Cady’s ex, still doubled over, shrinks away and screams again.
“What my brother’s trying to say,” Angel continues, “is we’re gonna need you to stop fucking with Cady and her lawyer, and make sure anyone else in the family stops, too. You’re gonna give her the divorce, no questions asked, and let her go free. She’s no longer part of your family.”
“Whah you mean?” he asks, in between heaves. I think he might be about to be sick. Blood and saliva are streaming from his mouth.
“We know you and Cady’s stepdad have people lurking around Tanner Springs. It ain’t gonna scare Cady out of divorcing your sorry ass,” Tank says flatly.
Cady’s ex shakes his head, still working to stand upright. “I’m not a pussy,” he pants. “If I did that I wouldn’t fuckin’ deny it. Cady isn’t worth my goddamn time.”
“If it’s not you or your people, then who tossed her lawyer’s house a couple days ago?” I demand.
He seems legitimately surprised. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he shouts. “Why the fuck would I do that?”
“Don’t play us, asshole,” Beast warns.
“I’m not playing you! I swear! Fuck Cady! She’s a loose cunt who can’t keep her legs closed!”
Tank’s right fist connects with his gut again. Cady’s ex doubles over and heaves.
“You’re lucky I don’t fuckin’ kill you for that,” he snarls.
As Cady’s ex continues to heave and cough, Tank raises a brow at me. His meaning is clear. You believe him?
After a second, I nod.
Tank turns to Angel, and cuts his eyes at the heaving man. He turns away and Beast releases Cady’s ex, who falls to the ground.
“Cady isn’t gonna have any more trouble with this divorce,” Angel tells him. “Is she?”
“No! Fuck,” he moans.
“Okay. We’re done here.” Angel signals to Thorn, who is still standing over the unconscious guard. Thorn checks to make sure he’s gonna be out for a while. Then, Angel gives a sharp whistle, our sign that it’s time to leave. Probably just in time, too: a few of the neighbors have come outside to gawk from a distance — though they scurry back in pretty quick when we file out of the house. One by one, we straddle our bikes and hit the ignition. Angel and Gunner pull out, and we file in formation behind them.
On the way back, we stop to fuel up. Me and Tank have a couple minutes to talk while we’re waiting for the others. He’s been avoiding me for the most part since tracking me down the night of the fight, but I guess he needs to talk right now more than he needs to still be pissed at me.
“Looks like Cady’s ex got the message,” he says, but he still seems preoccupied. “You think he was telling the truth?”
“I dunno. He looked pretty surprised. And he also looked too dumb to be that good of an actor.”
“Yeah.” Tank’s face clears.
“There’s only one problem, though,” I continue. “If he didn’t trash Ember’s place, then who the fuck did? They didn’t take anything, they just fucked shit up. So it wasn’t a burglary, or if it was, they were the shittiest burglars on the planet.”
“Has she had any more trouble?” Tank asks. “Any other weird shit go on over there?”
“I don’t think so.”
Tank eyes me. “What do you mean, you don’t think so?”
“I haven’t talked to her in a few days.”
Tank rubs a hand over his face. “Jesus, Strike. Did you fuck it up with her?”
I’m pissed that he goes there right away, and even more pissed that he’s right.
“I’m gonna talk to her,” I counter. “I just needed a few days…”
“To get drunk off your ass and generally act like a shit-for-brains?” he glowers.
I think about arguing. “Yeah,” I admit. “Pretty much. But I’m gonna…”
A loud but muffled metal guitar riff interrupts me. Tank lifts a finger to stop me, pulls his phone out of his pocket, and glances at it.
“Cady,” he explains to me before answering. “Yeah, babe, what’s up?”
Tank listens for a few seconds, and I watch his face as it goes from neutral to confused, and then to something I can’t read.
“Shit. You sure? Jesus. Okay. We’re about to hit the road. I’ll talk to you when I get home.”
He hangs up, shoves the phone back in his pocket, stares at me.
“Cady just got a call from Ember,” he tells me. “Jess OD’ed. She’s dead.”
34
Ember
I hang up the phone, my conversation with Cady still ringing in my ears.
Jessica overdosed. She’s dead.
Wren’s mother is dead. And Tank isn’t her biological father.
Legally, Wren is in free fall.
Tank’s custody of her could be challenged now, at any point. By anyone. Which means that if anyone finds out that Cady and Tank have no claim to her, she could end up in foster care with complete strangers.
Or worse, she could end up with Jess’s parents.
The shock of the news is starting to wear off a little by now. It was the bartender in Reynoldsville who called me to tell me about Jessica’s death, which he learned about from one of the bar regulars who works in obituaries at the local paper. Apparently, it happened late last week.
I can’t help but wonder if Jess’s overdose is connected to the argument she had with Striker the day we went to find her. The bartender told me the rumor is she didn’t leave a note, so they don’t know whether her death was intentional.
I’m guessing we’ll never know.
Suddenly, I feel exhausted. Exhausted by the weight of Jess’s death, exhausted by how Striker and I are up in the air. Exhausted by everything that just seems so confusing, and upside-down, with no way to right it again.
I should call Striker and tell him about Jess. But I’ve only talked to him once, briefly, since the argument we had days ago, and I just don’t have the energy for it right now. I tell myself that Tank will tell him. And maybe then Striker will call me. Or not.
Instead, I decide I’m going to give myself a break and take a long, hot bubble bath in my jacuzzi tub with a glass of wine. I go to the kitchen, pour the wine for myself into an insulated tumbler, and trudge up the stairs to start the water. When I get upstairs, my learned reflex is to glance out the bedroom window at the spot where normally, Tank or one of the other Lords is standing watch. I don’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean no one’s out there. I wonder who it is tonight.
I wonder if it will ever be Striker again.
Ten minutes later, I’m sinking into a fragrant heaven of steam and bubbles, determined to forget all of this for a little while. The speaker I’ve brought into the bathroom is playing soft, mournful music: Chet Baker, one of my dad’s favorite musicians. I close my eyes and take a sip of the cool white wine, as he starts to sing “I Get Along Without You Very Well.” The song makes me think of Striker, because of course it does.
I push him out of my head.