by Dana Nussio
“Your son, Maria? Or should I call you... Sarah?”
Even braced against him and even knowing that he was aware of her alias, she couldn’t keep herself from shivering at his use of that name. She’d become Sarah after she’d found the strength to escape him, and he had no right to call her that.
But his next words mattered far more than anything he could have called her, and he practically growled them.
“My son will be just fine.”
Her breath caught as she realized he hadn’t said the same thing about Ted or her. In trying to keep Jamie from being involved, she’d included her other friend in the mess of her life. She couldn’t imagine what Ted must have been thinking then, but she would protect him and make it up to him. For now, though, she had to play along. Finally, she lowered her arms to her sides.
“What are you doing here, Michael?” She ground out the words. “What do you want?”
“You, of course, darling. Always you. And little Andy.”
“Please let them...go. Our...son has to be so afraid.” She could force herself to say that, but she wouldn’t call him “Aiden” around Michael because that might make her son think the man should know him. Michael never deserved to know him.
“As I said, he’ll be fine. I can’t say the same for his mother.”
He’d loosened his hold, so she jerked back to look up at him. The grinning face she’d once found handsome. His jaw was covered with several days’ growth, and his dark hair was greasy and badly in need of a cut. But when she tried to shove him away again, fingers encircled her arm and squeezed until she winced. Then he turned around until he was standing next to her where they could both see the van.
“We’ll have to take time for a proper hello later. After I deal with my friends here.”
The man she thought she recognized had already started toward them with a huge roll of duct tape hanging from his arm. The other guy slid the van door closed, locking Ted and Aiden inside, and followed him down the sidewalk, his steps slower, more reluctant.
“Hey, you made it, Brooks,” the first guy said. “Look at what we were bringing to you.”
The man gestured first toward his partner and then the van. Sarah’s eyes widened as she came to face-to-face with one of the officers who’d chosen his informant over her life.
“So, who told you to bring in an owner from a crappy little diner?”
The officer sent a nervous look to his partner. “He came with the kid.”
“Then I guess you know what you have to do with him.”
Sarah shivered, and not just about the threat, which she hoped beyond reason was just that. If Michael knew where she worked, just how long had he been in town? Had he been following her this whole time? Did he know about her and Jamie, too?
She needed to stall, had to hold at least a few of the cards, when Michael had always hogged them all before.
“Hello, Mrs. Brooks.”
“Hello, Officer.” She couldn’t remember his name, and she didn’t care to find out.
“It’s Larry.” He indicated his partner, who was taking his sweet time getting to them. “And that’s Clint.”
At closer inspection, Sarah recognized the other officer as Larry’s partner, apparently in work as well as in crime, though the guy had probably gained thirty pounds since she’d last seen him testifying in court.
“Sorry to interrupt your little social gathering here, but we need to take this party to somewhere a little more private. Especially since someone’s probably called the police by now.” Michael smiled at the two dirty cops standing just opposite him. “Officers who still settle for their state-employee wages, anyway.”
Then he leaned in close to Larry’s ear. “I thought I was supposed to make the contacts once we had a location.”
“Oh, we just wanted to help out,” Larry said with a nervous chuckle.
“Here, follow us.” Michael turned back to Sarah. “Don’t try anything stupid, or I can’t guarantee what happens to those in the other car.”
She nodded. Oh, she’d done enough stupid things to last a lifetime, and now she had to do something right, or she might lose her son and a friend, whose only crime was to care about her. She let Michael push her into the passenger seat of a filthy car. She couldn’t run and leave Ted and Aiden behind, but there was something she could do. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket, found the list of recent calls and tapped on the last one. Then she stuffed the phone in her waistband, just as Michael opened the driver’s-side door.
At least she hadn’t dumped the phone, like she’d planned to after the call from the police yesterday. But no matter how he felt about her after she’d betrayed him, the man who answered the call on the second ring would at least try to help.
“Just listen,” she said, in a voice that she hoped wasn’t too loud as Michael slid behind the wheel.
Just like she hoped he would, Michael took the bait as he pulled out into traffic. “Oh, no. You listen, you lying whore. Who do you think you are, trying to leave me when I was away and didn’t have a say?”
“That was wrong of me. I’m sorry.”
Her words of appeasement grated on her in a way they never had before, when she’d been too broken to ever defend herself. She couldn’t do it now, either, but this time she would protect two people she loved and give the third enough time to reach them.
“You think that’s going to be enough? You took my son away from me and...everything I care about. You made me look for you. You hid under a fake name.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, to fill in another pause.
Michael made several turns in quick succession, as if he was familiar with the area, and soon they were heading into a more rural section of Brighton Township, where the houses were farther apart and the possibility of help more remote.
“Sweetheart, you had to know I would find you. You’re my wife. We belong together. With our beautiful little family. Always.”
