Two years later
Charleigh
There my father was, in a spreading pool of blood. I look around the pawn shop. Where had the kid trying out the trombone gone? The one making so much racket I had to duck into the bathroom to continue a conversation with my big sister, Lily?
She wants me to join her in New York with our youngest sister, Evie, and at this moment in time I wish more than anything I were there, or at least anywhere but here. Lily has a new boyfriend and a place for us to stay. She wants to get us away from Pops and the pawn shop, which she always says is a ‘bad influence,’ and ‘no place for young women to grow up.’ Exactly like my mother used to say.
I have no idea what Lily’s doing for money, and how she can suddenly afford to support Evie and me in the very expensive borough of Manhattan. I don’t ask.
I’ve never been to New York. Hell, I’ve never been out of Illinois. But I know about the Big Apple, thanks to the stories my Lily has regaled me with over the past couple years she’s been there. Some are happy, some are not. But she loves it there and swears Evie and I would too.
I’m not so sure I believe her. And I’m not so sure she loves it as much as she claims. From what I can tell, it takes a certain kind of person to thrive in New York. And until now, until this new boyfriend came on the scene, I wouldn’t say Lily was thriving all that well. She works like a dog and has to swipe food from the catering company she works with just to feed herself.
But she’s in the middle of convincing me that things have changed for her, for the better, and she’s ready to help. I can continue to work toward my bookkeeping certificate at one of the community colleges there, and Evie can enroll in a high school that’s better than where she is right now. Lily says there are lots of good public schools in New York, and that with her new connections, she can get Evie into the best.
Easier said than done. Dragging Evie away from her friends, as dirt-baggy as they may be, will not be easy. And as for me, I’ve had so many things promised to me in my life that amounted to nothing more than a bunch of hot air, that I am more than cynical. People lie and promise shit all day long just to get what they want.
If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is.
That’s what Pops always says. Someone brings him a heavy gold necklace or luxury watch, and is willing to let it go at a bargain-basement price, you can bet it’s either stolen or fake. He says if anyone owned these items outright and knew their worth, they’d never pawn them for the pennies on the dollar they’re willing to walk away with.
Yes, my father is careful who he deals with, having learned the hard way. He used to accept most anything that came his way, but after getting in trouble for it, he got more particular.
I know it bummed him out, because he made a lot of money off those things. He didn’t care whether they’d been stolen. In fact, I think he still does fence stolen goods from time to time. He just keeps them hidden in the back, where the authorities are least likely to look.
What can I say. My father’s ethics, or lack of them, seldom get in the way of his making a buck.
But they’d never caused him to be lying on the floor of the shop, bloody and moaning either.
“What’s going on—” I start to say, Lily yelling the same in the background over our long-distance call.
“Charleigh?” she screams through the phone. “Charleigh—"
I squeeze my eyes shut and wish she were here. She always knows what to do. She always protected Evie and me. That’s why she feels so guilty about leaving us to go to New York.
But before I can make sense of Pops’s blood and respond to my sister, the phone is snatched right out of my hand.
*****
Charleigh
“Hey—” I yell, whipping around and attempting to grab the phone back before I even see who took it.
“Quiet,” a voice growls.
I glance up to see a man with a crooked nose and shaved head. He looks familiar. His blue eyes narrow, and his lips press together tightly, reinforcing his stern expression. He’s in control. Confident to the point of arrogance.
What the hell?
Do I know this guy? It seems impossible—how could our lives ever intersect? And yet, I swear I know his face.
I tear my gaze from the man to my bleeding father, and as if I were looking through a thick fog, I scan the shop trying to figure out what’s going on. The strange thing is, I can barely see anything. I’m on the verge of a full-blown anxiety attack, my brain overloaded by my surroundings. Nothing makes sense. The kid who was trying out the trombone, whose racket sent me to escape to the bathroom, is nowhere to be seen. In his place are three men in suits, as if he has grown taller and multiplied.
Through the blur, I see the men are somber. Unsmiling. The kind you don’t mess with.
You don’t grow up around a pawn shop and not develop some street smarts.
As my vision clears, I realize they’re staring at me.
These guys haven’t happened by for a friendly hello. Or to sell something they found in their grandmother’s basement, which they hope is worth more than most of the junk here.
These guys could be anybody. Pops does business with lots of people. Although I’ve never seen anyone hurt him.
I can guess they’re not from the city or county government, come to check that Pops isn’t selling stolen goods again. Those men don’t dress nearly as nicely, nor are they as good looking as these three.
I might be frightened, but I still notice certain things.
Like these men, who look like they could grace the cover of GQ.
No, they’re not here to sell or buy. I’m sure of that. Aside from their handsome but hard, stern faces, they wear the most perfect suits I’ve ever seen. Not a single wrinkle, crease, or fluff of lint to be found. Crisp white shirts and ties of thick, sturdy silk. Unscuffed black shoes.
People like this do not come to pawn shops.
Are they holding Pops up? Pawn shops keep lots of cash. I know this because many times over the years Pops has had me go to the bank to make a deposit. That is, a deposit of the cash he was willing to claim on his taxes. The rest of it goes in a safe in the back, hidden behind a false wall.
I don’t understand…
The man who took my phone drops it into his suit pocket, amusement crossing his face when I hold my hand out for him to give it back.
He does not.
I raise my chin like I’m not afraid, but men like this see right through my false bravado. They smell fear. They thrive on it. They eat it for breakfast.
Pops continues to writhe, holding his head, although I’m not sure exactly where he is bleeding from. The thick, red goo continues to spread in slow motion over the shop floor,
like a glossy halo.
“Honey, go back in the storage room. Just go wait there.”
Victoria, my dad’s one employee, gently takes me by the arm and tries to steer me out of the room. “C’mon, Charleigh. You don’t need to see this.”
She’s always been kind to my sisters and me, trying to shelter us from the seedy side of pawn shop life, having worked here almost since Pops opened the place.
She especially tried to step up to the plate after my mother was murdered in a burglary. But my dad would only let her get so involved with us. Said she reminded him of our mother and he just could not bear that. In fact, at one point he was going to fire her. But my sisters and I begged him to let her stay.
As much as I know Victoria has my best interests in mind, I shake her off my arm to let her and the men know I’m not going anywhere.
“Pops, let me see your head,” I say, kneeling at his side.
When I finally locate his wound, a large gash on the side of his head, my heart pounds double time, and I am woozy.
Dammit. This is not the time to be squeamish.
The men yell at Dad, and when he yells back at them, the blood pulses a little harder from his head. I start to see stars, so I sit on the floor next to him, pressing my hoodie to his injury.
I’ve heard head wounds bleed like crazy, but this is insane.
“What’s going on, Pops?” I plead.