Chapter 30 Diem
Diem
“He’s fine, D. Let’s go to bed.”
It was long past two in the morning before we got home.
Darcy collapsed on the couch after taking a handful of pain meds and fell asleep instantly.
The pack of cigarettes he’d bought that morning sat on the coffee table, calling to me with promises of easing the stress I’d accrued after a night chasing Lukyan.
I deserved one. I’d been good all day. No alcohol. Minimal violence.
I resisted.
Somehow.
The millionaire had managed to keep the upper hand, and we had no idea where he’d gone, but he’d left destruction in his wake. Proving he orchestrated a massive grandparent scheme was slipping through my fingers.
When I refused to step down from my post of guarding Darcy, Tallus took my arm and guided me toward the bedroom. Echo didn’t follow. She wiggled her way onto the couch instead and stretched out beside the kid. Darcy wrapped an arm around her like she was a stuffed animal. Echo didn’t seem to mind.
In the bedroom, we stripped to our underwear and got under the covers.
Tallus, like Echo, wiggled his way into my arms, his ear resting against my chest. I stroked his hair and rubbed his back, tracing the dip of his spine to his ass and back up.
My thoughts were a whirlwind. I was never going to fall asleep at this rate.
I wasn’t sure where to go from here, but turning this discovery over to the cops before I could ensure Darcy’s safety wasn’t an option.
“I’m supposed to meet Aaron tomorrow to test the projector for Nana’s birthday, and I still haven’t transferred those pictures to a thumb drive. Are you planning to visit?”
Christ, how was it Sunday already? Her birthday party was in one week.
Would this case be solved or shelved by then?
Was Lukyan gone? Was the kid safe? It wasn’t like I could send him home.
He lived in a fucking drug den with strung out roomies.
Lukyan might have someone watching the house for all I knew.
“What am I going to do about Darcy?”
Tallus lifted his head and looked me in the eye. “He’s nineteen, Guns. He doesn’t need a babysitter while you visit Nana. He can manage on his own for one hour.”
But that wasn’t my question.
I didn’t elaborate.
The case. Lukyan’s escape. The fried computers. Nana’s party. AA meetings. The constant itch under my skin. Those goddamn cigarettes on the coffee table. The phone call from Tallus’s father. It all swirled through my brain like a tornado, relentless and untamed.
Destructive.
When was my next appointment with Dr. Peterson?
What the fuck day was it again?
“Are you okay, D? You’re spinning. I can see it.”
“I’m fine. Go to sleep.”
“You’re thinking too hard again.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
Tallus gave up and snuggled closer. Within minutes, his breathing evened out.
I fell into a restless sleep not long after and dreamed of Tallus in a leotard, dangling from a trapeze.
I dreamed of a maze of hallways, with garage-style doors leading nowhere.
I couldn’t find my way out. Fires blazed all around me.
I dreamed of a cabin in the woods. A tangled fishing line.
Of smoking computers arranged in a circle, robotically reciting the Twelve Steps of AA.
Of a drug den, where Darcy lounged on a pillow, high as a kite.
He offered me a joint, eyes glazed and half-lidded. “My landlord said it’s okay.”
I woke with a start, sweating and trembling. Disoriented. Where was Echo? It took a minute to remember she’d stayed with Darcy. It was still night, but a pounding headache radiated through my skull. It was likely what woke me.
Carefully dislodging from Tallus, I got up. In the bathroom, I shook a couple of aspirin into my palm and chewed them dry before sipping warm tap water and rinsing the sour taste from my mouth.
I splashed water on my face and stared at my reflection in the mirror as bits and pieces of my dream came back to me.
It wasn’t a nightmare, but it was bizarre and disjointed.
Stress. It was a stress dream. They always presented the same broken way.
Dr. Peterson would be impressed. Usually, they were centered around my father and the years I’d spent as his punching bag. This one was different.
In the kitchen, I searched the fridge, locating an energy drink. It was after five, and I wouldn’t be going back to sleep any time soon. Tallus was the coffee drinker. Unless I was in the mood, I got my caffeine in different ways.
I contemplated hitting the gym, but my hand throbbed. Examining it and bending the stiff joints, I decided I wouldn’t be able to clutch a dumbbell. Punching a bag was out of the question, and I wasn’t in the mood to run for an hour.
Not with a headache.
Echo registered I was awake but remained wrapped in Darcy’s embrace. She was a sucker for morning snuggles and usually got them from Tallus. I didn’t complain.
