Too Far to Say Far Enough: A Novel (40 page)

I didn’t know whether it was fear or revulsion that wrapped itself around me and squeezed. I had only seen this man twice. Once when he was still physically whole and powerful enough to rule his hellish world. And once after that world had been replaced by the one he was imprisoned in now, with a crippled body and a misshapen face and a patch over the eye that was no longer of any use to him. He was no uglier now than he had been the first time.

I edged toward Desmond, who was on his knees on the chair where Flannery had pulled out the stuffing. Sultan jammed the wheelchair between us and shook his head at Elgin, whose breath I could feel on the back of my neck. He stepped back.

“I’ve met all your demands,” I said to Sultan. “Your women are on their way here, all but Sherry, who I’m sure you’ve already taken care of.”

I heard Desmond gasp, but I couldn’t look at him.

“And they say I can’t get women to perform for me any more,” Sultan said.

“So I can take Desmond home, then.”

“He can go wherever he wants. But he’ll be going without you, and I think we both know what that means: right back where he started.” He turned his misshapen head toward Desmond. “Unless he wants to come with me. I am the boy’s father after all—”

“I ain’t leavin’ without her.”

Desmond’s voice was stronger than it was on the phone, and it frightened me. One word over the line could provoke this man.

“It’s okay, Des. I just want to ask Mr. Lowery some questions, and then I think we’ll both be out of here.”

Elgin spit out a laugh. Sultan dismissed him with a one-eyed look.

“Ask me anything you want, Ms. Chamberlain,” Sultan said. He let the gun rest on his thigh.

“What do you want with me? I never did anything to you.”

“You tried to destroy my life. I understand that’s what you’re about with men.”

“I’m not the one who shot you. You may not recall, now that your brain has been scrambled, but I was facing you when you went down. You got it in the back of the head, so there’s no way—”

The gun was once more in his hand, black square barrel pointed at me.

“One of my whores shot me,” he said. “I’m about to find her and take care of it. But it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for you.”

The unscarred places on his face darkened, creating an even more macabre picture. It made me fear far more than what that gun could do.

“You took Geneveve. Her and everything else I worked for.”

“That
you
worked for?” I said. “They did the work you forced them to do—”

“You destroyed it!” His voice was suddenly as wild as it had been controlled five seconds before. “You made it impossible for me to get any of it back.”

“Not exactly impossible,” Elgin said. “You and I—”

“Shut up.”

The expletive Sultan shot at him sent Elgin into silence.

“It will never be the way it was,” Sultan said to me. “
You
are responsible, and
you
are going to pay.”

“So why don’t you just shoot me and get it over with?” I said.

“No!”

Desmond was out of the chair and wedged between Sultan and me before I could stop him.

“You shoot me first!” Desmond screamed at him. “’Cause I rather be dead than be any kin to you!”

Sultan narrowed his only eye. “Get him out of here.”

“Desmond, sit down,” I said.

But Elgin shoved me into the chair and grabbed Desmond by the Harley insignia on the front of his T-shirt. With an almost effortless heave he threw him against the plank-and-cinder-block bookcase and left Desmond, slumped and limp, on the floor.

I screamed his name and tried to go to him, but Elgin stood over me. His eyes, however, were on Sultan. Somewhere amid the profanity, I deciphered—

“Enough of this! Where is my girl? You promised me if I helped you get your kid, you’d get her back for me.”

“She’s on her way.” Sultan had recovered command over his voice and turned it on me. “You can’t control this situation.”

“Then what do you
want
?”

“What we all want, Ms. Chamberlain. Revenge.”

“That won’t give you your life back.”

“No. But someone else can.” He nodded at Elgin. “See who just pulled up. No, let’s all see. Open the curtain.”

He was pointing at me. I went to the window and yanked back the curtain Geneveve had hung there.

A BMW stopped at the curb. I stared as the driver’s door opened, and Troy Irwin stepped out.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

My mind ceased to track as the passenger door flung open and Flannery belted from the car and took off across the street toward Sacrament Two. Elgin tore outside, leaving the screen door flailing in the wind, and grabbed her just short of the koi pond.

