Keep Her Safe(4)

“It didn’t start out that way. Or . . . I guess it did. But he made it sound right.”

“Who? Abe?”

Her head shakes back and forth lazily. “I don’t deserve to be chief, but it was one heck of a carrot. Better than the stick. Abe . . . he got the stick. He couldn’t be bought. He was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Because of me.”

“You’re not making sense.”

Her jaw sets, and her eyes fix on a point behind my head. “What I let happen . . . I may as well have pulled the trigger.” She barely has the cigarette lit when she mashes it into the pile of ashes. “I sold my soul is what I did, and there ain’t no coming back from that.”

“What—”

“?’Course I should have known he’d be waiting like a wily fox in the thicket to use it against me.”

“Who—”

“Just remember I meant to do good. And he promised me he didn’t know her age. He promised he’d never do it again.” She snorts. “I need you to know, Abe was a good man.” A tear slips down her cheek, and her gaze locks on mine. “I tried to make it right. But I couldn’t face her. After all this time, I couldn’t face what I’d done to her. I’m a coward. Not a chief. A coward.”

A shiver runs down my back. “Who are you talking about, Mom?”

She shakes her head. “She must hate her daddy. She don’t know any better. But I need her to know. Tell Gracie he was a good man. You’ll do that, right?”

I’m speechless, trying to decipher the meaning behind her jumbled words. “Mom . . . what are you trying to tell me?” It sounds a hell of a lot like a confession. But for what?

She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out as she stares at me, her blue eyes—the same cornflower shade as mine—cast with a haunted shadow. I wait for her to explain herself.

Finally she flicks her lighter, letting the tiny flame dance for a moment before pulling her thumb away to extinguish it. “Go on to bed, and let sleeping dogs lie. They’re less likely to bite.” She chuckles. “He always liked that saying, every time I pushed him, every time I told him they were up to no good.”

As if I could sleep after this. “Mom . . .”

“You remember Hal Fulcher?”

“Your lawyer?”

“Make sure you pay him a visit. Don’t wait too long. They don’t have much time.”

What? Why?

“Go and grab that shower.” She finishes the first glass of water, then chugs the second. I’m not going to get any coherent answers from her tonight. This conversation will have to continue in the morning, though I can’t imagine how to start it.

I lean down to place a kiss on her forehead, and she reaches up, her palm cupping my stubbled jaw in an affectionate gesture. “I love you so much. Always remember that.”

“Love you, too. And if you’re not in bed by the time I’m done, I’ll throw you over my shoulder.” She knows it’s not an idle threat. I’ve done it before.

She responds with hollow laughter, then turns up the dial on the police radio, her eyes beginning to shutter. Another five minutes and she’ll be passed out, right there on the table.

The dispatcher’s voice doesn’t quite muffle her heavy sigh. “You’re gonna be fine.”



* * *



I peel off my clothes and throw them in a corner. I’ll deal with them later. Just like I’ll deal with the scruff covering my jaw. Or not. We’re going to Rainey Street tomorrow night for drinks and Jenson’s girlfriend is bringing her friend Dana, the one I hooked up with last week. I forgot to shave then, too, and she seemed to like it.

I simply stand under the hot stream of water for a moment, letting it rivulet over my skin, hoping it’ll melt away the unease that’s settled onto my shoulders. Mom was acting different tonight. Almost . . . crazy. The fact that she brought up Abe has thrown me for a loop. She took his death hard. That’s when she started really drinking the first time.

And what the hell was all that talk of carrots and sticks and selling her soul?

I inhale the spicy scent of my shampoo as I scrub away at my scalp. Fucking dramatic drunken rambling. I can’t imagine what my mother thinks she’s guilty of. She’s a highly decorated police chief. She’s well respected in the community. She’s smart and funny. When she’s not drunk.

She’s my mom.

The blast of a gunshot tears through the house.





CHAPTER 2


Noah

My uncle Silas walks with a limp.

I was five when I first recognized that he didn’t walk like everyone else, when I mentioned his funny gait. He pulled me onto his knee and asked me if I knew what a ninja was. I laughed at him and held up my Raphael Ninja Turtle figurine. That’s when he told me how he once fought a real ninja. He said he won, but in its last moments, the ninja gouged his leg with a blade. He rolled up his pant leg and showed me the five-inch scar to prove it.

Every time we visited, I would ask him to tell me the story again and he would, each version more detailed and far-fetched than the last. He told it so convincingly that I believed him, consuming every grand detail with a stupid grin on my face.

I got older. Soon, I was too big to be pulled onto his lap and too wise to buy into the tall tale. I’d still ask, though, with the smart-ass tone and that doubtful gaze of a boy growing into adolescence. But he’d hold fast to his story of the ninja’s blade, capping it off with a wink.