There was something to be said for being even one tiny step ahead of a psychopath.
Still, Callie felt her resolve start to falter. Like any junkie, she always thought of herself as water finding the easiest path down. She had to fight that instinct for her sister’s sake. Leigh was somebody’s mother. She was somebody’s wife. She was somebody’s friend. She was everything that Callie would never be because life was oftentimes cruel but it was usually fair.
“Harleigh,” Callie said. “Let me do this. It’s the only way we can take away some of his leverage.”
Her sister was so easy to read. The guilt washed back and forth across her face as Leigh spun through all the scenarios that she had likely spun through before showing up at the motel with a Glock in her hand. Eventually, thankfully, her lizard brain kicked in. She finally reconciled herself to the inevitable. Her back pressed against the car. Her arms folded across her chest. She waited for what needed to come next.
Callie picked up Binx. The cat squawked in dismay. Pain blazed through Callie’s neck and arm, but she gritted her teeth and started walking down the familiar street. As she put distance between herself and her sister, Callie was glad that she couldn’t look over her shoulder. She knew Leigh was watching her. She knew that Leigh would stay by her car, guilt-ridden, hurting, terrified, until Callie turned the corner at the end of the road.
Even then, a few more minutes passed before Callie heard a car door close, the Audi’s engine start up.
“That was my big sister,” she told Binx, who was stiff and angry in his confinement. “She’s got a nice car, right?”
Binx chortled. He preferred an SUV.
“I know you liked the motel, but there are really fat birds here, too.” Callie tilted up her head so she could see the sparse trees. Most cats had to be slowly acclimated to new surroundings. Because of their many unplanned relocations, Binx was adept at scoping out new territory and finding his way back home. Still, everyone needed inducements. She assured him, “There’s chipmunks. Squirrels. Rats the size of bunnies. Bunnies the size of rats.”
The cat offered no response. He did not want to jeopardize his tax situation.
“Woodpeckers. Pigeons. Blue birds. Cardinals. You love cardinals. I’ve seen your recipes.”
Music echoed into her ears as she turned left, going deeper into the neighborhood. Two men were sitting in a carport drinking beer. An open cooler was between them. The next house had another man washing his car in the driveway. The music was coming from his jacked-up audio system. His kids were giggling as they kicked a basketball around the yard.
Callie couldn’t ever remember feeling that kind of child-like freedom. She had loved gymnastics, but her mother had seen the potential to make money, so what had been fun had been turned into a job. Then Callie had been cut from the team and she’d taken up cheerleading. Another opportunity for money. Then Buddy had taken an interest in her and there was even more money.
She had loved him.
That was the real tragedy of Callie’s life. That was the gorilla she couldn’t get off her back. The only person she had ever truly loved was a heinous pedophile.
A long-ago shrink during a long-failed rehab stint had told her that it wasn’t really love. Buddy had inserted himself as a substitute father so that Callie would let her guard down. He had given her a feeling of security in exchange for doing something that she had hated.
Only, Callie hadn’t hated all of it. In the beginning, when he was gentle, some of it had felt good. What did that say about Callie? What kind of sickness festered inside of her that she could actually end up liking that?
She exhaled slowly as she turned onto the next street. Her breathing was becoming labored from the walk. She shifted the carrier to her other hand, stuck the lumpy pillowcase under her arm. The pull in her neck was like a red-hot glob of molten steel but she wanted to feel the pain.
She stopped in front of a one-story red cottage with a sway-backed roof. Patchy wood siding striped the front of the house. Burglar bars brought a prison-like feel to the open windows and doors. A scruffy mutt with a bit too much Scottish terrier for her liking stood sentry at the screen door.
Callie’s knee gristled as she climbed the three wonky stairs. She set Binx down on the front porch. She dropped the pillowcase. She knocked hard on the frame of the metal door. The dog started barking.
“Roger!” a smoke-stained voice bellowed from the back of the house. “Shut your damn snout!”
Callie rubbed her arms as she looked back into the street. Lights were on inside the bungalow across the way, but the house next door was boarded up, the grass in the yard so tall it looked like a desiccated corn field. A pile of shit was on the sidewalk. Callie lifted up on her toes for a better angle. Human.