His End Game (MMG #1) (15 page)

Kurt and Joss showed up at my house right at eight the next night. Benny and three guys that also worked at the garage pulled up behind them.

Benny introduced us. “Ellie, this is Twon, Marcus and Tut. Boys, this is Max’s Ellison.”

I started to tear up.

Max’s Ellison
.

I loved that he called me that. “Nice to meet you,” I said, my throat thick.

Benny’s boys were far from boys. Max had told me all about them. They were three extremely large and fit black men. Antwon, or Twon, was Benny’s nephew. He was a few years older than Max. Marcus had been in and out of foster homes until he found Benny. Now he was old enough to stay with Benny full time and work at the garage. Tut should have been named Tat. From what I could see, he had them all over, including on his shaved skull. Max hadn’t said much about Tut.

I can see why, yikes!

I watched Kurt hug everyone and introduce Joss. Since Max was close to Kurt and Benny was close to Max, it made sense that Kurt would be close to Benny and the boys.

We parked about half a mile away from Max’s house because Benny was worried about people seeing our cars.

What people
?

He then sent Marcus, Tut and Twon to check around and make sure we weren’t being watched.

“This is creepy,” whispered Joss. “Who do you suppose is watching us?”

“I’m afraid to ask. I’m also surprised that Kurt let you come.”

“I told him that I would cut him off if he didn’t.”

“Ouch.”

When we reached the house, both cars were still there but no lights were on. My stomach lurched.

Benny led us to the window that was furthest from the living room and pulled out what looked like a chisel. Sliding it
under the sill, he wiggled it until we heard a click. Slowly he pushed the window up.

“We can take it from here Ben,” Kurt quietly said.

“You can but you’re not. That boy saved me when nothing else could. I intend to repay the favor. You three stay here. I’m going in to check it out. I will let you in when the coast is clear and for shit’s sake, be quiet,” he whispered.

We stood there for what felt like a century before we heard him come back.

“Coast is clear. Come around to the back door and I’ll let you in.”

We spent an hour searching through every room and closet. Nothing was out of place or looked different except for the big coffee stain on the hardwood floor between the kitchen and the living room.

“His things are still here,” I said. We were standing in the middle of Max’s bedroom. I toed the bag at my feet. “This is one of the bags he was packing to take to ASU. I was here the day he pulled it out.”

“It looks like he was packing winter clothes but didn’t get very far,” Joss said.

“Shit!” Kurt exclaimed from across the room.

“What?” We turned to look at him.

“Hang on.” We watched as he perused the room, obviously searching for something.

“His duffle is gone.”

“Duffle?” Benny asked.

“The duffle he takes whenever he is traveling anywhere. It’s gone. Ellie, look real close. Do you notice if anything else is missing?”

I had been four days without him and didn’t realize how deprived I was feeling until I sat on his bed and his scent wafted up from his sheets and comforter. I felt like I was being held
together by tiny fragile strings and, one by one, they were starting to snap and break apart.

Smelling his scent sucked me back to the last night I had spent with him in this bed. I smelled us.

We danced here. It still smells of our love
.
He promised we would always be together
.

Joss’ hand squeezing mine brought me back to the moment. “Ellie, honey, we need you to focus.”

I can do this
.

I walked over to his chest of drawers and opened each one. His favorite jeans and T’s were gone.

“Some of his clothes are missing.” I thickly said. It was then that I noticed what else was missing. Closing my eyes, I let the pain wash over me. “and he took the pictures.”

“Fuck!” Kurt shouted, causing Joss and I to jump. “This is not fucking happening. He wouldn’t just leave without telling someone. He would know we would worry. He is crazy in love with you,” he said, staring at me with such intensity it made me squirm. “He would not walk away from that. Not even two weeks ago, he was telling me how you were it for him. He was in this forever. He would not just walk away from that!”

“He told me the same,” Benny stated. “I’m telling you, this has his father written all over it.”

“You keep saying that. Why?” I asked.

“It means that whatever this is,” he swept his arm across the room, “is because of his dad. I don’t know if he owes someone money or if he’s done something bad. Neither would surprise me, but whatever it is, I can guarandamntee you that it concerns that fucked up man.”

“Did you look in Sarah’s room?” Joss asked, before Benny could divulge any more information. She could tell that I was barely hanging on.

Not wanting to leave Max’s room, I hesitantly walked across the hall to Sarah’s room. My eyes went directly to her bed and the pain washed over me again.

“Her blanky and pillow are gone. She never goes anywhere without them.”

“Why did they leave everything else here?” Joss asked.

“Because they plan on coming back? Maybe Max took off early for school? Maybe he took Sarah with him?” Kurt suggested.

Or, maybe like Benny said, he was running from something his dad did
.

I didn’t say it out loud but I knew we were all thinking it.

“I’ll drive up to Boone tomorrow and check if Max showed up at App.” Kurt said.

“Not without me.” There’s no way that he was leaving me here.

“Or me,” Joss added.

“Damn it, I can’t go. I’ve got two new cars to work on at the garage.”

“We’ll come by when we get back,” Kurt assured him.

