Scare Crow

by Julie Hockley

  I hung up and got on a plane.

  ****

  “What do we know?” I was on the jet, flying over the Mexican border. I had left the party without excuse, without even announcing my departure.

  Carly said, “I talked to Griff. He doesn’t know where she is either. She left him a note. Something about her mom being in the hospital. Something totally bogus.”

  “He lost her,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “He lost her? You abandoned her. Emmy’s been put aside and left behind more times than one human being is capable of handling. I’m surprised she’s made it this far without falling apart,” Carly snapped.

  Then she took a breath. “He’s hysterical, Cameron. Just like the rest of us. I’m just glad we got to him before anyone else.”

  “Has anyone seen Frances?”

  “No one. We went through her apartment and talked to her mother. No one has seen her or heard from her. Spider has guards standing outside all her known hangouts. Nothing yet.”

  Emmy was with Frances. I could feel it. I had overlooked Frances because—because why? Because she was the mother of Bill’s child, because I didn’t want to think Bill had ever been wrong about her. Because I got lazy, stopped paying attention. I had forgotten—let myself forget—my role. Nobody was ever to be left without supervision, without consequences. My epic failure to do my job was going to cost me Emmy and the child she was carrying. My child.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know,” Carly whimpered. I could tell that she was starting to fall apart herself. We didn’t have time for that.

  “Where was she when you saw her?”

  “Downtown. I was on my way to see Henry. I’ve been working with him to get all your funds liquidated—”

  “Did you see Henry?”

  “No. Obviously not! You can’t think that after I saw Emmy, pregnant, leaving with Frances, that I would be worried about your damn money!”

  “That’s not my question, Carly. You gave Emmy Henry’s information some time ago. Did Emmy go see Henry? Has anyone talked to him?”

  “I’m sure Henry would have called me if she had,” she said, though it was more of a question to herself. She immediately hung up.

  ****

  “Henry’s dead,” was the first thing Carly told me when she called me back. I was flying over Kansas, pacing back and forth between the empty seats. “We found him in his office. Two shots to the head.”

  Emmy had seen Henry. Someone knew she had gone there and had assassinated Henry before he could warn us.

  “She went to the Cayman Islands. Check the airport,” I ordered.

  When I finally landed, I was trying to get the door open before they had even stopped the plane.

  Once outside, I immediately saw Carly and Tiny, who were waiting for me at the bottom of the plane’s stairs. Tiny was standing, stoically. Henry was a good man—a great man. He had been loyal to all of us, asking little in return. This was a rarity. And he had practically raised Tiny.

  I nodded to Tiny, and he nodded back. Whoever had murdered his uncle would pay. But right now, we had to find Emmy.

  “We had someone check the flight registry. She did go to the Cayman Islands with Frances. And then she came back. No one has seen or heard from her since the plane landed.” Carly’s hair sprang out of her ponytail, as though she had been trying to rip it out herself. I could tell that she had been crying and was trying not to start again. “Spider went to the airport as soon as you told us, but the flight had already disembarked its passengers. We weren’t there when she came out. We missed her.”

  “And Frances?”

  “She was on the flight after Emmy. She was grabbed by a bevy of Victor’s men. There were too many of them. Spider couldn’t grab her himself.”

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. Frances had been and still was Victor’s pawn. Spider had been right all along. Frances was the mole. She was the one who told Victor about Emmy, about where he could find us. She was the one who got Rocco killed. And now, she had sent Emmy into Victor’s grubby fingers. No, I had sent Emmy running into Frances’s arms. Frances had just taken me up on the opportunity I had allowed her.

  “They have her, Cameron. They have her and the baby.”

  Carly wasn’t helping my concentration. I would get Emmy back, one way or another. Whatever it would take. I tried to block out the images of what would happen to her if I didn’t get to her fast enough, if I didn’t get to her before the baby came and they started sending her to me in pieces.

  “Has Victor called yet?”

  Carly knew what I was asking: had Victor called to gloat, to make his demands, to use Emmy and the baby to blackmail me?

  “No. Not yet.”

  “And you’re sure it was Victor’s men who picked up Frances?”

  “Positive. Spider followed them out to the car. Victor was waiting for her.”

  “Did Frances look like she was surprised to see him?”

  “No. But Spider said it looked like she had been crying and Victor’s men were pretty rough with her while they led her into the car.”

  I opened my eyes and looked into the darkness that went beyond the small airport beams of light.

  “Did you check her car?”

  “We couldn’t find it. We checked all of the airport parking lots near her terminal. Nothing.”

  “And no one has seen or heard from Emmy?”

  “No one.”

  My eyes turned back to my car, which Tiny had driven onto the tarmac for me. In the light of the airport, from a little less than two hundred feet away, I could see the purple jacket that I had stolen from Emmy, which was still draped over the passenger-side seat. I started running.

  “Where are you going?” Carly asked, running after me.

  “What about her roommates?”

  “No. We already checked with—”

  “And her parents?”

  “No one, Cameron. What’s going on?”

  “Keep your phone on and call me if you have any news,” I told her as I slammed my door shut and sped off.

