Spring Secrets - Allie Boniface Page 0,71
his past met his present and twisted everything up. Without looking at Louie, he released his hands and dropped them to his sides.
Ernie gave a sigh and took the bottle from Dash’s hand. He held it up to the light and read the label out loud. “Oxycontin. 100 tablets. Prescribed to Sal Cruz.” He shook the bottle, clearly full. “This gets about five grand on the street. But I’m guessing you already knew that.” He tossed the bottle into the duffel bag. “You’d better come down to the station.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“I don’t understand,” Ma kept saying. She sat at the dinner table with Sienna and her father. Louie was in his room, grounded for the unforeseeable future. “What was Louie doing there? He doesn’t even know those boys.”
“Maybe he does,” Sienna said. Just because he’d never brought them over to play video games didn’t mean he hadn’t developed a new set of friends. She wondered now if that had been the root of his fistfight with Jack and Carlos. Maybe Louie’s two childhood friends had seen him drifting and tried to stop him. Louie wouldn’t tell them. He hadn’t said a word since they’d picked him up at the police station after questioning.
He wasn’t found with anything on him, the police chief told her parents. He’s clean, at least as far as that goes. He shook a fat finger at Louie. But I’d advise you to choose some different friends to spend your time with.
Sienna hadn’t gone into the station at all. She’d waited for her parents outside, watching as Dash arrived in a police cruiser. Head down, he’d followed the officer inside, back stooped, neck red. Like a guilty man walking to his execution.
She twisted her fingers together and thought about what Al Halloran had said. I didn’t know Dash at all, she thought, and it seared her to the bone. Behind Mr. Nice Guy who read to her students, behind his bravado at the gym, behind the tattoos and the seeming remorse over his past life, Dash Springer had turned out to be just another good-looking jerk.
“Honey?” Ma patted her shoulder. “Do you want some dinner? I have a roast in the oven.” She got up and knocked over the salt shaker. Her hands shook, and she wiped them on her apron as a tear sneaked from her eye. “I’ll just have to make some vegetables...”
“I’m not hungry.”
The doorbell rang, and they all jumped.
They released him, Sienna thought suddenly. It was all a mistake, and the cops had released Dash, and he’d come here to apologize and tell them what had really happened. “I’ll get it.” She rushed through the living room and pulled open the front door.
“Hey, Sienna.”
Her heart squeezed, retracted, and settled back into its broken form. “Hi, Jason. What’re you doing here?”
He looked down at his feet. “I heard what happened. Just wanted to see if there was anything I could do.”
Like what? she almost asked, but that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t Jason’s fault she’d chosen the wrong guy to fall for.
“Jason!” Ma materialized behind her. “How are you? Come on in. Sienna, open the door. Put down an extra plate in the dining room. Sal!” she called over her shoulder. “Jason Kingsley’s here. Would you get him something to drink?”
Sienna stood in the foyer, arms crossed, as he walked inside.
“I’m really sorry,” Jason said. I know you liked him.”
And trusted him.
She wanted to weep. Yes. She had. She’d almost let down all her guard, run into Dash’s arms, and told him things she’d never told anyone else. She’d almost done things she hadn’t done with anyone else. Sienna straightened her shoulders. Thank goodness I didn’t.
“Are you going to press charges?” Jason asked, hands in his pockets. He looked earnestly at Sienna, with the same kind eyes, the same open expression he always had. Like he had nothing to hide and everything to give her, if only she’d take it.
“For stealing the pills?” He must’ve done it when he was over for dinner, they’d all reasoned, gone into the medicine cabinet and palmed her father’s pain pills. “I don’t think so. He’ll have enough other charges brought against him.”
“Organizing a drug ring in his gym is pretty serious,” Jason said. “Plus I heard few of those kids were under eighteen.”
And if anything Al Halloran had told Sienna was true, this wasn’t the first time Dash had gotten in trouble with the law. Her gut burned, turned over, tightened into a ball of hurt and betrayal. She