by Eden Butler
“Wow, Viv. That’s below the belt.”
Again, she laughs, pushing him out of her way as she rustles through the stack of paper near her laptop on the other side of the island. “That’s what you get for yelling at me, ass.” Vaughn is distracted by Sports Center recapping the Minnesota Twins and their game against the Phillies as his sister shuffles her files. “Anyway, I’m only teasing you. But I meant what I said. This case requires a lot of my attention and if I’m not around, it’s not because I don’t like your company.” Vaughn nods, not really listening to his sister as she continues on with her excuses. “But I don’t want you staying cooped up here either. You need to socialize.”
Aaron Hicks catches a lightning fast ball to the outfield as Vaughn nods to Viv once more. “I do. Been playing in an amateur rugby league at the Y.” He switches the channel, but glances at his sister as she types on her laptop. “Dickie Collins organized it. Remember him from high school?” Viv frowns, but dips her chin, acknowledging his question. She never liked Collins. Always said he was a bit of a chauvinist. “Anyway, we aren’t terrible. Won a few matches and there’s a tournament in Cavanagh next weekend.”
“In Cavanagh?” Vaughn narrows his eyes at Viv when her smug little smirk returns to her face. “Isn’t that where she lives?”
He exhales, gearing up for what he knows will be another lecture. “Yes. She’s a student at the university.”
“She’s off limits.”
“I’m not going to date her.” He throws the remote onto the island. “She’s a job. Just a job. Jesus, you’re the one that got me into all this.”
“And I appreciate your help, I do.” She grabs his hand. “I just want you to remember what’s at stake here. Emotions get messed in the middle and everything will go straight to hell. I just don’t want six months of work to blow up in our faces.”
Sleeplessness begins to overtake Vaughn. That and Viv’s constant nagging. He can only shut out her stern frown with a quick swipe of his hands over his eyes. “It won’t. I’ll do what I have to and you’ll get your witness.”
He knows his sister isn’t convinced. Another argument brews in the room, hangs on the air circling through the AC vent, but before any bitching leaves her mouth, the name “Cavanagh” echoing from a news report brings both of their eyes toward the TV.
“Authorities at Cavanagh University tell WLMV that there were no serious injuries late this afternoon in a small fire on campus.” Vaughn turns up the volume as the station flashes video of the Cavanagh campus and a small building just off the main street. “Walter Lambert with the Cavanagh University Police Department tells our Melissa Thompson that they believe the fire stemmed from a prank gone awry.”
The screen changes, pulls up the form of a wiry looking guy with muddy brown hair and watery black eyes in a puke green Cavanagh police uniform. His badge reads: W. Lambert.
“We believe a few kids may have thought it was funny to bust a window in one of the administration offices with a lit bottle. The incendiary landed on a stack of documents and caused a small fire in the office. Workers were able to extinguish the fire before any real damage was caused, but we are still investigating the incident.”
Red and blue lights from several police cruisers paint across the screen and the camera scans to the building, a non-descript, brown structure with a small group of bystanders looking past yellow police tape. When the camera pans left, Vaughn bolts upright as Mollie and her friend Layla stand near the cruiser, blankets thrown over their shoulders.
“Shit,” he says, darting into his room to grab his cell off the bedside table. He’s already dialed Mollie’s number by the time he returns to the kitchen.
Viv is at his side, her eyes veering from the screen to the phone in Vaughn’s hand. “Is that her?”
“Yep.” When Mollie’s recorded voice picks up, Vaughn immediately disconnects the call and re-dials. “Come on, pick up the damn phone.” He doesn’t understand why his hands have suddenly started to shake or why his heart is pumping somewhere around his Adam’s apple. “Shit, Mollie. Answer, dammit.”
Sayo is crying. Mollie tries to console her, telling her it’s fine, that she and Layla aren’t hurt in the slightest, but the elegant beauty can’t seem to help herself. The constant flash of the police cruiser’s light, the mild smell of smoke and the loud calls of firemen bustling around the sidewalk has their friend reverting back twelve years before to the fire that killed her grandparents.
“You shouldn’t be here, honey,” Mollie tells a sniffling Sayo.
