I looked from my place on the couch across the open-plan living room into Detective Rayne Scott’s kitchen, and I stared at Scott and the tall, handsome, dark blond man Tia called Damian.
“Clara, honey, you okay?” Tia asked me, and I turned my attention to her sitting close to me on the couch.
“No,” I whispered, “but I’m glad you are.”
“Honey,” she whispered back.
“I thought you were dead,” I told her quietly.
“I’m sorry. I tried to call, but by the time I could, I called Mrs. Jimenez and her number had been disconnected. I didn’t remember her cell number, and those aren’t listed. Damian sent a man to your apartment, and the man said you and Mrs. Jimenez both were gone. I didn’t know how else to reach you.”
“She moved, and got a new number, but she told me she arranged the service so her new one was announced,” I explained.
“It wasn’t.”
Oh dear.
Perhaps we should have checked.
I stared at my friend. Then I hooked her behind the neck and pulled her forehead to mine and closed my eyes.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said softly, opened my eyes and looked into hers. “You’re here now.”
“Yeah, Clara, I’m here now,” she replied, just as softly.
We stared into each other’s eyes, and I watched her smile. Then I let her go but we both only moved back a bit.
“I’m sorry that here is here,” she said to me.
“What?”
“Detective Scott’s place. I know that you…that he…” She shook her head and continued, “He’s Damian’s friend. I told Damian you wouldn’t like it, but he said it was safe for you and for me.”
A police detective’s apartment was probably as safe as you were going to get.
I nodded.
“And I know we both decided to actively hate him for the rest of our days, but I’ve found out he’s kind of a nice guy,” she went on.
I looked into the kitchen to see both sets of eyes, one light brown (Scott) one hazel (Damian) aimed in the direction of the couch.
They didn’t look away.
I did.
“Yeah,” I replied. “But let’s talk about where the heck you’ve been for-blinkety-blank-ever.”
“I want to talk about why you were running from Ace in the Hole,” she said to me.
“No.” I shook my head. “Your car was found filled with blood. That story takes priority. Any story that includes pools of my best friend’s blood takes priority.”
Her face got soft.
“You knew about that?”
I nodded.
“Oh, honey,” she whispered.
“Talk to me,” I urged.
She didn’t make me wait, she got closer and shared.
“Well, when we made our plans, after I hung up, I kind of got excited. Of course, I was totally scared, but you sounded so confident, I was also excited. And I remembered, you and me together, we always made it through. We always survived. I also started to remember some of the stuff we went through and how I knew what was happening was worse, way worse. But together, we could take care of each other.”
She paused.
I nodded because she was right.
We’d always made it through.
I wished we’d remembered that earlier.
She kept going.
“So something was going down and there was no one in the house. All Enrique’s guys left with him, and I thought it was a sign, telling me we had our opportunity. But I decided to get smart. I took stuff I knew was worth money and I took stuff that I knew Enrique had. I decided we didn’t just need money, we needed insurance.”
Uh-oh.
“What’d you take?”
“I didn’t even know. I just knew he wouldn’t want me to have it. Files, papers, photos and flash drives. What I didn’t know was that he really didn’t want me to take it.”
“Oh, Tia,” I whispered, stunned she would do something like that, scared for her even though it was over and admiring that she had the courage.
“Anyway, when you didn’t show, I worried something was wrong. But I’d stolen stuff, I couldn’t go home. So I hung out in Phoenix as long as I could and laid low, hoping to connect with you. I kept going by your place, but I was worried they’d look for me there and your lights were never on and Mrs. Jimenez was never home either.”
Staying with Raymundo because she’d been tied up.
Darn.
Tia kept talking.
“Then, I saw them, and they saw me cruising your house, and I had no choice but to go. They followed me, but I thought I lost them. I decided to get set up in Seattle and find a way to contact you and you could meet me there. I needed to ditch my car though, so, in Nevada, I sold it to a used car salesman and traded it in for new wheels. What I didn’t know was that they’d been following me. They forced me off the road, and that’s when I also found out Damian was following me.”
“Um…who is Damian?” I whispered, leaning super close.
She smiled.
I stared, and I stared at the way she was smiling.
Oh my.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she whispered back.
“Try me,” I invited.
She shook her head.
“Later, when he can’t hear. He can hear everything. He’s, like, Superman or something.”
She said this like it was a good thing. The absolute best.
I forced my eyes to stay on hers rather than look again into the kitchen at a tall, blond, hazel-eyed Superman.
“Anyway,” she went on, “there was a firefight. I was caught in the middle of it. Damian won the firefight. I was injured, and I have no idea what happened to the other guys, because I was sort of bleeding a lot and not paying attention. But Damian took me, the stuff I had on Enrique, and then we holed up in a house in the mountains. He stitched me up, I recuperated while he stayed with me and now, we’re back to rescue you.”
I was staring at her again.
“He stitched you up?”
“Yeah.”
“You were in a firefight where you were wounded by bullets, and he stitched you up?”
“In another life, he was a field medic.”
I kept staring at her.
