Fall Gently (Red Light: Silver Girls series) (20 page)

T
he Seattle Times crinkled in Roni's hands. She set the newspaper down on the table and circled an employment ad.

"How's this one sound?" She glanced over at Dawson on the couch, met his gaze, and smiled. "Internship at a prestigious law firm. Five days a week. Will train. Must be professional and dependable."

He set down the remote control to the television and shook his head. "Internship is another word for no pay."

"No, it isn't." She laughed. "It means entry level. They'll train a person who doesn't have the experience or skills for the regular job, and look for someone who they believe has the possibilities of moving further up the ladder once they learn the ropes."

"Nope." Dawson walked to the refrigerator. "They're looking for a college kid who is going to school to become an attorney. It benefits the company to have a helper and the student gains experience they need for their schooling."

"Seriously?" She groaned. "What if I tell them I'm a student? Are they going to check the colleges in the area to see if I’m enrolled in school?"

Dawson carried two Diet Pepsi cans to the table and sat one on top of the newspaper. "Yeah, they'll do a background check on you."

She let her head fall to the table and banged her forehead against the wood. With a groan of disappointment, she looked up at him. "Do I even have a background?"

Dawson leaned over the table and kissed her sensitive head. "Unless you have a criminal record, they probably won't find anything on you."

"But I can't write down that I worked for the Network for a year. I have no history of employment, and I'm twenty-six years old. That's going to make me look bad." She hummed in despair. "I don't even know if my stepdad reported me as a runaway, and if I have a police record. I was only seventeen when I split, so he had a legal right as my guardian to contact the police. Something that I was aware of years ago, but once I turned eighteen I never worried about because they couldn't force me to go home."

"I doubt if he reported you missing." Dawson shook his head. "Think about it, sweetheart. He was molesting you under his roof. Would he take the chance of the police bringing you back home and you telling the truth about him to the authorities? He'd be arrested and serve prison time."

She scrunched up her mouth. "Yeah, he probably wouldn't do that, then."

"There's probably nothing on your records that would hurt your chances at getting a job." Dawson leaned his head back and drank from the can.

She stared at his hands, amazed that someone so big and strong could be gentle. Never once had he hit her or thrown her to the floor. Besides when they practiced the defense moves he was teaching her every evening, he never showed his strength in a bad way. He was a powerful man. Not only in his dark looks and the way he dressed, but in intensity, too.

At first glance, if she hadn't got to know him, he'd scare her—he had scared her. Like all men, his size intimidated her. Her stepfather was big. Vince was big.

She shook her head, stopping herself from comparing him to the others. He was nothing like the men who'd abused her.

"So, I guess he didn't want me if he couldn't use me," she muttered.

Dawson frowned. "Who?"

"Mike. My stepdad. I guess he's nothing to me anymore." She stared at the Diet Pepsi and watched a droplet of condensation run down the side of the can and wet the paper. "I should've known there was nothing between us—no father/daughter relationship—even though he raised me from the age of four when he married my mom. He was more worried about himself than a responsible adult."

Dawson set down his pop. "Sweetheart, guys like him, they don’t deserve anything, especially you thinking about him and wondering if he cared. He's sick. You're better off without him, and you did the right thing running away."

She nodded. "Yeah, I know."

Dawson tilted his head to the side. "What happened to your real dad?"

"I didn't know him." She looked down at her non-existing fingernails and put her hands underneath the tabletop. "I don't think my mom ever told whoever he is that she was having a baby. I doubt he even knows I exist, and I have no interest in trying to figure out who my father is at this point in my life."

"Maybe it was for the better," he muttered.

"No maybe about it. I don't need another man connected to me." She shrugged. "What about your dad? You talked about your mom and how you lost her, but never mentioned a father in the picture."

Dawson leaned forward against the table and cleared his throat. "He left when mom was pregnant with Jacqueline."

"But you're eight years older than your sister, so you were able to get to know him and bond?"

He ran his hand over his jaw. The
shff shff
of his broad hand rubbing his whiskers sent a shiver down her spine. She swallowed. Maybe talking about their families came too soon after him losing Jacqueline.

"He left because he got arrested for murder." Dawson exhaled loudly. "He received a life sentence with no chance of parole."

"Oh," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "Nothing to be sorry about. It is what it is. I don't have anything to do with him, and he's never tried to contact us...me."

"Your mom was lovely," she said, wanting to change the subject. "I can see you and Jacqueline in her picture on your wall. It's the eyes and hair, I think."

Dawson stood from the table and picked up his can of pop. "I'm going to run out and grab us dinner and swing by a friend's house. Will you be okay here?"

"Sure." She stood, guilty for upsetting him. "I'm going to keep searching the employment ads until I find one. The Sunday paper is huge, so it'll take me awhile."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Use your phone to search, too. A lot of jobs are listed online through the State Department website."

"Okay," she said, her voice drowning out. "Dawson?"

His gaze snapped up to meet hers. She stepped over and hugged him. His stiff body softened a little.

"I'm sorry about bringing up your father and all that," she whispered. "I won't talk about your family anymore."

He kissed the top of her head. "Don't worry about it."

She nodded.

He backed away, turned, and put his can on the counter, then walked to the door without taking his coat. She sank back down on the chair and cradled her chin in her hand. He obviously had pain when thinking about his dad. At only eight years old, she imagined he needed his dad at home at that age teaching him things boys wanted to learn.

She glanced down at the newspaper and wrinkled her nose. None of the jobs so far interested her. Her internal clock ran rampant to find employment and pressed her to concentrate and keep looking. She couldn't live with Dawson forever. Unfortunately, she needed to hold on to her hope to become independent and not end up working in the sex industry again.

Dawson had done her a huge favor helping her get back to Seattle and start life over. Though living in the apartment, sleeping with him, she only had an interest in being together with Dawson, and it was hard to focus on herself.

