The Space Between (The Book of Phoenix) (5 page)

“You really called the cops?” I asked in disbelief. My body shook harder, anger combining with the fatigue. He wouldn’t really have me arrested, would he? The curtains over the kitchen window next door parted a hair, and Mrs. Gingham’s face peeked out at all the noise. When our eyes met, hers flitted away.

“Who did ya think I called?” the guy asked. “Yeah, I called the cops. I want ya off my property now!”

“But . . . but—” Surely Uncle Theo wouldn’t go this far. “You really don’t know Theodore Drago?”

Something flickered on the man’s face. Aha! I knew it! He did know Uncle Theo.

“We got a problem here?” one of the officers asked, sauntering up to us the way cops do, his thumbs in his pockets. Big, dark glasses hid his eyes, but I felt them on me and not in a protector-of-the-peace-appropriate way. The other policeman stayed by his car on the street, watching us closely.

“Hold on,” the guy said, lifting his hand out to the cop. “You said Drago? Are you Jacquelena Drago?”

I wanted to roll my eyes at my full given name, but relief the guy finally admitted his recognition flooded over me. “Leni, please, but yes. I’m Theo’s niece. You going to tell these nice officers they can go now?”

The guy shook his head. “I still don’t know no Theo or Theodore, but that ugly damn truck there is registered in your name. I was goin’ to have it towed tomorrow. You can take it and get both you and the truck off my property.”

That was it. I didn’t think even my stoic, always proper mama could restrain herself a minute longer.

I threw my hands up in exasperation, then turned to the policeman and tried not to spit my words out. “Sir, please tell this man he is mistaken. This house belongs to my uncle, Theodore Drago, and I live here with him. I’ve been out of the country for over a month, been traveling for two days, and I’m too tired to deal with this nonsense. If this guy doesn’t drop the charade, I’d like you to arrest
him
for trespassing.”

“You’re the one talkin’ nonsense,” the guy barked.

The deputy stepped forward, spreading his arms out to hold his hands up to both of us. “Whoa, now. This is easy enough to clear up. First, I need to see some I.D. for both of you.”

With a measured breath, still barely able to keep my cool, I dug my driver’s license out of my wallet and handed it to the policeman.

“Wait here a moment,” he said as he took the dude’s I.D. and walked toward the other policeman while talking into the mic clipped to his shoulder.

Within a few minutes, in which neither the man nor I had broken our glare on each other, the cop turned back to us.

“Sorry, ma’am, but we don’t have a Theodore Drago on file for ownin’ anythin’ here. This here house and lot belongs to a Maury Mastich.” He turned toward the guy and held out his I.D. “And I see that’s you.”

“Yes, sir,” the guy said.

My jaw dropped.
This can’t be happening!

“Ma’am, you need to vacate the premises,” the deputy said to me. “The owner don’t want you here. If you resist, I’ll have to arrest you for trespassin’.”

“There has to be a mistake,” I protested, panic starting to seep into my voice. “I’ve lived here for over two years.”

“Not according to your driver’s license, you don’t. Says here you live on Peach Blossom Street.” He held my I.D. out to me.

Crap.
I’d never changed my address when Mom and Dad moved away.

“Still,” I said, flustered. “My uncle has owned this house for . . . forever! You must have the address wrong.”

“The address and deed filed with the county have been verified, ma’am,” the cop said. “You can go to the courthouse tomorrow to see for yourself.”

“I’d like to go right now,” I said indignantly.

“It’s Sunday, ma’am. The courthouse ain’t open.”

I huffed out a breath, fighting the urge to stomp my foot like a child. “Ask the neighbors, then. Mrs. Gingham right next door will tell you.”

“Mrs. Gingham is who called me to say a strange girl she’d never seen before was snoopin’ around my place,” Maury Mustache said.

I glanced toward her window again. She didn’t have the decency to drop the curtain this time, but stared at me as if I’d tried to break into her house and murder her. Mrs. Gingham whose dog I’d walked every time she was sick or out of town looked at me as though I was a complete stranger, and a dangerous one at that. What the hell was going on?

“Can you at least tell me where my uncle is, then, if he doesn’t live here?” I asked, trying to preserve some dignity although I really wanted to scream and throw an all-out temper tantrum at the absurdity of this afternoon.

“Ma’am, we have no record of a Theodore Drago. He’s not in any Georgia database.”

“He hasn’t had a driver’s license for a few years. Look back some.”

The policeman took a step forward and bowed his chest out further. “Ma’am, our databases go back several decades. There is no record of Theodore Drago and when I say
no record,
I mean no record. No driver’s license. No vehicle titles. No house deeds. No utilities. As far as the State of Georgia is concerned, Theodore Drago don’t exist. Now, please, ma’am, this gentleman would surely like to get back to his Sunday dinner. You must leave the property, or I
will
arrest you.”

