Breaking The Rules_ A Novel Part 30

Dan was silent, just sitting there, staring down at the floor as Izzy dried his hands on one of Eden's mismatched towels. Given her tendency to be thrifty, she'd probably picked them up at some second-hand store. If she was still around by Hanukkah or Christmas or whatever she celebrated-Festivus?-he was going to buy her a really nice, really thick and fluffy matching set. And sheets that were criminally soft, and s.h.i.t, maybe a whole new apartment's worth of furniture.

"You're an a.s.shole, Gillman," Izzy repeated now, "but you're an intelligent a.s.shole, and deep down you're a good guy with a heart of f.u.c.king gold. So if you're really worried about it-maybe about what Eden said about the name-calling, which is definitely uncool, bro-then you should go in. You know, for counseling. It can't hurt. That Al-Anon stuff, too, you know, for adult children of alcoholics? It's a good idea. I read a lot about it back when..."

Back when Eden had first left, and Izzy had been certain it would only be a matter of time before she'd return. He'd wanted to be ready to help her, however he could.

"I read about it," Izzy finished.

But Danny knew exactly what he hadn't said. "You're the one who needs counseling. What you're doing? With Eden? It's f.u.c.ked up."

Izzy nodded. "Yeah, I know."

"I couldn't do it," Dan said, shaking his head. "Even just the thought thought of Jenn with other men...I mean, I don't own her, either, but...I just don't know how that could be even remotely okay." of Jenn with other men...I mean, I don't own her, either, but...I just don't know how that could be even remotely okay."

"Well, she's not with with them," Izzy pointed out. "I have to admit that the look-but-don't-touch rule plays heavily into it. You know, the making-it-bearable." them," Izzy pointed out. "I have to admit that the look-but-don't-touch rule plays heavily into it. You know, the making-it-bearable."

And now Dan was looking at him as if he'd just spoken in Mandarin Chinese. "Look but don't..." he repeated.

It was as if a cartoon lightbulb was switched on glaringly bright over Izzy's head, at the exact same moment that a second one lit up over Dan's noggin.

"Holy s.h.i.t, bro," Izzy said, "did you actually think-"

"Jesus," Dan spoke at the same time, "I thought Eden was, you know, hooking, but-"

"Your sister's an exotic dancer," Izzy told him, getting the facts out there as quickly and efficiently as he could. "A stripper. On a stage. In a club called D'Amato's. No one touches her. The bouncers are solid, the rules are absolute. I've been there. There's no back room, although the parking lot is sketchy. But inside? What you see is absolutely all that you get."

"Jesus," Dan said again. "I thought..."

Danny actually thought his sister was a prost.i.tute-and holy c.r.a.p, no wonder he'd been so amazed at the idea that Izzy was down with that.

For two men who were both smart enough to become Navy SEALs, they were pretty freaking stupid to have failed to notice that, for the entire past discussion, they'd been talking about two different things.

Like Izzy, Dan was now sitting there, rerunning everything that had been said since Eden and Izzy had come through the apartment door.

Danny had called his sister a wh.o.r.e because he'd actually thought she was. A wh.o.r.e. Professionally. Because it was legal to turn tricks in parts of Nevada. And in other parts, like Las Vegas's Clark County? The cops tended to look the other way.

Not that any of that made it okay. At least not for Eden, and Jesus, not for Izzy, either.

Out in the living room, Eden and Jenn had no doubt had a similar revelation, because there came a quiet knock on the bathroom door, then Jenn's voice: "Dan? Danny? I'm sorry to bother you, but we were wrong. Eden's a stripper stripper. But even that's kind of secondary to the fact that while she and Izzy were at the mall asking about Neesha, someone shot at them. With a gun."

Izzy reached over and opened the door as Danny looked up at him, in disbelief. "Jesus Christ, Zanella," he said, "what the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l...?"

"Neesha," Eden called quietly as Izzy followed her through the door that accessed the stairs leading down to the bas.e.m.e.nt, where the building's laundry room was located, along with about a dozen storage s.p.a.ces with garagelike metal doors that slid up and down and were secured with padlocks.

She didn't like coming down here in the daytime-at night it was even spookier. But having Izzy with her was a real game changer.

"It's me, Eden," she called. "Ben's sister?"

But there was no answer, no sound of movement, and when she looked inside, the laundry room was empty.

Eden watched as Izzy went down the row of storage s.p.a.ces, checking that each lock was secure-in between glances back at her. No doubt to make sure she wasn't about to crumble.

It had been a day and evening filled with more than its share of unpleasant and frustrating surprises, that was for sure.

"I can't believe Neesha was here," Eden said, now, because she just knew Izzy was about to start talking about Danny's incredible disrespect, and she didn't want to go there. Not now.

