Chapter 23 #2
“Guessing you weren’t aware this money was in here when you bought this thing?” He laughs through his words, but I’m suddenly flooded with all of the terrible memories my mind worked overtime to supress.
This money is definitely saturated with drugs, and probably blood too.
I remember the men in our house counting these stacks, piling them into boxes and moving them to trucks to haul across the state for the cartel to pick up at the border.
My mom wasn’t small time. She was big time.
My father started the business, but when he went away, she took it over.
If she weren’t such an addict herself, she could have risen to kingpin.
Instead, she overdosed after hiding her worth for her only kid to inherit.
Blood money.
Drug money.
I slept with this shit for a year.
I pinch my brow as I pace Roddy’s driveway, and he seems to understand that this is something serious for me.
“Do I want to know?” he asks.
I shake my head and utter, “I’m not sure. I don’t really know fully. Just . . .” I stop and look up to meet his gaze. “My mom died of an overdose, and this Suburban is the only thing she left me.”
Roddy studies me for a beat, likely piecing this information together with the bits about my past that I’ve shared with him, such as my dad went to prison and my mom was a loser. He nods finally, then sits Holly back in her car seat before pulling out his phone.
“Roddy, I don’t think we want more people—”
He holds up a finger, stopping me as he presses his device to his ear.
“Hey, I know we need to talk, me and you. But right now I need some help. It’s for Brooks. Can you come watch Holly for an hour or two? I have to help him with something.”
Roddy’s gaze lands on mine as he listens to the other side of his call. My guess is it’s Daisy.
“Thanks. It’s for him. This favor isn’t for me.” He ends the call with that. One day, I hope the two of them can work out their beef.
“You can’t call Lindsey in on this. Keep her safe,” Roddy says. His eyes widen and he drops his chin, as if he’s waiting for me to agree. I nod, but I also wonder if I should get out of here. I’m not sure what he’s thinking to do.
Roddy heads into his garage and grabs a garbage bag meant for lawn clippings.
He puts on a pair of work gloves and scoops the money into the bag.
I search his garage for a second pair, and when I can’t find anything, I grab two more garbage backs and cover my hands in the plastic.
Together, we get the cash into the bag in less than two minutes.
Roddy triple bags it, then knots the end before throwing it in the back of my SUV, along with two shovels.
Fuck.
Daisy pulls up a few seconds later, and my pulse races even faster.
“Let me see that sweet baby,” she says as she gets out of her pickup truck and skips over to me and Roddy. I pull Holly back out of her car seat and will myself to mind my expression. I don’t need to be showing my panic, no matter how much I’m sweating under this long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans.
“Thanks, Daisy. I’m having an issue with the car, and I don’t want her riding in it while Roddy helps me work it out. And Lindsey’s studying for an exam. She only has so long before those boys start demanding attention.” I chuckle, really selling it, and Daisy waves me off as if it’s no big deal.
“You guys go do things with car parts and oil. Meanwhile, Holly and I are going to visit the goats in the back.
She marches through the garage and into the house as if it’s her place. Perhaps at one point it was.
“You have goats?” I ask Roddy.
“I have everything,” he says. He whistles for Izzy to jump into my vehicle, and she obeys, leaping into the back seat with ease.
“Let’s go,” Roddy says, sliding into the driver’s seat.
Before I question why he’s driving, he gives me a look that I obey about as quickly as Izzy did his command.
I hold up both hands and make my way to the passenger side, and in less than a minute, we’re out of his neighborhood and hitting the highway at eighty.
“There are a lot of places to hide things out here, Brooks.” He glances at me as he speaks, so I nod.
“Have you hidden things out here?” I ask after several seconds pass without him saying another word. He glances at me again, and when our eyes meet, I sense that’s not something he will answer. Ever.
“Okay,” I say, swallowing hard.
After we drive east for about twenty minutes, Roddy pulls onto an unmarked dirt road that winds along a dry riverbed, pulling into some thick brush that shields my car from view.
It’s barren land, and we’ve traveled far enough from the highway that I can’t hear the traffic, even if I hold my breath and try really hard.
“Let’s dig,” Roddy says, walking a few paces and glancing around the area.
“Are you expecting someone to be spying on us?” I ask.
He meets my gaze and shakes his head before pointing to the massive boulder lodged next to a petrified tree stump.
“About forty feet south of that. Remember it, just in case.” He drops his gaze to the earth, then stabs the dirt with his shovel.
“Why don’t we just burn it?” I ask.
He doesn’t look up, and he keeps moving the shovel, so I join him, moving dirt to the side as we dig into the soil.
“When money like that shows up in your life, odds are high someone is looking for it. You never know when you might need to give it back, and if you don’t have it to give—”
He pauses his shovel but doesn’t look me in the eyes.
He doesn’t need to. I’m pretty sure I understand. If it comes down to my life, Holly’s life, Lindsey’s life . . . or the cash. I want to have the cash to give to whomever is asking for it.
We dig for thirty minutes, making a hole about four feet deep. The clay is hard once we break through the topsoil, so if many years pass, I wonder if I’d even be able to dig this cash back up once the dirt solidifies on top of it again.
We pat the earth down, then kick some brush around to mix up the terrain and cover our tracks.
Roddy has me pull the SUV out and turn around as he destroys our tire tracks for several feet.
He has me back up and form new tread marks that lead into the open field to my right, and I stop before my tires get too lodged in the mud.
I’m heavy on the pedal once we reach the highway, and Roddy clears his throat when I creep close to one hundred miles per hour.
“We don’t need to be pulled over right now,” he says.
I nod, easing off the gas. My heart is still pounding so hard I think it’s chipped my breastbone.
My pulse doesn’t slow until we pull back into Roddy’s driveway.
I follow my teammate into his garage, hooking my shovel onto the wall next to his, then stomping dirt from my shoes on the large rubber mat just outside the door that leads to his kitchen.
When we step inside, it’s as if the world turns to color once again. The scents of vanilla, cinnamon and maple permeate the air, and Daisy is standing at the griddle, humming a classic rock song while Holly plays with a stuffed bear on a quilt in the center of the room.
“Is that . . . yours?” I point to the bear. Roddy glares at it for a second, then looks at Daisy.
“She needed a toy. You need to learn how to share,” she says, holding out her finger, which is covered in what looks like sugar and syrup.
Roddy sucks it away, and my eyeballs nearly fall out of my head, so I head to the blanket and sit down to play with Roddy’s bear. I guess he and Daisy are making progress.