by Sarina Bowen
“That’s her line,” Jenny says quietly. “And I know Rayanne is angry, and has every right to be angry. Growing up with a father like that…” She sighs. “But at some point we have to take responsibility for our choices. And it’s taken Rayanne a nice long time to reach that point.”
I agree, but saying so aloud would feel disloyal.
“Is Benito treating you well? I assume he is, if you’re staying in his apartment.”
“Yes,” I say, and it comes out sounding dreamy. “Benito is a great guy. Seeing him again will give me some…closure.” My voice actually cracks on that last word because I’m actually thinking orgasms as I say it.
Jenny snorts. “I hope you’re having a lot of closure. Now I have to go play poker with the biddies.”
“May all your cards be aces.”
“I wish. Love you, Skye. Take care of yourself.”
“Oh I will.” It’s the one thing I learned really young. “I always do.”
We sign off, and I allow myself a nice hour of lounging around on Benito’s sofa, drinking coffee, and eating a bagel that Roderick baked. They’re even good the second day if you toast them.
It’s tempting to file that wisdom away for later. It’s just that I don’t know what later means to me and Benito. And it’s too big a question to solve while I’m naked in his bathrobe. So I get up and shower. When I check my email, there’s a demand from my boss inside.
Skye—I need you to call City Hall and get a quote from the parks department on the proposal for reduced public swimming pool hours this summer. It’s going into a noon segment about the mayor’s address last night. And I may need you to edit an evening segment later. Stand by.
I read the message twice and then let out a little moan of dismay. Jenny is right, of course. I did this guy a favor yesterday, and now he’s come back asking for much more. If I’d stood up to him yesterday, he might not have taken advantage of my vacation time again.
So I craft a reply. I’m still on vacation, with limited internet service. I can make the call to City Hall, and I will forward the results. But I can’t possibly edit video for you without my office laptop. You’ll have to take care of that yourself.
Then I hit send, feeling brave and a little reckless.
My victory is short-lived. As soon as I hang up with City Hall, there’s an email waiting for me. McCracken says: Your “vacation” is unfortunately timed, and let me remind you that it was caused by your own actions. I’ve arranged for you to edit at our Burlington affiliate. They’ll free up a workstation for you this afternoon.
He is unbelievable. And he’ll never stop. The only way this gets better is if he gets either promoted or fired. Neither of those seems likely.
As I stare at our email exchange a final message pops up. It contains an address in Burlington. And nothing else. Not even a thank you.
I lie down on Benito’s sofa and contemplate the thick wooden beams overhead. Someone put them up there over a hundred years ago. And then someone else laid thousands of bricks, somehow building a wall that was straight and strong and lasted a century already.
A bricklayer couldn’t be called in to work remotely on his vacation days. Maybe I should be a bricklayer.
The burner phone chimes. For one little second I squeeze my eyes shut and don’t reach for it. In the moment before I read Raye’s text, I can still imagine that she might tell me everything is going to be okay. That Gage and Sparks are safely behind bars, and that she’s been cleared of almost killing Zara.
But I know imagining it won’t make it true. Benito may have superpowers but he only left for work a couple of hours ago.
When I peek at the phone, there isn’t a message. It’s a photograph of two men in an unfamiliar black car. The driver is a rough-looking guy I’ve never seen before. I zoom in and make note of a couple more details. There’s a sticker for a BBQ joint on the back of the car. Also, in the background of the shot, I see something familiar. It’s the curve of the red clay track down at the high school.
My pulse kicks up. Rayanne is near the high school. She’s in town.
The burner phone rings in my hand, startling me. “Hi,” I squeak after fumbling for the talk button. “What is this?”
“That’s Sparks behind the wheel. But—shit. I need you to delete this. I’m cropping it a little differently. Delete it, okay?”
“Why?”
“Because it reveals too much! Jesus. I need you to give the cropped one to Benito. I’m trying to be helpful. He needs to know that I’m not part of their thing.”
