“She keeps her spare credit cards by the desk. It’s gotta be there,” I mutter, jogging to the desk we rarely use since both of us have offices of our own. Drawer after drawer I open, finding no keys. “Dammit! Calm down, B-man. Manny’s there with her. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Pulling out my phone, I see for the first time I’ve missed a ton of calls and messages tonight. When I was at the bar, I couldn’t hear them. I never checked my phone after I went home to eat. When Annie called after two, I picked up and didn’t see them.
For a brief second, I write off the amount of calls to people reaching out for the holidays, and I’m about to dismiss them and phone Annie to tell her I have to come get her in a cab, and to wait there. But something makes me hit the text icon, and I see five texts from Mark alone. Hitting his name, I read them.
Merry Christmas Fucker.
I just gave Nicole her gift. You were right.
B-man. Tommy escaped prison last night. Did you hear?
Yo B. I’m going to call you. It’s all over the news.
Brendan, I just called. Where you at? Hit me back.
My heart stops as I read the third one again and I hurriedly call my wife. As it rings, my body begins to shake. When voicemail picks up, I can no longer see straight, the room is spinning. I dial her again, my mouth dry. Voicemail again. I call the bar. No one picks up. I call Manny, but there’s no answer there, either. With veins slamming adrenaline into my body, I dial Knockout. Bobby answers after two rings, the music loud in the background, “Merry Christmas B-MAN! WOOHOOO!!”
“Bobby! Tommy’s escaped,” I choke out in a rasp. “I need you to go check on Annie. My car…it won’t start.” I start running for the door, crushing my phone against my ear.
He speaks over me, “What?! Wait, what? Are you serious?” He calls to one of his employees. “Hey, turn off that music!”
Barreling down the steps of our building, I gasp, “I’m dead serious. My car is dead. I’m going to run there. I can’t wait for a cab. GO NOW!”
The music cuts off abruptly. “Yeah! Okay! I can’t believe it. Wait, when?”
“Last night! It was probably him following her.”
“Oh man, Brendan. Okay. I’m sure she’s fine. Don’t worry! I’ll call you as soon as I get there!” He hangs up as I vault out of our building onto the sidewalk and break into a run.
Through the fog, I race down Mission past late-night stragglers and homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk. I go over the moments from our phone call to now. How long it took to find my keys. How I hummed and took my time leaving.
How I fell asleep when I should have been there.
How I should never have left in the first place.
A car honks and I look, hoping it’s her in a cab. But it’s a stranger honking celebration. Ignoring their wave, I keep running as fast as I can, my legs plowing so quickly I can hardly see them. After a few blocks, Bobby’s ahead in the distance, by himself waiting in front of Le Barré with his eyes on me. Fear explodes in my chest at her absence, and my mind pictures the worst. Is she inside? Is she dead on the floor inside? Tears spring to my eyes.
“Where is she?!” I come to a stop in front of him, panting. “WHERE IS SHE?!”
He stares at me, scared. “Brendan. It’s unlocked.”
A pain I’ve never known before takes hold of me. “ANNIE!” I go for the door, but he stops me.
“She’s not in there! I checked.”
I rush inside, searching. “Annie?!” The storeroom, the office, the bathroom, all empty. Picking up her phone and her purse, I stare at them like I can’t believe what I’m seeing. “He took her. He took her, Bobby,” I whisper, falling to my knees. “ANNIE!!!!”
Bobby grabs me and pulls me back up, shaking me by the shoulders. “Brendan! They can’t have gotten far. We’ll call the police and we’ll get her back! Where would he have taken her? Can you think of anywhere?”
Staring at my friend, I search my mind for any place I can think of. “He doesn’t have his apartment anymore. He doesn’t have any friends. Margaret! You call 911. Tell them you need to speak to Sergeant Lewis. Get him out of bed if they have to.”
He nods, remembering the name. “They’re going to send anyone who’s there now.”
