Just a Little Series (Parts 1 - 4) (14 page)

“Better?” he rested his head on top of
mine.

I nodded.

With obvious hesitation, he pulled away and
headed for the kitchen. “Can I get you anything?”

“Want to order a pizza?” I followed him
across the room with the quilt draped over my shoulders like a
cape. “I’m starving.”

“Matt confiscated the goods?”

“Again,” I threw myself back on the
couch.

Though I fought the urge to look, I let my
eyes wander down to the floor. I fixed my eyes on the spot where
Luke’s body had fallen, lifeless and bloodied. It was in that exact
spot that I held onto him, begging for him to stay, praying that I
wouldn’t lose him. And it was right there, right in that very place
that I finally let myself accept that he was dying, that I may
never hear his voice again.

Though the carpet had been changed, the
wound had been healed, and the shooter had been locked away,
nothing could change the memory of what happened the night Hannah
pulled the trigger.

“You okay?” Derek sat down in the opposite
chair and flipped through a thick phone book.

“Fine,” I said, eyeing him as he thumbed
through the yellow pages. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for the number.”

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket, held
down the second button, and speed dialed Giovanni’s Pizzeria. I
tossed the phone to Derek and pulled the phonebook from his lap and
set it aside.

“Only
you
would have food on speed
dial,” he grinned, lifting the phone to his ear and smiling at me
the whole time he placed the order. “Twenty minutes,” he said when
the call ended. “What do you want to do in the meantime?”

I bit my lip and looked down at my feet.

I’d spent weeks contemplating whether or not
I’d ever bring it up again, but part of me yearned to put together
the parts of the puzzle that were still a little hazy. In fact, he
was just about to explain everything right before Hannah showed up
and put a bullet in his plan. He’d offered to show it to me once
before, to do whatever he could to help me understand.

“You said you had a box…an explanation of
some sort?” He nodded in confirmation. “I’d like to see it,” I met
his gaze again, “if it’s still okay?”

His eyes widened, but only for a moment. He
drew his brows together, watched me with sad blue eyes, and then he
finally nodded.

“Yeah, absolutely,” he whispered, but he
still sat motionless in his chair. He didn’t seem to be in any
hurry to make a move, so I looked on and waited for him to find the
courage he needed. A moment passed before he patted his knees,
stood up, and headed to the bedroom at the back of the house. I got
up and followed him, watching from the threshold as he pulled a
blue shoebox from the top of his closet. He stared at the
box—expressionless—for a few long seconds.

“You don’t have to worry,” I stepped into
the room.

Derek turned back and managed a halfhearted
smile. “I beg to differ.”

I reached forward and took the box from his
hand. Taking a step back to find the corner of his bed, I sat down
and started to open the lid.

“Julie,” Derek said, and almost so quietly
that I’d barely heard him. He took a spot on the mattress next to
me and put his hand on top of mine. “Please remember that—”

“You’re not him,” I squeezed his fingers.
“Believe me, Derek. I know.”

With a deep breath and heavy heart, I pulled
the lid off the box. I looked inside and sifted through the pile of
pictures, newspaper clippings, and envelopes. I skimmed the
articles that quoted my father on the night he busted up a drug
ring and made the arrest against Derek’s dad. I chose to pass on
reading the familiar clippings that outlined the gory details of my
parents’ murder. The trial articles were nothing I hadn’t read a
million times, and the last thing I needed was to relive those
memories all over again.

But as I reached the bottom of the box, I
pulled a faded picture off the pile and stared at it with great
intensity.

“I was three,” Derek pointed to the young
boy in the arms of Conan Milton. “And Dad,” he took a deep breath.
“Well, this might be the only picture we have together. He was
pretty much absent… even in the early years.”

I nodded and lifted the picture higher to
get a better view.

“That’s how I remember him,” Derek
continued, “always gone or strung out.”

“Is this your mom?” I asked, pointing to the
vivacious blonde in the photo.

Derek grinned, “Beautiful, huh?”

