“My bug…”
“Out of the question. I don’t know how long this person has been watching you, but I’m sure they know that you drive that bug and probably what your boyfriend drives, too, so we can’t use my car either.”
He looked around the gym and then grabbed my good arm, “Come on.”
I could hear Jewels before I actually saw her, but Evan must have found her by looking for the tall guy with extremely black hair.
“I need to talk to you two,” he said as we walked up behind them.
Ryan turned first, a look of confusion and shock as he seemed to appraise the fact that we were in the wrong clothes. Then his eyes darted to my arm and then back to Evan’s face. “What do you want?” he growled.
“Leese needs your help.”
That took me by surprise as much as Ryan. Evan reached over and grabbed Jewels hand, “I need a couple minutes to talk.”
“OMG! Leese, what happened to your arm?” She said as Evan was pulling her along. The four of us proceeded toward the storage room door where the floor mats were kept. The door was locked but no one was back in that dim, small alcove.
Jewels was still babbling when Evan got her attention by taking her chin in his hand and turning her face toward him. “Jewels, you know what happened just a little bit ago, right?” I think he was trying to see what rumor was traveling around school. Only the twenty-five students in Mr. Lucas’s algebra class had the first hand knowledge.
“Yeah, someone was shooting at the school.”
“They weren’t shooting at the school,” He began. “They almost shot Leese.”
Ryan’s face went dark, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s true, Ryan,” I said, reaching out and placing my hand on his forearm, trying to cool the furious look that seemed to take over. “Just before the shots hit, Evan saw the laser dot on my chest. He knocked me to the floor a split second before the windows blew out.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve got to get her out of here as soon as we’re released. She can’t use her car, and probably not mine either.”
“What do you want us to do?” Jewels suddenly seemed calm and ready to help in any way possible.
“Jewels, I need your car for a little while. You and Leese ride with Ryan—take her anywhere except home.”
I started to object, but he silenced me.
“I’ll meet you guys at five o’clock at the diner by the Car Star body shop.” Then he turned to me, “I want you to call Bev and Matt, tell them to pick up Kimmy but not to go home for any reason.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he stopped me again. “It’s imperative they don’t go there. Tell them to wait for us at the Holiday Inn where we got on one-ten yesterday. Call them now, if you’ve got signal.” I started digging for my phone as I listened to the rest of his instructions. “As soon as they say we can go, you two drive up here to the gym.” Then he turned to Jewels, “Leave your car running, and get in with Ryan.”
I got a hold of Bev, and she said the news of the shooting at school was already on television. I told her I was fine, but Mom wasn’t crazy after all. She agreed that she would get Kimmy and they would meet me where I asked. “Whatever you do, Bev, don’t go home.”
Ten minutes later they released bus riders. Another ten minutes passed and they release drivers and riders. Walkers would have to wait for family to pick them up.
I waited with Evan at the gym doors, knowing that my world was changing and I could do nothing to stop it.
Ryan pulled up first with Jewels behind him. She got out and hopped into the backseat of his car, leaving the passenger’s door open. I had my hand on the crash bar, when Evan leaned forward pulling me against him, his face nuzzling into my hair next to my ear.
“You can tell them whatever you need to about yourself, but nothing about me. I’m going to take you somewhere safe, but they can’t have any information or even suspicions. Do you understand?”
I nodded, but a deep kind of fear was now pulsing through my body. I would be leaving soon with someone who didn’t exist. I kept remembering his words that day at his home, ‘you’re supposed to runaway with me.’ Had this been part of the plan all along? There would be witnesses that knew I had done exactly that. I looked back into his face, the face that I hungered for, the face that made my heart find new rhythms, the last face I knew I would see before my life ended.
He pulled slightly away to look into my eyes as he repeated, “Absolutely nothing.” His lips softly found their way to my temple for a brief moment, “I’ll see you at five o’clock.”
