Which was supposed to solve all my problems.
But there are some mistakes that can’t be solved by running away, or even by faking my own death. I’d been naïve to think otherwise. And now here I was, right back in the same spot I’d started, back in Kill Devil Hills.
* * *
“Hey you, weirdo,” yelled a voice that I knew had to be my sister Ellie’s. All my sisters sounded alike. But only Ellie would call me a weirdo—at least to my face. “It’s fucking freezing out here, Ben. Get up. Get inside.”
Sure enough. There was Ellie, appearing out of nowhere, yanking on my arm, trying to make me stand. I had my butt firmly planted in the freezing sand where I’d been sitting for the last hour straight, staring at the ocean, avoiding being inside with everyone else. It was February in North Carolina, it was below freezing today, my hands didn’t have any feeling left in them, but I hardly cared.
“Do you have a death wish?” my sister nagged. “Don’t answer that. Just come inside. It’s starting to get dark out here.”
I didn’t respond, but I did stand.
She huffed at me just the same. Her cheeks were rosy from the blistering cold wind coming off the ocean. A portion of her coffee-colored brown hair had been shaved short, while the rest she’d let grow long. My sister was always experimenting with different hair styles, this might have been her craziest yet. The long half whipped around her face as she scowled at me, her hands landing on her hips. “You could at least try,” she yelled. “You’ve been back home a whole week already and I don’t think I’ve heard you say two words to Georgie. Try!” And with that last word, she slugged my arm with her tiny fist.
Ouch.
Her massive wedding ring was going to leave a mark. The thing was something like eight carats, a giant sapphire, and even through my sweatshirt I could feel it. She got married this past year while I was in prison. She hadn’t waited for me to get out. I couldn’t blame her, obviously I didn’t expect my sister to put her life on pause for me, but it still fucking blew that I’d missed it.
“I don’t know where to start with Georgina,” I admitted, rubbing at my arm. “And watch it with that thing.” I meant her ring.
Up until she started dating actor Nate West, her now husband, my sister had always defined herself as a lesbian. At least that was what I’d assumed. It had been the shock of the century when I found out she was dating a man. Any man. Celebrity or not. Completely shocking. I still wasn’t sure if I bought it, but it wasn’t my business to question her relationship either way. And I liked Nate—Nathanial, as he preferred—so I sincerely hoped it was what she wanted.
“A simple ‘hi’ seems like a good place to start,” Ellie said. “Just say anything to her.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll do that,” I responded, nodding, saying whatever to appease Ellie for the moment. It wasn’t so black and white with Georgina. In fact, it was gray as fuck.
I followed Ellie across the beach, up the wooden stairs that cut through the dunes, and back toward our parent’s house. This promised to be another awkward evening at the Turner house, as all evenings this past week had been. That was when I spotted a light on at ‘Sol Mate’—the vacation rental property that sat to the left of our house. Seeing that light made a little shiver run up my spine, almost like I knew something wasn’t right over there.
A lot of the houses in the Outer Banks had names. My parent’s house was named ‘The Shore Thing.’ But I was pretty damn certain ‘Sol Mate’ wasn’t currently available to renters. My mom had mentioned that the owners, the Davenports, had recently lost the dad in the family, and that it was now up for sale. She’d know too. My mom was a real estate agent.
Someone probably left a light on by accident, I assured myself, dismissing the little voice in my head that was telling me otherwise. I had a tendency to overthink things. This was probably just another one of those instances.
Ellie and I entered our house through the lower level. Basements were impossible this close to the ocean, but in all practicality, the lower level was our basement. It had Ellie’s old room, a guest room, a bathroom, and a game room. We took the stairs up to the main level where the kitchen, living room, and everyone else would be.
