“No, I’m not coming with you,” I say. “I’m staying here.”
He growls and his nostrils flare. “You say that like you have a choice. You don’t. There are people after you. Men who won’t be as nice as to stop at your house to get your shit before dragging you off.”
“So just the dragging off part then?” I yell.
We turn onto my driveway.
“Wait, how do you know where I live?” I ask.
Nine doesn’t answer because he’s laser focused on something out the windshield.
“Fuck,” he swears.
Fuck is right. There are three cop cars on my driveway with just as many uniformed officers standing around them chatting and drinking coffee. All of the furniture that was inside my house is now in a pile in the middle of the driveway.
I can see in his eyes that Nine’s considering turning around, but the cop in the center spots us approaching waves us over. It’s too late.
Nine gives me a warning look and throws the truck in park.
“Don’t say or do anything stupid,” he warns.
We get out and the officer who waved us over approaches. “What’s going on?” Nine asks.
The cop gives him a once-over followed by disapproving look that makes me want to slap the coffee from his hands.
Judgy asshole.
“Are you Miss Lenore Leary?” The officer asks me.
“I am.”
“Good. I’m here upon the request of The First Bank of Logan’s Beach to carry out the eviction. I ask that you remain as calm as possible and do what we ask, and we won’t have any problems here today. Is that understood?”
“Eviction?” Nine asks.
He hands me a bright red notice.
“Yes, ma’am. The eviction is the final part of the foreclosure proceedings. The bank formally took possession of the house this morning. Judge Ashbury signed off. You are to be forcefully removed from the property, and the contents of the home auctioned off to assist in paying down some of the debt.”
“I…I thought I had more time.” I can’t read the words on the notice. They’re blurry behind my glassy eyes. But I don’t need to read it to know that I’m totally and royally more fucked than I was before.
Nine takes it from my hands and reads it over.
“Sorry to hear that ma’am, but…” The deputy looks down to his notes. “The co-owner, a…Jared Cox, was served notice at his place of business at both ninety days and thirty days prior to today’s proceedings. I have his signatures here if you’d like to verify that he was aware that this process was going to be taking place and waved his right to a hearing to challenge the foreclosure.”
“Jared never told me. Why didn’t he…” I trail off because what’s the point in wondering why anymore? At this point, the fact that Jared didn’t tell me that he wasn’t paying the mortgage is a moot point. With all of the money he stole, he still needed to take every last thing from me without so much as a courtesy, “Hey, I’m not just leaving you, I’m also leaving you with this gigantic mess I made. Have a nice life.”
I’m so angry at Jared—and more than that, at myself—that I begin to laugh. It starts off low and quiet until I’m cackling into the sky like a crazed lunatic.
“You okay, miss?” The deputy asks. When I don’t answer, he turns to Nine. “She okay?”
“Sure, I’m fine! I’m just fucking great!” I look up at the sky and the approaching rain clouds. “Jared, you fucking coward! Wherever you are, I hope they deny you from the country club, and I hope your Wi-Fi is sketchy, at best!”
“That’s the best you got?” Nine asks, looking amused.
“Yeah, you could have done way better,” the officer agrees.
I roll my eyes at them.
“Can we go inside and get some of her personal items?” Nine asks. “Clothes and bathroom shit?” Nine places his big arm around my shoulder. I don’t think it’s for comfort but rather a reminder that I’m not going anywhere but with him.
“Personal items, yes. Furniture or fixtures, no. The movers are still finishing the downstairs. They haven’t made it to the second floor as of yet. You’ve got twenty minutes and not a second longer. The locksmith will be here soon change the locks. After that, you won’t be able to get back in.”
* * *
NINE
I try not to stare at the spot on the floor in the master bedroom where Jared collapsed after I killed him.
I help Lenny grab a backpack from the massive closet, and she shoves as much clothes inside as possible. She looks around, and her shoulders fall. She zips up the bag. “I guess that’s it,” she says.
I look around to her still very full closet. “You sure?” I ask. “Still a lot of shit in there.”
