by Jo Raven
Is Seth a user? Then maybe I should have noticed needle marks on his elbows, on his thighs, on his hands, in his feet.
But I didn’t see any.
He should experience intense mood swings.
Haven’t noticed that. Not if you take account of the context—like the things he told me at the zoo. Not unless you count swinging from sad to horny and then to happy.
Oh God. I rub a hand over my eyes. Not going to cry again for him. I’ll get to the bottom of this, though. Need to know.
Is the person careless with personal hygiene and grooming?
No. Never noticed that.
Bloodshot eyes? Weight loss? Sleep loss? Change in behavior?
I push away from the screen with a sigh. How should I know? It’s not like I was with him long. Not like I’ve known him well.
Though I know what books he likes reading, and what his childhood dreams were. I know what his mom did to him and to his cousin, I know…
I know quite a lot. His mom really screwed him over, and now… Now he’s saying she did something even worse. That she set him up to go to prison.
Could he be telling the truth? Would she…?
No, that’s crazy. That would be horrifying. Unimaginable.
I get up, pace the length of my living room. I stop at the window and look outside. It’s raining, the clouds low and leaden.
If he’s dealing the drugs, instead of using them, then there’d be no signs. Only, he’d have money, and he doesn’t. All this makes no sense.
Pulling away from the cold window pane, rubbing my hands up and down my arms, I recall his face yesterday when he talked about his mother. He’d looked… lost. Pale and somber. Ill-at-ease, pained and sad.
What if…?
Seriously, Manon? You’ll believe such an obvious lie because the guy’s hot? The judge found him guilty, sentenced him to prison. It’s all in his criminal record, which Zane apparently read.
That’s it. Zane. I’ll talk to him, ask what he read in Seth’s rap sheet. No idea why, but I think it might be important.
***
Tracking Zane down proves kind of hard. He’s not at Damage Control, Tyler who mans the reception desk tells me. He’s meeting with a cousin of his girlfriend Dakota, who’s a lawyer.
Doesn’t take a genius to guess it has something to do with Seth.
Instead, he tells me I can talk to Rafe, the young owner of the tattoo shop I’ve seen around a few times.
“What can I do you for?” Rafe growls into the phone, startling me.
“I was looking for Zane,” I stammer.
“Not here. Anything I can do?”
“Maybe. I’m Manon. Madeline Torres.”
“Seth’s girl?”
My next words freeze on my tongue, his question echoing in my ears. Am I? Was I?
“A good friend of his,” I manage, and he chuckles. “What’s so funny?”
“Don’t know, Manon. Boy’s been crazy about you since forever. If you don’t want him, then damn. With all that’s been happening to him, I guess he was right to think he’s the unluckiest bastard in the world.”
A lump forms in my throat. “Don’t say that. God, that’s awful.”
“Yeah, it is.” He’s silent for a long moment. Then he says, his voice deepening, “I take it you believe him?”
“Let’s just say I think it’s possible he’s telling the truth.”
“And why is that?”
“There are clues. For instance, I never saw needle marks on his body. Not even on his thighs or feet. I don’t think he’s a user.”
“And a good friend like you regularly checks his body. I see.”
Shit. “Not the point.”
“The lack of track marks doesn’t mean anything, Manon.”
“I know, okay? It’s just hard to believe he’s that.” God, I hope my voice won’t crack now. “He’s a good guy.”
“He does seem like a damn good guy,” Rafe agrees. “But one can’t rely on that. Sad fact of life.”
True. “I want to talk to Zane. He read Seth’s file, right?”
“That’s right. He’ll be back in town within the hour. Why do you want to talk to him?”
“I want to know what the file says. I may…” I hesitate, because hunches aren’t taken seriously most of the time, and something in my gut tells me I need to do this. “I may have information regarding Seth’s past.”
“Do you, now?” Rafe again sounds amused, and it annoys me. “All right. I’ll call you with a place and time to meet him. And, Manon?”
“Yeah?”
“No matter what, you should know… Seth may be unlucky in many things, but he’s damn lucky to have a true friend like you on his side.”
