In their good days together when she’d ask questions that made him doubt their future together, he’d pull her hard against him and tell her nothing she did would make him leave her. Then he’d kiss her senseless.
He still felt the same way, wanted the same result. Except now, he drew her hands from her belt loops and gave them a quick squeeze before releasing them.
As he headed to the front door, he answered her question. “Where does it leave me? Sleeping on your couch. Fixing up this house so I can make a few bucks off it. Roofing with Mel, now that the season’s starting up. Helping out with Ariel.”
He opened the front door. The grass in the yard was greening up, and his truck with its new windshield was parked in the driveway like it belonged there. “Getting ready for us.”
* * *
DIZZY WAS ON a rampage. In fact, she’d been on a rampage since Connie had come back from taking care of the kids five days ago. From tight-lipped glares when Connie slid into Smooth Sailing not even five minutes late, to clipped orders about tables and menu changes, to a cold shoulder during after-hours downtimes, Dizzy was a whirlwind gaining speed and blackness.
Even the regulars were starting to notice.
“Don’t look now but I think Dizzy’s making a Molotov cocktail back there with your name on it,” Marlene said when Connie brought over a double order of Wednesday’s Wings.
“It’s getting worse each shift,” Connie said, refilling Marlene’s water glass. She turned to Mel sitting across the table. “You okay to share the wings or do you want to order something separate?”
“I’m not okay to share the wings,” Marlene said.
“You said you were,” Mel said. He appealed to Connie. “You heard her, didn’t you?”
Connie couldn’t be sure, but she had always stood up for Mel. “Loud and clear.”
“I share my food like I share my bed. Which is to say, I don’t. Order for yourself.”
Mel handed his menu to Connie. “I’ll have my usual.” That was code for Connie to choose for him. “Ben coming by?” That was code for wanting to know how things stood between Connie and Ben.
Connie aimed for truth that wouldn’t entail commitments. “Maybe later. Not sure.”
Marlene picked up a wing. “You keeping the kid, then?”
“Yeah,” Connie said. “I am.”
Marlene shook her head. “Hope you’re assigned a decent caseworker. Unfortunately, it won’t be me. Conflict of interest and all that.” Marlene’s eye caught something behind Connie. “Speaking of conflict—”
Dizzy was giving Connie the evil eye from the island bar. She jerked her head toward another table in Connie’s section. Connie waggled her fingers at Marlene and Mel. “It’s been fun.”
Mel returned the finger waggle and Marlene waved her off.
At the two-seater bar table sat one. “Hey, Derek. What can I get for you?”
She took in his empty beer glass—his third, and they’d only been open an hour. He’d come on foot from Ben’s place, and Ben confirmed that Derek’s truck was indeed back at his place. So if he asked for another she could serve it. Ask for the bill, Derek. Ask for the bill.
“I’m thinking about getting another beer.”
“If you’re only thinking about it, you’re also thinking about just getting the bill, too.”
Derek made a throaty rumble of agreement, his eyes still on the empty glass.
“Speaking as a recovering alkie, I’d go with the bill,” Connie said.
Derek’s eyes didn’t shift. “I ruined everything for everybody.”
Hard to argue that one.
“No idea how to make it better.”
Didn’t she know the feeling. She’d tried to become a better person, but had she really succeeded? Or was it that she’d just accepted the help and the forgiveness of Ben and Seth because she’d never be better?
Connie picked up Derek’s basket of dry rib bones, his greasy napkins, the squeezed lemon wedges. She took his empty glass from him, too. “Be the best person you can be.” Miranda with her scrawled amateur will, a messed-up plea for a new life for her daughter. Connie’s mother fighting to keep her daughter safe from her own stupidity. Alexi seeking assurances from Connie about her kids while on her honeymoon. “For your kids?”
He nodded once at the now-empty table. “The bill, please.”
Connie grinned. “I’ll be right back.”
The cash desk was part of the bar where Dizzy was polishing the already-gleaming bottles of her specialty collection. Connie kept her head down and tallied up Derek’s bill.
A crash of glass splintered the air behind Connie. Twenty-five-year-old Glenfiddich pooled amid bottle chunks. Dizzy stared at the mess with anger and horror and despair.
She threw back her head and howled a curse.
Her establishment fell dead quiet. Only the sizzle of the kitchen grill reached Connie’s ears.
Then Dizzy was gone. A whirlwind out the back door. Connie gathered bar towels and a roll of paper towel and an ice-cream pail from under the counter and got to work. Without a word, another server filled in at Connie’s table. Mel’s head appeared over the top.
“I can finish up here,” he said. “You see to Dizzy.”
Connie kissed her brother on both cheeks. “You make me believe in God and leprechauns.”
But not in her power to talk to Dizzy. She half hoped as she opened the door to the alley that Dizzy had left for the night. But in the last couple hours of evening light, she caught sight of her on the other side of the hedge that bordered the alley, puffing hard on a cigarette.
Connie ducked through the hole in the hedge, acquiring a pebble in her spiked heels and a scratch on her arm from a branch.
“I’d forgotten how dangerous that little portal is,” Connie said conversationally.
