Better Left Buried (22 page)

“27 Poplar Street, Reston.”
Coughs punctuated every other word. The dark-skinned man eyed her warily. “Please, hurry. It’s an emergency.”

He
pulled out of the line and started the meter, heading toward town.

“Whereabouts is that address in Reston?” He had GPS, but didn’t bother to use it.

Harmony waited until her breath normalized. “Pinewood Estates. You know it?”

He
nodded and turned on the radio.

She peeked
over his shoulder to see him doing ten miles per hour
under
the speed limit.

“Is there any way you can drive faster, please?
My mother’s sick. I need to get to her as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, Miss.”
The outdated car labored under the acceleration.

The lie about her mother brought to light doubt that
Lance’s was the best place she could be headed, given the circumstances. She tried to come up with an alternative, but the repeated vibrating of her cell phone demanded her attention. She checked the screen and seeing it was Adam, sent him directly to voicemail. A text message followed: “Where are you?” She didn’t answer. There was nothing he could do and she knew it, the way she knew it was wrong having gone back to him in the first place. She’d felt it the entire previous night. He stopped being part of the solution when he hit her and started being part of the problem when her mother told Sylvie about it.

Harmony
shook her head at the thought of her mother selling her up the river.

The betrayal stung worse than any in the long line of those that came before it. Addicts were selfish, they lied, and stooped to unimaginable lows in the pursuit of their drug of choice, but this was none of that. Her mother had made a conscious decision to hand her over to a system she’d fought so hard to stay out of. She’d sacrificed her, and in that moment, the love she told herself
she was supposed to feel for her mother turned to hate.

2:00 AM.

T
he Pinewood Estates trailer park was quiet except for the low hum of The Cure playing in the living room where Harmony and Lance’s escapade had started. She rolled onto her elbow and picked at the itchy scabs where the knife cuts on her arm had all but healed. The tattoo, farther down, was still a bit raw.

“Thanks for letting me hide out.” She hadn’t given him much choice in the matter, showing up on his doorstep and seducing him on sight.

“You’re very welcome.” A satisfied grin spread across his face as he lit the end of a joint and inhaled.

She sat up and reached out for a hit
.

A bit of the sheet covered her lap, but she was otherwise naked, scars exposed and unashamed.

“Sooooo,” Lance said.

“So.”
Harmony held her breath, needing the escape of the high she’d condemned her mother for chasing all of her life. The pot served as a filter, straining away the disappointment she knew she should be more than used to.

Lance p
ulled on a pair of black boxers and Harmony saw his back scratched from his shoulders to his hips. He wandered into the living room and returned with her clothes, a lit cigarette hanging between his lips. He took a drag and sat down next to her.

“We need to talk.”

No good conversation ever started that way and she went immediately on the defensive. “About what?” She shook a cigarette from the pack on the nightstand and lit it off his, reinstating the guardedness she’d accidentally let down.

“About
us. You’ve been gone for months and suddenly, you’re … just … here, all of the time. I enjoy being with you, but I’m not sure I’m ready for full-time, yet.” He looked down when he said it. “I only wanted to help a friend out.”

Friend.

She hadn’t expected more, but the word stung.

“I don’t know what you think
I’m looking for, Lance, but it’s not like that.” Harmony set her cigarette in the ashtray and pulled her shirt over her head. “I came here to get high and lay low. I need a place to stay for a night or two while I figure some things out. I can’t go home and Adam’s is the first place anyone would look.”

“So, you two are still together?” He didn’t hide his emotions nearly as well as she did.

“Oh, yeah. Of course. I mean, I didn’t tell him about
us
, but he knows I didn’t tattoo myself. I’m thirsty. Are you thirsty?” Harmony finished dressing and grabbed her purse. “And I’ve got a headache. You have any aspirin?”

“I think so, in the bathroom.
I’ll check. Are you sure—”

“I don’t want to keep talking about this, Lance. We’re friends, and as my friend, I hope you’ll let me hang out for the night. I’ll be out of your hair by morning. Is that all right?”

“I guess so, sure.”

“
Then you mind if I get a drink?”

“No. Go ahead.”

Harmony wasn’t looking for a savior and Lance wasn’t necessarily looking to be one.

She wandered into the kitchen
and quietly retrieved two of the sleeping pills she’d used to drug Adam the night she took his truck.

“S
oda, okay?” She listened to Lance rummaging through the medicine cabinet and opened the two liter without him answering. “Soda it is.” She dropped the pills in his glass and poured, the carbonation helping to dissolve them.

“Acetaminophen work?”
He came out of the bathroom holding a bottle of generic pills.

“That’s great, thanks.” She took two to keep up with the distraction and handed him the tainted drink.

Cotton mouth was a beast and he knocked back the whole glass in two gulps. He set the plastic cup on the counter and leaned back with his arms crossed over his tattooed chest, staring at her in way that had her puzzled.

“What?” she said.

“You’re a tough one to read.”

“
How so?” She hurriedly rinsed their cups, careful not to be seen scrutinizing for residue.

“I don’t know.” He yawned and stretched. “Here I am thinking maybe we kind of sort of had a connection—”

“As
friends
.” She used his words against him.

“Yeah.”
His face twisted into a smug grin. “One minute you’re throwing yourself at me and the next it’s like, ‘Hey, thanks for the screw.’ Most girls—”

She held a finger to his lips. “I’m not ‘most girls’.”

