The ringing continued. I had no idea how many rings had passed. I did not know how many more rings it would take before he hung up. But regardless, I stood there. Part of me wanted so badly to answer. But another part of me, a dominant part of me, just couldn't. That part of me feared that he was just calling back because he was guessing someone at the house had called. It wasn't a genuine first step. And from him, I was going to accept nothing less.
It seemed as though the phone rang forever. But eventually, it stopped. And silence filled the room again. I did not know if I had made the right decision or not.
I decided to go back up to bed. I seriously doubted that I would be able to sleep. But at least I would be a safer distance from the phone.
I obviously was able to fall asleep because when I opened my eyes it was bright outside. I looked over at the clock. It was well after two o'clock in the afternoon. I was still wearing the same clothes I had worn yesterday. The jeans were feeling really uncomfortable. I slipped them off and threw them in an ever-growing pile of dirty clothes.
I stood up out of bed to put on some clean shorts. I had the worst cramps. And I felt bloated. Of course the pizza probably had something to do with that. I thought about it. God the last thing that I wanted was to start my period right now. It was always more of a burden than anything else.
I walked down stairs to find Mia doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen counters. How she always had motivation to clean was beyond me.
"Hey," I told her sitting down.
"Are you just getting up?" she asked, spraying some Lysol on the counters.
"Yes and no," I told her.
"I don't know how that works, but okay," she replied.
"I was up for half the night, just having a hard time sleeping."
"Still thinking about Dom?"
I nodded.
"He called."
Her words made me freeze.
"What?" I asked to check and make sure I heard correctly.
"He called. Several hours ago."
She continued to scrub the counters as if what she had said was no big deal. I was about to jump out of my skin.
"And…what did he say?" I didn't want to sound too eager.
"Asked how we were. He wanted to know about Jesse. And I was curious about how Vince was doing. He didn't really want to talk for very long. I don't know why he called because it seemed like he was trying to get off the phone from the second we started talking."
"Did he…" I started, but hesitated.
"He didn't ask to talk to anyone in particular. But I told him you were asleep."
Anyone in particular, God Mia was a nice person. That was a very polite way of saying, no Letty, he didn't ask to talk to you.
"How's Vince?" I asked, wanting to not talk about why Dom didn't want to talk to me.
"Dom said his scar looks terrible on his arm. But that he is getting a lot more strength back. I think Leon has been trying to get them to go running and stuff. They have been doing a little bit of racing to try to earn some extra cash. But it sounds like they are just sitting around the house most of the time. Oh and Leon bought a TV and a Playstation from someone. So the boys are occupied."
And all of the whores they inevitably have running around. Mia didn't say it. She didn't even hint at it. But it was obvious. They were racing. They were one the beach. They were drinking. There was going to be girls around.
I just nodded. I was glad to hear that Vince was getting back to himself. I was sorry to think that Dom may have been too. If he had all this free time to sit around watching television and playing video games, he had more than enough time to call. To call and actually talk to me.
"Want to go to the grocery store? We are totally out of food and I need some other stuff, too," Mia asked as she finished with the counters.
"Sure," I said.
We got into her car. As we pulled into the closest chain store near the old Pioneer Market, I noticed a pair of police cruisers sitting in the parking lot.
"Let's maybe go somewhere else," I suggested to Mia.
"Yeah," Mia agreed.
As Mia began to make a u-turn, the police officers exited the store. They made direct eye contact with both of us. I couldn't help but notice that one of the officers looked extremely familiar.
"Shit," I muttered under my breath.
The two cops looked at each other and exchanged words. The larger of the two officers, the one that I recognized, leaned over to use his walkie-talkie.
"Hurry up," I told Mia. "Let's get out of here."
I noticed that as our speed increased, so did the police officers. They made their way to the marked vehicles and began to back up behind us.
