Knife & Flesh (The Night Horde SoCal Book 4) (35 page)

He nodded, and she picked up a bottle from the dresser beside the bed and tipped it into his mouth. It tasted fantastic, and he grabbed it from her and gulped about half of it down. Then he tried to sit up, and the room rocked on its axis and he dropped the bottle.

Maria caught it before it could spill and set it on the dresser. “You’ve been sick as a dog, Trick. Take it easy. I’ll go get Connor. You stay put.”

He stayed put and watched her leave. He didn’t think there was anywhere he could go.

~oOo~

He’d lost two more days. That was what Connor had just told him.

His friend sat on a straight-back chair at the side of his bed, his legs splayed, his elbows on his knees. He wore his shop coverall, folded down at his waist. He’d been working, just like any old day. “Jesus fuck, T. What did they do to you?”

“I need to stop hearing that question. I’m not going to talk about it. Use your imagination. That’ll be close enough.”

Connor stared for a second and then nodded. “We had to bring a doc in. J.R. said the infection was too bad for him to handle. That guy took one look at you, said he had to examine you completely, and shoved everybody out of the room. When he came out, he had some serious looks for us. He didn’t ask, but he judged the hell out of us. And rightly so. You look like you came out of Auschwitz or something.”

Trick didn’t answer. He didn’t like the comparison, but it wasn’t exactly unapt. Had he been stuck there for the rest of his life, he supposed his experience would not have been much different.

“Juliana was here yesterday. She went home for Lucie, but she was planning to be back around lunch.”

“What? No. I don’t…I said…” He couldn’t actually remember if he
had
said he wanted her away from him. Not in words.

“You were calling for her. Screaming, really. No way I was gonna ignore that. She’s a wreck. I need to let her know you’re awake and clear. You want to talk to her?” He fished his phone out of his pocket.

“No. You can tell her I’m okay. But tell her I don’t want her here. I don’t want her.”

A frown tightened Connor’s brow. “Trick, that’s fucked up.”

“Not your call.”

“I know how you feel about her. And I know how she feels about you. And that little girl, too. That’s your family.”

“That
was
my family. In the life I had before. That life is gone. I don’t want her.”

“Don’t do that, T.”

“Do what?”

“Quit. Don’t you dare fucking quit.”

Trick just laughed. There was nothing left to quit.

“I’m sorry, Juliana. I gotta go. You need anything, you call.”

Juliana looked up at Connor. “Call whom?” Not Trick; she knew that. Trick didn’t want her. Or Lucie. He’d come back from hell and turned them away. He was changed; of course he was changed, and now he wanted no part of what he’d had before. What
they’d
had.

“Me. Call me. And…” He put his hand over her shoulder and squeezed lightly. “Don’t give up on him. He’s got a lot of shit to work out.”

She shrugged his hand off. “I didn’t give up. He did.”

“Don’t be like that. Please don’t be like that. Give him some time to get his feet steady. We don’t know what he went through.”

She had a pretty damn good idea. She’d already known the deplorable conditions of immigration detention centers, and in the weeks she’d been at the Elstads’, waiting for him, she’d done a lot of research on the treatment of terrorism detainees and so-called ‘enhanced interrogations.’ He’d been in hell.

“I love him. But I can’t give him help he doesn’t want. And I can’t just sit here indefinitely. I have to think of Lucie.”

“It’s only been a few days. He’s not even on his feet yet. Just…please. I’m not good at begging, but this is me doin’ it. He needs you to be there when he comes looking.”

The last time she’d seen him, he’d been deep in the throes of a febrile delirium. When he’d had sense enough to know her and speak to her, he’d begged, too. He’d begged her to stay with him. He’d told her that when they’d hurt him, he’d gone to her and Lucie, that remembering mornings waking up with them had given him the strength and the calm to endure what he’d had to endure.

She’d had to leave that night, while he was sleeping a narcotic sleep, to be with Lucie. Now, today, the very next day, Connor had come here to tell her to stay away. Trick didn’t want her around him.

“He needs to come looking to find me.”

“He will. Just be there when he does.” Trick’s best friend bent and kissed her cheek. “And call me if you need anything. I mean it.”

She nodded and went to the front door to show Connor out.

~oOo~

Lucie kept Juliana’s mind from spinning uselessly, nonstop. She rarely got bogged down in her worries and doubts for very long, because she had Lucie to take care of and engage with. Only in the dark hours after her daughter was asleep did her mind churn.

That had been the case before she’d ever laid eyes on Trick. It had been the case during the long, scary weeks at Bart and Riley’s, not knowing if he was okay, or if they’d ever see him again, or if they’d ever get their life back.

And it was the case now, when she knew that he was not okay, that he was home but didn’t want her, and when they had been returned to their life.

Well, no, they hadn’t. They’d been returned to the place of that life, but the life they’d had before Trick didn’t exist. And neither, apparently, did the life they’d had with Trick.

She didn’t know what to do. She loved a damaged man; she’d known that when she’d fallen in love with him. But now he’d been broken. She didn’t know how to help him. He didn’t want her help.

Connor had asked her to wait. She’d been waiting for weeks. She could wait indefinitely, but not in this uncertainty. Uncertainty would make her mind devour itself. She’d built a life for herself and her daughter with the bricks of careful organization and predictability. Stability and security. Loving Trick had made her redefine those terms, but they’d still applied. Now, alone with Lucie in their tiny apartment, Juliana felt the ground shake beneath her feet.

She knocked on the bathroom door. “Time to get out,
mija
.”

“Okay, Mami.”

Juliana heard the water in the tub splash as Lucie got out. While they’d been staying at the Elstads’, Lucie had announced that she was five, and five was too old for her mother to bathe her. Since then, she closed the door between them and demanded privacy.

