Slut - Woodruff Jettie - Страница 17

“Ahhh, honey. It’s okay. We’re going to figure this all out. I promise, and I’m going to help you get that little boy. Please don’t cry. It’s really a horrible emotion. You have to be stronger than that one. Change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change. It’ll work out.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You can spit positive energy all you want, and it’s still not going to change the fact, my life is fucked. Lane was right. This is like box office worthy. I bet I could call up the Lifetime Network and sell them my story for millions of dollars. I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel like you do. It’s dark. It’s so fucking dark and I can’t see anything. I have all these questions and zero answers.”

“Turn here,” Mi said, her tone not changing a bit. She could have run over a bunny and smiled about it. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. You’ve learned a lot today. Look at the answers you found. Plus I think you found the only reason you need to keep going. Do you really want all the answers at once? Can you handle that? I think you should just hand it over to the universe and let God decide when it’s enough. In the meantime, this whole sad attitude is depressing me, you need an aloe vera plant.”

I wiped my tears with the back of my hand and laughed again. “What?” I asked confused as hell.

“It’ll help with all the negative energy you got going on around you. I’ll tie a crystal on some hemp rope later, too.”

Nope, didn’t even go there. My friend was crazy and I loved her, appreciated her, and thanked God for placing her in my path when I needed her most. Crazy or not, Mi was my savior.

The next call from Nick brought more confusing information. Paxton just stormed in his office, demanding to know where Gabby was, and who the fat Chinese girl was, helping her.

Mi heard one thing. “Fat? I’m not fat.”

“You’re not Chinese either. That’s the only thing saving my ass. If he would have said a short Korean girl, Lane would be right here. You took the car, didn’t you? Why the hell did you take the car?”

“Well, I don’t know. The guy told us to.”

“You suck at this. Stop, Mi. Please, stop this.”

“And do what, Nick? Do you want me to turn my back on her? Leave her to claw her way out alone?”

“Yes. Yes, Mi, that’s exactly what I want you to do.”

“But you know I’m not going to do that. You could help us. That would make it easier on all of us.”

“I’ll see you when I get home. I don’t want her there, Mi.”

“Catch you later.”

“I’m serious, Mi.”

“Mi, we just missed him. We almost ran right into him.”

Mi’s tone changed, but I wasn’t sure why. “Yeah, we need to ditch this car. What should we do with it?”

I laughed again, this time a nervous laugh. “What is he up to? Why would he drop my charges? Why does he want this car? I don’t get what’s going on here.”

Mi looked out the window with a deep sigh, and I knew what she was about to say. “I’ll help you all I can, Gabby, but I sort of have to keep Nick happy, too. I’ll get you a room in my name.”

“Nah, you don’t have to do that. I’ll figure it out.”

“No, I’ll get you a room, and I’m still keeping you,” she smiled.

“It’s okay. I understand. I sort of have a plan anyway.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Tell me,” she insisted.

I explained my plan while we walked through the parking lot of her workplace.

“I don’t like that plan. I mean, if you knocked on my door after I thought you were doing my husband, I’d probably kick you in the knee. Do you think you did? Do you think you were cheating with him?”

“I honestly don’t know. He’s hiding something that he doesn’t want me to remember, and I don’t know why. He told me that I had planned to leave Paxton. New identities and all. I think he was helping me do that, but I don’t know why,” I clarified.

“I still don’t like it. Just go to the room tonight and we’ll talk about that tomorrow.” Mi opened the door for me and I walked in.

“I’m not going to stay in a hotel, Mi. I’ve got somewhere to stay. I don’t want to cause any more trouble with you and Nick. He’s very uneasy about all of this.”

“Thanks for understanding, but you don’t have any money. Where are you going to stay?”

“I have nine dollars,” I teased while flipping my hair to my back and smiling at her. “We have a little cottage out by my husband’s workshop. He’ll never know I’m there, and I’m hoping to get lucky enough to see my girls. I miss them like crazy, and I don’t know what he told them. They must be worried about me, and I hate that. I don’t want them to feel lost. You know?”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I have some binoculars. Remind me to give them to you.”

Afraid of Paxton looking for an old white Honda, I dropped Mi off behind the school and she walked home, trying to keep Paxton from seeing the car. I drove toward my house, and left the car in the back parking lot of a busy Mexican restaurant and walked. I took back streets, carrying my bagful of clothes with a kids backpack across my shoulders. I ran from a dog, broke my flip-flop, and then crossed a patch of swamping woods to the beach. That was no fun. A wild boar scared the hell out of me, and I walked right through the biggest spider web I had ever seen in my life. I screamed with that one at the same time my mind thought about alligators.

Paxton’s shop was locked when I tried to use the side door, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. I’d seen his guys come in at nine, sometimes ten o’clock at night. I crept along the side, wondering whether he’d come and locked everything up like he always did, praying that he hadn’t. The main garage door was open and the rollback was gone. That meant they were moving equipment. It also meant Paxton was with them. Another one of those things I wasn’t sure why I knew. Just like the key to the cottage. No, wait. I knew that because Paxton told me. I slithered around the side of the building with cat-like precision, remembering the day I had ask him to see the cottage.

He was in his office with a blueprint clipped to his drafting table. The old fashioned kind. For whatever reason, I loved that about him. Seeing him sketching a backyard plan with a pencil, wearing dark-framed glasses, was the sexiest thing I’d found about him. I remembered standing in his door watching him work. He sensed me before he saw me. I told him the girls were asleep and asked where the keys to the little cottage were. I explained how I wanted to check it out and walk along the beach. He dropped his glasses and pencil and told me to shut the door.

“Jesus, Gabby,” I mouthed without audible words. I was about to break into the only empty place I knew and I was thinking about the spanking I had gotten over Paxton’s lap for interrupting his work. At least he told me the key was in his shop before punishing me. The throb between my legs reminded me that I got more than that. Hence the reason for chastising myself. Good grief.

The sudden arousal left as soon as I realized what I was about to do, replaced with a thump. My heart pounded out of my chest as I tiptoed around the inside wall, looking for keys. Everything started to settle when I saw the row of keys hanging by the side door. The garage was empty and I was alone with some sort of backhoe, and a lot of tools. More tools than five businesses needed. I took the key, slid out the side door, and jogged the short path to the little cottage. Once again, my nerves calmed a little more.

Using the little door on the opposite side of our house, I stood in a daze just inside the two-room house, a feeling of deja vu permeating the air around me. Pale yellow curtains hung in front of French doors, and although they weren’t moving with a cool breeze, that’s how I saw them. The familiar way I instantly felt assured me that the house and I were well acquainted, but why? I stepped in swiping a cobweb from my face, looking around the quaint little space. Sand tinted walls decorated with a beach theme on every wall. A large net with a collection of starfish hung in one corner, and seashells lay on every flat surface.