by Reid, Ruby
They said their goodbyes at the office door, and Alex headed back to Jameson’s bike. While he was there, he simply sat on it for a moment, wincing at the discomfort from the stitches along the top of his stomach.
As he took a moment to rest, he then remembered that Karla had mentioned his phone as he had come out of the observation room. He went into the bag she had packed up for him and retrieved his phone. He was hoping to find Amanda’s number showing in the Missed Calls list, but he was ultimately disappointed. He was concerned , though. The number he did see was one that he was not familiar with, and it had tried calling him six different times.
He also saw that he had one voicemail. He pulled up his voicemail, punched in his passcode, and waited. The voice he heard through the phone seemed to stab him in the head and the cut along his stomach throbbed in response.
“Alex,” the voice said, spitting his name. “This is Marco. I did some house hunting today and happened upon a lovely little creature named Amanda. I have her with me right now, and if you hope to ever see her again—alive, anyway—you’d better call this number back. I assume you’re being treated for the beating you took before killing one of my most trusted men. So make sure you call me when you’re out. If I don’t hear from you within a day, I’ll kill her.”
Even after he heard the click of the message ending, Alex sat there with the phone still held to his ear. He slowly brought the phone away from his head and called the number. It rang only twice before it was answered.
“I must have fucked you up pretty bad,” Marco said.
“Not bad enough,” Alex said. “If you do have her, you just made the biggest mistake of your life.”
“Big talk from a man that was sent to the hospital at my hands. And I assure you, I do have her. If you don’t believe me, swing by her house. Oh, and see if the mail truck is still there.”
“Let me talk to her,” Alex said through clenched teeth.
“Oh, I really don’t think so,” Marco said. “You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
“And where am I supposed to meet you?”
“Just outside of town, on the north end, there’s a big expanse of field on the left side of the highway. There are two roads that cut through it. Take the second one. Halfway down you’ll come to an old maintenance road. Take that one all the way down. I’ll meet you there.”
“If you—,” Alex started to say.
“You have two hours,” Marco said. “If two hours and one minute pass and I don’t see you, I’ll shoot out her knees, and when she can’t move, I’m going to strip her naked and see what kind of fun you’ve been having over these last few days.”
“Marco, you had better—,”
Marco hung up, ending the call. Blinding rage ripped through Alex, and he nearly threw his phone. He hung on to it, though, figuring that it might come in handy later. He wasn’t about to go off into Marco’s little scheme without any way to be connected to him—the man that allegedly had Amanda.
He gripped the bike’s handlebars and kicked it to life. The engine roared as it did in the parking garage, but it didn’t comfort him at all as it had then. He peeled out of the hotel parking lot and headed north. As he did, it occurred to him that he was totally un-armed. Without a gun, a knife, or even a pipe or baseball bat, he was basically riding out to his death.
Had he ever been so out of his depth? With the Unknowns, all he’d have to do is call Jameson and ask for a few men to get his back, but he had forfeited that right several days ago when he had chosen Amanda over the club. He still didn’t regret the decision, but this would have been a lot easier if he could just call up some backup.
Truth be told, he had no idea how to handle this.
“Damn,” he said, his voice lost under the roar of the bike and the wind that swept through him.
Night was falling, and he was riding off through a town he wasn’t really familiar with. He was unarmed and heading for a man that was known for his savagery and lack of remorse. If he knew the city a bit better, he thought he might be able to figure out where he could go to buy a gun, but as it stood, he was clueless. There was always the option of a pawn shop, but even then he knew there was the bullshit waiting period. But maybe he could haggle with the proprietor. If he got one that was slightly dishonest, he could probably leave with the gun right away if he tossed in an extra hundred bucks or so.
It was a shady plan, but it was all he had. He pulled into the nearest parking lot—a little strip mall with a nail salon and a yogurt shop—and parked. He pulled out his phone and pulled up his maps app, looking for the nearest pawn shop. Just as he was becoming convinced that this city was not going to have the kind of place he was looking for, his phone rang.
His heart thumped, fully expecting it to be Marco. But the contact name that came up eased him a bit: Slim.
He answered the phone quickly, ready to blow Slim off. Given the situation, Alex was sure he would understand.
“Slim,” he said. “Hey man, it’s really not a good time.”
Slim chuckled on the other end. “I sort of figured it would come to that. Especially after Jameson called me.”
“What do you mean?”
After another soft laugh, Slim said, “Where are you, man?”
“Looking for somewhere to buy a gun in this God forsaken city.”
“Save yourself some money. Just borrow one of mine.”
