Chapter Forty

 

When I go inside she’s dressed and sitting on the couch with Kate watching something on TV.

“Ashleigh, look, I’m not—”

My phone buzzes in my pants and I take it out and look at the name. Jason.

“Who is it? A pet who needs to be fed and walked?”

I silence the phone and stick it back in my pocket. “Cute.” I sit down next to her. Fuck. I am so bad at this shit. What the hell do I say? I feel like I’m losing her, right now, this very moment. I feel like she’s slipping away and I have no idea what to say.

“Just tell me what you’re thinking. Start there, Ford.”

She’s a mind-reader. She’s a fucking psychologist for fuck’s sake.

“If you can’t do that, then I’m just wasting my time.”

“What the fuck do you want from me? I said I wanted you. How is that not telling you how I feel? I fucking want you to live here, move in. Be with me. Let me help with Kate.”

“In what capacity, Ford? What is Kate to you but some pet’s offspring?”

“That’s enough,” I glare at her. “Don’t talk shit to me because you’re insecure.”

“You’re the one who’s insecure. You want control to suppress your social inadequacy.”

“Fucking don’t do that either. If I wanted a psych evaluation I’d go see a therapist.”

“So I’m supposed to pretend that I didn’t just go to school for six years to get a degree in psychology? Just pretend that I don’t see all the issues you have?”

“Issues I have? Ashleigh, please. If I’m fucked up, then you’re right there with me. We’re both—”

The gate alert buzzes and cuts off my words. “Fucking people are here from the hotel to drop off our shit, I bet.” I get up and go over to the security panel near the door and press the button that opens the front gate. I peek out the window but the driveway is long and we’re at the top of a hill, so I can’t see the gate from the house. “You and I are the same, Miss Li. We both have issues. So don’t push me away with that excuse.”

Ash says nothing and I peek out the window again as a large black Mercedes pulls up. “Who the fuck is that? I’m pretty sure hotel couriers don’t drive an eighty-thousand-dollar Mercedes.”

“What?” Ashleigh jumps up and hurries over to the window just as a tall man in a black suit gets out of the back of the car. He’s older, maybe early fifties, has jet-black hair, and as soon as he turns around I know who he is by the color of his eyes.

“My father is here.” A blonde woman gets out after him. “And my fucking sister. Oh, God. Ford, listen to me.” Ash pulls on my arm. “Listen to me, OK? Do not open the door, do not open the door!”

“Why are they just standing there?” I ask as we peek out at them.

And then a cop car comes up the driveway.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“OK, look, I left some things out of my story… Ford!” She grabs my arm again but I’m watching these fucking people talk to the cops, probably about me, in my fucking driveway. The cop nods and then puts his hand on his Taser. Ashleigh is still talking but I don’t hear anything she says because the fucking cops are walking up to my door with Ashleigh’s father and sister looking like they’re in the mood to take my shit out.

The doorbell chimes. They’re looking right at us through the window, even as Ash continues to freak out and tell me all kinds of shit that just never even registers in my brain.

Fuck.

What if they have dirt on me? What if this father of hers found out who I am and has fucking dirt on me? Ronin, I need Ronin. I pull out my phone to call him when the doorbell rings again. Kate begins to cry because Ashleigh is so upset and before I can press Ronin’s face to place the call another call comes in.

Fucking Jason, again.

“Mr. Aston,” the cop says, his muffled voice coming through the closed window. We’re only like three feet away from him. “Mr. Aston, Mr. Li here just needs to have a few words with his daughter. Can we come in?”

And then an ambulance rolls in behind the cops. What the fuck is going on?

“Ford! Are you listening to me?” Ashleigh practically screams it and poor Kate begins to wail.

“What?” I’m still not listening because two paramedics get out of the ambulance and another guy with a suit. I finally turn to Ash. “Tell me what the fuck is happening.”

But before Ashleigh can answer, Mr. Li is standing in front of the window. “She’s very sick, Mr. Aston. I know you’ve taken good care of her, but you need to know she is very sick.”

I swear, I almost fall over. “Sick how?”

“Don’t listen, Ford!” Ashleigh is pleading. “Please, don’t listen. I’m sorry for what happened, I was not thinking clearly, but please, don’t listen!”

Mr. Li takes out a folded piece of pink paper and Ash loses it. She starts crying and pleading with me. Her father holds it out in front of the window and I can’t help myself. I open the window, push the screen aside, and take it. Ashleigh goes wild, jumping with the baby trying to get it from me.

“Ashleigh,” I say sternly. “Stop it. Right now.”

“I don’t want you to see that, I don’t want you to read that!” She’s hysterical.

“OK.”

She stops, like literally holds her breath for a few seconds. “OK?”

I nod. Mr. Li is talking to me, but I reach over and close the window back up. “But you need to tell me what’s going on. What’s in here.” I hold up the paper and she snatches it away. “Tell me what it says and tell me why all these people are here. Why is your father saying you’re sick? Do you have a medical condition?”

“Tell them to leave first. Tell them to leave!”

“I’ll tell you what she wrote in the note, Mr. Aston,” Li says. When I look back he’s opened the window so his voice is loud and clear.

Ashleigh crumples and I reach down and grab Kate before she hits her head on the white tiles.

I look back to Li. “You need to leave. Whatever it is you have to say, I’ll hear it from her first, and I’ll hear it when she’s ready. Not like this.”

“We need to take the baby, Mr. Aston. Ashleigh,” her sister says in a soothing voice from outside. “Ashleigh, honey. We’re concerned about the baby. If you don’t let us take her, we’re going to do what we talked about last time. Do you understand, Ashleigh?”

Kate grabs at my face, still upset and crying. “You can’t take the kid,” I say, shaking my head.

“Mr. Aston,” the cop chimes in. “Miss Li has written at least two suicide notes in the past three weeks. She’s highly unstable and the family”—he stresses this word, like he’s reminding me that I’m not family—“will back off and not pursue an involuntary psychiatric detention if Ashleigh allows herself to be evaluated and hands the child over to be cared for by her sister.”

Oh. Fuck.

“I have authority to hold her, Mr. Aston. Pursuant to California Welfare and Institutions Code, Section 5150, she might need a mandatory seventy-two-hour detention for evaluation and treatment in a psychiatric facility. Now, the family is willing to forgo that extreme measure if Ashleigh agrees to come home and bring the baby with her so the family doctor can monitor her.”

“We only want to keep her safe, Mr. Aston,” her father says. “Please open the door and allow the officers in. We do not want to commit her.”

I just stare at him.

“Ashleigh,” he says calmly. “Open the door and come home, or we will be forced to send you away for an evaluation. It’s for your own good, we only want to keep you safe. You’re been running wild for years and now there’s another life involved. A baby who is my own blood. And I will not stand by and let you endanger her.” He looks up to me. “No offense, Mr. Aston. I realize you’ve taken very good care of them, I’m grateful. But this is over now. She’s coming home, whether or not we have to—”

The door opens and Ashleigh walks out. “I’ll go, just please don’t take me away from Kate. She’s all I have left, please don’t take me away from Kate. I’ll go.”

The sister comes in and pries a red-faced Kate from my arms and she starts to wail.

Oh God. This shit is really happening.

I stand there in a state of shock and watch her being loaded into the black car. And then two minutes later the driveway is empty.

My house is empty.

And they are gone.