Better Left Buried Read online

  “And that’s when they took her?”

  “We didn’t want to put her in foster care, Brea. It was temporary, but there was clearly more to the story than we were getting.”

  “And what was it?”

  “I already told you. Tom attacked her and not for the first time.”

  “Charity didn’t fight back? She might be a lot of things, but she’s tough. That doesn’t sound like her.”

  “If she did, we never knew about it. Charity tried playing off the cut as part of the accident, but nothing lined up. Only the car’s front end was damaged, nothing loose or in the driver’s seat, and it was a relatively clean cut, the kind made by a blade. She had a long history of covering up injuries and in the end we figured that’s what had happened again. Tom was a good guy, a good father, but a mean drunk. He’d knocked his share of women around. The only thing different about Charity is that she took him back, every time but that last one. I think he must’ve known she was going to press charges and kept his distance. No one’s seen or heard from him since. Like I said, things have a way of catching up with people. A couple of weeks in the hospital with Harmony in a temporary foster home must’ve been enough to bring Charity to her senses. She gave Tom up as her attacker and the rest is history.”

  Somehow, Brea was sure there was more to it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Harmony sat on the stone wall next to Officer Ruiz, waiting longer than she’d have liked to for her ride. Twenty gut-wrenching minutes had passed and she was holding the others up from leaving.

  Principal Anderson stared from the vestibule and exaggeratedly checked her watch. The girls and their mothers stood behind her.

  Harmony redialed Lance’s cell and listened to a half a dozen rings before hanging up and trying again.

  Lance Harris was a twenty-three-year-old tattoo artist who worked at the Ink Spot in Mason and lived a couple streets over in Pinewood Estates, the trailer park her mother lived at. Harmony had met him when her mother sent her to pick up a dime bag. She was fourteen-years-old at the time and already reckless. Life had forced her to mature early and it was as if her body knew it. By fourteen, she looked eighteen, and she split the difference when Lance—exotic with his dyed black hair, muscles, and tattoos—had asked. She confessed to being sixteen, apparently the age of consent in his book, because he took her virginity that night—unbeknownst to him. They’d done it with the lights off, him inhaling a joint between thrusts and breathing the smoke into her mouth. He’d given her more than one addiction that day. She suspected he later realized the lie about her age but, even now, never acknowledged it. He wasn’t big on questions or explanations, which was part of his allure.

  He hadn’t asked why she needed a ride home from school and she didn’t tell him. He was an escape, and either he was poor at math or thought nothing of a twenty-one-year-old senior.

  Harmony dialed a third time and could see Officer Ruiz’s impatience. “Come on, Lance. Pick up.”

  “I’m pulling in now.” He hadn’t even said “Hello”.

  Harmony heard the car before she saw it, driving down the access road that was treed on both sides with dense pine. Light reflected off the chrome grill and wheels, which were the only things on the 1980 Grand Prix not covered with repair work or rust. The exhaust hung at an awkward angle and from the sound of it, was broken somewhere in the middle. He was in the process of a three-year restoration with parts always on order but never showing up. In the sparse patches between Bondo and primer, the car’s original brick color showed through.

  “That’s my ride.” Harmony collected the things Officer Ruiz let her take from her locker.

  “Officer Jenkins will be in touch.”

  Smoke rolled out the driver’s side window and Harmony shook her head. “I hope that’s a cigarette.” She tossed her things behind the passenger’s seat and climbed in up front.

  Lance leaned over, gave her a peck on the cheek, and handed her the joint. “Only if you believe I’m rolling my own.” He pulled away from the curb and turned up the live instrumental music that sounded a lot like Pink Floyd. “These guys are pretty good. I saw them play at The Cage last month.” He handed her a CD case for the indie band they were listening to.

  “Ugh, I hate that place.” The Cage was one of the few bars in Mason that refused to let her in—even with the convincing fake ID she was still angry with Adam for destroying. She kicked out the CD and pressed the tuner button in search of a radio station. The radio slid through the hole in the dash.

  “Take it easy, would you? There’s no antenna. The radio is temporary, until the original I ordered comes in.” He pressed one of the presets and bubblegum pop played through the speakers. Harmony cocked her head. “It’s either this, the CD, or nothing.”

  “This is fine,” she said and re-lit the joint.

  The warm smoke filled her lungs and coated her mouth with the familiar taste she had longed for more than she cared to admit. Bennett had her on random drug screenings and Adam, who hated Lance more than anyone, enforced a strict drug-free policy she resented him for. Their relationship had lost something in Adam’s change from the homeless-do-anything-for-a-buck guy she fell for and the do-gooder-mechanic. He’d become controlling when the last thing she needed or wanted in her life was to be controlled. She took a long drag and leaned her head back, closing her eyes, and holding her breath until she had no choice but to exhale.

  “That’s a girl,” Lance said. “Let it out.”

  She took another drag and passed it. Calm settled over her, the artificial sense of wellness and a welcome respite from her life of shit. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

  “No problem. I mean, I had to cancel my afternoon clients, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it.”

