Sixsmith’s lips peeled back. His teeth were a fucking mess. He spat on the ground next to him, wincing as he slowly turned and got onto his knees, then stood up. “What’s your name?” he asked quietly, shooting daggers at me out of the corner of his eye. “If you’re such a bad ass, you won’t mind telling me.”
Shit. I knew why he wanted to the information. “My name’s Fix. But you won’t find any information on me when you go snooping around in my shit, old man.”
Narrowed eyes. Humiliation and fury boiling in his veins. “And why’s that,Fix?”
“Because I’m smart. I don’t leave cookie crumbs lying around for idiots like you to follow. And let’s face it. You’re fucking dumb. Forget the needle. You couldn’t find a piece of hay in a haystack.” Sixsmith growled under his breath. He pushed back his worn blue suit jacket and made a point of showing me the wicked-looking knife he had clipped to his belt. I just shrugged. “Go ahead. Pull it on me. See what happens.”
He didn’t pull it. He tilted his head back, setting his jaw, posturing, as he walked to his Chevy and got in. I stood back and watched him with my arms folded across my chest. Sixsmith was in the car and the engine was running when I remembered something I was supposed to do. Shit. I grappled with my cell phone, tugging it out of my pocket, flicking up the bottom tool bar and hitting the camera icon.
“Hey, Sixsmith. Say ‘America’s Most Wanted.’”
Sixsmith turned on me, nostrils flared, cheeks stained red, his brow marked with sweat. I took his picture, and I watched as a stone cold, deadly, flat kind of calm overtook him. “Next time I see you, I’ll return the favor,” he said. “I’ll be the one with the camera in my hand. And you’ll be the one lying on the floor, dead, with your own severed pecker shoved down your throat.”
“Ouch. Quite the visual. I doubt I could take my own dick in my mouth, though. I’m a big boy.” I doubled over, bracing, hands resting on my knees, at eye level with him now. “Maybe you could give me some pointers. I bet you got good at swallowing cock when you were locked up in that control unit down in Eddyville.”
“Sera told you I was locked up in Kentucky?” he asked, ignoring my barb.
I just smiled at him. We both knew Sera couldn’t have told me her father had just been released after completing a four-year sentence in Eddyville. They hadn’t communicated in the past nine and a half years, so how could she possibly have known that? I slapped my palm against the roof of his shitty car, then gave him a passive aggressive wave. “Safe journey back to hell, Sixsmith. I’ll be coming to pay you a visit shortly.”
SEVENTEEN
TOXIC
SERA
The ceremony was kind of fucked up. Amy walked down the aisle to a David Bowie song—Starman—that had absolutely nothing to do with love, commitment or the beauty of everlasting companionship. Must have been some sort of private joke between her and Ben, who was struck with nervous laughter just as Father Richards began the service. One of the flower girls threw up as the bride and groom were taking their vows, and Ben’s grandfather, Jerry, who’d apparently escaped the Nazis in a muck cart in occupied France right at the end of the Second World War, had an angina attack, and everybody thought he was about to die. I wasn’t counting the growing list of individual disasters that were tarnishing Amy’s day, however, because none of it mattered. Sixsmith wasn’t here. And if Sixsmith wasn’t here, then everything else was going to be perfect no matter what.
As maid of honor, I stood up at the front in the hideous peach dress Amy had picked out for me, and I held Amy’s bouquet for her when Ben slid the wedding ring onto her finger. Father Richards droned on and on about the sanctity of marriage, loyalty and obedience for a little too long, during which time I scanned the people parked in the pews, searching for Fix. He wasn’t there.
A range of emotions took their turn at confusing the fuck out of me as Father Richards told Ben he could now kiss the bride. Worry came first. Had everything gone smoothly with Sixsmith? Had my father attacked Fix or something? Sixsmith was unpredictable and insane, totally capable of launching himself at a guy twice the height and size of him if he felt like it.
Annoyance came next. Fix insisted on coming with me to Fairhope. He’d sworn up and down he wasn’t going to let me out of his sight, and then…what? He’d just fucking vanished? Great.
