Fear of Heights Read online

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledegments

  Disclaimer

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Dear Readers,

  About me

  Playlist II for Heightsbound

  Sneak Peek at:The Delivery

  The Token

  Copyright © 2014 by Mara White

  Cover © Daniela Medina

  Heightsbound Playlist 2 by Leslie De Jesus

  Edited by Elizabeth Stampe

  Epigraph from This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz

  Published by Riverhead Hardcover; First Edition (9.11.12)

  Used with Permission.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Kindle Edition, 2014

  All rights are reserved to the author. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. The unauthorized reproduction for distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental While some of the business establishments, locations, and organizations mentioned in this work are real, they are used in a way that is purely fictional. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners..

  Acknowledegments

  A huge heartfelt THANK YOU to,

  My Family, for making me crazy, keeping me on my toes, loving me, and letting me love you back.

  My Betas—believe me when I say I couldn’t write a chapter without you! Ramona, Jenae Hutchins, Sarah Ahmad, Jason Powell, my husband, Penelope Farthing, Jamie Roberts, and Jiya Lyons.

  My cover designer, the always super-talented Daniela Medina.

  My editor, Elizabeth Stampe, for her patience and for putting up with me!

  My graphics gurus at Streetlight Graphics and Michele Catalano Creative.

  These incredibly supportive women, without whom I might be invisible in the book world: Autumn Davis, Ellen Widom, Renee Giraldy, Juliet Fowler, Kim Golden, Yahaira Cintrón, Marata Eros, Katy Evans, and Rachael Orman.

  My cultural consultants, who have helped me tremendously: Leslie De Jesus, Diana Rosa and Carlos Mejia.

  My NYPD insiders: P. and John Garvey

  My two consulting attorneys: AC and CR

  BYH, I can’t do anything without you guys!

  The Heights and its inhabitants, for the non-stop inspiration.

  My readers: I love and appreciate you guys to pieces!

  Disclaimer

  This novel contains explicit sexual content and scenes that may be triggering for rape sensitive readers. It is not recommended for those under age 18.

  To readers who feel I may be perpetuating cultural stereotypes – I share your concern and can say only this: Bad boys exist. They are the same in every language.

  “The half-life of love is forever.”

  — Junot Díaz

  This Is How You Lose Her

  Prologue

  Jaylee

  Rikers Island, East Elmhurst, New York

  My stomach growls from the shit lunch of bologna and American cheese. I’ll die before I’m twenty-five in here from all the crap they been feeding me. I need more calories because of my workout routine, and the commissary just don’t cut it. Half the time I probably burning muscle, but what the fuck you gonna do about it? You can’t change this fucked-up machine. What I wouldn’t give for some Spanish food—just a goddamn plate of my grandma’s rice and beans.

  I flip the pen around and around in my hand, trying to think of what to say. It brings me right back to being eight years old, the school-assigned social worker jabbing at me to “write him whatever you please!” I pick at a popped blister from going at the weights in the yard. Soon enough it’ll get hard and callous—just like everybody who been up in here too long.

  “He’d love to hear anything about you. Why don’t you tell him about basket-ball?” As if it was easy, when you hadn’t talked to him in years. An’ my ma bent over the kitchen table with cried-on love letters to my dad, praying on lighted candles and over special oils to Dios Santísimo, that he don’t get sent to Sing Sing.

  We couldn’t afford the trip up there, so we saw him less and less. The sound of his voice just became a memory to me, and when we did get up there, I pitied the man I saw. Couldn’t get past the fact that he fucked up. I felt like he let them put him away. I swore to myself if I ever got there, I’d be smarter than he was. That I’d get revenge before I’d let ‘em make me live my life behind bars. Now look at where I am.

  At least I got a plan.

  Love letters. Kate wrote me one once. There’s a trick to them, right? You gotta try to convince a woman that you’ll love her forever. It’s not just about the first time she reads it, she’s gotta see it every time she looks. Try doing it on jail-issued stationery. I had to earn the privilege to use a pen. How the fuck you tell someone they everything you got—when all you got is a page? How do I tell her how much I want her to have my kid? I love knowing that he’s inside her, that there’s part of me with her. Thing is, I can’t control the lies she’s being fed; and she’ll choose the lawyer over me.

  How do you say all that on paper when all you ever got through was public school? She got everything she needs—or at least that’s how it’d seem to anybody looking in. But I know—I know—how much Kate needs me.

  I crumple up the last sheet of the ones they gave me and toss it onto my bunk. I don’t know how to put my heart on paper. I can’t make her understand why I did what I done.

