“Oh, I know. And I’m very sorry about that. But it’s been a month. So I guess that’s it, right?” The whites of her eyes shine like flashlights. “I mean, it’s pretty much over. Eventually, you’ll have to move on. And what better way than with a fresh start?” Her finger curls under my chin as she forces me to look at her. “With me—and our baby.”
My breathing becomes labored, and my body shakes like a dog at the vet. Never mind that I’m still not over the last trauma.
“Stay here.” A rife panic begins to fill me. “I’ll get some money.”
I head into the store, bedraggled, scared shitless at the trajectory of how fast this disaster has mutated. It all started with Hailey—with my dick. If I were smart, I’d do away with both of them.
I pick up the milk in haste, pay, then head straight for the ATM. Five transactions and a thousand dollars later, I head back to find her near her car, milling around, just inviting that nutcase that’s been stalking me to snap another picture.
“Here.” I practically thrust it at her. If it had fallen, I wouldn’t have picked it up. “Get a room for the night. In the morning head to your mother’s, a friend’s, anywhere but here. I’ve got too much to deal with right now and I can’t handle”— I lift my hands in a fit of frustration—“this.”
“This?” She places her hands gently over her swollen belly. “This happens to be your child, James.” Her voice pitches an octave and panic fills me.
“Shhh!” I try to calm her down, but it’s too late.
She flings the bills in the air and makes it rain twenties. “I don’t need your stupid money. What I need is a little respect from the father of my baby!” Her voice trails into the sky like a razor sawing through steel, making my ears wish they could bleed, my soul wish it could vacate the premises.
“Look”—she hugs her belly, annunciating its girth that much more—“if you’re afraid of what Allison is going to say, don’t worry. I’ll talk to her woman to woman.”
“Allison isn’t going to take well to this news no matter if you or the Pope talks to her. She’s going to be furious. She’s already out for blood. She is in no way going to welcome you or this child into our lives.”
A quick, angry huff escapes her lips. “Then tell her you’ll see her around because you have a new family to deal with.”
“I’m not dealing with this!” I whisper so loud I may as well have screamed it. “Are you that dense? My God, I thought you were a brilliant woman, and here you are not seeing the forest for the trees.” I grip her by the arms and shrink down to eye level, begging her to see my point. “If you just find somewhere to stay, I’ll get in touch with you. I’ll help you with the baby. I’ll help you with money, anything you want. Just for the love of God, do not show up on my front doorstep. Don’t follow me around town. There’s a good chance we’ve already been spotted.”
She growls at me as her fury grows. “I hate this. And right now, I hate you, James Price.” She stalks off, and I watch as she gets back into the seemingly innocent car and peels out of the parking lot with a hostile squeal.
“Shit.” I fall to my knees and pick up every last bill I can find.
I’m going to be a father. I’m not sure I quite believe it. I’m not sure I quite believe anything anymore.
9
Allison
“I have someone looking out for you.”
Words you never want to hear your sister say—not when she’s spending the rest of her foreseeable future in a private correctional facility—not when you just got off the phone with your mother who keeps threatening to come out and complicate an already complicated situation. I can only take so much familial meddling. Normally, familial meddling would be welcome under such circumstances, but with my sister’s bloodstained history and my mother’s psychotic need to control the world—familial meddling is very much unwelcomed.
“What did you do?” Blood rushes through my veins so fast it heats me up, feels as if I’m burning alive from the inside.
“That’s not for you to worry about.” Jane’s voice comes in clear and measured. “Just focus on getting my niece back where she belongs. How is that husband of yours? Does he need his nut sack rearranged?”
“No.” I stomp my way into the closet and shut the door. “God no. Please, please, please, Jane—call off your dogs. The public hates me. My mailbox is brimming with notes confirming this fact on a daily basis. They think I sold my daughter into sexual slavery. People have accused me of chopping her up and eating her. They think I actually care about that GoFuckingFundMe.”
