Tomass trials, p.9
Tomas’s Trials, page 9
“You think she was forced to take them?” Amber cried out in a low whisper.
He nodded. “I do. I mean, if she didn’t like something or smelled a trap, maybe it made her anxious so she reverted to being docile.” He stooped over to point out the contents in the trash can. “All this, and there’s still no way to know anything for sure, but the room isn’t right.”
“Where did you see pills?” she asked pointedly.
He pointed to the night table, where there was a little saucer with a bunch of empty pill packets. “Oh, that makes more sense,” Amber said.
“Mary may have made Peaches drink it forcibly,” he suggested.
“Maybe,” she added. “And maybe Peaches said she wasn’t feeling good this morning, meaning she couldn’t stop smiling, and then Mary came over and gave her something.” She stopped to think it through. “But that would also imply that Mary was trying to kill her. Or at least knock her out,” she said fearfully.
“Whichever was more convenient for them.”
At that, Peaches gave a low groan, and she slowly opened her eyes. When she saw the two of them, she shattered into tears. “What happened?” she whispered, softly crying.
“What happened to you is a very good question,” he said. “I’m hoping you can answer that.”
She stared at him. “I don’t know,” she replied, clutching at her throat with one hand, her other arm wrapped around her stomach. “My throat, it hurts.”
“Yeah, I made you throw up,” he explained calmly, “and, according to everybody else, you tried to commit suicide.”
She stared at him in shock, and she frowned. Her eyebrows pulled closer, and she looked around to make sure they were alone, then she whispered, “I didn’t. I was just upset.”
“After what we found last night?” Tomas asked her. She nodded, and he looked at her thoughtfully. “That was my take on it too,” he agreed, lost in his own head. “Did you see Mary this morning?”
She nodded. “I wasn’t sure that I could act normal with her, and she’s very perceptive, so I told her that I wasn’t feeling good, and I couldn’t do the morning shift. She came back and gave me a tisane tea.”
“Well, guess what? … That was a bad idea.” Amber shook her head. “Whatever these pills were, and whether they were part of the tisane or not, you were unconscious when we got here. Supposedly Mary couldn’t wake you, which is when she came down and got us.”
Peaches stared at Amber and then stared at the empty pill packs. With her hands at a throat, she whispered, “What the hell?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “What the hell is about right. We need to get you some medical help.”
“They won’t let me,” she stated. “They won’t let anybody.”
“That’s just too damn bad,” Tomas said, with a hard smile. “They’ll have a fight on their hands if they try to stop me.” And, with that, he got up, then scooped Peaches in his arms and carried her outside to his vehicle. He put her in the passenger side, and, with a hard look over at Amber, he said, “I’ll be back in a little bit.” He fired up the truck and took off like a bat out of hell.
Several people came running after he left.
“What happened?”
“What’s going on?”
“Where’s he going?”
“How is she?”
The voices were a cacophony of shock, anger, and curiosity, all as one.
“I think he’ll get her medical help,” Amber said.
“But it’s not allowed.”
“Apparently it is now,” she replied in a dry tone. “Good luck trying to tell him that he can’t do it. By the way, she was awake and said that she didn’t take those pills.”
The women looked at her in shock.
“But then …” One woman tried to say something and suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought too,” Amber agreed, then turned to go to her basement suite, shaking her head. She went straight to her room and got dressed properly. This day would be shit, and it was a little warmer too. She would have some pretty uncomfortable questions to answer, and, sure enough, by the time she walked into the kitchen, trying to appear as normal as possible, Mary glared at her.
“No medical help. That’s the rule.”
“Considering that it was quite possible you’d end up with a dead body here and lots of questions to answer, it seemed like the most prudent thing to do.”
“Even after we said no?” she growled.
“Maybe, but what was I supposed to do? Let a friend die?”
“She chose it herself, and she was conscious when he took her out of there,” Mary snapped.
“Mary, Peaches said that she didn’t take any pills.”
“Well, of course she would say that,” she spat in disgust. “How many people admit to trying to commit suicide? Now go report to Baxter,” she ordered, her voice ringing with authority.
Amber stared at her. “So I do something good for a friend who’s unconscious and quite possibly dying,” she said slowly, “and now I’m in trouble?”
“You know the rules.”
“Even if somebody is in deep trouble?” she asked in complete bewilderment. She had a good idea what was happening, but to even think that something like that was possible seemed incredulous. She looked over at the two pregnant women. “And what about the pregnancies?”
Mary snorted. “Women have been giving birth for centuries without the need of a doctor,” she sneered. “Nobody here needs medical attention for something like that.”
Such a noticeable scorn was in her voice that Amber was literally shocked. “Wow.” She looked over at the other two women again, who were definitely listening to this conversation, but carefully kept their heads down. “Meaning, a problem is here, and you think it’s me?”
“There’s no problem,” Mary snapped. “It’s just obvious that you don’t have the personality that we need here.”