The last emotion to hit me, as I finally spotted the man in question out of a window to my right, was desire—the most confusing emotion of all. Fix was outside, leaning against the wall of what looked like a small guest cottage, one leg bent, the sole of his boot resting against the wall, and there was a cigarette in his hand. Tendrils of smoke snaked their way from his nostrils, rising around his face, and my stomach turned over on itself.
The man in black. I’d only ever seen him wear black. Did that have something to do with his days spent as a priest, drowning in his cossack, or was it just a reflection of who he was, devoid of light? I didn’t want to wonder about him. It was foolish to allow my mind to wander onto such treacherous ground, but…I couldn’t help it. Fix had done something I couldn’t understand or move past. But then again, he’d kept his word, and he hadn’t harmed me. Quite the opposite, really. He’d prevented Sixsmith from destroying what was supposed to be the happiest day of my sister’s life.
Some of the people in the chapel had noticed Fix waiting outside, too. They muttered under their breath, whispering behind their hands to one another, sending scathing glances in his direction. What did they see when they looked at him? A guy smoking a cigarette, dressed in black, wearing torn jeans. It was obvious; they saw someone who wasn’t a part of their crowd. He wasn’t a banker, or a lawyer, or a doctor. His face wasn’t clean-shaven, and his hair was a little too long to satisfy their tastes.
I wasn’t a member of their little clique either, though. I’d come from a base stock, working class family, and so had Amy. They’d overlooked our weak breeding because we were young, and we were pretty enough, and we’d done our best to lift ourselves out from underneath the poverty we were born into. It had never sat right with me, how Ben had tried to change Amy. Had thrown out her old wardrobe and told her how pretty she was in the clotheshehad bought for her. I’d never have imagined Amy wearing a string of pearls when we fled Montmorenci and moved to Seattle. She’d liked to listen to the Ramones and dye her hair black. She’d liked to walk a fine line between madness and sanity—after escaping Sixsmith, I think we’dbothfelt that way—but these days all she cared about was improving her credit rating and making sure she got to bed by eight thirty.
These people were toxic.
WhenIlooked at Fix out through those windows, I didn’t know what I saw. He was an enigma. When I’d hidden in that auto shop and seen what he’d done, I’d been scared. I’d wanted to run from him and never look back. But…things weren’t so clear anymore. I was never going to be able to say I agreed with what he did for a living, but the photos he’d shown me of the poor girl Franz had tortured and abused…
I still saw those images every time I closed my eyes. They were going to be seared into my retinas for the rest of my life. And…and how many times, when I was younger, had I wished for someone like Fix to come along and put an end to Sixsmith once and for good? If I’d had the money back then, wouldn’t I have hired someone just like Fix to protect me?
Fix flicked his cigarette, and the butt flew in an arc before hitting the ground, sending up sparks from the cherry. I hadn’t noticed that Amy and Ben had already walked down the aisle, and were almost outside. Everyone was on their feet, backs to me, shoving out of the pews, trying to get by one another in their efforts to hurry outside first. Father Richards cleared his throat, nodding out of the window. “Felix’s father was a priest, too, you know?” he said.
“Really? I didn’t think priests were allowed to get married and have families?” Which Fix’s father obviously must have done.
Father Richards sighed. “Well. Things are a little laxer now. But back then, in the late seventies, when Felix’s father decided to follow his calling, he was already married to Louisa, and Felix was…hmm. Two years old, I believe? If you were already married and you wanted to become a priest, exceptions were often made. If you were single before you were ordained, however, then you could expect to be celibate for the rest of your life.”
“Sounds miserable.”
“Actually, I’d say I’ve enjoyed my bachelor status. It’s been rather…peaceful.” Father Richards smiled sadly, his eyes taking on a distant stare. “I heard about what happened at Felix’s church,” he said quietly. “It was a horrific thing. When such terrible atrocities are committed in our communities, we feel responsible. We are protectors and shepherds, and when one of our flock is hurt, we feel the pain deeply.
“I didn’t think Felix would leave us forever, though. He always was a wild child, but…I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m being selfish. The church is full of dusty, crabby old men, so blinded years of routine and regulation that they can’t find their own joy anymore. I suppose I just hoped Felix would come back to us, because….well, he was whatweneeded. More rebels to shake our foundations.”
