Blindsided - A Stepbrother Romance Novel Read online

  “There are some questions that the autopsy raised. We’d rather do this at the station, but if you insist we can do it here.”

  “I’m not going to the fucking police station.”

  “Okay then, maybe you can tell us how long your wife has been using heroin.”

  “Mom never used hard drugs. She was terrified of needles.” Aaron was mumbling under his breath. Sam wished that he would shut-up. It was just going to net him a beating when they got home. Darren glared down at his son and said,

  “She’s been an addict since I met her sixteen years ago. Sometimes she went weeks without using and other times she used something every day.”

  “What was her drug of choice?”

  “It used to be weed and occasionally cocaine, but I found her with some OxyContin about a month ago…and now the heroin. I guess she passed through the gateway.” Darren chuckled like he’d made a joke. Sam’s stomach was turning.

  “The medical examiner said there were no tracks on her body anywhere, so it’s a safe bet to assume she wasn’t a regular user. Do you know who her dealer was?”

  “Nope, I have no idea,” he said. Aaron and Sam looked at each other but neither of them spoke. Sam noticed one of the detectives watching them so she tore her eyes away from her brother’s and looked back down at the ground.

  “What about life insurance?”

  “What about it?”

  “Did your wife have any?”

  “Sure, we both did, gotta look out for the kiddos.” Sam seriously thought she might throw up. He didn’t give a shit about “the kiddos.” If he had life insurance it was something he could borrow against while he was still alive.

  “So you were aware that in the instance of her death you will receive two million dollars from the insurance company?” Sam started choking on her own spit, Aaron gasped, and Darren didn’t look surprised or ruffled at all.

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. What are these questions leading up to, detective? Wasn’t my wife’s death ruled an “accidental overdose” by your medical examiner?”

  “That’s what the paperwork says. My gut however is telling me something else. The heroin that killed your wife was not the usual kind we find on the streets here in Arizona. This heroin came from Mexico, it’s called “Black Tar” and it’s some dangerous shit. It’s cheap and that’s why most hard-core druggies choose to use it but since we’ve found no evidence that your wife was a regular user…”

  “She didn’t inject it, but she used it. She used to crush it up with Tylenol and snort it.”

  The detective raised his eyebrows and said, “Interesting that you didn’t think to tell us that before.”

  Darren narrowed his eyes and said, “I’m not trying to ruin my dead wife’s reputation. Now if that’s all, I’d like to get these kids home.”

  The detective looked at Sam. “Did your mother sleep a lot?”

  “No, not unless she got so drunk she passed out.”

  “Did you ever see her smoking something that smelled like Teriyaki?”

  It was Sam’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “No, what she smoked always smelled like skunk.”

  “What about a kit…it would have had a silver spoon and…”

  “That’s enough! These kids just buried their mother. I won’t have you harassing them,” Darren said. He’d rather take us home and do that himself, Sam thought.

  “I’m not a kid and if it helps find out exactly what happened to my mother, I’d like to answer the detective’s questions,” Sam said. Darren glowered at her. She knew she’d have to be ready to fight hard tonight. If she wasn’t worried about Aaron she’d just stay at the track and not go home. Sam does her best to distract Darren when he gets started on Aaron. Sometimes she takes the blows for him while he gets out of the way and sometimes she gets the upper hand and knocks Darren the fuck out. That’s what she would love to do today, if only because of his attitude.

  “Thank you,” the detective said. “Do you know where your mother got her drugs?”

  Samantha knew this was one of those pivotal moments in her life where she could choose to do the right thing and face the consequences, or she could stick her head in the sand. Sam rarely

  chose to stick her head in the sand, if ever. Occasionally she chose not to rattle Darren’s cage, but this was about her mother and in spite of their dysfunctions family was the most important thing to her.

  “She gets them from her husband…”

  **

  Sam was pounding the steak on the counter with a tenderizing hammer while Aaron yelled at her over the noise and vibrations. “I can’t fucking believe you gave him up!”

  “Watch your mouth,” she said, not missing a beat on the steak. Her brother wasn’t angry that she’d given up his father, he was grinning from ear to ear. “You won’t be smiling like that if he makes bail.”

  The grin fell off of Aaron’s face and he said, “Do you think he killed her?”

  Sam stopped banging the steak. The thought hadn’t crossed her mind until today. Her mother and Darren had a shitty relationship, but it had been shitty for as long as Sam could remember and he’d never tried to kill her before. Until she heard the detectives say there was a two million dollar policy on her mother’s life today she may not have even believed it. Darren wasn’t a heavy thinker. He was a heavy drinker and a heavy pot smoker, but he usually left the thinking to others. When he was angry he beat the shit out of someone, usually Aaron, sometimes her mother or Sam. When he was horny he made passes at his step-daughter, sometimes more, or he took her mother in the bedroom and for a half an hour it would sound like rutting pigs in the house. He watched NASCAR and Breaking Bad on television and as far as she knew he had very limited knowledge of what was going on in the world. If Darren bought that insurance and the heroin to inject into her mother with the intentions of killing her, he had the ability for more thought than she had ever given him credit for.