“This isn’t the time for jokes,” Alex said.
“Oh, I know. I’m about twenty miles away from you, I think. Stay where you are and I’ll meet you. I have two guns on me.”
“Why aren’t you in Chicago?”
“Like I said, Jameson gave me a call and told me to haul ass to come out and help you. So here I am.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Eh, I didn’t have anything better to do.”
“Well, it’s gotten complicated,” Alex said.
“How so?”
Alex then told Slim about his call with Marco and that he had now less than two hours to get to the meeting place.
“Fine. Follow his direction but wait for me before you go down that state maintenance road. It’ll take me about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there if this stupid map I’m looking at is accurate.”
“Are you sure?” Alex asked. “I don’t want you risking your life.”
“Well, I didn’t drive all this way to just come and watch you die. So stop stalling and move your ass.”
“Thanks, Slim.”
“Don’t thank me yet. See you in a bit.”
They ended the call, and for the second time in an hour or so, Alex was blown away by the kindness of the men he had come to think of as his friends. Sure, within the club there was loyalty and comraderies, but these gestures were something on an entirely different level.
Feeling slightly more confident, Alex cranked the bike and headed back out onto the road. He was driving fueled with nerves. That, with the addition of the splint on his left hand, made him something of a reckless driver. He went slowly, making sure to obey the speed limit signs and trying not to push himself according to the two hour window Marco had given him. The point he had been talking about was less than forty minutes away, so there was no need to rush.
He drove cautiously as time seemed to slow down. He knew that he was driving into one of the most important moments of his life… and potentially the most dangerous. But that didn’t bother him. All he could think of was Amanda being held by Marco and the threats he had made against her.
In that moment, for the first time in his life, Alex was more concerned with someone else’s life rather than his own survival. He thought of Amanda and came to the conclusion that although they had known one another for less than a week, he was pretty sure he would die for her.
And although he tried to shake it, he had the feeling that it might just come down to that.
CHAPTER 6
When Marco had finally decided to leave Alex a message rat
her than simply hanging up when he got to voice mail, he had given Amanda directions to a part of town that she had never visited. He had asked her to pull up to the curb along a stretch of run down homes. She hated to be stereotypical, but the teens on the stoops with beers in their hands and the baggy attire—mostly sports related—made her assume that they were in some sort of gang territory.
Before he got out of the car, he looked to her with an expression that was almost political and assuring. “I’ll be in this house for about five minutes,” he said. “If you try escaping, I’m going to pay one of these young men on the porch steps to put a bullet in your lower back. It won’t kill you, but if placed right, you can forget about walking for the rest of your life.”
She nodded that she understood, again finding it hard not to submit to tears of defeat and frustration.
He patted her leg in a friendly way as he got out of the car. When he closed the door behind him, it took everything in her to not bolt right out of the car. But she saw Marco stop on the porch steps to speak with the two young black men on the porch. They both looked at her and nodded. Marco then handed each of them several dollar bills. The way the men nodded enthusiastically made her assume that the bills did not feature George Washington, but someone of more financial stature.
She could do nothing but sit there. She supposed that she could take the chance that the men on the stoop wouldn’t do Marco’s bidding and that she might be able to get away, but she was getting a sense of the type of man that Marco was, and as scared as she might be, she was pretty sure that it would not be wise to piss him off.
Beyond that, she now had the distinct hope that Alex would eventually come to her rescue. It was a foolish and very naïve hope, but it was the only thing she had to cling to. She wanted to see him despite the way things had ended with them, and it wasn’t only because her life depended on it. She could kid herself all she wanted, but she had missed him terribly, even when she had gone out to Stephen’s graveside.
She got lost in her fear and thoughts, losing track of time in the process. Marco was back before she knew it, hopping into the passenger’s seat with a satisfied look on his face.
“That settles it,” he said. “We’re good to go. Get on the interstate, please. Headed north.”
She nodded and put the car into gear. She made it no more than half a mile before the words that she had been repeating to herself earlier came out of her mouth. She had no idea why she decided to voice them, but it seemed important. Maybe it was nothing more than the fact that she wanted this maniac to understand just how much of a monster he was.
“Did you know that you killed my husband?” She asked. The question filled the car with the impact of a bomb.
He looked at her quizzically and shrugged. “I doubt that, but at the same time…well, I’ve killed a lot of men. But that would certainly be coincidental, now wouldn’t it?”
“At a bank building in Tulsa,” she said.
He looked at her as if she had told an exceptionally good joke. But then the amusement on his face became one of some sort of delighted awe that made her hate him even more.