“By ‘thing’ do you mean the smuggling of fentanyl?”
“Sheesh. You’re too nosy.”
“I’m a journalist. You promised me a story.”
“Yeah, that was a mistake. I thought it would take me twelve hours to hand over money shots of Sparks taking delivery of a drop, and Hot Cop would arrest him immediately. Boom. Crisis averted. But nothing is ever simple.”
No, it isn’t. “So why are you close enough to Sparks to get a picture of his car?”
“I’m staying with this guy I know. He’s a hookup I met at goat yoga in Springfield. So today I’m just drinking my tea and minding my own business when that car pulls up outside the house, and Sparks and my father get out. I about shit myself thinking they knew where I was. But they went to the house on the corner to drop something off.”
“What was it?” I ask.
“I don’t know and that’s probably a good thing,” she says quickly. “Nothing good. But when I stopped panicking, I ran for my phone and took that shot as they pulled away. I haven’t seen that car before, so I thought Hot Cop would like to know what they’re driving these days.”
“Okay.” Maybe he will? I really don’t know how tracking drug dealers works. But something she said is bothering me. “Your dad is in this car?”
“Yeah, if you zoom in on the photo, you can almost make him out.”
“You thought your dad showed up to kill you?”
She’s quiet a second. “I don’t think my dad would do that. But he doesn’t know that I’m willing to send him to jail.”
“Oh.” That’s heavy.
“He never gave me a choice, Skye. He set me up. He made me part of his little smuggling scheme. I don’t think he gets that Sparks will kill me. That man has no soul.”
The same could be said of Gage. I honestly have no idea how Rayanne walks around knowing that her father is an evil cretin. No wonder she spent most of the last twelve years in other places. “Why did you come back?” I ask her suddenly.
“To Vermont?”
“Yeah.”
“Because, unlike you, I actually like Vermont. It was my home for eighteen years. I thought I could come back and live my own life, you know? But it was a huge mistake. I regret it now. And as soon as I can figure out how to do it, I’m out of here again. As you should be, too. Just as soon as you get Hot Cop out of your system. I assume that’s going well?”
I make a grunt of general acknowledgment.
“Good. Now promise me you’ll delete the first pic?”
“I promise,” I say immediately. “As long as you send me the other one.” It’s easy to delete a photo from a phone. But it’s not possible to delete it from my brain. I already know I’ll spend the rest of the day trying to decide whether or not to tell Benito that I know where Rayanne is staying. I can picture that intersection near the high school—there are only one or two houses with that oblique view of the track.
“You’ll have it in two minutes. Bye, Raffie.”
“Bye,” I say. We hang up, and I wonder again how this ends.
I drove to Vermont five days ago thinking that my life was more or less in order. Now everything is a mess. Rayanne is hiding from the police, Benito is confusing the heck out of me with his hot body and his hotter kisses. And my job is worse than I thought.
Not only is that a lot to take in, but those things can’t all turn out well at the same time. Either I betray Rayanne or l
ie to Benito. If I keep my job I lose the only man I ever wanted.
The phone chimes with a new text. It’s the same photo, cropped down tightly to the roof of the car. There’s nothing in the background now but some pavement and a strip of winter-browned grass and a melting lump of snow. It could be anywhere.
I dutifully forward it to Benito and delete the other one.
Then I try to figure out how I’m getting to Burlington this afternoon to do McCracken’s job for him.
Thirty
Benito
When I pull into the parking lot at the Gin Mill, I’m just in time to spot Skye exiting the coffee shop. I give the horn a little tap, and she glances up at me. And then her face breaks into a big smile.
And, boom! That smile vibrates in my body like a good clap of thunder. She pivots and hurries over to the car, and I roll down the window.
“You’re here!” she exclaims. “It’s not quitting time, is it?”
I shake my head. “No, but I’m between obligations. And I have something to celebrate, so let’s go out for lunch. How about Worthy Burger?”
