The Purest Hook (Second Circle Tattoos) (24 page)

Wife.
The idea made him smile. He thought back to the time Trent had flown out to L.A., shortly after he and Harper had split up briefly. The guy had been a wreck and drunk twice over when he’d declared, “She’s already my wife in every way that matters; she can’t divorce me before we’re fucking married.”

Dred had thought it strange that Trent could be so certain, but now he finally understood what he meant. While he was the moody verse, Pixie was the catchy melody. His snowflake was the sweetest, purest hook. He made a note in his book. “The Purest Hook” would make an awesome song title.

Rustling over by the bed caught his attention, and he looked over to see Pixie sit up. “Hey, sweetie,” she said, stretching her head, revealing the little black vest she’d insisted on sleeping in once she’d realized Petal was sleeping nearby.

He shut his notebook and stood before walking to the foot of the bed. He crawled over to kiss her, her lips opening for him. The stirring in his gut was more than plain biology. He loved her.

“Wait,” he said and reached into his bedside table drawer, pulling out a small black bag. “I got you a gift. I totally forgot yesterday. You being here kind of threw me off my game.”

“You’ve got game?” Pixie asked with a grin, taking the box from him.

“Oh, gorgeous, I got eight inches of game right here,” he said looking down at his dick.

Pixie laughed. “You’re cute. Thank you, for this,” she said, slipping the ribbons open.

“Don’t ever use the word “cute” in a conversation about my cock. It’s all kinds of wrong.”

Removing the box from the package, she looked up at him with a look that said
What did you do?

She flipped the lid open and gasped. “Oh my God, Dred. It’s beautiful.”

Dred reached over, pulled the silver ring set with diamonds and a square amethyst, which sparkled in the sunlight, and slid it onto the middle finger of her right hand.

Pixie clasped his face between her hands. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” she said, kissing him between each pronouncement. “I have something for
you
.”

She shuffled out of bed and went into her carry-on bag. Quickly, she returned and handed him a small black fabric bag with the initials
T.Z
.
embroidered on the front, which he guessed was homemade. He opened the drawstrings and tipped the contents onto his palm. Words choked him as he took in his anchor, seemingly mended, sitting there.

“You found it,” he said gruffly. He ran the leather through his fingers and stroked the anchor. He released the clasp and quickly put it on. “I can’t believe you went to look for it and fixed it. Thank you.”

“I knew how much it meant to you. I see how you tug on it when things are tough. I’m sorry I made you so angry you broke it.”

Dred sat onto his knees and pulled her to sit across his thighs. “I don’t ever want to hear you apologize for me being a dick. You didn’t make me angry, Snowflake. I made myself angry. Your asshole stepdad made me angry. What happened was all about my reaction to it.”

“All the same, I think I came to a conclusion last night.”

He rubbed his hand down her back, and she looped her arms around his neck. “Yeah, what was that?”

“I think I need to figure out what happened that night. There is no point in sitting here waiting for Arnie to hand me over to the police, and I don’t want to go to the police unnecessarily, so I think I need to go back and retrace my steps, see if I can find out what happened to Brewster. I mean I’m assuming he died because the photograph is so incriminating, but who knows?”

He’d come to the same conclusion. The only way to be free was to face it. “All right. We’ll figure it out. We’ll get you the best lawyer. Where do you want to begin?”

“Back where it started, I guess. At mom’s trailer. Go see if she’s still there. If she’s not, then maybe one of her neighbors might be able to tell us where she went. She might know more about Brewster than I remember.”

“I want to help you do that. We should get Petal’s passport in the next couple of days and we’ll fly down there as soon as we can.”

“But what about the album and tour?”

“Fuck ’em both. This is more important to me.
You
are more important to me.”

She kissed him softly. “I love you, Theodred Zander.”

“I love you too, Sarah . . . ?” He wanted her to tell him, to trust him enough to know exactly who she was.

“Jane Travers. Sarah-Jane Travers.”

“I love you, too, Sarah-Jane Travers.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against him. His dick stirred to life as Pixie wrapped her legs around his waist.

“Want to see how I can do the splits?” she asked solicitously against his lips.