She nods. “It’s from another life.”
I grab her bag and sling it over my shoulder.
“You did good by not saying anything to the cops,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t even know what to tell them. That you’re taking me somewhere against my will but it’s not like I have anywhere to go so being kidnapped is my only option?”
“I’m keeping you safe,” I argue. “Ricci’s men ain’t gonna stop looking for you.”
“But why are you keeping me safe?” she asks. “I told you I don’t know anything about Jared’s stuff, and you can check my laptop and my records if you don’t believe me. I’m being evicted for Christ’s sake. Jared’s stolen every penny I have and split town. There’s no reason for you to want to keep me safe. You don’t even know me.”
“I know a lot more than you think.”
She storms out of the closet and is heading for the stairs when she spots a picture on her dresser. She picks it up and runs her fingertips over the smiling man and woman inside the frame. The woman looks like Lenny, just older.
“My parents,” she says, answering my unspoken question. “They died four years ago today.”
I stand behind her and look over her shoulder and realize there’s someone else in the picture too. A young woman with short, platinum blonde hair and bright blue eyes, standing right between them. I blink as if I’m seeing a ghost. “Who is that?” I ask, trying to hide the fact that I’m trembling as I wait for her answer because I know what it’s going to be and I’m surprised I didn’t see it before.
“It’s me, a long time ago. Before I started wearing glasses, and before I let my hair grow out and return to its natural color. I looked so different, didn’t I?”
My throat is dry. I turn around and tug on my hair. I need to sit down. I need to fucking breathe. I sit on the end of the mattress.
“What’s wrong?” Lenny asks, shoving the picture in her bag.
What’s wrong is that one picture just changed everything.
And the worst part is that I’m not sure if I should even tell her. Suddenly, I don’t know a goddamn thing when a second ago, I was so sure of everything. That’s why I feel so protective of her. That’s why I feel so drawn to her when I’ve only felt that way about one person before. I’m trying to sort through too many colliding thoughts when my hand connects with something hard under the comforter beside me. Lenny notices the lump in the bed and crosses the room.
I feel the shape over the blanket and instantly know what it is.
“What the hell is that?” Lenny asks, pulling down the corner of the comforter.
“Wait, Lenny, don’t,” I warn, but it’s too late. I leap from the bed and cover her mouth because she’s screaming.
I don’t blame her. If it was the first severed head I saw, I’d probably be screaming, too.
“Everything all right up there?” booms the deputy from down in the foyer.
“Everything’s fine. We’ll be down in a minute,” I shout back.
“How about the young lady?” he presses. I hear slow, tentative footsteps on the stairs.
I release her mouth slowly. I whisper in her ear, “Answer him so he doesn’t come up here,” I instruct. “Can you do th
at?” She nods against my hand, and I release her fully.
She takes a deep breath. “I’m fine. Sorry, about the scream. A spider crawled across my foot, and I flipped out.”
The officer chuckles, and thankfully, the sound of his retreating footsteps follows. “My wife does the same shit. She hates spiders,” he says. “Finish up. Make it quick.”
After the downstairs door shuts again, I race to the closet and grab the largest suitcase I can find. I haul it from the top of the closet and bring it over to the bed, setting it on the floor. I gather the head up with the comforter and sheets and shove all of it inside the bag. The mattress is stained with blood. “Do you know who this is?” I ask.
Lenny is shaking, staring unblinking at the head. She nods. Her lip trembles.
“Who?” I order as I zip up the suitcase.
“It’s…his name is Don Sheffield. We called him Sheff. He is…was Jared’s business partner.”
“You got any bleach?” I ask. She points down the hall. I race to the second-floor laundry room and search for the bleach. When I come back, Lenny is in the same position as before. I douse the bloodstain with as much bleach as it will soak up then flip the mattress. I grab fresh sheets from the linen closet and cover it back up. I toss the comforter back over the top and grab Lenny’s hand.
“Why was there a head in my bed?” She asks, her hand shaking in mine as I tug her down the stairs to the front door.
