Chapter 23
ELLA
“I’m excited. When did you plan this?”
“I told you it was supposed to be for tomorrow night when we saw each other, but it’s perfect now. We can celebrate Valentine’s Day and your birthday on the actual day.” Ry looks at the clock on the dashboard of the truck. “Well, as long as we do it in the next three hours before the clock strikes midnight.”
I look out my window, studying the road, judging how far we are from the homestead. I’m distracted by my reflection playing against the darkened window and run my fingers over my hair. “It’s called a French Dutch into a fishtail braid. I can’t do it. Carrie can. She always did my braids for me. I paid for this. I went to the salon and had this done today for my birthday, so it would look nice for dinner with my parents.” I turn to look at Ry. “That’s stupid, isn’t it?”
Reaching across the seat, he wraps his hand around mine, squeezing tightly. “You’re beautiful, Lulu. Your hair is gorgeous. I can’t imagine you looking any different tonight. You’re perfect.”
Turning onto the driveway, Ry stops halfway down the path. “Alright, you stay here.”
“What?!”
“I have everything laid out, but it will take me a few minutes to get it ready. You have to wait here.” He jumps out of the truck. “And I’m starving, if you take a bite of my cheeseburger, I’m gonna murder you.” Slamming the door, he jogs off into the darkness.
On cue, I look down at the bag filled with our cheeseburgers and cheese fries and my stomach growls. Crossing my arms over my chest, I try not to starve to death.
Ry’s ‘few minutes’ turns into fifteen minutes, and I start to worry. I’m about to slide over behind the wheel and haul ass down to the homestead when I see his muscular body jog back into focus. He jumps back in the truck, with a wide smile on his face.
He holds out a bandana. “Here, put this on.”
“Seriously? If you were gonna blindfold me, you could’ve driven down to the site instead of leaving me up here, worrying about you and any ax-murdering psychopaths in the woods.”
“Psychopaths stay away for Valentine’s Day. Too much pressure. Performance anxiety.”
Ignoring his stupid joke, I fold the navy-blue bandana around my eyes. I don’t have to worry about it messing up my eye makeup. I cried most of it off earlier.
Once we’re parked, he comes around to the passenger’s side to help me. Scooping me into his arms, I wriggle, trying to force myself back to the ground. “Ry, have you lost your mind? I’m too big for you to carry. Put me down. Now.” I guess it feels different when you’re not in the throes of passion… because I sure wasn’t thinking about my size when he picked me up the other night. That was the last thing on my mind.
“You’re tall, Lulu, not heavy. There’s a difference between tall and heavy.”
I hear him reach around and grab the bag with our food. I can decipher enough about his movements to know that he’s taking me down to the pond. My suspicion is confirmed when he sets me down and my boots clank against the wood of the small dock. Ry doesn’t remove his hand from my back. Slowly, his thumb circles against the soft fabric of my shirt. I’m glad it’s mild tonight. If I had a jacket on, I wouldn’t be able to feel his hand.
“Alright, you can take the bandana off.”
I do.
And my heart explodes in my chest.
The pond glows with the soft beautiful light of dozens and dozens of floating water lanterns. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The calm waters ripple back and forth, twinkling the soft flames into the night sky. Like a million fireflies. Like a million shooting stars. Like a million kisses from Ry.
“It’s gorgeous. Absolutely breathtaking.”
“You like it?”
“I love it.”
What I want to say is I love you.
He nods, accepting my compliment. Spinning me around, he shows me the rest of the dock. It’s piled high with tons and tons of blankets and pillows. One of the small tables is set up and Ry’s laptop is perched on top of it. Our food bag is over to the side, and he has already set out a beer for him and water for me.
“A picnic?”
“Do you want your Valentine’s Day gift first or your birthday gift first?”
He got me two gifts? “Valentine’s Day.”
“Good choice.” He plops down on the blankets and pats the comfy area beside him. “Sit. I have something for us to watch.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Ry, I have no doubt that some people think watching porn on Valentine’s Day is a romantic thing to do, but I’m not sure I’m one of those people.”