“Where?” Skye looks blank.
“Woman, it’s time for some Vermont aversion therapy. Get in this car.”
Her face breaks into another grin. “Let’s make a deal. You drive me to the car-rental place on Whiting Road. I’ll have lunch with you right after.”
“You’re renting a car?”
She rolls her pretty eyes. “I have to go back to Burlington for work. Don’t judge.”
“I would never. And I’ll take you to the place. Let’s go.”
Skye climbs into the passenger seat, and I point the car toward Whiting Road. And then I tell her all about Worthy Burger, and why we should drive a half hour out of our way for lunch. “I can’t sample their yummy beers, sadly, because the work day isn’t over,” I finish. “But the burgers are heaven. Oh—and there’s bacon jam!”
“Bacon jam?”
“Trust me. And you have to try all their weird pickles.”
“I can’t wait.”
When we were young, I never got to take Skye out. Neither of us ever had any money to burn on restaurant food. “There are a hundred places I want to take you. This is just the beginning. We have to eat Mexican food in Burlington. And Japanese eel in Chester.”
Skye groans. “Well, thanks, because now I’m starving. What are we celebrating?”
“That photo you sent. I saw that same car this morning with a different drug dealer inside it. Basically Rayanne just handed me a piece of the puzzle. I can tie Sparks to the midlevel guy with that photo.”
“See?” Skye says. “Rayanne is trying to help. She’s not a criminal.”
I reach over and squeeze her knee. “I know, baby. But Rayanne isn’t out of the woods, yet. Where’d she get that photo?”
“She took it.”
“Yeah, but where?”
There is a beat of silence in the passenger seat, so I glance to my right and find her looking a little uncertain. “I don’t know,” Skye says.
Hmm. I’ll have to revisit this question later. “Where am I taking you? Here’s Whiting Road. But I don’t even know where there’s a rental car place.”
“Oh—Zara told me it’s inside the Toyota Dealership. I called ahead to make a reservation.”
Just as she says those words, the building comes into view. And I’m suddenly uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Because my recent hookup manages the service department at the Toyota dealership. Her father owns the place.
Jesus lord. How do I get into these situations?
I pull into a parking spot, where we can both see inside the giant glass wall of the showroom. It’s a nice building, actually. It’s recently built. I’ve never been here. Why would I?
“Be right back,” Skye says, opening the door and hopping out before I can decide if I should say something.
Skye takes long strides toward the door. Inside, she asks for help from a dark-haired woman behind a reception desk. I don’t see my hookup anywhere, thank God. I make a private vow to return those calls on my phone and officially end things when I’m back at my desk in a couple of hours.
The dark-haired woman directs Skye toward another desk, where a man waits, handing her a form. And I’ve almost relaxed when a door opens from the back, and Jill Sullivan steps out not ten feet away from Skye.
Oh my fucking God.
I have the brief, flickering hope that the two women won’t remember each other. But who am I kidding? Jill’s face falls the moment she spots Skye. She says…something. It might be, Can I help you? Or maybe, Oh, it’s you. Because Skye stiffens.
Jill marches toward a board hung with different sets of keys. She stares at it for a second as if she can’t remember what it’s for. Then she grabs a key off the board, whirls around and tosses it onto the counter in front of Skye.
At this point I’m already out of my car and striding towards the dealership door. Jill’s mouth is set in a grim line as I enter and cross the big room. And when she looks up and sees me, her face doesn’t even register surprise.
“Hi,” I say as gently as possible when I reach the women.
Jill is already locked and loaded and ready to fire. “Now I know why you haven’t answered my texts,” she snaps. “How gracious of you to explain that you’d moved on.”
“Jill,” I warn. “Jesus.”
She’s right to be angry, but only up to a point. Jill and I are just a booty-call to each other, and I was very clear about that right from the start. Skye blew back into town less than a week ago, and I’ve been a little busy trying to figure out how to keep her stepsister out of jail and put her ex-step-father in jail and keep my own head screwed on in the process.