“It’s stupid, I know,” Sayo says. “I’m looking at you both, but shit, my hands won’t stop shaking.” Mollie takes the useless blanket off her shoulders and covers Sayo’s thin body.
“It’s not stupid,” she tells her. “That’s a messed up thing you saw when you were a kid. Shit like that sticks with you.” Sayo nods and makes quick swipes at her wet face before Mollie tips her chin up. “Hey, seriously, why don’t you let Autumn and Declan take you home? We’re fine, sweetie.”
When Sayo doesn’t move, just darts her eyes back toward the fire truck, Mollie nods Layla toward them. Her best friend grabs Sayo’s hand. “It’s fine. It really wasn’t that big of a deal. Mollie and I were coming back from a—” she takes a moment to meet Mollie’s eyes and understands that warning of a frown to mean she shouldn’t mention what they did to Donovan’s car. “An errand. I still had an hour left on my shift and we were just sitting around watching the clock when the window broke and the bottle landed on a stack of financial aid apps. Mollie was the one who grabbed the fire extinguisher.” Layla shows Sayo her hands, palms up. “See? Not a scratch on me.” She pulls Mollie’s wrist forward and pushes back her best friend’s sleeves. “Molls is fine too. No big.”
“I know,” Sayo says. “I know,” she whispers to herself. Then, she inhales, straightens her shoulders. “I heard the sirens and saw the fire truck and just lost it. I knew you were working today,” this she says to Layla, “and when the truck stopped in front of the building, I just thought… well—”
Sayo’s explanation is interrupted by Declan and Autumn’s approach. Mollie smiles as the Irishman scans the perimeter of the scene, looking for something that he keeps to himself. For all her independence and need to take care of herself, Mollie is grateful for her friends’ presence. Declan is their protector, whether they like it or not. Tonight, she doesn’t mind so much.
“Walter says to hang back a bit,” Declan says, as Autumn comforts Sayo with an arm around her shoulders.
“What for?” Mollie doesn’t know what Layla’s boyfriend could possibly want now. He’d been first on the scene, his immediate frown had Mollie on edge and his attitude about her being there during the fire only solidified her opinion that Walter was a jerk. His endless questions about the attack had been answered over an hour ago.
Somehow, he’d turn this around and make it her fault. He always did. Mollie had no clue what her best friend saw in the guy, but she’d keep her mouth shut. It just wasn’t worth the fight it would cause to complain to Layla about her boyfriend.
“Dunno. He says he has some information for you two.” Autumn looks at Layla and Mollie.
“Why don’t you two take Sayo home?” Mollie asks Declan. She looks at Autumn. “She doesn’t need to be here for this.”
“I’m okay,” Sayo says.
“Mollie’s right. There’s nothing we can do right now.” Sayo would listen to Autumn, at least that’s what Mollie hoped. Their friend wasn’t weak. None of them were, but Sayo in particular wasn’t the best in panic situations. Autumn catches Mollie’s eye, a silent agreement that she’d take care of Sayo.
Declan hands Autumn his keys and kisses her. “I’ll catch a ride with Layla and Mollie. I want to hear what Walter has to say.”
“You worried about something?” Autumn asks him, but takes his keys anyway.
Declan hesitates and his expression has taken on a frown; a glimmer of concern that makes him look old
er than he actually is. If Mollie didn’t know him better, she might disregard that look, but she did and that expression told her his worry extended beyond making sure no one was hurt. “I don’t like this happening so soon after her break in.” His head moves toward Mollie. “Something’s off about this.”
“Deco, it was probably just some kids,” Mollie tells him, seeing how Sayo’s eyes have grown wide. His worry wouldn’t help calm their friend.
“What about Donovan?” Layla looks beyond the gathered crowd as though the man in question would pounce from the dark at any moment.
Declan’s laugh is light, easy. “You might drive him barmy, but he’d never try to catch you on fire, love.”
“He kidnapped my dog.”
Collectively, the friends groan. Layla wouldn’t let that go, but now wasn’t the time or place to recap all the insane things Donovan and Layla have done to each other over the past few months. “Layla, stop,” Mollie warns.
