Collar, p.2
Collar, page 2
Somehow, she found herself back in the front seat of her mom’s car. She kept the door open, the heat of the morning making the vehicle almost unbearable to sit in, but she did. She let the seat burn her thighs, the steering wheel singe her palms. The pain was good; it let her know she was still alive after what she’d just done.
Breaking up with the man who could have been her forever... while he was in a county jail awaiting his trial. Was there anyone lower than her out there?
When the fog finally lifted, her brain breaking free of the numbing haze it had been in since she left him, the storm rolled in, and unable to stop it, April doubled over and sobbed, crying and crying until there were no more tears left.
And then the numbness returned.
CHAPTER TWO
The wedding of Renee O’Hara and James Palmer was about to be the most extravagant Cascade Falls had seen in decades—and it was bound to be discussed in detail, from the flower arrangements to the ushers to the gowns the aging bridesmaids would show off proudly for decades to come. It was a town wide event, and April hated that she was a part of it, that she hadn’t found a way to stop it. While her mom was happily hopping into the happiest day of her life—for the second time—April could barely get herself out of bed.
She wasn’t a bridesmaid. She wouldn’t be standing up in front of everyone alongside her mom as she said her cheesy vows to James Palmer. Instead, April, dressed in a fitted black midi with capped sleeves and a lace overthrow, would walk her mom down the aisle. She was going to give her away to that awful man; it seemed her life could never stop being one big ironic joke.
Since breaking things off with Van last week, she’d been in a stupor, moving listlessly from task to task, nodding and smiling as her mom prepped for her wedding day. She checked seating arrangements with the wedding planner, sampled all the food one last time, and ensured everyone knew precisely what they would be doing on the big day, even if they seemed like they were paying attention at the rehearsal. On top of all that, she’d tried her hardest to stay the hell away from James Palmer. No more nights in the guest cottage; she couldn’t stand smelling Van’s pillow or seeing his clothes and pictures.
After all, why would she need to see pictures? She had the picture of Van’s heartbroken face, followed by his bowed head and silence, floating around in her head most hours of the day and night anyway. She had all the images of Van that she needed, thank you very much.
“It’s just absurd and cruel that they couldn’t give him, I don’t know, a little break to come to the wedding,” her mom said as she sat in the hair salon, a stylist prepping her for the big day. April leaned on the counter, her simple, half-up-half-down style already complete, and folded her arms.
“You don’t get a break from prison, Mom.”
“Oh, I know, but wouldn’t it be nice to have the whole family here?”
Unable to come up with a response, April simply turned away and asked someone to touch up her nails, as if Van Palmer and his predicament were the last things on her mind. There was so much going on around her, and it should have been easy to stop thinking about him. Bridesmaids were having their hair and makeup done, along with manicures, and April was fielding calls from the wedding planner every ten minutes with little hiccups that would, she promised, be resolved by the time everything got started.
April, meanwhile, was always about ten seconds away from breaking down in front of everyone, her lips in a constant wobble, tears always just on the verge of falling. All she wanted to do was crawl into Van’s huge bed, hide under the covers, and pretend that none of this had ever happened. She wished it was still three weeks ago and that they were riding through the countryside together, up to the lookout to watch the oncoming thunderstorm of the summer beneath the little rickety shelter. She wished he was still holding her tight as the thunder rocked Cascade Falls, the very hills themselves rattling with each boom.
Instead, he was behind bars, awaiting a verdict she already knew the answer to; James had been too happy to share with her that the DA, who was in his pocket, was going to push for Van to serve out a light sentence in a minimum security facility near Cascade Falls. Once he was done serving his time, James gloated, Van would need to come back and work for James in order to make up for lost profits at the bar, which was bound to go under without him cracking the whip.
It was horrible. Disgusting. But what was she to do? Spill it all to the police and watch James worm his way out of trouble, only to turn around and punish her by hurting her mom, then April too? No. She had more sense than that—or so she liked to think. It was the only way she could live with herself after what she did to Van that day at the county jail.
Once the ladies were made beautiful by the overpriced stylists at the salon near her mom’s apartment building, everyone was whisked off to the church to get ready for the ceremony. Most of the chatter was about the reception after at the resort. April’s mom had spared no expense over the food and drinks for the evening, and James had alluded to hiring some spectacular entertainment to keep everyone entertained. If the ceremony was going to be remembered for decades, the reception would live on in infamy for a whole lifetime.
April was the fastest to get into her dress, and rather than sitting around listening to the ladies babble to one another, she went out and wandered to church under the guise of checking on everything. It was all in order, as it should be. The wedding planner was top-notch, despite her mom’s complaints, and April had every confidence that the wedding would go off without a hitch.
What a depressing thought.
By the time guests started arriving, April was desperate to hide somewhere. She couldn’t take all the pointless small talk from acquaintances who were here mostly to see what scandals they could find at the wedding of the decade. Very few of her blood relatives were in attendance; no one from her dad’s side showed except for a cousin, who April had met once years ago. Otherwise, her mom was an only child whose parents had died, and very few her West Coast relatives were willing to make the trek out to the eastern side of the country for a second wedding.
