I couldn’t stop crying. I was terrified, and I just wanted it to be over.
Out of nowhere, I saw Eli’s face. He was standing right behind Burke’s shoulder. He lifted a huge rock above his head.
My eyes widened, and Burke turned to see what I was looking at. That very moment, Eli slammed the rock against Burke’s forehead. My assailant’s eyes crossed and he slumped over, his semi-erect penis flopping to one side. Eli pounced on him and smashed the rock against Burke’s head again and again, crushing his skull.
It was a level of horrific violence I had never seen in my stepfather. The sound of crunching bone was brutal, and I wanted to gag. But Eli had saved me.
When he was sure Burke could never hurt me again, Eli’s rage was replaced with concern as he turned his attention to me. He wrapped me in his arms and held my trembling body, rocking me and stroking my hair as he helped me to calm down.
“Did he hurt you?” Eli asked.
“No,” I said.
He took my chin in his hand and turned my face, examining the bruise that Burke’s knuckles had left on my cheek. Eli’s shoulders were trembling with the remnants of his anger.
“That bastard hit you,” he said.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I lied. “I’ll be fine, I promise.”
“No one lays a finger on my little girl.”
I smiled weakly, knowing my stepdad was there to protect me. Eli looked at the bruise, then politely locked eyes with mine as he helped me pull on my panties and jeans, which had bunched around my left ankle.
When I was fully dressed, Eli glanced at Burke. Blood was congealing around the dead man’s head.
“We have to go,” he said. “Now.”
5.
We dashed down the hill and through the woods, with only a general idea of where we were headed. I had my cell phone, of course, but it was of no use. I couldn’t get a signal this far out in the boonies, and then the battery died. I had no one to call anyway.
We waded a creek and swam across a swift but narrow river, its water cool and black as the night. We came to a field of waist-high wheat, and Eli stopped.
“Look,” he said.
At the other end of the field was a small house next to a wooden barn. No lights were on. We warily approached the structures with no clue what we might find.
A gray dog barked and trotted over to greet us. Eli patted the dog’s head and scratched behind its ears. When he removed his hand the dog whined, and Eli nuzzled his ears again. Creeping past some rose bushes, we peered into the house. Moonlight shone through a bedroom window, and we saw an older couple nestled together in a double bed, a quilt warming their bodies. The man’s irregular snores practically rattled the windowpane.
Watching the cozy scene, I couldn’t help but wonder if Eli and I would ever be able to grow old together. I hoped so.
Eli tapped my shoulder and motioned toward the barn. Inside, we found an old farm truck. Of course, the keys were dangling from the ignition.
Eli pointed at me, then pointed at the steering wheel. I got behind the wheel and put the pickup in neutral while Eli went behind and pushed. The dog started barking again.
“Shush!” I scolded, to no avail. “Shush!”
Eli was pushing fast now, his hands pressed against the tailgate as he sprinted down the long gravel driveway. The dog was nipping at his heels.
Eli hopped in the back of the truck, and I turned the key. The truck rumbled to life, the tires squealing when I threw the clutch into second gear.
I drove a mile before Eli tapped on the back of the window. I stopped, and Eli took the wheel. I looked back at the little farmhouse, thinking about the couple resting in their warm bed. Their lights never came on. My stepdad and I had committed grand theft auto, and our victims had slept through the entire heist.
I glanced at Eli, and it’s like he could read my mind.
“Twenty-two-fifty-seven Hollow Oak Lane.”
“What?” I asked.
“Twenty-two-fifty-seven Hollow Oak Lane,” Eli repeated, as if I hadn’t understood him the first time. “That’s the address. Someday we’ll repay those people for loaning us their truck.”
I laughed. Eli was crazy, but I believed that he would do his best to make good on his promise.
“So, my noble thief, where exactly are we going?” I asked.
“We’re going home,” Eli said. “And we’re going to find your goddamn mother. She’s the only one who can prove my innocence.”
“My mother? How will we even find her?”
“I have a hunch.”
Never taking his eye off the road, Eli stripped off his torn and wet prisoner garb and shoved it behind the seat. He drove in his tight white underwear. Even in the dark I could see the silhouette of his arms and bare chest, not to mention those muscular thighs, and my imagination told me what was waiting beneath those undies of his. We were running for our lives. Eli was a fugitive and I was aiding and abetting him, but all I could think about was Eli’s body so close to mine for the first time in so many months.
I scooted closer, and Eli put his arm around me. I breathed in his scent, a delicious smell that was one hundred percent Eli. It mingled with the strong leather smell of the old pickup truck.
God, why did I have to get these inappropriate urges? I placed my hand on Eli’s thigh. I could feel the contours of his muscles beneath his smooth skin. Little sparks of electricity shot up my fingertips as I moved my hand up, up, closer to his manhood. I felt that familiar tingling between my legs. My mouth watered as I imagined the taste of his hard, meaty cock sliding between my lips, filling my mouth and dominating me.
My fingers were nearing his bulge when Eli placed one hand on top of mine. Then he lifted my hand and removed it from his thigh.
“Avery, we need to talk,” he said. “It’s something that’s been on my mind the entire time I was in prison. You see, I’m sorry for the the things that … that happened between us on the night I was arrested.
