“Excuse me, miss?” I smiled when she looked up.
“I don’t want no trouble,” she said, her eyes on my badge. “I just need another pen out of my bag.”
“There was a blonde woman in the bar just now. She would’ve seemed out of place here.” I kept the smile in place. Easy. Friendly. “I’m afraid she might be in over her head, though I’m not exactly sure how.”
The girl snorted, rattling the tiny silver stud in her nose. “You can say that shit again. I never seen a classy broad like that in real life. What in hell she wants with Lenny Winchester is beyond me, but it ain’t nothing good. Not when it concerns that lowlife jackass.”
Damn. I turned to look back at the street.
Erica’s car was gone.
“Where can I find him?”
She popped her gum. “He lives in the trailer park just back there.” She pointed over my shoulder. “Other side of the field.”
I was back at the end of the building before she stopped talking. Waving a thank-you, I took off across the field, my eyes on the taillights of Erica’s Jag, three trailers in. This woman might have a whole figurative cemetery lurking in her closet, but I could sort that out later. Right now, I needed to make sure this Lenny person didn’t end up in a literal one by way of Erica’s .22.
37
Erica stopped at the mailboxes, and I ignored the ice pick piercing my head with every heavy footfall as I ran for a leaning telephone pole that would hide me while I kept an eye on her. She pulled something metal from her purse and stuck it into the front of the mailbox. I kept moving, hoping she’d stay busy with that long enough for me to get out of sight.
Erica came up with an envelope just as I flattened myself against the back side of the rusty-nail-ridden wood and pulled out my phone to text Graham. Can you see what criminal records has on a Lenny or Leonard Winchester in Laredo and Austin? Send.
I snuck a glance around the edge of the pole at Erica, who was wrestling with the envelope like she wasn’t sure how to open it. Or didn’t really want to, maybe.
What the hell business did she have with mail from a questionable-at-best collection of mobile homes in this dust bucket?
My phone buzzed in my hand. Graham: Guy is a small-time dealer. Once meth, lately prescriptions from south of the border. Why do we care?
I didn’t know. Yet.
I stuffed the phone back in my pocket as Erica pulled a sheet of bright-white paper from the shredded envelope.
A gun. A drug dealer. And now a letter. Was Erica Andre dealing drugs?
There was no getting closer without being seen, so I ignored my protesting head and squinted. Erica was staring at the letter in her hand and mouthing something I couldn’t make out.
She dropped the paper and the envelope in the dusty dirt before she ducked back into the car and kept moving. I gave her a ten-second head start, abandoned my hiding place, and sprinted low across the field, snatching up the paper as it began to flutter in a light breeze.
Dear Mr. Winchester, Thanks so much for your support of the Lady Cougar track team. Please find enclosed your tickets to the state championship meet. We look forward to seeing you there.
Signed by Sarah Bauer.
Oh shit.
I scanned the trailer park. Found Erica’s Jag at the last dwelling on the right.
She opened the door and stood, pulling the pistol from her bag as she turned for the front steps.
The sky had started to lighten the barest bit, going just indigo at the horizon, when the angel stood. Teetering on the brink of disaster, she leaned forward. His breath stopped.
Yes. She was strong enough. Brave enough.
But was he? That was the never-quite-satisfied question.
Closing his eyes, he was sure. He was ready. He needed this.
He could do this.
Go time.
A small squeak, the barest hint of a noise, as he pushed the door open.
The angel spun on one heel.
Stepped forward.
He could see her. Already almost feel her warmth, her breath.
But she couldn’t see him.
“I didn’t know anyone else was out here,” she called. “You’re not an ax murderer or anything, right?”
He waited, standing fast in the shadows, no answer forming on his lips. He would never, ever lie. Not to her.
She spun back, sprinting all of two steps before panic sent her crashing into the gravel.
The monster roared, willing his feet to move before he was ready. He’d watched her run. She was fast. It wasn’t sporting to chase when she wasn’t on her game.
