Crash Into Me (8 page)

Closing
her eyes, she leaned back against the door. “It’s not what you think,” she
repeated in a whisper.

“We’re
not leaving this room until you tell me.”

“Lisette
and I were trying to give each other tattoos,” she said in a rush of
inspiration. “In Cultural Studies, we learned about this tribe in New Zealand,
and figured we could do the same thing they did, with pen ink and razor
blades.”

“Bullshit,”
was his succinct response.

“If
I was into coke, don’t you think you’d find some white powder on that stuff?”

He
glanced at the jagged pile of razors and stained washcloths. “That’s a lot of
blood for amateur tattoos.”

“Yeah,
well, we fucked up. It didn’t work.”

His
eyes cruised over her warily. “Show me.”

“Show
you what?”

“This
tattoo shit.”

Trembling,
she crossed her arms over her chest. “No.”

“Why
not?”

“It’s
on my chest.”

“So?”

“It’s
on my boob, Dad.”

He
wasn’t deterred by her display of modesty. “Show me now, or I’ll call Lisette’s
parents and tell them what you just told me. At the very least, they can hear
about the joints you two were toking Saturday.”

“Fine,”
Carly grated, pulling her shirt up and the top of her bra down quickly,
revealing a flash of crisscrossed scabs.

It
was enough to send him over the edge.

Grabbing
her by the arms again, he pushed aside the fabric, exposing a dozen raw-looking
red lines. Some were partially healed, others fresh and ugly.

In
an instant, he was murderous. “Lisette did this to you?”

She
shook her head in denial, covering herself with her hands.

“This
Matthew-Mark punk? I’ll fucking tear him apart.”

“No,
Daddy,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I did it. To myself.”

For
a moment, he was so stunned he couldn’t breathe. He’d heard about
self-mutilation before, but he’d never suspected his own daughter would resort
to such measures. How could he not have known? And what else had she been doing
while he’d had his head buried in the sand?

He
sat down on her bed, shocked to the core. “You told me—no, you
promised
me—that you weren’t suicidal,” he said when he trusted himself to speak.

She
began to cry in earnest. “I don’t want to kill myself. Not really. I just get these
feelings, and I can’t get rid of them, so I cut myself, and they go away.”

“I
thought you were getting better,” he said, wrapping his hand around her thin
wrist and pulling gently, urging her to sit down next to him. “You said group
therapy was helping.”

“It
is helping,” she said in a choked voice. “I’m just crazy.”

“You’re
not crazy, Carly,” he said with the conviction of someone who loved her more
than life itself. He put his arm around her. “But if you’re getting better, why
are you cutting yourself?”

“I
don’t know.” She wiped the tears from her face with the hem of her hooded
sweatshirt. “It’s easier than feeling all tied up in knots.”

So
was drinking, he knew from experience, and felt an ugly stab of guilt. He
wracked his brain for some of the tenets of AA. “When you want to cut yourself,
will you talk to me instead? I promise not to get mad. Maybe I can help you
through it.”

“Maybe,”
she replied with a noncommittal shrug.

“And
you can work on that old rust-bucket in the garage. If you get it running, I
suppose I’ll have to let you drive it around sometimes.” He cringed as soon as
he made the statement, but she perked up visibly, so he couldn’t retract it.
Carly was obsessed with sports cars—and wouldn’t you know it, he could afford
whichever one she wanted. About a year ago she’d talked him into buying her an
antique Corvette Stingray, a fixer-upper.

Determined
to make it roadworthy, she’d taken two semesters of Auto Mechanics since then,
and she was a whiz at it. Carly might be moody and spoiled, but she could also
rebuild a carburetor like nobody’s business.

He
could only imagine how dangerous she would be in the driver’s seat. His
daughter was wild and reckless, just like Olivia. Just like him.

With
parents like these, who needed enemies? Taking risks was in Carly’s genes.

She
looked up at him through dark, wet-lashed eyes, the picture of her mother,
achingly beautiful in the lamplight. Ben almost couldn’t bear the resemblance.
Most of the time, the pain of losing Olivia was like a dull throb, an ache that
receded more every year. Other times, like now, when they really needed her, it
was so damned sharp…

Carly
must have felt the same way, because she ducked her head, hiding the fresh
tears that were swimming in her eyes.

He
put a finger under her chin, tipping it up. “We’ll be okay. We’ll get through
this. We can get through anything.”

“Yeah,”
she said, trying on a wobbly smile.

He
pulled her close, all but crushing her in a fierce embrace, then just held her
for a long time as she cried.

“Did you find one yet?”

His
dad’s sly, cantankerous voice rang out, startling James as he shut the door
behind him. When he saw the dark thing in the corner of the living room, the
hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Arlen
Matthews was sitting back in his recliner, smoking. The cigarette smell and its
glowing tip were the only indications of his presence.

“Maybe,”
James mumbled, clenching the keys in his fist. For the millionth time, he
wished he had the balls to stand up to his old man.

“What’s
she look like? Big titties, I hope.”

“Nah,”
he said, studying the dingy white shoelaces on his black canvas tennis shoes.
“I mean, I couldn’t really tell.” Now, that was a blatant lie. His eyes had
eaten up Carly Fortune’s lace-covered breasts like they were candy, and he knew
their size and shape well enough to sculpt them from memory.

In
fact, he’d probably be doing some inadvertent pillow-sculpting tonight, tossing
and turning until he fell into a fitful sleep.

“Blond
or brunette? Tall or short?”