“You are a beautiful young woman. Every time I see you I am amazed at the lovely, kind and intelligent person you have become. But you’re still my little girl, and you always will be. I never should have crossed that boundary. I feel like I was about to steal your innocence. A father should never put his daughter in that kind of position.”
“You’re not my father,” I corrected. “You’re my stepfather. And I don’t care about any of that. I love you, and I know you love me, too.”
“I love you so much, Avery,” Eli said. “I cherish you more than life itself.”
I pulled away from Eli. “If you really love me,” I said, “then you’ll give me what I want. And I want you.”
Silence enveloped the cab of the truck. Neither one of us talked for a mile or more. Finally, Eli spoke.
“I’m sorry, baby girl,” he said. “This is tough for both of us. But someday you’ll understand.”
I felt like such a fool. I tried to choke back the tears, but it was no use. I had been certain that Eli felt the same way for me that I felt about him. For the love of God, I even helped him break out of prison so we could be together forever. Eli had saved me from that monster who wanted to rape me. But now Eli had spurned me in the worst way, and he had pushed me away.
Eli’s rejection hurt more than I could possibly bear.
“Pull over.”
“No,” Eli said.
“I said pull over!”
“I said no, Avery.”
We drove through the night in silence. In the early morning Eli pulled into the parking lot of a large department store. He killed the ignition.
“You have some money, right? Please tell me the cash wasn’t in the trunk too.”
I glared at him, still angry from before. He didn’t wait for a response.
“Go inside and buy me some clothes. I can’t keep driving around in my undies like this. Any extra large shirt will do. And a pair of jeans. Size thirty-four by thirty-six. Now go!”
I climbed out of t
he pickup and reluctantly walked into the store. I’d been running from the law for thirty-something hours, and it felt strange and exotic to find myself back in the everyday world of shopping carts and fluorescent lights.
I went straight to the bathroom to inspect my appearance. When I saw myself, my jaw nearly dropped. My face was dirty, and my hair was a tangled mess. My T-shirt was tattered and stained. I splashed water on my face and did my best to tame my wild hair. Then I went straight to the women’s section and picked out some new clothes for myself.
The men’s clothing area was nearby. I didn’t walk over there immediately. There was so much on my mind. If Eli really didn’t want me, this would be the perfect time to walk away from him.
Make a clean break. He goes one way, I go the other.
There was no way Eli would risk coming inside the store, with its security cameras and “loss prevention specialists.” By now his face was probably on every news program in the state. He would be instantly recognized.
I glanced at the doors. This is it. I’m walking away.
But I couldn’t. However Eli felt about me, it didn’t change the way I felt about him. I would help him escape, whatever it took. I owed him that much. I grabbed two of the ugliest shirts I could find, along with a pair of blue jeans that were a size too small. If nothing else I could put the squeeze on him.
Finally I threw in a pack of boxer shorts and a bag of socks for good measure. The clerk gave me a funny look when she rang up my purchase, but she didn’t say a word, unless you count the price of purchase.
As I walked outside the store, weighed down by several plastic bags full of our loot, a green sedan pulled in front of me. The passenger window rolled down, and Eli leaned over from the driver side.
“Need a lift?”
I grinned and jumped in.
6.
As the sun rose, I began to recognize the streets we drove past. We were back in Shiloh. We went by my high school, a long brick building with an American flag waving in the front. So much had changed in my life since graduation, but the school looked exactly the same, rooted in my past.
Suddenly I realized where Eli was taking us.
“You’re going home?” I asked. “Are you crazy? It’s bound to be swarming with cops.”
“I want to see it,” he said. “We won’t stop.”
At the property line of the Rutherford estate, a thick green wall of thorny shrubs rose to block our view of the grounds where I had spent so much of my childhood. The shrubbery used to be so neat and trimmed at perfect ninety-degree angles, like a real wall, but the shrubs had been left to grow wild and shaggy with no one left to prune them.
The gardeners had all been let go weeks before we were forced to fire the butler, Maurice. That one hurt. Maurice had served Eli all his life.
When we reached the front gate, Eli left off the gas and coasted by, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of his lifelong home. Sure enough, several police cruisers and unmarked detective cars were parked around the center fountain, which had been turned off. The grass was dead. A sheet of plywood was nailed up where the SWAT team had kicked in the front door when they came to take my stepfather away for a crime he never committed.
Soon could see no more of the Rutherford estate through the walls of shrubbery. Eli sadly shook his head but kept driving.
“Where to now?” I asked.
“Time to see an old friend,” he said.
We crossed the railroad tracks. Like a lot of Southern towns, Shiloh was extremely segregated, and now we drove down streets where most of the black residents lived. The homes were older and smaller, though most of them were well-tended. We pulled into a dirt driveway in front of a cute little wooden house painted white, with hunter green shutters. Flowers spilled out of the flowerbeds. The yard was full of kitschy lawn art from garden gnomes to pink flamingoes.
“Where the hell are we?” I asked. “And what are we doing here?”
