Never Go Home (14 page)

Matt moved
quicker than he had at the bar. It caught me by surprise. He drove his big
hands forward, into my chest. I lost my balance for a second. He followed it up
with a head butt. I managed to move to the left, but not far enough. He caught
the side of my forehead. The maneuver didn’t have the intended effect of
splitting my face open. It left both us reeling a bit though.

I shook my
head and regained my balance. He threw a right hook at me. It was wide and
sloppy. I ducked it and delivered a blow to his midsection. The air left his
lungs like a balloon deflating. He bent over. I grabbed the back of his head as
I drove my knee into his face. He fell down, gagged on his blood.

Jed came
running toward me swinging the baseball bat.

I didn’t have
enough time to reach the M40 tucked in my waistband and avoid his next swing,
so I waited. He waved the bat back and forth like a kid stepping up to the
plate for the first time. There was no cohesion. His next attempt would be wild
and in my direction. I prepared to avoid it and gain control of the bat.

“Freeze!”
April yelled.

Jed stopped
in place. He glanced at me, then her.

“Take your
shot, man,” I said.

He thought
about it. I could see him inching forward. He stopped just out of arm’s reach.
That gave him plenty of room to work the bat. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t
count on me kicking him, so it came as a surprise when I slammed my foot into
his crotch. He dropped the bat and fell to his knees. I kicked him in the face
and then pushed him over. He landed on top of his friend.

“That’s the
second time you two ended up in a pile today. There’s a lesson in there
somewhere.”

April and I
left the two guys on the ground and walked to the front door.

“Glenn,” I
said. “Come out here. We need to talk to you about what happened to Jessie. We
know it wasn’t an accident.”

There was no
response. The door was open. I couldn’t see or hear any movement.

“What do you
think?” April said.

“We can wait
him out.”

A roaring
sound filled the still night air.

I turned and
ran to the driveway. The motorcycle created a breeze that crashed into me as
Glenn drove by. I grabbed the bat off the ground, cocked my arm back. By that
point, he’d traveled too far beyond my reach. I couldn’t do anything but watch
the red taillight shrink into the dark.

“Dammit.” April
rushed past me. “We can’t let him get away.”

One of the guys
on the ground laughed. The other moaned.

“Let’s go,” she
said, already halfway to the car.

“Don’t think
about leaving town,” I said to Matt and Jed as I walked by. Jed got to one knee
and flicked me off. I altered my course and kicked him in the face. He collapsed
again.

April stood
behind her open door, shaking her head. “Why?”

I dropped the
bat on the driveway and shrugged. “Why not?”

She put the
cruiser in reverse and gunned it. My head whipped forward then back as the rear
tires hopped the curb behind us. Two quick thumps. April didn’t seem to care.
She kept her foot on the gas and shifted into drive. Tires spun in the grass,
dug into the earth. We lurched forward. The rear axle dropped six inches. The
tires squealed until they got their grip set on the asphalt.

Didn’t matter
how fast April drove. We’d lost Glenn. He had a head start on a motorcycle. He
could have cut through someone’s yard and pulled into a shed by now. Or ditched
the bike and taken off on foot. Woods surrounded the neighborhood on three sides.
There were more across Suncoast, although the tributaries and gulf lay beyond.
April slammed on the brakes, opened her door and stepped out. I joined her by
the cruiser’s trunk. We were near the entrance to the neighborhood, facing the
way we had come.

“I’m getting
Craig over here. He can bring those two drunks in.” She pulled out her cell and
held it to her ear. Seconds passed. She made a twirling motion with her hand,
then said, “Craig, get over to 2424 Magnolia. There’s two guys passed out on
their front lawn. I want them locked up.”

“He on his
way?”

“Voicemail.”
She hung up. “What do we do now?”

Porch lights
flicked on. People wandered through their front doors, down their driveways,
and gathered along the side of the street. Hard to tell what would happen in a
neighborhood like this. Their stares and gestures made it obvious they weren’t
fans of the local law enforcement. How far would they go, though?