April couldn’t blame them, but she would have enjoyed their company.
Time moved unnervingly fast that day. After shooing all the bridesmaids out of the dressing room, her mom wrapped her arms around April’s shoulders for a heart-to-heart.
“You know you’re my number one person,” her mom said, kissing her cheek gently to avoid leaving a lipstick stamp. April nodded and gave a small smile. It wouldn’t be fair to be outwardly miserable to her mom on her big day. She had a secret that she couldn’t share, so why take it out on her mom? James’s cruelty seemed to be her burden to carry—or else.
“I love you,” was all April could muster after her mom went on and on about how marrying James didn’t make April any less of her daughter, and how Van was going to be her new son, but April was important too. It was textbook, and April smiled the way she thought she should smile, given the situation.
The wedding planner arrived shortly after, urging the two to join the bridal precession. Waiting at the back of the church as bridesmaids and groomsmen walked down the aisle together should have been nerve-wracking, but April felt... nothing. She was empty, unable to stop this awful situation from happening. Van was locked up. James was about to become her stepfather—and her mom would go on living her life with rose-colored glasses, unaware that anything was actually wrong.
At last it was their turn to walk. The music shifted. Everyone turned to admire her mom in the beautiful white dress that April had helped her choose. She forced a smile, knowing there would be pictures taken, and preferred to look at the folks in the pews than the man waiting for them at the end. All of this, in a way, was her fault. She could have put a stop to this weeks ago, back when the threats were first issued. She could have grabbed her mom and ran—straight to the police, out of town, wherever.
Instead, she let her fear guide her. Anything that happened from here on out was her fault.
James looked quite smart in his tux, and he accepted his beaming bride with more grace than April thought he could ever muster. He looked almost... happy, but then again, sociopaths knew how to mimic facial expressions. In that moment, James probably knew precisely how he ought to act. As he walked her mom up the last few steps, he glanced back and winked at April, and she was proud that she didn’t double over and vomit right there in front of everyone.
Numb, April shuffled over to her place in the front row, which was empty for the bride’s immediate family only. So, she was alone. Aware that people would be watching her, she clasped her hands together and set them on her lap, her knuckles white as she tried her best to keep herself together.
“Dearly beloved,” the priest began, his voice booming across the whole hall, “we are gathered her today to witness the union of this man and this woman in holy matrimony...”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she watched, helpless and horrified, as James Palmer took the last piece of her heart away forever.
CHAPTER THREE
Van had always been a deep sleeper. Even if he was in a weird place or a weird mood, he could usually fall asleep within a couple of minutes and stay asleep until his body had however many hours was required each night. His time in the county jail was a bit of a test: there’d been too many guys for the few benches in the cell, which meant Van had to sleep on the floor. Sure, he could have fought them for a spot, but he wasn’t about to let those cops think that the whole Palmer line was the same. His dad would have paid someone to fight the biggest guy in the room for him, and everyone would know, in the end, that James Palmer was the brains behind the brawn and he ought not to be fucked with.
Van had chosen a different path for his life. He’d decided years ago that he wasn’t going to be another crony on the dark side of his dad’s motorcycle club; he really wanted to make something of himself legitimately.
And somehow, he’d wound up in the place he would have ended up in had he been dealing drugs and breaking kneecaps and all the other shit that those guys did. Somehow he was the one in a fucking detention center, despite his clean record—or maybe because of his clean record—and the guys who did most of the dirty work for his dad were out on the streets. The irony made him sick more times than he could count, and he’d only been behind bars officially for a few weeks.
Tonight was the first night he’d been assigned a bed with the general prison population. He’d spent a few weeks getting acquainted with everything, waiting for a work detail, learning the lay of the land—all the crap first-timers did. His dad, apparently, was the one pushing him through a speedy trial, and the old man informed him that he was looking at years instead of months if he waited for the system to sort him out. So, Van had to fall on his dad’s good graces, as much as he didn’t want to, and accept that he had to do time for a crime he didn’t commit.
A lot of the other guys would say the same thing there. They’d argue that they were set up, that someone had framed them—but in Van’s case, he was actually speaking the truth. He’d never done drugs, not even recreationally at parties. Alcohol was the only drug he’d put in his system, and since owning a bar, his intake of even the weak stuff had decreased considerably. How the drugs wound up in his bag specifically was a mystery to him. A lot of the other guys bailed as soon as the cops put him in cuffs, and the few that hung around were just as clueless as he’d been.
The only difference was that those guys actually got out. Their bails were paid in a matter of days by family and friends, while Van’s pricey fee for release was never touched. He’d known his dad had been running low on funds for the last few years, but he never thought he’d be cheap enough to let his son sit in a cell.
But then again, his dad had bribed whomever he needed to in order to get Van in his current location. It was maybe a half-hour drive from Cascade Falls, and most of the guys in there were petty criminals who only needed minimum security. Max security was up the road, and since Van had arrived, there’d been a few transfers of some of the old-timers down to his facility. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but he’d been trying to make the best of it since they handed him a jumpsuit and told him breakfast was at seven o’clock sharp.
