Bounty (31 page)

"
L
ook
, right here, isn't this them?"

Amber squinted at where Simon was pointing on the screen. It was the obituary listings of the city newspaper but standing behind her friend she was too far away to read it.

"Oh wait, maybe not. When did you say they died?"

"I don't know, a few years ago I guess. Or longer."

"Okay, this can't be them then. Strange, though. The names match."

Amber pushed Simon aside and bent over his left shoulder to peer down at the screen.

SLATER, Darryl - Died as a result of injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident. Darryl, 53, leaves behind wife Linda. Visitation to be held at Heavenly Bodies funeral chapel on August 14th from 2-4 with service to follow.

It was true, the names did match but there was no mention of Joel, and this paper was from last summer. Joel was already living on the streets then. Plus, it said that his mother was still alive.

"Pretty short compared to most of these others," Simon mused.

Amber nodded. You pay by the word, so it was likely short to save money. Simple, just to let friends and family know what happened and when and where to pay respects. It was quite a coincidence that both the husband and wife had the same first and last names as Joel's parents. And she knew that they didn't have a lot of money, either.

Simon started scrolling through his search results, looking for another match.

Was it possible that this was them? If so, why would Joel have lied about them being dead? Or at least of his mother being dead? Or did he 
think
 he was lying about them both? He'd been in shelters for longer than a year. Joel didn't seem to be the type of person that sat around reading the obituaries.

"Well, I don't see any others that match. We may have to look somewhere else. You sure he said they were dead, right?"

Amber thought back to her conversation the night that she met Joel.

"
Does your family know you do this?
" she had asked him, referring to the back alley fighting he was participating in to pay the bills.

"
They're all gone. No one to tell
," he had said.

"
Oh, I'm sorry.
"

That was it. He never actually said they were dead, but he hadn't said anything to contradict the fact that she had obviously believed that to be the case.

"Can you look up any other info on that couple?" she asked suddenly.

Simon shrugged. "Well, the obit says it was a car accident, so maybe it made the news, let me see." His fingers started to fly across the keyboard as he began a new search.

Why would Joel want people to believe that his parents were dead? Obviously he had no intention of ever speaking to them again, if that were true. Why not just tell people that he had a falling out with them, or whatever secret it was that kept them apart. Were they embarrassing? All parents were, as far as Amber was concerned. Addicts? Criminals? Her mind raced at all of the possible reasons. What would cause her to stop talking to her own parents? To claim they were dead to anyone who asked?

"Here," Simon exclaimed, pointing at the screen again. This time there was a black and white photograph with a caption underneath that she couldn't read, and then an article. The headline read 
Drunk driver killed on way home from liquor store
.

Amber bent forward again, her eyes quickly scanning the article. A shocking chill ran down her back as she read a line from the investigation. "The driver, now identified as Darryl Slater, leaves behind a wife and one estranged son, according to neighbors."

"Can you show me on a map where this accident happened?" Amber's heart was pounding in her chest and she put a hand on Simon's shoulder as a wave of dizziness rushed through her.

Simon opened up a map and zoomed in on the location from the article. There was no doubt about it now. The crash happened in the same neighborhood that Joel had mentioned growing up in.

"That's them," she said. She took a few steps backwards and flopped down on another chair. She was positive.

"So he lied about his mother being dead, but told the truth about his father?" Simon asked, spinning his chair to face her with a raised eyebrow.

"I think he lied about them both. This accident happened after he had left. I'm not sure he even knows about this."

"Who lies about their parents being dead?"

Amber shrugged. "Actually, he didn't lie. Not exactly. I don't know."

Simon stood up and then turned to turn off the browser in an effort to obscure what they had just been looking at before their boss came in. "Your boy has issues, you know that, right hon?"

Amber didn't answer as she thought about whether or not to tell Joel about this. Or how. He wasn't going to be happy that she looked him up in the first place. But how could she keep information like this to herself?

"Anyway, I gotta get back to work or you're not going to have any drinks to serve tonight." He put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. "You okay?"

She smiled slightly and nodded up at him with a sigh. "I think I might need a drink after work tonight. Or three."

Simon's face split into a wide grin. "Now you're talking girl! That's a fabulous idea. Drink away the pain. I know just the place." Her friend almost skipped out of the room, the heaviness of the past few minutes already fading from his carefree mind as she sunk lower into her chair, the smile fading from her lips.

Maybe he didn't want to know. After all, he wanted people to believe they were dead, so could it be that he wished they were? She couldn't imagine how she'd feel if someone kept information like that from her, though. She'd be devastated. But Joel was a very different person. What would be worse to him? Finding out that his father was dead, or that Amber had gone digging into his past.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She had a feeling she was in a no-win situation. The only way to avoid it would be to keep it from him completely, act like she never discovered it. Maybe she could somehow get him to find the article on his own or something. Then see how he reacted. Would he even tell her? Tears misted her vision. She knew the answer to that.