"Yeah," Izzy agreed as he came back down the hall toward her. "It's a pretty cruel irony."

Apparently, while she and Izzy and Danny and Jenn were at the hospital, Neesha had used the key Ben kept hidden outside of the apartment to come in, take a shower, eat a meal, and commit petty larceny by stealing several items from Eden's stripper clothes drawers.

Not that Eden wouldn't have lent her what she needed, should Neesha have just asked. After all, she had an excess.

On her second day of work, she'd inherited an entire costume trunk from a woman who was exactly her size, who was leaving D'Amato's to have a baby. She wasn't planning on coming back and had given it to Eden in a pay-it-forward way. So Eden had ended up with far more stripper clothes than she'd ever need-two dresser drawers full-which Neesha had apparently found while snooping through Eden's things last time she was here with Ben.

"While you were in the bathroom with Danny," Eden told Izzy now, "Jenn said that Neesha came over to snag one of my stripper outfits. She said that's at least partly why she and Danny thought what they thought, because Neesha said something to them about borrowing some clothes that didn't make her look like a little girl, because she didn't want to have to have s.e.x with the freaks."

"Really?" Izzy asked.

Eden nodded as they went back up the stairs. "Why do guys find that hot?" she asked. "The little-girl thing?"

"I don't know," he said, "because I don't."

She glanced back at him. "So, like, if I dressed up in, you know, a Catholic schoolgirl uniform, you wouldn't like that?"

"Hmm," he said. "That's kind of a touchy question, considering a lot of people think you're kind of permanently wearing a schoolgirl uniform, because you're too young for me. People including your brother."

"He's an idiot."

"He certainly is opinionated," Izzy said evenly. "And some of his opinions are are idiotic. But the math is the math. I'm eleven years older than you." idiotic. But the math is the math. I'm eleven years older than you."

"Ten and a half," she countered. "And it's not a problem for me. Your being so elderly."

He smiled at that, as she'd hoped he would. "Good to know. And as long as we're being honest here, your being nubile has never been a problem for me. And if you really got into the whole wearing-a-school-uniform thing, I'd muscle through. Although I'd prefer you waiting to don it until you're fifty and I'm sixty-one."

"So you do do think it's hot." think it's hot."

Izzy laughed. "Sweetheart, if you wore a giant Hefty trash bag and asked me to wear bubble wrap around my head while we got it on, I'd find that that molten-lava hot. You want to role-play and pretend we're historical figures-I'll be George, you be Martha? I'm there. I'm still reeling from the missed opportunity at the mall. I was totally ready to be Billy Bob to your Irma Lou." molten-lava hot. You want to role-play and pretend we're historical figures-I'll be George, you be Martha? I'm there. I'm still reeling from the missed opportunity at the mall. I was totally ready to be Billy Bob to your Irma Lou."

"I think Billy Bob was Irma Lou's brother," she told him, dancing out of his grasp.

"Oh, that's so wrong," he said, stopping there on the stairs.

"Yeah," Eden said, turning to look down at him. She rarely saw him from this vantage point, and it was nice. He was extremely attractive from every angle, and the amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes made her smile back at him, even though the information she was about to give him was nothing to smile about. "About as wrong as Neesha, who looks like she's around twelve telling Danny that she'd stay only if he paid-and then giving him a crotch grab."

"Whoa, did Jenn tell you that?" Izzy'd started up the stairs, toward her, but that stopped him short again. He laughed his disbelief as she nodded. "It's been one h.e.l.l of a night for Danbo, too, huh? Did his head explode?"

"Probably." Eden smiled again despite her deep and growing concern for the girl. "Am I a bad person if I admit that I really wish I'd been there to see that?"

"It's okay," he said. "I'm a bad person, too."

"Jenn said it really freaked him out."

"Yeah, I bet." He laughed again.

Getting grabbed like that had been Dan's big surprise of the night-that and accidentally clobbering Jenn.

Of course, that that had been Jenn's big surprise. Getting knocked on her b.u.t.t by her supposedly perfect boyfriend. had been Jenn's big surprise. Getting knocked on her b.u.t.t by her supposedly perfect boyfriend.

While Eden had been horrified, she hadn't exactly been surprised when it had happened. And yes, Izzy'd since convinced her that Dan wasn't the domestic violence train wreck Eden had instantly imagined, just waiting to explode off the tracks. Still, she knew for a fact that her brother had to learn to slow down and be more careful. Because even though accidentally decking your girlfriend wasn't even half as awful as intentionally punching her in the face, it was still a very very bad thing. And although Dan wasn't quite as tall and as broad as Izzy, he was still a big and very solid man. bad thing. And although Dan wasn't quite as tall and as broad as Izzy, he was still a big and very solid man.

