I should call the police to report child abandonment. When I finally locate my cell phone, I dial Colton instead, even though he’s the last person I want to talk to right now. He’s a safer bet than Father, and he’ll know what’s going on with Salvation.
“Frances?” At the sound of his voice, a wave of guilt and dread descend at full force. “We’ve been so worried about you! Where have you been—”
“I’m okay,” I rasp.
“You don’t sound okay,” he counters.
He’s right. My breathing hitches, my voice broken. “I just needed… A break. Fresh air. I’m fine. What’s going on there?”
He says something else I don’t catch.
“Frances? Did you hear me?”
“Huh?”
“Your father’s been looking all over for you. Tell me where you are, and we can be there in no time—”
“I’m… Okay,” I insist. Not them, Daze warned. “I just need to be alone for a little while, but I’m safe. I promise I’ll check in when I’m ready.”
“You heard about the accident, then,” Colton surmises. “Is that why you finally called?”
“Yes.” I suck in a breath. “What happened?”
“Don’t worry, it looks like nothing serious. They think it was a gas leak or something. There was damage to the main building, but thank heavens the work schedule was changed at the last minute. No one was hurt, praise be. It should take only a few days to clean up.”
No one was hurt. But the feeling settling in my stomach isn’t entirely relief. A last-minute schedule change? I don’t remember hearing about it, meaning I would have been there this morning if I hadn’t gone to the bridge. A coincidence?
Or fate. I went looking for death when it was already awaiting me.
“You take some time for yourself,” Colton says. “I’ll help manage your father. I know it’s been hard on you since…”
“Colton, I… Thank you.”
I hang up, feeling tears break loose. My cheeks overheat with a mixture of shame and frustration. It’s like I can feel Hale’s disapproval from wherever he may be. I’m disappointing him. Again.
He was murdered.
But how? I saw Hale’s body for myself and came to the obvious conclusion. He overdosed. Who could possibly want to hurt him?
Daze could have been lying. But…he had that look in his eye. I can’t ignore it. Frustration builds, and I take a page from Daze’s book and blurt a word foreign to my vocabulary.
“Fuck!”
“Auntie Lyra says I’m supposed to tell her when Daddy says bad words,” a small, disapproving voice cuts in.
Alarmed, I turn to find Sammy standing near the battered couch. A plain cell phone looks massive, held between both of his tiny hands. Despite his warning, his eyes remain on the screen, transfixed by the video playing. “But you aren’t Daddy. So maybe I don’t have to tell her this once,” he insists, flicking his gaze up to mine.
My guess is that “telling Auntie Lyra” is a threat taken seriously.
“I’m sorry,” I stammer. “For saying a bad word.”
“Okay.” Lowering his head, Sammy returns to his show.
Slack-jawed and standing with his little backpack dangling off his shoulder, he’s utterly hypnotized. Hale used to tease me when I got like that. Mumbling something about “Kids these days,” he’d shut off the TV or video game and drag me outside. Together, we’d hike or play in the garden. Sometimes we’d talk. For hours.
In the end, we’d return home, and Mom would scold us for tracking in mud. When I got older, I realized he had been attempting to do the job she had been too sick to.
He always looked out for me.
“Um...how long does your Auntie Lyra usually let you watch stuff like that?” I ask.
Sammy looks at me in a sheepish way that doesn’t need much critical thinking to decipher—What do you think?
Not that I have a better way of entertaining him. I turn to the door, hoping that this is all a sick joke and Daze will return. For the first time, the rest of the apartment catches my eye in greater detail.
It’s a mess. The longer I look around with a somewhat clearer head, the more my skin crawls. There are more beer cans visible on the floor than there is carpet. An ashtray is in danger of overflowing onto Sammy’s little red rain boots. My nostrils wrinkle, catching another scent I instantly recognize. Weed.
Hale’s room reeked of it.
“Does your Daddy have a broom?” I ask when a full minute passes without the front door opening.
Sammy points toward the fridge, and beside it, I find a mop and a dustpan. Close enough.
Rolling up the sleeves of my borrowed shirt, I enter the kitchen, sidestepping crumpled cigarette butts. On a half-hearted whim, I wrench open the doors to the cabinets under the sink and find a box of trash bags, and some bottles of cleaning fluid. Armed with both, I tackle a heap of garbage, throwing away whatever I can get my hands on.
You’re like her when you do that, Hale used to snarl, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused. He wasn’t my good, kind, sweet brother in those days. Just a stranger. What, Frey? You think scrubbing the floor until your hands bleed will wash away the cheating husband or the shitty, fucked-up kids? Think again. You’ll learn the hard way, just like she did. We’re all just pawns in his game. No amount of cleaning will make him see you.
Stop. I blink harshly and suck air into my lungs. The stuffy interior of Daze’s apartment doesn’t help dispel the memory. It just compounds what Hale said in the worst way.
I was never clean. The ache between my legs cements that. Now, I’m just physically broken the way I’ve always been morally. A sinner through and through.
“Think you can open a window?” I ask Sammy, forcing a smile.