“Yes. Please.”

“Well then, let’s—”

They were interrupted by a cry from the walk through. Dred pressed his forehead to hers. “Not even two months old, and she’s already a cockblocker.”

Pixie laughed and fell backward off his knees. “Can I go get her?”

“Sure,” he said, watching as she opened the door they’d left slightly ajar.

Yeah. This was his life. And it was fucking perfect.

* * *

Later on that day, Pixie hurried back into the house using the key Dred had given her. She turned and bumped the stroller up the step and reversed into the hallway. Removing her sunglasses, she heard raised voices from the direction of the kitchen. Someone was shouting, but she couldn’t make out who. Quickly, Pixie took her coat off and hung it on one of the hooks, and then slipped her feet out of her boots.

Petal was stirring, so she removed the blankets Dred had wrapped her in before they headed out. Toronto was a beautiful city and the weather was so much milder than the last time she’d visited. They’d walked through Cabbagetown; past Canada’s National Ballet School where a beautiful old building had been surround on three sides by something starkly modern, all angles and sheets of glass; and up along the side of Queen’s Park until they reached the Royal Ontario Museum, which she remembered from her first trip to the city.

Then they’d meandered home along Bloor Street, admiring all the beautiful high-end stores she’d never be able to afford to shop in. It was the Toronto equivalent of Miami’s Bal Harbor. She never shopped there either.

Pixie checked her phone. Dred had told her he had an hour-long meeting with Sam and the band, so she’d offered to take Petal out for some fresh air in the sunshine. Her fitness app told her she’d walked a little over three miles and had been gone for seventy-seven minutes. She slipped it back in her pocket and lifted Petal out of the stroller. The little girl was starting to get some strength in her neck and fists given the way she tugged on Pixie’s hair.

The voices were getting louder.

“I don’t give a fuck what you think, Sam. I’m not doing it,” Dred shouted.

“Dred, be reasonable, you can’t cancel everything.”

Pixie followed the sound of voices to the large family room.

“Yes, we can. We are so fucking far behind with the album, we need to get our heads down. Disappear into the studio and stay there for a while.”

Dred’s brow was furrowed, and his arms were folded in front of his chest. She considered leaving them, but as she was about to step away, Petal started to cry. Everyone in the room looked in her direction.

“Sorry,” she said nervously. “We just got back, and I think Petal’s hungry.”

“Hey. How are my girls?” Dred said, walking toward them. He pulled them in for a hug and kissed her forehead, then Petal’s.

“We didn’t mean to interrupt. If you tell me how to get a bottle ready, I can feed her in the living room, give you guys some privacy.”

Sam rolled his eyes at her. He’d not liked her since their first meeting in the hotel when Dred was sick.

“I got it,” Jordan said, grabbing a container of formula from the countertop.

Sam coughed loudly. “What were you saying? That’s right. You want to disappear out of sight just before a new album and tour, right?” he asked sarcastically.

“No,” said Lennon. “What
we
were saying is, there won’t
be
an album, if we don’t do this.”

“The label—”

“Fuck the label, Sam. Get us a meeting with them. Face-to-face. It’s their fault for being so damned unreasonable,” Dred said, his arm still around her and Petal.

It
all
seemed unreasonable to her. She got the fact that tours needed to be booked months and years in advance to secure venues, but surely it was up to the band if they wanted to commit to anything on top of that.

“Yeah, “ Nikan added. “It’s ridiculous how close they jammed recording and touring.”

“What’s ridiculous is how you guys can’t focus,” Sam said looking over at her.

Dred released her and stepped forward, towering over Sam. “We’re entitled to have lives.”

“You need to wake up to what is going on, Dred. You’re all distracted.”

“What do you want me to do? You want to tell my daughter I’m too busy to deal with her right now?”

“Of course not. But deal with it differently. Hire nannies. Three of them if you need to, so you can still take on all these commitments. Get rid of all the other distractions.” Sam stared in her direction again. “Now is not the time to complicate your lives. Keep them simple.”

Jordan handed her the bottle and a burp cloth with a reassuring wink. Assuming it was in everybody’s best interest for her to go, she headed for the living room.

