The fear had been building steadily ever since we’d pulled up outside. It wasn’t just knowing that we were right in the heart of a criminal’s lair, it was knowing I had to convince him that we were serious. This world was Sean’s second home but I felt like what I was: a pretender. And as soon as we got in there, Malone was going to figure it out. “I can’t do this,” I muttered to Sean.
“You can.”
“I’m not a criminal!” I hissed. I knew it was a stupid thing to say, considering the DEA would quite happily put us in Federal prison for what we’d been doing. “He’ll know,” I told him. “He’ll know that I’m just...nobody.”
Sean turned to me and took hold of me by the shoulders. “You’re not nobody,” he told me, and he said it in a voice that allowed no argument. He almost looked angry that I’d said it and that made my heart flip-flop. “Look,” he said. “Most of this shit is just attitude. We don’t have fucking resumes. You’re a grower because you damn well say you’re a grower. Attitude. Like I have to be a scary fucker.”
I swallowed. “But you are scary.”
He glanced at me. “That still how you think of me?”
We locked eyes. “No,” I said at last. “But I can’t be scary. I’m the least scary person in the world.”
“You don’t have to be scary. That’s not what we’re selling you as.”
“What am I?” I asked.
“The brains. And you don’t have to pretend about that.”
I felt my heart swell.
Footsteps descended the stairs. Sean grabbed my waist and pulled me close, his big hand sending pulses of heat through my dress. “You listen to me,” he ordered, and his words were like rough-edged slabs of granite. When he spoke like that, you listened.
He put his mouth close to my ear and his voice changed. The words were still hard, cold stone but each one seemed to glow cherry red at its center. “You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. Smarter than me, smarter than Malone, smarter than anyone in this whole fucking game. You remember that.”
I swallowed and nodded.
The guard returned, unclipped the velvet rope, and led us upstairs.
Louise
Malone was big, like Sean had said. Muscle-big, like he might have played football before the fat had built up. Even now, his shoulders seemed to fill most of the width of the couch, stretching out his suit jacket. And he was black—in the reflected stage spotlights and the flickering candles, his skin looked almost blue-black. But I barely registered either of those things.
The only thing that mattered was the man’s sense of menace.
I’d thought Sean was intimidating, at first—sometimes, he still was. But he was scary in the way a big, strong attack dog with snapping teeth is scary. The violence he promised was somehow natural...honest, if that made any sense at all in a criminal world. It came from his muscles and his determination to do the job he was paid to do.
Malone put out an utterly different aura: you got the sense that he’d kill you because you’d displeased him, and the violence would be ugly and abstract, meted out by his thugs or at the end of a gun. At first, I thought of a boa constrictor, especially when I saw his huge hands, heavy with rings, which looked as if they’d easily crush a neck. But as he sat there motionless as an onyx statue, watching the stage from his private balcony, I realized what he really reminded me of: a huge, venomous spider. This club—this whole side of LA—was his web. He was powerful enough that he could simply sit there on his couch and his prey would come to him.
The guards waved us to the front of the balcony, where there were a couple of low stools. When we sat down on them facing Malone, our asses were almost on the floor and our heads were down below the level of the balcony wall. It was so that we wouldn’t spoil Malone’s view, I guessed. It also meant he loomed over us, even the massive Sean, and I was sure that wasn’t an accident.
It took a full minute before Malone acknowledged us. When the band ended their song and the applause rang out, he finally lowered his eyes to Sean. “Mr. O’Harra,” he intoned, his voice a deep bass boom that felt like it echoed off my ribcage. “What the fuck are you doing?” He said it with a lazy, poisonous malice that let us know how cruelly he’d kill us if the answer was wrong.
To his credit, Sean’s voice didn’t so much as waver. “I got a good deal for you. Weed. A lot of it. Fresh new supply, no problems with the law, just a nice fat crop ready to be sold.”
Malone’s lip curled in displeasure. “I know what you’re offering, you Irish prick. I asked what you were doing. You’re a fucking blunt instrument, like your goddamn hammer. You suddenly think you’re sharp? Running around town making deals?”
I tensed, ready for that anger of Sean’s to explode. No way would he be able to just sit there and take that. Hell, I was mad on his behalf: I’d seen how much more to him there was than smashing things.
But although Sean’s shoulders set and his hands curled into fists, he said, “No, Mr. Malone. Just a one-time thing, then back to normal.” He jerked his head towards me. “She’s the brains.”
Malone kept staring at him and I realized it was a test. He’d wanted Sean to prove his deference to his master. And Sean had sucked up his pride and done it. For me. To ensure the deal came off. I glanced across at him desperately, trying to communicate my thanks. He nodded.
And now Malone turned to me. It was like watching a huge stone statue come to life: only his head rotated, as if I didn’t warrant moving any more of him. “And who the fuck are you?” he asked. There was a flicker of interest in his eyes: the fact I was a woman in a business run by men bought me maybe five seconds before he got bored. It was all down to me.
And I messed it up.
