Page 29 of Ruthless Consequences

“Molly was in his ear. Telling him how he should be worried. That she would never lie and saw her leave that night. Where was she going? Molly got into Sonny’s head. And even though Janis stopped going out, because she knew Molly was watching—you know Molly, she wouldn’t raise her hands for a stickup—she started to stir. The little bit of freedom she had was slipping. The girls were constantly getting sick. Janis blamed it on the flu, or whatever, but the staff knew. Lucila and Ava had become addicted to the shit she’d been giving them. She couldn’t give them even a little without Sonny knowing, so…cold turkey.”

There are only a few times in my life when I remember where I was, what I was doing, when anger totally consumed me. I’m consumed. I’ll never forget this moment. I’ll look back years from now in my thoughts, sit where I am now, seeing and hearing what I am now, and be consumed again.

My light.

My Lucila.

I’ve never felt my heart through the numbness. I’m feeling it.

“Why didn’t the school get involved?”

He shrugs. “They tried, but without Sonny admitting it to them, what could they do? All checked out after the house was cleaned. All they had was Molly, but Molly was out for her own kind of justice. When Lucila really got sick—she seemed to struggle the most with it—Janis started giving her some of the meds again. Stuff for a cold or the flu. She knew damn well that wasn’t what it was, though. The girl was having withdrawal. Molly went and drug Sonny away from work. She told him if he didn’t do something, she would. Of course, she had been in his ear after she found out. And her words had taken root in his head. He left with Molly. They got to the house and Janis was walking out. A car was sitting at the curb.”

“Janis was leaving.”

He lifts his hands. “Who knows? But she did, after what happened. All the pieces finally clicked in Sonny’s head. He knew she’d been playing him the entire time. The affairs. The girls. His daughters were being drugged by their own mom. It was hard for him to believe. What kind of mother does that? Janis was a lot of things to him, but never that. That day, the truth punched him square in the face, and he opened his eyes. He went after her. He was going to kill her. I really believe that. Molly will tell you the same if you can get her to talk. She stopped talking about it long ago, at the insistence of Sonny.”

He whistles. “Janis and Sonny played dodge in the street that day. She was using cars to keep distance between them. He probably would have wrung her neck. But—” he shrugs“—the car that had been waiting at the curb had left. Molly had been watching—with a bat. She figured he didn’t want Sonny to see him in front of his house.”

“He came back,” I say.

He nods. “He came back. Molly started yelling when she saw him. The tires were fucking squealing, which tells me how enraged Sonny was. He didn’t even hear it. What must have tipped him off was Janis’s face. Her eyes went wide. Fuck. I really don’t know. But the point is, the son of a bitch in the car clipped him and sent him flying. It wasn’t a hard enough hit to kill him, obviously, but it did some damage. His head.” He touches it. “His back. Molly threw the bat and hit the windshield, but that was the only hit she could get in. It might have scared him enough to take off, though. He might have killed Sonny that day if he would have rolled over him.”

“Which is why Sonny can’t work regularly.”

“You got it.”

“The girls. They don’t know?”

He sighs. “No. Only a few people know the true story. The ones who do—me included—he threatened to kill if they told. I believed him. The head injury plus his conviction that they never find out—he meant business.”

I stare at him. Trying to think through all the reasons I wouldn’t want my kids to know. A few seconds slip past. A bell rings. Students rush the hallways, mingling, before all goes quiet again. A straggler or two passes.

“He didn’t want them to hate her. To think a mother would be capable of such a thing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figure too. They hate him, though.” He whistles. “They think he ran her off. Was abusive. You know, all the things they can think of why she would have leftthem. When it was really her selfish nature. I hate to say this, but she never really wanted them. You put a free animal like that behind bars? It’ll accept its circumstances, but only until it can figure out another way to be free. The medicine thing, though.” He shakes his head. “That’s an entirely different story. She could have killed them.”

“They don’t remember?”

“No. Neither of them. Maybe because they were so young. But deep down, I think they know. If that makes sense. It comes out in their behavior now. Ava is the angriest. Put an obsession in front of her and she’ll warm right up to it without hesitation.” He sighs. “Lucila seems to be resigned to the fate of it. She was sick the day Janis left. She thinks Janis left because of her. Because she was too much trouble. Where Ava goes wild, Lucila is the caretaker. You know how many times we had to get her back in school? She tries to quit so she can take care of everyone at home.

“Sonny was a victim of Janis, just like the girls. But he isn’t a saint, either. Instead of stepping up and doing what needed to be done for the girls, he totally closed off. He keeps his wounds open on purpose. He drinks too much. He watches too much TV. Though he’s quiet about it, he started gambling. Sometimes with the only money they had left from whatever check he gets every month. Molly would step in. Even your old man would send extra food with her for them. Not all the time, but enough to cause notice.”

“Then Sonny started going with prostitutes. He got one of them pregnant. A real special kind of a woman, get what I’m saying? She was loaded and dropped the kid on her head. State got involved. She took off and left the kid on his doorstep. Lucila stepped up, and she’s basically the kid’s mother now. As far as I know, Sonny stopped gambling, but there’s no telling what will happen in that house from one day to the next.”

I stand. He does too.

“Where is she right now?”

“Who the fuck knows? I don’t keep tabs on all of them. I can’t. The only reason Lucila has been on the forefront of my thoughts is because of what she’s been doing lately. Disappearing.”

In more ways than one. She’s not eating. She’s trying to shrink her pain by starving herself.

Nolan can easily find where Lucila’s at, but he doesn’t. I respect him for it, but I also want to bludgeon him for making it harder for me to get to her. It’s a toss-up, but I decide to walk before I do something that will get me put away for years.

He stops me before I can get to the door. “My advice? Follow the candy wrappers.” His face morphs into a worried expression. “She do something wrong? You going to hurt her? Is this about Sonny? You looking for her to get to him?”

We stare at each other.

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