by Amber Lin
“I’ll owe you forever.”
“You already do.” She hung up.
After Shelly picked Bailey up, I settled in to wait. I had kept the card that first cop had given me, tucked between my clothes and next to the money from Jacob. My little stash of secrets. I could call the number, but on the small chance they had forgotten about me, I had no desire to remind them.
From beneath the coffee table I took out the yards of upholstery fabric and basic sewing kit I’d purchased earlier. The place was in desperate need of curtains, but one glance at the prices in the local home decor store had me bolting for the door. It cost more than Bailey’s car seat to cover half of a bay window. He had told me to spend anything, buy anything, but years of thriftiness didn’t just dissolve because my boyfriend was a successful small business owner and the brother of a wealthy crime lord.
At first I was nervous, constantly glancing out the window and having to redo my measurements. Maybe I was a little afraid that I’d be caught unaware again, even though I’d checked the locks three times.
Two hours later I had a matching pair of lined, navy curtains. These would go in the bedroom. For someone who’d repeatedly had sex in alleys and cars, I felt remarkably skittish about the yawning bay window there. Anonymous sex was one thing—it practically counted as public already with just the stranger I was fucking. Sex with Colin was the very opposite of anonymous. The opposite of a hookup—a mating. Love and sex, together. I was so fucked.
I heard a rap on the back door. I peeked around the window. The cop was here.
I grabbed my props: a paring knife slipped into my back pocket, an old broken cell phone that still did voice recordings, and an index card. Through the window in the door, he waved a manila folder at me. The pictures. He was probably worried I wouldn’t let him in. Little did he know I expected him.
I opened the door.
He leaned casually against the doorjamb. “Hey, honey.”
So tempting to slam the door in his face, smashing it. Maybe later.
“Philip Murphy’s shipping routes, and you agree not to arrest me on false charges.” I held up the index card, and a twisted smile spread across his face. It occurred to me that this guy might actually be considered handsome. His features were fine, and his eyes that rare green. Never to me, though. There was something in his eyes that I knew enough to fear. The kid who pulled bugs apart just to watch them writhe.
“Good girl,” he said, reaching for the card.
I held it away. “I have a few more conditions.”
He laughed. “And I give a shit, why?”
“Because I’m the one with the information you need, for one. I’m also the girl you molested while my daughter slept upstairs. I doubt your boss would be thrilled to hear about that, especially on prime-time news.”
He licked his lips, taken aback; then he regrouped. “I could take that from you—easy.” His gaze raked my body, a sneer on his face. “And you liked what I did to you.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, but I let my eyes blink wide. A fake, seductive innocence.
He grinned. “Girls like you play hard to get.”
“Maybe,” I said with exaggerated thoughtfulness. “Why don’t you come here and find out?”
I lay back against the wall, feigning submission. My acting skills left something to be desired, but he went for the bait. They always did.
As he leaned toward me, I smoothed my hand down over his bulge and cupped his balls. And wrenched them, hard. In a second I had our positions reversed—him slumped against the wall, me holding him by the balls.
I put the knife to his throat. “Touch me again, and I’ll fucking kill you.”
He swallowed hard, and his Adam’s apple bobbed against the point of the blade. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he ground out through barely parted lips. “You’ll have to let me up sometime.”
“Hurt me, and I’ll go to the news. Your boss. I’ve got a recording of this conversation, where you just admitted to blackmail, among other things.”
He curled his lip. “And you’d let Colin find out about your little boyfriend?”
I shrugged as if unconcerned. “Go ahead and show him. If he gets mad, that’s my problem. He’ll still protect his own. All I’d have to do was point you out, and your partner would be picking your broken bones up off the street.”
His eyes glittered emerald. “You stupid bitch. I could kill you right now.”
I jammed the knife into his skin, and a small prick of blood trailed down his neck. “I’ve left a message for Colin with your name. Anything happens to me, and you’re dead.”
