Ribbons (26 page)

39

Adam stood by the door. He had to be careful, though, because the pool of blood made it slick.

Through his right eye everything was covered in a cloud of hazy red. All he could see were silhouettes and shadows. His left eye was a little blurry, but otherwise he could see out of it just fine. He had to keep turning his head from side to side to take in what was around him. Things seemed flat, and it was hard to tell how close everything really was.

He flinched back as somebody pounded on the door from the other side.

It was a woman’s voice. His dad’s partner. “Foster! How is this gonna end?”

Adam wondered where his dad was. It sounded like there was a bunch of people outside now. He could hear low voices and radios crackling.

Foster placed a bundle into his hands. It was wrapped in his mom’s shirt, and the smell of her perfume suddenly made his next task seem impossible. He looked back at her. She just smiled and gave a slow nod. She mouthed the words
I love you
. He nodded back and held the bundle tight.

Foster leaned close to the door. He wasn’t wearing a shirt anymore, and it made him look smaller. He still had the knife, though, and his knuckles were white as he gripped it in a tight fist.

“All right,” said Foster. “The boy’s coming out on his own. I’ll have a knife pressed to his mother’s neck. If this door opens after he leaves, I cut.”

He looked down at Adam. “It will be over soon. Then everybody can go home.”

Foster walked back to the bench. He carefully put his knife in place. Then he nodded.

Adam opened the door. The hallway was filled with police officers. Some were in uniforms, some weren’t. All of them had guns out. Nobody said a word as he pulled the door shut again behind him. As soon as the door clicked into place, Dani reached out and pulled him to one side. She crouched down around him and practically carried him down the hall.

She yelled as they moved. “He’s hurt! Where’s that ambulance?”

Then he was in his father’s arms. The bundle was crushed between them, and Adam was worried that something might break. When the hug loosened a little, Adam could tell that his dad was shaking. There were tears in his eyes as he kissed Adam on the forehead.

He yelled over Adam’s shoulder toward the door. “Christy, he’s safe! We’ll get you out of there, too, baby!”

His father set him down against the wall. Adam could see him cringe when he looked at his eye. He let go of Adam, took a deep breath, and stood up.

“Stay here,” he said. “There’s a medic on the way. Whatever happens, stay low. I’m gonna get your mother out of there.”

“She’s going to be all right,” said Adam.

His father nodded, but Adam didn’t think he believed it.

He turned to somebody against the wall next to Adam. “Stay with him.” It was Matt. He nodded, too. Then his father drew his gun and walked down the hall. All eyes were on him.

“You okay?” Matt whispered to Adam. “What happened?”

Adam turned his head. He had to turn it more when all he saw was a red-and-black blur.

“I tried to be a hero,” said Adam.

Matt showed him his bloody arm. “Me too.”

His father’s voice boomed down the hall. “Foster, talk to me! What do you want?”

Adam put the bundle in his lap. He found an edge of the shirt and started unwrapping it. He uncovered the storybook. It looked pretty banged up. The corners were dented, and there were flecks of blood across the cover. The owl looked at him from the oak tree while the Woman in the Garden was frozen in a smile. The music box looked fine, though. Not even a scratch on it.

“What’s that?” asked Matt.

“This is what he wants,” said Adam.

“Christy?” yelled his father. “Can you talk? Are you all right?” He pounded on the door.

Matt leaned over to look at the box. “Why did he let you take it? What happened in there?”

“He made me draw.”

Adam flipped the lid open. The music box began plunking out slow, metallic notes that rang down the hallway. When Adam looked up, everybody was staring his way.

Then there was a low, ripping sound from behind the door. It started slow and then became impossibly fast. It ended abruptly in an animal scream.

His father screamed, too. “Christy!”

Then the door crashed open as his shoulder laid into it like a battering ram. He raised his pistol and stood perfectly still. His arm wavered, and the pistol clattered to the floor. His father opened his arms as his mother rushed forward to meet him.

She was covered in blood, but Adam knew it wasn’t hers. The lines he had drawn were on Foster.

40

“That looks pretty badass.”

Matt was looking at Adam’s eye patch. White gauze was taped over the boy’s eye, but Adam had clearly decided to embrace his inner pirate and cover up the gauze with a proper black patch.

Matt pointed to the wrap around his own wrist. “All I got was this stupid bandage.”

