I love this woman. She is mine and I will do whatever it takes to get her and Elliott back.
I opened the closet door, scanning the shelves and pushing the clothes aside until I found what I was looking for. The two-drawer metal file cabinet was locked, but I pulled Daisy’s key ring out of my pocket and searched the keys for the one I thought might fit. Hoping for my first lucky break of the day, I slid a small key into the lock and exhaled when it turned with ease and I was able to pull open the top drawer. Thumbing through the tabs, labeled alphabetically, I sent a mental thank-you to Daisy for her impressive organizational skills and then pulled out the legal-size papers held neatly together with a small binder clip.
I rolled them into a tube, shoved them into my back pocket, locked the file cabinet, and walked out of Daisy’s bedroom.
*
My dad and Elliott were sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch when I returned.
“Hi, Bwooks. Me and Feo is having some mac and cheese!”
I hugged him tight. “I see that, buddy. I need to talk to Theo for a second. Keep eating, okay? We’ll just be in the other room.”
“Okay.”
“The kid Daisy shot has died,” I said as soon as we were out of earshot.
“No,” my dad said.
“Yes. And Daisy’s ex-husband has been awarded temporary emergency custody of Elliott.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Dad sat down heavily on the couch, as if standing was suddenly too difficult. Seeing the anguish on his face only increased my feelings of helplessness. “When does he have to go?”
“I have to have him there by five. Nick is going to let me know where to take him.” I sat down on the couch next to my dad and neither of us said anything for a minute. “I thought about taking off.”
“I think anyone in your position would.”
“It would only make things worse.” I took a deep breath. “I need your help.”
“Of course. Tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll do it.”
*
I was instructed to meet Scott in the Del Taco parking lot—his choice, not mine. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t want me bringing Elliott out to Tweakerville. No need to draw attention to the fact that he lived in a house full of meth addicts. I still couldn’t believe that the court would let someone have a child simply because they’d contributed half the DNA. It made no sense.
“The sooner you take him there, the sooner we can set the wheels in motion to remove him,” Nick had said. Nick had better hope that’s exactly how it played out, because if Elliott had to spend more than twenty-four hours with Scott, I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Before we’d left the house, I’d sat Elliott down on the couch and explained, as best I could, what was about to happen. I forced myself to keep my voice neutral, to make it sound like I was in favor of this plan. “I know you like being here with Theo and me while your mom is away, but I have to take you to meet your dad.”
Confusion washed over his face. “But you is my dad,” he said in a voice so soft I could barely hear him.
I took a deep breath. “I would really like to be your dad someday, but I’m not. Not yet. The man who is your dad would like to see you. Just a short visit and then you can come right back here with us.”
“I don’t want to go with that dad, Bwooks. I don’t want to go with him!”
Elliott started to cry, and for a moment I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. Despite what Nick had said, running seemed like a damn good idea.
I gathered Elliott into my arms and he clung to me. “When you see your dad, you might remember him. He hasn’t seen you since you were very little, and he misses you.” I reached out my hand and showed Elliott the army man in the middle of my palm, the one I’d scooped off his nightstand at the last minute. “Everything will be okay. I promise. I want you to keep this. Every time you feel it in your hand, I want you to remember that you’re safe and I’m coming back to get you.”
Elliott took the army man and wrapped his fingers around it.
“You is pwomising me, Bwooks.”
“Yeah, buddy. I am.”
*
Scott was leaning up against the side of a rusty pickup truck. I’d have bet my own vehicle that there was no car seat in it. By the looks of it, there might not have even been seatbelts. I could feel my blood pressure rising, and I forced myself to take deep, calming breaths. I turned off the engine, got out of the car, and opened Elliott’s door. Leaning down so that I was eye level with him, I said, “Do you know what it means to trust someone?”
Elliott shook his head solemnly.
“It means that I need you to believe me when I say I will never let anything bad happen to you. It means that no matter what I say, or what I do, I will take care of you.” I unbuckled Elliott and picked him up, slinging his bag over my shoulder.
“I wanna go home with you wight now, Bwooks,” Elliott said, his fingernails digging into the side of my neck. I let the pain ground me as I walked up to Scott.
Scott looked at Elliott with a longing I might not have recognized a few months ago. His features softened as he saw his son for the first time in over a year, his eyes traveling from the tip of Elliott’s head down to the toes of his shoes, as if he was taking in everything he’d missed. Committing it to memory. He couldn’t quite look Elliott in the eye, which told me he must have felt some shame and remorse for his actions. He took a step toward us and I instinctively took one back. The love Scott still felt for his child would not make what I’d come here to do any easier.
Scott turned his attention to me, a snide expression replacing the loving one he wore for his son, thrilled to finally have the upper hand. “Looks like I finally got my kid back,” he said. “Guess you won’t be sleepin’ with my wife anymore either.”
Then he laughed.
The asshole laughed.
“She’s not your wife,” I said through clenched teeth. I hadn’t really slept in twenty-four hours. My head was pounding and my eyes were stinging. If I hadn’t been holding Elliott in my arms I would have dropped Scott with one punch and pummeled him until my fury subsided.
