Settling Scores (Piper Anderson Series) (3 page)

As the room began to spin and she felt her eyelids growing heavy she flopped down onto the small wooden chair in the corner of the room. The apartment came furnished with a chair, a desk and a bed, which was all Willow needed. She could survive as long as she had a place to write music, sleep when she was able and research.

The research hadn’t been something she planned for. It didn’t start as much but the more her past bullied her brain the more the project had begun to take on a life of its own. It transitioned from a few pieced together memories in the margins of her notebooks to a full-scale collage of information pinned to her wall. Pictures. Notes. Websites. Phone numbers. They were all taped and tacked up in an order that on a good day made her feel like she was getting somewhere. But today was not a good day. Today, the wall seemed to be taunting her. It reminded her that even an enormous amount of information means nothing if you don’t do anything with it.

One phone number hadn’t made its way to the wall. It was on a piece of paper that had been handled so many times it was beginning to tatter, the ink starting to smudge. She’d picked it up and then tucked it away so frequently that she was surprised it hadn’t disintegrated yet. Looking down at the swirly scrawl of Betty’s handwriting, she bit her lip. It had been slipped into her bag without her knowledge back in Edenville. It read simply, Josh. In case you need him. Followed by his phone number.

What amazed Willow was the fact that Betty hadn’t known she was running off to California. She’d led them all to believe she was heading back to the comfort and isolation of Block Island with her parents. Would Betty still have left this note if she knew Willow was about to steal twenty thousand dollars from her college fund? Most people wouldn’t have, Willow knew. Betty wasn’t most people.

She picked up the shabby piece of paper and clumsily punched the numbers into her phone. As it began to ring, the spinning room seemed to increase its velocity, and she felt the urge to be sick. Josh’s voicemail picked up as she stared at the wall she’d created. Taking in the information she’d been able to remember suddenly overwhelmed her. The long beep that indicated she should speak her message should have had her hanging up the phone, but instead, she was talking. Rambling really and she couldn’t seem to stop herself. There weren’t thoughts of the consequences or what Josh might think. She just needed someone to talk to, she needed to get it all out, and at that moment his voicemail was the best listener she had.

Normally they’d all be sitting on the porch by now. It was Wednesday night, dinner at Betty’s just finished, but tonight something was keeping them inside. As they gathered in the sitting room, Piper moved over and made a spot for Bobby on the couch. They all fell quiet as Bobby turned up the volume on the television. Piper looped her arm in his and leaned in her body against his firm shoulder. Even Betty was standing in the doorway of the sitting room, uncharacteristically neglecting the dinner dishes in order to hear the news broadcast Michael had called them all in for.

They sat with wide eyes and shaking heads as the reporter on the national evening news broke the story. Brad Angelo, son of Thomas Angelo, one of the most prominent lawyers in New York City, had been arrested last night for possession of a large amount of boutique drugs with the intent to distribute. The twist in the story was that the drugs were of the same chemical makeup that had been taken by Joel Silverrun, son of Senator Tom Silverrun. Joel had suffered brain damage as a result of the toxic compound. In turn, Brad would now be investigated for involvement in that case as well. He was being held without bail and his father could not be reached for comment, the anchor continued.

“What on God’s green earth is a boutique drug?” Betty asked with a perplexed look on her face. “Does it come with a fancy hat or something?”

“It’s a synthetic process for making drugs that are tailored to be sold to the wealthy. They are no different than street drugs, really. They just have a fancy name and marketing strategy that makes the rich people using them feel better about themselves. Shape that little pill like a heart, make it pink, and suddenly it’s acceptable for socialites,” Bobby explained, shaking his head in disgust.

“Is he really that stupid?” Piper questioned, looking over at Michael whose face was showing no reaction one way or the other. His courtroom glare, as Piper had come to know it. A lawyer couldn’t be overly emotional if he wanted to be successful.

