Sinful Suspense Box Set (52 page)

I looked back toward the house hoping that we hadn’t been noticed. Frank was climbing into his car. Again, Julian’s dad scanned the property as if he worried someone was watching him. There was definitely something sketchy going on.

Julian shook his head and paced in between two imaginary boundaries he’d created for himself. “I told him. I warned him about Frank, and he ignored me.”

Sugar looked at me with a pleading ‘do something’ look, but I had no idea how to handle someone like Julian, especially in this mood. It was as if Sugar and I were suddenly invisible.

The rumbling Chevy motor fired up. The tires ground against the paved driveway as Frank pulled out. Sugar snuck over to take another peek at the house. “Julian’s dad went inside.”

Julian stomped through the leaf litter four steps and then turned back around for another four more paces. The car rolled past the first tree and slowed. Sugar crouched down.

I dropped down too. “Julian, freeze, damnit.”

He listened. I had no idea how my words had gotten through to him. It was like some light had switched on, and Sugar and I’d popped back into his world. The three of us stayed still as stone statues waiting to hear the car roll past. My fists were curled and ready to pummel Frank into meatloaf if he came after us. But the car continued down the long drive and out onto the road.

Sugar released a long sigh. “Shit, that was close.”

We stood there looking at each other, looking road weary and tired and confused. Julian stared down at the ground, almost as if he wanted to avoid looking at either of us, but a big fucking pink elephant had joined us in the trees outside of his parents’ estate.

“Julian, do you think your dad had something to do with all this?” I blurted the question before I could take it back. His face smeared white as if the blood had drained from his head. I wished that the words had stuck on my tongue instead of rolling out so freely.

“How the fuck should I know, Tommy? I’m a genius, but I sure as fuck can’t read minds.”

He spun around. With rigid shoulders and his computer tucked beneath his arm, he stomped away from his house. It seemed, we weren’t going to find the help we needed from the Fitzpatricks. We were in the center of a giant ball of shit, and it kept rolling and getting bigger and we kept sinking further into the center.

Sugar came up next to me. We followed Julian, not completely sure where we were heading. “I think we’re seeing a new chemical free version of Julian.”

“I’ll say.” I looked over at her. “I kind of like the new version.”

She laughed. “It’s different.” Her smiled faded. “It seems that all of our families have let us completely down.”

“Yeah.”

She took hold of my hand. It wasn’t the first time she’d taken hold of it. Every time it happened it felt as if she’d reached inside and taken hold of my heart. “What are we going to do, Tommy?”

“Not sure.” I hated giving such a stupid answer, but I really had no fucking clue what to do next. My family had assumed the worst about me. Julian’s family appeared to be somehow involved with the murder. And Sugar’s mom, her only family, had cast her off for good. We were alone. Three misfits who’d already had their share of trouble dealing with life and now we were facing it together. I squeezed Sugar’s hand in mine to let her know, no matter what happened, I was going to take care of her.

Chapter 16

By late afternoon
, the sun had still not given us a break, but the miles of fields and crops and farmsteads had morphed into civilization, a small neighborhood with yards that were only a few thousand square feet instead of acres, and where you could wave to your neighbor as you walked to the mailbox or barbecued burgers on a warm summer night. The houses weren’t big, but for the most part, they were neatly kept. They looked comfortable and lived in, like homes where parents and kids sat down for dinner every night to discuss their days.

We walked along the sidewalk, with no particular destination in mind. We hadn’t brought up the scene at Julian’s house again. He was in no shape to talk about it. Even though we’d been treading through air that was thick with gluey moisture, Julian had his one free arm crossed around his chest as if he was cold. His body trembled occasionally. I’d offered, more than once, to carry the laptop for him, but he wouldn’t part with it. I still held just as tightly to my bag of whiskey.

Sugar had used my sweatshirt as a head scarf to keep the sun from beating down on her, but now it was tied around her hips. She sighed. “My feet are so damn tired. My blisters have blisters. And I’m so thirsty, my tongue is numb.” She looked back at me with those pleading blue eyes that could talk me into anything. “Let’s find a place to stop.”

“We need some food too.” The focal point of the entire town seemed to be a large store called Handimart. “That store looks like it has a little bit of everything. Let’s go in and get some supplies. We’re limited on funds though, so take it easy.”

Sugar headed toward the store without any further discussion. Julian followed after almost as if he was just a kite on a string being dragged along behind her. I’d counted on getting him home long before any serious effects from lack of meds had gripped him. I wasn’t completely sure how long he’d be able to hold up.

The cool air inside the store felt like stepping into a refreshing shower. I kept my sunglasses on, just in case someone inside had seen my murderous face plastered on their television set. Both cashiers, a young guy who looked as if he’d never been past the border of town, and an older lady with slightly blue hair and a small hump between her shoulders, looked up as we walked in. “Welcome,” the woman called to us as we headed toward the grocery section. It was one of those crazy ass stores where you could find a pair of pruning shears for your roses in one aisle and medicine to help you take a crap in the next.