"Fuck," Mia said. She turned out of the parking lot quickly, safely avoiding the oncoming traffic. But it was not quickly enough because one of the two cars was able to sneak in behind her, barely avoiding sideswiping a moving van. With that, he flipped on his blue lights and siren.
"Pull your vehicle over to the side of the road," he announced.
"Shit, what should I do?" Mia spoke with urgency.
"Don't fucking stop," I told her, turning around in my seat to try to estimate their distance. It wasn't far.
The other cop car was rapidly approaching, trying to weave through the traffic to catch up with his partner.
"Turn here, right here!" I yelled, urging Mia to take a side street on a part of town near our old high school. I was so glad we were in such a familiar area. I could drive these streets with my eyes closed.
"Where do you want me to go?" Mia asked increasing her speed and taking a road bump with fervency.
"Just keep straight, up to the railroad tracks," I suggested, looking around to see if Mia's car had anything that could be construed as helpful. It didn't. Surprise, surprise. It wouldn't have killed her to have a gun or something in the glove compartment.
The rapid maneuver had created slightly more distance between us and the cops. But not enough. As we closed in on the railroad tracks, the best thing that could ever happen, happened. Finally the car gods were smiling on us. A train was coming. If Mia was fast enough, and it was going to be so close, we could make it. That would give us the chance to get away from them. But she was really going to have to give it her all. Fuck, why hadn't I driven!
"Come on, Mia. You gotta make this!" I yelled. "You gotta make this!"
"There's no way," she yelled, pressing her NOS button, using that great Toretto Timing!
Hitting the bump of the track sent the car slightly airborne, but making the clearing. The tail end of the car cleared the track inches from the oncoming train. The loud tooting of the train's engine screeched, making my eardrums vibrate. My breath was caught in my chest. I may have been hyperventilating. I couldn't tell. But that had been really, really fucking scary.
Mia, slightly dazed from our two-second release from death, steadied the steering wheel as the car made impact on the ground. She continued her speed.
"Holy shit!" she finally released.
"Yeah, holy shit!" I agreed.
"Where do we go?" she asked, entering back into panic mode.
"Um," I thought for a second. We could not go to anyone's house that we knew around here. It would have to be somebody obscure. I could really only think of one place that we could lay low for a hot second before we figured out what to do next. "Let's go to Jared's house."
Jared lived in Pasadena. He was Jesse's second cousin. I hadn't talked to him in several months. But he was cool. He was the only family Jesse really had around. I knew he wouldn't rat us out. I also knew he probably wasn't going to be thrilled to be seeing us given the current circumstances.
"We can't go there," Mia objected.
"You got any better ideas?" I asked. That shut her up.
"Do you have that prepaid cell phone you bought?" I asked her, knowing that we had to figure out what exactly we needed to do now.
"Yeah, actually. It's in the purse," she said, motioning to the bag by my feet.
I scooped it up and began to rummage.
"You have so much crap in here," I commented before resting my hands on the phone.
"Who are you calling?" she asked.
"We can't go back to the house right now. You know they will probably come by looking for us," I said, trying to get my head around this situation.
"Why are they after us like that?" Mia said, interrupting my verbal train of thought.
"I don't know. Jesse said they'd been by to question him recently too. Something must be up with the cops. It better not be your lover boy," I warned.
"Brian wouldn't do that."
"Who? Brian Spilner or Brian O'Conner?"
"Letty!" Mia said.
"Fine!" I relented. And I knew that beginning that diatribe was counterproductive right now. "But it's got to have something to do with them going by to see Jesse. We need to just sit out somewhere until later on tonight. We can sneak back into the house if you need to get some shit. But let's give it some hours."
"Yeah, maybe we can get some stuff. But, Let, we got to get out of town now, I think," Mia said, looking over at me.
I feared that she was right.
"Call Dom," she said to me.
"Hell no!" I said. Was she insane? That wasn't happening.
"Seriously. You got to put the problems that you have with him right now on hold. Call him," she demanded.
