Unfiltered & Unlawful (The Unfiltered Series) (6 page)

“Really?” He trailed his fingers up my leg. That was perilous enough if I’d been dressed, but right now I was bare-assed naked. My breath hitched as he stopped, not yet touching where I wanted him to, and asked, “You really think this is no good?”

It wasn’t the way he was or the way we were with our clothes on that made me catch his hand in mine. It was that soft sound in his voice. Tommy loved me. I couldn’t pretend his words were lies right now. I fell into his arms over and over because he knew all of my weaknesses—and because he loved me enough to keep pulling me back to him no matter how often I pushed him away.

I squeezed his hand, bent down and kissed him tenderly, and then pulled away from him. I stood and turned my back to him. Tears were in my eyes, and I didn’t know if it was because I couldn’t give him the answers he wanted or because I was exhausted and craving drugs that I only had when I was around him. Either way, in the next minute I had warm tears streaking down my cheeks.

“So you’re saying this is really it,” he said.

“I can’t keep doing this.” I glanced over my shoulder at him as I snatched up one of his t-shirts from a pile of clean laundry that he had stacked on an upturned box on the floor. I pulled the shirt over my head. “Let’s just get rid of the stuff, and maybe it’s best to stay apart.”

“You knocked on my door this time, Sugar.”

“I know.” I didn’t tell him that it was as much about saying goodbye as it was about getting rid of the drugs. Until this morning, this moment, I hadn’t even admitted it to myself. I couldn’t fall back into his arms after this because I wouldn’t be in Rio Verde anymore.

He stood and grabbed a pair of jeans from the floor. “I’ll take you home and pick it up. Let me make a couple calls first.”

I paced to the dresser and started rifling through the drawers. I still kept a few things here. It made it hard to say we were over, but I’d had to put on clothes from the night before too often the past few months. Practicality came first sometimes—even when it made the lies I told myself very, very transparent.

“Grab a shower. I’m going to make coffee.” He stopped at the door. “Do you want me to come with you when you go in to quit?”

The tears I was sick of shedding when I was with him filled my eyes again. I knew that we were horrible for one another, but somehow Tommy couldn’t remember that. He made it harder and harder to end us.

“Why do you do this to me?” I asked.

“Because I love you. Whether you want me or not, I still want you. I don’t know what happened, but you’re in a mess of some sort and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’m glad you’re not stupid enough to go back there to work after stealing someone’s drugs. If you let me in, I’ll do what I can about the rest of what you’re trying to hide.”

My face was soaked now. My body ached. And I was a lot more afraid of going to The Coffee Cave than I wanted to admit. I could call in, but I needed to see the spot where it happened. It was the only way I could think of to erase the last image I had of the place, the one with blood on the floor and a man wrapped in trash bags. “I’m good. It’s daylight, and I’ll be quick.”

“People do ugly things during the day too,” Tommy pointed out. He didn’t add that he was one of those people. He didn’t have to say it for it to be real though.

“No one will be looking today, maybe soon, but this morning we’re good.”

He gave me a look that was full of all of the questions he didn’t ask, but he let it go. If I was ready to tell him, I would. He knew that. That was how we existed without fights for these few moments after we were out of bed: We clung to silence and omissions.

After Tommy made his calls and I showered, we went to my place to get the drugs. I handed him the two bricks of cocaine and he tucked them into the backpack he’d slung over his shoulder. He’d look like any of the thousands of students who went to ASU Rio Verde, just a bit more dangerous than most of them.

“I’ll bring the money or the coke back tonight,” he promised.

“Be careful, okay?”

“Always am.” He grinned at me, and I felt like my heart was cracking. He wasn’t perfect, but he loved me.

I flashed back to the man who’d died last night. People don’t carry that kind of cash and coke without their absence getting noticed. I was pretty sure we were fast enough to be safe, but soon I wouldn’t be. Would they go looking for Tommy when they couldn’t find me? If they figured out that I’d taken the coke, it wasn’t hard to draw a line from me to Tommy. He was a small-time dealer, and we’d been more or less together for a couple years.