I swallowed. “I’m Louise Willowby. I grow stuff. And I’ve got—I’m growing this stuff that’s going to be—It’ll be really good—”
Malone held up one massive hand, palm facing me, and I stopped talking. He turned back to Sean. “You do good work,” he grunted. Each word was like the launch of an iceberg, huge and unstoppable. “That’s the only reason I’m letting you out of here without a beating. Jesus, I should have them take that fucking sledgehammer and break your legs with it, wasting my time like this.”
Sean’s eyes flared with fury and I thought he was going to spring at Malone...but then he glanced across at me and lowered his gaze to the floor. He’s scared of me getting hurt!
Malone, meanwhile, had tilted back his head and was unscrewing the cap from a small white bottle. Physostigmine, for glaucoma—my grandma used to take the same stuff. He was taking his goddamn medication, as if he’d already forgotten about us.
As he started to drip the drops into his eyes, the guards came forward to throw us out. I thought of Kayley. All that time I’d spent at the grow house when I could have been at her side, and now it was all for nothing. We had no buyer and I was going to have to stand by and watch her die—
I jumped to my feet. “I’m a grower,” I said, loud and clear. “I’m a grower, goddamn it!”
Malone kept his head tilted back, but he looked down his nose at me. The guards had nearly reached us, now.
“I’m not like the others,” I told him. “I’m using stuff I learned in college, straight out of NASA, stuff that your guys won’t pick up on for years. They use the same fertilizer all the time; I change the ratios of phosphorus and nitrogen, depending on the stage of the plants’ growth. I raise the nitrogen while the plants are young, then switch to higher phosphorus while they’re flowering, then back to higher nitrogen. That means more THC per leaf—it’ll be a smoother, cleaner, more intense smoke.” Hands grabbed my arms. “I know my shit so, goddamn it, listen to me!”
Malone slowly lowered his head to look at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the nearest guard flinch at the way I’d spoken to him. Their hands tightened on my arms, digging in—
Malone lifted his hand and I was released. For several seconds he just stared at me. At last, he said, “You got
a big fucking mouth. Is this weed really going to be all that?”
I swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. It’s really going to be all that.”
“It better be. Lennie said you want five hundred large for three hundred pounds. That’s some premium shit. Is it really premium shit?”
I set my jaw and stared right back at him. “It’s premium shit.”
He drew in a long breath, searching for any sign of weakness in my face. Then he said, “You grow your crop. If it’s really like you say...then yeah, I’ll buy it.”
He nodded to the guards and they hustled us downstairs and out of the club. It was still raining but nothing like as heavily as before. As we stepped out into the night, Sean and I looked at each other with the same relieved-but-disbelieving expression. Had we really...done it?
We had. We had our buyer.
“I’m proud of you,” he told me.
I flushed. “I surprised you in there, huh?”
He looked at me steadily. “No. I knew you could do it.”
I bit my lip. “I’m proud of you, too. You didn’t get mad, or smash anything.”
He glowered. “I nearly did, when he wouldn’t listen to you. I was ready to throw him off his fucking balcony.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. Just the feel of him, his warm solidness, through his leather jacket made me go heady. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
And then we were leaning into each other, twisting our heads to kiss. It was oddly slow and tentative: every time until now, we’d kissed because we’d lost control. Now, in the darkness, with the rain pattering softly on our heads and shoulders, I felt like a teenager working up the courage to kiss for the very first time.
With a boy she really, really liked.
Our lips met in a slow dance, tasting each other, experimenting. His hands slid into my hair and it was magical, one of those lift-you-up kisses I thought you didn’t get once you were grown up. For a minute or maybe more, we just kissed, slow and romantic and goddamn perfect. When he finally drew back from me and looked into my eyes, I grinned like an idiot.
Only then did we think about the possibilities. His hands knitted with mine and he squeezed.
“You can’t come back to my place,” I said. “Kayley—”
He nodded quickly. “We could go to mine.” He checked his watch. “But I need to go to the grow house, soon.”
I put my hands on his chest, tracing the shape of his muscles. The mood was sliding, very quickly, from romantic to scorching hot. “The grow house is closer,” I mumbled.
His hands skimmed down my back. “The grow house is closer. You could get a cab home afterwards....”
I swallowed as his hands reached my ass. I had to have him: now. I raised my hand in the air. “Taxi!”
***
We almost fell through the door of the grow house with Sean trying to work the zipper of my dress. “It’s stuck,” he mumbled into my neck.
“Don’t break it!” I panted, clawing at the buttons of his shirt. “It’s not mine!”
Sean kicked the door closed...and a white envelope that had been on the mat wafted into the air.
“What’s that?” I asked, dodging a kiss.
“Don’t know,” said Sean. “Don’t care.” He kissed me, long and hard, and started to work the dress up my hips.
It took every bit of willpower I had, but I tore my lips away from him. “Wait!” I said. “Who’s writing to us? Who even knows we’re here?” I grabbed the envelope from the mat and tore it open.
Sean huffed and growled while I read the letter. “What?” he asked impatiently.
I read it again. And again. The words refused to change.