Ellie didn’t live here anymore. She was the oldest of my siblings, twenty-six now, and hadn’t lived at home since high school. She lived with her husband now, but since it was physically impossible for her to miss out on any sort of family drama, and Nathanial was on location filming the latest season of his TV show, she’d been staying here since I’d returned. Georgina wasn’t typically at home either. As a twenty-year-old, my sister should have been finishing up her second semester of her sophomore year of college. But she was, and I quote, “taking a break from school.”
Add that to my long list of issues with Georgina.
Compared to the girl I once knew, my middle sister had done a complete 360. And I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that she was dating Noah—Ellie’s oddball, best friend who never said much. I didn’t like her break from school because I feared that it meant she would drop out for good. And worst of all, I didn’t like how she’d tried to commit suicide after my ‘fake’ death. Because I knew about that now, when I hadn’t during my stay in Malibu, and every time I thought about it, my throat would close up and I’d barely be able to breathe.
Maybe I shouldn’t have run off from my family, maybe I shouldn’t have been so careless the night I fell overboard, and maybe I shouldn’t have stayed hidden in California for as long as I had. But, fuck, Georgina shouldn’t have tried to take her own life. That one was one hundred percent on her. It wasn’t me that picked up the knife that slit her wrists.
It wasn’t me…but it sure felt like it was. It sickened me to the core every time I thought about it. Sure, she seemed better now, happy and fine, dating Noah and all, but was she really fine? How could anyone know that for certain after what she’d done? What if she tried it again? I’d always thought my sister was a strong person. Now I wasn’t so certain.
Except—I lost my right to have an opinion the day I left. Which meant I was in a constant state of internal confliction. All I wanted was to say exactly how I felt, to everyone, but at the same time I knew I had to keep my mouth shut.
Okay…
Ellie and I came into the living room and everyone was gathered around. The whole family, front and center, crammed on the L-shaped couch, waiting for us to walk in. Mom, Dad, my little sister Rose, Georgina and Noah, and even my new brother-in-law Nathanial. Which I’d thought Nathanial was supposed to be in Africa or something, but I guess whatever this was about was more important than his career. If it had been my birthday, I would have expected everyone to yell surprise.
“Shit, it’s an intervention,” I said, voicing my realization aloud and wishing like hell that I could be back in Malibu right this moment.
“What? No,” Georgina answered, the first to respond. Her voice was soft, her blue eyes gentle, and a smile of excitement on her face. “I gathered everyone here because Noah and I have an announcement. I’m pregnant.” She squeezed his hand in her lap. “Well, everyone else kind of already knows, but we hadn’t really formally announced it. So, yeah, that’s the big news. Surprise.”
Oh, Jesus, my head was going to explode.
I gritted my teeth and attempted to smile.
CHAPTER 2:
JUNIPER
At first he was fun, exciting, highly intelligent, posh as hell, composed in this way that I’d never seen in another person. Every moment in his company was a high I couldn’t get enough of. He had a strangeness about him that intrigued me, one I should have feared, but instead found myself drawn to. I ignored early warning signs and the little voice inside my head that told me to be careful.
Instead of listening to that little voice, I’d felt lucky—lucky that someone so perfectly good looking, so wealthy, so respected in society seemed to have eyes for only me. I would have done anything for that man, and I did. Even as the aggressio
n in him started to show and an evilness came to light, I was so blinded that I ignored my better instincts.
And when he hurt me the first time, still I ignored it, telling myself he’d only gotten a little carried away in bed. But once quickly turned into twice, and twice magnified into an almost nightly occurrence. There were bruises; I hid them. There were questions from friends; I made excuses. I lied and lied, and alienated myself from others when the lies became too much to manage. Obviously, I realized that none of it was healthy and that I’d taken myself down a very dark and dangerous road, but I stayed because I loved him.
Quinton asked me to marry him last fall. The moment he pulled out the ring—over dinner at the nicest, most exclusive restaurant in town—my heart felt like it had split in half. One half was all his, all in, in love and in denial about his weird fetishes. The other half was angry—maybe at him or maybe at myself for staying in this relationship for so long that now marriage was on the horizon. I guess I’d always assumed I’d leave him before it ever progressed to this point.
