Chapter 4
4
Melia
I can’t think. I can barely breath. Silk hugs me to his chest, wrapping his arms around me and rocks me back and forth while we wait for them to print the information from today.
“Sit down. I’m going to get you some water.” He fills two cups at the water cooler and returns. “Try to drink them both.”
While he waits, he pulls his phone and starts texting, pausing only to ask me my mother’s full name and if I know her social security number. Once done he gets his own water and sits next to me, placing his arm around my shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay.”
My mind is a ping pong ball, bouncing from panic to despair to fear. I have no doubt those men in the car were from my father, or one of his cronies. Did they do something to Mom? Is this all my fault?
Soon Silk has the papers he’s requested. “Do you think you can ride back to the ferry dock? There’re no taxis or uber here,” he jokes. “I have my own boat to get us back to Love Beach once we’re there.”
“I can make it. It’s not that far and it’s how I’ve always gotten around on the island. Bike or walk.”
“Sounds like the town I grew up in.”
Holding out his hand he helps me stand. I wave goodbye to the night nurse and we head back. Just before we get to the ferry landing he pulls into some trees. “I need you to stay here while I check out the area. I want to make sure the guys in the Beemer aren’t hanging around.”
It only takes a few minutes then we’re on his boat and headed out. He handed me a blanket before putting the boat in motion. Normally I’d love watching the water and sky. Tonight, I curl up on the bench seat huddled in the blanket and try to forget.
The world shifts and I hear voices. But I refuse to wake. I just can’t deal right now.
* * *
I have to pee. I stay huddled under the soft comforter as long as I can. But I have to go. Now. Tossing back the cover, I sit and force my eyes open.
Where am I? This clean bright room is not my resident dump. I glance around taking in the nice white dresser, the grey sitting chair, and the sunlit open window where the shear curtains billow in the breeze. My jeans and blouse are folded on top the bed bench. A black robe is tossed next to them.
Slipping on the robe, I open the door and peek out. Ah, the bathroom is across the hall. The smell of coffee and soft voices great me when I exit the small room.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Boots calls. “Follow the hall.”
Dax and Boots are seated at the breakfast bar finishing up what looks like breakfast. Silk is across from them leaning against another counter. He holds up the coffee pot and I nod.
Thankfully, they give me a few minutes to down half the cup. Silk puts a plate of food, breakfast casserole and bacon, in front of me. Not really knowing what to say I dig in to buy myself some time as the others finish and get coffee refills.
Dax glances at his watch then at Boots. “We either leave or we call Landon and tell him you won’t be in today and ask him to put up a sign.”
She glances at me and I set down my coffee. “It’s Saturday, you need to go. I’ll be fine. In fact, I can get dressed and come now.”
“No. You need to stay and talk with Silk. Dax can run the register. That’s all I need today. Just keep us posted as to what we can do. We’ll see you tonight.”
She kisses my cheek, and they take off.
Silk watches in silence as I finish my food. Then refills both our cups. “Let’s go to the living room and I’ll update you on your mom.”
An extension of the kitchen, the living room has two chairs flanking the bow window and two recliners across from a wall mounted TV. There are large bookcases on either side of the TV and under it is a sound system including a record player.
“Is this an apartment or condo?” I ask, avoiding the upcoming conversation for a few more minutes.
“Condo. It needed some work when I bought it, so I got it for a good price which made the remodel worth it. It’s two bedrooms and full laundry room. It’s perfect for me, and when we have guys on the team passing through or here for a job, they crash with me. One of the other guys has a place in the same complex.”
“Seems like all of ‘your team’ as you call it are close.”
“Most of us served together at some point. Yeah, we’re tight.”
He swivels his recliner so he’s looking at me. “What we’ve been able to find out about your mom is they think she was misdiagnosed. The specialist who saw her this morning is going to order a few more tests. But she found a tumor which can easily be misdiagnosed as a stroke without the proper tests. She also is optimistic that it’s operable at this stage with minimal side effects. Prognosis is good as long as nothing else shows up in the testing.
“Does your mom have insurance?”
“She has Medicaid. There aren’t a lot of employment options on the island. We got by with Grandpa’s help. He fished, she tended the garden, and we lived… well you saw where we lived. I started working as a nanny in the summers, or as a waitress, or housekeeper for the people with the big houses on the island as soon as I could to help. Those were the same jobs that Mom did. Sometimes they’d hire us both. Gramps died right after I got out of high school.”
“Did she always live on the island?”
“Yes, except for a few months. She went to Love Beach when she was around twenty and got a job as a live-in housekeeper. She was saving up to go to cosmetology school at the time.”
I pick at the seam of my jeans. The silence gets to me, and I glance up. The look of understanding on his face almost does me in. Blowing out a heavy sigh, I continue.
“She got pregnant by the husband at the house where she was the housekeeper. Mom is, was, a little naive. She always sees the good in people. Anyway, the asshole threatened her and the child she carried if she told anyone. Gave her a few thousand to get an abortion and told her to go back to the island and stay there and never contact him again.
“Fast forward twenty-five years and she’s sick. They said it was as stroke. It’s just me and her. We have no money for medical expenses and the free places I looked at were awful. People just waiting to die.
