The Set Up (55 page)

“You mean sending him to juvie?”

“Yes. But you have to understand, after he got caught stealing that car, I was more afraid than ever about what else he’d do and where he’d end up. I knew if I sent him there I’d lose him, but there was a bigger chance I was going to lose him anyway. I just wanted him off the streets. That’s why I encouraged the judge to send him to juvie. Not because I couldn’t control him, but because I knew fifteen was going to turn into sixteen, then seventeen, then he’d be an adult and his blatant disregard for rules would get him into even more trouble. Bigger trouble. So I had to do it. I had to send him away. It was the only way I knew how to save him.”

“I think deep down inside Jasper knows that.”

“I hope so. We don’t talk about that time. In fact, we don’t talk about much. You know, he thinks I don’t like to talk about his father because it makes me sad, but I don’t talk about Luke because it makes Jasper sad, and that, I don’t handle well. I had twelve great years with Luke, all of which I remember vividly. Jasper only had eight, and so many fewer that he actually remembers. He’s grown up more years without a father than with one. At least he has Hank.”

A shiver runs through me at the mention of Hank Harper’s name.

She doesn’t notice. “But anyway, I got off track. Back to what we were talking about.”

Uncertain what to say to make her feel better, I turn the conversation back to where it started. “I really want to be the one who tells Jasper about my attack. Aside from my itchy cast, I feel much better and most of the swelling is practically gone. It should be easier on him if it’s me. Do you think they’ll let me see Jasper if we go to the jail after we leave here?”

She shakes her head no. “I called there before I came here this morning. All local and federal buildings are still under lockdown.”

“But they apprehended Tom yesterday. Why are they still locked down?”

Her eyes shift toward the last of the flowers, and as soon as she tosses them in the trashcan she sets the can down and picks up two of the vases. “I have to empty the water from these.”

Suspicious about her reaction to my comment, and already having dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, I follow her into the hallway. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Body trembling, she leans against the wall like she might fall without its support.

Feeling weak kneed I beg, “Mrs. Storm, please, tell me, you’re scaring me.”

She stiffens, her shoulders sinking as she sighs heavily.

My heart is pounding so loudly in my ears that I don’t think I could hear her answer even if she was talking.

Gently, she takes my hand. “Come on, let’s go back in the room.”

The lump in my throat grows bigger and bigger with each step.

Once back in the hospital room, I plop onto my bed.

Mrs. Storm sets the vases down and comes to sit beside me. With her hand on my knee, she says, “There was a shooting at the jail this morning.”

Before she can finish, I feel the earth shift below my feet. “No!” I scream.

Her arms are around me. “Charlotte, honey, Jasper is fine.”

Relief washes through me. I can’t lose him now that I just found him again. “He wasn’t shot?”

She shakes her head.

“Then who was?”

“Tom Worth. He was shot to death after his bail hearing and the precinct is remaining under lockdown until the investigation into the shooting is complete. Right now, they have no suspects.”

He’s dead.

Uncle Tom.

My father’s once best friend.

My mother’s lover.

My attacker.

My father’s Judas.

My father was right about his theory, and all he had to do was look at the one who had already stabbed him in the back. It had been Tom all along.

Shocked, I find myself not only crying, but also seeking comfort in this woman’s arms. Not over Tom Worth’s death. Any feelings I once had for him that hadn’t vanished when he took my mother from my life and they abandoned me, completely depleted when he hovered above me trying to choke the life out of me. However, I’m terrified this means my mother might be returning to Detroit. With that thought, a memory surfaces that I’d completely suppressed and with it erupts a need to keep Mrs. Storm close.

Jasper and I are seven and we’re outside playing in the snow. We’re making the world’s biggest snowman and we need large branches for arms.

He looks up at the tree over our heads. Pulls his mouth to the side. He’s considering climbing it.

“Let me do it. I’m lighter. The branches we want are all the way at the top.” I point up.

Patting the last snow mound onto the body, Jasper shakes his head no. “I’ll do it.”

“I can climb higher than you,” I tease.

