Sidewalk Flower (14 page)

It became clear then that she’d found a
way out of her life.
 

Jaggedly and bravely, she rubbed her
wrist, back and forth, pushing the skin down so that with each pass, more and
more of her flesh ripped away.
 
The blood
flowed immediately, mixing in to her dress that was already soiled and stained
from the soggy red clay all around her.
 
She started on the left one but the pain from the right demanded her
attention.
 
She wanted so badly to cry…
Silent little one, stay quiet now, silent,
silent, silent; you don’t want him to come.
 
Momma was right; she didn’t want him to come.

* * * *

Lucky was seated and drinking his coffee
in a booth at the diner adjacent to their hotel when his phone rang.
 
He hoped it was Trista calling to check in as
she had mentioned in her note.
 
It was
already ten-thirty and he was just about at his limit of the amount of caffeine
a person should consume before becoming a jittery mess.
 
He hoped she had been able to take care of
her business with the early start she’d gotten.
  
The area code of the incoming call was the
same as hers but the numbers that followed did not match.
 
He answered after a couple rings.

“Lucky?
 
Is that you?”
 
Before Lucky could
say hello, Jaxon’s voice punched across the line, heated, his accent heavy.

“Yeah.
 
Hey Jaxon, what’s up?”
 
He lifted a bite of biscuit to his mouth.

“What are you doing?”

“Um, finishing up breakfast, why?”
 
He didn’t appreciate Jaxon’s swift and
accusing tone.

“Is Trissy there?
 
Let me speak with her,” he barked.

“Jaxon, I know we’re family, but I’m
about two seconds away from hanging up.”

“Lucky, I’m sorry man.
 
Please let me speak to her.”

It was obvious Jaxon was in some kind of
mood, but his apology had been sincere enough.
 
“Yeah, well I would but she isn’t here.”

“What do you mean she isn’t there?
 
Where is she?”
 
The edge came back to Jaxon’s voice.

“Jaxon…”
 
He forked his last remaining bite bitterly, about to warn his cousin to
lay
off.

The amount of time it took him to chew
and swallow had inflamed Jaxon’s response.
 
“Lucky, I’m not fucking around.
 
Where is Trissy?”

Trying very hard not to be petty, he blew
off the attitude of his older cousin and shot back, “She took off before I woke
up.
 
Left me a note saying she was going
to take care of some things and that she’d check in later.
 
I don’t know where though.
 
Why the hell are you so jacked over it?”

Jaxon paused and then tore into him on
another front.
 
“Before you woke up—are
you fucking sleeping with her?”

“What the hell, man?
 
That’s none of your fucking business.
 
Why don’t you call her if you’re so
concerned?”
 
He’d never speak that way to
a lady but when a guy dished it out, he could give it right back.

He hit the End Call button and tossed the
cell phone onto the table, muttering what an asshole Jaxon was.
 
A young couple, the female in pajama bottoms
and slippers, looked up at him with wide eyes and then returned to their meal.
The ice in his untouched glass of water swished around when his hands thudded
down on the table.
 

That had been a shitty phone call from
his cousin.
 
He looked over his check and
left a ten dollar bill on the table.
 
It
was plenty to cover the coffee, biscuits and gravy he’d eaten.
 
After stuffing his wallet in his back pocket,
he left the diner to head back over to their room.

His phone rang again. It was Jaxon. Still
pissed from their first go round, he answered with a less pleasant greeting.

“What the fuck do you want, Jaxon?”

“Listen to me, Lucky.”

He wasn’t in the mood nor was he amused
but he didn’t hang up as he slid the key card and then opened the door.
 
He tossed his wallet on the table and then
plopped down on the bed.

“What?
 
I’m listening.”

“Good.
 
If you care about Trissy—and you better if you know what’s good for
you—you will hear me out.
 
Do. Not. Hang.
Up.
On me again.
 
Okay?”

Jaxon was either a jealous maniac who
couldn’t stand the thought of sharing Trista with his cousin, even after he’d
been the one to bring them together—or he was really concerned about her.
 
He’d grown to care so much for Trista these
past couple days and so he tried to ignore Jaxon’s rant, for her sake.

“All right, man, I won’t.
 
What’s going on?”

“What has Trissy told you about where
she’s going today?”

“Not much more than you did.
 
Just that she needed to go alone and didn’t
want me to take it personally.”

“Fuck.
 
I knew I should have fucking gone on this trip.
 
Damn that fucking bitch.”
 

Was he out of his mind?
 

“Jaxon, where do you get off talking
about Trista like that?
 
You’re the
asshole who blew her off.”
 
He clenched
his free hand into a fist that begged to put his cousin in his place.

“I know.
 
I wasn’t referring to Trissy,
it’s
Vangie—Look,
I really don’t have the time or patience right now to get into that,” Jaxon
said, then paused.

 
“I
get it that you’re angry but I’m the one who is here so tell me what is going
on already.
 
Is Trista in trouble?” he
asked with a new urgency.

“Shit, she’s gonna hate me for telling
you this.”
 
Another
pause on Jaxon’s end.

