The Years After (43 page)

She stood up. “Do you really think I’d have stayed in here for you to catch me if we’d done anything?”

“Can you please stop talking about
doing
anything?”

Derek didn’t understand them. They were almost bantering about her being in bed with him this morning. Obviously, Tony didn’t like it, but she was flipping him crap about it and she only grinned wider as he scowled at her.

“I—”

“Olivia!” he interrupted her. “Please take pity on me. Now, could you maybe exit his bedroom so I don’t have to kill him?”

She rolled her eyes and smiled as she sauntered past Tony, but first stopped and encircled his waist in a hug. “I love you, Dad.”

Tony’s expression melted and his hand squeezed her closer to him as he patted her shoulder. She turned her head toward Derek and smiled a spoiled brat kind of grin, letting him know she knew exactly how to play him. Tony let her go and turned to scowl at Derek. “I know she plays me better than her flute. So… I guess, you’re…?”

“Nothing. Just maybe someday, if things ever get figured out…” Derek trailed off, unsure and disbelieving they would ever get there. His arms ached at her absence and his heart, already heavy with regret, knew it would be a long time before she slept next to him again.

Tony nodded. “So, are you ready today? To go to the police station?” He stepped forward and touched his hand to Derek’s shoulder and squeezed. “I believe if you’ll be a witness against Quentrell, they’ll grant you immunity. We’ve talked at length with our attorney in the ‘hypothetical.’ Now, he’ll be your attorney.”

“I can’t afford an attorney.”

Tony shrugged. “Don’t even thank me. This is about Olivia’s safety and getting justice for her. Justice I prefer to render in far more violent ways, but that would only result in hurting my family even more than they already are. I get that, gut level. But it is still hard. If you help us capture him, I’ll consider it full payment to me. We can’t do it otherwise.”

He hung his head and glanced up at the only man who acted like a father to him. No other man filled the role model of a decent teacher or neighbor or stranger. No one. “Thank you. I hope someday you can forgive me for what I did.”

“Atonement. Taking your punishment, admitting what you did, all that counts big for me. I can forgive you.”

“I love Olivia still,” he confessed and his tone was quiet and serious. But he could not lie to the only man who’d ever been there for him.

“I know you do. I wish you didn’t. I wish I could tell her not to love you back. I wish I didn’t care about you too. But Gretchen and I? We won’t let anything bad happen to you if we can help it.”

“I won’t lie to her or any of you again.”

Tony held his gaze, which was long and searching and probing. He finally jerked his head in a nod. “I believe you.”

He turned and left the room. Derek glanced around as a strange, calming sensation entered his chest. He could hear Olivia out in the kitchen. Her voice was high-pitched as she was laughing and talking with excitement about something. He heard a general laugh escape the group. Her mom, Noah, Will and Tony. Their voices all intermingled from deep and low to high pitches. The house was bathed in morning sunlight. It was quiet. And sane. And pretty. And the complete antithesis of almost every other morning in his previous life.

Yesterday, they forgave him. They released him. They offered him a way to make atonement. Redemption. They saved his life, and now they wanted to save his soul. He started to recognize the feeling in his heart. It was something new and good, and beautiful. It was hope.

Hope. He’d never had any before. It started deep down inside of him; ever so light and soft, it told him to go out into the kitchen and converse with normal, likeable, rational, decent people who could show him how wonderful life can be, not the doomed impression he once believed it had to be. It made him want so many things, and so much more than he’d ever imagined. The thought that maybe tomorrow might even be better than today hung inside his head.

He didn’t know anything yet. There was still so much to do. A lot could go wrong.

But for the first time, Derek wanted to believe that it could also go right.

