Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fallon
“I’m only taking you as far as the old church,” the driver says from up front. “Everyone knows better than to cross the old tracks these days.”
“What does everyone know about them that makes people stay away?” I am not everyone. I want to know what we’re dealing with before we walk in blind.
“You must not be an east ender. The whole area’s been rotting away since they built the new tracks, further into town.
’Bout a year ago, this guy moved in from up north.
Started putting the new product on the street.
Supposedly like sextasy, only stronger. Addictive shit.
Pressed some of the local kids into selling.
Got ’em hooked. He’s spreading lots of cash around, which the East End needs, only he’s got his foot soldiers doing all the dirty work.
They call him the Ghost because nobody sees him, and if you do, you die. ”
That’s… Jesus.
I look over at PJ, who’s rigid in the seat next to me. His walls have gone up, and his demeanor from our first date is back. My rough but attentive Keeper is gone, replaced by the prince whose kingdom runs on rage.
It only heightens my sense that we’re walking into danger. I want my Keeper back.
PJ leans toward the driver. “How do you know all this?”
“My cousin knew a guy who worked for him. First time he came up short on his take? They broke both his arms. Next time?” The driver pretends to blow dust from his hand. “Nobody’s seen him since.”
“I’m surprised anyone would risk moving in on Brennan’s turf,” PJ says more to himself than anyone else
“Who’s Brennan?” This is the second time his name’s been mentioned.
“Old guard in Belle Argo,” the driver explains. “Legacy local crime boss. His old man ran shit back in the day. According to talk around town, Ghost probably figures ’im for an easy mark.”
PJ shakes his head. His fingers are laced together in his lap, his thumbs tapping against one another fast and steady. His jaw is set. Meanwhile, I’ve got a gnawing sensation in my chest. Something big is going on here. Every town has crime, but I was unaware of it in Belle Argo until now.
This isn’t one of my books. Whatever it is we’re running into is absolute recklessness. There’s no doubt in my mind that PJ would go without me, however. I won’t let that happen.
When we stumble out of the car beside a small but well-kept church, our driver speeds away as if he’s just heard his house is on fire. Looking around, I can see why people don’t come here.
The church is the only building that doesn’t appear to be crumbling or moldering, and even it has window bars and a bit of graffiti on the side wall—some symbol that doesn’t make sense to me.
The building’s white paint glows in the moonlight, looking like a safe haven in a sea of properties that have been abandoned or should have been.
“It’s this way.” PJ shivers and starts walking. I’m feeling chilled myself, even though the temperature is in the nineties this evening.
“Talk to me, PJ. Who is Evans, who is Brennan, and what’s so important that we needed to come to a part of town where the rideshare driver was afraid to even stop the car?”
PJ stops, his body tense, eyes flashing in the moonlight. “Most of the people on the East End aren’t dangerous. They’re only trying to survive. Belle Argo’s not an easy town to live in if you’re poor.”
I haven’t been poor since I married Marina, but things weren’t always that way.
“I get it. Most of Belle Argo is gorgeous architecture, beaches, and resorts. The cost of living is high. Marina inherited a ton from her parents when they died, and she’d always wanted to live at the beach.
Otherwise, I’d still be back in Philly, in an apartment with a fire ant infestation. ”
We both take a moment to look around. The street is deserted and eerily silent. The only sound is a rumble of thunder in the distance. Great.
I reach for PJ’s hand. “Come on, Keeper. Last thing we need is to get caught in a downpour.”
“Evans is my best friend,” PJ says after we’ve gone about half a block. “My brother. We were in foster care together. We had plans, a dream we were working on together, and then one day he disappeared.”
“What kind of plans?”
PJ’s shrug is stilted. His charming grin’s been replaced by a hard gaze and firmly pressed lips. I take in the street as we walk, grateful the moon is full. There’s a lamppost every few houses, but only one is still working.
“What kind of plans?” I ask again.
A ghost of a smile appears on PJ’s face.
“Ice cream. Evans had food allergies. Loved ice cream but couldn’t eat it without getting sick.
