“No!”
“Regan, please. We have to drive. Just...”
“How? Who are you? I... No!” I don’t stop. I’m too traumatized, horrified, but then he halts my wrists inside the strong hands I was never supposed to feel again and looks me in the eye.
“I know, sweetheart. But just please drive and I’ll tell you everything, okay? Please. It’s not safe here.”
Chapter Twenty
Sasha
She waits until morning. Tom will be back in town midday and Chloe can take the bus today, and Sasha can watch her son pretend to get ready for school, but this time she has a plan. She tells him not to be late and that she has a coffee date with Regan in town, and then she waits. She tosses his backpack, which he apparently doesn’t miss enough to mention or to go back to his dad’s to get, into her passenger seat, and then she goes out to the toolshed in the back of the property and takes a small pistol out of the lockbox under the workbench. She shoves it into the bottom of her handbag, then pulls out of the drive and parks a few blocks down, masked by a thicket of trees, until she sees Drew’s car fly past her and she follows.
She grips the steering wheel with one hand, fury boiling inside her, and she stays a few car lengths behind him andstarts to realize where he is going. So it’s no surprise when he pulls into the parking lot of the same smoke shop she thought she would take her last breath in just the night before, but she still radiates with fear as she pulls in behind him. She screeches her brakes on and slides into the gravel lot, and she gets his attention. Just as Drew steps out of his car parked near the front door, he freezes as he looks at her. He doesn’t seem to know whether to run or get back in his car and speed away. He’s caught.
“Jesus,” he says with a mixture of confusion and anger across his face. “What are you doing here?”
Sasha steps out and starts to walk toward him.
“No. Mom, stop. Let’s go.”
“Don’t even think about...”
“You can’t be here. There’s a diner down the street. I’ll meet you...”
“Are you out of your mind? You don’t call the shots anymore, Drew. You’re in deep shit. Get in.”
“Mom,” he says, looking back at the doors and then to her. “Go. Now. I’m right behind you.” He jumps in his car and starts to pull away, then stops and watches to make sure she does the same. That little shit just drove away. She can’t believe it, but although she’s shocked, she does what he tells her, with her heart racing and hands trembling as she fumbles with the car door.
When she sees him pull into Murray’s Diner and go inside, she parks and follows him, so completely bewildered by his behavior but also ready to finally confront all the evidence she’s been collecting against him. She decides maybe a public place will be the best option since he can’t make a scene orrun away. To her surprise, he’s sitting in a booth with a pensive look on his face when she gets in the door. He looks out the window and behind him with obvious paranoia. She sits across from him, and they don’t speak for a moment. She can’t even figure out where to begin—all the facts are swirling in her mind.
Instead of words, she just plunks his backpack on the table. He stares at it but doesn’t put it together right away.
“You left it at your dad’s.”
“I can explain that,” he says too quickly. The waitress comes over. Her name tag readsKimmiand her chipperness is incongruous to the weight of whatever is happening, although Sasha still doesn’t know what that is. Drew orders two cups of coffee while Sasha sits in a dazed silence.
“You’ve been seeing your dad. But I don’t even think that’s the place to start since you’ve been lying about so many things, so you tell me where to start.”
“I thought he could help me with something. Roxie and I—we’re working on a research project, sort of, and I had questions...”
“Stop. Start from the beginning. You were not getting concert tickets that night, and you weren’t getting vapes at the smoke shop. How much trouble are you in? Just tell me what is going on.”
“Mom...”
“You’re caught. I’ve been following you. I know you’re suspended. I know where you’ve been going. I wanted to see if I could understand it—I don’t know—to try to help you, but you have to tell me what the fuck is happening,” she says. She’s never sworn in front of her kids before, so she instinctivelycovers her mouth as if pushing the words back in, but Drew doesn’t even seem to notice. He has a look of resignation across his face because he is, clearly, caught.
“I can’t tell you everything,” he starts, and then the waitress places their coffee in front of them and asks if they’d like anything else. Neither answers and the waitress makes a face and walks away.
“I’m not in trouble,” he says.
“What were you doing at the smoke shop today? I’ve already met the gentlemen who run whatever is going on out of the basement, so just tell me the truth.” Drew blinks at her. His eyes move from her broken hand back to her face and she can tell he registers it. Something like protective rage mixed with fear flits across his face.
“They find people—find... things. They run a sort of business like a private investigator, except they don’t worry about stuff like laws—an ‘any means necessary’ type thing. I paid them to get me some information. You’re right. I wasn’t buying concert tickets when you saw me at that closed-down Hefty’s. Some guys I know hack computers and you can pay them for info... but they couldn’t help me. Probably because you have to know what you’re looking for if you want them to do much... and so I thought I’d get further with those guys at the smoke shop.”
“What are you looking for?” she asks flatly, trying to stay in control.
“Ally Whitlock. The car bomb. It started there. I saw something that day and I didn’t tell because I’m still not sure what it means.”
