Texas Kissing (7 page)

Annette had bought a car for me—an old, clapped-out thing most scrap yards would reject, but it would get me into the next state. I’d be dropped off at her house by Antonio, supposedly for an evening of giggling about boys.

We’d sneak out through the window above the garage, pick up the car from where she’d parked it down the street and I’d be gone. I’d been stashing clothes and possessions for months, smuggling a skirt or a top to college in my backpack each day and giving it to her to pack for me. We thought we were so fucking clever.

We were so fucking stupid.

I showed up at her house, said hi to her parents and ran upstairs to her room. We hugged, double-checked the plan, then slipped out of the window. It took us thirty seconds to reach the car.
This is it! It’s happening! I’m free!

I opened the door and the interior light came on. Antonio turned to me from the driver’s seat and smiled a smile that had absolutely no warmth. A smile that said he was finally going to get his revenge on me for all those years spent nursemaiding me.

“Get in the car,” he told us. “Both of you.”

He drove us back to my house. Annette was shaking and sobbing in the back seat, but there was nothing I could do. When she tried to dial her parents on her cell phone, Antonio snatched it out of her hand. And because we’d oh-so-carefully instructed her parents not to disturb us—we had
boys
to giggle about—no one would miss us for hours.

When Antonio pulled up outside our house, three of my uncle’s men were waiting to hustle us out of the car and into the living room. Standing in the middle of the room was my uncle, his face dark with fury. I realized the blinds were all drawn and the TV was turned up loud. That’s when I started to get really, really scared.

There was a kitchen chair next to my uncle and the men pushed Annette down into it. One of the men stood on either side of her with their hands on her shoulders, to keep her in place. I was pushed into an easy chair across the room from her.

“How
dare
you?” Uncle Erico spat. “How fucking
dare
you?”

Annette and I stared at each other, eyes huge. She looked like I felt: pale and shaky, ready to throw up from fear.

“I’m really, really sorry,” I said. “I’m really, really sorry.” I kept saying it, repeating it like a litany.

“You want to get involved with our family?” Uncle Erico asked Annette. I’d never heard his voice so cold. “Congratulations, you’re fucking involved.”

“I wouldn’t have talked to anyone!” I yelled. “I wouldn’t have gone to the FBI!
Ever!
I just wanted to get out!”

Uncle Erico snapped his head around to look at me. “You will never,
ever
leave your family behind,” he told me. Then he squeezed Annette’s cheeks until her jaw was forced to open.

And he popped the first pill inside.

Antonio had a cardboard pill carton and was systematically popping pills out of the foil and making a pile in his hand. I read the carton and the name printed on the side and felt sick. Annette’s mother’s sleeping pills.

Uncle Erico shoved another pill into Annette’s mouth. Another. Another. Annette was sobbing, mascara running down her face. She was too scared to spit the pills back out and I could see them rolling around her dry mouth.

“Please,” I sobbed. “Please stop.”

“You need to learn, Tessa,” my uncle snapped. “This is what happens when you get involved with outsiders.”

My uncle took a bottle of water and upended it into Annette’s mouth. She thrashed and struggled but, with two men holding her down, she had no hope. I saw her throat bulge and swallow.

And Antonio handed Uncle Erico the next mouthful of pills.

“
Stop!”
I yelled hysterically, tears coursing down my cheeks. I still thought, at that point, that it was just going to be a warning, that he’d stop before he’d done more than knock her out for a while. “Please! I’ll stay. I promise, I’ll stay. I’ll never leave.”

Uncle Erico looked over his shoulder at me. “You’re goddamn right you won’t,” he whispered. And stuffed another six pills into my best friend’s mouth.

Annette was kicking and thrashing, now. She knew what was being done to her and she knew she was powerless to stop it happening. It must have been like drowning in slow motion, feeling pill after pill slide down her throat, knowing what they’d do to her. I can’t imagine anything worse, except maybe watching it happen.

Uncle Erico kept going until the pills were all gone. His men kept holding Annette down until they took effect. That was the worst part—sitting there, staring at each other, feeling the seconds tick away, knowing that if she could only stumble to a toilet and make herself sick, she might still be okay. A couple of times, she whipped a hand up to her mouth and tried to shove fingers down her throat, but my uncle’s men always caught her in time, gently but firmly holding her wrists.

I saw her head start to nod and her eyelids slide down. She fought it as long as she could, sobbing for mercy, pleading with them. And, when that didn’t work, pleading with
me.

And finally, just before she went to sleep, she half-opened her eyes and looked right at me. A look that I’ll never forget, one of pure hatred and anger and shattered loyalty. Her eyes asked me,
why?!

And then I watched her die.

Uncle Erico explained what would happen if I ever tried anything like this again. Anyone who helped me would get the same treatment.

He made me help his men carry Annette out to some woods near her house and lay her body on the ground, along with the empty sleeping pills box from her mother’s medicine cabinet. Antonio must have sneaked in and stolen them earlier that day, when Annette’s parents were at work. My uncle had known about our plan the whole goddamn time.

