Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 05 - Till Death Do Us Part (2 page)

“I think my Dad told him.”

“Your dad is here, too? I’d love to say hello. Let’s go up.”

“Do I have to?”

“Chicken?”

“No.”

“Liar. I want to say hello to your dad and sister. And besides I want to meet your Tom.”

“He is not my Tom,” I snarled.

“We’ll see.” Kenny took my arm and led me back up the path between the beach and the condos.

When we neared the top he said, “Which one?”

“If I said the one a mile away, would you believe me?” I asked.

Kenny laughed. “Come on, Stretch. Which one?”

I pointed to the back door of our condo and he escorted me, never removing his hand from my arm. My stomach knotted again and the desire to bolt rippled through my body.

“Easy, Stretch,” Kenny mumbled as he opened the sliding glass door.

Dad, Jordan and Tom were at the dining room table when we walked in.

Dad rose and extended his hand, “Kenny, it’s nice to see you again.”

Kenny shook his hand and replied, “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Wilcox.”

Then he turned his charm on Jordan. He reached over took her hand and said, “You were always a beauty Jordan, but you’ve grown into a gorgeous woman.”

Jordan blushed as she smiled.

Then he turned to Tom. “And you must be Tom Owens. I’ve heard a lot about you in the last few weeks. I’m Kenny Martin.”

Tom rose and shook his hand and said, “I’ve
never
heard about you.”

Tom’s voice was gruff with irritation.

Kenny laughed and said, “Yeah, well, better
no
conversation than
every
conversation about someone starting with ‘He’s an ass.’”

Tom’s body stiffened.

Everyone could sense the escalation in tempers, so I was glad when Dad immediately asked, “Can I get you something to drink, Kenny? We’ve got a nice bottle of wine we opened for dinner.”

Kenny shook his head. “No, thank you. I’m not a drinker but I’ll have…”

“I’ll get you a Coke,” I quickly said. Leaving the table would give me time to settle my nerves again. Having Kenny and Tom in the same room didn’t bode well for the evening. They were so different; Kenny was jovial to the extreme and Tom was serious to the other extreme.

I handed Kenny his Coke and pulled the chair out next to him.

“So Kenny, what are you doing these days?” my dad asked, sipping his glass of wine.

“I’m afraid he’s gone to the dark side, Dad,” I said as I sat down at the table.

“Lawyer?” Dad frowned.

“Worse than that, Mr. Wilcox,” Kenny said as he took a sip of his Coke, then continued, “I’m a corporate lawyer.”

“Which firm?” Jordan asked.

“Braxton, Dougal and Roberts.”

Dad whistled and Jordan’s eyes widened. Tom’s eyebrows rose in recognition, too.

I looked at them all and said, “And that’s a big deal? Why?”

“It’s probably the biggest and most powerful law firm in the world,” Tom said.

Kenny shrugged.

“I had such high hopes for you, son.” Dad said.

“I know, I got the same sad comment from Stretch. But I do pro bono work for several ecology groups and anyone who’s a victim of abuse, so she said that helps balance my karma.”

“Stretch?” Tom asked, took a sip of his wine and glanced from Kenny to me.

Kenny reached over and stroked his finger down the side of my face. Tom stiffened, but Kenny totally ignored him. “That’s my nickname for Liza.”

“Why?” Tom asked.

“We met on day seven of high school. I was only four foot-five inches tall, such a shrimp, and Liza was tall.”

“I was only a little under five feet.”

“You were a giant next to me, girl. Our lockers were next to each other, hers on the bottom and mine on the top. I couldn’t come close to reaching the damn lock to open mine so Liza switched with me and for the next year, anything I couldn’t reach, she could.”

“You caught up quickly,” I reminded him.

“Sure, by the time I was a sophomore, I was the same size as Stretch.”

“And by your junior year you were taller.”

“Yeah, but the nickname stuck.”

“What happened to you, Kenny?” Jordan asked, sipping her own wine. “You were supposed to go to college with Liza but you never showed up.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, Jordan. That’s old history,” I said.

“Yeah, but I’m curious, too,” my dad added.

Kenny put his hand on my arm and squeezed. “It’s okay. I don’t mind talking about it.”

“You don’t owe them any explanation,” I told him.

Kenny shrugged and turned to Dad, “You knew there were problems at my house.”

Dad nodded.

“Well they escalated that summer.”

“What problems?” Jordan asked.

Dad looked at Kenny, who nodded. “His mom’s taste in men.”

“What?” Jordan asked, clearly perplexed.

Kenny sighed, “Let’s just say she chose the meanest sons-of-bitches. And when they would start drinking, she usually ended up being their punching bag. I visited her in the hospital so many times that I stopped counting. Usually if she ended up in the
hospital, she’d kick them out but another one always took their place as soon as the bruises healed.”

I put my hand on his arm and he covered it with his own and squeezed.

“Well, that summer, Earl, the latest in a long line of monsters, beat her up so bad she ended up in the hospital three times and I finally, on the last trip, convinced her to press charges.”

While Kenny talked, I thought about all the monsters in the world, the abusers and their victims. He and I used to talk about being superheroes and how we’d stop all the monsters. And maybe, in a small way, I became a type of superhero when I found Jessie, and the people who killed Danielle, and saved Jackson’s family.

“That’s good,” Tom said, interrupting Kenny and my thoughts. “It’s the only way to stop it.”

Kenny shrugged. “Yeah, but the next day I overheard her ask the nurse to get her the phone number of the police station so she could recant the story.”

“Also not unusual,” Tom slid into cop mode.