He fingered his handcuffs. I swallowed the lump that had grown in my throat as he explained, then nodded. I’d never been to jail—never been in real trouble in my life—and wasn’t about to break that streak now. Besides, I needed to focus on finding Uncle Theo and then resolve this tomorrow at the courthouse, which I couldn’t do if I were sitting behind bars.

I picked up my bags and lugged them over to my truck, neither of the men offering to help as I threw them into the cab. Where had all their southerly manners gone? Before I climbed into the driver’s seat, I turned to Mr. Mustache.

“Was there anything at
all
in the house when you took possession?” I asked, my polite way of demanding where our belongings were. I, at least, could retain some manners.

He shook his head once, but then stopped himself. “Well, hold on. There was this book.”

He opened his car door and dug around inside a bit, then popped out, holding a heavy-looking, brown-covered book in his hand. He held it out toward me.

“I tried to open it, but couldn’t get through the clasp,” the Mustache said. “Couldn’t even cut through the leather strap. It’s useless to me, so you can have it if you want it.”

I’d never seen the book—which I could see now looked like a leather-bound journal—in my life, but if he’d found it in Uncle Theo’s house, I certainly wasn’t leaving it in his hands. Fuming with embarrassment and anger, I stalked over to him, snatched the book and stomped back to my truck, where I tossed it to the passenger side floor. I got in, turned the engine over and revved it. The truck was old, but in decent condition.

“You’ll have to move if you want me out of here,” I yelled over the noise.

Massive Mustache and the cop jumped into their respective cars and pulled them out of my way. Controlling my urge to floor the gas pedal and peel out, I drove off without a backward glance in my rearview mirror.

I headed straight to Mira’s, but no one was there, either. Her curtains were drawn closed, so I couldn’t see inside her little bungalow. I couldn’t imagine where else Uncle Theo and Mira would have gone. Perhaps the lake, although the likelihood of that was near zero considering Mira refused to drive on highways. None of this made sense, and my brain became slower and slower at trying to figure it out. I considered going to the lake anyway, but there was no way I’d make the hour drive without falling asleep at the wheel. Besides, somewhere deep inside, I knew I needed to stay here. So I went to the only hotel in town. As I crashed, my sleep-fuzzed eyes stared at the tattoo on my wrist.

I didn’t have a tattoo.

Chapter 4

  Renting a car as a deaf driver wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do, but not entirely impossible either. I knew Atlanta well enough to know where to go, and several hours after landing, I had a cheap little compact I could barely fold myself into. At least I had a vehicle, and although sleep tried to shut me down, I managed to make the drive to the small town outside of Atlanta. The caramel-curled girl at the airport hadn’t looked back once, and by the time I’d passed through customs, she was gone. Just as well. The girl was driving me insane, the last thing I needed right now.

The sun was still in the mid-spring sky when I crashed in the hotel room, and it was dark when I woke. 3:49 a.m. A little too early to be knocking on someone’s door, especially when I was already the last person they’d want to see. Some people said I was crazy, but I wasn’t stupid. I went for a run then pushed through my sit-up and push-up routine, though I hardly worked up a sweat. Maybe when life returned to normal, I could step up my routine. As if I’d ever have a normal life.

After a shower and breakfast at the hotel’s free buffet of simple carbs that tasted like ass, I searched through my journal for the last known address and plugged it into the rental’s navigation system. It wasn’t even nine a.m. when I pulled up in front of the small, one-story house. After a long pep talk, I forced myself out of the car and up the walk to the door. Jabbed the doorbell button. Again. And again. Pounded on the door with my fist because I couldn’t hear if the doorbell worked. Nothing. The curtains were pulled tight against the windows, so there was no telling if anyone moved around inside.

The neighbor’s curtain, however, parted, and an older woman, probably in her seventies, peeked out, then came out her front door. Her mouth moved, but I shook my head and yanked on my ear. I brought up my typical “I can’t hear” screen on my phone to show her, but she was already inside and out again with a paper and pen.

“Nobody lives there,” she wrote with a shaky hand. “Been empty for some time now.”

“How long, exactly?” I wrote. Her mouth moved, and she probably didn’t know I could read her lips as she debated with herself—was it a few months ago or before her hip surgery? Before, but the first one or the second one? The first one was over a year ago. She didn’t think it’d been that long.

She finally shook her head then wrote: “About a year ago?”

As if I could trust her assessment. I scrolled through the photos in my phone to a picture I’d taken of another picture, the only one I had left of that life. I showed it to the older woman and asked if she knew the people in it.

“Oh, yes,” she started to speak. I nodded and let her know I could read her lips. It would be much faster than waiting for her to write it all out. “I think I do. I haven’t seen them in years, though. Did he die? I think he did. Oh, no, maybe that was her son.”

I cringed, but she rambled on without notice, and it became clear she didn’t remember much unless it happened at least fifty years ago. But she was quite vocal about me.

“I don’t understand ya’ll and your doodles on your skin. Doesn’t make sense why you’d want to ruin what God gave ya, bless your heart.” She cocked her head as she looked up at my face. “Did you fix my TV, sonny? That jumpy screen will drive an old woman mad. You’re the cable man, right?”

