Jump The Line (Toein' The Line Book 1) Read online

  “We can work on finding Angie’s killer at your place,”he says,“Okay?”

  “No, I don’t want your help now. I’ll call Professor Levin. Maybe he’ll help me.”

  I wipe snot and dry my eyes with my hoodie’s sleeves. “Did you leave my key under the mat at my apartment?”I say, desperate to flee this place—and Stoke.

  “I did. But why don’t you let me drive you home? Let me make up for my bad behavior.”

  I shoot him a hard look. I came here wanting to talk to my friend, but I don’t recognize the person standing on the steps. Stoke’s expecting everything to return to normal. His mood swings exhaust me on good days, but this evening he’s testing our friendship. I’m ready to smash his face. “How did you plan on doing that? You don’t have a car.”

  “I jacked another ride in our Coca-Cola truck,”he says.

  Our Coca-Cola truck?

  I dump an imaginary gallon of acid over Stoke’s head. “What are you talking about?”

  And then I get it.

  “Oh, you punkass,”I say,“tell me you didn’t.”

  Taking the steps up from the basement, I race through the trashed foyer and land on the front porch.

  There I stop and stare.

  Parked by the curb is that hugeass red and white Coca-Cola truck. The side doors are open, exposing row-upon-row of canned Coke. The three thugs I saw earlier are circling the truck, checking for scrap metal they can sell for money to buy dope.

  “Stoke Farrel,”I yell over my shoulder,“get up here. Right now! We’re taking this truck to the police and turning ourselves in.”

  Chugging stolen Coke, the thugs shoot me menacing glares. One of them smiles and waves like he knows me.

  Chapter 27

  By the time Stoke joins me on the front porch, dusk is infusing the city with its gray gloom. April in Ohio often gives the same performance as November. Evenings turn cold.

  “What took you so long?”I hiss, keeping tabs on the thugs by the Coke truck.

  When he stops beside me, Stoke brings another whiff of that raw smell up from the basement with him. “Get some Lysol,”I lecture, but then notice how the thugs skulk off when they see him. It’s like they’re afraid of him. “Impressive,”I say, watching them sidle down the sidewalk, heaved up by ice and snow. “What’d you do, anyway? Kill their sisters?”

  “One of‘em,”Stoke says. “But don’t tell Detective Hawks,”he adds, putting a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

  “You’re joking, right?” I scan his face. “You better be.”

  “Like you’re the only one who can joke about dead bodies,”he says.

  I don’t smile. “I admit I was pushy,”I say,“but you had no business putting your hands on me. I hurt my ankle. Might not be able to dance Ang’s shift if I decide to go in.”

  “I know. I’m sorry,”he says, his ever-present ugly scarf fluttering in the evening’s breeze. “You sure you’re okay? Not hurt?”

  The soft April wind sends eerie shivers up my spine, chilling my already dark mood. I didn’t grow up right: I know. But at least I learned that, if my friends need me—no matter what—I’m there for them. I’ve come here expecting Stoke’s help finding Ang’s killer. All he’s done is stonewall. Maybe he’s got good reasons, but his refusal makes me want to walk away from him, and our friendship. I’m seriously considering never seeing him again.

  Next to the crumbling concrete steps, a sullen clump of daffodils struggles to bloom, frilly yellow heads the only light left of the evening. It’s time to set Stoke straight. Or—maybe—it’s time to set myself straight. Running from the cops, jacking the Coke truck, taking part in Omar’s robbery, these are all acts I know are wrong. I need to change.

  I feel myself pulling away emotionally from Stoke. It’s okay, too. Sometimes friendships last a short while, like this one with Stoke, and others last forever. I think of Ang. I just know we would’ve been friends our whole lives. Before I start crying, I ask Stoke,“What’ve you done?” I nod toward the Coca-Cola truck. “Why?”

  “I had to have a ride to your apartment to drop off your key, didn’t I?”

  His cackle is soft, not hard like before. Something’s changing in his attitude toward me. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but something about him feels different. “It was parked where we left it up near campus, so I jacked it again. No harm,”he says. “Right? I just moved it here—to a different parking spot, that’s all.”

  “You’re rationalizing your criminal behavior, same as always.”

