Chapter 36: QUIN

Thirty-Six

QUIN

T his was too easy. Juliette borrows a blue Toyota Rav-4 from some club member and we spend two days driving out to Deb's second home in Missouri. Considering how much time I spent locked up in Tanner's house, this road trip is a dream come true. We see everything we can along the old Route 66 highway headed east. It's not like I forget Avery, but since I know we're headed to see her and she's safe, I let go for a while and it's bliss.

There's almost nothing better than being the passenger princess with my best friend in the front seat. She lets me pick the music, which is a nice change of pace. Tanner doesn't have bad taste, but he doesn't deviate at all from his preference for country music. He would rather listen to the same ten Luke Combs songs while fixing the bike than try one R&B song.

I can finally catch up on Summer Walker's latest releases. Juliette knows all the words already — or at least she's pretty close — so I have to just mumble along and bob my head until I learn the lyrics.

Freedom feels good. We stop at McDonalds and get French fries and Frosties. It seems so damn simple, but after all that time under Tanner's absolute control, I have a weird craving for fast food.

I nearly lose my mind when I see the price of large French fries. It didn't feel like Tanner had my ass locked up long enough for inflation to take hold.

"Girl, I don't even know what inflation is," Juliette says, when I complain about the French fries. "You think they still have apple pie?"

Of course, they still have apple pie. So we get four.

Our road trip is low-key a food festival, sight-seeing, and jamming out to music. There is nothing like driving through the Southwest like that. Juliette buys us souvenirs everywhere we stop and by the time we make it out east, we have hot pink rhinestone cowboy hats on and matching buckskin vests over our outfits.

The vests are starting to feel more like an impulse buy now that it's been over 80 miles since we stumbled upon a kitschy gas station. Juliette doesn't share any of my hesitation over our yeehaw aesthetic, but I'm wondering if I should have at least showed up looking… normal. Will Avery recognize me in a rhinestone covered cowboy hat?

Juliette parks in front a gigantic ivory house with large pillars and two willow trees a few feet away from the front porch. There are three motorcycles parked beneath the tree, and two cars I don't recognize in the other parking spots. I wouldn't call where Juliette parks a spot exactly but… she didn't hit anything. I can't stop staring at the house. It's huge.

I don't know what I expected Deb Shaw's house to look like but the palatial mansion seems more like something that belongs in New Orleans than Missouri. It just has that old plantation house look to it and it honestly has that spooky, uncomfortable feeling too.

"Can you imagine growing up in that slave house?" Juliette says. "Weird."

"Yeah… it's… old-fashioned."

"It's creepy," Juliette says. "White people are weird."

I wasn't the one who said it. I guess I see her point. Maybe they liked the location. Deb Shaw's house is so tucked away that I can't imagine anyone stumbling upon it. I imagine that it must at least feel safe.

Deb Shaw greets us with a smile. "Avery is upstairs. I'm so glad you're here. I promised Tanner I would help, but my years of raising children are long behind me. I like it that way."

"Is she sleeping?" I ask desperately. "Can I see her?"

Deb agrees and I can't even contain my excitement. I try to act normal and go through all the regular steps of polite human interaction, but I barely want to talk about the road trip. I just want to hold Avery. Smell her baby smell. Kiss her on the head. Promise her that I won't let her go.

Whatever Tanner plans for her in the long term, I want to be there for her. I'll do anything. I'll beg. I'll submit to whatever weird contract he wants as long as he lets me take care of this sweet baby girl. Juliette is that extroverted friend happy to take the lead, so I nod along and drop an insightful comment in here or there, just trying not to seem totally desperate to see Avery.

Deb invites us inside and offers us ice-cream. I almost decline — which is rare for me — until she says, "Once you're settled with the ice-cream, I'll bring Avery downstairs."

So I agree to ice-cream immediately, and so does Juliette. Deb Shaw serves us up giant bowls of Amaretto ice-cream with maraschino cherries and whipped cream on top, leading us into her living room.

"I'll bring Avery down…"

Juliette and I plop down next to each other on the couch. Juliette points to a picture of three skinny boys, each holding a fish as long as their torsos.

"That's Wyatt and his brothers — Ethan and Owen."

"He looks like Owen," I say. "Not Ethan."

Then we both hear the distinct deafening sound of a gunshot upstairs.

