Keeping Allie (Breaking Away #3) (9 page)

Mark gives me a look that says,
Don’t give more information than you have to
.

“Yes.”

“Beating up Chase Halloway?” the detective clarifies. 

“Yes.”

He snorts. “Good. Let them take out each other. When the lowest dregs of society kill each other off, it makes my job easier.”

I open my mouth to tell him what a sick piece of shit he is for saying that, but Mark’s eyes flicker.

So I say nothing.

The detective speaks again. “Agent Paulson says that—” 

“Agent who?” I ask, completely confused. I drink the rest of my tea while Detective Knowles gives me an impatient look.

“That’s me. Mark Paulson,” Mark says with no emotion.

His last name is different than Chase’s, even though he’s Galt’s son. Hmmm. Maybe he has a stepdad? Maybe he adopted Mark? More questions. My mind fills with so many more.

Now is not the time for those questions.

“Agent Paulson says that you were kidnapped to pay off a drug debt from your stepfather. You were being given to El Brujo to pay off Jeff Wakefield’s debt.”

“That’s what Frenchie said,” I say, nodding.

“Frenchie Lemeaux?” Detective Knowles says, scribbling furiously on a small pad he pulls out of his breast jacket pocket.

“I don’t know his last name. We weren’t exactly formal like that when he was fondling me and handcuffing me to a bed,” I answer, the tea threatening to come up. I swallow hard and will my throat not to gag. 

The detective has the decency to look embarrassed.

Mark shoots him a look of disgust and says, “I told you she wasn’t ready. She needs medical attention first. Interrogation later.”

“She’s still the prime suspect in Wakefield’s murder.”

Mark explodes. “I can’t believe you still think that. I found her like this. Look at the bruises. The rope marks. Jesus Christ, I think I saw cigarette burns on her hip.”

I peel back the pants I’m wearing. Is that what that series of raw circles is? It’s the hip that doesn’t have the big gash. I thought they were spider bites, but in the bright fluorescent light I can see the bubbled edges and the blackish-grey center. Oh, gross.

What kind of person does that? Someone lit a cigarette and put it on my bare flesh, letting it sizzle until it cooked my skin. Did it on purpose. Did it without remorse. 

Did it for
pleasure
.

The room swims in front of my eyes, like I have water in my ear. A loud ringing sound replaces their voices and I see white dots everywhere. I start to slide to the right, all the way to the floor, off the nice, soft couch as I see the bag of food tip and spill peanuts on the ground, my fingers on the raw cigarette burns.

Mark’s voice calls my name like he’s down a long, dark hallway.

And then nothing.

Chapter Fourteen

Beep. Beep. Beep.
I hear my breath before I feel it. Something’s on my finger, and a long ropy wire is attached to it. My eyelids flutter and bright light attacks when I open my eyes. 

So I close them.

As I breathe, my exhales are louder than my inhales. I’m breathing through my nose. The room is cold. The ropy thing makes me start to scream.

The scrape of chair legs against the floor fills my ears, and then a soft, soothing voice is next to my head. Warm, loving hands on my arms.

The screams die in my throat as I open my eyes and see Mom and Marissa standing over me, worried looks creasing their brows.

“It’s okay. You’re safe,” Mom says. She pats my arm with the weird ropy thing on it. I look down. There’s a clamp in my finger attached to a wire, and I have two IVs sticking out of the crook of my elbow. I’m wearing a hospital gown and am under what feels like three layers of blankets. 

Those aren’t ropes tying me to a chair.

I’m not handcuffed to the bed.

I am not naked and on display.

No one has a hose to turn on me.

My body relaxes with relief.

“Mom! You’re safe.” My nose fills up and I start to cry. It’s an ugly cry, my chest caving in as it convulses. I can’t stop. After a while I just sound like a herd of walruses and Mom curls her body around me. It’s like she’s trying to cover as much of me as she can to protect me from the world.

Marissa’s sitting at the end of my bed. She’s patting my foot over and over. I know she’s trying to do whatever she can. She points to Mom’s back as we make eye contact and widens her eyes, opening her mouth with an expression of surprise. 

I smile. My lip splits open. I taste blood.

I stop smiling.

