Black Jack: A nail biting, hair-raising thriller (Jack Ryder Book 4) (36 page)

“
I
know
you’ve probably gotten this question a lot,” I say as I approach Danny.

He is sitting in a barstool at the breakfast bar, scratching the label on his beer. Meanwhile, it seems that everyone else is somehow moving around him and not talking directly to him. He looks up.

“How are you holding up?” I ask and sit down on a barstool next to him. The expression on his face is rough to take in. Those eyes and the deep sadness in them almost make me cry.

Oh, you’re such a crybaby, Mary. Pull yourself together.

“Actually, you’re the first one to ask me that since I got here,” he answers. “The rest are only asking me if I want something to eat or drink. Apparently, people think food can make pain go away or something.”

I blush. “Yeah, well…some people can be so insensitive. Pah. Food. As if that ever made you happier.”

“Exactly,” he says. “The last thing I want right now is to eat.”

Wow. Right to my face, huh? That’s okay. I can take it. I’m a big girl.

“Yeah, well. You still didn’t answer my question.”

He scoffs. “How am I holding up? Right now I’m just trying to stay on this stool, sit still, and hold onto this beer. I want to drink it. I want to drink all of the beers in Alex’s fridge. I want to get so drunk I can’t feel anything, but I can’t get myself to do it. It feels wrong. I feel like I need to grieve and feel the grief, if you know what I mean? I keep thinking I deserve to feel pain.”

He pauses and looks first down at his beer, then back up at me. “You know what it’s like,” he says. “Like back when…”

Danny pauses. I stare at him, hoping, praying that he won’t finish the sentence. Luckily, he doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he says and drinks from his beer.

“That’s okay,” I say. “I still don’t like to talk about it. Maybe I will one day. I don’t know.”

Awkward silence between us. I sip my beer and throw a glance around the room. Junior is sitting in the corner on a couch while the other kids are storming around. Salter is playing with Marcia’s many kids, having a blast, it seems.

“You just wonder, you know?” Danny says.

I look at back him. He is ripping of parts of the label on his beer. “Who would do this to her? You wouldn’t believe how much blood there was on the porch. A pair of scissors? I mean, come on. That’s brutal!”

“It sure is,” I say, trying not to picture Jean lying on the porch in a pool of blood with a pair of scissors in her throat. It is hard not to. “What do the police say?”

“Not much so far. But they don’t believe she was a random victim. It wasn’t a burglary gone wrong.”

“Wow. So brutal murder, huh? Do you have any idea who might have had it in for her? I mean, did she have any enemies or anything? Someone she pissed off? A neighbor or something?”

Danny scoffs. “You knew Jean. Probably half the town had it in for her. People hated her.”

I nod and drink again. I am glad he said it so I don’t have to. “May I ask what you liked about her?”

He looks at me. I regret the question. Have I gone too far?

Me and my big mouth!

Then he laughs. Waves of relief go through my body.

“She had a great body,” he says. “Yes, you heard me. I was that superficial. I took her because she was gorgeous back then. I wanted to have sex with her so bad, and then she got pregnant. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice. It was the right thing to marry her.”

I throw a glance back at Junior on the couch. It makes sense. The boy is about eighteen now, ready to graduate high school.

“So, do they have any clues?” I ask.

He shrugs. “They say they believe the person can’t have been very tall. Something about the angle of the scissors or something. I have to admit, I can’t remember. It’s all a blur. I just really hope they find whoever did this. Mostly for Junior. To give him closure, you know?”

B
y the time
she turns one year old, Penelope has had her baby to a myriad of doctors, but they still don’t know what is wrong with her. The baby can hardly hold any food down and she hasn’t grown much in her entire year of being alive, much to her parents’ and the doctors’ concern.

Finally, after a year of running from doctor to doctor, one of them concludes it has to be her heart, or
it could be her heart
are his exact words.

The diagnosis, even if it is vague, makes Penelope at ease finally. She is weary and tired of telling all the doctors that she believes something is wrong with the baby’s heart, but no one believes her. They keep telling her the baby’s heart is fine, but the heart palpitations and weight loss tell her a different story.

“So, what do we do next?” she asks the doctor. “Will surgery be necessary?”

The doctor lets out a deep sigh. “She is still so very young.” He looks at the baby in her mother’s arms. She is able to sit on her own, but no crawling or even standing up like other children her age. Her legs simply aren’t strong enough yet. And she is way too sick to be moving around, let alone be with other children. It is too risky.

“We usually don’t operate on children this young, if we can help it,” he says. “But based on the tests we have so far, I’m thinking it might be necessary to do a heart catheterization procedure in time. In a child who has a congenital heart defect, a heart catheterization shows how the blood is flowing through the heart. The exact heart problem can be seen, and sometimes treated during the same procedure or a later one. If your child has a complex heart defect, he or she might need a combination of surgery and catheterization to treat it. But, as I said, it is very unusual to perform this procedure on such a young child. It has never been done before, as far as I have been informed. You might need to wait a few years till she is older.”