I was too numb to respond as I tucked my hair under the cap and ran out to the waiting vehicle. We pulled away and I looked back just in time to see him close the door to Jewels’ little Kia and take off.
I had barely snapped my seat belt in place when Ryan demanded to know what was going on. Jewels was talking over him, asking why anyone would try to shoot me. Ryan was cutting her off and asking if Evan had anything to do with this. The questions were coming at me so rapidly they were like a chorus of confusion. But, the first thing out of my mouth, silenced them both, “I’m not who you think I am.” The only noise that remained was the steady drone of Ryan’s engine.
CHAPTER TEN
“My name isn’t Annalisa McKinnis and I’m not from Alabama. I’m Annalisa Winslett from…”
“Winslett? Like the Palm Beach Winsletts?”
“Yeah, I guess you and I are from the same town,” I said barely louder than the sound of the car.
Jewels kept talking, but Ryan just looked too stunned for words. I turned to her, “My family has a lot of money. My sister and I were sent here too keep us safe, somewhere where no one was supposed to know who we were.”
“Keep you safe from who?” She asked looking more confused than when I began.
“Someone wants me dead.” The words were so familiar to me now I didn’t even flinch when I uttered them.
“Dead? But wouldn’t you be worth more if they like kidnapped you or something?”
“Not when it’s someone in my own family.” I turned my face to the window, waiting for the sting in my eyes to subside.
I felt Ryan’s warm hand slip into my own and grip it firmly. “So is Evan your bodyguard or something?”
“He couldn’t be,” Jewels inserted. “He’s only been here a week.”
Ryan ignored her, “Is he?”
The thought was almost enough to cause me to laugh. Wow! Bodyguard had a whole new meaning to me at that moment. My body was what he needed to earn his million dollars, it’s just the living part of me would be missing.
“No, he’s just a friend.”
Ryan shot me a disturbed look.
“But, he put himself in the way of a bullet a little while ago to keep me safe.” I finished, hoping this would be enough for him.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. He seems really intent on helping you. I just hope it’s not for the money.” He kept glancing back at my arm.
I knew what he was thinking; if Evan had discovered how much money I was worth, then he might be using me. He was so close to being right in the worst way.
“No,” I tried to squelch his fear. “He—he’s really trying to help.” I swallowed, wondering how convincing that sounded.
He squeezed my hand tighter and then pulled into the theater parking lot. “This is the only place I can think of where you aren’t out where someone can see you. We’re a block away from the diner and we’ve got almost two hours to kill,” Ryan stated and then reconsidered his poor choice of words. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I need some quiet time.”
“What do you guys wanna see?” Jewels asked it as if this were any other trip to the movies.
He gave a weird chuckle as he turned to look at her, “Whatever is playing right now.”
When we walked inside and looked at the movie schedules, one movie had started only five minutes ago and the next closest had a
thirty minute wait. “Great,” Ryan mumbled as he bought our tickets. “It’s a freaking love story.”
I sat in the dark theater trying to sort out my jumbled emotions, feelings and fears. It was so surreal to be watching the couple on screen as they displayed their need for each other; bedroom shadows, twisted sheets, glimpses of bare skin and the words ‘I love you,’ being uttered. Everyone wants to find that one person that God planned for them before the foundation of time. Everyone wants to be someone’s treasured possession. I wondered how the person I was hopelessly drawn to could be that second half of myself if his heart was untouchable.
I looked at Ryan’s face as the sounds of the two lovers increased on screen. He was so far beyond the stage of discomfort that he almost looked to be in pain. Jewels was drawn in with rapt attention, her lips slightly moving as if she could feel the lover’s kiss on her own mouth. Then the pace of the movie changed and they were trying to save each other from the tragic fate that I knew was coming. A gunshot on screen made me jump so hard that I shook the row of chairs. Ryan immediately grasped for my hand. It was over. She was lying there lifeless as he cried over her. She had sacrificed herself to save him. The theater lights came up.
