by Brenda Novak
An eighth-grade girl entered her office with an eye infection. Natasha treated that, then cleaned a large scrape on the leg of a boy who’d tried to show his buddies that he could free solo up the side of the gymnasium.
As the morning progressed, Natasha kept checking her phone but received no answer from her ex.
Ace was trying to punish her, of course. He was sulking and, no doubt, hoping to make the days he had Lucas as difficult as possible.
Could at least one thing go her way? she wondered. And then, as she was getting her purse before going to lunch, a text finally came in.
It wasn’t from Ace. And she was relieved to see that it wasn’t from Grady, either, although Grady seemed to be the Amos brother who was the most insistent that she get in touch right away.
It was from Mack: I know you’re probably at work, and I hate to bother you there, but...do you know where your mother is?
* * *
Natasha couldn’t continue to function normally, not in the middle of what was happening now. She’d thought when she moved to Silver Springs that most of the wreckage in her life would stay behind her, that she’d be able to settle in and rebuild. She hadn’t expected to face yet another crisis, especially so soon, but this situation was serious enough that she went to Aiyana and told her privately that something had come up and she needed to take the rest of the week off.
As expected, Aiyana was understanding and supportive—so understanding and supportive that it brought tears to Natasha’s eyes.
“This isn’t about the paternity test, is it?” Aiyana asked, her forehead furrowed in concern when she saw Natasha’s emotional reaction.
“No. That didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped, but at least the man Lucas believes to be his father is really his father. That’s a good thing for him, I guess. It wouldn’t be easy to switch on him at this point.”
“I suppose that’s true. But something is obviously very wrong. His father isn’t being...threatening or...or anything like that, is he?”
Natasha managed a wobbly smile. “No. He’s not being nice, but he isn’t the one who’s causing this particular problem. This is...this is something else.” She didn’t want to go into it, didn’t want her boss to know she had a mother like Anya for fear it would reflect badly on her. That had been one of the benefits of becoming an adult; she and her mother no longer traveled or lived as a pair, so she’d been able to escape the stigma of Anya’s drug use and instability and build an entirely different kind of reputation for herself.
She also didn’t want Aiyana to suspect she was one of those people who went from one emotional upheaval to another, or created a problem if one didn’t exist. It was crazy that she’d lived such a consistent, uneventful life of study and professional pursuit for so long and then—wham—everything had crumbled around her and was still falling apart.
Fortunately, Aiyana didn’t press for details. Maybe she could tell that Natasha wasn’t yet ready to talk about it. “Well, whatever’s going on, I wish you the best with it,” she said.
“Thank you. I should have everything sorted out by Monday. I’m so sorry to do this to you, especially now, when I’ve barely started. I hope it doesn’t make you question your decision to hire me.”
“Of course not. We’re not that busy here at the school during the summer, so we’ll be fine. Take the time you need.”
She thanked Aiyana, gathered her stuff and left forty-five minutes early, as soon as the bell rang signaling the end of classes.
She had a long drive ahead of her, and she still needed to pack.
* * *
Mack had managed to grab a few hours of sleep, but after checking on his father and learning that J.T.’s condition hadn’t changed, he’d gone to the shop to help Grady and Rod stay on top of business.
Grady was working the desk today. Rod had insisted he stay away from the work going on in the back end. Grady had gotten even less sleep than Mack and was too bleary-eyed to do some of the detailing he usually did. So Mack had donned a jumpsuit and a mask, stepped into one of the paint stalls and painted a Dodge Charger a mustard yellow simply because the owner wanted to soup up his paint job, and a white Subaru that had been repaired after an accident.
He’d just pulled off his gloves and his respirator mask when Grady came out. “We closed for the day?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Grady replied.
“It’s after five.”
“I know, but Chase Hallow called. He needs to pick up his truck tonight. I said I’d wait for him.”
“When will he be here?”
“Ten minutes or so.”
Mack stripped off his jumpsuit, hung it on a peg and used the sleeve of his T-shirt to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. “I can stay and take care of Chase. You head home and get some sleep.”
“I’m not going home after this. I’m going to the hospital.”
Mack pulled off his booties. “Dylan and Cheyenne have been there all day, and Aaron is on his way to spell them. Why not grab a few hours while you have the chance?”
“Because I can’t sleep. I don’t want to sleep. Not until I know Anya isn’t going to get away with what she’s done. Have you heard from Natasha?”
Mack had texted Natasha earlier, but he’d received no response. “Not yet. You?”
“Nothing. She knows what her mother’s like. I can’t believe she’d ignore us. That she wouldn’t care about what her mother did to our father. That’s why I’m so pissed off.”
The memory of Natasha straddling him in bed, her hair tumbling down over her bare breasts as she moved, flashed through Mack’s mind, and he knew he’d never be able to be impartial. What he felt for Natasha would eventually pit him against the brothers he loved so much. There was no way to avoid it. “It’s not that she doesn’t care, bro. She’s in a difficult position.”
