Victim. Victim. Victim.
Crystal slumped into her chair as all the oxygen was sucked out of the room, and, for a minute, she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She didn’t blame Jenna for being upset with her. If the tables were turned, Crystal would’ve been every bit as upset. Probably more. But that didn’t change the fact that Jenna’s words cut her deep because there was a small part of her that couldn’t help but wonder if it had taken her this long to plan a way out because she was just . . . weak. A victim.
Maybe if she was stronger, she would’ve found a way out sooner. Maybe if she was smarter, she could’ve figured out a way to avoid becoming dependent on Bruno while getting Jenna the care she needed. Maybe if she was braver, she would’ve fought back instead of going along, biding her time until all her ducks were in a row.
She gasped, trying to swallow the sob that lodged in the back of her throat. Biting down on the inside of her cheek, she forced a few deep breaths until her brain reoriented its attention from the agony in the center of her chest to the slicing pain on the side of her mouth.
When she’d successfully fought back the urge to cry, to fall apart, to curl up in a ball and scream, she cleared the table. Put away the leftovers. Did the dishes. The mechanics of the movements calmed her, helped her set aside the hurt.
Someday, Jenna would understand. Maybe then, she’d be able to forgive Crystal all the things she’d done wrong along the way. Until then, Crystal had to hold on tight to the belief she was doing the right thing. It wasn’t like you could take a class on how to survive and escape your relationship with an abusive boyfriend and a notorious organized-crime ring while taking care of your chronically sick sister. Or else she would’ve been first in line for that bad boy.
Doing the right thing.
Shane.
Why her brain brought him up at this moment, Crystal didn’t know.
Yeah, you do. Because helping him was the right thing. It had been the night he’d rescued his friend from Confessions. And it was now.
Crystal wasn’t a fool. She played ignorant really well, but she’d picked up on a lot more than people gave her credit for. Not just the never-to-be-seen-again women, but the drugs and the guns and the rampant violence and intimidation. These were daily life for Bruno and the whole Church gang.
Walking down the hall, she debated knocking on Jenna’s door. But between her sister’s anger and exhaustion, Jenna wasn’t gonna be in a talking mood for a while. And if Jenna had any hopes of making her three o’clock history class, she needed to get some rest. So Crystal gave her door a last look, then slipped into her own room, closed the door, and turned the lock.
Looking around her room, Crystal’s gaze went from the lavender comforter she loved to her sewing machine on a desk in the corner under the window, to the long dresser covered in picture frames and trinket boxes. For a long moment, she stared at the dresser like it might be filled with snakes, then she dug deep for the resolve to do what she needed to do. What she should do.
Getting a grip on the wooden molding of the old piece of furniture—along with her mom’s sewing machine, another of the things she’d saved from their house—Crystal heaved with a grunt and pulled the end out from the wall about eight inches.
An air-conditioning vent sat low to the floor in the shadow of the dresser. Crystal knelt, undid the loose screws with her fingers, and tugged the metal cover free. Stretching, she reached her hand in until her fingers encountered one of her stashes—about three grand in cash she’d squirreled away bit by bit, a handgun she’d stolen from the club, and the cell phone that Shane had given her the night before.
She turned the square rectangle over and over in her hands, debating, summoning the courage. Because unlike the other times she’d helped Shane McCallan, this time it would be intentional, purposeful . . . planned.
Could she call him from inside the apartment? Maybe make it sound like she was calling someone else and hope Shane got it? She wished she knew exactly how Bruno had learned a man had been in the apartment, but she didn’t. Better not chance it.
Retracing her way through the apartment, Crystal stepped out onto the cement landing the four units shared and eased the door closed behind her. The steps to the upper floor blocked her view of the street, which meant anyone watching from below shouldn’t be able to see her either.
Taking a deep breath, she turned the phone on. One missed call. A few button presses revealed the call had come from the same number programmed into the phone. Shane.
He called me?
Why?
Curiosity mixed in with her determination. She pressed the call button and put the phone to her ear. Her gut told her she was safe standing there, but as the phone rang, her skin crawled as if a thousand eyes were watching. On the third ring, her stomach slowly descended. It figured that she’d worked up the nerve to do this and he wasn’t going to—
“Hello?” Shane answered, his voice familiar, warm, and a little breathless, like maybe he’d run to pick up the call.
“Shane,” she said quietly.
“Are you okay?”
Her heart squeezed at the fact that his first question was about her well-being, but then a car started up in the lot below and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Be quick, be quick, be quick! “Yeah. I, um, have information,” she rushed out.
“Not over the phone,” Shane said.
“What? Oh. Then how—”
“I’ll come over.”
And Crystal thought her heart had been racing a moment before. “You can’t. Not to the apartment,” she said. Not after last night.
“Okay. Where?” he asked.
Crystal’s mind raced. “Out back of my apartment building. There’s a trail that leads into the woods.”
“That’ll work. What time?”
“Um. Around two thirty?” That would ensure that Jenna had left for her three o’clock class at Loyola and that Crystal and Shane would have enough time to talk before she returned.
“I’ll be there.”
That’s all she needed to hear. “Okay, then I should go.”
“Yeah. And, Crystal? Thank you.”
Heart in a full-out gallop, she hung up, nerves making her jittery.
Back in her bedroom, she turned off the phone, placed it deep inside the vent, and righted everything again, double-checking that the dresser settled precisely into the depressions in the old beige carpet. Using her fingers, she erased the marks in the rug’s nap that revealed the dresser had ever sat away from the wall.
Her gaze cut to her alarm clock on the nightstand across the room. Two hours until he would be here.
A ripple of fear and anticipation shot through her stomach—along with an excitement she couldn’t deny.
Chapter 9
Standing in the quiet of his bedroom, Shane stared at his phone, a sense of triumph heating his blood.
Crystal had called.
Just the thought that Crystal had apparently decided to help him flooded restless energy through his veins. Because it meant she was reliable. Even more importantly, it meant she was taking a chance on trusting him. Shane didn’t know everything there was to know about this woman. Not by a long shot. But he was pretty damn sure she didn’t trust easily.
Now he just needed to make certain he didn’t do anything to damage that trust.
The listening devices in her apartment came to mind. The ones that had allowed him to overhear her conversation with Bruno and made it possible for the team to spend the morning researching the marine terminal and getting Marz’s fingers to work looking for any other clues and connections that might help them.