Bylines & Deadlines

by Kimberly Vinje

  “Let me see,” he said and reached for her hand. He looked at it and grabbed for the peroxide and the bag of cotton balls he had bought. “I got some food and some drinks,” he said and began to apply the peroxide to her wound. She cringed and wiggled from the sight of the peroxide bubbling. She looked up at the ceiling as tears formed in her eyes. Her hand hurt more than she thought she could handle.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to do this,” he said.

  “I know,” she said and grabbed at a pillow with her other hand.

  “I need to do more stitching,” he said and waited - maybe to hear an approval or protest.

  “Do what you have to,” she said knowing she couldn’t keep bleeding like this. To take her mind off what was happen to her hand, she began to run through all the reasons why she shouldn’t and should trust him. He had had plenty of chances to kill her, and he had come back to the woods for her. He could have left her. It would have been much easier for him to travel by himself and leave her there. She looked at him long enough to see him trying to thread a needle. “I can’t watch this,” she said and laid down on the bed, her hand still outstretched. She also didn’t want him to see her crying. She pressed her toes against the headboard.

  It took him what seemed like hours to finish her hand. He cleaned it again and wrapped it up with gauze and bandages. “Your hand’s finished. I’d like to check the rest of you out,” he said noticing the cuts and bruises all over her face, legs and arms.

  “Do whatever you have to,” she said her voice cracked and tears rolled down her eyes to the pillow.

  He stood over her. He gently pushed on her abdomen, “Does this hurt?”

  “No,” she said and felt his hands move around her as he kept asking the question. She jumped when he felt her rib area.

  “You may have some broken ribs,” he said. “Are you having trouble breathing?”

  “I don’t think so. It just hurts a little,” she said. He wet another cotton ball with peroxide and dabbed at her arms, legs and face. The other wounds were painful, but compared to what she felt in her hand, it barely registered to her.

  “Can you eat something?” he asked when he was finished. She opened her eyes and heard him rustling through the bags behind her. “I got peanut butter and some chips. It’s not filet mignon, but they didn’t have much of a selection,” he said.

  “It’s fine. When did you go to the store?” she asked as she turned herself around in the bed and leaned against the headboard.

  “While you were sleeping,” he said. She watched him as he prepared her sandwich.

  “Did anyone say anything about the way you look?”

  “I told the cashier I had a skiing mishap,” he said as he put the sandwich together.

  “It was a woman, wasn’t it?” she asked with a smile as she took the sandwich.

  ”What?”

  “The cashier.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought,” she said smiling and took a bite of the sandwich. He brought her a small carton of milk and a bag of chips.

  “Why does it matter?” he asked with a grin that revealed he knew exactly what she was going to say.

  “Because you could sell a spot on Mt. Rushmore to some women,” she said.

  “Oh yeah?” he replied with a touch of satisfaction as he made himself a sandwich.

  “I didn’t say that was necessarily a good thing,” she said.

  “Why do you say that?” He turned to take a curious look at her.

  “Because it makes smart women not trust you,” she said being honest. He turned with his sandwich, chips and milk and went to the chair and table next to the bed.

  “You don’t trust me?” She thought for a second before she answered him.

  “Not completely. No,” she said taking another bite of her sandwich.

  “You can, you know,” he said starting his sandwich.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to, but,” she said and stopped for a moment before continuing. “But, you’re too smooth. And, to be honest, you didn’t start off well with all the lying.”

  “It’s not exactly like I could walk up to you in the middle of your class and say, ‘Hi, I’m the son of the man trying to kill you, and he knows you’re alive. I’m here to help you.’ Now, can I?”

  “In my classroom?” she asked with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “How long have you been following me?” She put the remaining part of her sandwich on her leg.

  “Awhile,” he said. “Hey, how’s the pain in your hand? I bought something for the pain. Do you need some?”

  “You changed the subject. And for the record, this is a huge gash in my hand, not pre-menstrual cramps. How long have you been following me?” Jack sighed.

  “It’s more like keeping an eye on you.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Watching you sounds creepy. Watching you requires a restraining order. What I was doing was for your protection.”

  “How long,” she demanded.

  “About a month - give or take a couple of days,” he said quickly stuffing more sandwich in his mouth.

  “A month!?” she replied in disbelief. He nodded. “And no one bothered to tell me I was in danger? What about the kids at the school? Did anyone care what could have happened to them?”

  “You were on a need to know basis,” he said. “My bosses didn’t think you needed to know.”

  “You people make me sick. You think you can just screw with people for the fun of it. I didn’t need to know, is that right? Some lunatic from your gene pool is out there trying to kill me, and I didn’t need to know that? Go to hell. All of you.” She was standing now - the uneaten portion of her sandwich on the floor. “I’m getting out of here.” She went to pack the backpack on the dresser, but before she could put anything in it, she noticed a bullet hole. Jack was now standing next to her. She put her finger through the hole.

  “Go lie down before you start bleeding again,” he said taking the backpack. She looked up at him.

  “Is this a…?” she blinked. He nodded. “Is it the one I was wearing?” He nodded again.

  “Go lie down,” he said and put the backpack on the dresser.