A
nother empty beer bottle crashed against the side of the building in the alley outside Dawson's apartment. He picked up the last one he found behind the dumpster and heaved it against the brick siding, listening to the trickle of broken glass puddle at the base of the wall.

One more second with Roni and he would've admitted he was more like his father than his mother.

Sure, he resembled his mother in looks, but everything inside of him— his attitude, his anger, his inability to control himself— came from dear old dad, who'd killed two men outside a bar. Dawson walked over the broken glass, crunching the pieces smaller with his boots.

His father wasn't even drinking and had never drunk to excess as far as he knew. No, Jay Carver went to the bar to hook up with a prostitute and took offense to some drunk and his friend for catcalling the woman he'd paid to fuck. As if he was better than them because he paid cash for pussy.

Jacqueline never learned why their father murdered two other people. He clamped his teeth together. Maybe it'd been a mistake not to tell her. Maybe if she'd known, she never would've gone with Vince and would've never been forced into the position of trying to protect her body.

"Hey," shouted a male voice.

Dawson turned, spotted Scott, and ground his boot into the mess he'd made in the alley. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone.

Scott walked down the alley and stopped near Dawson, noticing the glass. "Trouble?"

"Nope." Dawson stepped back, ignoring the broken bottles and leaned against the wall.

"Doesn't look that way to me. What's going on, man?" Scott's narrowed eyes squinted more.

"Nothing," he muttered.

Scott coughed and gazed out to the sidewalk. "How's the woman you have living with you?"

"Good."

Scott studied him. "All right..."

"Listen, I'm not up to answering twenty questions or whatever the fuck you're doing here." Dawson pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. "I need to go pick up something for dinner."

"I'll go with you," said Scott, zipping up his coat.

"No need." Dawson drew breath through his tight chest, not in the frame of mind to carry on a friendly conversation. If he wanted company, he'd go back home.

Scott shrugged. "Deal with it, man. I got things I need to talk about."

"Not here." Dawson walked. Anywhere around the apartment or Roni was too close for what Scott had to say. He wasn't sure how she'd deal with Scott being a Sparrows.

They walked to the parking garage in silence. Tension riddled his body, and he unclenched his hands forcing himself to relax. Scott knew more than anyone and he had a feeling whatever Scott needed to talk to him about wasn't good.

He unlocked his car, slid into the driver's seat, and popped the lock. Once Scott was inside, Dawson backed out of his assigned parking spot and drove around the ground floor until he hit the exit.

"The other day you mentioned an interest in getting back into the chopping business," said Scott.

Dawson rested his wrist on the top of the steering wheel and watched traffic. "Depends on if things are done out in the open or you're thinking about jumping back into running the underground customs."

Scott rolled the window down an inch. "I'm getting too old to keep looking over my shoulder and with the recent hit Sparrows has taken and Vince gone, I'm not anxious to put my trust with anyone in the gang. I don't know who to trust or who will stab me in the back, and we'll probably never find out if the sting came from someone on the inside feeding information out or what. It makes you think, man. Your sister gets killed, and then the members go down."

"What are you thinking?" asked Dawson, prepared to hear what he already suspected. It was only a matter of time until Scott figured out about how Sparrows went down and who helped instigate the sting.

Scott's body went still, and he gazed at Dawson. "I think your sister found a way to get away from Vince by going to the cops, feeding them information in exchange for their help, and Vince got wind of what she was doing and had her killed. It was too late though and Jacqueline had given the police all the information they needed to take half the members of the Yesler Street Gang down."

Unsurprised that Scott figured things out on his own, he stopped on the yellow light and looked at his friend. "Talk like that is never good. What are you planning on doing with your opinion?"

Scott's gaze intensified. "I figure we've already done enough. Don't you?"

Dawson nodded. The conversation would die in the car. Nobody needed to know that his sister somehow found the strength and determination to contact the police in an attempt to get away from Vince and take Roni with her. She'd almost made it out, too, but Vince got to her first. Whether the leader of the Sparrows killed his sister or ordered the hit, Vince had paid for what he'd done to Jacqueline.

"Yeah. We're good." Dawson pushed down on the accelerated and continued driving.

A few years older than Dawson, Scott was already a member of the gang when he'd joined up. They hit it off straight away and learned everything they needed to in the garage together. He saw no reason to cut ties. More than brotherhood kept them together. They had secrets that would forever link both of them together.

"What would you say if I find us a place to set up business and we open to the public and make the business legal?" asked Dawson.

He turned the block and headed three streets up to the first fast food burger joint closest to home. Glancing over at Scott, he found his friend staring out the window in thought.

Scott blew out his breath and chuckled. "I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm in if you can do it."

"Who else in Sparrows is willing to work?" Dawson turned on his blinker. "We need two more men. There're some things we can't do on our own, but eventually, we'll need others who know their way around a garage. They can start off part-time until business picks up."

"Let me listen around for a couple of days and put feelers out. Right now, off the top of my head, Luchek comes to mind and so does Jerald. Both of them have worked with us before. I want to know how deep they're in with the others first before I mention it to them. I don't want any bad blood between any of us." Scott quit talking when Dawson rolled to a stop in front of the lit menu board.

He looked over at Scott. "You want anything to eat?"

"No, I'm good."

Dawson rolled down his window, placed the order, and drove around the building to the pick-up window. The conversation waited until they were back on the street.

"Go ahead and call Josh Hennings. He's got a building he's leasing out on Fifth Avenue...an old warehouse. There's a garage on street level. See what he thinks about leasing it out to us, and once I know we've got a place; I'll make arrangements to get the tools out of storage." He stopped at the stop light. "Soon as you make up your mind about Luchek and Jerald, let me know and we can roll on this."