“Where’s his stuff?” Scott asked.
I handed him a bag. Not the Thomas the Tank Engine bag, but another one. Plain brown.
Scott looked inside. “What the hell is this shit?”
I let him hang, waiting for his brain to make the connection. Taking note of the look of hunger on his face I said, “You could probably get pretty far on ten grand.”
And if that wasn’t enough, I had another five thousand in an envelope tucked inside the pocket of my jacket. I was by no means a wealthy man and probably never would be, but I earned a good income, had only myself to support, and was particularly diligent about saving. Like Daisy, I’d been setting money aside for a down payment of my own, and I’d managed to accrue a considerable sum. But fifty-five hundred was all I’d been able to access on a Saturday afternoon when the banks were closed. My debit card only allowed me to withdraw five hundred dollars per day, but I’d been able to get cash advances on two credit cards in the amount of $2,500 apiece. My dad had come through with the rest. “Got a little cash tucked away in my safe,” he’d said when I asked him for his help. “You’re welcome to it.”
“I want my kid,” Scott said, thrusting the bag of money at me. His voice had lost a bit of its swagger and conviction. A less observant man might have missed it, but I didn’t.
“Sure, here you go.” I handed Elliott over to Scott along with the bag containing his belongings.
Elliott began to wail, and the sound—high-pitched, keening—was like nothing I’d ever heard before. Elliott tried to scramble out of Scott’s grasp, and he reached out for me, wrapping his arms around my neck so tight that I could hardly pry them off me. When I was free, I turned and walked away, my heart nearly exploding out of fear.
I got halfway to the car before he said it: “Wait.” Overwhelmed with relief, I turned aroun
d and walked back to them.
“I can’t take him when he’s crying like this. Make him stop.”
“You make him stop. He’s your son.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t have time for this shit.” He thrust Elliott into my arms, and Elliott pressed his face to my shirt, his body trembling as he sobbed.
“He’s supposed to go with you,” I said, holding the bag of money so he could clearly see it.
“I’m not ready. I didn’t get enough notice.”
“That’s really not my problem,” I said.
“Give me the money and you can have him as long as you want.”
Though I’d expected Scott to choose the money, had been desperately counting on the fact that he would, I hid my revulsion because there was one more thing I needed him to do.
“Sounds fair. But I’ll need you to sign these,” I said, thrusting some papers and a pen under Scott’s nose.
He scanned the sheets and shoved them back toward me. “I’m not fucking signing anything,” he roared.
“If you don’t sign the papers, you don’t get the money. You have one minute to decide,” I replied, worrying suddenly that I’d pushed too far and that he’d take Elliott after all.
Neither of us spoke or moved. Elliott’s breath hitched between his cries. A trickle of sweat ran slowly down the back of my neck as Scott and I glared at each other. Finally, when time was almost up, he reached out and grabbed the papers, signing away all legal rights to his child. When I was satisfied I had every signature necessary, I handed the money to him.
He laughed, an evil patronizing sound. “You think you’re pretty fucking smart, don’t you? Think you’re better than me?”
“Make no mistake, I am better than you.
“Yeah, well, I’d have taken less.”
“And I would have paid more.”
Scott took his bag full of money and jumped into his rusty pickup. His tires squealed as he tore out of the parking lot. I took deep breaths and willed my heart rate to return to normal.
“You was gonna give me to that man, Bwooks!” Elliott said.
I hugged Elliott close, hoping he was young enough that the incident wouldn’t leave permanent scars and that Daisy would understand why I’d done what I did. Any damage this caused Elliott was mine to fix.
“I was never going to give you to him, Elliott. But there was only one way I could make sure he would give you to me. And now that he has, I will never let you go.”
I buckled Elliott into his car seat and we drove to Nick’s office. Nick was working around the clock on Daisy’s behalf and would be meeting with the criminal defense attorney in the morning. The door to the law firm was locked, but Nick heard my banging and let me in.
“He didn’t show?” Nick asked when he noticed Elliott standing beside me, holding my hand.
“No, he did. I tried to get him to take Elliott, but I guess he decided he couldn’t handle the responsibility because he took off. Good luck to anyone who tries to find him.”
I followed Nick into his office and laid the papers down on his desk. “I need you to file these as soon as possible. They’re signed but they’re not notarized,” I said. “Will that be a problem?”
Nick picked up the papers and glanced at the names on them. His expression didn’t change. “Not at all,” he said. “Consider it done.”
“Thanks, Nick,” I said. “For everything.”
CHAPTER 54
SCOTT
The first thing Scott had done when he left Del Taco was drive across town to the home of his old dealer, a short, wiry man in his early forties who went by the name of Miller. Whether that was his first or last name, Scott didn’t know or care.
Miller had always been good to him. He wasn’t paranoid and he treated his dealing like an actual business, with inventory you could count on. But Miller didn’t front drugs to anyone, which meant Scott could only buy what he could afford.