  “Why didn’t the bullet hit me?” she asked standing at the dresser staring at the hole.

  “Because it hit a can of soup I packed in the cabin,” he said taking her by the arm and leading her back to the bed. She swallowed hard and let him guide her back to the bed. She sat down and stared at the sandwich on the floor. He picked up the sandwich and tossed it into the garbage. Then he sat in the chair across from her. “Look, it didn’t hit you. You’re okay.” He put his hands on her legs. “You’re okay,” he said again slower.

  “Is this what you call okay?”

  “Relatively speaking,” he said. “It’s not the best situation, but you’re here to fight another day.”

  “Great. Prolong the inevitable,” she said feeling weaker by the second.

  “Not if I can help it,” he said. He used his hand to lift her chin and her eyes to him then returned it to her leg. “We’ve already come this far. We can do this.”

  “Do what? Run every day for the rest of our lives dodging bullets with backpacks packed with soup cans?” she said. “That sounds fun,” she added with a sarcastic grunt.

  “There’s a way out of this, I promise. We just have to get you to a safe house,” he said rubbing her legs. She looked down at his hands and then up at him with a raised eyebrow. He removed his hands quickly. “Sorry.”

  “I need to think,” she said and sat back against the headboard again. After about a half hour of sitting in silence, she looked over at him. He looked awful in a really melt your heart kind of way. “What about you?”

  “Huh?” he said looking surprised by the sound of her voice.

  “Are you okay?” she asked surprised by the fact she really did care.

  “I’m fine,” he said. She didn’t know if she believed him. He
stood up. “I’m going to take a shower and then wash our clothes.”

  “I’ll start the clothes while you’re in the shower,” she said.

  “No. You stay hidden. I’m more used to moving without being seen.” She shrugged and pulled the blanket over her.

  He took another flannel shirt and a pair of long johns from the backpack and walked toward the bathroom.

  “Hey! How come you get the long johns?” she said in protest.

  “Because you have the better legs,” he said as he disappeared. For the next 10 minutes she found herself chasing images of him in the next room under the running water from her mind. She tried to act like she was sleeping when he came out of the bathroom.

  “I know you’re wake,” he said.

  “How do you know I’m awake?” she asked lifting one eye lid.

  “Because I could hear you mumbling to yourself before I opened the door,” he said.

  “What did I say?” she asked mildly worried.

  “I don’t know exactly. Sounded like, ‘stop it’ or something,” he said running his fingers through his hair to tame it.

  “I could have been talking in my sleep,” she said.

  “But you weren’t,” he said gathering their clothes. He went back into the bathroom and came out carrying an ice bucket and the undergarments she had hung on the towel rack. She felt embarrassed and excited by the fact he had them in his hands. “Do you want me to throw these in with the rest,” he said as if there was nothing to it.

  “Uh, I guess, yeah,” she answered. He seemed to grin at her discomfort.

  “Want to carry around my boxers for while so we’ll be even?” he asked in a playful tone. She smiled, shook her head and let out a sigh that could have been a laugh. “I’ll be right back.” She nodded, and he added, “Don’t open the door for anybody. I have the key.” He opened the door and peeked down the hallways and in the direction of the parking lot.

  It didn’t take him long to return, and she was relieved to hear his key jiggle in the lock. For the first time in two days she was starting to feel safer. He came in and put the bucket down on the dresser. He went to the bathroom, grabbed a towel and wrapped some ice in it. He walked to her and handed her the ice pack. “Here, put this on your hand.” She tried to keep her eyes from wondering to the long johns, but it was a struggle she wasn’t winning.

  “Why don’t you rest for awhile?” she asked watching him. “You have to be exhausted.”

  “If I do, I won’t get back up,” he said. “I have to switch the laundry to the dryer in half an hour.”

  “Okay,” she said sounding disappointed and thought she may have caught a glimpse of a grin on his face as he moved around the room organizing their belongings. “Want me to stay up with you?” He turned out the lights - all except the bathroom, he just closed the door partially so they could use it as a nightlight.

  “No. You get some sleep.”

  “You can sleep in the bed when the clothes are finished,” she said. She decided it sounded too much like an invitation for more. “I’ll build a barrier with the blanket,” she added trying not to sound like a woman who had just fantasized about him in the shower for 10 minutes.

  “Thanks,” he said and sat down in the chair. “You go to sleep, and I’ll take the ice off your hand in a couple of minutes.”

  “Okay,” she said and nestled into the bed. She closed her eyes and managed one more peek at him as if to reassure herself he was there. “Goodnight,” she murmured and fell asleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  She was jolted awake by the sounds of her own dreams. Jack was sleeping in the chair across from her, but she must have done something to wake him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked getting out of the chair and standing over her. “It’s just a dream.”

  “Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a dream,” she said rubbing her eyes with her right hand.

  “Well, hopefully it will be over soon,” he said stretching.

  “Jack? Why won’t they just leave me alone?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand it, and I share DNA with them. You put Ralston in prison, and I don’t think daddy dearest is thrilled about his first born being some guy’s ‘special friend.’ You did something to them, and now they do something to you.”