Yet it’s true that I haven’t given Jill a single thought since Skye showed up. And it was rude to ignore her texts.
And maybe I am an asshole, because it’s not Jill who I’m worried about right now. Skye won’t even look at me. She signs her name at the bottom of a rental form with a violent stroke, and pushes it back toward Jill.
“I’m sorry,” I try. It’s not even clear to me whom I’m apologizing to. I’m sorry that I was dismissive of Jill. And I’m sorry that Skye is here to witness it.
“You’re not,” Jill argues. “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t bring your all-time-favorite piece of ass into my store. And you wouldn’t have the balls to look surprised that I’m offended.”
“Hey, that’s not what—”
“Save it,” Jill snaps. “I should have broken it off with you already. It's not like you’re interested in me unless we’re both naked.”
I can feel Skye’s shock beside me. She takes a step sideways, as if she’s trying put distance between herself and me.
“Well…” I choke out. Shit! No matter what I say, one woman will be mad. “I never lied to you,” is what I go with.
“I suppose not,” Jill concedes in a softer voice. “I only put up with it because you’re so good in the sack. Kyla honey,” she says with a sneer as she turns her gaze to Skye.
“It's Skylar,” I correct through gritted teeth.
“Oh right. Skylar. Be sure to ask him to bring home a pair of handcuffs. He likes those a lot.”
Skye lets out a shocked gasp.
Jill shrugs, then points at the back door. “It’s the silver RAV4 right outside. Bring it back full.”
Skye grabs the key and breaks for the door. Not like I blame her.
I’m left with Jill, who’s also gritting her teeth and looking like she wants to punch something. Probably me.
“This didn’t go down like you think,” I tell her. I’d never pit two women against each other.
“Really? You didn’t forget my number the second she showed up in town after ten years?”
“Twelve.”
“But who's counting?” Jill asks, and her voice is sad.
“I never meant to be a dick.”
“I know, okay? Jesus.” Her eyes are getting red. “And
I didn’t mean to break out my eighteen-year-old mean girl again. But I was startled to see her, and I’ve been wondering where you were.”
“Ah, well. I apologize.” Again. “I didn’t use my head. You and I probably should have just, uh, stayed friends.”
Jill grabs a tissue out of a box on the desk and dabs her eyes. “We were never friends, Benny. I was just a girl who had it bad for you and never knew when to cut her losses.”
Ouch. “I’m sorry, then, that I’m just a dude who never paid enough attention.”
“Go.” She sniffs. “Your girl needs you to do some groveling. I don’t think she knew you really are a bimbo. Like your little niece says you are.”
Ouch again. “Okay. We’ll catch up later.”
“No, we probably won’t,” is her response.
I go out the other door to look for Skye. But there’s no silver RAV4 out there and no Skye. So I jog around the side of the building and look up Whiting Road.
The silver RAV4 is making haste up the street without me.
Thirty-One
Twelve Years Ago
Benito is very late.
But Skye keeps the faith. She hasn’t stopped thinking about the kiss they shared. The first half hour of waiting passes easily as she replays the softness of his lips and the heat in his eyes.
It had been magical.
She is wearing a dress that Jenny sent her. Shortly after Benito invited her to the dance, Skye had a rare opportunity to call her aunt. Skye’s mom accidentally left her phone behind when she took her shift at the diner. So Skye helped herself to a ten minute call, even though her mom would inevitably notice that her minutes had been used up.
But Skye needed advice, and Jenny was happy to hear from her. “Let me send you a strapless cocktail dress from Ann Taylor,” her aunt had said. “I bought it for my twentieth wedding anniversary.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly borrow it,” Skye had said. She didn’t want the responsibility. And anyway, prom dresses were supposed to be youthful and flirtatious. She doubted Jenny’s dress would look like anything the other girls were wearing.
