“Shit!” That fucking hurts. Burns like hell, too. She twists it like a cork and extracts the air bladder, holding it up for me to see with a victorious smile.
“We’ll get you to go on your own today.” She jots this down in my chart as though it were pertinent information. It’s nice to see my overpriced insurance money hard at work—tracking my bodily functions, jotting them down with the same intensity as a scientific equation.
That dream comes back to me. Gao—China. Maybe if I did go back, on my own terms, I could finally get out from under this black cloud I’ve been living under. People go to different countries all the time and they come back no worse for wear. Maybe if I go and come right back I can start feeling a little more in control of my life. It’s as if all those years hijacked so much more than my time, they took my sanity and put it under house arrest. Maybe I can flip the switch. Go over and come back—let the big guy show me it was all a part of the grand design, and I don’t have to fear an entire country.
Mom walks through the door and gives a little wave. I’m a little disappointed it’s not Lee, but then she’s got Stella and Eli to contend with, not to mention Max who’d put up a minefield to stop her from getting to me—or more accurately a firing squad pointed in my direction.
“How you doing?” She presses her cool cheek against my forehead and I feel all of six again. Mom smells like a sweet memory, some floral perfume I recognize from an entire lifetime ago.
“Better.”
“You look better. Doctor said it missed your vital organs. He said you must really have important things to do here.” She gives a stifled laugh. “Isn’t that the truth?” Her eyes sparkle. She can’t stop smiling.
I feel bad looking over her shoulder. Waiting for Lee to show, but I know she’ll be here.
“I had a strange dream about China.” It unnerved me—hell, it rattled me.
Her face darkens. “It’s over, hon. You’re safe.” Her eyes drift down toward my scars as if she were reliving the torment right along with me.
“I know. But what if there was something I was supposed to finish?”
“Like? The housing project?”
“I don’t know. Something. Maybe a lesson I didn’t learn the first time.”
My mother shudders. Her entire body sags in defeat.
“I’ve had this tugging since I got back—since I left—that something was…I don’t know.” Really I just want to know I didn’t waste five years—that something so damn meaningful took place but I forgot to notice. The egomaniac in me wants to think I made some vital difference—that if I came back on my own terms Lee and I wouldn’t be such a fucking mess anymore.
“What’s going on with Lee?” She tries to change the subject but lands us from one frying pan to the next.
“Things aren’t clicking. Like it or not, it looks like it’s Max’s time to shine.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t image how you feel and how overwhelming this all must be for you.” She plucks a tissue from her purse and blows her nose.
Lee appears and illuminates the entire room with her beauty.
Mom gives a weak smile. “I’m going to run downstairs to get some coffee. You want anything?”
“No.”
Her heels click out of the room as Lee makes her way over. She’s got her hair pulled back, a red scarf around her neck and a black and white striped T-shirt on. She awakens all of my senses, and I take a deep breath as I take her in. Lee could wake a dead man, she’s so stunning.
“Hey.” I can’t help but smile. I’m not sure if it’s because I cheated death or the fact I feel strengthened and renewed about the standing of our relationship, drug-induced as it might be, but I’ll take it.
“Hey sweetie.” She plants a soft kiss over my lips and feathers my hair away from my face with her fingertips. “I talked with the nurse. She says you slept great. And you have no signs of infection. Are you in pain?”
I hold up the medication pump. “Use it whenever I want it. Great stuff. I’ll need about a gallon to take home.”
“I don’t think they have a to-go menu.” She makes a face and shows me that natural sarcastic beauty I’ve loved for so long.
“I had a wild dream.” I tell Lee about my nocturnal wanderings and watch as her reaction mirrors my mother’s.
“Interesting. I have news for you.” She changes the subject.
“You do?” I want her to tell me about the baby.
She nods. “Stella made something for you.” Her eyes glitter with tears. “A picture. I was going to bring it, but I was in such a hurry to get out the door I forgot.”
My heart drops like a stone. “I thought you were going to say you were leaving Max.” I try to laugh it off as though it were a joke, but it comes out forlorn, so damn pathetic I want to hide under the sheets and die.
“Mitch,” she whispers, leaning in. Her full lips just an inch from mine but she won’t give the kiss I’m craving.
“I thought I heard you.” I shake my head. “Must have been hallucinating.” I try sitting up and wince into a sharp bite of pain.
“I just need time.” She exhales a shaky breath. “It’s going to kill me, but I know you’ll help me through it,” she says it uneven as if she’s trying to go along with my delusion.
Lee fills me in on the investor exodus that took place last week—Max and his run in with Hudson.
“Max didn’t do this on purpose, Mitch.”
“Figures. Thought he was doing his brother a favor.” Good old Hudson. I still think Max knew on some level, but I don’t share the theory. Max and I have grown leaps and bounds the last few weeks. It almost felt like old times—pre Lee.
“I don’t want you to rock the boat with Max,” I whisper. “Don’t evict him just yet.”
Her forehead creases as if the thought never crossed her mind. “You want me to wait until you get back from the hospital?”
“No.” I press my lips together a moment. “I want you to wait until I’m back from China.”
