Chapter 9 #2
Ranger immediately came to his mom’s defense.
“No! No! God, no. She wanted to be there for me through my recovery, and I wouldn’t let her.
I didn’t want her to see me like that. So now I get to deliver pies and cookies, but I’m not allowed to have any until everyone else has had their fill.
She made my sponsor swear to that, too, by the way. ”
That time Toni did laugh. “Honestly, I love that. I’d love to meet your mom someday.”
He hiked her up a little on his back. “Soon,” he promised. “If we survive tonight, I’ll bring you to the house soon to meet her. She’s going to love you, by the way.”
Toni thunked him on the top of his head.
“Don’t say it like that, but yes, I’d love to meet her.
” Her voice turned sad as she said, “I was at the meeting tonight looking for my mom. I was stupidly hoping she would have gone there or reached out to Edema for help, but based on what Edema said tonight, she hasn’t seen my mom recently. ”
“We don’t have to talk about this now, if you don’t want to.”
Toni leaned the side of her head against his. “No, I need to. And maybe it’ll give you a break from talking about your stuff.”
“Tell me anything you want me to know,” he prompted, honestly grateful for the breather.
“Okay, but you can’t slap me like I did you.”
Ranger froze, mid-step. “I’d never,” he growled. “Spanking you, however,” he swatted her bottom behind him, “is completely on the table.”
Toni wiggled on his back. “Oh, might not want to do that. I like it too much.”
Laughing, Ranger continued his trek. “From your slapping comment, I’m assuming you feel blame for your parents relapsing.”
“How can I not?” she challenged. “I’ve been so busy that I can’t even remember the last time I checked in with them or spoke to their sponsors or attended a meeting with them.
What if they’ve been struggling for a while and I never noticed?
What if I’m the reason they relapsed? Not to mention what I did to my dad!
And now my mom is missing?” He felt her shake her head.
“I still keep hoping this is some twisted, fucked-up nightmare that I’m going to wake up from. ”
“Yeah, I know that feeling,” Ranger grumbled.
“Look, I’ve been in a lot of therapy recently.
Like a lot, and I can tell you firsthand that your parents’ choices are not on your shoulders.
They chose not to reach out to you and they chose to start using again.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been busy or if you’ve been spending your days snacking on the couch watching TV.
Their sobriety was on them, not you. Just as mine is on me,” he pointed out with conviction.
“But I could have helped. I know the tricks to help distract from the cravings. Mom and I used to go shopping or I’d give my dad housework. I could have helped them if they had just come to me.”
“Yes, but it’s still on them to have accepted that help, Toni. That’s part of what they teach in Al-Anon.”
She let out a long sigh. “I know… I know…”
“And maybe your guilt is misplaced. Have you considered that if they had reached out for your help, your dad wouldn’t have broken into your house last night?”
She tensed up behind him. “I didn’t know it was him.”
Her voice was so small, and Ranger truly hated her parents for having put her through this pain.
“I know,” he said, rubbing her leg comfortingly.
“But that guilt also lies with your dad, Toni. As the uncle of a lot of nieces, I have to believe that in his right mind, your dad he would want his daughter to pull that trigger on an unknown intruder. Especially being home alone as you were.”
“My car wasn’t in the driveway,” she pointed out, almost defensively.
“I keep thinking about why he broke in, why then. My car wasn’t in the driveway.
I was in the tub, and you can’t see that light from outside the house.
There’s no window. So he must have thought the house was empty, and that’s why he broke in. ”
“You say that like that helps his cause,” Ranger argued as gently as he could. “Toni, your dad’s actions are on him, not you.”
“I still pulled the trigger.”
Ranger stopped walking. They were almost to the clearing anyway.
Carefully, he lowered her back to the ground, turning to face her.
“Didn’t I just argue the same thing? Your dad put you in that situation where you had no choice but to pull that trigger.
Just as Cameron did with me and that first dose of heroin. Neither of us had a choice.”
Toni scuffed her foot into the dirt. “Yeah, but it’s so much easier to argue that logic when you’re not the one feeling guilty about it.”
Ranger breathed a light laugh. Bending, he touched his forehead to Toni’s. “What a pair we make.”
