bag around for another year. He said he was recommending Danny be held back to give him another year to “mature.”
The only thing another year with Mr. Pitt would mature in Danny is his determination to give authority the middle finger. He wouldn’t make it. He’d end up getting transferred to the alternative school, where, at thirteen, he’d be one of the youngest kids on campus. He’d either be eaten alive, or drawn into a group of kids way more dangerous and destructive than the Baker boys down the street. Either one is intolerable. I won’t see Danny’s life ruined because one nasty man singled him out as his latest victim.
I have a meeting with Principal Tharp to discuss whether or not Danny should be held back on Thursday. I’m hoping Pitt will have tendered his resignation by then. Without Pitt applying pressure, I know Tharp can be persuaded that holding Danny back isn’t in anyone’s best interests. After all, passing him means she only has to deal with his crap for one more year before he’s promoted to high school, instead of two.
“Hey there.” Gabe’s whisper comes from the shadowed woods behind me, but it doesn’t startle me.
I’ve been waiting to hear his voice again since we parted ways outside my house late last night, after a good night kiss that scrambled my thoughts even more than the hour spent plotting how to get in and out of Pitt’s house within Gabe’s ten minute time limit. I’m not sure the tapes Gabe’s father’s file mentioned still exist—if I were Pitt, I would have destroyed that evidence long before I went to trial—but Gabe thinks they do, and that I’ll find them in the attic. He scouted the house yesterday while Pitt was at work, and says the ground floor is very sparsely furnished. There aren’t many places to store a box of old, VHS surveillance tapes, and Gabe’s betting Pitt is keeping the videos of his mother’s suffering in the same place he kept his mother.
“Nice mask,” Gabe whispers, as I turn to face the silhouette emerging from the shadows across the street from the elegant, old farmhouse where Mr. Pitt’s mother was born and died. “And stunning gloves.”
“Thanks, they were a gift from this boy I like.” I move into his arms, blood singing as his Gabe smell fills my head and my breasts flatten against his chest. I can’t make out his expression in the darkness, but I can feel how much I affect him in the w
ay his fingers curl into my hips, pulling me closer.
“Glad they reached you safely,” he says. “Any trouble on the way?”
“Nope, the kids are all asleep, and I left a note saying I was running to the Laundromat to pick up a load I forgot this afternoon in case anyone wakes up. I parked the van under the railroad trestle down the road. Only took me two minutes to get here.”
“Should take less on the way back,” Gabe says, a smile in his voice. “Post job adrenaline is pretty intense. You ready to go?”
“I think so.” I take a breath and let it out slowly, shocked to find my heartbeat speeding only a little. Gabe and I went over the plan so many times it feels like we’ve already pulled this off. Now, it’s just a matter of going through the motions.
“Remember, the ten minutes start as soon as you’re in,” Gabe whispers. “Find the tapes first, then poke around for anything valuable. I’m pretty sure the jewelry is on the ground floor in the mother’s old room. It doesn’t look like it’s been touched since before Pitt decided to start keeping her in the attic. So I’ll take care of that, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to hunt for other goodies if you have time.”
I nod. “And if I don’t find the tapes?”
“We’ll revisit the plan when we get back to your place, do some more digging, and find another way to blackmail him. But I’m betting you’ll find them.”
“How much are you betting?” I ask in a lilting tone, shocked that I’m flirting at a time like this.
“I’m betting dinner, dancing, and a swanky hotel room Friday night. All on me,” Gabe says, giving my hips another squeeze before adding in a smoky voice, “And I promise to make you come at least three times before I let you sleep.”
I press closer, the feel of him getting hard against my stomach making me ache. “And if I win, I’ll let you teach me how to give a blow job.”
Gabe’s fingers dig into the curve of my bottom. “I doubt you’ll need teaching.”
“I might,” I say, pressing up on tiptoes to press a kiss to the cleft of his chin. “I’ve never given one before.”
His breath rushes out. “Never?”
“Never,” I confirm, kissing his cheek before moving my lips within a breath of his, hovering just out of reach as I speak. “But I want you to be my first. I’ve been imagining what you’ll taste like since that night at your dad’s office.”
He groans softly, trapping my sock-cap-covered head between his hands. “Stop it. Or I’m going to take you to the van and get you naked in the back, and we’re not going to leave here with any of the things we came for.”
“All right.” I rock back off my tiptoes and take a reluctant step away, putting distance between us. “But promise to meet me at the house later. I’ll leave my window open. You can climb the tree outside, sneak in, and…stay the night if you want.”
“Sounds perfect,” he says, sending a sizzle of anxiety-laced-anticipation racing across my skin.
I know I should be more nervous about breaking into Pitt’s place than potentially having sex with Gabe for the first time, but the events of this evening are already all mixed up together in my head. I feel like I did that night at the pawnshop, fear and attraction fusing to create a heightened state that makes me feel more awake, more alive than I’ve ever felt before. I can’t wait to visit unto Pitt some much deserved karmic retribution, and I can’t wait to feel Gabe’s skin against mine, the two are tangled together and I don’t care to untangle them, not when the combined stakes make the thrill that much more intense.
“I’ll be back outside in ten minutes,” Gabe says, squeezing my hand as we step to the edge of the shadows. “If I’m caught, I’ll make enough noise for you to hear me in the attic. You’ll have time to get out and make a run for it before the police arrive. It’s only a thirteen-foot drop from the window. You’ll be fine as long as you land with bent knees.”