Amber leaned her head back against the wall, taking another deep breath to steady herself as she blinked away the half formed tears. Drinking tonight was a good idea. She could figure all of this out in the morning. Saying anything right away would be a rash decision. She needed to think about it for a while and figure it out. Besides, she had no idea when she would next see Joel anyway.

J
oel emerged
from the underground into the sweltering night. The heat of the day hadn't yet dissipated despite it being after 10 P.M, but it was still better than the stifling and stagnant sweat filled air of Rock House after an entire day of training. The shower he had taken before leaving seemed pointless now, since even the short walk to Amber's apartment would undo all of its work. He could have another one once he got in, but with the way her air conditioning worked, it wouldn't last very longer either.

He was exhausted. Training had been brutal - much harder than he had anticipated, although Chris had confirmed that Blake was leading it harder than usual. Still, none of the other guys seemed as beat by the end of the night, and he knew he had a lot of work to do to get into shape. Those guys had been at it for months, some of them years. They knew what they were doing, but he was anxious to learn. Pain and exhaustion were welcome if they were harbingers of future success in the ring. Of the four men he was training with, three of them had already fought in televised events. It was even rumored that Blake was only a few fights away from a title shot himself.

He still wasn't sure what Blake's issue was with him. Each time the two of them sparred, he would shake his head or sneer every time he took Joel down or submitted him. Other than that, he barely spoke to him at all. At least the other guys hadn't been complete assholes. Chris was the most friendly. Joel definitely wasn't there to make friends, but if he was going to be spending almost every day with these guys, it would be nice if they were all at least civil to each other.

He reached the door and unlocked it with the extra key that Amber had loaned him. It was hours before she was due home, but that would give him time to decide what to say to her. How to apologize. He grimaced to himself. He could recall his father's claim, many times growing up. 
Apologies are for weaklings
. He never once heard the man apologize for anything, and if anyone had anything to be sorry for, it should be Darryl Slater.

The door of the elevator opened for Joel and he pressed seven as he walked in and leaned against the back wall, closing his eyes and trying to banish thoughts of his father from his mind. Thinking of him rarely led to anything good, only serving to make his blood boil. If he was going to apologize to Amber he needed to remain calm and level headed.

Closing his eyes only served to remind him how tired he was, though. He almost missed the doors as they started to close at his floor, only saving himself from another trip to the lobby by hastily thrusting his arm in between and letting them crash into him and then rebound as they sensed an obstruction. By the time he had made his way into the apartment, he had forgotten about his desire to shower and clean the fresh film of sweat from his body and instead flopped down onto the couch to wait for Amber.

The apartment was still hot, the AC still not working properly. Joel offered to talk to the landlord to try and convince him to fix it, but Amber had an idea of what type of persuasive techniques he'd be tempted to try so she dissuaded him. She'd been right, of course. He needed to stop trying to solve problems with his fists. Breaking that lifelong habit would be tough.

As much as he wanted to help and contribute, get out of the debt he felt like he owed to her, he was starting to rethink his decision to go back and fight for Randy. His whole life no one had really earned his respect the way Amber had. She gave selflessly and the only thing she had really asked of him was that he give up those underground matches because they were too dangerous.

It was odd to him, having someone care about him the way that she did. He'd never had that feeling before, even from his own parents. Amber respected him, his quirks and his temper, his obsessive need for privacy about his past, his touchiness about money and debt. If all she really wanted in return for all of that was to know that he was safe and not getting his ass kicked in an alley somewhere, he should do his best to just give that to her. There was very little else that was within his power to give. He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve someone like her in his life, but he found himself wanting to finally trust her. It was a relief to finally have someone like that in his life.

He was still going over it in his mind when exhaustion finally overtook his senses, snatching consciousness away from him and replacing it with a deep and dreamless slumber.

A
mber ran
through the dark house, chasing after Joel but each time her fingers came closer to catching him, he would seem to dissolve between her fingers and run a different way. "Missed!" he said.

Her feet were moving faster now, but the walls were tilting back and forth as if the whole house were teetering on its edge. First one way, then the opposite. Joel ran by and she tried for him again. He slipped through her right hand but then her left swung around. That was too late as well.

"Miss, miss," he taunted. Why couldn't she hold onto him?

"Miss?"

Amber jumped as a hand touched her shoulder. "Miss, we're here. $23.50."

She blinked a few times as she let reality sink in and ground her. The cab driver's weathered hand snaked back through the plexiglass divider between them. He didn't look very happy at having to wake up his fare.

"Sorry," Amber mumbled. She reached into her purse and withdrew a twenty and a ten, pushing it through the hole he had just used to wake her up. "Keep the change." That elicited a smile at least. It had been an expensive ride for her, but Simon had insisted and she was glad he had. The subway wasn't running at this time of night anyway, and the all night bus would have been packed with drunks and nutcases, with the occasional psychopath hidden in the mix.

