her will. Considering the circumstances, we believed her mother.”
“What circumstances?” Tamara demanded, spitting out the words.
“He means because you’re white and I’m not,” Levi said.
“You look pretty white to me,” Officer Miller said with a smile Levi wanted to slice off his face with a kitchen knife. “Guess looks can be deceiving.”
“My mother is out of her mind,” Tamara said.
“You oughta give her a call, young lady,” Officer Spears said. “Straighten this out before she misinforms anyone else.”
“I’ll call her the second you two drive away.” Tamara was at Levi’s side again. No keeping her behind him.
“Then we’ll be on our way.” Officer Miller tucked his baton back in his belt.
Without another word they ambled to their police cruiser, got inside and drove off. Levi dropped his head down onto the porch ledge and breathed through the last tremors of pain. He would be hurting for a couple days at least, but it could have been so much worse and that’s what scared him. Not the injuries he had, but the ones he could have had.
“Levi?” Andre’s voice penetrated through the haze of pain. “Why don’t you two come in the house, and we’ll get you cleaned up.”
“Coming,” he said, slowly straightening up.
When he reached for Tamara’s hand, he found it shaking. Every part of her was shaking.
“It’s fine, Rotten,” he said, pulling her against him, holding her head against his chest. “They’re gone.”
“They beat you up,” she whispered. “They can’t do that.”
“You married into a black family,” Levi said. “What did you think would happen?”
“Well, you married into the Maddox family. Stuff like that doesn’t happen to us.” Tamara tentatively touched the bleeding wound on his forehead. “They could have killed you,” she whispered.
“Yes, they could have killed me. Don’t ever forget that.”
Tamara stepped back, looked at him and up at Andre.
“If they’d killed you, I’d kill them,” she said, and the way she said it, Levi almost believed her.
“You would have had to stand in line, Miss Tamara,” Andre said and brought his hands around from his back. In his right hand he held a pistol pointed at the ground, a pistol he’d been concealing.
“Jesus Christ,” Levi said, almost collapsing under the weight of his relief that it hadn’t come to that.
“Behave yourself.” Andre glared down at him. “Your aunt will skin you alive if she hears you talking like that.”
“I’m sorry,” Tamara said, still staring up at Andre. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. My mother—”
“I told him to hear you out,” Andre said. “I didn’t tell him to marry you.”
“What was I thinking?” Levi asked.
“The better question is what was you thinking with?”
“We’re gonna have this conversation now? Are we?”
Andre’s eyebrow rose a little higher. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “No, we aren’t. You need a doctor, son?” Andre asked.
“I’ll make it,” Levi said. He took a heavy breath, rubbed the side of his chest.
“Come on,” Andre said. “Gloria will get supper for us.”
Andre left them alone in the backyard. Tamara brought her hands to his face again, searching out his wounds.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Nothing broken, only bruised.”
“You sure you don’t need a doctor?”
“I’m sure.”
“You can eat?”
“I can eat. But we’re not staying here. We need to get to a hotel or something where your mother can’t find us. This could have gone very bad. I can’t get Gloria and Andre in trouble.”
They should probably leave the state tonight. They could make it to Indiana or Ohio easy. Ohio cops would laugh it right off if Virginia Maddox told them to go fetch and carry for her.
“Can you handle a long drive?” Tamara asked. “A few hours tonight and then all day tomorrow?”
“Why?” he asked as he pulled himself together enough to walk up the porch steps and into the house.
“Because I told you I know a place where we can go. Somewhere nobody will find us. Somewhere no one will look,” Tamara said.
“Where is it?” he asked. Her eyes glinted like sunlight on water, ever changing. She didn’t smile.
“Do you trust me at all?”
“More than I did ten minutes ago.”
“Then trust me, we should go there.”
“Where is there?”
“A place my mother doesn’t even know exists.”
Levi nodded.
“Sounds like the best place on earth.”
15
Paris
“What aren’t you telling me?” Cooper McQueen asked.
“Why, whatever do you mean?” Paris looked wounded, innocent. He didn’t buy it for a second.
“There’s something you aren’t telling me that you should tell me, and you should tell me right now.”
“Mr. McQueen, what I’m not telling you could fill up a bourbon