Black Jack: A nail biting, hair-raising thriller (Jack Ryder Book 4)

  And there it is. We are right back where we started.

  I put the beer bottle down on the patio table. “This was a mistake,” I say and get up. “Salter, give Mommy a kiss. I’ll be back to pick you up at four.”

  Chapter 30

  March 1992

  Ally is already happier in Cocoa Beach than in any of the seven other places she had lived in. She never shows her parents, though. To them, she is still angry, slamming doors and yelling at them, but she has immediately fallen in. She has found her place hanging out with the girls from school. None of these girls are like any of the others at Cocoa Beach High, Ally soon learns. They aren’t the pretty ones; they aren’t cheerleaders or surfers or soccer players like the rest. They don’t care about good grades or pleasing the teachers. Instead, they skip school together, a lot, and go downtown to hang out on the streets. Their favorite thing to do is to yell mocking words at tourists. That is a lot of fun. If they see a tourist waiting for the light to turn green at a crosswalk, one of them will approach him while the others watch. The dare is to steal his wallet without him noticing it.

  They have tried to get Ally to do it too, but so far she has refused. One of the girls, AK, soon starts to nag her about it, telling her that you can’t just be a bystander. You can’t just let all the others do the hard work while you have the fun laughing at it. Not in this group. They all contribute.

  “Besides, it’s fun,” she says, while touching her Mohawk. “It’s like a drug. Once you’ve stolen your first wallet, there is no going back. You’ll want to do it again and again to feel the kick.”

  A few days later, Ally volunteers herself, even though she really doesn’t want to. She isn’t sure she has it in her, and she is terrified of getting caught.

  She walks up to a couple that are clearly tourists (fanny packs, T-shirts that say Ron Jon’s, that look in their eyes that tells you they have no idea where they are going). They are standing at the intersection at Minutemen, looking clueless, when the girls nudge Ally along.

  Ally smiles kindly. “Are you looking for something?”

  The man looks at Ally. “Yes. Yes we are. We want to find a nice place to eat. Do you know any around here?”

  “Heidi’s just opened on the corner over there. I don’t know if it has good food, though,” she says, sounding nice and polite.

  Meanwhile, the other girls giggle behind her as her hands creep into the woman’s purse and pull out a wallet. Ally’s hands are sweaty. Her heart is racing. She has never done anything like this before. Her hands are shaking heavily as she pulls it out and places it inside the pocket of her neon windbreaker that she wears backwards like Kris Kross. Her forehead is itching underneath her bandana.

  “Thank you, dearie,” the woman says.

  “You’re welcome. By the way…”

  “Yes?”

  “Did anyone ever tell you you’re fat?”

  The woman looks at the man like she expects him to clarify what she just heard. “Excuse me?”

  The girls are giggling loudly behind her now. It makes her feel strong and more self-confident to know they are with her. She wants to show them. She wants to earn their respect and her worth in the group.

  “Did you just tell my wife that she is fat?” the man says.

  Ally smiles like he has heard her wrong. “No, no, no. That’s not what I meant. I meant you’re both very overweight. You really should consider exercising or maybe lay off the donuts a little, huh?”

  Ally pokes the woman’s belly, then laughs. “See. It’s not supposed to move like that.”

  The man steps up. He gets threatening. Ally stays in position. It is all about not showing fear now. The man’s face turns red.

  “Why. You little…”

  He swings out his hand with the intention of slapping her face, but Ally ducks and he misses. Instead, she throws a punch as hard as she can and knocks the air out of him. He gasps and bends forward, then falls to his knees. The woman lifts her hands in the air and screams.

  “Help! Police! Help!”

  Ally stares nervously at the man and realizes what she has done. Then she looks at her girls for approval. They all laugh. Especially AK seems captivated by the situation. She walks up to the man, who is still on all fours, and kicks him in the stomach. The man screams in pain. Ally looks at him, terrified.

  What have I done?

  “We gotta go now,” one of the girls yells. “We’re attracting too much attention.”

  The girls take turns to throw one last punch each into the man’s stomach before they flee the place.

  While running, Ally is happy to realize she now has the approval of the group. No one will ever question her again. Not only has she convinced the girls that she is capable of almost anything and getting away with it, she has also discovered a new side to herself.

  Chapter 31

  September 2015

  I cook all afternoon, much to my stepmother’s irritation. I am making a mess of the place, and when she peeks in now and then, she does nothing but send an annoyed sigh my way before she leaves, and soon after my dad comes into the kitchen and tells me to remember to clean up after myself.

  That little spectacle goes on for a few hours, while I create so many dishes I could open a restaurant. Cooking helps me relax; it makes me forget all the bad emotions, all the frustrations from arguing with Joey again. Even all the sadness from knowing my brother might end up in prison, along with the sorrow from knowing Danny lost his wife in such a brutal manner last night, and the worry that Salter will never want to live with me again. I try not to think about it, but I am certain that he will choose his dad over me, and then what do I do?

  There is a lot going on inside of me, to put it mildly. And the cooking takes all that away for a few hours. It makes me clear my mind. It is my yoga, my meditation, if you will.