He tugs my arm, pulling me down next to him. “I always knew you were a prude.” He leans over and nibbles the side of my ear. His hot whisper sends an electric current pulsing down my spine. “One day I’ll get you worked up enough, you’ll be begging me to watch porn.” He kisses along the side of my neck, sending waves of desire crashing through my emotion-stricken body.
“You don’t play fair.”
He pulls away, resting on his elbows. His growl drives me crazy. “Game on.”
I’m not sure what kind of face I make, but the bastard thinks it’s hilarious. “It’s not porn. You said you always wanted to watch Singin’ in the Rain . So, here you go,” he waves his arm at his laptop. “I downloaded it. And you better enjoy it. I hope this is the only time in my entire life I have to watch a musical.”
He remembered. I mentioned it just one time in passing. But he remembered.
It was several weeks ago, when we were saying goodnight by the open door of my vehicle. Raindrops starting falling, coating everything around us in a cold mist. When we were little, Carrie and I would slap our feet in the rain puddles, pretending we were tap dancers. When we got older, we always talked about watching Singin’ in the Rain but never did.
I told that story to Ry. A short and simple fifteen-second story. And he remembered.
We eat our dinner and watch our movie. Our food has turned cold, but we are both so hungry it doesn’t matter. It tastes phenomenal. Best birthday meal I’ve ever had. More importantly, Ry holds me close during the entire movie. He pays attention, engrossed just like me. He’d never in a million years admit to liking it, but I think he does. Almost as much as me.
When the movie is over, we lay on the dock, watching the lanterns as they float. “I haven’t forgotten today’s other big event. Are you ready for your birthday present now?”
“Yes.”
Jumping from the dock and grabbing a battery lantern, he walks over to his truck. Not wanting to be left behind again, I follow him. He reaches into the glove box and pulls something out. He tries to block my view with his body. Peering over his shoulder, I’m mesmerized by what I see before he slams the compartment closed. He shuts it quick. Real quick. He doesn’t want me to see what’s in there.
Not fast enough, though. Condoms.
There are condoms in his glove box.
Shutting the truck door, he walks around to the back, lowers the tailgate, and lifts me up, sitting me on the edge.
“So, I debated about giving this to you. It’s gonna fire you up. But you have to promise me to be smart about this. Don’t do anything about this right now. Or for the foreseeable future. Do you hear me? Tell me you hear me.”
I narrow my eyes, wondering what in the world he’s talking about. When I don’t answer quickly enough, he squeezes my knee with his hand. “Fine. I agree. I hear you.”
He mumbles under his breath and begrudgingly holds out his hand.
It’s a picture.
Of my sister.
My gasp is loud and frightening. Running my fingers over the photo, I study my sister’s image. She’s so damn gorgeous. My whole life I’ve been envious and proud of her beauty, all at the same time.
My words are defeated, crushed by visual evidence. “She’s beautiful. Even high, she’s still beautiful.” And you can definitely tell she’s high. She’s sitting on a couch I don’t recognize, with her head tilted to the side, her eyes closed, and a euphoric glow on her face. Wearing shorts and a tank top, she’s holding her hands in front of her and doing this weird twitching thing with her fingers.
I glance at the date in the bottom corner. I know that date. I’ve memorized so many of them over the past few weeks of my investigation. It was two-and-a-half weeks before she went missing. “She turned her phone off on this date. I have a record of all the times she did that to her phone.” Next to the date are some letters—like an abbreviation that’s part of the digital timestamp. I’m not sure what they mean.
“Is this Trash’s house? I don’t remember seeing this couch there.”
Ry shakes his head. “No, that picture was taken at Trey’s mobile home. He lives about a mile up the road from Trash.”
“You’ve been to his house? I thought you said to stay away from him.”
“I’ve been there a few times, and none of them by choice.” He bends down, stares into my eyes, and points his finger in my face, like a parent scolding an unruly child. “And I do mean it, Lulu. You stay the hell away from there.”
“Why did you go there?”
“My brother. Trash overdosed once. I had to get him and rush him to the hospital. A couple of other times he had bad trips, and I had to go get him, calm him down. The crew doesn’t party at Trey’s much. They mostly go to my brother’s house. The times I’ve been there, the crowd was small. The timing may revolve around when deliveries come from the supplier.”