But the monster didn’t care. It craved. Demanded.
And this time, it won.
The angel scrambled to her feet, turning to glance over her shoulder, her legs pumping hard. That was it. Strong. Fast. Run, angel, run. He wanted to say it out loud, but the monster wouldn’t have it. His legs gobbled up the gravel between them, broad shoulders barely heaving with the effort.
He was so close, he could stretch a hand out and touch her.
His fingers brushed her silky hair, streaming behind her.
She screamed. Turned.
And stopped.
His hand dropped back to his side.
His angel blinked.
Turned around.
“How did you know I’d be here?”
38
I ran until I couldn’t see, the pain in my head forcing me to slow down about halfway to Erica’s car.
By the time I made it to the unstable near corner of a faded-green single-wide, Erica had used her pistol to force the greasy little man we’d seen outside the coffeehouse to let her inside.
Lenny and Sammy Jo, together again.
I caught my breath. Slid my back along the wall.
Thanked my God and my sister that they didn’t shut the door.
“What the fuck is with you rich people?” Lenny had a whiny tenor to his voice. “No respect for anybody’s time but your own. Richardson send you, too? Because that fucker owes me a thousand bucks, and no tickets to any sports bullshit are going to make up for it, neither, so you can tell him to pay up or forget it.”
I scooted closer to the steps. Was there a single person in Tenley’s life not up to their ass or eyeballs in secrets? What the hell would Coach Richardson want with a small-time South Texas smack dealer?
Shit. My fingers folded into a fist. Tenley wasn’t taking drugs—but was she dealing them? A hundred thousand dollars: that was serious cash. What if we’d been looking under the wrong rocks altogether and this was just another dope deal gone bad?
“Unless of course you want to talk about working off his debt, maybe. I’m sure you and me, we could come to some terms.”
“You are just as disgusting as you were thirty years ago.” Erica’s voice was cold. “You have one minute to tell me what the hell you did to my daughter and make your peace with Jesus, Lenny, so you’d better talk fast.”
I scrambled to a window and stood on tiptoe to peer inside through a layer of grime. Lenny stumbled over a futon, sprawling onto the faded Navajo-print fabric, rubbing his eyes and snatching a pair of drugstore reading glasses off the nearby TV tray.
“I knew that was you, Sammy Jo,” he crowed, his concern about the pistol seeming to dissipate for the moment. “We thought you was . . . Well, I mean, I guess you truly did die and get yourself reborn up there in the city. I had myself a feeling there wasn’t no car wreck that could take out Lara Felton’s little girl. Your momma walked straight up out the fires of hell itself, I swear it.”
Erica’s face stayed blank. “You would know, wouldn’t you, Lenny?” was all she said before she shook the gun. “My daughter.”
“Beautiful girl, just like her momma. My boy Ray, he went for the big time in Austin, got hisself in with the basketball coach at the college up there. Sent me a newspaper picture of this girl the coach said he was doing, and I thought I was looking back in time. She is carved straight out of
you, that kid. But she’s a runner, the paper said. Got me to wondering.” Lenny’s eyes darted around the room. Erica held the gun steady. I scooted as close to the steps as I could without losing my line of sight. “If she was, you know, mine or whatever.”
We both stared at Erica from two different angles, my mouth popping into a disgusted little O.
She didn’t even blink, her lip curling at one end. “I never met anyone else, even any of my mother’s dealers, who could talk about fathering a child by way of raping a sleeping teenager like it was an everyday occurrence.” Her finger twitched on the trigger. “She was mine. My supernova. Nothing about her ever had anything to do with you or this place, I made sure of that. And if you took her from me, so help me, I will send you to hell right here and now.”
I moved for the door as Lenny’s eyes went wide when he put that together and figured out she really meant to kill him.