“Well!” Ryan stated, his voice thick with sarcasm and repulse, “I guess I did a real good job getting your mind off your troubles.”
I wanted to tell him it was okay. I wanted to let him know not to beat himself up over the luck of the draw on the movie, but I couldn’t speak. The vision was just too fresh. All I could do was to squeeze his hand and hope that he knew I didn’t blame him for the choice.
It was 4:40 when we left for the diner. I had been in the dark theater and felt so safe, but now sitting in the diner, windows on three sides, I felt like a target in one of those carnival arcades. What made it worse was that my friends were here with me and apparently whoever this new killer was, he didn’t care about who got hurt in the process. My heart jumped to a faster beat as I saw a little white Kia pull into the lot.
There was something about him when he got out of her car. He had on his stonewash jeans, but other than that he was different. The tennis shoes were gone, replaced with an expensive pair of what appeared to be Italian leather, a white dress shirt half buttoned, over a white cotton tank replaced his tee-shirt. He was wearing his Maui Jim sunglasses and his hair looked as if it had been gelled and then his fingers run through it. I now noticed the lighter, more golden tips in his dark brown hair instead of before when it had been worn dry.
He looked like some kind of guy right off the movie screen; he looked like a hit man—the kind that made women want to throw themselves in front of him. I’d seen guys dress this way plenty of times, but they were the social elite that I was used to. They were men with money. That was when it struck me that he made a fortune doing his job, and I was his next paycheck.
“Is that Evan?” Jewels said in a funny pitch.
I guess I wasn’t seeing things. He actually looked that good. I wanted to tell her no, he was no longer Evan; the man who had come to get me was Micah, but that name was taboo.
When he came into the restaurant, every female head (and a few of the male ones) turned to look at him. My legs were suddenly jelly as I could see that his eyes were focused on me as he approached the table.
“I’ve got a problem,” was all he said as he seated himself beside me, but now looking at Ryan.
“I figured that when I first met you.” Ryan thrust a barb into Evan’s ego.
He ignored the remark and continued, “My Z isn’t ready from the shop across the street. I need a car…”
Jewels started to speak (I think at that moment she’d have offered him anything she possessed, her car being the least of it).
He continued, “A fast car.”
He reached down and pulled out his wallet, then removed a small stack of one-hundred dollar bills. “Can I pay you to let me use your Trans Am? I’ll give you the keys to my Z. It’ll be ready on Wednesday.”
Ryan seemed to be assessing the new and improved Evan in front of him. I could tell he didn’t like him any better than the old version. “I don’t want your money.” He reached into his pocket and produced the keys to his car, but did not hand them to him, but to me. “I’ll let Leese use my car, but I get a few minutes alone to speak with her. You and Jewels wait outside.”
He looked extremely tense at this request, but he reluctantly handed Ryan the keys to the Z as he asked Jewels to follow him outside. She was more than happy to comply.
Ryan kept looking at me, but he waited until they were out the door before he spoke. “You’ve got to tell me what’s going on. I’m not stupid, Leese, something here isn’t right. If he’s eighteen then I’m forty-five.”
“Ryan, I told you, he’s…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know what you told me, but it’s what you aren’t telling me that’s scaring the hell out of me.”
“I’ll be okay.” That was the most pitifully weak line I think I’d ever used.
“Promise me something. Just because he looks like—like that,” he pointed out the window. “Don’t let him talk you into sleeping with him.”
“Ryan!” I said a little too loudly. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
“I know you aren’t, but he is that kind of guy—I’m telling you, I can see it written all over him. And, well, I don’t really care about the car, I just want you to be safe, but I’m okay if, when this is all over, you bring it back.”
“I’ll find a way to get your car back to you.”
“Then you have to promise me one more thing if you take my car.” He was smiling broadly at this point so I was a little concerned as to what the one thing might be. “You bring back the car and I get one date. You get to drive and show me what you’ve got—three-sixty or whatever.”
