Seth (Damage Control #3) (27 page)

My mom always said that’s where I belonged, where I’d end up. On the street. Guess she was right.

***

The day is gray and cold. Wind is whistling, slicing through my jacket. I wrap my scarf around my neck and weave on my feet, because, fuck, the pain. I was warned repeated shoulder dislocation would be a problem after the first time, and this is the third. It’s nothing life-threatening. But somehow it feels worse than the other times.

Somehow everything feels worse. Like having a home and losing it. Having a job, a family, and losing them. Having… God, almost having Manon and losing her, too. I guess I never realized that this was the one thing that would break me: finally getting what I wanted and watching it go up in smoke.

Dammit.

I always assumed I’d shack up with Shane if things went south. Not that I’d be going back where I started, and this time alone.

Standing on the sidewalk, watching the cars drive by, I try to gather my scattered wits. I just need somewhere to hole up, lick my wounds, wait for the howling pain to lessen so I can think.

In the end, I work on instinct alone. I limp down some streets, across a boulevard, turn into a narrow alley with the smell of Chinese cooking and fried meat from the restaurant kitchens.

The spot where Shane and I used to sleep. Not far from the apartment. Maybe that’s why I hesitated to move away. The place’s more familiar to me than my mom’s house.

I slide down the wall and curl up, holding my arm folded over my stomach.

My shoulder’s killing me. I know that eventually I should head to an emergency room, but pain isn’t helping my brain think, and besides, now it’s too late.

Too damn late. Can’t get up again. The mere thought makes me break out in cold sweat.

Need a minute. Just a little longer, to catch my breath. Then I’ll get up and make myself go, get checked out.

It’s not that cold back here, in the alley. The warm air from the kitchens wafts out, and the smells would have made my stomach growl if not for the goddamn pain. Fuck, it’s bad. Like slivers of glass slicing into my flesh, into my joints. Cutting me up. Pouring burning sand into marrow of my bones.

The pressure is back in my chest, the deadening weight of a misery that’s suffocating me. My eyes burn, but no tears fall.

What’s the use, anyway? Won’t help. Never has.

Something creaks in my back pocket. With an effort, I pull it out. My cell. It’s cracked, falling to pieces. I stare at it, not sure I can find it in myself to care.

I let it fall. See the pieces scatter, glittering dust.

Reminds me of the shining flecks of gold in Manon’s eyes. The brightness of her smile.

I lean back. So fucking tired. Time lurches, jumps. I open my eyes and it’s afternoon. I open them again, and it’s dark all around me, the lights from the restaurant kitchens and the boulevard spinning in circles.

Manon…

Fuck, the last days with her were beautiful. I won’t have the chance to hold her in my arms again. The happiness I felt then has to last a lifetime.

Manon

That night I can’t sleep, and the next morning I wander in a daze. Yesterday I was angry, angrier than I’ve ever been. Angrier than I was with Fred for cheating on me.

Because my feelings for Seth are deeper, stronger. What he did, hiding the truth from me, hurts much more than anything Fred could ever do.

Drug dealing. Jesus. An ex-convict. How didn’t I know? How do I reconcile Seth with this? He has the tattooed bad boy image going for him, that’s for sure, but he’s quiet. Gentle. Intense sometimes, but wouldn’t I have noticed if he took drugs?

Or if he dealt them?

But today I don’t know how I feel. Doubt sets in. What am I missing? Something doesn’t make sense. So I skip classes and stay home, thinking.

Wrapped up in a long sweater and in my old Ugg boots, I curl up on the couch and Google the crap out of drug use. Try to find the missing clues.

Is Seth a user? Then maybe I should have noticed needle marks on his elbows, on his thighs, on his hands, in his feet.

But I didn’t see any.

He should experience intense mood swings.

Haven’t noticed that. Not if you take account of the context—like the things he told me at the zoo. Not unless you count swinging from sad to horny and then to happy.

Oh God.
I rub a hand over my eyes. Not going to cry again for him. I’ll get to the bottom of this, though. Need to know.

Is the person careless with personal hygiene and grooming?

No.
Never noticed that.

Bloodshot eyes? Weight loss? Sleep loss? Change in behavior?

I push away from the screen with a sigh. How should I know? It’s not like I was with him long. Not like I’ve known him well.