She grabbed my arm with surprising strength and dragged me inside. Without understanding why I was even doing it, I looked at her cable box, tightened the connection, and was on my way. She tried to give me five dollars, but I left it on her end table and pounded pavement to get out of there. She was a sweet old lady who probably shouldn’t be living alone, but we’d wasted enough of each other’s time.

I drove aimlessly around the small town, circled the town square, then pulled into an empty parking spot and stared ahead without seeing. Where had the woman I’d once called Grams gone? Had she been the woman the neighbor said had recently moved out? And what was “recently”? She’d never clarified if it had been a few months or a few years, although surely the place wouldn’t have stayed empty for long. Maybe Grams had gone back north, to where I’d grown up. But what about the old man, my gramps? Well, he’d been my gramps at one time. Until he decided I was no longer anything but a bad memory to him, and I decided the feeling was mutual. Was he really dead? Was Grams dead, too?

A lump formed in my throat, and the urge to punch something nearly overcame me. I needed air. I jumped out of the car and started walking. I had no destination in mind, but a head of curls drew my attention to the diner on the other side of the square. I made my way over and although the curls were gone, I ducked inside and slid into a booth, the only customer there. It was a little early for lunch, but my bio-clock was so whacked, I didn’t care.

A Georgia-peach of a waitress took my texted order in stride and brought me chicken-fried steak with gravy and mashed potatoes and bottomless cups of sweet tea. She even went so far as to give me her number. Surprise, surprise. I left it on the table, which didn’t escape her notice—her lower lip stuck out in a pout as her eyes followed me out the door. No reason to lead her on. Tempting, but I was still on a mission.

To where, I wasn’t sure. My gut told me to hang tight here, even when this little town seemed to be a dead end. Of course, my gut had been wrong about Italy, so maybe it had lost its touch. Maybe I shouldn’t trust it so much. But without facts or even clues, what else did I have to go on besides instinct? Besides, to be honest, it was more than normal instinct or a vague sense of what I should do. This was a gravitational pull as if I had a huge magnet in my ass moving me beyond my control. Or more like a barbed trident hooked into my insides, yanking me around, to and fro, and if I fought it, I’d have one helluva hole in my gut. So I didn’t fight it.

After stopping at a barbershop for a much-needed haircut, I returned to the hotel and paid for another night. Once in my room, I pulled out my tablet—the only computer I still had—and tapped into the hotel’s Wi-Fi. Maybe I was supposed to stay here because this place really wasn’t the end. There must still be something—a clue, a lead, a person—I might find here.

Hoping to find a new address, I searched my grandparents’ names, but found nothing. Not just no known address, but nothing at all. I’d found this address for Grams on the Internet two years ago and had confirmed it right before leaving for Italy. There had also been the obituaries with their names listed as survivors and articles about the accident, but now there was nothing. Zilch. Nada. Even the obits were gone.

I scrubbed my hands over my freshly buzzed head. What was I supposed to do now? Sit here and wait for another clue? Another pull on my gut? What kind of plan was that? It wasn’t one. I threw myself back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to develop a new plan, but my mind drew a blank. I had nothing to go on. I was done. My mission for the last two-plus years had ended.

Anger began simmering within me, but jetlag won out.

The room was dark again when I woke, and my mood foul. I needed a drink. Turns out, the hotel bar was the hopping spot of the town. By the time I made it there, it was already half-full and a country band was setting up on stage. Yee-fuckin’-haw. I slammed back a shot of tequila. And then another. And more until all thoughts of my screwed up family, of the failed goal to find my
real
family, even of Leni were obliterated. And lucky for me, the little peach from the diner showed up, and she wasn’t nearly as mad as she’d pretended to be.

Unfortunately, her boyfriend was. Unfortunately for him, that is.

A few more drinks and he and his friends might have had me, but they didn’t know whom they were messing with. I used to get paid to fight much uglier and much meaner dudes than this. So when I saw the fist flying at me out of the corner of my eye, I ducked, then threw a punch of my own. Someone must have said to take it outside, because two large hands shoved me until we were through the door. Adrenaline pumped through my system, giving me a high I hadn’t felt in years, and I jumped around on the balls of my feet. I wished I could speak—speak normally, anyway—but my taunting came in other ways.

The three douchebags fell for it and came at me all at once. Not a single fist touched me, but I landed several punches on them. I danced around as they swung, ducking and dodging when necessary, then answering with my own fists. A small crowd poured out of the bar, gathering around us. As much fun as I was having, I’d have to end this soon or someone would call the police. Cops were a buzz-kill. With three more punches and a knee to a face, all three of the fuckers were down. The crowd quickly dissipated, leaving the dudes on the ground, me and my peach.

“Your boyfriends?” I mouthed to her. She wrinkled her nose at the guy directly at my feet, then held her index fingers in a cross: ex. Then she wrapped her arm around my waist and insisted on accompanying me to my room to make sure I was okay.