“But, Doctor, we don’t have a few years. If something is wrong with her heart, she needs the surgery now,” Penelope argues.

She glances at the empty chair next to her where Peter is supposed to sit. He wasn’t able to come with them this morning to get the results. He has lost too many hours at work running to doctors constantly. Penelope can’t wait to tell him that, finally, she has found a doctor who believes her. Their baby is sick and she isn’t just a hysterical mother.

The doctor looks at the baby again. “It’s too risky,” he says.

Penelope scoffs. “How can you say that? She might die if she doesn’t get the surgery now! Look at her. She is very sick.”

The doctor sighs again. He touches the bridge of his nose.

“I think we should wait and see, maybe give it six months, then run more tests. She needs to be at least three years old before I would dare to do a procedure like this on her.”

Penelope stares at the doctor. How can he say that? Three years old? That is two years from now.

“But…but, Doctor…just this morning she threw up again. She can hardly hold anything down. She is so weak. I can’t stand it. Please. Could you just perform the surgery? I’m willing to take the risk. Any risk. Anything to help my baby get better. Please, Doctor. I’m desperate here.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t. I won’t risk her life. Come back in six months and we’ll have a look at her and see how she’s doing. We’ll monitor her closely for the next couple of years. If she’s not better by the age of three, we’ll do the procedure.”

“You can’t risk her life?” Penelope says and stands up. “That is exactly what you’re doing. If my baby dies, it’s your fault.”

The doctor gesticulates, resigned. “I’m sorry, but…”

Penelope snorts angrily as she opens the door. “Well, if you won’t do it, then I’ll find a doctor who will,” she says and walks out.

W
e end up getting drunk
. Danny and I sneak outside on the porch to get away from the others and all their pity-looks. They mean well. We know they do, but it’s just not what Danny needs right now.

Danny decides it is all right to get wasted, and he is in charge tonight. I find a bottle of whiskey in Alex’s kitchen and start spicing our drinks up a little. I figure we both need it.

The more drunk Danny gets, the more he opens up to me about his marriage and how awful it was. It is a relief for me to hear and I can tell it helps him to talk about it.

“I wanted to leave her, Mary,” he says. “I did. I thought about it so many times. But I was a wimp. I should have left her years ago. You want to know the funny part?”

“Sure,” I say and pour each of us another whiskey. We both drink and he looks at me with his bloodshot eyes.

“I was afraid of her. Can you believe that? I was such a wimp, I didn’t dare to leave her. I was terrified of what she would do. I was so scared she would keep Junior from me, you know? I would never be able to handle that.”

“You probably shouldn’t tell this to the police,” I say, laughing. “It kind of gives you a motive.”

Danny stares at me, then bursts into laughter. We laugh for a little while, then stop and sit in silence. Each lost in our own train of thought.

“So, how’s Blake?” he finally asks.

In the distance, I can hear the waves crashing. I think about my dad and Laura. They are going to be pissed that we’ll be getting back so late.

Screw them. I’m not a child anymore.

“Awful,” I say. “He’s in that terrible prison halfway to Orlando, and I don’t think he will survive it. I’ve got to get him out somehow. The thing is, they have a murder weapon and a witness. Pretty solid case, if you ask me. I’m spending all my savings, the last of my money, on his lawyer.”

“What do you mean the last of your money?” he asks. “I thought you were a big time reporter at
The New York Times
?”

I scoff. “Not anymore. I just got sacked a few days ago.”

“What? You got fired?”

“Keep it down,” I say, and look through the sliding glass-doors behind me. The others are sitting around the table. Alex’s daughter, Ava, who I met earlier, is playing on an iPad. Three of Marcia’s kids are sleeping on the couch, the last playing with a truck on the floor. Junior and Salter are watching TV.

“I haven’t told anyone. Not even my dad and Laura.”

I sip my whiskey and enjoy the burning sensation in my throat. I close my eyes, hoping it will make it all go away. My brother in jail, my separation from Joey, me fearing the future since I got fired, the terrible memories being brought back to life ever since I stepped into that house again. All of it. I just want it to be gone.

“There you both are. Hey, guys, they’re out here!”

Marcia has opened the door and peeks out. “We were all wondering where you two were.” She is holding a plastic cup in her hand. By the look of how she is swaying from side to side, it isn’t soda she has inside of it.

Well, who am I to talk? I suddenly feel nausea overwhelm me. Danny doesn’t look too well either.

“Maybe we should go inside,” he says, and gets up from the small couch where we have been sitting.

When I rise to my feet, I feel dizzy and have to hold on to the wall behind me. “I think I’ve had enough,” I say with a giggle. I am way more drunk than I had thought.

