My hand finally fell away from her arm. I tried to soften myself. “How can I leave you here, Lisbeth?”
Lisbeth’s glare flickered. “I’ll tell you everything once I get back to town, okay? But you have to go now.”
My gaze passed over her shoulder to the bulletin board. How many of those church organizations were real?
“Fine,” I finally said. “But be careful.”
“I will,” Lisbeth said. She crossed her arms, standing her ground as she waited for me to leave.
I was halfway across the lot before she called out her next words.
“Oh, and don’t tell Logan anything this time.”
I winced at her accusatory tone.
* * *
I cracked open the door to Xander’s room for about the fiftieth time that night.
“Don’t worry, Mom, I’m still here,” he said. He didn’t even bother to look up at me from his book.
I laughed nervously. “I’m sorry, buddy. I guess I’m a little on edge.”
I closed the door and padded softly to the kitchen. Lisbeth had texted me hours ago, claiming she’d be on her way soon. I’d watched the sky darken from blue to pink to starry-black since then. Where was she?
I spent ten minutes scrubbing grime off the stove when I finally heard it: the wheeze and sigh of a car sliding into my driveway. Headlights shone through the window and moved across my living room wall. A car door slammed, and Lisbeth’s silhouette appeared through the frosted glass of my front door.
“Come on in,” I said as I opened the door.
She shouldered past me into the kitchen and sat down at the table. “Before I tell you everything, you have to tell me what you were doing in Anthemhead.”
I blushed. “I had to go to the pharmacy there,” was all I said.
Lisbeth gave me an incredulous look. “Then, tell me what you were doing at the healing clinic.”
I felt my defenses go up immediately. Logan had warned me that this might happen. Lisbeth wanted to find out how much I knew so she could build up a lie that made sense. I needed to derail her somehow.
“Healing clinic?” I said. “Do you think I’m still going to believe that after what I saw?”
“It is a healing clinic,” she said.
“Here’s what I think,” I began. “Maybe the healing clinic is real, but you and Father Alan are not. I think he’s some sort of higher up in the gang, and he’s recruiting broken, vulnerable women from the support group.”
Lisbeth’s mouth twisted into a frown. “Sounds like you’ve had a conversation with Logan,” she spat.
“The question is,” I continued on, “why are you helping him?”
Lisbeth avoided my gaze and stared at my toaster instead. I dragged out the chair next to hers and sat down.
“You told me you did something bad,” I said. “You said they were looking for you. I kept your secret from Liam because I thought it’d keep you safe, but what’s the use if none of that is true?”
Lisbeth looked at me in surprise. “You can’t tell Liam.”
“What else am I supposed to do? I have no idea what kind of danger you’re in.”
“Can’t you just trust me to look out for myself?”
“I can’t trust you at all, Lisbeth.”
She sat back and gaped. Apparently, I’d struck a nerve.
“If I tell you the truth, will you promise not to tell Liam?” she said in a small voice.
“It has to be the whole truth.”
Lisbeth nodded. A knocking sound came out of another room, and her eyes narrowed. “What was that?”
“My kid. He’s in his room. Don’t worry, he can’t hear us.”
She eased back down and listened as the next few seconds ticked by in silence. Seemingly satisfied, she placed her hands on the table and played with the sleeves of her shirt. “I don’t know where to start.”
“How about you start by telling me what part of your story is true?” I said.
Lisbeth rolled her eyes. “Fine. When I ran away from home two years ago, I got into drugs. That part was true. But then, I got hooked, and it wasn’t so great anymore. That’s when a friend of a friend told me about True North Healing Clinic.”
“In Anthemhead?”
“No. The one I went to was in Vegas. I thought it was just a regular support group. I wasn’t into the whole Jesus thing, but it just made the people there seem like they actually cared, so I bought into it.”
“But it was a front, right?”
Lisbeth shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “That’s right.”
“So, I’m confused. You told me that you were kidnapped and forced into prostitution.”
