Of course he would. So where were all the justifications she’d used the day she’d called? “As far as he’d know, I was just passing through.”
“Not if you made calls from that restaurant over a period of time.”
“I didn’t! I called only once.”
He stared through the window, at her backyard. Maybe he was noticing Myles’s yard, too, and how they adjoined each other without so much as a fence to separate them. “Actually, I’m betting even the location of the pay phones would be traceable. If you called from this area code in December and then again in…I don’t know…May, that would make anyone believe you’ve settled down.”
She’d thought of that. But she’d been so lonely, so unwilling to lose everything from her past, that she’d convinced herself the chances of The Crew finding out about those calls were too slim to worry about.
“And what did you say to your mother? What does she know?”
“Not much. Anyway, she wouldn’t sell us out. Not again.”
His eyes jerked back to her. “Bullshit.”
“When Virgil went to prison, she was choosing between her brother, who’d been trying to help her, and her son. She feels terrible about what happened.”
“As if that could make up for destroying Virgil’s life! And, to a certain extent, yours.” He sipped his coffee. “You’ve forgiven her?”
Not completely, but she was too busy playing devil’s advocate to explain. “What good would it do to hold a grudge? It’d just isolate me further. People make mistakes, right?”
He lowered his voice. “And they tend to make the same ones over and over.”
There was no point in arguing with that. He was the perfect example.
“So what do we do?”
“Will this grandma figure you mentioned be willing to watch Jake and Mia for a few hours?”
She rubbed her eyes. “What day is it?” She’d lost track of time.
“Friday.”
“She should be. She doesn’t have to work.”
“Give her a call and see. Then we’ll head to a neighboring town and use a pay phone to reach Ellen.”
“Why do we need to go a neighboring town? The entire state has the same area code.”
“In case they can trace the phone, farther would be better. Anything that extends their search parameters will help.”
“And what do we say to my mother once we reach her?”
Straightening, he poured the rest of his coffee down the drain. “We ask if anyone’s contacted her looking for you, and hope to hell she tells the truth.”
14
Rex wasn’t sure he could do this. He’d just spent two weeks in self-imposed exile from the rest of the world, lying in the empty bathtub of a cheap motel room in Los Angeles, so he’d be close to the toilet, sweating and shaking and feeling like he was going to die. He knew going off drugs with no one else around was a dangerous way to detox. He could’ve had a grand mal seizure or some other serious complication. But he couldn’t afford a clinic, and there was no way to taper off OxyContin. Not on his own. One high only led to the next. And he didn’t want to burden anyone. As far as he was concerned, he’d gotten himself into this mess; he needed to get himself out.
“You’re ill. You should see a doctor.” Laurel, or Vivian, as everyone else around here knew her, sat in the passenger seat. She’d been silent for the duration of the drive, all thirty minutes of it, but she’d been studying him. He could tell she’d wanted to say something almost since they left.
“I’m fine.” He’d insisted on driving, but he wasn’t anywhere close to fine. He’d been crazy to show his face in Pineview. He wouldn’t have if he’d felt he had any other choice. Besides, by the time he made the decision to come here, he’d been starting to feel better for periods of time. He’d been able to come out of the bathroom and lie on the bed to watch TV. At that point, he’d believed the determination that’d kept him clean for ten days would enable him to soldier on.
But OxyContin still had a strong hold on him. His hands trembled, bouts of nausea threatened to bring up what little he’d forced himself to eat for breakfast and his craving for the euphoria he remembered so well overwhelmed him when he least expected it. There were moments when he felt certain he’d go mad if he didn’t find a source.
He should’ve kept himself sequestered until he’d recovered—or at least maintained a safe distance from Laurel. Facing her and all the feelings she dredged up compounded the difficulty of what he was going through, made it even more hellish. The regret, the guilt, the longing—they all worked as triggers. They were the very emotions he’d hoped to escape by taking OxyContin in the first place.
But someone had to come to Pineview to protect her, and he knew it couldn’t be Virgil. Virgil had a family now. Peyton was just about to give birth to their second child. So Virgil needed to stay in New York, run his business and take care of those he loved. Rex had already screwed up so badly, he didn’t have anything left to save. Except Laurel. Whether they were together now or not, she’d been the best thing in his life to date.
“You want me to drive?” she asked for the third time.
“No.” Perspiration caused his T-shirt to stick to him despite the air-conditioning blowing from the vents. He hoped she wouldn’t notice. He had enough other things to worry about. Like the cramping in his stomach. It felt as if someone was tearing his organs out with an ice pick, but stopping wouldn’t ease the pain. Nothing would. It was just there, and he didn’t know how long it would last. Going to a hospital wouldn’t help. All they could do was monitor him. And he refused to be put out of commission now, especially when there was no remedy except determination and time.
“Don’t push yourself if you’re not up to it.”
He wanted to be able to do this much. He hated that she was seeing him at his absolute worst. But he couldn’t have delayed his visit, not without leaving her at risk. As much as she didn’t want to believe The Crew had found her, he trusted Mona Lindberg, the friend who’d told him otherwise, mostly because she had no reason to lie.
Laurel slid on a pair of sunglasses. Unfortunately, he couldn’t hide his eyes as easily. He’d left his shades at a hamburger stand somewhere in the middle of Missouri during his cross-country motorcycle odyssey from New York to Los Angeles. It was on that odyssey that he’d made the decision to turn his life around. Foreboding had ridden with him for those first few days, telling him that if he went back to L.A. and didn’t give up the OxyContin, he’d either fall in with the men he hated or others who were just as bad. If someone didn’t kill him along the way… If he didn’t give it up, he’d lose the only relationships that really mattered—his friendship with Virgil, Virgil’s wife and Laurel.