  However slim, there was still a chance …

  An hour later, I curved onto the driveway to the cottage, barely taking my foot off the pedal. The sun was just about to explode over the horizon, but it was still dark under the shadow of the trees and I almost slammed into the back of Emmy’s car. It was halfway between the road and the cottage, and the driver-side door had been left wide-open. I was out of my car and running, catching a heart-wrenching glimpse of the blotches of blood on the front seat. I started screaming her name before the cottage was even in sight.

  I came crashing through the door, scrambling to find the switch. When the light came on, I saw her. At the top of the stairs, half of her hanging over the first steps. There was blood dripping over the side of the loft onto the floor below.

  “Emmy,” I said as I came to her, though I hadn’t found my voice yet.

  She was completely limp and ghostly.

  “Wake up,” I told her as I pushed the hair stuck to her forehead. She did not stir.

  “Emily, wake up,” I said more forcefully while I rubbed her cheek, felt her slight breaths.

  I took my cell phone out of my pocket and made a call to Doctor Lorne.

  He picked up on the first ring, as he always did. “I’m coming in hot. Emmy’s pregnant and bleeding badly.” He didn’t need to ask any questions, and I didn’t need to tell him to be ready because he was always ready.

  “You have to keep fighting, Emmy,” I pleaded with her as I ran back to my car with her in my arms.

  I had her head lying on my thigh as I drove like a maniac, daring some idiot cop to even try to stop me. One hand was on the wheel; the other one was on her neck.

  There was a pulse. There was a pulse. And then there wasn’t.

  CHAPTER 19: EMILY

  I WAS

  “Wake up.”

  There is that one, monumental question everyone has asked themselves at o
ne point in their lives, whether they live until they’re one hundred or until they’re twenty years old.

  What happens when I die?

  “Emily, wake up,” I could hear myself saying to myself.

  “To what?” I answered in my snidest tone.

  “You have to keep fighting.”

  I guffawed. “I’m done with that.”

  And the light came.

  It wasn’t what I was expecting.

  It was not soft and peaceful. There were no angels singing or harps playing. The music was, at least, orchestrated, but it was hot—rather blazing. Like an ant burning under a magnifying glass.

  Hell?

  I shouldn’t have laughed at this, but I did. The old Emily Sheppard would have never done anything interesting enough to get herself to hell.

  As I brushed my hands against my clothes, readying myself for what came next, I was caught off guard by how smooth my clothes were. When I looked down, I saw that I was wearing a white ballroom dress that went all the way down to my knees. And I had a spotlight on me.

  I looked to my side. My mother was holding a microphone to her lips. She was wearing a similar gown, though hers glistened under the bright lights, like a mermaid’s tail.

  I was at my sweet sixteen party. Or rather, I was at the sweet sixteen party my mother had thrown. I just happened to be turning sixteen that day.

  “Oh dear God, I really am in hell,” I said aloud, but no sound came.

  If this were hell, then I really was being punished for my sins. I had taken a man’s life, and this did not go unnoticed, no matter how evil that man had been.

  All of a sudden, my mother’s face disappeared, and the spotlight softened. The orchestra’s music died, and a breeze picked up, cooling me off. I was able to see off the stage, see a blank-faced crowd of my parents’ friends—acquaintances—standing in tuxedos and prom dresses. They swayed with the breeze. It felt as though I were standing before a cornfield of people waiting to be cultivated.

  I took a step forward and got off my mother’s stage. My feet were bare.

  As soon as my toes touched the grass, the corn crowd parted with my every step, letting me walk by them without me having to touch them, without them having to touch me.

  I got to the edge of the pool.

  “Cameron,” I called out.

  Even if I couldn’t see him, I knew he was there. He had always been there. I just didn’t know how to look for him.

  The swarm of faceless people on the other side of the pool parted, and Cameron walked through. He was wearing a gray hooded sweater and jeans. And a baseball cap that was pulled down to his eyebrows, shadowing his features. Like the first day we met. But with every step he took, he transformed. By the time he reached the other edge of the pool, he was dressed in a tuxedo, with his collar undone and his black bow hanging loose.

  He smiled.

  It was amazing to me how quickly he could take my breath away.

  I had missed him.

  I had missed seeing him—his face, his shoulders, his hands.

  I reached out to him, even though there was a pool of water between us. I could feel him taking hold of me, cloaking me like a ray of sun.

  I let him enfold me like that for a little while, knowing that something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

  I put my hands against his chest, against his heart, and I pushed him away.

  “We have a child,” I whispered to him. But again, no sound came from my mouth.

  I brought my hands to my stomach and found that it was flattened. Empty.

  Suddenly, the pool was between us again.

  I took a step back and stopped there, beaming at Cameron. He frowned.

  I took another step back. He reached for me.

  I shook my head.

  “I’ll see you later,” I mouthed to him.

  “Stay with me,” he pleaded.

  I smiled at my beautiful Cameron. “I’ll be right back.”

  I turned into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 20: CAMERON

  AND THEN I WASN’T

  When you lose the person you’ve always lived for, do you die?

  Do your lungs just stop taking in air?

  Does the blood stop flowing to your brain?

  Do you turn to dust and disappear as though you never were?