  I stand on the porch feeling sorry for the sad yellow daffies working hard to survive. Such lively color splashed against bare black earth, nature bursting with life among cigarette stubs and drug paraphernalia.

  Drugs. Ha! I can’t count the number of times I’ve needed something for my ankle, but never once used anything but a prescription for pain killers.

  Why? Why does my brother, and all my friends, keep doing this to each other, and to themselves? Why do they keep destroying their lives, over drugs?

  Bending to pull the needle that stuck to the toe of my shoe when I ran upstairs, I wonder where Robin is. Is he jacking a shot of meth into his veins in a grungy place just like this? Is he so caught up with drugs he’s helped Squeal kill my bestie?

  If Aidan thinks Robin’s involved in Ang’s murder, I know he’ll arrest Robin. If he’d dropped me off here a few minutes later than he did, he would’ve caught Stoke driving up in the stolen Coca-Cola truck. He would’ve arrested Stoke—and me.

  My left foot sets up its crybaby whine, aching from where Stoke pushed me down the steps. Making matters worse, I still need a freakin’ ride home. But here I am, stuck again in another bad situation of my own making. Goshen gimp, I’m destined by birth like Meera—by virtue of my family’s caste—to become a criminal. I am, that is, if I allow myself to believe the narrative my family’s poverty has created for me as a female.

  So who freakin’ cares what Aidan Hawks thinks?

  “I care,”I say, turning to Stoke. “I no longer choose to act like a Goshen Colby.”

  “Blaze, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Nothing, Stoke. Let’s walk to my place, okay? We don’t need that truck. You and I can sit down over a pizza and work out a plan for helping catch Ang’s killer.”

  What I don’t say would shock him further. Soon as I get home, I’m calling Aidan and turning in myself and you, Stoke Farrel. I want all this craziness to halt.

  “Hullo, Blaze,”he says. “It’s colder than blue hell out here. Are you crazy?”

  “Definitely,”I say,“but you gotta promise me you’ll stop doing this. Even though we wiped it, that truck’s probably got our prints all over it. Sooner or later we’re gonna be caught.”

  “Nah, not my prints,”he cackles,“I wiped‘em.”

  It’s my turn to stare. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Yours,”he says, and then shrugs. “Your prints. Maybe I missed a few. A few got left.”

  “You’re a punkass,”I say. Slowly, hoping I’m doing the right thing, making the right choice for once, I voice the thought that’s been brewing in my confused brain. “I need to find a new friend.”

  “My lady,”he says, doing another of his weird one-eighties and giving me another of his ridiculous Robin Hood bows,“that’s unnecessary. Did you not say you needed my help finding Angie’s killer? I can do that.”

  He’s got no intention of helping. Not answering right away, sensing I’m being manipulated, I take a final glance inside the crack house’s gaping black maw, the dirty-white storm door hanging like a loose tooth in Robin’s meth-head mouth. Why wouldn’t he invite me in? Why doesn’t Stoke want to help find Angie’s murderer?

  Maybe Stoke’s telling the truth. He’s embarrassed by that smelly basement he calls home and doesn’t want me to see it. “How do I know you didn’t kill her?”I say. The time for being sensitive about his feelings is over. “Ang hated you.”

  “Stupid remark
,”Stoke says, his glare sending chills up my spine.

  “Stupid remark for a stupid friend,”I retort.

  Stoke straightens. He’s five-seven, short for a guy, not much of a heavy weight if push came to shove. But he’s stronger than he looks. I learned that trying to free myself from his embrace in the stairwell. If he’d really wanted to hurt me down there at the bottom of those steps, he could have. If he’d wanted to kill me, he could have.

  “I’m stupid,”he says,“because I jack Coke trucks to put your key back under the mat, like you ordered? To make Omar’s deposit, like you told me? So youdon’t have to walk home? Because I rob bars to pay your tuition? Because I want to help youmake your jump-the-line video, since—excuse me for mentioning this—but yourbest friend’s not here to do it?”

  He stops, catching his breath. “It’s always all about you, Alaina, isn’t it?”

  He’s right. His logic’s twisted, but Stoke’s right. He’s done these things for me. “I hate you,”I say, wanting to cry,“but I’ve allowed myself to do things that are . . . not legal. It’s not your fault.”

