Something Worth Saving (37 page)

Who wouldn’t want that?

Jace was working but kept sending me dirty texts, which I loved. It seemed my strip dance and the confidence I’d shown had gotten him worked up.

It’s amazing what a little self-confidence can do for a woman. I felt myself walking a little straighter in the house, making sure I wasn’t just walking around in old T-shirts and sweats, and instead tried out some yoga pants. Turns out, they were just as comfortable, and Jace loved them.

As the night progressed, Jayden took every ornament we had on the tree and moved them to the bottom branches where he could reach them and arrange them as he wished.

Naturally that made Gracie mad, because she’d help decorate with Jace a couple of days ago, and here was her little brother destroying her handiwork.

“Mama,” she cried, tears welling up but not quite spilling over. “He’s always messing it up.” The wind outside caught her attention, as well as the downpour of rain slapping against our windows, pinging and then settling into a thick layer on our balcony.

“He’s just having fun arranging them,” I assured her, patting her hair, wet from the bath she’d just had. “We’ll put them back before Christmas morning.”

That seemed to appease her for a moment, her focus on the sliding glass window as she pressed her nose to it, watching the rain. “Fine. But let’s Barbie now.”

For the third time today we watched her Barbie movie and kept an eye on the new snow accumulation outside. I was thankful the freezing rain had let up but I wasn’t sure what the snow on top of it was going to do.

Ten minutes into the movie, and she was asleep and I was watching the movie by myself.

I had just turned it off and was intending to put them in bed when Jace called.

“How’s work?” I walked out into the living room so I wouldn’t wake the kids.

“Slow.” He sounded annoyed. “Not much going on beside MVAs and a few false alarms. We thought for sure the snow would cause some cool shit, but nothing yet. But it’s fucking cold and the freezing rain is supposed to hit soon, so you never know. Could be a busy night. Calm before the storm or some shit like that.” He laughed.

“Hmmm.” My voice dropped as I watched the flicker of flames in our fireplace. “Maybe I should tie myself up and then call in a fire.”

He growled. “Fuck that. No way in hell the boys are seeing you naked.”

“I never said anything about being naked.”

“Yeah . . . but you would be in a matter of minutes if I walked in and you were tied up.”

“Do you have some sort of fantasy you’re not telling me about?” I was sure he could hear the smile in my voice.

“Maybe.” And I could hear it in his, too.

“I have one.”

Jace let out a breathy sigh, as if he needed to prepare himself. In the background I could hear the boys arguing and laughter as something got knocked over. “Let’s hear it.”

“You in your turnouts, all of it, with me bent over the side of a fire truck.”

“Damn you.” His breath hitched when he chuckled.

“What?”

“Now I’m hard.” I could hear him wrestling around, no doubt trying to adjust himself so no one could see. “Fuck, this is embarrassing.”

“So?”

“I don’t get off work for another twelve hours. That’s a long time to wait.”

“Sorry.”

“But hey, I’ll bring my gear home if you promise to let me tie you up.” I acted like I had to think about it for about a minute, probably the longest minute of his life, and he sighed. “Don’t get shy on me now.”

“I wasn’t. I was envisioning.”

“All right, I gotta go . . . this is too much.” He laughed.

To distract himself, I think, he asked about the kids and if they were asleep.

“Yeah, fell asleep on our bed watching Barbie. I thought about putting them in bed but haven’t yet. Sometimes it’s nice just to lie here with them without them yelling at me or demanding I feed them.”

“The nerve of them, asking to be fed.” Another laugh, but I knew he was contemplating the deeper meaning behind my statement. Nights where I’m cuddled up on in bed with the kids were never complete anymore without Jace.

As I listened to him tell me how he placed Coke cans under the bedposts of Kasey’s bed, I almost forgot how that sound affected me. Jace could make just about anyone smile with his warm laughter. It was contagious.