I nodded and studied the familiar
characteristics in her expression. Though Derek had his father’s
eyes, his traits seemed to strongly favor his mother’s.

“You look like her.”

And though the similarities were there, I
had trouble believing that the woman was his mother. She looked
nothing like how I’d pictured; I’d always imagined her as weak and
frail, helpless against her husband. After all, I’d convinced
myself that any woman who’d be dumb enough to marry a murderous
psychopath couldn’t be much of a winner herself.

“She was amazing,” Derek said, almost as if
he’d just read my mind. “Julie, she was loving, kind, soft-spoken,
but she never knew how to stand up for herself. She always found
herself in bad situations, getting mixed up with the wrong kind of
people.”

“Did she know… about your dad… the operation
he was running?”

“Not because he told her,” he took the
picture from my hands to study it for himself. “And not in the
beginning. But his lies started piling up as the money rolled in.
She wasn’t stupid; she knew what was going on. But by then, I was
five, and she was pregnant with Hannah.”

“Why’d she stay with him?”

“She’d made a commitment, and she promised
to see that commitment through to the end—no matter what.”

“That’s… admirable.”

“
Stupid
,” he said definitely. “I
think the word you were looking for was
stupid
. She had a
million opportunities to leave, to run as far and as fast as
possible. But she never did. Her unconditional love for my father
wasn’t admirable, Julie. It was pathetic and selfish.”

He reached into the box and sifted through
all the articles I’d chosen not to read. He dug through to the very
bottom and pulled a piece of white stationery from the pile.

“She left this note,” he opened the note.
“The night your parents were murdered… she knew what he was going
to do, and she couldn’t stop him. She knew he’d either kill himself
or end up in prison until he took his last breath. She couldn’t
fathom living another day without him.” He passed the note to me.
“The police found it on the nightstand next to an empty pill
bottle.”

Two words and nothing more:
I’m
sorry
.

“That’s it?” I asked, watching him. He took
the note and tucked it back inside the box. His eyes filled with
tears at the memory of his mother’s suicide, and I couldn’t begin
to find the right words. He took a few jagged breaths and worked to
hold back the tears welling in his eyes. Not knowing what else to
do, I took his hand and squeezed his fingers. All I could muster
were whispered apologies. “I’m so sorry, Derek.”

And with one slow blink, the tears let loose
and trickled down his cheek. I assumed that his heartbreak was
nothing more than an effect of unveiling the memories of all the
things he’d loved and lost, but the longer I held his hand, the
more I felt as though there was something more behind his
tears.

“I keep going back to what you said that
night,” he said, and he used his free hand to wipe his face. He
closed his eyes and dropped his head, and I simply held on tighter.
“I keep hearing your voice on constant replay, and I can’t shake
it.
His blood runs through your veins, Derek. His evil courses
through your body
.”

My heart felt heavy as he pulled his hand
from mine. There was nothing I could say or do to take it back; I’d
been hurt, and I was angry. I was caught up in the moment, and I
said things that could never be unsaid. And I’d hurt him….

“It haunts me every day,” he said, and his
voice was still heavy with remorse. “I
know
I can’t change
who I am. I can’t change the circumstances, and I
hate
that
I can’t start over. I am who I am, and that’s never going to
change. I grew up knowing what kind of monster he was, and I
never
wanted to turn out like him.”

“And you didn’t,” I took his hand again. I
thought he’d pull away, but he didn’t; he took another jagged
breath and let me hold his fingers beneath my own. “I should’ve
never
said those things, Derek. I was hurt and confused. I
hated that I’d trusted you and that you hadn’t given me the same
respect. I was angry that you hadn’t trusted me with the truth. But
you
have
to know how sorry I am. I never meant to hurt you.
I’d do anything to take it back—”

“But you were right,” he said, and his voice
had never sounded so honest. “My dad murdered two innocent people,
Julie. My mom killed herself, and Hannah is sitting in a jail cell
awaiting trial for attempted murder. It is
just
like you
said. It’s in my blood.”