We follow Marcia inside, where the rest of the crew is sitting around all the food and chips. They’re talking. Sandra smiles when she sees me. We used to be inseparable in high school.

“Come, join us,” she says.

I shake my head. “I think I’ve had enough. We need to go home.”

Danny stumbles towards me and gives me a heavy bear hug. I close my eyes and enjoy it. Danny has always been one of my favorites. Always so kind to others, so loving. It isn’t fair that he has had such a lousy life as a grown-up.

“Let us know if there is anything we can do to help you with Blake,” he says when he lets go. “Have you spoken to Olivia yet?”

I frown. “Olivia?”

Danny look surprised. “Blake didn’t tell you about her?”

“No.”

“He was seeing her. You remember Olivia, don’t you? I think she is married now, right, Alex?”

Alex nods. “Yeah. To some general in the army. What’s his name?”

“Hartman,” Joey says.

“That’s it.” Alex snaps his fingers. “Olivia Hartman is her name now. It started out being all about the sex, but I think Blake was in over his head a little here.”

“What do you mean?”

“He committed the only sin you cannot commit when being with a married woman,” Danny says. “He fell in love with her.”

“
W
ow
! Did you see the face on that woman?”

The four girls run down to the beach and hide in the dunes while they hear wailing sirens throughout the city. Ally’s hands are shaking. She can’t believe what just happened. What she has just done.

“Help. Help. Police,” the girl with the Mohawk who calls herself AK says, imitating the woman. Then she laughs again.

AK is the leader of the group and impressing her means a great deal for Ally. Seeing the look in her eyes now makes Ally feel better about herself, about what she has just done.

“You’re badass,” she says to Ally. “I like you. From now on, we’ll call you AL. Like in the song, right?
You can call me AL
?”

AK laughs. So do Double O and JJ. It is AK who has given them their street names, as she calls them, and apparently, Ally is now AL. Ally has been waiting for AK to give her a new name. She wonders if this means she is now officially part of the group. If it is enough.

The next day, the police arrive at the school and start asking questions about the students’ whereabouts on the day of the attack on the tourists. Ally is worried that someone might rat her out, but to her surprise, the girls all stand up for each other and give each other alibis. The police suspect them, the girls all know they do, but they can’t prove anything. AK even pays a teacher to tell the police that they were in class all day. AK always has a way of getting away with things. No matter how bad they are. Ally admires her for that. She admires her for many things. Her strength, her courage, her looks, the way she doesn’t care what people think about her. She can terrorize the kids in the school without anyone daring to tell on her. Just by walking down the school hallway with her, Ally can hear the student’s teeth clattering in fear. No one even dares to look at her directly. Kids flee from her presence. Even teachers fear her.

AK is one of those kids who has nothing to lose. She has no parents and lives in a home with other children that have no parents. She never thinks about the future or growing up or getting good grades. She knows she will never make it to college, since no one can pay for it, so there is no use in trying. No one believes in her, so why should she? She has a fire in her eyes that makes people tremble in her presence. Even the grown-ups.

AK is untouchable. And by being her friend, Ally becomes superior as well. Together, they kick the garbage cans in the school cafeteria and tip them over and throw garbage at the other kids. They terrorize students and tourists in the streets, they knock bicyclists off their bikes on A1A and make them fall, and then threaten to kill them if they ever tell anyone. They smoke cigarettes and place the burning butt on the arm of a woman if she tells them they can’t smoke somewhere, then chase her off by threatening to burn down her house with her family inside of it.

That’s who they have become now.

A few weeks after the incident with the tourists, AK approaches Ally in the schoolyard and tells her to walk with her during their lunch break.

“It was awesome what you did that day,” she says, referring to the day when they beat the tourist. “I believe you’re probably the strongest member we’ve had in our group. I believe in you a lot, but I need you to prove yourself to us. Your loyalty to our group,” she says. She turns and looks Ally in the eyes. Ally sees the flame inside of them.

“I need to know that you’re with us. With me. All the way.”

“Of course I am. You know that I am, AK.” How can she not know by now? With all they had done?

“Good. I need your complete loyalty. I have something I want you to do. With me. Just the two of us, alone.”

AK then asks her to meet her at an address that coming Friday evening at midnight. She isn’t allowed to ask any questions or to even speak to the other girls about it. Ally feels special sharing this secret, this upcoming event with AK.

Ally goes home that day, wondering what AK wants her to do. Will it be like some kind of initiation ritual? What will she have to do? Get drunk and run around town naked? She can do that. As a matter of fact, she is willing to do anything right now to be accepted by AK, to prove her loyalty. Moving around as much as she has while growing up, this is the first time she has actually made some friends, the first time she feels like she fits in. She will do anything to stay with these girls. To finally feel accepted.

* * *