***
Hawk’s Bar and Grill. Haven’t been here in ages. It’s loud inside, the tables full. Zane’s sitting at the back, I can see his tall blue Mohawk from where I’m standing inside the entrance.
He’s not alone, I realize as I approach him. Rafe is with him, blond and tall, with cat-like eyes. They’re all kind of hot in this group, with their handsome faces and ink.
Not as much as Seth, though.
And God, that’s not what I should be thinking about right now.
Rafe gets up to greet me and pulls my chair. He’s every bit the gentleman, even with the tattoos climbing up his neck, his inked, muscular forearms bare and a wicked grin on his face.
Zane merely lifts a dark brow at me and nods.
“You know what I’m here for?” I’m nervous, my palms damp. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just know I don’t want Seth to be a bad guy.
Which is probably just wishful thinking, as Rafe helpfully pointed out over the phone, but still.
“Said you wanna know what’s in Seth’s rap sheet.” His almond-shaped eyes narrow. “Didn’t say why.”
I glance at Rafe who stares steadily back at me, giving away nothing. “I thought if you tell me, I might be able to work with you on this.”
“On what?”
I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly bone-dry. “On finding out the truth. On proving Seth’s innocence.”
Now I have the attention of both boys, and quite frankly, I am a bit stunned myself. No clue when I went from doubting the truth of Seth’s guilt to believing he’s innocent.
That’s it, I’ve gone round the bend.
Maybe it’s a side effect of being in love with him. That I want to believe the best of him.
“What makes you believe he might be innocent?” Zane wants to know, folding his arms over his chest. “He was convicted. Served his time in prison.”
The thought of him behind bars is too much. I shake my head to dislodge it. “The same thing that makes you believe it.” I stare into his dark eyes, somehow similar to Seth’s, and tell him the truth as it comes to me, uncensored. “You know him. You’ve lived with him, worked with him. You know how bad his past was. You know he’d do anything to help his brothers—Micah. Shane. Jesse. You’ve seen it. Seen him get beaten up for them, stand up for them. He’s no druggie. He’s not a person who’d deal drugs. If he was, he’d have done it. He’s dirt poor, Zane. You know all this. So why do I have to spell it out for you?”
His brows arch. “Go on.”
“I almost ran him over with my car, gave him a concussion. He never pressed charges. Never even blamed me. Is that the kind of person his criminal record says he is? Because this is the truth, right in front of us.”
“He says his mother set him up.”
“Do you know his mom’s boyfriends used to beat him up? That she used up the money he stole and gathered to buy herself fixes? That she had her boyfriend break him.” I pause, thinking back to the few things he told me. “Break him and leave him for the police to find.”
Zane leans forward, frowning, and Rafe drags his chair closer to mine.
“He said that?” Rafe asks. “When?”
“A few days ago, when talking of his mom and how he thought she’d been dea
d all this time. He said she just left him and vanished, never came back.”
“Until now,” Rafe whispers. “Z-man…”
“Yeah.” Zane grimaces. “I dug deeper. The night the fucker was arrested, he had many broken bones, including a knee cap. He was found at his mom’s house, with Shane who was trying to help him. That seemed strange to the policemen who found the two, but the judge decided their juvie record condemned them anyway.”
“If he’s telling the truth,” Rafe says, his golden eyes shining, “it’s his word against the evidence. It won’t fly.”
God.
“Ah fuck.” Zane scrubs both hands over his face and pushes his chair back. “We should talk to Seth. See if there’s any detail that we could use to reopen the case or something.”
“If we prove he’s telling the truth about his mom, this means he deserves a dragon tat,” Rafe mutters.
“Yeah, he does. Fucker should have talked to me about this from the start,” Zane says. “But I get it.”
That it’s hard to trust when the ones closest to you have let you down so badly.
***
After knocking on Seth’s door for what feels like ages, my stomach is a knot of worry. Meanwhile, Rafe is muttering under his breath, and Zane who’s been on his cell phone all this time, looks murderous.
It isn’t helping with my worry.
