Broken (10 page)

“What kind of question is that?”

“I got another hundred where that one came from.”

“Lex, how is my father?”

Lex doesn’t say anything for a moment. He can’t help the emotions
building inside. All this silence, and then suddenly out of the blue he gets this.

He forces himself to calm down. “Look, just tell me where you are, and I can make sure that… hey, you still there?”

He calls out her name but doesn’t hear anything.

The line is dead.

He curses and looks at the caller ID.

The number is unfamiliar.

He calls back, but the phone just rings and rings.

After a few minutes, he calls information and asks what area code 864 is. Then he finishes up his drink and leaves a few dollars
on the table.

With the cell phone in his hand, he leaves the restaurant and knows where he needs to go.

He at least knows where she’s at. For now.

All he has to do is buy a map and figure out where Greenville, South Carolina is.

As he climbs into the car and starts it, another thought enters his mind.

Maybe Laila wants him to know where she is. Without having to tell him.

Maybe this is her cry for help.

My sister was the firstborn I could never live up to. And my brother was the rebel I could never outdo. I was stuck in the
middle zone–the dead zone as I called it–where I couldn’t do any better or any worse. I couldn’t do anything, not in my father’s
eyes.

Perhaps I was misguided like most kids growing up. I never doubted that my father loved me. But he also didn’t know what to
do with me. Ava had her place in this life. She was smart and strong and knew where she wanted to go even when she was ten.
Lex had his place too (“behind bars” as Papa said many times). But I was the odd one out, the piece that didn’t quite fit
the puzzle, the one that my mother would have had a handle on if she had stayed alive.

My father never remarried. Talk of remarriage or even dating again became almost as taboo as talking about my mother. I hated
the silence. I hated living with elephants in the room, day after day. I hated going on with this shadow over my soul that
could never go away. The sun was always there, but I could never see it for the troubling, damning shadows.

When I won that first contest, I was heading into eighth grade. What did I know of the rest of the world? All I knew was there
was more out there and I wanted to find it, that I wanted to get away from the dust and the dirt of Texas and find my place.

I always believed my place was never stuck in Brady,
Texas. That it wasn’t stuck between Ava and Lex. That it wasn’t stuck in the middle of nowhere doing something simple and
easy.

I wanted to see the big world.

I guess I eventually grew disappointed at how small and simple the world really is.

T
he front of the car scrapes against the curb, and the front door opens. James doesn’t care that it’s parked sideways across
three spaces in front of the motel. Nobody’s here anyway. He takes out the key card, swipes it a couple of times, and enters
the room. For a moment the chaos makes him think it’s a dead body folded into the sheets of the bed. Then the half-naked figure
moves, and a bruised and bloodied face stares at him.

“You’re supposed to be gone,” James says.

Her mouth opens and tears into a scream.

“Shut up,” he tells her, but instead she stands up on the bed and lunges toward him. Before he can get her off him, she bites
him on the arm.

Cursing, James pivots his arm and pounds her in the head with his elbow. Her mouth stretches open, spitting blood over the
bed. She begins to howl as she notices the blood. He then sees her back, the cuts in them, the gashes.

“Stupid broad.”

He goes into the bathroom and turns on the light. Several damp towels are on the floor. The bath is wet with blood. The toilet
is clogged with something.

“What are you still doing here?” James asks. “I thought I told you to get out of here. But you didn’t listen, huh? And this
is what you get.”

Her eyes are rolling back, and he knows this is bad.

James looks for clothes and finds some jeans. It takes him a few minutes to get them on her. She is skinny from drugs, and
her dull blonde hair color is showing its truth in the roots. He can’t see her face for all the blood.

He finds a T-shirt that must belong to her and he slips it on her. The logo across it says “Yum-Yum Donuts.”

“Let’s get going.” He tries to get her to stand.

“Sickos. Perverts. Nothin’ but a bunch of perverts.”

“Would you stop it and just stand?”

“You did this to me.”