They were in the clubhouse, sitting at the table. Azrael had immediately come over to give Matt a head-butt when he came in, but now that he had his treat, the cat had returned to his blanket nest to resume napping.

Adam looked at Matt’s arm. He gave a tight-lipped smile, apparently agreeing that the bandage was, indeed, stupid. “They said I should be able to see again. They don’t know when, though.”

“Did they say how it happened?” asked Matt.

“They think my tremors burst some blood vessels,” said Adam. “They said it put pressure on the lens or something. I have to take eye drops now.
And
pills.”

Matt leaned back in his chair and had to catch himself before he tipped backward. “Did they also say a sweet eye patch would get you tons of chicks?”

“No,” said Adam. “Because I’m still nine.”

Matt smiled. “Oh, right.”

He was hoping that would lighten the mood a little, or at least keep the conversation going. Instead, Adam looked down at the table and the tiny room filled with awkward silence.

It had been a couple of weeks since the . . . What do you call it? Incident? Bloodbath? Nightmare? The house had been pretty quiet since then. Occasionally, the police would stomp through to take more pictures or fill out more paperwork. Christy spent most of the time in her room. She slept a lot and occasionally broke down into tears. Matt had tried to comfort her, but she just wanted to be left alone. Adam mainly hid away out here. He didn’t want to talk much, either.

Matt tried again. “So, uh, did you want to talk about anything that happened? You know,
in there
.”

“No,” said Adam. “Not really.”

Matt kept going anyway. “Because that was pretty messed up.”

“Yeah, I know.” Adam paused for a second and looked up at Matt. “You were going to shoot that guy.”

That wasn’t what Matt had been expecting. It hit him pretty hard. He hadn’t thought about it much himself since he hadn’t actually shot anybody. But he
had
pulled the trigger. Over and over again. The sergeant had kept that fact out of his report. He’d kept a lot out of his report.

“I think I just got him high, instead,” said Matt. “That’s probably why he made you . . .
you know
.”

Adam looked at him, and Matt could tell the boy didn’t believe that at all.

They were spared another awkward silence when the door opened. Christy poked her head in. She was smiling, but Matt could tell she wasn’t really committed to the smile.

“What are you boys talking about out here?” she asked.

They answered at the same time.

“Nothing,” said Adam.

“Girls,” said Matt.

Christy looked like she didn’t believe either of them. “Uh-huh.”

She came in and reached down to pet Azrael. The cat didn’t open his eyes, but he did raise his chin to make it easier for her to scratch the right spot.

“Dani’s here,” she said. “I guess they have everything they need. Officially, they’re listing it as a home invasion. No mention of the business. I guess we can reopen soon, but she did recommend lying low for a while.”

“That should be easy,” said Matt. “I don’t imagine people will want to visit the VIP room anymore.”

Christy sniffed and looked over at him. “Are you kidding? I bet we could charge double.”

“How is she? Dani? She was pretty close to Erica, right?”

“She won’t talk about it. She’s taking it pretty hard. Me too . . . I don’t know, maybe we should—”

“Take the weekend off?” Matt suggested.

“I was gonna say move out.”

Adam looked up at that. “I don’t want to move.”

Christy bent down to his level. “Are you sure, honey? We’ll be okay if we do. We can make it work.”

“I fought through the tremors that night,” Adam said. “You heard him. I saw what he saw.”

Christy raised her eyebrows and spoke slowly. “He was crazy. And look what happened to your eye.”

Adam met her gaze. “I’m getting better here. I had a tremor yesterday, and I was able to end it on my own. I just stepped back into myself, and it ended.”

“Honey, you need to tell me when you have those. To me it sounds like they’re happening more frequently, not less. And you say you’re seeing stuff that’s not there.”

Adam shook his head. “It’s just a way for me to control things.”

“We’ll see how it goes,” she said.

“But Mom—”

“We’ll see how it goes,” she repeated. “We don’t have time to argue about this. Dwayne’s gonna be here soon.”

Now it was Matt’s turn to put on a fake smile. “What are you guys doing?”

Adam perked up. “Dad’s taking us to dinner and a movie.”

