Fort Lupton (25 page)

“
I
don’t . . .”

“
Everything is fine,”
Jacob said in an exasperated voice. “What the hell is going
on?”

Aden undid his safety belt and got out of
the truck. Shaking his head, Jacob followed him out of the truck.
Jacob grabbed a folded cotton tarp from the bed of the truck.

“
What is going on?” Jacob
asked as they walked toward the small cinderblock
building.

“
The car is totaled,” Aden
said. “Frame’s bent.”

“
You
don’t . . .”

“
I worked in a body shop
when I was a kid.”

“
So you’ll get a new car,”
Jacob said.

“
Can’t afford it,” Aden
said.

“
The
insurance . . .” Jacob started.

He held the door open, and Aden went
through. Aden checked in at the desk, and they took seats on the
metal folding chairs around the edge of the small waiting room.

“
We dropped comprehensive
coverage when Lipson lost the state contracts,” Aden said. “It’s
six years old. Not terribly old for a Saab, but we’ve put a lot of
miles on it. Hell, the company isn’t even around
anymore.”

Jacob nodded.

“
I can’t take a company
truck,” Aden said. “With all the smaller jobs, they’re used every
single day. We’re lucky we invested in buying the fleet of trucks,
because we’d be screwed now.”

“
Val and Mike leave
today,” Jacob said. “I’d have to ask Mike, but I’d bet you could
drive his Bronco.”

“
No airbags,” Aden said.
“I’m not taking my kids anywhere near that deathtrap.”

Jacob grinned at Aden, who sniffed back at
him.

“
What about the other
car?” Jacob asked.

“
That’s Sandy’s car,” Aden
said.

“
She hates that car,”
Jacob said. “I’d bet it’s not too manly for you. Plus, it has
airbags everywhere.”

Aden didn’t respond. From the extent of the
sour look on Aden’s face, Jacob deduced that this was the topic
Aden and Sandy had been quietly arguing about this morning. Jacob
ran his shoulder into Aden’s, and Aden looked at him. Jacob
grinned.

“
What’s going on, really?”
Jacob asked.

“
I promised her a better
life,” Aden said.

Jacob nodded.

“
That’s it?” Aden asked.
“You’re not going to give me sage advice. Tell me how everything
will work out and I should just have faith?”

“
Nah,” Jacob said. “You
know all that stuff.”

“
I didn’t think, you
know,” Aden said. He lifted his cut eyebrow and then grimaced at
the pain. “I saw the guy shoot the gun and I acted. Just like
Charlie didn’t think when he went to help those girls. Just like
Noelle didn’t think when she agreed to testify in those trials. We
did the right thing and . . .”

Aden gestured around him.

“
Here I sit,” Aden said.
“The guys who raped the girls, sold their tapes, and all that crap,
they are . . .”

“
In prison,” Jacob said.
“And the guy who shot at Noelle? He’s dead.”

Aden scowled. The door to the impound office
opened and the insurance inspector came in carrying a clipboard. He
shook Aden and Jacob’s hands before going up to the desk. They
waited a few minutes before a sheriff arrived to take them onto the
lot. They had to walk about half a mile to Aden’s Saab. The
insurance agent began immediately circling the car and writing
things down on his clipboard.

“
You can get your stuff
out of the car,” the sheriff said. “We won’t release the car until
the case is resolved.”

“
Thank you,” Aden said,
and shook the young officer’s hand.

Jacob laid the tarp on the ground while Aden
opened the trunk. Jacob started pulling stuff out of trunk. Aden
slipped through the broken back seat window to get stuff out of the
back seat. He added the stuff from the backseat to the tarp. The
agent opened the front driver’s side door and tried the engine.
Miraculously, it turned over. The agent made a note and continued
around the vehicle.

When Jacob finished the trunk, he went to
the front seat and took stuff out of the glove box. The agent
helped Aden out of the backseat of the car and then stepped away to
make notes. Aden joined Jacob at the front of the car.

