Colorado 02 Sweet Dreams (57 page)

I wasn’t there but I reckoned this was true. People talked to me, it had always been the way.

Then again, I talked to people, it had always been my way.

Tate kept speaking. “Jonas trusted you within hours of meetin’ you. He sized you up and gave you his burden. She’ll talk to you,” Tate went on.

This was definitely true.

Still.

“It’s not the same,” I stated.

“It was today,” Tate replied.

“Sorry?” I asked.

Tate turned so we were front to front and both his arms were around me. “Babe, he didn’t wait until he and I were alone. He didn’t ask you to leave. And he didn’t wait for you to leave when you were offerin’ it. He said what he had to say when you were there
because
you were there. Don’t you get that?”

“No,” I said.

“He trusted you to deal with the consequences he created.”

“But, he –”

“And you did, you dealt with me.”

“I don’t think he thought it out that much, Tate. He’s just ten,” I pointed out.

“You don’t think he hasn’t learned to scheme the best way to do shit livin’ on eggshells with a coupla drunks, Ace, you’re wrong. That shit with Neet? It’s been goin’ on awhile and he didn’t tell me until
you
were there.”

This was probably true too.

Tate kept pushing. “She’ll trust you.”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Can’t know, unless you try.”

I bit my lip. His arms gave me a squeeze.

Then his face got close to mine and he whispered, “Babe, we
need
this.”

I stared into his face knowing he was right. We needed this. For Tonia and those seven other girls and the girls who were out there, marked by this lunatic and unsafe. We needed this, even for Sunny.

I just didn’t want it to be me who got this.

So I asked softly, “Do I have to be wired?”

Tate’s arms gave me another squeeze, this one reassuring and maybe a little proud (yes, I could read that in an arm squeeze). “They’ll need to hear everything she said and, she won’t even talk to Shambles, I reckon they can’t be in there.”

“But, a wire?”

“You need to be you. You need to pose no threat. You can tell her you’re wired but you need to look like you. Not holding a recorder. Not with someone with a notepad at your back. She’s gonna talk, it’s gotta be just you.”

I wasn’t sure Tate was right about Sunny talking to me and, even if he was, I still wasn’t sure I wanted to do it.

What I was sure of was someone killed Tonia and seven other women and the same someone may have attacked Sunny. Even if it wasn’t the same someone, still, someone attacked Sunny.

And whoever it was, they had to be stopped.

I looked at Tambo standing silently at our side then I looked at Tate.

“Can we ask Shambles first if it’s okay?” I whispered.

Tambo turned immediately and walked toward another agent while Tate’s arms gave me yet another squeeze.

Then he answered, “Yeah.”

* * * * *

I thought I’d not be able to take my mind off the microphone taped to my chest but the minute I walked into Sunny’s hospital room that thought flew away.

Her ash blonde hair was cut blunt, her skin was pale under her tan, she had some bruising and swelling on the left side of her face, there were a bunch of tubes sticking in her and her eyes were dead.

Those eyes came to me the minute I walked in and that was all I could think, her bright, shining, usually smiling, always friendly eyes were dead.

I swallowed back tears and looked across the room to see two women, an older one, dressed conservatively, a younger one, dressed a lot like me but in jeans rather than shorts. I knew, because Shambles told me, they were Sunny’s Mom and sister.

“Hi,” I said softly. “I’m Lauren, a friend of Sunny’s.”

The Mom nodded and looked at Sunny.

The sister said, “Hey.”

“I…” I looked at Sunny before I looked back at her family. “Can I talk to her?”

They both stared at me without speaking.

Shambles, who had come in behind me, said quietly, “Mom, Moonbeam, she means alone.”

They looked at me again, they looked at Sunny. I tried to look reassuring, Sunny just looked blank and Shambles took control, herding Sunny’s family out the door.

He stood in it and nodded to me then it closed on him.

I walked to Sunny and sat at the very edge of the seat of a chair that was pulled close to her side. I looked to her and she was staring at the ceiling.

I took her hand in mine. It was limp. I leaned forward and pressed it against my face, my eyes smarting and I felt the wetness escape and glide down my cheeks. I knew she had to feel it too.