“It’s not just a head. It’s a fucking warning.”
Oddly enough, it’s not the head that’s got me so rattled.
It’s figuring out the reason I feel so protective of her. The reason why I want her in a way I’ve only wanted one other person in my entire life.
Lenny Leary isn’t just Lenny Leary.
She’s the girl from the bridge.
She’s Poe.
And she’s alive.
Chapter Fifteen
LENNY
Again, I am way too sober for this.
We haven’t said much since getting back in the car, but something’s shifted in Nine. I’m sure of it.
After a quick stop to toss the head into the swamp, suitcase and all, we’re back on the road.
Because that’s what normal is for Nine.
“This is like a regular Tuesday for you, isn’t it? Tossing heads to the gators. Grenades. Shoot-outs.”
Nine growls and stares out the windshield. “Yeah, everything is like a regular Tuesday, except for you.”
“I’m the irregular factor here? That’s a thought.” I feel crazed and heated and confused. I’m rocking in the passenger seat, staring out the window.
Cope, Lenny. Cope.
I press my nails into my palms, but it’s not enough. I can’t process everything that’s going on right now. In order to deal and not break down in hysterics, I’m filing SEVERED HEAD in the back of my brain under the category TO BE DEALT WITH AT A LATER TIME.
I take a few deep breaths, and the panic subsides enough for me to stop rocking. Filing complete.
We pass a rundown trailer park and then turn onto a road that looks like Main Street USA lined with renovated Old Florida style bungalows. Each of the small houses is lined with a white picket fence like something you’d see on a family-friendly sitcom from the fifties, but this is in color and real and I’m finding myself smiling at the young boy chasing a golden retriever in his yard. The elderly woman setting a pie on her porch to cool. The older couple sharing iced-tea in their rockers.
“I worked in real estate for years, and even I didn’t know places like this existed on this side,” I say. “It’s really beautiful.” Realizing how that came out, I cringe. “Sorry, I sound like a snob.”
Nine stares out at the road ahead. “No, you sound like someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time over here. Ignorance isn’t hatred. You can fix ignorance with information.”
“How about hatred?” I ask, “How do you fix that?”
“That’s easy.” Nine winks. “Hatred has to be beaten out.”
I look into his eyes. There isn’t a spec of hazel to be seen. His pupils are dilated to the size of golf balls. No doubt one of the effects of the smoothie that hasn’t yet worn off.
“Severed heads aside, what’s really bothering you right now?” he asks.
He doesn’t care. He just wants to know where the money is.
I shut out Anxiety and answer anyway. Maybe, to spite the bitch. “I just can’t…I feel like I have no idea what’s going on anymore. Like I’m not in control of anything.”
“I know the feeling.” Nine takes a deep breath of the hot summer air and releases it on a long exhale. “Isn’t it great?”
I repress the urge to stomp my foot like a child. “What’s great about it?”
“You’re living,” he says. I feel like there’s some hidden meaning behind his words, but I don’t speak verbal hieroglyphics.
“And by living, you mean being threatened with severed heads, almost dying in an explosion, and getting evicted from my house?”
He bites his lower lip, and suddenly, I wish it was my teeth sinking into his skin. “Sometimes, you gotta almost die to remember that you’re alive.”
“Now, that I know something about,” I mutter.
We get out of the truck at a small home where Preppy’s black Cadillac is parked. It’s one of those perfectly restored, older bungalows. The kind I always wanted, but Jared ignored when he bought the monstrosity of a house on the beach instead.
“We’ve got unfinished business, you and I,” Nine says, his expression unreadable.
I’m pondering his meaning when the ground beneath us rumbles. A roar in the distance grows louder and louder until a large black motorcycle stops in front of the house. A huge man in all black, wearing belts around his forearms, dismounts.
“Nine,” the man says in a deep voice I feel in my chest just as much as the vibration of his motorcycle.
“King,” Nine greets.
“We gotta talk, kid.” King juts his chin to the gate. “Out back.”
NINE
King rounds the house, heading for the backyard. I take Lenny by the hand and bring her inside where we’re greeted by my nephew, Bo.