  In hindsight, it could have been Lance who put her onto the concept of paying in trade.

  Harmony had convinced herself that if she wasn’t taking cash for sex then she was nothing like her mother, but some deep-seated part of her knew better. She finished the joint in three long drags and set her hand high on his thigh.

  “I’m sure it will be,” she said and flicked the roach out the window.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Heat blasted through the vents of Lance’s single wide trailer which, though it was the same size and year, was nothing like Harmony’s mother’s place. The furniture matched, all black leather, and the walls had a fresh coat of paint on them. Pieces of Lance’s original art—templates for several of the tattoos on his arms, chest, and back—hung framed on the wall and he’d set up a tattoo station with a reclining chair in the corner. Things had changed since the futon days of three years ago and Harmony wondered why, with his life seemingly on the rise, he didn’t move the hell out of Pinewood.

  She tucked a pillow under her head and stretched out on the couch, lingering with her airy thoughts. “Where do you think we go when we die?” It was the drugs talking.

  Lance pulled his sweatshirt over his head, leaving him wearing a t-shirt and tight-fitting jeans. A thin sheen of sweat covered his forehead and back. His dyed black hair, shaved around the sides, stood up in severe, chunky spikes and his normally contact lens-enhanced green eyes were bloodshot. He shrugged, lifting her legs so he could sit down and take her feet into his lap. “The ground, I guess. The whole Heaven and Hell thing doesn’t work for me.”

  It didn’t work for her, either, not because she wasn’t brought up with religion, though that was probably part of it, but because it offered no choices. It was another powerless decision, one that she wasn’t sure she’d like the outcome of.

  “What about the Summerland?”

  “Summer what?”

  “Summerland.” She’d read about it in one of the books at the metaphysical shop in Mason. “It’s like pagan Heaven, only pretty much everyone goes and you get to decide what’s next.”

  “What’s next is that we rot, Harm. I hate to break it to you.”

  “But that’s just the body, right?
Don’t you want to believe we come back as something better?”

  He rested his head on her chest and stroked her long hair. “There’s nothing better than right now.”

  “God, I hope that’s not true.” She hadn’t meant it the way it came out, but it was too late. She’d opened a door she hadn’t planned on. Lance was the guy she went to when she needed to forget, and here she was teetering on the brink of spilling her secrets.

  “What’s going on inside that pretty little head of yours, huh?” He cradled her chin with his hand. “You seem off.” She shrugged, not wanting to answer. “Is it because of your mom?” He hadn’t mentioned her up until then, so she assumed he didn’t know. “Or that Adam guy?” His gaze settled on her bandage. “Or something else?”

  He was the last person she’d talk to about Adam, so she addressed the comment about her arm. “That was an accident.” She could tell he didn’t believe her.

  “Well, if you want to talk—”

  She leaned forward and interrupted him with a kiss.

  “I don’t,” she whispered. “That’s not why I come here.” His lips tasted of menthol and his not-unpleasantly smoky breath reminded her of their first time.

  He moved his hands over her hips and loomed above her, sliding his knee between her legs. He was bigger than Adam, not taller, but broader—more muscular. She started to take stock of their differences and stopped. It felt wrong to compare the two.

  Lance nibbled a trail from the center of her throat to her ear, pulling a handful of her hair just hard enough to move her. She moaned and arched her back, drawing him closer even as her conscience screamed for her to stop. She pressed her palms to his chest and pushed him away.

  His eyes were half-closed and he wasn’t at all ready to put on the brakes.

  “My buzz is wearing off.”

  It was all she needed to say.

  He lit the joint in the ashtray, took a drag to keep it burning, and handed it to her.

  “Not that way.” She held it to his lips and after he inhaled, kissed him hard, sucking the air from him until he gasped and pulled her closer. This was their trick, one she convinced herself he couldn’t bring himself to share with anyone else. The thing to put Adam completely, if only temporarily, out of her mind. They finished the joint that way, both lightheaded and eager, delaying the final act as a way for both of them to live in that moment where nothing mattered except their passionate kissing and an incredible mutual escape.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Brea strained to hear her mother and uncle talking downstairs, gauging the amount of trouble she was in from their tones. Sitting for several hours in her room gave her plenty of time to run worst case scenarios and then magnify them tenfold.

  “Move her where, Jim? She’s seventeen-years-old.” Her mother’s raised voice rang out. “She has to graduate.” The fact that Brea was a senior was the only thing keeping her from being shipped off to Peach Springs and she knew it. “Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Only her mother’s side of the conversation was coming through. “You told her what?”

  For the first time, she heard her uncle’s words. “Sooner or later she needs to hear the truth.”

  Brea’s cell phone vibrated on the nightstand, a message from Harmony that kept her from hearing what else had been said.

  “Deep shit or what?”

  Brea knew she meant what kind of trouble she was in.

  “Not sure,” she texted back. “Can’t talk.”

  It was only a matter of time before her mother demanded her cell phone, or disconnected her service.

  “I’m staying at my mother’s tonight. Text if you can.”