“Tell me about it.” He rolled his eyes.

“Can we go to bed now, please?”

“Definitely.” He yawned. “You really tired me out.”

S
he checked that his keys were still on the table and went back into the bedroom to wait for him to fall asleep.

Twenty-four hours was the longest Brea had gone without talking to Harmony in years, but when the call finally came at three in the morning, she second guessed herself answering it. Nothing good happened at that hour.

“Hello?” Her voice and eyelids were heavy with sleep.

“Brea, it’s me.”

“Yeah, I know.” She
cupped her hand around the mouthpiece to contain the noise. “What’s wrong?”

“I need to talk. Can you get out?”

“Now? Are you serious?” She
could
, but didn’t necessarily want to. Things were turning around for her, fast, and knife-wielding Harmony wasn’t a girl she was sure she wanted to be alone with, especially not once she admitted that she and Jaxon had been to the house on Maple Avenue twice. “It’s really late. My mom’s going to be up for work in a couple of hours—”

“
Please?
I’ll get you back in time, I promise. I don’t know how much longer I have left before they send me away. I skipped out on my appointment with Bennett and they’re looking for me.”

“All right.
One hour, but that’s it.” Brea regretted it as soon as she said it.

“Meet me in front of the
rec field in five.”

Brea
tossed her comforter over the side of her bed, not even bothering with a decoy, and put on a hooded sweatshirt to match the pants she was already wearing. Most of her shoes were either by the front door or in the garage, so she put on a pair of flip-flops she found in her closet.

There were two ways out of the house: the front door there was no way she’d risk sneaking out of at th
at hour and her bedroom window. She popped out the screen and leaned it against the wall.

It had been a longstanding joke between her mother and uncle that the enormous oak in front of their house was growing an escape route. It had, over the years, stretched a branch thick and long enough that with some practice, Brea had become adept at climbing down. She’d told
them sneaking out that way was impossible every spring when they mentioned it.

But they should
have known better.

She was somewhat athletic.

Brea lifted her window and shuddered when the breeze hit her blanket-warmed skin. Fall felt more like winter and there was frost on the grass that, if it wasn’t thawed by the time her mother went out front, would most likely show her footprints.

“Great.”

She looked both ways down the street for early risers and swing shift workers, expecting only Sheila, the nurse two doors down, to be awake at that hour. Visions of being caught by the neighbor had Brea in a panic.

S
he couldn’t move fast enough.

There was a six-inch drop
to the tree. It wasn’t far, but it was a leap of faith. She hooked her other leg over the window ledge and stepped out onto the overhang of the window directly beneath her. The shingles were slick, covered with a fine layer of frost, and she partially closed her window, which was almost out of reach. Getting out was one thing, getting back in was another so she left an inch opening to make things easier on the return trip. The bare branches were one of the few advantages of this time of year. Cold as it was, at least there weren’t leaves to contend with. She skidded to the edge of the roof and jumped out to the branch, doubling over it and landing with a jolt to her ribs. Her feet found one of the lower branches and she slowly climbed down. One of her flip-flops fell off, making her wish she’d worn sneakers. She collected her errant shoe and ran with gazelle-wide strides across the lawn, leaving as few footprints as possible. She’d blame them on someone else if asked.

Brea
looked for headlights, expecting Adam had lent Harmony his truck again. There was no sign of it, or her, in their usual meeting place, only a grimy sedan that might have once been red in a previous life.

Oh, God.

The realization jolted her: it was Lance’s Grand Prix.

Brea
contemplated turning around, her gut instinct sounding a shrill inner alarm. This could only end badly for both of them. She stood on the side of the street, holding absolutely still as if maybe Harmony wouldn’t see her. She could slip away, unnoticed, and call Harmony, tell her she’d changed her mind, that she couldn’t get out, or that her mother woke up.

It wasn’t too late to back out.

The headlights came on, letting her know otherwise.

A lot went unsaid, not unusual between Brea and Harmony, but for the first time in their friendship, they weren’t on the same page. There were secrets on both sides. A heavy presence surrounded them as they made their way through Oakwood Cemetery, not to do gravestone rubbings, but to talk.

Harmony had a backpack on her shoulder that put Brea ill at ease.

Headstone-shaped shadows covered the ground and an eternal flame flickered in the distance.

Brea tucked her hair behind her ears
, unsure of what to say to break the tension when all she wanted to do was go home. “So, what’s with the tattoo?” Harmony’s sleeve had ridden up and the shine of ointment on fresh ink caught Brea’s attention. “Your mother’s going to have your head.”

“No, that’d be
your
mother, and she’d march you right to confession.
My
mother, if she ever turns back up, won’t even notice.”

Brea’s feet had nearly gone numb in her flip-flops.
“Then what about Adam? Does he know you’ve been seeing Lance again? I mean, that
is
his handiwork, right? And his car we drove here in?” She didn’t mean to instigate, but everything she said sounded like she was looking for a fight.

“Since when are you on
Adam’s side? He’s not the savior you think he is, Brea. And no, I didn’t tell him I was seeing Lance, though I’m sure he suspects. The two of them don’t run in the same circles. Without me admitting it outright, how would he find out?”

“The tattoo, maybe?”

“Or maybe you’d tell him. Is that what you’re getting at?”