by Jayne Blue
When we were little the five-year age difference made me bigger, stronger. More powerful. He tagged along, played dolls with me. Called for me on the other side of our bedroom walls when we heard our mother crying for reasons we couldn’t understand. And then he got older. Bigger. He passed me in height when I was sixteen. One of my favorite pictures of us together was me with my cheerleading uniform on looking up at him as he stood next to me. It was his first day of junior high football practice. He’d grown big, handsome. But he’d also outgrown hugs as adolescent boys tend to do.
I’d held him like this the night I came home after he’d found our mother when I was the one who should have. I remember thinking in all the horror of that night, how strange it was that I could be glad of one thing. He’d let me get near him again. Let me smooth that butter-blond hair away from his face. He didn’t know but Mom and I used to sneak those kind of touches when he was sleeping and wouldn’t flinch.
“Doug,” I whispered. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be okay.”
The bell signaling the opening of the back door went off. One of Doug’s eyes snapped open and he screamed, trying to move away.
“It’s okay. It’s just Mel. Mel! Oh God. Mel! Help!”
She came running then slipped on a small puddle of ice cream. Peppermint Swirl. I must have dropped the scooper somewhere. Melinda screamed.
“Mel,” I shouted at her to bring her into the present, then tried to make my voice as calm and even as I could. “Call 911. We need an ambulance. I don’t know how bad he’s hurt.”
Then I turned back to Doug. His eyes had rolled back into his head. He’d passed out.
***
Mel came with me to the hospital. I’d wanted her to stay at the shop for me, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Her eyes filled with tears and something else. She still loved him. I clasped her hand in mine as they gently but forcefully heaved Doug onto a stretcher. She drove with me behind the ambulance.
I answered the intake nurse’s questions as best I could. No, he had no drug allergies. Yes, he was probably on something. God knows what it was. Mel paced in the waiting room, chewing her thumbnail practically off. She’d had the presence of mind to call Chris and tell him to close the shop for the day. It was the first time we’d ever done it for something like this. My father had never done it, not even the day after my mother died, I thought bitterly. I think that was the day the worst of the rumors started about my family. We weren’t so perfect after all.
Finally, a doctor came out. Melinda grabbed my hand and I held the both of us up as we listened.
“We’ve got him stabilized but your brother’s lost a lot of blood. He won’t say who did this to him or even much about what happened. But, obviously, he’s been badly beaten. Broken ribs for sure. Collar bone too. Also the occipital bone, the one around his eye socket. I’m going to take him down for X-rays and a CAT scan to help us see what we’re dealing with. We need to make sure he’s not bleeding internally.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Melinda practically tore the skin from my wrist where she clung to me.
The doctor looked from her to me and back again trying to assess which of us might lose it first. I knew it wouldn’t be me. Crisis is what I do best. Tell me the worst that can happen and let me work my way back from there.
“I don’t think any of his injuries are life threatening.”
He said more, but once I heard that I let out a breath and my kaleidoscope of emotions stilled and the world came into focus again. But Melinda started to sob. For an instant, I resented her for it. I didn’t have the luxury of that. Now this was about getting Doug the care he needed, getting the shop back open. Figuring out what else had to be done for my brother.
I signed consent forms for Doug’s testing and treatment while Mel collapsed into a waiting room chair.
“Is there someone else we can call for you?” one of the nurses asked me after the doctor left. She could see Melinda falling apart in the background.
“No,” I said. “There’s no one. It’s just my brother and me.”
The nurse nodded. She was young. God, so young. When did I start becoming the oldest person in the room? How does that happen? People younger than me aren’t supposed to be the ones with the answers and trying to give me comfort.
“Well, um. You know, the police are going to have some questions. They’ll probably talk to you here, but if you want, you can ask them if you can maybe meet them at the station. You know. If you need some more time.”
It took me a second to fully understand what the nurse was trying to say. But of course. My brother came into the E.R. beaten within an inch of his life and loaded up with heroin and God knows what else. Never mind his physical problems, he could have legal ones too.
“Oh. Thanks. I’ll handle everything.”
She gave me a nervous smile, cleared her throat, then awkwardly backed up and went back to the safety of her colleagues. Mel sat in one of the waiting room chairs sobbing into her hands. I knew I should probably go to her. Or tell her she could go home if she wanted to. I had this. This was my life, not hers.
I didn’t though. Instead, I found the quietest place I could. A small alcove hidden behind a fake potted plant near the elevators. Then I did something I hadn’t done since I was eighteen years old on a rainy night after a football game. I pulled my phone out of my purse and asked for help.
Chapter Thirteen
Brax
She looked so small sitting there in that pink dress again. It reminded me a hell of a lot of the cheerleading outfit from all those years ago. She sat with her hands folded in her lap as she sat next to some dark-haired girl heaving with tears. Nicole looked up at me with her wide, gray eyes, her hair spilling out of the bun piled on her head. She patted the girl on the back and slowly rose.
She stiffened for a fraction of a second when I went to her. I put my hands on her shoulders and pulled her into my arms. I knew she hated it. Not that I touched her, but that she needed me to.