Max
The officer and I walk shoulder to shoulder on our way to pay Mitch a visit. We make small talk about what happened—sum up Mitch and his brush with death in dollars and change.
His badge gleams with pride under the harsh fluorescents. It makes the vomit rise to the back of my throat without even trying. I’d bet a solid grand he sees right through my sweet talk. It’s all my fucking fault for not putting the ax on Hudson’s self-appointed clean-up committee. Hell, I wished, willed this to happen. I’m so sick I might actually introduce my breakfast to the officer’s shiny black shoes.
I don’t have a murderous heart—what I felt for Mitch was more like the kind of hatred you feel toward someone in grade school—the kind that makes you say stupid things like I wish you were dead. Hudson just so happened to pick up on my Morse code, and took matters into his own hands. Now we’re both up a creek, and Lee knows the longitude and the latitude of it all. I’m sure Mitch has his theories about my role. As soon as the tabloids find out I put a ‘hit’ on Mitch—my rival—my wife’s supposed ex-husband, I’ll be lucky to sell rubbing alcohol to a hospital.
We step into the room. It’s all downhill from here, I can feel it.
Lee gives me a brief hug. She looks happy—downright joyous. I haven’t seen her looking like this in a long time. Like something inside her has lightened and she can finally breathe again. I wrap my arms around her and pull her in as the cop asks Mitch a series of rapid-fire questions.
“There was something about him...” Mitch searches for clues. “He had solid tattoos, and a gold tooth or teeth, right up front. He was skinny.”
“You know what kind of car he was driving?” The officer takes notes before Mitch can answer.
“Old, beat up grey sedan, Chevy, I think. I remember thinking it looked out of place.”
“You get a look at the gun?”
“Just the barrel.” Mitch relaxes into the pillow, closes his eyes for a moment. “I heard a l
oud pop, and my chest felt like it caught fire. I tried to call my wife, but I got Max instead.” His gaze wanders over to me. “Thanks. You don’t know how much it helped to hear you on the other end. I didn’t know if you’d find me, but I knew I wasn’t going to die alone.”
I get over the my wife part pretty quick. A lump the size of a tractor gets lodged in my throat, and I bite the corner of my lip to stop from bawling like a baby. I wipe a quick tear from the corner of my eye.
“That’s Max,” Lee says, putting her head down over my shoulder. “He’s always there when you need him.”
“Thanks, Lee. You make me sound like a golden retriever.” I give a placid smile.
“She’s right.” Mitch looks me dead in the eye. “You’re always there when we need you. Thank you, and thank you for what you’ve done for Lee and Stella.”
I blink a smile over at him. I’m not sure I like the way he’s speaking for Lee. I’m back to not liking the way he referred to Lee as his wife a minute ago.
The cop steps in and tries to shake him down for more details.
Lee stands on her toes and whispers directly into my ear. “Something’s wrong.”
“What?”
“He wants to go back.” She pulls away with a genuine look of terror in her eyes.
“Back where?” I whisper.
“China,” she mouths the word.
I look over at the poor bastard lying all beat up with his chest taped up in gauze, his left arm lying in a sling across his stomach.
Hate to say it, but it feels like the best news I’ve had in a good long while. And I wish to God it didn’t.
Mitch finally manages to stabilize. Lee takes the kids to school before heading back over to him. It’s discharge day at the drive-thru hospital. I pour myself a cup of coffee and pop open my laptop to see what bills TS is running behind on. Usually Lee and I comb through the killing fields of our debt together, but I let her off the hook this morning. I knew she’d want to be with Mitch, bring him home herself, talk him out of the delusions she claims he’s having that include travel plans abroad. He never did bring it up again.
He was probably just high. They had him on some serious shit. Stuff like that messes with your brain. Maybe she misunderstood him. Maybe he said I should go back to China. Now that’s more than a little plausible.
I click into the general account. The numbers look off by a digit, so I squeeze my eyes shut and blink into the screen.
Fourteen thousand?
I click into the history for an explanation. My body spikes with heat as I break into an instant sweat.
“Sweet fucking mother…” Four different withdrawal transactions for twenty-five thousand each over a forty-eight hour period. “What in the hell?” I pull out my phone and get on the horn to Lee.
“Hi!” Her voice squeals in my ear, chipper as a blue jay in springtime. No edge in her voice that even remotely suggests she pilfered our account. Not that she’s my prime suspect. “Something’s up.”
“What?” Her tone sharpens.
“I’m looking at TS. It’s missing a hundred grand.” We were low to begin with. What we had was barely enough to cover the bills.
“What?”
I can hear Mitch in the background asking questions, and she murmurs away from the phone to fill him in.
“It shows four withdrawals, and you and I are the only two authorized on this account.”
“It wasn’t me. What about the siphons?”
There’s a reason we’ve nicknamed Colt and Hudson “the siphons.” It’s like taking two hoses and hooking them up to our checking account.
“I don’t know. They’re on stipend. They can’t control how much we give them. Isn’t that how we set it up?” I scan my memory, but I’m pulling up blanks.
“I’ll talk to Colt,” she offers.
