Buried (Hiding From Love #3) Read online

  And here we are, right where I never wanted to be. The place I’ve tried to avoid for seven long years. The question I simply can’t answer, because if I answer this one, the next one is the one that means life or death—to me and to my mother. No one can ever know why I allowed myself to be bought by the RH, because that’s what they did—they bought me. Paid in the one currency I couldn’t turn down, and once the exchange took place, they owned me. Beth can’t change that. No one can.

  If it were anyone but Beth, I’d do the gangster routine—make a lot of noise, say something crude and angry, then go inside the house where she isn’t allowed to follow. But it is Beth, and I just can’t do it, no matter how freaked out I am.

  I stop, standing in front of her, trying to calm my voice. “Look, linda. I appreciate the effort. But I’m a lost cause. It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter why I joined the RH. The fact is I did, and it can’t be undone. You were my family, and that’s why I can’t have you all up in my business. It’s not safe, and it’s not the right order of things, you know? Your brothers should be worrying about getting their next client for their business and which women they’re going to marry. Your mom should be taking care of her health and giving you all a bunch of crap about having grandkids. No one should be worrying about me getting a job or how I’m going to hide from the RH when I’m out of here. And not you, especially. The idea of you near this life—it makes me sick, Beth. Can you get that?”

  I see hurt pass over her face, and she turns away from me so I’m looking at her profile. She stands silently for a moment, and I try to memorize the curve of her jaw where it scoops up to her ear, the tiny bump in the bridge of her nose that I know happened when she tried to climb up to David’s tree house when she was seven, the way the breeze sends her hair feathering across her brow. I know this is probably the last time I’ll be this close to Beth Garcia, the love of my youth. I want to engrave this image of her, this feeling, this day, on my heart where it’ll keep me warm for the years to come.

  She slowly turns back to face me and what I see in her eyes stops me from uttering a single word. There is a stony determination there, an unwavering solidity, but also something else. Something that jabs at my chest and makes my palms break out in a sweat. Deep down, I know what it is, but I won’t allow even the idea to pass through my mind. The words shouldn’t be thought, much less felt.

  “I know he’s in there. My Juan. The Juan I grew up with and cared about all those years." Her voice is solid, unyielding. "I don’t know what happened, why you went to the RH, but I do know you didn’t do that drive-by. You’re not capable of shooting a little girl.”

  I swallow hard, my gut twisting and my vision growing hazy around the outside. I silently tell myself to breathe, bringing my hand up to my face and scrubbing at the stubble there so she won’t see me gasping for my next breath.

  “I haven’t held on to that many things in my life, Juan. My family, a couple of friends—that’s it. I haven’t cared enough to bother with a lot of people. As long as I had my brothers and sisters, I had what I needed. But that’s why I know, if I want to hang on to something or someone, they must really matter.”

  She turns her back to me, takes a couple of steps away, then swings back around, and before I know it, she’s right there in front of me, her palm cradling my cheek.

  “I have to hang on to you. I can’t bear for you to disappear again. I won’t let you. You don’t have to like it. You don’t even have to agree to it. It’s just how it has to be. I’m going to find you, Juan. And then I’m going to bring you home.”

  She looks into my eyes for another moment before she turns on her heel and walks away.

  * * *

  1 Vato = Dude

  2 Ese = slang term similar to dude, but less polite

  3 Mi corazon = my heart

  4 Tu familia = your family

  5 Madre de Dios = mother of God

  6 Estas loca. No sabes nada de mi vida = You’re crazy. You know nothing about my life.

  I let the phone ring a fifth time. “Please pick up, David,” I whisper.

  “Beth?” His voice on the other end is short. I’ve apparently caught him at a bad time.

  “Yeah, hey,” I answer as I lean back against the kitchen chair. “I really need you, David.”

  I can hear him moving around, then a door shutting. “Okay, what’s up?”

  “It’s about Juan.”

  “Have you seen him again?”

  “Yeah, just a bit ago.”