“Come on,” I said, kissing the top of her head. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk. Do they know how to find you if there’s any news?”
The brunette looked up at us. Her eyes widened and she wiped her mascara-stained cheeks. “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll stay right here.”
“Thanks,” Nicole said. “Brax, this is Melinda. She’s Doug’s . . . uh . . . she’s a friend.”
Melinda smiled and shrugged. She held out a hand and laughed a little realizing I’d just seen her use the same one to wipe her nose. I gave her a wink and a nod. “Nice to meet you, Melinda. Thanks for sticking with Nicole. We won’t be far away.”
Then I wrapped my arm around Nicole’s shoulder and took her to the closest, quietest place I could find. A little chapel down the hall.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t have called you.”
She slid into the pew at the back of the room. I squatted down on my knee so I met her at eye level.
“What do you know? And what has he told you?”
She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. “He hasn’t said anything. God. He didn’t even want me to call 911. I never realized I could be so mad at someone and worried about them at the same time.”
I laughed. “Yeah. I think that’s what they call family.”
She smiled. “Yeah? Well, be happy you don’t have one anymore.”
I laughed too. For a minute. Then I knew it was time for the harder questions.
“Do you know how he got to the shop? Was it on his own steam or did someone bring him there?”
Her posture stiffened. That expressive face of hers told me just about everything I needed. Her brows went up and the color drained from her cheeks.
“I don’t know for sure. But he was on the floor, half in the walk-in freezer. I mean, his legs were in the freezer. Oh God, Brax. I think he was trying to crawl out of it.”
My own blood ran cold. Nicole worked it out for herself the same wa
y I did. It made not a damn lick of sense why Doug would be in the fucking freezer unless he was hiding from someone or someone forced him into it. Which meant there was a very good chance someone else might have been in Nicole’s shop last night or this morning. Anger rumbled through me, making my muscles tight and my fists clench. But I couldn’t let her see that side of me. Not yet. I needed her calm and I needed more facts.
“I think we need to have a conversation with your brother as soon as he’s able. And I don’t want you at that parlor by yourself for the foreseeable future.”
I expected her to protest. I was starting to learn how much it cost her to ask for help or let anyone in. But I wasn’t about to give her a choice this time. Not until I had a better handle on what we were dealing with. And it meant I was going to have to bring this shit to the table sooner rather than later.
“You didn’t hear anything? Do you have an alarm system or security cameras?”
She shook her head. “No cameras. God. I was so dead to the world after we closed last night. There is an alarm but Doug knows the code to it. All I would have heard was a single beep when the back door opened. If someone tried to force entry, I definitely would have heard that.”
I had an idea about how it might have gone down. An idea that made new rage simmer inside of me. If Doug recovered from his injuries, I had the strong fucking urge to kick the shit out of him myself.
For now though, it wasn’t going to do Nicole any good to freak her out with my theories. Plus, we ran out of time. Her friend Melinda poked her head inside the chapel door.
“He’s awake,” she said looking at Nicole. “And he’s asking for you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Nicole
They told me not to upset Doug. The good news about whatever he’d taken, he wasn’t feeling any pain when I opened the sliding door and stepped into his room. They had him on oxygen, I.V. fluids, and a medical student sat on a chair beside him cleaning the wound to his ear. He was young. Probably late twenties. Doug’s age. The contrast between them struck me. Both blond, handsome, with baby blue eyes and shy smiles.
He could be anything, I thought. Doug could be doing something with his life. He was smart enough. And yet, there he was, lying on that bed with his head half caved in and God knew what racing through his veins. For the millionth time since the first time I’d taken some middle-of-the-night phone call about something my brother had done, I said the same prayer. Please let this be the time he decides to turn everything around.
“Hey, Nic,” he croaked as I got closer. Brax came in behind me. It hadn’t occurred to me to tell him not to. He kept a strong hand on my shoulder and I drew strength from it, even as a tiny flicker of doubt crept into my heart. It might be dangerous to count on him. Still, I wanted him here. He hung back though, standing in the shadows as I approached Doug’s bed and sat down on a wheeled stool beside him.
I took his hand, careful of the wires sticking out of it, and gave him a little squeeze. Even that slight touch made him wince and I had those twin emotions of wanting to fold him in my arms and throttle him all at once.
“Doug, where have you been? What the hell happened to you?”
He shifted a little in the bed which earned him a stern look from the med student. I think maybe I was wrong. He was younger than Doug. Like the nurse outside, he didn’t look old enough to be driving a car let alone providing medical care to my brother. But he had steady hands and a kind face. I shot him a smile and looked back at Doug.
“Just a little misunderstanding. Nothing to worry about.”
I couldn’t see him, but I swear I could feel Brax’s eyes boring into Doug’s like lasers. I’d had this conversation with Doug a thousand times. He’d tell me don’t worry. He had everything under control. Then money would disappear from the cash register or pieces of Grandma Ridley’s silver set would grow legs. I rubbed my brow with my two fingers and sighed. Doug was talking still, but I put up a hand to stop him.