“Great. I doubt I can get Hudson to pick up the phone. In the meantime, I’m freezing them out.”
“At least temporarily.” I know she’s vying for Colt.
“Lee, we have no money to pay the freaking bills. Without little things like electricity and water, we can kiss our paycheck goodbye.”
“Crap.”
Perfect. I’ve managed to stress out my already stressed out pregnant wife. “Look, never mind. I’ll pull us out of it. Don’t I always?”
“Yes.” She exhales hard. “Thank God, you do. If there’s one thing I can count on, it’s for you to save the day.”
“How’s Mitch?” I ask in an effort to calm her nerves.
“He’s doing great. Janice set up the couch downstairs.”
“Good. Tell him I’m glad he’s doing better. I’ll see you soon?”
“I’ll pick up the kids on my way home.”
I hang up and stare at the screen mystified. How could I have ever underestimated my junk-heap loving, hit-man hiring, fucking bonehead of a brother?
And Lee. I just lied to Lee for the very first time. There’s no way I’m going to be able to pull us out of this. This is the big one. No one is getting out alive. Not Townsend. Not Shepherd.
I pray our relationship survives.
22
Stay with Me
Lee
Janice’s house is quiet as a tomb. It takes everything in me not to take the bottles of Townsend and Shepherd that Janice has artfully displayed and smash them to pieces until there’s nothing but glass crushing beneath my heels. They might as well be filled with blood the way Max and I toiled to save Townsend when we thought we were doing it all for Mitch and the false god of posterity.
It’s just Mitch and me taking up space in the living room. Janice stepped out to pick up some groceries, and I glower over at him because I can’t find the words to properly tell him off.
“I don’t expect you to understand.” He compresses a smile.
I thought after all this time, China would be the one place he would never set foot again, and to go back on his own volition? For what?
“Are you suicidal?” It only makes sense.
“No.” He arches his head back frustrated as if my question had the power to piss him off. “I’ve been thinking—dreaming about it. I swear to you, Lee, I need closure. I just need to go and come back on my own terms.”
“Then I’ll go with you.” It comes out an empty promise.
“It’s not happening.” He rubs his eyes as if the idea were absurd.
“See? It’s dangerous. Why in the world would you want to go?”
“People go to China all the time, Lee. It doesn’t mean they get swallowed in some black hole. What happened to me was an anomaly. I don’t want to live my life in fear of an entire country. I’ll be quick.”
“That’s what you said the last time.” I slit the air with my words.
“This time I…” He trails his gaze out the window.
“You can’t say it can you? You made a promise to me all those years ago that you’d be back, and now you won’t because you know you can’t guarantee anything.” I don’t think I’ve ever felt such disdain toward him, such outright seething borderline hatred.
“I’m not taking any risks this time.”
“You’re leaving Stella again.” My eyes flood with tears. “You are not the man I married.” My voice shakes as I make my way over to where he’s laying. “You would never have done this if you knew what was going to happen. My parents would never have gotten into that car if they knew they were going to die.” It all comes full circle. The people I love most have a way of dying while trying to get somewhere. “You board that plane and you run the risk of never watching Stella grow up. You are going to break that little girl’s heart, twice.”
“You’re overreacting.” Mitch can hardly get the words out. He’s locked in emotionally, denying himself the privilege of tears.
“Something is desperately wrong with you.” I pace over to the large bay window and turn my back on him like he’s doing to me. I can’t even look at him anymore. “This is why you don’t want me ‘rocking the
boat’ with Max. In the event you don’t make it, I’ll have a matrimonial backup plan.”
Mitch doesn’t refute the theory, just stares at me with those sea glass eyes.
It feels like the whole world is shouting, and I cup my hands over my ears. There’s so much grey noise fogging up my brain I can’t filter it out anymore. If Mitch leaves I’ll splinter, lose my mind for good this time.
I take hold of the marble table set under the window. I need an anchor, and neither Mitch nor Max will do.
There’s a click at the door, followed by footsteps.
I expect Janice, but Colton materializes in her place.
“Kick the crap out of your brother,” I hiss.
“Nice.” He glides past me and makes his way over to Mitch. “You ready for your scheduled beating?”
Mitch is stoic, unmoved by my plea. “She’s not happy right now.”
“He’s going back to China,” it comes out accusatory.
Colt’s eyes widen. Even Colton sees the impending danger, the doom written all over the great wall in Mitch’s own blood. “Dude—I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Come with me,” Mitch counters.
I let out a little laugh. “Sounds like you have five years to kill, Mitch. That is, if they don’t burn you alive first.” I hope I scared the crap out of Colt in the process.
“Good point. We’re not going.” Colt plops on the couch like it’s no big deal.
“Maybe you’re not—I am.” He doesn’t meet my eyes. Mitch and his unmitigated resolve, he’s turned into something unrecognizable—a man on a suicide mission.
“If you’re going, I’m going,” Colt says.
Janice walks into the room and holds out a bag of prescriptions as she makes her way over.
“Mitch is going back to China.” It strings from my lips like a haunted lullaby.
Her face bleeds out all color. “Mitch?”