  “And what happened?” He sounds concerned, but I suspect it’s not for the right reasons.

  “He pretty much told me to mind my own business. And the rest of the family too.”

  I sigh as I stand and open the refrigerator, absentmindedly taking out a Monster and popping the top. I take a sip before continuing, the cold bubbles stinging as they roll down my throat.

  “He thinks that he’s a lost cause and we should all go on about our business.”

  I can hear my brother breathing on the other end. “Well,” he says glumly, “that’s what we’ve been doing for seven years. Going on about our business.”

  “David, no. Don’t start with the guilt again. You did everything you possibly could to find him. You and Dad spent weeks combing the streets looking for him after he ran away. He didn’t want to be found.”

  “And now he doesn’t want to be helped. What’s the difference, Beth?”

  I take another gulp of what tastes like a bubbly SweeTart, wondering when I became so inured to both the caffeine and the flavor.

  “The difference is, I know where he’s at, and he can’t get away for another seventy-five days or something. Now’s our chance, David. Once he leaves the halfway house, he’ll go off and do something stupid or noble again and we won’t be able to find him. We have a little over two months to convince him that he deserves a real life, you know?”

  I listen to the silence from the other end of the phone, picturing the way his forehead is probably wrinkling in concentration. The way he scrapes at his thumb with his forefinger while he weighs the options. Finally, he answers.

  “You always did have a thing for him, didn’t you?”

  “What?” My heart skips a beat. “He’s like a brother to me, and he’s a good guy. That’s all.” I cross my fingers behind my back, hoping somehow it will ward off the bad karma I’ve just invited by lying.

  David snorts over the phone. “Yeah, right. I’ll tell you something, little girl. If I come up there and decide that he’s not our Juan anymore, you’ll be finding someone else to save. I won’t have you spending time with anyone who’s dangerous, Beth. I don’t care if he was like a brother to me or if you’ve laid all your schoolgirl fantasies on him. Your safety matters more than any of that crap.”

  I bite down on my tongue to prevent the litany of Spanish insults straining to emerge. The men in my family are such overbearing asses sometimes that it makes me want to hurt them…with my fists. But I need David’s help with this. I can’t afford to piss him off. So I keep quiet for a minute until my temper is under control.

  “Okay. I hear you. Just please…come up this weekend and we’ll go see him together. Talk to him, find out whatever you can about his plans. Remind him how much you meant to each other.”

  David clears his throat, and when he speaks, his voice is rough. “He was the best friend I ever had. That’ll always be true, no matter what happens next.”

  I nod, too overwhelmed with the emotion in my throat and behind my eyes to speak.

  “All right. You win,” David mutters. “I’ll be there Saturday morning around ten. And if you had some empanadas and coffee for me, that’d help.”

  A smile stretches across my face as I pump my fist in the air. “You got it, big brother.”

  Friday seems to drag on forever. I spend the day in class and at the library. Finally, late in the afternoon, when I can’t take the strain of acting like I’m focused on coursework anymore, I text Jill a
nd head to our favorite local coffee shop off campus. The Higher Ground is a hangout for women’s studies students, skate punks, and a random collection of Rastafarians and wannabe musicians. The place usually has several guys with guitars sitting around, strumming their latest creation on the sidewalk out front while kids in skinny jeans and multiple piercings clatter their skateboards up and down the pavement.

  After dodging a guy with a purple Mohawk whose board flips out from under him and crashes into the side of the building, I walk into the darkened interior of the shop, breathing in the scent of patchouli and roasted coffee. Once my eyes adjust, I see Jill sitting across the room on one of the shabby, velvet sofas that fill the corners of the space.

  “Hey,” I say as I approach her and collapse onto the sofa.

  “Hey yourself,” Jill answers, reaching to the table in front of us and grabbing a cup of coffee, which she hands to me. Her platinum crew cut is starting to get dark roots, but somehow it manages to look good on her, even with the hot pink nose ring she’s sporting in one nostril.

  “Thanks.” I sip at the hot liquid gingerly. “I really needed this.”