“You should care. It’s at a hundred seventy-two thousand.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want it. I won’t touch it. I want Reagan back.” I sink to the floor amidst my collection of wool jackets, their ghostly arms petting me softly over the head. It reminds me of Reagan and her feather-like hair, her velvet skin. A horrible choking sound comes from me instead of a cry. I’ve lost all ability to do so, cried so many damn tears I’m fresh out of them these days. A strangled sound breaks free. “Janey, I need you. Dammit, why aren’t you here? Don’t send someone else—come yourself. Why can’t you be here with me?”
A hard sniffle comes from the other line, and it sends a sobering alarm through me. Janey doesn’t cry. She doesn’t whimper or feel emotions on the same level as other human beings. It’s a part of her charm as much as it is a part of her disease.
“Don’t cry.” I pull it together enough to evict the words past that painful fist lodged in my throat. “She’s coming back to me. I can feel it.”
Silence. That’s almost as bad as hearing my sister sniff back her emotions.
“I have to tell you something, Ally.” Her voice sounds strangled, huskier than usual, as if she were ashamed of what comes next.
“You got knocked up by the guard?” I had to go there. I think we both needed some comic relief, and yet neither of us bothers to laugh.
“Heather came to see me.”
“What?” I squawk so loud that I bury myself further in the forest of coats I’ve yanked down from their posts. “When? Today?”
“Months ago. Before Reagan went missing.”
“Oh my God.” I try to process this, make sense of it on some level, but it’s too out there to wrap my head around. “I didn’t know that you knew her.”
“I remembered her vaguely, and only after she plied me with information. She’s that batshit chick who turned you into a turd, that your friends wanted nothing to do with.”
“That would be her.” My hand wraps around the wool belt of a pea coat, snapping the hanger and sending it crashing on top of me.
“She named her kids after you.”
“She told you that?” I told Jane about the first Allison years ago, but the fact Jane knew about the second ode to my name blindsides me.
“Ally and Allison. That about says it all.”
“Amen. So what happened? What did she want?”
“What do you think she wanted? She heard you moved.”
More silence. My mind fills in the topographical blanks at lightning speeds.
“Oh shit.” I drop my head between my knees. The room sways and my stomach churns in its own hot juices. “And you told her?”
“Well, I didn’t think she was going to up and move her whole family to Butt-Fuck Idaho!”
“Oh my God, I can’t breathe. You don’t think—”
“I don’t know what to think. You said she came to your house. She knows exactly where you live. I didn’t give her that kind of info.”
“It probably wasn’t hard to get. I have a media spotlight over my roof that you can see from space. And then when she showed up—I gave her my number that first day I saw her. I wanted to keep tabs on her from afar. But she’s not leaving town. She hasn’t even hinted of it.” My mind tries to pin down all the possibilities. What the hell is Heather Evans up to? She found out where I lived before Reagan disappeared. There’s no doubt in my mind her fingerprints are a
ll over my daughter’s missing case.
“Listen, Ally, and listen good. There are a lot of people here on the inside that don’t have all their marbles. But that girl—that chick is certifiable. Stay the hell away from her.” A thick lull sags between us. “Or better yet—ask her where the hell she’s hiding your daughter.”
“I have to go.” I hang up the phone and sit in the dark, in the back of the musty closet wondering if Heather Evans would have the brains, the brawn, the balls to pull something like this off.
She certainly has the daughter.
* * *
The sun crawls out like a coward late in the afternoon, and I make up an excuse to head into town. James is so distracted, so distraught at the thought his father might be in any way connected to his mother’s death, it’s been eating him alive ever since McCafferty left that evening.
Charles is off doing his part for the community, so I avoid Beacon Street where the homeless shelter is. The no-tell motel Heather is holed up in just so happens to be in that seedy part of town.
I was going to surprise her. Me, her favorite person, showing up unannounced. It would have probably killed her. But that scenario never panned out because she texted about twenty minutes ago letting me know she has a bombshell to drop.