Dizzy blew a long stream of smoke into Connie’s face. Connie ached to pluck the cigarette from Dizzy’s hand and finish it for her. Six months after going cold turkey and the craving was as strong as ever.
“Okay, boss, what’s up?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Especially to you.”
“It sounds like I’m the problem.” Connie shook her foot, hoping to dislodge the pebble. “So I’m the one you should probably dump on.”
“I don’t want your help. Leave it alone. And while you’re at it, leave everybody else alone. All you ever do is interfere, expecting others to fix your problems.”
Did she mean Ben? “I don’t think—”
“Not thinking is your problem. But if you need rescuing, you’ll Barbie yourself into getting a search party, won’t you?”
What? Connie wormed her foot around to draw the pebble into the curve of her arch. Her phone in her back pocket beeped a text, which she ignored.
“I don’t know what was in my head,” Dizzy said, waving her hand and cigarette ash at the back of her restaurant, “calling this place Smooth Sailing. It’s been anything but. That’s me. Stupid dreamer. You make the mistake of caring, and all you get are lies.”
She funneled another stream of smoke at Connie, who sneaked in a bit of an inhale. She immediately started gagging. Dizzy smirked. Connie had never seen this side of Dizzy, but she recognized the bitterness, the despair, the self-recriminations.
This was not only about her. Her and who else? Not Ben, not Ariel.
“Has Trevor been around?”
Dizzy dropped her cigarette, ground it into the graveled lane. “That tool is worse than you. He’d kill his own grandmother for a buck.”
Trevor had never done anything to Dizzy, had he? The list of people with beefs against Trevor was long, including her, Ben, McCready... A memory rose up, of McCready giving Dizzy a long, quiet look the day he’d come into Smooth Sailing to talk to Connie. And Dizzy, doing the same, not smiling like she did w
ith her regulars.
“McCready. You and McCready.” Connie’s phone beeped a second time.
“Not a word,” Dizzy hissed, “not a word. His brotherhood finds out he’s not with someone in the life, it won’t go well for him. It’s enough his brother is causing him trouble.”
Dizzy was talking about a world Connie knew little about, and what she had learned last summer made her want to stay clear of it. “Listen, Dizzy, I won’t say a word. I promise.”
She twisted her mouth. “Your Ben already figured it out.”
Another secret? “He did? He never told me.”
Dizzy seemed to realize she’d stuck her foot in her mouth. “I thought he would spill to you the first chance he got. Solomon—McCready—had to leave me one night because, as it turns out, Ben insisted on making trouble over Trevor.”
When Ben had delivered the pills and recruited McCready to deal with Trevor. “I doubt McCready discusses his love life with anyone. You’re too important to him.”
Dizzy shoved a shank of her hair behind her ear. “Look, I get that we all make mistakes and we all deserve second chances. It’s why I hired you when no one else would. Sol—McCready wants the same thing for himself. He wants to leave the life, has for years, but Trevor and you keep dragging him back into that swamp. Leave him out of it. Understood?”
“Understood.” She paused and then, unable to resist, added, “Solomon?”
Dizzy raised a warning finger. “Not a word.”
“Not a word.”
Connie’s boss set her hands on her hips and her gaze on the back door of her restaurant. “I guess I have a mess to clean up.”
“You will probably find it’s done for you,” Connie said as her phone beeped again. “Though Mel might appreciate a beer on the house.”
Dizzy pointed at Connie’s pocket. “You should deal with that and get back to work yourself.”
Dizzy was at the back door when Connie opened her messages. One look at them and terror choked her. She wasn’t returning to work.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Time to pay up. I’ve got Ariel. This is Trevor. Call me.
I mean it. Now.
Now or I will hurt her bad.
WHAT WAS THE idiot up to? Connie was about to call Ariel’s number when a video came through. Twenty-seven seconds. She played it.
The camera wavered at first on a head-and-shoulders shot of Ariel and then steadied. A wide, black scarf was wrapped over her eyes. Trevor’s background voice told her to go and she started speaking.
“Auntie Connie. The people from Calgary, they got me. They decided they want to make things right, so this is the deal. If I want to leave them, I have to get jumped out. You know what that is, don’t you, Auntie?”
Connie gasped. Yes, she did. To leave a gang, you gave the members permission to beat the crap out of you.
“I can’t make them accept it any other way,” Ariel rushed on. “It’s what they want. But Trevor has another idea. He wants you to take it. For me. Don’t, Auntie. You don’t need to pay for my mistakes.”
The video stopped there.
Trevor had gone completely insane.
She needed to see if McCready knew what his dumb brother was up to. Before him, though, she had to speak to Ariel in person. Her phone rang. Trevor had beat her to the punch.
“So, what’s it going to be, Con? Her or you?”
“Trevor, what are you doing? This is serious. This is kidnapping. Let her go and I won’t call the police. We’ll talk. Work something out.”
“I know what this is. I’m not stupid. You won’t call the police, either. Otherwise they’ll take Ariel from you. I figured it all out.”
Connie grabbed her hair in frustration. “Trevor, don’t you get it? Of course I’ll call the police if it means Ariel will be safe. I don’t care what happens to me.”