The in-love part of my heart won the mini war raging inside me. I said yes to his proposal. I agreed to marry both the man I loved and the monster inside him that terrified me.
But the scale tipped in the other direction yesterday. Yesterday I reached my breaking point. I’d always been compliant with Quinton, for the most part, finding it was easier not to ‘rock the boat’ with him. I didn’t want to lose him. I’d never been loved the way he loved me, and I felt like it was better to have something a little unconventional than nothing at all.
Then two pink lines showed up.
Two.
Pink.
Lines.
Holy shit, I was pregnant. And suddenly something inside me woke up. An animalistic, ‘mother bear’ force came roaring to life. My denial disappeared and like a switch being flipped, some basic instinct overtook me. And it was time to fight for my life. Correction, fight for our lives. Fuck being in love with this man, this monster, and his weird fetishes. I could not let my child grow up with a man like him as a role model. I had to get out now. Not in nine months when it would be too late, but now.
My childhood had been crap; my father was never around, and my mother was drunk off her ass most of the time. There was one summer when my mom had gotten sober, like completely sober, and my dad had returned home. Basically the stars had aligned. We’d gone with family friends on a vacation to the beach. For one small blip in my childhood, I’d gotten to feel what a real, good, stable family felt like. And it was the best feeling. A feeling of unconditional love and togetherness and safety. That feeling was something I’d been chasing ever since that summer and that one vacation.
Quinton and I…maybe we were in love, maybe there was a glimmer of something special between us. But the ten-year-old, day-dreamer, romantic in me, suddenly was refusing to settle, and she rejected this life I’d created around me. She wanted more. She wanted a chance at a greater happiness and a real-life family. She wanted Quinton gone.
* * *
Seriously shaken up, on a giant whim, with only the clothes on my back, less than twenty-four hours after taking that pregnancy test, I withdrew the maximum amount of cash I could from an ATM.
“Five-hundred dollars!” I yelled at the machine. “That’s it?” The bus ticket alone was probably going to cost me a couple hundred.
Would five-hundred even be enough to do this?
“Okay,” I said, still talking out loud and probably sounding like a crazy person to those waiting behind me. “That’s enough money. That’ll be enough.”
I took the twenties the machine spit out and put them into my purse. When Quinton had suggested we combine our money into one account, I should have realized it would end up being just another way he could control me. We weren’t even married yet, I shouldn’t have agreed to it. But I had. And now $500 was all the machine was allowing me to withdrawal.
Slinging my purse over my shoulder, I left the ATM and took off speed-walking down the street. My ‘great-big-plan’ was to buy a bus ticket and get the hell away from here as quickly as possible. I’d told Quinton that I was heading to the grocery store to buy a few things, but that had been a lie. Instead I’d driven straight to the closest metro station, left my car in the lot, and then took the train all the way into D.C. The bus station was located only a block away from the metro stop. Now that I had some cash, it would only be a short walk from here. I knew I wouldn’t be able to use my credit card again, or I’d risk him finding me that way, so the fresh $500 in my pocket was going to have to last a very long time.
Each step felt difficult, like I was stomping through mud, as I walked down the sidewalk. My stomach churned—maybe out of anxiety or maybe this was what morning sickness felt like. I wasn’t sure. Part of me wanted to turn around and go home, back to Quinton and his cozy apartment, but the stronger part inside me forced my feet to keep moving.
I passed a trash can. Now, I didn’t have the first clue about cell phone tracking or what sort of technology Quinton might have access to. But he had a friend or two with connections to the police, and I didn’t want to risk him locating me because of my phone. So I had to say goodbye, and I threw my phone in the trash. It slipped through my fingers, and I watched in horror as it clunked to the bottom.
Damn. It had been a brand new iPhone too. My first. Jeez, I stood there in the February wind, just staring at it for a few long moments.
