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SAGE ELLIS TAPPED her black heels on the oriental area rug in her living room condo, her eyes fixated on the breaking news on the television. The reports of the man killed in the drive-by shooting in a questionable area of town the night before had been filling the news this morning even before the next of kin had been informed—her and her mother.
She’d purposely avoided the TV and internet all morning, instead preparing for a scheduled meeting in a couple short hours to pitch the new vegan makeup line her and her mother had designed. Being almost ready to walk out of the door, she’d turned on the television for an update.
Her arms were folded securely under her chest, as if needing a hug she refused to acknowledge. Her brown-painted nails dug into the flesh of her arms as she watched pictures of Dean Ellis, her deceased father flash before her while the anchorwoman sadly announced the unexpected death of a music legend.
Sage hadn’t seen her father in years—over a decade—and barely recognized him with his greying, thinned-out hair and dehydrated, wrinkled face, the direct result of heavy drinking and smoking, likely two of the many bad habits he carried out until the day he died. His grave way of life touched too close to the path Sage had once been on. She’d been in a rough neighbourhood looking for the same needle she was sure her father had been on a mission to buy.
As much as he was loved by the world, he’d never had time for his only daughter—only known daughter. It had taken Sage until her teenage years to realize he would never have a spot in his life for her. The truth had driven her down a path of hard drugs. Even now, if she let the truth surface, she’d hoped her all those years ago, her father would rescue her. She’d hoped he’d man up as the father she’d always wanted and be the legend everyone saw him to be.
He hadn’t. He also hadn’t been the only man to disappoint her at that time in her life.
Now she watched the details of her father’s death emotionless, uncaring, and unsure how she felt about not feeling anything at what should be a devastating time in her life.
Her phone vibrated against the glass coffee table and she bent over to pick it up. Her assistant’s number flashed on the screen.
“Ally?”
There was a short pause and Sage knew her young assistant had seen the reports. Who hadn’t?
“Sage, have you seen the news?”
She took a deep breath to keep from cursing her father. Even after his death, the man still had a way of stomping on the joyous parts of her life. It had taken her almost a year to convince her mother to patent her all-natural vegan products in order to pitch them to the big-box retailers. Another year to brand and package it. Now they were finally ready to break into the market and her father was stealing her thunder from the grave.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in the darkness. She wasn’t a mean person, but at this moment, she felt like a young child chasing her dad for attention, demanding it from a nonexistent audience.
When she opened her eyes, she said, “We need to focus on the campaign and not his death.”
“We should reschedule—”
“No.” She bit her lower lip at the harshness of her one word reply. Sage owed her mother financial stability. Celeste had refused to demand child support from Sage’s father when he didn’t want to pay. She’d raised Sage on her own, and what little money her mother did have, Sage had carelessly wasted away on repeat visits to rehab, bail money, and every other shoddy path she’d taken. She owed her mother this deal to set her for life.
“You and your mother’s names and photos are splashed across social media, the news, everywhere. I honestly don’t even know if leaving your condo today is a good idea.”
The little news she’d watched, she’d seen they weren’t only dragging up his past, but also her mother’s and hers. It was a blood bath of the hardly good and mostly bad parts of their lives.
“It took us months to get this appointment, we are absolutely not rescheduling.”
“You tell her, Sage. Put the phone on speaker, Ally. Let me talk to her.” Ally’s mother, Linda, shouted in the background and Sage smiled for the first time today. She’d hired Ally at her mother’s suggestion and having the mother/daughter duo had worked out wonderfully.
Linda had worked for her mother at her small shop hidden on a side road in the city, tucked behind an auto shop for as long as Sage could remember. When Linda had suggested her daughter for the assistant job, Sage had been more than willing to give her a try.
The phone crackled and the tranquil music from the shop calmed her nerves.
“Did you do it? Am I on?” Linda asked.
“I hear you, Linda,” Sage said.
“Sage, you listen to me. You and your mother have a plan. Do not let your father’s decision to waste his life away buying drugs on the wrong side of town disrupt your path.”
“Mom, we don’t know that’s what he was doing.” Ally’s politeness was the opposite of Linda’s outgoing—so much like Sage and her mom.
“Yes, we do. What else would he be doing there?”
Sage could envision the mother and daughter, almost the same age as Sage and her mother, bantering on in the urban hippie shop with the brick walls, wood beams, and live plants. They would just be opening, so the shop would have that cool morning feeling with the smell of essential oils floating around the room.
“Renting a hooker ...” Linda suggested. “Is that any better than buying drugs?”
“Mother! This is her dad...” Sage heard the way Ally let the sentence hang, knowing about Sage’s past on those same streets. Everyone knew. Because of her father’s and her own past, life hadn’t been private. Linda was right, she wasn’t letting her dad’s choices affect her life any longer.
“We’re not cancelling our appointment.” Her no-nonsense tone got a cheer from Linda and a sigh from Ally.
Sage heard the click of her front door lock. It had to be her mother on a rampage about her father’s death. Celeste had the only key to her condo and popped in and out once or twice a day before and after she opened her small natural remedy shop. Some mornings she brought bagels from the bakery down the street and other evenings she cooked supper for them.
“Mom’s here. We’ll see you two shortly.” She hung up just as her mother started shouting her name.
“Sage? Sage!” Celeste’s tone carried a fighting pitch.
“Mom, I’m not going to his funeral, it’s a lost argument.” Sage muted the television and tossed the remote onto the couch. Pressing her fingers to her temples, she rubbed the pulsing area and considered asking her mother for peppermint oil to rub away the upcoming headache, although her mother would insist on CBD oil. She didn’t need the stress of her father’s death when today she would be closing the biggest account of her life.