  Around four o’clock, I take the car to pick up Salter. I take both him and Joey with me to Alex’s place. We don’t speak to one another the entire drive there, only Salter babbles on about how he and his dad went fishing in the river and he almost caught a rainbow trout, but it got away from him, and how he wishes he could do that every day.

  “That’s great, honey,” I say, not really listening. My mind is elsewhere. I am thinking about the argument and the emotions that have once again been ripped up between Joey and me. I am beginning to long for Manhattan and my quiet life up there. Except I don’t look forward to facing unemployment with no money in the bank. I am spending the last of my savings on Blake’s lawyer, and I don’t like to think about what is going to happen after that.

  “Could you help me with the food?” I ask both of them, as we park the car in front of Alex’s beach house on 7th Street. He can peek over to my dad’s house on the other side of A1A. It was a little overkill to drive there, but there is no way I could have carried all this food.

  It is amusing that Alex now actually lives on 7th Street. Growing up, we always made fun of Alex because he lived on 6th, whereas the rest of us lived on 7th. We would always tease him—lovingly of course—and call him an outsider, a loser, since he wasn’t a real 7th Streeter. Living on this street now means he is almost a neighbor to Sandra, which to me is a little odd. He and Sandra used to have a thing for each other back in the day. I wonder if they ever think of each other in the same way they used to. I never understood what went wrong with them, why they didn’t end up together. They were so perfect for each other, and we all thought they would become a couple, but it never happened.

  I am about to ring the doorbell, my hands full of lasagna and burritos, when Joey walks in front of me, grabs the handle, and opens the door.

  “Around here, we just walk in,” he says. “But I guess you’ve forgotten about that. Or maybe you’re too tired or too busy to care?”

  Ouch!

  I think long and hard for a comeback, but unfortunately I have never been fast at those things. I can always come up with something a few days later, something real clever a
nd witty, but never in the moment. I often wonder if people will think it weird if I call them a few weeks later and give them the line.

  Joey walks inside. Salter and I follow. Everyone is there. Alex, Sandra and her husband Ryan, Marcia and four kids I assume are hers, since they look just like her. Danny and Junior are there too, and even Chloe.

  “Mary!” Alex says. “I want you to meet my wife, Maria.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say and smile at the woman in front of me. She is short and has long black hair that she obviously dyes. She has pretty blue eyes. She seems nice. I guess I could approve of her for Alex, even though I always wanted him to be with Sandra. Alex is a sweet guy. He needs a sweet woman.

  “I would shake your hand, but…well, they’re both pretty full, as you can see.”

  “Where are my manners?” Alex says and grabs the food out of my hands.

  “I made some for tonight,” I say, “and then a lot for the freezer. You know, for Danny and Junior and all of you. To help you out.”

  “That is very nice of you,” Maria says with a smile. “Here, let me take the rest.” Maria grabs the dishes Salter is carrying.

  I look at all the familiar faces and feel slightly emotional. It has been a long time since the crew was back together. I miss every one of them, but at the same time seeing them again, together like this, overwhelms me with a deep sadness as well. I am not sure I can cope with it. I am suddenly not sure I am ready. The thing is, I am not sure I will ever be.

  I spot Danny and walk up to him, drawing in a deep breath. I have to get over myself. This night isn’t about me or how I feel. It is about him and his son and being there for them, no matter what. That’s the deal with friends, right? They are there for you no matter what.

  Chapter 32

  September 2015

  “I know you’ve probably gotten this question a lot,” I say as I approach Danny.

  He is sitting in a barstool at the breakfast bar, scratching the label on his beer. Meanwhile, it seems that everyone else is somehow moving around him and not talking directly to him. He looks up.

  “How are you holding up?” I ask and sit down on a barstool next to him. The expression on his face is rough to take in. Those eyes and the deep sadness in them almost make me cry.

  Oh, you’re such a crybaby, Mary. Pull yourself together.

  “Actually, you’re the first one to ask me that since I got here,” he answers. “The rest are only asking me if I want something to eat or drink. Apparently, people think food can make pain go away or something.”

  I blush. “Yeah, well…some people can be so insensitive. Pah. Food. As if that ever made you happier.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “The last thing I want right now is to eat.”

  Wow. Right to my face, huh? That’s okay. I can take it. I’m a big girl.

  “Yeah, well. You still didn’t answer my question.”

  He scoffs. “How am I holding up? Right now I’m just trying to stay on this stool, sit still, and hold onto this beer. I want to drink it. I want to drink all of the beers in Alex’s fridge. I want to get so drunk I can’t feel anything, but I can’t get myself to do it. It feels wrong. I feel like I need to grieve and feel the grief, if you know what I mean? I keep thinking I deserve to feel pain.”

  He pauses and looks first down at his beer, then back up at me. “You know what it’s like,” he says. “Like back when…”

  Danny pauses. I stare at him, hoping, praying that he won’t finish the sentence. Luckily, he doesn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” he says and drinks from his beer.