  “I don’t know Aaron,” she finally said, “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “What happens to us?”

  “You mean if he goes to prison?”

  “Yeah…will they put me in foster care?”

  That was another thing on Sam’s mind. When she’d pointed the finger at Darren earlier she’d been doing what she knew was right and needed to be done, but at that moment she hadn’t thought about her brother. It was rare that she didn’t consider what would happen to Aaron. Every time she gets pulled over for speeding or reckless driving the first thought that goes through her head is what would happen to Aaron if she was out of the house.

  “No, I won’t let that happen,” she said. “But you need to keep your ass out of trouble. If you’re getting arrested or even cited for stupid shit, they will take you out of here and put you in a group home or something.” Aaron’s not a bad kid, just a frustrated, angry one. As far as Sam is concerned he has every right to be angry. His life has sucked from day one. She felt the same kind of anger and frustration but she mostly handles hers on the track and speaking of which she had a race she needed to get to. She’d already had to blow two off since her mother died. If they kept Darren in jail they were going to need some cash and racing was the only way she had to make any at this point. “After I finish dinner I’m going to be at the track for a while. You need to do your homework and get to bed at a decent time.”

  “I want to go.”

  “No, you have school tomorrow.”

  “And I’m not in third grade.”

  “No, but you’re also not passing more than half of your classes. Do your homework and get to bed at a decent time. When your grades are up we’ll talk about you going to the track with me.”

  “You do know that you’re not my mother, right?” Aaron said that in a snarky tone with a smirk on his face that reminded her of Darren. In a rare moment of uncontrolled rage Sam grabbed her brother by the front of his shirt and slammed him back into the counter. He was bigger
than her and if he wanted to he could probably kick her ass. Partially, it was the shock of her putting her hands on him that stopped him from fighting back, and partially it was what he’d been taught his whole life. “What the hell, Sam?”

  “Listen to me and listen well. You have two choices here. You can continue on with life the way you’ve been going, using drugs, drinking and stealing from people who work for a living and you can watch as you turn into your fucking father. Or, you can listen to me, do your homework, stay clean and sober, stay out of trouble and actually spit in that son of a bitch’s eye someday when you make something of yourself.” She let go of his shirt slapped the steak onto a pan and shoved it into the oven. “I’m going to get changed for the track. Start your homework or leave and start down the path to becoming Darren Stark. I’m too tired tonight to fucking care.”

  Aaron watched wide-eyed as his sister left the room. Sam hoped like hell he’d choose to do his homework because she knew if he left the house she’d go out looking for him and miss her race. She talked a good game and usually she didn’t say anything that she didn’t mean, but she wasn’t losing Aaron without a fight.

  CHAPTER 3

  Clouds of dirt floated across the track as Samantha revved the engine of her 1966 Mustang. Her best friend and racing buddy Troy tried to get her to sit this one out. She thought he was worried about her state of mind because of everything that had happened with her mom and Darren, but what he told her he was worried about was the puddle of oil in the garage underneath the Mustang when they left the house.

  “I can’t find where it’s coming from right now, Sam. I need to tear into it.”

  “Tomorrow,” she’d told him. “I need to win this race.”

  “You won’t win if your oil pressure bottoms out.”

  “True story, but that’s a possibility. It’s a definite loss if I don’t run the race. I’m doing this.”

  He rolled his eyes but he knew better than to argue with her. Sam and Troy had been hanging out since she was five years old. Troy lived next door and he loves cars as much as Sam loves racing. Troy taught her most of what she knew about engines and together they’ve turned the classic Mustang her father left for her when he took off into an awesome racing machine. She stepped on the gas again while waiting for the flag. The engine revved and she looked at the oil gauge. It didn’t move. It stayed right in the center where it belonged. Troy was catastrophizing things, he does that sometimes. Sam prefers to tackle problems as they arose. If she went around worrying about what could happen all the time she’d never get anything else done.

  Sam watched the green flag drop and the foot that had been hovering over the accelerator dropped with it. She slammed the transmission into drive and a trail of smoke and dust stood where the Mustang had only seconds before. Sam and Troy belong to an underground race circuit in Phoenix. They pay monthly dues and that money plus the money collected from those fortunate enough to receive an invitation to attend a race is used to pay out the winners. Sam rarely lost. If she did it was usually due to mechanical failure. She had no fear when she was behind the wheel and she’d amassed a pretty decent nest egg. She knew it wouldn’t last forever once she and Aaron were on their own and she was paying the rent, but it was all they had for now.

  She shook off everything else on her mind and focused on the dirt track in front of her. Sometimes they raced on pavement and other times on a makeshift track in the middle of the desert. Troy changed her tires out depending on the turf they were running on and tonight she could feel her tires gripping the dirt like her tires were molded to it. The race tonight is around a circular track and they were going ten laps. Sam took the tight curve going into her third one like she was flying. Being behind the wheel of her car doing ninety or better was one of the few times in her life when she could say she was truly happy.

