Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
brOOKS
This is what Roddy meant.
I knew it when he said those words, but I thought I’d have years before I came head on with making this choice.
And I never thought it would actually be Lindsey and Holly I was saving.
I assumed it would be my own ass. It would come down to me and the stranger.
That the guy would finally hunt me down when I’m old and haggard, and he’s barely hanging on to life.
I’d give him the money and spit in his face before he killed me.
I haven’t slept well in days, not since Roddy and I found that cash.
I thought about calling the detectives working on our break-in about it, but they haven’t done shit since they inspected the house.
And Roddy was right—when someone hides that kind of money in a vehicle, they aren’t fucking around.
Calling the cops would only put me on the map with the wrong guys even more than I already am.
There are at least two people after that stash: my dad and the stranger.
What a fucking gift Mom willed to me. I laugh out in anger as I tear down the highway.
Hunter had already left for the afternoon when Lindsey called, and I was just packing up her father’s gear.
I left it all by the river, but I think her dad will understand.
I continue pressing Lindsey’s contact every ten seconds. She’s not picking up, and my mind is racing with the worst thoughts. Roddy and I estimated there was about ten million in those stacks. I’m no expert in counting drug money, so it could have been more. It was definitely not less.
I should have fucking called the cops.
I finally reach our street, and I peel around the corner so fast my tires skid across the gravel road. It’s not easy to fishtail in an enormous SUV, but I manage to spin out and snap the rear axle, sending my car skidding at fifty miles per hour into a thicket of wild brush.
I kick the door open and race the rest of the way to the house, flinging the front door open and coming face-to-face with Lindsey as she sits perfectly still in a chair in the center of the kitchen, her eyes red with terror and tears. Holly is asleep against her chest.
My head swivels to my father, and I see the gun in his hand a second too late, kicking him in the hip and knocking him back several steps before he grips the revolver in both hands and points it at me.
I shove my hands in the air and position myself between him and the girls.
“What do you want? They have nothing to do with this, so they’re going to go. What do you want? Tell me!” My heart is pounding so hard it drowns out all sound, but thankfully, I’m able to read my father’s lips.
“Money,” he says.
“Only if you let them go,” I demand. My mouth tastes of bile.
“If I let them go, how do I know you’ll follow through?” His voice is an eerie type of calm, and the marks on his arm tell me he’s been shooting up something. Probably a lot of things. I remember those marks, and those hands, hurting me when I was a kid.
“I’ll take you to the money. I don’t want it. I don’t want you. And I never want to see you again,” I growl.
My father holds my gaze, his pupils so big they look like black holes ready to swallow up everything alive. He leans to the side and spits on our floor.
His gaze shifts as he stretches to peer around me, but I move to block his view. I don’t want him setting eyes on Holly. He might recognize the shape of her chin. He doesn’t deserve to know he has a grandchild. She’s safer that way.
“Let’s go,” he says, waggling the gun in my direction.
“I need your keys,” I say to Lindsey over my shoulder, keeping my eyes fixed on the man who helped make me.
“They’re on the table,” she says.
My dad nods toward Lindsey’s purse, the contents spilled on the tabletop. I hold one hand up while I sift around with the other, feeling her lip stick tube, then her wallet. I finally land on her keys, and clutch them.
“Let’s go,” I say, shuffling toward the front door. My father follows a few feet behind me, but pauses, turning around.
“We’re leaving, I said!” I growl at him, but he doesn’t listen, instead moving into the kitchen. He pulls what I assume is Lindsey’s phone out of the sink, then smashes it with the butt of his gun.
“Now, we’re leaving,” he says.
I turn and continue my way out the door.
I press the unlock button on the van key fob, and my father moves to the passenger side while I get in to drive.
He keeps the gun fixed on me without bothering to buckle up, and I indulge in a one-second fantasy that involves me ramming the side of the van into a tree and killing him.
The variables are too massive, though. And I keep replaying Roddy’s words.
There are a lot of places to hide things out here, Brooks.
I pull away from the house and head toward the south highway. I’ve replayed the route in my mind a thousand times, instinct telling me I would need to know this one day. Turns out one day was only a few days later.
Once we hit the highway, my father pulls his seat belt on.
I glance at his gun hand, and he hisses at me, the same noise he used to make when I caught him smoking behind our old shed.
Memories flood back. We did have a yard.
And I had a swing. And Mom, she wasn’t so broken and ugly. That was when it all started.
“Why?” I ask, not even realizing my words are aloud until my father begins to answer.
“Because I’ve got nothing else,” he says.
He’s tucked into the corner, his back resting on both the seat and the door so he can keep his eyes fixed on both me and the road. I wonder how many times he’s held someone at gunpoint like this. This isn’t something you do on a whim. He’s too good at it.
“That’s your fault,” I mumble.
“Shut the fuck up,” he barks.
I shake my head but forge forward. Good ole Dad.
I slow when I recognize the landmarks that precede the unmarked road, and when I spot it up ahead, I turn off the roadway but grind to a stop.
“It’s here? Right next to the highway? I’m not stupid.
Take me all the way there,” he says. His breath smells of rotten teeth and candy.
He always liked peppermint. I think when he first started smoking a lot, he ate the candies to cover the stench of cigarettes.
Then he moved on to smoking other things, shit that smelled like burnt plastic and cleaning fluid. How the fuck is this man alive?
“This is as far as I go,” I say, my body trembling and rebelling against my brain. Why am I being brave? Why now?
