Chapter Seven
Devyn
The nightmare comes out of nowhere.
That’s not true. I know exactly where it came from. What triggered it is puzzling, though I can only guess it’s from telling Rick about why I had to leave Cedar Hill without telling him why Ireallyhad to leave Cedar Hill.
His arms are strong, and I believe his intentions when he says he won’t let anything hurt me. He’ll try not to let anything hurt me, but for all his billions, if Stevie Johansson wants to get me, she will.
Lying in his embrace is the safest I’ve felt in a long time. If I could bottle up this feeling, take it with me when I go back to Portland, I would be the luckiest woman in the world.
What did he think he was offering me in his kitchen after we ate dinner? A future? A relationship? It would have made me angry if he hadn’t looked so depleted. That doesn’t sound right, but it’s the right word. He looked empty of love, hope, energy to keep going. He never answered me when I asked him if he was suicidal. Maybe he used to be. Maybe he is still. Therapy keeps Talia’s head above water; I don’t know if Rick has seen anyone to help him deal with the accident and his wife’s leaving him.
His hand is warm against my back, and I wish he’d touch me everywhere. Make love to me and rinse away the dregs of the nightmare. He won’t though, not unless I make the first move. He told me the first night I stayed here he doesn’t take unless it’s given freely. It would be so easy to reach for the button of his jeans, but I don’t have the energy to give him anything.
Reluctantly, I let go and settle onto the mattress. There’s no pillow; I must have pushed it off sometime during the nightmare. Rick tugs me to his chest and keeps his hand splayed over my belly under my top. I like how he can’t stop touching me. I could get used to it. Too fast. He props his head in his hand and looks down at me, a frown creasing the area between his eyebrows. There’s a little light in here—he turned the lamp on when he came into the room. It helps. For a long time, I was scared of the dark.
“What was that about?” he asks, his thumb moving back and forth near my bellybutton.
It’s truth or lie time, and I’ve never been a great liar. “If I tell you, I’ll have to start at the beginning. Either you’ll believe me or not, but it’s the truth, Rick.”
“I’ll believe you.” His voice is firm, but he hasn’t heard the story yet.
I sigh. “Talia was addicted to Sweet.”
Rick sucks in a horrified breath. “Jesus Christ. I’m sorry.”
“Our mother lives in Cedar Hill. She’s addicted too, and all she does is whore herself out for the next fix. There’s thirteen years between us, and Talia lived with her while I went to school and started working toward my career as a journalist. Talia did her best, but I gave up on her a long time ago. At a party one night, Talia got hooked, too. Six months after that, she was arrested during a drug raid and spent three years in rehab. When she was clean enough to leave, she called me. She didn’t have anyone else.”
“How long ago was that?”
I turn toward him, meet his eyes. “About three years ago. That’s what started it.”
“Started what?”
“I wanted to know where the hell it was coming from. I wanted to know who was bringing it into Cedar Hill and ruining the lives of thousands of people. Do you know why it’s called that? Sweet?”
“It’s short for swetexopril, and from what I’ve heard, it tastes like bubblegum,” Rick says.
“That’s only part of it. It’s called Sweet because Stevie ‘Sweetheart’ Johansson is the head of the drug cartel that brings it into the Midwest through her sweetshops.”
Rick pulls his hand out of my shirt and sits up. “Devyn—”
I lost him, I knew I would, but I plow on. “For close to a year, I dug. I talked to dealers, snitches, whores, trying to find out where they bought it. She doesn’t make it here; it’s made in drug labs in Mexico. She has ties to gangs there who smuggle it across the border and pass it on to the gangs in California who run the supply up here. She has connections to people in the postal service and shipping companies who deliver the drug to her warehouses and the gangs in Cedar Hill help her distribute it.”
Rick pauses. “Can you prove any of that?”
I scoff. “Of course not. Why do you think the Times fired me? Would I be working at the Pioneer? Stevie found out I was sniffing around. I wasn’t that discreet, so it’s not hard to imagine word getting back to her. You want to know where my nightmare came from.”
“Yeah. Devyn, are you in trouble?”
“Not as long as I leave her alone and stay out of Cedar Hill. One night, I was walking Camden Way talking to another snitch. A white van pulled me off the sidewalk, and one of Stevie’s goons shoved a pillowcase over my head and knocked me out. When I came to, I was duct taped to a metal chair. They threatened me all night.”
Rick runs his fingers through his hair. “Fuck. How?”
I sit up and search his face. He’s not going to believe what I say next.
“By holding a pinch of Sweet to my mouth and telling me if I didn’t stop looking into how the drug gets into the city, they’d hook me. All it takes is one time, one tiny taste, and I’d be like my mother, fucking anything that moves hoping to score. Finding my next fix would become my entire life, and Talia would end up on the streets again same as Mom, same as me, if they did what they threatened to do. They came so close, a few sprinkles landed on my lips. I’ve never been so scared.”