Justify - Trent (Kimball Brothers #2) Read online

  I nod and avert my gaze to the water, reaching down to splash a handful onto my face.

  “So what do we do, then?” Macon asks, stretching his legs, “you have proof, why won’t the cops buy it?”

  I laugh, running a wet hand through my hair. “Are you kidding?” I say, “you know my reputation with them. I ain’t exactly a shining star.”

  “We have to tell Alma,” Cassandra speaks up, “if someone tells her all of this, maybe she’ll remember something and she can change her statement…”

  Macon nods and stands up, reaching for her hand.

  “Wait!” I call after them, reaching for my socks and boots and pulling them on.

  Macon lights a smoke and throws me the pack. “What?”

  I pull one out and light it, taking a slow drag.

  “There’s something else about Joaquin that you should know…”

  Chapter 8

  “He has to come back here eventually, right?”

  I look at Griff in the rearview mirror and shrug. His voice is quiet, conspiratorial. Macon is beside me in the passenger seat, taking slow drags of his smoke. He hasn’t spoken since the lake. We picked Griff up and dropped Cassandra off at the farm on our way here, instructing her to talk to Alma.

  “I don’t know,” I say, clearing my throat, “maybe.”

  A woman approaches from down the street, her high heels making heavy contact with the pavement. I recognize her as Angie and start to get out of the truck, but Macon pulls me back. “Wait,” he says, “lets just see what she does.”

  I comply, leaning back in my seat.

  Angie makes her way up the front steps of Joaquin’s trailer and pulls a set of keys from her pocket, unlocking the door.

  “That’s all I have to see,” I say, climbing out the truck.

  “Hey!” I call out to her.

  She glances at me and her face drains of color. I’m struck by the notion that she looks a lot like a deer caught in headlights—all wide eyed and open mouthed, and I suspect right away that after this morning, she was counting on never running into me again.

  I don’t know her, but she’s pretty in that offhand way that a lot of women like her are, and maybe I would have noticed earlier if the situation hadn’t been what it was. Her hair is short and platinum blonde—black at the roots—and it curls around her face.

  Her eyes—two pools of tired green—dart back and fourth between me and my brothers. She tries to close the door but I reach forward to stop her and Macon and Griff follow.

  “What the fuck?” she yells in the same way she did this morning, stumbling inside. “What the fuck do you think you’re—”

  “Look,” I say, grabbing her wrists, “we don’t want to hurt you, alright? We just want to know where Joaquin is…”

  She frowns, then, signals with her hands. I glance back at Macon and Griff, then back at her.

  “Sorry?”

  “Can you repeat that?” she asks with an exasperated sigh, “slower?”

  There’s something off about her voice. She laughs, running a hand through her matted hair.

  “I think she’s deaf,” Griff speaks up, pointing to his ears.

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I just picked up on that.”

  “Look,” I say, turning to face Angie and talking slower, “I need to know where Joaquin is.”

  She frowns and bites down on her bottom lip, rubbing a hand over the running mascara on her cheeks. “I don’t…”

  Griff steps forward. “I got this,” he says, nodding at me, “I know ASL.”

  Macon and I glance at each other. “Since when?”

  Griff ignores us and holds up his hands to Angie, signaling that it’s alright. She blushes and looks at the ground, but he cups her chin and brings her gaze back to his, beginning to sign with his other hand.

  What the hell?

  “Look,” I say after a few minutes, “you two are real cute, maybe you can go out for dinner or something, but right now, would you mind focusing? What is she saying, Griff? Does she know where he is or not?”

  Griff doesn’t answer. He’s too caught up in his sign language flirtation to hear me. I sigh and push him back, rolling my eyes. I turn to Angie, speaking directly to her so that she can read my lips. “Do you have any idea where he is?”

  She shakes her head.

  “No,” she says, looking over my shoulder at Griff and hugging her arms. “I…I dance at this club just outside of town. The Rhino. Joaquin usually comes to pick me up but I got off a few hours early and had someone drop me off. I can text him, if you want…and tell him that I need to be picked up at the usual time…”

  For a deaf girl, she sure does know how to talk.