“Oh yeah? Really? You want me to finish it? Huh? Get up. Now.”

She has her eyes closed and can’t stand on her own. She’s lost a lot of blood. She’s already pale, but she’s turning a bit
grayish and deathly.

For a moment he thinks of the final days living with his mother, of her increasing dementia and how every day was something
he needed to clean up after. The memory jars him into action.

James hoists her over his shoulder, brings her out, and props her up against the car. He opens the door and drops her down
in the passenger seat and doesn’t care that her head falls forward against the dash. He looks around, but doesn’t see any
trace of life. He goes back in the motel and finds everything there is to find. With two suitcases and the duffle bag filled,
he drives off.

He starts to dial a number and then stops and shuts his phone.

“Where’s the nearest hospital?”

What comes out of her mouth in response can’t be English.

“Tell me again. Point. Which way?”

The woman grabs his arm, but she’s too weak to do anything.

“Look, lady, I’m going to save your life here, so just tell me where you can get a little medical attention. You lost a lot
of blood and are still losing it.”

She mumbles something.

“Is that really the way you talk? Speak English. Come on.”

She says something else. He vaguely can make out what she’s
saying underneath a drawl that sounds like a combination of trailer trash and redneck.

After ten minutes of her pointing and yelling and hitting him, he finally makes it to some hospital.

“Get out.”

She curses at him and slaps his face, and he grabs her bone-like forearm and pulls her close to him.

“You do that again and so help me I’ll keep driving, then I’ll drop you off the end of a very long and very high cliff. Get
out.”

He opens the door and watches her stumble out of the car. The back of her T-shirt is bloody. He finds her purse and tosses
it out, then he closes the door and keeps driving.

Just as he’s about to stop and find out where he is, the phone rings.

Things would be so much easier if he wasn’t such a nice guy.

•   •   •

Laila is not really sure where she’s going. She’s left one state behind, and she’s close to leaving another. But after driving
for more than an hour and getting off at three different exits first for gas, another to use the restroom, and the third just
to confirm that nobody is following her—it still doesn’t mean she won’t be followed. James found her down in Greenville and
revealed he was Connor’s brother. A part of her still doesn’t believe it, yet she knows anything is possible. All she wants
is to be left alone and to leave everyone behind.

The sun is starting to set, and she knows she better find a place to stay for the night. The thought of driving all night
worries her. She did that before and almost wrecked her car twice falling asleep. She told herself she would never do that
again. But some things in life are hard to avoid.

She’s well into Tennessee, past Knoxville and not sure which direction she wants to go. She just needs to get away. She doesn’t
want to go back north. That’s all she knows.

Laila examines the list of lodging preferences at each exit. At this
point it doesn’t matter. Nobody is going to know whether she gets off on exit 112 or 122.

A sign saying Apple Ridge Farm Bed and Breakfast looks fine. It’s probably a house run by a retired couple trying to earn
some extra bucks.

For a moment, after parking the car and stretching and getting her backpack, Laila wonders if anybody is here. The sky is
a deep orange glow. She knocks on the front door of a two-story log cabin. There’s no doorbell. She tries a couple of times,
standing there on a wide porch with faded, splintering wood. Then she starts to walk away.

The sound of the door opening makes her turn.

“Sorry, honey. You coulda just come on in. The door’s unlocked.”

“I wasn’t sure if anybody was home.”

“My, aren’t you a lovely one?” The gray-haired woman barely comes to Laila’s shoulders. “Lookin’ for a room?”

“If you have one.”

“We have two suites. Haven’t been too busy. Not in these times anyway. You haven’t stayed with us before, have you?”

“No. But it looks lovely.”

“Come on in, and we’ll make you feel at home.”

Laila smiles, smelling baked apples as she enters. She can’t help looking behind her for a moment, at the driveway where her
car is parked. Then she shuts the door and lets out a deep sigh.