“Pix, wait up,” Dred called after. Petal started to really cry. “Stay in here with us. Sam’s the one who’s leaving.”

Pixie wanted to crawl into a giant hole in the floor. She was pretty certain she wasn’t the cause of the conversation, but she was being sucked into it whether she wanted it or not. She focused on placing the cloth over her shoulder and positioning Petal so she could feed her. The hungry little mite rooted on the bottle and drank as if her life depended on it.

“We aren’t done,” Sam said indignantly, a blotchy red flush to his skin.

“Yeah. We are,” Dred shook his head sadly. “I’m done with you making us feel shitty about everything we do, Sam. It’s never enough. We need you to be on our side, not constantly treating us like we’re errant fucking kids.” Petal tracked her daddy with her eyes, and despite the tense situation, it was a lovely thing.

Sam stood and gathered his papers. “So, what. You’re firing me?”

“Not yet, Sam. But I am laying down some lines. We decide the kind of music we want to record, we decide what we do, not you. It’s your job to bring us opportunities, sure. But we choose what gets approved. And another thing,
I’m
separating my family and my career.” He held out his hand.

“What? Sam asked.

“Key. This is our family home. Family members get keys. You’re our work colleague, and to the best of my knowledge, if we all worked some fucking desk-jockey job in an office together, you wouldn’t have a key to my house.”

Sam placed his files on the kitchen counter and pulled the keys from his pocket. With shaky hands, he wound the key off the ring and dropped it on the granite.

“I’ll be in touch,” Sam said over his shoulder as he left the house. The room remained silent until the front door slammed.

Dred let out a whoosh of air. “Sorry about that, Snowflake.” He placed his hand on her lower back and led her to one of the armchairs. “You want me to take over?”

Pixie shook her head. “No, we’re good. Was it like that the whole time I was gone?”

The rest of the band followed them and sat down, and Dred perched on her chair arm.

“More of the same.” Dred turned to face the others. “Guys, I honestly think we should see a lawyer. I don’t want to be with a label that sets us up to fail after everything we’ve already delivered. I don’t want a manager who isn’t looking out for our best interests. I don’t want a fucking house in L.A. when I own one here and my girlfriend lives in Miami.”

Jordan and Lennon nodded, while Nikan rubbed his hand along his jaw.

“I agree,” said Elliott. “I think we should finish the album and the tour seeing so much has already been spent on both, though.”

“Yeah. Let’s keep those two things and get out of everything else. And let’s talk to a lawyer to see if we can get out of all our contracts when we’re done. Management and label included.”

Pixie shifted Petal to her shoulder and rubbed her back. A clicking noise stole her attention. She looked in the direction of the hallway. “Did you hear that?” she asked Dred.

“Hear what?”

“I thought I heard something in the hall. Didn’t you?”

Dred shook his head. “This old house makes all kinds of odd creaks and groans,” he said. He got up and peered his head toward the door. “Nothing going on,” he said, shaking his head as he walked back into the room.

Pixie smiled. “I’m probably hearing things.” Dred kissed the top of her head as he returned to his spot on her chair arm.

“There’s something else I want to run by you guys.” Dred looked at her, silently asking for her permission to tell them what they had decided in bed that morning. She nodded.

“Pix is in trouble. The kind of trouble we’ve spent our lives trying to get away from. I’m taking her to the airport later, but I need to be in Miami as soon as Petal’s passport arrives.”

Each of the guys looked at her, but she saw nothing but compassion from them, to the point it was too overwhelming and she returned her to attention to Petal, who burped.

“Chicks are hot in Miami,” Lennon said.

Nikan nodded. “I’m so over snow.”

“We might finally get inspired somewhere else,” Jordan added.

Dred lifted Pixie’s chin and kissed her sweetly.

“Miami it is,” he murmured.

“Whose idea was it to walk off the plane and drive straight to Pahokee?” Dred yawned and she smiled. It was hard to believe only three days had passed since she’d last seen him. It felt like much longer.

