Walk Away, page 1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty
Chapter Eighty-One
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Sam Hawken
Newsletters
Copyright
For Mariann, because there’s nothing she won’t do for family.
Chapter One
CAMARO ESPINOZA DRIPPED with sweat. There was no time, no place but the moment, and she thought of nothing but fighting. The bag dangled to the floor in a line of others, all undisturbed. She alone forged ahead with the war.
She’d gone thirty minutes on the heavy bag and had ten minutes still ahead. She shifted from a jab-cross-and-takedown combination to a jab, jab, and cross as she circled the bag clockwise. Her hands were swathed in wraps, and the leather bag popped as she laid into it punch by punch.
A punch started at the floor and worked itself up through the rising heel, the turn of the hips, the torsion of the shoulders, and then the final explosion. Camaro’s fists ached in time with her muscles, every heartbeat pushing fresh pain through her in a steady, rapid pulse. She breathed in through the nose and out through the mouth, exhaling on the follow-through, emptying her tired lungs completely.
The timer sounded again. Thirty seconds down. She caught the bag between her hands and drove her knee into it, alternating leg to leg. When the timer marked off another half minute, she released her grip and fell back, leaving smears of perspiration behind.
Camaro went down on the mat, back flat against it, and forced herself into a series of spring-ups that felt like torture. She did as many as she could squeeze into the time and then labored onto her feet again to begin a fresh set of jab-cross combinations.
She heard Miguel clapping his hands as the timer wound down. It went off. Camaro stepped back from the bag, panting heavily, her shoulders rising and falling. Her arms were as heavy as lead.
Miguel crossed the empty gym, passing the sparring cage, and stepped onto the mat. “Sixty seconds!” he called. “Get some water in you. Go!”
A liter-and-a-half bottle of room-temperature water sat near the wall in the pool of a ratty white towel. Camaro bent, feeling the strain in her back, and picked it up. She was careful to only sip and not to guzzle.
“Thirty seconds,” Miguel reminded her. He was a sturdy man, built low to the ground. His dark hair was shot through with gray. “That’s enough water.”
Camaro tossed the bottle away. Miguel came close, and they bumped fists. “One more round,” she managed.
“You can do it. Focus and power. Focus and power. You don’t feel no pain.”
The timer sounded, sharp and clear. Camaro turned back to the bag.
She did another five minutes. Jabs, crosses, knees, and takedowns. The last two sets of spring-ups were nightmarish. After the second set she made it to her feet only with effort. Thirty seconds remained, and she bulled through it. When the timer sounded its last alarm, she fell against the heavy bag and hugged it.
Miguel cheered her. “¡Lo hiciste!”
He picked up her towel for her and offered it. Camaro mopped her face and then her arms. She had stitches in the brow over her left eye. The gym felt stifling, but it was only her body heat and the remnants of the workout.
“Feeling that, huh?” Miguel asked.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t pace yourself. It’s full throttle all the time.”
Camaro fetched up her water bottle. This time she took a mouthful, swirled it around, and then swallowed. “You don’t get to call time-out because you’re tired.”
“True that.”
The gym was clean, swept, and quiet. The whir of the fans overhead was the only other sound. Even the interval timer was silenced now. Camaro glanced around. “Where is everybody?”
“Gone. You’re the last one.”
“What time is it?”
“After nine.”
“You could have stopped me.”
Miguel shrugged. “I figured you had to get something out. None of my business. As long as I’m home by midnight.”
“Let me get cleaned up.”
“Take your time.”
Like the rest of the gym, the showers were deserted. Camaro rinsed her body until it was free of every trace of the workout she’d done. The hot spray pounded her muscles. She stood a long time with her head bowed under the flow, her honey-brown hair turned dark by the water and falling around her face.
When she was finished, she looked at herself in the mirror for a long moment. The stitches in her brow were marked with a single butterfly bandage. She let it be, shouldered her bag, and went out.
She found Miguel near the front of the gym. His office was a raised cubicle built of wood painted white and red, a desk, and a chair where he sat and looked down on the people coming in. His cash register was a simple metal box. He didn’t take credit cards or checks. Those who trained here paid cash on the first of the month. It got them a locker and guaranteed one-on-one time with Miguel or his son, Rey.
“All done?” Miguel asked.
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not like I never went to a New Year’s Eve party before. They’re getting along fine without me.”