My eyes closed.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I whispered to her hand. “I had magic, I’d take this away.”

I opened my eyes, kept her hand to my face and looked toward her head which had turned and her gaze was on me.

Still dead.

“I can’t do that,” I was still whispering.

She didn’t reply.

“You and me,” I kept whispering, “honey…” I pulled in breath and let it out, “we have to do the next best thing.”

Nothing about her face changed. Not a thing.

“You don’t think you’re strong enough but we’ll find your strength together.”

She looked back at the ceiling.

“He has to be stopped, Sunny.”

Suddenly, she yanked her hand forcefully from mine.

Too fast, I went too fast. Darn.

I gave it a minute then got up and sat on the side of her bed but she turned her head away.

I leaned toward her, not too close, not threatening and I laid it out.

“I’m wired. They’re listening, the police, the FBI, you need to know that.”

She swallowed.

“They can hear but this is just you and me, baby. Right now it’s just you and me.”

No response.

I closed my eyes and bit my lip, opened them and urged, “Please, talk to me.”

Sunny remained silent.

I wiped my face and looked out the window not seeing the landscape there only thinking of finding some way through.

Then it came to me. I should tell her the truth.

“I stayed in Carnal because of you,” I whispered.

I heard movement and I looked back down at her to see she was looking up at me.

I nodded. “It’s true. You and Shambles. Betty and Ned too. Banana bread and Middle Eastern night and knowing I was going to have friends, good ones, ones who genuinely cared, didn’t just say it but acted it… when I met you guys, I knew I was home.”

Her lip quivered.

“I’d been far from home a long time, Sunny, lost and wandering, it’s scary to be in that place alone.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Thank you for bringing me back home.”

“Petal,” she croaked, her voice thick.

“Talk to me, baby,”

She shook her head.

“You’re safe here, you’re safe with me,” I promised her.

She kept shaking her head so I grabbed her hand, leaned deeper and pulled her hand to my chest, encasing it in both of mine and holding strong.

“You’re safe with me,” I repeated and squeezed her hand. “You can’t wander, lost and alone in your head forever. You can’t.” I squeezed her hand again. “Give me the chance to return the favor, honey, let me give you a little of what you gave me. Let me bring you back home.”

She stared in my eyes for a long time.

Then she opened her mouth and talked to me.

And I realized, even after Tate and Special Agent Tambo’s coaching before I went in her room, I wasn’t prepared.

They didn’t warn me that words could burn straight into your brain.

Sunny’s did in a way that I knew it would take years for those burns to heal.

And when they did, they’d leave scars.

But I’d got her to say the words.

My job was done.

* * * * *

When I walked out of Sunny’s room the door didn’t even close behind me before I felt Tate’s arms close around me.

I shoved my face in his chest and held on tight.

“You did good,” he whispered into my hair.

I nodded against his chest.

He held me awhile then kept me close as his hand went under my t-shirt. I felt his fingers move on me, taking the kit that was attached to my waistband, then going up, his big body shielding mine from onlookers as his fingers followed the thin cord, he carefully ripped the taped microphone off my chest and his hand moved out of my shirt.

Tucking me to his side, he turned to Tambo and handed him the wire.

“Don’t know how to thank you, Miss Grahame,” Tambo said gently to me. “That had to be tough.”

I nodded and said quietly, “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay, my brain was burning and dang, but it
hurt
.

Tambo nodded back.

“Bub, let’s get Laurie home,” Tate called to Jonas and didn’t wait for a response, he started walking us down the hall.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Shambles,” I said as we made it to him and Tate stopped when I spoke.

Shambles looked toward Sunny’s door then back to me. “You think she’ll talk to me now?”

“Go and see, honey,” I prompted.

He nodded, leaned in and kissed my cheek then hurried down the hall.

Tate started us moving again. We were stopped at the elevators when I felt a hand take mine.

Tate tagged the elevator button and I looked down to see Jonas looking up, studiously avoiding my gaze and staring at the red digital display over the elevator telling us what floors it was moving through like this display might communicate to him straight from God that week’s winning lottery numbers.

And he did this holding my hand.