  “Will do.”

  Brea deleted the messages and cleared her call log.

  If Harmony was at her mother’s trailer she obviously hadn’t called Adam, which really only meant one thing: she had called Lance. No matter what scenario Brea conjured for herself, Harmony’s situation was worse.

  Brea shoved her phone under her leg when her mother opened her bedroom door.

  “We need to talk.” Two lines formed between her brown eyes and her forehead wrinkled in a way that had Brea believing something serious was coming next.

  Finally, she was going to get answers.

  What her uncle told her felt like half the story, maybe less. She crossed her arms and braced herself.

  Her mother pulled out the chair at her desk and sat down with her suit jacket draped over her lap. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, her pencil skirt coming to rest just above her knees, and her red hair was tied back in a stylish twist. She must’ve come from a meeting.

  “I spent the afternoon with Principal Anderson.” Already, the conversation wasn’t going the way Brea had wanted. “I had no idea things had gotten so bad.” It was the closest her mother had ever come to acknowledging Brea as an outcast. “I can’t imagine the embarrassment. What on Earth made Rachael do something like that?”

  “It was because of Jaxon, Mom. She was jealous of us dating, which is your fault while we’re handing out blame. You never should have pushed us together. He was only going out with me so I’d get Charity to sell his father that house, but I bet you know that, too. People like him don’t date people like me. I’m beneath him and Rachael knew it.”

  “Stop right there. We might not be as wealthy as the Winslows, but Jaxon is lucky to have you. You’re smart, beautiful, and capable. He’d have been foolish not to have noticed. And don’t you try to blame any of this on me. I had nothing to do with him asking you out. Not because of that house or otherwise. I spoke with Harold and he assures me he’s planning on taking that house, regardless. There are tax issues—it’s just going to take some time.”

  “You talked to Jaxon’s father about what happened? About school or Jaxon or both?”

  “Well, both, but it’s because I wanted to know what he knew about what was going on with Jaxon.”

  That might have been more embarrassing than appearing half-naked on the internet. “Seriously, kill me now.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic. Look, Brea. I know what you’ve been going through, but now that Harmony’s expelled, I expect you to stay away from her.”

  “I’m expelled, too, Mom. We all are, as far as I know. Zero tolerance.” Brea threw school policy at her mother as if it was absolute.

  “No, you’re not.” Joan shook her head and a long red strand fell from the knot, framing her pretty face. The shiner Charity had given her peeked through her makeup. “None of you are, except for Harmony.”

  “But that’s not fair! Do you know what they’re going to do to me now without Harmony there?”

  “They’ll do nothing and seriously, Brea. Harmony’s a security blanket you have to let go of. Amanda and Rachael will serve a week of in-school suspension. Principal Anderson assures me there won’t be a repeat incident, but you’ll be moved to Ms. Masterson’s second period gym class as a precaution.”

  “So that’s it? A change of gym class and sweep the whole thing under the rug? What about what Uncle Jim told me? What about the accident and Harmony’s father? And the house? You’ve known Charity owns the place and are trying to help Jaxon’s father buy it out, but why you? If it’s not because of me, what makes Harold Winslow think you have any leverage?”

  “Why won’t you leave this alone?”

  There was no easy answer.

  “Forget it,” Brea said. “You wouldn’t tell me anyway.”

  The doorbell rang and her mother sprang up to answer it.

  “I got it,” Uncle Jim called up the stairs.

  “No, I got it.” Joan hurried down the hall, skidding on the runner.

  Brea peeked through her blinds to see Jaxon getting out of his Jeep, holding a bouquet of flowers.

  His timing couldn’t have been better.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Harmony sighed away from the receiver. There was no accounting for leaving school that didn’t involve at least several lies. “I took the bus,” sh
e said to Adam.

  “And where have you been all this time? I’ve been worried sick.” She could hear him struggling to contain his anger.

  “I had to talk to Sylvie about what happened and I’ve been cleaning things up. I’m staying at my mother’s tonight. There’s still too much to do here.”

  “What do you mean you’re staying there? I’m coming to help.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said. “I told Sylvie I was here alone. She could stop by at any time. The last thing I need is her finding you here.”

  “Harmony, that’s not your home anymore.”

  “I know, but the appointment with Bennett is in three days. Mom’s coming home from the hospital tomorrow and I need to get this place in shape.”

  “Is the power at least on?”

  She wasn’t sure if it was a reminder of her debt or genuine concern. “Yes, the power is on. Look, I have a lot to do and I want to try to get some sleep tonight. I’ve gotta go.”

  “Wait. When do you want me to pick you up?”

  Harmony closed the window she’d opened to air the place out. “Pick me up for what?”

  “To come home? You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Neither should my mother,” she said. “She needs me right now, and I need her if I’m going to get Bennett off my back. I’ll call you in the morning, okay? Get some sleep.”

  She hung up before he had the chance to argue.

  It was going on 9:00 PM and she was wired, invigorated by the sense that she could make things right, or as close as they could be given her circumstances.