“I came to Love Beach to try to get a better job and to look up my sperm donor. See if I could convince him to help her a little. I even thought about trying to sue for past child support. I knew he was a scum bag, but I didn’t realize how bad he was until I met him.”
“You met him?”
“I got a job and a little apartment in Love Beach and was working up the courage to try to contact him when he and some other guys came into the Mezcal Mariner where I worked.
“It was my night to waitress one of the private rooms. Ownership didn’t know, but it was my last day because the ritzy bar was barely a step up from a whore house. It was payday and I needed that check. The owners are scummy, and I didn’t want them to have any excuse to keep my paycheck. So I was toughing out the night.
“At the witching hour my doner walked in with a couple other men. Apparently, the old geezer with him took a shine to me and asked the bartender my name. When asshole heard the name, he did a double take.
“When I left work that night, he and his chauffeur were waiting for me. He asked if I was related to a Linda Rome. I said yes. He asked who my father was, and I told him it was him.
“He acted shocked, which was total BS because he knew. She told him when I was born thinking he’d want to know he had a daughter. He sent a thug to warn her off. Guess Gramps chased him off with his shotgun.
“I’m such a fool. I couldn’t see past my rejection.” The old anger and hurt, surge through me and I push off my chair and pace back and forth across the room. “I’d waited my whole life to meet him. I don’t know if I was hoping for some miracle that he’d take one look at me and tell me he was sorry and beg my forgiveness. That he’d promise to take care of Mom and me from now on. How Cinderella, right?
“What I got was a secluded restaurant that had private rooms where we ate and talked. Well, he talked. Said it would make him look bad if I outed him and he was a very important person trying to make the state a better place. He could try to help me get a better job and he’d see about getting money for Mom. He said he’d call me, asked for my phone to enter his number and handed the phone to his bodyguard to do it for him.”
Oh hell, I spin back to Silk. “That’s when he put the tracker on, isn’t it? God I’m such a fool.”
Heading to the kitchen, I take my time making myself another coffee, using the distance from Silk to get my tears under control. Back turned to him, I call over my shoulder. “You want another cup?”
“Sure. Just black.”
After handing him his mug, I cross to the window, leaning against the frame. “Two days later his chauffeur came by my apartment with a party dress and shoes. He informed me to be ready by eight for a party with my father.
“He picked me up in a limousine. The windows in the back were blacked out. I couldn’t see anything. When we arrived at the party location he pulled into a garage and the door shut before he let me out of the car.
“Inside was movie elegant and beautiful. Crystal chandeliers, velvet chaise lounges and chairs, real crystal for the champagne. Very boujee but somehow sterile. I noticed you couldn’t see out the windows. The view was hidden. When the old man who we called Big Tipper at the Mezcal joined us, along with SD—my sperm donor—I got nervous.
“‘Lovely, well worth the price’, the old guy said to my father.”
I glance at Silk. His expression is neutral, but there is a tic in his cheek. He knows what’s coming.
“My sperm donor sold me to his good friend to pay off a gambling debt.”
“How do you know?”
“SD had his arm over my shoulder keeping me close. When Big approached, I was told to spin around to show off the dress.
“Then he looked at Big and said, ‘We’re even. Debt paid?’ Big nodded and SD gave me a little push toward the other guy.
“Big had just told him to stay off the Faro Lady Cruise Ship, when all the lights flickered.”
“What happened after that?” Silk asks gently.
“Honestly, I don’t know. The owner got a phone call or something and the next thing I was being rushed with SD to the limo and taken away. The car stopped to let SD out. When he was half-in and half-out, I put my foot on his ass and shoved. He fell face first on the sidewalk. I jumped out over him and ran like hell. I got into my apartment from the fire escape, packed what I could carry and took off again. I’ve stayed clear of every place I’d been since. That’s how I ended up on the stoop behind Boots’ shop.”
“You called the old guy, Big?’
“That’s what SD, called him.”
“You said your…donor was a hot shot in the state attorney’s office. I looked there are no Romes.”
“No, his name is Mic Dennis. He’s all over the news and papers.”
“He’s your father? Yeah, we know about him. He’s tied to Enzo Bay as well. They’re both scum. Will you describe the old guy, Big, to a sketch artist? He’s a piece we’re missing.”
“Yes, but why?”
“If we can identify him, we’ll find proof and expose him.”
“Why?”
“Because going after assholes like this is what HARDORE does.”
“If I’m going to trust you, I need to know more.”
“My Ranger team was betrayed on our last mission. We lost three good men. Our brothers. All so someone could line their own pocket. We protect our own and we make it our mission to help others, and one way or another, expose the corrupt.”
I always wondered what the expression, ‘stone cold’, meant. Looking at Silk’s face I now know. Exactly like I feel.
“At the so called party, I saw a few other women, some who looked nervous like me. Others who looked half drunk or maybe drugged up. There was an icky vibe about the whole place. Then when Big came over and I realized what was happening I wondered if…
“Mom never talked about SD. All she ever said was I was a gift and she loved me. Now I wonder if…” I meet his gaze. “If I was the result of rape.”