  On Friday they call me out for a visit, though I’m not expecting nobody. Mamá, Janinie, and everybody coming next week—or that’s what we said on the phone. I’m never expecting Kate again. I have no idea what she decided to do with the baby. I don’t know if he still here with us or gone already. The baby’s the only thing I ever cared about more than her, but I’m not gonna let myself hate her for it. She shouldn’t a’ had to go through it by herself - either way. If I’d watched my back, I wouldn’t a’ ended up here.

  I stick my hands out the drop door in the cell so they can cuff me. The corrections officer calls me “Dorado,” ‘cause that’s what they called my pops when he was here. I try not to get involved, but it ain’t easy when y
our ties run deep like mine do. My old man spent a minute in Rikers; he up the river now in Sing Sing. He’s spending his days at the big house, but he got connections all through the whole system. He got his reputation too, and I’m expected to keep it.

  Probably an ex or somebody I was messing around with before Kate who come to see me. Girls got something about visiting guys in jail. They love the drama. They love the attention they get from everybody else. Girls that won’t even give you the time of day on the outside start writing you letters about how much they miss you when you in the box. It’s bullshit. But I admit—it do make the time go by faster. And right now I got nothing but time.

  I get stuck in the hall for the count—which means whoever waiting for me is stuck too. The guard I’m with lets me do wall push-ups after he cuffs me to a door. I go at it, hard as fuck, until I’m dripping sweat and my muscles are burning. Working out helps me not to think about her—or the baby. The burn is good. It shuts up the furia. There ain’t shit I can do anyway, so why make myself crazy playing it all over again in my head?

  The count takes forever and I’m betting whoever’s out there waiting is regretting this. First and last visit. Nobody want to see me that bad.

  When we finally walk into the visiting room, my eyes catch her before anything else, even though the place is packed. I’m a homing pigeon. I can’t see nothing else.

  She’s Kate, but she ain’t Kate. Same black hair, same pale face. Same scared blue eyes. Her body is slamming too, less hip, more tit, and she a little taller. Maybe it’s the heels. She looks good. But I know who she is.

  It’s the sister. Arriving like the grim reaper. She come repping for the other side. I gotta smile that this mina got herself into Rikers. I can tell she’s shitting herself, even worse than Kate. She ain’t never been in no place like this before, that’s for sure. All dolled up to come see a criminal like me.

  There’s some part of me that wants to run to her just ‘cause they family. And then another part that wants to refuse the goddamned visit. I know Kate feel like she ain’t good enough for her own family. Makes me fucking hate ‘em. Kate is good—that’s her main problem. It’s something she won’t let herself see.

  Now she’s starting to work her hands like she in full-blown panic mode. I guess I take pity on her. She looks too much like my girl. Shit, it’s messing with my head—and my dick.

  I pull out a chair and sit down, drilling my eyes into the back of her head. She spinning around, looking across the whole room. She don’t know who the fuck I am. She turns and stares, her eyes taking everything in. I can practically hear her heart pounding from over here. She like a baby bird—ready to flip out and fly into the fucking window. She looks at me and I gesture to the chair across the table. Relief hits her whole face and her shoulders relax. She smiles quick and then it disappears and she look scared again. She marches over to the table and sits down fast.

  “Jaylee?”

  Why she gonna ask me after she already sit down? I’m tempted to say no, but I just stare at her instead. I can see how much they look alike, but I can also see how they different. She got doubt all over her face. She wanna fly the fuck out of here. That makes two of us.

  “Emily,” I say not giving anything away. I’m gonna make her work hard for it.

  “Oh, Kate told you about me?”

  “She didn’t tell me much. ‘Nough to know you exist. Otherwise I’d think I was seeing ghosts.”

  “Have you talked to her?”

  “Pfft. Naw, not since she came in here to tell me she was pregnant. Not that it’s your business. They send you to come tell me she got rid of it?”

  “I came on my own, Jaylee.”

  She stops and looks down.

  “Kate’s missing; I was hoping you could tell me where to find her.”

  Chapter 1

  Washington Heights, New York City

  I signed the contract. I’ve sealed the fate of this child, as well as the future of my relationship with Jaylee. What I hope it’s done is create a future for Jaylee. A second chance at a normal life. A chance to avoid walking in his father’s footsteps. Once Robert gets him exonerated, Jaylee can pretend our affair never happened and move on, free.

  I keep telling myself that this is a sacrifice made with love and made for love.

  I’m afraid I don’t even believe that myself.

  I know I have to confront his sister. Janinie left the house in tears and completely distraught, and I’m concerned about what she’ll say to her family and to Jaylee. At sixteen, she’s still a child. I’m not surprised at Robert’s behavior, but it must have been traumatic for her: An angry, jealous husband forcing his wife to have an abortion. An abortion that would end the potential life of Janinie’s niece or nephew. If I don’t have an abortion, she loses her brother. Either way, another family member is stolen from her small oasis of safety.