“Are you finally going to tell me why you carried me out into the woods in the middle of the night?”
Taking her hand, Ranger stood tall once again. “It’s this way.”
“Good, because it’s been a fucking long night and day, and it’s past my bedtime.”
* * *
126 Days Sober
It was after midnight by the time Ranger led Toni into a small clearing. The uneven patch, barren of trees and brush, looked natural rather than manmade. With the lack of canopy no longer blocking the moon, Toni turned off the flashlight.
Ranger continued into the clearing with purpose until he seemed to randomly stop, looking down at something Toni either didn’t see or didn’t understand.
Turning in circles to try to find some sort of landmark that gave her some clue as to what they were doing here, Toni made her way over to him. “Where are we?”
“At the old jail, you said you had questions. You’ve asked some, but not the most important. Not the one a defense attorney should have been asking.”
Toni swallowed hard, knowing exactly what he was getting at.
“If Carlos knew about what happened to you, why did he cover it up? Why would he? I know Bulldog is his brother, but that doesn’t mean he would allow anarchy and lawlessness to rein free in his town.
Yet, from how easily and quickly the club helped me out last night, it begs the question of how many other bodies the club has disposed of. ”
“I can’t answer that last part for you. Club business stays club business for a reason. Even the ol’ ladies are not told those details, and they know better than to ask so their man doesn’t have to lie to them.”
Toni looked down at the ground Ranger seemed so fixated on, but again, saw nothing but dirt, grass, and fallen leaves. “And the first part? Why would Carlos cover up what happened at the jail? From what you told me, it would have been an easy arrest.”
“It would have been—if he arrested them. But Ritchie and Cameron took from the club. They threatened Becks’ life, my life, and the life of Ghost and Becks’ unborn child.
They set the bomb that took four innocent lives and injured many more.
They forced me on heroin and made Becks watch for days as they tortured me.
All in the name of money that Becks and I didn’t even know we possessed.
” He turned to look at her, waiting to speak until she also faced him.
“They were never going to jail.” He watched her carefully for a moment before returning his gaze to the forest floor.
Toni had not realized that Ritchie and Cameron had also set the bomb. As far as Toni knew, it was still an open investigation to search for the perpetrator. “Then where did they go? Are they still on the run?”
Ranger didn’t answer her. Just stood there, staring at the ground. And the longer he stared, the harder Toni’s stomach sank. She quickly looked around, as if searching for a giant sign that proclaimed this area wasn’t a graveyard.
Instead, her eyes landed on what appeared to be a fresh patch of dirt about thirty feet to their left. A bush with flowers sat over it, but it was tipped in that way plants did that hadn’t yet settled.
“You accused me of holding all the cards. Now we’re even. You know where my bodies are buried, and I know where yours is.”
Toni felt cold as she stared at the unmarked grave where her father was supposedly buried. “Why are you telling me this? Showing me this?” It couldn’t be about blackmail. He literally just told her he’d buried two people in this same area. It was like he was cancelling out each other’s blackmail.
“So you know what sort of man I am, Toni. I’m not a good man.
Maybe I could have been, but war and dealing with the bullshit of people’s sins has given me a rather cynical outlook on life.
I didn’t just kill Ritchie and Cameron. I tortured them.
” He walked over to the nearest tree, and ran his hand along something in the bark.
Toni turned on the flashlight for a closer look.
If she didn’t know any better, it looked like rope burns.
“Strung them up and made them pay for everything they did to me.” His voice was dark, depraved.
It sent a chill down her spine. “I knew they had hurt others, but I didn’t care.
I’ve never killed or harmed a woman before that night, but in those hours, Cameron wasn’t a woman.
She was genderless, barely even a person.
I did not show them an ounce of mercy, and when they died, the last thing they saw was me covered in their blood. ”
Without facing her, Ranger removed his shirt.
In the glow cast by the flashlight, Toni frowned.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting. Maybe crisscross lines that showed he’d been whipped like they showed in the movies?
She heard stories about gangs and thugs who tortured their victims through various methods, but as a small-town attorney, she thankfully did not see many of those types of cases.
As he turned to face her, Toni realized the stereotype she’d placed on the word ‘torture’.