“Are you being serious with me right now?” He asked.
“Yes,” she said. And then the tears came flooding out and she was helpless to stop them.
“I assure you,” Marco said coldly, “that there was nothing personal about it. I remember that job well. Your husband was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone there and—”
“Shut up,” she screamed at him, not caring in that moment what he did to her.
He looked surprised at her outburst and held his hands up in mock surrender. “Hey… you brought it up.”
She sat upright in the seat and did her best to get herself back under control. She gripped the wheel and stared straight ahead, making the decision that she was done being weak and helpless in front of him.
“There’s your exit,” he said, pointing up ahead to where the street veered off to a ramp onto the interstate.
Amanda said nothing. She gave her turn signal and turned onto the exit. Night was falling around them, and she did her best to remain focused and strong. Whether she liked it or not, the fact that she felt sure that Alex would come for her was the core of that strength.
To say that she was in love with him was a massive overstatement. Then again, it was more than plain lust. It had been lust when they had first had sex on her kitchen floor and for a day or so afterwards when she had been unable to get the scene out of her head. She couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact moment when she had developed actual feelings for him, but she knew they were there. She’d known that much when she had asked him to leave her house. If she didn’t care for him, doing that wouldn’t have hurt so much. Just thinking about how that entire scene had played out made her heart ache.
But for right now, she had more important things to worry about. Namely the maniac in the passenger seat.
She was trying to gauge the sort of man Marco was. He was clearly violent and most likely a sociopath. But what she couldn’t tell for sure is if he was just downright crazy or if he was so smart and cunning that he seemed crazy. He seemed to have his shit together, and even in the midst of a kidnapping, the man came off as being calm and confident. She wondered just how often he did things like this and then decided that it was best if she didn’t know.
What truly made her uncomfortable was that she kept thinking about Stephen. Memories of Stephen flooded her head while she was in his killer’s presence, and it made her feel slightly nauseous.
Still, she recalled the morning Stephen had left for work and headed to Tulsa for what was supposed to be just a routine job. She’d then gotten the call the following day that the project was a bit more complex that his client had thought. He was going to have to stay for three more days. She’s laughed at him then, teasing him about how he was being locked away in a bank with all of the other valuables. They’d both laughed and then ended the call.
She never spoke to him again.
She’d lost a part of herself when the police had called her and told her what had happened. She instantly felt that the world was a cruel creature and that she was not meant to be happy. Several bad relationships in high school, sexual abuse at the hands of a long-time boyfriend in college, and then Stephen had been killed.
Now, of course, there was the current situation she found herself in. It was nothing more than an extension of the bad fortune she’d always had when it came to relationships. Sure, she knew it was self-pity on one hand, but damn… how much was one woman supposed to take?
She felt tears coming on, spurred by the helplessness that flooded through her. Here she was with Stephen’s killer, desperately hoping to be rescued by a man she barely knew but had been connected to her life in a vague way for years without either of them knowing it. It was all just too surreal.
She took the exit that Marco had pointed out and drove on, headed towards her uncertain future.
CHAPTER 7
Alex arrived at the field Marco had indicated shortly after eight thirty. The road that ran across it was slow, but not dead. When he pulled off onto the secondary road that wound into the field, traffic became non-existent. Not only that, but the field was totally empty with the exception of a large cell phone tower and the occasional tree. Something about the solitude of it all only increased the feeling that he was driving directly towards his execution.
When he reached the state maintenance road half a mile down the secondary road, he killed the engine and headlamp on Jameson’s bike and pushed it slightly off of the road. With the road right there in front of him, it was difficult to go down there and make sure Marco wasn’t just bullshitting him. But he couldn’t very well go down there with guns blazing when he had no guns to blaze.
He sat in the silence of the night and looked at his phone. Slim should be arriving within fifteen minutes or so. Until then, it was just him and the night.
He was surpri
sed to find that his mind kept wandering back to his father. Maybe it had something to do with the knowledge that his own death could be waiting for him down this road. Perhaps, he thought, we think of the huge and horrible things we have done just before we die as a way to repent.
He didn’t know and, honestly, had never given much thought to such things. All he cared about as he sat there in the silence of the night was getting to Amanda and making sure she was okay. In some deep and dark pit within him, he knew that if he got down there and found her dead at Marco’s hands, he was going to unleash some other part of him. He had always sensed it lurking inside, some part of him that had come out only to play a bit on the night he had killed his father. He’d spent a long time being aware of that hidden part of himself and had tried to ignore it. But now, he found himself allowing it room along the front row of his thoughts.
