There’s a note taped to the warehouse entrance when we get home.

 

 

 

 

The prodigal son returneth. Come by whenever you’re ready. We’ll kill the fatted calf.

 

C.

 

 

 

 

I have no idea how Charlie knows I’m back already, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide it. The bastard never showed an interest in where I was living once I moved out of his place twelve years ago, but if he’s been fucking spying on me then it’s reasonable to assume he’s known about the warehouse for a long time. Years, I’m sure. I rip the note from the door and go inside, fuming.

 

Come by whenever you’re ready. Yeah, right. That’s clearly an invitation. Charlie letting me know he’s ready and waiting for me. Well, guess what, asshole? You won’t be ready for what I’m fucking bringing.

 

I throw down my duffel and the bag I’ve brought in for Lace, and then I start stalking around the warehouse, calculating. I don’t realize the note is still screwed up in my hand until Lacey takes it from me. She carries it to the sofa, where she wraps herself up in her favorite blanket, and then she reads it.

 

“Do you know about the prodigal son?” she asks.

 

“Yes.” I keep stomping. Fucking prodigal son. Charlie thinks he’s so fucking smart, quoting bible references at me. He knows it’s a reference I’ll easily understand, too. The Duchess, his partner, always was quietly strong in her faith. Catholic. She read from the bible to me every night when I first went to live with them as a snot-nosed kid. She did it for years, regardless of whether I wanted her to or not.

 

“Charlie thinks you’ve taken something from him.” Lacey tells me. “Something that requires forgiveness.”

 

“What?”

 

She nods her head, golden curls bobbing around her face. “Yep. Sloane’s father explained it to me on the drive back from church camp. The prodigal son—he demanded his inheritance from his father before he was even dead. That was really rude, even back then. He took a third of everything his father had, and his father gave it willingly. The son went away and wasted everything his father had given him, and eventually he found himself starving and alone. He decided to go back home and to beg that his father allow him to be one of his servants. For his father to take pity on him. Instead of his dad being mad at him, he forgave his son and welcomed him home. There was a huge celebration and the prodigal son was given all these fancy clothes to wear. He was reinstated back to his original position as a son of the household.” Lacey carefully folds the piece of paper, blotting out Charlie’s handwritten scrawl. She looks up at me. “Charlie thinks you’ve asked for too much, and now he’s letting you know…if you come home and say you’re sorry, all will be forgotten.”

 

I just stare blankly at Lacey. When the hell did she get so goddamn smart? I wouldn’t have expected her to read that much into the note, even though it’s exactly what Charlie intended his brief message to convey. That parable is a metaphor for God’s unceasing forgiveness of the repentant soul. Only Charlie would be vain enough to cast himself as the character of the father in this story. Asshole. And there’s no way I’ll be given any fancy fucking clothes to wear if I go back to Charlie’s place when he’s expecting me. I have my throat cut for me and make no mistake.

 

“Are you a member of Pastor Romera’s flock now?” I ask, returning to my pacing.

 

Lacey slumps back into the sofa, rolling her eyes. “He’s a nice man.”

 

“He didn’t care that we’d found his daughter.” A fact that still strikes me as extremely fucking suspicious. I didn’t say anything to Sloane, but that shit was cold.

 

Lacey shrugs, picking up the TV remote. “I think he cared. He just couldn’t show it.”

 

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

 

Eleven fucking thirty. Eleven thirty at night, and Sloane still hasn't text for a pick up. The girl either has stones of steel, or she's prouder than anyone I've ever met on the face of the planet. Knowing her, I'm plumping for the stones of steel option—she was ridiculously, stupidly brave back at Julio's—but that doesn't stop me from pacing the warehouse, picking up random bits of Lacey's crap and putting them back down in pretty much the same place a few minutes later.

 

“Are you supposed to be tidying?” Lacey asks. She's still perched in front of the TV, tapping her fingertips against her knees—index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinkie. Pinkie, ring finger, middle finger, index finger. Wash and repeat. It's one of her things. This is the first time I've seen it in a while, though. The coping mechanism is an absentminded thing she does when she's already relatively calm. The coping mechanisms she had in rotation before I fled to California were the more drastic ones she employs when she isn't relatively calm at all—the ones that involve pills and razor blades.

 

"I can't help it if your shit is everywhere," I growl. It really is; Lacey's not the tidiest person I've ever met, but right now the warehouse looks like a bomb's just gone off inside it. That has a lot to do with the fact that she trashed it when she slit her wrists a couple of weeks back and I haven't been here to let a cleaning crew in. Letting strangers into my home is not a wise idea with Charlie on the rampage. I wouldn’t be surprised if that fucker’s already been in here, tossing the place, looking for a hint as to where I vanished for a week. Hard to know for sure with all the junk everywhere.