Stumbling out of the car and fumbling with her keys, she made it inside her security door as her taxi pulled away, anxious to return to a more affluent neighborhood. The walls of the elevator on her way up to the seventh floor seemed to wobble just like in her dream, and for a moment she had to concentrate not to throw up. Simon had a much higher tolerance for Jager Bombs than she did. But it was so worth it. She hadn't had that much fun in a long time.

Still smiling, Amber pushed open the door to her apartment and threw her purse down, kicking it closed with her foot and turning the lock as she laughed at memories of Simon trying to start up a karaoke session at the bar. It seemed funny at the time, at least to them - but not as much to everyone else in the bar. Now that she was starting to sober up, she could see how some of the other patrons had probably just found them annoying.

The quick nap in the cab had helped to push away most of her drunkenness, years of working in a bar and sneaking the shots that flirting customers had bought her gave her the ability to rebound fairly quickly after a night of drinking, even though she still often felt nausea and instability on her feet until the next morning.

Stumbling toward the bedroom to sleep the rest of it off, she stopped dead as she passed the couch. "Joel! What the fuck are you doing here?"

The well-built fighter lying on her couch didn't stir, his chest rising and falling steadily.

Giving in to an overwhelming urge to sit, Amber plopped down onto the couch next to Joel's chest, causing him to bounce on the cushions and then snap awake.

"What? What's happened. Where... oh. Hi." He shook his head, shaking off the remains of the deep sleep he'd just been pulled from.

"I thought you weren't..." Amber paused as a wave of nausea fluttered through her stomach. "...coming home tonight," she finished.

"I know. Look..." Joel started to say something and then trailed off.

"Whatever," Amber said, smiling. "I'm glad you came home. I had the best time tonight. I went out with Simon and he took me to a gay bar and it was so much fun oh my god. We tried to sing on stage, well, it wasn't really a stage but there was this-"

"Amber," Joel said, holding up his hand to stop her. She paused, still smiling at him. He was again quiet for a moment, lost in thought. Does he know who Simon is? 
Does he think I'm cheating or something?

"Simon's just my gay friend," she explained. "I wanted to go drinking tonight and he always goes drinking after work. He works behind the bar with me. He's so funny, you should totally meet-"

Joel held up a hand again. "I don't care about Simon," he said. "I wanted to talk to you about something else." Joel's eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips. "It's about earlier. I shouldn't have gone off like that. I know you... I know you were just trying to help. I know you aren't after money or anything. I just... the one thing I learned from my parents was to never be in anyone's debt."

He was trying to apologize, and Amber thought it was sweet until he mentioned his parents. As soon as he did, she remembered the lie she had discovered earlier and she wrinkled her nose at him. "Your parents? You mean the ones that died years ago that you never want to talk about?" Her resolution not to bring it up until she had time to think about it evaporated faster than the Jager bombs in front of Simon.

Joel sat up on the couch, but he looked away. "There isn't anything to say about them."

"So you're still going with the story that they're dead?"

Joel's head snapped around as he looked at her sharply, but he said nothing. Her lips had a mind of their own.

"I know you lied about them," she said. "Simon and I looked them up." Anger flared in her chest as the accusation burned through her, but then she suddenly remembered what else they had found. Immediately she could feel tears welling up in her eyes, the alcohol taking her on a roller coaster of emotions. "Oh, Joel..." she sighed, but he was barely listening to her now as his own anger began to bubble to the surface.

"What do you mean, you looked them up?" he asked, the words falling from his mouth one at a time.

"On the computer," she said. Big tears were forming and she had to blink to hold them back. "But we found something else out," she said.

"What the fuck, Amber? Who told you to go and look my past up?"

"Joel, would you calm down for a minute? You said they were dead. I just wanted to find out the details so I could understand-" She put her hand on his chest but he shook her off and pulled his legs up and off the couch. Leaping to his feet he turned back and glared at her.

"I never said they were dead!"

"Yes you did, you told me that your parents had been gone for years."

"Right. Gone. I never said dead. They were gone from my life. They might as well be dead. They're dead to me. But that still gives you no right-"

"Joel, would you stop for a minute!" she said. She reached out and grabbed his hand, giving it a squeeze. "Listen, we found something else. About your father."

"I don't care, Amber," he said, pulling his hand away from hers. "I fucking told you, they're dead to me. I don't give a shit what you found out."

Amber stared at Joel, the tears falling from her eyes freely now. Something about her look gave him pause, his anger seeming to disperse slightly at her raw emotion. "What?" he demanded.

"Your father. I'm sorry Joel. He really is dead."

She watched as his face became an emotionless mask, the color draining from it slightly. His hands, which had been hanging loosely by his waist, slowly pulled themselves closed into tight fists.