“Yeah, well, so’s Dad. He’s the one fighting for his life, remember? Granted, he hasn’t been much of a father to us, but he’s got as much right to live as anybody.”
“He’s going to pull through,” Mack said and hoped to God it was true.
“You don’t know that.”
“Well, he’s still breathing, isn’t he? It’s too soon to dig his grave. So lighten up on Natasha, will ya?”
“Don’t you care about Dad at all?” he asked.
“Of course I care,” Mack retorted. “I’m just trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“No, you’re not. You’re already trying to protect her.”
“Maybe I am. But what else can I do? Her mother hasn’t been any better than our father, as far as parenting goes, but Anya’s Natasha’s only family.”
“Anya’s guilty of attempted murder—and the attempted part could go away any minute,” Grady snapped and whirled around, slamming the door to the front office as he went back in.
Mack pulled his phone from his pocket and navigated to his messages. I take it from your silence that you DO know where she is, he wrote.
She says she didn’t do it.
Mack frowned when he saw Natasha’s reply. Would she tell you if she did?
Twenty-Two
Natasha rolled down her window, hoping the rush of air would keep her awake as she drove north. Interstate 5 served as a conduit between Southern California and Northern California, the two greatest population hubs in the state, but there was nothing on either side of her, except for long stretches of agriculture and giant dairy farms. The area between Bakersfield and Stockton certainly wasn’t what a nonresident would picture when they thought of California. There were no beaches nearby, no large cities, no theme parks—just an occasional cluster of gas stations, fast-food places and a cheap motel or two huddled around an off-ramp.
Definitely lean pickings, Natasha thought as she pulled back onto the freeway after filling up with gas.
Given all
the angst and the lost sleep, she was exhausted. She would’ve asked Anya to take a turn at the wheel, except she didn’t trust her mother to be in any better condition—or to be able to battle through her fatigue the way Natasha could. All Anya had done since she arrived was sleep and, when she was awake, fend off Natasha’s questions about J.T. by claiming she didn’t remember.
Natasha slanted a suspicious glance at Anya, who had her head on a pillow wedged between the passenger seat and the door. Was she telling the truth? Did she really not remember? Or was it that she didn’t dare say? She’d never been particularly violent, but she’d never been particularly honest, either. Mack had indicated that the fights between his father and her mother had been growing worse. Maybe Anya had been high when she arrived at the house and was so consumed with jealousy after J.T. asked her to move out that she—
Natasha purposely guided her mind away from what might’ve come next. She refused to imagine her mother shooting anyone, let alone Mack’s father.
It was after six, but the sun didn’t go down until nine this time of year. For now, it was still a fireball bearing down on her side of the car. She rolled up her window to make the air-conditioning more effective and because the dairy farm they were passing stank so badly she couldn’t bear it.
Nothing but straight, flat highway lay in front of her. She risked a glance at her phone, which was on the console, wondering if there’d been any news with regards to J.T. From what she could tell, she had no missed calls or messages. Ace had never even bothered to respond to her inquiry about Lucas, which troubled her.
Figuring she’d deal with trying to get that relationship on a better footing when she got back, she tried to take some pleasure in the fact that he was unwittingly doing her a favor. This whole thing would only be worse if she had to worry about Lucas being involved in it.
An hour later, when she checked again, she noticed that her mother’s eyes were finally open. Anya was staring dispassionately at the scenery, or lack thereof, flying past them.
“Feeling better?” Natasha turned down the radio, which she’d been playing extra loud in an attempt to stay alert.
“No,” Anya said dully.
“Do you need something to drink? Eat? I bought you some chicken tenders when I stopped to get gas.”
“I’m not hungry.”
She had eaten hardly anything since she arrived, but Natasha could understand why. She went through stretches like that when she was using heavily. Sleeping all the time was another sign. “Then can we talk?”
“No,” her mother said, wearily, and closed her eyes again as though she’d go back to sleep.
“Mom, we need to use the time we’ve got.”
“To do what?” she asked.
“To get prepared!”
“I don’t want you to ask me again if I shot J.T. I don’t know how many times I can tell you that I don’t remember.”
Before she’d said she didn’t shoot J.T. It was the other details that were fuzzy. Now she couldn’t remember that, either?
A fresh surge of anxiety caused the headache Natasha had been battling all day to pound even harder. “Why don’t we talk about who might’ve done it, then? Is there anyone J.T. has been having trouble with? Anyone he hasn’t been getting along with, other than you?” she added dryly.
Her mother gave her a dirty look. “He fought with everyone, Tash. Not just me. You know what he’s like.”
“Can you give me a name? Was there anyone in particular?”
She dug a pack of cigarettes from her purse, took one out and rolled down the window.