Epilogue

IT TOOK ALMOST EIGHT months from the time Quentrell Monroe Salazar was apprehended to when he was sentenced to almost twenty years in prison for kidnapping and attempted murder. He was caught hiding in a small house on the outskirts of Marsdale. Bail was denied and Derek was one of many witnesses for the prosecution. Quentrell’s sinister network was broken up for a few months, but Derek heard otherwise from some of his old contacts. They said it was reorganized, but now, Lewis Golanz, one of Quentrell’s right hand men, was the top guy. It was a sad, sick, never-ending cycle. Remove one leader of the drug cartel, and another just popped up out of nowhere. Quentrell, the one who had it in for him and Olivia, was safely shackled and in federal custody. His thugs and nefarious associates all worried for a few months, wondering if anyone was willing to pursue or expand the vendetta against Quentrell. But when Derek proved he was only seeking Quentrell, and refused to give up anyone else, it was business as usual. In fact, they were safe for the first time in a year.

Derek settled into a small trailer that Tony and Gretchen purchased for him. They set it up in their yard for almost six months, until everyone was convinced the threats against Derek were duly neutralized. Derek knew there was a fifty percent chance that his old life, and past sins would someday come to haunt him, but he chose to accept that, and tried to move on with his new life. They eventually relocated the trailer he lived in to a small, clean, little trailer park only a few miles from their house. It might have been sad and boring to some, but at least, his life was clean and safe for the first time.

Olivia returned to Peterson after Quentrell was sentenced. She’d been going to a state school in the interim, which she started in the fall and took extra credits to make up for all the time she lost at Peterson. Derek didn’t see her very often.

Derek towed the line that Tony drew for him. He worked at a minimum wage job in a fast food restaurant, and had begun taking the necessary steps to get his high school equivalency diploma. He hated the job, and resented it. But he used it as motivation, considering it his punishment until he could learn to do something better with his life.

It was a job. It was legit. And it was a privilege, as Tony often tried to convince him.

He had a plan now, and only because of Gretchen’s guidance could he even figure out how to go after it. He thought he might want to be a paramedic, like the ones that first appeared and saved Olivia. She could have been dead or brain-damaged if they hadn’t responded so quickly and in just the perfect moment. He remembered how calm their presence made him feel in a terrible, chaotic, horrifying situation. He thought he might want to feel like that again. He knew, of course, he was years from accomplishing it. He needed his GED before he could get accepted into an Emergency Medical Technician program. After that, he could take an entry level job as an EMT. That required something like a hundred and fifty hours of course work, the successful passing of a national exam, and certification before he could even think about working. For now, the EMT program was his goal. It overwhelmed him sometimes to think about. He wasn’t convinced he could get there. But Gretchen was, and Tony was too. One day, and one step at a time, was all Gretchen kept chanting to him.

She turned out to be really nice when she felt he wasn’t endangering her daughter.

They became… his family. More than his own ever was, the Lindstroms became his family. Tony checked up on him constantly. Derek sometimes felt claustrophobic from all of Tony’s expectations and demands. But he knew it was only because of all their caring. So he also relished it. It was the first time he understood how important a
family
can be.

He went to Washington State to see his brother every few months. A slow relationship developed that only time and mutual forgiveness might have remedied for them. Derek managed to get their mother to legally relinquish custody of Max, and the Clarks formally adopted him after more than a year of court appearances and jumping through hoops.

After Quentrell was formally sentenced, Derek thought he could once again visit Marsdale. He eventually planned to move back there to pursue the EMT thing. Both Gretchen and Tony were pushing that path pretty hard. Derek dared not change his mind now, lest he completely disappoint Tony and Gretchen.

Olivia also encouraged him to do it. They talked through texts still. Only rarely did he hear her voice on the phone, or see her in Calliston. She also had a lot of work to do, and was going after it as fast as she could to catch up. She was maxing out her credit loads and had no spare time.

It wasn’t until half way through Olivia’s junior in year in college that he finally went to see her play her music again. Now that she was a declared music major she had two showcases a year to be part of, one in the winter and one in the spring. Tonight was her first one and he intended to be there. It was being held at a historic old theatre in downtown Marsdale. He sat in back of the auditorium and watched her perform with the intense joy he remembered from so long ago. That was before
he
nearly broke her, and
she
put him back together.