“Jaxon, if something bad is happening or
gonna happen, you need to tell me right now!”
 
He stood up rigid and protectively angry at what he didn’t know.

“You’re right. She should be relatively
safe, but it’s some very fucked up shit, Lucky…”

Jaxon finally took a minute to explain
the purpose of this part of the trip.
 
He
told him about Trista’s abuse at the hands of her stepfather after her mother
had died of cancer, although not in depth, which made his assumptions even
worse.
 
And about the night Trista had
fallen in the creek and then tried to slit her wrists on the rocks.
 
Only to be found by her little sister a few
minutes later.
 
That Trista had begged
Lily not to tell her father, but instead to call Gramma Grace.
 
And then how the next day, Trista’s grandma
had shown up, trailer hitched to her fifth wheel, and took her away for
good.
 
Grace had repeatedly called the
cops on the bastard but he’d never seen a day in jail.

And since Grace had no legal right to
Lily and Jack, she couldn’t take them as she’d wanted to.
 
Trista was her son’s biological
daughter.
 
But, if she should ever hear
anything about Lily and Jack suffering at his hands or being yanked out of
school as he had done to Trista, she’d come back and shoot him herself.
  

“How do you know all this?” he asked.

“Trissy’s gramma and I are close.
 
The same as me and Trissy.
 
She’s my best friend, Lucky.
 
That’s why I needed you to be there for her,
mate.
 
And now she’s found out about that
bastard’s death and she’s gone there to finally pay proper respects to her mum
but who knows where the hell she is or what fucked up shit is going on in her
head.”

“Okay, I understand.
 
But physically, she’s safe, right?”

“Technically, yes.
 
But she’s tried to plan trips to her mother’s
gravesite in the past and what it does to her mind, it’s not good.
 
A few years ago, I had to be the one to
cancel the trip because she just slipped completely from reality the night
before.”

“But this guy is dead, right?”

“Yeah Lucky, but the son of a bitch is
buried right next to her mum.”

And Jaxon was to have gone with her.
 
But he explained briefly how Vangie was
dangling custody of his daughter as a means of keeping him away from Trista,
someone she was jealous of beyond reason.
 

“I don’t like the fact that she’s gone
out there alone and I can’t get her to answer the phone,” Jaxon warbled out.

“I don’t like it either, man.”
 

She had been gone for a good six hours
now, at least, could have been more since he didn’t know exactly how early
she’d left their room.

“You’ve got to go after her, Lucky.”

He would arrange for a taxi.
 
He just needed to know where he was going.

“Do you have an address to the
cemetery?
 
I’ll find a way to get there.”

“Okay, are you in Shawnee?”

“Yeah, our hotel is right next to the
I-40.”

“Okay, let me pull something up here,
just a second…”
 
Jaxon gave him basic
directions to the cemetery.
 
“Mate, I’ll
never forgive myself for letting her down like this.”

“Jaxon, what if she’s not there?” he
asked reluctantly.

“Well, the only other place I can think
of might be her old house, in Duketown.
 
It’s easy to get to.
 
You just
stay on the 18 and then go west on 62.
 
Her house was on the right hand side I think, across from an old church,
white with a steeple.”

“All right, man, I’m leaving the room
now.
 
I’ll be in touch.”

“Lucky, thank you.
 
I’m sorry about what I said earlier.
 
But please understand
,
she’s like a baby sister to me.”

“All right.”

They hung up and he dialed from the
in-room phone for the front desk and asked if they could arrange a cab for him
as soon as possible.
 
He hoped he wasn’t
jumping the gun on this but if he believed Jaxon, then he was doing the right
thing.
 
Trista had asked him to be
understanding of her need to go alone.
 
He wanted to trust her more but it was impossible to sit in the room and
do nothing after hearing Jaxon’s case.
 
Hopefully he’d find her and she wouldn’t be too miffed that he’d
trounced on her planned day of solitude.
 
He understood the need for those days as well as anyone else.
 
The taxi arrived about ten minutes later and
he gave the driver his destination.

The cemetery gates were open but he asked
the driver if he wouldn’t mind waiting on the shoulder of the road.
 

It was a good thing because there was no
parking lot inside.
 
Just
the land and those who rested in it.
 
Lucky passed through the iron gates on foot.
 
The place wasn’t huge.
 
If Trista had been here, he’d have seen her.
 
He wanted to pay his respects but couldn’t.

Guilt kicked his tail.
 
How
could I have
laid
with her last night and not bothered
to find out something as simple as her mother’s name?

He walked back quietly but with large,
determined strides to the awaiting taxi.
 

“Where to now?”
 
The driver dropped his head back over his
shoulder with little animation, his right arm hung over the adjoining front
seat.

“Duketown.”

“All righty.”

The backseat upholstery of the old, white
Lincoln Continental had seen better days.
 
He fidgeted with the tears and the foam that peaked out until the driver
eyeballed him in the rear view mirror.
 
He made conversation to divert the attention.

“So how far is Duketown from here?”

“Oh, it’s only about ten miles at the
most.
 
Not too many folks wanting rides
out that
way,
gotta tell ya.
 
What brings you here?”