Chapter 18 #3
I pulled out my phone, and as I thumbed to her voicemail, Damon headed to the front door to let us know that he wanted us gone.
The second my sister’s voice came through the phone, he stopped and listened.
Not, it seemed, for sentimental reasons to hear her last words, but to make sure that it sealed his assertion that he’d had nothing to do with her death.
The message was short and cryptic and pretty useless.
I looked at Slade wondering what the heck all this was about.
He shook his head. “Start it again, but turn up the volume to make sure we can hear the beginning.”
“I just got off work, and I need my beer. So why don’t you two go play detective somewhere else. I’m done here,” Damon snarled as he reached for the doorknob.
I wasn’t completely sure what was going on, but the look Slade was shooting me told me to play the message.
I turned up the volume. The background sound that I’d heard as many times as I’d heard Perris’s final words came through loud and clear and like a punch in the stomach.
It was a rhythmic tapping sound that I’d heard but had ignored every time, until now.
“Drumsticks,” I said quietly.
Damon’s dark eyes flickered with confusion.
I looked at Slade. “You are brilliant. I’ve listened to that message twenty times and never noticed.”
“That’s because you couldn’t hear anything over the despair in your sister’s final words.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?”
“Drumsticks. You were playing those fucking drumsticks in the background when she called me.”
The same gray pallor that had washed over Damon’s face when he first thought he was staring at a ghost on his front stoop returned. “You’re fucking crazy,” he said.
“You were home,” I said, coldly. “You fucking liar. You were home.” The rage in my tone had been replaced by utter disbelief.
He stood there for a second, obviously trying to find his way out of this. But the evidence was there in my hand.
“So fucking what? I didn’t know she was in there taking a bottle of pills.
I didn’t know she was dead until I went in and found her.
” He laughed harshly. “I might have put the idea in her crazy, stoned mind by telling her to just make it easy on both of us and take the pills. Didn’t realize just how fucking nuts she was. ”
I was frozen in hatred. Tears streamed down my face. My sister had been in complete torment her last days, and it had all been Damon’s fault.
Again Damon reached for the door. He looked at Slade. “Get this crazy bitch out of here.”
Slade’s movement had been so fast, he was just a blur.
Drumsticks flew across the room and pinged off the adjacent wall before rolling across the tile floor.
In that same space of time that it took the drumsticks to fly across the room, Slade had spun Damon around and had him pinned against the wall.
Slade had Damon’s arm wrenched painfully behind him and his face was smashed sideways against the plaster.
Damon’s angry and equally scared eyes darted to the side to get a look at the man who now had him completely immobile.
Slade spoke calmly, coolly as he leaned his mouth closer to Damon’s ear.
“Let’s get this straight. You had a lot to do with Perris’s death.
You fucking taunted a woman who was heartbroken about you walking out on her.
You lied to the police, so I think we can safely assume you did that because you supplied her with the drugs.
Even if you didn’t open her mouth and pop those pills in, you were responsible for her dying.
And you’re going to have to take that to your fucking grave. ”
Damon struggled in his grasp, but Slade held him like a steel trap.
“Now, I’m going to let you go, and Britton and I are going to walk out of here. But if you say one word to either of us, if you so much as fucking breathe in our direction, I will hurt you.”
Slade released him. Damon turned slowly around and rubbed his shoulder. I was sure he’d take a swing at Slade. Instead, he stood pressed with his back against the wall staring at Slade as if he was the devil himself.
“Let’s go,” Slade said still keeping an eye on Damon.
I walked over to the lamp and unplugged it.
I picked it up. Slade opened the door. I stopped in front of Damon.
“By the way, Perris and I talked about everything, as you know. She told me she had to fake it with you all the time because you were a lousy lover. So, if your new girlfriend is panting and crying out your name, it’s an act. ”
We stepped out under a layer of storm clouds.
Bolts of lightning were lighting up the sky.
All of it felt surreal. I held my lamp in one arm and I wrapped my free hand around Slade’s arm.
Everything Damon had said was like a stab in my heart.
Perris had died steeped in heartbreak, and it seemed Damon’s cruel words and the easy access to drugs had pushed her over the edge.
It didn’t take away the ache I felt thinking I might very well have saved her if I’d heard the message.
It was a sting of regret I’d never outlive, but now, I knew more of what had happened on that awful day.
We reached the car just as the first heavy drops fell.
I stopped and placed the lamp on the hood of the car and threw my arms around Slade’s neck.
Water drops plunked on our heads as we kissed.
I pulled my mouth from his and smiled up at him.
“I started this journey with a major crush, but I can tell you, Slade Stone, that, even though it’s not worth a whole lot, as of two minutes ago, you own my heart. ”
“That’s good to hear, Tink, cuz I think you’ve owned mine since the start.” He lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me.