"I'm not going to call him," I said strictly.
"Fine then. Give me the phone. I'll call him," she stated.
"No. We don't have to call Dom."
"Stop being like this. This is serious!"
"No shit. I know this is fucking serious. But just because we got some difficulty going right now doesn't mean we automatically gotta call Dom."
"Then what do you suggest doing?"
"Let's just get to Jared's house. Then we'll figure it out."
I put the phone back in her purse. I did not want to call Dom. That was not the route we were going to take. There had to be some other option.
"We could hang out at Jared's until night. Then we'll go back by the house. Park a couple blocks away. I'll get into the house and get some shit. Then we'll leave town," I suggested.
"Going where?"
"I don't know. Anywhere?"
"I'm pretty sure this is that point where things have gotten too thick for us here. We got to go down and meet up with the guys in Mexico," Mia said, pointing out the obvious answer I was refusing to accept.
"We can go down to Mexico. But we aren't meeting up with the guys."
"Why are you being so immature?"
"I'm not. That's not what this is. Mia, this was everything. This was my life. This was my family. My relationship with Dom. I am not just going to get scared and run like a fucking bitch back into his arms. I can't do that. I actually have respect for myself."
"So you'll go to Mexico if we stay somewhere else?"
I thought for a second. "Okay."
"Okay."
Mia drove to Pasadena. I had not been to Pasadena since, well probably the last time we saw Jared. Jared and Jesse were not really all that close. But family is family, so we saw him every couple of months. He would come to a barbeque at the house, or we would venture up to his neck of the woods. He wasn't into the racing scene. But he was glad that Jesse had finally found something that gave him purpose and a sense of self. I didn't have any idea what he knew about the hijacking situation. I didn't even know if he knew Jesse was in the hospital. I just hoped this was not about to be a situation where a lot of questions were going to be asked.
We actually made it to Jared's house without any further run-ins with the police. His car was parked in the driveway. He drove an old Nissan Frontier, all stock.
"So do you know if Jared knows anything?" Mia asked, somewhat reading my mind.
"I doubt it. Jesse hasn't mentioned anything."
She shook her head. We both knew what that meant- be vague.
He lived in a duplex. It was kind of run down, especially for Pasadena. But it was nice enough. Jared worked as a manager at PF Changs. He had since I had known him. The only other things I knew about Jared were that he didn't eat potato salad, loved to smoke Camel Lights, listened to country music, and dated some German girl named Ana.
Mia and I walked up to the door apprehensively. This wasn't exactly how I had planned to spend my day, throwing all of our burdens on yet another unsuspecting victim. But here we were.
Mia just stood there so I took the initiative and rang the doorbell. I heard fumbling around and then the door opened. Jared wore a pair of ripped cargo shorts and a gray tee shirt. I couldn't tell if he was trying to grow a beard or if he just hadn't shaved in a couple of days. Either way, it was a look that he could pull off. His hair was shaggy and streaked by the sun. Maybe he was trying to go for the hang ten surfer boy look.
"Mia, Letty," he said, opening up the door a little wider.
"Hey Jared, what's shakin'?" I asked trying to act like us arriving out of the blue was the most natural thing in the world.
"Not much. Can't say I'm surprised so see you here. Come on in," he said, moving out of the way so we could enter.
His place smelled like a boy. It was clean, well clean enough. But there were dishes in the sink and beer bottles on the counter.
"You guys remember Winston?" he asked. I looked down as a decrepit cocker spaniel made his way over, wagging his nub of a tail. I honestly had not remembered this dog. In fact, I think I thought it had died. It had to be about nine hundred years old.
"What's up dog," I said patting his head.
"Hey, boy," Mia said much more affectionately than I had.
"So, why aren't you surprised to see us?" I asked in reference to his previous statement.
"Where there's cops, I figured your crew wasn't far off. Want a beer?" he asks, walking over to the fridge.