I kept my eye
on the growing crowd, and said, “His wife’s funeral is tomorrow morning. No way
he doesn’t show. Have a couple of your deputies waiting there and arrest him
afterward.”

April followed
my stare. She glanced at me, then turned back toward them. “Arrest him for
what?”

“I don’t know.
You’re the cop. Force him to go in for questioning. Catch him jaywalking for
all I care. Get him to the police station and let me work on him.”

She looked at
me again and leaned back, her brows furrowed and her arms crossed. I remembered
her giving me the same look when she was five or six after I told her she couldn’t
stay up to watch TV. Only this time the hurt was real.

“I’m sorry,” I
said. “My temper got the better of me, and he got away.”

“What’s done is
done,” she said with a sigh. “Why hasn’t Craig called back?”

“Maybe he fell
asleep.”

“Maybe we
should go over and check up on him.”

I shrugged,
jutted my chin toward the crowd fifty feet away. “I think we should go
somewhere before that group of people decides to do something stupid.”

She nodded.
“Maybe we should go get a drink.”

“I can handle
that.”

We turned and
walked to our respective sides of the vehicle. I kept my head on a swivel and
my stare focused on the crowd. They did nothing. We both slipped inside the
car.

She drove
through town, past the only bar I knew of within five miles. She didn’t slow
down. I said nothing. She’d spent her entire life here. She knew the places to
go. Something new could have opened up, and I wouldn’t have had a clue. Maybe
she was taking me to a new restaurant where I could get a steak and a beer.

That would be
heaven.

Downtown
Crystal River was deserted. The roads were lit up with new orange street lamps.
The only sound was the purr of the engine and the near jet-like sound of the
air conditioning blowing through the vents. It was the coolest I’d felt since
arriving in Florida.

We left Main
Street and the lights behind, headed north. I knew there was nothing that way,
at least not on Suncoast.

“Where are we
going?” I said.

“You’ll see,”
she said.

Five minutes
later she turned right. The darkened street offered no clues. She hugged the
road’s curves. Second nature. She’d driven them hundreds, if not thousands of
times. Finally, she pulled onto a gravel driveway, cut her headlights and
parked the car in an open garage. With a twist of her wrist, the engine and the
vents went silent.

We sat in
silence for a minute. The ticking of the cooling car sounded like shotgun
blasts.

“Want to come
in?” she said.

“Do I have a
choice?” I said.

“You can walk
back to your brother’s house.”

I thought about
it. The mental map I pulled up told me it’d be a three or four mile walk. It
was dark and hot and muggy, and that didn’t appeal to me. Also, I couldn’t
recall seeing a beer in my brother’s fridge.

I wasn’t sure
if hers had any, but I’d risk it.

“All right,” I
said. “Lead the way.”

The exterior of
her house looked old enough that the shingles might have been made of asphalt.
The yard was well maintained. The grass was short. Hedges were trimmed. There
were plenty of flowers, all in bloom. Red, yellow, orange, purple. She didn’t
care about cohesion. She must’ve liked the vibrancy of them all.

Her keys
jangled as she pulled them from her pocket. They reflected the streetlight in
front of her house. She stuck one in the doorknob. The lock clicked. She pushed
the door open and flicked on a light. A pool of white washed over the front
step. A tabby cat greeted her with a long meow. It rubbed against her leg, gave
her a long stare, and then walked away.

“Perfect pet,”
she said. “Says ‘hi’ when I come home and then takes care of himself. Haven’t
even been able to find a man who can do that.”

“Say hi, or
take care of himself?”

She smiled.
“Either.”

I said nothing.

“It’s a joke,
Jack. Just trying to lighten the mood. It’s been a rough day for both of us.”

“Day? Try
decade.”

She walked away
from me. Her arms crossed in front of her. Her hands went to the opposite
sides. She grabbed her shirt and pulled up a few inches. It slipped out from
her utility belt clad waistband. The bottom of the shirt rose up a few inches.
Her skin was tanned. A colorful tattoo adorned her right side. She let go of
the shirt with her left hand. The hem fell to her hip. She used the same hand
to unclasp her utility belt. It hissed through the belt loops of her pants. She
held it out to the side. It looked like a dangling water moccasin. She let it
fall to the floor.