The bed is comfortable, but she can’t sleep. The windows don’t have blinds, and they let in the harsh light of the moon. The
cold, blue glow streaks across the wooden floor. She’s in one of the two bedrooms in the suite upstairs. It has a name she’s
already forgotten and includes a private bathroom and sitting area in the loft. Laila stares at the wall and sees the outline
of a framed portrait of the farm.

It’s warm, but she doesn’t want to open the windows. She locked the door even though she would hear someone coming up the
old, creaky stairs. Laila knows she shouldn’t feel frightened, yet another
part of her tells her that fear is what’s keeping her alive and has been ever since killing Connor Brennan six months ago.

The couple’s last name is Simon, and they fit their B & B. Sometimes back in the city she would wonder if there really were
people out there in the “heartland” who had a truly simplistic life. Where each day was just like the last. Where they weren’t
wired and plugged in. Where they prayed before each meal and went to church and had Bible verses hanging up on the walls.
Where they didn’t know the latest brand of clothing or cologne or club to hang out in. Where family meant everything and even
a distant stranger off the street could be made to feel at home at their table.

The Simons were pleasant enough to share a piece of pie and coffee with her and to have conversation but not pry. The little
lady seemed to know that’s one thing you didn’t do with guests. They could both probably tell that Laila was tired and in
no mood to talk. She had gone upstairs early even though she wasn’t ready to sleep.

The creak in the floor startles her. She sighs, knowing it’s just the house stretching.

Laila thinks of the past day, of the past week, of the man who just showed up. She thinks of Kyle and of all the things she
could have said to him and maybe should have said to him, especially before leaving. There wasn’t any apologetic e-mail left
behind. No heartfelt note. No simple card.

She left and it was that simple and easy.

As Laila finally closes her eyes with her mind still doing somersaults, she feels the hand.

It’s warm and strong and soft and it touches her leg.

She’s under the covers yet feels the touch on her bare calf.

Laila jerks up, bends her knees, and rips off the light covers. She stares at the edge of the bed. The mattress is bathed
in cold blue.

Her heart pounds away.

She takes her hand and slides it against the sheet to see if there is anything there. An animal. Maybe a cat or a dog. But
even as she does so, she knows it wasn’t an animal that touched her. She knows
the feeling of a hand on her leg. Touching it, nudging it almost like someone might do when waking someone.

She carefully steps on the floor. The bed is an older type with the bedspring several inches off the floor, wheels on each
side, and a dark opening underneath.

For a moment she hesitates. Then Laila gets on her knees, and she looks under the bed.

She can’t see or hear anything.

She stands up and turns on the light and examines the room for a few minutes. Then she sees a slight image of herself in one
of the windows. The T-shirt and the shorts and the outline.

There is a closet in the corner of this mostly white room, which she opens. It smells musty and is mostly empty, with an extra
pillow and some extra sheets and an ironing board.

The door whines as it closes. She sits on the bed and examines the bottom where her feet had been lying.

She stretches out her legs and looks at them. She had forgotten how pale she is. Normally around this time of year she is
dark from being in the sun by the beach or the pool.

She rubs her ankle and knows.

What she felt was real, as crazy as it might sound.

It felt as real as her hand does now.

In her dream Laila parks outside the big mansion hidden behind trees and a stone gate. She pulls up to the sweeping driveway
with flood-lights blinding the cold night and feels the wind against her face. Her coat doesn’t keep her warm. Neither does
the tiny skirt and low top she’s wearing underneath. She goes to the door and rings the doorbell and waits for a long time.

Then it opens, and she sees him.

She sees that face. She sees the sneer. She sees the eyes that already start undressing her even as she stands outside in
her long overcoat in the howling wind.

“You’re the first to arrive,” he says as he lets her in.

She can hear his breathing behind her as he takes off her coat.

Laila can smell the liquor on his breath as he curses in astonishment at what he’s seeing.

She can feel the scratch of his beard as his eager mouth finds her neck.

And she suddenly knows what he’s thinking when she hears him say these words.