The last thing I did before going home was search Max’s truck. I was about to close it up when I remembered the glove compartment. Unlocking it, I reached in and found his iPod. His ear buds were still connected to it. I couldn’t imagine him going anywhere without his iPod. His music was an extension of him. He worked out with it, listened to it while he fixed cars and, when I wasn’t around, used it to get to sleep. This scared me more than anything else because, deep down, I knew that there was no way that Max would have intentionally left his music behind.

No… way…

~Five Years Later.

Only one more day of freedom before my marketing job at Trace started. I was kicking myself for not taking more than two weeks off after graduation.

Oh well
.

As my aunt would say, I was now a gainfully employed adult.

I can’t believe I graduated from college two weeks ago
.

I had spent this past week cleaning out my apartment. Throwing away four years of crap was cathartic. My decorating went as far as to purchase all new sheets and towels. I had plans of becoming more sophisticated. This, however, was going to take me a lot longer than a week. I was making a list of how to go about doing this when my phone rang. “Hello?”

“Is this Miss Davis?”

“Speaking.”

“Miss Davis, this is Dr. Cooper at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte. I have you down as the emergency contact for a Ms. Elizabeth Davis. Is this correct?”

My heart dropped. “Um, yes it is. Why? Is she okay?”

“I’m sorry to inform you that your aunt passed away at 11:22 this morning.

“What?” I whispered, closing my eyes.

This isn’t happening
.

“But…how?”

“Heart failure. She went into cardiac arrest and we could not revive her. I am so sorry for your loss. Is there anyone we can call for you?”

“Please tell me this is a joke.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss, ma’am I really am.”

I hung up. Immediately, I picked it back up and dialed Joss.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Joss?” I barely got out.

“Ellie, what’s wrong?”

“My aunt.”

I heard the phone rustling and then Joss shouting something in the background.

“Hey El, it’s Kurt, what’s wrong?” Ever since Max’s disappearance, Kurt had been my confidant, my brother, my protector. Sometimes I felt as if he was watching over me for Max. Of course, I knew this wasn’t the case. After all, Max left Kurt too, but…. Just hearing his voice made the tears flow.

“The hospital called a few minutes ago. My aunt died of heart failure at eleven this morning.”

“Jesus, Ellie. We just saw her at your graduation! What can we do to help? Do you want us to come get you?”

I need you to bring her back
.

“Kurt, I need to go, I feel sick.” My chest was tight and I felt sick to my stomach.

“Okay, but promise you will call us later today.”

“Sure.”

First Max and now my aunt
.

Nausea slammed into me and I barely made it to the bathroom before losing my breakfast.

I didn’t call Kurt and Joss back that day. In fact, I turned off my phone, crawled in my bed and relived a lifetime of memories with the only parent I’d ever known. True, not all of them were good, but they were mine.

Three days later I heard my front door open and close.

“You’re going to have to get out of bed and deal with this Ellie,” Kurt announced from my bedroom door.

Why did I ever give them a key
?

“Go away,” I moaned in his direction.

“Ellie sugar,” Joss said, crawling in bed beside me. “Plans need to be made and your aunt’s lawyer needs to talk to you. Your aunt arranged everything through her will but they need you to sign off on it.”

“I don’t want to sign off. I don’t want to bury her.”

“I know you don’t,” Kurt said, sitting down on my other side, “but you have to.” They now had me smushed between them, like a very sad sandwich.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye,” I whispered.

“I know and I’m so sorry,” Joss whispered back.

“I didn’t thank her for adopting me or tell her that I loved her enough.”

“She knew,” said Kurt. “She was so proud of you.”

They consoled me while I cried and reminisced. Then we planned my next step.

~Five years earlier

I read somewhere that there are five stages of grief. The first is denial. I could not believe that Max was gone, especially after everything that we had shared. That he could or would just up and leave me was too much to take. So, I didn’t. I made like an ostrich and buried my head deep in the sand or, in my case,
deep in denial. I believed to the bottom of my soul that he was going to show up at any second with a plausible explanation. We would all sigh in relief and life would go on. Hope, however, is a tricky thing. We all knew deep down that Max wasn’t going to be at school, but we were drowning so we grabbed onto anything we could think of. Hope kept me focused and moving forward. It fed my denial and, for a while, I let it.

Our trip up to ASU was pointless. The Registrar’s office wouldn’t tell us anything. Kurt managed to get the name of Max’s dorm and his room number. We visited his roommate who knew nothing except that Max hadn’t shown up.

We were all quiet on the ride back down the mountain.

“So, what now?” Joss asked.

“Listen Ellie, even if Max wanted to leave you, which he didn’t, he wouldn’t have left without talking to me first. He wouldn’t have left Benny without a word. Damn, I really wanted him to be there,” he sighed. “I wanted to see his face and then chew his ass. More than that, I just wanted to know that he was okay.” He ran his hand through his hair.

I stared out the window and let the tears fall. We were all disappointed.

We stopped off at the garage to talk to Benny before heading home. He told us that he had been searching out places where Max’s dad liked to drink.

“Ailene, at the Crispy Catch said that she hadn’t seen Malcolm in well over a week. He’s in the wind, gone underground or dead,” Benny told us.

I wasn’t sure the meaning of the first two but I certainly knew what the last meant. If Malcolm McLellan was dead, then what did that mean for Max and Sarah?