The Years After (40 page)

Derek nodded. “I didn’t realize other people were as fuc—I mean, as screwed up as me.”

Lindsey let out a laugh. “Yes. I was and can be.”

“Are you sure?”

She leaned across and held Noah’s hand. “Derek, we have been a couple as committed and in love as any married couple you’ll ever meet. It’s lasted for thirteen years. So yes, I’m sure. It’s time. I just never had a compelling reason until now.”

“So we’ll need to go find your mother.”

“I can find her.” Derek didn’t elaborate when Noah glanced across at him.

“Actually, I’m going to come with you. I think it’s time we found a few members of your family, Derek. We’ve been talking to Tony and he agrees with us. But to do so, we need your help. The police can’t find Quentrell. They need your contacts and whatever you know about his operations. Will you do it? Will you help us figure out how to catch him so we can make all of you safe?

His stomach knotted.
Quentrell.
They wanted to find him. He didn’t do that. He didn’t confront his brother. The thought of seeing his brother again left him nearly shaking. His first instinct was to say no. Run. Fuck it. He’ll hurt you. He’ll kill you. He’ll end it all just as he did to so many others right in front of him. But…
they
could finally end it. He’d never had help before. The help of two fully grown men. He didn’t know what to do with that revelation.

“I can try. There might be no way to find him. And usually no way to prove it.”

“He drugged and kidnapped a well known, popular college freshman at a very popular party. There are plenty of witnesses already lined up to identify him as a suspect, if they can just bring in the suspect. He can’t get away with that. You’re not alone this time, Derek.”

He pushed his knuckles into his eyes. Was he going to cry? He didn’t know. He just felt all weird and something choked his throat. He was shocked when Lindsey came around. She lifted him from the chair and hugged him to her. He, oddly enough, let her.

When he eventually flopped back into the chair, he was embarrassed for his wussy emotions. He wondered if he still sported a pair of balls.

Lindsey cleared her throat. “Okay, now that’s settled, there is this issue of fight clubs…”

Derek’s head started to spin. The dizzying circles soon became a tunnel-like effect and he heard Lindsey scolding Max while Noah interjected something about what they expected in the future from him.
Scolding
. They were scolding his brother. He glanced at Max who looked up at him and again shrugged, but his eyes were big, like,
what the hell?
They’d never, ever, not in either of their lives been scolded or told how to behave. There was never even one expectation they had to fulfill, and therefore, no motivation to try and reach higher, or do the right thing. Noah and Lindsey didn’t like the fights, but they were so, uncannily understanding about it. They wanted Max to stop so they started talking about things like finding other healthier ways for Max to channel his anger. They kept reiterating that he no longer needed to fight for money anymore. They begged Max to talk to them, and promised they’d help him. Derek had no idea what to think.
Talk to them?
Just talk to them and they would help him? It was as foreign a concept and experience as jumping out of a helicopter, or trying to perform brain surgery. He knew nothing about it and had never even witnessed other people doing it.

When Derek went up to his room, the clean, decent, safe room after spending a day doing honest labor and talking to people around him, he didn’t have a clue how they got there.

Most of all, he wondered when it would end. He always believed his life would end either at Quentrell’s behest, or in jail. He couldn’t even fathom actually having help to go up against Quentrell. He couldn’t imagine he wasn’t going to be living that life anymore. He could not picture his life not ending on Quentrell’s say-so. In his gut, he always believed that would be his demise.

Chapter Twenty

IT WASN’T LONG ENOUGH. Six months wasn’t nearly long enough. Derek was coming back to town, back to her house, and it hadn’t been nearly long enough for her to handle. Yet, there was no other real choice. Will and Noah were bringing him there. They didn’t trust him being left on his own, especially when the general consensus was, he’d run. And in some ways, the anger in her chest wanted to exclaim, “Let him. Who cares what happens to him? He’d deserve it.” But then, the other side, the sad side, the side that ached and burned for his misery and for what he ended up being didn’t want him hurt anymore than he already had been.