  “What’s shakin’, girl? You’ve been MIA for days now and you look all stressified.”

  I lean my head against the smooth, leather back of the sofa, closing my eyes briefly.

  “It’s this guy,” I say, opening my eyes and looking at Jill, who watches me with a bemused expression.

  “The convict?”

  “Juan. His name is Juan.”

  “God, you finally go and do it and holy shit, Bethy.”

  “What does that mean?” I scowl at her.

  “You finally get bitten by the love bug and it’s a fucking gangbanger who’s served hard time.” Jill shakes her head. “You just had to make it really complicated, didn’t you?”

  “I haven’t been bitten by any bug.” I roll my eyes. “He’s an old family friend. I told you that.”

  Jill smirks as she takes a sip of her drink. “I think you told yourself that. All I heard was yada yada yada, Juan is wonderful, yada yada yada, Juan is special.”

  “Fuck off,” I mutter.

  Jill laughs, and I can’t help but crack a smile.

  “So tell Mama Jill all about it. He still being an obstinate ass?”

  “Yeah. I saw him the day before yesterday and he pretty much told me to go away and mind my own business.”

  “But you’re not going to, I assume.”

  I set the coffee down on the adjacent table and turn so I can face her. “Seven years ago we couldn’t stop him from walking out the front door of our house and joining a gang. It ended up getting him put in prison for four years. Then, just ten days after he gets out, I go to work and there he is, standing fifteen feet away from me. What are the odds? He’s stuck there for ninety days, and I work next door. I can’t ignore that. It’s like a big, flashing neon sign that says, ‘Help him. You failed him before. Don’t fail him again.’”

  “You sure you’re not doing all this just because you feel guilty?”

  I shake my head but keep my lips sealed for a few beats. My heart flutters inside my chest as the image of him flashes in my mind. His thick, soft hair and eyes that are almost black, the pupils only a few shades darker than the irises. The way his strong jaw flexes when he goes hard and cold, trying to withdraw. Then, before I can stop it, the image shifts down his body to his broad shoulders, which stretch the white T-shirts he wears, his firm chest and abs that, even through a shirt, I can tell are rock hard. He’s sex on a stick, right up to his damn ears. I can visualize licking a line right from the corner of his mouth, along his jaw, to one of those earlobes, then sucking it into my mouth as he whispers my name.

  “It’s not guilt,” I say, my voice a bit shaky. “I can’t explain it. David doesn’t understand either, but I have to help him. One way or another, I have to save him, Jill.” I look up at Jill, eyes stinging with the tears I never allow to fall.

  Jill takes my hand and squeezes briefly before releasing it. “Oh, Bethy.” She shakes her head and sighs. “So what’s the plan? And how can I help?”

  This is the Jill that I adore, the loyal friend who’d walk through fire—or hang out with a felon—to support me.

  “I convinced David to come up tomorrow and go visit Juan with me. I told him to get whatever information he can out of Juan. I don’t think he did it. The drive-by. I don’t think there’s any way he could shoot a little girl like that. I mean, I knew him his entire life, Jill. People don’t change that much in a couple of years.” I shake my head briskly to dispel the very idea that Juan could commit such a heinous act. “Something’s just not right—about any of this. Joining the gang, the drive-by, the way he pushes me away. It’s not right. It’s not Juan. There’s something here we’re missing and we just have to keep digging and asking questions until we find it.”

  “So let’s say you’re right and there’s more to this than a kid who panicked and joined a gang. How are you going to figure it out if he won’t tell you the truth?”

  “I’m going to start by finding out about his conviction. I’m going to get every piece of information on it that I can. Something’s in those records that no one else has noticed and it’s going to help point me to what really happened to Juan.”

  “And I suppose I’m going to be bringing you coffee and snacks while you comb through all of these reams of information?” Jill raises an eyebrow at me.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” I reply as I reach into my backpack and pull out said reams of information.

