Shame ON You Page 20

  “Room service, huh?” He sniffled, brushed his nose with a fist. “By the time they get here, they’re going to find you and your friends sliced like a Honey Baked Ham.”

  In all the years I’d known Chase, I would have never considered him to be the murdering type. But in his condition and given the grave circumstances he faced, he knew he could only hide behind this false bravado for so long.

  We continued shuffling our feet. His eyes scanned me, a devilish smile toying at his lips. Weaponless, my advantage lay only in my sobriety and his lack thereof. At least that was what I kept telling myself.

  Just then, I saw Ivy rush at him from behind.

  Chase must have followed my eyes. He whirled around, threw out a stiff arm, catching her jaw as if it had been put on a tee. Her head jerked back, and she fell to the floor. From that point forward, I couldn’t control my response. It was all instinct. He’d hurt someone I cared about. I bull-rushed him, ramming my shoulder into his ribs. We fell over a chair. As we tumbled about, I fought to grab the hand that held the razor. He swung it around—I couldn’t get a solid grip on it. Then my back landed on the corner of the side table. A stabbing pain was followed by a tingling sensation throughout my extremities.

  A breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t move.

  My arms and legs couldn’t fucking move!

  My eyes looked straight up. Chase regained his balance and raised his arm above his head. A drop of sweat fell from his brow onto my face.

  I would have hurled if I wasn’t incapacitated.

  “Oswald…you put your fucking nose in my business, just like your namesake did to a president fifty years ago. You’re nothing but an oven-baked kike; that’s all you are. That’s all you’ll ever be.”

  He brought his hand down. I closed my eyes, prepared to feel the slash of the blade. For a moment, I tried to predict the sensation in my face. Would it at first feel like my face had been dunked in ice, and then instantly turn to fire? Once blood started gushing like an oil rig, would my mind go into shock?

  If I could only move my arms. But I was just lying there, as if this had been the plan all along: Ozzie, father of a beautiful nine-year-old daughter, is killed by a drugged-up egomaniac. All I wanted to do was save Kate. In the process, Mackenzie might have lost her last remaining parent.

  A pained squeal sounded from above me. I opened my eyes and saw Chase’s eyes roll back, his body convulsing. He teetered for a moment and dropped to the side like a tree that had just been chopped down.

  Standing there, calmly holding a Taser, was Marek. He shook his head and looked at me. “We need to talk about what ‘trust’ really means.”

  42

  My paralysis lasted only about a minute—one of the most fearful moments of my life. I’d suffered injuries before, my hip being the most significant in recent years, but nothing had stunned me like losing the use of my arms and legs. For all of sixty seconds, I’d lost complete control. And it had almost killed me. After slicing me up, Chase would have probably done the same to Ivy, Chantel, and Kate.

  Thank God for Marek and his lack of trust in me.

  The paramedics had just finished patching the cut on my back. While they had tried to convince me to go to the hospital, their consensus opinion was that the stab into my back had zapped my spinal cord—almost like I’d stuck my finger into a socket, numbing my extremities.

  Cops, detectives, and even Marek were milling about, collecting evidence. Ivy approached me and interlocked her arm in mine, as I saw a wave of red hair enter the room. “I made the call to Brook this time,” Ivy said with a smirk.

  “Ozzie Novak, what the hell has been going on tonight?” Brook stopped inches from my nose, her arms crossed. Redness rimmed her eyes, but her appearance was not of someone who’d been pulled out of bed at five in the morning. She looked like a model for Nordstrom’s, the modern-day professional woman who was always on the move.

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe it.” My voice sounded tired.

  I gave Ivy the honors of explaining how the last twenty-four hours had unfolded. My eyes drifted over to Kate, who was now dressed and sitting in another chair. Paramedics were dressing some wounds on her neck and arms. Chantel was on her knees, holding one of Kate’s hands in hers. I found the whole scene surreal, yet heartwarming. Chantel’s life had been in shambles for ten years. She’d just escaped from the clutches of Dr. Patterson and a self-induced drug binge. And now she’d found some compassion under all the layers of pity and shame to help another girl who had faced similar trauma.

