Chapter 24 – Love In A Club...Again

Chris's Own Personal Hell, somewhere in Alabama – September 16, 2014

“Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle...”

AJ groaned loudly and grasped her head in both hands.

“This has to be the worst song ever!” she yelled over the loud music.

“I guarantee there are worse songs than this one out there,” Justin said.

“One Direction and Justin Bieber songs not withstanding, this one takes the award,” AJ said, turning to look at him. “Bash me over the head with a wine bottle, because my ears are bleeding.”

“They wouldn't be if Stephanie would shut her trap!” Justin yelled.

Justin and AJ broke into giggles, leaning against each other as they dodged dirty looks and the pretzel sticks Stephanie threw at them from across the table.

“Sorry my singing isn't up to your giant standards, Mr. Vanguard Award,” she said. “You know what? You can go 'Cry Me A River'.”

“Stephanie's creativity at its finest,” Justin said. He lifted a finger in the air, waving it to the bartender. “Another round of shots!”

“Because that's just what we need,” JC said. “To get this one even drunker than she already is.”

He glanced over at his new wife, who was sipping hard liquor out of a straw and shoulder-dancing in her seat.

“I wouldn't be the only drunk one here if Addy had come!” she yelled.

“And if she weren't, you know, pregnant too,” Chris said, not yelling as loudly as the others.

“Addy and Lance wanted to come,” AJ yelled to Chris over the loud music, “but she was too tired. She just wanted to sleep.”

“This isn't really Addy's scene anyway, is it?” Chris yelled back. He didn't remember clubs being this loud back in his day – and he immediately groaned at the thought that he was at an age to even think about “back in his day”.

“Addy still likes to party,” Stephanie yelled, her body swaying to the music as she spoke. “I'm not letting her become an old lady yet!”

JC laughed. “She cares,” he yelled, “but in an underhanded way.”

“They couldn't find a babysitter anyway,” Justin yelled. “Now that Lance's mom is gone, the only person left was Joey, and he was the last person Addy trusted.”

“But Joey has kids of his own,” Chris yelled.

“In case you hadn't noticed,” Justin yelled back, “Kelly is almost always around when Joey has the girls. The last time Joey babysat Liam by himself, he let him eat cookie dough and stay up until three in the morning. Liam puked for a whole day. After that, Joey is totally banned from babysitting!”

Chris took another long drink of scotch out of his glass. He wished Addy had come, because then at least he would have a buffer in her, if not in Lance as well. Coming to a club at their overnight stop in Alabama was the last thing he wanted to do. Stephanie had forcefully suggested it, as usual not willing to consider that he was no longer in a party mood and would probably never recover his partying days again. Justin and AJ dragged him along, a little more sympathetic toward his mood but nevertheless wanting to appease Stephanie.

The tour still had almost two months to go before it finally finished, and he had only a month to go before Addy and Lance were throwing him a huge 43rd birthday bash during a three-day rest in Kansas City. Both were milestones that he never thought would pass without Mel being around. It was looking like they would both come and go without her, and he was past his own breaking point.

The shots Justin had ordered came in the middle of an intense conversation between the other four, and Justin slid a tiny shot glass towards each person. As he raised his shot glass to make another of the mini “toasts” that he made each time they took a shot, Chris grabbed his glass and lifted it to his lips, downing it before Justin had the chance to get an entire sentence out.

“Uh...okay then,” Justin stuttered, seeing Chris's haste. “To...uh...to nights out with great friends and drunken dancing!”

AJ and JC were about to lift their glasses to their lips before shooting him a raised eyebrow each, thinking it an odd toast. Stephanie was the first to down her shot, too drunk to care about any of the toasts he made. Justin quickly downed his, and AJ and JC followed, still confused.

“Alright,” Justin said, clapping his hands together as he watched their mouths pucker at the bitter taste of the pure alcohol. “Speaking of drunken dancing, how about the three of you go do some of that?”

“But...why?” AJ asked.

“Aj, you're too tense,” Justin said hastily, already pushing her out of the booth. “You need to let Steph show you how to party and have a good time.”

