I don’t have to listen to any more to know why she’s apologizing for taking down my address. “Where’s Elaine?”

“She’s on her way.”

The dead silence that follows this sentence is filled with all the things I’ve never told anyone. All the tiny lies I’ve told myself over the years about how none of it matters. It was a moment in time that can be forgotten – maybe even erased. I’m nobody special and the things that happened to me a million years ago affect no one, just me.

But it keeps getting more and more difficult to believe that when I see the fallout. The broken trust I’d begun to repair with Grandma and Molly when I invited them over last weekend is nothing but dust now, settling over the wreckage of my past. And it’s not their fault. It’s my fault for believing I could just walk around the wreckage. Pretend it wasn’t there. Pretend it didn’t matter.

It so obviously matters. Nothing has ever mattered more.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Nine Years Ago

This is the last time. I know she said that about the last two times, but this time I’m not backing down. If I have to do this again after today, I’ll know that she’s full of shit – as I suspected.

I enter the dingy bedroom at the back of the house, where the sweet smell of crack-pipe always lingers. My gaze immediately darts to the corner of the room, where the john usually sits in the cruddy armchair next to a small table stocked with all the essentials: tissues, lube, condoms, and other shit I’d never seen or heard of until three weeks ago. When I see the person sitting in the chair, I’m dumbstruck. It’s a woman.

It’s usually some fat, mangy, perverted asshole who wants to get off to two kids getting it on. This woman is not fat or mangy. She looks like a fucking school teacher with her coral-pink sweater and gray slacks. She’s careful not to touch the arms of the chair as she sits with one leg draped over the other and her hands clasped over her knee.

Elaine’s voice startles me out of my stupor and I turn toward the bed. The girl lying on the bed looks young, maybe even younger than me. Her brown hair has been styled in pigtails, her round brown eyes are wide with fear, and she’s wearing nothing but a bra and a schoolgirl skirt.

Vomit stings the back of my throat and, before I can stop it, a small stream of partially digested toast oozes out of my mouth. I catch it with my hand and Elaine sighs. “That’s disgusting. Go wash your hands.”

I glance at the girl as I leave the bedroom and her eyes are closed as tears stream down her face. I race to the bathroom and lock the door behind me. I dump the vomit out of my hand and into the sink, then I reach for the faucet to wash my hands. The faucet handle is splattered with blood, as is the countertop and the wall behind the sink. The blood is fresh, too. Someone must have just shot up in here.

Grabbing a wad of toilet paper, I use the paper as a shield between my hand and the faucet handle as I turn the water on. I wash my hands in super-hot water and lots of soap then I take a seat on the toilet.

I should just leave. Even if this is the last time I have to do this, it’s not worth it. The girl’s face, her tears, flash in my mind and I try not to think the obvious. If I don’t do it to her, they’ll get somebody else – someone who may hurt her.

I hate it here.

I hate it here.

I hate it here.

I drag myself out of the bathroom and trudge back down the hallway toward the sweet, acrid stench of hopelessness. When I enter the bedroom, the girl is sitting cross-legged on the bed, holding her skirt down between her legs to cover herself up.

“Tristan, this is Ashley,” Elaine declares. Then she whispers in my ear, “This is the last one. I promise.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I try to temper my anger as I make my way back to the guest room. When I enter, I nearly bump into Senia as she walks out of the room with the breakfast tray.

“I’ll take that,” I say, taking the tray from her hands. “You go take a shower. I have to run to the store real quick to grab a Christmas card for Lily. Do you need anything?”

She looks confused by my plans. “Christmas was yesterday. And I already gave Lily a card with her bonus on Christmas Eve. I told you.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot.” I try to quickly come up with another reason to leave, but I’m so anxious I can’t think straight. “I have to go pick up our presents from Grandma’s house. She just called to ask if she could send them, but I told her I’d go pick them up.”

When lying, it’s always best to go with an explanation that closely resembles the truth.

She still looks perplexed; probably wondering why I need to get the presents now rather than later. But she relents and proceeds to gather some fresh clothes so she can take a shower. When she reaches into her suitcase for some panties, I snatch them out of her hand and toss them into the corner.

“You won’t be needing those.” She grins as I kiss her cheekbone. “I’ll be right back.”

I race downstairs and jump in my car, then I drive down to the entrance of Giovanni Court and park. I forgot to ask Grandma if Elaine was coming alone, so I have my Glock 23 on the seat next to me. The last thing I need is to get into it with one of her strung-out boyfriends. I wait exactly twelve minutes before I see the front of her maroon minivan coming down Venetian. I pull my car around the corner and flip a hard left in front of her so she has to slam on her brakes. I stuff the gun into the back of my waistband then I hop out of the car and head straight for the driver’s side of the minivan. I wrench the door open and her eyes are wide, but there’s a shocked smile on her face.

“Get out!” I order her and she fumbles a little with the seatbelt before she slides out of the van.

I immediately begin searching her car and quickly find her cell phone and the small Post-it note where my address is scrawled in Grandma’s shaky handwriting. I drop the paper on the asphalt and smash it with my sneaker until it’s disintegrated. Then I search for my contact information in her phone and, sure enough, she already entered it in there. She laughs as I delete my address and phone number from her phone and search all her notes apps and social apps to make sure she didn’t save it somewhere else.

“Don’t you ever fucking come here again,” I growl as I throw her phone into the interior of her car. “This is your first and only warning: forget my address.”

She’s still smiling as she reaches into the van toward the front seat. I slide my hand behind my back and prepare for the worst. But she doesn’t pull out a gun.

“Petition for full-custody of Molly,” she says, handing me a large white envelope. “I already gave your grandma a copy. I came all the way out here, out of the kindness of my heart, to give you one.”

I snatch the envelope out of her hand and glance at the return address: Debra Holstein, Esq.

“You’re fucking deluded if you think I’d ever let that happen. But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You think you’ve got me where you want me because you know where I live. You think I’m scared you’re going to send your crackhead boyfriends or some fucking reporters over here. Well, you’re wrong. Because I don’t live here any more. Now get the fuck out of here before I call Debra Holstein and tell her everything.”

Her smile finally fades and she slowly gets back into the car. “This isn’t over. Someone gets Grandma’s house when she dies and you sure as hell don’t need it,” she says, glancing around at the sprawling properties on Venetian Court. “You’ve always been so selfish.”

She slams the door shut and it takes everything in me not to pull the gun out of my waistband and shoot. I don’t know what I’d shoot. Maybe just shooting her tires would make me feel better. But I’m too fucking chicken-shit to find out.