Living with the Elstads had changed Lucie quite a bit. She looked up to the older Lexi, and had begun to model some of her behavior after her. Juliana adored Lexi, but she worried that Lucie was losing some of the things that made her unique. For instance, Lexi enjoyed more girly things, like dolls and playing house. Lucie never had. She preferred LEGOs to Barbies. But Lexi’s age and dominant personality had all the kids following her lead, and playing house more than anything else.

Lucie had told Juliana that she intended to ask Santa for a doll this year. It broke Juliana’s heart. She’d never liked dolls before.

The two girls had also bonded over clothes, though, and Juliana hadn’t minded that at all. Watching them play dress-up—and seeing Lucie confidently assert her opinions—had been a joy.

Lucie came out of the bathroom, already dressed in her pajamas. She stepped onto her stool and brushed her teeth. When Juliana lingered in the room, Lucie turned with a mouthful of minty foam and gave her mother a look. “I’ll see you in my room, Mami,” she gargled around the toothpaste.

Juliana laughed and went to her daughter’s bedroom. There she turned down the comforter—black, printed all over with the constellations—and set Mr. Bananas on the pillows.

She did not want Lucie to grow up. Not yet. She didn’t want her to start thinking of herself as a girl who had to do girl things. She didn’t want adolescence and insecurities, self-doubt and self-abnegation. Not for her sweet, smart, curious little girl, so thoughtful and compassionate. She wanted Lucie to grow up always confident about who she was and what she wanted. Secure.

And right now, Juliana felt completely inadequate to the task of raising her that way.

The subject of her doubt came into the room, holding her detangling comb. Juliana opened her arms, and Lucie crawled up onto her lap. As Juliana took the comb and began easing it through her long locks, Lucie picked up a book from her nightstand. Trick had lent it to her. They’d been reading it before he’d disappeared from their lives.

On the cover was a little blond boy standing on a stony grey planet.
The Little Prince
. One of Trick’s tattoos was a reproduction of an illustration from this book.

“Is Trick mad at us?”

Lucie had seen Trick leave Bart and Riley’s. The kids had been playing hide and seek, and Lucie had come around to the front yard, looking for a hiding place, at exactly the right moment to see him mount his bike and ride away. She’d run into the yard and then come back to the house in tears.

“No, Lulu. He’s not mad. He misses us and wants to be here. He’s just got a lot of work to do.” Juliana wondered how much of that was a lie.

“I miss him, too. It feels funny to be here and him not be.”

“I think so, too.” She set the comb aside and began to weave her daughter’s hair into a long braid.

“How much more work does he have? I don’t like it when my papis work so much.”

Lucie’s desire to think of Trick as one of her ‘papis’ worried Juliana, especially now. But she didn’t know how to dissuade her without hurting her. “I don’t know,
mija
. I’ll see if I can find out, but I think we need to practice patience, okay?”

“Okay. Will you read this book to me? We need to start over because it’s a long time since Trick was reading it.”

“Sure. You don’t want to read it yourself?”

“No, I want to close my eyes and remember when he was reading it.”

Juliana scooted back against the wall and settled Lucie in her lap again. Lucie picked up Mr. Bananas and clutched him close.

“
Once when I was six
,” Juliana began.

When Lucie drooped, Juliana scooted off the bed and tucked her daughter in, pressing a kiss to her sweet, sleepy brow. She switched on the nightlight, and a turning vista of stars lit up the walls and ceiling.

“I miss the observatory,” Lucie muttered and then rolled to face the wall and curl into her favorite position for sleep.

Juliana stood in the pale, swirling light and watched her daughter sleep. She missed the observatory, too. That had been one of the best days in her life, second only to Lucie’s birth.

Maybe it had been
the
best day, because there had been no fear or doubt, no insecurity. They had been a happy family, in love, looking toward a bright future. Juliana had felt keenly all day long the perfection of the life she and Lucie were making with Trick.

She’d been wrong.

~oOo~

Monday morning, Juliana walked through the doors at Shepard & Grohl. She felt odd after seven weeks away. The story had been that she was taking leave to help a sick friend, so there was no scandal she’d need to confront, but still, a lifetime had elapsed in the time she’d been away.

From the receptionists to her fellow paralegals, people greeted her with friendly interest, and by the time she’d made it to her own desk, she felt better. Her desk was clear of work, which didn’t surprised her; Emily could not have functioned without a paralegal, so of course she’d have brought in a temporary replacement from elsewhere in the firm.

That feeling of being the new girl all over again still lingering at the back of her head, Juliana hung her crème, Chanel-style jacket over the back of her chair. She’d enjoyed dressing for work again and had chosen one of her favorite ensembles.

She took her lunch to the break room and tucked it into the refrigerator. Then she got herself a cup of coffee and headed back to her desk.

Emily was standing next to her chair, a plain manila folder in her hands. Juliana got that feeling in her stomach like she’d been caught doing something naughty.

She smiled. “Hi, Emily. Thank you so much for your understanding about everything. I promise I am back in the swing of things and ready to work.”

The smile Emily returned was tight and insincere. “Yes. Well, we need to talk. First, though, I want you to go through this file. Then come into my office.” She set the folder in the middle of Juliana’s desk and turned on her heel, then strode into her office and closed the door.

Juliana stared at the folder, feeling threatened. She sat in her chair and sipped her coffee and stared at the folder. Finally, she set her mug aside and opened the file Emily wanted her to see.

The top paper was a piece of letterhead from another law firm. The letter was addressed to her. She read it, stared at it, then read it again. Blinking, churning with confusion and shock, she turned the page over and exposed a second letter, on the letterhead of a different firm.

She read the whole file, all five pieces of paper. Then she closed the file and stared at it some more. And then she stood and took it to Emily’s office.