Chapter 48

 

Ava

 

 

I’D WANTED TO ask Tarot about Jayce, but the words wouldn’t leave my lips. I figured if he’d wanted to stay in touch, he would have called me by now anyway. Obviously, he had nothing more to say.

With Jayce still on my mind, I called Dwayne’s Aunt Bea, who was happy to hear from me. I made arrangements to get the key for his place and promised to get started on getting it ready to sell.

“Thank you again,” she said, before we hung up. “It’s just too much work for me. If you’d like to hire cleaners, feel free. I’ll pay for it, of course.”

“I might take you up on the offer, depending on what needs to be done,” I replied.

“I would still prefer to split the proceeds on the sale with you,” she said.

“We can talk about it later.” I didn’t need the money and felt weird about taking it. If she wanted to pay me for my time, however, I was open to that.

“Okay.”

After our conversation, I took a drive to my mother’s trailer and began the task of cleaning and preparing it for donation. Fortunately, she didn’t have any liens on the place and the mortgage had been paid off in full years ago.

  As I was boxing things up, I found another letter from Andrew in the nightstand next to her bed. Unlike the others, this one from him had a lot to say. It was dated back three years ago.

 

Dear Mother,

 

I’m enclosing more cash to help you with bills and things. Please don’t use it for drugs. I worked hard for the money and would be pissed as hell if I found out you did.

By the way, I hope you were able to locate Ava. I feel like an asshole about what happened to her. I keep thinking that maybe I could have rescued her from the system and tried taking care of her myself. Too bad I’d been such an immature punk at the time. If you talk to her, let her know I want to get together. Tell her I love her and feel like shit about what happened. She was a great kid. I hope she can learn to forgive us both one day.

I’m enclosing my address and phone number, in case you want to get ahold of me. I have some good news, in fact. I think you’ll want to hear what it is.

Anyway, I’m renting from this guy, Blade. I met him at a bike rally after a couple of chicks got us mixed up. Apparently, they thought we looked alike and introduced us. We hit it off right away and now I’m staying at his townhome for dirt-cheap. Talk about luck. Anyway, call me. I worry about you.

 

Love always,

 

 

Andy

 

I re-read the letter and then called Tarot back. When he answered, I told him about it.

“What’s the address?” he asked.

I told him. My heart was pounding a mile a minute and my hands were shaking.

What if he was still alive?”

“It’s been a year since the incident with Blade. I wonder if the place is empty, or if someone else is living there?” he replied.

“I’m going out there,” I replied, excited. “I’ll let you know. Who knows, maybe Andrew is still alive?”

“For your sake, I hope he is,” Tarot said sadly.

I touched the necklace around my neck. The lucky one. “I’m not giving up hope.”

“I don’t blame you. In your position, I wouldn’t either.” He paused. “I wish I could meet you there. Dammit, I’m curious as all hell now. When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. What’s your address? In case I fly out there. We can drive together.”

I hesitated.

“You still don’t trust me,” he stated.

“No offense, but it’s hard for me to trust anyone, if you want to know the truth.”

“I get it.”

After thinking about it some more, I gave in and told him my address. Tarot had every reason to be angry with me and was instead treating me like a friend. I’d been wrong about him. The more I thought about it, the more respect I had for his club, too. I could see why Jayce had been proud to be a apart of the Gold Vipers, even if some of their ways weren’t on the up-and-up.

“At least you know for certain that your brother was a good guy,” Tarot said to me.

“I always knew he was,” I said sadly. “I’m just glad you set me straight about everything else. I’m so sorry for what I did to you, your family, and everyone else.”

“I forgive you, Ava,” he replied. “And I want you to know that you can trust me with anything. I mean it.”

“I know. The same goes here. I don’t feel as if I deserve your trust, but I swear that I’ll never lie to you again. Or… to Jayce.”

“You need to tell him that yourself.”

“I know,” I replied, softly. “I just need to find the courage to do it.”

“You? You’re one of the most courageous young women I’ve ever met. Seriously.”

I smiled. “That means a lot coming from a hard-assed biker like yourself.”

“Well, I appreciate that. Oh, I’ve gotta go. Peyton is calling me. I’ll keep in touch.”

“Sounds good.”

I hung up, did some more packing, and then headed back to my place. As soon as I arrived home, I called Millie, who was staying a couple more days in the hospital, and we spoke for a few minutes.

“I’ll give you a ride home when they’re ready to release you,” I promised her. “Just let me know when you can check out.”

“Thank you, honey. I’ll keep in touch.”

I hung up and took out Andrew’s letter again. I searched the Tampa Bay address on Google Maps and zoomed in on it. It was a newer-looking townhome and in a decent neighborhood, from what I could tell.

I logged out of the Internet and was about to put my phone away, when I thought about calling Jayce. The thought of him rejecting my apology terrified me, though.

“You already lost him,” I told myself, staring at my phone. “Let it rest.”

Sighing, I plugged it into the charger instead. I’d lied to him too many times and probably didn’t deserve his forgiveness anyway.