“You mean that of someone who chose to look after a friend,” she stated calmly. “One who obviously needed medical help—lying there helpless and dying this morning. Why did you call on me if you thought she didn’t need help?”
“I wasn’t expecting you to do what you did,” she snapped, sneering. “But obviously it’s a good thing I did contact you, so now we know.”
“Know what?” she asked, pressing forward, even though she knew it was best to just shut up … yesterday.
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Mary said, with a hard laugh. “You’ll find out soon enough.” At that, she looked over at the other two women and told them, “Go about your work.”
The other women immediately got up and left.
When both women were out of earshot, Amber crossed her arms and stared at Mary, exasperated. “I don’t get it,” she said. “How is this even a place worthy of living here if you don’t look after your own people in an emergency?”
“We look after them just fine.” Mary nodded, looking behind her, and Amber was alarmed at hearing a sound behind her. “These two will escort you to Baxter.” And, with that, Mary turned away, as if to say Amber was dismissed.
Unsettled, and with an icy finger of fear clutching at her heart, Amber knew she might very well be led to her death. Her insides were cold, as she walked toward the leader’s house.
The two gunmen led her up to Mary and Baxter’s house, then motioned her to go inside. As she stepped up onto the deck, Baxter called to her from the other side. “What did you do?” He sounded vexed but not angry.
“I was helping a friend,” she stated. “It was obvious that she needed her stomach pumped, or she could die. She needed help, so how could that be wrong?”
For a long moment, he looked at her. His hard eyes were calculating, as if looking into her soul. Then he sighed. “In a normal circumstance it probably wouldn’t come to this,” he said, and, as she tried to get closer to him, he held up a hand. “Stay there.”
She frowned, but she stayed where he asked. Something was going on here that she didn’t quite understand and wasn’t even sure she would ever get a chance to. This place was a ticking time bomb, with so many innuendos and undercurrents that made no sense. “I don’t understand,” she admitted, and there was no need to even feign the bewilderment. “I thought I was helping.”
“Of course you did,” he replied, “and, in many cases, that’s what it would look like.”
“Would look like?” she repeated, holding up her hands. “So what does it look like now? Mary is really angry with me.”
“Yes,” he agreed, with a ring of authority, more so than Mary. “She has a very strict sense of right and wrong.”
“How can helping a friend not die be wrong?” she asked, almost crying, her tears nearly ready to spill, hoping it helped her be seen as a victim, not a spy.
“In this case we all know that Peaches has been very distraught lately,” he noted. “So it’s that much more of a problem.”
“It’s not a problem if she gets help,” Amber murmured. “It’s not a problem if it’s the people who are supposed to be her friends. Let her see that you care. We all do.”
He looked at her sharply. “And it’s nice that you worry about her,” he noted, “but it would have been best if you hadn’t interfered.”
“Baxter, I don’t understand that,” she said. “I really don’t. I was scared. … It never occurred to me that … that I was doing something wrong.” Tears spilled down her face, and the words came out sounding choked and hysterical. Her anger was tamed, and she needed to look remorseful.
“No,” he agreed, “and I understand that.”
She stared at him, trying to see through the shadows on the deck. “So, what am I supposed to do? I mean, we have pregnant women here. Are they supposed to die in childbirth, if something goes wrong?”
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he stated. “We didn’t always use to be quite so black-and-white about things. And I do trust Mary to keep everybody safe. To keep you all safe.”
“Mary? … I thought she looked like she had given up. Like she would have been happy to let Peaches die.”
“Was she dying?” he asked, with a note of finality in his voice. “Even if she was, it was by her own choice.”
“She certainly didn’t like being pressured to marry somebody,” Amber shared, knowing she really shouldn’t be bringing it up.
“Who was pressuring her?”
“I think it was Russ,” she murmured.
“Hmm,” he murmured, his voice soft as he contemplated. “I’ll have a talk with him.”
“It wouldn’t be good …” She suddenly stopped, realizing her mistake. “I mean, if a woman has to commit suicide to get away from him, definitely something is wrong there.”
He let out a short bark of laughter. “Isn’t that the truth.” He was laughing hard now. It took him sometime to collect his bearings. “Anyway,” he said, “I’ll talk to Mary. Obviously you didn’t have any idea what was expected.”
“No, I didn’t,” she agreed, “and I … I’m really struggling now to understand how this is supposedly a good thing for anyone.”
“Of course,” he said. “Those who have been here for a long time understand, but, when you bring in new people, it gets complicated. They’re new, young, hotheaded, and they don’t understand our system.”
“I’m sorry. I should have known, and apparently I messed it up,” she said, with their arms wide. “And still I feel like I would do it again to help anybody in trouble. I care for the people here. This is the only family I have.”
He nodded, and his voice was soft when he said, “Yes, of course you would.” He paused for a moment. “I’ll think about this. Go back to your house and stay there.”
She stepped back. “Have I really done something terribly wrong?”
