Finding Serenity (4 page)

“I will.” A quick glance over her shoulder to reassure the officer. “I just need to figure out what kind of truck ran me over.”

“Is anything missing?” The cop is young, a little pudgy around the middle, but his face is kind and if she could let the instinct of warning leave her mind, Mollie might be able to lose the bit of caution she feels seeing all the officers in her apartment.

The thieves left her place in a mess. Her worn, green sofa is missing its cushions and the second hand steamer trunk she uses as a coffee table is open and on its side. She is thinking about the books scattered over the wood floors and how her own comic book collection has been haphazardly strewn from her now broken bookshelf, when her thoughts immediately focus on her missing DJ equipment.

The alcove near her window is completely vacant. Stray wires from her DJ rack lay on the floor like a twisted coiled mess and speakers that this morning were stacked and neat, are all missing. There are no cases of records or rows of CDs neatly arranged on the alcove shelves.

“It’s all gone.” Mollie nods to the empty space that once held her equipment, trying to suppress the cringe on her face. She didn’t want her friends to see her so upset. “All of it. My records, my CDs, my speakers, media players, mixers, light board. Damn it. It’s all gone.”

“So some stereo equipment is missing, anything else, Miss?” the young cop asks her.

Mollie wants to cry. She wants the quick burn in her stomach to settle so she doesn’t feel so near to vomiting. Stereo equipment? This guy had no clue. “It’s not just stereo equipment.” She faces the cop, frowning. “I’m a DJ. It was my livelihood. There is about fifteen grand in equipment missing. It took me years and years to get this stuff together.” She picks up a cord from the floor, trying to suppress the sinking feeling in her chest. A few cords and lonely plugs is all that is left of the years she saved and bartered to build up her equipment. There was a first pressing Bessie Smith’s “Downhearted Blues” that took her two years to track down.
Gone.
The light board she sweet talked a retired Rolling Stones sound engineer into selling to her three years ago, yeah, that’s gone too. She wants to cry. She wants to punch something. Instead, she lowers her shoulders and levels a stare at the curious cop. He’s got a small note pad in his hand and is giving Mollie an expression that tells her he doesn’t understand what she’s getting so worked up about.

“They took everything.” She starts to tear up, unable to suppress the quick shake in her hands. Layla is at her side, touching her elbow. “Did y’all catch them?” she asks the cop.

“Them?” The pudgy cop moves forward, clearly surprised to discover this robbery wasn’t a one-man job.

“Yeah. Two of them. One lifted my stuff, the other one came at me with some kind of pipe. If it had been one guy maybe I could have taken him, but I was caught off guard.”

The cop’s pen moves in furious scribbles across the page of his small notebook and Mollie rebuffs Autumn’s immediate gestures toward her injured cheek.

“We didn’t know about the second guy, but we dusted for fingerprints, got a few good ones. Did you get a good look at either of them?”

“Not really. It happened so fast and they both were wearing hoods.” The sharp ache in her cheek throbs and Mollie touches the tender skin there. “The one that swung at me was a white guy from what I could tell. Tall, probably around six feet. Stocky, but not fat or built.” She sits down on her recliner, slumping. “The other one got out of here too fast for me to notice much else but his arms full of my shit.” She looks at Layla and Autumn. “Damn it. What the hell am I gonna do now?” Right then, when she looks at her friends and the small dips of worry pulling down their mouths, Mollie thinks she won’t be able to hold back her tears.
God, what would Daddy say about this?
she thinks.
Well, he’d be angling to find those punks and kick their asses, but first, he’d tell me to suck it up.
To get even, not mad. He’d tell me there isn’t time for tears. Especially not in front of a bunch of cops.

Autumn nods Declan away and he guides the cop from them, likely grilling the man about what their next move would be. But Mollie isn’t naïve. She knows they won’t look too hard. Burglaries aren’t uncommon in Cavanagh. College town, lots of kids, it’s not unheard of and for the most part, the local cops rarely solve these cases, unless, of course, something from the University has been taken. A single girl with a bunch of “stereo equipment” won’t matter to them. She isn’t like Layla or Autumn. Her folks are nobodies and her name pulls zero weight.

