Promises I Made (11 page)

Marcus insisted I go home and get a good night's sleep before we got started. I was relieved to see Selena's driveway empty, her dad not yet home from work, and I hurried back to the pool house, where I tried to read before falling into a deep sleep. When I woke up, I felt different, alert and even a little optimistic. I wasn't alone anymore. Now I had people and resources on my side. Freeing Parker felt more possible than ever.

It was just after nine in the morning when I knocked on Scotty and Marcus's door. They had offered to give me a ride, but I didn't want the blue Range Rover anywhere near Selena's street if I could avoid it. Marcus was right: my fate was intertwined with his. But I was connected to Selena, too, and I wanted to keep her as far away from what I was doing as possible. I fought against the voice in my head that said
I should take Marcus and Scotty up on their offer and stay with them. That I was putting Selena in danger by staying with her, especially with Fletcher combing the peninsula for clues. Deep down I knew it was true, but I was too happy to be near her again, to know the possibility existed for a conversation, even if it was just for a few minutes in the pool house before her father got home. I swore to myself that I would move if there was even a hint of danger.

“Good morning,” Scotty said, opening the door. I stepped into the foyer and he led me back to the kitchen. “Have you eaten breakfast?” he asked.

“I had a granola bar,” I said.

“That's not breakfast,” he admonished. “Sit. I'll make you something while we wait for Marcus to come down.”

I sat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island and watched as Scotty went to work, taking out a frying pan and pulling stuff from the fridge. The morning sun was diffused by the trees outside the windows, and the kitchen smelled of coffee and toast. An old-fashioned radio played softly from the counter. I thought it might be tuned to a station that played the old music Marcus liked, but instead I recognized the sound of the National's “Fake Empire.”

“I suppose it's little morose for first thing in the morning,” Scotty said, following my eyes to the radio. “Do you like them?”

“The National? I love them,” I said. “I just . . .”

He stopped moving, wielding the frying pan like a lethal weapon. “What?” He smiled, and I realized how small he
seemed. Not in a bad way. It's just that his big frame and broad shoulders were somehow diminished by his smile, by the kindness that radiated from him like warmth from a bonfire. “You thought I'd like Marcus's music?”

I nodded. “It's the thing I remember most about him from Camino Jardin. He was always humming, singing.”

Scotty nodded and put the frying pan on the commercial cooktop. “I have to admit that when I pictured the man of my dreams, he didn't look like Marcus.”

I couldn't help smiling.

“What are you trying to say?” a lazy voice said from the doorway. “I'm not your knight in shining armor?”

Scotty laughed. “More like a thief in a bucket hat.”

Marcus shuffled across the floor in a T-shirt and slippers, his skinny legs emerging from a pair of shorts. He sat down next to me. “Morning, kid.”

“Good morning.”

“Get some sleep over there in the pool house?”

“Yep.”

“Good. We have a lot of work to do today.”

Scotty set a cup of coffee down in front of him and lifted an egg out of the carton. He looked at me. “You do like eggs?”

I nodded, and he cracked the two eggs into a bowl and whisked them with a fork while a pat of butter melted in the frying pan.

“So what do you like to do, Grace? When you're not . . . working, I mean?” Scotty asked.

It was an easy question, but when I reached into my
mind to retrieve the answer, I was met with emptiness. It had been too long since I'd had the luxury of doing something I enjoyed. In fact, everything I'd done since being adopted by Cormac and Renee had been the product of a con. I'd taken piano lessons from one of our marks in New York, had tried photography to get close to a girl in Chicago. I'd even joined the lacrosse team—and gotten clobbered—just to get to know a target in Phoenix. Had I enjoyed any of it? I didn't know. Enjoyment wasn't part of the grift. I looked up, surprised to see Scotty still watching my face, waiting for an answer.

