Poor Boy Road (Jake Caldwell #1) (15 page)

Twenty minutes later, Willie stuck his head through the open front door of the blue house and signaled for Halle and Bub to get out of the truck. Perfect timing. Halle had spent that eternity pressed into the driver’s door, as far as she could get from Bub’s wretch-inducing stench. He licked his lips and stroked his hand up and down his thigh while staring at hers. Why didn’t she wear baggy sweats on her run?

Inside the house, Willie directed Bub to the kitchen and Halle followed Willie down a hall into a room as big as the high school cafeteria. He stepped to the side revealing a muscle-bound man with black goatee and intense eyes. She wrapped her arms across her chest and shivered. Willie introduced him as Shane. Her skin crawled as she shook his cold and clammy hand. Willie and Bub said Shane was dangerous and now, unable to meet that penetrating stare, she agreed.

“You must be Halle,” he said. “Pleasure to meet you.”

She said nothing, a mixture of fear and anger burning inside her. Fear at what he would do to her and anger at her lack of power to stop it.

“I apologize for this cloak and dagger business,” he continued. “I’m sure you understand after what you saw at the house.”

“I didn’t…honestly, I didn’t see anything,” she said, eyes glued to the floor. “Just these guys chasing me through the woods. When can I go home?”

“Soon, if all goes well.” Shane acted calm, but tension coated the air, like he held on by a very thin thread. “We have to figure out what you did see and what we’re going to do about it. Why don’t you go into the back room and get cleaned up while Willie and I talk?”

“Then I can go home?”

“We’ll see.” A phrase translating as
No
. If Shane had his way, she wouldn’t set foot in her home again.

“I didn’t see anything,” she said again, forcing herself to look into those black eyes. Her cheeks ached with the tears that threatened to burst forth again.

“Well, we’ll find out for sure, won’t we?”

He waved her away and Willie took her by the arm, pushing her to the hallway. They passed a staircase leading down and stopped at an opened door leading to a wood paneled room with nothing but a queen-size bed and an antique dresser with a small lamp and a plastic alarm clock. She passed through the doorway and stopped to face Willie. His hands pressed on either side of the doorframe as if he were trying to hold it open. He represented her only chance at salvation and she had to convince him to help her.

“Willie,” she whispered, glancing over his shoulder. “I’m so scared.”

“You got a right to be,” he said. His breath smelled like cigarettes and sour milk. It took everything in her not to cringe away. Instead, she reached out and gently touched his hand with hers, drawing her body closer to his.

“You gotta help me, Willie. Don’t let them hurt me.”

With her touch, the pulse in his neck visibly pounded, the wanting fire in his eyes. He checked over his bony shoulder.

“I’ll do what I can,” he said. “Hell, I don’t know if any of us are safe. No promises.”

Halle held her close proximity to him with her hand on his for effect before he closed the door. Shuddering with repulsion, she wiped her hands on her shirt. She was screwed if she didn’t get out of here.

Hours later, after a futile search for an escape, she stood at the window, alternating glances between the spot-lit patio below and the morning sun rising behind the tree line across the gloomy lake. Would she see another sunrise? There was no way out of the room. They locked the door and posted a scary behemoth on the porch outside her window. Widow’s peak on top, cascading mullet in the back, and beady eyes. He looked like a rat with a wig.

The long-haired giant on the porch cranked his rodent face to the light and winked. Rather than let him see her skin crawl, she dropped back into the bedroom. She plopped on the bed and hugged her knees tight, wondering where her mother was at that moment. Would she ever see her again? She had to be freaking out by now; if only Halle could get word to her. Maybe Willie would deliver a message.

Just then the door opened and Shane walked in. A giant black man with a shaved head in a tight, blue T-shirt guarded the hallway. Halle bet he ate little children for breakfast.

“It’s time we had an honest chat, Halle.”

Halle pressed against the window and clutched the sill behind her as the black man in the hall grinned before turning his back. She stifled a scream as Shane shut the door and stepped towards her.

Jake welcomed Maggie's head on his chest while they waited for Bear. Light from the television bounced around the room like a strobe, its volume on low. Some late night infomercial offering double the crap if you placed your order in the next ten minutes.

In a weird way, it felt like high school again, hanging out and watching the tube on the couch with his girlfriend. He had a fleeting sensation her mom would pop out of the kitchen asking Jake if he wanted anything to eat, or, if the hour drew late, her dad strongly suggesting the time had come for Jake to hit the road.