He had this dream of opening a little place by the beach serving stuff he could eat.
We’d do it together, and I’d run the business while he made the food.
That’s what I’ve been working on, getting a business degree.
Except we were never going to save enough working minimum wage jobs, and real estate’s astronomical near the beach. ”
He huffs a breath and glances my way, as if he’s suddenly remembered I live by the beach.
“Anyway. One night while he was waiting tables, a guy offered Evans cash to go with him back to his hotel. That’s when Evans got the idea about escorting.
A few days later he left our place and didn’t come home. ”
More thunder. I scan the sky for lightning but don’t see any. The storm must not be too close yet.
“And you’ve been looking for Evans ever since?” My heart aches for him.
“I’ve looked everywhere. Showed his picture around town. Called morgues in, like, ten different counties. I checked hospitals.” He stops, staring at me. “There’s something you should know.”
A ball of dread forms my stomach. “Tell me.”
“The only thing I knew when Evans disappeared was that he’d gone to talk to this guy Brennan about a job. I went to see him and ended up agreeing to work for him, so it would be easier to look for Evans. Those dates I’m always going on? Brennan’s the one who sets them up.”
Wait. “You’re saying you’re a—?”
“I haven’t fucked them, Fallon. Any of them.
” He stops short. “I haven’t had sex with anybody but you in the better part of a year.
It’s companionship and dinners. Charity functions.
Someone needs a date for a wedding. Once, I even put on a pair of booty shorts and danced at a party while businessmen smoked cigars and looked me over like I was a heifer at the state fair. ”
“This is…” I don’t know what to say here. My too-young student Dom is also a…sex worker? My brain can’t process this. “Fucking unbelievable.”
“I’ve been wanting to tell you,” PJ rushes to add. “You deserved to know, but it’s not the exactly the sort of thing you casually bring up over coffee in the morning.”
PJ’s still. Chin lifted, poised, waiting for me to reject him. If I haven’t rejected him for anything he’s done or told me so far, will this really be the thing to do it?
It should be.
“I don’t like it, but…I understand why you didn’t tell me.” He says he hasn’t had sex with these men, and I believe him. “Did it help? Did you find out anything about Evans?”
He’s quiet for a moment longer. “Nah.”
That’s all he’s got to say?
We get moving again. I feel like we’re both trying to keep our steps light, but they echo on the silent street.
“None of the other escorts recognized Evans’s picture,” PJ finally says. “Tried following Brennan around for a while, which eventually led to a gun in my face. He insisted he didn’t know anything.”
“You can’t honestly believe him.” How solid is the word of a pimp?
“I didn’t at first. The more I thought about it, the more I realized Brennan’s got no reason to lie.
Whatever that driver said, Brennan has too much pull in this town to get in trouble if he killed somebody.
Honestly, I was finally starting to accept that Evans might be gone until that kid showed up tonight. This way.”
We make a right, and there’s a set of railroad tracks crossing diagonally through the street we’re on. There’s a corner store, of sorts. A sign advertises selling cigarettes and hot wings, but the place is closed. The doors and windows are boarded up and padlocked for the night.
“What do you plan to do if it’s really your friend this guy saw? What if it’s not?”
“So many times I thought I saw him around town, only to realize it was my imagination. If it’s not him, then it’s not.
My priorities are still the same. You and me, finishing my business degree, and then seeing where things can go.
It’s a little soon, but whatever’s in my future, I want you in it, Fallon. ”
My eyes burn a little. I look down, pretending to be focused carefully on the tracks as we cross. Nobody’s said that to me before. “I want that too.” I pause, my pulse racing as I consider my next words carefully. “It’s definitely too soon to ask this, but how do you feel about children?”
PJ’s head whips around. “Fuck.” Out of nowhere he shoves me hard, and then shoves me again, stumbling across the tracks and sprawling backward into gravel-covered cement on the other side.
Before I have a chance to ask what in the absolute hell is going on, PJ launches himself at me.
We roll together into a patch of scrubby grass.