“Yeah. I lied about that.”
“Instead, you walked willingly into it.”
“No!” Lisbeth said quickly. “There was nothing willing about it. I started going to meetings. I wanted to get cleaned up. I even made a friend there. Her name was Anna. But Anna wasn’t as committed to recovery as I was, and she kept inviting me over to shoot up with her. She finally convinced me and I started getting hooked again, just like that.” She snapped her fingers.
I pressed my hands into the table, trying to steady myself as rage bubbled up inside of me. I felt so much anger toward Lisbeth for lying to me, toward Anna for getting her back on drugs. I also sensed there was more to Lisbeth’s story, and something told me that it was about to get worse.
“Go on,” I said, closing my eyes.
“Anna’s stuff was...amazing. And it was expensive. I was broke though, and it wasn’t long before I used up all my good favors. I got myself in deep shit and I thought they were going to kill me. But that’s when Anna told me that she had a special agreement worked out with the dealer, and she could get me in on it, too.”
I covered my mouth. Nausea tingled in my jaw, in my fingertips, but I kept quiet. I needed to hear all of it. I needed Lisbeth to admit everything.
Her steady voice began cracking. “I didn’t know it at the time, but Anna was part of the gang. It was so scary, Carmen. I was supposed to meet her one day at the dealer’s house, but she never showed. These guys came with a tattoo kit and held me down while they inked me. I had no idea what was going on. They took all my stuff and put me out on the street to make—”
“Okay!” I interrupted. “I get it. No need to go into detail. Just skip to the part where you got away.”
Lisbeth sighed. Her thin shoulders trembled under her flimsy cotton tee shirt. “There’s more to it than that.”
I closed my eyes, aggravated. Had there been any truth to Lisbeth’s story? “All right. Then tell me the rest of it.”
Lisbeth turned her face downward. “About a month ago, the dealer was expecting a new shipment. Anna and a few other guys decided to hijack it and run away to Phoenix.”
“Why?” I asked.
Lisbeth shook her head. “They wanted to sell it on the streets, split up the cash, and disappear. It seemed like the only way they could break off from the gang. But it was a pipe dream. It was stupid.”
“Don’t tell me you were involved with them.”
“I wasn’t. I was scared, to be honest. But when the dealer found out what happened, he was suspicious of me because Anna and I were so close. Without Anna, I had nobody, so I ran the first chance I got. I took a bus to Phoenix. Then, I took a taxi.” Her blue eyes rose from her lap to lock onto mine. “And I came to you.”
I recalled that stormy evening, the solitary light of the taxi in the parking lot, Lisbeth wandering in from the storm like a lost kitten, dripping in her fleece. I’d been blissfully ignorant back then, no thoughts of violent gangs or FBI agents plaguing me. It felt like lifetimes had passed since then. I reached across the table for her hand.
“And I’m glad you did,” I said. “But what I still don’t understand is what you were doing at the clinic in Anthemhead. I thought you were hiding from them.”
“I was. I am.” Lisbeth turned her palms up toward the ceiling and extende
d her arms. She was showing me that her tattoo was hidden. “The True North gang is huge. Father Alan and I have never met. He has no idea that I used to work for them.”
I struggled to understand why she was going to the meetings. “If you’re not helping him recruit new prostitutes...”
Lisbeth raised her head. “I’ve been going back to tap into the network. I’m trying to find Anna.”
My body went cold. “Right under the nose of the gang you’re hiding from. That’s risky, Lizzie.”
She nodded. “I know. And it hasn’t been easy, trust me. Most of the girls are trying to make a change and aren’t too keen on talking about their drug-fueled pasts. A lot of them also have trust issues. But I think I finally made a breakthrough.”
“Really?”
Lisbeth beamed, suddenly bright with hope. “Really. Anna mentioned a drop house in Phoenix once or twice, and today, I finally got an address.”
There it was. The truth was finally out. Lisbeth’s gaze was strong and proud. I thought I could see a glimpse of the woman she could become one day.