“You’re right. We do belong together,” she said, falling so easily into that singsong cadence she’d used to avoid injury when he’d been the drunkest. Or angriest. Sometimes it had even worked.
Not this time. The strike came fast, like it had sometimes before. A hard backhand across the mouth that gave her no time to prepare. No time to shield her lips. She bit down and tasted blood, the sour, metallic flavor both familiar and crippling. Would she fall back into old habits instead of just pretending to do that?
“Were you so sure that we belong together when you were lying on your back for your little boyfriend, giving it up to him and everyone else, for all I know, when you’d already promised to give it only to me...until death?”
Her hand went to her mouth, the pressure only causing more pain to her already swollen lip. Her fingertips were immediately wet, so she had no doubt he’d split it. Again.
“You think I don’t know about your little cop? Guess we’ve both been in bed with the police, haven’t we?”
“I’m sorry.” Her words were more a whisper now, both because it was what he would expect from her and because she couldn’t speak that lie out loud. She wasn’t sorry. Just like she didn’t regret trying to protect Aiden from his father, she would never regret loving Jamie for as long as she could. Even if it would never be long enough.
“I did get a little more out of it than you did. You’ll see. If you make the right decision. And I know you will.”
His words weren’t making any sense. She’d guessed that there were some shady business deals. Was that what he was talking about? This time when he paused, she searched for something to fill the silence.
“It didn’t mean...anything.” She swallowed, realizing she’d gone too far, and she’d failed.
“You can’t even lie about it without giving yourself away. You were so hot for him that you practically took him on right there in f
ront of the window. I saw you.”
“What? Where?” But her memory quickly filled in the blanks. Precious, private moments that lost their shine with the truth that they’d been watched.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get over him. And then things will be just like they were between us. Better.”
“How...how is that?”
This time he reached over and brushed his fingers over her chest until it came to rest on that place where her seat belt covered sternum. She braced herself for the touch to become more invasive, but he only slid his hand away again.
“You’ll see. But a few people have to go away first.”
Her arms automatically crossed. “Go away?”
“You know. Like your boyfriend.”
He lifted one hand off the steering wheel and held it wide, as if his plan was obvious. “You led me right to him, sweetheart. Just like your friend led me to you.”
“You killed Tonya.” She squeezed her eyes closed, fresh tears threatening again. “I knew it was you.”
“Now I didn’t say that.”
Sarah didn’t realize that her hand had slid to her waistband, where she’d tucked the phone, until she caught him watching her. She tried to be nonchalant as she shifted, but in that lightning-fast way he always struck, Michael hit with the back of his hand again, his knuckles striking the plastic.
“You bitch!”
She grabbed at his hand, but he quickly dug the phone out from beneath her shirt and tucked it between his ear and shoulder, all while keeping the car mostly on the road.
“Hello, Officer,” he said into the receiver.
Sarah held her breath. Maybe Jamie hadn’t been on the line this whole time. Maybe he hadn’t heard enough of a confession to get them both killed.
But Jamie’s voice came through loud and clear. “Brooks.”
“So, I hear you’ve been getting off on my wife. She’s a pretty little piece of ass, isn’t she?”
Sarah could only cover her face with her hands. She didn’t know how or even if Jamie would answer. His inherent decency wouldn’t allow him to abide ill treatment of women, but she’d hurt him, so though she could expect him to do his job, she shouldn’t rely on him to defend her honor.
“It’s not like that, and she’s not your wife.”
Cleary, Michael hadn’t expected him to answer his shocking statement, either, as he gripped the phone so tightly that he should have crushed it.
“Well, she’s mine now. The whore has always been mine.”
Jamie’s voice came back immediately this time. “If anything happens to Sarah, or that boy of hers or Ted, I can promise you that I’ll never stop hunting you down.”
Ted? How did Jamie know that he was with them? Had he already gone by the diner and discovered that her boss was missing, too? For the hundredth time that afternoon, she wished she’d kept that appointment with Jamie, if only to say goodbye to him. Now she wouldn’t get the chance.
“Her...name...is... Maria.”
As soon as the words were of Michael’s mouth, he tossed the phone out the window. A moan escaped Sarah as she stared in the side-view mirror at the plastic carnage strewn on the country road behind them. The probability that they would get out of this situation alive dropped with it. If Jamie had been looking for them, and his words to Michael gave her that hope, he had no way to track them now.
For several minutes, neither spoke as Michael made several more turns, the white van carefully following about two car lengths behind. Sarah had nothing to say. She couldn’t even honor Tonya’s memory now by assuring she hadn’t died in vain. She had no reason to believe any of them would get out of this alive, except Aiden maybe, and he would be sentenced to life with his dad, which was hardly better than death. At that, she couldn’t control her tears, which came in a rush. Hot. Wet. With a level of hopelessness she’d never experienced before.