“By the rules that we have set, yes,” he stated, looking at her keenly. “I do understand why you did it, but there still must be consequences.” When he said the word consequences, his voice hardened.
She gasped. “My God.” Her whole body shook, and, as much as she wanted to shut up, she still asked, “Like what?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he admitted. “Again, I have to think about it. Now go on back to your house and stay there until you’re contacted.”
She nodded slowly. “And what about my fiancé?”
“He won’t be allowed back on the property,” he told her flatly.
“And Peaches?”
“That is a completely different issue and doesn’t concern you now,” he replied, his voice calm and authoritative, almost as if daring her to argue.
She didn’t even know what else to say. It was obvious that whatever she had thought would happen went out the window when Peaches messed it up, or it was messed up for them.
Amber wouldn’t argue if it meant staying here. This was her only chance now to stay and to weigh in one way or the other. She took a step back and said, “Fine, I’ll go back to my place.” She turned and, with the men still escorting her silently, she headed back to her place. She stepped inside and closed and locked the door. Almost immediately, a hard pounding came on the door. She looked out the window to find Brutus glaring through the window at her.
“What?” she asked, leaving the door closed and locked.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.
“It seems like nobody gives a damn about Peaches around here. Actually it’s good to know that’s how it is,” she snapped bitterly. “Pardon me for thinking the right thing to do was to try to help someone.”
That seemed to stop him for a moment. “We have our own code here,” he said, calming down. “I thought you knew that.”
“A code is one thing,” she argued, “but letting people die for lack of care is another.”
“Peaches tried to commit suicide,” he snapped. “Everybody knows that.”
“Only because she was being pressured into marriage by one of the guys.” She pointed her finger at Brutus. “How is that okay?”
He stared at her in surprise. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“Russ.” She told him about the argument they heard last night, and Brutus stepped back. “Interesting,” he murmured. “That’s not generally allowed either.”
“Right! So who around here was looking after Peaches?” she asked bitterly. The next time she spoke, she was in tears again. “It doesn’t seem like anybody around here gives a crap about her.”
With that, she stepped away, refusing to talk to Brutus anymore. She wasn’t sure what the hell would happen, but she knew that something was about to go down—or to come crashing in on her head. Screw the three-day ultimatum to get out of here. This was all about to blow up in her face, and, whether she wanted more answers about Annette or not, Amber needed to get the hell out before the decision was made for her.
She needed to get out before she wasn’t able to.
Chapter 6
“Thank God.” Amber raced to Tomas, throwing herself into his arms, when he finally showed up.
He held her close and stroked her head. “Thank God you’re okay. I really hated leaving you behind.”
“There wasn’t a whole lot of choice,” she murmured. “I was called in to see Baxter, and he’s making the decision about my behavior. But he also said that you wouldn’t be allowed back on the property.”
“Yeah, I got that message loud and clear,” he noted. “So I left again, and the truck is parked down the way. Don’t give him the choice to tangle you up here. Do you want to leave now?”
“Yeah, I don’t think I have a choice at this point,” she said hoarsely.
“I think you should. We know that Peaches is out and safe,” he noted.
“Is she though?” she asked, looking at him.
“She’s in the hospital under guard. Levi arranged that.”
“Thank God for that,” she murmured.
“I’ve also talked to the county sheriff, and it’s the Baxter Levi thought it may be,” he said cheerfully. “So, if you were expecting leniency, you can forget it. As far as Baxter’s history goes, his rap sheet is huge. I am concerned that he has no morals, and, as such, no qualms about ordering somebody killed in a heartbeat.”
She shuddered. “I was afraid of that. I’m not even sure what to say. I haven’t got all the answers I wanted.”
“You may never get all those answers,” he stated firmly. “I’m not the kind of guy who would order you to go, but I’m certainly of the opinion—”
“You should go find Dezi,” she murmured. “I haven’t seen him at all.”
“No, I haven’t either,” he murmured, “and I may check that out tonight.”
“In which case we can’t leave yet,” she stated. “I won’t leave someone here who came in to help me get out of trouble.”
He smiled at her. “Believe me. If he’s in trouble, you can’t help.”
“I might be able to …”
He shook his head. “No, our best move now is to get you the hell out of here.”
She thought about it for a second, then remembered the look in Baxter’s eyes and his words. She nodded. “I guess you’re probably right, even as much as I hate to give in.”
“I don’t think it’s giving in,” he argued. “I think it’s about making a good decision before all the options are bad.”
She winced at that. “I can’t believe that guy, … like he can get away with keeping people prisoner like this. And I feel bad for the women who are pregnant.”
“Yeah, I’m sure they’re wondering about their own options right now too,” he noted, “but you have to understand that, in some cases, the women can be way worse than the men.”
“That would be Mary,” she confirmed.
Just then the door burst open, and Brutus was there, with a grin on his face.
“Now that’s what I wanted to see,” he said, with a jeer. “The fiancé is here.”
Thankfully it was just Brutus. “What are you doing here?” she cried out. “How dare you just storm into my place.”