“I like to read.” It was the one thing that was mine, that had carried me through five cities, more foster families than I could count, so many last names I could hardly remember them all. I might not have a home, might not recognize myself in the mirror, but I could always find a library, the bookshelf at the Salvation Army, and later, when I was with Cormac and Renee, a bookstore. Books never lied to me, never betrayed me, never left me alone and wondering what was wrong with me.

Scotty stirred the eggs in the pan with the spatula. “I like to read, too. We have a pretty good selection if you ever want to borrow something.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

Scotty scooped the eggs onto a plate with buttered toast and a handful of strawberries. He pushed the plate toward me. “Want some juice?”

“Can I have coffee?” I asked. There was a mini coffee
maker in the pool house at Selena's, but I was afraid to use it. The smell of brewing coffee was a distinctive one, especially to people who loved the stuff. I didn't want anyone to follow their nose to the pool house.

Scotty nodded and poured me a cup of coffee from the machine on the counter. He set the cup in front of me and I took a greedy sip before tackling my food.

“So what are we doing today?” I asked.

“We're going to brainstorm,” Marcus said. “Go over everything you remember, from before the Fairchild con and after it.”

I looked around the room, scanning for open windows, for anything that might give us away.

“Grace,”—Scotty's voice was gentle—“you're safe here. Marcus has never been picked up.”

“Never?” I asked.

“Listen, kid.” Marcus's voice was wry. “I know I look older than dirt, and it's true I was in the business a long time. But I was careful. Real careful. As far as I know, none of my marks ever realized I was the one who stole from them, which, incidentally, is how it's supposed to be. I'm perfectly legitimate, have been for years now.”

“So you don't use . . .” I was afraid to finish the statement, still spooked about talking so freely.

“A fake?” he asked, referring to the fake IDs that had allowed Cormac, Renee, Parker, and me to move so quickly from town to town, setting up new names along the way in case anyone caught on.

I nodded.

“Don't need it,” he said. “When I say I'm clean, I mean I'm clean. Never did anything high stakes. Kept it small. Just enough to live comfortably and stash a little for the future.”

I looked around the room. “So how do you, I don't know,
live
?” I felt rude asking, but I had a right to know what he was into if we were going to be business partners.

“We have legitimate investments,” Scotty said. “So I guess you could say we're both retired.”

It threw me a little, the normalcy of their lives. I'd always imagined my postgrift life as on the run, in hiding, and looking over my shoulder. That there might be something else was a possibility I almost didn't dare entertain. And anyway, I couldn't think about any kind of life right now. Not until I freed Parker.

“Why do you need to know about stuff from before the Fairchild job if we're looking for Cormac now?” I asked Marcus.

“You might remember something that will tell me about Cormac's patterns,” he said. “Everyone on the grift has their favorites—people they prefer to use for IDs, logistical support, transportation. But there are different levels of support. At the top are the professionals. People who really know what they're doing. Then there are the people who are a little less experienced, a little less scrupulous, people you want to keep your eye on.”

“Why would you use someone like that?”

“The sources at the top are expensive. Their level of
expertise offers an extra layer of security, but not everyone can afford it. If you can't, you have to use who you can afford. And the less experienced aren't the worst of them. There are other people—gangbangers who sell IDs on the side, criminals fresh out of prison who run chop shops to provide cars to people on the run. Those are people you really don't want to get involved with.”

“But people do?” I asked.

He nodded, finishing his coffee. “People do. And we need to figure out who Cormac's been using—both before and after the Fairchild job. Then you'll have to tell me everything you remember about Seattle. Where you stayed when you first got there, who Cormac talked to, even what stores you visited.” He slid off the stool. “You can think about it while I get dressed. Then we'll get to work.”

We set up in the living room. Marcus sat on one of the overstuffed chairs, his computer on the coffee table in front of him, while I sat on the couch with my laptop. I wondered about the cushion that sat on the floor against one wall. The tiny Buddha statue and incense burner next to it made me think it might be for meditation. I assumed it was for Scotty. It was hard to imagine Marcus meditating.