“I ain’t never laid eyes on your kid except in pictures, hand to God.” Lenny raised his left hand, then his right. “I told Richardson I used to tear up the track . . . He said he’d get me tickets to watch his girl run. I ain’t never seen any, though. Why don’t you just have a seat and let’s talk.”
Her finger eased off. I paused.
I studied Lenny as Erica brandished the gun and shouted. He was half-wasted. Sleepy.
Not lying.
“You expect me to believe Darren Richardson would so much as speak to you?” Erica tightened her hands around the butt of the gun, moving to stand between my window and her target.
Lenny’s voice got a little higher, his words a little faster.
“That prick speaks to me, all right. Me and Ray both. But he always wants something for nothing. Thinks his shit don’t stink, that guy.”
A fair assessment, when you got right down to it.
Erica waved the gun. “What would Darren Richardson want with home-cooked meth? And why would he need to get it from clear the hell out here?”
“I ain’t made meth in years.” Lenny rolled his eyes. “Shit blows people to kingdom come. One burner left on too long and Hustler was a crispy-fried redneck. You remember. I got my friends south of here. A lot more money these days in selling prescription shit from Mexico to people here who can’t afford our pharmacies.”
“Yeah. You look to be rolling in cash.”
“I do all right.” His tone got defensive and Erica took a step forward with the gun, forcing his hands higher. “Chill out, baby. Just saying I’m saving for retirement, not getting any younger or nothing, and the fucking Border Patrol gets greedier with their cut all the time.”
Right then, I didn’t give two shits what Lenny was selling or who he was paying to look the other way. Tenley was all I cared about. Tenley and what this guy might know about how she died.
“Richardson.” Erica shook the pistol.
Yes, thank you.
“Quit swinging that thing around before you kill somebody,” Lenny grumbled. “I don’t fucking know. OxyContin and Zyprexa. Massive quantities of the painkiller and, like, normal prescription ones of the antidepressant. I figure he’s giving his players the OC. Said he needed the other for his kid. Something about making the boy right in the head.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Apparently Mr. Macho Basketball Man has a homo for a son. Said he had to give the business to the kid’s girlfriend because the boy couldn’t even get it up for the hottest girl in school. I stay quiet. Not my place to judge other people’s life choices, you know?”
There it was again.
Hottest girl in school.
Give the business.
Girl the coach was doing.
Surely.
Not.
I was so busy trying to turn that story right side up I didn’t hear the Corvette stop behind me. Brent Andre charged right past me, his foot sending the rusty metal door flying and the interior of the trailer into chaos.
Erica’s hands set to shaking even before the door crashed into the wall behind her.
“Whoa, whoa, brother, I didn’t touch her.” Lenny climbed to the back of the futon.
“Erica, what in the name of God are you doing?” Brent’s voice boomed in the tiny space, and I opened my mouth to tell them all to stop, but it was too late. Erica jumped.
Her finger flexed on the trigger.
A flash of fire, a roar ripping through the afternoon, and Lenny disappeared behind the futon.
39
If only the damned headache would go away.
If he could find a way around the pounding, make everything slow down so he could think. Breathe. Remember.
It was like that more often than not these days. When he woke up.
Time lost. Foggy dreams floating around. So much clutter, so much noise, and he was always so tired, no matter how long he slept.
He fumbled on the night table for the remote. Clicked the TV to life. Watched the perky weather girl on channel two say another perfect Texas spring day was well underway and make a joke about sunscreen being easier to find than water.
Water. Sitting up, he reached into the night table and pulled out a bottle. He twisted the top free and gulped greedily, his eyes falling on the amber bottles on the table.
He needed his meds. Didn’t want them. Hated feeling like a bystander watching his own life go by. But he was supposed to take them. He shook one out and swallowed it with the rest of the water. Plunked two more into an empty Altoids tin for later.
He knew they were supposed to make him better, but lately no matter how many he took, everything was just blurry. Like a bad dream, and too many of those danced just the other side of the noise already.