My phone pings just as I pull into the lot.
GET DOWN HERE NOW!
I pull the phone with me and hightail it to her seedy motel room, annoyed that I’m actually anxious to hear what she has to say.
Last night, James lamented to me how much it sucked knowing there was a nutcase out there following us around and I didn’t put him out of his misery. I wondered about that this morning. Don’t I trust my philandering husband? Haven’t we crested the worst of it? Why can’t I trust him? And then I realized it was because I knew he couldn’t fully trust me. After all, I have him thinking Reagan contains equal parts Price DNA. I’m the monster of the bunch. For so many years I thought it was James. After the Hailey incident, I was sure of it. But in the light of the disillusioned day, after Reagan’s disappearance, I can see myself for what I really am—a liar.
Nevertheless, half the town is following us around, and that’s what I did tell him. James nodded because in the lie was buried a truth. Little does he know, it was my own personal stalker who captured that cozy moment for two that he and his ex partook in. I don’t feel half as threatened by photographic incrimination as he does, but that didn’t stop me from driving in a maze-like pattern on my way here just to throw off even the slickest of paparazzi.
With a brisk knock to the door, I note its slightly ajar. I give a quick glance around before letting myself in.
Heather’s cheap self-imposed dungeon smells thick of sweat and old farts. The desk lamp is the only illumination in this depressing den of depravity and she pops up next to me like an apparition.
“I’m keeping the windows closed.” Heather pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “We can’t risk getting caught.” She slips her hand inside the sleeve of my sweater and I pull away, but the icy trail of her fingers lingers long after she’s gone.
“What is it you wanted to tell me?” My eyes flit to the unmade bed, the covers in a violent disarray as if a war had broken out over the mattress.
She shuttles me over to the small table for two in the corner. “I made us some joe so we can have a real old-fashioned coffee klatch. I’ve always wanted to say that, and I’ve always wanted to have one with you!” The whites of her eyes expand, burning through the dim light like ghostly beacons.
I’ve always found it remarkable the way her enthusiasm never wanes, at least where I’m concerned.
“Boy, do I ever have stuff to tell you!” She pounds her hand over the table and the coffee crests the lip on both of our mugs. “Which do you want first? The bad news or the—” She rolls her eyes to the ceiling like a thirteen-year-old—and dear God, I’d much rather deal with your average thirteen-year-old. “Oh heck, Allison, it’s all bad news from here.” Her rusty teeth bite down over her bottom lip as if that in itself were the best news possible. I’ve always wondered if Heather got her rocks off on turning my world to shit. If her first order of business was to ensure no one ever spoke to me again in high school, what lengths would she go to out in the real world? Considering the fact James and I are still in the running for public enemy number one, I’d say she’s off to a fantastic start.
My stomach drops. Against my better judgment, I take a sip of the coffee, the color and taste of mud—God forbid, antifreeze.
“Just give it to me straight. All of it at once,” I demand. The truth is, I can’t breathe in here. I can’t stand the echo of the feel of her hand crawling up my sweater. Maybe that’s what has always made me uneasy around Heather? She secretly wants something on a sexual level that I can’t give her. A quick visual of her rolling around on top of me naked makes my stomach boil.
“Len Lewis.” A Cheshire cat grin breaks out over that demented face, and as soon as she says his name a shiver runs through me, a real toaster in the bathtub moment of electrocution. “Let’s start there.”
“Tell me what you have.” My breathing grows erratic. As hard as I’ve tried to repress all thoughts of Len for the last seven years, he’s always been there, adhered to the backdrop of my mind like unwanted wallpaper.
“He’s dead.” She nods like a loon, a choo-choo train laugh percolating in her throat as if it were the funniest thing in the world.
But I don’t join her giggle-fest. Instead, a swell of relief fills me. If that’s all she’s got, I’ve got nothing to fear. “Yes, I know that. We talked about that, remember?”
