Mercy turned onto his side to face her. His eyes glimmered in the dark. Okay, so he wasn’t sleeping.
His voice was clear, free of sleep. “What’s wrong, Mama?”
She smiled, though she didn’t know if he could see it. “She’s spinning around in there.”
His massive hand cupped the swell of her belly. “Yeah? She getting ready?”
“Slowly. Not yet. Not tonight.”
He curved his big body around hers, spoke in French to the baby.
Ava’s smile widened, and she felt herself relaxing, safe inside his physical protection. Their little girl seemed to sense it too, settling. “What did you say to her?”
His breath stirred her hair, warm and smelling faintly of his last cigarette. “That she’s gonna be as beautiful and tough as her mama.”
“You and your sweetness.”
“You don’t like it?”
“Oh, I love it.”
A cellphone went off. They both froze, fear streaking through her and radiating into him; she felt his fear, the fast grab of worry in his palm against her stomach.
“It’s mine,” he said, and rolled away from her to answer it.
~*~
For possibly the first time in his life, Aidan felt obscene driving down the streets of his own city. It was after three in the morning and his headlamp cut a bold swath through the dark; the growl of his bike engine echoed off the building facades as he turned down Main and then Market.
No lights on in the apartment above the bakery.
Mercy pulled in behind him in Ava’s truck as he hit the alley. He tore impatiently at his helmet and gloves, meeting his brother-in-law at the base of the iron stairs.
“You talked to him yet?” Mercy asked.
“I tried before I left home, but he didn’t pick up.”
Aidan went up first, heart in his throat, pulse throbbing in his hands. Please, he prayed. Please, please, please.
He’d known this night was coming. For months he’d watched his best friend withdraw deeper and deeper into himself. He’d tried again and again to drag him out to Bell Bar, to get him to play pool at the clubhouse, had tried to force him to come have dinner with him and Sam. When that hadn’t worked, he’d recruited Mags and Ava. Had gotten Ghost on his side. He’d done everything short of commit Tango to some sort of rehab program.
Or had he? he wondered as he reached the door. Had he done everything? Had he truly tried to save his friend and brother? Or had he been consumed with his wife and child?
“Jesus,” he whispered, one last prayer, and fitted his key into the lock.
Empty living room, cold kitchen, no lights. But Tango’s bike was in the alley below.
“Kev?” he called.
No answer.
“Look,” Mercy said, and the lights flipped on above the kitchen table.
Aidan squinted down at what lay before him. A leather shaving kit, unzipped, full of needle, syringe, and rubber tourniquet.
“No,” he whispered. “Oh, shit.”
Mercy’s hand landed heavy as lead on his shoulder, and squeezed in a comforting way. “The bathroom.”
“Yeah.”
The lights were on there. The bathtub was full. Tango’s rail-thin body seemed to float in the crimson water. One arm lay white as death outside the tub, dripping blood – drip, drip, drip – down onto the hexagonal tile. His eyes were shut, face white as porcelain, long hair plastered to his forehead.
“Kevin!”
Two
“I’m a bit of an Earl Grey addict,” Samantha said as she started a tea kettle one-handed. She looked like she did this a lot, moving around the kitchen with the baby in the crook of her arm.
Lainie, Whitney reminded herself. The little girl was Lainie.
Not that she gave a crap about that right now.
“Do you take milk?” Sam asked.
Did she? “I…uh, I don’t normally drink tea, so I don’t know. I…”
Sam glanced over at her, and then her eyes widened behind her glasses. “Whoa. Okay. You look about ready to faint.”
“Do I?”
Sam abandoned the tea and came to take her arm. “Let’s go sit down.”
“Okay…” Her head did seem a little light, suddenly.
Sam steered her to the couch and sat down in the chair across from her, juggling a now-quiet Lainie up higher against her shoulder. “You can lie down if you need to.”
Whitney shook her head, which was a mistake. But said, “No, I’m okay.” She knotted her hands together in her lap and tried to tell herself that Kev was okay, that she was just overreacting, that Aidan was going to find him and tell him that she had been stupid to worry so much.
But dread lay like a coiled snake in her belly, and she couldn’t shake the sense that something was irretrievably wrong with her…
Her…
Well, what was he to her?
She could find no label in her mind, only knew that she cared for him deeply.
“Whitney,” Sam said in a careful voice. “How have you been doing since…everything happened?”
It seemed an odd question, given what was happening with Kev.
“I’ve been fine.”
But Sam didn’t look convinced.
“Do you think Aidan should be there by now?”
“Maybe. I’m sure he’ll call soon.”
As if on cue, her cellphone rang, and she fumbled it off the arm of the chair to answer it. “Hey, what’s up?”
Whitney watched her face, saw the bright spark of emotion in her blue-green eyes, and she knew what had happened.
All the air left her lungs. No, she prayed. Oh no, please no.
~*~
She refused to believe it until she saw the blood on Aidan’s clothes. Then her steps faltered in the hospital corridor and she braced a hand against the cool block wall to steady herself.
No.
