Keep Her Safe(50)

Such as what’s in that box?

Again, she casts a furtive look around. “I can’t stay here.”

“And where are you gonna go? Back to our burnt-out trailer? In your pajamas?” The cops would have picked her up in minutes. Maybe that’d be for the best.

Heavy footfalls sound behind me and Mom’s eyes widen.

“Is everything okay?” Noah asks smoothly.

Dammit. I grit my teeth to keep from snapping. “It’s fine. I told you to stay in the car.” Mom’s already a loose cannon. The last person she needs to see is Jackie Marshall’s son.

“Who is this, Grace?” Despite the shameful things she has done for a high, during these brief post-overdose interludes when she’s convinced herself she can stay clean, she’s embarrassed about her addiction. She doesn’t want anyone to know.

“A friend. Mike.” I shoot him a warning glare. She hasn’t seen Noah since he was a gangly eleven-year-old. There’s nothing left to recognize, besides his striking blue eyes, which are hidden behind his aviators. “Why don’t you wait for me in the car. I’ll be there as soon as I get her back inside.”

“I’m not going back inside. I have to leave. It’s not safe here.”

“I can help.” Noah reaches for her and she flinches away. He lifts his hands in a sign of surrender.

People are starting to look. Soon, someone will come and intervene, and it’ll upset her even more. “This is my problem. I’ll handle this.” I plead with him, “Just go. Please.”

The muscles in his jaw tense. “I’m sorry, Gracie. But no. I’m not going anywhere.”

He slides off his sunglasses.





CHAPTER 21


Noah

Gracie said the Dina Wilkes I knew is dead, but I don’t buy it.

I can’t.

Because I’ve already lost so much—first Abe, then my mom. And while happier recollections of this frail, terrified woman may have been pushed to the recesses of my mind for years, she still exists there, in my fondest childhood memories, humming a soft tune as she picks through ripe cherries to make Abe’s favorite pie; brushing my tears away as she blows against the scrape on my knee; ruffling my hair with a loving pat as she walks by.

In many ways, she was a second mother to me, my own mother often too preoccupied with her career.

Yesterday, Dina was a lifeless body on a couch that I had to save. Seeing her conscious, her green eyes—not quite as vibrant as Gracie’s but pretty nonetheless—staring up at me, brings all those childhood memories rushing back.

But those eyes are filled with fear and mistrust. With pain and suffering. With fourteen years of knowing something about what happened to Abe and not telling a soul—not even her daughter—because I’ll be damned if that box I just went through doesn’t have everything to do with Abe’s death.

I came to Tucson, telling myself it was to drop off a bag of money. Trying to convince myself that my mother was caught in some confused, suicidal fog, nothing more. But deep down I think I always knew I’d never be able to let these questions around Abe’s death go, no matter what Silas or Canning is convinced happened that night.

My mother held on to a secret that ended up killing her.

A fate Dina will share, if I allow it. And then won’t her death be partly on my hands, too?

I look down at the woman, hoping she’s not too far gone, that she’ll see the little boy she gave so much love to. “You don’t have to deal with this alone, anymore, Dina.”

“Oh, my God.” Her knees buckle.

I dive for her, my hands gripping her emaciated body beneath her arms before she folds to the pavement.

Shock fills her face as her gaze flickers over my features. “Noah, is that you? You’re . . .” Cool fingers graze my arms, trying to squeeze but lacking the strength needed.

“It’s me.” A lump swells in my throat.

“You’re here.”

“I am.”

A light gasp sails from her chapped lips. “Are you here to keep me quiet? I won’t say a word, I swear!”

What? “Dina, it’s me, Noah. I’m here to help you.”

“He showed up yesterday,” Gracie admits, her jaw clenched tightly, her eyes shining with resigned anger. “He’s the one who carried you out of the trailer.”

Tears stream down Dina’s cheeks as she reaches up to paw at my cheek, her fingers scratching against the stubble. “You look so much like her.” By the pained expression in her face, I can’t tell if that’s good or bad.

How could my mom let Dina get like this?

I have to squeeze my eyes shut against the flash of rage that stirs inside me. When I open them, she’s still staring at me, almost in awe.

“What did she tell you, Noah? About Abe. She knew what happened, didn’t she?” Desperation fills her face as she pleads with me, to hear what I suspect she already knows.

I hesitate.

For fourteen years, Abe was nothing more than a memory. A life lesson. Someone who taught me so much good, and then, through his alleged actions, so much bad.

And now I’m holding back the one thing I desperately wanted someone to tell me all those years ago: that Abe might be innocent.

“Noah. Please.”