“Yes.” I keep stomping. Fucking prodigal son. Charlie thinks he’s so fucking smart, quoting bible references at me. He knows it’s a reference I’ll easily understand, too. The Duchess, his partner, always was quietly strong in her faith. Catholic. She read from the bible to me every night when I first went to live with them as a snot-nosed kid. She did it for years, regardless of whether I wanted her to or not.
“Charlie thinks you’ve taken something from him.” Lacey tells me. “Something that requires forgiveness.”
“What?”
She nods her head, golden curls bobbing around her face. “Yep. Sloane’s father explained it to me on the drive back from church camp. The prodigal son—he demanded his inheritance from his father before he was even dead. That was really rude, even back then. He took a third of everything his father had, and his father gave it willingly. The son went away and wasted everything his father had given him, and eventually he found himself starving and alone. He decided to go back home and to beg that his father allow him to be one of his servants. For his father to take pity on him. Instead of his dad being mad at him, he forgave his son and welcomed him home. There was a huge celebration and the prodigal son was given all these fancy clothes to wear. He was reinstated back to his original position as a son of the household.” Lacey carefully folds the piece of paper, blotting out Charlie’s handwritten scrawl. She looks up at me. “Charlie thinks you’ve asked for too much, and now he’s letting you know…if you come home and say you’re sorry, all will be forgotten.”
I just stare blankly at Lacey. When the hell did she get so goddamn smart? I wouldn’t have expected her to read that much into the note, even though it’s exactly what Charlie intended his brief message to convey. That parable is a metaphor for God’s unceasing forgiveness of the repentant soul. Only Charlie would be vain enough to cast himself as the character of the father in this story. Asshole. And there’s no way I’ll be given any fancy fucking clothes to wear if I go back to Charlie’s place when he’s expecting me. I have my throat cut for me and make no mistake.
“Are you a member of Pastor Romera’s flock now?” I ask, returning to my pacing.
Lacey slumps back into the sofa, rolling her eyes. “He’s a nice man.”
“He didn’t care that we’d found his daughter.” A fact that still strikes me as extremely fucking suspicious. I didn’t say anything to Sloane, but that shit was cold.
Lacey shrugs, picking up the TV remote. “I think he cared. He just couldn’t show it.”
******
Eleven fucking thirty. Eleven thirty at night, and Sloane still hasn't text for a pick up. The girl either has stones of steel, or she's prouder than anyone I've ever met on the face of the planet. Knowing her, I'm plumping for the stones of steel option—she was ridiculously, stupidly brave back at Julio's—but that doesn't stop me from pacing the warehouse, picking up random bits of Lacey's crap and putting them back down in pretty much the same place a few minutes later.
“Are you supposed to be tidying?” Lacey asks. She's still perched in front of the TV, tapping her fingertips against her knees—index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinkie. Pinkie, ring finger, middle finger, index finger. Wash and repeat. It's one of her things. This is the first time I've seen it in a while, though. The coping mechanism is an absentminded thing she does when she's already relatively calm. The coping mechanisms she had in rotation before I fled to California were the more drastic ones she employs when she isn't relatively calm at all—the ones that involve pills and razor blades.
"I can't help it if your shit is everywhere," I growl. It really is; Lacey's not the tidiest person I've ever met, but right now the warehouse looks like a bomb's just gone off inside it. That has a lot to do with the fact that she trashed it when she slit her wrists a couple of weeks back and I haven't been here to let a cleaning crew in. Letting strangers into my home is not a wise idea with Charlie on the rampage. I wouldn’t be surprised if that fucker’s already been in here, tossing the place, looking for a hint as to where I vanished for a week. Hard to know for sure with all the junk everywhere.
“You should wear an apron. Would suit you,” Lacey says, still tap, tap, tapping. She flicks over the channel as I gather up a huge pile of her clothes and dump them right on top of her where she sits on the couch. Right over her head. “Hey!”
“You have a bedroom, Lacey. And a wardrobe. And a bunch of other furniture used to house clothing. Use it. Use them. Don’t use the fucking floor.”
I’m in a foul mood. First Charlie’s pointed little dig, and now this. She should have text by now. She should have called me, even, begging for me to go collect her. So I can keep her safe. And yet the stubborn woman hasn’t made a squeak. Lacey burrows out of her clothes, throwing a pair of paint-stained jeans at me.