“
Kids,” Aden said.
“There’s crap everywhere.”

“
Always,” Jacob
said.

He gave Aden the registration and his
insurance card from the glove box. Aden leaned down to pick up an
aluminum water bottle.

“
How many bottles do you
need in a car?” Aden asked.

“
Nine so far,” Jacob said
with a smile.

“
Kids,” Aden muttered, and
went back to the pile of stuff from the car.

After a few minutes, the insurance agent
came over to talk to Aden. Jacob got up from the front seat to hear
what the agent had to say. By the time he got there, Aden and the
agent were shaking hands.

“
Mr. Marlowe.” The agent
shook Jacob’s hand and walked off toward the office.

“
What did he say?” Jacob
asked.

“
Totaled,” Aden said. “The
engine looks all right, which it should, since we take good care of
it. But the body’s shot, frame’s bent.”

Aden shook his head.

“
We’ll tow it to the
garage,” Jacob said. “Mike can take a look at it. He knows every
mechanic in town.”

“
Mike’s on his way to LA,”
Aden said.

“
What’s the rush?” Jacob
asked. “We won’t be able to get the car for at least a month,
probably more like six months.”

Aden gave him an exasperated look and went
back to sorting out the stuff from the car. After a few minutes, he
gave up. He and Jacob tied the corners of the tarp together. Like
Atlas, Aden hefted the tarp bundle onto his back. Jacob followed
him in amused silence.

At the truck, Aden hefted the bundle into
the bed of the truck and got into the passenger seat.

“
So what’s really going
on?” Jacob asked.

“
Just doesn’t seem fair,”
Aden said.

“
What doesn’t?”

“
Charlie, Noelle, Ivy,”
Aden said. “My car. We have to absorb the consequences of this
whole thing. That’s not to mention those poor girls and their
families. God, the girls who killed themselves . . .
We carry the load of this perversion while the men
who . . . They get away.”

Jacob started the truck, and they headed out
onto York Boulevard.

“
You don’t have anything
to say?” Aden asked.

“
I spent a lot of years
dancing with the seductress ‘not fair’,” Jacob said. “There isn’t
anything I can say to thwart her. And certainly, you’ve had more
than your fair share of difficulties.”

They drove in silence for a while before
Jacob decided to say something else.

“
I gave up my whole life
to the ‘unfairs,’” Jacob said. “I could have lured Jill away from
Trevor but I was too caught up in the ‘unfairs’. I could have this
life, the one I have right now, if I’d only acted instead
of . . .”

“
Dancing with a
seductress,” Aden said.

“
Exactly,” Jacob said.
“You want to give up all that you have for that shit?”

“
No,” Aden said.
“But . . .”

“
That doesn’t make it
fair,” Jacob said. “Sure.”

Jacob snorted a laugh.

“
What?” Aden
asked.

“
My mom used to say that
maybe a little unfairness is the cost of having so much bounty,”
Jacob said. “It’s taken me all this time to actually see what she
means.”

“
What does she
mean?”

“
She means that dealing
with the unfair things is part of having so much — healthy kids,
Jill, the Castle, this business, two hands that work, a mind that
can think, hot water.” Jacob nodded.

“
Clean toilets,” Aden said
with a grin.

“
Make your own list.”
Jacob grinned, and Aden laughed.

Jacob pulled into the Lipson Construction
parking lot.

“
I don’t need the truck,”
Jacob said. “Why don’t you take this stuff home? Sandy’s there
picking up some things for Noelle and Charlie.”

“
She is?”

“
She is,” Jacob said.
“Maybe you guys can talk.”

“
You sure?” Aden
asked.

“
I can get a ride from Dad
or Tres,” Jacob said. “Ask Sandy about Mike’s Bronco.”

Aden nodded. Jacob stopped the truck and got
out. Aden went around to the driver’s seat. Jacob waved and went
into the building. For a moment, Aden thought about what Jacob had
said.