  Maybe there was some good in this world after all.

  “Did I miss anything, Oz?” Ivy nudged my ribs.

  “I think you said it all.”

  “But I don’t understand how you knew it was one of your old high-school classmates,” Ivy said.

  I exhaled then lazily walked Ivy and Brook through my logic and how I’d bounced the idea off Tito.

  Brook made the rounds, speaking to the other detectives in the room before coming back over to Ivy and me. She informed us that Chase actually had admitted to killing the girl he called “Ringlets” in the abandoned apartment complex. Apparently, the drugs he was on was making him surprisingly transparent.

  Brook peppered me with more questions, but, eventually, we all headed downstairs. The paramedics insisted that Kate get a rape kit done at the local hospital, so we all walked through the lobby together. Ivy was practically mugged by Cristina, who’d just barreled through the door. Poppy was behind her, but not in as big a rush.

  “Dammit, Ivy, you almost got yourself killed, and you don’t even let me join in the fun,” Cristina said with a playful push. Her hand accidentally bumped Ivy’s jaw.

  “Ouch,” she said, touching her chin.

  “You see, I should have been there. I would have kicked his ass before he knew what had happened.”

  “I thought you were wanting to launch your music career. ECHO is in your past,” Ivy said.

  “I never said that.” Cristina turned to Poppy. “Did I ever say that?” Back to Ivy. “I love music, and if someone gave me a recording contract, I’d jump for joy. But I can’t count on that. You, normally, I can count on. I love ECHO. It’s our baby.”

  “Got it.”

  They fist-bumped, awkwardly, and the rest of us chuckled, even Brook. Over her shoulder, I spotted Chantel and Kate talking by a large potted plant and a funky piece of art. Chantel had just brought her hands to her face, as if she’d seen a ghost. Then she started crying.

  “Are you checking this out?” Ivy asked me in a low voice.

  A second later, Kate took hold of Chantel’s shoulders and said, “I’m so sorry if what I did hurt you. Please forgive me.” Of course, we couldn’t hear the words, but I knew how to read lips.

  The two girls embraced.

  “I wonder what just went down,” Ivy said.

  “I have an idea.”

  Later, when the ambulance left with Kate in the back and Cristina had walked off with Poppy, I was standing on the front steps of the Austonian with Brook, Ivy, and Chantel. I watched Chantel close her eyes, spread her arms, and take in deep, slow breaths.

  “Everything okay?” I asked her.

  She proceeded to tell us that Kate had known about Ally’s death years ago. Brandon had told her, sworn her to secrecy. But she had lived with the guilt all these years. She had justified it by realizing that Ally’s death, ultimately, was a very bad mistake. Kate had no clue that Brandon had raped Chantel. Kate didn’t even know that Chantel was Ally’s sister. Brandon covering it up, burying Ally in some random plot in the ASH cemetery, made it even worse. Kate had told Chantel that she felt horrible for Ally’s parents. Like the rest of us, she’d never seen or heard of Brandon exhibiting that type of behavior before. It had scared her, but she believed the cancer had ravaged his brain and turned him into a different person. Kate admitted that her life had slowly spiraled out of control, as she searched for any drug or sexual interaction to wip
e away the guilt.

  Kate and Chantel shared a bond over the tragic consequences of a secret that had terrorized both of them for so many years. That was why the girls had hugged. Remarkably, Chantel had found it in her heart to forgive Kate.

  “You will do amazing things, Chantel,” Ivy said.

  “Just like your mother said,” I added.

  Her eyes twinkled. “I’m ready to go home now.”

  We took Chantel to Marble Falls and watched two parents and a child fall in love all over again. I interceded only one time, just before we left. I asked if they would, as a family, visit Marilyn’s mother, Jean, and try to patch up that relationship.

