The misfit 06 the broken.., p.3
The Misfit 06-The Broken-Hearted Many, page 3
part #6 of The Misfit Series
“How bad are you?” Curious. Listening for the teenage male’s bravado. And drugs. Always on the lookout for drugs.
“I drive my mom nuts when I go at it with her latest boyfriend. Got sent home from kindergarten three or four times and once in my senior year. Never been in trouble with the cops. Never even had a speeding ticket.”
“I think we can overlook getting sent home from kindergarten.” Satish’s mouth twitched. He doubted Maverick was playing him, but he’d met plenty of baby-faced killers. “What about shooting or popping or smoking?”
“I’m clean, dude. Can’t afford a habit. I’m savin’ my bucks to get my own place. Saturday nights I guzzle beer. Check me anywhere you want.” He held up one bare foot. “Check between my toes, ya want.”
“I don’t want. Keys?” Satish extended his open palm. “Do I need a warrant?”
“Hell, no.” Maverick fished the keys out of his front pocket and handed them over, along with his wallet. “Truck’s clean. I guarantee it.”
The muffled beat of water from the adjacent bathroom caught Satish by surprise. Did Maverick even realize he’d caught a lucky break?
No semen made a charge of rape close to impossible.
“Call me Thomas, but let’s go check out the truck.”
“Huh?” Frowning, Maverick stood—lanky and three inches taller than Satish’s six feet. “Who’s Thomas?”
“I figure no one you ever heard of.”
“Not a rock star for sure. Someone in the Bible, I bet. I usta read the Bible—you know, picture books. When I was a little kid. Went to Sunday School ’n everything.”
Satish waited at the bathroom door, knuckles raised to knock. His cop’s-ear picked up the mournful undercurrent in Maverick’s boyish voice. “Why’d you stop?”
“Aw, my dad took off. My mom worked a lot. Didn’t feel like getting up on Sunday mornings.”
“How old were you?” Satish dropped his knuckles and glanced at the DOB on Francis Maverick O’Rourke’s license.
“Five. Just starting kindergarten.”
Chapter 9
ANNASOPHIA
Impossible to believe the girl standing under steaming water, eyes closed, mascara running down her cheeks, scrubbing between her legs is my child. The same child who had—long ago, regularly—showered with Anastaysa, Magnus, and me. She’d even laughed and shrieked and sprayed us with abandon.
Two years ago when her body showed the first signs of puberty, she started using her own bathroom. What better place to daydream about our cool Swiss chef? Often before bed, she shared with me whispered descriptions of his gentle voice, his warm eyes, his curly hair. Her father picked up on her blushes and the frequency of her kitchen visits and fired Stefan without warning. Remembering Alexandra’s stunned silence at the announcement, I hug my waist.
Emergency … Sick sister. Michael’s straight face dared any of us to challenge his lie. He didn’t give a damn that we knew Stefan was an only child.
Goddamn you, Michael. I hope you got assigned the hottest spot in Hell.
Tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to wipe them away. What does Alexandra mean, she’ll deny anything I say about Maverick to the police? God, how long have they been having sex? She can’t think she’s in love with him. She adores Nicholas. Have they had sex? When did she lose her virginity?
Not tonight …
The water pounding my ears like Niagara Falls stops.
Silver drops stream off Alexandra. She reaches for the thick, white terrycloth robe hanging outside the shower. She pulls on the robe, wraps a towel around her hair, and flips her turban and face toward the ceiling. The robe she leaves open. No embarrassment about her scrubbed-pink breasts or damp pubic hair. She steps onto the bath mat. The circlet of stones in her breast twinkles like stars. Stunned, I can’t find the words to demand the obvious.
What is that?
“I’m not your little girl any longer, Mother.” She sashays toward the lavatory as if my silence is acceptance versus censure.
“Believe me, I understand that, Alexandra.” My mind veers back to her pierced breast. When? How?
“So why hang out here and watch me as if I’m a baby duckling about to drown?”
My heart jitters. “Maybe because you’re barely treading water.”
“In your opinion.”
