Chapter 17
CASSIE
“You dumped Reva’s sandwiches right?” Hawk asked.
“In the trash can in the parking lot,” Jagger said.
I still couldn’t see them, but I was getting better at imagining what they were doing, and I could picture them sitting around me on the blanket under a tree, the picnic basket that held our lunch open.
Hawk would be reaching into it for the sandwiches they’d picked up from Grady’s on the way to the park, his brow furrowed when he remembered that Reva had made us sandwiches too, trying to do her part to get me out of the house by contributing to the picnic the Hawks had planned.
I imagined Jagger leaning back on his elbows, looking around the park with that curious gaze of his, taking it all in while Vigo threw his rubber ball into the air.
I could see the park too. Knew it was the one by the Blackwell River. The one with a small playground and benches by the water, a large grassy area in between where, from the sounds of it, other people picnicked or read or napped under the warm July sun, the river rushing in the background.
It was almost funny to imagine the Hawks having a picnic, their tattoos on full display, muscles straining their T-shirts. Then again, they weren’t here for themselves.
They were here for me, to try and get me out of the house.
To try and get me to be the way I was.
It was nice, sweet even. I was grateful, but even after the mind-blowing sex with Vigo two days earlier it was hard to be happy because I still couldn’t see and I was starting to think my blindness wasn’t temporary.
Still, I had to try, for them if nothing else, so I took the sandwich placed into my hands by Hawk and forced a smile. “Thanks.”
They wanted me to be happy, and since I couldn’t give them anything else I could at least pretend to give them this.
I crossed my legs, bare under the sundress I’d chosen for the day. I had no idea what color shorts I might pull from my dresser, what color tank top or shirt, and since I was still trying not to ask for help more than was absolutely necessary, I’d taken to wearing dresses more often than usual.
It was one of many changes to my routine.
I hadn’t been in to the coffee shop since the accident, although I had been in touch with Kaylee and Drew on the phone.
I wasn’t ready to see anyone yet, or more accurately, I wasn’t ready for them to see me, but I’d given Kaylee a promotion and a raise for stepping up to manage the shop and everything seemed to be running smoothly without me.
I missed it, but I knew what I really missed was the way it had been when I could see.
I missed unlocking the doors as the sun crept up over the mountains, lighting the sky orange, missed the way the coffee shop was illuminated a little at a time when I turned on the lights, missed the gleam of the stainless steel canisters filled with coffee beans.
I wouldn’t see any of that now.
I saw Bram — well, I didn’t see him, haha — more than I ever had before my accident.
In what was possibly the most awkward social interaction known to man, he’d taken to coming to the Hawks’ house every couple of days to check on me, bringing me chocolates and little gifts from Maeve that didn’t require eyesight to enjoy: a luxurious cashmere throw, lavender bath salts, a scented candle.
“Thirsty?” Jagger asked, breaking into my thoughts.
“A little.”
“Have a lemonade.” He wrapped my hand around a cold glass bottle. “I can take it when you’re done.”
I couldn’t even set a bottle of lemonade down on the grass and be sure it wouldn’t spill.
How depressing.
Still, I’d felt better since I had sex with Vigo. It had been a reminder that I wasn’t entirely broken.
There were still things I could do, still things I could enjoy.
And there was something else: as my mood improved I’d started thinking more about the day of my accident.
Someone had run me off the road, but I’d been too deep in the morass of depression to think much about it. What would have been the point? Whoever had done it had succeeded, not in killing me but in ending my life as I’d known it.
The thinking had made sense at the time, but now that the fog was beginning to lift from my brain, I could see how fucked up that had been. Was I going to give whoever had done this to me a pass just because I was depressed?
“You okay, Cass?” Hawk’s voice came to me from the world beyond my darkness.
He tried to keep his voice neutral with me but I’d gotten good at reading the concern in it, had gotten good at hearing the things he didn’t want me to hear.
“I’m good.” I unwrapped my sandwich, feeling for the edge of the paper wrapper, unrolling it carefully so I didn’t send the sandwich flying. “But there is something I want to tell you.”
I felt them freeze. Conversation had gotten harder for me too. I couldn’t read the visual cues in someone’s expression, couldn’t tell whether their pauses meant they were done talking or whether they were just taking a breath.
All of that meant I didn’t have much to say, and I’d gotten used to listening, letting them do all the talking.
Except now I had something to say.
“What is it, mouse?” Vigo asked.
“I remember some things,” I said. “From the day on the mountain… the crash…”
“You remember what happened before the accident?” Hawk asked.
He didn’t often sound excited — or anything else — but I heard the excitement in his voice now and understood why it was there. The Hawks weren’t the kind of men who sat around thinking about things. They were doers, men of action.
And don’t get me started on Bram.
The Hawks hadn’t pushed me to remember, but I knew the details of my accident loomed large in their minds.
I’d even heard them talking about it once when they hadn’t known I was listening, Hawk wondering if I’d ever remember while Jagger told him to be patient — for me — and Vigo suggesting they pay another visit to Travis Dorsey with “my bat,” whatever that meant.
Bram was a lot less patient, asking me about that day over and over, walking me through every move I’d made getting ready to go to Daisy’s house, getting in my car, driving toward Daisy’s house.