I started for the door, but something clicked into place, and I knew it was Sultan’s Glock. I could only watch as Elgin passed Troy at the curb on his way back to Sacrament One with a kicking, screaming Flannery thrown over his shoulder like a bag of Owen’s fertilizer. Troy said something to him with no visible response from Elgin. When all three of them came through the front door, Flannery was the only one talking.

“You said you were going to
help
me!” she screamed.

Her eyes were right on Troy.

“You see, Ms. Chamberlain.” Sultan’s voice oozed sickening charm. “My life is not over after all.”

Flannery pounded Elgin with both tiny fists, and I could see his face taking on the same monstrous expression it had worn when he slapped me aside to get to Brenda.

“Flannery!” I said. “Stop, baby.”

“Everybody stop,” Troy said. He swung his gaze across the room as if he were running a board meeting. “Go across the street, all of you, and wait in the other house. I need some time alone with Ms. Chamberlain. That was the agreement.”

Elgin glared at Sultan, who nodded and said, “Give me the girl.”

Elgin deposited Flannery into Sultan’s arms and Sultan locked her against him before she could even think about pummeling him. But he couldn’t lock down her voice.

“Don’t let them take me, Miss Allison!”

“Hey.” Troy’s voice was like a velvet fist. “I said I’d help you. Just be patient.”

Flannery gave him a hard stare and spit on the floor in front of the wheelchair.

“You can’t let them take her, Troy,” I said, even as Elgin pushed them both out onto the porch and slammed the door behind him.

Troy ignored me and went to Desmond, who was still motionless against the bookcase. “What happened?”

I pushed him out of the way and knelt beside my son. I could feel his breath on my hand as I pulled his face toward me.

“He’s out cold but he’s still with us,” Troy said.

He lifted Desmond up from his armpits and hoisted him over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I’m getting you two out of here before they come back. Back door this way?”

“I’m not going to let you—”

But Troy was already halfway through the kitchen. When I got to him, he had the door open.

“Where can we go that’s cut off to cars?” he said.

I stared at him.

“Ally, come on—”

“There’s nothing but alleys between here and West King,” I said. Not because I trusted him, but because the Whisper was louder than it had ever been.

Go the extra mile with him. Go!

It pushed me through the door and after Troy, who jogged across the backyard and into the vacant lot beyond where the Johnson grass parted at his waist as he mucked through. I kept my eyes on Desmond’s head, bobbing over Troy’s shoulder.

PleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod let this be You I’m hearing.

When the narrow field gave way to the alley behind C.A.R.S., Troy turned and looked at me, eyes confused.

“I have no idea where we are.”

“Almost to West King,” I said.

“Is there a place we can stop so we can call an ambulance?”

I followed his gaze skyward. Rain was starting to fall again, and his face was scarlet. Desmond was dead weight on his shoulder.

I pointed toward C.A.R.S. As we drew closer I could see the remains of tattered crime-scene tape hanging from the gaping side window. The shards of glass had been removed, but no one had boarded it up. The HOGs must have been too occupied with securing their own houses.

I held back the tape for Troy and let him pass me with Desmond just as the shop lit up with lightning as sharp as the jagged glass that was swept against the wall.

“What can I lay him down on?” Troy said.

“There are some cushions on the couch in the office,” I said. “But he had better be right here when I get back.”

Troy closed his eyes. His face was beginning to go gray. If he did try to make off with my son he wouldn’t get far.

When I returned with the cushions, Troy was on the floor with Desmond in his lap, lifting his eyelid.

“He’s starting to come around,” he said. “There’s a bump on the back of his head, which they say is a good sign. He’ll be okay.”

“What do
you
know, Troy? Nothing about this is okay.”

I dropped the cushions in a line on the floor and rolled Desmond off of Troy’s lap and onto them. Then I dug in my jacket pocket for my cell.

“I already called 911,” Troy said. “They’re sending the paramedics.”

“You don’t mind if I double check that, do you?”