I nod, and impulsively lean in, giving him one last kiss on the cheek. “For luck.”
“I’ve already used up all my luck,” he says, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “You keep it.”
Before I can respond, he starts across the road. I follow, boots crunching lightly in the gravel before we hit the lawn and our footfalls go silent. I tail Gabe through the blue moonlight around to the side of the darkened house, amazed that the night is so quiet.
In my neighborhood, it’s never this quiet, not even at two in the morning. There are too many people with babies, couples who brawl in the middle of the night, and people working double shifts and graveyard shifts, whatever hours they have to work to get by. There is always someone coming or going, someone shouting or laughing or crying or calling a dog or shooting a rifle into the air to scare the starlings away in the fall.
Here, at the edge of town, on a narrow dirt road where the gentlemen farmers of another age built their sprawling farmhouses, the world is silent. There is no wind tonight, no rustle of trees, not a sound except for the occasional chirp of an insect the heat hasn’t lulled into a coma. The quiet is smothering, and by time we reach the yard beneath the attic window and I crawl onto Gabe’s shoulders, I’m finding it hard to breathe.
Or maybe you’re just scared out of your damned mind.
My hands shake as I ease the windowpane open and pull myself up to the sill, but I’m not sure it’s fear making them tremble. I’m excited too, so ready for this that I can already taste how good it’s going to feel to hear Mr. Pitt won’t be returning to teach seventh grade in the fall.
My biceps flex and I hook my leg over the edge of the window, hauling myself silently inside, grateful for all those heavy trays I carry at Harry’s. I don’t have any trouble lifting my own weight. I feel strong, confident, every cell vibrating with determination as I step down onto the dusty boards, giving my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light.
The moment they do, my stomach clenches and the worst wave of acid I’ve experienced in days surges up my throat. My sour stomach has been behaving itself lately—having Gabe around seems to agree with it—but now Gabe is gone, off breaking into the ground floor.
He might as well be a hundred miles away. A million.
I suddenly feel terrifyingly alone and trapped, though I know Gabe’s right and, unlike the woman held captive here before me, I’m young and fit enough to jump to freedom if Gabe doesn’t come back to catch me.
But as I stare at the stained mattress lying on the floor to the far right of the window, I can’t help imagining what it must have been like for Pitt’s mother when she was locked away for all those years. Did she feel like she’d been exiled from reality? Did she hold out any hope of rescue, or did this nightmare become her world? Did she die with nothing but memories of the unbearable heat in her dusty prison, loneliness, and her son’s cruelty lingering in her mind?
I cross to the mattress, eyes focusing on a mildewed cardboard box filled with threadbare stuffed animals and a china tea set laid out on the floorboards, as if waiting for someone to come visit. The realization that Pitt’s mother must have played with these toys, reverting to a childlike state while she was treated worse than the law allows owners to treat their pets, makes my throat close up and my eyes sting.
A second later, I’ve spun and started toward the pile of boxes and plastic storage tubs on the opposite side of the attic, more determined to find those tapes than ever. I’m ashamed to live in a world where monsters roam free, slipping off the hook with help from lawyers who think only about how to win and keep winning, not whether or not they should.
Pitt never should have walked free. He should be rotting in prison. The tapes can’t send him there—he’s already been acquitted, and can’t be retried for his mother’s murder—but I can use them to make him suffer.
It’s like Gabe said, we can’t rewrite history, but we can tip the scales back in the other direction. Teaching Pitt a lesson won’t bring his mother back, but it will make the world a more just place, and might even make Pitt think twice before he indulges the evil
part of his nature again.
My footsteps are light on the boards—making only the softest thuds as I make my way over to the part of the attic Pitt reserves for storage. It’s the dead of the night and I’m assuming Pitt is asleep, but there’s a chance he could wake up, hear me moving around, and come investigate. I force myself to move slowly, and when I reach the boxes and lean down to open the first one, I am careful not to let the cardboard flaps do more than whisper as they brush against each other.
I open box after box, container after container, but discover nothing more damning than a box of old Tupperware, and a tub filled with faded plaid shirts. Meanwhile, the physical exertion, combined with the heat in the attic and the fact that I’m wearing long sleeves and pants in the middle of June, join forces to make my head spin. Within five minutes, I’m sweating like every drop of liquid in my body is determined to commit suicide through my pores, and the pulse in my temple is throbbing so hard it thumps against my skull like a hammer.
By the time I finally shift a long, narrow container of books and letters to reveal an old-fashioned fruitcake tin like the ones my grandma used to hold her sewing supplies, I’m so dizzy my vision is beginning to blur.
I’ve never passed out before, but I’m pretty sure I’m about to. I know I should start back across the attic—I need to get some air before I lose consciousness and ensure I’m caught—but instead I reach for the tin, prying it open with swollen, heat-drugged fingers.
Inside, I discover DVDs. Eight of them. Each with a year scrawled across the silver in black marker.
Just like that, I know. I know he’s transferred the VHS tapes he mentioned to Gabe’s father—the one’s he thought might prove he was guilty if they were discovered—to DVD. I know it. I know Pitt wanted to protect the mementos of his mother’s suffering the way serial killers protect their trophies. I know he’s that monstrous, and I suddenly wish I hadn’t shied away from Gabe’s suggestion that Pitt’s punishment should fit his crime.
