Special Delivery: Special Delivery, Book 1 (10 page)

Delia tucked the tape under her arm. “You make me
sick
. Utterly, completely
sick
. Carrying on with that kind of man not just while you were at work, but in
my
shop, right there where anyone could see you. I only hope no one else has seen this. I shudder to think what a laughingstock you would have made of me.”

Sam took another step back and ran into a display of books. He reached out to right it but only sent books tumbling to the floor. What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to say?

Delia didn’t seem to think he should say anything because she kept talking, and every word was a knife. “Your mother. Your poor mother. Thank God she’s not alive to see this. It’s her fault for encouraging you, but I’m glad she can’t see what you’ve become.”

That’s not fair,
Sam wanted to say, because it wasn’t, to judge him for one incident. But
he
knew what else he’d done, and how much more he wanted to do. He hated Delia for invoking his mother, but he couldn’t argue with her. He stood there, taking it, feeling small and miserable and dirty, not knowing what to do or say. He waited for her to finish, to throw him out, so this could end.

“Quite obviously,” she went on, “you won’t get paid for that day. I’d love to fire you for it, but that gets me nowhere, only gives you more time to plan your whorish little escapades.”

Sam blinked. “You—you aren’t kicking me out?”

“Oh, I’d love to. But how can I? I promised your mother I’d get you through school, even though we both know you’re never going to amount to anything when you finish.
If
you finish.” Delia stared at the ceiling, as if she couldn’t stomach the sight of Sam any longer.

“Delia, I’m sorry.” He really was.

“Go. Leave. I don’t care what you do with yourself today—just go.” She leveled her gaze at him. “But you’ll be at the house tonight, at six sharp. You’ll be there, and you’ll do whatever your uncle and I say. There will be nothing more of what I saw on this tape. Do you understand? Nothing like this ever again, or so help me, I
will
throw you out, promise or no.”

She turned on her heel and stalked toward the office. Sam watched her go, too numb, too horrified, too defeated to do anything else. It wasn’t until a customer came through the door that he was able to move.

He left his car at the pharmacy and walked aimlessly all the way to the north edge of town. A text came through on his phone, but he didn’t look at it, only reached down and turned off the ringer inside his pocket. He walked on and on and on, barely making sure cars weren’t coming before he crossed the roads.

He ended up in a cornfield.

It was June, so the field was already planted, full of neat and orderly rows of corn sprouted as far as the curve of the earth would allow him to see. The ground was black and rich, and the corn was bright green. It looked so good, so right, so full of promise.

It made Sam sad.

I promised your mother I’d get you through school, even though we both know you’re never going to amount to anything when you finish.

He’d known Delia hated him, but he hadn’t known she’d already written him off.
Never going to amount to anything.
The words kept ringing in his head, pealing the bell of his damnation.

It’s her fault for encouraging you, but I’m glad she can’t see what you’ve become.

Never going to amount to anything.

You make me sick. Utterly, completely sick.

Never going to amount to anything.

He sat there for hours, so full of shame he didn’t know how he’d ever rise again. It would only get worse. She’d yell more tonight, and his uncle would be there too. Thank God he and Mitch
hadn’t
done anything outside the trailer—she was grossed out by the touching and kissing. What if she had seen the rest?

But it was so good. It was better than anything that’s ever happened to me.

Sam buried his face in his hands, let out a shuddering breath and held himself there, palms over his eyes, thumbs in his ears, breathing, and breathing, and breathing.

When he was able, he pulled out his phone to check the time and turn the ringer back on. It was four o’clock. He had two hours until judgment day. Oh God, he’d rather die. He scrolled through his texts, saw Emma had left four and a voice message too, but he couldn’t deal with her right now. He couldn’t talk to anyone, possibly not ever again. He couldn’t—

Sam frowned at a phone number he didn’t recognize at the beginning of a text. He pushed it warily to bring up the message, and then he sucked in a sharp breath.

Hey, Sunshine. Headed past your exit, and I thought of you. Hope you’re having a great summer.

Sam’s hands trembled as he reread the text. He checked the time stamp.
1:15.
Mitch had been here—in Middleton.

Come back.

The next thing Sam knew, his fingers moved over the keypad.

Shitty summer. Shittiest ever.
He shut his eyes until he had himself under control, letting out an unsteady breath as he finished.
I should have gone with you.

For some reason,
this
, not anything his aunt said, broke him, and he put the phone on the grass beside him and buried his face in his knees.

His phone chirped out a few bars of Kylie’s “Fever” to let him know he had a text. Sam lifted his phone from the grass with shaking hands.

I can swing back and pick you up.

Another text came through.

You want me to?

Sam heard nothing, saw nothing and knew nothing but the small, luminescent screen in his hand and the four beautiful words staring up at him. In a dream, he slowly punched in four characters, and “send.”

Yes.

Then he added, a little more quickly,

Please?

His whole body ached as he waited for the reply. It came in under a minute.

Meet me at the DeSoto truck stop at 8. Call me if you have any trouble.

Sam clutched at the phone, staring at the message and trying to digest the enormity of what he had done.

Another text came through.

Will you be okay until I get there?

Sam typed a response.
Yes.
Then he added, with shaking hands,
Thank you.

He could almost hear the reply echoing in his head with Mitch’s thick, sultry drawl.

Anytime, Sunshine. Anytime.

