“And where are you gonna go? Back to our burnt-out trailer? In your pajamas?” The cops would have picked her up in minutes. Maybe that’d be for the best.
Heavy footfalls sound behind me and Mom’s eyes widen.
“Is everything okay?” Noah asks smoothly.
Dammit. I grit my teeth to keep from snapping. “It’s fine. I told you to stay in the car.” Mom’s already a loose cannon. The last person she needs to see is Jackie Marshall’s son.
“Who is this, Grace?” Despite the shameful things she has done for a high, during these brief post-overdose interludes when she’s convinced herself she can stay clean, she’s embarrassed about her addiction. She doesn’t want anyone to know.
“A friend. Mike.” I shoot him a warning glare. She hasn’t seen Noah since he was a gangly eleven-year-old. There’s nothing left to recognize, besides his striking blue eyes, which are hidden behind his aviators. “Why don’t you wait for me in the car. I’ll be there as soon as I get her back inside.”
“I’m not going back inside. I have to leave. It’s not safe here.”
“I can help.” Noah reaches for her and she flinches away. He lifts his hands in a sign of surrender.
People are starting to look. Soon, someone will come and intervene, and it’ll upset her even more. “This is my problem. I’ll handle this.” I plead with him, “Just go. Please.”
The muscles in his jaw tense. “I’m sorry, Gracie. But no. I’m not going anywhere.”
He slides off his sunglasses.
CHAPTER 21
Noah
Gracie said the Dina Wilkes I knew is dead, but I don’t buy it.
I can’t.
Because I’ve already lost so much—first Abe, then my mom. And while happier recollections of this frail, terrified woman may have been pushed to the recesses of my mind for years, she still exists there, in my fondest childhood memories, humming a soft tune as she picks through ripe cherries to make Abe’s favorite pie; brushing my tears away as she blows against the scrape on my knee; ruffling my hair with a loving pat as she walks by.
In many ways, she was a second mother to me, my own mother often too preoccupied with her career.
Yesterday, Dina was a lifeless body on a couch that I had to save. Seeing her conscious, her green eyes—not quite as vibrant as Gracie’s but pretty nonetheless—staring up at me, brings all those childhood memories rushing back.
But those eyes are filled with fear and mistrust. With pain and suffering. With fourteen years of knowing something about what happened to Abe and not telling a soul—not even her daughter—because I’ll be damned if that box I just went through doesn’t have everything to do with Abe’s death.
I came to Tucson, telling myself it was to drop off a bag of money. Trying to convince myself that my mother was caught in some confused, suicidal fog, nothing more. But deep down I think I always knew I’d never be able to let these questions around Abe’s death go, no matter what Silas or Canning is convinced happened that night.
My mother held on to a secret that ended up killing her.
A fate Dina will share, if I allow it. And then won’t her death be partly on my hands, too?
I look down at the woman, hoping she’s not too far gone, that she’ll see the little boy she gave so much love to. “You don’t have to deal with this alone, anymore, Dina.”
“Oh, my God.” Her knees buckle.
I dive for her, my hands gripping her emaciated body beneath her arms before she folds to the pavement.
Shock fills her face as her gaze flickers over my features. “Noah, is that you? You’re . . .” Cool fingers graze my arms, trying to squeeze but lacking the strength needed.
“It’s me.” A lump swells in my throat.
“You’re here.”
“I am.”
A light gasp sails from her chapped lips. “Are you here to keep me quiet? I won’t say a word, I swear!”
What? “Dina, it’s me, Noah. I’m here to help you.”
“He showed up yesterday,” Gracie admits, her jaw clenched tightly, her eyes shining with resigned anger. “He’s the one who carried you out of the trailer.”
Tears stream down Dina’s cheeks as she reaches up to paw at my cheek, her fingers scratching against the stubble. “You look so much like her.” By the pained expression in her face, I can’t tell if that’s good or bad.
How could my mom let Dina get like this?
I have to squeeze my eyes shut against the flash of rage that stirs inside me. When I open them, she’s still staring at me, almost in awe.
“What did she tell you, Noah? About Abe. She knew what happened, didn’t she?” Desperation fills her face as she pleads with me, to hear what I suspect she already knows.
I hesitate.
For fourteen years, Abe was nothing more than a memory. A life lesson. Someone who taught me so much good, and then, through his alleged actions, so much bad.
And now I’m holding back the one thing I desperately wanted someone to tell me all those years ago: that Abe might be innocent.
“Noah. Please.”
“Abe was set up. He was made to look guilty.” Jesus. There, I said it. I can’t take it back. I exhale deeply, my breath ragged.
“What?” Gracie’s face pales. She couldn’t look more shocked had I slapped her across the face. “You said . . . You lied to me?”
Dina grabs my shoulders, pulling my attention back to her. “Jackie must have said something, if they’re coming after me again. What did she say?”
“Who’s coming after you again?”
Her lips press together, and she glances around. “It wasn’t him. But . . . it was him,” she whispers.
“Who, Dina?”
Another glance around. “Why is he coming after me again, Noah? All the way out here? I told him I didn’t have the video.”
“No one’s coming after you,” I say as gently as I can, hoping it will calm her growing agitation, even as I try and process her rambling words.
A man was looking for a video, and he thought Dina might have it?
What’s on this video? Something that someone didn’t want seen?
By the way she’s reacting, I’m going to take a wild guess and say the person looking for it wasn’t too casual about it the first time around.
Did Abe have this video? Was what was on it serious enough to get him killed?
“I’m not going back in that room.” Dina’s limp hair swings as she shakes her head furtively. “I’m a sitting duck in there. I’m telling you it was him. He wants—”
“Okay. Let’s get you somewhere comfortable and safe, where we can talk. We can figure this out, together.”
“No, I can’t tell you. He said if I talked about it with anyone again—”
“No one’s going to do anything to you, Dina.” I grip her hands within mine. “You’re not alone in this anymore.”
That seems to calm her a touch.
I scoop her up as gently as I can and start moving for my Cherokee. She’s so small, a collection of bony limbs within my arms.
“Noah!” Gracie hisses, grabbing onto my arm, her nails digging into my bicep. “She can’t leave. Look at her! She’ll be hunting down a hit by tonight without her meds.”
“Then find that doctor and get what you need.” I keep walking.
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with here.”
“You’re right, I don’t. But trust me, neither do you.” I unlock and open the back door, and settle Dina in. She startles at the one-eyed dog perched next to her. “Sit tight. The motel is five minutes away.” Shutting the door, I head for the driver’s side, intent on getting out of here and dealing with Gracie’s explosive anger in the privacy of our rooms.
But Gracie shoves me against the back of my SUV with surprising strength. “You don’t get to swoop in, lie to me, and then take control!” Her small fists slam against my chest.
“Not here, Gracie.”
“Yes, here, Noah. I want the truth!” she hisses.
“I don’t know what the truth is. Honest.”