The Damaged One (3 page)

“Since you’re going to be there anyway…”

Augustus tossed a pair of jeans into his bag, phone pressed to his ear as he glanced around the room for any other wayward possessions. “This is personal, Dave.”

“I know. But these guys
were instrumental in getting our latest app on the market. The least we could do is send a representative to their party. And it only makes sense, since you’re going there.”

Augustus groaned, dragging his fingers through his hair as he tried to find an excuse. Dave knew he hated this sort of thing. That was their deal from the beginning. Dave did all the marketing, the dog-and-pony shows, as they called them, while Augustus ran the office, creating the apps and games and
other software that was the heart of their company. It was how Pierce-Martin worked.

“If I know Doug, there will be pretty girls there,” Dave added in that teasing voice he used when he knew Augustus had run out of arguments.

“All right,” he said. “Text me the info.”

He ended the call and dropped the phone on the bed. It beep
ed immediately, announcing that he had a text message. Augustus picked it up, expecting the info from Dave, but it was a message from Charlie, his younger brother.

“Stopped by office. Said you were out of town. What’s up?”

Augustus sank down onto the bed, the phone between his hands. He should have called Charlie and Fontaine, should have told them what was going on. But how could he tell them this? What did he tell them? That Jackie had run away and gotten herself wrapped up in something she couldn’t control? That the drug they all hoped would kill their mother one day had actually taken their little sister? That they had to pay penance for something that was bigger than all of them?

He couldn’t. He had to find answers before he told them anything.

“Last minute business trip,” he typed into the phone. “Call in a few days.”

“Be safe,” came the quick response.

Two simple words that were like boulders tied around his neck.

Augustus snatched up his bag and walked out of the room.

* * * *

             
The drive to Houston was a long one. It gave Augustus plenty of time to think.

He had never imagined he would ever make this trip. Houston was the place of his birth, the only place he had known until just after his seventeenth birthday. It should have been that fabled hometown that most people were so proud to
embrace. Instead, it was a city filled with dark memories and regret.

Paige Pierce was a high
middle-class girl who got straight A’s and did everything a good American girl was supposed to do. She was a member of the yearbook staff, president of the student council, head of the cheerleading squad. Her boyfriend was the quarterback of the football team. A dark haired god who was just as straight-laced as she was. But it was this dark haired god that would be her downfall.

Unlike most good American girls, when Paige discovered she was pregnant a few months before graduation, she decided not to have an abortion. She had dreams of marrying her boyfriend, of going to college with a baby on her hip. Reality didn’t exactly work out that way. Instead, Paige’s boyfriend broke up with her, claiming the kid wasn’t his. Paige’s parents kicked her out of the house and refused to give her any money, not even the college fund that had been building since her own birth.
She was on her own.

For a while, she made it. She got a job, an apartment. She even had an old, used car that gave her only a little trouble. It was hard, but she was fighting the good fight. Even had dreams of finishing her education when the baby, Augustus, was a little older.
It should have worked. It would have worked if not for one night of violence.

Augustus squeezed the steering wheel as his thoughts roamed the past. He had never really known what drove his mother to do the things she had done. Not until he w
as an adult, a computer geek who knew how to find just the right information in newspaper and police databases. It was a sketchy story, but he was finally able to put all the pieces together. It was a gang rape. A group of depraved boys who took advantage of a single mother’s need to have a life outside of the responsibilities of parenthood.

The cops were less than sympathetic. The press barely paid attention. This sort of thing happened every day in
their part of the world. But Paige was not as strong as she needed to be. The drug addiction began within months, the prostitution when the addiction took away the job and the steady income.

First she lost her family, her identity. Then her dignity, her pride, her drive. After that, nothing else mattered, not even her young son.

Augustus often wondered how different all their lives might have been if Paige hadn’t gone to that party, if she hadn’t gotten kicked out of her parents’ home, if she hadn’t had him. Would she still have become an addict? Would she still have lost what it was that kept her present in her life? Or would it all have simply unfolded in another way?