Even as I said it I realized my phone was with the Harley. The push to follow Troy had been so strong, so divine, but here I was in a vandalized building on West King Street with the man who had obviously orchestrated this entire nightmare.

Love another mile,
I was told. Sternly. There was no room for an answer.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll wait here for the ambulance. You get a head start on the police, because this time when I tell them what you’ve done, I’m going to camp out in Detective Kylie’s office until he—”

“I’ve been trying to get him all day.”

“Proactive as usual,” I said. “Troy, please don’t try to snow me. Just go. You’ve already turned Flannery back over to her pimp. My son is unconscious, thanks to you, I’m sure—”

“No. That’s not how it went down.”

Troy got to his feet and pulled me up by one arm. I struggled, but he pushed me into the counter and pinned me against the edge until I gasped.

“Just listen to me for five minutes,” he said. “And then you can tell them anything you want. Please.”

Please. I hadn’t heard that word come out of Troy Irwin’s mouth in thirty years. Not in that tone that said
I need you
and expected nothing in return. The desperation in his eyes was only that of a man begging to be understood. The Troy Irwin I had come to despise did not beg.

“Until the paramedics get here,” I said.

Within me something sighed. Troy loosened his hold just enough to stop the counter from digging into my back.

“I
was
in on it,”’ he said. “I thought you took everything away from me, and I was going to take everything away from you.”

“You already told me this,” I said.

“Just listen. I went through the school, told them I wanted to give them money for their athletic program, and they put me with the coach—”

Skeeter Iseley flashed through my head. Desmond saying “Roy” was hitting on her in the office. “Is there nothing you won’t stoop to?” I said. “You dated his teacher so you could get
information
from her about my
son
?”

“She said—”

“You don’t even have to tell me what she said. She told you right where he came from, didn’t she?” I shook my head. “But you knew that …”

“She had already looked into his history. She had his biological father’s name.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

I pulled at my elbows to push his arms away, but Troy caught me and spun me around. I was trapped against him. Ten feet away, I saw Desmond stir.

“I found Lowery, and I made him an offer,” Troy said. “I would set him up with anything he needed for his business, and he could get his son back, and we’d both have our revenge on a mutual enemy.”

“Stop!”

He didn’t. His breath was hot in my ear. “He turned me down at first, but then he called me and we made a deal. I would set him up in Vilano Beach, and he could take over the town, have a bigger thing going than he ever had here. All he had to do was get Desmond and let me be there when he took him away from you. He had it all set up with his business partner.”

“Marcus Rydell is not his business partner.”

“Not Rydell,” Troy said. “Elvin.”

“Elgin.”

“And then you showed up at the courthouse.”

“And the rest is history—”

“Ally—listen.” His arms tightened. “I couldn’t go through with it.”

“Yet here you are.”

Desmond whimpered.

“By then I knew I was in deep with a psychopath. I had to let him get Desmond so
I
could get him. I knew he’d keep our agreement to let me be there, and I tried to get Kylie on the scene.”

“But Flannery—”

I heard a vehicle pull up, but Troy didn’t flinch.

“I didn’t know anything about that until I got to the Vilano Beach house last night. Elgin had Desmond there, but he was raging about
his
kid. Apparently Rydell was supposed to snatch her, but he had disappeared and Sultan couldn’t control Desmond by himself so that Elgin could go after her, not unless they tied Desmond up or drugged him.” Troy jerked me closer. “I couldn’t let them do that to him. I told Sultan I would get the girl and call them to meet us at the place on San Luis. I thought I could get Kylie to be there. I need you to believe me.”

“Why?” I said. “Because you had a miraculous change of heart on the courthouse steps? You could have fooled me.”

“Do you remember what you said?”

“I said a lot of things.” I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stall him and keep him from seeing that Desmond was struggling to open his eyes. By then I was beginning to think I had only imagined that someone else had arrived.

Troy turned me around, and my breath caught in my throat. I was looking into a guileless face with longing in its clear blue eyes. “You said you loved me, Ally. And I couldn’t get past that.”

“Let her go.”