“You’ll stay with me tonight.” Layla’s voice goes soft, a bit demanding but Mollie knows the sincerity isn’t forced. Her best friend is genuinely concerned. When she starts to protest, Layla shakes her head. “No, don’t argue. You’ll stay with me and we’ll go in the morning to file your report. Walter said—” one small glare cut to Layla at the mention of her boyfriend’s name and the blonde goes mute. Mollie doesn’t like him. Layla knows this. “Anyway, we’ll figure this out.”

“How?” Mollie knows there is a whine attached to the question, but thoughts of her having no livelihood, no means to support herself has left her at a loss. The lingering burn in her eyes quickly disappears and she is struck by a consuming sensation of anger. “I have two gigs scheduled for this weekend. Fifteen hundred a piece. That’s rent and bill money for two months.”

“You don’t have anything saved up? What about your insurance?” Leave it to Autumn to sound like a grown up. But Mollie doesn’t snap at her friend, doesn’t pull back from her when the redhead kneels next to her and takes her hand.

“I do, but that’s not going to last forever and the insurance claim will take at least a month.”

Layla comes to sit on the arm of the recliner and moves the hair out of Mollie’s eyes. “What about your mom?”

She can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of her throat. God, her mother will be freaking giddy when she hears about this. She’s forever telling Mollie about the dangers of living on her own. Not to mention the disapproving frown she always gives her when anyone mentions her DJing. “There is no way I’m asking her for shit. It’s not worth the lecture.”

Layla opens her mouth again, likely trying to suggest something else that Mollie finds ridiculous, but Autumn cuts her off with a wave of her hand. “We’ll get it straightened out, honey. Don’t worry. Not tonight anyway.”

Mollie bought her first mixing board at nineteen. She’d worked at Dillinger’s Mortuary for a solid year, assisting Mr. Dillinger in funeral prep because he paid her a lot of money since he couldn’t find anyone willing to work over night. Mollie hated that job, but it allowed her to save her cash quickly. When she bought that first board and landed a few gigs, she’d made enough to quit the funeral home and DJ whenever she wanted. She loved the loud thump of the music mixing with her heartbeat, the rhythmic movement of her body swaying with the crowd, with the pulse of each track. It was freeing. It was real and the sound of laughter, of cheers was worth that year of putting make-up on dead bodies and repressing bile at the sight of crash victims.

Now, it was over. All gone. She knew it wasn’t a forever occupation, she was in college for a reason, but she wasn’t quite ready to leave it behind. These assholes came into her home tonight and rocked her world. They’d stripped away the joy she’d secured for herself, that hard fought struggle of doing something that actually left a smile on her face. It was done. Thieves came into her home and stole her freedom, took away her comfort, her solitude in this place.

“I’ll call Marco,” his face immediately coming to mind when she thought about the other DJs and how’d they react to this robbery. “He’s been looking for some gigs and I know he’ll hear about anyone trying to sell equipment.”

“Cavanagh is tiny, Molls. If someone’s trying to sell your stuff then you’ll hear about it,” Autumn says.

“Who’d be stupid enough to sell it here?” It’s not what she would do. Hell, that was common sense. Her dad had taught her the finer points of selling things you weren’t supposed to have. “They’d probably try Knoxville or even Chattanooga.”

“Come on.” Layla helps her out of her chair. “Pack a bag and let’s get you home.”

Home. Mollie glances around her disaster of an apartment. This
was
her home, her first brush of independence, the first place she felt truly free from her mother’s domineering commands and expectations. Now it felt awkward and suspect. The thieves took more than her livelihood; they had taken her peace of mind.