“Then take the girl’s place.”
It was like talking to a recording that would only accept one answer.
“I want to speak to Ariel, please.”
“Give me your answer first.”
“After I speak to Ariel,” Connie said slowly as if speaking to an English-language learner. “Then I’ll give you my answer.”
“I don’t have her with me.”
“In that case, I guess we don’t have a deal.”
“You come to me. I’ll call them and let you talk to her.”
“Fine. Where are you?”
“Meet me in the parking lot by the library.”
“Why there?” she asked.
“It’s public, and don’t even bother trying to track her phone’s GPS. I turned all that off. And I wouldn’t involve your pretty pet dog of a boyfriend, either.” He ended the call.
As if she would. No way was she dragging Ben into this mess. Call him, and she might as well put his name right back on her list. Except—
She’d promised to keep him informed about Trevor. As a friend.
Also, not telling him was plain stupid.
First, she’d get hold of McCready, then Ben. Only she didn’t have McCready’s number, and it was too far to walk to his garage. A taxi? Or no, call Ben to take her there. But what if McCready wasn’t home? Then what? And Trevor was waiting.
Of course!
Dizzy was setting a pitcher of beer in front of Mel when Connie rushed up to the table.
“I need...his number. You know whose. It’s an emergency.”
“Good to see you finally showed your face,” Dizzy said. “This lady would like another order of wings.”
Marlene arched an eyebrow at Connie and delicately patted her mouth with a greasy napkin.
“Dizzy. Please,” Connie whispered into Dizzy’s ear. “Trevor called. He’s kidnapped Ariel.”
“What?”
“So you see—”
Dizzy pulled away. “Call the police.”
That got the attention of Mel and Marlene, and the tables on either side of them. Dizzy hustled back to the bar.
“Anything—” Mel began.
“All good!” Connie called out cheerily, and then booted after her boss.
She cornered her at the cash station and spoke fast. “I will call the police if I have to, but what happens after that? It will make adopting Ariel doubly hard, if not impossible. Did I say I was trying to adopt her? Anyway, I am. It will look really bad.”
Dizzy whirled on her. “You know exactly what you’re doing. You found out something about me in confidence and not ten minutes later you’re trying to exploit it. I already told you what would happen if I found you making trouble. Keep him out of it. Keep me out of it.”
“A phone call. That’s all I’m asking. From you. He’ll pick up for you.”
“I’m not taking advantage of him.”
“You’re not! You’re making him feel useful.”
Dizzy gave Connie an incredulous look. Okay, Ben made it sound a whole lot better. She tried again. “Besides, how do you think he would react if he found out I had to send the police out on his brother because when I asked you to call him you refused?”
Dizzy threw her an absolutely foul glare. “That’s a real low blow.”
“I know,” Connie said, “I know.”
But her boss did as Connie asked, and seconds later Dizzy was talking to McCready. She handed the phone to Connie and pointed to the back.
Connie took the phone and followed Dizzy’s silent direction.
McCready gave her an opening line. “I hear Trevor’s got Ariel.”
“Him and that stupid gang from Calgary.” She hit the back door and kept moving, filling McCready in with what she knew. “What should I do?”
“Go to him. I’ll meet you there. Stall him. I’m in Red Deer.”
“Red Deer? That’s almost twenty minutes away.”
&
nbsp; “Twelve, my way. Stall.” He hung up.
Connie came through the restaurant again, grabbing her purse from the closet off the kitchen, and handed Dizzy’s phone back to her. “As you might’ve figured out by now,” Connie said, “I’m leaving for the night.”
Dizzy slipped her phone into her pocket. “You going to tell me what’s going on?”
“I’m meeting with him and his brother. Don’t ask me. I’m just doing what I was told.”
“That’s a first.” Her boss yanked frosted mugs from the bar fridge and opened the tap. “Go.” And then, “Don’t be stupid.”
For the third time that night, Connie headed out the back door. She’d call Ben on the way. She ducked through the hedge and nearly walked smack-dab into the open driver’s door of a white sports car.
Trevor.
* * *
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Connie asked.
“You didn’t show, but then I realized you’d be walking, so I came to pick you up.”
“To take me to the parking lot?”
“No. To take you to Ariel. Get in.”
If he didn’t take her to the parking lot, then nobody would know where she was. She needed to stall him here, until she could figure something out. “Not until I talk to her. That was the deal.”
Trevor leaned his arms on the open door and thumbed a number into his phone. Connie couldn’t help notice that he’d scored a really nice car.
“Yeah. I’ve got her. She wants to talk to the girl first...Because I said she could...What’s the big deal?...Yeah, yeah, understood.” He passed his phone to Connie and she pressed it to her ear.
“Ariel?”
“Auntie Connie?” Her voice was small and frightened. Connie’s mouth went dry.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea where you are? Say it fast.”
“Down a gravel road. The place seems empty. It might be—” A shout and she heard the phone being fumbled.
“Hey.” It was a male voice. Young. One of the gang. “Give the phone back to Trevor.”
Building a Family Page 21