“Fine. I just want him to know, since he’ll care. I want someone who cares about Annie on this.” Tears sting my eyes as I finish, “I’ll call Margaret. They were having an affair, she’s the only one he might have called.” It’s a long shot, but as I dial our agency’s C.F.O., time stops. When I hear her sleepy voice pick up, I ask her if she’s heard from Tommy, informing her abruptly that he’s escaped prison.
“What? Brendan, is this a joke?”
“Margaret, I don’t have time to fuck around. I know you were having an affair. Are you hiding Tommy?”
Silence, then, “Brendan, I can assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The way she said that indicates Joe is next to her and having been woken up, is now listening.
“Has he called you? Have you seen him?”
“No! I have not!”
“He’s taken my wife, Margaret. Annie’s gone. Her employee is gone, too. He’s done something to them!”
Silence again. “Oh my God.”
“Do you know where he is?” I demand. “If you’re covering for him, it’s accessory to kidnapping and…and your life will be over! I will personally see to that!”
“No! I promise you. I really don’t! Oh, Brendan! I’m so sorry!”
“Fuck!” I yell, pacing as Bobby talks to the cops in the background.
Margaret cries out, “If I hear anything, I will tell you. I’m serious. I will. Understand?”
I nod, raking my hand through my hair. After a second of searching for what to do, I hang up as Bobby lowers his phone.
“They’re on their way here,” he says, helplessly looking at me.
“I’m going to kill him with my bare hands, Bobby. I’m going to fucking tear him apart.” I cover my face and start to sob. Bobby walks over and lays an arm around me.
“I’ll help you,” he mutters.
When the cops arrive, I tell them everything I know. Bobby stays with me, calling his employees and having them close up his bar for him. The Sergeant who took care of our case last time doesn’t come but I’m assured he’ll be notified and will be in contact with me. When they leave, I watch, not knowing what I’m supposed to do with myself now. It’s after 4:00 a.m. now. Officially Christmas Day.
Bobby offers to give me a ride home. I lock up, aware of the irony that I have the keys for Le Barré but not for her car, when I needed it. Walking to his car in silence, I climb in and set my wife’s purse and phone on my lap, staring out the windshield at the pre-dawn darkness. The fog is everywhere and I picture her being taken somewhere in it, knowing from now on, she will hate fog for the rest of her life. And so will I.
He turns the car on and the radio sounds through the speakers, the earlier recorded message repeating. “The manhunt is still underway. The last person to escape San Quentin was in September of 2000 when a sex offender used blankets to cover the barbed wire fence.”
“Turn it off,” I mumble. Bobby reaches over and pushes the button. “What am I going to do if I lose her?” Bobby doesn’t answer. “I won’t survive, Bobby. I know I won’t.”
“She’s coming back, B-man. I don’t know how, but she has to, right?” Pulling up in front of our building, he stops and watches me get out. “You want me to come up?” I shake my head. “Call me when you find out anything.”
I close the door and walk up the steps with the sound of his car driving away, behind me. Looking to my car, I stare at it, wondering at the timing. Walking to it with quick, angry strides, I open the hood and look inside. I don’t know much about engines, but this hose is supposed to be connected to something. Motherfucker. He tampered with my car first! He was here.
Pulling out my phone, I call my best friend. With the three-hour
time difference, he picks up at just after seven o’clock in the morning, more awake that I’d expect.
“Hey! Finally! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” he whispers, Nicole asleep beside him.
“Mark. He took her. Annie’s gone. Tommy kidnapped her tonight. I didn’t get your messages. I didn’t hear the news. I fell asleep and wasn’t there to pick her up.”
“Brendan,” he tries to interrupt, hearing the pain in my voice.
I choke, “He followed her to her car last night. We didn’t know it was him. She thought it was a robber. Bobby saved her and no one saw him. But he came back! We all thought he was a robber, Mark! I wasn’t there! I wasn’t there for her! And he fucked with my car to make sure I wasn’t. I just checked. It’s been fucked with. I thought it was just a weak battery. What am I gonna do? She’s gone!”
Mark’s taking in the horror of what I’ve told him, and he interrupts me. “Brendan! Stop! Listen to me. I’m coming. I’ll catch a flight out today. I’ll be there.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Where are you now?”