“Called both Seth and Shane a dozen times each. Fuckers. Both of them took off and turned off their phones? I told them to stay put. Told them to wait.”
Don’t know what to say to that. He’d sounded pissed rather than trying to help yesterday when he was shouting at Seth, but why then isn’t Seth answering my phone calls, either?
“Maybe he’s upset with all of us? You know, for not believing him?” I tuck a stray curl behind my ear. “Or he’s walking and can’t hear his phone ringing?”
“Upset. He has a criminal record. What was I supposed to think? Shit.” Zane kicks at the wall with his boot, leaving a black mark. “Dammit.”
The climb down the stairs is done in silence. The building seems eerily empty. When we reach the bottom, the boys pull out their packs of cigarettes and head out the back door to smoke, and I follow them, trying to think where Seth might have gone.
Why is the ball of dread in my belly growing instead of diminishing? His friends are trying to help him. So he’s not at home right now. So what?
What am I not seeing?
When I’d first gone up to his apartment, what feels like years ago but was only a couple of weeks, there was something…
Something on his door.
“Hey, guys.” They’ve already lit up and are puffing clouds of pale smoke in the cold air of the back alley. “The sticker is gone.”
“Sticker?” Zane is leaning against a big dumpster, his eyes glinting like gems in the dimness. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“There was a sticker on Seth’s door last time I was here. A Damage Control sticker. With a snake.”
“Hey, I remember that.” Rafe throws down his cigarette and stomps on it. “She’s right. Last time I was here, it was on his door.”
“Fucking terrifying. I’m sure the aliens took it.” Zane shakes his head and draws on his cigarette, the embers glowing red.
“I’m just—” I step around him, pull something from the trash. “Jesus.”
“Beware of the aliens,” Zane mutters from behind me.
Rafe steps closer. “What is it?”
I pull out a plastic bag, filled with clothes. On top sits a Batman mug. “This… I think this belongs to Seth. I remember seeing it in his room.”
“Damn, that’s right. Isn’t that the mug Ocean gave him last Christmas?” Rafe frowns. “He threw out his stuff?”
I pull another bag. It tears. Paperbacks spill to the filthy ground. Romances. Sci-fi novels. Two barbell weights crash down, barely missing my feet.
“This is all his stuff. Why would he throw it away? It makes no sense. He throws his stuff away, turns off his phone and disappears. Why?”
“He got tired of it?” Rafe mutters. But he doesn’t look convinced.
That’s because it doesn’t sound like Seth. He has so little, I can’t believe he’d throw it away on a whim.
The bad feeling is back, choking me.
“What if he didn’t leave?” I ask.
“You mean he’s locked up upstairs?” Rafe glances up, as if he can see into Seth’s window.
“No, I mean, what if he moved out or something?”
“And go where? He can barely afford this apartment.” Zane turns to Rafe, frowning. “Hey, has he had any trouble paying the rent lately? I don’t think he has a job, and he never found a roomie, did he?”
“No. You think—?”
“Yeah, I do fucking think.” Zane takes one last drag from his cigarette and puts it out on the wall, his eyes dark with something like fury. “Let’s go find the landlord.”
***
We knock on the landlord’s door, and I stand in front of it while the guys hide. A decoy.
The door opens and a squirrely man stares up at me. “Yes?”
Before I say a word, Rafe and Zane step up behind me, nudge me aside, and barge into the apartment.
I follow, trembling, certain I’ll witness some sort of medieval torture applied to drag the truth out of the guy—but in fact a few words from Rafe ensure he spills the beans.
Yes, he evicted Seth. Yesterday. No, he doesn’t know where Seth is.
In fact, in the end we have to haul Rafe away from the guy, because he’s about to tear him a new one.
“That fucking son of a bitch,” Rafe hisses as Zane grabs him and pulls him out, and I close the door. “He just kicked him out, threw away his stuff. Motherfucker. He knew he should’ve told me. We had an agreement, goddammit!”
“Calm down, fucker.” Zane shoves him up against the wall. “Let’s be cool. We need to find Seth. Weather is turning cold, and it’s raining.”