“Uncle Kevin! I finally figured out what my biker name is going to be when I join Uncle Bear’s MC!” he exclaims proudly. For not being able to speak for years, Bo rarely stops talking these days. But every word he utters makes me smile.
“Oh yeah? What’s that, kid?”
Bo smiles brightly, exposing a missing front tooth. “Bo.”
I laugh. “It took you that long to want to go by your own name?”
“What? You don’t like it?” Bo frowns.
I ruffle his hair. “Kid, I fucking love it.”
“Do you like my outfit today?” he asks, stretching out the white t-shirt he’s wearing.
Every day, he dresses up like either Bear, Preppy or King. Today, he’s not wearing a leather cut and no shirt like Bear, he’s not wearing belts wrapped around his arms like King, and he’s not even wearing a bow-tie and suspenders like Preppy. Today, for the first time, he’s dressed in a white V-neck t-shirt with baggy jeans and white tennis shoes.
Like me.
“So, Uncle Kevin?” he asks, spinning around so I can take him in. I can’t stop smiling at the kid. “What do you think? Don’t I look just like you?”
“You, do. And you’ve even got my chain.” I point to the beads he’s wearing around his wrists and neck.
He shrugs. “The attention is in the details. These are just plastic though. I stole them from my sisters. I’ll get real ones one day.” He looks up at me like he’s waiting for my approval.
“You look just like him,” Lenny says from next to me.
“Hi, I’m Bo Clearwater,” my nephew says, offering Lenny his hand. “You’re super pretty, just like my mama.” Bo turns around as Dre, my sister-in-law, comes into the room. She’s wearing a black, fifties-inspired sundress. Her lips are her signature bright red
, and her hair is pulled into a bun on the top of her head. “Mommy, Mommy! Uncle Nine likes it! He said I look just like him! Now, I just gotta get a big truck like him…” He races down the hall. “I’m gonna go on the computer and see how much they cost. I’ve got some money in my piggy bank…” his voice trails off.
“Looks like you’ve got an admirer in that one,” Lenny says.
“He sure does,” Dre says. “Hi, I’m Dre.”
“This is Lenny,” I introduce.
“The boys are outside, waiting for you,” Dre says. “Lenny, do you like cookies?” Dre opens the oven and pulls out a batch of her famous chocolate chips.
“Does anyone ever say no to that question?” Lenny asks.
Dre flashes a beaming smile. “Not as of yet.”
Lenny joins her at the counter. Dre shoots me a look that tells me she’ll keep an eye on her.
“I’ll be right back,” I say.
I head out to the backyard where not only is King waiting for me on the back porch, but Bear and Preppy as well.
“So, that’s Jared’s girl?” Bear asks, looking behind me through the sliding glass doors.
“No, it’s not his girl. Jared’s fucking dead,” I remind Bear. “You were there, remember?”
“Oh yeah, almost forgot about that one.” He flashes me a knowing smile.
I look inside at Lenny again. She’s sitting at the counter, talking to Preppy’s wife.
Preppy leans back on the siding and hooks his thumbs under his suspenders, stretching and releasing them several times before he speaks. “Sooo…I hate to be the bearer of interesting news, but you’re looking at her like you want to eat her. Stalk much?”
“No, I’m fucking not,” I snap defensively. Too defensively.
Preppy releases his suspenders and holds up his hands like he’s on the receiving end of a hold-up. “Whoa, whoa. Don’t go getting your panties in a twist, little brother. I didn’t say stalking was a bad thing. In fact, if you need some pointers, I’d be happy to enroll you in Preppy’s How To Stalk Like A Mofo 101.”
I can say the words over and over again. At this point, I’m not even sure I believe them. “I’ve been keeping an eye on her to get our cash back, but now that Ricci’s men are onto her, watching from a distance was no longer an option. I’m not stalking her. I’m working her.” I can say the words over and over again. At this point, I’m not even sure I believe them.
Nine, the Tale of Kevin Clearwater Page 12