Mom pulls away, a red smear on her cheek. “You’re bleeding!” she exclaims, snatching a tissue from a box on the tray next to my bed. Tenderly, she wipes my lip, then reaches for a bottle of petroleum jelly.

With a cotton swab, she dabs the petroleum jelly on my lips. The jar has already been used, and my lips aren’t super dry. I’m guessing she’s been doing this for a while.

“How long?” I croak, then lose my voice. Mom puts a straw to my mouth and I take a sip, then gag. The water parts my stuck-together mouth. I have to let my mouth moisten before I can use it.

“Two days,” Marissa says quietly. “You passed out at the police station and they brought you here in a helicopter.”

My first flight ever and I’m out cold for it.

“Where am I?” 

“Los Angeles,” Mom says, looking around nervously. Her eyes go the door. I follow her look at see a guy through the small window. He’s wearing a police officer’s hat.

“L.A.?” I squeak, sipping again. “I’m all the way in L.A.? Was I hurt that bad?”

Mom shakes her head sadly. “No. I mean, you were.” She looks at my arm. It’s covered in bandages and now that attention is on it, I realize it hurts. A lot.

“Then why L.A.?” Feeling all the pain makes me want to fade out again. Sweat forms on my forehead, between my breasts, behind my knees.

“They wanted to get you away from everything and to a place with a good burn unit,” Mom explains, her face crumpling when she says
burn unit
.

“Burn unit?” My arm feels like the skin is being peeled off by someone with a potato peeler.

“Honey, when you left the compound, you fell off the back of the bike and got dragged a hundred feet or so. Your arm hit a hot part of the engine. Took about seven inches of skin off. And then the dragging...” Mom can’t finish. She starts to cry. Marissa looks like someone hit her in the head with the back of a shovel.

Chase. A vivid memory of Chase and Loogie fist fighting as I left on the bike with Mark fills my head.

“Chase?” I ask.

A nurse walks in just as Mom’s about to answer. The polite tap on the door gets all of our attention.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the nurse says. “I’m just here to do vitals.” Her eyes are on Mom as she speaks, but then cut over to me. Her face brightens. “Hey! You’re awake! I’ll let the doctor know.” She doesn’t even introduce herself. Just scurries out.

“You’re kind of a celebrity here,” Marissa whispers. “Everyone’s been pulling for you.” 

“Pulling for me? Was I supposed to die?”

“No, no,” Mom assures me. “Just that you’re in a lot of pain. No one here wants that. And coming in by helicopter after escaping from a biker compound kind of makes you a badass.”

“Badass Allie,” I cough out.

“Has a nice ring to it,” Marissa says with a relieved smile.

“What about you?” I ask Marissa. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“That night. They hit me from behind and kidnapped me.” My memory is coming back. Talking helps reduce the pain. Listening is hard, though. Too much down time to let the pain roar back.

“I came home,” she says, her voice shaking, “and you were gone. Just...gone. There was a small set of drops of blood on the floor of the kitchen, and a smoking pan, charred, on the stove. The burner was still on. I realized right away something was wrong.”

Marissa stands and comes closer to the head of the bed. Mom reaches out to her and holds her hand tight.

“And I wanted to go to the police, but knew they wouldn’t believe me. I went to the one person I thought could help,” she continues.

“David,” I whisper.

She startles. “Yes. How did you know?” She smiles. “And he wants you to know he’s so sorry you got hurt like that. But glad he could help. He had to go off to college already.” She sighs, as if she feels my pain at missing his send-off. 

The mirrors. The shining lights in the face of the bikers behind us. David must have found Chase somehow. Chase must have set all that up to save me. I remember how I slapped Chase. Blamed him for getting me stuck in the Atlas compound, to be delivered to—

Oh, God. I’m going to throw up.

El Brujo.

“David and Chase are friends,” I mutter. I want to ask about Chase but suddenly, even thinking takes too much effort. 

Marissa takes a deep breath, ready to continue (
there’s more?
), but a doctor walks in. The room starts to go white again, with dots filling in my vision.

The beeps in the room get faster.

“Allie? Allie?” the white doctor’s coat says. “I need you to breathe slowly.”

But I am
, I think. And then it all fades out.