“I’m at our house. I can’t go in. There’s a tree in there! We got a tree!”
Mark knows what this means. He knows who I am, who I’ve been. How jaded I was about women and love and commitment. He knows me better than anyone, which means he knows I will never survive this if she doesn’t come home. I will never survive.
“What’s going on?” Nicole’s sleepy voice asks in the distance.
“Honey, hang on. It’s Brendan. I’ll explain in a minute,” he murmurs. “Brendan? I’ll be there. I’m coming. We’ll find her. We’ll find her together, okay? Now go inside and try to sleep so you can have your head screwed on straight.”
“I can’t sleep tonight.”
“Then pray. Pray for her safe return. Pray for the baby. Pray. I’ll call you in a half hour when I’ve booked the flight, tell you when I arrive.”
I make a sound close to a snort. “You want me to pray?” Even as I say it, I know that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
“I’ll call you right back.” He hangs up and I head inside, taking the elevator up. When I walk in, the tree lights hit me hard and I fall to my knees in front of them, right in front of that little blue and white sweater ornament.
“Dear God, Please watch over my wife tonight. She’s carrying our son and they’re with a bad guy. Please make him see what he’s doing. Please help him wake up…do the right thing. Please help him have the strength to call me and let me come get her. Please, God, I’m begging you…”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Annie
Head: throbbing. Body: heavy. Where the hell am I?
Waking from a dreamless sleep, I become aware of the ropes around my ankles and my arms tied behind me, before I open my eyes. Doing a quick mental inventory with my head still hung low, I feel the chair I’m sitting on, that my body aches, that the drug I was given still has an effect on my brain as it’s hard to think. I don’t feel any exceptional pain around my stomach and I’m not wet anywhere, so I think my baby’s okay. Blinking, I look at my belly, unable to not look.
“Well, look who’s up,” an unfamiliar voice bellows.
I struggle to raise my head, which is harder to do than I would have imagined, and in a drugged haze, I struggle to focus on the man standing above me. Squinting to understand why he looks familiar, I recognize pieces first. The angry tilt of his jaw. The tone of his voice. The brown eyes similar to…
“You’re Tommy’s father,” I croak, fear setting in. The manhunt has been out for this man ever since Tommy testified against him. He went on the run then, and everything that’s come out about him says he’s a horrible person; abusive and full of rage. My heart starts to race as I glance around the room to ascertain where we are.
“This is my old house,” he hisses, watching me. “You see that? That bureau is the only thing they left in here. I had to bring that chair you’re sitting on. Can you fuckin’ believe that?”
Glancing to the window, bright sunlight disturbs me. What time is it? What day is it?
“That’s terrible,” I carefully offer. “You must have lost a lot.”
“I LOST EVERYTHING!” he yells in my face, the spittle from his tight lips hitting my eyelids.
Suddenly I realize, and ask him, horrified. “You blame me?”
He laughs like a lunatic, all his sense of right and wrong, gone. “Damn right I blame you, BITCH!”
“It was you following me last night!” When he doesn’t say anything, I whisper, “What are you going to do with me?”
The smile that spreads across his face is terrifying. “What aren’t I going do with you? We’re going to have a little fun.” He opens up the bureau and I see a knife, two guns and a hammer.
“Oh God,” I croak in terror, pulling at my ropes.
“Ain’t no use pulling at those, Mrs. Clark. Man, you should have seen my son’s face when he heard you got married while he was locked up for the rest of his damn life. That was the last time I visited the traitor, before he gave us up. He did that because of you. Because of this.” He holds up his pinky and to my horror, my wedding ring is on it. My mouth falls open. “Like it? It’s not really my size, but I can have that fixed,” he giggles, staring at it and turning it around.
The rebel in me rises up. “It’s just girly enough for you,” I hiss.
He cocks his head my way and loses the smile, walking two steps to punch me across the jaw. My head flies to the right and I moan in pain.
Turning my head to meet his eyes again, I scream in his face, “DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!” Jacob kicks inside of me and I gasp, wanting desperately to touch my stomach.
