Chapter 29 Ronan
Twenty-Nine
Ronan
The second trip to Rare Earth was fucking light-years from the first, and I could hardly believe they both happened in the same night.
Bertie and Bibi stayed home with Shiloh’s mother, who’d begun sobbing after spilling her secret and hadn’t stopped.
The rest of us followed the cop car downtown.
Rudy and Letitia took the Cadillac. I drove the Buick, glancing at Shiloh beside me.
She sat silently, staring at nothing; her beautiful face was blank, shocked numb.
Her perfect night, ruined. I gripped the steering wheel tight.
The streets were empty, and the store was dark. The front entrance looked the same except for the police tape that ran across the front door and the squad car parked directly in front.
“It looks okay,” Shiloh said in a strange, small voice that made my stomach clench. “It looks okay.”
I gritted my teeth.
“There’s been an incident…” the cops had said back at the house.
I wanted more than anything for it all to be okay, but my gut told me it was bad. Real fucking bad.
I followed the cops around to the back parking lot, trying to bury my own rising nightmares at the sight of the red and blue lights. My only goal was to get Shiloh through this and then fix whatever the fuck needed fixing. All of it. Whatever it was, I’d make it right for her somehow.
In the back lot, we climbed out of the car, and I went to Shiloh’s side.
She didn’t look at me or anyone else but walked tall and silent behind the cops to the rear door of the shop, to the first sign of damage.
The wood around the lock had been pried away with a crowbar and the knob itself smashed off.
“They got in here,” said one officer—his name tag read Tran—leading us in. The lights in the back room were on; everything looked intact. He nodded at the boxes of inventory—Shiloh’s life’s work. “Did they take anything?”
Shiloh shook her head. “Looks okay,” she said in that same strange voice. A flicker of hope lit up her eyes, but Tran shook his head.
“I know this is hard, but you need to see the rest.”
She nodded again, and we followed him into the shop that was dim.
“Responding officers made their initial inspection and dusted for prints, though to be honest, there wasn’t much to dust.” He looked at Shiloh with a kind, sympathetic expression. “Brace yourself.”
He flicked on the light, and Shiloh made a sound I hoped to never hear again as long as I fucking lived. Her hands flew to her mouth, and she stared.
Letitia let out a little cry, and Rudy threw his hands up. “Good goddamn.”
I said nothing, the rage burning me from the inside out. I could hardly breathe, never mind speak.
Motherfucking sons of shit-licking assholes…
Glittering under the pot lights Shiloh had installed during the shop’s renovation was an ocean of shattered glass.
Every single display was smashed, including the front-facing glass on the cabinet that served as her cash register desk, the rings glittering with shards.
The walls and floors were tagged with black spray paint in random zigzags and lines, the faces of the women in the artwork blacked out, and what was left of the display boxes was marked with haphazard sprays.
Shiloh had been so careful with every penny of the start-up business loan, keeping costs down and using her own talents to make simple things beautiful. She let me pay for a fraction of what I wanted to spend of my inheritance, insisting on doing as much as she could by herself.
And now she stood in the center of the rubble of her dreams that had, a few hours ago, been perfect.
I moved beside her, glass crunching under my boots, not knowing what to say or do.
“Who would do such a thing?” Rudy asked.
“That’s what we’re hoping you’ll be able to tell us,” the other cop—Murray—said, his notepad out. “Did you remove all your items from the window displays before close of business?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Anything else look taken?”
She stared blankly at the jewelry in the smashed and sprayed displays, covered in glass, some pieces shattered too.
“Don’t know,” she said dully. “Don’t think so.”
He frowned. “Not a robbery then. Just straight mayhem. Whoever the perp was, they only wanted to cause damage.”
And then a ball of pure ice seemed to slam into my chest, making my blood run cold.
We’re not done with you, a voice screeched in my memory. You’ll pay. In the way that hurts you the most.
I looked at the woman beside me. Hurting Shiloh was how to hurt me the most.
Fuck. Oh fuck, no.
“How did this happen?” Shiloh said, looking and sounding so damn lost. “I have security. Cameras and a company. They’re supposed to call me…”
“I grabbed your phone,” Letitia said, rummaging in her bag. “Thought you might need it.”
