by Sidney Bell
He was what the staff called a chronic recidivist—someone who worked his program, spouted all the right words to get out, and then reoffended without thinking twice. Ghost had been in and out of Woodbury a half-dozen times since he turned thirteen, and he was well liked because he was laid-back, dryly amusing, and didn’t start shit. He was a hard one to get a rise out of, apparently, but once he was risen, he was risen.
Like the time that—rumor went—someone tried to climb in bed with him in the middle of the night and Ghost punctured one of the dude’s testicles with a shiv made out of a toothbrush handle, then tore the dude’s throat open with his teeth.
So yeah, everyone liked Ghost, but no one fucked with him.
* * *
The first thing Church noticed about Ghost?
Ghost was weird.
When unsupervised with the other boys, he was sarcastic and watchful and hard-eyed. In group therapy he was thoughtful and sincere about mastering his issues—which Church never fully got a grasp on. When he was with staff, he was sweet and well-behaved, and when he was with Church and Tobias in their shared bedroom, he was irreverent and sly and downright devious.
The second thing he noticed about Ghost?
None of those early observations mattered, because it was all an act.
In fact, even months later, there were only two things about Ghost that Church thought were real.
For one, Ghost had admitted that he was as likely to have men drag him behind dumpsters to beat the crap out of him for looking like a girl as he was to have men drag him behind dumpsters for sex. In case of the first, Ghost never went anywhere without at least one blade; in case of the second, he never went anywhere without condoms.
“It’s the duality of man,” Ghost told Church one day in that deep, rich voice that was the only blatantly masculine thing about him besides his dick. “Love in one hand, death in the other, although I’m hard-pressed to say which is which.”
“Very wise,” Church replied, not knowing what the hell the duality of man meant.
“It’s my wisdom that got me here, Churchy.” Ghost folded his hands across his chest like a statute of some religious gob. “I’m the patron saint of prostitutes.”
Three guesses what got Ghost sent to Woodbury.
The other real thing was the nightmares. Ghost had them more often than not, and while Tobias might’ve been a deep sleeper, Church wasn’t, and he got in the habit of keeping clean, balled-up socks by his bed so when Ghost started making those helpless whimpers in his sleep, Church had something convenient to throw. After Ghost sprang upright, Church would say, “Okay?” and Ghost would flip him off, and they’d both go back to sleep.
Church was pretty sure Ghost didn’t consider them friends.
Church did, though.
* * *
Since there was as much manipulation pumping through Ghost’s veins as blood, he showed Church all the shortcuts that convinced the staff that you were learning how to be a superb human being. Tobias, on the other hand, knew how to milk the system for real opportunity, and after a while, Church wasn’t sure how much of his virtuous behavior was an act designed to get him out, and how much was actual progress.
Ghost was in and out of Woodbury three more times over the next three years. In between visits he’d occasionally send postcards scrawled with dirty limericks or little pornographic sketches that Church was shocked made it through the postal system.
When Tobias left, though, it was for good, and if it weren’t for the twice-weekly letters that arrived like clockwork, Church might’ve ended up backsliding.
But it was enough to know he hadn’t been forgotten.
2016
Present Day
Funny that he could spend almost four years at Woodbury without suffocating, and now, just days from release, he was having a hard time breathing.
“What do you mean you’re in Colorado?” he asked.
“Red Rocks, man,” Nick said over the phone. He sounded contrite at least, not that it was gonna help. “My brother insisted.”
Church’s knuckles whitened as his fingers clamped down on the privacy partition between the pay phones. Next to his pinky finger was an anatomically improbable sketch of a penis in magic marker. Underneath was written DIC. Every single time Church had used this phone, he’d wanted to track down the artist to ask if he’d been interrupted before he could finish or if he simply couldn’t spell.
He took a deep breath and counted to ten, thinking about the possible consequences of losing his cool, all the things that Ghost would say if he were still at Woodbury. It was habit now when he got angry: one trained monkey coming up.
It was probably a DIC move to be pissed at a guy for caving to a dying brother’s desire to see some stupid band, but this sure screwed Church over.
Now that he had finished his program here at Woodbury, Church was supposed to be ready for reintegration into the community. That meant parole meetings and outreach and support and a host of individualized requirements to prove that he was holding up his end of the bargain.