“What?” asked Sean again, worried, this time. He’d seen my expression.
“It’s from the realtor,” I said. “They’ve sold the land the house is built on. They want us out in seven days.” I glanced around at the plants. “And they’re coming to inspect the place tomorrow morning.”
Sean
We exchanged horrified looks.
“That’s not possible!” said Louise, her voice cracking. “They can’t just—”
“They can,” I said, running my hand over my face. “They just have to give us notice—this is notice.”
“But…” She looked around her. “They’re not ready! We need another month!” She was getting paler and paler by the second as the full implications sunk in. I knew, because my mind was making the same connections. The money. Kayley’s treatment. Kayley’s life. She stared at me, tears filling her eyes.
And I felt that same thing I had the first time I learned about Kayley—that deep, aching swell in my chest that for so many years I’d thought I wasn’t capable of. The feeling I’d been clamping down on as hard as I could, because it led to a fantasy I knew could never be real: Louise and me together and happy.
Only things were different now. I didn’t know if we’d work together—fuck, I didn’t know if I’d work with anyone. There was so much bad shit in my past that I kept locked away, I wasn’t sure if there was enough me for a relationship. But for the first time, I wanted to try. And so I let that pressure build and build in my chest, letting myself really feel the injustice of it the way she did every fucking day.
And I got mad. Only for once, I didn’t let it spill out as swings of hammer and fist. I had to be like her. For once, I had to be smart.
“We are going to move this entire operation,” I said, each word slow and deliberate.
Louise looked up at me. “How? We’ve got nowhere else to grow! We can’t rent a new place overnight! And even if we could, look!” She waved her hand at the tables, the plants, the lights. “We can’t move all that by tomorrow morning!”
After all the months of grim determination and refusal to give up, she’d finally reached her breaking point. She needed someone to back her up.
I’d never fought for a fucking thing, my whole life. Only against things. But I was going to fight for this.
“I’ve got an idea,” I told her, and held out my hand. “Let’s go.”
Louise
Sean’s idea was one of those simple-but-brilliant plans that can only be born when your back’s against the wall. We couldn’t rent somewhere officially, not by tomorrow. So this had to be an off-the-books deal, strictly cash, no questions asked. Who the hell would agree to a deal like that?
Someone with a place that was unrentable.
I called Stacey and asked if she could stay the night at my apartment. I could hear the smile in her voice when she told me to go have fun—she had the day off tomorrow and was happy to hang out at my place with Kayley. “So sleep in with him,” she told me. God, she thinks I got lucky on my date! I just wished I could tell her the truth.
We took both cars, splitting up to cover more ground. We needed somewhere big enough to house all the plants, away from prying eyes and in enough of a state that no one else would want it...while still having power, water and a roof. We trawled property ads and internet sites and, when all else failed, just drove around likely areas looking for places. We were frantic, driving to one place while calling another, swapping information between us and crossing places off our list. Since it was late evening, all the offices were closed...so we had to track down the owners’ cell phone numbers and call them direct.
The first four places I looked at wouldn’t work—disused factories and workshops sounded good at first, but they were all owned by big companies who’d want forms filled out. The fifth place, an “artist’s studio” I found on the internet, turned out to have no roof. The sixth was too small, the seventh was perfect...and the owner was on vacation and couldn’t be contacted. By now, the battery indicator on my phone was eaten down to a slender red line, my list was a mass of crossings-out and my throat was raw from talking. I was close to giving up.
I saw the place completely by chance: a mansion all on its own on a hill overlooking the city. Three floors, lots of windows...there were even honest-to-goodness turrets. It remin
ded me most of all of the Addams Family house. It must have been worth a fortune, once.
A very long time ago.
Now, half the windows were broken and the shutters were drooping or had fallen off entirely. The iron fence around the property was bent and broken in places, the lawn was up to knee height and I thought I could see vegetation growing on the roof.
It was awful...and strangely wonderful. And quite possibly, perfect.
There was a faded realtor sign in the garden. A phone call revealed that, yes, the house had been for sale several times over the last decade, but the owner—a Mrs. Baker—had taken it off the market. The realtor gave me her number just to get rid of me.
Esmeralda Baker turned out to be pushing eighty. Her accent was pure old-money Boston. “Where we should have stayed,” she sniffed as she walked me across the overgrown yard. “But my great-grandmother wanted to run off with the stable boy, and he in turn decided he was going to join the California gold rush. To everyone’s astonishment, he actually struck it rich. He built my great-grandmother this house just to spite her father.”
She unlocked the front door and swung it wide. “Of course,” she said, “it’s seen better days.”
My jaw dropped open. I took in the dark wood staircase that swept up to the second floor, the galleried landing, the once-beautiful black and white tiled floor.
But mostly, I stared at the tree.
It had erupted through the floor and thrust out branches to touch all four walls as it grew. It stretched right to the top of the double-height room. In fact—I leaned forward and craned my head back to look—yep, some branches were actually poking through the roof. That explained the vegetation I’d seen up there.
Growing and Kissing Page 18