When he was ten, he found his mother’s yearbook in a box of things in her closet while he was searching for money to give the landlord. There was a picture of his father, the first he had ever seen. He was surprised at how handsome and young the quarterback had been.
How innocent. Like the picture of his mother, neither fit with Augustus’s fantasy scenarios surrounding his conception.

Sometime later, h
e took a bus to the fancy suburbs to see the world where his mother grew up. It was a different world, a place that seemed almost a caricature of reality. He even saw his grandmother. She mistook him for a gardener’s helper when she spotted him standing on the sidewalk in front of her three-story mansion. She called to him with a slur that revealed just how many mimosas she’d already had at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning.

Augustus walked away and never looked back.

As a child, it had all seemed so clear cut. All these adults had chosen their addictions over family. As an adult, Augustus was mature enough to know that addiction was not always as simple as it might appear. But he still had little patience for those who picked their drug of choice over family. Even with Jackie.

If he had been a little more understanding, would it have made a difference?

He thought back to the final months they lived in Houston. Jackie was only five, a precocious child who was always happy, always eager to please. He protected her as best he could, but he couldn’t be with her all the time. He had been planning since before her birth to get the kids out of there, to make a run for it the moment he graduated high school. But that plan had holes and those holes became a gaping abyss the night he came home from picking Charlie up from afterschool tutoring. The smile was gone and it would be a very long time before it ever came back.

They left then, taking what little cash they could steal from their mother’s various hiding places. They made their way slowly up the state, sneaking onto Greyhound buses, hiding in the back of pickup trucks, begging for rides from traveling salesmen and lonely truckers. If they hadn’t made it to Denton when they did, if they hadn’t met Angela…

Augustus shook his head, trying to shake the memories. It all lay heavy on his mind, the things that should have been, the decisions he should have made sooner or differently. Would any of it have saved Jackie from her fate?

And then his thoughts moved to this therapist. What had she said to Jackie the night she died? Why was Jackie crying?

Jackie had seen therapists before. Each one had tried to break through the shell Jackie wrapped around herself, tried to probe the darkest parts of her mind to find that one wound that drove her to addiction. Jackie always insisted it was a genetic thing, that her addiction came from her mother’s addiction. She was born addicted to cocaine. Her body craved it, she claimed. It was that simple. But the therapists didn’t agree, especially after they heard parts of their family story.

Had this therapist been the one who finally broke that shell?

Augustus doubted it.

But what had she said to Jackie? The therapist was the last person to see Jackie alive, the last one to speak with her. It followed that something she said led to Jackie’s overdose.

He had to know.

The party was surprisingly crowded. Augustus looked around the
vast living room, an untouched glass of bourbon in his hand. He had already paid his respects to the hosts, kissed ass for the benefit Pierce-Martin Software, as instructed. He could leave and no one would likely notice. Except, maybe, for the pretty blonde at the makeshift bar. Or the brunette eyeing him from the far corner.

He was restless after the long drive the day before. There had been little to do today as he waited for Foster to find the therapist, Toby Vonn. She seemed just as elusive as Jackie had. Maybe Jackie had taught her a few things before Ms. Vonn drove her to suicide.

Augustus smiled at the Doug’s wife as she passed, asking if he had everything he needed. He nodded, courteous as ever. You learn a great deal about charm and small talk when you launch a small business into one of the most successful software companies operating in the U.S.

It also helps with women.

He was single, free to do as he pleased. He thought, maybe a little company wouldn’t be such a bad thing tonight. An outlet for all that pent up energy.

He headed toward the blonde until a voice at his elbow said, “I wouldn’t bother. She’s a flirt, but she always goes home with Jack.”

“But she hasn’t met me yet,” Augustus said, turning with his best charismatic smile cocked and ready.

Beautiful wasn’t enough to describe the woman who belonged to that soft, alluring voice. She was petite, tiny in a way that brought those protective instincts to the forefront. But there was a stubborn tilt to her chin, a defia
nce in her eyes that warned she was more of a tigress than a kitten. Her hair was long with soft, thick curls that highlighted the curve of her jaw. More brown than red, he couldn’t call the color auburn, but it was close. She was curvy in a way that made his palms itch, said curves highlighted by the short skirt and casual sweater she wore.