“Keep your mouth shut.” PJ slaps a hand over my face, covering my eyes. I open my mouth anyway, because what the hell? Even for PJ, this is over the top.
But then I hear it. I feel it.
The shaking and rumbling. The earth quaking beneath us. Heat and flying gravel, pelting us as a train passes in the dark.
A train. In the dark.
We both remain still until the engine has passed and the noise dies down.
When PJ pulls his hand away from my eyes, I ask, “That wasn’t thunder we heard earlier, was it?”
“I don’t think so.” He seems to be scanning the area. “That was close. Fuck, there are supposed to be warning lights and shit.”
Too close. I point to a sign near the crossing that shows the tracks are out of service. “If these tracks have been decommissioned, there wouldn’t be a need to maintain the safety lights.”
“Then why the fuck are there trains using them?”
We pull each other up to standing. As I dust gravel from PJ’s clothes, his posture is tighter than ever. In the light of the moon I can see his chest rising and falling. He’s pulled his knife out, clenching it in one fist. I think we’ve both finally realized how impulsive our coming here was.
Flooded with adrenaline, I reach for his free hand and pull him in, pressing my mouth against his. “You saved my life,” I whisper against his lips.
“Shouldn’t have had to.” He turns in the direction the train came from. “There’s an old freight yard up that way. Must have been where it came from.”
I’m having trouble letting go of one detail. “There were no lights.”
“What?”
“When the train went by. It was hot, loud, gravel hitting my face, but we were in the dark. In one of my books there’s a murder on the train tracks, so I’ve researched them a little.
The headlamp of a train is, like, two and a half million lumens.
The average car headlight is a few thousand.
We should have been blinded by that train long before we nearly got flattened. ”
I meet his gaze, surprised to see him wearing a completely unhinged smile in the moonlight. He pulls me toward him. “All I heard was you saying I’m right.”
A laugh escapes me. “You’re ridiculous, Keeper.”
“You love it.”
I laugh again, though I’m fixating on the word he just used. Love. But then he shakes loose of my hand and gets behind me, one hand clamping over my mouth.
“Not fucking around this time,” he whispers. “Shut up.”
I suppose it doesn’t speak well for my sense of self-preservation that I was focusing more on PJ than our surroundings.
What I didn’t realize is that we’ve come upon a small cluster of houses, and beyond them looms a crumbling industrial complex.
There’s a short service road leading from the tracks to what must be the old canning factory we’ve been looking for.
At least, I assume so, since the faded sign out front says B ll Arg eaches.
At some point someone painted over what used to be the word peaches with spray paint. Now it says “bitches.”
At the corner of the building there’s a small glow, almost like a firefly.
Eventually, I realize what I’m seeing is a man smoking a cigarette.
He appears to be walking back and forth, patrolling the area.
When he gets closer to a floodlight at the front of the building, I can see he’s got an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder.
Thank goodness we’re in shadow. The flickering streetlamp near us probably works to our advantage, since any movement a person might see could be written off as a trick of the light.
Speaking of light, there’s suddenly a flood of it as a bay door is rolled up, revealing two men and a bustle of activity, people moving and stacking boxes behind them.
The two who aren’t stacking walk outside, outlined clearly.
One seems to be hanging off of the other, sort of like maybe he’s drunk, or maybe that’s affection? It could be, I suppose.
“I can’t tell if it’s him,” PJ whispers.
His fingers clench tighter around my arm.
“The one guy looks to be the right height and weight, but I can’t see his face.
” I guess he’s talking about the taller, thinner man.
I assume so. When the other one, shorter, stockier, wearing a suit of all things, turns his head to light up a cigarette, I get a good view of his face.
All the breath leaves my body.
Because even when PJ and I discussed the possibility of Marina’s brother being alive, I didn’t believe it. Not really. I’d seen his body, after all. There was no way. Except there he is, standing close enough to see his face.
My knees lock. My vision swims. Grabbing PJ is the only thing keeping me upright.
“He’s going to kill me,” I whisper.
Because the ghost is real. Eric Leslie is alive.