39. Chapter 39
When I pull up to the flickering neon lights of the bar and cut the engine, I wait a good ten minutes before going in. I don’t even know why I’m here. Old habits die hard, I guess.
This isn’t a trendy bar where the college coeds come, so there are only a few patrons inside—a couple sharing a pitcher at a table, a young gun at the jukebox, an old guy hunched over the bar.
I head over to the opposite end and slip onto a stool just as a guy in a gray V-neck tee with tattooed forearms, and salt-and-pepper hair peeking out from under a red bandana greets me on the other side.
I would consider this guy “middle-aged,” but then again, he looks like he could be my age. And there’s no way I’m “middle-aged.”
“Whiskey. Neat,” I say before he even asks for my order. He nods and turns around to pour my drink.
Am I middle-aged?I’m thirty-five, double that is seventy. I’m gonna make it past seventy, right? That means I’m not in the middle of my life.
I slide a bill over the bar as the bartender places my drink on a coaster. “No change,” I say, and he nods in response.
What if I am in the middle of my life? Jesus. Elbows on the bar, I run a hand down my face as I eye the bourbon I have no intention of drinking. It’s not even the reason I’m here. I spot at least three people I could probably score from.
But I won”t. I just like knowing I could, and that I chose to walk away.
I keep thinking … I haven’t spent half my life with Lizzie. We’ve been together ten years. That’s only, like, a third of my life.
A third of my life with a woman I want to burn in the goddamn fiery pits of hell. That fucking bitch. How could she say that about my mom and what she’d think of me? She knew that would cut me deep. She watched me bleed out as she said it, and she showed no remorse. Even after everything, how she could wound me like that is unbelievable.
But how could I have done the things I’ve done?
My phone vibrates in my pocket, so I pull it out and freeze when I see a name I haven’t seen in almost three months flash across the screen.
Why is Jenny calling me?
I don’t answer it. I just set it on the bar and let it ring until it stops. Then, a minute later, it starts again. The ringing combined with the sound of the vibrating phone drumming across the bar top is loud, causing the bartender to look over at me with a raised eyebrow.
The ringing and vibrating stops, then starts again.Letting out a heavy breath, I run my hands through my hair then lift the phone to my ear and accept the call, but I don’t speak. After a moment of silence, I hear her voice. “Knox?”
I clear my throat. “Yeah.”
“Obviously I wouldn’t call you unless it’s important.” I don’t say anything. “So, uh, Lizzie just left here.”
The fuck?
“What?”
“She was asking about the guys who broke into your apartment, and she wanted to know if either of us had drugs on us the night of the accident.”
“Shit.” I drop my head in my free hand, my other still holding the phone to my ear.
“I did, Knox. I had Oxy on me.”
“Christ, Jenny,” I spit out angrily.
“I’m sorry, Knox. I’m sorry I never told you. But that’s not all …” I wait for her to continue, wondering what holy hell could make this worse. “She’s looking for Marcus.”
My blood runs cold. Suddenly there is no background noise. No music coming from the jukebox. No clanking of glass as the bartender pours drinks. No chatter from the few patrons in the bar. “Why the fuck would she be looking for Marcus, Jenny?”
Her voice is shaky. “Because he was the one who broke into your apartment with that Sanders guy. She said there were two of them, and the one guy was big with short spiky black hair, a lip ring. I’m sure she was talking about Marcus.”
I run my free hand down my face as I rise from the barstool. “Knox, I told her he hangs out at the pub. I wasn’t thinking she would go looking for him, but when she left she seemed like she was on a mission. I’m sorry, I just … I thought you should know.”
I push away from the bar, leaving my drink untouched, and pull my hood up over my hair as I head toward the door.
“Knox. I’m sorry. For everything. I never, ever meant for any of this to happen.”
“I know.” I take her words seriously.
“I won’t call again.”
I wait a beat before saying, “Thank you,” and I hang up and make my way to the truck.
Pulling up to the pub Marcus frequents, I’m still not convinced she would come here, even if she were looking for answers. Lizzie is headstrong, but she isn’t fucking stupid. And this is the stupidest goddamn thing she could be doing.