“In my opinion.” My stomach clenches. I am losing this verbal game like the battles about curfew. Clothes. Body piercing. Absolutely not, Alexandra. No more discussion.
“As if your opinion matters.” She leans toward the mirror and peers at her reflection. “I plan to live my life the way I want.”
My chest tightens as if my heart has grown too large for its cavity. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself?”
She swipes condensation from the mirror, leans closer to her reflection, and traces her index finger along the ridge of her eyebrow. “Who else should I care about?”
Her father’s sentiments. “Are you doing drugs? Marijuana? Amphetamines?”
She glances at me without turning from the mirror. “Don’t you wish?”
Feeling as if I’m Alice sliding down the hole, I soften my voice and answer her question. “I don’t wish. I want to understand. Get you help—”
She turns and plants her hands on her waist, sparkling stone and mons pubis on exhibit. “Newsflash, Mother. I don’t need help. I don’t want help. I need space. To do what I want to do. Live my life. Pierce any part of my bod I want. Fuck whoever I want. Whenever I want. I think I’ve earned that right.”
Arteries in my neck thicken. My breath clogs my throat, but I can’t let her outrageous statement go unchallenged. “You’re not old enough to do whatever you want.”
“That depends on who you talk to, AnnaSophia.” Her slow tone of condescension rings with the arrogance of her dead father.
My stomach churns. “Unless you’ve checked with an attorney—”
“I do know an excellent attorney, but everything I need to know about emancipation I learned on the internet.” She draws a comb through her wet hair, smoothing the follicles, watching me in the mirror, smirking.
“Emancipation?” I repeat the word like a parrot learning new vocabulary instead of picking up on the attorney she knows. Have they met again? I pinch the bridge of my nose and concentrate on the here and now. “Did you learn I have to give my consent?”
“Not if I can show a good reason.” She lets the comment hang, but not long enough for me to grasp what good reason she may have. “I don’t have to live in a home that’s abusive.”
I lunge across the room, shake her arm, and slap the comb into the sink. “What are you talking about? You’re abusing your body with that obscene nipple ring.”
She twists her arm two, three times and then breaks my hold. Eyes blazing, she shows me her arm—imprinted with my fingerprints. “Stupid move, AnnaSophia.”
Chapter 10
SATISH
“We need a minute.” AnnaSophia’s response to Satish’s tap on the bathroom door carried the muffled quality of someone speaking underwater.
Satish hesitated. Was she crying? God knew she had reason. He cleared his throat. “Maverick and I are going to the garage.”
“Fine.” Her flat tone vibrated with pain and terminated further talk.
He motioned Maverick off the bed and said, “Back in about ten minutes.”
“Fine.”
“You okay?” Satish’s fingertips tingled. Stuff it, Patel.
Silence—clanging like the dead-end conversations he and Mère started once a day.
“My mom gives me the silent treatment all the time,” Maverick whispered. “The one thing that works is giving her an hour alone.”
But AnnaSophia’s not alone. Satish stepped into the hall. “Quiet. Her little boy’s asleep.”
Inside the garage, they went straight to the Bronco. “Another reason I don’t do drugs,” Maverick volunteered. “I can’t make the payments on my wheels and get high.”
Satish popped the hood. “What about dealing? That’d give you a few extra centavos.”
Maverick snorted. “You must think I’m a total fuck-up.”
“Damn.” Satish stopped his search for baggies and vials and anything that didn’t belong in the engine. He smacked his forehead. “The thought did flit through my head.”
“Yeah, I can see why. Believe it or not, I don’t take a lotta risks. Coming into a ritzy place like this … with a hot, gorgeous babe?” He shakes his head. “That’s the biggest chance I’ve ever took. Muling …” He shrugged. “I figure I wouldn’t live long enough for regrets.”
Satish slammed the hood. Maverick would never find the cure for cancer, but if AnnaSophia didn’t extract a pound of flesh, he might learn enough from this experience to do something worthwhile with his life.