“So . . . ” He paused. “If I were to wake you up in the morning . . . ”

“And have the kids beat on the door again?”

“Yeah . . . forgot about that.” Then his attention seemed to shift. “Hey, I was . . . ” There was an uncertainty to his words, but there was also that calmness I’d missed so much finally returning. “I’m thinking of taking a few weeks off after the first of the year.”

“Really?” There was no hiding the excitement in my voice. It had been since before Jayden was born that Jace had actually taken a vacation and when he did, it was to help his brother build an addition on their house. Never had we had one together.

“Yeah. I want to take you away for a little while. Get out of the city.”

The alarms went off in the background. “Ladder 1 . . . Engine—”

“Gotta go, honey . . . love you.”

“Love you, too. Be safe.”

I
HAD
just gotten the kids into their own beds. Jayden woke up crying, wanting his sissy, so I put him in bed with her. As you could probably guess, she wasn’t having it and kicked him onto the floor with Smoke. He loved to sleep with Jayden, I think because he smelled like cookies and got to lick him.

For some reason Jayden loved to sleep on the floor. Half the time I would wake up in the middle of the night and trip over him lying in the middle of our room on the floor.

With the kids asleep, I decided to watch a movie.

The kids got up and wanted back in my bed with me, so there we all were in the king-size bed with me watching a movie and them sleeping on me with the dog at the foot of the bed.

I was just dozing off when I heard a knock at our door. It was nearing ten, so I wasn’t comfortable answering it, but I went to see who it was.

Lauren. With my mom.

Since the other night when Ridley showed up, I had talked to my mom once, and let her know she needed to call Ridley. She hung up on me.

I got up and closed the bedroom door. Smoke lifted his head, then flopped it back down. Some watch dog he was. Here was someone pounding on our door, and he wasn’t budging.

As I opened the door, they immediately came barging in. “Aubrey, we’re in trouble.”

“Uh—”

“I’m serious. You need to listen to what’s happening.” Lauren was all frantic, and I was pretty sure she’d been drinking.

“Where’s Gavin?” It was ten o’clock at night, and her son wasn’t with her. Immediately I was starting to panic.

“He’s with Judie. She took him for the night because I was working at the shop . . . remember?” I shook my head; I had forgotten about that. “Anyway, Mom came by.” She gestured to our mom, who moved out from behind her. Blood caked the side of her hair above her hairline, and the left side of her face was swollen and bruised.

I said nothing. Was it wrong of me that I had no reaction? That I felt no anger seeing her that way?

I don’t think it was. A few times I had looked just like this, battered and bruised, wishing someone would see, and they didn’t. That person was her.

For the years of neglect, that’s what caused it.

“Ridley hit her!” Lauren came around the corner with an icepack in her hand and then handed it to our mom. She regarded me with frantic eyes. “What are we going to do?”

I looked at her like she was crazy. “Call the police.” I gave Georgia a darker, more pointed look. “Why is it that he’s so desperately looking for you, huh?”

Georgia dropped the towel she was holding to her face, blood-soaked and dripping, revealing a quarter-inch gash over her left cheek. “He wants his money. That’s why he’s here.”

“What money?” Lauren and I both asked. I knew she owed someone money, as that was why she usually came to town. Her owing Ridley money explained why he’d followed her here, but not why she would owe someone like him money.

As she explained, she owed Ridley a lot of money. And I mean a lot. Twenty-five thousand.

“How in the hell can you owe him that much money? He works as a fisherman.”

I couldn’t wrap my mind around this.

Georgia’s eyes glazed over, and then she glared at me. “He’s not a fisherman. That was his uncle’s boat. And he set it on fire for him for the insurance.” And then she paused, maybe for the dramatics of it, and said, “Ridley’s a drug dealer. I get my stuff from him. And well . . . I owe him for what I’ve used over the . . . years.”

“Holy shit,” Lauren and I both said at the same time.

