Chapter 16 #4
“What did you do with it?” Tim remained silent.
“Okay, so either you spent it, sold it, or kept it for yourself one way or another. Does Alice have it? … Still, you watched as they beat and kicked Talia to the point that she’s got a broken pelvis, and she’ll be in here for God-only-knows how long and may never even walk again.
” Tim winced. “And then there are your babies, and who’s to say these assholes won’t come back and do that to those little girls too? ”
“No!”
“You’re right. They won’t.” Anderson watched Tim closely, and something clicked.
“You know why? Because they already figured out that you don’t give a shit.
So, that takes away their power. They might hang on to the babies as a tool.
They might sell them for money. But by now they sure as hell know that you don’t care, so they don’t have the power to make you do what they want you to do, at least not via Talia.
So, it’ll have to be something that you care about. ”
He snapped, “Obviously not your family.”
Tim struggled with that obviously. The warring within him was evident. Finally Anderson continued. “If I let you go, the bad guys will get to you. And, if I don’t let you go, the police will get you. What should I do?”
“They’ll just release me,” he declared, with a laugh.
“Why is that?”
“Because they already have their hands in this.” He laughed hysterically. “They’re protected. And they’re making sure that I get picked up and can’t run.”
He stared at him. “So, you’re telling me that these guys have bought some cops?”
“Yeah, gee, what a surprise,” he mocked, with a broken laugh. “What did you expect?”
“You get hooked up with people like this, and it can only go downhill. You already know that they want something from you. Did you make an agreement to either give them something or to get something for them? And yet here you are, somehow still alive.”
“The only reason I’m alive is because they’re counting on me to get it.”
“You haven’t told me what it is.”
He let out his breath. “It’s drugs, okay? … It’s drugs.”
Anderson stared at him as he shifted off but kept him pinned. “Yours?”
“Not mine. … I ended up with a habit though. This last year has been tough,” he muttered, his gaze moving from Anderson’s face. “I used to be a drug addict before.”
“So, you relapsed?”
“I stopped. Everything was cool for a while, and I stopped taking anything. Got married and things weren’t so cool. Talia got pregnant.”
“And then things were definitely not so cool,” Anderson told the spineless man in front of him.
“Yeah, not after she got pregnant. I just couldn’t handle it at that point in time. I went out once with a buddy and got stoned out of my mind, and that just started a downward cycle.”
“So, these guys don’t give a shit about small amounts of drugs going missing,” Anderson suggested, studying his brother-in-law intently, not sure if he was telling the truth or not. “So, you must have started dealing.”
“Not dealing,” he corrected. “Exporting and importing.”
“Jesus, Tim,” Anderson muttered, easing back a little bit more. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously,” he spat, blinking away the tears, but that had no effect on Anderson. “I didn’t … I didn’t have a choice. That’s the problem with being an addict,” he snapped. “As soon as you get into this shit, they don’t let you out.”
“So, what the hell did you do? Hang on to a shipment or something?” Anderson studied him, and, when Tim didn’t deny it, Anderson knew right away. “Christ, Tim, you’re a dead man walking.”
“I know that,” Tim snapped. “Thank you so very much. I already know that.”
“You might think you know it, but apparently you don’t really give a shit.
I’m sitting here listening, and all I hear is you being scared about your life.
You’re not scared about your mistress’s life, or your wife’s life, or your three little girls’ lives.
It’s all about you, trying to save your scrawny ass without a care for the danger you’ve exposed everybody else to. Nice work, you spineless wimp.”
Tim took a deep breath and said, “Look. I would have given anything for this not to have happened to her.” He twisted to look up at the bed behind them and shook his head. He’d given up any attempts to get away from Anderson almost as if giving up. “You don’t understand. These guys are … crazy.”
“I do understand that you had a choice and that you could have saved her, but you chose not to,” he pointed out, glaring at him.
“And what I also understand is that you are after her for some reason, and that’s what I don’t get.
