AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I went inside, grabbed a bottle of water and a Dr. Pepper, and waited in line at the registers. After paying for the drinks and gas, I pocketed the cash and returned to my car. Danny leaned against it as he watched the pump, and I got back into the front seat. I placed the carefully folded money in the cup holder next to his bottle of water.
“Keep that,” Danny said when he got behind the wheel again. “I’ll get more cash for you later.”
“Danny, you don’t have to—.”
He silenced my protest with a glance. “I’ll get more cash for you later.”
Realizing he wouldn’t be swayed, I simply nodded. “Thank you.”
“Tell me about Janie and jail, Macy.”
“Everything got quiet for a bit,” I explained. “We were staying up in Splendora. I crashed at Van’s a few nights a week so I wouldn’t have to drive all the way back. I kept working at Whataburger, and we thought it was all going to work out once CPS closed their case and the hospital finished their investigation.”
“But?”
“Janie was running late to graduation, and she was speeding. She got pulled over, and the cop who did it swears he saw paraphernalia in the car which makes no sense. There’s hardly any room in that car with two booster seats and a baby seat plus a diaper bag and all the kid crap stuffed into the front seat.”
He frowned. “She wasn’t driving the minivan?”
“No, it died. A tow truck found Dad’s Toyota in a Walmart parking lot, and Janie went to the lot to get it since we couldn’t all fit into my car. If there were drugs in that car, they belonged to him.”
“They called out a drug dog to the stop?” he guessed.
“Yes, and the dog found, like, bricks of wrapped drugs behind the upholstery panels in the trunk.”
“Which drugs?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because I’ll know who they belong to,” he explained. “If it’s meth, it’s the skinheads. If it’s coke or weed that gets a little tricky. If it’s heroin or pills, I go see the Asian syndicate.”
“It was heroin and pills, Danny.”
He seemed surprised by that. “Was your father in trouble with anyone from that crowd?”
I shrugged. “He has trouble with everyone, Danny.”
Danny grunted and started the car. As we pulled away from the gas pump, he asked, “They took Janie to jail for possession?”
“And intent to distribute and child endangerment and a dozen other charges,” I said, my heart still breaking at the sound of my siblings crying for their mother. “Colt called me a few minutes before the ceremony started so I left and drove straight to the station where they were being held. I took them to Granny Sharon’s. Maybe two hours later, the social worker showed up and said I had to go or else they wouldn’t let the kids stay there.”
“So, you left and started sleeping in your car?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“What about Van?”
“Mrs. Majors barely tolerated me staying at their house while I was finishing up the school year. She let Van host a clothing and toiletry drive for us. Abbie and Van left the Monday after graduation for a trip to Asia. Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chiang Mai, Singapore,” I listed off the itinerary. “They’ll be gone until mid-July.”
Danny drove a few blocks in silence before asking, “You missed your graduation?”
“Yeah.” I glanced out the window, letting the searing wind scorch away the urge to cry.
“But...your speech? You were one of the top students, right?”
I nodded, still looking away from him. Salutatorian. Magna cum laude. I cleared my throat. “It wasn’t a very good speech anyway.”
“I don’t believe that.” Danny’s hand settled on my knee. “I want to hear it.”
