Unless Monica has traded her harsh midnight hued locks for something softer with a touch of auburn, her full, tall frame for something far more petite, this isn’t her—and if I’m right about the alternative—I strongly wish it was. I start to back away just as the girl comes into the light.
“Hailey?” My heart climbs into my throat as I grab her and stalk off to the nearest bushes. “Are you insane? What are you doing here?” My body riots as adrenaline takes over, and I’m pretty sure I’m on the cusp of having a stroke.
That megawatt smile of hers goes off and some moronic part of my dick starts to respond.
“I’m here for you.” She cups her hands over my cheeks. “God, I’ve missed you.” Her voice is breathy, taming the night into long white plumes. “Look!” She takes my hands and leads them to her stomach, bulging and hard, the size of a basketball under her sweater.
“Holy shit,” I mumble.
“It’s yours. Faulk knew it, and I had to move out.”
“Move out?”
“He wanted me to.” She shrugs her shoulder into my chest. “I need you. I need your help. I don’t have any money or anywhere to go.”
“What?” I slap myself over the forehead, trying to will myself out of this nightmare with no end. “I can’t help you. My daughter—she’s missing.”
“Oh, I know. And I’m very sorry about that. But it’s been a month. So I guess that’s it, right?” The whites of her eyes shine like flashlights. “I mean, it’s pretty much over. Eventually, you’ll have to move on. And what better way than with a fresh start?” Her finger curls under my chin as she forces me to look at her. “With me—and our baby.”
My breathing becomes labored, and my body shakes like a dog at the vet. Never mind that I’m still not over the last trauma.
“Stay here.” A rife panic begins to fill me. “I’ll get some money.”
I head into the store, bedraggled, scared shitless at the trajectory of how fast this disaster has mutated. It all started with Hailey—with my dick. If I were smart, I’d do away with both of them.
I pick up the milk in haste, pay, then head straight for the ATM. Five transactions and a thousand dollars later, I head back to find her near her car, milling around, just inviting that nutcase that’s been stalking me to snap another picture.
“Here.” I practically thrust it at her. If it had fallen, I wouldn’t have picked it up. “Get a room for the night. In the morning head to your mother’s, a friend’s, anywhere but here. I’ve got too much to deal with right now and I can’t handle”— I lift my hands in a fit of frustration—“this.”
“This?” She places her hands gently over her swollen belly. “This happens to be your child, James.” Her voice pitches an octave and panic fills me.
“Shhh!” I try to calm her down, but it’s too late.
She flings the bills in the air and makes it rain twenties. “I don’t need your stupid money. What I need is a little respect from the father of my baby!” Her voice trails into the sky like a razor sawing through steel, making my ears wish they could bleed, my soul wish it could vacate the premises.
“Look”—she hugs her belly, annunciating its girth that much more—“if you’re afraid of what Allison is going to say, don’t worry. I’ll talk to her woman to woman.”
“Allison isn’t going to take well to this news no matter if you or the Pope talks to her. She’s going to be furious. She’s already out for blood. She is in no way going to welcome you or this child into our lives.”
A quick, angry huff escapes her lips. “Then tell her you’ll see her around because you have a new family to deal with.”
“I’m not dealing with this!” I whisper so loud I may as well have screamed it. “Are you that dense? My God, I thought you were a brilliant woman, and here you are not seeing the forest for the trees.” I grip her by the arms and shrink down to eye level, begging her to see my point. “If you just find somewhere to stay, I’ll get in touch with you. I’ll help you with the baby. I’ll help you with money, anything you want. Just for the love of God, do not show up on my front doorstep. Don’t follow me around town. There’s a good chance we’ve already been spotted.”
She growls at me as her fury grows. “I hate this. And right now, I hate you, James Price.” She stalks off, and I watch as she gets back into the seemingly innocent car and peels out of the parking lot with a hostile squeal.
“Shit.” I fall to my knees and pick up every last bill I can find.
I’m going to be a father. I’m not sure I quite believe it. I’m not sure I quite believe anything anymore.
9
Allison
“I have someone looking out for you.”
Words you never want to hear your sister say—not when she’s spending the rest of her foreseeable future in a private correctional facility—not when you just got off the phone with your mother who keeps threatening to come out and complicate an already complicated situation. I can only take so much familial meddling. Normally, familial meddling would be welcome under such circumstances, but with my sister’s bloodstained history and my mother’s psychotic need to control the world—familial meddling is very much unwelcomed.
“What did you do?” Blood rushes through my veins so fast it heats me up, feels as if I’m burning alive from the inside.
“That’s not for you to worry about.” Jane’s voice comes in clear and measured. “Just focus on getting my niece back where she belongs. How is that husband of yours? Does he need his nut sack rearranged?”
“No.” I stomp my way into the closet and shut the door. “God no. Please, please, please, Jane—call off your dogs. The public hates me. My mailbox is brimming with notes confirming this fact on a daily basis. They think I sold my daughter into sexual slavery. People have accused me of chopping her up and eating her. They think I actually care about that GoFuckingFundMe.”
“You should care. It’s at a hundred seventy-two thousand.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want it. I won’t touch it. I want Reagan back.” I sink to the floor amidst my collection of wool jackets, their ghostly arms petting me softly over the head. It reminds me of Reagan and her feather-like hair, her velvet skin. A horrible choking sound comes from me instead of a cry. I’ve lost all ability to do so, cried so many damn tears I’m fresh out of them these days. A strangled sound breaks free. “Janey, I need you. Dammit, why aren’t you here? Don’t send someone else—come yourself. Why can’t you be here with me?”
A hard sniffle comes from the other line, and it sends a sobering alarm through me. Janey doesn’t cry. She doesn’t whimper or feel emotions on the same level as other human beings. It’s a part of her charm as much as it is a part of her disease.
“Don’t cry.” I pull it together enough to evict the words past that painful fist lodged in my throat. “She’s coming back to me. I can feel it.”
Silence. That’s almost as bad as hearing my sister sniff back her emotions.
“I have to tell you something, Ally.” Her voice sounds strangled, huskier than usual, as if she were ashamed of what comes next.
“You got knocked up by the guard?” I had to go there. I think we both needed some comic relief, and yet neither of us bothers to laugh.
“Heather came to see me.”
“What?” I squawk so loud that I bury myself further in the forest of coats I’ve yanked down from their posts. “When? Today?”
“Months ago. Before Reagan went missing.”
“Oh my God.” I try to process this, make sense of it on some level, but it’s too out there to wrap my head around. “I didn’t know that you knew her.”
“I remembered her vaguely, and only after she plied me with information. She’s that batshit chick who turned you into a turd, that your friends wanted nothing to do with.”
“That would be her.” My hand wraps around the wool belt of a pea coat, snapping the hanger and sending it crashing on top of me.
“She named her kids after you.”
“She told you that?” I told Jane about the first Allison years ago, but the fact Jane knew about the second ode to my name blindsides me.
“Ally and Allison. That about says it all.”
“Amen. So what happened? What did she want?”
“What do you think she wanted? She heard you moved.”