Right up until my memory stopped cold at the turn on Old Mountain Road.
I’d finally yelled at him to stop, to leave me alone, and he’d left dejected and angry, nowhere to put his rage over what had happened to me.
Which was why I was telling the Hawks first.
“I remember someone following me up the mountain,” I said. “Someone in a black SUV.”
“Did you get a look at who was in the car?” Jagger asked.
I shook my head. “The windows were tinted really dark.”
“Tell us everything you remember,” Hawk said. “And don’t leave anything out.”
“Chill,” Jagger said.
I could practically see the frown on his face as he looked at Hawk.
I took a bite of my sandwich — chicken salad, my favorite — and thought back to that day.
It had been sunny out, I remembered that, one of those days after the cold of winter and the dampness of spring when you knew summer was really here to stay, when you knew you had months ahead of you with sunshine and warm breezes and green as far as you could see, the trees in the Blackwell Preserve in full leaf.
“I left for Daisy’s about eleven,” I said.
“Stop anywhere along the way?” Hawk asked.
I could hear the FBI training in his voice, knew he was cataloging everything I said.
“No, I went straight to Old Mountain Road, but instead of making the turn to Daisy’s, I went up the mountain.”
“Why’d you go up the mountain?” Vigo asked.
There was nothing accusatory about the question. He was just putting himself in my head.
“I don’t know. I was… I was thinking about my parents.” I left the other part unsaid: that I was thinking abut what my parents would think about the Hawks, about my relationship with them. “I think I just wanted to be close to them.”
“So you went to the mountain?” I heard the confusion in Hawk’s voice.
The mountain was where my parents had died, where Bram had almost died.
“I don’t have anyplace else. Bram had to sell the house to take care of me when I was a kid, and the cemetery…” How could I tell them that I’d never felt my parents’ presence in the cemetery where they’d been buried? That it felt as cold and antiseptic to me as a hospital? “They’re not there.”
I’d always felt my parents on the mountain, like they’d lingered there after their deaths.
“So you made the turn,” Jagger said. “When did you first notice the SUV?”
“Maybe… halfway up the mountain?” I remembered the way it had looked, large and hulking, in my rearview mirror. “I didn’t think anything of it at first, but then it started riding my bumper, even when I sped up.”
My heart rate had ticked up a notch and sweat slicked my forehead.
“Then what?” Hawk asked.
“Then I knew something was wrong.” The dread I’d felt on the mountain returned, a clenching pressure in my chest that made it hard to breathe even though it had been getting easier as my broken ribs healed. “The SUV crossed the double yellow and pulled up alongside me, and then it…”
Jagger reached for my hand. “It’s okay. Take your time.”
I drew in a breath and forced myself to exhale slowly, the way my new therapist had taught me. “It swerved into me. But I held the steering wheel and even though the car kind of… jumped, it stayed on the road.”
Hawk cursed under his breath.
“Keep going when you’re ready,” Jagger said, his hand still on mine.
“I didn’t know what to do. Slowing down or stopping seemed like a bad idea if someone had it out for me, so I just kept driving.
But then they hit me again and it was… it was so hard, so loud.
” I heard the shriek of metal on metal, felt the jolt of the Subaru as the SUV hit me the final time.
“I couldn’t keep control of the car, couldn’t keep it on the road.
I saw myself sliding toward the guardrail, felt the car hit it. And then it broke and…”
I was breathing heavy, sweat dripping down the back of my neck, running between my boobs in the sundress.
The panic attack was made worse by the fact that I couldn’t see. There was nothing to look at, nothing to focus on to ground myself in the here and now, just the endless tundra of blackness that was my world now.
Jagger squeezed my hand. “You’re okay. We’re here with you. You’re safe.”
“Do you— ” Hawk started.
“Nope,” Jagger barked. “Not yet.”
He placed a cold glass bottle in my hand and told me to take a drink.
I swallowed the cold lemonade with relief, then forced myself to keep breathing, to focus on the ground under my ass, the warm breeze touching my bare arms, the sound of kids on the playground and the river rushing downstream.
“Thank you,” I said, holding out the glass bottle, waiting for someone to take it like I waited for all kinds of things now.
“Do you want to stop?” Jagger asked, taking the bottle from my hand. “We can pick this up later. There’s no rush.”
“No, I’m okay.” I don’t know whether I was saying it for them or myself. “I’m okay.”
I wanted to get it out. To get it over with.
“Do you remember anything about the SUV?” Hawk asked. “Any little detail that might have made it stand out? The color of the license plate or the first three letters or even the model of the car?”
I thought back, forced myself to see the car behind me, beside me on the road.
But it was no use. There was nothing but the gleaming black paint and tinted windows, the roar of the SUV’s engine.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, mouse,” Vigo said. “It’s that fucker who ran you off the road that’s going to be sorry.”
The vehemence in his voice made me believe it.
“And you’re sure you didn’t see the SUV before you made the turn?” Hawk asked.
“I’m sure. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, but I didn’t see it.”
They grew quiet again, obviously processing everything I’d told them.
“Thing is,” Jagger finally said, “there’s only one other way to get to Old Mountain Road.”
“And the Sunoco is on that road,” Hawk said.
And then, Vigo.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”