“How could he keep dealing after how close he came to you and Willow getting him in trouble for putting his friend in the hospital from poorly made drugs?” Jules asked, her voice high and annoyed.

“No, he isn’t a stupid kid,” Michael replied, shaking his head and motioning for Bobby to turn the television off. “But he is that arrogant. An arrest like that, involving so much narcotics, he won’t be seeing the light of day for a long time. Not even his dad will be able to get him out of this.”

“Good,” Jedda grumbled, folding his arms over his chest. “He deserves to rot for what he did to Willow. The thought of his hand on her makes my blood boil. Letting him go, knowing he was out there has been driving me crazy. Now maybe this means Willow will go home, or even come back here.”

“Still no word from her?” Jules asked as she propped Frankie up on her shoulder and patted her back gently. Piper looked with pure joy at her best friend and her Godchild –two of her favorite people on this planet. It was strange how far Piper had climbed out of the hole that was her old life. Now she was a part of something, and that something kept growing all the time.

“I haven’t heard anything,” Jedda reported with a shrug and looked over at Bobby in case he had any update.

Bobby squeezed Piper’s hand as he spoke and she loved knowing he drew strength from her. The topic of Willow was contentious at times and he often relied on Piper for backup in the tough moments. “The phone we’re tracking her on is still in use and still in the same area of Southern California. But her parents haven’t heard anything from her either. I spoke to them a couple days ago and they’re still very concerned. I’ve had to talk them out of sending a private investigator out to track her down. I told them she left here upset and that some space would do her good. But I can tell they’re getting anxious to do something.”

Crystal ran her hand across Jedda’s stiff back and tried, as she always did, to find a silver lining. “I’m sure she’ll hear the news about Brad and that will give her some peace. She might not go running home, but she could reach out to someone. We should be hopeful for that.”

“I don’t see why we can’t just call the phone you’re tracking. Maybe we can tell her the news.” Jedda’s voice was urgent as this familiar argument started up once again. It didn’t come up every Wednesday night at dinner, but it was frequent enough and never resolved.

Bobby took his normal stance on it. “If she ditches that phone you could lose her for good.”

Like usual Michael backed him up. “Spooking her would be worse than anything. She’s out there trying to sort through how she feels. The best thing we can do is let her have space until she’s ready to come around again.”

As Jedda opened his mouth to argue, a very insistent knock on the front door drew everyone’s attention. They looked from one to another each seeming to take mental inventory and coming to the same conclusion: We’re all here so who could that be?

Betty stood and headed for the door, which was being pounded on again. Bobby was quick to her side and Clay behind him. “Who is it?” Betty called and they all waited nervously for a response. A tiny part of Piper prayed it was Willow.

“It’s Josh, I need to talk to you.” His voice was choppy and labored as though he’d run there from town.

“For the love of all things holy, Joshua Nelson, you had me as worried as a turkey in November. Knock like a normal person next time,” Betty drawled, pulling open the door and promptly slapping Josh across the shoulder.

“I’m sorry, but it’s important and I wanted to catch you while you were all together. It’s about Willow.”

“You heard the news?” Michael asked, stepping into the kitchen and shaking Josh’s hand.

“What news?” Josh questioned, looking thoroughly perplexed. Piper sensed they weren’t all talking about the same thing as she sidled up to Bobby.

“Brad. He’s been arrested for a significant drug charge and it sounds like he’s going to get put away for long time,” Michael explained, but still Josh’s face looked confused.

“That’s what she must have been talking about,” Josh mumbled, as he dug his phone out of his pocket. “She left me a voice mail in the middle of the night last night. I’ve listened to it all day today trying to figure out what she was talking about, what she needs.”

“She called you?” Jedda asked, stepping forward with a demanding look on his face. “What did she say? Did she sound like she was all right? Why did you wait all day to tell us?”

“No. She did not sound all right,” Josh admitted, ignoring almost all of Jedda’s other questions. Instead, he pulled up the message and turned his phone so everyone in the room could hear it. Willow’s voice began and immediately Betty’s hand flew to her heart, protecting it from the ache in Willow’s tone.