That wasn’t quite true, but I had given Shelly enough of a clue that she’d probably figure it out. I could see this man thinking it over, realizing I had him.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I mocked.
He gritted his teeth and emitted a low growl. I liked him better this way, panting, feral. It was more honest. “What are the conditions?”
“You never come back here again, understand? No matter what happens. If I see you around here, I’ll speed-dial Colin, and Philip’s weight comes down on you. Anything happens to me, same thing. Either way you’d be fucked. You go away and never come back. Deal?”
A pause, with only his harsh breaths and the sound of my blood pumping to fill the silence.
“Deal,” he ground out.
I pushed away from him but kept the knife pointing at his jugular. I had him, but animals behaved stupidly sometimes, especially in captivity.
He didn’t attack, though, but held out his hand for the card.
I gave it to him, the index card with the address of my old apartment scribbled on it. A useless piece of paper, a misdirection. “Tomorrow night at ten.”
He turned and slipped through the open back door. I locked the door and, just as when he’d left last time, slid down the wall, but this was nothing like last time. He hadn’t touched me—or just barely—and I’d turned the tables on him. And I wasn’t going to let him push me around. If he tried to fuck things up with Colin, I’d deal with it.
A new Allie had emerged, neither slutty nor cowardly. A kick-ass Allie. Or a squeeze-balls Allie, at least. I hadn’t been afraid. All right, I’d been fucking terrified, but I was also angry and powerful and giddy. If only I could start breathing again, I wouldn’t pass out.
I’d figured out over the past couple of sleepless nights that I couldn’t betray Philip. I had no love for the man, none at all, but he was Colin’s brother. If the law came after Philip, they’d come after Colin too. There was no way I could protect Colin against that. Besides, I couldn’t ignore that Philip had helped me with Jacob. Sure, Colin had made him do it, but he’d still helped me. I wouldn’t bite the hand that fed me. These were street rules. Revenge was fair play, but going to the cops was always bad form. Whatever had happened with Tony Yates, I wasn’t going to let it go. I’d find out more and then decide what to do, but it wouldn’t endanger Colin.
Footsteps sounded outside, and I tensed. Shit, I was still on the floor, my teeth rattling like the crappy dryer in the Laundromat.
“Hello?” Linda’s cheery voice preceded the rattling of the locked door.
I let her in, still breathing hard, and the next thing I knew, I was slumped in strong arms and a plush chest.
“Oh dear,” she was saying. “It must be the heat, tiring you out.”
It was a breezy eighty degrees out, I wanted to say, but it didn’t matter. Besides, I rather liked this embrace. So different, so much softer than Colin’s, but just as warm.
She half carried me to the couch. I blinked at the ceiling until it stopped spinning.
I sat up. “I’m sorry.”
She patted my knee. I jumped, unused to touch that wasn’t sexual or violent. I wanted to pull away even as I wanted more. How very perverse of me.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
“Young lady, don’t you apologize to me. I’ll have none of that. Now, you need a drink of water. You
sit right there, just sit.”
Sitting sounded great to me.
She disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a mug. I took a sip and spewed cold coffee across the coffee table. The grossest water ever.
“Oh!” she said. “Sorry, dear. I probably should have mentioned I found the coffee in the pot.”
“No,” I told her with a smack of my lips to hide my revulsion. “It was good. I needed a wake-up call.”
She beamed. “That’s what I thought. Where is the little darling?”
“She’s with her aunt.” I took another sip of the coffee and shuddered.
“Good, then.” She settled across from me. “Let me tell you a story.”
Yes, story time. I leaned back and closed my eyes, ready to hear about litter box antics or about an anniversary cruise to Alaska. Anything to distract me.
“When I was a young girl—oh, about ten or so—there was this boy that I liked very much. William was fourteen but small for his age, very quiet. He followed his two older brothers around wherever they went. It was a quiet town, it was, just west of the Adirondacks, and they were the troublemakers.”