“Cannot,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Can too,” I taunt and head toward the tree trunk in my too-small snow boots.

Rushing toward me, he grabs my arm. “You’re a girl. Let me do it.”

I shove him back. I hate when he calls me a girl. “No way, I can do it,” I hiss and then hug the tree. Within moments, I’m climbing it. I hate heights, so I don’t look down. I just want to break two big branches off and then shimmy my way to the ground.

“Charlie, that’s high enough.”

“No, the branches are too small here.”

“That’s high enough.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Come back down, now,” he orders.

I ignore him. He always thinks he’s the boss of me. Suddenly, my toes start to cramp and I can’t move my feet very well. I look down. I shouldn’t have done that. “Jasper,” I call softly, because I don’t see him down there.

He doesn’t answer.

I look down again and this time I see him climbing the tree. “Just stay there, I’m coming to get you and help you down.”

But I can’t. I’m scared. I start to panic. I try to move down on my own. I look down again, but this time the early morning winter sun blinds me. My foot slips. And then I fall to the ground.

“Charlie!” Jasper yells.

Suddenly, his back door swings open and Mrs. Storm comes rushing out in her bathrobe and slippers. “Charlotte!” she screams, scooping me up in her arms. “Go get her mother,” she orders Jasper as she carries me into her house.

I send Jasper one of our secret signals by wrinkling my nose—letting him know I’ll be okay. Hoping he doesn’t do what his mother told him. It’s Saturday morning. As usual, my dad is at work and Uncle Tom is over with Tory. I told my mother I wanted to play alone in my room and then I snuck outside when I saw Jasper in his backyard. She will be so mad when she finds out what I did.

He shakes his head no and I know he doesn’t believe me. No secret signal is going to work. He can see right through me. I’m clutching my arm. Shaking. It hurts so badly.

“Don’t move it,” he tells me.

Now I’m crying. “I don’t think I can anyway.”

Jasper takes off. Fast as lightning, minutes later he flies back into the house. “No one’s answering the door.”

Mrs. Storm’s jaw clenches. “Let’s get in the car. I’ll call the plant and tell Adam to meet us at the hospital.”

My tears turn into giant sobs. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

“It’s okay, honey, you’re going to be fine once we have one of the nice doctors look at you. I promise.”

I’m shaking my head no.

“Charlie, it’s okay. Remember when I broke my arm last year after I fell off my bike? The cast was cool and everyone signed it.” Jasper tries to reassure me.

Just then there’s a knock on the door and it opens before anyone answers it. “Lynne, it’s Allison, is Charlotte here? She’s not in her room like she told me she’d be.”

Mrs. Storm cradles me. “Allison, don’t be alarmed but there’s been an accident. We have to take Charlotte to the ER.” Mrs. Storm is patting away my tears in a useless gesture because with the look on my mother’s face, the tears won’t stop.

“Why? What has she done now?” my mother says standing over me.

“She didn’t do anything. She fell out of a tree and I think she broke her arm.”

My mother’s eyes narrow at me. “Stupid, stupid, girl.”

“It’s my fault,” Jasper lies. “I told her to.”

My mother throws Jasper a look of disgust. “She should have known better than to climb trees to begin with.”

“They’re just kids, Allison,” Mrs. Storm says. “And you really should get her to the hospital.”

My mother grabs me by the arm that is not hanging limp. “Tom stopped by to see if Charlotte wanted to go see Santa with Tory. I’m sure he won’t mind driving us.”

Now I cry harder. Not because of the pain, but because I want Mrs. Storm to take me, not my mother.

That was the truth.

Then.

Now.

Always.

I never wanted my mother.

She’d made me feel like I was unloveable.

She was cold.

Distant.

Uncaring.

Toward me—anyway.

And the thought of having to see her again makes me want to crawl back into that dark closet she used to lock me in.

Mrs. Storm is smoothing my hair with no real idea what I’m crying over. “Everything is going to be okay, Charlotte,” she whispers.

Gathering my courage, I pull back and ask, “Is my mother here, in Detroit?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I hope not.”

“But she’s your mother, honey. And she may be able to shed some light on what Tom was doing here and why he attacked you.”