“What?”

“Being a killer.”

“You’re
not
,” I turned into him. I
lifted his chin, making sure he had no option but to meet my gaze.
“
That’s not who you are
.”

“I try to tell myself that,” he took a deep
breath. I could see the struggle written in his expression, the
pain building in his eyes. He didn’t believe that he was anything
but a product of his raising. He didn’t trust himself enough to
believe the truth. “But every time I see you with Luke,” he
continued. “Every time I sense you thinking about him, part of me
wishes he would’ve just died the night Hannah shot him.”

“Get rid of the box, Derek,” I said quickly,
trying not to let his last words rattle me. “You are
not
defined by the things your family has done. I know who you are, and
this isn’t you talking. That box… everything in it… it’s holding
you back.
It’s trash
. You need to stop holding on to it.
Let—it—go. You need to move on. We
both
do.”

“How can you be so sure, Julie?” he asked,
and I could see that he truly needed an answer. “If I don’t know,
then how can you? How can you
really
know who I am?”

“Listen to me,” I held him tighter than I
ever had. “I trust my instincts, Derek. And let me tell you
something; I rarely see the good in people, and all I can see is
the goodness in you. So if you can’t trust yourself, then trust me.
I
know you’re different. I believe in you.”

CHAPTER THREE

Friday, November 02| 5:55 a.m.

“You wanna tell me what that was all about
the other night?” I threw a sideways glance in Luke’s direction as
he took long strides across the dark parking lot.

“Meaning?” he suddenly walked faster.

I ran up beside him to keep up with his
quick pace. He was on a mission; he wore his serious, stern
expression—one that told me he meant business. He kept his eyes
fixed straight forward and didn’t bother giving me the slightest
indication that he was going to stop and hear me out. Even under
the dark morning sky, Luke’s emotions were easily discernible; he
was annoyed to run into me.

“The party. The bonfire. Our little
exchange. Any of this ring a bell?” I asked, convinced I was
probably just as annoyed with him as he was with me. “We were
having a moment, and then you got that call from Bruno and took off
without the slightest explanation.”

“We were having a moment?” he returned a
glance from the corner of his eye.

“Well, weren’t we?” I took his arm and
stopped him in his tracks. “Luke?”

He turned to look at me and then dropped his
head. “You’ve gotta stop doing this, Julie.”

“Doing what?”

“Asking me to
feel
,” he said. “Having
irrational expectations—”

“
Irrational expectations
?” I asked,
remembering the way he’d held me, whispered in my ear, and pressed
his warm lips to my cool skin. “Luke, you can’t be serious—”

“Julie—”

“I’m
not
imagining things,” I
disputed his next argument before it fell off his lips. “I’m not
asking you to
feel
anything. You
already
feel, you
idiot. What I’m asking is that you stop running from me for one
second and
admit
that I’m not out of my mind.”

“Not the time or place, Julie,” he said,
brushing by me to let himself through the doors of the Oakland
Police Department.

“This conversation is not over, Lucas
Reibeck,” I called after him once inside the building. He
disappeared down the hallway without another word.

I stood in the anteroom of the station and
waited for him to come back, but he was long gone. Just as I
started to turn out, my uncle stepped out of his office and raised
his brow.

“Hey,” he took me under his arm and gave me
a gentle hug. “What’re you doing here so early? Something
wrong?”

I looked down to my watch. 6:00 a.m., right
on the dot. It’d be easy for Charlie to assume something
was
wrong. I had no business getting out of bed and showing up there so
early on a school day. But what could I say? I couldn’t tell him
the truth.

My original plan had been to find Bruno and
find out what was going on between him and Luke. Whatever it was, I
had a feeling it had something to do with me. After the way he’d
pulled Luke away the other night, I was determined to find out what
was going on. But then running into Luke in the parking lot had
thrown me off guard, and I assumed it might’ve been a better idea
to just ask him directly. If I didn’t get any answers, maybe then I
could go to the source and learn more from the Detective. One step
at a time, right?