Lennox (21 page)

“Let the lady finish,” Cyrus says. His tone is steadying,
but the look he gives Amber is pure venom.

Amber nods. “Right. Um. Anyway, I guess Troy struck out with
Rani or whatever, so Lennox comes back to find me because they were
both ready to go home. It’d had been a few hours and I
thought—well, I didn’t want to make things worse with
Lennox than they already were by telling him I’d started
drinking and—I mean, it was only a couple of shots—”

Jagger stares at her, slack-jawed. “Just a couple? You fucking
idiot—”

“Do you want me to finish or not?” Amber cries.

Drazic turns toward her. “Don’t mind them. Finish the
fucking story.”

Amber’s tears are real now; I don’t think anyone could
fake the quaver in her voice. “So Lennox could tell as soon as
we got on the mountainside that I’d had a few drinks. But I was
so mad at him, I just wanted to get home, and . . . So
he was screaming at me to stop . . . and Troy was
shouting at him to calm down . . . Lennox told me to
pull over and there was another car coming and then I swerved, and—”

We all cringe. Nash squeezes his eyes shut. His entire face is
flushed with red. He’s barely holding it in. It’s only
Nash’s gentlemanly nature that’s stopping him from
beating the shit out of Amber right now.

Amber draws a ragged breath. “I think I blacked out at first.
Probably when my nose hit the steering wheel. But it was only for a
few seconds, I guess. I woke up to Lennox shouting at me, trying to
see if I was alive, if I could move. He said we had to go get help
for Troy, that he wasn’t breathing, and . . .”

“You’re going to fucking pay,” Nash says. “I
swear to god—”

“Let her finish,” I say.

“So Lennox got me out of the car. When we couldn’t get
Troy out, when he wouldn’t wake up—I just panicked, okay?
I called my dad. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Like call the fucking cops?” Jagger asks.

Amber shoots him a withering look. “Right. I wasn’t
that
drunk. I knew better than that.”

My stomach sinks. I can’t believe the nerve of the Cartwrights.
Either of them. How fucking selfish could a person be?

“Daddy showed up long before the ambulance did and made Lennox
the offer on the spot. If he said he was the driver, then he’d
take care of his grandma’s house. Because I—” Amber
hesitates, and then smiles bitterly. “Because I had a bright
future ahead of me, Daddy said. Back when I was still going to
business school. And because Daddy could get him off light.”
She laughs, ashamed. “We didn’t know then that ‘light’
would still be three and a half years.”

“You’re a fucking monster.” Nash is heaving, now,
glaring at Amber like he still might tear her in two. “You
killed him. For nothing! Because you were too much of a goddamned
coward to admit you’d been drinking? What the fuck is wrong
with you?”

“I didn’t mean it!” Amber sobs. The tears streak
down her face in a trail of mascara. “I never meant to hurt
anyone—not Troy, or Lennox, or—”

“Get out.” Drazic steps toward Amber. He’s blocking
Nash’s path to her, but I’m not so sure he won’t
slug her himself. “Get out of my garage.”

Amber wipes her nose on the sleeve of her blouse, leaving a smear of
makeup. “You can’t tell. Not
anyone
. I swear to
god, we will sue the shit out of you if you try anything—”

“If you want us to keep your secret,” Drazic says, “then
you will leave this place and never so much as look at one of my crew
members again.” His eyes narrow to dark beads. “And that
includes Lennox Solt.”

Amber hesitates a moment, then nods. “Fine. But remember—I’ll
sue the shit out of you, I swear. We’ll take your shop.”

“
Go!
”

Amber scampers out of the shop in a clatter of heels. I slump against
the wall, overwhelmed with all the conflicting feelings I’m
having right now. Disgust—with the Cartwrights, of course, but
also a little bit with Lennox, for going along with their plan. But
we know what it is to be poor, to have no other options. It’s
why Uncle D does the things he does. As much as Lennox love his
grandmother, I can see how he might have felt he had no other choice.

And heartbreak. For Lennox and the life he gave up, all because of
his grandmother and probably, too, out of his misplaced love for
Amber. He wanted to protect her, too, I’m sure. Thought he
could show it by taking the fall. Instead, she abandoned him, got
herself a new nose, and is now slowly working her way up the short
rungs of the Ridgecrest social ladder, all with Daddy’s help.