“Save it. Just don’t. I can’t fix this anymore, Doug. You brought it into the parlor this time. Goddammit. How many times did you swear to me you’d never do that? How much do you owe and what are you on?” I hadn’t meant to lay into him. But I was spent. Fried. And so tired of all of it.
His eyes went from me to Brax and back again. It occurred to me I might not have been as blunt with Doug if Brax hadn’t been standing there. But I became keenly aware of how everything sounded. As if I were watching it as an observer like Brax was. My brother was a junkie. Plain and simple. He was in his disease and everything he said to me was probably a lie.
Doug’s face changed. His lips tightened and I saw red fury come into his eyes. He didn’t like being challenged and whatever drugs he still had in his system were about to do the talking. This was the Bad Doug. The one Melinda couldn’t deal with anymore.
“And just who the fuck are you?” he said, rising up in his bed and looking over my shoulder.
Brax stepped forward. Turning toward him, I put a hand over his where he touched my shoulder. I looked up and up as he towered over me. His motorcycle boots thunked against the hard floor. I caught the eye of the med student and all color drained from his face as he took in the full, menacing force of Brax Anderson, leather cut and all.
“I’m a friend of your sister. And she needs one right now. You wanna talk about what happened at the ice cream shop? And cut the shit. Someone was there with you last night, weren’t they?”
Brax must have shot a look to the med student, because he stiffened, gave a terse nod, and excused himself. God, I envied him. With just the jerk of his chin or a blink, he could bring grown men to heel. The Great Wolves were aptly named. The med student slunk out of the room like a dog with a tail between his legs. As soon as he’d slid the door shut behind him, Brax went around the other side of Doug’s bed and put one booted foot up on the stool there.
“Look,’ he said to Doug. “I’m not here to bust your balls. I give zero fucks about your story. But Nicole’s at risk now because you put her there. So do the decent thing and tell me what I’m dealing with.”
“You? Fuck you. I know who you are. You’re a thug just like the rest of them. Nicole, get this loser out of my sight.”
Brax showed tremendous restraint. Only a tiny muscle in his jaw betrayed the rage I knew he held in check. Rage that I started to feel too.
“Doug. Don’t be an asshole. Brax is a friend of mine and I called him down here to help me.”
“A friend, huh? I’ll bet. Did you get in her pants? Is that why you’re sitting there trying to pretend you give a shit right now?”
Brax moved like lightning and when he kicked the stool back, it hit the wall and cracked like thunder. Doug flinched and let out a high noise as Brax hovered over him. But he hadn’t laid a single finger on my brother. Hot tears sprang in my eyes as I realized a part of me wished he had. Even broken and battered as he was, I wanted someone to shake some sense into him. I wanted my little brother back, not this raging, hurtful thing that seemed to have taken up residence inside of him.
“Look,” Brax said, picking a piece of lint off Doug’s pillow. “You’ve had a rough night. I get that. But you’ve got a chance here to turn things around. Nicole’s all you’ve got and she hasn’t given up on you yet. That tells me that maybe deep down inside she thinks there’s a part of you that’s still worth saving. I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt on that. Which means I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Now, if I can, I’m going to help her help you. That makes this your lucky day. But here’s what you’re going do to. The next time you talk to whatever douchebag you’re dealing with, you’re going to make it real clear that your sister and her business are off limits. Do you understand that?”
Doug stared at a point on the wall and clenched his teeth together. God. He used to do that when we were kids too. Whenever he got in trouble he’d find some secret place inside of his head and escape to it. Brax couldn’t know, but maybe he sense
d it. Once Doug went inside of himself, there was no getting through.
Brax shot me a look, his blue eyes flashing. I sighed and gave him a slight shake of my head. He was wasting his breath. Brax bunched the cotton pillow case behind Doug’s head in his fist and let it go hard. Then he straightened, rising to his full, formidable height and stepped around the bed. He did something bold then, kissing me on the top of the head in front of my brother. It was a message I think even my brother understood.
“I’ll give you a few minutes,” he said. “Then meet me outside. We need to talk before I leave.”
Keeping my eyes locked with Doug’s, I nodded. Then Brax ran a hand down my back sending goosebumps in its wake before he turned on his heel and left us alone.
As soon as the door slid shut, I turned back to Doug. He kept his gaze fixed on the wall. I don’t know what he was expecting me to say, but I don’t think it was this.
“You’re a real asshole, you know that?”
Doug flinched. He finally looked at me and his mouth dropped open. The rage mask left his face and he looked like a little boy again. “Nic. You’re going to ally yourself with that biker trash?”
“Stop. Just stop. You really think you’re the right person to be talking to me about who I associate with? Just tell me how much trouble you’re in this time. And be straight. Tell me who, what, and why. Now.”
“And I already told you. I need twenty grand, Nic. Just a loan. Then I’ll be straight.”
I laughed. “Twenty. The other day it was fifteen and ten before that. I don’t have it, Doug. Even if I wanted to give it to you. I don’t have it. And if I thought that really was it. That you’d turn a corner after that, I might even do it. But please stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself. You’re sick, Doug. You need help. Until you get clean, none of this is ever going to stop.”