“Why didn’t he come to us?” Rafe tears himself free from Zane’s hold and shoves his hands through his hair.
“He thought we gave up on him,” I say, because I see it clearly now. “All of us.”
“Fuck.” Zane wraps his knuckles on the wall as he starts down the stairs once again. “Shane isn’t answering his phone. We need to find him. He’ll tell us where his cousin is.”
***
As it turns out, Shane isn’t so hard to find. Jesse tells us he’s at Halo, the bar the Brotherhood and the Damage Boyz favor of late, playing pool with Micah who has his day off.
Indeed Shane’s there, looking slightly disheveled, his long, dark hair unbound and draped on his back like silk. He turns to look at us when Micah taps him on the shoulder, and for a moment I think I see Seth’s face.
But no, Shane’s face is finer, his eyes more widely set. Seth’s is more roughly hewn, the jaw more square.
Beautiful.
God, I need to see him. See that he’s okay.
“Whatcha want?” Shane slurs, and nice, he’s drunk. He’s a cute drunk. Relaxed, grinning, quite unlike his usual scowling self.
Wish I was relaxed myself to enjoy this.
“We’re looking for Seth,” Zane says.
His grin falls. “Saw him yesterday.” He puts his cue down. “Went by his place. Haven’t seen him since.”
“Well, his landlord threw him out,” I say, “and his phone isn’t answering, so if you have any idea of where he might be…”
“Threw him out?” He blinks, cocks his head to the side. “What the fuck?”
Rafe’s fists tighten. “Tell me about it. We can’t find him, and none of us know where he is. Do you?”
“Jesus. I don’t…” Shane leans back against the pool table, his cheekbones flushed. “I punched him.”
“You what?” My hands curl. I’m ready to punch him back. “Why?”
“For telling you guys about us. About our rap sheet.”
“Seth didn’t tel
l me about it,” Zane says. “Rafe found out by chance when he went looking for a job for Seth.”
“Oh hell.” Shane hangs his head, dark hair curtaining his face. “He tried telling me that. Shit. I should’ve known, but I was too pissed off.”
“Known what?”
He grunts. “Seth. He’s always looked out for me, since we were kids. I made him promise he wouldn’t tell you. He’d never break his promise. Dammit.”
“Help us find him and you can tell him that,” I say.
He turns to me. “He’s not with you?”
“Jesus, does drinking affect your hearing?” Anger makes me tremble. “We don’t know where he is.”
“Where would he go?” Rafe grabs Shane’s shoulder and shakes him. “Where, Shane?”
He shudders. “There’s this alley where we used to sleep when it got cold. Not far from State Street. I’ll take you there.”
“Good,” Rafe says and hauls him away from the pool table. He nods at Micah who’s watching us wide-eyed. “Come on. Let’s go get Seth.”
***
“Fucker, tell me this,” Zane says as we head down the avenue, looking for the alley where Shane is taking us. “What’s the truth? Did Seth do it, did he deal drugs?”
“Fuck no.” Shane glares at no-one in particular, hands in the pockets of his jacket. “He’s telling the truth, Zane, you got to believe him. Believe us.”
“What happened the night you two got arrested?”
“That night his mom called him, told him to come by. Seth had threatened to call the cops on her, and she said she’d throw out the drugs, change her life around.” Shane glances sideways at Zane. “Seth’s a good guy. Still loves his mom. Thought she was honest. She had it all thought out. Beat Seth down, left enough drugs to put him behind bars for almost a year. He was so badly hurt he’s lucky I went looking for him.” He shrugs. “I never regretted it.”
Zane pats Shane’s back, his eyes pensive. “Yeah.”
Although it’s not long past midday, the day is dark, the drizzle persistent. The alley Shane leads us into is narrow and dank, filled with a disconcerting mixture of smells—the stench of trash and the delicious aroma of grilled meat and vegetables in sauce from the restaurant kitchens opening into it. Huge dumpsters rise in regular intervals, like hunched over giants in the gloom and the drizzle.