  EMILY’S EPILOGUE

  BILLY

  An eye for an eye, a life for a life. We’ll all pay for the blood we spill. Ultimately.

  But not yet.

  ****

  It was the incessant sound of beeping that roused me.

  When my eyes fluttered open, I found myself in a room, in an elevated bed, surrounded by the machines that had awoken me and that I was apparently plugged into. I couldn’t feel my legs, and the parts of me that I could feel were numbed.

  It occurred to me that I might be in a hospital, except that the room didn’t have the coldness and sterility of a hospital room. And it smelled of manure.

  The mattress was soft and not plastic-coated, and a crocheted blanket had been placed over me. My hand slowly pushed it down and stopped when it reached my stomach. I couldn’t feel anything below my chest, but I could feel the hollowness of my insides. A scream rose up from my empty nest, but the noise that escaped my parched vocal chords was barely a mouse’s whisper.

  Something stirred next to me.

  I forced my head to turn and nearly jumped out of my skin.

  Spider was nestled in a comfy chair, surrounded by pillows, with his legs up on an ottoman. A plate of pastries lay on a table next to him, with a carton of chocolate milk. You’d think he was on vacation at a chalet by the sea. I tried to move quietly, not wanting to rouse Cameron’s killer. Thinking I could actually escape before he caught me.

  He turned his head slowly. Our stares met. His eyes were dull, and he was blanched. He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

  “My baby. Where’s my baby?” I croaked at him. Spider was slightly panicked as I started to push my way out of the bed, simultaneously tugging at the wires that were sticking out of my arms. I was trying to roll myself over, making up for my numbed legs.

  “Carly!” he called out, though his voice was faint.

  White coats came rushing in, followed by Carly. She was carrying a roll in a blanket. A bundle that was not moving. I kept my eyes focused on the blanket while medical staff plugged me back in.

  “Billy’s here,” I thought I heard Carly utter.

  My brother? Billy? It can’t be. “That’s not possible,” I heard myself growl, my eyes always on the immovable object in her arms.

  Carly’s face went pale, as though she hadn’t expected me to hear her. “We didn’t know what you wanted to name her. We just thought … You can change her name to anything you want, of course. She just reminded me so much of Bill.”

  She took a step forward but was held back by one of the coats. “Not yet. She’s simply not strong enough.”

  The back of my brain recognized this doctor. But the rest of me didn’t give a damn.

  “She?” I wondered.

  Carly pushed the doctor aside and made her way to the side of the bed.

  I immediately extended my feeble arms, yearning to get the bundle—my child … my little girl—into my arms.

  Carly resisted. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  My gaze reached hers. I could see the doctor—Doctor Lorne, I remembered—shaking his head in my peripheral vision, disapproving.

  The darkness was creeping up on me, as though answering the question, giving me the answer I needed to know, giving me the answer I didn’t want to know.

  “Is she …” I started to ask, but I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Carly looked horrified. “Oh no, no. It’s not that. No, Billy is just fine. She’s sleeping like a rock.”

  She immediately forgot what she was going to tell me and placed my bundle on my chest. She folded my bloodless arms over so that I could keep hold
of my baby girl.

  The background noise disappeared.

  Seeing Billy for the first time was like putting a face on all the love and the joy I had in me, I had ever felt, multiplied to infinity. I didn’t know something so beautiful could even exist in this ugly world. She opened her striking green eyes—my striking green eyes—and for the first time, we saw each other. For the longest time, she had been hidden inside me, and now I could see myself in her.

  She watched me as if deep in thought, finally putting a face to the voice she had been hearing for months. It was like her pink skin was magnetized so that I couldn’t pull my eyes away from her, so that I had to touch her.

  My hand found its way to her mouth, where it lingered, feeling the hotness of her tiny breaths. My thumb found its way to her nose, brushing the cluster of dry skin that was splashed across it, like the tail of a shooting star. I examined every inch of her face. I unfolded the blanket and found her miniature hands. Then I pushed the hat off her head, and a spring of black hair popped out—her father’s hair.

  I pushed myself up and put my cheek against hers.

  “She’s tiny but mighty,” Carly murmured, smiling from one side of her face to the other. Smiling from some deep-rooted place. “She drank a whole bottle in almost one gulp. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Billy,” I called her. It was perfect.

  Spider was up and standing by the bed, holding on to the rail with a bandaged arm. I could have sworn he’d grinned when he looked down at Billy. Then a hush spread around the room like an earthquake. Spider’s eyes turned to the doorway, so I followed his gaze.

  It took a few seconds for my brain to believe what my eyes were describing.

  “Cameron,” I exhaled. Cameron stared at me, unmoving, afraid to take a step. Bright-red blood covered his white tuxedo shirt and had crusted his pants.

  Carly reached for Billy as my arms started shaking.

  I heard Billy crying as she was pulled away. I was desperately trying to hold on to the light. but it was like trying to climb up a greased-up rope.

  Then the light was gone.

  ****

  I was arched over, my hands gripping the wooden rail in front of me. That was the only way I could keep from falling over. The stitch along the bottom of my belly hurt so bad I could barely walk and couldn’t stand fully erect. Like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.