We started at the beginning—the very beginning—with my adoption by Cormac and Renee. Marcus wanted to know everything: How many visits did they have with me before agreeing to the adoption? Where did they take me immediately after the adoption was final? How long did we stay there? How long before Parker was adopted? Where did we eat when we went out during that time? Where did we stay? What kind of car did we drive? How long after Parker was
adopted before Cormac and Renee started teaching us to grift?

Most of it seemed unimportant. I couldn't see how the restaurants we'd eaten in or the car we'd driven six years ago mattered now. But I answered anyway, pillaging my mind for information that had been dead to me, details about things I hadn't bothered to think about when they were happening, let alone in the years since.

I was already exhausted when Scotty brought in a tray of sandwiches, fruit, and two big glasses of water. He set everything down on the coffee table and reached for the TV remote.

“Water?” Marcus said, staring balefully at his glass. “Where's my Scotch?”

“You know what the doctor said.” Scotty didn't even look at him as he turned on the TV. “Besides, I've been following the news in the other room. I think there's something you might want to see.”

I reached for my sandwich, surprised I could be hungry after the breakfast Scotty had served me just three hours before. I froze, my hand halfway to the plate, when the local news sprang to life. Parker was there, walking into the courtroom in an orange jumpsuit, his chin jutting defiantly. His forearms were bare, the leather bracelets he'd worn to cover the scars from his repeated attempts at suicide gone. That hurt me the most. Even more than seeing him in prison garb, seeing him handcuffed and escorted into the courtroom by a bailiff. Parker didn't like other people to see his scars. He
didn't want anyone to know that life had come so close to beating him. That he wasn't very different from the rest of us.

It was old footage, and a voice sounded over the image of Parker making his way to one of the tables at the front of the courtroom.

“The trial of Parker Dawson, alleged con artist in the December 2014 theft of twenty million dollars' worth of gold from Fairchild Industries heir, Warren Fairchild, will begin June twenty-ninth in Los Angeles Superior Court. William Bradley, a security guard for Allied Security, was killed during the theft. Dawson claims no knowledge of Bradley's murder. The district attorney's office for Los Angeles County has released a statement saying that an investigation is still under way and more charges may be forthcoming.”

The image on the screen changed to one of a beached whale in Redondo, and Scotty turned off the TV.

Parker Dawson. So now they knew Parker's real name. All his secrets were laid bare for everyone to see, and I suddenly felt sick, the sandwich forgotten. “June twenty-ninth . . . that's only five weeks from now,” I said softly.

Scotty sat down next to me and put a gentle hand on my back. “I'm sorry, Grace. We'll figure something out.” He looked at Marcus. “Won't we?”

Marcus nodded. “We'll sure as hell try.”

“Why don't you take a break?” Scotty suggested. “Have some lunch.”

I shook my head and picked up my computer. Parker wasn't sitting in a cushy house in Playa Hermosa, eating a gourmet sandwich and drinking water. He was in jail.
Sleeping on a hard bed and eating crappy food. Deprived even of the privacy he needed to feel safe and protected. “We can work while we eat,” I said.

Marcus hesitated, then took a bite of his sandwich and leaned toward his computer.

We moved into the years following Parker's adoption, working our way through the details of every con, beginning with Lansing, Michigan, the location of our first job. Marcus asked questions, making notes as I talked. If I forgot a detail or couldn't be sure about something, I'd look it up on my computer before passing the information to Marcus. We'd worked our way to Baltimore when Marcus asked, “Are you sure?” for what felt like the thousandth time.

“Yes, I'm sure!” I practically shouted. “I'm as sure as I can be, okay?” The extraction of details from my murky past was a painful exercise. My head hurt, and my body was stiff from sitting all day. More than that, my heart felt raw and wounded. Not because of what Cormac and Renee had done to Parker and me, but because I'd been forced to face every lie I'd told on the grift, every time I'd used or hurt someone. I thought I'd remembered them all, that I'd owned up to all the things I'd done. Turns out I was wrong.