One of which was that he wasn’t allowed to live alone yet. He could leave, but only if he had someone to stay with who would be a “grounding influence.”
Tobias was living at home so he could afford college, so he wasn’t an option. Church hadn’t even bothered asking if Ghost counted. In fact, other than Nick, who used to be a staff member at Woodbury and now occasionally lent his couch to the odd graduate, Church didn’t know any grounding influences.
Well, except for him.
“I’m sorry, Church,” Nick said. “I can try to make some calls for you, but I doubt I’ll find anything anytime soon.”
“Forget it,” Church said. “Thanks anyway. Sorry about your brother.”
He hung up, then stood there for a long minute, hand still resting on the black plastic receiver. He wasn’t thinking so much as giving himself time to adjust to what he would have to do. Behind him, from the line, came a couple of grumbles.
“Fuck off,” Church said over his shoulder.
Ricky Jimenez, fourteen-year-old gang member and all-around shit-starter, called, “You talking to me, esé?”
“Yeah, Menudo, do something about it,” Church replied, but it was half-hearted and Jimenez snickered—he knew Church wasn’t gonna do jack when he was only three days from release.
Assuming he could find a damn couch to sleep on.
“Piss or get off the pot, Church,” one of the staff members said, and that was an order he couldn’t get around, so he lifted the receiver again, ignoring Jimenez’s groan at another delay.
His fingers dialed without hesitation. It’d been years since he’d called this number, but it’d be in his brain until the day he died. It was engraved on his bones by this point. In his whole life, it was the only number he’d ever had in his pocket that he’d known, without a doubt, he could call for help and wouldn’t be slapped down.
Of course, that’d been before Church fucked up.
His throat felt about the size of a drinking straw as the phone rang. He wasn’t sure what to hope for—an answer? Voicemail? An automated message from an operator explaining that the cell phone he was trying to reach had been dropped into a toilet because the owner would rather buy a new one than talk to Church?
But there was a soft click, and then there was that voice.
Painfully familiar. Warm as ever. It went through him like a knife through warm butter. Church squeezed his eyes closed.
“It’s Church,” he said, forcing the words out. He sounded rough and stiff and pretty much like an asshole. “I’m in a bit of jam. I, uh, wouldn’t ask, but.” But there’s no one else. He didn’t say that last bit, because that was a little more pathetic than he wanted to be today. Besides, it wasn’t like it was a secret.
And Miller Quinn, whose kindness Church had repaid with humiliation and violence and nearly five years’ worth of silence, said, “What do you need?”
Acknowledgments
This book has been the product of many hours of work, and not all of that work was mine. I’d like to thank Connie Peckman and Sasha Gore for reading the whole thing about fifty times and spending hours (literally hours) discussing character motivation and plot holes and the necessity of the many descriptions of Embry’s butt in tailored suits. (Necessary. That’s the answer. Very necessary.)
Thanks to Dave Macrae for crucial technical advice—hopefully you won’t be in a crowded doctor’s office the next time I call to find out the best way to restrain someone against their will for hours at a time, although if that doesn’t teach people not to eavesdrop, nothing will.
Much gratitude goes to Libby Murphy, my editor, and the whole team at Carina Press for giving the book a chance and then working so tirelessly to make it shine.
Thanks go to my family as well, for their endless support.
Any mistakes I’ve made are mine alone.
Also available from Sidney Bell
and Carina Press
Watch for the first book in Sidney Bell’s new romantic suspense trilogy.
Coming soon!
About the Author
Sidney Bell lives in the drizzly Pacific Northwest with her amazingly supportive husband. She received her MFA degree in creative writing in 2010, considered aiming for the Great American Novel and then promptly started writing fanfiction instead. More responsible grown-ups eventually convinced her to try writing something more fiscally responsible, though, which was how she ended up here. When she’s not writing, she’s playing violent video games, yelling at the television during hockey games or supporting her local library by turning books in late. Bad Judgment is her first novel. Visit her online at www.sidneybell.com.
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ISBN-13: 9781488020124
Bad Judgment
Copyright © 2016 by Miriam Macrae
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
