29
Travis
Could you have a heart attack at twenty-three? I lay on the mattress in the van, curled between crates of cocaine-laced baby formula, staring at the dark ceiling for hours, and my heart wouldn’t slow down. It pounded against the mattress and all I kept thinking was that I couldn’t die. I couldn’t die and leave Bella without a dad. For what her dad was worth right now, which didn’t feel like much.
I was back in the lot by the Target, wondering how bad I’d screwed things up. Pretty bad, I guessed. I just hoped nobody was dead. Not the two guys Roy shot at. Not Savannah or Roy, even though I felt like killing them myself. I didn’t want this whole stupid scheme to have gone that wrong. And I didn’t want to land in prison either, but carrying a van-load of stolen goods was going to take me there, wasn’t it? I had to dump this stuff. Where, though? And I wanted Bella back. Bella. I couldn’t go there in my head. If I thought about Bella, I wasn’t going to be able to clearly figure out what I needed to do.
Around four in the morning, the phone Roy had given me rang and I grabbed it and flipped it open.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You fucking asshole,” Roy growled. “You are so fucked.”
“What do you mean?”
“‘What do you mean?’” he mimicked me in a singsong voice. “I’ll give you the address for the drop-off and you take the goods there tonight. Ten—”
“Uh-uh,” I said. “No way. I’m done. You and Savannah can just—”
“Shut the hell up!” he shouted. “You have no choice, got it?”
“I said I’m not doing it. I’m done.”
“Ten sharp. Not a minute before or a minute after. You’ll get your money then, minus a hundred for the fuck-up in—”
“What don’t you understand about ‘I’m done’?” I shouted back at him.
“What I understand is that you’ve got the stuff, man, and you’re not keeping it.”
“I don’t want it!”
“Well, I’m telling you what to do with it and if you don’t do it, you’re dead. Simple as that.”
I shut my eyes. I’d take the address now and figure out what to do later. I wrote it down along with the directions. The drop-off was about a half hour from where I was. “Let me take it to them right now,” I said. “I want it out of my van.” There was no way I could have Bella in the van with cases of coke. I didn’t want her involved in any of this mess.
“You can’t take it right now,” he said. “This is a structured operation, bro. They’re getting other deliveries right now. Tonight at ten. That’s it.”
“You come get it from me now and take it to them yourself.” I cringed the moment the words left my mouth. If I met up with him now, he’d kill me. What would stop him? He’d take the stuff, put the cold barrel of his gun to my head, and that would be that.
“Christ, you’re dense,” he said. “If I wanted to cart around fifty pounds of half-baked cocaine, I wouldn’t have needed you in the first place.”
“I’m getting off.”
“You do this or so help me God, I’ll hunt you down. Your little girl, too. Bella? Is that her name? I’ll blow her brains out first so you can wa—”
I flipped the phone shut, my hands shaking. I got out of the van and made it to the grass before I threw up. I had to lean over to catch my breath, hands on my knees, my body torn between fear and fury. Just the sound of Bella’s name on his lips was enough to rip me apart.
It wasn’t cold, but I was shaking all over by the time I got back in the van. I sat in the driver’s seat, resting my head against the steering wheel and when I shut my eyes I saw Robin’s father, his face ugly with hatred. “You can’t raise yourself, much less a child,” he’d shouted at me. “You need to think about what’s best for that baby!”
I groaned, lifting my head from the steering wheel to rub my temples. Just what I needed right now was the ghost of Robin’s father telling me what a piece-of-crap father I’d be. I never before thought he was right.
I remembered the day Robin and I had sex when she landed in the hospital. That was the beginning of the end for us. Man, I nearly killed her. I was so stupid. I came on way too strong that day. I hadn’t been with her in so long and I’d missed her. I didn’t stop to think how fragile she was.
As soon as her father showed up in the E.R., they threw me out on my butt, but he wasn’t done with me. I sat on the wall outside, praying Robin didn’t die, and after a while he came through the doors and headed straight for me, head down like a bull. He would’ve killed me if the security guard hadn’t held him back.
“You raped her!” he shouted.
“No, man, I didn’t!” I was backing away, hoping the guard had a good grip on him ’cause he was ready to pound me.
“She was a sick little girl, you son of a bitch!” he shouted. “You’re going to hang.”
“Is she all right? Is she—”
“Let’s go back inside, sir,” the guard said to him. He was starting to cry and go limp against the guard’s chest and I didn’t know what to do.
“Just tell me she’s all right!” I shouted as the guard led him toward the emergency room entrance.
He turned back to me. “You just better say your prayers she doesn’t die,” he said. “Say your prayers.”
