Freefall

  “No problem.” I looked around wondering if Hammond had taken off right away or if there was a chance she was still here somewhere. I pulled the picture out of my wallet and ran my thumb over it thinking about her palm pressing against my face. I could still feel her touching my skin. A hand slapped my shoulder, jarring me out of my thoughts. I stuck the picture back in my wallet.

  “Hey, is it true Clutch pounded on some asshole’s car?” Dray asked.

  “Yep, it’s true.”

  “Damn, I wish I’d seen that. What had him so pissed?”

  “Taylor.” It was all I needed to say.

  “Of course.”

  The customer walked away, and Clutch’s frown returned. “I’m done here,” he said dejectedly. He lowered the hood on the Firebird. Just as it snapped shut, the Mustang pulled up and screeched to a stop. They’d gone to pick up an oversized friend who looked like a linebacker. Armed with their own giant, they confidently hopped out of the car.

  “I take it this is the dented car,” Dray mumbled from the side of his mouth. I could hear the excitement in his tone at the prospect of a fight.

  “Yeah. Looks like they went to get a big brother.”

  The three of us stood shoulder to shoulder.

  “You dented my friend’s car,” the thick necked guy grunted.

  “Yep,” Clutch said, “he’s just lucky I didn’t dent his head.”

  For the second time that night, we’d attracted a curious crowd. We were definitely getting more attention than the vintage cars.

  The moose who looked as if he had more muscle than sense smacked his fist in to his palm. “We’ll see whose head gets dented.”

  Dray stepped forward. “Yeah, you and me, Cyclops, right now.”

  The guy stared down at him, and a smile crept up his face then he looked at Clutch. “That’s sweet. You have your own personal leprechaun to fight for you.”

  The tension bounced off of Dray like a taut bungee cord. “Now, I wish you hadn’t called me that.”

  “Dray, forget it. It’s not worth it,” I said. He ignored me, and I knew he would.

  “Why is that?” the ogre asked.

  Dray moved closer. “Because now I’m going to have to punch a fucking hole in that ugly face of yours.”

  The guy opened his mouth to laugh, and I lunged at Dray and grabbed his arm. I looked at the imbecile and his friends, and my expression must have been enough to let them know that they were messing with dynamite. Dray’s arm was as hard as iron beneath my grasp. It was like holding back a catapult after the spring had been released. “I suggest you leave now while you are still standing upright.”

  They paused, but only for a second, and then the four of them climbed into the convertible and drove away. I released Dray’s arm, and he looked back at me. He was pissed as hell. “Nix, I love you like a brother,” he spoke between clenched teeth, “but don’t ever fucking do that again.”

  “Was that idiot really worth spending the rest of your life in jail?”

  Dray waved me off. “Fuck you, Nix. I’m heading back to the boat.”

  I looked back at Clutch. “It’s definitely time to call it a night.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Scotlyn

  I stared down at the pool area from the balcony and shook my head. I’d listened to Lincoln rant for an hour about the tattoo artist’s buddy being nothing but a con-man, and now he sat down by the pool with a creepy bunch of guys who were anything but legit. I was thankful for the tattoo. It gave me the perfect excuse not to be there, although it seemed Lincoln might not have invited me anyhow. He seemed to be getting in over his head with something bad.

  The blinds tapped rhythmically against the glass door with each breeze, and I stretched my legs out in the sun. I shut the monitor on the laptop and slid it beneath my chair for shade. My search had been meaningless. The words ‘jobs for mute person without skills’ produced several odd results including a receptionist at a funeral home and a website for a pole dancing class. Unfortunately, I didn’t even have the skill of sign language like most mute people. I’d made up my own shorthand for talking with my face and hands, but they weren’t part of a universal language. But Nix seemed to understand everything I was trying to tell him. Even gestures and facial expressions it had taken Lincoln months to learn. The short time I’d spent with Nix last night had made me realize that I had to get out of this life. I was bitterly unhappy, and I badly needed to be away from Lincoln.