But it was her eyes that really caught his attention. He had seen blue before, blue in every shade from ice to a deep, dark blue that was almost purple. But these eyes…there were few words to describe the clarity of the color, the sharpness that made them pop in a face that was already unforgettable.

She tilted her head slightly as he took in everything about her. “Done?” she finally asked.

Augustus’s eyebrows rose, something like amusement turning his smile into something more genuine than it had been before. “Why are you standing here all alone?”

She shrugged. “Where should I be?”

“Surrounded by every randy male in the place.”

A blush colored her cheeks as she giggled at the idea. “I guess they know me too well here,” she said.

Augustus moved closer, trapp
ing her against the wall where she was casually leaning. “I can’t imagine knowing you too well.”

“It’s possible. Trust me.”

Augustus moved his eyes over her again, letting them linger over the things that appealed to him the most. Her breasts, so round and full, he physically ached to touch them. Her hips, round, but not too full, just asking to be grasped by strong masculine hands. Her legs, surprisingly long for her tiny stature. He could almost feel them wrapped around his own hips.

“Hey, up here,” she said, laying a finger under his chin to lift his face.

The touch was like electricity shooting through his body.

He studied her eyes, thought he saw the same surprise, the same desire, there. Or was it just a reflection of what was in his eyes? He couldn’t be sure because she quickly looked away.

“Didn’t mean to distract you from your mission.”

Augustus didn’t know what she meant at first. The blonde was long gone from his thoughts. “Sometimes distraction is a good thing,” he said.

A soft smile curled her full lips. “But one of these other ladies would probably be more of a sure thing.”

“Oh?” He touched her, slid his finger tip slowly over the curve of her chin. “Are you suggesting you might want to play hard to get?”

“I’m suggesting I’m not the one-night stand kind of girl.”

“What makes you think that’s what I want?”

“You just look like that kind of guy.”

“Should I be offended?”

She shrugged. Even that was a delicate movement that was executed with a grace that made it seem almost musical. Augustus couldn’t remember the last time he had been so overwhelmingly attracted to a woman. He moved closer, so close he could feel the soft breeze of each exhalation coming through her lips.

“Tell me what it is you want.”

Her eyes fell to the floor. “I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that.”

“I’m honored to be the first.”

She glanced up at him, that blush again adding color to her beauty. “You really are a charming guy.”

“Thank you.” He touched her arm. “Can I give you a ride home?”

She hesitated and that split second produced a bubble of hope that popped a second later. “No. I came with some friends.”

“Are you sure? It might be fun.”

She studied his face for a minute, a soft moan escaping her lips before she smiled. “I have to go,” she said, patting his shoulder lightly. “But it was nice to meet you.”

She ducked under his arm and moved around him. Augustus turned to watch her go, enjoying the sight despite the disappointment he couldn’t shake.
She glanced back at him and smiled when she saw him watching. But then someone called out and she turned, leaving him forgotten behind her.

Augustus swallowed all the bourbon in his glass in one gulp. It burned as it went down, but it was nothing compared to the heat aching in his groin. He leaned back against the wall, taking her place, continuing to watch her make her way out of the house.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Doug Marino had sidled up beside him. Doug was the host of this party, as well as the
owner of Magick Ads, the marketing company that had handled the launch of their last app.

“Yes,” Augustus agreed.

They both admired the beautiful lady until she slid out the front door. Doug cleared his throat, glancing around the room. Looking for his wife, Augustus suspected.

“So, Dave says you guys are on the verge of another big release.”

Augustus nodded. “Just finishing up the beta testing.”

“I kinda thought Dave would be the one to come tonight. To talk about the marking campaign.”

“He got tied up,” Augustus lied easily. “I’m sure he’ll be in touch, though.”

Doug took a long swallow from whatever was in the glass he was holding. “We’ve got a good team,” he said, beginning his sales pitch. “Had the last campaign up and ready in a matter of weeks. I’m sure we could
—”

Augustus stopped listening as he found himself wondering how Dave had talked him into this.