“I’ll drop something extra in the box when I come back.”
Miguel made a face. “I can’t be bought.”
“All right, then. I’ll take a discount.”
“I can’t be ripped off, either.”
“Okay,” Camaro said. She turned toward the door.
“Hey, where you headed off to tonight?” Miguel asked.
“Nowhere in particular.”
“You want to swing by the house? Have a few beers, watch the ball drop?”
Camaro considered. “Thanks, but I think I’ll probably just go home.”
“Nobody at home, though, right?”
“Not this time.”
“You change your mind, you got my number. We’re gonna party till dawn, so…”
“I’ll think about it. Happy New Year, Miguel.”
“Happy New Year, Camaro.”
She went out through the front door and onto the street. Out there the palm trees on Washington Avenue were still ringed with Christmas lights, and the liquor and tattoo shops across the street were open for business. All around South Beach, the holidays lingered in the final hours of the year.
Camaro’s bike was at the curb. She strapped her bag to the pillion seat and swung a leg over the saddle. The engine started with thunder, and then she was gone.
Chapter Two
IT WAS IN the low seventies on the ride home. In the north it was cold, very cold, and the news was full of reports about how much snow they were getting, how much school the children were missing, and how the airports were jammed with weather delays. Florida escaped all that. There was a time when Camaro welcomed the kind of isolation on ly a blizzard could bring, but she was far away from it now.
She paid the toll and took the Causeway to get out of Miami Beach, cut through Overtown, and skirted the northern edge of Little Havana before turning toward home. Off the freeway the Harley glided through well-lit stretches where revelers partied in the streets, and delved into the shadows between the streetlights before coming out the other side unscathed. The sky was stained orange by the sodium vapor of the lights, and she was one woman alone on a bike, moving through the city without being caught up in it. There was the solitude of being free of people altogether, and there was the aloneness of being among more people than could easily be counted. Camaro was overlooked completely, and there was a comfort in her anonymity.
Ahead of her a limousine cruised in the right lane with the sunroof open. Two young women in party dresses and costume-jeweled tiaras drank from bottles of wine and took turns tooting on a plastic horn. The other windows were wide open to the night. Music and laughter spilled out, and as Camaro caught up with them a man leaned out and flicked his tongue at her before cackling drunkenly and blowing her a kiss. “I love you, baby!” he called to her. She accelerated past.
Camaro headed into the heart of her own neighborhood of Allapattah. Here there were no clubs and no limos, and the lights and bustle tourists called Miami were far away. All the whitewashed architecture and pastels were left behind in favor of little houses with one or two bedrooms and bars on the windows, duly kept lawns, and no questions. But she didn’t live far from a park, and on New Year’s Eve they played live music all night long.
Only the sidelight in the carport was on when Camaro arrived home. Her truck waited silently, abandoned for the evening. Camaro sidled past it and put the bike under the carport roof. She killed the engine, pulled off her helmet, and let her ears adjust to the sudden quiet. She listened. A surge of loud voices from a nearby house carried to her, followed by a few light pops of fireworks set off too early. A dazzle of sparks erupted in the sky, flaring red and dying in green. Her neighbor, old Mrs. Cristiano, was already in bed with hours left to go before midnight, the windows of her house black.
Camaro dismounted and unstrapped her gym bag from the pillion seat. She let herself in through the side door, made sure it was locked behind her, and stepped into the utility room off the kitchen. Her workout clothes were damp with sweat. Camaro fed them to the washing machine and dropped in a detergent pod before switching it on. With the sound of water rushing in the utility room, she went to the kitchen and fetched dinner from the refrigerator. The fluorescent bulbs in the light fixture overhead gently buzzed, an insect noise that only barely registered on the ear.
The rib eye was thick-cut and weighed almost a pound and a half. Camaro set it aside while she steamed carrots and green beans for one. As the vegetables worked, she seasoned the steak with kosher salt and ground pepper, then seared it off in a cast-iron skillet with butter. It went into the oven to finish.
She found a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in a bottom cabinet and took it to the kitchen table with a clean tumbler. While she waited on the meat she broke the seal, poured herself a single, and downed it. For a moment the heat in her belly pulsed with the ache of her muscles.