  “Perfect,” I say, taking the smoke from her hand and inhaling a slow drag, “just show us how to get there.”

  * * *

  The Rhino is a caricature of your run of the mill strip joint. We pay the cover and enter, taking a seat at the bar.

  “What can I get ya?” a downtrodden looking waitress asks us, pushing her bangs out of her face.

  “Just a couple beers,” I answer for all of us, “we can’t be getting shit faced right now,” I add, glancing at my brothers.

  The waitress nods and walks to the other end of the bar, grabbing three Blue Ribbons from a mini fridge and pouring the contents of each one into three glasses filled with ice. I survey the small room, not paying much attention to the two girls on the stage. They aren’t much to write home about, but then again, this is the dayshift.

  “So when can we be expecting him?” I ask, glancing at Angie, who is draped in Griff’s lap with her slender arms wrapped around his neck.

  He’s grinning like a preteen boy who just got his first boner. I roll my eyes, taking a long drink of the beer that is set down in front of me and nodding at the waitress.

  “Well? Can you ask her?” I say, nudging Griff in the side.

  “Shit, sorry,” he says.

  I watch him sign something to Angie and she nods.

  “Soon,” she says to me, looking at the time on her phone, “I told him I needed to be picked up at five.”

  I glance up at the clock. It’s a quarter till.

  “Hey there,” a woman says, caressing my shoulders.

  I look back at her and she slides into my lap before I can stop her. She’s all hands; I flinch when I feel her running the edge of a red nail down my chest.

  “Want a lap dance?”

  I laugh, taking her small palms in mine. “No thanks, sweetheart. I’m here on business, not pleasure.”

  A frown crosses over his face but it’s fleeting, and I can tell she’s not the type to give up so easily.

  “What’s your name?” I ask, nonplussed.

  “Elvira.”

  Elvira.

  I throw the name around in my head. The neon strobes glow against her skin, lighting her up in hues of pink and red and pseudo-daylight. This place is her second chance, her paradise.

  “No, your real name, I mean,” I say with a nod, “what is it?”

  She raises an eyebrow at me and bites her bottom lip, not meeting my gaze. “Evelyn,” she says with some hesitance, “but I don’t usually tell customers that.”

  I shake my head, taking a long drink of my beer. “Well, good,” I say, “cuz I ain’t a customer.”

  Her smile drops and she curls her arms over her chest. “What’s yours?” she questions.

  “What?”

  “Your name, you asked mine, so what’s yours?”

  I laugh, averting my gaze to the door. Any minute now, Joaquin will be walking through it. I can’t afford to miss him because of a stripper.

  “Trent,” I answer flippantly.

  She adjusts in my lap. “Like Reznor?”

  I damn near choke on my beer. Her whole face is lit up, emphasizing her point.

  Who does this woman think she is?

  “Fuck no,” I say, clearing my throat, “Trent. Just Trent.”

  That gets a laug
h out of her. Her eyes study my face intently. “Well, then, it was nice meeting you, just Trent,” she says, extending her hand to me. I take it, giving it a quick shake.

  There’s sadness to be found in the depths of her glamorous appearance. She’s all glitter, and lace, and hairspray set curls, but I can see the damage the world has done her by the weary look in her kohl-rimmed eyes. In the way she sets her jaw and angles her body to hide the scars criss-crossed along the insides of her arms.

  She smiles subserviently at me before walking away, glancing back at me once as she climbs into the lap of another sucker.

  Macon laughs and takes a sip of his own beer.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Angie speaks up, “It’s kind of our job to approach everyone, you know?”

  I start to answer but then I remember that she can’t hear me. Each minute rolls by at a snails pace until finally, Joaquin enters. He spots us right away and tries to run off, but Macon is on his feet in a flash and follows him outside, pummeling him to the ground.

  “Is it true?” he spits, “did you fucking rape my sister? You dirty blooded piece of shit…”

  He slams into him before he can answer, pounding his head against the pavement. Griff tries to stop him, but Angie, of all people, pulls him back.