Very slowly, he lowers the phone and climbs on the couch in front of the only window. After a few soft grunts, he exclaims in triumph. “It’s open. Can I keep watching Spongebob?”
“Sure.” I leave him to it, focusing on the material clutched in my fingers with every descent into the muck.
Old magazines. Chip bags. Beer cans. Beer cans. Beer cans. Daze’s trash tells a more cohesive story than he has.
A rustle of plastic alerts me as another can falls into my trash bag from above, delivered by two small hands.
“Aunt Lyra says I’m not allowed to watch Spongebob,” Sammy admits. “Please don’t tell.”
I humor the earnest request with a sigh. “Okay, sure. But...help me clean up?”
Maybe once I can actually see the floor, I’ll be able to think. Or at least come up with a logical plan of action. Like call the police on Daze Keaton for child abandonment and go on my merry way. But that would mean forsaking any real answers…
And I’m not ready to face that reality.
Besides, I doubt Sammy would appreciate being shoved into a cop car while the precinct ran an investigation—not that any of this is my problem.
Daze Keaton is not my problem.
Frowning, I tell myself that repeatedly. By the time I’ve cleared the kitchen, a semblance of concern has eaten at my apathy. How is this man still alive? I’m convinced he lives on a diet of alcohol and nicotine, with the occasional nutrition provided by junk food.
It’s like that age-old adage—misery loves company. Daze Keaton must love surrounding himself with empty, broken bottles and crushed plastic. Though, who am I to judge? I’ve barely lived in my apartment long enough to leave a dent in the mattress, let alone a piece of trash.
Between the two of us, who would win the medal of pity?
I’m not much of a bragger, but Daze, hands down. At least I don’t have a kid forced to wipe up my beer stains with a dirty dishrag.
“I’ll do that!” I say the moment I spot Sammy on his hands and knees. I take the rag and nod toward the abandoned cell phone. “Why don’t you keep watching Spongebob? I won’t tell. Promise.”
“Really?” His lips part into a smile.
The moment he skips off, I keep cleaning. There’s a grim satisfaction in ripping away the harsh, unwelcoming facade of Daze’s apartment, revealing the relative plainness underneath. Some tough guy he is.
Without the mounds of garbage, my granny could have lived here, among the simple furniture. Minus the bedroom. Even scrubbed clean and with the bed draped in the “blue sheets,” I find shoved in a closet, that room screams bachelor pad, down to the condoms left on the nightstand for anyone to see.
I’m reminded of what Lyra mentioned—You’ve been out for three months and barely utilized your custody.
Judging from the state of the infamous red sheets, it seems like Daze’s been too busy working on another round of mouths to feed to focus on the one he already has. What a guy.
A guy I’ve slept with within an hour of meeting him.
Sighing, I rake my fingers through my hair, contemplating the girl I find watching me from a mirror hanging beside a narrow closet across from the bed.
Weeks without fresh highlights have left my hair scraggly and limp. I look like I’m wilting. My skin is a mess. I’m breaking out all along my chin, and wearing Daze’s shirt—and nothing else—I look…
Like the opposite of Good old Frey Heywood. I’m a damned soul of the worst kind—unrepentant when it comes to my corruption.
“Ms. lady?” A small hand tugs on the hem of my shirt, drawing my attention.
Sammy still has Daze’s phone in one hand, rubbing his eyes with the other. Only now do I realize how much darker it is in the apartment. The time displayed on the phone’s screen proclaims it’s just after six. “I’m supposed to eat din-din before my bedtime.”
Going off the items in the fridge, his options consist of either beer or week-old milk.
“I...um...do you like pizza?” I wager half-heartedly. It’s a never-fail option from my childhood—until I remember Lyra’s warning about tomatoes. “Um, never mind. I...uh...”
Think, Frey. I purse my lips, scanning the bare counters and coming up short. In my haste to clean, I think I threw away just about everything that wasn’t too big to fit into the trash. But if Daze truly knew Hale, he’d recognize my brother’s trademark phrase.
There is always a plan B.
“Hey, Sammy?” I sink down to my knees so that I’m on his level, able to stare directly into those huge gray eyes. “Do you know if your daddy has any money?”
“Like a piggy bank?” He wrinkles his mouth, thinking. Then he nods and takes my hand, leading me back into the bedroom. Sure enough, underneath a corner of the mattress, we discover a wad of cash tied with a rubber band. How original.
Stealing is wrong. I tell myself that repeatedly as I thumb through the stack of bills. Fifties. Hundreds. There’s at least a few thousand right here in my hand.
Any guilt I feel diminishes when I consider how long it’s been since he left. Far longer than four hours. It’s after six, and Sammy’s stomach is growling loud enough to rival the sound from the cell phone. So is mine, for that matter.
“What do you say we go get some groceries for Daddy’s house, hmm?” I ask, fighting to sound less malicious than I feel.
“Okay!” Sammy races into the living room and returns with his backpack. Paired with his boots, he looks like a tiny toy soldier ready to embark on an adventure. While I look like his beat-up Barbie doll companion fished from the bottom of a donation toy bin.