Finally, Michael pulled the car off the road and followed an unpaved drive that went along a soybean field. When he reached an open area with a huge bank of trees beyond it, he parked the car and shut off the engine.
“Your friend sounded like that, you know, just before,” he said, still looking at the windshield.
For the first time in her life, Sarah pummeled Michael, with fists that he pushed away like he was swatting gnats.
“I wish she was still here, so I could thank her.”
“For what?” She didn’t want to know, but she couldn’t help asking, either.
“Oh, that’s simple.” He smiled over at her. “For bringing my wife back to me.”
Chapter 24
The moment that one of Michael’s partners pulled the duct tape off Aiden’s mouth, he started calling out for her. Since her legs weren’t taped, there was nothing her captors could have done to stop Sarah from going to him, except shoot her. At this point, she would have done it, anyway.
“Everything’s okay.” She sat on the ground and wrapped her arms around her son, crooning to him with the empty promises that other mothers facing tragedy had shared with their children. “It’s going to be okay.”
One of Michael’s partners yanked the tape off Ted’s mouth, leaving a red, raw mark over his lips. Neither bothered to unbind the older man’s hands and feet. It would probably be easier for them to shoot him if he couldn’t make a run for it. No one had tied Sarah up at all. They wagered correctly that she wouldn’t go anywhere as long as they had her son.
The three men stood about twenty feet away in a tight circle, discussing with heated voices. Occasionally, they glanced their way, making it clear they were trying to figure out what to do with them.
When Aiden calmed, Sarah leaned closer to Ted and spoke in a quiet voice. “I’m sorry for involving you in all this. I thought you could just drop us off at the bus station, and I could vanish again. I never intended to put you in danger.”
“That’s why you blew off Jamie today, too. To protect him.”
She shrugged. “He’ll never understand that.”
“Maybe not.”
He was watching her so closely that she shifted, uncrossing and then folding her legs again.
“What?”
“Maria?” He shook his head. “Nah. It doesn’t fit you.”
“Who’s Maria?” Aiden asked, as he looked up at her.
“No one,” she told him honestly. Not anymore.
Her son lifted his brow as if he didn’t believe her. After today, he would never believe anything she said.
Aiden shifted so his mouth was near her ear, and unlike usual, when his whispers weren’t really whispers, he lowered his voice. “Is he my father?”
She considered lying to him as she had all his life But she found she couldn’t do it.
“Yes, he is.”
“I thought so.” He settled next to her again.
That gave her the chance to turn back to Ted. “How do you know about Maria?”
“There were a couple of Chatty Cathies in that van.”
“Then do you know why they’re all here? It can’t all be about Aiden and me, can it?”
“I think it’s something about money. Isn’t it always?”
“What money? I don’t have any money.”
“They weren’t that chatty.”
Michael glared at them. “Quiet over there, you two.”
Ted shot a glance at their captors and then whispered, “Don’t worry. He’ll be here.”
The knot that had formed in her stomach the moment she’d seen those two men and the van tightened even more. Didn’t Ted understand that her phone had gone out the window, and with it, any chance they had of being rescued?
“I’m sure he will,” she whispered. She couldn’t bear to tell Ted the truth that they were on their own.
“Maria, could you come over here?”
She licked he
r lips. “Can I bring... Andrew?”
“No. Leave him there.”
She couldn’t bring herself to look back at Aiden now and see all the confusion she was responsible for putting there. Not only didn’t he know his mother’s real name, but he also didn’t know his own.
Her posture as straight as she could manage, Sarah crossed to the three men, who were all looking at her strangely.
“What is this about, Michael? Because if it’s only about us and our son, then we’re right here. You’ve found us.” She pointed to the other two men. “Why are they still here?”
Larry held his hands wide and looked back and forth between the other two men. “Does she really know nothing about the money?”
“What money? I don’t have any money. You think if I did I would have been living in that dump?”
“You won’t have to do that anymore,” Larry said with a laugh. “You two will be getting your share of a lovely little nest egg. A little over $750,000 in all.”
Michael’s gaze narrowed in that way she’d come to recognize—and fear—during their marriage. She’d never come away without cuts, bruises or even a broken bone after he’d had that look. Obviously, his partner didn’t realize that this was the kind of news Michael would have wanted to deliver himself. He would hate it that Larry stole his thunder.
“Do you guys have the book?” Michael asked.
“Sure, buddy,” Larry said, and started toward the van.
“No.” Michael waited for the first man to look back and then pointed to the second. “Him.”
Clint looked confused but nodded and walked to the vehicle. He returned a few minutes later with a photo album. Her photo album.
“Hey, that’s mine. Where did you get it?” Her hands were already sweaty, and he hadn’t even admitted yet how they’d been able to get inside her apartment. What else had they touched or taken?
“Your building’s super was especially nice to police officers,” Clint said. “Isn’t that right, Larry?”
“Very nice,” Larry agreed.