Because of Holly. And because I don’t know what he’s going to do once I show him the spot where his money is buried. I think he’ll kill me, and then I won’t be able to see her grow up.
He stares at me and chews at his dry lips, then breaks into a demonic laugh, stopping abruptly before lunging at me and barking like a dog. I flinch and press my body against the driver’s side door, but I stay inside the van with him. He’s fucking mad.
“If you walk about four miles that way, you’ll come to a massive rock wedged against a tree stump. There are some wetlands to the left, so watch your step. About forty feet due south, the ground is still loose enough for you to dig with your hands.”
“Why don’t you dig for me?” He lifts his chin.
I shake my head, forcing myself to be brave.
“Because I don’t fucking want to,” I growl. I must be mad, too. I’ve certainly snapped. But I have to draw this line and cut him out completely. He needs to disappear, and I only know one way to make sure of that.
“Four miles?” His eyes bore into mine, but I hold steady.
I nod.
“And if you’re lying to me?”
“I guess that’s the gamble you’re going to have to take. Shoot me now, and you’ll never know, or take me at my word, and start walking.”
I’m so scared, I’ve surpassed physically shaking. I’m catatonic. I think my heart has stopped. I can’t feel a thing. I just have to hold on for a few more seconds.
“If you’re lying to me, it won’t be me you’ll have to worry about. There are dangerous people after me, son. And if they don’t get paid . . .”
I blink slowly. I realize a lot of people are looking for that money.
It’s why this is the only way. There’s no way in hell my father will ever give it up when he gets his hands on it.
He’s not paying off dangerous people. He’s running.
The only thing he has ever loved more than getting high is stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
“Don’t call me son.”
His lip sneers but creeps into a full smile, and he breathes out a laugh. He pulls the handle on the door, pushing it open a few inches while holding the gun up enough that I’m forced to stare into the barrel.
He finally pushes the door open wide and sets one foot on the ground. I’m tempted to hit reverse and race away, but that would only make him doubt me. He needs to believe me. He should. I’m not lying. The money is right where I said it is, and he can go get it.
Once he’s fully out of the van, he pushes the door closed but keeps the gun pointed at me.
I hold his stare and wait for him to start walking, giving him nothing in my expression.
But when his mouth curves into a sinister smirk, my body begins to feel things again.
He lowers his weapon and fires at the front passenger-side tire, and the van leans to the right as the tire quickly deflates.
Fuck!
My eyes dim as he laughs at me, waggling a finger as if he’s taught me some great lesson.
Thing is, I still have my phone. He never once asked for it, even after he smashed Lindsey’s to pieces.
I keep my hands on the wheel as he walks away, and I don’t move them until he’s at least a hundred yards ahead with no chance of seeing my mouth move when he turns around, which he has, repeatedly.
I work the phone out of my pocket and press the emergency call button. The nine-one-one operator answers immediately.
“I’m at mile marker thirteen off Highway 183. I was carjacked, and the man forced me to drive him here. He had a bag full of money and what looked like a brick of white powder. I’m sure it was drugs. He took off and ran into the field just south of the highway.”
I hang up before she asks any more questions, and when the phone rings with the callback, I toss it behind me and push the transmission into reverse.
I won’t make it far on just a rim, but I should get a few miles away if I drive slowly.
I begin to roll backward, toward the highway.
My father’s form is barely visible in the distance, but I swear he’s pointing the gun at me.
I keep the tires moving regardless, and eventually, he continues walking to what I hope is the end of our relationship.
I somehow get seven miles away before the rim becomes undriveable, and as the unmarked police cruisers race by me headed the other way, I start to breathe again.
I pull to the side of the road and walk to the back of the van, getting out the jack and the donut so I can try to make it the rest of the way home.
I’m sure Lindsey’s called the cops by now. People are no doubt looking for me.
I wanted more than seven miles between me and the final scene. Not because I feel guilty in any way for turning in the man I loathe. I just don’t want this van, or my name, mentioned in the same breath as what I suspect will be a major headline in the local news.
I start to change the tire and am nearly done when a siren chirps and a state trooper pulls up behind me.
I hold my hands up and tell him my name and also alert him that I’m alone.
He searches the van anyhow, doing his job.
He frisks me, too, ordering me to the ground and pressing a knee into my back.
He pulls my wallet out to check my ID and calls my name and license number in on the radio attached at his shoulder.
When I hear the command officer utter, “All clear,” he moves his leg and helps me to my feet.
“Sorry about that. We needed to make sure,” he says.
I’m emotionless. I can’t thank him even if I maybe should. I don’t want to be living through any of this. Even the end, which I hope this truly is. And it’s probably because I can’t help but focus on the inevitable outcome waiting for me when I get home.
Lindsey needs to leave. She isn’t safe with me, not until I know for certain that nobody else will come looking for my criminal inheritance.
I can’t be the thing Brandon uses to prove she isn’t fit to keep her boys.
She can’t lose primary custody. The three of them need one another.
Those boys need the parent who puts them first. Who will put her life on hold to make sure they get to live theirs.
Brandon isn’t that guy. He’s a weekend dad, and I doubt he’ll even keep that up for long.
Holly and I need to leave Sweetwater for a while, at least until the new season starts again, if I even continue to play.
Maybe having my name out there is too dangerous for her.
Maybe I don’t need to give her a life with riches.
Lindsey grew up as a coach’s daughter, and look how she turned out. Incredible.
That’s Holly’s fate, no matter what my job is.