  “But, I lost everything. I lost my family, my job, my home, my friends, an amazing man - even who I was. Why wasn’t that enough?”

  “I guess the way they see it, you threaten everything they have and feel they earned.” She was quiet as she remembered everything that lead up to that horrid day in the restaurant.

  “What did they tell you?” she asked wondering how much he knew of her story.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “The FBI. About me.”

  “Oh, the usual,” he replied in a tentative voice. “Pretty much everything there was to know actually.”

  “Can I tell you about me?” she asked unsure whether he was even interested in her story. Still, she wanted him to know she was a person with feelings - not just a name on paper.

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” he said. He pulled the chair a little closer to her. She rolled onto her side in the bed and waited for him to get settled.

  “My name was Kristine Larkin. I grew up wanting to be somebody special. I went to a small college and landed the most incredible job, because the editor liked me in a not-so-professional kind of way. Everyone knew it, but I didn’t let it stop me from becoming the most aggressive reporter the paper had. I was going to change the world, but not because I wanted to make it a better place. I wanted to change it so people would respect me, want to come up to me on the street and shake my hand. I wanted to be rich and famous and go on talk shows telling everyone about how I helped to clean up the world and make it safe for their children just because I was a hell of a person. My boss left his wife for the image of the woman I wanted him to see - not who I really was. It took endless nights sitting alone in an apartment living someone else’s life for me to see all this clearly.”

  He was still and listened as she continued. “Then one day, I got in over my head. I agreed to meet a man from the FBI at a restaurant. He took a bullet meant for me. In fact, I’m the only one who survived that day. You know how? I crawled over dead people, hid behind the bar and smeared myself with another man’s blood. When your family came in looking for signs of life,” she trailed off and took a deep breath. “I thought I was dead. I was so thankful to be alive. I thought I would pick right back up where I left off. I identified the man with the gun as your brother. And then everything changed. I went back to being nobody who had to remain nobody for the rest of her life to stay alive.

  “Ambition almost killed me, and it was the only thing I knew how to do. So then I didn’t feel so lucky anymore. I sat up at night wishing someone would have noticed I was alive and shot me. Now, when I see a little old lady in the grocery store parking lot I help her put her bags in her car, because I can’t change the world anymore. The only thing I could change was me. That’s how I got here, Jack - because I was a piece of shit person. Now that I know enough to be a better one, I’ll spend the rest of my life running.”

  “You were never a bad person. You were young. Everyone’s self-absorbed when they’re young,” he said.

  “It’s so weird how your priorities change when your life is turned upside down,” she said wiping a runaway tear from her cheek. “I never thought that marriage and kids and a house with a little white picket fence in suburbia were important. I thought that was for simpletons,” she laughed at her stupidity. “Now that I want the husband, two kids, a dog and a spot on the PTA, I can’t have it. Do you think that’s justice? Because I’m wondering if I didn’t get exactly what I deserve.” He got out of his chair and knelt before her. He brushed her hair off of her face and caught a tear with his thumb before it hit her pillow. “I’m not going to get a second chance, am I?”

  “Listen to me,” he said in a tender, yet strong voice. “W
e’re going to get out of this. I don’t know how yet but when we do, you’re going to be able to do everything you’ve ever wanted and more. I swear to you. I owe you that much.” She smiled and felt her heart beat a little faster. She looked into his brown eyes and thought she saw guilt. “You’re so…,” he whispered and then suddenly stood and walked toward the other side of the room. She saw their clothes folded on the dresser. He dipped a glass in the ice bucket and then took a drink.

  “How did you get here?” she asked. He turned and walked back to his chair.

  “Wow, talk about long stories,” he looked down at the glass in his hand. “I’ll give you the short version. My mother hid me from my father. When I finally figured out just how awful the truth was about him, I felt I had to do something about it. I was so close to practicing medicine. My mother would have been proud of me. It broke her heart when I joined the FBI. She understood it, but she worried about me until the day she died,” he cleared his throat. “She didn’t like what my father did or who he was, but I think it hurt her to know we were pitted against each other. She wanted me to save the world by finding a cure for cancer, not by sending my father to prison.”

  “You still would have been helping people if you had become a doctor. You could have saved all the people your family shot,” she said only half jokingly. He grinned slightly and took a drink of water.

  “I’ll be happy if I can just save you,” he said. “Now, go to sleep. I want to get out of here early tomorrow.”

  * * * * *

  The sound of a car ignition brought the sleeping Megan into a groggy, half-awake state. She glanced at the window. No more light shined through the bottom of the curtains than had hours ago when she fell asleep. Still dark, she thought. She looked over at Jack sitting in the chair. His chin rested on his chest, his mouth hung partially open. She was suddenly thankful. Thankful for the bathroom light he had left on over night. Thankful she wasn’t alone. Even thankful for the pain in her left hand, because it meant she was alive.

  She studied him. He was fit - not overly muscular but strong. His arms were crossed, fingers hidden beneath his biceps. She smiled as she pictured him as a child, tiny little fingers clutching his favorite stuffed animal - she decided it was a bear. Its ear torn from being used as a handle when he carried it, an eye ready to fall off and a worn nose.