But also—relief. That now the crew knows the truth. They know
Lennox wasn’t responsible for Troy’s death, even if he
gladly shouldered the blame. No more vendettas and vows for revenge.
Uncle D was right. Lennox is our family, still. Always has been. Hope
stirs inside me that maybe, just maybe, my family can finally be
whole once again.

Nash, Cyrus, and Jagger turn toward Drazic. I wonder if they’re
feeling the same things I am, overwhelmed by it all at once. Even
Drazic looks unusually sullen, his dark features drawn downward while
he thinks.

Cyrus takes a deep breath to break the silence. “I miss
Lennox.”

“I miss Elena. And Troy.” Jagger glances my way. “But
I miss Lennox, too. We’ll never be whole without Troy, but at
least with him . . .”

Nash turns away from them and kicks a metal stool. It screeches
across the concrete floor of the garage. “Fuck.” He runs
his hands through his hair. “I don’t understand it. It’s
just so senseless. How the fuck could she do that? And then let
someone else take the blame?”

Hope stirs in my chest. If Nash is acknowledging that Lennox isn’t
at fault, then maybe this really can work.

Drazic approaches him and gently cups an arm around his shoulder.
“It’s not right. It’s never been right, the way the
Cartwrights get to steamroll over other peoples’ lives whenever
it suits their fancy. But we’ll find a way to make them pay. I
promise you.”

Nash shakes his head. “I just don’t know, man. I’ve
been so angry for years now, and it was always Lennox’s fault.
I can’t just—switch that off.”

“I’m not asking you to. But I am asking you to come back
to our family. With Lennox and Elena. Can you do that?”

Nash shrugs. “It’s gonna take me some time.”

Cyrus frowns. “We don’t know that Lennox wants to come
back. Or could, even if he wanted to. The McManuses own him now.”

“Well, that’s his call to make,” Drazic says. He
looks toward me. “And yours, too, Elena. You’re welcome
back anytime,
djevojka
, but it’s your life.” He
smiles sadly. “You deserve to be in control.”

Tears needle at the corners of my eyes. I fling my arm around Uncle D
and hold him tight. “Thank you so much,” I whisper. “For
everything.”

“Does this mean you’re back?” Jagger asks,
hopefully.

I let go of Uncle D and tuck my hands in my back pocket. “Let
me talk to Lennox first. He may not be happy that we found out his
secret. But I’m sure I can bring him around.”

*

I wind my way back to Grandma Solt’s house, barely able to
contain the buzzing, ecstatic feeling in me. My family. The only one
I’ve ever really known. Oh, my god, how incredible it would be
to have them all back together, all getting along . . .
And I know Nash is right. Things won’t be the same. But I think
they can actually be better. I’m going to have a bigger stake
in the crew from now on. Maybe turn the shop’s finances around,
so the boys don’t have to make their “runs”
anymore. Hell, with Lennox, Nash, and Jagger, we’ll have the
best drivers in the state. We can earn enough in prize money alone to
pay down our debts.

And maybe, just maybe, I can start driving, too.

I know Lennox will be hurt at first, or afraid the Cartwrights are
going to try to get revenge on him somehow. But it doesn’t
matter. He did his time. He deserves to be free.

“Hi, Mrs. Solt!” I shout as I unlock the front door and
let myself inside. No one responds, so I head to her bedroom to see
if she’s napping, and make sure she isn’t hurt. But it’s
empty. I frown. She does go out with friends every now and then, her
bridge club buddies who can still drive, though I didn’t think
this was their usual afternoon to do that. And there’s still no
signs of Lennox.

I try calling Lennox again but it clicks straight to voicemail. Still
on a job with the McManuses, then. I try to ignore the ugly twist it
puts in my stomach. He was acting extra strange when he set out this
morning, and warned me he might not be back until very late. I check
the clock. Plenty of time for me to fix a pot roast, then. A nice
dinner to celebrate.

I fall into a pleasant rhythm as I chop up the vegetables and
assemble the roast. While I’ve never been much of a cook, some
of my few memories of my mother are of baking Croatian sugar cookies
with her. I’m trying to get better. I like this domestic role
I’ve taken on, helping look after Lennox and his grandma both.
And it serves as a good distraction. As the sun sinks into the
desert, the twist in my stomach pulls tighter, and I throw myself
deeper into cooking. One of them should be back by now. I slide the
roast into the oven and settle onto the couch with a book.