Aidan’s white t-shirt and hoodie sported bold patches of blood, the stains dark as they dried. Blood smears down his jeans. Blood coloring the black and white inked side of his neck. Blood all over his hand as he pushed it through his hair and turned a haunted look toward his wife.
Mercy was crimson-streaked too, face grave.
So much blood. It didn’t seem possible that there could be enough left to keep his heart pumping.
But they were at the hospital, and not the morgue. Which meant he wasn’t dead yet. Which meant she wasn’t going to give up on him.
With a deep breath, Whitney pushed off from the wall and walked up to meet the men alongside Sam. “How is he?”
Aidan’s eyes broke her heart. He shook his head and glanced away from her, down to the floor.
“We found him in the tub,” Mercy said, voice heavy. He drew a long finger across his own wrist, as if she’d needed the explanation.
“What have the doctor’s said?”
Mercy didn’t flinch away from her, gaze sympathetic and devastated. “That he’s lost a lot of blood.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Aidan said, suddenly, head lifting.
“Aidan,” Sam said quietly.
His dark eyes shone beneath the tube lights, and Whitney could detect no malice in them. He thought he was being kind, turning her away. He expected Kevin to die, and he wanted to spare her the gut-punch of hearing it straight from the doctor.
Well, that was sweet of him, but she wasn’t having any of it.
“No, I should be right here,” she said.
His head kicked back a fraction, nostrils flaring. He couldn’t believe her, she guessed.
“Maybe…” Sam started, laying a hand on Whitney’s shoulder.
“Fine,” Aidan said. He turned and slumped back against the wall, head hanging. “Whatever.”
So she settled in to wait.
~*~
Sam set Lainie’s carrier down at his feet, and then laid a comforting hand against Aidan’s chest, like she was touching his throbbing heart. “I’m going to go and get everyone
coffee,” she said, and then slipped away down the hall.
Aidan nodded too late, after she was already gone. It had just seemed like so much effort to make his head move up and down.
Someone – a nurse, maybe – had steered them into a small family waiting room. Possibly because Mercy’s pacing was making patients and staff nervous. It was like watching a large, restless panther; one of those big paws could come darting out at any moment. Aidan knew better, after all these years, but he guessed other people didn’t. Other people, after all, were stupid.
Almost as stupid as his best friend.
Aidan pitched forward in his chair and stared down at his daughter. She was awake, but barely, perfect smooth eyelids flagging. She was an unnerving child, the way she always stared at him. The first months had been fraught with crying, colic, and a haphazard routine of three Teagues trying to learn one another and fit together like mismatched puzzle pieces. He’d had his secret fears that this disjointed family of his was an experiment in disaster; that Sam might come to her senses one morning, hand his squalling baby back to him, and get on with the life she was supposed to have led all along. He’d held his breath against the inevitable; he’d become a praying man, asking God nightly to allow him to keep this new terrifying world he’d snagged for himself.
And the newness had worn off, the storm had passed, and now they were as solidly fused as a husband, wife, and baby could be. Lainie was turning into a serious, contemplative baby. She was smarter than her father, he had no doubts. Perhaps, by some miracle, she’d inherited all the best parts of him.
Though what those were, he had no idea. He was many things. A good friend obviously wasn’t one of them.
The chair across from him groaned as Mercy settled into it.
“Try not to break the furniture, Hercules,” Aidan said out of habit, voice flat.
“Try not to be a crybaby douchebag,” Mercy shot back.
They shared worried, exhausted half-smiles.
Mercy’s gaze dropped to Lainie. His face brightened, and Aidan was suddenly glad she was there. Something innocent and sweet in the midst of a black moment. “She’s being quiet.”
“Yeah, that’s her new thing. She just stares at us. It’s kinda creepy.”
“Cal’s like that too. When he’s not screaming.” He shook his head. “That one…”
“Yeah.”
They had nothing to talk about. Nothing was as important and urgent as whatever was happening with Tango, and discussing baby stares, or the weather, or work seemed irrelevant.
Where the hell was Sam with the coffee? This was where she excelled: distracting from disasters and keeping everyone warm and hopeful.
Aidan glanced down the line of chairs to Whitney. She sat three seats away from him, an oversized wool jacket wrapped tight across her front, purse held on her lap. Everything about her struck him as unlikely. Her slender ankles slopping around in a pair of scuffed suede booties. The small hands and chipped nail polish. Her heartbreakingly sweet face with its guileless blue eyes. And her age, above all. Only just able to drink in public and looked like she’d gag on her first sip of beer. She looked exactly the sort to fall to pieces at any provocation. And she looked nothing like the worldly, hypersexualized women Tango had always gravitated toward within the club.
And yet, here she sat, steely-eyed, and straight-backed.
Mercy snapped his fingers to get Aidan’s attention. When he had it, he tipped his head toward the girl. What’s going on there?
Aidan shrugged. He hadn’t known Tango was still in contact with her.
Or that Tango was shooting up again.
There were a lot of things he hadn’t known.
“Whitney,” he called, and her head turned toward him slowly; she was stuck in her head, just like they were. “You don’t have to sit all the way down there.”
