“Cristina. I remember Jesse talking about her.”
My blood starting churning. I wanted to lash out and rip him a new one for everything his half-brother ever did to Cristina. But I couldn’t. Not if I wanted more information about Lena—if he had any to share.
His eyes looked over his nose at me. “Wait, didn’t the cops tell me she was being charged with killing him?” he asked, almost matter-of-factly.
“She didn’t do it.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“She didn’t. I’d bet my life on it. And we’ll prove it, without a doubt.”
“Hey, I know Jesse had his issues, but no one deserves to die before their time. So, if she did it, then she’s got to pay the price just like anyone else.”
“She really just needs her mom right now. Have you seen Lena since you’ve been in town?”
“I ran into her real briefly. Said she had something important to do and she ran out. That was at almost midnight. Haven’t seen her since.”
I heard a thud against a wall. I couldn’t tell if it was next door or from somewhere in the apartment. Instinctively, I moved a couple of steps in that direction.
“Damn dog.” He spoke over his shoulder as he walked away from me down the lone hallway. “Did I tell you she left me with her new St. Bernard? Said she needed a guard dog if she was going to live in a place like this without Jesse. She calls him Bowser.”
He pushed open a door. “Shut the hell up.”
“I didn’t hear him barking.”
“He was about to. He’s worthless, like everything else around here.” He meandered back in my direction, glancing for a moment at his table full of drug equipment. “Any more questions? I got some business to attend to, and, uh…I don’t have time to screw around.”
I handed him one of my business cards.
“ECHO.” He flipped the card against his opposite hand.
“My number is at the bottom. Please give me a call if you hear from Lena. It’s urgent.”
He gave me a quick head gesture. “No problem. Clyde’s all about helping everyone else.”
I walked out the door wondering if Clyde was full of shit.
34
Riding in the trunk of a car had always been on my list of things I’d least like to try. Aside from outright torture, it probably ranked first. Or last, depending on how you looked at it. In fact, the only way I thought I’d check it off the list was if I had no choice.
But I was wrong. I had made the decision to ride in a trunk—an old clunker of a car with no padding on the metal frame and lots of sharp edges. And now, as my entire body broke out into a deep sweat, I pushed up on the trunk while trying to purge a dreadful memory from my childhood.
“Let me out,” I wheezed as perspiration flooded down my face.
Suddenly, I felt a buzz in the back pocket of my jeans. Of course, my phone. I contorted my body to reach behind me, pull out the phone, and find the home button. The dark space turned to light, and I saw a text from Pudge:
Are you in yet?
As I began typing my response, which was obviously no, the back of the car lifted abruptly, sending me airborne for a brief second, and then I slammed my head onto the metal floor. “Dammit,” I said, rubbing the back of my head. I tapped send on my text, then noticed my battery was at ten percent. I had to conserve the power, which meant I couldn’t use the phone to serve as a flashlight.
A quick memory poked at my brain—from when I was younger and enclosed in a tiny dog crate inside a storage closet.
I shouted to wipe my thoughts clean. “How did we come up with this idea?” I asked to no one but myself.
Actually, the “we” was me. Pudge had told me that his requests to speak to Cheryl, Dillon’s estranged wife, who was apparently being restrained at Laurel Ridge Treatment Center, were being ignored or blown off. He’d tried using every possible reason to speak with her, but every time he put in a request, he was told that she would first have to pass a litany of tests before she’d be allowed to speak with anyone other than approved immediate family. Or there had to be a dire family emergency.
His concern for her health—both mental and physical—had led him to suggest using one of his former cop buddies to gain access to her room. From there, I could hopefully validate her safety and, if she was lucid enough to speak, try to get her to share more intimate details of what only a wife would know about her husband.
The car turned hard right, and the force slid me into a small opening used for tire-changing tools. My fingers gripped a tire iron. I whipped it against the backseat. “Human cargo back here, Goose.”