When he’d called her the previous day to let her know he’d
finally
gotten Petal’s passport, she’d thought it might be a good day or two until she saw him. But the entire band, their instruments, and Petal were all booked on the six forty a.m. American flight from Toronto to Miami. She couldn’t have been happier.

Dark circles under his eyes told her exactly how tired he was, as did the messages sent at three that morning. A photograph of Petal’s face all scrunched up and red, with the message
SHE JUST FOUND OUT THE RAPTORS LOST.

Pixie laughed. “I believe it was yours,” she said, steering the rental car into the next lane of the highway to pass the truck in front of her. “Anyway, you have it easy. I feel sorry for Jordan and Cujo.”

Cujo had agreed to help transport Jordan, Petal, a car seat, a diaper bag, four suitcases, two strollers, and a partridge in a pear tree to Pixie’s condo. Her plan was to get them to Pahokee and back as quickly as possible so she could see Petal.

“Feel free to close your eyes,” Pixie said. “It’s going to take about an hour and forty-five minutes to get there.”

Dred ran his hand up her thigh until she slapped it and laughed.

“I was enjoying that,” he grumbled.

“Well, I need to concentrate. It makes me feel all gooey inside.”

“I like the sound of gooey,” he said, putting his hand back where it had been. He leaned back against the headrest. “It’s good to be back, Snowflake. I missed you.” He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it.

She loved the feel of his lips against her skin. “I missed you and Petal too.”

Dred smiled and closed his eyes. Eventually, the sound of snoring came from his side of the car.

As road signs for Pahokee appeared, a familiar tightening started in her stomach. Never in a million years had she expected to come back here. In fact, it had been on her list of places to avoid at all costs.

When she reached the entrance to the trailer park, she pulled over to the side of the road. The car jolted to a stop.

Dred woke up with a start. “What’s up?”

“We’re here,” Pix said, rubbing the sweaty palms of her hands along the top of the jeans.

Dred sat up and ran his hands over his face. He looked at the clock. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep all the way here.” He checked out the surroundings.

“It’s okay. Although you snored. A lot. And mumbled. And your coffee went cold.” Pixie smiled, but it didn’t reach the corners of her eyes and she knew it.

“Hey. It’s going to be okay,” he reassured her.

“We don’t know that. What if she’s still with him? What if
he’s
there?”

“Then we’ll deal with it. Or
I
will.”

They stepped out of the car and walked down a long dusty road that was heavily potholed. The trailer park was rundown, but the plots were tidy enough.

Dred squeezed her hand. “You okay, Pix?”

“Yeah. I’ll be better when this is over.”

They arrived at her old trailer, so familiar yet chillingly foreign. The beige and turquoise paint on the outside looked new but ugly. The rotting handrail on the wood steps leading up to the door had finally broken. “I don’t think I can do this. We should go, Dred.”

“If you really want to, then I’m right with you. But”—he pushed her hair back behind her ear—“we came all this way. I’m here. Nothing can happen to you. I promise.”

Emboldened by his words, Pixie knocked on the door. She waited, but nobody answered. She knocked louder this time. Again, no answer. Without thinking, she tested the handle, but the door was locked.

With a heavy heart, she stepped back down the steps and into Dred’s arms. He held her tight against his chest. She felt safe with him.

“Hello, can I help you?” The voice came from behind her.

Pixie stopped breathing for a moment. She hadn’t heard that voice in over six years.

“Oh my God,” her mom said, dropping the bags of groceries in her hands. “Sarah-Jane. Is that you?”

Pixie left the safety of Dred’s embrace and stepped toward her. All the words she’d planned on saying escaped her. Her mom was not only alive, but she looked healthy.

“Mom,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes.

Her mother sobbed and hurried to her, throwing her arms around her tightly. “Oh, my baby girl. I thought I’d never see you again. I missed you. So much. I didn’t know what happened. When I came home that night, neither of you were home. I am so sorry, Sarah-Jane.”

Pixie tentatively placed her hands around her mom’s shoulders. Too many years of hurt and anger bubbled under the surface for her to fall into a heartfelt reunion. Her mom’s selfish actions had placed her at risk. And too many times her mom had ignored her cries for help.

