“You scream, I’ll kill you.” The man turned to warn me before he exited the SUV, opening my door seconds later. He pulled me roughly from the vehicle, pulling me inside.
The smell hit me first. Body odor mixed with rotting food and something sickeningly sweet.
The small living room was dim despite the sunlight that still glowed outside. All the shades were pulled, making the space all the more sinister.
Another man walked into the room, looking more tweaked than the two I’d already dealt with. “Where are the kids, Corey?” he demanded, his bloodshot eyes swinging from me to the man who held my upper arm in a firm grip.
His question enraged me.
“She only had one with her. I left him. She had some fuckhead with her. He killed Joe, man,” the guy whined.
“Fuck,” the other man bit out.
This didn’t make sense. Tim was anything but respectable, but he was immaculate and organized. I looked around, wondering how he’d ever be associated with these men who could only be described as tweakers.
“Well, go get her then,” the man I now knew as Corey ordered his accomplice.
Then it all clicked. This hadn’t been planned by Tim. It wasn’t about him at all.
It was Janelle.
When my sister walked into the room a moment later, I barely recognized her. Her thick shiny hair now hung in thin greasy streaks down her back. Her once luminous eyes were now lit by an entirely different source as they bounced around the room anxiously, looking too large in her gaunt face. She’d always been trim, but now she was rail thin.
“Where are the kids?” she demanded.
“Janelle, what the hell?” I exploded. “You abandoned them in a motel room—left them starving, and then you send these assholes to what? Kidnap them?” I demanded. My entire body vibrated with an anger I could barely contain.
She glared at me. “I can’t kidnap my own kids. They’re mine!” she cried hysterically.
This wasn’t the sister I knew. She’d been on benders before, fallen off the wagon. This was something else entirely.
Despite my fury at the type of danger she’d tried to put the kids in—that she’d put me in—anger wouldn’t get through to her. It was possible nothing would, but I had to try.
“What’s going on, Janelle?” I asked in a much softer voice, hoping like hell that there was a piece of her that I could still touch. “I want to help.”
“You never wanted to help me,” she sneered. “You always thought you were better than me.”
I reeled back in shock. “That isn’t true.” I shook my head adamantly.
“What the fuck, Janelle,” Corey interjected. “I don’t give a shit about your family drama. You said if we got the kids we’d get the money and the stash.”
I thought back to my encounter with her dealer in Reno. It must have been his money she’d held over them.
Janelle glared at him. “I don’t see any kids—do you?”
I looked at her in shock as any hope I’d held waned at being able to reach her. “You wanted to bring Max and Emmiehere? Then what?” I demanded in horror. “You never even tried to pick up the phone and call me, Janelle! I would have tried to help. Tried to get you back to a place where you could be in a position to take care of them again. Instead you jump to this?”
She looked at me blankly.
“Who are you?” I demanded, incredulous. I didn’t expect an answer, not really. I didn’t think she knew how to answer it. Instead, I changed tactics. “Jan. You have beautiful babies,” I murmured hoarsely. “Max is so sensitive and smart. Anyone younger, anything fragile, he innately cares for. He’s so special,” I rasped.
I thought I saw a spark of something in her eyes—something not drug induced.
“And Emmie.” I sighed. “What a sweet, smart girl.” I smiled despite myself. “She has a capacity for love I’ve never seen. She trusts first and asks questions later.”
I took a cautious step closer as she watched me warily.
“I love them, Janelle. Like they’re my own. I’ll protect them with my life. But they deserve to grow up with their mama. We didn’t have that chance. Don’t take that from them.” I shook my head. “But it can’t be like this.” I looked around at the dank, depressing space around us. “You know they don’t deserve this.”