I wasn’t sure the driver had heard me. Dammit, get me out of this cage, I thought, doing anything I could at this stage to avoid a meltdown.
Just a few more minutes, Ivy. Anyone can do that. Even you.
I took in deep breaths and pushed each one out. “Z would be proud,” I said three times, referring to my Lamaze-like breathing cadence. I knew that occupying my mind was the effective remedy for overcoming a fear of something I couldn’t control—being locked in a closed space.
I’d met Goose about an hour ago by a loading dock behind a grocery store. The concrete was coated with smeared produce, and the area smelled like a sewer. Goose, a smarmy-looking guy who was no taller than I was and carried a Buddha belly, lit up when he saw Pudge. They hugged, finishing with a hard smack on each other’s backs. They told a couple of stories from when they were both on with the SAPD, even alluding to the big case that led to both of them getting fired and essentially blacklisted from working in the same capacity ever again.
“Good times,” Goose kept saying as he’d rocked his head like it had a spring attached.
Goose had been working at Laurel Ridge for just over two years. In his role as an “environmental engineer”—his term for working as a janitor—he not only had access to every room in the complex, but also was rarely searched when he left.
“Rarely?” I had asked.
“If they think a patient is trying to escape, then it’s like trying to break out of prison. They trust no one.” Then he’d blown a puff of cigarette smoke in my face.
Apparently, Goose had no qualms about polluting the environment, which I found ironic, considering how he insisted on identifying his role.
Initially, we’d discussed variations of an idea for Goose to pass along a note to Cheryl. It would have been the safest option, but it still put Goose at risk without the benefit of receiving immediate feedback on Cheryl’s condition or any inside information she might be willing to share about Dillon.
Goose had then told a story about sneaking in a former patient—someone who’d paid him five hundred bucks—to see his former lover. The plan worked, although Goose admitted to sweating off about five pounds during the two-hour rendezvous.
That was when I’d declared I would take the same path into the facility as the star-crossed lover. It took some time to convince Pudge, but he finally came around. And Goose didn’t even ask for monetary compensation, saying he owed Pudge a great deal for not ratting him out and sending him off to prison.
The car bounced up and down twice in a span of about ten seconds, which rattled my teeth. They must have been the speed bumps Goose had referenced before he’d shut the trunk. That meant we were close. Close enough to declare victory over my horrific memories of being locked away in a storage closet under the staircase in my seventh foster home.
Wheels squeaked until the hunk of junk rocked to a stop. I heard his door open then slam shut. The trunk popped open, and I lifted up like I had a spring in my back, gasping for a fresh dose of oxygen.
He put a hand to my chest and quickly pushed me back into the trunk. “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I need to go get my work cart. Back in a minute.”
“But why can’t I hide—”
The trunk closed, and darkness returned.
You can practically hold your breath for one minute, Ivy. Piece of cake, girl.
<
br /> I had jinxed myself. One minute turned into ten. My breathing became labored, and sweat poured off me like I was lounging in a sauna.
The haunting memories from my childhood ran roughshod over every mental defense mechanism I could devise. And in a matter of seconds, it became very clear that my temporary claustrophobic condition had taken a stranglehold of my entire body.
I found the tire iron and repeatedly banged on the trunk. I didn’t give a shit if I compromised our little mission. I couldn’t take another sixty seconds in that hell hole.
35
I was able to draw in two fresh breaths before I was suffocated again. Showing strength I didn’t know he had, Goose opened the trunk, grabbed me under my armpits, and stuffed me inside a yellow sack perched on top of his cart. I tried lifting up my head, but he pushed me back down.
“Stay down until we get to her room,” he said as I felt the cart’s wheels roll over pebbles. “And don’t move a muscle. We’re going to pass by Laurel Ridge employees, and I don’t want them to become suspicious.”