Eden knew, because she'd gotten in Dan's way and been knocked over by him a time or two in the past few years. Never intentionally-that was true. But that didn't make it hurt any less.

As far as the evening's other surprises went, Greg showing up at the hospital fell under the category of bad, while Dan's continuing inability to reach Ivette was no surprise at all.

Getting shot at while at the mall-a big surprise for everyone, including Dan and Jenn when they'd found out.

After the complete story had been told, Eden had overheard Izzy and Dan talking about being better prepared-as in making sure the next time someone fired on them, if there was a next time, their only option wasn't to duck and cover. She hadn't pushed it, but she knew that they were cooking up a plan to get armed.

And then, of course, there was Eden's surprise at finding out that her brother and his new girlfriend believed she earned her living on her back. It had been devastating, realizing just how little Danny thought of her.

Of course, he'd made it clear, after emerging from his bathroom conference with Izzy, that he didn't think very highly of her choice to become a stripper, either. Yeah, she wasn't selling her body for cash, but to him, it was d.a.m.n close. Eden may not have been a wh.o.r.e, but in his eyes-it was so obvious-she was a wh.o.r.e-lite.

But it was possible that that was how he'd see her, even if she'd announced she was ridding herself of her worldly possessions, entering a nunnery, and devoting her life to try to out-Mother-Teresa Mother Teresa.

"You okay?" Izzy asked her now as they emerged into the courtyard. Eden was looking around to see if Neesha was there, and she realized she'd gotten too quiet.

She glanced over to find Izzy watching her with that look in his eyes that made her believe he already knew what she was thinking. Still, she nodded. Chin up. "Yeah."

"Rough day," he said, unwilling to just let it all go.

Eden nodded. "But Ben's safe at the hospital," she said. And that was the most important thing. "Right?"

Izzy smiled his rea.s.surance. "He's very safe," he said. "The nursing staff's on high alert. Even if our skinhead shooter finds out Ben's there, he's not going to get anywhere near him. Not in the pediatrics ward." He paused. "But if you want, after we finish searching for Neesha, I could go back over there. You know. Just sit with him."

"You'd do that?" she asked, even though he was standing right there, completely bullc.r.a.p free and totally sincere in his offer.

He smiled and tried to shrug it off. "It's not a big deal."

But her heart was in her throat, and all of the stress and emotion of the past few days was pressing against her eyes, making them flood with tears that she had to work furiously to blink away, because Izzy was with her. She wasn't in this alone-for at least as long as she could keep his interest up.

He'd told her, back in the car, that he'd keep on wanting her, forever. But she'd learned the hard way that forever was a myth.

"Is it okay if I come, too?" she asked him, in a voice that didn't quite sound like her own.

Izzy continued to look at her with those eyes that could see through her. "You really going to let your brother chase you out of your own home?"

"It's not my home," she said. "It's just a...temporary place to...sleep."

Eden had to turn away, because the way he seemed to be able to see inside of her head was just too disturbing. What if he realized she'd meant what she said in the car, that she really never had stopped loving him?

But he didn't want to hear that, didn't want to know. He didn't want anything from her besides really great s.e.x.

Which was more than she'd hoped for, but at times like this, when she was tired and feeling emotionally battered? It seemed heartbreakingly inadequate.

The courtyard was empty-Neesha wasn't waiting for them there. No one was out there-at this time of night, the building's residents didn't linger. Besides, it was still unnaturally hot. In the desert it was supposed to cool off at night, but tonight the air felt like an eye-melting blast from an oven, which was particularly disconcerting in the darkness.

Still, Eden started to make a quick circuit of the place, heading out toward the street so they could walk completely around the building. The streets were mostly empty, too. The few cars that went past moved purposefully down the road-people heading home after a night of work.

"You know, he doesn't know you," Izzy said after they'd walked for a bit in silence. "Danny. So you shouldn't let his disapproval-"

"You don't know me, either," Eden cut him off. He'd said those very words to her just a short hour ago, back in the rental car, in that parking lot. "Can we just move on to a different topic? I mean, if you want, I can tell you how this one ends. You say, yeah, well, I know you better than Dan does yeah, well, I know you better than Dan does, and I I remind you that remind you that you you thought I might've been hooking, too. And then we fall into an awkward silence, because you can't deny it, so then we both feel like c.r.a.p. Or at least I do." thought I might've been hooking, too. And then we fall into an awkward silence, because you can't deny it, so then we both feel like c.r.a.p. Or at least I do."