I enter and find the inside hasn’t changed much. It’s been years since I’ve been inside this place, but it still feels the same. Techno music pulses through the speakers as light beams shine this way and that, cutting through the large space. A DJ does his thing on a stage that has been raised since the last time I was here, and the bar is now U-shaped.
It’s packed, and the dance floor is a cesspool of sweaty bodies gyrating and grinding to the music. It’s the last place I want to be, but still, I push into the mass of people. She would never normally be here. This isn’t her scene, but she’s on a mission, and I know when she’s like that, she’s unstoppable. If Marcus slipped her something, well, then I just might find her here swaying to the music.
I ignore hands that slide their way over my shirt, remembering what it was like to feel the various textures when I was high out of my mind.
Not finding Lizzie, I peruse the bar, which is about three people deep. I see a mane of brown hair and make my way in that direction, placing my hand on a woman’s shoulder and turning her toward me, only to find it’s not Lizzie.
“What the hell!” a guy in a beanie says to me, as I hold my hands up in surrender.
“Sorry,” I shout over the music. “I thought she was someone else.” I back away, turn around, and run my hand through my hair.
I exit the bar, knowing Lizzie isn’t in there. Hands on my hips, I stand on the sidewalk and look across at the parking lot, toward the beach. It’s brighter than it used to be, since the pier and the beach were revitalized. The lights on the buildings and sprinkled throughout the lot cast large circles of brightness here and there, so I can see a few clusters of cars, a few groups of people hanging around vaping, even though it’s cold outside.
As I cross the road and start trekking across the parking lot, I hear someone yelling through their Bluetooth as I pass a sedan, then I cross over near a truck with tinted windows, and it’s rocking back and forth.
Then I swear I hear the familiar ragtime music of the carousel as my gaze scans the structure. It was defunct for the longest time, but the city restored it a few years ago. It’s the offseason, so I know it’s not open and the music isn’t playing, but as I stare at it, my skin begins to bristle. Feeling someone behind me, I spin around.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask.
Hands up and taking steps back, Sanders stutters, “I- I saw you leave the bar, and I came to find you.”
I know exactly what that means, and as I close the distance between us I grab him by the neck of his shirt and pull him nose-to-nose with me. “Where is she?”
“She left with Marcus.”
My fist cuts him off, and he falls to the ground. Then I drag him back up and start pulling him toward where my truck is parked. “You’re coming with me, and you’re going to explain a few things to me along the way,” I spit as we make our way through the cold parking lot to my vehicle.
Lizzie was right about Sanders planting drugs at crime scenes for the cops to find, so the police department could make more arrests and be more successful in its war on drugs. This, in turn, would lead to support from the department and politicos for Lawler to build a new police headquarters.
And Sanders was getting the drugs from Marcus.
However, after Sanders’ wife had a baby—a colicky baby—and he lost sleep and was still working twelve-hour shifts on the rig, he started using some of the uppers he was supposed to be planting, and that led to him occasionally stealing drugs.
It didn’t take Marcus long to figure out Sanders was using, because he’s like a damn hound dog and can smell that kind of dependency from across the city, and when he did, he had Sanders by the balls.
“What a fucking disaster,” I say as I navigate the city streets toward the last place I had seen Marcus.
Sanders rubs his reddened jaw where I hit him. “It was only supposed to be a few drops. Just enough to give the chief—who wasn’t in on this, by the way—a boost to his statistics. Then it just, it spun so far out of control. And after Lyzbeth stopped by headquarters to talk to me, I told my confidant, and he said to back right off. But when I told Marcus that we were done, well, he wasn’t having it.” He finally looks at me. “I didn’t know he had a vendetta against you. I would have never brought up you or Lizzie if I had known.”
“Why did you guys plant drugs at my apartment?” I ask.
“Marcus said it was leverage. If Lizzie started to get too close, he was going to make an anonymous call to the police department, and hopefully after drugs were found in her apartment she would be discredited.”
I huff out a humorless laugh as I grip the steering wheel and pull up in front of a shitty apartment building I know all too well. I rub my temples then drag my hands down my face as I think of what the best plan of attack here is.
“What state was Lizzie in when she left with him?” I ask. “Actually, how did he even find her?”
