Secondhand Sinners (17 page)

“No. She was so complimentary to Daniel. I don’t want her to think ill of him because I was such a bitch.”

“Good God, Em. Don’t you ever get tired of running from ghosts?”

“Ghosts? You mean Daniel?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not running from Daniel.”

“Admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“You’re still in love with him.”

“No. I’ll always love him. I was never
in
love with him.”

“You still haven’t gotten over him.” Alan leaned in closer. “He wasn’t as great as everyone thought he was, you know? I was as good as Daniel, but no one ever saw it.”

“Yes they did.”

“Mom and Hoyt didn’t.”

“Your mom was a drug addict and Hoyt was an alcoholic. They couldn’t see anything.”

“I never understood why you chose Daniel over me, even after he died. That night in Dallas, I kept thinking
Finally. Someone’s choosing me, and it’s Emily.
To me that was better than Mom or Hoyt. Then you left.”

Rejection from one’s own family was painful. Emily didn’t realize until then how much she and Alan had in common. She felt terrible that a secret she held for so many years could have saved him from some of the pain he’d lived with for so long. It was time to set him free. “I didn’t choose Daniel. He was gay.”

He sat back in his chair and studied Emily. “He couldn’t have been gay. You were pregnant with his baby.”

“I was pregnant with Miller’s baby.”

Alan gaze swept back and forth across the table like he was studying some unseen landscape. “So that’s what…” He looked at Emily.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. When she looked at the caller ID and saw Miller’s name, she froze. She really wanted to answer it. Not there, though, and not in front of Alan. She ignored the call and put her phone back in her pocket.

The waitress deposited their food, putting a sandwich in front of Emily.

“I told you I didn’t want to eat.”

Alan didn’t answer. He was lost in thought, concentrating on the blank space over her shoulder.

“Hello?” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. He didn’t even flinch. First Miller and now Alan. She was two-for-two with dropping the gay bomb. “Hey.” She reached across the table and slapped his cheek lightly. “Snap out of it.”

Alan blinked. “So you still don’t know why your brother slammed your father’s head into the ground?”

“Wow. That was a quick recovery.”

“You really don’t know?”

“No. If I did I wouldn’t tell you. You’d probably have to tell the sheriff or something.”

Alan swallowed a bite of his sandwich and took another drink from his beer. “Something like that.”

“So don’t bother trying to get any information out of me.”

“Doesn’t matter, right? Because Levi’s not talking to anyone?”

“What the hell, Alan? How many times do I have to say it? Levi’s not talking to anyone.” Then it hit her—Alan knew something she didn’t. Of course he did. He just got off duty. “Is he?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“Why didn’t you tell me when I was at Miller’s?”

“Who do you think Levi was talking to?”

“Miller? How do you know?”

“It’s amazing what two men will say to each other when they don’t know that smoke detector installed in the back corner of the ceiling is really a camera.”

“You guys record the room with the holding cell?”

“Yep.”

“You’ve seen the recording?”

“Yep.”

“Did Levi say what happened with my dad?”

“He said he bashed his head in.”

“No way.”

“Admitted to it and everything.”

“You’re a liar.”

“All right.” Alan motioned to the waitress for the bill, finished off his beer, and wrapped his sandwich in a napkin. “Let’s go to the station. You deserve to see for yourself.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Miller

Miller didn’t even realize how tight his grip on the steering wheel was until he had to pry his hands away to rub his aching temples. He was still so disturbed by the demonic noises Violet had made that he considered calling a priest to see if he’d perform some kind of cleansing on him. He smiled for a second when he remembered that night he, Emily, Sara, and Daniel watched
The Exorcist
at Sara’s house and Emily had asked, “How come only Catholic people become possessed?” No one had an answer. He never did believe that kind of stuff really happened, though now he wasn’t so sure.

He drove around the block to get to Main Street. When he reached the intersection, he didn’t know which way to go, right to home or left to town. Where was he going? Who could help him? A horn honked behind him so he gave a quick wave and veered left toward town.

He was driving down Main Street when he saw Alan's squad car. If Alan was in the diner, where was Emily? Maybe he dropped her off at the hospital and was going to go back for her when she was finished. Miller pulled out his phone as he got out of his truck. He had a missed call from Emily. How had he missed that? He discovered the volume on his phone was on silent. Abby probably did that last night to keep him from getting distracted from Emily. He listened to her message as he walked up to the diner and was about to call her back when he spotted her sitting across from Alan at a table in the middle of the room. He knew it was her because she still had on his shirt, and Jack was at the table.

Alan, whose hands were on Emily’s legs, glanced his way, and for the briefest moment they locked eyes. Miller hoped for some sign that Emily didn’t want Alan’s hands on her, but she let him kiss her hand.