“What’s wrong?” she said, catching the sadness behind my smile.
Just then, a door creaked open in the hallway. Lisbeth and I both turned to look. She was probably expecting Xander, but I held my breath as I waited for Logan to turn the corner. Despite her request to leave him out of it, calling Logan had been my first move when I made it back into town.
He’d gotten to my house an hour before Lisbeth and had been listening in from my bedroom.
“I have to tell you something,” I began as two long shadows stretched along the hallway...
Two?
Lisbeth gasped as Logan appeared, but he wasn’t alone. It was my turn to be surprised when I recognized the second figure standing behind him.
Chapter 10
“Liam,” Lisbeth whispered.
I stood up. My entire body went numb.
Lisbeth eyes darted between Logan and her brother. Then, they turned onto me, filled with the undeniable hurt of someone freshly betrayed.
How could you? she seemed to say.
“Lizzie, I had no idea Liam was going to be here.”
“But Logan? You knew he was here, didn’t you? That was what that sound was from earlier.”
I had to hang my head.
Lisbeth scoffed. “Unbelievable,” she muttered.
Liam stepped loudly into the kitchen, filling up the entire room with his presence. “Whatever Carmen did, forget about it. Personally, I’m glad. You should’ve told me the moment you got into town.”
“Why?” Lisbeth cried suddenly. She jerked up from her chair to face her brother, standing a head shorter than him but emanating just as much ferocity. Both Olsens were black-haired and lithe as panthers, and it was just a matter of waiting to see which one would get their face torn off first.
“You came here for safety. You admitted that yourself. Did you think you could protect yourself?” He cast a disdainful eye over her petite frame. “Did you think Carmen could protect you?”
I looked away when he waved in my direction and caught Logan’s eye.
“I can take care of myself. I’m nine—”
Liam threw up his hands. “You’re nineteen! I forgot! You ran away practically every year since you were twelve, you were dumb enough to get hooked on drugs and tricked into becoming a whore, but now that you’re nineteen, I guess I can trust you.”
Lisbeth took a step back, flinching as if she’d been slapped.
I reached for her shoulder. “Liam, don’t you think you’re being a little harsh?”
“Don’t.” He shook his head, clenching his jaw. “Just don’t, Carmen. You’ve done enough.”
Movement in the hallway caught my eye. We all turned to look at Xander hovering in the doorway.
“Why’s everybody yelling?”
He scanned the entire room, and I tried to imagine what we all must’ve looked like to him, a bunch of adults standing defensively, either pale with guilt or red with rage. Xander’s eyes lingered on Liam, who was struggling to release the frown on his face.
I was the first to break the silence. “We were just talking, Xander. Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”
I took him by the hand and guided him back to his bedroom. The glow from his bedside lamp was like warm honey, and once I shut the door behind us, it was as if we’d entered a different dimension. Xander climbed into bed, content in the relative silence, but I could still sense the trio arguing in hushed tones back in the kitchen. The air was like static, charged by the spark of their anger.
“Mom,” he began when I sat down next to him, “is Lisbeth in a gang?”
“No, she’s not.”
“Are gangs bad?”
I smoothed the hair off of his forehead, wondering how much he’d heard and how much of it he’d be able to understand. “Yes. Gangs are bad. Only bad guys are in gangs.”
Xander appeared to have satisfied his curiosity. I helped move the stuffed dinosaur on his nightstand into his reach, and he fell asleep clutching it to his chest.
I walked back into the kitchen to find all three in the same exact positions.
“I’m taking you to Noah,” Liam hissed.
“No!”
I raised my hands. “Guys, I’m sorry to have to break this up, but my kid’s asleep now. You need to go.”
Liam didn’t even look at me. He raised his eyebrows at Lisbeth. “Well? Hurry it up. Let’s go.” He stalked out of the room, stomping away with the intent of a man who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.