  And, for the first time ever, I really missed my voice. Up until now, I hadn’t had much to say. My inner sorrow and rage had sucked all my words into my heart, and I’d kept them captive there because there had been no one of worth to tell them to. My aunt would just have rolled her eyes and told me to pray, and Lincoln only hears his own voice floating around his head. Even if I’d spoken to him, he would not have heard me.

  I had no idea what it was about Nix that was so different, but I knew that he would listen, and I wanted to tell him everything. During my morning of useless internet searches, I’d looked up cures for what I remember a doctor calling selective mutism. But that seemed to be caused more by excessive shyness or anxiety. Growing up, I hadn’t been shy or anxious. I smiled thinking about how my mom would tell me that if I didn’t stop talking I would suck up all the air in the room. But she would laugh when she said it. She’d laughed a lot. We’d laughed a lot.

  Nix had stirred other emotions in me as well. I’d never flirted with a guy so brazenly in my life, but I couldn’t stop myself. I’d led him behind the building and showed him the tattoo for no other reason than I wanted him to touch me. And after he had dragged his fingers along my skin, it left me wanting more. After spending my teen years on the streets, letting men touch me for food and money, and after my time here with Lincoln, I hadn’t understood what it would be like to actually crave a man’s touch.

  Lincoln’s anger filled voice drifted up from the pool side. He was unhappy about something but then lately he was always unhappy. I had no idea what the discussion was about, and I’d made a point of staying completely out of his business life, mostly because it didn’t interest me. But lately his business dealings had left him filled with tension, making him even more unpleasant to be around.

  I picked up my phone and stared at it. Nix had put in his number, and I’d looked at the phone a dozen times throughout the morning. This time I wrote a text. “I had a dream last night.”

  He would probably have no idea who it was from. A guy like Nix had to have a dozen different girls sending him text messages. I was sure he’d be too busy to answer it, but a message popped right back. “Is that right?”

  “Yep and you were in it.”

  “Was I behaving?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “I blame it on the ice cream.” He’d known it was me. That thought made me ridiculously happy.

  Like our exchange of texts, the conversation below was becoming more heated but in a whole different way. Grady walked across the yard with two other guys, and he stormed out of the back gate. I could still hear Lincoln talking to someone, but he was out of my sight.

  I stood and went to the mirror in the bathroom and looked at myself. I mouthed the word Nix and watched how my lips, tongue, and teeth moved to say the word but no sound came out. I wondered if there was any sound left in my throat. I didn’t know much about medical things, but it seemed that if you didn’t use a muscle it shrank and became weak. Maybe that was the case with my voice. I’d been silent so long, maybe the sound was gone.

  “Scotlyn,” Lincoln’s sudden harsh yell startled me, and I turned so quickly my face smacked the edge of the bathroom door, leaving a long red mark on my cheek. I rubbed it and stepped out to see what he wanted.

  His forehead creased. “What happened to you?”

  I did a pantomime of my face running into the door.

  “How’d you manage that?” he asked.

  His question irritated me. In his self-centered mind he would never d
o anything so clumsy or careless. I cupped my hand to show that he had yelled, and I popped my fingers open to show surprise.

  Then a touch of sympathy flashed across his face. It was an emotion I saw so rarely from him I wasn’t completely sure I’d seen it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” His expression softened, and he moved closer and reached up to touch my cheek. “You should put some ice on it.” He had a fleeting moment of being human and then he dropped his hand. “I’ve got to meet these guys down in the city for a few hours then I’ll drive you to the tattoo shop.”

  I took hold of his arm and put on my best worried look.

  “It’s just business, Babe.” He leaned over and kissed me. “It’s cute how you worry about me.” With that he was gone.

  I did worry about him. I had no real emotional or physical attachment to the man, but he’d taken me from the streets and given me a home and that I would never forget.