No one was in the house when he arrived, but Sam still moved through it like a thief, his heart pounding so hard he thought he’d have an attack. When he got to his room, he forced himself to slow and run a steady circuit through his possessions. He lingered a long time at the bookshelf, hesitating with some anxiety over his comics. In the end he left them all, but he felt sick knowing there was a good chance Delia would sell them, or worse still, throw them away. He’d have to have Emma keep them safe.

Emma.
He pulled out his phone then put it away. No. She’d talk him out of this. He’d call her once he was on the road.

Should you be talked out of this?
Sam shoved the voice of reason into the bottom of his backpack with the rest of the clothes inside. He had to go. He had to do this, to try.

In the end, from his room he only took toiletries and clothes, stuffing his backpack until it nearly burst, but when he was done, he went upstairs. He was terrified every second of hearing the key in the lock of the front door, but the sound didn’t come, and he forced himself to calm. He had a half an hour left. Plenty of time.

He dropped his backpack with a weighty thud in a chair in the living room and hurried into the kitchen. He returned with an empty plastic food container in his hand, which he opened as he approached the small, lavish urn on the narrow shelf. With great care, he set them both down on the brick before the fireplace, opened the urn and dumped the contents into the plastic tub.

He was
not
leaving without her. Sam’s hands shook while he poured, as he worried that
now
he would feel the ghosts, and they would beat him and pin him to the floor and send him instantly to hell for messing with his mother’s ashes, but nothing happened, and once he sealed the container shut, he felt calm. Sam recapped the urn quickly and placed it back on the mantle.

To get the container into his pack, he had to lose two T-shirts, and these he stuffed into the bottom of a decorative, wide-mouthed vase in a corner because he was now so panicked about getting caught he didn’t want to take the time to run downstairs. His need to get away had become acute urgency, as if the whole universe were about to press on him and keep him in place, to trap him in Delia’s clutches forever. At this point he didn’t care if it were a real or imagined threat—he didn’t want it to happen, period.

Sam hefted his backpack onto his shoulder and left.

He drove through the development onto the highway and headed south toward Desoto. He was going. He was
gone
. His panic abated a little. This would work. He was really leaving. He was actually doing it, and it was going to
work
.

Fifteen miles out of town his car died.

Sam stared at the dashboard, letting the loud silence fill his ears. He tried to start it several times—he got out and opened the hood, looking for something obvious, but he wouldn’t have known what to do with it even if he’d found something. It all seemed like car to him. He tried several more times to get the engine to turn over, but it wouldn’t budge, and now it was clearly flooded too.

Was this a sign? Was
this
his mom interfering, stopping him from doing something completely stupid?

It
was
stupid. This was crazy. This was insane. Stupid, reckless, and
he
was stupid and reckless. He couldn’t keep his car running, and now he was skipping off with his alley fuck? What the hell did he think he was going to prove? He should go home.

Never going to amount to anything.

You make me sick. Utterly, completely sick.

Never going to amount to anything.

The doubt rose higher, crested, and then suddenly it was gone, beat down by an unexpected lightning strike of anger.

He wasn’t going back. He wasn’t
ever
going back.

Sam sorted furiously through his pack, taking more and more out of it until it was light enough to haul without breaking his back. He got out of the car, locked it and headed south, texting madly as he went.

My car died on 965,
he typed to Mitch,
but I’m coming on foot as fast as I can.

It was three miles to the exit, which was nothing by car but might as well have been ten miles when he was running with a backpack strapped to him. He stopped when his text message chimed, but he growled in frustration and stowed it when he saw it was only Emma. He didn’t have time for that now. He had to go. He had to get there, because he’d missed his destiny the first time. He wasn’t going to let it slip away again.

When he stepped into a rabbit hole on the side of the road and twisted his ankle, he went down in a cry of anguish, realizing he could never cover this distance, not in time, acknowledging destiny would in fact brush past him once more. As he sank into the dirt and grass and the cold bit through his sheen of sweat, he turned his face to the sky, and when his view became blurry, he let the tears fall.

The sun was setting in the west, and it was so bright Sam could barely look at it. It cast the road in brilliant orange-red light, making the shadows of the road signs and fence posts so long they seemed to go on forever. It glared over the rim of the world, over the last hill that Sam could see, where, just beyond his vision, the interstate wound its way to Omaha and on toward Denver. He could see the tips of the signs advertising the truck stop where Mitch waited.

Sam got up, put his pack back on his shoulders and limped on.

Somehow he got to the top of the hill, and though he still had another half a mile to go, he could see the truck stop in the distance. He searched madly for the blue of Mitch’s rig, but he couldn’t see it. It was getting dark fast, and by the time he arrived at the overpass it was almost completely dark. He pulled out his phone and saw it was five minutes past the time Mitch had appointed. Surely he’d wait a few minutes? Sam hurried over to the other side of the building, but though he scanned the lot, there was no blue semi there.

He circled the property twice, but Mitch wasn’t anywhere.
He wouldn’t leave me,
he tried to reassure himself, but panic bit him, and his stupid tears threatened to come back. He pushed them away and headed to the ramp, setting his jaw in determination. No. Mitch wouldn’t leave. He
wouldn’t
.

Though it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to call and check where he was.

Sam actually had his cell phone in his hand when he heard the unmistakable sound of a big truck braking and shifting gears. Looking up, he saw a great hulk of a semi coming down the hill toward him, heading onto the overpass, lights blazing. It was huge. It was beautiful.

It was blue.

Chapter Eight

The semi came to a stop in the middle of the road across from Sam, and Mitch leaned out the window.