The corners of Lisbeth’s mouth turned downward. She looked deflated, exhausted from all the arguing. “Thanks a lot, Carmen,” she muttered before escaping through the front door.
It was just me and Logan now. I rubbed my eyes, suddenly craving sleep. I opened them to find that he’d crossed the room to stand in front of me.
“How’s he doing?”
It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Xander. I exhaled loudly.
“He asked me some questions about gangs,” I said. “That’s pretty unacceptable if you ask me. He has school tomorrow. What if he tells the kids in his class that his mommy has friends in a gang?”
Logan cringed. “Shit. I’m so sorry, Car.”
I looked over Logan’s head at the ceiling, exasperated. “It was my fault for inviting you. That’s on me. But you should’ve at least let me know that Liam was coming.”
“I had no idea it was going to be like this,” Logan said.
“Look.” I paused to rub my temples. I had too many feelings rushing around inside of me, and I was too tired to make sense of them all. “Just go,” I finally said.
“Okay,” Logan said softly. He touched my elbow, perhaps hoping for a hug or even a kiss. When I didn’t respond, he began moving toward the door. “Then, goodnight, I guess.”
The door clicked shut quietly when he left. I dragged myself into the bathroom to wash my face. My bed rushed up to meet me as I collapsed into it, and I fell asleep to the sound of a motorcycle engine fading into the distance.
Chapter 11
Aspen smiled from her booth when she saw me walk into the R&R diner. I hurriedly sat down and ordered a cup of coffee.
“How did you find out about this place?” I asked. I’d been in Canyon City practically my whole life and never seen it. The waitresses here wore starched shirts with red gingham collars, a far cry from the plain printed tee shirts we wore at Buddy’s. The floor was checkerboard tile, and any furniture that wasn’t trimmed in chrome was slapped with a vinyl record motif. I could imagine my grandmother frequenting a place like this when she was my age.
“I considered working here at one point,” Aspen said. “But anyway, how have you been?”
She watched me a little too carefully. I tried to keep my expression neutral.
“Fine. Just working and taking care of Xander. The usual.”
Aspen nodded, sucking in her lips. “And L
ogan?”
“Haven’t seen him.”
Aspen fiddled with a sugar packet and bared her teeth. She looked agitated.
“He asked you to check up on me, didn’t he?”
She sighed loudly. “Okay fine, he did.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that he thought things were going really well, but the thing with Liam and Lisbeth at your house happened—”
I snorted. “So Liam told you about that?”
“—and ever since then, nada.”
The waitress came back with two coffees and a double order of hash browns for Aspen. We waited until she walked back into the kitchen.
“You knew that Logan was an undercover agent for the FBI, didn’t you?”
Aspen smiled nervously. “Yeah.”
“It would’ve been a nice thing to tell a girl with an eight-year-old kid, don’t you think?”
“I thought he could tell you himself. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
“He’s investigating gangs and drugs. That’s not a big deal to you?”
Aspen slumped down. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said. I sipped my coffee and glanced out the window. I could see my reflection in the glass. My haphazard bun was already slipping loose, and there were dark smudges under my eyes. If Logan could’ve passed for my age, I could’ve passed for his. I licked stray coffee off of my lips and cleared my throat. “I broke things off with him, anyway.”
“What?”
I’d sent the text just this morning, in fact. I’d only felt guilty about it for a second. I knew that if I did it in person, Logan would’ve flashed those puppy dog eyes of his and who knew what could’ve happened next?
I played with the stack of beaded bracelets on my arm. “Things were getting too complicated. The sex was good and all, but the issue with Lisbeth...”
“What issue with Lisbeth?”
“You know, the whole thing with the gang and the prostitution and the drugs? We were trying to help her together, but it’s just too dangerous for me. I had to cut myself loose.”
A strange expression passed over Aspen’s face. She looked like I’d just punched a baby in front of her. “Prostitution?” she choked out. “Drugs?”
Biker Justice: A Skull Kings MC Novella Page 7
