All the Little Lies (English Prep 1)

The other man, who was now standing close to Burly Man, spoke first. I took a step back, releasing my arm from the tattooed man’s grasp. “Hayley, your father was an informant for us five years ago. He got caught laundering money, and instead of doing prison time, we offered him an informant job. He was helping us take down one of the biggest drug cartels in our area. You just helped us take down Franco’s right-hand man, giving us probably the biggest piece of missing information that we needed to start dissembling the cartel’s activity in the surrounding areas. We’re finally getting to him.” He shut his weathered eyes tightly. “Fucking finally. You just hit the tip of the iceberg, Hayley. This is how we get Franco to sink.”

Tattoo Man stood in front of me as several police cars and an ambulance pulled up behind the Escalade. “I promised your father that if something ever happened to him, I’d watch out for you. I’m really glad I was able to keep my promise.”

I felt many things in that moment. So many that I couldn’t even decipher the feelings pouring out of me. I felt everything deeply. Raw emotions pooled in my eyes, and they swept down my cheeks gracefully. I allowed myself to feel and to cry right there in front of two men I’d never met before and a dozen officers and EMT workers. For so long, I’d been afraid to feel. I’d been afraid to be hopeful. I’d been afraid to let my guard down. I’d been afraid to think back into the past where I had a father who loved me. Everything changed the night he died. The love he showered me with was destroyed. He put me in danger, and my mother let her grip on reality slip away along with her role as a mother. I was betrayed, and up until a few weeks ago, I felt unlovable. Christian showed me what love was again, and this moment here, knowing at least one of my parents looked out for me, was the start of my healing.

Chapter Forty-Four

Christian

I was silent as I sat in the police station’s waiting area. Orange and gray seats were filled with family members of criminals, whereas I was there for Hayley. The girl who somehow helped take down one of the biggest drug cartel’s hitmen.

I didn’t know all the details, even though Jim thoroughly explained them to me as we all sat around my kitchen, waiting for news. Even Ann, Hayley’s social worker whom I’d met briefly, showed up. Apparently, Pete finally came to, after being knocked out, and grew a heart. He called the police and Ann to tell them what had happened to Hayley in hopes of finding her.

My heart had never thumped so violently as we waited hours for someone to let us know that she was okay. I had to keep my memories in check as my mind kept drifting to the night of my mom’s accident. I waited hours for Hayley to call back that evening, and she never did. It was eerily similar tonight. Ann was the first to get a call that Hayley was safe, and she and I immediately jumped in our vehicles and headed to the police station where we have both been for over an hour now.

Tonight felt like it had lasted years. From the second I found out something was wrong to now had taken actual years off my life.

My knuckles were bruised from taking my fear and anger out on the hallway wall, and oddly enough, my father was the one who got me to calm down. I found that to be ironic, considering he was usually the one who got me riled up. Ollie didn’t speak a word as we waited. Instead, he sat with Piper’s head in his lap as she curled into a ball on the couch and dozed in and out of sleep.

Shaking my head, I bounced my leg up and down as I stared at the one door keeping me from Hayley. They needed to question her and get a statement before she was released—as if she hadn’t already been through enough.

Part of me felt guilty. I felt like I had failed her. I had wronged her when she first came to English Prep. Tormented her, bullied her. And now, after I found my way back to her heart, I let her walk right into danger.

She needed me five years ago when her father died right in front of her eyes, and she needed me tonight as the same danger hit her head-on, and I wasn’t there.

I swore to myself, after pacing my living room hours ago, that if I got her back, I would spend the rest of my life making it up to her.

The door jerked open from across the waiting area, and I leapt to my feet. I growled silently as I realized it wasn’t Hayley, but instead a fat man with a gnarly beard. His girlfriend jumped to her feet wearing nine-inch heels and a skirt showing entirely too much of her saggy ass and swarmed him with sloppy, full-of-tongue kisses.

I was almost thankful he came out of the door instead of Hayley, because if I had to continue listening to his methed-up girlfriend ramble on at the speed of light about their love story, I was going to commit a crime just so I could land on the other side of the steel door and away from her annoying voice.

Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. How can I get to the other side of that locked door?

The man was still halfway in the doorway as his girlfriend jumped on him and wrapped her legs around his middle, her tiny legs barely fitting because of how large his circumference was. They were gross, but they’d serve as a great distraction for others as I tried to slip past, so kudos to them. The police officer who escorted the man out cringed with disgust as he turned his back to walk down the hall, and that was when I slowly stood up.

“What are you doing?” Ann leaned forward, putting her phone back in her purse.

I shrugged. “Going to get Hayley.” The moment was fleeting, so I took another step, and Ann hissed.

“Sit down! You’re going to get yourself into trouble.”

“I don’t care,” I answered quickly, keeping my eye on the woman behind the glass and the slowly shutting door. “She’s been back there for hours. I’m going to get her.”

“Christian,” Ann huffed as she glanced at the closing door. I raised an eyebrow. Sorry, Ann. You can’t stop me.

Ann must’ve seen the look of determination on my face. Her furrowed eyebrows softened. “Don’t get caught, and if you tell anyone I helped you, I could lose my job, so don’t.”

Ah, I think I like Ann.

I strode over to the door, slipping past the couple in their gross embrace as Ann stood and walked to the glass window. I stuck the toe of my shoe in the inch-wide opening, keeping the door open for a fraction longer. As soon as I heard Ann ask the receptionist a question regarding Hayley, I slid inside the threshold and helped it latch quietly.

If there was anything I’d learned in my eighteen years of life, it was to act as if I belonged even when I felt like I didn’t. If you looked suspicious, you likely were, but if you acted like you knew where you were going, no one would bother you.

The officer who escorted the man to his annoying girlfriend shot through the large metal door at the end of the hall without looking behind him, which was good for me. I craned my neck around the corner where I knew the receptionist was and listened to her and Ann still in mid-conversation. I was certain there were cameras all around me, but I was hoping no one would be paying attention as I crept down the hall. My shoes pounded right along with my heart. It was as if my actual heart beat for Hayley. Every thump it made, my brain chanted her name at the same time. I blamed it on the fear from earlier, but I knew that was unlikely. I breathed Hayley in and out of my body like she was my only source of oxygen.

Slowly and meticulously, I searched the sliver of window along each door that lined the walls to see if I could find her. The first room had two men who wore suits and held Styrofoam cups in their hands, likely full of burnt coffee. The next two were empty. And then, the last one on the right had my limbs feeling like they were full of electricity.

There she was.