Sweeter Than Sin

by Shiloh Walker

  Memories of blood, pain and screaming had taunted her.

  And when she came out of the darkness, all she’d heard was a voice.

  I know you’re still healing up, but it’s not safe here. You have to go.

  That low, steady voice, so full of certainty and so steady, as she tried to argue. Go?

  No, what she needed to do was find him. Had to help.

  It’s too late to help now. You can’t. And if you stay, you’ll be in trouble. You didn’t do anything wrong … you just tried to help. But nobody will believe that—

  Setting her jaw, she pushed all of that aside and continued to read, hoping that somehow the words on the screen would change.

  But they didn’t.

  The depravity appears to go back some fifty years, spanning across generations. The Cronus Club, as reports have called it, allegedly consists of several well-known families, all men, and their sons are inducted into the club through acts of sodomy and sexual molestation that start in their early teens and last for three years—

  That was all she read before the need to puke hit her.

  Hard and fast.

  She bolted for the bathroom and emptied her belly.

  Heart racing, head pounding, the violent spasms racked her body for endless minutes, but she didn’t mind—she almost welcomed it.

  The Cronus Club.

  Son of a bitch.

  It hadn’t stopped.

  Everything she’d left, everything she’d walked away from—her father, her friends, her home—it had all been because she thought they’d managed to stop it. That one good thing had come out of that night.

  And it had been worth it. Even the nightmares, vague bits of memory that she would never fully recover, all those faded bits and pieces of a night she’d never understood. Even the misery of the next few years, when she’d lost herself, that had been worth it.

  It had all been a trade-off, a lousy one, but in the end a trade-off she could live with because it had stopped.

  Only …

  She closed her eyes.

  “We didn’t stop anything,” she whispered, her voice a stark echo in the small bathroom.

  She didn’t get it. The men who’d abused David were dead. She knew that.

  A string of accidents had befallen them in the years since she left Madison. She’d tracked their deaths, watching the newspapers over the ass-backwards Internet, tracking things down in a way that would have done Lois Lane proud.

  They were dead.

  So how had this started again?

  “Look at the facts,” she told herself, her voice hoarse. Her mind worked furiously, though, processing the information she had to work with.

  Apparently David hadn’t known all of the men involved. Her head pulsed, pounded with that information. Fuck, how many of them could there be? It wasn’t like Madison was that big. There couldn’t be that many people who’d been involved in this, could there?

  In the end, the only thing that mattered was that they hadn’t gotten everybody. The one thing that had kept her sane all this time, and it was a lie.

  Sweat broke out over her forehead as she hunched over the sink, washing her hands, rinsing out her mouth.

  It took every last bit of will she had to force herself to go back to the desk and sit. It took even more strength than she thought she had to focus on the monitor and make herself read. Almost desperate for something to cling to, she fished out the key she wore around her neck and gripped it, the rough edges biting into her palm as she made it through once, then a second time, then a third, reading between the lines all the things that hadn’t been said.

  Then she leaned back and rubbed her hands down her face, swallowing the bile rising up her throat.

  Hiding was no longer an option.

  Lana Rossi was going back home.

  Damn it to hell and back.

  * * *

  “Damn. You mean I get to just stay here?” The guy staring at her looked like he’d been given the keys to the kingdom.

  She smiled at him from the mirror as she wrapped a band around the end of her ponytail. Already a few strays of her hair had worked free, wispy brown strands coming loose to frame her face. She needed to decide what to do about her hair, she thought. She’d started dying it brown not long after she’d left Madison—the vivid red curls were just too noticeable. Did she stop coloring it now? Keep it up? She didn’t know.

  What was she going to do with her clothes?

  Too many decisions to make, not enough time.

  And the man across from her just continued to watch her with confusion in his eyes. She forced herself to smile, remembering how she’d felt when Deatrick had shown her this place.

  “Yeah, you get to stay here, Jock … but not just,” she said quietly. “I talked to Deatrick down at the store downstairs. You have a job waiting. It won’t pay you a lot, but it will keep you in food and the rent is part of your wages.”

  Jock blinked and then shook his head, backing away. “No … no, ma’am. Ain’t no place going to hire me. I’m a fucking junkie and—”

  She turned around and caught his arm before he could vacate the premises. “So was I.”

  Shoving up the sleeves to her shirt, she bared her forearms and showed him the needlemarks on her arms. Fourteen years ago, she’d been one of the ones living not too differently from Jock. Deatrick had been her knight in shining armor, dragging her out of the streets when she’d tried to pick his pockets. The asshole hadn’t called the cops when he’d caught her, either.

  He’d dragged her kicking and screaming back here. Fed her. Told her the next meal wouldn’t be free, but she could have a meal any time she wanted … if she’d work for it.

  A week later, she’d come back. He’d made her scrub the damn toilets. Then he’d fed her chicken and dumplings.

  Four days later, he had her mopping up the stockroom in the little convenience store he ran with his parents. He’d fed her beef stew that night.