* * * * *

I didn’t pay much attention as we walked through the grocery store. I was focused on getting ingredients for chocolate chip cookies and the pasta-dijon mustard-mayo-pickle salad that was another one of my specialties that Brad hated due to its abundance of calories and fat. Tate was going to grill burgers for dinner that night and my pasta-dijon mustard-mayo-pickle salad went perfect with hamburgers.

I didn’t pay much attention when we loaded the groceries in the back of the Explorer and I didn’t pay much attention as we started to head home.

I only paid attention when Tate parked outside La-La Land and Jonas jumped out.

I focused on Jonas as he ran to La-La Land and I watched him lean a store arranged bouquet of flowers against a long, thick line of flower bouquets that had already been laid there.

I turned to Tate.

“He saw ‘em when we drove through earlier,” Tate answered my unspoken question. “He asked me at the store while you were takin’ a year to pick between spiral pasta and macaroni. He wanted our flowers to be there.”

Our flowers.

Our.

I looked back out the windshield to see Jonas jogging toward the SUV. He hefted himself in and closed the door.

I stared at the flowers the folks of Carnal had laid out to show Sunny and Shambles they had the town’s support.

Carnal was a good town. It was home.

I licked my lips as Tate pulled out of the parking spot.

Then I said, “I didn’t take a year to pick out pasta.”

Jonas chuckled.

All Tate said was, “Babe.”

* * * * *

“Petal, it
hurt.
”

My eyes opened.

The room was pitch. No moonlight because Tate had closed the curtains.

It was the middle of the night and I couldn’t sleep. This was the fourth time Sunny’s voice woke me up and her saying “
hurt
” in that tone that told me exactly how much it hurt, exactly how it felt when the blade sunk in her flesh, exactly how exquisite the pain was,
exactly
, I knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep again.

Carefully extricating my arm from around his waist, I rolled away from Tate’s back to rest on my opposite side.

Earlier that day, we’d come home to find Neeta’s car gone. Tate discovered through a phone call to Pop that Wood and Stella had come to collect it.

We’d had lunch, I made cookies while Tate and Jonas cleared the gutters of leaves (and yes, I’d let Jonas have some dough, a lot of it). This took them awhile so I sorted our pool bags, did laundry, changed sheets and ran the vacuum cleaner in random rooms, all this intermingled with sitting out on the deck and listening to them work and talk.

When they were done they played multiple games of horse at the basketball hoop that was mounted over the garage door. Sometimes I watched (okay, mostly I watched) while I sipped grape Kool-Aid.

The Kool-Aid reminded me of Carrie and Mom and Dad and home so I went into the house, got my phone, went back out to the deck and called them while I watched Tate and his son play basketball. I told my family about Jonas; about Neeta; I told my sister about Tate loving me and me loving him (she was cautiously happy for me, still thinking it was too soon but also liking Tate so she didn’t give me much guff); and I told them all about Sunny. I didn’t want to worry them but I also didn’t want to keep it from them. They didn’t like hearing it but they also made it clear they’d prefer it that way rather than me keeping it buried like I did with Brad and when I wandered the country looking for Carnal.

As for me, it felt good telling them, I needed to do it, to give it to them and they took it, as families do.

After basketball, I was off the phone and Tate and Jonas came to me. Tate took my newly refilled with Kool-Aid, retro, pink glass and downed a huge gulp.

When his hand dropped, his eyes narrowed on the glass then came to me.

“Jesus, Ace, that’s like suckin’ back a mouthful of sugar.”

He said this like it was a bad thing.

“I know,” I replied. “Isn’t it yummy?”

“Yummy,” Jonas muttered, his voice filled with humor. “Goofy.”

“Do you want some?” I asked Jonas.

“He knows where it is,” Tate answered for his son and then looked at the boy. “Get me a water while you’re in there, Bub.”

Jonas nodded and raced to the house, his arm still curved around the basketball.

I knew why Tate sent Jonas on his errand when he put the glass on the table beside me and leaned into me, a hand to either arm of my chair. He was sweaty, his hair around his neck and ears was wet and curling and there were more wet bits plastered to his forehead, as his t-shirt was mostly plastered to his chest.