As though he’d been summoned, Donovan breaks through the small crowd. He has a wild, manic look in his eyes that is only highlighted by the sheen of silver glitter that covers his face. Each step he takes dusts more glitter from his body, but it doesn’t disappear. In fact, it only collects in his shirt collar and around his arms.
“Oh shit,” Layla yelps, darting first behind Mollie and then when Donovan gets closer, behind Declan’s looming frame.
“Come here you little brat,” he yells at Layla, bypassing his best friend to grab hold of Layla’s arm, which she easily diverts.
“What did you do now?” Autumn asks Layla, who moves behind her, pulling on the hem of her shirt.
“You can’t hide from me,” Donovan tells Layla. “Did you do that shit to my car? What the actual hell is wrong with you?”
When Layla abandons the protective circle of her friends, Donovan chases after her, finally catching her wrist and their voices ring out against the quiet of the night. World War III has just begun.
Mollie’s attention returns to her friends and she releases a long sigh at their expectant stares. “Glitter,” she tells them. “In his AC vents with the setting on ‘Max.’”
“His GTO?” Declan asks. When Mollie nods, he closes his eyes. “Fecking hell, that’s a new low.”
“And how did she get into his car?” Autumn asks Mollie, but before she can answer, Walter approaches.
Autumn gives Declan a quick kiss, tells Mollie she’d call her later and she and Sayo move through the crowd and toward Declan’s Mustang. Mollie watches them go, catching sight of Layla and Donovan’s epic row and the thinning crowd. On the street, cars move at a snail’s pace, some pausing to investigate the scene, some blaring horns to hurry along the bottle neck of traffic; the low rumble of engines and a particularly loud backfire from a black car eventually disappear and Mollie returns her attention to Walter and Declan.
Spotting his girlfriend and Donovan arguing a few feet away, Walter moves his chin in their direction, curious. “What’s that about?”
“Pranks,” Mollie says. “You have some information?”
Walter takes a moment before he tears his gaze away from the arguing couple and focuses on Mollie. He directs both her and Declan to a cruiser set back from the crowd. “This is officially off the record.”
“You are breaking the rules, Walter?” That seems completely out of character from what Mollie knows of him.
“I think the importance of this matter warrants it.” Mollie hates the way he speaks, as though he’s a bobby for Scotland Yard and not a campus cop in Tennessee.
“What do you mean?” Declan asks.
“This,” Walter says, looking over his shoulder to hold out a plastic evidence bag. Inside is the incendiary—an empty vodka bottle broken at the top and a black label curled at the edge. Tied to the neck is the charred carcass of some kind of rodent.
“What the hell is that?” Mollie asks.
“A rat, Mollie.”
The implication is immediate and instantly Mollie feels as though someone has punched her in the stomach and a sinking, boulder-sized weight funnels through her chest.
“What do you think this could mean?” Walter asks nudging the bag in her direction.
“I have no idea.” She doesn’t like the hint of accusation that flits behind his words.
“Something you want to tell me?” Walter is not threatening. He is lanky, tall and he has too much of a baby face to seem imposing. But that silver badge on his chest somehow has him acting like his pull on campus means something in the slightest. “Maybe something your father is involved in is touching a little close to home.”
“My father is in prison in Mississippi, Walter. There’s no way—”
“Your father is a convicted felon and the president of a motorcycle gang that deals meth. He’s also looking at a long sentence. It seems to me that with your burglary and now this,” again his motions with the evidence bag, “might mean dear ole dad is trying to work a deal. When you mess with the criminal element and then think about stabbing them in the back, they don’t let you do it so easily.”
“That has nothing to do with her, mate.” Declan comes to stand just in front of Mollie.
“Oh I think it might. If her dad has pissed off the wrong people, then they might be trying to scare him off of whatever he’s got planned.”
She can’t look at Walter and the accusatory, smug glare on his face. Instead, Mollie scans the crowd again, not really focusing on anything. Her mind plays back a loop of Jackson, of the men that used to frequent the Compound. There were bikers, naturally, but there were also men in cheap suits, some approaching the house in dark cars late at night. There were whispered conversations and brown paper bags filled with cash on the top shelf on her father’s closet.