“That’s a lot of drugs for twenty-five thousand.”

“I was dealing for a while and . . . ” She shrugged, as if this shouldn’t have been a big deal. Her leg bounced as she frantically twisted a ring around her thumb. “I used my own stash and gave some to friends.”

I’m sure you can imagine, but right about here was where I freaked out. “Get out.” I tried to keep my voice down for the sake of the kids. “Lauren . . . you stay, but, Georgia” — I refused to call her “Mom” right now — “Get out of my apartment. Right now.”

“We have bigger problems than that,” she said, blinking slowly and then watching my reaction. Her hands were clenched tightly in her lap now, working against each other.

“What problems?” I asked gravely, fear beginning to rise. I could feel my heart start to pound when there was another knock as the door, this time louder, the sound of a man knocking at the door.

“That problem,” she said, almost in a bored manner.

Silence enveloped my apartment for a moment. Aside from the wind, nothing was heard.

The knock came again, and a rough voice followed. “Open the door, Aubrey!”

Ridley.

Smoke immediately started barking, and I knew then the kids would be woken up.

“Lauren . . . ” Before I could get the words out for her to call for help, the door came crashing open, the wood splintering at the hinges as it cracked. It didn’t take it down all the way, but it did open it.

Oh, my God. My babies.

“Mommy!” Gracie screamed, followed by Jayden’s cries and more barking by Smoke.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.

I wanted to run to them, but I knew that wasn’t happening.

Please someone hear this and call 911. Please hear this.
I prayed to God our nosey neighbors were home. Hell, they’d called 911 when Gracie broke our window over the summer. Maybe they would now.

“You touch that phone, and I kill your kids.” He waved a gun in our direction. “Now . . . ” He slammed my door back with his booted foot, tracking through my living room toward us, rain-soaked steps left behind. “ . . . I either get my money right now . . . or I take it out on you.” He looked to Georgia, and then a shifty smile came my way. “And those kids in the bedroom.”

I don’t know if you can feel when you’re about to die. But right then, I was sure I was about to.

I would have never expected a guy like Ridley to hold this kind of power.

But he did. He held power over me, my mother, Lauren, my kids . . . but most of all . . . Jace.

I knew now how quickly my life could change. How quickly everything could be taken away.

Ladder 1 to command, we’re at the rear exit on four. Bring ladder.

Aubrey

“I
JUST
want to talk.”

“Fuck you,” I managed to say, squirming against the ties that bound me to my dining room chair, telling myself he wouldn’t hurt my kids. No one would hurt innocent children, right?

Ridley’s hands rested against the wall, his eyes pleading smoke and lies, all he’d ever been to me. It was just like Ridley to think this plan would work.

“I asked her for the money . . . she doesn’t have it.” My eyes darted to my mother, who was sitting on the couch free of restraints, unlike Lauren and me, and unlike my children, barricaded in Gracie’s room at the end of the hall.

She knew then I hated her. She had to have known.

“Shut up!” I gasped, infuriated that they had even come here. “I can’t believe you would think that I would give you anything. You never stop, do? You just keep coming back thinking you can take just a little more from our lives! You keep fucking them up even more!”

Georgia looked at me, stunned and stupid, that I’d said those words to her.

I couldn’t see straight — if not from anger, then from my tears that blurred my vision with hatred for her and for Ridley.

He leaned against the wall, watching the fireplace, a callous expression on his face, his gun in his hand against his thigh. “You know, Aubrey . . . ” His eyes found mine. I refused to meet his stare and instead watched the door to Gracie’s room, the handle jiggling. “You’re lying to yourself if you think you’re any different from your mother.”

“I’m nothing like her.” I felt a curl of nausea as I spoke, and I saw Gracie’s fingers slide under the door, her pleas for me to open the door coming louder, more frantic, and Smoke’s barking was enough to wake everyone in the apartment complex. He knew we were in trouble. My hands started to shake.