Most of All You: A Love Story(9)

I sat up quickly, jerked out of my daze, pulling my skirt down, wiping at the sour smell of his saliva on my jaw.

He zipped up his pants, sitting back in his seat and running his fingers through his blond hair. “Goddammit! How the fuck am I supposed to go home like this? What do you think my wife’s gonna say?” He pointed down at the large wet spot on the front of his jeans.

I stared at it for a moment, and hilarity moved up my throat. Nice job, sharp shooter. My chest rose and fell rapidly with the effort not to laugh, some vague sense of hysteria mixed with the laughter that was bubbling in my chest, begging for escape. When Tommy attempted to wipe at the spot with the edge of his shirt and only ended up making it bigger, I couldn’t hold back anymore. A burst of laughter exploded from my mouth and I clutched my stomach, doubling over. I laughed so hard tears poured down my cheeks.

I looked up just in time to see the rage etched across Tommy’s face, but not in time to dodge the smack that whipped my head back against the window. That killed my laughter. I brought my hand up to my face, my laughter turning into small bursts of wheezing breath.

“Not laughing now, are ya, you cheap slut? Get the fuck out of my truck.” He reached around me and opened the door, and since I was leaning against it, I fell out, tumbling backward, hitting the ground so hard the breath was knocked from my lungs. My purse landed in a patch of dead grass to my left, and the door of the truck slammed above me. Trying my best to draw breath, I crawled backward through the dirt as the truck roared to life, turned around, and headed back toward the main road.

I sat there for a minute, sucking in oxygen, all the laughter dead on my lips. Eventually, I pulled myself up, groaning slightly at the ache in my bruised backside, and rubbing carefully where Tommy had hit me. I walked toward the highway. At least I was a little closer to home than I’d been before. That was something.

*

Forty-five minutes later, sweating profusely, and limping from the blisters formed on my aching feet, I let myself into my apartment. Dropping my purse on the floor, I began removing my clothes, leaving them in a trail as I headed to the shower. I stood under the cool water, attempting to let the last hour and a half wash off my body and follow the soapy water down the drain. I just want to feel clean. When I emerged, I felt a little bit better, cooler at least. I opened my apartment window, though there wasn’t much of a breeze, and turned on the floor fan, grabbing my phone from my purse and flopping down on my bed.

No calls. Kayla must be working. I thought about my car, currently on the side of the road with the groceries in the backseat, and a lump formed in my throat. I needed that car—needed it to get to work. Needed it to survive. Needed it so that I didn’t have to accept rides from men who were likely to take liberties with my body on the side of the road. A sick feeling washed through me when I thought of Tommy again, but I pushed the recent memory away as best as I could.

Thinking about it all exhausted me until I almost decided just to curl up right where I was and sleep the day away.

What am I gonna do now? Oh, Lord …

I jerked to a sitting position and dialed the garage again and asked for Ricky, who’d always been decent to me when my car broke down, even letting me make payments if I wasn’t able to cover the whole bill at once.

Whoever answered obviously laid the phone on the counter. I heard him call Ricky’s name, then pictured Ricky sliding out from beneath a car, a wrench in his hand, grease smeared on his face. When he barked a “Ricky here” into the phone, I put a smile in my voice and told him how I needed his help.

“Aw, listen, babe, I can tow it for you and let you know what’s wrong with it, but you know you still owe me the money for fixing the alternator. I can’t do any more work for you until you’re settled up here. The old man will have my hide if I do.”

My hope plummeted. I didn’t even have the money for a tow, much less to settle up and then fix whatever was wrong this time—something expensive no doubt. “All right, Ricky. I appreciate the tow. It’s really generous. Thank you.”

“Sure, babe.”

I gave him the details about where it was and that I’d be over later to pick up my groceries once I could catch a lift from Kayla. Maybe some of the food was still edible.

I sat there for a minute, a dull feeling of loneliness sitting heavily in my gut. How? How was I going to work this out?

I’ll pay you, obviously. It would be an after-hours job, nothing more.

Gabriel Dalton’s words wove through my mind, and I picked up my phone again, tapping it lightly against my chin for a minute before typing his name into the browser. There was no lack of information. I clicked on a link near the top, bringing up a news story from twelve years before.

The Morlea Police Department held a press conference on Thursday, June 29, to give more details about the Gabriel Dalton case. Nine-year-old Gabriel, the little boy abducted near his home in 1998 while playing in an empty lot with his eight-year-old brother, Dominic, caught the attention of Vermonters along with the nation. Gabriel was missing until a week ago, when he appeared on a woman’s doorstep, bloody, identifying himself as Gabriel Dalton and asking for help. Through the investigation, police discovered that Gabriel had been held in the basement of the house next door to the woman who called 911, and that he had been there for the past six years. Gabriel had escaped by stabbing his abductor, identified as Gary Lee Dewey, with a sharpened piece of rock. Gary Lee Dewey was deceased when police arrived. Gabriel Dalton, now fifteen, was reunited with his brother, and they are both currently in the care of their father’s business partner at Dalton Morgan Quarry. Gabriel and Dominic’s parents, Jason and Melissa Dalton, passed away in a car accident in 2003.