The steak came out extra rare, and she ate it alone at the table with two more fingers of whiskey. When the food was all gone, she put the plate in the sink and carried the bottle to the living room. She turned on the television and switched to Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve to watch Ryan Seacrest and some idiot blonde emcee the musical entertainment all the way up till the midnight hour. Now and again Camaro tilted the glass to her lips before pouring out another measure.
Finally the ball dropped in Times Square, and the new year was begun. Camaro powered the TV off and heard the sizzle and shriek of rockets soaring and exploding all around Allapattah, plus the rattle of firecrackers set off by the string in the streets. Somewhere not so far away, men’s voices shouted, punctuated by the higher-pitched noise of excited women. Camaro missed the coffee table with her tumbler, and it fell on the floor. She picked it up and set it right. Threading the cap onto the empty bottle was a challenge for awkward fingers.
She weaved her way to the bedroom and undressed in the dark. She slept in her underwear and woke only once before dawn to pull the covers over her body.
Chapter Three
MORNING CAME SLOWLY, with pain. The blinds were shut, but slivers of light escaped the slats and arrowed across the bedroom to strike where they could cause the most damage. Camaro put a pillow over her face and attempted sleep again. Finally she rose and tried to brush the taste out of her mouth. What toothpaste could not destroy, she attacked with coffee and sausage and eggs. The food helped.
She washed the remains of the previous night’s meal away, careful to grease the inside of her skillet before hanging it up by the sink. A liter bottle of water from the refrigerator was cold and bit into her headache while she sat in front of her computer.
Camaro browsed the news, but there was nothing she cared to read. She navigated to Craigslist. She selected the list of U.S. cities and saw them arranged alphabetically from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. Choosing Atlanta first, she found the Missed Connections listings in the personals and scanned the ads there. When nothing caught her eye, she moved on to Austin and from there to Boston.
There was nothing until she reached Detroit. The message was simple:
C THIS IS A. I NEED TO TALK TO YOU. URGENT.
Camaro paused, her finger poised over the mouse button. She read the message again, then clicked Reply.
A THIS IS C. WHAT DO YOU NEED TO ASK ME FIRST?
There was no immediate response. She used a dummy e-mail account for Craigslist and for nothing else. Every fifteen minutes for three hours she checked it, until she couldn’t stay in her seat anymore and had to move.
Pacing was good for a while, and then she brought out a yoga mat and placed it in the center of the room. She worked her way through poses, straining muscles and tendons until her limbs felt hot and ached dully. Only when she was done did she allow herself to check again. There was a single e-mail in her box.
WHAT WAS THE NAME OF OUR FIRST DOG?
Camaro typed.
ALPHIE.
The next reply came within minutes of Camaro’s message. It was a phone number.
In the drawer of her nightstand there was a simple flip phone capable of little more than calls and texts. Camaro turned it on and checked the charge. It was nearly full. She dialed the number. It rang on the other end three times, then picked up.
“Camaro?”
“Is this your regular phone?” Camaro asked.
“No, I bought it from a 7-Eleven.”
“Good.”
The woman on the other end of the phone sighed. “I’m glad you called.”
“You’re my sister. I’ll always call.”
“It’s been a couple of years.”
“You’re still my sister, Bel.”
“And I’m still glad.”
“Is there a problem?” Camaro asked.
Annabel fell silent.
“Bel? Tell me.”
“Things were going really good here,” Annabel said. “I got a job and a place to live. Becca’s in pre-K now. I have friends. We have playdates.”
“Bel, you wanted me to call you. We can’t talk about playdates. If it’s not important, I have to go. You won’t be able to call this number again.”
“No, wait! It’s Jacob. Jake. He’s my boyfriend. We met about a year and a half ago. He was real nice. Becca likes him. He has a job and everything. He’s not like Corey was. We went out a lot. It was good.”
“What are you telling me?” Camaro asked.
“It’s not so good anymore.”
“What can I do about it?”
“You don’t understand,” Annabel said. “He’s in my life. We go out, we stay in…he’s always around. Or most of the time, anyway. It’s hard to get rid of someone when they’re so close to you.”
“Why do you want to get rid of him?”
Annabel sounded small. “I’m afraid of him.”
Camaro sat forward. “Did he hurt you? Did he hurt Becca?”
“No, he didn’t hurt Becca. I don’t think he would ever hurt a kid. He likes her. They get along real well.”
“Did he hurt you?” Camaro asked Annabel again.
“It was my fault,” Annabel said.
“Jesus Christ, Bel.”