It's just one gunshot, but it's enough for both of us to drop our ice-cream on the table and thoughtlessly race upstairs in the direction of the sound. No screams. Nothing. Until Avery begins screaming her head off. Shit.

"Do you have a gun?" I ask Juliette, who scampers up the stairs ahead of me.

"No," she says. "We'll work it out!"

I don't even know where I'm following her. We get to the top of the winding staircase and I have to convince myself to stop death-gripping the railing because I nearly slipped on the carpet twice on the way up.

"I think it came from that room," Juliette says, bounding down the hallway towards a white door with a crystal handle left slightly ajar.

"Juliette!" I yell at her as she swings the door open when an armed killer could be in the room.

"Stand back!" Deb Shaw yells. I jump back into the doorway and I have to grab Juliette's forearm so she doesn't stumble immediately into the line of fire. Avery is still in her crib, which instantly calms my nerves. The bedroom window is wide open next to the crib.

I wouldn't normally have noticed such an insignificant detail — it's hot in this part of Missouri. But there's a woman standing next to the open window with her hands up and her back pressed against the wall. The sheer white curtains billow around her, highlighting the open window and the woman's likely entry point.

The second I catch sight of her face… I know who we're dealing with. The gunshot hit the exterior wall and it must have gone straight through because there's a tiny hole with light filtering through.

"It's just a .22, but it can put a hole in a bitch's head just as good as a shotgun can," Deb says.

"That's my baby, you bitch," The woman says in a low, desperate voice.

I can't help it, her voice tugs at my heartstrings. The rest of her sends chills down my spine. She looks like Avery. Now that I see her, I see how the baby doesn't look like Tanner at all. She has blue eyes like her mother — exactly the same shape. The woman with her back pressed against the wall doesn't look like she's very young, but the story I heard about Tanner's dad involved a young woman. I guess she looks older than her age.

For her age, she's somewhat tall, not like that makes it any better. She also dresses like it's about ten degrees warmer than it actually is, which shocks me because there's barely any body fat on her. Lots of cuts though – and some of them look self-inflicted. My stomach turns. Anything that even remotely reminds me of the life I left behind makes me feel… sick and detached.

How did this girl end up with a bunch of gangsters? She has a busted lip and her hair looks like it hasn't seen a brush in weeks. There are deep round sores at the crease of her elbow. I don't know what those are from but they look weird…

The tattoo on her arm stops me from feeling sorry for how rough she looks. My stomach turns again for an entirely different reason.

I almost don't want to believe what I'm seeing.

What the fuck? She literally has a swastika tattooed on her arm. I barely paid attention in history class, but I've seen enough movies to know that you don't get that symbol tattooed without knowing what it means and without knowing that it means something fucked up beyond belief.

"I don't care if it's your baby," Deb says. "I have another round in the chamber and if you move a muscle, I'll paint her bedroom walls with her mother's brains."

I freeze in terror. I always assumed Southpaw got his terrifying demeanor from his biker dad, but clearly, he got at least a little bit of that heat from his mother. Juliette puts her hand in front of me to hold me back this time. None of us want to move.

"You dumbass," Avery's mother says. "If I know where you live, her daddy knows where she lives."

"Her daddy is dead," Deb says. "But not her family. If you want to live, you will listen to my instructions, little girl. You think you're all tough with those tattoos, but I've been beating up whores like you since I learned how desperate you were for biker dick."

"I'm not a whore," she says. "I'm a respectable white person. I carry myself respectably. I don't let niggers around me or my kids."

She glares at Juliette and I, clearly trying to get a reaction out of us. It works on Juliette who flips Avery's mom the middle finger, but I just purse my lips and try not to laugh. Deb Shaw might not care about this crazy hoe dropping the n-word, but I won't let her get the upper hand by thinking she gets under my skin.

"What did you just say?" Deb says. "Because that doesn't sound like something a respectable lady would say."

"I said," the girl says smugly. "They're niggers."

She screams. Loudly. Because Deb fires at the wall over her head. Two inches above her to be exact. She covers her ears and keeps screaming — clearly not hit, but maybe not aware of it. Juliette and I have our ears covered because we didn't have any warning that Deb was going to actually shoot her. The gunshot nearly blows out my eardrums.

"Calm down," Deb yells. "When I'm ready to put a bullet in your whore ass, I won't leave any room for all that carrying on. Now shut the hell up."