Paradise Child Book 3 (Imprisoned in my Heart trilogy...Larry)

Chapter 15

There were very few things that Harry was certain of any more, but one of them was this; he was most certainly not going to let Louis hand over a beautiful, vulnerable baby to someone who was so clearly completely high on god knows what, especially because she was struggling to even stand up straight. Louis seemed to share the sentiment; his lips pressed sharply together and he held Alice very tightly against his chest.

Seeming to realize that they weren’t going to give in to her, Micheline hesitated for a moment, and then exhaled heavily, shaking her head. “Fine. You know what? Fine! Don’t give her to me, then! But hear me out, because I really, really need your help right now.”

Disgusted, Harry cried, “Our help? Our help? You leave your baby unattended so that someone can walk in and steal her, you turn up out of your mind on drugs, and now you expect us to help you? You called the police on me! Help you? Dream on!”

Beside him, Louis placed a reassuring hand on the base of his back to remind him not to lose his temper, but he nodded in affirmation of Harry’s words; he had no intention of helping the blue-haired girl either. At least, not yet. She would have to come up with an extremely convincing argument to persuade him to help her now, after her stupid actions had almost caused the love of his life to throw himself off a cliff in fear of the connotations of being arrested. Oh, he was angry, and he didn’t see that changing any time soon. He glowered at her.

“No, please – you don’t understand! I didn’t think – I didn’t realize, but…” Closing her eyes, she swallowed. “Rupe…he’s an idiot. I love him so much, but he’s out of his mind, and I knew he was growing something in our cellar, I just didn’t know how much! And now –”

“You’re making no sense! Slow down,” Louis commanded, “and tell us what’s actually happened, because you’re making no sense at all right now, and I have absolutely no idea what you want from us or why you’re telling us all this.”

She started pacing wretchedly up and down, eyes glued to the floor, fingers twisted desperately together. Louis mistrustfully watched her, and his grip on Harry’s shirt tightened, like he was afraid that she might turn on them at any second, like an animal. Her expression was quite reminiscent of a cornered animal; edgy, stressed, snappy.

“I’m not an addict. Contrary to what you two seem to think, I don’t spend my entire life high. It’s just when I get stressed, you know? But Rupe told me it’d be easier if, rather than going and hunting down all these dealers and stuff, if we…grew our own. So we kind of started up a little…plantation, if you like. He bought these heat lamps and we moved house and kind of had a little garden in the cellar to grow stuff.”

Louis said, “Cannabis.” It wasn’t a question; more of a statement, really. In their time, he and Harry had seen enough policing documentaries late on a Wednesday night that they knew exactly what kind of plants people cultivated in darkened rooms in their houses with heat lamps. Turning up his nose in disgust, he slowly shook his head at Harry. What kind of injustice was it, that someone as incredible as his fiance wasn’t allowed a baby because he’d made one stupid mistake, and yet it was quite all right for this girl to have a child when she was growing drugs in the cellar of her house? Not that anyone knew about that, he supposed. It was beyond unfair.

“Well, we aren’t growing tomatoes down there!” she snapped. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she closed her red-rimmed eyes. “Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, cannabis; just a little bit, you know? Or at least, that was the plan. But when you took Alice, I panicked and called the police – like any sane person would – and then Rupe woke up and asked what the hell I was doing, and then he told me…he’d been dealing. Selling it to people, you know?”