Marcus raised his bushy eyebrows.

I sighed. “I'm sorry. I'm just tired.”

He closed his computer. “Let's call it a day. Scotty has dinner going. You can eat and head home, get some rest for tomorrow.”

We ate on the deck, listening to music and the sound of the birds calling to one another in the trees. We didn't talk
much, but I didn't mind. It was an oddly comfortable silence given the fact that we hardly knew each other. Then again, maybe everyone else was just as tired as me.

Marcus insisted on driving me home, and I sat in the front seat of the Range Rover, clutching the container of leftovers Scotty had insisted on packing for me. I asked Marcus to drop me off one street over from Selena's house, and he pulled over to the curb and put the car in park.

“You never told me his name,” I said.

Marcus looked over at me. “Whose name?”

“Cormac's,” I said. The question had been bothering me ever since I'd heard the newscaster say Parker's name. “The first day we talked on the beach, you said Cormac wasn't his real name, but you wouldn't tell me what it is.”

“It's Peter,” Marcus said.

“And Renee?”

He laughed a little. “Hell if I know, kid. She's been Renee as long as I've known her.”

I looked out the window, trying to attach the name Peter to Cormac's face. I couldn't do it. “Will the name help us find him?” I asked.

“Probably not. I doubt he's ever gone back to it.”

I sighed. “Well, I guess I better go,” I said, reaching for the door. “See you tomorrow.”

It was nearly seven, and I kept my head down as I walked, knowing the evening commute was in full swing and hoping Selena's dad wasn't already home from work. I had turned the corner onto Selena's street when I saw the poster stapled to the light pole.

PROTECT YOUR QUALITY OF LIFE!! it screamed. I stepped closer to the poster and stopped walking, my concern about being seen temporarily forgotten.

Underneath the headline was a picture of a peacock, but it didn't look like the birds I'd seen on the peninsula with their soft brown eyes, their calm, meandering strut. The one on the poster looked bigger and more ominous, its eyes small and mean. My gaze moved to the text underneath the picture.

After years of complaints, the town of Playa Hermosa is finally hearing arguments regarding the possible relocation of the peninsula's wild peacocks. While these animals may seem tame, they are a frequent cause of car accidents due to their tendency to stand in the middle of the road. Furthermore, their squawking threatens to drive down property values in the area. THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO BE HEARD by town officials. A meeting will be held on June 25th at seven p.m. in the town clerk's office. Please attend to PROTECT YOUR WAY OF LIFE on the peninsula.

My gaze returned to the peacock. The claims made in the poster weren't lies exactly. But the peacocks were just doing what they had to, trying to survive in a habitat that had probably been paved and developed right before their eyes. They'd been here for decades. It was home to them now. Wouldn't moving them, forcing them to adapt to another environment, be cruel? And for what? So the residents of Playa Hermosa didn't have to slow down, to take care as
they drove around a bird in the road? So they didn't have to hear something other than the sound of their own voices?

But that wasn't fair either. Not everyone on the peninsula was arrogant or selfish. There were people like Selena, like Logan and his family, like Marcus and Scotty. It was hard to imagine any of them being on the side of the meeting organizers who wanted to banish the peacocks.

A sleek blue Mercedes glided past me, pulling into a driveway down the street. The sight of it pulled my thoughts away from the poster, and I continued to Selena's house, stepping onto the shady path and hurrying to the backyard. I was almost to the door of the pool house when I heard a voice behind me.

“I was getting worried.”

I turned to see Selena standing with a plastic grocery bag in her hands.

“You were?” I felt a little ping of gratitude.

She nodded. “My dad went to the farmers' market yesterday. I thought you could use some fruits and vegetables.”

I took the bag. “Oh, wow . . . thanks. That's awesome.”