The smell of her mother’s lavender and rose oil floated through her living room before Celeste breezed in with her floral sweater trailing behind her. A down-to-earth, modern-age hippie with baggy clothes, big hair, and all. Sage loved her mom’s style. She’d been single since she’d divorced Sage’s father, long before Sage had given up on him. Her parents had been the picture perfect, down-to-earth, high school sweethearts when Dean had landed his first recording album. Unfortunately, ten years into his career, he had more recorded affairs than albums, and her mother had decided she was more important than waiting for a few hours a month of his precious time.
Celeste stopped in front of Sage now, her wild and un-brushed curls blocking the television. Good. Sage was finished watching the news anyway.
Her mother’s hair spilled down into her eyes. Her stationary barrette was missing from holding her bangs away from her eyes and the smell of her morning splash of ginger was missing. Both indications she’d rushed out of the house.
Sage heard shuffling sounds in the foyer and turned around to look, but the rounded wall blocked her sight. “Is there someone here with you?” she asked her mother.
“Listen to me.” Celeste’s shaking fingers gripped Sage’s shoulders and panic flared behind her hazel eyes.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“A death threat was sent.”
Sage shook her head and slid her mom’s trembling hands from her arms. She squeezed her hands between them. “Mom, there have always been threats.”
“Not like this.”
“There will always be fans that don’t like us, and say we abandoned Dean, but that’s not on us. Dean’s death will drag up even more of their wrath, but we know the truth.” Sage heard another scrape at her door.
“Mom, who’s at the door?”
“Police escorts I’ve hired.”
She dropped her hands away. “What?”
“Listen to me, your dad was murdered.”
“It was a drive-by shooting, Mom. Random.” Sage took a couple steps back to tilt her head around the wall. Two men dressed in black suits stood at her doorway. “They don’t look like police.”
“They’re undercover, Sage. What do you think would happen if we left with the police?”
Left with the police? What had her mother done? She wasn’t known for being irrational, but clearly she was having a moment.
“Nothing because we have nothing to do with Dean.” It had been a long time since she’d called Dean her dad.
“Sage, I know you have your father’s stubbornness—”
She pointed at her mom. “Don’t compare me to him.”
“I’ve hired a bodyguard to take us into hiding.” Her mom’s announcement was completely out of the blue.
Sage’s mouth dropped open. “You did what?”
“Duke Falkner.”
Her stomach plunged at his name. The name of the man who’d walked out of her life with Bowie Blake. Sage loathed the man, loathed that woman. There was no way in hell she would ever let Duke Falkner back into her life, bodyguard or not.
“You did not.”
“I did,” her mother said without a smile.
“No, absolutely not.”
“It’s not open for discussion.”
“Because it’s not a topic to be discussed. I really hope you did not contact him after the way he left things between us. I never want to see him again.”
“Sage, now isn’t the time to drag up the past.”
“Now is not the time to drag my past into my present.” She intended the harsh words this time, but they didn’t deter her stubborn mother. Sage wondered from which parent she’d really received her stubbornness.
“We have the meeting place arranged where these men will escort us to Duke.”
Her mother needed to stop saying his name, it triggered feelings to the surface. Ones she’d buried, ones she spent every day trying to forget.
“Hurry up and pack a bag. We leave immediately.”
Sage picked up her coffee mug from a side table and drank the last cold mouthful, almost gagging, while she walked to her kitchen. “Mom, you’re overreacting. Please send your undercover agents away and you can stay here with me.” She rinsed her mug out, noticing her trembling hand. Just talking about that man brought out anger she’d kept hidden deep inside her. She almost wished her father’s death brought around that type of emotion, but after watching him dismiss her entire life, she felt nothing. In interviews, he’d lied about her, in real life he’d lied to her.
Sage set the mug on the counter by the coffee maker. “Do you want a coffee?” She began preparing her mom’s regular double-double with sugar cane and soy cream, when glass shattered behind her.
Sage screamed and jumped at the deafening sound cracking through her condo. The coffee sloshed over the pot and landed on her skin. When she turned and saw her mom, her skin numbed to the burn.
Seconds passed by in what seemed like slow motion. Her mom gasped for air and coughed up blood before her shocked eyes looked down at her chest. She slumped down to her knees on the floor, red staining the front of her blouse.
“Mom!” Sage’s strangled scream burned her throat. The coffee pot slipped from her fingers and smashed on the tile floor as her trembling legs carried her across the living room. She didn’t feel the rug burn her bare knees as they scraped along the carpet as she landed beside her mother. She caught her upper torso before her mom hit the ground.
“Mom, it’s okay. You’re okay,” she said, but nothing was okay. She watched her mother’s eyes frantically looking from the blood to Sage.
“Mom, look at me. Focus on me.” But her eyes rolled up behind her head and she slumped in Sage’s arms.
“No, no, no. Mom ....!” Her shaking fingers felt her neck for a pulse, but she couldn’t steady them against her skin. “Help! Help!” she screamed at the men her mom had brought inside her apartment. When she turned back to her mom one of the men was kneeling on the other side of her mother.
“She’s been shot. I think she’s been shot.” Sage didn’t know if the words came out of her mouth or if she just thought them. She watched the officer take her mother’s lifeless body from her and rest her on her side on the floor. His fingers reached over her body and grasped her wrist, feeling for a pulse she couldn’t find. Voices crackled from his radio as the cop reported the shooting—is that what it was—and called for backup.
“Is she alive? Is she breathing? Mom?!”
She felt arms wrap around her waist and her body being lifted away. She watched her fingers slide away from her mother’s hand.
“No!” She grasped and clawed at the arms around her, fighting to get back to her mom, but he was too strong.
“Get her out of here!” the agent at her mother’s side yelled. His hand pressed against her mother’s chest where blood pooled through her clothes.
“No! Is she alive?! Tell me she’s alive!”