“So, Carrie was probably there that night, picking up stuff to sell. I guess she had to try her own product.” The disgusting sarcasm coats my tongue like a fungus. “Quality control.”
“Don’t be like that. Carrie was different. Is different. She just got in too deep with something that was supposed to help her. It ended up consuming her.”
“Where’d you get this picture?”
Please don’t tell me you’ve had it this whole time.
“I haven’t been to Trash’s in a long time. Since I started using your hotspot,” he winks at me. “But I had to go over there the other day to get a lawnmower part. My stupid ass father needed help fixing his, and of course, I agreed to help. Anyway, Christina was there, and she was flipping through this huge stack of pictures she had just developed. I saw this one. She gave it to me.”
“Christina?”
“The woman you were talking to outside of the bathroom that night at the party. She had a camera hanging around her neck?”
Realization dawns in my brain. “That’s right.” I shake my head in confusion. “That doesn’t make any sense. If Trash and Trey and everybody is so afraid of someone ratting on them, why on earth would they let someone take pictures of any part of their crime scene? It’s evidence.”
“Trey is more lenient on Christina than most. They’re fucking. In fact, there’s a good chance he’s the father of the last kid she had, but no one knows that for sure. Taking pictures makes her happy, so he lets her. She’s not allowed to take pictures of the drugs or anything illegal, and she knows that.”
I look back down at the photo. Sure enough, there are no little pills sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch. There’s not even a beer bottle in the picture.
“There’s something else.”
My heart skips a beat. “Ry, I don’t know if I can handle anything else.”
He hands me a note. It’s in his own handwriting. “It’s the code for how people buy drugs at the gas station.”
My head snaps up, soaking in his words like a sponge. “What?”
“I’m sure you already know that when a person buys that sweet tea and asks for a paper bag, that’s code for ‘they wanna buy’. Well, they place the order with the money they use. A $1 bill folded on the outside means they want to buy Ritalin. A $5 bill folded on the outside means they want to buy Vicodin. A $10 bill is Percocet. A $20 bill is Oxy, and a $20 bill with three pennies with it means the Holy Trinity—Oxy, Soma, and Xanax. Folded inside has to be the exact money for how much the person wants to buy.”
Holy shit.
Holy. Shit.
“How do you know this? When did you find out?”
“I’ve known it. For quite some time.”
Anger flares up in my chest. “You’ve known about this? And you didn’t tell me?”
“No. I told you I didn’t want you asking questions about this. Getting yourself into trouble.”
“Then why tell me now?”
He shrugs, running his hand over his jaw. I like it when he does that. It’s super sexy.
I shake my head, ridding myself of that thought. No, I’m mad at him right now. Not horny.
“Because keeping it from you started to feel like a lie. I’m not sure why, but it just did.”
“How did you first find out about the code? Did you watch people in the gas station? Did you monitor it?”
“Slow down there, Sally Sleuth. It wasn’t anything that dramatic. Trash told me a long time ago. Back when he was trying to get me to push. He wanted me to come work at the gas station with him.”
My hand covers my mouth in shock. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe he would try to drag his own brother into that life.”
“Why not? He dragged your sister into it, didn’t he?”
I guess I’ve never thought of it that way. I look at her face, tracing her features with my fingertip. “I guess so.”
“I hope I made the right decision. It’s definitely not the most conventional birthday gift.” He snorts. “I probably should’ve just done a card and a balloon.”
I tuck the picture and note in the corner of the truck bed so they won’t get lost. Grabbing his forearms, I pull him closer to me. I curl my finger, begging him to come even closer. When he does, I plant my lips on the ridge of his ear. “I hate balloons.”
His chuckle vibrates low in his chest. Grabbing my wrist, he looks at my watch, checking the time. “Well, Lulu. You have three minutes left, and then your eighteenth birthday will be gone forever. Any last birthday wishes?”
Kiss me. Kiss me forever.
But I don’t have to say the words.
All I have to do is moan and he makes my unspoken wish come true.