“Honey,” I said quietly. “Field medics patch you up so they can stabilize you to be transported to surgeons who’ll stitch you up.”
“He’s very confident. He has no problem branching out.”
Oh my God.
“Tia—” I started.
“Now…you,” she demanded.
“No, you aren’t done. Are you safe? Who is he? What happens next?”
She smiled at me. “It’s all good. Damian gave the stuff I had to Rayne. He told me Rayne is,” she lifted her fingers and did air quotation marks, “running with it, whatever that means. We just needed to get to Phoenix, give it to him, pick you up, and then Damian is taking us to Seattle or wherever we want to go.”
“When did you get home?”
“About five hours ago. We got here and Rayne told Damian you were hooked up with the
Aces High Motorcycle Club. He made some calls, found out West Hardy was at a party there, told us you were likely with him, and if we wanted to find you, we had to go to a party. But we got there, and there you were, running down the street. That was pretty surprising. Rayne said you were solid with what he called,” more air quotation marks, “the MC, but I didn’t believe that. My Clara doesn’t run with a motorcycle club.”
Hmm.
She smiled again. “And I was right. You were running away.”
Hmm.
“I was solid with them,” I admitted, and this time, she blinked.
Then she leaned into me. “What?”
“If Damian has Superman ears, my story is for later. A lot later.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Why?”
“Because it’s private, personal, and when I tell you, I want it to be just between you and me.”
She examined my face and I knew she read it because hers got soft again and she whispered, “Okay, honey.”
That was my Tia.
My Tia.
My Tia could read me.
And she wasn’t dead. She was sitting right next to me.
Not dead.
Not dead.
I moved forward, wrapped my arms around her, gave her a tight hug, and it took a lot, a whole lot, but I managed to do this without sobbing.
“I’ve been so worried,” I said in her ear, my voice sounding clogged.
“I’m sorry,” she said back, her voice clogged too.
I held on and Tia held me back, and we did this for a long time.
Finally, she gave me a squeeze and we let go.
I took in a shaky breath.
Tia spoke.
“So, tomorrow, we’ll get your stuff and we’ll head out.”
I shook my head.
“No stuff. We’ll just go.”
Her brows knitted. “What?”
“Buck has my stuff and I’m leaving it. Fresh start all around. I have a little money in the bank. We’ll just go visit Mrs. Jimenez so she can see you’re okay and we can say good-bye, and then we’ll go.”
“You can’t leave your stuff.”
“I can.”
“You can’t, Clara. They took everything from you, but you held on to what you had left. You have to hold on to what you have. You always hold on to what you have. We both know that.”
We did.
We’d learned that early, packing our little suitcases with our meagre belongings that were prized possessions and taking it from foster home to foster home.
Still, I was letting it go.
“I’ll get a job making coffee and buy tie-dyed shirts and hippie jeans. I’ll be good.”
“Clara—”
“We’re leaving it.”
“Honey—”
I couldn’t do this.
I could not do this.
Not right now.
Buck thought I’d been using him.
When I’d been falling in love with him.
I felt the tears sting my eyes, and I whispered, “Don’t. Please. Don’t.”
She examined my face again.
Then my sweet Tia whispered, “Okay.”
“This is unnecessary, I can take the couch,” I told Detective Rayne Scott as I stood by his big, very comfy-looking bed in his bedroom while he opened a dresser drawer.
I was freaking out because the arrangement was, I was sleeping in his bed, and I was freaking out more because the arrangement included Damian and Tia sleeping together on the queen bed in his second bedroom.
“I’m good on the couch,” he muttered, pulling something out of the drawer.
“No, really, I can sleep anywhere.”
“Good,” he stated, closing the drawer and turning to me, carrying a T-shirt. “Then I’ll know you won’t be tossing and turning here.”
Oh dear.
“Listen, I—” I started, but he made it to me, and his hand came up and curled around the top of my shoulder.
“Clara, I’m a cop. Cops learn early to read people. On you, sweetheart, I’m readin’ heartbreak. It’s written all over your face. What you need to do is take my tee, put it on, climb into bed and go to sleep. What you do not need to do is expend the little energy you got left discussin’ somethin’ meaningless with me.”
I didn’t know what to say.
He was right.
And Tia was right.
So I also suspected he was a nice guy.
More than nice.
So I said, “Okay.”
He nodded and let me go. “Okay.”
Then he handed me the T-shirt, I took it and he started to the door.
“Rayne,” I called, he stopped and turned back to me. “Thank you,” I whispered.
He stood there and stared at me, his eyes moved to the bed and they came back to me.
He then tipped his chin up and walked out, closing the door behind him.
I took off my clothes, folded them and put them on the armchair in the corner that was also comfy-looking, perfect for curling up and reading a book. I donned his tee, climbed into his bed and turned off the bedside lamp.
What I didn’t do was sleep.
Not for a while.
And I had a feeling my track record for sleep was about to take a major hit.
First, I stared into the darkness.
After that, I stared into it some more.
A while of that, I turned my face into Detective Rayne Scott’s pillow, and I cried.
And cried.
I kept doing it.
Until I’d cried myself to sleep.