Mollie isn’t naïve. She knew who her father was, she knew the life he’d chosen wasn’t picket fences and church on Sunday morning. She was also smart enough to understand the Ministry of Malice didn’t grow weed in the Compound garden and meth wasn’t cooked in the shed on the back of her father’s property. It all came from somewhere. It had to. Could her dad be working a deal? Was this happening to her because of yet more choices he made?
“Well?” Walter’s frown has only grown deeper. This is her fault, that expression tells her. She is trash. She isn’t worthy of Layla’s friendship. It’s all there in the cold, hard look he gives her. And just then, the feeling comes back; just for a second Mollie is ten years old, standing outside of the teacher’s lounge, overhearing Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Franklin discussing her “disgusting father” and the “whores who are raising Mollie.”
“I’ll call him, try to find out what’s going on.” Mollie hates how weak her voice sounds.
“You do that. In the meantime, it would be wise to stay away from Layla.”
“What?” That sinking feeling in Mollie’s chest has now travelled to the pit of her stomach.
“In fact,” Walter says, staring up at Declan, “if you had any sense at all, Fraser, you’d keep Autumn away from that one, too.”
“You’re out of line, mate.”
“I don’t think so. And you wouldn’t think that if something happened to your girlfriend.”
“This isn’t Mollie’s fault.” Declan takes a step, forcing Walter back.
“Perhaps not, but it’s probably her convict father’s fault.”
Declan has never met Mollie’s father. He only knows what Autumn has told him about Mollie’s family, but he doesn’t seem to care that all the details are missing. It seems to Mollie, all Declan cares about is that Walter is being a prick, is insulting his friend and he won’t stand for that. Protector mode engages and Declan pushes Walter back, his large fists shaking at his side. “Watch your fecking mouth, Lambert.”
For all the ire Walter spews at Mollie, he doesn’t seem interested in tussling with Declan. He steps back, hands up in surrender as Declan inches forward. “Just stay away from Layla.” His voice is loud, his command echoing over the noise of the bus
tling streets.
“Excuse you?” Layla approaches with a dusting, glitter-leaking Donovan on her heels.
“Darling, it’s for your own good.”
Layla cringes. Mollie knows she hates it when Walter calls her that. “My own good? Don’t you tell me what’s for my own good.”
“Her father…”
“I know more about Mollie and her father than you could possibly understand.” Walter steps back, cowered by Layla’s anger. “And let’s get this straight, if it came down to my friendship with Mollie and this thing with us, then there’s no freaking choice.” She stands next to Mollie. “She’s my sister and there is no way in hell I’m gonna let you or some punk robber or some idiot with a Molotov cocktail scare me away from her.” She steps forward, clearly pissed. “You got that?”
Then, Mollie can’t tell whose voice is loudest. Maybe it’s Layla raging against Walter and his constant refrain of “your own good.” Maybe it’s Declan, once again playing Champion to the girls his Autumn loves most in the world. Maybe it’s Donovan screaming at Walter about minding his own business or his annoyed rebuke of the glitter showering around him with every twist and shake of his animated hands.
Mollie doesn’t know. Her heart aches, pinches with the weight that this may be all her fault or, at least, her fault for being the daughter of a criminal. When her cell chirps with a text alert and she notices five missed calls, all from Vaughn, Mollie’s stomach only coils tighter.
Vaughn: ANSWER YOUR DAMN PHONE.
Yet another man trying to assert some sort of influence. Another man who confounds her; yet another man who wants her to fall in line. Seconds later, another text flashes across her screen, this one with less venom.
Vaughn: Are you okay? Please answer me. You were on the news. Were you hurt?
The men in her life all want something from her. Walter, the one that looks down on her, that thinks she will somehow corrupt Layla. Declan, the one who thinks he can save them all. Vaughn; the one who wants to be her hero, and her father, the man who creates chaos. Her father: the man that folds half-truths and destruction like thin origami paper. Or did he? He always protected her, always made she sure she had clothes and food and then money for herself when he was sent away. But that protection isn’t the same as safety. Not with him locked up. Not with the life he led possibly threatening the hard fought-for peace she’d found in Cavanagh. Now, as she stands away from the arguing voices and the dwindling drama of the day, Mollie is more scared than ever that her serenity is slipping between her fingers.