“Give me a second.”
I slip back into Daze’s room and squeeze past the mattress for the closet. He doesn’t own much by way of variety. Just a few hoodies, one of which I steal, and some assorted bottoms. Out of the latter selection, only a pair of shorts with a drawstring manages to fit me.
“You ready?”
Sammy nods, and together we tiptoe from the apartment with matching apprehension. The same thought seems to be on both our minds the moment we cross the threshold.
“What if Daddy comes back?” Sammy asks.
I shrug, though I doubt I come off anywhere near as confident as I intend to.
“You have his phone,” I point out. And frankly, perhaps a little kidnapping scare is what “Daddy” needs? A fitting consequence for leaving your child with a stranger. “How old are you?”
Sammy wrestles Daze’s phone into his backpack. Then he carefully counts four fingers on his left hand and holds them up for me to see. “This much.”
“What do you have a taste for?” I ask Sammy while closing the door to the apartment behind us.
Just as we start down the hall, someone calls out, their voice resonating like thunder.
“Where do you think you’re going?” A tall figure withdraws from against the wall up ahead, his size imposing. Dark hair shields his face from view, and his black leather jacket and jeans bolster the danger he presents.
I shove Sammy beside me and grapple for the door to Daze’s apartment.
“Wait.” He steps closer, and a sliver of artificial light falls over his haggard features.
I know him. He’s the man from the coffee truck.
“Hi Benny,” Sammy says from around my waist. He lifts his tiny hand in a wave.
“Hey, little man,” Ben says. “Your daddy asked me to look after you for a little while. I’ll be working for the most part, but—” he cuts his gaze to mine. “I’ll be parked right outside.”
“So, he doesn’t need a babysitter after all,” I croak. Am I relieved? Annoyed? I can’t tell.
For some reason, the image of Daze begging for my help won’t leave my brain. The look in his eye…
Fear doesn’t fit someone like him. Panic, perhaps. He said that he needed me and seemed to mean it. Really mean it.
“This just happens to be on my usual route, and Day asked for a favor,” Ben says by way of explanation.
“Good.” I shake my head to clear it. “I’ll be leaving then.”
To go where? Home is out of the question for now, and only God knows the state of Salvation. They might need my help cleaning up, though. And Father might need me…
I start down the hall, heading for the stairs, but Ben grabs my arm before I can even go a step. The second I flinch, he releases me, but he shifts his stance to block my path, making one thing clear before even uttering it out loud, “He told me to look after both of you. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Why?” I demand. “He doesn’t own me—”
“He said you might say something like that. So, he wanted me to give you this.”
He withdraws a slip of paper from his pocket. A photo, I realize as he hands it to me. The woman smiling in the center of it might as well be a stranger. She’s in an industrial kitchen, her blond hair piled loosely on top of her head. This must have been a stealthy snapshot, taken as she was in the middle of serving a tray of steaming dinner rolls.
I recognize this place—the Salvation Soup Kitchen service area.
I remember this day. Six or seven months ago, when I volunteered during the evening meal. That moment sticks out to me for one reason in particular. Hale was there. By then, he’d started avoiding anything and everything related to Salvation. I’d been so shocked to see him.
He stayed for only a few moments, and I caught him leaving out a back door right as we started to carry food into the main dining area. He never said a word to me then. I never knew what made him leave.
Could he have taken this?
An instinctive suspicion makes me turn the picture over, and I gasp loudly at what I find. Writing. Just a few scribbled lines.
Frey.
Five-seven.
Blond. Green Eyes. Always wears a gold cross around her neck.
Hours: 7am—10 am. 6pm—8pm. Weekdays.
DO NOT TALK TO HER—SHE STAYS OUT OF THIS.
That final part had been underlined multiple times in black ink.
Recognition slices through me, and I audibly gasp. I know this handwriting, right down to the lopsided Ts he used to write. Hale’s.
“What is this?” I demand, eyeing Ben.
He raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t know. I’m just the messenger. Daze said he’d explain everything when he got back. Now, why don’t you both get back inside?” He nods to the door of the apartment. “I’m sure Daze will be back any minute.”
“He’s been gone all day,” I snap. “There’s no food in the fridge.”
“Really?”
“Unless you count beer as a meal,” I add.
Ben frowns. “Fucking, Daze,” I hear him hiss under his breath. “What do you need?”
I rattle off an extensive list.
Ben cocks an eyebrow. “You need that fucking much?”
“I’m hungry,” Sammy says matter-of-factly. “It’s past snack time. Auntie Lyra said to tell her if Daddy forgets my din-din.”
“Alright,” Ben says. He rakes a hand through his hair and sighs.
“Here.” I hand him Daze’s money. He could run off with all of it. Frankly, I don’t care if he does.
“Stay here,” he says before starting for the stairs. “I mean it. If you think I’m bad, you have no idea who might be watching the place from the outside. Stay.”
I swallow at the threat. Babysit, Daze said. Why am I starting to feel more like a prisoner instead?