Then there was Quentrell. She was not totally safe until he was caught. Everyone wanted Quentrell caught. Her parents walked the floors at night, talking about it. They kept pestering the local police. What they needed was Derek’s knowledge of Quentrell and his enterprise. And thus, Derek returned to Olivia’s life. He came right back into her house.

Her parents stood on each side of her when they got there. She watched the three men get out of Will’s truck and walk up to her front door. Derek’s head was down, and his dark hair fell over his forehead. His shoulders were slumped under his t-shirt. He glanced around. His body language perfectly conveyed his dread at being at her door. Tony opened it and he greeted his friends, Noah and Will, before stepping forward and slapping Derek on the shoulder. “Hey, kid. How’s it going?”

Derek glanced up at him and his expression made Olivia’s stomach twist.
Disbelief.
It was the same unsure expression of disbelief that he displayed when he stayed with them over Christmas. He was in so many ways like a little toddler, trying to make sense of an entirely new and foreign situation. She now had a clearer picture of all the things Derek’s young life lacked. Right down to the normal hellos and goodbyes between sane people.

What she also observed was his unending need for Tony’s approval. Of everyone, including her, only Tony was the one Derek most desperately sought to please. She hated how much he needed her dad. But she loved knowing her dad could see past what Derek was. He could help someone who needed more than anyone she’d ever known. In her saner, more mature moments, Olivia believed and understood that. In her pettier ones, she just hated him and wished he were gone from her life and the lives of those she loved.

Her mom’s hand was still holding hers. She squeezed tightly in heartfelt unity.

Will kind of shoulder knocked Derek as if to communicate,
speak.

“I’m… okay.”

He lifted his head as he replied and his gaze met hers. The tension in the room was thick and uncomfortable for everyone. Noah walked further into the room and came over to her mom, grasping her in a friendly hug and easily exchanged pleasantries, all the while she and Derek stared at each other. His expression was miserable. His hands were buried deep in his pockets. Tony and Will were talking and Tony approached her and dropped his head down, making her raise her eyes to meet his. “You okay? You want to go upstairs?”

She squeezed the hand he set on her arm and took courage from him. He always put her first. She smiled and shook her head no. No, she started this all. She brought Derek into their lives, and she fell in love with him. She chose to ignore all the signs that were right there. Right in front of her. All for her to see. But her young, love-addled brain refused to see the signs.

Derek came near her and stood a few feet away. “Hi, Olivia.”

His tone was resigned and subdued. “Hi.” She was well aware both her parents and long time family friends were watching them closely.

“Why don’t we all sit down?”

Will nodded at Noah and they motioned they were going into the kitchen. Olivia appreciated that. This was hard enough in front of just her parents.

Gretchen herded them all towards the living room and suggested they take a seat. Derek chose a recliner and sat forward with his elbows on his knees. His left leg shook up and down in a nervous jiggle. He kept his hands before him, rubbing them absently together.

“How are you, Derek? Really?”

He shrugged. “Been working, for real. That’s been good.”

Gretchen cleared her throat. “How are the panic attacks? Any better?”

He swallowed and rubbed his hand over his face. He kept his gaze low and stared hard at the carpet. “Yeah. A little. I guess.” Clearing his throat, he finally made eye contact with her, and then swiftly shifted it to her dad. “You think Olivia’s still in danger?”

“Yes. I won’t take any chances. She won’t go back to school until we’re sure this predator is caught and punished.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “You can’t go back to Peterson?”

“I don’t want to go back anyway,” she snapped, her eyes flashing with fierce anger.

“I really did ruin your life, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you really did.”

She refused to sugar coat it.

Derek nodded and took in a deep breath. “What can I do? I’ll tell you everything I know about Quentrell and his associates. I know most of the places he would go to hide. I don’t know if he’d think for a second I would help anyone find him. He’s obviously figured out Max and I disappeared. But I highly doubt he’d ever think that I’d come back for him. I’ve done nothing but let him run my entire life. I’m the biggest wuss you ever met. It amused Quentrell no end. So he wouldn’t expect me, or anyone else really, to come after him.”

“Surviving doesn’t always denote a lack of courage. Picking the right battles is smart.”