  The dust was so thick that she didn’t see the red GMC rise up out of it until it was right on her bumper. She mashed down on the accelerator and took the speedometer up to 110. She was going into another turn when she heard a sound under the hood that disturbed her. She hardly had time to think about that though before the red GMC clipped the left rear bumper of the Mustang, trying to force her to the outside. Sam never gave up the inside without a fight. Inside lanes won races and this son of a bitch behind her was going down. She pulled the wheel to the left so that her wheels were hugging the inside edge of the track. The GMC pulled right and she thought that he was going to try and pass her on the outside. He pulled back suddenly though, clipping her again, this time hard enough to send her spinning off into the center divider of soft mounds of dirt. Sam felt her wheels digging in and trying to bury her. She didn’t back off the accelerator instead she pushed it even harder, causing her wheels to turn so quickly there was no way the dirt could bury them. She was back on the track in a cloud of thick dust and she could barely see the back end of the SOB that had pushed her off. She pulled to the right and did the exact same thing he’d just done to her. As he spun out into the dirt she realized that he must not have seen her coming. He didn’t gun his engine hard enough and within seconds he was practically entombed in the dirt. Sam laughed out loud and slapped the steering wheel. As she did her eyes fell on the oil gauge…it was sitting firmly in the red. Shit!

  Sam knew she should stop. The needle wasn’t just hitting the red it was raising…fast. The temperature gauge was rising as well and she could smell the engine burning. She completed her fourth lap…only six to go. Tapping the dash she said out loud,

  “We can do this, right girl?” She always talked to her car. She told Troy it would only be crazy if the car ever started talking back. So far, she hadn’t said a word. Sam took that as consent and as she flew past the red Camaro that was only coming into his third lap she saw Troy’s face just above the line of dust. She saw his hand too. He was telling her to stop. Some of what she thought was dust was actually smoke billowing out from underneath the hood of the Mustang. Shit!

  Another pat to the dash, “Five and a half laps to go girl. You got this.” She didn’t let up on the accelerator as she passed the green Dodge on the inside. She couldn’t see the driver but she knew it was a guy named James that thought girls should be home painting their toenails or at the very least in a crop top and shorts waving the flags while the men did the racing. Sam spent one long night having some of the wildest sex she’d ever had with him. When she refused to see him again after that, his calls and texts got nasty. She blocked him on her cell phone but that didn’t stop him from running a pretty good smear campaign on social media. It was a good thing she didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of her. She smiled now at the fact that he was probably choking on her dust and smoke. It was the least he deserved.

  The next two times she passed where Troy was standing she avoided looking in his direction. Three and a half laps to go. She practically had that four grand in her pocket, most of which she would have to spend on a new engine by the looks of all the lights on her dash. She flew past the lap marker again and that’s when she saw the smoke beginning to curl up underneath the dash. She cracked the window but then it was just a fight between the nasty blue smoke and the dust coming in through the window. She choked and gasped her way through the next lap…two to go…Maybe the engine wouldn’t be completely shot.

  She avoided Troy’s face again. She knew he was cussing her by now just thinking of all the work they would have to do to the car and all of her winnings that she’d have to sink back into it. The smoke and dust inside the car helped her avoid looking at the gauges, and it also reduced her vision to the point of driving strictly by memory and instinct and hoping none of the fools that were still a lap behind her got in her way. Her heart was racing as fast as the Mustang’s engine and her body was burning up by the time she saw a flash of white. They were waving the white flag at her…one more lap.

  “Almost there girl! We’ve got this!”

  The bottoms of her feet were burning. She had on her racing bo
ots and the soles where thick but she could still feel the heat. The thought that there was a fire underneath the hood crossed her mind but she tried to squash it. She was almost there, she couldn’t give up now. She tried not to think about what all of that heat was doing to her engine. She could almost picture the metal and rubber melting and fusing together under the hood as the engine began to sputter harder and she felt the car losing power. The red Camaro zipped past. He was on his way into his last lap. Sam was on her way to the finish line. “Come on baby, we’re so close!” She could hear her engine falling apart as she saw the checkered flag drop in front of her. She pulled her foot off the accelerator and shifted into neutral. The car coasted for about twelve feet before she finally pulled the wheel had to the left and let the piles of dirt stop her and hopefully if there’s a fire, put it out. She sat there and waited until the three other cars still in the race finished and came to a stop. When she heard them kill their engines she climbed out of her car to the sounds of people clapping and yelling. It was only seconds before Troy was by her side.

  “What the hell, Sam? You should have stopped five laps ago; I know you saw the smoke.”

  “I was breathing the smoke,” Sam told him, “Choking on it.”

  “Then what the hell were you thinking?”

  She grinned. “That I was winning,” she said. Troy rolled his eyes.

  “And now you’ll have to use most of that money if not all of it to replace the engine and whatever else burned up under there.”

  Sam knew he was right, but she still couldn’t stop smiling. Tonight was the first time since her mother died that she felt alive herself. That buoyant feeling lasted until they got the car towed home and she walked inside and saw her brother’s face. His eye was turning black and his lips were swollen and bleeding. He shifted his good eye toward the hall and without saying a word he told Sam that Darren was home.