Matt liked Dwayne well enough, he just didn’t want to see Adam get disappointed. Something had shaken loose in Dwayne that night, and he’d just frozen up. Matt couldn’t blame him; he’d felt pretty useless himself. And Dwayne did seem to rally once Adam was safe. It was clear that he cared about Christy and Adam. Matt just didn’t know if Dwayne knew
how
to care for them.

“Cool,” said Matt, “what are you going to see?”

“The one with all the explosions,” said Adam.

Matt’s smile was real now. “All of them?”

“A comedy,” said Christy.

This was news to Adam. “But—”

“You’re saying that a lot today,” said Christy. “Don’t make me take us to a
romantic
comedy. I’ll do it.”

Matt followed them back inside. The police tape had been removed from the VIP room door. He didn’t open it. He wasn’t ready to face that mess just yet. Ice cream and blood still stained the carpet out front, and he had enough trouble with just that.

He hid in his office until they had gone. Dwayne hadn’t come upstairs; he just waited for them down in the foyer. Adam sounded excited, and Matt had heard him rush down, taking the stairs two at a time from the sound of it. Christy had come down a few minutes later. Matt hadn’t heard any arguing or yelling, so it seemed like movie night was off to a good start.

Matt thought about going to a movie himself. He didn’t want to think about what he should do next. He spun around in his chair to face the window. His bandage was itchy. He peeled it off slowly, which he knew was the exact wrong way to do it. The stitches in his wrist looked strange, almost fake. He touched them experimentally, and they felt real enough. The cut was still sore, but everything looked clean and the pain meds were pretty good. Maybe he would take a couple of those pills and sit in front of the TV instead of going out.

The cut wasn’t very long, but it had gone deep. It had severed an artery, but Dani’s zip tie had slowed the bleeding enough to keep most of his blood inside his body. They said it would scar. And the scar would go right through the brand on his wrist.

“That’s not gonna get me any chicks,” he whispered to himself.

He jerked his head up when somebody answered.

“Probably not.” It was a woman’s voice.

Matt spun his chair around again and saw a woman sitting across the desk from him. She was full figured and wearing some kind of uniform. She looked like she might be a cleaning lady. She also looked kind of familiar.

“Whoa!” said Matt. “How did you get in here?”

She seemed kind of bored with his reaction. “The front door was open.”

“It was? Well, unfortunately we’re closed, so . . .” Matt started to stand. He was going to show her the way out, but of course, she already knew the way out. “I’m not sure when we’re going to open again.”

The woman didn’t take the cue and remained firmly in her chair. “I do.”

“What?”

“I know when you’re going to reopen. And it’s going to be soon.”

Matt sat back down. “Are you here to clean up the crime scene? I didn’t call anybody.”

“I can help with that. But that’s not why I came. My name’s Bethel. I knew Quentin. We went way back.”

“I’m sorry, but he passed away.”

“Yep. I helped with that, too.”

“The clean up?” asked Matt.

“Sure,” said Bethel. She looked at the stitches on his wrist. “I understand you’ve had a pretty rough time since he left. I want to help get things up and running again.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“You could say I have an investment in this place.”

“Uncle Quent didn’t mention that.”

“How could he? He’s dead.”

This seemed like a scam. If she were a telemarketer he would have hung up on her already. Best just to hear her pitch and get her out of there as soon as possible.

“What kind of investment?” asked Matt.

“We can talk more about that later,” she said. “First you’re going to need to deal with them.”

She pointed at the phone on his desk.

“The phone company?” asked Matt.

The phone rang.

At first he was startled, but then he realized this was all part of the show. She probably sent a text to her partner to give him a call. Matt decided to play along.

He hit the speakerphone button and answered. “Hello? This is the Golden Delicious. I’m sorry but all of our sex workers are currently on vacation. Can I take a message?”

“Cute,” said the voice on the phone.

Matt recognized the voice instantly. “Aunt Rose?”

“Hello, Matthew,” she said.

Happiness and terror jockeyed for position under Matt’s skin. The result was a long pause.

“How did you get this number?” he finally asked.

“It’s on your tawdry website.”

“I have a website?”

“Your brothel does.”

Matt looked at Bethel who was just quietly listening. She shrugged and nodded her head.

“Do they know where I am?” he asked.

“Of course they know,” said Aunt Rose. “They heard all about it. They’re coming.”

Fight-or-flight was kicking in again. This was definitely going to be flight. “I’m not going back with them.”

“They’re coming for the boy.”