Darker Than Desire (7 page)

“I told you the last time I gave you money, it wouldn't happen again.” Since Layla was still carelessly holding a very expensive camera, Sybil stepped forward and took it, returning it to its place. “And before you even start to consider it—all my equipment is registered
to
me. The pawnshop here would call me if you even tried. If one of my cameras goes missing, I'll file a report. I'll let Sorenson know you were here looking for money and I'll call every pawnshop within a day's drive of here. If you take one of my cameras, I'll have you arrested for breaking and entering, and theft. I'd also like to point out—there's not a camera in here worth less than three grand. Keep that in mind before you think about trying anything. I've got one worth three times that. If I can get you arrested on grand theft? I'll do it.”

Layla's mouth went pinched and tight. “You'll spend that kind of money on a fucking
camera
, but you can't spare a few hundred on your own blood?”

Any guilt she could have once felt for Layla had long since died. Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared the younger woman down. “And what about last year when I asked you if you'd like to go buy your son some Christmas presents? You didn't have the money. You had the money, though, to haul your worthless ass to the liquor store twenty minutes later. You can't spend your money on presents for your
own blood,
but you can buy booze?” As Layla opened her mouth, Sybil stepped forward. “I
have
expensive equipment because
I
am the one who has to care for that boy and I need the equipment to do my job. I'm the one who buys him toys and food and clothes.
I
am the one who pays for his medical bills—I can't
get
him insurance because he's not my son. I can't get him on Medicaid because you never show up for the appointments. Right now? I'm paying off a thirty-two-hundred dollar hospital visit to the emergency department from the last time his asthma flared up. You want to talk about
blood
?” The words came out in a fury of pent-up rage. “Where in the hell have
you
been every time your son needed you? When he was sick, when he was hurting, when he just
needed
you?”

Layla's face was white, but as the words lingered, then died in the air, blood slowly crept across her face. “Don't you dare go laying it at my feet when he gets sick. I can't help that the kid has those breathing problems. He's healthier around you, at least.”

“That's because I don't smoke around him. I don't parade a line of boyfriends through the house that chain-smoke around him. I don't drag him around when he's sick just because I'm
bored
and I have to get out and do something,” Sybil said, sneering. She backed away before she gave in to the fury and did something violent, something desperate. She wanted to shake her sister, make her see what she was doing, what she was losing, what she'd already lost.

Drew looked at his mother with something just a step away from disgust in his eyes. It wasn't that he didn't
know
her. It was that he didn't
want
to know her.

“It ain't my fault,” Layla said, her voice shaking. Shaking with the need to believe it. “He was always sick like that. I tried, Syb. I did. I'm just not—”

A wave of weariness crashed into her and Sybil looked away. “You tried. Yeah, I've heard this before. You tried. And when it got hard, you dumped him on Mama. Then she wasn't there and I was. It's fine. I love the boy. You know that. But you don't get to come here, demanding money from me, sneering at the things I do to take care of him and getting pissy with me when I tell you no. I'm not your moneybag, Layla. You're on your own now. I told you that once. It hasn't changed.”

Layla opened her mouth, closed it.

Then she just slumped against the wall, slid down it. Drawing her knees to her chest, she tucked her face against them. “I don't know where to go. I got kicked out of my apartment. I've been crashing with guys I know, but I'm running out of places to go. Nobody…” She sniffled and when she looked back at Sybil there were real tears in her eyes. “Nobody wants me, Syb. Nobody at all.”

Even as her heart twisted inside, Sybil had to bite back the unspoken question:
Do you blame them
?

Shoving her hair back, Sybil moved to the window. “Why did you get kicked out?”

“I can't pay the rent.” Layla thunked her head back against the wall. “Adam … I…” She licked her lips and slid Sybil an embarrassed glance. “You know Adam fired me. Nobody else around here will give me a chance. It was just him. Now I have no job, no money. I—” She started to shake.

Those tremors were telling.

“How long has it been since you used?”

Layla clamped her lips shut.

“Truth, Layla.”

The younger woman averted her face, staring down the mellow golden hallway that led to the front door and out to Main Street. “I haven't been using that much. I—” She stopped and blew out a breath. “Booze was easier. I could swipe it from the bar, take a bottle from the back. Guys never minded buying me a drink. I was doing some speed some nights. Smoked weed or swiped whatever pills I could if I was crashing with somebody who had them. But the shakes are from the drinking. It's getting bad, too.”

“I'm not going to give you money so you can go buy yourself another bottle.”

Layla shoved herself upright. “You've already established that,” she said, her voice mocking. She set her shoulders, managed to pull the scattered threads of her pride around her. “I'll figure—”

Sybil ignored her and pulled out her phone. “I'm calling Noah. He's got the number of a rehab place in Kentucky. You want help? Go in there. Dry out. Then maybe you and I can talk.”

Layla went red.

Sybil narrowed her eyes. “You've got one last chance, Layla, and something tells me you know it. It's staring you right in the face. It's either this or you're going to end up dead on a slab somewhere.”

“Does it even matter?” Layla whispered as something dark and haunted passed across her face. “Would anybody care?”

“I would. Drew would.” Sybil hoped she wasn't lying.

Layla averted her face. “The kid is better off with you. Everybody knows that. I don't even know how to take care of him.”

“That's because you never bothered to learn. I didn't know how to do it, either.” Her heart ripped in two, even thinking about it. “But I figured it out. You can do the same.”

She gripped the phone, stared at Layla. “Do I make the call?”

*   *   *

“I'm sorry.” She stared at Noah as he loaded Layla's bag into the back of his trunk.

He crooked a grin Sybil's way. “Why? You didn't do anything.”

Sybil crossed her arms over her chest. “I can't help but feel this is a waste of time. That … well, I read about that place in Kentucky a while back.”

