And I’d still dreamed about him that night.
And just about every night since then.
“Ford!” I heard my mother shout. Her voice ripped me from the stupor I’d been in.
“Coming!” I automatically said as I turned to put the last dish in the cabinet. I nearly dropped it when I saw Jimmy standing inside the kitchen doorway, his eyes on me. There were still days I couldn’t believe the man in front of me was the same brother I used to ride bikes with or go frog hunting with in the dead of night at one of the many ponds and lakes in the area when we’d been kids. With only a four-year age difference between us, we’d actually been pretty close when we’d been little. But by the time Jimmy had hit his teens, his mean streak that I’d only seen hints of when I’d been small had started to shine through more and more. But still, the skinny, unkempt man with greasy hair and bad teeth who stood before me was almost unrecognizable.
I managed to hang onto the plate in my hands as I kept my eyes on Jimmy. I instinctively dropped my gaze so as to not confront him in any kind of way, then slowly stacked the plate in the cabinet as if that would somehow not set him off.
I sensed rather than saw him move into the kitchen. He pulled out the sliding garbage can, which ended up caging me between it and the open dishwasher. Like a deer in headlights, I remained frozen in place as I watched him toss something in the garbage can.
It was Cam’s business card.
A strange tightness began in my chest as I watched the crumpled-up little piece of paper disappear when Jimmy shut the garbage can. I suddenly found it much harder to breathe.
Why the hell did it feel like I was losing something important, especially since my photographic memory had made it possible for me to actually memorize every detail of the card, including the handwritten number on the back?
“I need fifty bucks,” Jimmy said as he thrust his hand out in front of me.
I didn’t even hesitate to fish out my wallet and give him the money he wanted. He wasn’t asking, and he wasn’t borrowing it. I knew better than to even mention something as ridiculous as repayment.
“Ford!” my mother practically screamed.
I rushed past Jimmy, careful not to bump him. But the scary thing was that if he’d tried to detain me, I would have risked his anger to get to my mother so as to not disappoint her any more than my existence already seemed to naturally do. When I reached her, she looked beyond irritated, but as soon as I opened the door for her and held out my arm so she wouldn’t risk slipping on the porch steps in her heeled shoes, her frown disappeared. She didn’t exactly smile, but she didn’t look as angry either.
And that made some of the pain in my face fade to the background as a sense of overwhelming relief came over me.
One word, and all this ends.
Cam’s words rang in my ears the entire walk to the car and long after I’d gotten her settled in the front passenger seat. It wasn’t until I had the car in gear that my mother began telling me about all the activities she was spearheading at the church that I realized I had a response to Cam’s promise that he could change my life.
That’s what I’m afraid of.
And how fucked up was that?
Chapter Three
Cam
Not again…
I flipped on my lights and sirens as my police-issued SUV practically started driving itself to the Sullivan house. It had barely been a full week since my last visit.
And what a fucking shitty week it had been.
I’d been kicking myself from the moment I’d watched Ford walk back into the pretty-looking little house on Maple Street. I’d gotten way too personally involved in the whole thing with the younger man. Not only had I touched him in full view of anyone either walking by on the street or watching us like hawks from within the house, I’d also given him my private phone number and made him a promise that I could end all the hurt and terror he was suffering. I’d sworn to myself as I’d driven back to the station that I wouldn’t let myself get even more tangled up with Ford Cornell, but that very night on my way home, I’d driven several miles out of the way just to go by his house on my way home. I’d done the same goddamn thing the next morning on my way to work.
When there’d been no calls to the Sullivan house, I wasn’t even a bit relieved. Instead, I’d been driving myself crazy with worry. It wasn’t like I wanted to get the call that Jimmy was beating up on his brother again, but every hour that went by and I didn’t get the call, I’d start to have visions of Ford not managing to escape his brother’s wrath.