  CHAPTER 11

  Nix

  Dray had stomped around the boat all night, pissed and needing to blow off steam. He’d told the girls not to come and then he’d taken off. When I woke in the morning, his bed was empty. I’d stopped him from flattening a guy, but knowing Dray, he just went out and found another victim.

  I had no clients until noon, and so I’d taken advantage of my free morning and had slept late until my phone woke me. Our short exchange of texts had definitely gotten my blood flowing and I couldn’t stop thinking about Scotlyn. The black notion that Hammond would put his foot down and decide not to bring her to the shop anymore had kept me awake late. He was such a controlling asshole it seemed very likely.

  The salty morning mist of early summer had dissolved already, and the sun felt plenty hot as it reflected off the deck. I sat in my fold-up chair and propped my feet up on the railing of the bow. A seagull was pacing the dock looking for edible scraps.

  “Hey, neighbor,” John Mason, the old guy on the next boat called to me. He was a retired doctor, and he’d been good friends with my grandfather. He was holding up a piece of paper.

  I waved over to him. “What do you have there?”

  “You’ve got one too.” He pointed to the window on the small door down to the cabin. I walked over and peeled off the notice that had been taped there. The marina owner was increasing the slip fee again.

  I lifted the paper. “Do you think he’s trying to get rid of the houseboat people?” I called to him.

  John came up to the stern of his boat. Unfortunately, the man never wore a shirt and this morning was no different. “That would be my guess. The marina is only zoned to have twenty percent live aboards. I think he’d like to shrink that down to zero.”

  I looked down at the flyer. “A fifteen percent hike is big. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do it.”

  “Your granddad would sure spin in his grave if you sold the Zany Lucy.”

  “Yeah, I know, but what am I going to do with her, park her in my grandmother’s garage?”

  “How is your grandmother?” Everyone asked the question, and I always hated that I didn’t have a different response but no one gets better with Alzheimer’s. They only get worse.

  “She’s not doing too well.” I picked up the paper. “This might be a reason for me to move back in with her.”

  “I’d sure miss having you out here.”

  I looked out past the marina and the rock jetty to the endless blue water. When the sunlight hit it just right it looked like there were giant streaks of gold running through it. Without a doubt it beat any view I could have in the city. “Believe me, I’d miss being out here.”

  ***

  Nana was sitting on the couch watching television when I walked inside. She smiled up at me over the back of the couch.

  “I’ll water the flowers for you so you won’t have to,” I said.

  She looked puzzled and then a spark of recognition flashed in her eyes. “Oh yes, thank you. Diana came by,” she said. There was usually more enthusiasm in her voice when she talked about one of Di’s visits. She looked at the coffee table in front of her. I walked over and sat down next to her. She reached forward and picked up the pile of pamphlets. “She collected up some information about places for me to live.” I hated the surrender in her voice. She smiled weakly at me. “There are some very nice places.”

  “Nana, I was thinking, it is getting too expensive for me to keep the boat. Maybe I should move back in here.”

  She placed her soft hand on my arm. “No, Alex, don’t be silly. You’re a young man. You need your independence. You can’t be here babysitting an old lady.”

  “I wouldn’t be babysitting an old lady. I’d be back home.”

  “But the Zany Lucy? What about her? If you need money, Alex—”

  “This isn’t about the money, Nana. Just think about it.” Of course, I knew she wouldn’t think about it. She would forget this conversation moments from now.” I glanced down at the brochures. They made the places look and sound so inviting, but I knew my grandmother, she would float away completely if she went to live in one.

  “You know,” she said wistfully, “I really wish my hands weren’t in so much pain from arthritis. I would have loved to write down my life’s memoirs.” It wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned it. I knew she thought it was a way to hold on to the past that would eventually slip away with the present. I honestly wished she had written the stuff down too. From the stories she used to tell Diana and me, she had lived a pretty wild life, or far-out, as she used to call it.

