“How could you?” I yell. My words melt into a scream, a long wail of soul deep agony, torn from me like my heart is being torn from my chest.
It was all a lie.
“Oh, God, Sloane, please. I’m so sorry. I swear to you…I promise you that I…I never—”
“Stop it! Stop talking! I don’t want to hear your words anymore. Your promises, your truth…it’s all bullshit. I don’t believe any of them. I just want you to leave me and my family the hell alone.” I wrench free of him a second time. “Go away, Hemi. Just go away.”
I hate that my voice breaks on the last part, my heartache showing through. But it’s with a stiff, straight spine and a head held high that I walk away from Hemi, leaving him behind.
I walk until I don’t hear him following me anymore. It’s only then that I look back. I expect to see him gone, already having driven out of my life like I asked him to.
Coward! Bastard!
But when I glance behind me, I see Hemi standing just where I left him—in the gravel, under the sun, alongside the road. Across the distance, our eyes meet. His are full of guilt and regret and sadness. I push every other emotion down into the pit of my stomach so that mine show only anger. And hatred. And betrayal.
I hold his gaze as I take my phone from my pocket. Then, slowly, decisively, I turn and dial my brother’s number. The brother that I know and trust and believe in. The brother who would never do anything to hurt me. I realize he might still be sleeping, but I need him to answer. I need him to prove me right. In front of Hemi. Even though he has no idea who I’m calling.
When he answers, I exhale and start walking again.
“Steven, I need a ride. Can you come get me?”
“Where’s your car?”
“At the tattoo shop.”
He sighs, but he doesn’t argue. Because he loves me. And this is what people who love each other do—they help, never hurt. “Yeah, tell me where you are.”
I give him my general location and the name of the gas station I know is a couple of miles up ahead.
“Give me twenty minutes,” he says.
“I’ll be waiting,” I reply, trying to keep every bit of emotion out of my voice.
With one more deep, put-upon sigh, he hangs up. And I keep walking until, when I look back, I can’t see Hemi anymore.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - Hemi
I stand in the same spot, watching Sloane walk away until I can’t see her anymore. Now, ten minutes later, I’m still standing here. Waiting.
I don’t want to drive up to her, to keep pushing her when she needs the space. Hell, I don’t blame her for her reaction. If I found out that someone I was sleeping with had endangered my family, however unintentionally, I’d be eleven kinds of pissed.
And she is. Rightfully so.
And I feel like shit. As much for putting the bull’s eye on her brother’s back as getting her house shot up. But the one thing that bothers me most, the one thing I was least expecting, is how much it hurts me to see the hate in her eyes. To see how betrayed she looked when she found out what I’d done. I’d give anything to take it all back and erase that look.
For two years, the most important thing in my life has been finding the dirty cop who sold my brother the bad drugs that killed him. But lately, for the first time since Ollie died, that has taken a back seat to something else. To someone else.
Sloane.
When did things get so different? When did she start to matter so much? When did I lose my edge, lose my focus?
None of those answers matter now. It’s done. She hates me and she has every reason to.
The question is: Can I live with that? Can I live with her hate? Can I live without her?
When I finally turn away from the last place I saw Sloane before she disappeared over the horizon, I pull out my phone and punch in Reese’s number. I get the voice mail.
“Reese, call me when you get this. I need you to have your friend look into something for me.”
If Sloane’s brother is innocent, I’ll make it my mission in life to prove it. Until then, the only thing I can do is reach back into a life that I promised I’d never go back to. Not for any reason.
But that was before Sloane.
With steel resolve, I punch in a number that I’ll probably never forget. When a familiar voice answers, I feel disgust rise in my throat like bitter bile. “Sebastian, it’s Hemi. I need a favor.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - Sloane
I have a hard time meeting Steven’s eyes when I climb into the passenger seat.
“What the hell happened? How’d you end up out here?”
The backs of my eyes burn. With heartache, with shame, with humiliation.
“Steven,” I begin, turning my head to stare out the window and let the tears fall as he drives toward The Ink Stain to let me get my car. “Did you know anything about some dirty co**ine being impounded a couple of years ago?”
“What kind of a question is that? I don’t know anybody who works in narcotics except Duncan’s dad. Why would I keep up with shit like that?”
I’m relieved at the speed of his answer, and how in character it is with his surly attitude. He doesn’t seem defensive or act suspicious in any way. In my head, I curse Hemi for making me doubt him for even one millisecond.
“Is there any way you could’ve been connected to a bust that went down or something? Any way your name could’ve come up in association with something like that? Or with Duncan’s dad?”
“Not that I can think of. What’s this about, Sloane? Are you gonna tell me why I had to pick you up at a gas station, all alone, and now you’re asking me bizarre questions?”
“Somewhere out there, someone thinks you had something to do with selling some rich kid bad coke. He ended up dying and no bust was ever made. Now his family thinks you had something to do with it. I think that’s why you’ve been getting threats.”
“I don’t know where you get your information, Sloane, but the threats I’ve been getting are obviously a case of mistaken identity. They’re from someone who…who…”
He trails off as if a light bulb just went off. “What, Steven? What is it?”
“One of the phone calls I got was from a burner phone. All it said was, ‘We want our money’. I have no frickin’ clue who it was or what money they thought I might owe ‘em. That’s why I didn’t take it very seriously at first. It wasn’t until they started threatening lives and shit that it got real.”
“Steven, who could they have you confused with? How could something like this happen? Do you have any questionable friends? Informants? Anyone that could’ve implicated you without you knowing?”
“Not that I know of. But hell, Sloane, I’m a cop. A detective no less. I have to consort with the pond scum to some extent just to get information.”
I’m running over the details in my mind, trying to shake something loose that might mean something. That’s when I remember Hemi’s odd question to me a few weeks ago.