This was even better. An honest-to-God, how-they-met story, complete with a happy ending. And a shy, little pseudo bad boy too. My whole body sighed into the cushions.
“The boys were fixing their usual, you know, tormenting this old mountain dog. They’d shove him in an old barrel and roll him down the hill, they did, and it showed. Messed him up in the head. He couldn’t even walk a straight line, and he’d pee himself. It wasn’t right, but who could stop them?”
Jesus Christ. My eyes had popped open over the course of this recitation. No, I hadn’t quite been expecting it. I wanted initials carved into an old oak tree that they later got married under, not psychopathic animal abuse.
“One day I get all riled up,” she continued, “saying how they can’t mess with the dog no more, no sir. Of course, they just pushed me around a bit and got right back to it, but then William let loose the dog and said that no, he wouldn’t let them hurt that dog no more and they couldn’t touch me neither.”
Oh. I sighed again. How romantic. Well, it was sad about the dog, but what a moment.
“You know what they did?” she said. “They put him in the barrel, William, they did, and rolled him down the hill.”
“What? Christ, tell me you’re joking!”
She gave me a reproving look. “Who would joke about that? Anyhow, that’s not the end of the story. Poor William was in the hospital for three weeks and then stuck in bed for longer. He’d never been first in class, you know, and after that it was just downhill.” She paused. “Pardon the pun.”
“We stayed in that town just until he was eighteen,” she said, “and then we moved as far away as possible. Here, to Chicago. He got a job fixing elevators, because it wasn’t so complicated he couldn’t understand it. And it turned out to be a good thing, because there’s been lots of elevators since then, and he was never out of work, not once. So you see, everything turns out for the best.”
Holy fuck. I was pretty sure that was the saddest story I’d ever heard in my life, and I’d heard some bad shit. Honestly I’d been feeling pretty good about my encounter, if a little shaken, but now I just wanted to crawl into a hole in the ground. Not that I’d ever been to the country or the mountains, as she’d said, but I guessed I’d always expected it to by idyllic. Backward maybe, slow definitely, but nice. That story had not been nice.
“Linda,” I said. “I don’t know how to tell you this. But that story is depressing.”
“No, it’s not,” she said, all surprised. “Thirty-two years we were married before he passed over. And sure, he’d get confused sometimes. You know, I’d walk into a room, but he was already talking to me. But that’s not the important thing, is it?”
“I’m sorry. You’re right.” I agreed, because it was her life and William’s, and so I could hardly disparage the story without insulting her. Besides, I was afraid she’d keep talking. Jesus.
I took another sip of the cold coffee and pretended my shiver was from that and not foreboding.
* * * *
Colin didn’t come back until late.
In those dark, lonely hours I mulled over his actions. He had manipulated me in the worst way, cutting off my livelihood. I had a child, after all. What if I hadn’t called him? What if I’d taken to whoring myself to cover the bills? Would he have come after me at all if I’d never called him, or was this just a game to him?
I still couldn’t be sure that he’d had no part in Tony Yates. I had to believe he hadn’t, though, or I couldn’t even lie here in his bed.
He smelled of alcohol but not smoke as he settled beside me, in the black of night.
“What made you ask those questions?” he suddenly asked.
I thought about pretending to be asleep, but instead I stalled. “What questions?”
“You know damn well what questions. Did you talk to Rick?”
The way he said Rick’s name made it sound like betrayal. It wasn’t, and I wanted to tell him that and that Rick had been the one to approach me, but I realized that would only get Rick in trouble. “He’s my friend,” I said. “So yes, I talked to him.”
“I don’t want you to see him again,” he said tightly.
It was weird to have a conversation in the dark, both of us facing the ceiling. I turned my head on the pillow to see his profile. “You don’t get to tell me that. Or is it because I live in your house and eat your food, you get to tell me who I see?”
“Yes,” he said. “No! He’s a loser, and he wants to fuck you. That’s why you can’t see him.”
