One Breath Away by M. William Phelps

Author:M. William Phelps [Phelps, M. William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-01-11T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 49

CHRIS WAS UPSET. He kept beating himself up about Jennifer and how the two of them had taken a loving and caring father-daughter relationship and turned it on its head; they were enemies now. Chris continued to blame himself for much of it. He worried constantly about Jennifer being off on her own, knowing that she couldn’t take care of herself without help from him and Rachel. It had been so hard to let her go. But there was nothing they could do.

One of the prickliest issues for Chris and Rachel had been Tyrone and his influence on such an underdeveloped, easily manipulated young girl out on her own for the first time. Chris despised Tyrone. He had no use for the boy. He was a criminal, and he spent Jennifer’s state money and dealt drugs. There was nothing neither Chris nor Rachel could say to change the way Jennifer felt about him. The harder they pulled to one side, the harder she pulled to the other: an emotional tug-of-war. Jennifer would turn over the racist card whenever Chris mentioned how bad Tyrone was for her, and all Chris could do was shake his head and walk away.

On her own, Jennifer called the house “pretty much daily,” Chris and Rachel said. She lived in a little efficiency. Like vampires, Tyrone and Jennifer spent their days sleeping, living for the night. They never had any money; family sources later said both spent what little money they did have on drugs, cigarettes, partying.

“He’s using you,” Chris would tell his daughter when she called. “It’s that simple.”

Jennifer wouldn’t respond.

As time passed, Chris heard that Jennifer and Tyrone had been kicked out of the apartment she had rented and were living in a sleazy motel hell somewhere in St. Pete. It was almost as if Jennifer’s life had followed some sort of scripted trajectory toward the final place she would end up: jail. She had traveled from home to a small apartment, which the state paid for, to a motel—all because her former landlord could not put up with her and Tyrone. Was living on the streets not far away?

Chris decided he wanted to find the hotel and stop in to check on her. Chris loved Jennifer. She might have given up on him and their relationship, but he was not going to give up on her, or stop caring.

Chris soon found the motel room. He knocked on the door and Jennifer let him in.

She seemed okay. She was nervous and anxious, but otherwise better than Chris had expected.

“[Tyrone’s] not here,” Jennifer said.

That was probably a good thing.

As Chris walked into the room, he noticed a bunch of Styrofoam-looking white material all over the table. There were small chunks of what Chris believed was crack cocaine.

“What . . . the . . . hell, Jennifer?” Chris said, pointing to it.

Right out in the open.

“Don’t you touch that. Don’t think about throwing it away!”

“What is it, Jennifer?” The closer Chris looked at it, there seemed to be something strange about the material.

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