  SATURDAYS are low-key days at the halfway house. No meetings or training sessions. Just our assigned house chores and free time. For guys who’ve been in prison for a while, time with nothing to do is the rule rather than the exception. We’re real good at sitting around in small spaces with absolutely nothing to occupy ourselves. But here, I can go outside, smell the fresh air, and watch the world. Birds, squirrels, flowers. I’m so hard up that I’m even happy to see bugs. Any chance to be outside and look at something other than chain link and bare dirt. It’s like a gift.

  It’s about eleven, and the temperature is getting warmer quickly. Summer’s just around the corner. I can feel it in the air. I’m watering the new plants along the side of the property when I notice a tiny frog in the dirt underneath one of the honeysuckle bushes. I bend down and carefully lift him between my thumb and forefinger. I place him in the palm of my opposite hand and softly stroke his tiny back.

  “Hey, little vato. How’s it goin’?” I ask quietly.

  He’s smooth and still, his sides expanding and retracting as he breathes. I hold him up to my face so we’re nose to nose. He blinks at me. Do frogs blink? News to me.

  “I’m putting more plants out here for you, little man. There’ll be more shade and water. We’ll keep you cool this summer, yeah?”

  “Wow. I thought the RH would have broken you of the whole talking-to-small-animals thing,” a voice says behind me.

  My heart nearly stops. I close my eyes, a sharp pain stabbing through my chest as I try to take a breath. I slowly return the frog to the dirt beneath the shrub. Then I stand and roll my shoulders before I turn around.

  David was always an inch or two shorter than me, but he’s filled out, not the skinny kid I used to put in a headlock when we were fucking around at soccer practice. He has his hair cut short—a business cut, I think they call it. He’s wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt untucked over a pair of faded jeans. His watch is expensive, and I notice a set of Volvo keys dangling from his fingers.

  My eyes shoot over his shoulder to where Beth stands a few feet away, her hands clasped in front of her chest, a look of hope on her face. She gives me a small, encouraging smile, and I know I have to do this even though it’s nearly enough to put me down for the count.

  I scratch my head, not sure how to begin.

  “Yeah,” David says as he takes a step closer. “I don’t know what the hell to say either.” He puts out his hand
and we clasp for a moment. “It’s good to see you, hermano,” he tells me quietly.

  I release his hand. “I guess I know how you ended up here,” I answer.

  He raises an eyebrow to me then glances behind him. Beth has vanished, leaving us to deal with one another in all our angst and awkwardness.

  “You look real good, bro.”

  “Thanks, man.” He stuffs his car keys in his front pocket. “Beth tells me you’re here for a few weeks, yeah?”

  I nod. “Yeah, just, uh… Just trying to get settled, you know. Find a job, a place to live.”

  Fuck, this is humiliating. I want to either die or crawl into the dirt with the frog. David’s everything I always thought I’d be—professional, clean-cut, smooth. The kind of guy girls like his sister should be with. The kind of guy who lives in a big house in San Antonio.

  “That’s great, man. Any ideas what you might do? Where you’ll live?”

  I glance down at the spot where the frog was and see that he’s disappeared. Lucky bastard.

  “Not too sure, no. They’ve got all kinds of fancy ideas for me, but I imagine I’ll be washing dishes at a restaurant or something.”

  David scrutinizes me. It’s a dumb-ass word, but there’s no other way to describe it.

  “Yeah, you always loved washing up after your mom made enchiladas, so I can see why that’d be a good choice.”

  I can’t help it. I snort. My mom made the cheesiest enchiladas ever seen, and our little apartment didn’t have a dishwasher—well, except for me. Trying to pry all that melted cheese off the plates after enchiladas was sheer torture. I used to pay David all my lawn mowing money to get him to do it for me.

  “Seriously, hermano,” he says as he walks past me and sits backwards on the bench at the picnic table. “What the hell are you doing? A dishwasher? Why don’t you go back to school, try community college or something? Maybe coach some soccer? You’re good at all kinds of shit, and you know as well as I do that you’re a good damn student. There’s no reason you should be washing dishes at some greasy spoon.”