Chapter Fifteen

The interrogation takes place two weeks after my rescue. Detective Knowles has come to me in Los Angeles, and we’re sitting in Marissa’s apartment. Um, it’s mine, too. I live here now. It’s safer that way.

He’s a lot nicer than he was the day he questioned me and considered me a suspect in Jeff’s murder. That possibility has been dropped, thanks to some investigations done by the Drug Enforcement Agency, spearheaded by Mark.

Who I haven’t seen since the day he rescued me.

Same as Chase.

“Tell me the entire story again. Nice and slow,” the detective says. It’s not a request. 

The story takes me two hours.

He’s recording the whole thing. Mom told me I needed a lawyer, but I don’t have the money and I don’t get a free one. You only get the free ones when you’ve been arrested.

I have nothing to hide.

But I don’t tell the whole truth. I play stupid when Detective Knowles asks about Mark’s involvement. I don’t have to lie about Mom anymore. She went to the police station and shocked the hell out of town officials when she reappeared, alive. Helen Boden Wakefield’s reappearance made the local newspapers for the last two weeks. Mom showed me one, then threw it in the trash.

It never made the local news out here in L.A., though. Neither did my escape.

I guess it’s just too small time for news coverage. I’m small potatoes. Nobody. Unimportant. 

El Brujo, though, is the focus of the detective’s questions. I quickly realize that’s what he’s here for. He asks a lot about Jeff, Galt and Loogie. Mom told me Loogie’s a good guy; he beat Chase up that day because he thought Chase was trying to hurt
her
.

But Chase managed to knock him senseless, and then—

No one’s seen Chase at all.

“And Chase Halloway?” Detective Knowles asks between sips of unsweetened iced tea. His mouth is drinking but his eyes are on me. “Any idea where he is?” 

I shake my head. I’m struggling not to cry.

He points to my arm, which is still bandaged. Underneath the skin is healing with the help of some skin grafts. I put special salves on it every night and check in at the burn unit for follow-up care. A nice social worker at the hospital helped me to get basic insurance. No medical bills, thank God. That’s the last thing I need.

Broken body, broken spirit, broken heart.

And I’m broke, too.

But at least I’m not in debt up to my eyeballs.

The muscles in my neck, around my throat, start to ache. I get this feeling when I think about Chase. So many unanswered questions.

“Let me understand this again. Your mother dressed up as you and Frenchie Lemeaux attempted to deliver her—thinking it was you—to El Brujo?” the detective asks.

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me more?”

“Didn’t my mom tell you the story when she came to the police station?”

“Yes, but I want to hear it from you, Allie,” the detective says, eyes alert and interested.

I sigh. I really don’t like to think about this. Then again, it fills my mind every waking moment whether I like it or not. Might as well talk about it.

“She put on the prom gown we were told El Brujo wanted me to wear. She made herself look as much like me as she could. Frenchie didn’t recognize her, because she put on a motorcycle helmet. I hid under the bed while he led her away.”

“And then?”

“And then Agent Paulson found me and tried to get me out. Meanwhile, my mom went with Frenchie, but on the way she jumped off the motorcycle just as Loogie was catching up to her and Frenchie. From what Mom told me, Chase flattened Loogie. Loogie came to, got on his bike, chased after me and Mark—er, Agent Paulson.” This is the part where my voice falters. Me and Mom had to piece together all of this, and some of the parts don’t make sense.

“It’s okay. Take your time,” the detective says. I drink a long gulp from my iced tea, square my shoulders, and start again.

“We were way ahead and already at the police station by the time Loogie saw what was going on. He took a shortcut and got back on the main road, right behind Frenchie and my mom. When Mom saw him, she pulled off her helmet. Loogie realized it was her. She jumped off the bike. Frenchie crashed. Loogie got to her and Frenchie. She said if Loogie had been carrying a gun he would have shot Frenchie.”

“But he didn’t?” 

I shake my head. “Beat the shit out of him, though.”

Detective Knowles gives me a wry smile. “Any man would if someone did that to their woman.”

I think about Chase punching Loogie as the bike sped away.

Yeah. Any man would.

Mom says I have nothing to worry about with El Brujo anymore. Loogie says any daughter of his old lady’s is like a daughter of his, and under the protection of the Mephists.

Mom says that like I have my own Secret Service guards.

Maybe better.