I kept calling the hospital, but they wouldn’t put me through to her room, so I was never sure just how bad things were with Robin. I wanted to talk to her, but I was locked out. A couple of days after everything happened, her father called to tell me if I ever tried to get in touch with her again, I’d go to prison for rape. He could make the charge stick, he said. Sick girl, brutal guy. I was still seventeen, but seventeen was an adult in North Carolina. Juvenile hall was one thing. Prison was another. My mother knew everything that happened and she tried to reason with him on the phone, but he wasn’t having any of it. I never knew what strings he pulled to get our phone number changed and unlisted so Robin couldn’t call me, and I knew he changed hers, too, because I tried to call and couldn’t get through. I started wondering if she’d actually told him I raped her. If she said that to get herself out of trouble. I couldn’t picture her doing that, but how would I ever know?
So for a long time, I just thought about her and worried about her and wondered if she’d blamed everything on me, and the next thing I knew, this agency calls to tell me Robin had my baby and wanted to put her up for adoption. Baby? I was blindsided. If she’d been well enough to make it through a pregnancy, she’d been well enough to find a way to tell me about it. I felt like the girl I’d loved had disappeared. She was going to give our baby away. She had the parents picked out and everything. I told the lady from the agency I wanted custody, and next thing I knew, Robin’s father was calling me, telling me not to be a fool. Not to be so selfish. “You need to think what’s best for that baby!”
“She should have told me!” I shouted into the phone. “Why didn’t she find some way to tell me?”
“Because she hates you, why do you think?” he said. “She’s critically ill. She had a heart transplant. She needs her life to be peaceful and calm, and here you come making waves. Again! She’s furious you won’t respect her wishes. She risked her life because of you and she has every right to decide what happens with her baby.”
“I want my kid!” I yelled. “She’s mine! It’s only right.”
He laughed. “Just try and get her,” he said. “I’ll fight you, and you can bet I have a lot more resources for a fight like that than you do. You’ll never win. You can’t raise yourself, much less a child.”
Yeah, he had resources and he fought hard but I had blood on my side. He pulled out the rape card, but the judge didn’t buy it since he’d never pressed charges against me for it. Robin was in no shape to put her two cents in; he was telling the truth about her being really sick. Maybe dying. My feelings about her were so mixed up at that point. I was really angry with her, but I sure didn’t want her to die.
; The one thing her father won, if you could call it that, was my signature on a contract saying I’d never try to contact Robin. I’d leave her alone for the rest of our lives, it said. I signed it. I had my little girl. That was all I’d wanted right then, and it was all I wanted now.
I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, sitting on high alert in the van. Instead, I watched for Roy’s car. Or Savannah’s. Or the police. I didn’t know what I was watching for. All I knew was that I couldn’t let down my guard. Around six in the morning, I remembered the magnetic signs on my van and got out to peel them off. Those two guys at the truck stop—what had they seen? And were they still alive to tell anyone?
The Target parking lot was dead quiet. There were a few other vehicles parked here and there and I wondered if they had people sleeping in them, too. Living in them. Did the cops ever come around and check on them? Suddenly I felt extremely paranoid. As I was getting back into the van after removing the magnetic signs, I saw headlights turn into the far end of the lot. Cops? I tossed the signs in the back of the van and climbed into the driver’s seat and slumped down. The car was still in the distance, but as it passed under one of the lights, I thought I caught a flash of red. Roy’s Mustang? Shit. I grabbed the keys out of my pocket and rammed them into the ignition. I pictured my body being discovered in the van in the morning, the mattress soaked with my blood, and Bella with no daddy. I hit the gas and squealed out of the parking lot even faster than I’d squealed out of the truck stop.
I didn’t know where I was going. I turned onto the main road in the direction of downtown Raleigh and just drove for a while, checking my rearview mirror every two seconds. No one behind me. No one. That wasn’t Roy, I told myself. Everything’s cool. Besides, he’d said he didn’t want the stuff in his car, right? So why would he be after me? Though maybe he’d kill me and then drive my van to the drop-off and… My imagination was out of control. All I’d wanted was a legitimate construction job! Lumber and hammers and saws and nail guns. Damn it!
I pulled onto a side street and, once I was sure I hadn’t been followed, I climbed into the back of the van and lay down on the mattress, trying to figure out what to do. I should go to the police myself. That made the most sense. I’d tell them the whole story and take whatever lumps they dished out. Then I started counting up the charges they’d have against me. The heist itself, for starters. And what if Roy had killed one or both of those guys at the truck stop? Murder in connection with a robbery? What would I get for that? I could plead ignorance all I wanted, but I doubted it would do me any good. The thing that kept me frozen to the mattress, though, the thing that kept me from picking up the phone, was that they’d take Bella away from me.
I wished I had a way to get a message to Erin. I’d ask her to keep Bella one more night—that was, if she hadn’t already gone to the police. I played it out in my mind. I could go to the coffee shop this morning and ask Erin if she could watch her for another day…Bella would see me, though. I couldn’t walk away from her one more time. I was rolling this around in my mind when the phone Roy had given me rang again. I checked the display. It wasn’t his number and I stared at it a second before flipping it open without saying a word.
“Travis?” It was Savannah.