Natasha was about to stop her. She would not allow smoking in her car, even with the window down. But she didn’t have to say anything. Anya cursed and rolled up the window almost right away. Apparently, she couldn’t tolerate the smell of manure that enveloped them, even for a nicotine fix. “It would be easier to name someone who did like him,” she said, leaving the cigarette dangling in her mouth, unlit.
“What about the other woman he’s been seeing? She must like him.”
Her mother removed the cigarette from her mouth and shifted to stare at her. “You found the letter.”
Natasha scowled at the long, steady stream of traffic ahead of them. “Yes.”
“Where was it?”
“In your car.”
Holding her cigarette in her left hand, she flipped her lighter open and closed with her right. “And where is it now?”
Natasha had it in her purse, but she didn’t know whether to hang on to it or destroy it. If her mother was innocent, she should destroy it so that it couldn’t be used to incriminate Anya. But if Anya was guilty, Natasha would be destroying valuable evidence the Amos brothers might need to get a conviction. Since she couldn’t figure out which was the right thing to do, she was hanging on to it for the time being, even though it frightened her so much she had to overcome the impulse to burn it almost every time she thought of it.
“We have to get rid of it,” her mother said.
Natasha refused to look at her. She didn’t want to see evidence of the fear she heard in her mother’s voice, didn’t want to react to it. Her natural protectiveness might lead her to do something that wasn’t right or that she’d later regret. “We can’t.”
Anya gaped at her. “Why not?”
Natasha opened her mouth to try to explain her position but couldn’t bring herself to reveal her doubt. “I left it back in the car,” she said, lying instead.
“You didn’t destroy it?” she asked in horror.
“I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“You know how it makes me look!”
“Then you should’ve destroyed it yourself.”
“I wasn’t in my right mind yesterday or I would have. I was...frantic, upset. All I could think about was that I needed to get to you. I’d just found the man I love bleeding to death in our house.”
This reaction was at least slightly comforting. “You truly love J.T.?”
“Of course! Why would I still be messing with him after all these years if I didn’t?”
“Do you know the woman he was seeing?”
“Which one?”
“He’s been seeing more than one?” Natasha couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice. In her mind, J.T. was no great catch. He did have a muscular build, which he was careful to maintain despite being disorganized in every other aspect of his life, because he liked to pretend he could compete favorably with his remarkable sons. He also had a high opinion of himself. Maybe more women than she would’ve thought were that easily fooled.
Anya finally put away the cigarette. “I don’t think he’s ever been faithful—not to me, anyway.”
“Could it be that someone else got jealous?” Natasha asked.
“Maybe,” Anya muttered, but she didn’t seem particularly invested in the idea. Was that because she already knew it went down a different way? Or she was feeling too fatalistic to reach for this other scenario as a possible answer?
Natasha drove for a few more miles before trying to talk to Anya again. “What types of things did you and J.T. fight about, Mom?”
Anya sank deeper into the seat, as if she wished she could disappear altogether. “Do we have to continue with this?”
Was she worried about J.T.? Afraid he’d die? She hadn’t articulated those concerns, but maybe that was why she wasn’t coping very well. She claimed she loved him. It could be concern and fear and not regret and fear that had her acting like a cornered animal.
“I’m trying to understand, trying to learn enough that I can fight for you when we arrive,” Natasha explained. “You understand that, don’t you?”
“I don’t think we should be going back in the first place,” she spit, suddenly filled with some fight. “You’re leading me right into the lion’s den. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course we do!” her mother argued.
“The man you supposedly love was nearly killed yesterday, Mom. He might die. Don’t you want to go back to see him?”
She worried her lip.
“Mom?”
“Not if it means going to prison. He was breaking up with me for someone else, after all. I can’t be that gullible.”
“I’m hoping it won’t mean prison or anything like that.” But she had to think of Mack, his brothers and J.T., couldn’t only think of her mother. She loved them, too. Especially Mack, of course.
“I’m telling you it’s a mistake,” her mother reiterated.
Natasha feared her mother was right. Was she making the best decision? She didn’t want to feel guilt and regret herself when this was all over. But what other choice did they have? “Staying at my house won’t do any good,” she said. “It’s the first place they’ll come looking for you. So what’re our alternatives? You want to go on the run? Try to hide?”
“That would be better than going to prison! Dylan, Rod, Aaron—” she waved an arm for emphasis “—all of them are going to think it was me.”
“It’s still possible that J.T. will pull through and be able to tell us what happened. And I want to be there if he does. So...can you work with me? Please? Give me something to say until then, some reason for me to stand by your side when all the evidence seems to go against you?”
“I didn’t shoot him!” she said, more emphatically.
“A few minutes ago, you said you don’t remember.”
“Maybe I don’t. But I’m not the type of person who would do something like that, so...it couldn’t have been me.”
Natasha would accept that in a normal situation. But this wasn’t a normal situation. Had that letter caused her mother to snap? “Were you upset about the other woman?” she asked.
“Of course I was upset about his other women, especially the one he was going to leave me for. J.T. was my man. Stephanie had no business messing around with him.”