Shaking his head at himself, he put the
truck in gear and headed toward the Castle.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday morning — 11:37 a.m.

Sandy was standing in the middle of her
bedroom wondering if she should do laundry. As she’d done three or
four times already, she went to her dresser drawer and peered at
her underwear. She walked back to the bag on the bed.

Valerie was leaving today and doing her last
loads of laundry. Of course, there was a laundry room at the Malibu
house, but the washers weren’t as big or as nice as the industrial
washers they had here. Sandy tipped her head to the side and tried
to listen for the sound of the household water.

“
Washer’s still on,” Sandy
said out loud.

If she spent another night at the hospital,
she would need . . . She went back to her dresser
drawer to look and then back to the bag.

“
Valerie said she’d let me
squeeze in a load,” Sandy said out loud.

She walked to the window and opened the
curtain to looked out. Mike was standing on the grass with a shovel
in his hand. The winter had been warm enough that he thought he
could turn over the beds now to help out Jacob and Aden later in
the season. Mike was laughing at something Delphie said. Sandy
flicked the curtain closed.

She went back to her dresser drawer.

“
Whatcha looking for?”
Aden asked.

Sandy yelped with surprise and spun around.
Aden was standing at the door. She gave him an annoyed shake of her
head and went to the bed to look in the duffle bag.

“
I’ve watched you do that
a couple times,” Aden said.

“
Do what?”

“
Look in your drawer and
then look in the bag,” Aden said. “It’s not in there.”

“
What’s not?”

“
A solution,” Aden
said.

“
I’m looking for
underwear, you jerk,” Sandy said.

“
Mmm,” Aden
said.

He sat down on the bed next to her duffle
bag. She scowled at him and went to look in her drawer. After
another look in the bag, she dropped down on the bed. They sat in
silence with the duffle bag between them.

“
Moving out?” Aden
asked.

“
I’m trying to figure out
what I need for another night in that fucking hospital,” Sandy
said.

“
Mmm,” Aden
said.

“
Yeah, thanks for being so
helpful,” Sandy said.

“
What help do you need?”
Aden asked.

She gave him an indignant look and went to
her dresser drawer. He got up and shoved the drawer closed. She
spun around to look at him.

“
Yes, I closed the goddamn
dresser drawer,” Aden said. “It’s not in there!”

“
My underwear?” Sandy
asked. “It is too in there! Where else would it be?”

Despite himself, Aden chuckled. She gave him
a sour look and plopped back down on the bed. They sat in heavy
silence. The household water turned on and off, indicating that the
washing machines were still going. Outside the window, Mike yelled
something at Delphie, and she laughed. The silence got heavier.

“
It’s too much,” Aden
said.

“
You think?” Sandy’s voice
was so bitter that his head jerked to look at her. “I assume you’re
home to tell me that your car, one of our only assets, is
totaled.”

“
It’s totaled,” Aden
said.

“
Of course it is.” Sandy
got up from where she sat and started toward the
bathroom.

“
Jake said that we could
drive Mike’s Bronco,” Aden said. “I told
him . . .”

“
That’s nice of him,”
Sandy said. She crossed her arms and turned back to him. “I don’t
know what we would do if we weren’t living here. We just paid off
my hospital bill. Now we have Charlie’s bill. This is Noelle’s
second bill in less than a year.”

She looked down at the ground.

“
I need to work more,”
Sandy said. “We should sell my condo.
We . . .”

He got up and put his arms around her. She
didn’t move to hold him back. Out of nowhere, a sob came out of her
mouth. She pushed him away.

“
I can sell my store or
get more renters or . . .”

“
Stop,” Aden said. “Just
stop.”

“
How can I stop?” Sandy
asked. “We have to
do
something!”

“
Not really,” Aden
said.

“
What are you talking
about?” Sandy’s voice rose.