He covered me with sheets, and it was quickly apparent that the sheets had not come from the cleaning facility. I pinched my nostrils shut and continued taking shallow breaths. I was practically eating my knees, and my back felt like a pretzel, but I wasn’t about to move. I had no intention of getting caught at this point, and I didn’t want Goose to lose his job.
“Evening, Goose. Let me get the door for ya,” a man’s voice said.
“Appreciate it,” Goose said. The cart angled upward, and I could feel a couple of shoves to get the cart up the ramp.
“Not as strong as you used to be, huh?” The man laughed.
“What can I say? I’m not exactly in the best shape. Too many overnight shifts followed by the breakfast buffet at the diner.”
“I hear you. Have a good one.”
I heard a door shut, and then my ride got much smoother. It felt like we were floating through the air, although the wheels whirred against the surface. I shifted my knee a few inches to my left, but was quickly rebuked.
“Stop moving,” he said through a pinched voice.
I did as he said. I could feel us turn left and then a quick right.
“We almost there?”
“Shhh,” he said. “Coming up on nurse’s station. Hoping it’s empty.”
Hoping? Were they going to inspect the cart?
A moment later, “Oh, hey, Molly. Didn’t know you had the late shift tonight.”
Crap.
“Aren’t you going to stop and have some of my homemade caramel swirl brownies? The recipe’s been in my family for forty years.” The woman had a lazy Southern accent.
The cart continued moving. “I’m in a bit of rush, Molly. Maybe—”
“Now, listen to me, Elrod Jenkins. I went to all of this trouble; the least you can do is have one of my brownies.”
Elrod?
The cart slowed to a stop.
“I don’t mean to be rude, Molly. You’re the best cook of any of the nurses. That’s for certain,” he said as he walked away from the cart.
“Here you go. Take a bite now.”
“Molly, I know how to feed myself. I’m a grown—”
His words were cut off, and then a moment later replaced with oohs and ahhs.
“I’ve got more of that at home,” she said with a hint of flirtation. Molly had the hots for Goose, or as she called him, Elrod.
“Uh…” Goose wasn’t sure what to say, it seemed.
“Actually,” she whispered, “I’ll be taking my break here in about fifteen minutes. It would be great if you could join me. We could take a walk around the grounds, stare up at the stars.”
“I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
I could feel the cart surge forward a bit.
“I brought my van tonight,” she said.
Her voice grew closer. I hoped like hell she wasn’t looking at the sack I was in. Surely, someone who stared long enough could see that a person was inside.
Unless they were staring at something else.
“What are you talking about, Molly?”
I heard a giggle. “I have a mattress in the back of the van.”
“Whoa!” He yelled like he’d just been shocked by a defibrillator. But I think she’d just touched his sack, er, sac.
“Oh my, Elrod, did you just get out of a cold shower?”
I thought I heard him growl. I tried not to shake from laughter.
“I’ll talk to you later, Molly.”
“Okay, I didn’t mean to offend you.” Her voice quickly dissipated as the cart jerked forward and then turned left, moving at a quick pace.
I heard Goose huff out a breath. A moment later, we came to a stop, and he pulled the sheets off my head. “This is your stop.”
I peeked upward and spotted glowing lights around the rim of the hallway ceiling. He pulled and I pushed to get my butt out of the sack and onto the floor. “I’ll be back around in ten minutes. The door’s open.” He motioned with his eyes. “If she loses it on you, then you’re on your own.”
I opened my lips, but he pushed away before I could respond.
36
I gripped the door handle, glanced in both directions to see the hallway void of people other than Goose waddling away, and slipped inside the room. The woman who I assumed was Cheryl was curled up on the bed, facing the window. I could just barely see the top of her head.
A shelf full of flowers drew my immediate attention. I padded two steps to my right and touched the leaf from the first vase. It was fake. Upon a second glance, it appeared all of the flowers were fake. I found a note in the first vase and read it to myself. Get well, soon. Love Dillon and Emma.
“Are you shocked?”