 

“You should wear an apron. Would suit you,” Lacey says, still tap, tap, tapping. She flicks over the channel as I gather up a huge pile of her clothes and dump them right on top of her where she sits on the couch. Right over her head. “Hey!”

 

“You have a bedroom, Lacey. And a wardrobe. And a bunch of other furniture used to house clothing. Use it. Use them. Don’t use the fucking floor.”

 

I’m in a foul mood. First Charlie’s pointed little dig, and now this. She should have text by now. She should have called me, even, begging for me to go collect her. So I can keep her safe. And yet the stubborn woman hasn’t made a squeak. Lacey burrows out of her clothes, throwing a pair of paint-stained jeans at me.

 

“I’ll tidy up my shit, Zeth, when you tidy up yours!”

 

I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about now; I lived like a goddamn monk before she showed up. Didn’t even own the TV. I had enough furnishings to make sure I had somewhere to keep my stash of aged whiskey and I had somewhere to sit and drink it, and that was about it. Suited me just fine. I indulge Lacey, though.

 

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means,” she says, wrestling her way off the couch, snatching up her stuff as she goes. “That you should just quit pacing around this place and go and fucking get her! And after that, you should get an early night and not keep me awake with all your freaky sex noise. I have an appointment in the morning and you”—she stabs me in the chest with her index finger— “need to drive me.”

 

“What kind of appointment?” I already know what kind of appointment. I know exactly what kind—the only kind Lacey has ever had in the six months she’s been squatting like a vagrant in my living space. The kind that involves that Newan bitch.

 

“Don’t play dumb, buster,” Lace growls. She’s hilarious when she tries to act tough, but I approve of the attempt. It’s way better than when she locks herself in her room and stays so quiet that I think she might actually, really be dead. “It’s at ten am. I already got Sloane to make an appointment.”

 

“How? When did you speak to her?” I ask the questions way too quickly, like some fucking school kid quizzing his friends about his fucking crush. I need to get a grip. “You didn’t mention anything to her in the car.”

 

Lacey reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cell phone. She raps me with it right between the eyes. I think about killing her. “I used this. She’s pretty good at responding. But first you actually need to text her first. You can use mine if yours is broken.” She slaps the phone into my hand and then hustles down the hallway toward her room, kicking along the errant clothes that escape her pile as she goes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

******

 

 

 

 

“Hey, man, what’s up?”

 

“Just calling to let you know I found Rick.”

 

I haven’t called Sloane. I’ve pounded the shit out of my heavy bag, swearing with each and every hit, using the extra anger to smash my fist into the worn fabric just that little bit harder. It’s one a.m. when Michael calls.

 

“Yeah?” I wipe sweat from my face, stopping it from running into my eyes. “Where was he? What did he have to say for himself?”

 

“He was in three pieces in a dumpster a block away from Disneyland. And he wasn’t really in a talkative mood.”

 

I take one final, furious swipe at the heavy bag. The impact jars all the way up my arm, ringing bells inside my head. “Fuck. Fuck.”

 

“Yeah, boss. It was pretty bad. And when I say bad, I’m talking internal organs.”

 

Shit. Yeah, so I didn’t really like Rick, but I put him in Anaheim. I told him to wait there for me. And it was my stupid admission to Julio that sent his boys down there to investigate. I might as well have just shot him in the head back on the docks when he met with those bikers. Would have been a far more pleasant demise by the sounds of things.

 

“Where are you now?” I ask Michael.

 

“Already back at the other place. I’m just doing some…housekeeping.”

 

The other place. My crazy sex pad, as Sloane calls it. She’s the last girl I fucked inside those four walls; no further gatherings will ever be hosted there. It’s just a ridiculous suck on my funds now that it doesn’t serve a purpose. I should sell it.

 

“Okay, when you’re done there, do me a favor and slip by the girl’s place. Make sure everything’s quiet over there?”

 

“Sure thing.”

 

“Let me know as soon as you’ve got eyes on the building.” I end the call, and I quit on the heavy bag. I start on the chin-ups instead. I’m bench-pressing when Michael calls back an hour later.

 

“Got eyes, boss.”

 

Weirdly it feels like a weight’s been lifted from me as soon as he tells me this. That weightless, light feeling lasts all of five seconds, though. Michael continues. “I’ve got eyes on the place and it’s totally empty. She’s not here. The place is sealed up tight. No lights. No car. No Sloane.”

 

No lights. No car. No Sloane.

 

Each one of those statements feels like a huge hit to the stomach. “Well, where the fuck is she then?”

 

Michael makes a brief, strangled sound on the other end of the phone. For all of the world, it sounds as if the motherfucker just laughed. “There was a note under a rock on the front doorstep, boss. It’s not addressed to anyone, but I’m pretty sure it’s for you.”

 

“Tell me,” I grind out.

 

Another strangled coughing sound on the other end of the line. “It says, serve you right if I were dead, asshole.”