“I’ll be right
back,” she said, looking back at me. “Make yourself at home.”

The foyer had
one picture on the wall of the Eiffel Tower, and no furniture. I glanced down
the dark hallway. Looked like it led to the bedrooms. To the right, I saw the
dining room. An old oak table with four chairs sat under a dark light fixture.
I walked forward, into the living room. She had a full size couch and a love
seat. Both were upholstered with the same faded denim fabric.

I walked past
the furniture to the back door. White vertical blinds covered it. I pulled them
back. It was pitch black beyond the thick glass. I reached my hand to the side
and found a switch. A light cut on, dim at first, then bright once it warmed
up.

Her backyard
wasn’t much. Fifteen feet deep and as wide as the house, all enclosed with a
six-foot privacy fence. There were no trees or shrubs or flowers back there.
Didn’t even see a grill. I figured April spent little time in her backyard. The
front yard appeared to be her tranquil place.

“What are you
doing?”

I turned and
saw April standing there with two bottles of Miller Lite. She’d changed into
gym shorts and a pink tank top. She’d pulled her hair back. Her arms and chest
and legs were as tan as her side.

“I thought you
said you had beer?”

She extended
her arm toward me. “You a snob now?”

I hiked my
shoulders in the air and held my hands out to the side. “Spent some time in
Europe. They’ve converted me. A bit, at least.”

April walked
toward me and stuck the bottle in my hand. “You’re in Florida now, bud. Act
like it.”

I brought the
bottle to my lips and took a pull off it. It was cold and refreshing and once I
got past the aftertaste, it was pretty good.

She crossed the
room, stopping to place her beer on a coaster on top of the wooden coffee
table. The longer I looked at the table, the more I realized it had been made
from pallet boards.

She caught me
admiring it. “You like it?”

“Yeah. You make
it yourself?”

“Yup.”

“Neat.”

She laughed.
“Yeah,
neat
. When’d you start talking like a Cleaver?”

“Sorry, long
day.”

“So, have a
seat.”

I did. Her
couch was more comfortable than Sean’s expensive leather sofa. I moaned as I
leaned back. My body sunk into the cushions. I wondered if I’d be able to get
back up.

“You all right,
old man?”

I didn’t
respond.

She knelt down
in front of her entertainment center. Her buttocks rested on her heels. Her
tank top inched up. I saw part of the tattoo again. I wondered what it looked
like in its entirety. I heard a loading tray open, then close. A bossa nova
beat commenced a few seconds later. A guitar and tenor sax combined to create a
tune I hadn’t heard in years. Perhaps I had, but not in this way.

April rose,
spun halfway, and approached with a smile on her face. “You remember?”

I took a
second. A man sung in Portuguese. A smoky sax accompanied him. “Girl from…?”

She nodded,
slowly.

“Some beach in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil?”

She shook her
head, quickly. “Really, Jack? That’s the best you can do?”

“Ipanema,
right?”

April rolled
her eyes. “About time. Now, do you remember?”

I shook my
head. She looked disappointed. I said, “Give me a clue.”

She took a deep
breath, sat down on the coffee table in front of me, placed her forearms on her
knees and leaned forward.

“The summer
before you left, you watched me almost every day because my mom was gone, and
my dad worked that crazy shift and didn’t get home until nine or so. You
weren’t here alone all the time, but the last couple hours was always just us.
I used to—”

“Put this song
on and make me dance with you.”

April smiled.
She reached out and grabbed my hands. She rose, tried to pull me up with her.

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” she
said.

“Not a chance.”

“You don’t want
to disappoint me, do you?”

“I really don’t
care.”

She pushed the
coffee table back with her legs. She took a step back, pulled on my arms
harder. Eventually, I relented. She laughed at first as I fumbled through the
steps. Then she moved in closer. The day had taken its toll on both of us. Her
scent was natural, appealing, even mixed with the beer.

Her body
pressed against mine. Her lips went to my neck. For a moment, I thought I’d
tell her to stop. I didn’t. She kissed my neck, my jaw, my cheek, and my lips.