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Isadora
Present day …
Duffle bag slung over my shoulder, I slam the passenger door of Kelsey’s old Corolla, and wave as I make my way toward the front door of my house, mentally praying my mother isn’t here.
The slightly cracked door is the first cue that something isn’t right. Although Aunt Midge isn’t one to lock all the doors and windows, like me, she also isn’t so trusting as to leave the front door open for anyone to stroll in.
I step inside, eyeing the blankets strewn in disarray on the couch, where my mother must’ve slept the night before. An ashtray on the coffee table, overflowing with cigarettes, tells me it was a long night. One of a half-dozen beer bottles lies tipped on its side, dripping into a small pool collected below its mouth. A sulfur-like, burnt smell lingers on the air as if they tried to cook while drunk.
Must’ve had a party last night.
The sound of sniveling draws my attention toward the kitchen, and I tip my head just enough to see bare feet sticking out from the end of the counter. “Aunt Midge?”
Dropping my duffle, I hustle toward the feet, and round the counter to find her lying on her side, in the fetal position, her hands tucked into her chest while she sobs.
“Aunt Midge!” Hard tiles hit my knees, when I fall to the floor beside her and help turn her over.
Her eye is swollen like a plum, her lip split and caked in dried blood. When she looks up at me, deep red swirls fill the whites of her bruised eye, like one long, irregular pupil. Body trembling, she tucks her hand closer, but I reach for it, gently pulling it away from her.
Unraveling her fingers sends a shot of nausea to my stomach. Bruised and swollen, almost black, two of them appear to be bent the wrong way, undeniably broken.
“Who did this?” I release her hand and brush away the strands of hair that’re matted to her face by tears and blood. “Was this my mother?” Though she isn’t known to be violent, my mother is desperate for drugs, and stupid, at times.
She shakes her head, eyes shuttering with another sob. “No, it wasn’t your ma.”
At the raspy sound of her voice, I scramble to the cupboard, snatch a glass that I fill with water, and return to her side. Setting my hand to her nape, I help her into a sitting position, cringing when she cries out, and set the glass to her lips. Water trickles from the corner of her mouth as she guzzles the fluids, and at her first cough, I lower the glass.
“We were … sitting. Talking. It was nice, you know? Catching up with her. It got late.” Lip quivering, she stares into her glass. “I was sleeping when they dragged me out of bed. He said he was looking for Tony, your mom’s boyfriend.”
“The drug dealer. Jesus, Aunt Midge.” Threading my fingers through my hair, I cap the irritation and the told you so that’s cocked at the back of my throat. Instead, I busy myself with gathering ice from the freezer, wrapping it up in a cloth, which I set to her broken fingers.
“They kept … punching me. Asking me what I knew. I heard Je
“Where is she now?”
“They took her.” She lifts her head from my shoulder, her nose and cheeks shining with snot and the tracks of tears. So helpless looking and terrified. The sight of her brings tears to my own eyes. “They said … they’re going to kill her.”
I should feel something after hearing this. An urgency, like the one that has my aunt’s eyes widening, in spite of the swelling. I can’t even muster surprise at this point. “If what?”
“If we don’t pay him fifty grand. The fifty grand worth of drugs that asshole took off with.”
My chest turns cold, disgust sinking to the pit of my stomach.
“He’s coming back … in three days to collect it.” The worry in her voice isn’t right for Aunt Midge. No matter what we got into financially, she always had a plan, or faith that it’d all work out. Whoever this guy is, he scared the crap out of her. “He says, if I don’t have it, he’ll kill both Je
“Who? Who’s coming back?”
“His name was Franco. Franco Scar-something. Oh, God, he’s coming back.”
Anger rattles my grinding teeth. “This is … this is why I said. You can’t help her, Aunt Midge. She’s a fucking walking disaster!”
“I didn’t want to see her get hurt, Isa. She’s my sister.”
Cold waves of shock leave my body feeling numb. The logic I’m desperate for, in order to get us out of this mess, is tamped down by the tension squeezing my brain. I tip my head to get her attention. “We have to go to the police. Hear me? We have to report this.”
“No!” The fingers of her good hand claw at my arm, digging into my skin. “No police! He said he’ll give her a slow and painful death, if we go to the police.”
“Aunt Midge, this is a criminal. From Roxbury. This isn’t some local neighborhood kid threatening you. We have to do something! If he comes back …” My words falter, falling off my tongue as the thought of someone coming back for her clamps my chest and hardens it to a ball of bitter hate. Hatred for my mother. “She did this. This is her problem, not ours.”
“I won’t let them murder my sister.”
I’ll never understand my aunt’s sense of loyalty to her. Why, in spite of all she’s done, Aunt Midge continues to do anything for her. No matter the risk.
It doesn’t matter, though. As a kid from the streets, I never put that much faith in police, anyway. Particularly local police. They just don’t get this kind of thing around here, and with my drugged-out mom involved, I doubt they’d take it seriously. I’d venture to say, the worst case Tempest Cove cops have seen is probably when someone stole Old Man Murphy’s metal detector from his shed.
A drug dealer from Roxbury would have their heads spi
Besides that, it’s hard to know who might be on this Franco’s payroll. Maybe he’s expecting that we’d go to the cops. Maybe he’s buddies with them. It’s not so much my mom I’m worried about, as Aunt Midge. She doesn’t deserve this.
“We’ll figure this out. Don’t worry.”
“We don’t have that kind of money, Isa.” Her lip quivers again. “I can’t get that kind of money in a year, let alone three days.”
In the thick of all the confusion swirling inside my head, a thought pops there. The conversation I had with Laura a week ago. The doll.
The one she said was worth over three-hundred grand. Small enough that I could tuck it inside my shirt without anyone noticing, including Laura. Hell, she’d forgotten that she even had the thing.
I can’t see myself asking a stern man like Lucian for a glass of water, let alone fifty grand. And what would I tell him? It’s to pay off a drug dealer for my mother’s junkie boyfriend who skipped town? He’d probably flick me off like an a
After helping her into the car, I drive Aunt Midge to the emergency room, listening to her complain about the hundred-dollar deductible she’ll have to pay over and above the fifty grand we now have to cough up.
After three hours, her fingers are set and splinted. When asked by the doctor, Aunt Midge said she smashed her fingers while trying to move her dresser by herself. A crappy lie, but I didn’t dispute her story.
By the time we arrive back home, it’s midafternoon. Makaio will be here soon to drive me back to the Blackthornes, and as much as I don’t want to leave Aunt Midge alone tonight, I need time to swipe the doll and find somewhere to hock it. I don’t even know where to start with that, but at the moment, it’s the only plan I have. The only one that might ensure Franco Scar-something doesn’t return with a hard-on for blood.