It’s a new bag.
You can easily reach down and grab it back…
NO!
Shit. Before I could change my mind about the phone, I hurried away from the trash can into the warmth of the bus station.
It’s only a phone, I reassured myself, you lived for years without one before Quinton. You can get a new one again one day after all of this is over.
Giving myself another little pep talk, about the ninetieth one of the day, I glanced around the enormous bus station. I’d never been here before. There were tons of ticket windows, food-court style restaurants, gift shops, and a huge waiting area with seats. It was Friday and it was jam-packed full of people. Good, maybe all the people in here would give me some cover from the tons and tons of security cameras this place had to be crawling with.
With that thought, an idea struck me, and I hurried for the nearest gift shop.
I only had $500 to last me who knows how long, but I was still a little worried about all the cameras. Once Quinton realized I’d run away, if he hadn’t realized that much already, how hard would it be for him to follow my ATM purchase to the bus station, pay someone off for the security footage of this place, and then from there figure out where I’d gone? I hope not that easy…but I needed to take a few more precautions.
So I bought a black Washington D.C. hat, one I’d already seen several tourists around the station wearing, and an oversized sweatshirt.
Yikes, $52 gone.
I piled my long red hair up on top of my head, and with several minutes of maneuvering, managed to tuck all of it up under the hat. My hair was kind of my defining feature, like a trademark, and I needed to hide it. Then I left the coat I’d been wearing behind and put on my new sweatshirt instead.
Maybe this was another foolish idea, in a long line of foolish ideas, but for a moment I felt kind of clever and slightly safer in my new outfit. Typical me didn’t wear sweatshirts and hats, so this was perfect. From there I bought a bus ticket to Richmond, Virginia. I’d change buses there and then be on my way to the Outer Banks, North Carolina. Grand total, six more hours to get to my destination.
Maybe it would have been less risky to head somewhere much more remote and random than North Carolina, which was only one state away. But I chose the Outer Banks for two reasons. One, that was where my family had vacationed that summer I’d felt safe and loved, and, two, it was February and no one went to the beach in February. There had to be plenty of empty beach houses there this time of year…right? I’d break into one, lay low until I could find a job tha
t would pay me ‘under the table,’ maybe find a lawyer that could help me get a restraining order against Quinton, and figure everything else out later. As far as spur of the moment plans went, aside from the whole breaking and entering portion of my plan, this felt pretty freaking brilliant to me.
So brilliant that my paranoia about being followed by Quinton dropped, and I slept on the bus ride to Richmond. I switched buses there as planned. And the next bus took me further south.
The Outer Banks was different from how I remembered. Not better or worse, just different. More businesses now and more houses. It had been over fifteen years since I’d been here. I guess things change in fifteen years. The bus dropped everyone off—there were four other people I’d been riding with—at a small station in Kill Devil Hills. The Outer Banks, a string of several peninsulas and barrier islands along North Carolina’s coast, had many different towns. I’d forgotten which town I’d stayed in as a kid, so I wasn’t picky. Kill Devil Hills would do. Not that I had much of a choice in the matter. The bus went here, so here I was.
As I stepped off the bus, watching the other people meet up with waiting loved ones, it sank in for the first time how crazy my plan had been.
What the fuck was I doing here?
Seriously?
It was evening now and pitch-black outside. And somehow freezing cold. Before ditching my phone, I probably should have checked the weather. I guess I’d expected it to be warmer here than it had been in D.C., but it wasn’t. The last car in the lot pulled away, taking the last person off my bus with them. I hadn’t eaten in several hours and my stomach growled at me, but my hunger would have to wait until tomorrow—shelter was my first priority. With no other options, rather than standing alone in a deserted parking lot, I started walking.
I went in the direction of the ocean.
Kill Devil Hills: A Complete Beach Romance Series (4-Book Box Set) Page 56