He narrows his wrinkly eyes, bends his knees and stares two inches from my face. “Got some fire in there, huh? Good. This is gonna be fun.” He chuckles. “You just wait for my nephew to get here. I’ve decided you’re going to be the one to take his virginity.” He brings up the pinky that’s got my ring on it and goes to touch my skin.
I slam my head hard into his, knocking him off balance and onto the floor. “Fucking Bitch!” He grabs his forehead and glares at me, rising to punch me again in the face. His knuckles crack into my lip, splitting it open.
“Uncle Walter!” a voice calls from downstairs. I spit out the saliva and blood as he eyes me like he wants to hit me again. He takes a step backwards.
“Brucie? Up here!”
I’m glaring at him like I’m strong and I can take anything he’s got, but tears betray me falling down my cheeks. The bastard smirks and he looks so much like an older version of Tommy that I feel sick inside. Bruce appears in the doorframe, another recognizable face from the news, but one I’ve never met in person. Definitely a family resemblance, but he’s slighter and effeminate, obviously homosexual. He eyes me, takes in my bruised face and bondage. “Hey,” he says, as if I’m his buddy.
“Is that how you greet your first time, Brucie?” his uncle chides him, flouncing his arms like fairy-wings.
“So...you really did it. You took her,” Bruce says, as he locks eyes with me again.
I feel another kick from my son, and close my eyes, licking the blood off my lips, tasting the salt of tears mingled in. When I open my eyes again, Tommy is in the doorway. Ice pours down my spine as he looks at me.
The air has suddenly become thicker as Tommy and his father lock eyes. “Dad.”
Confusion and happiness cross over Walter’s face, and I see my life passing before my eyes. But then his expression changes to rage. “You traitorous piece of shit!”
He lunges for his son. Bruce yelps and stands in front of me with his arms and legs spread wide. Blocking me? Tommy anticipates his dad coming, and weaves quickly to the side. His dad barrels into the wall and curses.
“Good to see you, too, Dad,” Tommy says, with a hardened smirk.
“How are you out of prison?” his dad snaps.
“Bruce told me what you were going to do here. I ca
n’t let that happen.”
Stunned, I stare up at Tommy through the gap under Bruce’s arms. His father growls, “She took your life, Tommy! She took all of our lives!”
“Looks like you’re still breathing, Dad. How about you, Bruce?”
Bruce nods. “Still breathing.”
Tommy says, “Yeah, me too.” Eying his father who’s still by the wall like he’s ready to pounce, Tommy says in the softest voice I’ve ever heard him use, “I know Mom left you, Dad. But that doesn’t mean you have to do this.”
There’s no sense of logic or reality behind Walter’s eyes as he listens. It’s like he can’t hear. He lets out a roar and attacks Tommy, but Tommy meets him in the middle and they punch each other again and again. Bruce turns around and runs behind me, untying my hands.
“NO!” Walter yells, lunging for me. Tommy grabs his torso and wrestles him to the ground. Bruce kneels down to untie my ankles, meeting my eyes with urgency just as Walter lays a blow on Tommy’s face that knocks him back. A roar bursts from him and he lunges for me. Bruce kicks him in the face and yells to me, “RUN!”
I make a break for it, holding onto my stomach as I fight off the heaviness the drug has left in me, running through the hallway of the empty house, down the stairs still hung with family photos. Outside, I turn to look behind me. I stare up at the house and turn around to escape. “HELP!”
Chapter Thirty
Tommy
My old man has always been an asshole, but the look in his eyes scares even me.
Dad jumps on top of me, straddling me as his leathery fists pound into my skull. I rotate my hips and buck upward, knocking him off balance, freeing my arms to punch him back, hard. Bruce grabs my dad around his body, yanking him up by using his own body weight for leverage and power. It’s enough to get me off my back. Kneeling in front of my father, I give him everything I’ve got. As I punch him into unconsciousness, I yell at him, “This is for ruining my life! This is for not being there in court! This is for treating Mom like shit!”
Capturing Hearts: Hearts Series Book 4 Page 11