Without thinking of the consequences, I snagged the kid’s cigarettes and went out on the balcony.
The spring chill cut through my T-shirt, and I regretted not slipping into my jeans.
With only boxers and a tee, the hairs on my arms and legs stood on end, and I shivered as I lit a smoke and leaned on the railing.
The city was calm and quiet. Almost serene. The pre-dawn hours were my favorite. I studied the empty streets and watched the streetlights change from green to yellow to red and back again.
Where was Lukyan?
Had he skipped the country?
What had been on those computers?
Who were those kids Tallus had seen?
Where had they gone?
Did we have enough to turn over to the police? Tallus thought the tax forms proved fraud, but until we explored them more thoroughly, I couldn’t be sure it was enough for them to get a warrant for an arrest. Besides, reporting Lukyan put Darcy in danger.
The custodian at the nursing home could identify him. I wasn’t sure how to cover his involvement. Not when he was the one visiting Evergreen and Elwood. He was the one who had set up the online banking.
A flash of my dream came back to me. Darcy, lounging on pillows in his drug den apartment. A cloud of toxic smoke filling the room. Eyes glazed. “My landlord said it’s okay.”
I frowned and hauled on the cigarette. Something tickled the back of my brain, but whatever it was refused to come forward. I backtracked through all our interactions, starting on the day we met. The day I’d chased him down the street.
The balcony door slid open, and I glanced over my shoulder, expecting Tallus but finding a rumpled Darcy. He wore the same torn hoodie and shredded jeans he’d been wearing for days. His cast didn’t fit through the sleeve, so one arm hung limp and unoccupied.
“Can I have one?” His voice croaked as he motioned to the cigarette pack.
I passed them over. “They’re yours.”
“Technically, you bought them.”
“Technically, I quit.” I tossed the butt into the can.
He huffed and slid a cigarette between his lips. “So you don’t want another one?” He teased the pack in my face.
“Brat.” I snapped it up and helped myself. “Last one.”
“Uh-huh.”
Darcy lit his and then offered me the Bic.
We leaned on the railing, admiring the sleeping city.
“You’re up early,” I said after a few minutes.
Darcy blew a smoke ring. “Echo kicked me in the bladder, so I got up to pee. Saw you out here. Why are you up?”
“I never sleep well.”
“Dreams?”
“Sometimes. Does your landlord know you live in a practical drug den?”
Darcy shrugged and hauled on his cigarette. It wasn’t an answer, but it conveyed the answer I expected.
“Is your landlord your drug dealer?”
“No, but he has connections. If we go through his people, he doesn’t care that we get high. It’s part of the deal.”
“How many people live there?”
Another shrug. “Depends on the month. Sometimes two or three. Sometimes as many as six.”
“Fucking crack house,” I growled. “What’s your landlord’s name?”
“Andreas. Don’t know his first name.”
“Does he live in the building?”
Darcy snorted and shook his head. “Fuck no. He’s too stuffy for that. He runs a bunch of places around the city, or so I’m told.”
“Was he who hooked you up with Lukyan?”
“Yeah.” Darcy spat over the railing and watched it splatter below.
“Told me if I didn’t make rent, he’d kick me out.
Gave me Luke’s number and said he hired kids like me to do work on the DL.
Cash in pocket. I told him I didn’t suck cock for nothing and nobody.
No offense. Not my thing. He said it wasn’t like that. ”
I turned, leaned against the rail, and studied the kid. He squirmed at the attention.
“What?” Darcy asked.
“This is the first time we’ve had a proper conversation, and I actually feel like you’re telling me the truth for a change.”
“I am.” His cheeks pinked. “I didn’t trust you before. I was scared that if I gave up Andreas, I’d end up on the street. I already did that for a while. I don’t want to go back.”
“You aren’t going back to that apartment. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do with you, but you aren’t stepping foot in there again. Got it?”
Darcy nodded, keeping his gaze averted. “Why are you so nice to me? No one’s ever been nice to me.”
It was a simple question with a complex answer.
I was still trying to figure it out myself, but at its core, it came down to one thing.
“You remind me of myself. Angry. Defiant.” I paused and presented the real truth.
“Alone. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re drowning and no one cares.
Everyone you meet would sooner push your head under water than save you.
I know what it feels like to be out of control.
Screaming on the inside. No one listening. ”
“But you have Tallus.”