I caught his hand in mine. I owed him a way out of this life too. Maybe we could save one another, start over and be better people. Maybe I could have that little house, and he could become the guy I needed. People can change, right? I stared into his eyes and asked, “If we had enough money to go away from here, to start over, to not have to have any drugs around
at all
, would you do it?”

“The money from two keys isn’t going to be enough forever.”

“What if there was more?” I squirmed as I said it, but I didn’t look away.

He still watched me like he knew I was about to bolt. “How much more, Sugar?”

“Two or three times more, maybe,” I said quietly. “If I could get another hundred thousand dollars… could you promise no more drugs?”

He pulled me closer and kissed me until I thought I was going to combust. There was something magic about the way he knew my body. We did everything else wrong, but we were amazing at this part. I had both legs wrapped around him, and he walked forward with me clinging to him.

Once he had me braced between him and the wall, he stopped kissing me. “Pack your bags, Sugar Sweet. I’ll go make this last sale, and we’ll get out of here tomorrow.”

He tucked my hair behind my ear, kissed me briefly again, and left.

I closed the door behind him, locked it, and leaned against it. I didn’t love him. I’m not sure I ever had, but I owed it to him to try. If he could give up the things he did, maybe we could make it work. Maybe this money could give us a new start. Maybe great sex could turn into a relationship with a happy forever.

After a few moments, I pushed off the door. I was too on edge to try to sleep again, even though I knew I should.

I called Cass.

“Are you okay?” she asked as soon as she answered.

“Sure,” I lied.

“What are you going to do?”

I shrugged, even though I was alone in the apartment. “Go in to quit when they open. Jason should be there.”

“Do you think the prick is actually in? I need to quit too.”

“So will Dillon, I bet,” I said. There was no way this wasn’t going to look suspicious, but I wasn’t going to be able to work at The Coffee Cave even if I could get past the fear of the owner of the coke and money showing up. Images of being jerked over the bar flashed through my mind again. I’d really thought he was going to kill me when I saw him reach for his gun.

“Text me when you go in so I know if he’s there,” Cass said. “Maybe I should just call.”

“I’m going in… I need to. I need to see it without the… without that on the floor. Maybe it’ll get it out of my head.” I paced to my bedroom and started pulling out things that I didn’t want to leave behind. I wasn’t going to be able to take everything. Clothes. Shoes. Pictures. Those were going into suitcases, but I couldn’t take everything.

I flopped down on my bed while Cass talked.

I didn’t know how to sort everything out to leave town. Should I leave my stuff behind and replace it? Should I come back for it later? I hopped back to my feet and dragged out my two suitcases. Then I started tossing clothes I
needed
to take with me onto the bed.

We talked for a few minutes while I sorted out the things I wanted to take and the ones I could stand leaving behind. Then I told her, “I’m going away tomorrow or the next day. If anything happens that I need to know, call me, okay?”

She was the one who said it was a bad idea to talk to anyone who was there, but I don’t think either of us thought that meant us. I needed to keep in touch with her. I wasn’t going to talk to any of the customers or even Dillon. Talking to Cass was different though. We weren’t talking because of the guy in the shop or the money. We talked
before
all of that. We were friends.

We hung up, and I spent the next two hours packing what I could. I wasn’t going to look backward after today. I was going to turn my life around. I was going to save Tommy too. We’d both be better after we got away from Rio Verde.

I left my hair loose to hide the bruise on my face. I’d put make-up on too, but even the best concealer and foundation I’d found didn’t hide bruises perfectly—and I’d tried quite a few of them while dating Tommy. He’d never once raised a hand to me in anger, but he’d left more marks on me during sex than I would ever want to count. Concealer, foundation, long hair, and long sleeves: that was the uniform of a girl who had things to hide. I wanted to keep Tommy’s t-shirt on, but in order to leave the apartment, I had changed into a long sleeved shirt with a ruffle around the wrists. If anyone saw the marks on me, I could just say I was back with Tommy. Still, I wanted to hide it all because some of the fingerprints weren’t his. They belonged to a man whose body had been cremated if all went according to our hasty plan.