“Don’t s’pose you know a lawyer—a good one? One who’d give me a break on his fee? I’ve got some money saved. I’d rather spend the rest of my life with my mom than go to prison.”
Satish stood from removing the first hubcap.
“I get you’re a friend of Lexi’s mom. You don’t want to help me, I understand.” No whining, no opening his palms, no hint of expectation in the statement.
“All depends on Mrs. Romanov.”
“Well, there you go. I’m fucked twenty ways to hell.” He placed an index finger against his temple and pulled the imaginary trigger.
“She had a lot of troubles a couple of years ago.” Satish moved to another tire.
“Lexi told me about her dad—after we climbed in bed. Said some real creepy shit. If she’d told me at Leather’s—or on the way home …” He cleared his throat. “My dad walkin’ out isn’t like her dad gettin’ murdered—and for sure nothing like what happened to her afterwards. But I remember I thought my heart had shriveled up and died for a long time after he left.”
Satish stood and faced the kid, searching for averted eyes, lip licking, or other signs of manipulation. “You might say that to Mrs. Romanov.”
“Nah. She’d think I was playing her. Which, don’t get me wrong, I’d do in a heartbeat.”
“Honesty can get you in trouble, you know.” Unsure if it was the gin speaking, Satish looked away and refocused his gaze on the kid’s guileless eyes. “You end up talking to the cops, you might want to think about what you say.”
Maverick frowned. “Don’t I have the right to remain silent?”
“You do. And think about that before you say anything without a lawyer.”
“Thanks.” Maverick brought his hand up for a fist bump but dropped it at his side without completing the gesture.
For the next ten minutes, Satish shut up and hunted under seats and floor mats, behind mirrors and padding on the doors, inside the glove box and overhead lights. He lifted and sifted and probed everywhere his fingers could reach. His cynicism didn’t melt, but it didn’t inflate. He closed the tailgate and wiped his hands.
“Clean,” he announced before he threw Maverick a test. “What about Alexandra? Was she smoking or popping pills or snorting coke around you?”
“I didn’t see her, but I’d say she’d had something—uppers, maybe, before she hit Leather’s. She was flyin’. Dumb me, I thought she was having a good time. Now … I think—” He shrugged. “I think she was trying to forget. Her dad was a real weird dude.”
An understatement. Satish said, “Weren’t you surprised she didn’t have wheels?”
“Said hers was in the shop. Said she Ubered from her house to Leather’s.”
“What else? Anything you can tell me may work in your favor with Mrs. Romanov.”
The kid shook his head. “Nothin’. She yakked all the way from the club. Never took a breath. I figured it was nerves. I thought about marching into her house, having a good time in her bed, sneaking out before her mom woke up—and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.”
Chapter 11
ANNASOPHIA
Alexandra pulls a pair of transparent, nude-colored baby-doll pajamas out of her bureau, holds them to the light, and slips the spaghetti-strapped top over her head.
“No,” I snap, hear myself, and soften my voice. “Detective Patel and Maverick should be back any min—”
“Point?” She arches a brow. “They’ve already seen my ass … ets.”
An image flares. I grab her. Shake her. Pull her against my breasts.
Her lip curls. Throat dry, I flex my fingers at my sides and meet her icy stare.
“What?” She presses her palms against her cheeks. “No comeback? What’s wrong? The cat can’t have your tongue because the damn beast went with Anastaysa on her sleepover.”
She hisses sleepover as if it’s an obscenity.
Deep in my brain, I see she wants to distract me. Sidetrack me. Keep me off balance.
Until Patel and Maverick come back.
At which point I can see her peel off the pajamas and declare, Just following AnnaSophia’s orders.
A muscle in my jaw ticks. Tension tightens my leg muscles like elevator cables, but I trudge to her closet and dig through dozens of tees and sweaters. Words to bridge the chasm between us claw at my larynx. When I step back into the bedroom with an over-sized sweatshirt, she’s examining her long, scarlet fingernails.
“Damn.” She massages a tip. “I broke a nail.”
Skin under my ultra-short nails—the only option for an ER doc—stings. I move toward her until I’m right in her face. Her pupils are huge. My scalp crawls. “Are your nails fake?”