I had to sneak back into Annette’s house and then come happily down the stairs and tell her parents that Annette had dozed off upstairs and that they probably shouldn’t wake her. Then I went home and cried my heart out.

The next morning, Annette’s parents found that she wasn’t home and that her bed hadn’t been slept in. The police were called. I was summoned.

I’m sorry,
I told them
. Annette asked me to cover for her. She slipped out the window—said she needed some time alone. No, I don’t know where she went. I’m sorry I lied.

Then Annette’s mother discovered the missing sleeping pills and the search turned frantic. They found her body in the woods, cold and alone and without a friend in the world.

I had to pretend she’d been depressed. I had to stand there and take it as her mother sobbed and screamed and cursed at me, demanding to know how I could be such a terrible friend. There was free counseling at our college for her friends and our parents were told to put us all on suicide watch.

No problem,
Uncle Erico told the college.
I’ll keep a real close eye on her.
He even came to the funeral, clasping Annette’s mother’s hand and telling her how awful it all was. She blamed herself, of course, because they’d been her sleeping pills.

I couldn’t even look her in the eye. She’d been right—I was a terrible friend.

Uncle Erico thought he’d broken me. I did everything I was asked without complaint or hesitation. I went to college every day like a good girl and was driven home every night by Antonio. I never left the house without an escort.

But I hadn’t given up. I’d simply made a decision. I was going to escape, but this time I wasn’t going to bring anyone else into my problem. I was going to do it all on my own and, if I failed, I’d be the only one who suffered.

At college, I slept, dozing off in a quiet corner of the library. My grades plummeted. In my room at night, I returned to hacking and coding with a vengeance, learning everything I could. This time, I wasn’t exploring aimlessly; this time, I had a purpose.

I was learning everything I could about government databases and forgery. I was going to create a new identity for myself.

I learned about where in China makes the best fake holograms and how to trick the DMV database into thinking you’re an engineer running tests. I struck up relationships with people who could help me—hackers and forgers and low-paid clerks in government departments. I switched some of my college classes to arts so that I had an excuse to spend hundreds of dollars on plastics and paper. My uncle didn’t care about that or my falling grades—when I was married off, I wouldn’t need a college degree anyway.

It took me over a year of painstaking work to become an expert. I must have made and destroyed a few thousand fake passports and driver’s licenses before I finally had a set that were perfect.

Then I gathered up my savings and, one morning, I simply walked out of a fire exit at college and disappeared.

I knew my uncle would be looking for me—he couldn’t risk just letting me go. It was about more than just the fear of me going to the FBI and testifying against him and the rest of the mob—I’d betrayed him by leaving and he’d never, ever forgive that.

The irony was that I was far too scared to go to the FBI. I couldn’t face my uncle across a courtroom and recount what he’d done to Annette, or all the contract killings and extortions I’d heard about. I couldn’t face all those months in hotel rooms and safehouses during the trial, wondering when someone sent by my uncle would get to me. Maybe if I’d had someone with me, someone to support me, but not on my own.

I could change my name but I couldn’t change my face, so I stayed the hell away from cameras and looked for a way I could earn a living—something I could do from home, with minimal contact with people.

Fortunately, I’d accidentally taught myself a very marketable skill. I bought the bus and set up in Texas, convenient for meeting with the Mexicans. They were always in need of fake passports.

My fake IDs became known in the underworld as the best around and I made them for criminals from Russia to Japan...but never, ever for the Mafia.

And I never let myself get close to anyone again.

Lily

Now

I sat there in the darkened car for a full half hour before I finally had myself under control. The drive home helped—it was familiar, relaxing. It helped me remember that I was thousands of miles away from New York. I didn’t kid myself that I was safe: I’d never be safe, with my uncle out there looking for me. But I was as safe as I’d ever been.

As the memories receded, the anger started. It was almost a relief.

I hadn’t had a full-on breakdown like that in months, and it was all because I’d forgotten the rules. I’d gotten lazy and careless and let myself believe that I could start some kind of
thing
with some guy. As if it was possible for me to be happy.

As if I deserved it.

I parked beside the bus and stomped inside, slamming the door behind me.

Or I would have done, if I hadn’t lived on a goddamn bus. I had to hit the key fob remote and then stand outside, fuming, while the door did its agonizingly slow
pump...hiss
and folded open. And once I was in, I found that bus doors don’t really slam, either, so I had to settle for mashing the button as hard as I could.

Now I was even more frustrated. With him. With me. Mainly with me.

I turned on the coffee pot. It was getting late but I needed to work. My stupid attempt at a night out had put me behind. What I do pays well and there’s no need for me to take on as many jobs as I do, but staying busy keeps me from thinking about the past.

I fell into my seat and picked up where I’d left off. But working didn’t vent my anger or quiet my brain.
Stupid!
I trimmed an edge that wasn’t quite straight.
Idiot!
I checked the printing.
Moron!
I tested the hologram.
Stupid, idiotic, moron acting like a freaking teenage girl—

I threw down the passport and stomped to the kitchen to get coffee, adding lots of milk so that I could drink it immediately. I stood there glowering at my own reflection in the darkened window, glugging the entire mug. I resisted the urge to hurl it at the floor.