  The pattern kept up for over a month and then one night, instead of feeding her, he’d brought her up here and shown her this little apartment. It had been his, but she didn’t know it at the time. You need a job, he’d told her. I need somebody to help out in the store when my folks retire. You can have the job if you’ll get clean. You have a month and I’ve got friends who’ll help you. Then he’d told her if she used, even once, after that month, he’d kick her ass out and never feed her again. If she ever stole from him, he’d turn her in.

  He didn’t know it—or maybe he did—but she’d been chasing her death almost ever since she ran away from Madison.

  Guilt, the memories she couldn’t uncover, the nightmares, it all plagued her and one night, when the dreams got to be too much, she’d given in and accepted a pill from a guy she’d been flopping with. She’d woken up with him inside her, and instead of freaking out and pushing him away she’d clung to him because she hadn’t been alone and the pills made her not care about anything else.

  It didn’t get any better from there, and the guilt, the shame, all of it, piled up and she couldn’t outrun that any better than the memories.

  She thought of Noah, the boy she’d left behind, the boy who’d loved and valued her, and how she’d never be able to look at him after what she’d done … and it only made it worse.

  She’d been spiraling down, so hard and fast, and the spiral lasted for years.

  It was a miracle she hadn’t ended up dead or sick.

  And if her spiral hadn’t crashed her into Deatrick, she probably would have ended up dead, sick … or worse.

  He’d probably saved her life.

  He’d definitely saved her soul, and for that she could never repay him. He’d given her a lifeline when he offered her that job. Now it was time to pass that lifeline on to somebody else.

  Under the scruff and the street dirt and the punches life had thrown at him, Jock was a good guy. He’d take this chance and make something of it. She knew he would.

 
Right now, he was staring at the scars on her arms with something like shock, though. Then it moved to sympathy as he shifted his gaze to her face.

  “You’re sick, aren’t you? That’s why you’re leaving.”

  “No.” Man, if that was the burden she carried, she’d almost be ready to shoulder it. At least then it would only be her life she’d screwed up. She’d almost be up for that. Instead she had this one. How many lives— She pushed the thought aside, stared at Jock. Brood later. This had to come first. She didn’t leave things undone. Not anymore. “I’m not sick. Got lucky on that front. Only used the needle a few times; the tracks got infected and I had a bad trip. Decided pills were better.”

  She usually chased those pills with alcohol, ended it all up with sex. Sometimes not necessarily in that order. It didn’t matter as long as she got out of her head for a while. But the needles … no. She hadn’t been able to keep up with the needles, and after those first few guys she made everybody she slept with use a rubber, too.

  She was looking for oblivion or death, but after she’d seen some sad souls wasting away from AIDS or other diseases, she decided that wasn’t the best way to die. If she needed death that bad, she could jump into the river. It would be a lot quicker and less painful in the long run.

  While he continued to stare at her, his gaze considering, curious, she tugged her sleeves back down.

  “You know the guy downstairs who runs the store?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Your boyfriend. He’s a bruiser.”

  She smiled, a little sadly. Deatrick wasn’t her boyfriend. For a while, she’d thought maybe she was in love with him, and for a very short while, they’d been lovers. But Deatrick liked fixing broken people, and once he’d helped fix her, she’d lost her appeal for him.

  Even as the thought circled through her head, she felt ashamed. That wasn’t fair to him. The man had saved her life. If he hadn’t pulled her off the streets, she might not be dead, but she definitely wouldn’t be somebody who could stand to look at herself in the mirror.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” She shrugged and moved over to the beat-up couch. Dark hair fell into her eyes and she shoved it back as the broken-in cushions closed around her. The couch was about the best thing in this place. Her one contribution to this sad, safe little haven. Absently she tugged out the necklace she wore. Deatrick had given it to her all those years ago, back when she was still trying to find her feet. Find herself. She was still looking.

  He had more faith in her than she did. Sighing, she rubbed her thumb over the message written on it. It had only one word. Strength.

  You always had the strength to survive, sugar, Deatrick had told her when he gave it to her. Don’t forget that.

  Stroking the chain between her fingers, she studied Jock. He’d been a vet, served back in Desert Storm in the nineties. She knew that, knew his wife had cheated on him, gotten pregnant while he was risking his life, and when he came back she welcomed him home with divorce papers. He’d tried, he told Lana. Had tried hard.

  But the job he’d landed dried up after a year.

  There had been another one, but problems with post-traumatic stress started creeping in and the nightmares … He’d started self-medicating with drugs.

  Compared to him, Lana’s nightmares were like a walk in the park, but she’d done the same thing. She understood just how tempting it was to self-medicate, to hide away in a fog of drunkenness or pills, how easy it was to silence the dreams when they screamed and raged.

  But then it got to where the dreams screamed even louder and the blood shone redder and one pill wasn’t enough; then two weren’t.

  Aware that Jock still watched her, she crooked a smile in his direction, her memory winding back down the road that had led her here. “Fourteen years ago, I tried to pick D.’s pocket.”

  “Girl, that was a damn stupid thing to do.”