It was unsettling walking into The Coffee Cave in the harsh desert daylight after what had happened here less than twelve hours ago. The shop always looked a little more worn out during the day, but today was worse. I couldn’t help glancing at the very clean floor where the drug dealer had bled and died. There was no trace of his blood, but I could still imagine him there.

He was dead.

We robbed a dead man.

We hid the murder.

We burned a body.

I shivered. Memories, guilt, and withdrawal were a shitty combination.

“It’s not payday,” Jason said when I walked toward the back room where he sat. He looked almost comical as he sat at a brightly painted, wooden desk. Like everything in the shop—including the employees—it had seen better days.

“I know.”

I walked farther into the room. Jason watched me with an expressionless face. He was a weasel of a man, the sort of guy who wore his penny-pinching like a badge of honor. I wouldn’t be surprised if he instituted pat downs at the door or a video camera to catch us if we gave away free coffee…. Suddenly, my heart stuttered. My hands grew damp.
Did
he have a camera? I wouldn’t put it past him. I stared at him in silence, trying to figure out if there was any way to ask. I was pretty sure there wasn’t.

“What do you need, Sugar? I’m short staffed tonight, and—”

“I quit,” I blurted out.

His lips pressed tightly together as he stared at me. He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he said, “Okay, so I need to find
two
baristas in two weeks, and right before summer when all the coeds leave. Great.”

“I quit
now
,” I amended.

“No.”

I looked at him. He was an average man. He wasn’t ugly. He could even be funny sometimes. I felt a twinge of guilt at leaving him in the lurch.

Then I thought about the cash, the drugs, and the dead man; the likelihood of someone coming looking for all three was high. If Jason had a camera and saw what was on there, he’d either turn it over to the police or blackmail us all. I wasn’t sure which. Either way, it was one more reason to get the hell out of town.
Immediately
.

“Now. I quit now.” I crossed my arms. “I just wanted to tell you.”

“What the hell, Sugar! You
and
bitchy Cass are both quitting? I count on you when the college kids all run home to mommy and daddy for the summer. Don’t do this to me.” He rubbed his temples. “Is this a coup or something? Did one of the kids leave a textbook you managed to understand and you two decided to extort a raise? Fine. Sold. I’ll give you each a dollar raise per hour. Tell her, and both of you can get away with it this once.”

I shook my head. He was a prick. I could understand the things they taught at school. I wasn’t stupid. Neither was Cass. I didn’t point any of that out. All I said was, “No. I just thought it was right to tell you in person.”

For a moment, he stared at me. I didn’t look away. I had a hell of a lot more to worry about than a pissed off coffee shop manager. He didn’t intimidate me when he was my boss; he sure as fuck didn’t intimidate me now. If he’d had video cameras, he’d have mentioned the murder by now—unless he hadn’t seen them. I thought it was possible, but not likely.

No, the only witnesses to the crime were the other twelve people from last night. Some were guiltier than others if it all came out. That football player Blake had helped the one drunk girl get rid of a body. The hippie girl, Whitney, had hidden the car. Jess had pulled the trigger. The senator’s kid, Joe, had been the one to suggest we hide everything. Cass had cleaned up the blood and wrapped the body… and I… I stole drugs. We all hid the crime, and we all took the cash, but there were some of us more likely to be at risk than others. If Jason knew any of what had happened or found out, he wouldn’t be keeping quiet.

“Don’t think you can come back here for your paycheck, either. You or the other bitch. Just get out and stay out if this is how you’re going to be,” Jason snapped. His voice was louder and louder as he went.

I wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. I wasn’t frightened, not of my penny-pinching boss. Drug dealers? Police? The man who punched me and stood over me with a gun? Those all scared me. A grumpy ex-boss wasn’t anywhere on my list.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Go to hell,” he replied, just as calmly.

I turned and left the back room. I didn’t hurry. This was the last time I’d ever see this place. I’d worked there for over three years, and I was about to leave for good. There were customers I’d miss, and there were things about the familiarity of the shop that I’d miss. Just not enough to stick around and risk jail or death.

For a moment, I paused and scanned the ceiling, looking for anywhere that a camera could be hidden. There were a couple spots that were possibilities, but nothing I’d call likely. I was as sure as I could be that there wasn’t a video of what happened. That was the best I could do.