Okay, maybe in my most uncharitable moments, Rick was somewhat of a loser. And I thought that maybe he had a point about the other part. I didn’t think girlfriends were really allowed to hang out with guys who wanted to fuck them or offered to take them away to some tropical place. At least not girlfriends of guys like Colin.
“I didn’t even want to see him,” I mumbled. “I just don’t see why you had to do that. It’s really fucked up.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding calmer if not actually sorry.
We were silent for a moment, and then he spoke again, sounding almost cautious. “What about the other thing? That night?”
I know someone paid Tony Yates to hurt me because I was snooping in your brother’s records as a spy for the cops. No, that would not go over well.
“I can’t tell you,” I finally said.
“What does that mean?” He sounded incredulous.
“Just what I said. You don’t tell me everything you do or everywhere you go, hardly anything. I tell you everything, even my secrets, just not this.”
The other reassurances, that this wasn’t a big deal, that it wasn’t anything he needed to worry about, died in my throat. I wanted to get through this without actually lying. Maybe someday when I’d figured this out, I could tell him. And maybe somehow he’d understand, but it would be better if I didn’t lie to him now.
Or maybe not, because he’d sat up, practically vibrating with anger.
“This isn’t just anything,” he said. “This is you accusing me of raping you.”
“You didn’t rape me,” I said, rather calmly, I thought. “I asked if you paid that guy to rape me or hurt me or anything at all. You said you didn’t, and well, I believe you.” So that’s that, my tone said.
He made a disbelieving sound.
We paused with only the sound of his harsh breathing and mine to fill the air.
“I mentioned it to Philip,” Colin said.
I sat up too. I hadn’t expected Colin to figure it out, but of course he would. It only made sense that if someone paid Tony Yates, and if it wasn’t Colin, that Philip might know something about it. That was the same conclusion I’d come to, only I saw Philip as the enemy and Colin didn’t.
“What did he say?” I asked, dreading the answer.
With good cause, it turned ou
t, because Colin answered, “He said you were an informant for the cops. That you were digging around for information about his guys.”
I held my breath as if my very exhale could incriminate me. “What did you say?”
“I said he was full of shit and punched him in the face.”
A sharp laugh escaped me. I clamped my lips shut. Very inappropriate, I scolded myself. Still, a small smile curled my lips. He’d believed in me. He’d defended me. And Philip had gotten what was coming to him.
“I hit my brother.”
I sobered. “I’m sorry, Colin. Even if he deserved it, I’m sorry.”
“Allie.” Are you, his tone asked, an informant? Did I turn on my own family in defense of a traitor?
“Are you going to make me answer the question?”
“Are you going to make me ask?” he said.
I sighed. “I can promise you this. I have never given the cops any information about you or Philip or anyone, okay? I never have and never will. I’m on your side. Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” he said, and only then did I breathe normally.
His long, large body sat sprawled on the bed, its indolent pose belying his intensity. And, in fact, as we sat there, I felt his breathing change. The air shifted even as we sat very still. Turned out anger was a powerful aphrodisiac once we’d gotten over the fighting part.
Except for the first time with Colin, I wasn’t sure if I wanted it. I wasn’t sure I didn’t want it either—fickle me—but I was nervous. My mind flashed to the ridiculous bullfighting photographs in Philip’s study. This must be how a bullfighter felt, standing in front of a raging force over which he had no control, waving his red flag, even as he wondered what the fuck he’d gotten himself into.
I’d had sex how many times? Almost a dozen, over the months. All with mean, angry strangers. Bullies, really, but that wasn’t Colin. He wasn’t a stranger or mean or a bully. He was an angry Colin, and that made him entirely unknown.
I’d let him fuck me, even let him hurt me, but what if he went too far? An even scarier idea occurred to me. What if I didn’t want it? I didn’t want him to hurt me. Maybe I didn’t even want him to fuck me.
What then?