Her eyes dropped to the plastic container in my hands. “What's that?”

I looked down at the leftovers Scotty had packed for me. “Just . . . some leftover food.”

A smile touched her lips, but there was suspicion in her eyes. “That doesn't look like restaurant takeout.”

I wanted to lie. It would be easier than the truth, which was basically that I couldn't tell her anything. I wouldn't compromise Marcus and Scotty by telling anyone about
them, wouldn't even say I had help in case I was caught and the police found out. Then they might search the peninsula, start looking too closely at its residents. Marcus and Scotty didn't deserve that. But I wouldn't lie to Selena again either.

“It's not,” I said. “I went to dinner at a friend's.”

“A friend's?”

I nodded, oddly insulted at the tone in her voice, like it was impossible to believe I could still have friends. It was irrational. She had every right to assume I was alone in the world. Until a couple of days ago, I had been.

“You haven't told anyone you're staying here, have you?”

I heard the fear in her voice and a wave of regret washed over me. “I told two people.” I hurried to continue as disbelief hit Selena's face. “But they're completely trustworthy! I promise.”

“You promise?” she snapped. “You promise. And I'm just supposed to take your word for it?” Her voice had gotten too loud, and she looked around the backyard before returning her gaze to me and lowering her voice. “That doesn't exactly inspire confidence, Grace,” she hissed.

I swallowed hard. Sometimes telling the truth sucked. “I know. But it's true. I would never do anything to hurt you again. My . . . friends have more to lose than you do. They can't afford to say anything about where I'm staying.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “And you think you have the right to make that call?”

I sighed, exhaustion hitting me all at once. “No. I just . . .”

“What?”

I shook my head. “I wish things were different, that's all. I'm trying to do the right thing for once. Trying to protect you and make things right, and I'm just so . . . fucking worried about Parker. . . .” My voice broke a little with the weight of it. “I can't see him or talk to him. I can't make sure he's okay in there. I can't even tell him I'm here, trying to get him out.” My shoulders sagged. “I'm doing what I can, Selena. If you want me to leave, I'll understand.”

She looked down at her feet. “I'm sorry. I'm just scared.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I couldn't ask for anything more than you're doing. I'm sorry that I scared you. Would you feel better if I left?”

She seemed to think about it. “Yes and no.”

I laughed a little. “What does that mean?”

She took a deep breath. “I shouldn't care. I know I shouldn't. But I do. I care what happens to you, Grace. At least if you're here, I know you're okay. And you never know; I might be able to help.”

I smiled. “You're already helping.”

“What if I could do more?”

I shook my head sadly. “You can't. There's nothing anyone can do.”

“I could visit Parker.”

My heart seemed to stutter. “What?”

“I could visit him in jail. I wouldn't tell anyone here—like my dad or Logan or anyone—and no one else would think twice about it. We were friendly when he went to school here.”

I banished the spark of hope that rose inside me. “I can't ask you to do that.”

“You're not asking,” she said. “I'm offering.”

“But . . . why? After everything I did, why would you do any more to help me? To help us?”

Her throat rippled as she swallowed. “I don't know. I can't help caring about you, Grace. You were the best friend I ever had. And the truth is, it kind of seems like you got a raw deal.” She looked up and met my eyes. “Not that I'm making excuses for you.”

“No,” I said. “I can't even make them for myself.”

“But you and Parker . . .” She shook her head. “It's fucked up what Cormac and Renee did to you, what they made you do.” I flinched a little at the sound of her cursing. In all the time I'd known her, I couldn't remember ever hearing her swear. “You were just kids. They took advantage of you. Used you.”

Shame heated my cheeks. I'd always hated it when Parker claimed our parents used us. I felt accused, guilty. Like someone couldn't use me if I didn't let them, if I wasn't so weak that I made it possible. Sometimes I didn't know what was worse, being bad or being weak. Being
used.