“I think—well, after we get Quentrell, I think I should turn myself in. You know? For my dad’s murder. For the drugs. For everything I’ve done. I need to be punished. I need to make some kind of atonement before I can ever really stop being this way.”

Her breath caught in her throat as her heart thumped hard in her chest. It was not even thirty seconds of conversation, yet it would change the entire course of everything. It was huge. It was magnificent. What he was proposing was life changing.

She had no idea what to say. She stared at him with her mouth open.
No. No, really no!
That’s all her brain felt like screaming. He might have done those things, and lied and hurt her and the people around him, but there was so much more to it. It wasn’t black or white and right or wrong for her.

She caught her dad’s gaze. Her face had to show her horror and confusion. Her mouth was set in tight line of uncertainty. She shook her head. She really had no idea what to do.

“I appreciate that, Derek. I do. That’s not how you were even six months ago. But… I’m not giving you back the gun.”

Tony kept the gun he’d taken from Derek that night. It sat harmlessly in a safety deposit box. It was a murder weapon, but not one of them thought it was murder. He was eight years old. He never meant to do it. He couldn’t be a murderer since he was just a child, and one under siege.

His head jerked up. “But it’s the only way to start making the wrongs I’ve done, right. I can’t change what I did. I get that. But I can take the punishment and that is my due.”

Tony shrugged. “There is plenty of blame and guilt that you own. I don’t deny that. But defending yourself as a young child against a full-grown man that you fully believed would have hurt you? That’s called self-defense. You reacted in panic. Jesus, kid, that wasn’t murder. Besides, I checked at the police station. There is no one with your dad’s name even listed as missing. No unidentified body was ever found either. No one ever reported him missing. Are you sure he was killed?”

Derek started shaking his head with his hands interlocked behind his neck. “There was blood. He was not moving on the floor. He was
shot
. I shot him.”

“You said you ran to your room and called Quentrell. Did you actually see the body being moved?”

“No. I hid in the corner of my room.”

“What if he didn’t die? What if, for all these years, they manipulated you into thinking that just so they could use you? What if
they
killed him? Not you. What if Quentrell killed him to take over his operation? There is every possibility it wasn’t you.”

“No. No. No. I killed him. I killed him. I murdered my own father. It was all my fault. It was my fault…” Derek kept shaking his head and repeating it. Tears started to stream down his face. Olivia’s heart broke for him. Again. He was so full of pain and so many awful memories. How could anyone live through what he had to endure and come out on the other side even remotely okay? Or normal? Or semi-functioning?

How much was his fault? How much of his screwed behavior could he be blamed for? She didn’t know. She was starting to doubt she could hate him. The previous sense of black and white that she used to judge most other people, clearly was inappropriate here. He was so screwed up. What if he simply couldn’t have done any better? She’d never seen anyone more desperate in reaching out for help, and something different and better, than Derek Salazar was right now. Although he kept screwing up everything.

She dug her fingernails into her palms and stared at her parents, feeling helpless. But her mom got up and came to Derek’s side. She started speaking to him in low, soothing tones. Olivia couldn’t hear what she said. She saw her mom touch his back in a soft kind of gesture to show her support. Still, Derek rocked back and forth as tears slid from his eyes and he shook his head in denial.

“It wasn’t your fault. IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT. No matter what happened, it was not your fault,” Tony said in his solemn, serious, commanding voice.

It scared Olivia. All of it scared her. She was shaking and started to cry as she watched the boy she loved falling apart right in front of her. His guilt and fear and the knowledge of what he’d done as a kid was killing him. A little boy who never stood a chance of growing up normal. That he didn’t become a deplorable, amoral monster was testament to some goodness inside of him.

He dropped his gaze down. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for it all. Everything. I should have walked away. At any point. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...” He was chanting it almost incoherently. Olivia went over to him and slid down on her knees and underneath where he was resting his elbows on his knees. She ignored his startled gasp, and her parents, who were watching. She simply slid into his arms and wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clutched his back, hugging him to her as tightly as she could. He grasped her back, his hands rubbing up and down in chaotic patterns. He clutched her if she were his last drink in a desert, or a lifesaver ring, thrown to save him from drowning. His pain was so deep and immense, it went well beyond overwhelming him.