“Can we go inside and talk?” Pixie asked, noticing Dred picking the groceries up off the ground and scooping them back into bags.

“Of course,” she replied, wiping under her eyes, smearing the heavy mascara she wore.

The trailer looked different. It was tidy. The tiny kitchen counter was empty. There were no dishes piled by the sink, the air wasn’t permeated with the suffocating smell of tobacco. Thankfully, the awful stool Arnie had made her . . . well, it was gone. She led her mom to the sofa, and encouraged her to sit.

Dred placed the groceries on the table and sat down on the only other chair in the room.

“Let me look at you,” her mom said, taking hold of her hand. “You grew up so perfect, baby girl.”

Pixie hated it that the praise meant so much. Her chest inflated traitorously like a helium balloon at the comments. She needed information, and the sooner she was out of here, the better.

“Mom, this is my boyfriend, Dred. Dred, this is my mom, Helen.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Travers,” he said politely.

Helen nodded. “You, too, Dred.” She turned back to Pixie. “Why are you here? What have you been doing all these years?”

Pixie wasn’t ready for small talk. “Mom, what do you remember of the night I left?” Helen’s hand shook in hers.

“Not much, I’m ashamed to say. I remember Arnie was having a card night. I was pissed because he’d been out fishing all day. And he’d left all his stuff out on the counter over there.” She tilted her head in the direction of the sink. Pixie remembered, but that mess had saved her, because that was where she’d found the fishing knife.

“I’m sorry, Sarah-Jane. I’ve been clean for four and a half years, and have been trying to get sober for longer than that. But those days are hazy at best. All I know is when I woke the next morning, Arnie was still gone and so were you, I kept thinking you’d both come back. But you didn’t. I was frantic and started asking the neighbors if they’d seen anything. One of them said Arnie helped a guy that sounded a lot like Brewster into his truck and drove off. And I dealt with it how I’d got used to dealing with things. Drugs.”

Helen sighed heavily.

“Have you seen Brewster since then? Or do you know anything about him? Where he worked?”

“I don’t. I’m sorry. He was good with his hands, I think. Carpentry, car mechanic maybe.”

Pixie tried to hide her disappointment. “Do you have any photographs from back then?”

“Let me go see. I have boxes of old pictures in the closet.” Helen stood and walked to the rear of the trailer.

“You doing okay, Snowflake?” Dred asked, leaning forward and putting his hand on her knee.

She placed her hand over the top of it. Truth be told, she’d felt numb the moment she set foot in the trailer.

“Here. Try this box.” Her mom returned and handed her an old shoebox.

Pixie spilled the photographs onto the table and started to sift through them. There were too many memories attached to the pictures to give them anything more than a cursory glance.

Dred lifted a photograph toward her and looked at her quizzically. She was about thirteen, but the biggest shock was her hair. “Brunette, huh?”

She smiled. “Better?”

He looked at her hair, and touched the purple ends. “Beautiful either way,” he said softly.

They found two shots of Brewster. “Do you mind if I take these?” Pixie asked.

“Of course. Whatever you need. Does Brewster have something to do with why you left?”

“He was the last straw.
Arnie
was the reason I left.”

“Will I ever be able to make this up to you?” Helen asked, sadly. Hope filled her eyes as Pixie fought to remain immune to the way it tugged at her heart.

“I honestly don’t know, Mom.”

* * *

Dred could tell from the slump in her shoulders that Pixie was down. Yes, it sucked her mom didn’t know more about Brewster, but there must be someone in Pahokee who did. The place wasn’t
that
big. They needed to find the right places to look.

They stayed in the trailer for a few more awkward moments while Helen tried to find out more about what had happened that night, but Pixie retreated more and more into a shell he didn’t even know she had.

“Hey, Snowflake. Come here,” he said, tugging her against him as they walked toward the car. He cupped her face gently, pained to see the hurt etched across her face. “It’s all good. I have you and you have me. No part of the conversation that happened in your mom’s trailer needs to change your life if you don’t want it to. Right?”

Pixie nodded. “I guess it was naïve of me, but I hoped she’d have the answer.”