She handed it to Shiloh, who stared, disbelieving, at the screen. “I muted it. I took a few selfies behind the register and of the crowd…and then I went to work.”
Over her shoulder, I saw a bunch of missed call notifications from the security monitoring company she’d hired.
“I wouldn’t blame yourself for that,” Tran said. “Typical smash-and-grab. They’re usually long gone before we show up. Can I take a look at your security footage?”
Shiloh nodded absently as she pulled up the security camera app, and we gathered around to watch.
The lights were out and the shop shadowy, but enough street light came in to see a skinny, hooded figure in a ski mask rampage through the store, a crowbar in one hand, a spray can in the other. I felt sick.
Frankie Dowd. Though it may as well have been me under that fucking ski mask.
I did this. I brought this to her, just like I knew I would.
Shiloh made a choking noise and shoved the phone at Tran, then stepped away to touch the jagged edge of a display case.
“Any clue?”
“That’s Frankie Dowd,” I said.
The officers glanced at each other. “As in Mitch Dowd’s son?”
“That’s what I said.”
Murray made notes on his notepad, and Tran frowned.
“What is it?”
“Mitch Dowd was released from prison a few days ago,” Tran said.
“The fuck? I thought he was serving a year.”
“He was sentenced to a year,” Tran said. “He appealed, and the judge commuted his sentence to six months of house arrest.”
“You think his kid did this?” Murray asked. He looked hesitant to follow up. “You can’t ID a face on that video.”
“I don’t need to see that fucker’s face to know it’s him.”
The officers conferred, and Tran said, “We’ll head over and ask him a few questions.”
“And then arrest his ass.”
“We need probable cause,” Murray said. “The video alone isn’t enough to make a positive ID.”
Tran held up his hand when I started to protest. “Take her home, okay?”
I sucked in a breath and nodded.
Tran took Shiloh’s information, and the cops left.
Rudy and Letitia were huddled together, watching Shiloh move through the wreckage of her shop.
“Get her home,” I said. “I’ll clean up here.”
Shiloh shook her head. “No, I can’t… I can’t leave…”
I moved to her and took hold of her shoulders. “Shiloh, look at me.”
She turned her brown eyes up to mine, not really seeing me, and my heart ached. She was still in shock, numb.
“Go home, baby,” I said. “Rest. I’ll clean this up.”
“You can’t clean this up,” she said, frowning as if I were crazy. “It’s too much. Too much.”
“I’m going to get started, and then I’ll be there, okay?”
She nodded mutely and let Letitia take her out the back.
Rudy stood in front of me. “Thank you, son. For being so good to her.”
He patted my shoulder and left, and I wanted to scream.
This is my fault. Mine.
Rage flooded me, burning through my veins like fire. I grabbed a broom from the back and gripped it as if it were Frankie Dowd’s fucking throat. I concentrated on the work, cleaning up the shattered glass and smashed displays as best I could, extracting jewelry from the mess.
I couldn’t do anything about the spray paint, but I wanted to. I wanted to paint over everything so that when Shiloh saw her shop again, she wouldn’t feel so undone.
It was nearly two in the morning, and I’d done all I could for the night. I loaded all Shiloh’s inventory into the Buick’s trunk and back seat, then jerry-rigged a way to lock the door with a chain and padlock.
I drove to her and Bibi’s house. Rudy had taken Shiloh’s mom and Letitia back to their hotel. Bertie and Bibi were still awake, sitting on the couch, drinking tea and talking in hushed voices.
“Oh, honey,” Bibi said, tears coming. “Rudy told us everything. Is it as bad as that?”
“Yeah, it’s bad. Shiloh’s asleep?”
Bertie nodded. “The poor child. First Marie, bless it all, and now this?”
“I’m going to check on Shiloh,” I said.
“Thank you,” said Bibi. “Thank you, sweet boy, for all that you’ve done.”
All that I’ve done.
I strode down the hallway to Shiloh’s room. The rainbow lights were on—dim but enough to see immediately that her bed was empty.