Troy’s eyes darted to the gaping window. Before I could twist to look there, too, he shoved me behind him and once more I was pinned to the counter, this time by his back pressing against me. Over his shoulder I saw Kade step into the shop, shoes crunching on crushed glass. The Glock he held high with two hands was pointed at Troy.

“I said let her go.”

“Take it easy,” Troy said. “You put the gun down, I get out of the way.”

For the second time that day I heard the metallic
click-clack
of a slide bar being pulled back.

“Kade, no,” I said. “I’m okay. This isn’t what it looks like.”

Troy’s head turned to me. In the same instant I saw the surprise in his eyes, the air cracked. Something white crashed to the floor, accompanied by a man-child scream.

Through a choking cloud of dust, I saw Desmond up on his elbows, heard him crying, “Cappuccino!” Troy threw himself into me as another chunk of the ceiling smashed to pieces.

“It’s okay, Desmond,” Kade said. “Just a warning shot.”

“Kade, don’t,” I said. “Troy, step away.”

Troy nodded and pulled himself off me, but his finger pointed at Kade. “Put that thing down before somebody gets hurt.”

Kade followed him with the barrel of the gun. “That was the plan.”

“Not a good one.”

“Mr. Chief!”

Chief was behind Kade, who didn’t turn to look. The gun shook in his hands.

“Come on, son. He’s unarmed.”

“He’s never unarmed!”

Troy took another step away from me and put his hands up. I saw the resignation in his shoulders.

Kade swore softly and lowered the gun. “I was just hoping he’d give me a reason.”

“Darn the luck, right?” Chief said.

“Mama!”

Desmond was sitting up, neck craned toward the street edge of the gaping window. Elgin Wedgewood’s image registered in a flash before three sharp retorts blasted in my ears and Troy was thrown back. I hit the floor with his weight on top of me.

The world was once again surreal. Troy being rolled off of me blurred with Desmond crawling to my side. Chief shouting to Kade morphed into a siren screaming through the blood that soaked my palm as I pressed it to Troy’s chest.

The only thing that came clear was the hand reaching up to me. Troy tugged me down to his lips.

“Why do you love me, Ally?” he said. “Tell me.”

“It’s all God, Troy,” I said.

He closed his eyes. The pinch of arrogance and the twist of entitlement smoothed from his face.

“Big Al.”

I turned to Desmond. He was still sitting with me in a splash of Troy’s blood.

“We got to find Flannery,” he said.

Her face flooded back to me, mouth open, screaming at me from Sultan’s hideous lap.

DearGoddearGoddearGod where is the end?

“Kade!” I said.

He came out of nowhere, lip blossoming, shirt slit at the shoulder.

“We got him,” he said.

“Call an ambulance.”

“Done.”

“And stay with Desmond. Where’s Chief?”

“Outside talking to Kent.”

“I love you, son,” I said to Desmond and got to my feet.

I had to stagger a few steps to get my balance. As it was, I nearly fell into Chief at the side window everyone seemed to be using like an entrance.

“What are you doing, Classic?” he said.

“We have to find out about Flannery.”

“What—”

“Last time I saw her Elgin was taking her and Sultan to Sacrament Two. Then he ends up here. Will you take me back there?”

Chief’s gaze bored into me, hard. With his eyes still on me, he said, “Nick.”

I tried to pull away from Chief, but he held fast.

“You finished with me?” he said. “I need to get Allison out of here.”

“Sure,” Nick said. “Kylie can question her later.”

Someone else called to Nick and he hurried off.

“Thank you,” I said to Chief.

I didn’t see that he was limping more than usual until we were almost to the Road King. We were all going to have scars from this, including Troy if he made it. I just hoped I’d have a chance to help Flannery heal from hers.

The rain had slowed to a misty drizzle. When I could finally see Sacrament Two, someone stood on the porch, screaming into the front window. The someone was Sherry, and the twenty-two revolver she pointed at the window looked as old as Maharry himself.

I half fell from the Road King and once again staggered to get upright as I hurled myself across the street. Chief shouted something, but I kept going until I tripped onto the bottom step. It was Sherry’s voice that stopped me there.