  “Hey now,” I say after a few minutes, grabbing Macon by his leather jacket, “ease up, we need him to be conscious to admit what he did to the cops. Besides, you don’t want to be making contact with his fluids.”

  Joaquin laughs and coughs up blood.

  “Hey,” I say, grabbing a handful of his hair, “is something funny to you?”

  “Yeah,” he bites back, looking at me through swollen eyes. He nods at Angie, who shrinks beneath his gaze. “She ain’t clean either.”

  “Bullshit!” she yells, somehow catching on. She signs something to Griff. “I get tested every week. It’s a requirement for the job! He’s the dirty one, not me…”

  “I don’t care,” I interject, turning my attention back to Joaquin and pulling him up, “you’re coming with us to the police station. And you’re going to tell them everything.”

  He continues laughing as I shove him in the back seat of the truck. Macon climbs in beside him and holds him roughly down as he thrashes.

  “Come on!” I yell to Griff, “lets go—you can make nice with your little girlfriend later.”

  Griff rolls his eyes and turns to Angie, signing something to her. She smiles at him and stands on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss against his cheek.

  “Alright,” he says, climbing in the truck and glancing back at Joaquin, “lets do this.”

  Chapter 9

  Cassandra, Alma and my ma are already at the station when we get there.

  “Trent!”

  My ma’s soft face lights up when she sees me. She stuffs her crotchet garb in her purse, standing up to pull me into a tight hug. “I’m so sorry, honey. I prayed about this, I knew it wasn’t you, I just knew it.”

  That doesn’t surprise me. My ma’s been taking her problems to a man in the clouds her entire life.

  “I’m sorry too,” Alma speaks up from behind her. Her voice cracks. Her blue eyes are brimmed with tears that don’t quite spill over. She’s a tiny little thing with a dancers body, all intricate and hollow, and her face is respectably haunted. “I made mom take me here so I could change my statement. I’m so sorry, Trent, I know you wouldn’t do that I was just…”

  “Confused,” I finish for her, giving her a soft smile. “It’s okay, Alm’s. I understand. It ain’t your fault.”

  I’m sick inside. Absolutely gutted by the prospect of having to give her any more bad news. Everything is bad enough as it.

  I give them both a tight hug, waving at Cassandra over their shoulders. I wasn’t sure about her at first but she ain’t half bad—for a city girl at least—and I find myself hoping that Macon actually sticks it out with her when he heads back to LA, that is—if our crazy ass family hasn’t scared her off already.

  I notice Macon and Griff dragging a thrashing Joaquin inside the station and I pull away. “Ma,” I say, “take Alma home. I have something to take care of.”

  Cassandra nods and stands up. She and my ma lead Alma out a set of doors in the back of the station. I approach the front desk and knock on the glass partition, grabbing the cop’s attention.

  “I need to speak with Detective Stevens,” I say, nodding at Joaquin, whose arms are secured firmly behind his back by Macon, “I have a little delivery for him.”

  * * *

  “So that’s it, then?” Melissa breathes, looking up at me, “you’re all cleared?”

  I take a hit off a half-crushed clove, allowing the sweet fumes to invade my lungs.

  “Be careful,” she laughs, “don’t get ash in my hair.”

  Her face is pressed against my chest. We’re stretched naked across her unmade bed, sweaty and exhausted. I flick the ash onto the ground and I smooth her hair back in the way she likes, twirling a strand around my finger. I like the view from this angle. I tell her so and she smiles into me, snuggling in closer.

  I wonder, in passing, how we got to this point. It started over a decade ago, shortly after high school, the year Cain was born. I had heard she liked me and I took the dive. What was stopping us, then? Aside from the minimal age difference and moral repercussions that came along with courting a pregnant girl—I was hooked.

  Now, here we are. Almost eighteen years later, doing the same old dance in a different setting.

  I nod, reaching for my beer on the bedside table and taking a long drink. “Yeah,” I say, pulling myself back down to earth, “I’m off the hook. They booked Joaquin and charged him…”

  “And I actually watched them rip up the report, this time, so they can’t keep it in my file the way they did with Liz’s statement.”