Instead of answering, Eli pulled straight up the driveway and right into the open garage. I was entirely baffled. We got out, and he pulled down the garage door cord, then walked the stone steps to the front porch and knocked. I heard shuffling inside, and the door cracked open.
It was Maurice, our old butler. The expression on his face went from shock to joy to fear and back to joy within seconds. He pushed open the screen door.
“Well, I’ll be! Get in here, y’all!” he said, motioning for us to enter.
It was strange to see Maurice wearing regular clothes instead of his black tuxedo. Once we were safely inside the small cottage and the door was shut, Maurice gave Eli a heartfelt hug. He bowed to me formally, then smiled and hugged me, too.
“I stayed up to watch the news last night. Y’all are all over the TV,” Maurice said with worry in his voice. “You are in deep, deep trouble Mr. Rutherford.”
“I was in deep trouble before,” Eli said.
“But this is real serious,” Maurice said. “Here, let me get you some coffee. No sugar. You thought I’d forget, huh? But Mr. Rutherford, with all due respect, what the hell were you thinking? When folks break out of prison they never stay out for long. They always get found in a day or two.”
Maurice handed Eli his coffee, steam rising from the cup. He gave me a glass of milk, a child’s drink. Why could no one remember that I was an adult now?
Eli sipped his coffee.
“My sentence is for life. If I get caught, what are they going to do? Execute me? I don’t think so. But every day we stay here, our risk increases. I just need to buy myself a little time.”
“A little time for what?”
“To find my wife.”
Maurice seemed taken aback. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and Maurice leaned back in his chair, studying Eli’s face.
“You think she’s alive?” he asked.
“I know it,” Eli answered. “I certainly didn’t kill her. And you as well as anyone should know what Patricia is capable of. It all makes perfect sense, a twisted way. She stole my money and staged her own death. She gets her revenge, not to mention my riches.”
Maurice pondered this as he watched the steam rise from the coffee in his hands.
“Not dead, you say,” he muttered. “That’s a lot to take in. But …”
“But what, Maurice?” I nearly shouted.
“The lake house,” he said finally. “Yes, the lake house. The last time I paid the electricity bill out there—before you had to let me go, of course—the bill was quite a bit higher than I was expecting. It surprised me because nobody was supposed to be out there at that time of year. But sure enough, that place was occupied. Do you think it might have been Ms. Patricia?”
“Damn it,” Eli muttered. “Maurice, why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“You was already in jail when I saw the bill. I told your lawyer, though. Made copies for him and everything.”
“That lazy, no-account son of a bitch,” Eli said, his fist slamming against the table. “He never said a word about it to me.”
“He must have had a lot on his mind,” Maurice offered.
“Yeah. So did I. Let’s go, Avery.”
Eli moved to stand up from the table, but I remained in my seat.
“Surely you don’t think she’s still out there, do you?” I asked.
“Can you think of a better place for her to hide? While the dust settles?”
“Sure. How about Peru? Swaziland? Why not Switzerland? If Mama really has all your money, she can afford to go anywhere in the world.”
“It’s not that easy to disappear, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Eli said. “The lake house makes perfect sense. We own the entire lake, so you wouldn’t have to worry about any visitors. The property is held in a trust for tax purposes, so it’s not in my name. The authorities probably didn’t even know to search there.
“Seriously, the lake house is the ideal hideaway. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me until now. Even if no one pay
s the bills and the main power is shut off, the backup generators would run for at least a year or two. And if you don’t mind eating a lot of canned goods, there’s a fully equipped bomb shelter in the basement. You could survive a nuclear holocaust down there.”
Maurice and I exchanged skeptical glances. Eli shrugged.
“Hey, it was the Cold War. It was a different time. And my grandpa, well, he was one paranoid rich man.”
“That he was,” Maurice said.
5.
Eli and I left the green sedan in Maurice’s garage. We borrowed Maurice’s black SUV—a gift from Eli to celebrate the butler’s sixtieth birthday, as a matter of fact—and we drove back through town on our way to the lake house.
“If this lake house is so great,” I asked, “why am I just now hearing about it? Did it never occur to you that your own daughter might like to spend a weekend at our private lake every once in a while?”
“That’s a long story, sport,” Eli said.
He was wearing a pair of Maurice’s oversized sunglasses and one of the T-shirts that I had bought for him. The shirt was on the snug side, I couldn’t help but notice. Eli rubbed the scruff on his chin. It was growing thicker than I had ever seen, nearly the length of a respectable beard.
“Have you ever seen me swim?” he asked.
“You own a swimming pool. Two swimming pools that I know of, to be precise.”
“Yeah, but have you seen me dip so much as a toe into either of them?”
I thought about this. To my surprise, I could not conjure a single memory of Eli swimming in his own luxurious pools.
“But,” I replied, “I did see you swim that river two nights ago.”
Eli grinned and nodded. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”
Eli grew silent for a while. The SUV turned onto a narrow road winding into the steep hill country west of town.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” he said, his voice barely audible. “The memory haunts me to this day. That lake may look placid on the surface, but it’s deceptive. The undertow. My mother …”
Eli was quiet again. I lay my hand on his arm.
Alpha Billionaire Taboo Prison Break: A Contemporary Romance Page 3