Marco Martinez is a shifty character.
That’s what Mollie thought the first time she met him anyway. He is too lanky, the gums of his mouth too wide, his teeth too narrow. But three years ago when Mollie got jumped outside of the club she was gigging at in East Knoxville, Marco came to her rescue.
Well,
she thinks as she sits next to Marco in his beat up El Camino,
rescue is being overly generous.
He slammed his face against the robber’s fist over and over until the punk got bored and left. That night, Mollie took Marco to the ER and paid for the ten stitches he needed across his cheek. They’d been friends ever since.

When he called yesterday afternoon to tell her he’d heard about a Cavanagh U drop out who’d bought her mixer and light board from a guy out of the trunk of his ‘67 Shelby, she could have kissed him. Instead, they made plans to stake out the kid in Sevierville at some fancy banquet.

“What time is it?” she asks Marco.

For the fourth time he looks at his cell, but doesn’t make a face or complain about her impatience. “Nine-fifteen.” When he looks at her, Mollie sees the faint scar under his cheek shine against the console light. “It’s gonna be a while, chica. Be cool.”

“You’re funny. ‘Be cool’ he says. This asshole probably got my stuff for less than half of what I paid for it. I’m not capable of cool right now.”

She looks out at the parking lot of this uptight-looking place and frowns. The building seems too white, the columns too high as though it belongs on some sprawling plantation estate and not on the outskirts of tourist central. There are sleek, black luxury cars lining up to drop couples decked out in finery; they all look affluent, all dressed in clothes that likely haven’t seen a rack. Without realizing she’s doing it, Mollie tugs on her plaid skirt. It is too tight, second hand, and doesn’t cover the small bruise above her knee. Her combat boots are worn on the tips and her white Ramones t-shirt is threadbare, barely covers her belly button.

In every row of parked cars is a state trooper cruiser. Converging around the entrance are men and women dressed in trooper garb, fine blue formal suits with gold lapels and badges that gleam against the moonlight.
Great,
Mollie thinks.
Fabulous.
This idiot buys my stolen property and I get surrounded by troopers.

When Mollie hears the sharp click of a lighter and then smells the sticky sweet whiff of a blunt, her gaze jerks to Marco.

He answers her glare with a confused squint. “What? You want some? I didn’t think you were into this.”

“We’re surrounded by cops, idiot. You wanna catch a bid for possession? Put it out.”

Marco listens to her and deposits his blunt and lighter in the ashtray, but the scent lingers and instantly Mollie is reminded of the night her father was arrested. She hasn’t smoked much since then, just the occasional experimental hits with Layla and some of her musician friends, but that was twice, perhaps three times, in the past ten years. Just the smell of weed brought her back to her father’s home and the chaos of her first hit of the herb. The night the State of Mississippi took her father away from her for at least twenty years. She misses him and there isn’t a thing she can do about that. Not unless she wants to quickly incur her mother’s wrath.

“I can’t sit here.” She pushes open the car door before Marco can stop her. The rusted hinges protest against her heavy slam and she walks toward the building, purposefully avoiding the front entrance for the side where caterers and waiters weave in and out of vans like black and white bees.

“Hold up, chica. You can’t just barge in there and demand your shit back.” Marco catches up with her, tugging on her arm to stop her before she moves around the wait staff and into the kitchen of the opulent building. “This kid probably didn’t even realize he was buying stolen equipment. From what I hear he’s barely twenty and dumb as shit.”

Mollie pulls away from Marco, closing her arms across her chest. “I can’t just sit and wait. I want my stuff. Besides, he’s been playing for two hours straight. He’s going to take a break sooner or later.”

Marco still smells of the blunt and his breath is warm against her neck as they sneak past the wait staff, the men in suits and ties that direct them and into the corner of the banquet hall. Her friend’s constant refrain is “be cool,” and “don’t catch anyone’s eye,” but Mollie is too focused on the banner above the stage in the center of an elegant ballroom. TENNESSEE STATE TROOPER’S HONORS BANQUET. She feels out of place, a chipped tooth on a flawless, straight smile. Marco’s hand circles her elbow, pulls her back when the music stops and the Governor steps onto the stage and taps the microphone twice with his fingertip.