Emily and Jack left the table and went around the corner in the back of the diner. Then Alan twisted the beer bottle in front of him so that Miller could see the label.
Miller Lite
. Alan held it up like he was a winner toasting a loser.
Sorry chump. Better luck next time
.

Miller stepped away from the window. What the hell was going on? Emily’s car was nowhere in sight so she must have stayed with Alan instead of going back to Levi’s to get it. Why was she at the diner and not at the hospital? He thought he was glad she hadn’t called him yet because he wasn’t ready to have a conversation. He was too mixed up to make any sense. Now, he didn’t know what he wanted. He stood off to the side of the building and thought. Why not go in there and ask Emily why she was there with Alan instead of at the hospital with her mother? Because he was afraid that would lead to a confrontation that would lead to gossip that would get back to Abby.

He stepped back up to look through the window. Emily was back, and she and Alan were talking, intensely it seemed. Miller pushed the send button to make the call he was going to make before he saw the creep’s hands on her. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at it for too long. Was that a frown on her face? Then she pushed a button and put it back in her pocket. She didn’t want to talk to him? What had happened within the course of a few hours to make her ignore his phone call? What was Alan telling her? Did he know something? Miller wanted so badly to walk into that diner and tell Emily the truth about everything. In that moment, like many other times in the past, Miller hated himself for ever lying about anything. The lying held him hostage, chained him to its prison, and would never let him free.

He walked back to his truck, got in, and slammed the door so hard it bounced out of the latch. He grabbed the handle and slammed it once…twice…three times. Nothing made sense. He couldn’t think straight.

What exactly did Levi mean when he said he knew what Miller did? Who did Levi think Abby’s biological parents were?

“Shit.”

He turned his key in the ignition and then opened his door and slammed it one more time. He was going to have to go talk to Levi.

***

After sitting in the parking lot of the police station for twenty minutes, Miller forced himself out of his truck. When he reached the door he stopped. Did he really want to go in there and talk to the person who was threatening him? Could he trust him? He had to. At the very least, he needed to get Levi off his back. Levi could know something he didn’t that would lead to a simple explanation that didn’t involve Hoyt. Although simple didn’t necessarily mean easy, that didn’t matter. He pushed the door open and went inside. He had to find out the truth.

In his first break of the day, some young rookie was alone at the front desk.

“Hey there…” Miller said, walking up to the counter and checking the kid’s name tag, “…Sonny. I’m Miller Anderson. I need to see Mr. Collins.”

Sonny finished a text message he was typing out on his BlackBerry, looked at a piece of paper on a clipboard, and shook his head. “Not on his list.”

“That list is wrong. I was here yesterday. Alan let me in himself.”

He looked up at him and scratched his head.

“Check the log.”

Sonny picked up another clipboard and scanned it. “Oh. Somebody needs to fix the list.”

“You’re telling me.” Miller walked around the counter, heading straight for the big metal door. “Since you’re here alone, I’ll let myself in.”

Levi was lying on his cot, reading a magazine. After a quick glance in Miller’s direction, he went back to reading.

“I need to ask you something,” Miller said.

“Haven’t you heard? I’m not talking.”

“This isn’t about that. It’s about Daniel.”

Levi put the magazine on the ground and sat up. “What about him?”

“I didn’t know about you and him.”

“Oh God.” Levi rolled his eyes and lay back down.

“What?”

“Go home, Miller.”

“No. Not until I find out the truth.”

“The truth? Ha! I thought you knew the truth. I thought you were
so
certain about everything.”

“Obviously I’m not anymore.”

Levi looked at Miller out of one eye and smiled.

“What?” Miller asked.

Still smiling, Levi stood up and walked to face Miller. He reached through the bars and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m happy for you, man. I mean really happy for you. That certainty of yours was weighing you down.”

“I can’t tell Emily about Abby.”

“Sure ya can, buddy. You say, ‘Hey, Emily. I took our daughter and brought her back here to be raised on the land where you were abused.’”

“She’s not our daughter.”

Levi scoffed. “Nice try.”

“I’m asking you to back off, man. There are some things I need to figure out.”

“There’s only one thing you need to figure out and that’s how to tell my sister. Did you really come back here to ask me to play nice?”

“Things aren’t as simple as you think they are.”

“Then why don’t you enlighten me?”

“Abby has Wilson’s.”

“Oh.” Levi’s face softened. “I didn’t know.”

“She doesn’t like to talk about it. I thought she got it from Daniel until this morning when I found out he was gay. So now, there’s only one other person I can think of who could’ve given it to her.”

“Hoyt?”