“Blond,”
he said, warming up to the idea of lying. He’d never bring Carly back here
anyway, so the deception was a petty rebellion, a last-ditch form of
self-preservation. The old man had a heavy hand and ready fists, but he
couldn’t abuse everything. He couldn’t read James’ mind, or steal his dreams.
“Not very tall. Short hair, too,” he added, thinking of the long, silky black
strands hanging down Carly’s slender back. Yowza.

“Short
hair?” Arlen let out a derisive laugh. “Are you sure it was a female? Hell,
boy, you’re so stupid, you wouldn’t know the difference. Half-queer, as it is.”

James
didn’t bother to respond to this familiar charge; his mind went carefully
blank. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts, to replay his conversation with
Carly, to fantasize about what might have been and what could never be. He’d
keep every detail about her private. Cherish it, maybe. God knew he had
precious little else to hold close to the vest: his dad controlled every shitty
moment of James’ fucked-up life.

James
sighed, wishing he were somewhere else. Someone else.

“Did
you get me that bottle?”

“Yessir.”
He pulled the pint from his jacket pocket, relieved to have moved on to topics
mundane. He stepped forward in the gloom, handing it in the direction of the
winking cigarette and hoping for a quick getaway.

“Not
so fast.” A strong hand clamped on to his shoulder, forcing him down on the
couch next to the recliner. “Take a load off.”

He
heard the familiar sounds of his father un-screwing the cap, the unmistakable
glug-glug
of potable liquid, the hiss of hot breath after a good chug.

“Drink?”

It
wasn’t really open for debate, so James took the bottle and brought it to his
lips, pretending to take a healthy swig. His dad always got drunk faster, and
passed out quicker, when he had a little company to help him along.

Ben wouldn’t have forced the issue, but
Carly insisted on going to school the next morning. It was the last day before
Christmas vacation and she had finals. If nothing else, Carly was a
conscientious student, and Ben never had to remind her to study or complete her
homework.

When
he was her age, he dropped out of school, much to his parents’ dismay. After he
brought home more earnings the following year than his dad, a well-respected
(and well-paid) judge, they’d stopped complaining.

Or
he’d stopped listening. By the time he turned seventeen, he’d owned a pricey
bachelor pad in Pacific Beach, a swank upper-floor condo where there were no
rules, no curfews, and the party never ended.

Finances
aside, Ben counted it as a mistake. In those formative years, he’d had too much
money, too much success, and too many greedy people telling him he was God’s
gift to surfing. He’d thought he was indestructible, and on the water, he was.
It was on land, with those earthly delights, that he’d run into trouble.

In
his mid-twenties, after he’d cleaned up his act, he’d gotten a GED and gone on
to college. By then, he was no longer a drunk, but he was still an obnoxious
ass, overdue for a rude awakening. His professors didn’t give a shit about
surfing and weren’t impressed by the size of his bank account. Sure, he could
make money, but did he have any idea how to calculate his quarterly interest?

As
it turned out, spending all your free time partying and sleeping around didn’t
make you a genius. Who’d have thought?

Ben
drove Carly to school in silence, wondering if it was his faulty wiring and
addictive genes that made her who she was. It was easy, but not particularly
productive, to blame himself for her problems.

“I’m
picking you up, too,” he said as she stepped out at La Jolla Shores High
School. Ben guessed it wasn’t fashionable to wear a backpack anymore, because
Carly always carried a small stack of books and a tiny, outrageously expensive
designer handbag.

“Lisette’s
staying over tonight,” she reminded him, tucking a wisp of hair behind her ear.

“Hell,
no, she isn’t.”

“Dad.
Her parents are going to Big Bear. I asked you a month ago.”

He
swore sulkily, remembering that Lisette’s mom had called and made the plans
herself because Lisette couldn’t be trusted home alone. She was even more of a
wild child than Carly. The last time the Bruebakers had left her in charge,
she’d thrown a ten-keg rager on the west lawn. “Fine,” he muttered, rubbing a
hand over his tired face. “But you’re still grounded, so you two aren’t going
anywhere. And no pot!”

Carly
rolled her eyes as she slammed the door, a good sign she was feeling more like
herself. Any other morning, Ben would have spent several hours in the ocean
already. Carly was so self-reliant that she usually made breakfast, got ready,
and went to school under her own steam. He thought he was being cool, letting
her have her independence. Now he could see that he’d given her freedom when
what she’d really needed was his attention.

He
stretched his neck, trying to relieve the ache brought on by several nights of
too much stress and too little sleep. On impulse, he took out his cell phone
and dialed the number for Scripps Hospital as he drove away.

A
crisp-voiced operator asked how she could direct his call.

“I’m
trying to solve a mystery,” he said in a conspiratorial tone, trying to lay on
the charm. It sounded pretty rusty. “A woman saved my daughter from drowning
the other night and I’d like to thank her.”

The
operator made a mew of sympathy.

“In
the chaos, I didn’t catch her full name,” he continued, “and I’d like to send
her a token of my appreciation. Is there any way you can take a peek at the
emergency report and see if it lists her address?”

“Oh,
sir, I’d love to give you that information, but—”

“Ben,”
he interrupted helpfully, keeping his fingers crossed. “My name is Ben
Fortune.”

She
hesitated. “Ben…Fortune?”

“Yes.”

Clearing
her throat, she said, “Well, I think we can make an exception, just this once…”

Sonny was getting out of the shower when a
loud, warbled sound alerted her. She wrapped a towel around herself and
listened for a few seconds before she realized that the strange, off-key melody
was her front doorbell.

Curious,
she peered through the peephole. Ben Fortune’s image was distorted by the
warped glass. Interesting. How had he found out where she was staying?

When
a shiver of awareness traveled down her spine, she didn’t lie to herself and
call it unease. Having a suspect invade her turf should have made her feel
apprehensive, not excited, but she’d always been a little twisted.