"When did you last have one?" he asked, apparently choosing to forgo the awkward silence and feelings of c.r.a.p and move back to their previous conversation. "A home that wasn't just a place to sleep?"

Eden had to think about it, because the first thing that popped into her head was a crystal-clear memory of cleaning his apartment, in San Diego, right before she'd left. The s.p.a.ce was all Izzy's and yet...She'd never felt out of place there. In an odd way, she'd belonged. But, again, she knew he didn't want to hear that. He'd think she was manipulating or playing him or just flat-out lying. So she tried to remember and came up with...

"New Orleans," she said. "It was...rocky at times, but Dan was already in the Navy. We moved into a new house-new for us, I mean-and it was small but nice. There was a garden and...Ivette was with Charlie-he was this great big black man with this big laugh and I think she actually might've really loved him.

"Sandy was just out of rehab, and when she first married Ron-she met him at AA-things were pretty good. Ron owned the store-sporting goods-and we all worked there. Even Ben and me, after school and on weekends. It was the closest thing to normal we ever had."

They'd almost felt like a family.

But Ron was an addict, too, and he'd relapsed first, then Sandy, not long after the store suffered smoke damage, after another shop in the same building had a fire. Ron's insurance wouldn't cover the ruined merchandise, and things quickly went to h.e.l.l in a handbasket. Sandy and Ron lost their house in the resulting fallout, and moved in with them, kids and all, as they both struggled to reclaim their sobriety and get their business back on its feet.

Then Charlie had had a heart attack and died, out on the driveway. It was right around that same time that Eden had been so sorely deceived by John Franklin, with whom she'd lost her virginity. Danny had come home for the funeral and had heard John's bragging about what had gone down in the back of his car-and ever since then her brother had treated Eden like she was some foul-smelling dog c.r.a.p that had attached itself to the bottom of his shoe.

And yet all of that had been child's play compared to Katrina.

Izzy was thinking the same thing. "Then Katrina happened," he said, "and the s.h.i.t hit the fan."

Another topic she didn't want to discuss.

Except Izzy couched it in terms of Ben. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop," he said, "but I heard you talking to Ben and...I just, um...I get it, you know? Why we're still out here looking for Neesha."

"He still feels awful about not saving Deshawndra," Eden told him, because she could talk about that part of it. "I do, too. She was this funny little black girl whose family had lived in Orleans Parish forever, and she and Ben were always trying to get me to play some stupid game with them, but I usually didn't and I should have, because when I did, I always had fun. She lived with her grandmother, and they both died up in their attic. And Lord, when I say it like that, it sounds almost peaceful, but it wasn't, it couldn't have been. They made it up there so they wouldn't drown because the water was up to the roofline, but then they were trapped. It had to be two hundred degrees up there in the days after the storm-it was a hundred in the shade. The autopsy wasn't clear whether they cooked to death or died of thirst-either way it was painful and awful and I know Ben's spent a lot of time thinking about it, because I have, too. And Deshawndra's mother-she was serving in Iraq. Can you imagine coming home to that?"

"I can't," he said.

"Deshawndra was smart and she was tough," Eden said. "She wouldn't take anyone's c.r.a.p. Never. Not even mine. And she could sing sing. She and Ben had this plan to go try out for American Idol American Idol as soon as she turned sixteen, and now-" as soon as she turned sixteen, and now-"

She broke off and focused on walking, on looking down the street for Neesha. But nothing moved on the sidewalks. There was no sound but the shush of the tires on the road as another car went past.

Izzy was silent, just waiting for her to continue.

So she did. "Her grandmother was a retired music teacher, and still gave clarinet and piano lessons to the neighborhood kids, including Ben. I swear, he lived in that house. After he found out they both died, he just, I don't know. He shut down. We moved to Houston first-not by choice, but more because we ended up there. That was where Ivette met Greg-they were both in physical therapy. She broke her arm and he'd been in a car accident, and suddenly she found G.o.d-along with Greg's big insurance settlement-and then they were married. Except, just like that, the money was gone-I still don't know how they blew it-and the honeymoon was over, but we were moving to Las Vegas. And Ben kept everything locked up inside, partly because Greg is such a d.i.c.k. Neesha's the first friend he's made in all those years. I think maybe he feels like...if he can help her her, he can maybe forgive himself for not insisting Deshawndra and her grandmother get into our car when we left."

"He was eleven," Izzy pointed out. "Most eleven-or fifteen-year-olds, for that matter-don't have a say in who does or doesn't get into the car they're riding in."

"But he was driving," Eden told him. "He was, then I took over, and...I should have stopped to get them. But I couldn't. I..." She shook her head. She really didn't want to talk about this anymore. She didn't want to think think about it. about it.