  Marilyn reached out and gripped my hands. “I never knew the power of prayer really existed. Not until now. You’re right. We need to heal and forgive. And it starts with me and my mother.”

  Ivy and I smiled all the way back to the apartment.

  43

  I held my hands over my eyes. “Can I look yet?”

  “Not yet, Dad,” Mackenzie said.

  We were at Tito’s studio loft. The Great Reveal was about to take place, the painting Mackenzie had worked on for two weeks straight.

  “How about now?”

  “Come on, Oz. Give us a second,” Tito said. “We’ve got to create the right kind of ambiance for this presentation. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

  I could have done without the reference to anything related to Julius Caesar, but I knew his heart was in the right place. I could hear some mumbling. Luella and Ivy were talking about something.

  “Ready yet?” I was purposely needling them.

  “Just a few more seconds, Dad,” Mackenzie said.

  I tried to peek between my fingers, only because I didn’t want my expression to let her down. I saw nothing, other than a black sheet covering an easel. I picked up smells of the ocean. I was guessing they’d lit candles.

  Truth be told, the buildup for showing me the painting had me worried that my expectations might be out of alignment with reality. Mackenzie was a child. I didn’t want her to think she wasn’t remarkable, both in her talent as well as in how much effort she’d apparently put into this painting. And she was doing this for me? It was a bit hard to comprehend.

  “Okay, open your eyes now,” she said.

  Mackenzie was standing proudly in front of the easel. Tito had a hand on the sheet that covered the painting, while Ivy and Luella were standing near my chair.

  “All I see is a cute little girl who looks like she’s about to lose another tooth.”

  She wagged her tongue on the jiggling tooth.

  “Oh no, please don’t,” Luella said, turning her head away. “I can’t deal with blood.”

  A quick Mackenzie giggle, and then she composed herself. “So, Dad, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to, you know, be happy, thinking about the past and looking to the future. Actually, I’m happy with you, Dad.” She swallowed. “But I’ve been missing Mom some too. Know what I mean?”

  I nodded, doing everything I could to contain my tears.

  “I know I’ve asked people to call me Mac.”

  I was about to say something, but she held up a hand.

  “Don’t worry. I know my name is Mackenzie. I was just trying to figure some things out.”

  I nodded and kept my mouth shut.

  “So, I guess this painting is my way of showing that I think Mom will always be watching over me. Also, it shows what I want our family to look like. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes,” I said calmly.

  “You ready?” Tito asked Mackenzie. She nodded once, and he pulled the sheet off the painting.

  I just stared for a minute. For some reason, my eyes went first to the faint picture of Denise’s face in the puffy clouds. There were green cliffs overlooking a sandy beach. I saw a man at the edge of an ocean, holding a little girl by the hands, swinging her out over the water. Her mouth hung open. That was Mackenzie and me.

  My heart filled with a warmth I’d never felt.

  “You’re not talking, Dad. Do you like it?”

  “This is incredible.”

  “Cool,” she said with a giggle. “But did you see all of it?”

  She moved her little finger to the right, and I spotted a white, brown, and black dog leaping in the air. If a dog could smile, this one was wearing a large one.

  “Cool dog,” I said.

  “Her name is Rainbow.”

  I tilted my head.

  “She’s available at the dog shelter downtown. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for a while. Or, I guess, ask you. Can we get a dog? I promise to feed her, take her for walks, and brush her, and give her baths. And Tito already checked—the apartments allow pets.”

  She paused.

  Apparently, my response wasn’t quick enough.

  “Dad, I know you love the water. I do too. This painting is us at the ocean with Rainbow. We could have a great time. And, of course, that’s Mom looking over us.”

  I opened my arms, and she came over, sat on my lap, and hugged me.

  “That’s the best present I’ve ever received.”

  “Does that mean we can get Rainbow?”

  “Only if you keep painting.”

  “Deal.”

  44

  I did a flip turn and pushed off from the side of Barton Springs Pool. I was alone in this section of Zilker Park. That might have been due to the fact that the temperature was hovering near fifty degrees and the sun’s glow was sitting at the rim of the eastern sky.