And he had never been able to afford enough.
As successful as it had become, the restaurant had been a drain on their finances. DiStefano’s brought in a considerable amount of revenue, but almost as much went back out to cover expenses: payroll, taxes, food, liquor, rent, utilities, and repairs. There was always something that needed to be paid, and Scott wondered how his parents had ever turned a profit.
He drew a modest salary and sometimes didn’t pay himself at all, like the time one of his freezers conked out in July. Before he started using, Daisy had been supportive of the restaurant, especially since it was her salary and money management skills that kept them afloat when things started to get tight. She’d always told him how proud she was of him and what he’d done with the place.
He vowed to work more. Work harder.
He would turn things around.
Meth was cheap, he reasoned, especially compared to cocaine and heroin. So what if he took a little of their disposable income and used it to buy something that would give him the energy he needed to make it through ninety-hour workweeks? Was that so awful? Why couldn’t Daisy see that everything he was doing was for her?
Gradually, as his habit increased, he spent more and more of their disposable income until what he was spending was no longer disposable. It was the money earmarked for groceries, utilities, and rent. After that, Scott started dipping into their savings, telling Daisy he needed to replace the heating and cooling system at the restaurant or that someone had broken in overnight and stolen the cash that was to be deposited at the bank the next morning. Scott would never be so foolish as to leave a large sum of cash at the restaurant, and Daisy knew it. But by then she was fed up and worn out and could no longer be bothered to confront him.
When Miller refused to let Scott slide on payment, Scott had been forced to look for another source, and it didn’t take more than a day or two of nosing around down at the Tap before he connected with Dale.
Unlike Miller, Dale didn’t have the capital to come up with the inventory he’d need to start dealing, but he’d been using so long he knew the name, phone number, and location of everyone in town who was. He charged nothing for his services, but he skimmed off the top of every bag, which most customers were willing to overlook because Dale had a knack for finding dealers who were open to more creative payment methods. If cash wasn’t available, they’d be willing to accept merchandise instead, as long as it was something that could be pawned or traded at the garage sale. They might be willing to float you a day or two as long as Dale promised you were good for it.
These dealers might have been more open to extending credit than Miller, but that didn’t mean they’d allow anyone to get away without paying, whether that meant rounding up a few people who wouldn’t mind doing the collecting for them in exchange for drugs, or finding other, more jaded ways of clearing the debt.
Scott hated the games Dale played, but by the time Daisy divorced him he was homeless, penniless, and in too deep to get out on his own. And when Brandon came into the picture, he’d become Dale’s pawn, at the mercy of whatever Dale wanted him to do so that the drugs would never stop coming his way.
Until now.
Scott had enough cash to buy more meth than he’d ever dreamed of. But there was one thing that was still more important to him than meth, although marginally so, and that was freedom.
He could go somewhere far away. Blend in and start over. If he was careful with the money, if he bought only cheap food and stayed in budget motels, he could make it last and have plenty to start up an operation of his own once he got settled.
Who was he kidding?
It’s not like he’d bother with eating or sleeping at all.
He was supposed to be out doing his rounds instead of sitting in Miller’s living room, forking over stacks of twenties. Dale never topped off his high until he returned for the night, and by the time Scott walked into the house he was always desperate for a hit. Scott’s phone—provided by Brandon—had an app, which would allow Dale to pinpoint his location. Dale wo
uldn’t bother checking the app until Scott failed to return at his usual time, and by then he’d be long gone. He’d hit the highway and just start driving, maybe stop in Vegas first. Get lost in a sea of people and then figure it out from there.
“These sacks fat?” he asked Miller.
Miller shot him a look, clearly insulted.
“Sorry, man,” Scott said. “You got any rigs?”
Miller nodded and threw a few syringes in the bag. Then he handed the bag to Scott and placed the money in a lockbox.
“See you around,” Scott said, walking quickly out to his truck because he wanted—no, needed—to get high immediately. The only way to erase the image of his son’s face was to get high and stay that way.
Once he was in his vehicle, he drove to an abandoned parking lot and efficiently and methodically went through the steps of preparing the hit, worrying less about being seen than he should have. He tied off and jammed the needle home, feeling the rush, the euphoria.
But he couldn’t forget his son’s face.
The sound of his cries.
For the first time ever, Scott couldn’t get high enough to make his problems go away.
He slumped against the window of his truck as his own tears started to fall. He knew he would never see his son again, and he doubled over in pain as if someone had punched him in the stomach. His head hit the steering wheel as sobs wracked his body. His self-loathing was massive, vast.
When his crying subsided, he mixed himself another shot.
More meth was what he needed.
It was fully dark by then, and as he pulled out of the parking lot, an idea hit him hard. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it sooner.
What better way to guarantee he’d be free of Dale forever?
He thought of all the times Dale had made him beg for a hit. Remembered the night Dale had pulled the gun on him, showing off in front of Brandon. Scott threw his head back and laughed, sticking his head out the window and letting the cold night air blow the hair back from his face.