She shook her head. “Hun, I’ve been on a portion of this journey with you and I barely believe the story. Plus, I can’t go to jail right now. No, here’s what we’re going to do.”
She was so calm and rational, so I figured I’d at least hear her idea.
“I’ll put this brick back in the box and tape up the sides, and you’ll follow the directions to this drug house.”
Holy shit.
I waved my hand in front of her to get her to stop talking. “Don’t call it thedrughouse.” It sounded so much worse when she used words like drug house.
Her eyes widened, and she pinched her lips for a moment. “Okay, noted. We’ll follow your directions to deliver the clothing for the make-believe niece and pretend we are completely clueless. Drop off the ‘not drug box’ and then make a run for it back to Pelican Bay. Once we’re home safely, we never speak of it again.”
As she worked through her plan, my confidence grew with each part. It sounded simple. It might work. I could do denial like no other. I’d been doing it for years. Lots of practice.
It would work. I couldn’t go to jail.
When her face fell, so did my heart. “Well, I will have to write it up for my report to Katy, but you should definitely never tell lover boy.”
My head nods went to head shakes. No, I’d definitely never tell Riley. He’d absolutely flip.
“I can’t do this,” I said back to hyperventilating. I placed my forehead on the steering wheel trying to get a handle on my breathing.
Vonnie twisted around in her seat and put the brick of cocaine back in the box before she repositioned the tape and used her fist to hammer it into place. “You have to. If you don’t deliver this, they’ll come looking for you again. I can’t believe they haven’t already. For whatever reason people get super protective of their drugs.”
“Again?”
Vonnie raise her eyebrow, now back in the proper position in the passenger seat. “That break-in at your brother’s place makes a lot more sense now.”
Shit. Vonnie had a point.
“Are you sure we can’t go to the police?”
She shrugged. “If you really think they’ll believe you unknowingly drove a box of drugs from Tennessee to Maine and then hauled it around in your car for a week and a half before you noticed, sure you can go to the police. Just drop me off on the street corner first. I’ll find a ride home.”
She waited for me to get a hold of myself, and after a few more deep breaths, I sat with my back against the driver’s seat and my hands on the steering wheel in the correct positions. My driving instructor would be proud.
“Good girl,” she said and then tapped the gear shift with her finger. “Okay, drive us there and we’ve got this.”
Fourteen miles remained on the drive and my hands shook the entire time, even though I white-knuckled the wheel. Vonnie reassured me every few minutes that everything would be fine, but the more she talked, the more I didn’t believe it.
“Your destination is ahead,” the GPS spoke, but we were still looking at a bunch of trees. Just like last time.
“This GPS has to be wrong. There’s nothing out here.” The only house on the road was where I stopped before, and the old lady was definitely not the man I wanted.
Vonnie leaned closer to the front windshield and searched the area until her finger pointed out to a spot about fifty yards ahead of us. “No, look right there. There’s a narrow driveway.”
Driveway wasn’t the name I’d use to describe what she pointed at. More like two tire ruts with a row of weeds between would be a better descriptor, but we’d made it this far and couldn’t give up now. I mean, I’d have preferred that option, but I didn’t want to drive around with drugs in the car or find out what happened if I didn’t deliver them.
I turned the car into the narrow cutout between the trees and started along the bumpy makeshift roadway. Tree branches scrapped against the bottom of my car, each one silently screaming, “Let us eat you.”
At the end, six dogs ran out and circled the car, forcing me to stop in the shit driveway right before a patch of mowed grass and then a home that matched the rundown condition of the places in the last little town.
So much paint had chipped away from the wooden siding of the home that very few remnants of white remained. The porch wrapped around the front, but it was full of junk. Literally. Metal chairs, two car batteries, random boxes, and an entire row of plastic storage totes wound around one side, covering up a front window.
“We are going to die,” I said, putting the car in park and turning the key.
Vonnie slapped my knee. “We’ll be fine. One time, the girls packed an entire car full of drugs and drove right down Main Street with them. This is practically nothing.”
Her story didn’t make me feel better about our situation. But I didn’t have time to argue with her because without hesitation she popped open the door of her car, grabbed the box, and was already cresting the first step of the porch.