As was expected, he’d been placed with a bunch of other white guys, taking a bed in a cell block of about fifty prisoners. There were dividers to offer some hint of privacy between the sleeping cubes, though the walls only came up to Van’s armpits and were pretty damn thin. His new roommate was a quiet kind of guy—in for insurance fraud. He had a year left on his sentence, and he told Van he just tried to keep his head down and fly right. Gus was his name—seemed like a pretty okay guy. As far as roommates went, it could have been worse.
The snoring was outrageous that night. He’d just come from the new arrivals hall where he’d roomed with four other people, but nothing compared to the sounds of fifty assholes sawing wood late into the night, exhausted from doing... whatever the hell they did all day to keep busy. Normally, the noise wouldn’t have bothered him. Hell, he’d slept through the roar of motorcycle engines singing into the early hours of the morning, and this sounded almost the same. Something was keeping him up, and he just couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe it was the new surroundings. Maybe it was the exceedingly hard bed whose covers he’d learned he shouldn’t sleep under. (Bunk inspection was a bitch, apparently.)
Whatever it was, Van spent the better half of the night tossing and turning, his old bedspring squeaking each time. Gus made no noise when he slept. It was like looking at a fucking statue.
Maybe he couldn’t sleep because there wasn’t a warm, supple body beside him. It had been a long time since he’d wrapped his arms around April, and he imagined that if she was here with him now, he would have fallen asleep in all of two seconds. But he’d never want her here. As much as it broke his heart to see her go, sometimes he wondered if she was better off without him.
Other times, he couldn’t help but think she’d been forced to break things off somehow—something he’d yet to discuss with dear old dad, but planned to do as soon as possible.
Huffing irritably, Van rolled over the umpteenth time, his head a little sore from resting on such a thin pillow with zero support. Something about this particular movement felt different. Even with his eyes closed, he sensed someone was watching him. Maybe Gus was a bit of a creep after all. He tried to ignore it, willing his brain to shut off, but when something that sounded suspiciously like a footstep sounded just a few feet away, his eyes snapped open, and he saw a dark figure lunge toward him.
With a sharp object.
If he’d been asleep, he probably would have been stabbed.
Great—should make falling asleep all the rest of the nights a total breeze.
He reacted quickly, arms shooting up and blocking his attacker’s lunge, and then rolled out of bed and dragged the guy down to the floor. The commotion woke Gus, and as Van tried to wrestle the shank-wielding asshole off him, Gus started screaming for the guards. It was the loudest Van had heard him speak yet—though he didn’t step in and help. No, it was the older guy in for petty theft a few bunks down who came to his rescue, dragging the attacker off him while Van laid a few cheap shots at the guy’s face.
Blood trickled down from his nose as the lights came on, and suddenly there were a handful of guards in there screaming at everyone, telling them to stay in their cubes. As Van sat up, he realized the attention of everyone in the block was on him. A few of the guys looked concerned. Some seemed annoyed to have been woken up.
But there were a few... a few who wore the mask of indifference, and that set him on edge.
“Fuck you, Palmer!” his attacker screamed. Van’s eyes narrowed, but he stayed at the far end of his little cube, watching them drag the guy off. He was a junkie; Van could tell just by looking at him, and he wouldn’t have stood a chance if they’d fought squarely. They hadn’t said two words to each other since Van arrived in the sleeping hall earlier in the day. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever seeing the guy, and Van had an eye for tattoos. The ones that swirled up the junkie’s arms were intricate. Definitely memorable.
“Okay, let’s go,” one of guard’s said, grabbing Van by the arm and dragging him forward. “Gotta fill out a statement.”
“That guy tried to kill me,” he hissed, and the realization hit him as soon as he said it out loud. Someone had tried to murder him tonight while he slept. When would it happen again? Were there others? Was this a one-off incident because that psycho thought Van looked at him the wrong way? It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a fight, and he knew he could handle himself, but he wasn’t in the mood to get cornered by a bunch of assholes because someone outside of prison was paying them to take him out.
Sweat trickled down his face, as he was marched away from the scene of the crime.
He had the get the hell out of here—fast.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Hello, love of my life!”
April’s cheeks tinted at her best friend’s exuberant greeting as the people on the sidewalk around her glanced back curiously. A chilly fall breeze tickled the exposed skin on her hands, neck, and face, and she was glad she’d opted for jeans today instead of a thick skirt and tights. Her strawberry-blonde locks were tucked under her wool cap, and a part of her worried she’d have horrible hat hair when she took it off.
Not that it mattered: she’d always pale in comparison to June, the woman who’d steadily become her closest friend ever since her old college days. In true June fashion, she’d fled Bowmansville around the time April returned, explaining that she was off to visit some friends in Europe before the weather went sour. It had been the early days of September at the time, and now, a month later, the woman was finally back—and April could finally get everything off her chest.