“I’m sorry it’s so late,” she slurred. “I don’t know why I’m even calling. It’s just I’ve been out here, trying to do this thing and now all of a sudden it’s done. He’s in jail. I did it. But I don’t feel better. It was supposed to make me feel better. I’m staring at all these things on my wall and I should have done something. I should have helped them. I think I can help them now. I-I…” her voice cracked with tears. “I opened Pandora’s box and it was too much. I remember more than I thought. Maybe that’s what I have to do next. Maybe that’s what will make me feel better…” Her voice trailed off as she whispered something incoherent and then the line disconnected.

“What the hell is she talking about?” Jedda panicked, as his eyes circled the room as though one of them may have the answer.

“I don’t know,” Josh admitted, as he tucked his phone away. “I mean I guess now I know the thing she went out there to do was get Brad arrested.”

“That’s not possible,” Michael cut in. “What could she have done out there to get him arrested? She’s not capable of orchestrating something like that.”

Piper huffed out a laugh as she spoke, “I’d imagine you would have thought the same thing about me and what I was trying to do to Judge Lions. I don’t think anyone would have expected I was capable.”

“The other guy they named in Brad’s arrest is a gang banger, a notoriously violent one on the west coast,” Bobby explained, as he pulled up the information on the search engine on his phone. “He’s based out of the same area Willow is in right now. Maybe she had more to do with this than we think.”

“Did she get mixed up with them? I know she’s as stubborn as an angry mule, but could she do that?” Betty asked, her brows furrowed with worry.

“She had twenty thousand dollars,” Jules chimed in with a hushed voice as she bounced Frankie up and down rhythmically. “You can make a lot of things happen with that kind of money.”

“What else could she be talking about?” Josh asked, shrugging his shoulders. “The timing is too much of a coincidence. Brad gets arrested and then she calls me and says all that. I think she was involved.”

“If she would have been caught trying to do anything to Brad she’d be in violation of the non-disclosure agreement we signed with Thomas Angelo. I could have lost my license or ended up in jail,” Michael asserted loudly, before quieting slightly at the wave of Jules’s hand.  “She can’t be that self-destructive or care that little about what happens to other people. Does she really have no conscience?”

“I’m sure it’s not that Michael,” Piper snapped as she felt a pang of empathy ring through her. “Sometimes it’s bigger than you think. You can’t just shake it and move on. Brad hurt her, brought her back to a place and a time in her life she had buried away. I can’t blame her for wanting to see him put away.”

“I understand that,” Michael seethed through gritted teeth, though his face was indicating he did not understand it at all. “I wasn’t too pleased letting him walk free either. But occasionally, and I know this is hard for you all to understand, we have to act like adults. That can mean losing sometimes for the sake of self-preservation. I don’t even want to imagine what she had to do or with whom she was associating with to pull this off.”

“And it sounds like it’s already done,” Betty emphasized, calling a quick end to Michael’s rant. “If she had anything to do with it then hopefully she’s done. What I’m more worried about is this Pandora’s box business she was talking about. She sounds like she’s a wreck out there.”

“I’m going to find her,” Josh asserted, straightening his back and looking ready to fight the arguments against it.

Bobby was the first to react. “She doesn’t really want to be found, Josh.”

“I have the phone number she called me from. Can’t you trace it? Just give me a location and I’ll go get her.”

“Me too. I’m going with you,” Jedda said, looking like he could slip into his boots and be ready in sixty-seconds.

“Stop,” Michael shot out, raising up his hands like he was directing traffic. “Jedda you can’t go out there. You are on a short enough leash as it is. You’re making incredible progress in your PTSD therapy and you’ve got a good thing going working at the restaurant. You have a routine and it’s working for you. Breaking that now, going back into an emotionally charged environment with Willow, that isn’t going to work. I’ve put my neck out for you and I need you to hear me on this.”