He dropped the bottle. Rubbed his temple with his free hand. Stood and stumbled toward the bathroom, trying to remember if the medicine cabinet had been restocked with Advil.
Nope.
Spinning from the sink, he turned the water on as hot as it would go and leaned both hands on the counter as the shower warmed up.
He stared into the mirror until it disappeared behind the steam, the scars crisscrossing his hips and thighs making a pattern from white to pink to angry red and new, the raised tissue far more prominent than his smooth skin. Opening the veins. Letting blood flow. Cleansing. Freeing. God’s will.
Surely someday it would start to work like it did for the others. To heal his broken soul. His splintered brain.
Water spattered the tile, the gentle whisper drowning the never-ending noise in his head. If he could just think. If everything could just calm down for a minute.
Stepping into the shower, warmth sluicing across every fried nerve ending, he saw another angry red welt, this one wide and flat and streaking across his forearm.
He ran a hand over it, wincing.
That wasn’t his knife.
Did somebody scratch him and he didn’t notice?
At the party, maybe?
Guess so.
He leaned his forehead against the cool tile, the water heating his neck and shoulders. Everything was tight. Sore. Like his muscles had been overused, except they hadn’t. He’d be sorry, come August, if he fell out of shape now.
He just needed the headaches to stop.
Slow, deep breaths. Don’t chase the dreams. Don’t fight the noise. Just the sound of the shower spray and his own slow, even breathing.
A hundred gallons of water later, he straightened, reaching for the shampoo and scrubbing his head, his face, the rest of him.
He stepped out and wiped steam from the mirror, flexing his biceps and pecs, studying the way his muscles moved as he brushed his teeth.
Back in the bedroom, he pulled a polo over his head and slipped his shorts on, then grabbed another water bottle and drained the contents.
Water always made everything better.
The shower, the lake, the tears—they delivered peace.
His clock said he was late. Again. The newscast was the lunchtime one, not the morning. Damn.
He stuffed two binders into his backpack and grab
bed the remote to shut off the TV when the anchor’s voice stopped him cold.
Turning up the volume, he sat down on the bed, his head shaking slowly as a photo took the announcer’s place on the screen.
Bottomless eyes the color of a latte.
Skin that shimmered like moonbeams.
Flowing, perfectly golden hair.
“Remains discovered by a jogger at the foot of Mansfield Dam.”
Darkness rushed both sides of his face, the TV disappearing into the void.
It couldn’t be.
But the darkness receded and it was all still there, the perky weather girl shaking her head as the anchor said the sheriff’s office would have more information soon and to download the News2 app for breaking alerts.
He hitched the bag over one shoulder, jogging down the stairs. Outside, he knelt and ran his fingertips across the fine white dust on his tires.
The drum in his head shattered into a thousand sharp, stabbing pieces, his heart taking off for the races this time, too.
Where had the car been, and why couldn’t he remember how it got there and back?
40
I took all three rickety steps in one jump.
Brent Andre lunged for his wife.
Grabbing the barrel of the .22, he wrenched it from Erica’s limp grip. Brent locked the safety before he stuck the gun in the back of his pants and strode to the other side of the futon, barely grunting in my direction as he leaned out the ripped window screen. Both of us eyed the greasy little man on the ground outside, still but not bleeding.
I glanced back at Erica.
“Did I kill him?” she whispered.
“You don’t even sound too bothered about that.” Brent rounded on his wife. “Who the hell is this person, and why do you know him?”
Scanning the wall, I spied a dime-sized hole in the glass.
“You appear to have killed the window, unless people shoot up this place on the regular.” I cast an eye around the bare little room. A trunk served as a table at the far end of the futon. There was a TV that had probably shown first-run episodes of Sanford and Son on the opposite wall and a plastic folding lawn chair with a TV tray in front of it opposite the stove. A door next to the half-sized fridge led to what looked to be a bathroom.
Fear No Truth Page 23