“I know. Me too. Let me see those photos.”

She handed them over and leaned against the hood of the car.

“Which is Brewster?” he asked.

Pixie pointed to a man at the far left of the photograph with shorn hair and a beer gut. “That one.”

He was wearing a polo shirt with a name on it. The fabric was rumpled and it was hard to make out what it said, but the last word was definitely
TIRES
. “Any ideas where this is, Snowflake?”

Pixie looked at the photo. She could see the company name began with an A, but wasn’t sure what followed. Pixie grabbed her phone from her pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“Think about it,” she said excitedly. “There can’t be that many tire places around here.” She went onto her map app, and searched nearby for tire shops. “Got it. AW+F Tires. It’s six miles away.”

“Brains
and
beauty,” he said, kissing her soundly. “Let’s go.”

In less than ten minutes, they pulled up outside an industrial unit, sandwiched between a garage and a car rental place.

“What’s our story?” Pixie asked him as they got out of the car.

“I don’t know. I’m just gonna wing it,” he said as he pulled off his sunglasses.

They entered the building and approached the small glass-walled office, but before they’d reached it, a young guy in dirty blue overalls approached him.

“You’re Dred Zander, right?”

Dred turned to Pixie and raised his eyebrow. She smiled and shook her head.

“Yeah, dude. I am.”

He schmoozed the kid a little while longer, signed an autograph on the back of a dirty manifest. A couple of the other mechanics wandered over. Some with phones, some with things for him to sign.

“Hey, I’m looking for a guy who used to work here six years ago,” he said after posing for another photograph. “Who’s the best guy to talk to?”

“That’d be me,” a stocky blond said, stepping forward. “The name’s Joe. Been here since it opened a decade ago.”

Dred shook Joe’s hand, and pulled out the snapshot. “We’re looking for Brewster. He was a friend of my girlfriend’s old man. Do you know where he is?”

Joe took the picture. “Brewster? Yeah. I remember him. Good worker. Just stopped showing up for work one day.”

He saw Pixie turn white and he reached for her hand. “Do you remember when that was?”

“Easy question. End of March, seven years ago. Remember it clearly because my wife had given birth to our eldest a couple of days earlier, and the boss is on the line constantly trying to get me to come in and cover while he hires someone because Brewster stopped showing up. The wife was furious.” Some of the men around him laughed. “Why, he in some kinda trouble?”

Dred could see their hesitation. “No. Not at all. Her dad passed away, and he left something in his will for Brewster. Just trying to make sure he gets it.”

“Sorry for your loss, miss,” said Joe. “If you find him, tell him my wife hates him.”

Dred thanked them for their help and hurried Pixie to the car. “That was when it happened, Dred. That’s when I ran. Oh my God . . .” She wrapped her arms across her stomach.

She was losing control, and while a sense of panic washed over him, he was determined to keep his shit together. “We’ll figure all this out, Pix. It’s better that we know for sure, then we can start to deal with it.”

“I actually did it, I killed a man,” she whispered against his chest. He held her while her shoulders shuddered in quiet sobs.

They stood by the car for a moment longer, but he knew they needed to get out of Pahokee and figure out what came next. He’d already asked his lawyer find him a recommendation of a kick-ass lawyer in Miami. “We need to go, Pix. Focus on the positive. We now know there was a witness to Arnie moving Brewster. If we find that person, we might be able to prove he was alive when you left him, or at least tell Arnie you have proof he was involved so he backs off.”

He kissed the top of her head, then opened the car door for her.

As she was about to step inside, an employee called after them. “Mr. Zander. Wait.”

Pixie turned.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” the man said, obviously assuming Pixie’s tears were for the imaginary loss she’d suffered. “You said Brewster was left something in a will?”

“Yeah,” Dred answered. “It’s not much, but we want to make sure Brewster gets it.”

The man chewed on his bottom lip for a while. “Okay, here’s the deal,” he said, lowering his voice. “Brewster got in a little bit of trouble, never asked what, but he had to leave here quickly. We stayed in touch on and off. He’s like an hour and a half away in Hollywood.”