“Justin, I'm twenty-five, I think I know how to drink,” she insisted.

“Well you can always use more practice,” he said. “Jace, Steph, go, now. Teach AJ how to...I don't know, do the 'Bye Bye Bye' dance.”

“Justin!”

Stephanie and JC drug off a protesting AJ, and Justin immediately scooted towards Chris.

“Alright, what's up?” he asked, crossing his arms on the table and taking a drink.

“What makes you think something's up?” Chris asked.

“Please, even Miss Drunk and Disorderly takes a breath before she does a shot,” Justin said. “You don't bat an eyelash; you barely let it touch your tongue before the alcohol goes into your bloodstream. Something's up.”

“What the hell do you think is up?” Chris asked defensively.

“And do you think the alcohol is going to take that away?” Justin asked, eyebrows raised.

Chris paused, unable to disagree.

“I don't think you should just suck it up and try to have fun 'cause God knows, ain't nothing in the world that can make you do that,” Justin said. “Your heart has been ripped out of your chest. But your friends are here for you. We can't take it away, but we can be here for you to fill the hole.”

“By taking me to a club?” Chris scoffed. “That's supposed to fill the hole?”

“Hey, I know it ain't no comparison,” Justin said, “but I know it hurts right now. Courtney's gone. And I get to see her in a couple of weeks, and permanently in a couple of months...but that's two damn long months.”

Chris could have snipped at Justin; he was angry enough to, that Justin would even try to compare their individual pain. Justin's pain at missing his girlfriend was nothing compared to the way he missed Mel; Courtney hadn't run away to another man in another state and refused to come back. But, maybe it was the alcohol finally getting to him, he chose not to.

“Do you love her?” he asked his much-younger bandmate. “Courtney?”

Justin grinned and looked down at his glass; Chris didn't even need a response.

“Yeah, I guess...maybe,” Justin said. “I don't know. Right now, we're just having fun.”

“Having fun leads to dangerous things,” Chris said.

“Like...that.”

Chris looked at his friend after he heard his distracted, faraway tone. His eyes went wide as he saw who was walking up to the table towards them.

“Hey strangers,” Mila said with a smile.

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Melissa's Own Personal Hell, Little Rock, Arkansas – September 16, 2014

“Hey bartender, pour 'em hot tonight...'Til the party and the music and the truth collide...Bring it 'til his memory fades away...Hey bartender...”

Eric could hear the music before he even opened the rickety door to the bar. The only thing he could think was at least it was upbeat music, more contemporary pop, rather than deep, drawling country music that you could only imagine coming from a cowboy bar in Arkansas.

The old door closed with a bang behind him and he only had to glance around the whole bar once before he saw her – sitting at the bar, nursing a tall glass of an amber-colored beer.

He maneuvered his way through the throngs of drunkards to approach her slowly but loudly, so she wouldn't be startled.

“You come here often?” he asked as he leaned against the bar next to her.

Unstartled, she looked over at him.

“Not as often as I should,” Melissa said.

At the relief of finally finding out she wasn't pregnant after all, Melissa immediately headed to the bar. She didn't much have a taste for beer, but she felt a celebration was in order and it required a little alcohol – or a lot. This bar was the obvious choice; it was the farthest away from her home, the farthest away from Derek's regular haunts, and being all the way on the other side of the city, she didn't figure there would be a lot of people who knew or liked Derek enough to give her away if they saw her.

“Yeah, that's usually how it works, Weston,” Eric said.

He saw her stop in her tracks and look at him, her eyes wide.

“That is your name, Weston?” he asked.

“How do you know?” she whispered.

“You can only hide so long,” he said. “When you're a missing person for six months, you have to expect to be found at some point.”

He could see her comfort fade, her knuckles turning white from grasping her beer so hard.

“I'm not here to arrest you or take you in,” he said softly. “You're not in trouble.”

“Oh yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I am.”

“I'm not going to tell him, if that's what you're worried about,” he said. “In fact, I'm staying as far away from him as possible, because I'm on your side.”

They went silent as the bartender approached. Eric ordered a beer, waiting until the bartender had delivered it to him and walked away before he spoke again.