  And what about my jump-the-line video? How’ve I let my life get so out of control that I haven’t even thought about making my tryout video for the Rockettes’ competition? “I positively hate you,”I repeat,“but you’re all I’ve got. I need your help.

  “By the way,”I add,“I don’t give a damn about making the video, not now. All I want to do is find Ang’s murderer. Can we at least work together on that?”

  His scowl is my answer.

  “Okay,”I say and then shrug. “If that’s the way you feel.”

  Dancing halfway down the front porch steps, I turn and gaze up at him, then stare at the forlorn daffodils, their heads bent and covered in cigarette butts and dirt from the street. Something about them reminds me of my own plight. I’m alone. When I need someone, anyone, I’m always alone.

  Just like that, the feeling of isolation kicks me back to my childhood. The past opens up like the door of a lion’s cage to that night—the night, when I needed a friend. But had none.

  As always when this happens, I start sweating. The past gazes out of its cage at me, threatening to devour me. It’s been sixteen years, but I remember them taking my dad, zipped in a black plastic bag and stuffed into the back of an ambulance. I remember what happened, the flickering lights from the coal oil lamp in our trailer. I remember the fight. The fire. Gunshots.

  * * *

  Mom and Dad are yelling. I’m locked in the bathroom closet with Robin. He and I are hunkered behind a basket of dirty laundry. I can smell the sour clothing, most of it putrid from Mom’s vomit and thick with the scent of cigarette smoke mixed with the perfume she wears when she goes on her“dates.”

  “For once, think of your daughter instead of your habit, Berta,”Daddy yells.

  I tighten my arms around Robin and we rock, waiting as we always do for their fight to be over, uncertain of the aftermath but looking forward to one simple outcome: Berta Colby passing out and all this being over.

  “I am thinking of her,”she screams at Daddy. “I’m always thinking of her. But I can’t stop my life for her,”my mom yells, and then starts crying. “Goddammit, I can’t.”

  I feel terrible hearing my mom sobbing, begging my dad to understand.

  And then—crash! He’s hitting Mommy.

  I hug Robin tighter.

  “You whore! We need money to pay for her surgeries, not your goddamm dope.”

  Another crash, and then the smell, fumes from the kerosene lamp seeping into our hiding spot, mine and Robin’s. “Shhh!”I say, when he whimpers, warning him even when we start to choke not to make noise. I don’t want them angrier than they already are.

  I wish Daddy wouldn’t yell at my mom about me. Wish he wouldn’t hit her. This is all my fault. I pull my ugly deformed foot tighter behind the laundry basket. Robin scrunches tight against me: I feel him shivering like a cold puppy.

  Boom! The noise rocks the trailer. I press hands to my ears, but I can’t shut out the sound or the feeling that the walls are exploding against me and Robin.

  Boom! Another explosion.

  Robin and I get up and stand huddled behind the dirty laundry basket, trying to hide from the smoke, the heat. We’re in trouble, but I don’t dare move us out of our hiding spot. It’s all my fault. Mine, mine, mine. I hate my ugly foot!

  I’m hugging Robin when the Mom pulls us—still trembling and choking—from the closet.

  * * *

  I lived through that night by clinging to Robin. I held his hand when the firefighters came and sprayed water on the lump of burning tar that was once our trailer. I held his hand when the LEOs questioned us. Just as Berta coached me to do, I told them that my daddy had been hitting my mommy before the two shotgun explosions, that she was defending herself.

  Was he, though? Or had I imagined it?

  I still can’t recall what happened, only fuzzy details from that night. All I know is I’m still struggling to accept my family, to figure out where I fit in—if I fit in—as a Goshen Colby, Berta’s daughter. One day, I’m going to talk to her about that night: I’m going to ask her for the truth.

  But despite my mom’s and my differences, she’s taught me how to deal with the world, how to handle pushy men, or the devil himself, if he happens to be standing on these crumbling steps with me. I gaze up at Stoke.

  “You know what? Screw the Rockettes. Screw my dreams of making a stupid tryout video. It’s just a contest, Stoke! Don’t you getwhat I’m trying to tell you? Stoke, my friend’s been murdered.”