“What about when you and Duncan lived on Tumblin Street? Did you have any run-ins with people that might’ve been involved in something like this? Did you make any enemies that might use some outlandish detail to make it seem like you were a dirty cop?”
Steven shakes his head. “No. For most of that time, we just laid low. Hell, we didn’t even have any parties after those first few weeks.”
“What about Duncan? Did he have any questionable friends?”
Steven shakes his head again. “No. He laid pretty low, too. In the beginning, I thought he had a girlfriend. I’d hear his car leaving at night sometimes. And he was awful damn happy during that time. I figured he was getting laid. A lot.”
I feel the frown wrinkle my brow. My first thought is that Duncan is somehow involved. I don’t know why, but something in my gut just jumped when Steven said that. The problem is, Duncan is Steven’s partner. That’s like some sort of weird sacred cop thing. You don’t question your partner. You don’t suspect them. You don’t distrust them. You just give them your loyalty. Your unwavering loyalty. This is the person you trust with your life every single day out in the field. That blind faith is a very strong bond between partners and I know Steven won’t take it well if I start casting suspicion on Duncan.
“Well, maybe something will turn up. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open and our ears to the ground,” I say, having every intention of talking to Dad about it later.
Steven laughs. “Oh really? And what connections, pray tell, do you think you have that might give your eyes or your ears a clue as to what might be going out there in the criminal underworld?”
I think immediately of Hemi. I don’t ever plan to speak to him again, but little did Steven or I know that I was consorting with someone who has lots of secret ties to different people, not all harmless ones.
I think about Steven’s reaction to Hemi and I amend my first thought. Maybe Steven did know. Maybe I should’ve trusted my brother more all along.
Maybe I don’t have the good judgment to go and spread my wings. Maybe I was better off living my life in a cage.
********
My phone buzzes against my side. I don’t even turn on the ringer anymore. It’s depressing when it doesn’t ring and it’s depressing when it does.
I glance at the bright screen. I see Hemi’s name and Hemi’s number. Again. He’s called at least six times every day since the day I got out of his car. And every day I ignore him. The first few times, he left messages. Short ones that said things like, “I’m sorry, Sloane” and “Please forgive me, Sloane.” Nothing that really makes a difference. They’re just words. Empty words.
Now he says nothing. He just waits for the voice mail to pick up and I hear silence.
I tuck the phone away where I can’t see it or feel it. I close my eyes against the clock on my nightstand that says it’s already eleven o’clock. And I’m still in bed.
I didn’t go to school today. I couldn’t. It’s been almost a week and I still can’t sleep. I can’t think. I can’t seem to face the world anymore. So I’m here. Waiting. For what, I don’t know.
I drift in that space between sleep and wakefulness for another hour before the doorbell rings. Drowsily, I open my eyes and look at the clock again. I turn over and snuggle back down into the covers.
And the doorbell rings again.
With a growl, I throw back the blanket and stomp down the stairs to wrench open the door. I think for a second that my dad would kill me if he saw me forget to check the peep hole. Unlike him and my brothers, though, I’m hardly used to my life being in danger and of being suspicious of every single person I pass.
But this is no one to be afraid of. It’s a woman. Dressed in a blue polo shirt with FLOWERS BY WANDA embroidered on the left breast.
“I’ve got a delivery for Sloane Locke,” she says in her deep smoker’s voice.
“I’ll take it,” I say, eyeing the enormous vase of lilies. I can smell them already.
The woman hands me the vase and then extends a clipboard. “Those are beautiful,” she says as I tuck them into the bend of my arm and scribble my name on the paper.
“Thank you,” I tell her, moving to shut the door.
“Have a great day,” she throws over her shoulder as she turns to walk back down the sidewalk.
“It’ll be shitty,” I mutter, flipping closed the deadbolt. “Just like yesterday.”
I set the vase of flowers on the never-used dining room table, taking out the card to glance at it. “I hope you’ll find a way to forgive me. H.”
I toss it beside the vase and make my way back up to my bedroom, wishing this day would be over already.
The next three days progress in much the same way. Each day I sleep in and each day the doorbell rings sometime in the late morning. It’s always the same lady carrying a beautiful vase filled with an explosion of color and fragrance.
Every day she tells me the flowers are beautiful, and every day I sign my name and thank her. And every day, after that, I leave them on the dining room table with the rest. Card and all.
Today is Friday. For some reason my father is home from work. I know this because at seven thirty, he knocks at my door. “I’m sleeping in,” I mutter from behind my pillow. I hear nothing for a second before I catch the sound of him turning and walking away.
I wake up hours later, my first thought being that it’s nearly one in the afternoon and the doorbell hasn’t chimed. Deep inside my chest, my heart breaks a little more than I thought was even possible. Today marks the day that Hemi gave up. Yesterday was how much he cared about me, how sorry he really was. But not today. Today marks the end. Today marks the day he gave up.
I’m still crying into my pillow when I hear the doorbell. My heart trips up into a little faster cadence as I listen to the muffled voices of Dad and a woman. I wait for a few minutes before I venture downstairs. My father is standing in front of the dining room table, staring at the vases full of gorgeous flowers of every color and variety. I notice the new vase right in front of him. It’s holding at least two dozen pure white roses, and in the center, a single blood red one. I don’t know what it means. It could mean anything. But for some reason, this single bud speaks more clearly than anything else has. It’s as though Hemi knew his calls and his flowers were all white noise in the background of my hurt and disillusionment. But this is him screaming at me from the haze, telling me something I’m not sure I believe.
“What the hell is this, Sloane? Are you trying to open up a flower shop?” Dad asks when I reach around him to take the card from the clear little trident that holds it in place.