“Well, so are his parents.” Her head ticks to the side as if this news had the capability to blow me out of the water. “And if you go back far enough, you have to dig pretty deep to find a single living relative.”
More relief. “That crosses the Lewis family off the list.” A list they were never on as far as I’m concerned.
“Not so fast.” She lifts a finger an inch from my nose, and for a second I think she’s going to slap me. “What exactly do you know about the Lewis family?”
“Nothing really. Len worked down at the docks. He never talked about his family.” True—but in all fairness Len and I kept our mouths fused together amongst other far more fertile body parts. Len was hauntingly beautiful. A god among men. He seemed nice enough for the month I knew him.
“He’s a Black Stone Indian.” She cuts the air with the caustic sound of her voice.
“Yes, I do know that.” The Black Stones were an offshoot of the Cherokee nation that splintered off when they managed to escape the Trail of Tears. They were later disenfranchised from their roots completely and something akin to a turf war ensued and all hell broke loose. Len told me that much, and I remember being fascinated by it. It turned this man, this mere mortal into something almost mythological in nature. Len was already larger than life in my eyes, but this bolstered him to some kind of a hero—orgasmic hero to be clear, but that’s neither here nor there. It was a rebound relationship, and like all rebound relationships it did not last. And tragically, no sooner did I break up with Len than he passed away in that horrific accident. I’d like to think he would be pleased to know that a piece of him lives on through our beautiful daughter—the one I no longer know the whereabouts of. On second thought, he would be markedly pissed.
“What’s new with this?” I motion for her to go on.
“His family hailed from Idaho.” She nods as if it should strike a chord, and horrifyingly enough it does. “They all died some gruesome death.” She pretends to gag. “Isn’t that freaky? All of them?”
“That’s just a terrible coincidence.” It feels as if I’m reading off a cue card. All my mind wants to do is ruminate over the fact everyone in my husband’s family has met an equally ironic fate. It can’t be related. It’s too weird. “It happens. Anything else?”
“I’m going to drive out to Saginaw County tomorrow. I did some research an
d the librarian there is a Black Stone herself. She said I was welcome anytime to ask any—”
“No!” I reach forward and bind her wrists in a fit of fury. “If you tell her my name, she’ll know who I am. And if she says anything at all, the media will eat this up. I have to be the one to tell James that Reagan isn’t his biological daughter, not you, not some smiling librarian from Saginaw.”
“Fine. I’ll tell her I’m asking for a friend.” Her hands fold over mine, and I’m quick to free myself from the vise.
“Anything else? Anything about James?”
“James, James the cheat,” she chants as she pulls out her phone.
More Monica news no doubt. I don’t fear her. In fact, if I wasn’t such a public interest at the moment, I’d probably beat her senseless.
Heather snickers. “Caught again, this time at the market. I’ve made it a habit to camp out at night in front of the house. The midnight hour seems to fit his perverted schedule, if you know what I mean. Looky here.” She cues up a photo of him at that police station.
“He mentioned something about seeing Rich. His cousin works there.”
“Don’t I know it. That boy is C-U-T-E.” She gives a quick wink and tosses the lesbian theory right out the vaginal window. However, a part of me is well aware she’d swing both ways for me. “But did he tell you he went to the store?” She shows me a picture of James walking into the Sunshine Market.
“Who cares?”
“Maybe this woman cares?” Her thumb swipes erratically. “Here’s a good one.” She shoves the screen in my face and I back up as I struggle to make out the image. And then I see her, like some foreground background mindfuck portrait, a familiar face begins to take shape in the dark.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Hailey Oden—that little b”— before I can properly address her, I spot something on her lap, something voluminous and circular at the base of her belly. “No. Is she?”
“Preggers.”
I hate that word, and at the moment I hate Hailey far more than I hated her before. And suddenly, viscerally I hate James. “You don’t think…”