  “Actually, it was the best mistake I ever made.” She looked down and studied the key, remembered. She’d seen the guy around. Deatrick was big, standing at six two, skin a deep, warm brown and black hair that he shaved every week on Thursdays. She’d seen him, judged him as a sap because he was always going around and handing out food to people on the corner. A sap with money, too, because she saw in the paper that he’d won some serious cash in the Lotto.

  So she’d watched him.

  Waited until she had an idea when he’d make his daily trip to the bank with the money from the store.

  She’d bumped into him, had her fingers on the money pouch. Then he had one big hand clamped around the back of her neck.

  Was wondering when you were going to try it, sugar, he’d said, and his voice was sad.

  She’d been so scared when he dragged her off the street and into the store, through a back door, though, not the front one, where people might see.

  “He caught me,” she told Jock. “I wasn’t as clever as I thought and he was much more clever than I’d realized. He caught me and dragged me into the shop. You can probably figure out what I thought he was going to do. Instead, he dumped me at the big table in the back. You know the one. You’ve eaten there a few times.”

  Jock looked down, plucking at a ragged hole in his jeans.

  “He gave me one meal. Just like I gave you. After that, everything he gave me, I had to work for … just like you have. And now you’re getting the chance he gave me.” As his eyes jerked up to meet hers, she said quietly, “He’ll give you one month to get clean. That’s what he gave me. One month, Jock. He’s got friends who can help you through it. After one month, if you use, you’re out. And he’ll know. Deatrick always does. If you use, you’re gone. If you steal—”

  “I’m not a thief,” Jock said quietly, and the pride in his voice was unmistakable.

  She smiled at him. “Then you’re already doing better than I was.”

  Standing, she reached into her pocket and held out the keys that Deatrick had given her all those years ago. “So it’s your call. Do you want the chance he gave me?”

  “What’s the catch?” Jock watched her suspiciously.

  “There isn’t one,” she said honestly. The weight on her shoulders felt a little lighter as she saw the glimmer of what might be hope in his eyes. A difference, Lana thought. It wasn’t saving the world, but she could still make a difference. It was the only thing that kept her sane sometimes.

  “It’s possible one day you’ll have to leave—or you’ll want to.” She looked around, fought the sting in her eyes as she rose and moved over to stare out the window at the bustling life of the city. The noise of the L filled the room and she rested her head on the window, listened to it one more time. “If you leave, you can maybe find somebody to pass this on to, like I am. Or you can let Deatrick do it. He’s good at it. The only thing you have to do is work for what’s being given to you.”

  Jock took the keys, his eyes lingering on her. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Sure.”

  They both knew she lied. And they both smiled.

  She walked out of the room with just the clothes she’d bought for herself over the years and the key hanging on a chain around her neck.

  It was harder than she’d thought it would be.

  And one of the hardest things was the first stop she had to make … saying good-bye to the man who’d pulled her out of hell.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I’ll tell ya what, Preach, that place is going to take a little more than a hammer and nails and a few more boards to fix it up.”

  Adam joined Noah Benningfield at the edge of the property and stared up at the house. For years, the people of Madison had just called this house the old Frampton place.

  Generally, people avoided it. Unless you were a kid … then you might come out here on a dare. Or at least lie and pretend you had.

  Plenty had lied, because they all knew if Judge Max had caught you hanging around this place he would call the cops, he would press charges and your parents would not be able to talk him ou
t of it. Judge Max wasn’t a bad guy, but he had a pretty straightforward sense of right and wrong. The No Trespassing signs were clear enough in his mind.

  But then he’d managed to sell the house.

  It wasn’t much of a house now, though.

  Adam rubbed his jaw, careful to avoid the burns along the right side of his face. They were healing, as were the ones on the outer part of his right arm. He’d received them when he tackled the boy who’d set the fire.

  There was still a huge, gaping hole in the side of the house. Police tape surrounded the property. It had only been ten days since the explosion that could have killed Noah and his new fiancée.

  If Adam thought about it for too long, he just might get sick. Easier to joke about it.

  “I don’t know.” Noah slanted him a look, and there was a glint in his eyes that said he understood. He shrugged and reached up, scraping at the stubble that darkened his face. “I’m pretty good with a hammer and nails. I’ll grab a few rolls of duct tape. Duct tape is always good.”

  They both laughed. It felt good to laugh.

  They hadn’t done enough of it the past few weeks, and that was a fact.

  There wasn’t going to be a whole lot of laughing in the near future, either. Not for Adam, not for Noah. Hell, most people in town had taken this like a punch to the face.

  Every time Adam closed his eyes, he saw that fire. He closed his eyes and he remembered a chat between a couple of kids.… That fire had led to this. It could have been so much worse. Noah could be dead. Trinity could be dead. That kid of hers—funnier than hell and whip smart—he could be left without a mother. Yeah, it could be worse. But this was still pretty bad.

  “The town is better off, I think,” Adam said abruptly, folding his arms. The wind kicked up off the river, blowing his hair back from his face. He needed to get it cut, and he probably would remember … in another month or so. For now, he had his hands full, running short staffed at the bar, covering some extra nights at the forum while Noah dealt with everything he needed to do for a shotgun wedding.