He slid his hand up Maggie’s back and gently ran his fingers through her hair. She melted deeper into him, as if that touch shattered any lingering doubts about him like a sledgehammer against a mirror.

“God, I miss you doing that,” she said.

“Sorry, thought you were asleep.” He dropped his hand.

“No, don’t stop. It relaxes me. If that’s even possible.”

Had it really been sixteen years since he’d last sat on this couch? Leg wrapped up in a cocoon of bandages, a hinged brace stabilizing his knee, wondering what in the hell he would do with his life. When Stony shattered the knee, he shattered the dream and the man she loved.

The athletic scholarship offers were dropped, the college coaches quit sniffing around and the gravity of Warsaw became a massive, immovable force holding him. He knew her frustration as he spiraled down the spiritual drain knowing there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Jake retreated into a shell, and no matter how hard she tried, he wouldn’t come out.

Medicaid paid for the knee surgery by the cheapest surgeon available. Stony said he’d take him to Kansas City to get it done, but never came home. Maggie and Bear ended up driving him. Jake spent the trip silent as the countryside rolled by, so full of anger and despair that a constant film of tears clouded his vision.

After the surgery, he did a rotation with Maggie for the first couple of weeks before toughing it out at home. On the rare times the old man came home, Stony mocked him, calling him “the cripple.” Jake tried to put on a brave facade, but Maggie’s face sank when Stony said it; she could see in Jake's eyes that he believed it was true.

Maggie did everything she could to hold on to him. Why didn’t he let her in? She drove him to rehab in Sedalia before Jake decided to do it on his own with her help. She was there for every agonizing exercise, pushing him, comforting him. He walked again in three months and jogged in six, but his football days were over. Then, one day he left, just disappeared like a wisp of smoke, convinced he was doing the right thing.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months and months into years. Not a day passed where she didn’t cross his mind, curious if she ever wondered where he was or what he did. He thought of calling her so many times over the years, but too much time had passed and he was too afraid of what she might say.

In the past couple of days, he saw her bond with Halle in every glance at her picture and every determined step she made to find her. She needed her baby girl to keep her going and now a life without her hovered in the unthinkable realm of possibility.

“I don’t know what I’d do without her,” Maggie said, breaking the silence. Tears choked her voice. “She’s my everything, Jake.”

“We’re gonna find her, Mags. Sun is coming up and we’ll find her.”

Hot tears coursed down her cheeks. He swept them away and continued stroking her hair. She slipped her hand around his waist and hugged him tight.

“Is there anybody we need to call?” he asked. “Her dad? Where’s he?”

Maggie sat up and yanked a tissue from a box on the coffee table, dabbing her eyes with it.

“He’s been out of the picture,” she said. “I think not having a father figure around is what’s fueled her rebellious nature.”

“Nobody steady around?” His brain tried to form a mental image of her with another man, but thankfully nothing came to be.

Maggie grinned at his prying. “No. In fact, rumor around town is I’m a lesbian.”

Jake busted out laughing. Maggie joined him for a moment before it died out. She took a deep breath. A heaviness settled in the air, something she wanted to say.

“Jake...I have to tell you something, but I don’t know how.”

“Just say it. I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

She stared at the tissue in her hand, shredding it piece by piece. “That’s what you say now.”

“Maggie, say it.”

She straightened herself on the couch, facing him. “What do you remember about our last night together?”

His features sagged and his eyes dropped to his lap, the guilt literally pulling him down.

“I remember a wonderful night on the hill. You made a little picnic and we shared a bottle of some horrible tasting, cheap wine. We made love and stared at the stars, talking for hours. You tried to get me to see the brightness of the future, but I couldn’t get over the opportunities lost.”

She stroked his thumbs as he held her hands. “You remember more than I thought you would.”

Jake’s lips pressed together. “It’s taken me a long time to figure things out. Too long. The world I’ve been living in is a dark place full of pain and miserable people. It’s a place I helped create when I was young, and I’ve lived there because it’s all I know. It’s like ghosts are chasing me.”

Maggie moved closer and rested her hand on his shoulder.

“A place
you
helped create? You act like you brought this on yourself,” she said. “It’s not your fault. You may have continued the cycle but it was taught to you…taught on you.”

“I know,” he said. Empty words.

She lifted his chin. “Look at me, Jake, because you’re not hearing me. It’s not your fault.”

“I know,” he repeated.