She studied him, assessing his sincerity. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
He felt a small kindling of warmth for her, then. She was just a baby, and she had no business aligning herself with an ex-stripper, ex-prostitute, mentally-fucked junkie who’d slit his wrists tonight.
But she was brave. He’d give her that. And he’d learned, in the last few years, that the world was short on brave girls. It was always best to have them on your side.
“Nah, it’s alright.” He patted the chair beside him. “I want to ask you some things.”
Guarded, she moved down next to him, careful to keep her arms around her purse so she wasn’t touching him. “What things?”
Keeping his voice gentle, he said, “For starters, how long have you been talking to Kev?”
“Since it happened.” And she didn’t have to remind them what “it” was.
“You thought he might do something like this.”
She nodded, and her eyes brightened with a sudden rush of tears. “What happened to him?” she asked. “I don’t mean in that basement. I mean before then. What happened that made him want to…to…sacrifice himself, like that?”
He sighed. “That is a very long story. And I only know part of it.” And he’d always had a feeling that the part he knew was the very least of it.
~*~
Ian dreamed of home. Not his modern high-rise, nor his offices above the funeral home, nor even the place someone had designated his home when he’d first come to America. But his family’s house in London. The four-story, whitewashed brick façade with its iron railings and window baskets of flowers. He recalled with perfect detail the blue door with its brass knocker, the permanent scuff marks on the steel threshold left by the piano when it had proved too big to come in the service entrance in back and was forced, between three men, into the front door, much to his mother’s social horror.
He stepped into the black-and-white tiled entryway, with its hall tree and the antique mirror passed down from Auntie Emerson. He looked at his reflection: twelve, thin enough to slide through the bars of the garden gate, knees like building blocks and a face too narrow for his nose. A strong nose, regal, like his father’s. But his mother’s eyes, large and blue, “pretty as a girl’s,” his father had said. Altogether too pretty, that was him, with his auburn hair and his long eyelashes, skinny as a ballet dancer.
That was why he had chosen dance over fencing, he supposed. One of two boys in Madame Clarice’s studio, a prized possession of the company. He was to dance in Madame’s production of Swan Lake at the end of the month, and his stomach fizzed with excitement when he thought of it.
Deeper into the house. Past Father’s study, and the good parlor where his mother entertained her book club. He heard Dottie laying the silver and china out for supper in the dining room; heard her drop something with a clatter and curse her own clumsiness.
Upstairs he went, past the closed door of Mother’s bedroom – she would be taking her evening nap at this time – and past his sister’s, and then his brother’s room. Down to his own. The high street-facing windows welcomed him, poured late afternoon sunlight across his crisp blue counterpane, his desk and the open notebook of sketches on top of it.
He dropped his rucksack and went to the desk immediately, drawn by the open cover of the sketchbook. He could swear he’d closed it that morning, before he left. He had. He was sure. Someone had leafed through it, probably Mother, and had stopped on the piece he’d done in ballet class: his classmate, Ren, stretching at the barre. It was a hurried, many-stroked sketch, a sort of impression, a suggestion of her features. The real focus was the movement. A lively piece, if melancholy in its penciled darkness.
Ian touched it with a fingertip, and a perfect crimson drop of blood landed on the paper. Plop. From out of nowhere. Then another. Another. It became a stream, thick tendrils that ruined his sketch.
He turned his hand over, and along the inside of his wrist saw the deep slice where the razor had opened his vein.
But that wasn’t right. He hadn’t tried to kill himself until he was fourteen. And that was after…
He w
oke with a start, jackknifing upright in bed. The breath sawed in and out of his lungs, burning his throat, and sweat poured down his naked skin; he felt a drop quivering at the end of his nose and he dashed it away, reeling. His hair lay plastered against the back of his neck. The sheets were glued to his thighs.
Shaking, he flung out a hand, searching for a warm body beside him. But there was only cool, vacant linen. Kev was going to be celibate now, after all.
“Damn,” he said to the empty room.
He hadn’t dreamed of Mayfair in years. The boy he’d been then was long since dead; it was no longer painful to venture back through the halls, only impossible, because that had been another life, another person, derailed.
So why now? Why could he still smell his mother’s cigarette smoke creeping from beneath her door? Why could he hear Dottie’s tuneless humming as she set the table?
Why was he awake, heart galloping?
Something was wrong. Badly so. But damned if he knew what it was.
Aside from…well, from everything. Nothing had ever been right, had it?
~*~
Was this the other side? This sense of cold and light and exhaustion? Somehow he hadn’t expected it to be so bright. He’d thought, in those last minutes as he sank down to his chin in the warm water, that he’d be headed somewhere dark, and hot, and unfriendly. But he came to with the sense of cool, sterile surroundings, and a heaviness in his limbs that defied comprehension.
“Hey,” Aidan’s voice said, and he knew then. This wasn’t the other side at all, but the hospital.
“Kev.” Whitney. That was her pretty voice.
“Brother.” Mercy. Of course, Mercy; someone had dragged him out of the bathtub, after all.
Loverboy (Dartmoor Book 5) Page 2