We all headed off in different directions, obviously with different goals in mind. I found a shelf of premade sandwiches in the refrigerator section and, even with the wilted lettuce and soggy looking bread, I could have eaten every single one of them. I grabbed out the two that looked the least disgusting. The other customers watched us, not with suspicion but curiosity. Which made sense. It didn’t seem like a town that would have many strangers pass through. We looked as if we’d been traveling across country on foot, living off the land and our wits. Something told me, not many of them had heard or read or cared about the murders across the state line.

I checked on Julian. He was in the snack aisle, but rather than choosing a treat, he seemed to be spending his time there counting the tiles on the floor. I left him, deciding it was a harmless enough activity, and the other customers didn’t seem to notice. I walked along a few aisles, garnering some slightly nervous glances from several women trying to decide which soap to buy.

Sugar was in the school supply aisle. I reached her just as she yanked the price tag off a Disney princess backpack. She flung it over her shoulder as if she’d walked in with it.

I glanced around. “Hey, sticky fingers malone, trying to earn your prison stripes so we can spend time in the graybar motel together?”

She shooed me away. “Leave. You’ll attract attention.”

“Me?” I asked.

She huffed at me. “Who will attract more suspicion, the six-foot-two with a shoulder span to match, long haired hunk in cheap black sunglasses with a bagged bottle of whiskey under his arm, or an innocent girl with a sunburned nose, a southern twang and a sweet smile.”

I gazed pointedly at her body. My sweatshirt dragged her shorts low enough on her hips to show plenty of skin between the top of her shorts and the hem of her short, tight top, a top that showed every delectable curve of her breasts. “So this is what they’re calling
innocent
these days, huh? I’ve been chasing the wrong kind of girl.”

“You were chasing the wrong girls because you hadn’t met me yet.” Again she waved her fingers to send me away. “I’m working here. I’ll meet you at the register in ten minutes. Wait, give me ten bucks for some toothbrushes. I need to make this look legit by buying something.”

I smiled, shook my head and pulled ten dollars out of my wallet. “I like the kind with the little rubber tip. I’ll go see what our highly unstable Einstein is up to. He was counting floor tiles on last check. And take it easy, huh? We’re already on the lam, remember?”

“You mean you are. Julian and I are just your innocent hostages.”

I smiled. “Again, the word
innocent
coming from those lush lips just isn’t working for me.” I headed back over to the snack aisle to find Julian. I was feeling pumped, and I had no idea why. I should have been feeling as if life had once again sucked me into a big black hole, but being out of the recovery center and out from under control of my family felt good. We had no place to go, and I’d probably end up being taken out in a glorious storm of police gunfire, but I was feeling amped about my freedom, and freedom with Sugar was even better.

Julian nearly smacked straight into me as I came around the snack aisle. There were four packages of powdered sugar donuts tucked under his arm next to the computer. He looked at me as if he had something important to tell me. The sweat on his face had dried, and he looked calmer. “There are seventy-nine floor tiles in this aisle,” he said plainly.

I slid my glasses up onto my head. “Not sure what you want me to do with that little slice of information, Jules, but thanks for keeping me posted.”

A spark of anger crossed his otherwise stony face. “Are you making fun of me, Tommy?”

“Yeah, Jules, I am. I’m talking to the guy who hacked into the entire security system of a mental hospital—”

“Recovery center,” he said emphatically.

“Right, a place where we were all recovering from being mental. The point is, one minute you’re calculating the end times for glaciers and the next you’re counting fucking floor tiles in the chip and cookie aisle.” I stepped closer, and he took a step back. Julian was always big on keeping his comfort zone circle clear. “Look, Jules, I know this is tough, but I need you to hold it together until we figure out what the hell is going on. Can you do that, buddy?” I lifted my fist and reluctantly he returned the fist bump. “Finish picking out what you need. I’ll meet you at checkout in five.”

I grabbed a drink to go with my sandwich and walked to the cashier. Sugar came around the corner with some toothbrushes, toothpaste and a bag of pretzels. The backpack, now nearly bursting at the seams with stolen goods, flopped side to side on her back. She hardly glanced my direction, no doubt wanting to avoid my ‘what the fuck’ expression.

The lady’s line was moving slowly, so we got into the line where the young cashier had more pimples than facial hair. Sugar had half the store’s contents stowed away in her bulging princess backpack, but she calmly dropped the toothbrushes and toothpaste onto the conveyor belt and tossed the kid one of her Sugar smiles. That was all it took. The poor sap was so fucking flabbergasted by having a girl like Sugar come through his line, she could have walked out with the entire goddamn candy rack strapped to her back and he wouldn’t have noticed.

She put the heels of her hands up on the edge of his checkout counter, effectively pushing her tits up and out so that the kid could get a nice view of them. “Are you trying to grow a moustache?” She put on that extra sultry accent. The kid dropped a toothbrush on the ground. Sugar winked at me as he leaned down to pick it up.

“That brush is for Julian,” I said.

The cashier straightened. His face was in a full blush, and looking as if he was going to need to breathe into a paper bag.

“I think you’d look really hot in a moustache,” Sugar said, returning to her earlier topic.

