Settling Scores (Piper Anderson Series) (11 page)

“Here’s the information on my friend’s parents. They’re deceased, but we believe they might have been very active in the sex trafficking world. There are other girls. Maybe they’re alive, or their cases still open.” Bobby slid more papers over to Denny.

“If this really isn’t a competition for who closes these cases, then I’d like to talk to this girl. I’m willing to put in the manpower and resources if she can link her parents to an open or unsolved case. But I’m not going to drag this out. Call her up, let’s do this today.”

“It’s difficult,” Piper said, finally taking a seat next to Bobby and calming her jittery legs. “Willow’s been through a lot. She’s fragile. We were letting her ease into the memories. She doesn’t even know the outcome of Josephine’s story yet. That’s going to crush her.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. If you want the support of this department and its resources, then bring her in today.” Denny’s face lacked any empathy as he grabbed a toothpick from his pocket and stuck it between his teeth.

“I’ll call her,” Bobby said finally giving in. “But remember she’s a victim too. I don’t want to push her over the edge.”

“You really think you have some viable leads? We’re talking fifteen years ago, these girls are all likely gone in one way or another.”

“I know,” Bobby admitted as he ran his hand over his stubble-covered cheek. “I’m just not sure she knows that, no matter how many times I’ve told her.”

“I’ll leave you two alone and you give her a call. The sooner you can get her in here the sooner we can move forward. It sounds like this might be more about closure for her than anything else. You understand that we just don’t have the resources to help her with that.”

Bobby and Piper were silent after Denny left the room. Bobby stared down at his phone for almost a full minute before he spoke. “I get it,” he said quietly. “They are likely all going to pan out this way, but knowing that isn’t going to stop Willow. Nothing I say is going to change her mind. Any of the girls she remembers are probably going to have a similar story.”

“Probably,” Piper breathed out, squeezing down on Bobby’s thigh, reminding him she was still there for him even if he was being an idiot.

“So me sitting there telling her this is how it’s going to turn out isn’t helping. Being right doesn’t really matter,” he muttered, the realization clearly not sitting well with him.

“That ship has sailed, she’s already out there. You need to decide who you’re going to be when it starts to sink.”

“I get it,” Bobby said again shaking his head. “I’m not sure who she needs me to be. I want to warn her and protect her. It was different with you. Even with Jedda, it felt different than this. Why is it so hard for me to just support her?”

“She’s not very likeable,” Piper admitted with a half-smile. “But sometimes when people are acting their worst it’s when they need love the most.”

“You’re starting to sound like Betty again,” Bobby chided with a grin as he took her hand in his.

“Not even close. If Betty had heard you acting like this, she’d have slapped you upside the head by now. I let it go on longer than she would have. I just don’t want to see you be the bad guy when Willow goes looking for one. You have to let her do this.”

“It’s counter-intuitive. Watching someone you care about do something you know will end badly. Standing by while they walk off the edge of the cliff.”

“It’s her cliff. Her life might be waiting for her after the drop.”

“She’s going to come here and find out what happened to Josephine. It’s going to knock her down.”

“And we’ll pick her up.”

“No,” Willow said, crossing her arms over her chest, her lip clamped tight between her teeth. She’d gotten the phone call from Bobby and listened to the news he’d given her but she didn’t believe it. “That doesn’t make any sense.” It wasn’t as if Willow hadn’t prepared herself for the chance that Josephine might be dead, she knew that could be the reason the case was closed. What she hadn’t considered was that the girl would have been so broken she’d take her own life.

“Where are you going?” Josh called quickening his pace to try to catch her. “They want us to head down to the precinct.”

“I can’t take this bullshit anymore. I don’t care what you say Josh, I know you think this is crazy and pointless. You’re humoring me, but if I told you right now I was done, you’d be relieved. You’d tell me I was doing the right thing by letting all this go. You want me to get on a plane and go back to Edenville and act like everything is fine. That’s all anyone wants from me, to be fine. To act fine.” Willow pulled hard on the handle of a parked cab and threw herself in, slamming the door before Josh could respond. As he hurried to catch her, the cab sped off. She didn’t bother looking back to see his reaction. She didn’t care. Or at least she was going to force herself not to.

“I want to go to a bar,” she said leaning forward and flashing the driver a twenty. “Something in the city, something off the beaten path.” The driver grabbed the twenty and grunted as he headed away from the hotel. Willow switched off her phone and pulled the battery out of the back, not wanting to be tracked. She’d heard all of Bobby’s words about Josephine but she wasn’t letting them sink in. If she didn’t acknowledge the truth maybe it wouldn’t hurt.

When he and Piper called, it had taken Willow off guard. Tony had just called back to tell them he’d be able to open up the apartment sometime around seven that night when his son went out. When Josh had asked about her parents belongings Tony let him know there were boxes in the basement storage unit of theirs but they’d long since been buried by years of clutter from other tenants. It would a huge job to dig them out.

They’d headed back to the hotel and for a little while. Willow felt a vulnerability that felt welcomed and scary all at once as she sat across from Josh in the lobby. They’d made a promise to not talk about what Willow was trying to do, how she felt, or what she wanted. Instead, they talked about music. It was something that connected them on a cellular level, a language that permeated their souls. It made her think of Marcario. It made her long for a chance to sing in front of his bar again, to see him smile. Not because she loved him, but because there, in disguise she felt so much more protected than she did sitting here with Josh. He made her feel raw and exposed. He’d seen her stripped back and vulnerable. It was a cold and naked feeling that she couldn’t seem to turn off in his presence. Maybe that’s why after Bobby broke the news about Josephine it felt easier to run.