You have the shipment. You got the drugs, and the big bad guys want you.
So why are you here? What do you possibly think she’ll do for you when she’s not even cognizant? ”
“What do you mean, not cognizant?”
“She’s not awake, Tim. She’s been unconscious this whole time.
” Anderson stared at Timothy intently, looking for any deception.
But the stunned look on his brother-in-law’s face said it all.
“Did you really think that I’ve taken a leave of absence, put a guard on her hospital door, and have extra help in for the triplets, if she were on her feet and ready to go home? ”
“I just figured she needed a few extra days in the hospital. You know how sometimes they keep you in the because you’re just, I don’t know, exhausted.”
“She’s exhausted all right. Mostly because she’s got a piece of shit for a husband who apparently didn’t even help her with the babies.”
He flushed at that. “I can’t handle that, man. I can’t handle the babies and have no interest in learning how. I don’t want anything to do with them.”
“That’s good because, after this, you sure as hell won’t have any opportunity to see them. I’ve been recording your sorry excuses.” He glared at Tim. “If you live, you’ll be paying child support, but your survival rate is highly questionable at this point.”
“I don’t give a fuck about child support,” Tim announced, clear distaste in his tone now.
“I just can’t handle babies. I mean, all they do is cry and scream all night long.
Not a moment of peace with them, even for the five minutes that they aren’t screaming,” he roared.
“It’s just changing diapers and feeding them, like a full-time fucking job! ”
“Yeah, you’re right. It is a full-time job.
One baby is a full-time job, and Talia’s been taking care of three without one bit of help from you.
I know it’s a full-time job because I’ve been doing it this week because their piece-of-shit father is worthless.
The fact that you have absolutely zero interest in looking after them just makes me sick. ”
“I don’t give a fuck what you say,” Tim yelled.
“You don’t have the power to scare me. People way bigger and way uglier than you are after me.
So, yeah, you might blame me for her being in here, but it won’t matter in the least. Odds are they’ll make sure that I’m in a hospital bed right beside her, unless I can make a deal. ”
He snorted at Tim. “There is no making a deal. They’ll cut their losses and go, but the go part will be after you’re dead. So, I don’t know what kind of deal you think you can make with them.”
“But it’s not happening, and I should be able to make a deal with them!” he snapped.
Anderson asked, “Meaning that you have the stuff they want?” Timothy winced and Anderson knew. “So, you were literally lying to them? Hoping that maybe you could get out of this hole?”
“I can take off,” he said. “I will take off and get free of all this. Get off the drugs and just get free.”
“And what about your mistress, Alice Quinn?”
He shrugged. “She’s nothing.”
“Oh, she’ll love hearing that.”
“Whatever,” he muttered. “I mean, she’s not my wife.
She was a piece of ass. I just needed to know that there was something in life outside of what I was already dealing with.
” He muttered, “So yeah, whatever. I’m toast with Talia and now Alice.
But, if you let me get up and get out of here, then I’ll get free and get a new life.
Then I can start supporting her and the babies. ” He looked at Anderson hopefully.
Anderson shook his head. “I don’t see that happening. Even if I hand you over to the cops, you won’t make it very far. They’ll take you down to the police station, and, if the bad guys have bad cops on their payroll, do you really think they’ll let you walk?”
“They’ll—”
“If they do, they’ll let you walk right into someplace where you’re supposed to go, whether in jail or out of jail.
There’ll be some, you know, accidental break-in or something.
There’ll be some trouble, and, oh, they forgot to put a suicide watch on you.
Then the next thing we know, we’ll hear about an inmate who committed suicide during the night. ”
Tim swallowed, closed his eyes, and whispered, “That’s why you’ve got to let me go.”
“Why the hell would I let you go?” he snapped, glaring at him. “You’re nothing but a piece of shit.”
“You keep telling me that, but, if you let me go, at least I would be a living piece of shit. If you keep me here, I’m dead, and you know it.”