  Grabbing both ends of his hideous scarf, I curl it around his neck and use the ends to pull his face down to mine, close like I’m going to kiss him. Instead, I give the scarf a vicious twist, tightening it around his neck with one hand and grabbing a handful of Stoke’s crotch with the other.

  “B-Blaze, what the f—?” His face turns gray, but he doesn’t move. He can’t.

  “I’m gonna find Ang’s killer,”I tell him, my lips close to his,“and when I do”—I squeeze hard—“I’m gonna chew his nuts right off!”

  I think he’s getting my message.

  I let go of his crotch, let the scarf drift from my grasp.

  “So go get in your damn Coke truck and drive it to my place if you’re too much of a pussy to brave the walk. Go ahead. I don’t care. But I’m not riding in a stolen vehicle. I’m not participating in any more of your fucked up criminal antics. So don’t try taking me to jail with you. One day I’m planning on becoming a cop. I want my record clean.”

  “What happened to your boyfriend, the sexy, exciting Detective Hawks?”he says, his tone mocking, his mood swinging back to the sarcastic, dark side. Stoke’s not used to me laying it on the line, not like this. I’ve shocked him good.

  “How come your knight in taxpayers’ armor isn’t here to offer you a little ride home?”he continues taunting. “Where is your handsome boy now? Thought you said he was coming back to pick you up.”

  I love it. Stoke feels like he has to mock Aidan’s and my nonexistent relationship to get back at me. For the first time in our friendship, I’ve set him straight, shown him my boundaries. It feels good to get things off my chest, to let Stoke know I’m not afraid, that I’m the one making decisions for Alaina Colby from this point forward, not him.

  Inhaling the evening’s crisp spring air, I hoist my backpack to my shoulder, shoot my friend a daredevil look, and start walking.

  “It’s dark, Alaina,”he taunts. “This is a really bad neighborhood. C’mon, why don’t you let me drive you to your apartment?”

  “Yeah, so it’s dark. You’re afraid of the dark?”I say, mocking. Picking out another burned-out crack house rising from the gloom a block ahead, I point myself toward it and trudge forward.

  “Remember what happened to Angie,”he yells after me. “I don’t want the same thing happening to you. You better rethink this.”

  His words strike my back like bullets
. They bore into me, leaving fragments of pain and anger at Stoke’s final attempt to manipulate me by pointing out the threat posed by this neighborhood, by the thugs following me. I stop midstride and search for a bus stop.

  None.

  Damn.

  But I don’t turn back to Stoke. I will not ride in that stolen Coke truck.

  Focusing on the dirty red bricks of the crack house up ahead, I keep walking. Screw Stoke Farrel. I’ll samba my way back to my apartment, if I can’t catch a bus. In my head, Lizz Hollis’ imaginary Bon Chiki Bonbegins playing. So far, dancing’s got me through every obstacle that’s ever presented itself.

  Behind me, I hear the thugs. From the sound of their footsteps, they’re picking up speed.

  “Heavenly Father,”I say, invoking Brick Verbote’s Mormon God,“I know I can’t dance my way out of this, but if you help me outta here alive I promise I’ll do better. I’ll start believing in you again. I’ll even quit cursing.”

  Chapter 28

  It took more time getting here than I figured. In the dim overhead light of Bite Doc’s porch light, I glance at my watch. Man’s so weird, I expect him to jump out and yell,“Boo!”

  He’s not answering, though, and I’m about ready to bust down the door. I should already be over in Newport in that alley behind Omar’s, managing the crime scene, keeping DeeDee from screwing it up. Yelling and pounding on Bite Doc’s front door, I fight a vine strangling me like a meter maid I once tried to let down easy—but couldn’t.

  “Doc! You in there?”

  It’s past midnight—tomorrow already—and here I stand like a fool. Pissed, wishing Bite Doc would get his ass moving, I pound some more. Bite Doc’s either not showing or he’s inside, dead asleep. Maybe I oughta beat it back to the murder scene, where I should’ve gone to begin with, when I first got Captain Meyer’s call.

  I turn to leave, but the door flies open at my back.

  “Damn!” I jump, a briar from the dead rose bush snagging my jaw. Bite Doc, a scalpel clutched in his upraised fist, looks ready to fillet me. “Careful, Doc, you could hurt someone with that.”