Just after eight, someone knocks on the door. A tingling sensation on
the back of my neck warns me not to answer, but that’s stupid.
Maybe it’s Mrs. Solt’s friends dropping her off. I wait a
few minutes before I slip off the couch. If it’s her friends,
they’ll knock again. But there’s nothing.

I creep toward the door, staying away from the windows in the front
parlor. Check the peephole.

Nothing.

What the fuck?

I head back toward the kitchen. There’s still plenty of time
left on the roast, but I’d feel a hell of a lot better with a
butcher’s knife beside me while I wait. Just in case.

As soon as I step into the harvest gold kitchen, though, I find Rory
McManus waiting for me, his lanky frame nearly reaching the ceiling.

Adrenaline spikes through my veins.
Run. Run.
But I’m
frozen to the spot. Rory smiles, his mouth like the gash of a knife
wound. And he has the butcher’s knife in his hand.

“Elena Drazic.” He takes a step toward me. “I’ve
been looking forward to meeting you in person. I think it’s
time for you and I to have a nice chat.”

Lennox

I couldn’t do it.

I took one look at those girls and I couldn’t do it. They were
huddled in someone’s trailer, obviously underaged and heavily
drugged, their hair matted and their bodies reeking of filth. They
were runaways—had to be. Some poor desperate girls leaving
abusive parents or predatory stepfathers who thought the McManuses
would be the answer to their prayers. Instead, I was here to drive
them off to an even more horrifying circle of hell than they’d
already lived through.

Rory nudged me in the ribs with his elbow—none too softly. “I
know they aren’t much to look at right now, but once we get
them cleaned up, teach ‘em some manners . . .”
He let out a low whistle.

“And they . . . agreed to this?” I asked.
I tried not to sound disgusted, but Rory never made that easy.

He snorts. “You’re kidding, right? Look, I dunno what
fantasy land you live in, but the world is shit out there. We’re
giving them an opportunity. Earn some easy money. If they do well,
they can rise up in the ranks, and we’ll cut them a bigger
percentage. It’s like . . . business school, or
something.” Rory flashed me that icy grin of his. “Way
better than trying to scrape by on their own, and trust me, only a
matter of time before some other pimp got ahold of them.”

Maybe Rory was right. Maybe they wouldn’t be any better off on
their own. But the longer we drove, the more the sick feeling spread
through me, oily and vile. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t
force them into this fate. When one girl woke up, probably going
through withdrawals, and started screaming for her mother, I knew I
couldn’t go through with it.

The midday sun was so thick pouring through the van’s windows.
It felt like we were crawling. My heart pounded as I waited for Rory
to find us a gas station just shy of the Nevada border so he could
hit the restroom and grab us some snacks. My phone was locked up at
the McManus pub back in Ridgecrest—one of their many forms of
collateral. I had no way to call Elena, or check on shelters, or
anything. But then I remembered the shelter Grams used to volunteer
at, back before she’d broken her hip.

Okay. I could do this. Wait for Rory to head inside. Head to the
shelter. Then go immediately to check on Elena. Keep her safe.

“You want anything?” Rory asked.

I smiled. “A soda and corn nuts.” I glanced back toward
the cab. “Maybe some ear plugs.”

He laughed. “I prefer chloroform, myself.”

I wanted to vomit as I laughed back with him.

He headed inside. I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel,
watching him through the windows of the convenience store. He had to
wait in line for the restroom. Then he headed inside. Slow breaths. I
gave him a count of twenty.

Then I revved the engine and peeled away.

The element of surprise was on my side. All he had was a burner
phone, and our contact was another ninety miles away; I knew he
couldn’t follow me on foot. The best thing I could do was keep
a slow, steady pace, and not attract attention. I felt my face warm
with the start of a sunburn as the daylight continued to beat down on
us; the girls’ cries grew louder.

“I’m going to get you to safety,” I told them, not
that I thought they could understand me right now. “You’ll
be all right. I promise.”

I could barely keep the van above forty without the engine
overheating as we wound back across the desert. Thankfully the
shelter Grams used to work at was around the other side of the
mountain, far enough away that it wouldn’t be an immediately
obvious place for the McManuses to look. They had good security,
isolation, and a no-nonsense attitude, just like Grams did, back in
the day. I pulled through the security gates after identifying myself
as Perdita Solt’s grandson and drove the girls up to the front
stoop.