  I play with Ada and Pearl for a little while after school, helping them with their homework and then guiding Pearl with her hook-rug embroidery project, while Ada colors furiously through an entire coloring book. Where Pearl is careful and calm, Ada is enthusiastic almost to the point of mania—my Tasmanian devil in pigtails and Barbie shoes.

  When the girls are settled into watching a Disney movie and Carmen has their dinner well under way in the kitchen, I decide to go and try to talk to Janinie.

  Broadway is bustling with the rush-hour train exodus, and I watch the people pouring out of the subway exit, all in a hurry to make it home to their loved ones. A man in a business suit passes me with a large bouquet of flowers. I wonder if he’s bringing them home to surprise his wife. He must have purchased them farther downtown; the Washington Heights delis are not equipped with lilies like that. We have carnations, roses with the wilted outer petals pulled off, and daisies dyed in a rainbow of jarring colors.

  I can’t help but imagine what life would look like if Robert came home at five instead of midnight—if we would go out or eat in, if we’d watch a movie or chat about our days over a glass of wine.

  But it’s stupid to pretend it would change our lives. Robert has come home early before—and he just worked on cases in his home office upstairs. The difference in arrival time wouldn’t make a marriage miracle. Robert doesn’t want to spend time with me.

  As I near the house, all the guys on the corner fall silent and stare at me hard as I walk past. They know exactly who I am, and it flusters me.

  Thankfully, Janinie, not her mother, answers the bell. I ask her to come down instead of buzzing me in.

  “Bring your coat,” I add.

  “Why? Where we going?” Janinie asks, sounding less than enthusiastic.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Yeah.” She hesitates. Then, “Okay, I’m coming.”

  My blood pressure drops with her assent. I’m wound so tight I just might snap.

  Janinie opens the door, eyeing me narrowly. She’s got her denim jacket on—not nearly warm enough for this weather—with tight jeans and combat boots.

  “Hey, those boots look like the ones I used to wear in college!” I say brightly. Janinie grimaces.

  Nice one, Kate! Say something else to alienate her even more. Tell her she dresses like a senior citizen—because that’s how she sees you. Just when we were starting to get along.

  “What do you feel like eating?”

  “Pizza,” she mutters, jamming her hands in her pockets and kicking over a nearly full Pepsi can sitting on the top stair of the stoop. It pools and fizzes and we both watch it intently, the tension of what we need to talk about hanging heavy in the air between us.

  “Anywhere in particular?” I ask, silently gagging at the thought of pizza, the smell of dough, tomato sauce, and garlic. My nausea is a beast. This baby has strong feelings about what we should and shouldn’t eat.

  “Yeah, there’s a place. Follow me.”

  Janinie leads me up Broadway, hands still jammed in her pockets, walking fast in front of me, fast enough to leave me b
ehind if I don’t jog to keep up. She bangs through the front door of a greasy-windowed combination joint that serves pizza and fried chicken. Wonderful, now I’ll puke on those combat boots.

  “What do you want?”

  “Plain slice and a coke. And four garlic knots.” She slides into a booth and pulls out her phone.

  I order Janinie’s grease-fest through the fiberglass window, plus two seltzers, a ginger ale, and a large glass of ice. I bring the entire order over to the booth on a tray and envision myself resting the tray on my belly if I were further along in my pregnancy—a big glorious belly full of sweet, tiny baby.

  “I’m starved!” Janinie says and grabs for the garlic knots, giving me a half-smile in gratitude.

  “Get more if you want,” I say, emptying the two seltzers and a quarter of the ginger ale into my huge cup of ice. I stir it all with a straw.

  Janinie shakes her head at me. Her smile grows until she covers her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “I swear, white people are so weird,” she says.

  “Why?” I return her smile.

  “What the fuck are you making, Kate? Gross-water?” she asks and practically chokes on her food laughing at herself. I laugh too, and have to spit the mouthful of ground ice back into my cup.

  “Oh, that was classy! That’s why my brother likes you so much, Kate Champion, you classy!”

  But she’s smiling; she’s sweet Janinie right now. Maybe confused and angry Janinie too, but her sweetness, as my luck would have it, is shining through. I love Janinie like this.

  “I’m pregnant, “ I say in excuse, but my voice falls as it escapes me. I’ve said the wrong thing. Again. Her face closes.

  “Not for long,” Janinie counters, taking a sip of her coke and looking away.

  I don’t even know where to begin.

  “I’m not someone who thinks abortion is a sin. I think there is a time and place for it. If I were to choose to have the baby, Janinie, I’d be having it alone. I’d lose my daughters. I pause. “And Jaylee would never get out of jail.”