One of the teens—well, Brittany was grown now, married, with a baby on the way, but she'd been in a bad way for a while. Noah had met her through the forum, but everybody in town knew who she was. He'd helped get her into a program and she'd come home more than a year later a different person. People looked at Noah like he'd turned wine into water, but he'd just shrugged.
It wasn't me. I just gave her the tools. A lot of prayer and hard work on Brittany's part did the rest
.

Sybil didn't think all the prayers in the world could help her sister, but she was ready to try anything right then.

“It helped Brittany,” she said quietly. “Can it help her?”

They looked through the window at Layla's bowed head, resting on her fisted hand.

“That's up to Layla. She's been cruising along rock bottom for a while, but whether or not she wants to get out of the hole is up to her. Plenty of people can give her the tools. Can offer her a hand up. She has to decide if she wants to reach out and accept.”

Sybil just nodded, thought about going to say something.

In the end, she just backed away.

As Noah drove off, she dropped down onto the bench and watched until even the taillights were lost to her sight.

“Man, Trinity has got to be a trusting girl to let him go off with that.”

Slowly, Sybil lifted her head, turned to look at Leslie Mayer. Leslie had cut her long, heavily layered curls to chin length. It was slightly—only slightly—more flattering to her round face. Her skin was ruddy and her expression was that of one who rarely smiled. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, I don't mean anything by it.” Leslie shrugged. “You know how your sister is. She chases after anything with a dick. Where is she off to with Noah, anyway?”

“Off to a new store in Louisville,” Sybil said blandly. “Shopping for a new attitude—for you and her. Seeing as how yours sucks just as bad as hers.”

Sybil rose just as Leslie whipped her head around.

“What the—” Leslie stopped mid-sentence as somebody came striding across the street.

Sybil's heart rolled, heavy and hard, in her chest and heat gathered inside her.

“Who is that?” Leslie murmured.

Sybil managed to choke back the snort of laughter, although it took some effort. Leslie couldn't stop herself from ragging on Layla and how she came on to anybody with a dick, but Leslie was just as bad. But really, when a man looked like that it was hard not to notice. Sybil had the added distraction of knowing just how wonderful it felt to have that strong, hard body moving over hers, under hers, to feel his voice, just this side of cruel, rasping in her ear—

“I wonder who he is,” Leslie said, her voice an unwelcome grating against Sybil's nerves.

“Oh, for crying out loud. You've seen him two thousand times,” Sybil said. The image of him was burned on the inside of her, just like the feel of him was imprinted on her skin. She didn't let herself stare at him, as much as she wanted to.

“I've never seen that man,” Leslie said, licking her lips.

“Man, a guy gets a haircut and changes his clothes,” Sybil muttered. He had gotten his hair trimmed, the longish strands now almost brutally short and the clothes he wore highlighted a body she knew as well as her own. Did he look different? Maybe a little. But she'd know him in the dark. Shooting a look at Leslie, she said, “That's David—or you might recognize the name
Caine
better.”

Leslie snapped her mouth shut. And the heat in her eyes went cool as disgust danced across her face. “Oh.
Oh,
he was one—”

Sybil put herself between them. “Say it,” she warned. “Say it and you'll find yourself an ugly, messy smear on the ground.”

Leslie was still gaping at her in shock as Sybil turned on her heel and strode back toward her office. Away from David. Away from Leslie.

Sybil and David hadn't talked since the night of Abraham's funeral. Once, she'd tried to call David. He'd answered with a cool,
Now's not a good time.

Fine.
If he was pulling back, just let him. But she'd be damned if she listened to the bile Leslie had been about ready to spill from her noxious mouth.

Just as she'd be damned if she stood around staring at him soulfully and hoping he'd look at her. Just once.

 

CHAPTER FOUR

For a moment, David almost went after her.

Sanity intruded, reminding him of his decision to put distance between them.

The sight of the woman lingering where Sybil had been reaffirmed that decision. Her eyes lingered on him, skittered away, then returned, something that was revulsion and curiosity and disgust dancing in her gaze before she finally made a quick retreat, moving in the opposite direction.

He'd never expected to be able to hide what had happened if he had to come forward. He'd never planned to, not really. He was tired of living behind masks and secrets. The shame, a familiar, ugly burr under his skin, would never fade, but the logical part of him understood that the shame didn't really belong to
him
. If a bitch like Leslie Mayer wanted to look at him like that, that was her problem. Although it pissed him off that she'd upset Sybil.

All the more reason to stay away from her. All the more reason.

It would make it easier for her, in the end.

That nebulous end …

Lately, he'd been thinking about it, like there really
was
an end for him. He'd focused on an
end
, thought about it. Lately, the idea of an
end
obsessed him. Probably because he was so tired.

“Think about that later,” he muttered as he came around the corner, eyeing the sign above Benningfield and Son. He was still twenty feet away when the pint-sized blond tornado came speeding down the sidewalk. He stayed where he was, watching as Noah's new wife appeared around the corner. They'd been married for two weeks now.

David had been at the wedding, watching and waiting, half-expecting something else to go wrong, but nothing had.

Now they were back from their quick trip to Florida. Disney World, if he'd heard right, because Noah, being Noah, had wanted his new stepson along for the trip. Typical Noah.

David stood there, watching the boy and his mother as they came to a halt. Trinity noticed him almost immediately, her calm grey eyes studying him as he closed the distance between them. He went to tip his hat at her and remembered he hadn't worn it. He looked like he was part of this world again. Not that he'd ever been part of that other world.

“Hi,” she said as he reached the two of them.

Micah looked up at David and David shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. Kids made him feel … awkward. Useless. This one watched him with avid eyes, and the longer David watched him, the wider the boy smiled. “You're big,” the boy said, his voice firm, like he'd come to an important decision.