“He didn’t,” says Sanders. “She found him. She walked right up to him in the bar, told him she knew he broke into her apartment, and asked him, and I quote, ‘Whose dick are you sucking—someone on the department or someone in the drug ring?’”
I lean my head back and almost laugh. “Of course, she fucking did,” I say, equal parts exasperated and proud.
“He told her you were a pathetic prick who had it coming, and she said, and again I quote, ‘I agree. Knox is a douche. But since we’re getting divorced, can you leave me out of your drama?’”
My head is leaning back as far as it will go, and I can feel my jugular bulge in my neck as I swallow. “How’d that go?”
Now Sanders lets out a laugh. “Actually, it went over well. Marcus was stunned, then he patted a stool next to him and called the bartender over so he could order shots. They cheers’d to your douche-baggery, and he turned on the charm.”
I side-eye him, and that’s when Sanders gives me a sympathetic look. “Yeah … He really turned it on, Knox.”
I sit up in my seat and run my hands through my hair. “Did he give her anything?”
Sanders is shaking his head. “Not that I saw, but they did have a few drinks. She left willingly with him. I’m not sure what he said to her or why she did, but she walked out with him.”
“How long before I got to the bar?”
Sanders blows out a breath, “Maybe fifteen minutes?”
After a moment, I let out my own heavy breath. “Stay here, and if Lizzie and I aren’t out in ten minutes, call the cops.”
Sanders whips his head in my direction. “Knox—”
“I think maybe I can keep the situation from escalating if I go in alone.” I swing the door open and get out, then turn and face Sanders before I slam it shut. “Ten minutes. Got it?”
He nods.
I jog up the cracked sidewalk that leads to the shitty house and rap on the door before trying the handle. It’s unlocked, and since I hear music coming from inside, I know someone’s home, so I just head in.
The inside hasn’t changed much since the last time I was here. As I walk down the hallway, I see the living room to the left where the disgusting torn and faded couch sits. The memory of that night a few months ago has me walking faster toward the door to the basement. It’s open, and I can hear the music getting louder as I approach.
However, as I start to round the stairs, I hear my name and spin on my heel to see Marcus standing at the kitchen counter with a bottle of amber liquor, pouring some into shot glasses. He is giving me a sly look, and I am momentarily caught in a stare-off with him, until he breaks the silence. “Why didn’t you tell me your ball-and-chain was such a charmer?”
He nods away from me, and I turn my head toward the kitchen table, where I see the back of Lizzie’s head before she slowly turns to look back at me, giving me a cringe that tells me she knows exactly how stupid she was to get herself into this predicament.
I rake my eyes over her face, which is flushed. Her eyes are a little glassy, but she doesn’t look completely fucked up, so I hold out hope Marcus hasn’t slipped her anything. She nods at me, as if she is answering my unspoken question.
“Join us for a drink, won’t you?” Marcus addresses me as he heads over to the table, holding three shot glasses in a triangle shape between his hands. “Lizzie and I are just getting acquainted. She was just telling me about the time she had to call a former city councilman for a quote after he put a dick pic on the internet, and he asked if he could send her a better photo because the angle wasn’t right on the one he posted!”
Taking the offered shot, Lizzie lifts it up in cheers and says, “The thing is, it was actually a very impressive angle,” and the two of them burst into a fit of laughter before tossing back their drinks. I leave mine on the table.
Marcus is wearing a gray gym sweatshirt with matching sweats. His hair is a little disheveled. He looks like a guy any of us would want to hang out with. Which is deceiving as all hell.
I pull my baseball cap off my head, run my hand through my hair, and replace it, backward. “Look, I hate to break up the party, but I have to get Lizzie back home before she gets totally shitfaced.” I close the distance between me and her before Marcus speaks up again.
“You know, your wifey is much more direct than you are,” he says. “You should take a page from her book.”
I look down at Lizzie, and she shrugs.
“Lyzbeth, here, wanted to know what happened the last time I saw you. So, I’ve been filling her in. And I think she appreciates my honesty.” He lifts his hand in her direction, in question, and she bobs her head up and down.
“Very much so,” she says, then looks back to me, eyes hard. “I’ve gotten quite an education.”