  “That’s okay,” I say. “I still don’t like to talk about it. Maybe I will one day. I don’t know.”

  Awkward silence between us. I sip my beer and throw a glance around the room. Junior is sitting in the corner on a couch while the other kids are storming around. Salter is playing with Marcia’s many kids, having a blast, it seems.

  “You just wonder, you know?” Danny says.

  I look at back him. He is ripping of parts of the label on his beer. “Who would do this to her? You wouldn’t believe how much blood there was on the porch. A pair of scissors? I mean, come on. That’s brutal!”

  “It sure is,” I say, trying not to picture Jean lying on the porch in a pool of blood with a pair of scissors in her throat. It is hard not to. “What do the police say?”

  “Not much so far. But they don’t believe she was a random victim. It wasn’t a burglary gone wrong.”

  “Wow. So brutal murder, huh? Do you have any idea who might have had it in for her? I mean, did she have any enemies or anything? Someone she pissed off? A neighbor or something?”

  Danny scoffs. “You knew Jean. Probably half the town had it in for her. People hated her.”

  I nod and drink again. I am glad he said it so I don’t have to. “May I ask what you liked about her?”

  He looks at me. I regret the question. Have I gone too far?

  Me and my big mouth!

  Then he laughs. Waves of relief go through my body.

  “She had a great body,” he says. “Yes, you heard me. I was that superficial. I took her because she was gorgeous back then. I wanted to have sex with her so bad, and then she got pregnant. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice. It was the right thing to marry her.”

  I throw a glance back at Junior on the couch. It makes sense. The boy is about eighteen now, ready to graduate high school.

  “So, do they have any clues?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “They say they believe the person can’t have been very tall. Something about the angle of the scissors or something. I have to admit, I can’t remember. It’s all a blur. I just really hope they find whoever did this. Mostly for Junior. To give him closure, you know?”

  Chapter 33

  February 1978

  By the time she turns one year old, Penelope has had her baby to a myriad of doctors, but they still don’t know what is wrong with her. The baby can hardly hold any food down and she hasn’t grown much in her entire year of being alive, much to her parents’ and the doctors’ concern.

  Finally, after a year of running from doctor to doctor, one of them concludes it has to be her heart, or it could be her heart are his exact words.

  The diagnosis, even if it is vague, makes Penelope at ease finally. She is weary and tired of telling all the doctors that she believes something is wrong with the baby’s heart, but no one believes her. They keep telling her the baby’s heart is fine, but the heart palpitations and weight loss tell her a different story.

  “So, what do we do next?” she asks the doctor. “Will surgery be necessary?”

  The doctor lets out a deep sigh. “She is still so very young.” He looks at the baby in her mother’s arms. She is able to sit on her own, but no crawling or even standing up like other children her age. Her legs simply aren’t strong enough yet. And she is way too sick to be moving around, let alone be with other children. It is too risky.

  “We usually don’t operate on children this young, if we can help it,” he says. “But based on the tests we have so far, I’m thinking it might be necessary to do a heart catheterization procedure in time. In a child who has a congenital heart defect, a heart catheterization shows how the blood is flowing through the heart. The exact heart problem can be seen, and sometimes treated during the same procedure or a later one. If your child has a complex heart defect, he or she might need a combination of surgery and catheterization to treat it. But, as I said, it is very unusual to perform this procedure on such a young child. It has never been done before, as far as I have been informed. You might need to wait a few years till she is older.”

  “But, Doctor, we don’t have a few years. If something is wrong with her heart, she needs the surgery now,” Penelope argues.

  She glances at the empty chair next to her where Peter is supposed to sit. He wasn’t able to come with them this morning to get the results. He has lost too many hours at work running to doctors constantly. Pe
nelope can’t wait to tell him that, finally, she has found a doctor who believes her. Their baby is sick and she isn’t just a hysterical mother.

  The doctor looks at the baby again. “It’s too risky,” he says.

  Penelope scoffs. “How can you say that? She might die if she doesn’t get the surgery now! Look at her. She is very sick.”

  The doctor sighs again. He touches the bridge of his nose.

  “I think we should wait and see, maybe give it six months, then run more tests. She needs to be at least three years old before I would dare to do a procedure like this on her.”

  Penelope stares at the doctor. How can he say that? Three years old? That is two years from now.

  “But…but, Doctor…just this morning she threw up again. She can hardly hold anything down. She is so weak. I can’t stand it. Please. Could you just perform the surgery? I’m willing to take the risk. Any risk. Anything to help my baby get better. Please, Doctor. I’m desperate here.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t. I won’t risk her life. Come back in six months and we’ll have a look at her and see how she’s doing. We’ll monitor her closely for the next couple of years. If she’s not better by the age of three, we’ll do the procedure.”

  “You can’t risk her life?” Penelope says and stands up. “That is exactly what you’re doing. If my baby dies, it’s your fault.”

  The doctor gesticulates, resigned. “I’m sorry, but…”

  Penelope snorts angrily as she opens the door. “Well, if you won’t do it, then I’ll find a doctor who will,” she says and walks out.