My lips had begun to tremble because I knew I wasn’t going to ever make it back once I left. “I’ve got someone who wants me dead—I don’t know if…”
“Stop, right there. We’re not going with dismal possibilities; I’m counting on you being a survivor. So is it a date?”
I swallowed, but the lump remained. “Yeah, it’s a date.”
We got up and went outside. I gave Evan the keys because he needed to open the trunk. He moved a long, wide, hard gray case from the Kia that appeared to be heavy, two duffle bags and a smaller case. I knew that case and I knew what was in it. I really felt like I could pass out. My knees started to buckle and Ryan was the one to catch me.
“Whoa, Leese, you’re gonna be okay. Keep it together.”
Evan quickly opened the car door and Ryan passed me off to him. I felt Evan’s arm around my back as his other came up underneath me, scooping me off the ground and placing me gently in the bucket seat. He slammed the trunk and went around to the driver’s door, firing up the Trans Am. Jewels came to my open door and gave me a teary good-bye, and then Ryan was kneeling beside me.
“Remember your promise,” he said softly. He pulled me into his arms and held on tightly. I heard Evan give the engine a little more gas to signal he wanted Ryan to turn loose of me. We were letting go of each other, when suddenly Ryan’s face was right there next to mine. I saw it coming and I was barely quick enough to avoid the kiss he intended to put on my lips, but missed, getting it just off to the right. I could see Evan’s reaction through the corner of my eye and I knew it was time to go.
“Bye, Ryan,” I silently mouthed as he closed the door and we backed out of the lot.
He pointed the car toward one-ten, his fist gripping the wheel as if it was trying to get away. “What did he make you promise?” He asked, trying to reign in his temper.
“It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled, watching the town of Pensacola evaporate to a memory.
“It does matter, promises matter. You’re the one person who I thought would agree with that.” It sounded as if the temper was cooling.
“He asked me not to sleep with you and…”
he laughed before I could fini
sh. “And you promised him you wouldn’t.” It should have been a question, but he didn’t phrase it as if it was one.
“I told him I wasn’t that kind of girl.”
This was greeted by a long moment of silence. When he spoke again, all the temper was absent and his voice was soft, “I know that. I can’t believe he didn’t.”
“Good-grief, Evan,” I blurted, “Did you notice how many heads you turned in that little diner?” He seemed surprised, but I had trouble believing the honesty of it. “Is this how you look all the time? I mean, I thought you were a hunk before, but…”
He smiled slowly. “Before, I was trying to look like an eighteen-year-old boy.”
“Well you certainly don’t look like one now! I don’t know what Matt’s gonna say when he sees you, but I’m sure it’ll get a similar reaction.”
“You aren’t going to see him,” he spoke those words incredibly low, but he might have just as well screamed them at me for the volume at which my brain amplified them.
“What?” You said to have them wait at the motel? You said...”
“We can’t chance it. You’re right, Matt may decide that you can’t leave with me and that would be very bad.”
“NO! YOU TAKE ME THERE! I WANT TO SAY GOODBYE—I WANT TO…” I was yelling at the top of my lungs. My hands balled into fists punching at his shoulder, trying to hit his side, but he kept protecting it with his arm.
I didn’t notice that he had pulled off to the side of the road until I felt both of his hands on me. The steel grip holding my shoulders, refusing to let me get a good swing. He was shaking me and saying something that I refused to hear.
“I’ve got to say goodbye to Kimmy!” I finally sobbed out. “Please, I’ll go with you and you can kill me tonight if you want, but I—I have to say goodbye.”
“Leese, I’m sorry, I really am. Whoever this is doesn’t care who gets in the way.”
His words were starting to prick at my consciousness.
“Just a goodbye; it’s all I want.”
“Listen to me, please. If we go there and they decide you can’t leave with me, what will happen? Tell me, Leese.”
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