“No, you don’t. Coming back home has stirred a lot of memories and you don’t just remember them now, you’re feeling them. You have the knowledge, the facts of what happened with Stony that night. But it doesn’t mean you understand it.”

He shrugged. “What the hell difference does that make?”

“Until you understand it,” she said, “until you understand him, you’ll never escape those ghosts you’re talking about. Until you understand it, you won’t be able to forgive.”

Forgive? Stony? “What in the hell makes you think I want to do that?”

“I think that’s exactly what you came home for.” She climbed to her feet and extended a hand. “Come help me make some coffee. I don’t want to collapse in exhaustion while we’re looking for Halle.”

Jake took her hand and followed her to the kitchen. She handed him the coffee pot and faced the refrigerator. On the door, pictures covered every open space. Maggie and Halle together, cheek to cheek. Halle bounding the track in her Warsaw uniform, hair flying behind her. Halle with a group of girlfriends, arms binding each other together with blazing smiles of untapped futures. Then, in the corner, a picture of Maggie, Bear and Jake in front of Warsaw High School in their graduation gowns, Bear and Maggie beaming for the brave new world. Jake also wore a weighted smile in the picture, like his bleak future pulled at the corners of his mouth.

He filled the coffee pot at the sink. Just being in this place with her took him back sixteen years as he savored the breathtaking burst of pink erupting from the Ozark tree tops out the back window.

“After our last night, why did you go?”

“I don’t know, Mags,” he said.

“I don’t know doesn’t work. Make something up if you have to, but I need to know. You have your ghosts, I have mine. Mine is the image of you walking down the hill to your house all those years ago. I’ve seen your face in countless strangers, stopped in my tracks when someone’s voice sounded like yours. I need to know.”

He set the coffee pot on the counter and turned to face her, but couldn’t bring his eyes past her bare feet. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. An immense and crushing weariness settled in his bones, the guilty feelings squeezing him, shrinking him.

“I’ve waited sixteen years to be able to ask this question,” she continued. “It’s haunted me because I loved you more than life itself back then. With you standing here in front of me now, it all seems so obvious. I never found anyone new. I always found a reason, some flaw with my boyfriends. I convinced myself it was because of Halle, but it was something else. It was you, Jake. I never stopped loving you. I have to know.”

“There was more going on than I knew what to do with,” he said. “Love for you, feeling responsible for Janey and Nicky, anger at Stony and this…this utter hopelessness at my dreams of getting out on the magic football carpet ride going up in flames. If I didn’t leave then and there, I never would. I’d end up like Stony. Things didn’t end up the way I planned.”

“So you had a plan?”

“As good a plan as a stupid eighteen year old who doesn’t know shit about shit can have,” he said. He moved his gaze from her feet to her hurt eyes. “I was a coward. A selfish coward who only thought of himself. I figured I’d run away, and all that Warsaw held over me would fade in the distance. Once I recognized it wasn’t going away, I didn’t think I could come back empty handed. Figured I’d settle in somewhere, earn some cash and come get you.”

“But you never did.”

“No. Once you start running, it’s hard to stop. I’d settle in somewhere new and it would be fine for a while. Then, I’d think of you and Janey and Nicky and Bear and Stony and the guilt would push me off to some other place. I figured I could outrun the ghosts.”

She grasped him by the arms. “But we’re not ghosts. The only past you’re running from is lying in a death bed in Sedalia. You don’t have to run anymore because there’s nothing left to run from.”

She pulled him to the refrigerator and pointed to the pictures of Halle. “Look at the good in the world,” she continued, her thumb tracking the outline of Halle’s face. “Just look at it.”

“You did good, Mags.”

She steeled herself. “No, Jake. We did good.”

Jake’s eyebrows furrowed together. He took a half step back and examined the pictures again.

“
We
did good,” she repeated.

“We? You mean…”

“Yeah. Halle is yours.”

The bombshell dropped. His mind was blank, too stunned to conjure up a cohesive thought. He gazed at the picture and the longer he stared, the more he saw. His daughter. Their daughter. He could almost hear Maggie’s pulse racing with anticipation for his response. After an open-mouthed minute of contemplation, he leaned in and kissed her on the forehead, letting his lips rest there, absorbing the moment. Maggie wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed him tight. The rising sun cast cheerful rays across the kitchen floor, silhouetting their united shape on the linoleum. He pulled back, cupping her face in his hands.

“Let’s go find our daughter,” he said.