He listened, his heart swelling with pride and joy and love. She was still the most beautiful girl, although hardened and wiser now, but always a girl to Derek, no matter. Always. Her inner light and joy for life would keep her that way to him always. For the rest of his life. Which he hoped to spend with Olivia. He looked forward to the day they’d find a way to live with his past, and merge their futures.

So long ago, Derek stood in a similar position: waiting for Olivia to come out after a concert. Then, it was just a small, dumpy, almost empty, little hall. Today, he was standing in a grand entryway with red carpet and gold chandeliers, populated by thick crowds dressed in pretty clothes.

She came out of the performer’s door. He saw her the second she appeared. She carried her precious instrument. The one his actions prevented her from playing for almost a year. She wore black pants and a white, formal, prim blouse. Her black hair now reached her chin. His heart rose and expanded with pride.

She stopped dead when she spotted him. Her mouth made an O and one delicate, black eyebrow arched. She stepped towards him as the crowd continued to move, dividing around them.

“Derek? Why are you here?”

“I missed hearing you. I like watching you play.” And he did. From the very first time he saw her. She had not played with Maggie and Larissa since leaving school. He knew that was also his doing. He always hoped someday, after she healed more, she would start again.

Even a year ago, he’d have swooped in and kissed her however he wanted. Everyone else be damned! But now, he understood, it mattered how he acted. It mattered if he were polite and considerate, even to strangers. It mattered how he acted in public, no matter what his own desires or intentions were.

“I also hoped you’d be interested in getting a cup of coffee.”

He kept his hands in his coat pockets. He was nervous. No, terrified really. His hands sweated and his tongue felt dry.

“Coffee?”

A smile started to tug at his lips. “Yes, a cup of coffee.”

“After everything you and I have gone through, from first love, to an overdose, to taking down a freaking drug boss, you want to go to coffee with me?” Her eyebrows rose in disbelief.

He shrugged. “It seemed like a good place to start. A new place. No pressure. Just coffee.”

Someone shouldered past her and she gave him a dirty look. She glanced back up at Derek. He saw the smile that first stole his heart and started his soul down a road of crime, pain, love and finally, redemption.

It was a really good smile.

“Do I have to ask my dad first?”

A laugh shook his chest and shoulders before escaping from his lips as something light and good. It started in his heart. It was still a new sensation, that feeling of good stuff. “No, although he knows I’m here.”

She rolled her eyes, but the look she gave him was profound. She seemed to understand how much he loved her parents. Maybe it was a little odd, but then again, what about her family’s relationship to him was ever typical? “Are you looking for coffee with a friend?”

“No. I’m not looking for another friend. I’m hoping… well, let’s just say I’m hoping. But… no pressure. Just coffee.”

Her gaze held his. He wanted to sweep forward and lift her up against him. He wanted to kiss her and lose himself in her deep, loving gaze and unparalleled goodness. But he didn’t. He stood there, his hands in his pockets, hoping for a date.

She finally nodded as she slung her backpack up higher on her shoulder. “Okay, Derek, I wouldn’t mind having coffee with you, but I can’t stay out late, I have a lot of homework.”

He grinned. “That’s fine. I have to get back to Calliston to work.”

His heart swelled with so much hope, he feared it might burst. Maybe… well, maybe after everything that happened, there was still a
someday
for them. Wasn’t that the entire point and purpose of being alive? Having hope? He finally smiled and put his hand out. Her breath caught and she nodded as a smile brightened her face too. She lifted her hand and slipped it into his as they turned and started out of the hall.

Maybe, someday, it would be a lot more than just coffee. Maybe someday, he’d see her play in a symphony and graduate college; or maybe she’d see him wearing the uniform of an honest professional. Maybe someday… But for now, it was just a start. More of a start than he’d ever before been given. Until he met Olivia, he was trying to get over the nightmare that started when he was eight years old, the year his will to live ceased to exist. For the first time, he felt like everything after this, after today even, would be way better than everything leading up to it. And when she squeezed his hand and he squeezed hers back, he wanted to start shelving some of the years that were spent in so much fear and misery. He wanted to pack them far away. He hoped in the years to come his entire life would continue to improve. And for the first time, he was pretty sure he was right about that.