Lock and Key (5 page)

“Grace, you made it!”

Alex, my sister’s husband of five years, took a last long drag on his cigarette and tossed it in a sand-filled can at the entrance of Rapid City Regional Hospital. The collar of his gabardine overcoat was turned up against the early morning chill in the air. He pushed back from the wall and took me in his arms.

Alex’s eyes narrowed over me. “You look like shit, Gracie.”

“Thanks, jerk.” I scowled at him. “Smoking again?”

“Insane, I know.” He raked a hand through his mussed waves of dark blonde hair. “I’ve been here most of the night.” His weary brown eyes rested on me. “What’s your excuse?” he asked.

“I’ve been driving for over two hours straight since before six this morning. And without coffee, by the way.” I put my arm through Alex’s. “How is she?”

He shrugged. “The same. Not in any pain, thank God. It’s the waiting that’s the bitch right now. For this test and that one,” he said. “They’re putting off the next round of chemo until these new test results come in. They don’t let Jake come too often. That’s ticking her off, but he’s only four. They have rules.”

“He’s staying with your aunt?”

He nodded and led me into the lobby.

“I can’t wait to see him,” I said. “So what’s the story, can I get tested today?”

“Yeah, if you don’t scare the doctor away first!” He let out a laugh.

I elbowed Alex in the chest. He threw his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side again. “You can tell me, Gracie. Did you go clubbing and hook up with some badass who kept you up all night?”

I crossed my arms. “Actually, I did indulge in the minibar at the motel last night, so I’ll have to schedule the testing for tomorrow.”

“Minibar?” Alex smirked.

I caught my reflection in a large mirrored memorial plaque behind Alex in the foyer. My strained eyes were slightly swollen and red with black smudges of mascara smeared under them. My face was pale, my hair had frizzed out from the knotted band. Definitely spooky. Definitely spooked.

I exhaled and let out a little laugh. “Shut it, Alexander.”

“Come on, party girl. Let’s get some caffeine in your veins, put you in front of a bathroom mirror, and I’ll find the doctor. Then we’ll see Ruby.”

“Sounds good.”

“Mrs. Quillen, your sister’s small cell lung cancer is extremely difficult to treat in general. There was some initial responsiveness to the chemo and the radiation, but not enough,” Dr. Braden said. “Some studies have shown that a bone marrow transplant may benefit the patient, but the percentages are rather low. It is a relatively new procedure and quite costly, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll be here first thing in the morning to have my blood drawn,” I said and dug the heels of my boots into the floor as I rubbed my cold fingers together. The jangling of my silver bracelets tinkled against the desk of the nurse’s station. “No matches on the national list yet?” I asked. But I knew the answer.

“No, unfortunately. You should ask anyone you know to get tested. We might get lucky that way. Every moment counts.”

My sister’s life was coming down to test tubes filled with blood and soggy swabs in plastic baggies. Tens of them so far, but still no hope in sight. I suppose I shouldn’t say
no
hope. Being pessimistic wouldn’t help her, or Alex, or their son, Jake. And being pessimistic wasn’t Ruby’s way. It never had been.

Out of the two of us, Ruby was the beautiful one. We had the same hazel eyes, but Ruby had a thick mane of honey-blonde hair like our mother’s. My hair was a light chestnut color like Dad’s. She was taller than me by two inches with long legs and a slim, but curvy body. I was curvy, too, but I had to work at the slim part. She was three years older than me and my best friend, always had been.

Ruby had a great, big, loud personality that I envied and adored. I loved dancing in the glow of her brash aura. Our differences were never a source of divide between us. In fact, we cherished them. As we grew up, we found how well my quiet clicked with her loud. We needed each other. We were the opposite sides of the same coin, Mom used to say. Even she liked that about us.

However, Ruby was also the one that got us into trouble over and over again. Half the time it was fun, a lot of the time, especially as we got older, it was freaking scary. She had plenty of brazen bravery, but oftentimes crap luck. Her brain was sharp as a razor’s edge, and she was able to put a spin on at least 80% of the trouble we got into and find a loophole out.

We had a pact from our girlhood: “
Love you no matter what, so just suck it up
.”

By the time she got into high school, Ruby’s evenings out ended with Mom catching her sneaking back in through my bedroom window. I would clutch onto Ruby, but my mom would drag her out of my arms and into the kitchen. The slaps would crack over Ruby’s smirking face. Once, twice, three times.

“Punishment doesn’t work with you! Grounding you sure don’t work! What’s it gonna take, you good-for-nothing tramp? I’m not gonna let you take your sister with you on your little joyride to hell!” My mother’s shrill, shrieking desperation filled the house every time. I would cover my ears and slump on the floor in between my bed and the nightstand when it got really bad.