Her eyes narrow and she angles her chin high. “Nothing about me is fake.”
“Two choices.” I wrap my fingers around her thin wrist—feel a fleeting moment of alarm. Too thin. I repress the thought and offer her the sweatshirt. “You put it on. Or ...”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you? Dressing me like I’m a baby. Humiliating me. Worried more about what two guys think than what I—”
I put my hand over her mouth. A millisecond of lightness races over me. “Forgot to mention I’m counting to twenty. Guess what happens next?”
She wrenches her head back and unfolds the sweatshirt—awkward with only one hand. “My fairy godmother appears and whisks me away to a land you can never visit?”
My breath catches. I don’t have to practice psychology to realize how calculated her jab is. The welt she raises on my heart jams my throat, but I whisper, “My heart would break if I could never visit you.”
“Uh-huh.” She tugs at her wrist, and it slips through my numb fingers. “Blah, blah, blah. Get used to the idea. I will make it happen.”
Savagely, she yanks the sweatshirt over her head as if she’s immune to pain. She fluffs her hair and sticks out her chest as if advertising her nipple ring. “Satisfied now?”
A tap at the door, followed by Patel’s voice offers me an escape. I resist the urge to jump up and jog across the room. Saved. Saved. Saved. Thank you, Patel.
If I don’t touch her, I can take her rejection.
No bawling.
“Come in.” I glance at Alexandra. What is she thinking? Does she ever think about that damn letter? After so long ...
Her eyelids lower seductively, the tip of her tongue caresses her upper lip. Her body sparks electricity like a live wire. What is she thinking?
Maverick comes through the door first. His gaze goes to Alexandra, then swivels to me. “Miz Romanov, I want to—”
Alexandra leaps at him, slams her palms against his chest, shoves him backward into Patel. “Don’t you dare apologize. Not to her.”
“Sit down.” Patel bumps the door with his backside but keeps himself and Maverick on their feet.
“She’s the one out of line.” Alexandra points at me. “She barged into my bedroom. Without my okay. I deserve some privacy.”
“That’s debatable,” Patel says in that voice capable of calming tornados and tsunamis.
“I’m happy to debate the issue. In fact, I’m hiring a lawyer to debate the issue for me.”
Unable to hear her declare again she’ll seek emancipation from my care, I close my eyes so I can’t see the determination etched in her set mouth. Hot needles shoot into my foot.
“Hiring a lawyer,” Patel says. “That’s interesting. You’ll need one. Using a fake ID to get into a bar can put you in big trouble.”
My eyes snap open. I jerk my screaming foot back as Alexandra whirls to face Maverick.
“What’d he do? Offer you a deal if you snitched?”
“He didn’t snitch,” Patel says. “In fact, he went out of his way to get you off the hook.”
Alexandra asks my question. “Why would he do that? He doesn’t even know me. He took one look around and figured I’m worth big bucks.”
Maverick opens his mouth, but Patel talks over him. “Wrong again. So why don’t you shut up for two minutes? Your mother looks as if she could use a breather.”
“No.” Alexandra lays her wrist on her forehead and tilts her head back like a nineteenth-century melodrama queen. “Just like Papá said. You belong to her Legion of the Besotted.”
Patel’s face remains unreadable, but the glance he throws me asks for an explanation.
Face hot, I give it. “Michael’s phrase for men he thought would do anything for me.”
“Include screw you,” Alexandra says.
Patel leaps across the room, wraps an arm around her waist, and drops her on the bed so fast she barely squeaks. “Last warning. Shut. Up. I saw duct tape in Maverick’s pickup. The stuff hurts like hell when you pull it off.”
He turns to me. “Sooner or later, we’re going to wake your son. Do you have a guest house—or someplace we can take this outside?”
“The pool house. It’s small but big enough for the four of us.”
“Okay, you and Maverick go first. Alexandra and I will follow later.”
“Mother.” Alexandra jumps off the bed. “I want to go with you. Take me with you and Maverick.”