  The chill of the natural spring water instantly infused my body with energy. I finished one lap, churned my arms, and kicked even stronger on the second lap. I could feel my whole being fall into the zone—it was something I found difficult to describe to anyone else. I only knew it when I felt it. And right now, it felt amazing.

  For the first time in months, I swam and I thought, just like I had prior to when my life had seemingly crumbled around me.

  What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger. My dad had often uttered that cliché phrase when I was growing up. Of course, I thought he was full of shit at the time. I might be his adopted son, but to me, he was Dad. It hurt to lose him. The meaning behind his words resonated inside me, especially now as I reflected on all the unpredictable things that had taken place since he died.

  My wife, Nicole, and I were now separated physically, if not in every other way. We both had played a part in our current status. In addition, over the last couple of months, I’d witnessed firsthand the twisted, wicked motivations of people. It would have probably broken me had I not found my daughter, Mackenzie. Just like that, she’d ignited something inside of me I didn’t know existed. Damn, how lucky can one guy be?

  Small blessings.

  Ivy was hanging around one more day to see Cristina perform again. She seemed less anxious than at any time I’d known her, all because of how we’d been able to find Chantel and save Kate. She’d told me last night, though, as we both drank our third glass of wine, that she missed her boyfriend, Saul. She even blurted out that she was falling in love. Apparently, that was breaking news, because she covered her mouth like a little girl who’d just said her first cuss word. Then, she proceeded to swap text messages with Saul, and I went off to bed.

  This morning, Ivy told me that she and Saul had made plans to take a vacation. She wasn’t sure where just yet, but she said it would be soon. She thanked me for pushing her a bit on that issue.

  Ivy was making sure Mackenzie got off to school, allowing me to finally get in a swim workout. Ten laps in, and I already felt like a new man. The pain in my hip was still there, but far less than if I were running or walking. Mackenzie and I had decided that we’d adopt the latest member of our family when she got home from school this afternoon. For the last fifteen minutes before bedtime last night, every question or comment had Rainbow’s name in it. I was patient and listened intently. I really had no choice.

  I pushed off the side of the p
ool and continued with my same cadence, pulling my head out of the water to take in a calm breath every other right-armed stroke. I could feel some lactic acid buildup in my shoulders. Another couple of laps, and I’d probably need to stop.

  Two more breaths, and my idle thoughts went to Nicole. I’d struggled with her absence—who knew where she’d gone and how long she’d be there?—just like I’d struggled when she’d tried to lean back into me. Our separation had been awkward, unlike the first ninety-eight percent of our relationship, which had, up until our separation, felt like the most authentic thing imaginable.

  She’d screwed up. And then I’d done the same thing. You could make an argument that hers was worse than mine. But I’d come to realize that would be the chicken-shit way to look at it. There were deeper reasons why we did what we did. And if we had any desire to create the new version of our relationship, I knew we’d have to address the underlying issues. Whatever those were.

  All I knew was that I missed her. And it seemed like such a waste to toss away a relationship all because of two percent. In some respects, that tiny portion of time seemed almost trivial, yet I knew there was still some pain in the tight grip of that two percent.

  I pushed myself on the last lap, and my mind flipped to the ninety-eight percent of my time with Nicole. The raw magnetism when we made love. The look in her eyes when we shared a moment, whether it be watching the mystical fog drift across the San Francisco Bay or talking about our shared dreams. All her cute and even flirtatious facial expressions. And the way her hands always found that spot on my side that made me laugh like a little kid.

  One final kick, and I reached out for the stone edge of the pool. I flipped my goggles off my head and released three deep breaths. I allowed my body to drop to the bottom of the pool; then I pushed myself upward and swiped my mop of hair out of my face.

  I saw a shoe a few feet from the edge of the pool. Someone was standing there.

  “Hello?”

  No response.

  I shaded my eyes and looked up. Sun rays pierced my vision, and I could barely detect that it was a person.