Okay. She’s in the bathroom. Or outside in the shed, working to try to make up for tonight somehow.
The bathroom was empty.
“Ronan?” Bertie called as I went through the patio door to the backyard. The shed was empty. I checked the garage. Empty.
I came back inside, forcing myself to sound calm so as not to freak the women out.
“Did she lie down in your room, Bibi?” I asked carefully.
She frowned. “I don’t think so. Bertie?”
Bertie hurried to Bibi’s room and peeked her head in. “She’s not there,” she said, her hands twisting now.
I whipped out my phone and called Shiloh’s number. Her cell phone came to life on the dining room table, right next to her purse.
Shit.
“Oh no,” Bibi breathed. “Oh no. Where… Where could she have gone? When?”
“I’m calling the police,” Bertie said. “I know they’ll say it has to be twenty-four hours, but after all that’s happened tonight…special circumstances…”
Bertie got up to rummage for her phone in her bag. Bibi looked small and helpless on the couch.
“I’ll find her,” I said, striding out the front door.
“Ronan…”
“I’ll find her, Bibi,” I said. “I’ll bring her back.”
If it’s the last fucking thing I ever do in this world.
***
I drove the Buick back to Rare Earth for the third time that night. It was dark, my makeshift lock untouched.
“Fuck, Shiloh,” I said, pacing the dark parking lot, thinking. “Please, baby.”
I got back behind the wheel and pushed the Buick as fast as the heavy engine could take to my place. Maybe Shiloh needed me at home, and I wasn’t there, so she went looking.
My place was dark, quiet in the early hours, the parking lot empty but for tenants’ cars. So was the back storage area.
Fucking stupid. Why would she come here? You did this to her. She doesn’t want you. She won’t want you ever again.
I shut up the incessant voice long enough to think. Violet was at college. Who else did she know? Amber?
And suddenly, I knew. The one place to go when the rest of the world was fucked.
Wheels squealed as I tore the Buick out of my complex and headed toward the coast. I screeched into a spot in the parking lot and ran as fast as I could along the beach path, tripping over rocks in the dark, slamming my knee into a boulder.
I saw the light of the bonfire first, and then there she was.
Thank Christ.
Shiloh was sitting in one of our beach chairs, three of my beer bottles sticking out of the sand around her feet, a fourth in her hand. Blearily, she watched the fire and lifted the bottle to her lips. I couldn’t blame her. I wanted to get plowed and pretend like this night never happened too.
Except she can’t drink.
“Shiloh?”
She swiveled her head, and it was obvious she was wasted. She could hardly keep her eyes open, swaying in her seat.
“Ronan…” she said and then pitched to the side and puked.
“Fuck.”
I hurried to her, held her hair out of her face as she retched up all the beer. Her body was shaking from the cold and the allergic reaction she was having to the alcohol.
When she finished, she lay back against the chair, eyes closed and shivering.
“Hold on, baby,” I said. “Just…hold on.”
I hurried to the shack for the small stash of blankets we’d collected over the winter and grabbed one.
“Who am I?” Shiloh asked, her head lolling as I wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “I’m a mistake. No. Worse than a mistake.”
“You’re not a mistake,” I said, kneeling in front of her, face-to-face. I pulled the blanket tight around her. “You need to get home.”
“A mistake at least isn’t violent. What I am…” She shook her head. “I’m a violation.”
I clenched my teeth to hear the pain in her words.
“Shiloh, look at me. You’re not…that. You’re…”
Everything good and beautiful in my life.
But I’d ruined hers. I clenched my jaw. “Come on. We have to get you home.”
Shiloh shuddered, her face flush, and retched again, dry heaving and gasping for air.
“I’m empty,” she said when she caught her breath. Her bleary brown eyes met mine, tears shining in them. “There’s nothing in me because there’s nothing in me. I’m…nothing.”
“Stop talking like that,” I said, lifting her from the chair. “The last thing you are is nothing.”
You’re everything to me, and I fucked it all up.
“I’m sorry, Shiloh,” I said, holding her tight to me. “So fucking sorry.”
But she’d already—mercifully—passed out, so I began to walk.