Though I know what books he likes reading, and what his childhood dreams were. I know what his mom did to him and to his cousin, I know…

I know quite a lot. His mom really screwed him over, and now… Now he’s saying she did something even worse. That she set him up to go to prison.

Could he be telling the truth? Would she…?

No, that’s crazy. That would be horrifying. Unimaginable.

I get up, pace the length of my living room. I stop at the window and look outside. It’s raining, the clouds low and leaden.

If he’s dealing the drugs, instead of using them, then there’d be no signs. Only, he’d have money, and he doesn’t. All this makes no sense.

Pulling away from the cold window pane, rubbing my hands up and down my arms, I recall his face yesterday when he talked about his mother. He’d looked… lost. Pale and somber. Ill-at-ease, pained and sad.

What if…?

Seriously, Manon?
You’ll believe such an obvious lie because the guy’s hot? The judge found him guilty, sentenced him to prison. It’s all in his criminal record, which Zane apparently read.

That’s it. Zane. I’ll talk to him, ask what he read in Seth’s rap sheet. No idea why, but I think it might be important.

***

Tracking Zane down proves kind of hard. He’s not at Damage Control, Tyler who mans the reception desk tells me. He’s meeting with a cousin of his girlfriend Dakota, who’s a lawyer.

Doesn’t take a genius to guess it has something to do with Seth.

Instead, he tells me I can talk to Rafe, the young owner of the tattoo shop I’ve seen around a few times.

“What can I do you for?” Rafe growls into the phone, startling me.

“I was looking for Zane,” I stammer.

“Not here. Anything I can do?”

“Maybe. I’m Manon. Madeline Torres.”

“Seth’s girl?”

My next words freeze on my tongue, his question echoing in my ears. Am I? Was I?

“A good friend of his,” I manage, and he chuckles. “What’s so funny?”

“Don’t know, Manon. Boy’s been crazy about you since forever. If you don’t want him, then damn. With all that’s been happening to him, I guess he was right to think he’s the unluckiest bastard in the world.”

A lump forms in my throat. “Don’t say that. God, that’s awful.”

“Yeah, it is.” He’s silent for a long moment. Then he says, his voice deepening, “I take it you believe him?”

“Let’s just say I think it’s possible he’s telling the truth.”

“And why is that?”

“There are clues. For instance, I never saw needle marks on his body. Not even on his thighs or feet. I don’t think he’s a user.”

“And a good friend like you regularly checks his body. I see.”

Shit.
“Not the point.”

“The lack of track marks doesn’t mean anything, Manon.”

“I know, okay? It’s just hard to believe he’s that.” God, I hope my voice won’t crack now. “He’s a good guy.”

“He does seem like a damn good guy,” Rafe agrees. “But one can’t rely on that. Sad fact of life.”

True. “I want to talk to Zane. He read Seth’s file, right?”

“That’s right. He’ll be back in town within the hour. Why do you want to talk to him?”

“I want to know what the file says. I may…” I hesitate, because hunches aren’t taken seriously most of the time, and something in my gut tells me I need to do this. “I may have information regarding Seth’s past.”

“Do you, now?” Rafe again sounds amused, and it annoys me. “All right. I’ll call you with a place and time to meet him. And, Manon?”

“Yeah?”

“No matter what, you should know… Seth may be unlucky in many things, but he’s damn lucky to have a true friend like you on his side.”

***

Hawk’s Bar and Grill. Haven’t been here in ages. It’s loud inside, the tables full. Zane’s sitting at the back, I can see his tall blue Mohawk from where I’m standing inside the entrance.

He’s not alone, I realize as I approach him. Rafe is with him, blond and tall, with cat-like eyes. They’re all kind of hot in this group, with their handsome faces and ink.

Not as much as Seth, though.

And God, that’s not what I should be thinking about right now.

Rafe gets up to greet me and pulls my chair. He’s every bit the gentleman, even with the tattoos climbing up his neck, his inked, muscular forearms bare and a wicked grin on his face.

Zane merely lifts a dark brow at me and nods.

“You know what I’m here for?” I’m nervous, my palms damp. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just know I don’t want Seth to be a bad guy.

Which is probably just wishful thinking, as Rafe helpfully pointed out over the phone, but still.