  Melissa laughs and sits up, reaching for my discharged t-shirt on the end of the bed and pulling it over her messy hair.

  “How is she doing these days, anyway?” I ask, changing the subject.

  She looks back at me and raises an eyebrow, perching a clove between her lips and lighting it. “Who? Liz?”

  I nod.

  “She’s good…married to this banker in Oklahoma City and expecting her first kid. Why, you aren’t wanting to leave me for her, are you?”

  I laugh, pulling her body back down on mine. “Shut up,” I whisper, pressing my mouth against hers.

  Our tongues dance against each other.

  Melissa runs her hands down my chest and cups my cock in her hands, giving it a squeeze. “Round two?” she breathes, reaching for a pack of condoms on the table and snapping one off.

  “I can’t,” I say, standing up. “Sorry, baby. I have to get going. Besides…I don’t know if it’s safe for us to be…you know…until I get those test results back.”

  Melissa sighs and sits up against the bed frame, reaching for her still-smoking clove in the ashtray and taking a drag. “You’re fine, Trent. Seriously.”

  “Yeah,” I say, pulling on my jeans, “but it still doesn’t feel right, you know? I don’t want to put you in danger.”

  She purses her lips and smiles at me. “You’re such a gentleman.”

  Ha.

  That’s a new one.

  I arch a brow at her, pulling my jacket on over my bare chest and zipping it up. Melissa has an uncanny way of stealing all of my shirts.

  “Nah,” I say, stuffing my wallet and phone back in my pocket, “I’m still a—what was it you said the other night? Oh yeah, a ‘no good dirty rotten jack ass,’ I just happen to care about you, that’s all.”

  Melissa scoffs and hurls the pack of cloves at me. I catch them without trying and flash a smile at her. “Kidding, I’m kidding,” I say, holding up my hands. “Anyway, I have to go…”

  “Okay,” she nods, setting her jaw. I can hear the implication of disappointment on her breath. She never likes this part—watching me go. She told me once that it was because it always fel
t permanent. That she didn’t think I was capable of staying out of trouble.

  “Hey,” I say, turning around to face her, “I have this…family dinner. Would you want to come with?”

  It’s the first time—in eighteen years of tug and pull—that I’ve ever asked her on an actual date.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe I’ve never been here before,” Melissa says, climbing out of my truck. She traces her fingers over the flaking welcome sign I helped my father cement. “How long have you guys been doing it?” she asks, turning to look at me, “herding cattle, I mean.”

  I study her and shrug; it’s been so long since I’ve seen her body clothed in anything other than scrubs, but tonight she’s in a simple burgundy dress. She looks beautiful, with her hair pulled up into an effortless bun and a few loose strands curling around her face. I tell her so and she blushes, meeting eyes with me.

  “Awhile,” I say, taking her hand in mine and leading her toward the house.

  Macon, Griff and Adam are on the front porch playing cards. They nod at us and I introduce them all to Melissa even though they kind of already know her. I can hear my ma and the girls inside, preparing supper, and my pops in the barn—listening to oldies under the guise of working.

  This is the way things are supposed to be but rarely ever are—everything working in harmony. No one at anyone else’s throat.

  “Trent?” my ma calls out when we enter the house, “that you?”

  I take Melissa’s jacket and hang it up by the door. “Yeah, It’s me,” I say, “I brought someone with me, though.”

  I take Melissa’s hand once more and lead her into the kitchen. Cassandra is at the table, peeling potatoes, and she looks just as at home as Alma and my ma. This place has a way of doing that to people. Making them comfortable with simplicity.

  After introductions are made, Melissa slides into an empty chair between Alma and Cassandra and picks up a peeler, going to work on a potato without having to be asked. It’s a simple enough gesture, but it highlights why I’m so taken with her. She’s never waited for instruction, not with me or anyone else.

  “So, Melissa,” my ma speaks up from over the stove. She’s making white bean chili, a family specialty. I can tell just by the way it smells. “You and Trent went to high school together, that right?”