I flinched, and then turned to see Cheryl sitting up in her bed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” I came around a tall chair to where she could see me in a cone of soft light.
“I know it’s you, Ivy.”
“And you’re not surprised?”
“A bit, I guess,” she said with as much excitement as a grocery clerk. “People come around here all the time, inspecting me like I’m a piece of cattle.”
“You do recall that I’m the one who rescued Emma just before you sold her to the truck driver?”
She criss-crossed her legs, nodded, but didn’t look at me. “I try not to think of that day much. I start crying.” She released a jittery breath. “They’ve got me on so many mind-altering drugs, I really don’t feel much of anything. I’m kind of in this constant daze. Never too high, never too low, or something like that.” She rubbed her eyes.
I nodded. “How long do—”
“I can’t be mad at you for saving my precious Emma. I was distraught, absolutely losing it, and I was desperate to take all of the pain away.” She sniffled and wiped at her nose.
I found a tissue box and handed it to her. She took one and blew her nose, then she said, “While it’s nice to have some company for a change, why are you here? And how the hell did you break into Fort Knox?”
“It’s a long story, but I know someone who works here.”
“Inside job,” she said in monotone. Her face went blank as she stared at the wall straight ahead.
“Cheryl, I don’t have much time. Mainly, Pudge wanted me to check on you.”
“God bless that man. He’s put up with a lot of my shit over the years. The whole family has. My damn addiction has just about ruined every relationship I ever had. Pfft. Look at me, I’m still blaming it on something else, anything but me. But it is me, dammit. I have to accept myself for all of my faults and take responsibility,” she said, nodding, closing her eyes. I got the feeling she had to repeat that phrase hundreds of times a day to remind herself why she was here and what it would take to move forward in her rehabilitation.
“That’s a good attitude,” I said, trying to keep the tone positive. My eyes wandered across the room. It was stale, cold even, aside from the fake fl
owers.
“Don’t you like how Dillon likes to show everyone that he still cares?” She extended her hand toward the wall of fake flowers. “As if he ever really cared…” Her voice trailed off, and her head dropped.
I just stood there for a second, unmoving, uncertain what to say.
She lifted her head. “I’m not capable of outsmarting my dear husband. He’s too crafty, too witty. He has that sparkle in his eyes that makes women swoon and men bow to him. Oh yeah, he’s got more money than a person could spend in a thousand lifetimes,” she said with a callous sarcasm. “He can have everything he wants in this world. I only want my dear Emma. That’s all I want, Ivy. I want my Emma back.” Her eyes locked on mine for a couple of seconds, and then I wondered if she was looking through me instead. Her wide-set eyes seemed to become distracted, and she picked at her nails.
I’d risked a great deal busting into the locked-down treatment center to speak with Cheryl, and now seeing her—not in the frantic state she was a few weeks ago, but instead as a mother in mourning—I realized she was as human and imperfect as anyone…as me. I wasn’t sure how to go about pulling more information about Dillon from her. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
You’re doing this for Emma. Don’t act so politically correct that you waste this opportunity. You have to find out if Dillon Burchfield is a sexual predator or not.
“I met your old nanny,” I said as a starting point. “You sent her to try to reach Emma after Dillon was arrested, right?”
“My first failed attempt.” She filled her chest with air and held her breath for a moment, then finally puckered her thin lips and blew it out. “Kelly is a dear soul.” She began to chuckle.
“Remembering something funny?”
“How I got a hold of Kelly…it’s crazy,” she said, leaning her chin on her closed fist. Then she looked at me.
“I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my life. Anything to survive,” I said.
“That’s how I saw it. Well, this male nurse had been flirting with me…me of all people. Ha!” she giggled, rocking backward and repositioning her legs. “I’d just watched the news and learned about Dillon’s arrest. I began to panic, knowing I didn’t want Emma around him another second. So, I told the nurse that I’d…”
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 1-3: Redemption Thriller Series 7-9 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 66