The grin nearly popped off his face. It took him ridiculously long to ring up the few items that she was actually paying for. I would lay odds on the kid starting a moustache tomorrow. I watched with the usual awe as she flirted her way past him, with a fifty pound backpack, a backpack she had not walked in with, swinging from her shoulder. He watched her walk out, but he was staring at her legs not the massive pack of stolen items. It took him a second to drag his attention away from her. The kid was going to be having wet dreams tonight that was for damn sure. He turned back to me with a dazed look.

“Don’t worry about it, bro, she has that effect on everyone.” I pulled out some money as Julian dropped four boxes of powdered donuts and a sports drink onto the conveyor belt.

I looked at him, silently questioning his meal choice.

“Hector Gordon and Everett Young, two world class mountain climbers, once had their tent and supplies blown away by a blizzard on the face of Mount Rainier. They survived for six days on powdered sugar donuts and Gatorade.”

“Probably won’t have to worry about a blizzard, Jules, but whatever. It’s your stomach.” I turned back to the cashier, who was probably just easing out of the hard on he got from talking to Sugar. “Is there a park around here?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s about a mile down the road and turn left. You can’t miss it.”

“Thanks.” I picked up my bag of food and handed Julian his bag of goodies.

“Is she your girlfriend?” the kid blurted as Julian and I walked away from his check stand.

I turned around and smiled. “Not my girlfriend, bro, but she’s the love of my life. Take care.”

We met our beautiful, seductive thief in the parking lot. She had bought a newspaper from the stand out in front of the store. She held it up. “Seems there’s been a multiple murder just a few hundred miles away, and the killer is still on the loose.”

I caught up to her and took hold of the paper. The headline read, ‘Jameson Enterprises Heir on Killing, Kidnapping Spree.’

“Fuck.”

“At least your picture isn’t on the front page,” Sugar said.

“I’m so screwed. Let’s get out of here. Your newest fan says there’s a park a mile away.” I took the backpack from her shoulder and put it on my own. It was heavy. “Reminds me of school. I’d drag all my books home, just to make it look good. But, funny thing is, I don’t think those damn things ever left my backpack.”

Julian walked along next to us. He’d already ripped into a package of donuts, and his mouth was covered in powdered sugar. For a person who rarely had a hair out of place or a speck of dirt on his clothes, it was different seeing him covered in sugar and donut crumbs. And he didn’t seem to care how much of the white stuff cascaded down his shirt.

“I guess those are your favorite, eh?” I asked him.

“This is the first time I’ve ever had one,” he spoke over a mouthful. “My mom never let me have processed foods. She theorized that food additives were part of my problem.” He laughed loudly and spit out some crumbs along with it. Julian’s uninhibited laughter was a sound that made both Sugar and me drop our mouths open in shock. We were looking at a new Julian, and as shades of the old one disappeared, I found that I wasn’t missing the drugged up version too much.

We walked along the street of neatly trimmed lawns and cozy houses with our stolen goods and a weird sense of independence that felt like standing in a tunnel of static electricity, as if we were more alive and charged with energy.

I lifted my shoulder with the backpack. “I think this princess backpack totally works for a homicidal maniac like me.”

Sugar laughed and held out her hand for one of Julian’s donuts, which he reluctantly parted with. She took a bite and then made a point of licking the powdered sugar off her bottom lip.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” I said.

“Who me?” She blinked her long lashes and took another bite. Only Sugar could make eating a donut erotic.

I reached into my paper bag, pulled out a cigarette and lit it, wishing to hell it was a joint instead of a Camel. “Where’d you learn to shoplift like that? Wait. Let me guess. One of your mom’s boyfriends was a professional thief.”

“Nah, but she did date a guy who made his money selling counterfeit artwork for about three months. I learned to shoplift when I was out on my own for awhile.”

I looked over at her. “This wasn’t the first time my mom told me to get lost. When I was fifteen, she caught me—” She stopped and looked over at Julian, who was far more absorbed in his snack than the conversation. She shook her head. “That part doesn’t really matter. It was two days after my fifteenth birthday. She shoved some of my stuff in a duffle bag and wrapped my last piece of birthday cake, store bought, of course, in some foil and told me to get out. When you’re hungry, you learn the stealing shit pretty fast. I was on my own for a month before she finally told the cops I’d run away. Cops found me and took me home and my mom put on a good show of the eternally grateful mother having her beloved daughter returned to her.”

I gazed at her. There was no pity or anger in her expression. She was telling the story as plainly as if she was reciting a recipe. Sometimes she said stuff to shock me, but this wasn’t one of those times. And yet, I was shocked nonetheless.

***

For such a small town, they’d built an amazingly large park. It seemed that every house in the city could fit on the well-kept lawns of Wilderness Park. The restroom facilities were immaculate, a welcome site to three weary travelers who had no place else to wash and brush teeth. In just a few minutes at the store, Sugar had managed to fill her stolen backpack with everything from shampoo to clean underwear and t-shirts. Scrubbed and sporting fresh briefs, we were all feeling a little less homeless.