Ruby’s great big hunger for tasting life eventually got her into drugs. I had tried to dabble right alongside her, but it made me anxious, and I never enjoyed it like she did. That’s when I lost her to the rave parties and a variety of eager boy-men in their fancy trucks. Then there followed the menacing outcasts on their loud bikes who seemed to have endless supplies of pot, mushrooms, cocaine, an assortment of pills.

I went back to getting ready for college. That would be my escape from Meager. But I was always there to pick up her pieces when she needed me to. Because Ruby and I only had each other. Forever and no matter what. So we sucked it up.

I can’t remember a time when our parents got along.

Our little brother Jason was nine when he got run over by a car while out riding his bike on our street after school. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital while my mother held onto his broken arm. Jason was her baby, and he was the apple of Dad’s eye. His death was devastating for all of us. Ruby and I tried to ignore Jason’s empty chair at the dinner table each night. Dad stopped showing up for dinner. Mom stopped cooking altogether. In fact, Dad never seemed to be able to pull himself out of his pit of shock, grief, and anger.

Mom took the stiff upper lip route to new heights, but her drinking gave her away. Our parents would only exchange information and do their own thing, bumping into each other in the house on occasion. Ruby dealt with the delightful harmony at home by getting loud and wild, and I did the opposite. I didn’t want to be in my parents’ faces or make any waves. I kept quiet in the background and concentrated on school.

The first time I met members of the One-Eyed Jacks was because of Ruby. We were in high school then, at a keg party out on a ranch in the hills. A lot of people had shown up and the beer had finished early. Ruby and her friends had mouthed off about it, of course. Loudly. Tim Squiers, a football player whose advances she had rejected earlier, came after her during all the commotion she had instigated.

I was on the other end of the property with my girlfriends, trying to keep clear of the impending chaos. The yelling intensified, and Ruby’s name was being tossed around. My friend Tania and I went running. Panic and horror were words too weak to describe what jolted through me at the sight of Ruby kicking and screaming, being dragged off by Tim with one of his pals holding onto her legs, their buddies cheering them on.

A few bikers had shown up to sell some weed. I knew in my gut they were my only hope of saving my sister from those bastards. I took off and Tania yelled after me, “Grace, come back here, don’t you dare!”

But I did dare. I had to save Ruby. I ran like hell.

Three bikers were perched on a group of large boulders around a fire drinking from whiskey bottles, the fumes of pot and tobacco clouding over them.

“Hey, excuse me guys, can you help me?” They stared at me. I rattled on like a windup toy. “Those jerks have got my sister! He’s slapping her around, and all his friends are laughing. They’re gonna take turns with her. You’ve got to help me! Can you stop them, please?”

“Is that what all that ruckus is about?” A young, attractive biker with light brown hair jumped down in front of me, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He wore a leather jacket over his cut. I couldn’t see his patches. Big brown eyes frowned at me. “They got your sister?” he asked.

“Motherfucking football assholes!” hissed another, taller one. He hopped down from his perch. His long hair was in a braid down his back. He rubbed his hands together and let out a cackling laugh. “Time to kick some school-boy ass. We got this, little girl.” His fingers tweaked my chin. The name “Jump” was patched on his leather vest.

I stumbled after them, and with a roar they pounced on Tim and his friends, beat them to a pulp until they bled all over their varsity letter jackets and begged for mercy. It had been quite a tornado-like display. There was no hesitation on their end. The bikers knew how to take a punch, even dead in the face. They seemed utterly unfazed by any pain. Fighting was obviously not simply a hobby or a sport to them. It was serious business.

The brown-eyed one delivered a shuddering Ruby straight into my arms.

“There you go, little sister,” he said, his voice low, his eyes glued to mine.

“Oh my God, thank you. Thank you so much, thank you.”

One of his brothers stood next to him and wiped the blood off his face with his sleeve. He had vivid green eyes and very long brown hair. He let out a ringing laugh. The name “Boner” was on his cut.

“Hey, it was a good time,” Boner said winking at me.

“Glad we could help,” the brown-eyed one said. “You keep out of trouble, you hear? And get her to do the same.” He jerked his chin in my sister’s direction.

“Yeah, I know, thanks again.” I swallowed hard.

His deliberate gaze remained on me. “I bet you don’t get into much trouble though, do you?”

“No, not really.”

Big Brown Eyes tilted his head at me and grinned. A shiver snaked through my insides.

That was new for me. The thrill of the unknown, of temptation, of something wicked perhaps. A thrill, not fear. I let that sensation dissipate in the air between us.

“Too bad.” He jerked his chin up at me. “See you.”

Big Brown Eyes and his brothers left us and got on their Harleys. They revved up their bikes and thundered off one by one.

My father went over to the One-Eyed Jack’s compound first thing the next morning. He shook each and every one of the members’ hands, looked them in the eye and expressed his sincere gratitude for standing up for his girls. He told them that he had struck a deal with Tim’s father. Dad wouldn’t press charges against Tim and his pals, if they didn’t press charges against the club members who beat up the boys. Outlaw justice had been served, and that was good enough for Dad.