“How long has he been abusing you?” he asked.

He heard her sigh.

“I shouldn't be talking to you,” she said. “Do you even realize what would happen if he knew we were living next door to a cop, much less talking to one?”

“That why all the blood drained to your feet the minute you heard I was a detective? I thought that was odd.”

“So what, you looked me up?” she asked defensively. “Ever heard of invasion of privacy? Isn't that some Homeland Security violation, or something?”

He chuckled.

“Not for cops, sweetheart. What are you getting so defensive about? I'm on your side.”

“And you think I can trust you?” she asked.

He sighed, the smile dropping from his face, and finally took the seat next to her.

“Mel, I can get you out,” he said. “That's what I do. That's what I've been doing for twenty years. But first, you have to give me a chance.”

“I can't,” she said with a slight head shake. “I just...I can't leave. There is no getting out for me.”

He turned away from her. He sat and sipped his beer, savoring the frosty feeling that went down his throat after a long, rough day. He watched her twirl her index finger over the rim of her glass, staring into it like a crystal ball.

“Do you remember about four months ago,” he said. “All over the news, big, high-profile case of a woman named Sadie Gibbons?”

“Of course I do,” she responded.

“Found her body floating in the river,” he said. “Decomposed, beaten, strangled, tortured. Pretty blonde white woman. Of course, the press was all over it for that fact alone.”

“You're not going to scare me,” she said.

“I'm not tellin' ya to scare you,” he said. “She was all over the news. You heard they never found her killer?”

“Yeah.”

“That's because her name wasn't Sadie Gibbons.”

He looked over as she turned to look at him.

“Jane Doe,” he said. “Couldn't identify her.”

“So who is Sadie Gibbons?” she asked.

“Sadie Gibbons doesn't exist,” he said. “Least not anymore. But Charlene Bennington does – and is living a rather quiet, hidden life somewhere in Seattle right now.”

“I'm confused,” she said. “What exactly is your point, detective?”

“Sadie Gibbons had been abused by her husband for fifteen years,” he said. “She had been to the hospital over two dozen times because of him – broken ribs, broken nose, he even tried to cut off her ear once. Cut off her ear.”

She looked down.

“He had been in and out of jail so many times during that fifteen years that printing out his rap sheet could kill a small rainforest. Problem is, the justice system...well, the justice system is the entire problem. It's easier to throw a person with six unpaid parking tickets in jail for a year than it is to put away an abuser. You need undeniable proof just to arrest them; to convict them and throw them in jail, you have to prove that the female isn't just a scorned lover throwing around accusations. Frankly, Mel, that's damn near impossible because everyone has skeletons in their closets.”

She nodded.

“If you get lucky and they can be convicted, do you know how long they spend in jail?” he asked. “A year or two, tops. If they're really bad, you can get ten years but you gotta get the right jury and the right judge. I mean, all the damn stars in the universe have to align in order to throw a guy in prison for beating a woman.”

He looked over at her; he could tell she was listening, that he was getting through to her, even if she didn't speak.

“Sadie Gibbons is dead but there's no body,” he said. “You just have to throw an identity on an unidentified body and be done with it. Sadie Gibbons is safe now. Her husband will never find her. He thinks she's six feet underground, and he's Scott-free.”

“That's a romantic little story detective,” she said. “But I still don't understand why you're telling me.”

“I, along with a coroner, a government employee, and about three other detectives, broke about ten different laws,” he said. “I allowed an unidentified body of a woman to be misidentified and buried, and her family will never know that she's dead. Do you know how long I would go to jail? I would never see the light of day again. I'd leave in a pine box. I just told you something that could not only cost me my job, but my entire life.”

She looked at him, finally making full eye contact.

“You have something on me much worse than I have on you,” he said. “So unless I have a death wish, I have absolutely no motive to make it known to your boyfriend that you just ratted him out to a cop. You can trust me now.”

A few moments passed in silence. He knew his words had reached her, because he visibly saw her relax, and he could feel less of a nervous vibe coming from her.

Finally she took another drink out of her glass, and after setting it down on the bar in front of her, turned to look at him.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.