“Said you wanna know what’s in Seth’s rap sheet.” His almond-shaped eyes narrow. “Didn’t say why.”

I glance at Rafe who stares steadily back at me, giving away nothing. “I thought if you tell me, I might be able to work with you on this.”

“On what?”

I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly bone-dry. “On finding out the truth. On proving Seth’s innocence.”

Now I have the attention of both boys, and quite frankly, I am a bit stunned myself. No clue when I went from doubting the truth of Seth’s guilt to believing he’s innocent.

That’s it, I’ve gone round the bend.

Maybe it’s a side effect of being in love with him. That I want to believe the best of him.

“What makes you believe he might be innocent?” Zane wants to know, folding his arms over his chest. “He was convicted. Served his time in prison.”

The thought of him behind bars is too much. I shake my head to dislodge it. “The same thing that makes you believe it.” I stare into his dark eyes, somehow similar to Seth’s, and tell him the truth as it comes to me, uncensored. “You know him. You’ve lived with him, worked with him. You know how bad his past was. You know he’d do anything to help his brothers—Micah. Shane. Jesse. You’ve seen it. Seen him get beaten up for them, stand up for them. He’s no druggie. He’s not a person who’d deal drugs. If he was, he’d have done it. He’s dirt poor, Zane. You know all this. So why do I have to spell it out for you?”

His brows arch. “Go on.”

“I almost ran him over with my car, gave him a concussion. He never pressed charges. Never even blamed me. Is that the kind of person his criminal record says he is? Because this is the truth, right in front of us.”

“He says his mother set him up.”

“Do you know his mom’s boyfriends used to beat him up? That she used up the money he stole and gathered to buy herself fixes? That she had her boyfriend break him.” I pause, thinking back to the few things he told me. “Break him and leave him for the police to find.”

Zane leans forward, frowning, and Rafe drags his chair closer to mine.

“He said that?” Rafe asks. “When?”

“A few days ago, when talking of his mom and how he thought she’d been dead all this time. He said she just left him and vanished, never came back.”

“Until now,” Rafe whispers. “Z-man…”

“Yeah.” Zane grimaces. “I dug deeper. The night the fucker was arrested, he had many broken bones, including a knee cap. He was found at his mom’s house, with Shane who was trying to help him. That seemed strange to the policemen who found the two, but the judge decided their juvie record condemned them anyway.”

“If he’s telling the truth,” Rafe says, his golden eyes shining, “it’s his word against the evidence. It won’t fly.”

God.

“Ah fuck.” Zane scrubs both hands over his face and pushes his chair back. “We should talk to Seth. See if there’s any detail that we could use to reopen the case or something.”

“If we prove he’s telling the truth about his mom, this means he deserves a dragon tat,” Rafe mutters.

“Yeah, he does. Fucker should have talked to me about this from the start,” Zane says. “But I get it.”

That it’s hard to trust when the ones closest to you have let you down so badly.

***

After knocking on Seth’s door for what feels like ages, my stomach is a knot of worry. Meanwhile, Rafe is muttering under his breath, and Zane who’s been on his cell phone all this time, looks murderous.

It isn’t helping with my worry.

“Called both Seth and Shane a dozen times each. Fuckers. Both of them took off and turned off their phones? I told them to stay put. Told them to wait.”

Don’t know what to say to that. He’d sounded pissed rather than trying to help yesterday when he was shouting at Seth, but why then isn’t Seth answering my phone calls, either?

“Maybe he’s upset with all of us? You know, for not believing him?” I tuck a stray curl behind my ear. “Or he’s walking and can’t hear his phone ringing?”

“Upset. He has a criminal record. What was I supposed to think? Shit.” Zane kicks at the wall with his boot, leaving a black mark. “Dammit.”

The climb down the stairs is done in silence. The building seems eerily empty. When we reach the bottom, the boys pull out their packs of cigarettes and head out the back door to smoke, and I follow them, trying to think where Seth might have gone.

Why is the ball of dread in my belly growing instead of diminishing? His friends are trying to help him. So he’s not at home right now. So what?

What am I not seeing?

When I’d first gone up to his apartment, what feels like years ago but was only a couple of weeks, there was something…

Something on his door.

“Hey, guys.” They’ve already lit up and are puffing clouds of pale smoke in the cold air of the back alley. “The sticker is gone.”