“She was never my mother, and I don’t care what she has to say. Let the police question her. I never want to see her ever again.”

Shocked, Mrs. Storm just looks at me.

Unable to hold it in, I find myself telling Jasper’s mother everything about my life in Eastpointe—being left alone, locked away, constantly told how needy I was, and how Jasper was my only sanity.

“Oh, Charlotte, I wish I would have known. I mean, I suspected your mother was unhappy, but I had no idea just how bad things were.”

The empathy she exudes moves me. She doesn’t blame Jasper for not telling her about my life in Eastpointe. She knows we were kids and the fear of adults was far too great to risk telling awful truths about them. She doesn’t pity me either, or make excuses, instead she just cries with me. Tears for me, tears for Jasper, and tears for herself.

Not certain if Jasper would want me to, I contemplate telling her the rest, but decide in the end he would want me to do what I think is right. For all of us. And so I tell her. I tell her about the aftermath of the accident—how my mother left us, and how my father rushed us out of the house so quickly that I never got to say goodbye to Jasper. And then I tell her about what happened on Mackinac Island—how lost I felt without Jasper, and how lost my father was. I even tell her about my father’s theory—that the accident in which her husband died wasn’t caused by faulty safety procedures as was cited by city officials.

Strangely, when I’m all done, she isn’t falling apart. She’s not as fragile as Jasper thinks. And I feel an odd sense of relief because I can finally admit to myself what I never have—I don’t love Allison Lane. And the weight that is lifted from my shoulders in the midst of all the chaos, that it is okay to think this, makes me feel stronger than I ever have.

A throat clearing draws my attention to the door.

“Jake.” I wipe away my tears and Mrs. Storm does the same.

He has a stack of pink papers in his hand.

“Are those my discharge papers?”

“Yeah, but I can come back.”

Anxious to get out of here and somehow get to Jasper, I squeeze Mrs. Storm’s hand and then stand up. “Don’t you dare. How’d you get them?”

“I ran into Shannon in the hall.”

“Did you now?” I grin.

He rolls his eyes.

Shannon is the resident who has been checking on me for the last two and a half days. She is tall with the most chic blond hair. She also blushes every time Jake is in the room. And believe it or not, I think he blushes too. Sure, I had to encourage him to say more than hi, but once he did, they hit it off right away. Last night they had coffee together in the cafeteria. It turns out Shannon’s grandfather is known as the
Heir of Woodward Avenue
, which is a big deal. He is a legend in Detroit street racing, or so Jake has told me with a gleam in his eye. A look I never thought a man with no manners when it came to women would have. I guess Shannon’s grandfather drove a 10-second car in what was iconically called
the
Top End Club
in the late seventies.

Mrs. Storm takes the papers from Jake’s hand. Reads them. And then looks at me. “You’re not to be left alone for another forty-eight hours,” she says. “I think it’s best if you come home with me until Jasper gets out.”

Appreciative of her offer, Shannon had already told me her recommendations; I just hadn’t decided what I was going to do yet. But I can’t go to Mrs. Storm’s house. Not with Hank coming and going at his own convenience. I’m not sure why, but even knowing that Tom was behind everything, I just don’t trust him the way everyone else does.

“She should stay at Jasper’s,” Jake pipes up. “The building is safe and I can sleep on the couch.”

“We’ll take turns staying with her,” Drew announces, strutting into the room.

Will and Whitney are behind him holding hands. “Sure, we’ll make a schedule,” Will adds.

Drew snickers and nods his head toward them. “Let’s be real. We don’t need a schedule. Between Jake trying to get in the resident’s pants and you unable to stay out of Whitney’s, sadly I’m the only one not hitting it right now.”

“Drew!” Mrs. Storm exclaims.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly.

Will narrows his eyes at Drew who is hugging Mrs. Storm and whispering something to her that sounds like another apology.

Amazed by the support I have from the people who are Jasper’s family, I look around and know, no matter what, there is no way I’m not going to be okay.

I might very well still be the black sheep of Detroit, but I’m no longer an outsider.