We exit from the main highway into a subdivision of acreages. The homes are well lit and neatly fenced, with long, winding driveways. These are the kinds of places where people have horses and gardens and sell fresh eggs at the roadway. “Nice neighborhood,” I say.
“Keep driving,” Cyn says.
We turn onto a driveway barely visible in a bank of trees. The car lurches into a pothole, and the headlights bounce up onto the wall of trees on either side of the road. From up ahead I can hear bass notes thumping, like we’re driving to a party. Cyn says, “This is far enough.” She unrolls her window. “Turn off the car.”
Cyn doesn’t make a move to get out. I say, “This is your place? I thought your parents were away.”
She gives me a puzzled look.
I say, “Mila said they were in Hawaii.”
She holds her hand up as if to shush me. Clearly, her parents are back, because I hear a man’s voice and a woman’s. I’m not sure if the woman is laughing or crying. A dog barks, and the man’s voice lifts into a curse. The dog stops barking. There’s a sound of glass breaking, like a bottle. The music stops.
Cyn looks straight ahead. “Wait for it,” she says.
There is the sound of someone being slapped—hard. Cyn winces. The woman cries out. Another slap. The man is swearing, using words even Maxwell and I don’t use. There’s a whining sound from the woman or the dog, I can’t tell which.
I move my hand toward the car door. Cyn stops me from opening it. Her eyes are half hooded, and she’s shivering. “No,” she says. “We need to go.”
Another slapping sound, and something crashes onto the floor. I say, “We should call the police, at least.”
“The neighbors have probably already called.” Her shoulders slump. “Just go.”
I start the car and she closes the window. I turn the car around and make our way out to the highway. In the rearview mirror, the light from the house gets smaller and then disappears. Cyn pulls her knees up into her chest. Her hair falls across her face like a curtain. I think about the bruise on her arm.
I say, “You have to leave.”
“Exactly.”
“You could leave tonight. Stay at my place.”
“No. I’ve got things under control.”
“Are you sure, Cyn? You cannot trust some drug dealer to fix your life.”
She rubs her temples.
I say, “Just turn him in. The cops will protect you.”
“He knows where I live, Daniel.”
“So? Let your parents figure it out.”
She taps her fingers against her forehead. “He knows where I live because he supplies my mother with heroin. I work for him, he gives my mother what she needs, and my old man doesn’t look so bad. And as bad as my old man is, he’s better than my mother turning tricks to buy her drugs.”
I am having a tough time imagining a soccer mom, possibly with a Hawaiian tan, working the sex trade. But then, I can’t imagine why Cyn’s mom would stay with a guy who beats her up. None of it makes sense.
“So you carry stuff across the border for him?”
Cyn nods.
I have to ask. “And that time I went, was I carrying something?”
She hugs her knees. “I couldn’t really say.”
I slam the dashboard with the heel of my hand. “But you just let me go? What if I’d been pulled out for inspection? I am not exactly a cute girl, Cyn.”
Sitting like she is, she looks so small right now. She says, “They wouldn’t have pulled you over.”
“How do you know that?”
“You weren’t afraid,” she says, “You didn’t know you were taking anything across. You looked normal, like a kid going across for gas. They wouldn’t suspect you.”
“But you’re afraid, so you got me to do it. You sent me to do some scumbag work for some d-bag drug dealer you used to sleep with, and maybe are still sleeping with, because what the hell do I know? What do I know about you at all?” I downshift and floor the gas pedal, burying the tach. “Well, I know this. If you don’t have a car, you can’t run drugs.” I pull into the fast lane and blow past three cars.
Cyn grabs the dash. “Slow down!”
The speedometer reads twenty over.
“I mean it, Daniel. Slow this car down!”
I shift and grind my foot into the gas pedal. Ahead, blue and red lights start to flash.
Cyn starts to cry.
As I go through the speed trap, the speedometer reads forty over. Cops are jumping into their cars, and sirens are blaring. I let the car slow to a crawl and pull over to the side.
Cyn looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. She says, “You have no idea what you just did.”