“Why would she do that? She’d always left the other guys when she ended up in the hospital?” Jordan asked.

“Earl used to bring her these little gifts all the time. He would beat her up and then bring a trinket from the local drug store, mall, or grocery store. It was bigger bauble if she ended up in the hospital. He gave them to her and she thought it was because he was sorry, but it wasn’t. He wasn’t ever really sorry but she loved the stuff. I knew she would never leave this one and that someday she would end up dead, so I went out and drove my motorbike into a ditch, several times.”

Tom looked over at me, probably remembering the two cars I drove into a ditch and wondering if that’s where I got the idea. I hadn’t known any of this until two weeks ago, but it’s funny that we both choose a ditch to get us out of a bad situation.

Kenny continued. “I was a bloody mess. When they took me to the hospital, I told her that he did it. That was it. She didn’t mind him using her as a punching bag, but she wouldn’t let him hit me. I convinced her to leave, so we packed up our bags and left the state. We kept driving until we got to Arkansas where my mom’s third or fourth cousin lived. It took months to get us settled and by that time I’d missed the beginning of school.”

“Was the paperwork ever really pulled? Did he ever find you?” Jordan asked, slipping into district attorney mode.

“He never had that chance. A few years later we learned that when Earl found out we left, he went out and tied on a big one, got into a bar fight a couple days later, and was killed. We never needed to run half way across the country just to get away from him.”

“What did you do?” Tom asked me.

“I’d gone to Davis because Kenny wanted to go there, not because I did and when he didn’t show up, I called his house. The number was disconnected and when I called his neighbor, Sandra, she said they packed up and moved away.”

“My mom changed our names back to her maiden name, so Earl couldn’t find us and I went to a local junior college. By the time I tried to find Stretch at Davis, she wasn’t enrolled there.” Kenny put his hand over mine and we linked fingers.

“I didn’t like Davis, it was all geared for pre-med and pre-vet and pre-other things I had no intention of being so I went to a neighboring state college.”

“When I couldn’t find her at Davis, I called her house and they were gone, too.”

“Really?” Tom looked over at Dad.

“I was spotted by a local cop and I knew the Feds were closing in. We moved to Sacramento where Liza went to school.”

“That’s why I spent my last two years of high school at a different school,” Jordan huffed, clearly still holding a grudge.

“So we just lost track of each other. I finished school, got my law degree and then became a partner in a firm’s Nashville office. They have an office in San Francisco that they want me to manage so I came back to see if I wanted to live here.”

“So how’d you find Liza?” Jordan asked.

“Facebook,” Kenny and I said together, then both laughed.

“I was in my office in San Francisco, looking out my window. Being back in California made me think of Stretch, so I thought, I’d see if I could find her.” Kenny smiled, reached over and touched my face. “When I found her, I yelled in my office. My admin ran in and asked me if I was all right. I was laughing and telling her all about Stretch.”

“He sent me a message and we started talking.”

“More like burning up the chat line with so many years to catch up on. I was living at a hotel in the San Francisco since I hadn’t found anywhere to live yet.”

“Then the Remington’s moved out,” I said.

“Your neighbors?” Dad asked.

“Yes, Carl got transferred to Austin and they wanted to lease out their townhouse in case they didn’t like Texas. I told Kenny about it and he moved in.”

“You live next door to each other?” Tom asked, looking from me to Kenny.

“Yeah,” I smiled. “It’s great!”

“You two must burn up the take-out lines.” Dad said.

“Of course,” Kenny said. “I order one night and she eats at my place.”

“I order the next night and we dine at mine.”

“So you two, were what, in high school?” Tom asked.

“Best friends, of course.” I told him.

“Yeah, we did everything together.”

“Everything?” Tom leaned forward.

“Of course. I played baseball,” Kenny said

“I scored for the team.”

“Liza played volleyball.”

“Kenny led the cheering on the sidelines.”

“They went to every game and prom together.” Jordan chimed in.

I smiled. “Remember Senior Ball?”

Kenny rolled his eyes.

“What?” Tom asked.

“She made me wear this light blue tuxedo because …,”

“It matched my dress perfectly.”

“You let her dress you in a light blue tux?” Tom asked.

“Of course. Stretch wanted me to wear it.”

“So he did. It’s my favorite memory from high school,” I told them all.

“What’s your favorite memory?” Tom asked Kenny.

“Oh, that’s easy. The white bikini.”

I felt my face flush red.

“What white bikini?” Jordan asked.

Kenny leaned forward and said. “It was senior picnic. We all drove to a local lake for a picnic and swimming. Everyone laid out their towels. I spread out ours and Liza peeled off her blue cover-up. Underneath she was wearing this skimpy white bikini.”

“Okay, that’s enough. Next story,” I told them all.

“No, the story is not done. Every male eye in the place snapped up, including one of the counselors.”

“Really?” I asked. I
hadn’t ever heard this part of the story.

“Yeah. And do you know what I saw in all their eyes?”

“No, what?” Jordan asked.

“I say regret as they all realized that the nicest girl in the senior class, the one who helped them with their projects or went to their house and helped them study for a test or tutored them in math or science when they struggled, was also the sexiest and most gorgeous girl in the senior class. I beat them off with the stick the rest of the day.”

“I beat them off you our entire senior year,” I told him.

“Well, those bitches wouldn’t give me the time of day when I was a freshman, so I would be damned if I let them paw at me because I grew a few inches,” Kenny told me.

“So you were inseparable at school?” Tom asked.

“They were together all of the time,” Jordan said.

“I think he lived at our house his senior year,” Dad added in.