"Yes!" Mia said. I was surprised with her vigor.
"I'm good," I said, shaking my head. "What do you mean 'where there's cops'?"
"A couple days ago a few uniforms come by here, start questioning me about Jesse, Toretto, all you guys. Asks me if I had heard from you. Wanted to see if I could get in touch with you," he says, opening Mia's beer and handing it to her.
I sat down as the table as Jared sips his beer, petting the dog in between. This whole situation, from Jesse warning me to get out of town, to the cops chasing us down by the old high school, to this definitely had me spooked.
"What'd you say?" I ask him lowly.
He shrugged. "Give me a little credit, Letty. I'm no narc. I just told them that I ain't heard from any of you guys in several months. If you weren't in LA, then I didn't know where you were. And I didn't know how to get in touch with you. They told me I was being uncooperative and left me with their cards."
"Can I see them?" I asked him.
He walked over to the counter and shuffled through some papers. He brought me over a couple of business cards. Among them one stood out as different, FBI, Detective Bilkins. So this went a lot further than just the LAPD. Great.
He sat back down and looked at us. "What are you doing here?"
Mia and I exchanged a look.
"You know what," he stopped us. "I don't wanna know."
"You're right. You don't," I told him.
"Did you get anything from the cops? Like why they were looking for us?" Mia asked.
"Yeah, they think you killed a couple people. Stole some trucks and electronics or something. They wouldn't give me too many details but I got the gist of it."
"No shit, who they think we killed?" I asked impulsively.
He shrugged. "Sorry, I didn't ask for names." Then he chuckled to himself. "So what you're saying is that other stuff…that stuff you did?"
I just looked at him. "Come on, Jared. You really think we'd do shit like that?"
"I don't think she'd do shit like that," he said, pointing to Mia. "You," he said, referring to me, "maybe."
I didn't know if I should be flattered or offended. But I couldn't help but laugh.
"Listen, we just came to hang out for a little while before we go back home," I told him.
"I don't think you should be going home any time soon. It ain't my business, I know. But from the way they were questioning me, if they know you're in the area they're gonna have your shit staked out," he warned. "You may be able to get in there. But you ain't leaving without handcuffs."
"Shit," I said, leaning back in my chair. He was probably right. They had come by to question Mia while I was in my dark stupor. But something had obviously changed. Something was making them more eager. And since they had seen us, had chased us. He was right. They were going to be all over the house, the garage, the store. We couldn't go back there. Not right now anyway.
"You ladies kind of look like you weren't exactly expecting to be running from the cops tonight," Jared said, looking between us.
"You could say that," Mia said, killing her beer.
"Hold on," he said, getting up and leaving them room.
I didn't know what he was going to do. But I couldn't really think about that right now. I had to think about what we were going to do. Our options were down to one. We had to leave town. And it did make the most since to go down to Mexico. Where else were we supposed to go right now? At least there we would be safe. And, Mia had agreed to stay somewhere else besides with the guys. I just hated it when my options resorted to one. It made me feel like a caged animal.
"Here," he said handing me a stack of money.
"Jared, no, I can't take this," I told him, trying to push it back.
"It's cool."
"Where did you even get all this?"
"You have your little secrets. I have mine," he smiled at me slyly.
I smiled back. We hadn't given Jared enough recognition all these years.
"And you may need this, too," he said, pushing a Glock towards me. I reached for it and checked the barrel. It was loaded with seventeen rounds. And he placed an extra clip on the table.
I nodded to him.
"Why do you have a gun?" Mia asked surprised.
He didn't respond to her question. "If anyone asks you about it just tell them it's hunting season or something."
"Isn't it?" I asked rhetorically. Apparently the cops were hunting us.
"Now get outta here before you get me in trouble, too," he smiled.
We made our way to the door. Mia stopped and hugged him. Jared and I just exchanged a look. I hoped to God we would be able to thank him, to repay him, one day.
TBC
AJ