  “Maybe I could bring you a computer and you could write them.”

  She smiled. “You don’t write memoirs on a computer, Alex, that takes all the life out of them.” She looked up at the long row of pictures on the mantle. “If you want to catch the soul of a person’s life, you write down the memories in long hand.”

  “I guess that person would have to write pretty fast with everything you’d have to tell.”

  She smiled up at me. “I suppose so. Oh well, it’s a silly idea.”

  I stood and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’m going to go out and water the flowers, Nana.”

  “What flowers?” she asked as I walked out the back door.

  I finished watering, checked all the appliances, and kissed Nana good-bye. Diana called the second I stepped out of the door.

  “Hey, Di.”

  “Have you been to Nana’s today?”

  “I’m just leaving her house now.” I could always read my sister’s thoughts through the phone. “And yes I saw the brochures you gave her. And no, I don’t want her to go.”

  “Alex—”

  “I know she’s getting worse, Di, so don’t go giving me your usual unqualified diagnosis.”

  “So, you think it would be better if she just left the stove on and went to bed?”

  “That’s just fucking stupid. You know I don’t want that. But I’m thinking of selling the Lucy and then I can move back in with her.”

  She harrumphed loudly into the phone. Diana was great at the harrumph thing. “That would be great. Then you could just have the endless stream of girls come through Nana’s living room instead of onto the boat. And I can see Dray now crashed out on her couch.”

  “Christ, Di, you act like I have a revolving door on the Lucy and the chicks are just floating in and out of there. I’m not the same as I was after high school. Those homes suck the life out of people. Everyone knows that they’re there to die and so they do, and usually way faster than they normally would have because, like I said, those homes suck.”

  “And who will take care of her while you’re at work?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.” The phone beeped. “I’m getting another call, Di. I’ll talk to you later.” I was glad to end the conversation.

  “Hello.”

  “Nix, we’ve got a problem.” Cassie’s voice sounded less confident than usual.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “The owner of Tank’s
Gym called here looking for you. I guess Dray went on a real bender last night. Then he ended up at the gym and sparred with some of the bigger guys down there.” Her voice broke. “The owner said he’s still there at the gym. He won’t go to the hospital, but he’s in pretty bad shape.”

  “Shit. That would explain where he was all night.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to do anything for two weeks after that concussion.” She was definitely upset. “Do you want me to go get him?”

  “No way, Cass. Tank’s Gym is in a totally sketchy part of town. I’ll head there right now.”

  “I’ll call your twelve o’clock and move him to one.”

  “Great. See you soon. . . I hope.”

  I’d tried to call Dray a couple of times on the drive to the gym, but his phone was off. Cassie didn’t have many details, but the fact that the word hospital was being popped around wasn’t good.

  Even though it was midday, traffic sucked. There didn’t ever seem to be a time of day without it anymore. Parking was a bitch too, but I squeezed in between a truck and a trash bin and jumped out of the car. Dray’s car was parked at the corner, so at least I knew he was still inside.

  The smell of mold and sweat hit me the second I walked in. Two big, ape-looking guys were in the main ring beating the crap out of each other, and a couple other guys were cheering them on. Tank, the owner of the place, a boxy looking guy with a deep scar in his chin and a nose that looked as if it had been through a blender, came out of the office. He waved me over and motioned inside the office with his head. “He’s in there.” The owner stopped me. “He came in here last night, drunk as hell and just itching for a fight. Finally goaded a couple of guys to take him up on it. His reflexes were so dulled by the liquor, he took a real beating. I didn’t hear about it until I walked in this morning.”

  Dray was stretched out on a grime covered couch with a dirty rag over his face. Blood stains spotted the entire cloth. One leg and one arm hung down off the couch and for a second, my heart stopped. “Dray?”

  He didn’t lift the blood cloth. “Is that you, Nix,” he mumbled.