“Hoyt. Did he hurt Emily?”

“She never said anything to me if he did. But I didn’t know about what my family was doing to her either.”

“What were they doing to her?”

Levi shook his head. “It’s not my place to tell you.”

Miller shoved his hand in his pocket and closed it around the old key Daniel had stolen from Hoyt. “You said your sister left so I could keep my certainty. You were right. Now that she’s back I don’t know anything at all.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What I’ve been doing for the last fourteen years. Make sure Abby never finds out, especially if she was conceived though some kind of hurt and pain.” He walked back to the front lobby and past the front desk. “See ya around.”

“Yeah,” Sonny said without looking up from his phone.

Miller couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath of hot air, and pushed the door open. The image of Sonny’s BlackBerry burned like a negative behind his closed eyelids. It wasn’t the phone that stopped him. It was something next to it—small and square and out of place. He went back inside and picked up the blue Lego. “Where did this come from?”

Sonny shrugged. “Found it in the hall. Kid must’ve left it.”

“What kid?”

“That kid who was here with the lady.”

Miller’s pulse started to pound in his ears. “What lady?”

Sonny sighed and looked up. “The lady who was here with Alan.”

“She was here? When?”

“Left a few minutes ago.”

“I didn’t see her.”

“They were in the back. Came and went that way.”

“What was she doing here?”

“Don’t know.”

Miller looked down the hallway, which seemed longer and narrower than he remembered. “What’s down there?”

“Offices. Video room.”

“You guys have a video room?”

“Have to make sure the detainees are behaving.” Sonny’s phone chimed. He picked it up and started typing.

“So you’ve recorded every conversation Levi’s had since he’s been here?”

“Yep.” Sonny typed some more then picked up the log-in sheet Miller had signed twice. “Both of ‘em. You’ve been his only visitor.”

Miller inched away from the desk until he was sure he was out of Sonny’s peripheral vision. Then he hurried down the hall to the door with the
‘Video’
placard on it. He slowly pushed the door open. There was the image of Levi in his cell on the screen of the little TV. Next to the TV was a two-deck DVD player with a red light flashing next to the record button. So they recorded the holding cell. For fourteen years he’d been so careful to not say a word about his deal with Chester Hale. He lived his life around keeping Abby “hidden in plain sight,” as Chester had put it. He’d always thought his biggest threat was someone seeing Abby’s resemblance to Daniel or Emily, not some shitty, outdated piece of video equipment. Alan must have loved showing it to Emily. It was probably his plan all along. Miller was so stupid he practically handed her over to him.

He turned the Lego over in his hand while he walked further down the hall to the back exit and alternated between prayers that Emily was still out there and prayers that she wasn’t. He didn’t know how to maneuver in a world where Emily knew his secret, where Alan knew his secret, where Abby knew his secret. When he got outside, Alan stood beside Emily as she closed the back door of his car.

“Em!” he called out. “Emily!”

She looked at him. Her eyes were red. She’d definitely been crying, but her face wasn’t angry like he expected. No furrowed brow or eyes full of hate, just that sad look he remembered seeing on her too many times when they were teenagers. He hated that look. It took her away from him, and for days at a time. Daniel was the only one who could get through to her.

“Emily?”

Alan opened the front passenger door and said something to Emily. She lowered her head, pushed her hair behind her ear, and got in. All these years he’d thought his skeletons were safely and permanently buried underneath too many layers of lies to ever be able to see the light of day. He was wrong. Lies never died. They lay in wait for the floodwaters to go deep enough to set them free.

Alan closed the door and walked up to Miller. “Leave her alone. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“How much did she see? I need to explain.”

“She saw the recording from the other day and most of the live feed in there just now. I’m pretty sure she’s got the idea. You hated her, so you took her baby.”

“No. I didn’t hate her. I was a kid and was trying to do what was best for Abby.”

“The road to Hell, Miller. Listen. I feel bad for you, man. I really do. You had your shot. Fortunately for me, you screwed it up royally. Now it’s time for you to step aside and let me have what’s rightfully mine.”

“Yours?”

“Yeah. It’s biblical.”

“No it’s not.”

“Back in the day if a man died, the brother got a shot at his woman.”

“You’re his stepbrother.”

“Same thing.”

“But they weren’t…” Miller looked over Alan’s shoulder to the car. Emily wasn’t even looking at him. How could he have been so stupid and not even consider that there might have been a camera in the room with the holding cell? How could he have sent her off with Alan?

Alan squeezed Miller’s shoulder. “Okay, listen. I was trying to be nice about this ‘cause I know you’ve always had a thing for her, but here’s the deal. Emily and I? We have some unfinished business that—”