“Thanks a lot, Savannah.” I leaned up on my elbow. “Thanks for screwing up my life.”
“I know, I know. Travis, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess.”
That wasn’t the reaction I’d expected. Was she crying?
“A little late for the apologies,” I said. “Now I have a van full of drugs and I was supposed to pick up Bella today. If you’d told me what you were really up to, I’d never—”
“I know. It just got so…so screwed up. I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry. I split with Roy. He’s crazy. I didn’t realize how crazy.”
I hesitated. “Did he kill those guys?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“No, but he shot one of them in the leg. We had to climb a fence and hang out in some woods and then Roy stole a car to get us back here. But I don’t blame you,” she added quickly. “I was mad at the time, but…now I’m just exhausted and I wish last night could go away. I never should have gotten you involved.”
“Damn straight.” I pictured her climbing the fence. Stranded in the woods more than an hour from Raleigh. I remembered her calling me a rube. You are such a rube, she’d said. I didn’t buy this sudden transformation.
“Where do you have to pick Bella up?” she asked.
“Nowhere, now,” I said. “I can’t pick her up while I have a van full of drugs.”
“You have to make that drop tonight,” she said. “Roy will never leave you alone unless you do. And once you do, you’ll have money.”
“What about you?” I asked, curious to hear her answer. “If you’ve split from Roy, how do you get your share?”
“I will. I’ll make sure of it.”
“And what if I don’t make the drop?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know.” Her voice was nearly a whisper. “Oh, Travis. If you only knew how whacked he is. Our last driver… That was so messed up. You have to make the drop. When I left him he was talking about finding Bella if you don’t.”
“Let’s leave Bella out of this.”
“He thinks you found someone to babysit at that coffee shop where you hang out.”
I squeezed the phone tight in my fist. How did he know where I hung out? We’d been watched, Bella and me. More paranoid than ever, I moved to the driver’s seat so I could see the road, still clutching the phone to my ear. “Sure, that’s what I did,” I said. “I just walked up to someone and asked, ‘Could you take my kid for the night?’”
“I figured you took her to her mother’s in Beaufort. I hope that’s what you did, anyway. That she’s, you know, totally safe.”
“Right,” I said. “That’s where she is.”
“That’s a major relief,” she said. “Because you don’t want to know what Roy likes to do with little girls.”
My blood felt like ice water in my hands. “Savannah,” I said. “How could you have hooked up with this guy?”
“Money can make you crazy.”
“So can lack of money,” I muttered.
“So you’ll make that drop tonight?”
“I thought of taking it to the cops.”
For a moment she didn’t speak. “Are you insane?” she finally asked.
Yeah, I thought. I am.
“Look,” she said, “you’re in more trouble than you know. Do you honestly think taking the signs off your van makes you invisible?”
I dug in my pocket for the car keys. “I’m getting off,” I said, and I shut the phone before she had a chance to say another word. I rammed the key into the ignition and turned it. How did they know I removed the signs? I remembered the car I’d seen in the parking lot in the middle of the night. Were they following me right now? I thought I’d lost him. I could have sworn I’d lost him.
The one thing I knew for sure: I didn’t dare go to the coffee shop this morning. The only way to keep Bella safe today was for me not to be around her.
And for me to drop off the drugs tonight.
The only way.
30
Robin
I was so exhausted the morning after Hannah nearly died that my vision was blurry as I carried the breakfast casserole into the dining room. I had two couples this morning, and the women made swooning noises when they saw the casserole. I hoped my smile didn’t look as tired as I felt. I answered questions about the ponies and the museums and the ferries and when I was sure everything was under control, I left Bridget to finish up and went into my apartment to get my purse. I planned to drive to Morehead City to pick up the baby monitor this morning. I was still shaken by Alissa’s middle-of-the-night phone call. She’s dead! I had no trouble tracking down the monitor the doctor in the E.R. had recommended. I took it to Hendricks House, where I found Alissa sound asleep
and Gretchen changing Hannah. Mollie was at a luncheon, politicking for her son. Gretchen and I quietly set up the monitor and talked a little about what had happened the night before. We whispered to keep from waking Alissa.
“She didn’t sleep a wink till I got here,” Gretchen said. “It’s a terrible thing, what happened, but I think it finally woke up her mommy instincts.”
I nodded. I watched as Gretchen snapped Hannah back into her onesie and lifted her from the table. I would have liked to hold the baby for a while, but it was clear I wasn’t needed and I was so, so tired. I looked at Alissa, sound asleep beneath the light quilt on her double bed, and decided I could use a nap myself.
I was just getting into my bed at the B and B when Dale called.
“Hey, you,” he said when I answered the phone. “Got some good news. The News-Times endorsed me.”
I heard the joy in his voice. We’d been waiting and hoping for this, though it struck me as weird that he didn’t even mention the fact that his niece had almost died the night before. “Oh, Dale,” I said, “that’s fantastic!”