Keep Her Safe(28)

Uncomfortable silence hangs between us.

“Where’d you learn about rescue breathing?” she finally asks, her voice softer, almost conciliatory.

“CPR training. I got my lifeguard certification in high school.” I unconsciously slide my hand up my arm, thinking that I haven’t been in a pool since my mom died. Or on the courts. Or at the gym.

Her eyes trail the movement. “Let me guess—you sat in a chair at the beach, watching girls in bikinis all summer. Must have been rough.”

I guess knowing I’m not her mother’s heroin dealer hasn’t changed her unflattering opinion of me much. “Rich Boy.” That’s what she called me earlier. True, I’ve never wanted for much, but I hardly grew up “rich.”

I force a grin. “More like, I taught four-year-olds how to swim in a pool that they definitely peed in.”

Her face doesn’t so much as hint at a smile, the humor lost. I sense her wanting to say more, but she stops herself with a sip of coffee. “Ugh . . .” She winces and sets the cup back on the table, glaring at it like it’s laced with arsenic. “Glad I never gave that machine a dime the last time I was here.”

“When was that?” I ask as casually as possible. She had mentioned that the paramedics knew where they lived. Her mom’s an addict. This clearly isn’t the first time Dina has overdosed.

“Two months ago. And five months before that.” She studies her fingernails for a long moment, perhaps deciding how much she wants to divulge to me, a stranger. “I go to work, and she makes a few calls. Sees which of her dealers are around. Sometimes she goes to them. Sometimes they’ll swing by our trailer with it. I never actually see who they are; I just see the aftermath. She takes a little bit more each time, until it’s too much.”

She says it calmly, but now I understand why she freaked out when she saw me on her steps. “I’m sorry. It can’t be easy, finding your mother like that.” Though I’d take it over how I found my mother. A sharp pang fills my chest and I lean forward to rest my forearms on my knees, my focus on the dusty shoe prints covering the floor. “So, what happens now?” Assuming she makes it. The paramedics administered another dose of Narcan when they arrived, trying to pull her back from the edge of a cliff she may have already slipped off.

“If she survives, they’ll help her detox. She’ll check herself out too early and promise to go to one of those free shitty rehab programs. She’ll go to one or two meetings and decide that it’s not for her, that she can do this on her own. She’ll stay clean for a few days. And then she’ll go out and pick up a bottle of vodka, and polish it off in one sitting. Once that’s not enough, she’ll start pumping crap into her veins again. Then, one day, I’ll come home and find her unconscious. Or dead.” She snorts, but it’s a poor attempt to distract from the fact that her eyes are welling. “Then again, we don’t have a home now, so . . .”

It seems Gracie has already accepted the fact that her mother is going to die soon. It’s just a question of when.

“I’m sorry you have to deal with this.” There are so many other questions I want to ask, like when did this start, and why? But I know why. Because the beautiful, loving woman who swung Abe’s girl in her arms had her life turned upside down. That woman I carried out of that trailer today? That frail, wasted-away, greasy-haired human with track marks up her arm? That’s not the same person.

Gracie’s piercing gaze weighs on me, silently assessing me, before she quietly admits, “I know who you are.”

My stomach dips at her admission. “How?”

“My mother . . . she told me about Austin and my dad. And your mom. She—” She stops abruptly, gritting her teeth.

It stirs unease in me. “What did she say about my mom?” I can’t keep the edge from my voice. What might Dina know?

Gracie’s throat bobs with her swallow. “I knew you, before.”

That’s not what she was going to say, but I’ll go with it. For now. “Yeah. You did.”

“I don’t remember,” she mumbles, more to herself.

“You were young.” A little girl, with bows in her hair.

But Gracie’s no little girl anymore.

For the first time since I saw her storming up the road toward me, hatred burning in her eyes, I finally have a chance to really take all of her in, up close—the wild mane of golden brown hair that frames her face, the curls like soft springs jutting out in all directions; her perfect, dainty nose; the defining emerald-green rim that makes the icy mint-green filling of her irises pop that much more; a set of full, soft pink lips that stretch wide across her caramel-colored face.

I’ve never met anyone who looks quite like her.

I must have been staring at her for too long, because she starts to fidget, tugging at the hem of her shirt, then crossing her arms over her chest. “What’s in there?” She nods toward my gym bag.

I instinctively pull it closer to my side. The Glock is back in my portable safe. I let Gracie go ahead of me so I could lock it up, because walking into a hospital with a gun is definitely not a smart move. But there’s no way I’m letting this money out of my sight. “Just my stuff.”

She eyes it suspiciously. “You have something to give me. That’s why you came.”