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“This isn’t enough to buy me—”
“I said take it or leave it.” My words are harsh. An unspoken threat not to push me.
She goes quiet for a moment and then looks up. I can’t place the expression, but if I had to guess, she’s coming up with a plan. Not my problem, though. I’ll be long gone before she can hurt me. And what more can she do? She already aired my dirty laundry. She doesn’t have anything on me anymore, and a sense of relief comes with that. A lightness knowing that there is nothing more this woman can take from me unless I offer it.
“Fine. I’ll take it. What do you want to know?”
I think over my thoughts, trying to figure out the best way to ask so it doesn’t lead back to Pippa.I don’t want to give her any incentive to dig up more dirt to come for us.
“I haven’t been here for a while. I’d like to get caught up on where people are.”
“Whose fault is that?” she spits. “I’m your mother, and you never come by.”
“Cut the shit. Stop pretending you care whether I come around here. The only thing you care about is your next fix and how you’re going to pay for it.”
“Fine.” She huffs. “What do you want to know?” she repeats, getting us back on track.
“I was just talking to the Matthews before you barged out. They said there was an incident here. What happened?”
She laughs haughtily. “Why don’t you ask that girlfriend of yours? You know she’s Pip, right?”
“How did you know that?”
“You left. I saw her grow up. Saw her after she changed her looks. If you had come back, you’d have known too.”
I ignore the jab and continue my course.
“Why would she know? Was it with Pippa’s dad?”
Her eyes narrow in on me, seeing right through my motives.
I guess someone like her would easily be able to wade through the bullshit to see down to the truth of things. When someone makes it their life’s work to drag dirt up for money, they know the tells.
“Oh, I see. You don’t want her to know you’re snooping in on her life.” She shakes her head, chuckling. “You trying to find out if he hurt her?” She smiles widely, her yellowed, rotting teeth exposed. “Well, that will cost you.”
I throw down another twenty-dollar bill. Maybe that will loosen her lips. She narrows her eyes, readying to ask for more, but I shut her down. “That’s all you’re getting, so get on with it,” I tell her through clenched teeth.
“Nope. He didn’t. He might’ve ignored her, but he never hurt her.”
“He didn’t?” I shake my head, confused.
“Nope.” She pops her p.
My hand lifts to my forehead while my other hand rests against my hip. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“He was harmless,” she says, coughing into a fist. “At least from what I remember. Now the Sawyer boy, that’s another story.”
My head tilts to the side. “The Sawyer boy?”
She nods. “Think his first name was Ace.”
At that name, my back goes ramrod straight. I remember him. The first day I met Pip, Ace had gotten in her face. He had threatened her and me as well.
“What does he have to do with her?”
She snickers. “A whole lot, I’d say.”
“I don’t understand.”