As the driver pulled the cab in front of the small box-shaped bar with peeling siding and a half lit sign Willow felt herself on a new mission. Drink. Grab a bottle and keep pouring until the sting wore off, until the sharp edges of her memory grew fuzzy. Drink until the anger evaporated. “Thanks,” she called out to the driver as she slammed the door and he sped off.

Pulling open the heavy door, she stepped inside and was hit with a wall of cigarette smoke, something she thought was banned in bars, but no one seemed to give a shit. Those were the kind of people she was hoping to be around right now. The ten or twelve bar stools were mostly empty, only a couple of heavy set guys hunched over the bar struggling to keep their faces out of their half empty glasses. A few other men sat in the corner at a table chatting quietly.

No one looked at her, not even the stocky, balding bartender as she took a few more steps in and grabbed a stool at the far side of the bar. When he finally looked up and slugged over, he scanned her with bored eyes. “You old enough to drink kid?” he asked, his hand stretched out for her ID. She pulled it from her bag and slapped it down.

“I’ll take a rum and coke, heavy on the rum. And keep them coming.”

“I don’t want to be picking your skinny ass up off my bar floor in an hour,” he growled, raising a skeptical eyebrow at her.

“Just bring me the damn drink,” Willow bit back slamming her hand angrily down on the counter. “I’m not a fucking child.”

“Whatever,” the bartender muttered with a shrug as every head in the bar turned her way. A moment later he was sliding a drink to her and she could feel the alcohol working its magic by the time she hit the bottom of the first glass. By the third one, she could barely feel the ache in her chest anymore. She pulled the pieces of her phone from her bag and fumbled them back into place. There was a phone call she needed to make.

She pulled up the wrong number ten times before finally getting it right. Narrowing her eyes to see the screen of her phone she hit the button to connect the call and let the courage the booze had created take over.

“Hello?” a singsong voice rang out, and Willow gritted her teeth at the happy tone.

“You are so full of shit,” she fumed, trying unsuccessfully to hold back the slur in her voice.

“Excuse me?” she heard come back over the receiver, but she didn’t let that slow her down.

“You heard me, Betty. You think you have everyone figured out. I can see right through you. It’s an act. Throwing weddings people don’t even want. Giving advice people don’t ask for. It’s bullshit.”

“Willow dear, I think you’re drunk. Where is Josh, or Bobby and Piper for that matter?”

“Probably in a room somewhere wondering how they’re going to convince me I’m self-destructive and I need to be stopped.”

“If you’re alone and drunk right now I might not disagree with them. Can you tell me if you’re somewhere safe?”

“Stop it,” Willow demanded, resting her head on the cold wood of the bar. “Please stop being that way. I’m calling your bluff. You think you have an answer for everything but you can’t solve my problems.”

“I always like a challenge. Let’s hear your problem and I’ll see if my bullshit skills hold up.”

Willow let out a breathy laugh. She was expecting to be hung up on by now. She was shooting venom-filled cannon balls and Betty was acting like they were beach balls on a sunny day. “You know what I’m doing up here?”

“Yes I do.”

“Of course you do, you know everything,” Willow huffed. “I saw these girls. I may not have known everything but I knew they were in trouble and I didn’t do anything.”

“I suppose you’ve already heard that you were a little girl and it wasn’t up to you to do anything, so I’ll skip that.”

“Thanks.” Willow pulled in another long sip of her drink as she tried to find the right words. The words she didn’t want to say. “She’s dead. One of the girls, her name was Josephine and she killed herself a few years ago. I don’t know what happened to her after she left my parents’ house. I don’t know how she found herself on the road she was on, but she was so ruined by it all that she didn’t want to live anymore.” A tear rolled down Willows cheek, though her voice stayed steady.

“That’s awful,” Betty whispered, but she offered nothing else.

“Damn right that’s awful. I knew she might be dead. I’m not stupid. But I didn’t think it would be like that. If she got out, why didn’t she get all the way out? I don’t get it.”

“Sometimes all you know, even if it’s bad, is easier than starting over. You don’t ever have to understand it. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Now what?” Willow had backed off the insults. She was too drunk, her world spinning too fast to even come up with ways to lash out. She just wanted the answers. That was why she called. There was a small chance that Betty really could make this all better and she needed to find out.

“You want my advice?” Betty asked, not taking the road she could with a tone of indignation, but genuinely asking.

“I think you’re going to tell me what everyone else is telling me. I think you’re not going to help me. They don’t get it, and I don’t think you do either.”

“I’ll take a crack at it honey, and let’s just hope if I’m right you’re not so drunk you can’t remember my wisdom when you sleep this off.”

“I’m fine,” Willow slurred. “I want to hear what you think I should do.”

“You saw these girls, and while you and I may disagree on how liable you are for their situation, I think we can agree that you owe it to them to keep looking until every avenue is explored. You owe that to them,” Betty said firmly.

“I do?” Willow asked, an air of surprise in her voice. “I do,” she said again, this time as a declaration.

“This girl, she took the path she did. You and I may never understand it. We certainly can’t change it. Who knows about the next girl. Maybe she’s out there waiting for a person like you to start looking for her. Or maybe she’s met a similar fate as Josephine. You won’t know unless you finish what you started.”

“I don’t know how,” Willow admitted, her voice small and childlike now.

“Lucky for you I have more bullshit advice to give. Push away whatever bottle you’re drowning yourself in and pull your head out of your ass. Go find the people who are trying to help you and get back on track. This journey might break your heart over and over again Willow, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.”

“It is breaking my heart,” Willow cried as she pushed the glass away from her.

“There’s a secret about a broken heart that no one ever talks about. It’s not quite as irreparable as people might want you to believe. With the right people around you, it can heal faster than you think. You just have to give them a chance.”

“I,” Willow lifted her hand to her spinning head. “I just wanted to sorry, I mean say sorry. I didn’t mean…”