As I closed the bi-folding doors, I heard the sound of the front door being unlocked right before the swish sound of the door swinging open. It was at that moment I remembered my backpack in his office, the USB still plugged into the computer. My entire body went still at that moment, except for the boom-boom-boom of my heart. I prayed harder than I ever had for a miracle.
I peeked through the slats of the closet doors, seeing the light from the moon slashing a stripe across the dresser. It illuminated the now-empty space where my jewelry box once sat. An unmistakable square of dustless space signaled that something was missing. I’d grabbed the box on a whim, not realizing until now that it was my intention to bring it back with me.
I heard the sound of keys hitting the entry table before I heard the door to the freezer open in the kitchen and checked my watch. 12:20 AM. My right leg started dancing up and down, a definite sign of nerves getting to me. A moment later, I heard the unmistakable sound of a glass bottle being set on the counter. Then, the creak of a cupboard and the sound of a lighter piece of glass being set on the counter. Vodka and his shot glass. I couldn’t help but think of the frozen chicken I had purposefully avoided so many times and wondered, momentarily, if it was still there.
Unfortunately, the dust that had settled in the closet from my absence was sprinkling the air around me, disrupted by my movements. I felt my nose twitch from the tickle. Shit. I covered my free hand over my nose and mouth and prayed for quiet.
I sneezed.
I wasn’t sure how loud it had been, but I knew soon enough that it had been loud enough to alarm the Monster.
I saw the hallway light turn on, illuminating the space between the door and carpet. My heart was beating like a jackrabbit’s. I wondered, briefly, if I could see my heart beating right through my shirt. Panic squeezed my veins. There were no colors to name off in the dark to calm me. Any moment now I would go into shock from the fear of coming face to face with the Monster. Nearly seven years and I was still crippled by anxiety. I willed myself to be brave, to be strong, but my body betrayed me. Sweat prickled my palms.
I saw a shadow of his steps to the door and sucked in shattered breath. It hit me then that I was breathing in the same air as the Monster once again. Bile rose up into my mouth and I swallowed it back. This was reliving one of my many nightmares, but worse. I closed my eyes, praying this was just another nightmare. Praying this wasn’t real.
A second later, I heard pounding on the front door. Adrenaline was still coursing through my veins, choked by the panic that squeezed them. But the panic eased as I saw the shadowed steps stall, and then grow fainter, lighter, as the Monster headed towards the front door.
“I’m so sorry, but I think I just hit your car.” Six. I almost sobbed with relief, clamping a hand over my mouth. His voice, at this moment, was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. I was not alone. I was not alone.
The Monster didn’t say anything for a moment before I heard Six’s voice again, more insistent. “I can’t afford my insurance to go up again. Can I just give you a thousand cash and call it even?”
I knew this would have the Monster’s interest. I would bet whatever piece of shit car he was driving now wasn’t worth half that. I heard his voice, the voice that echoed over my nightmares. “Let’s see what the damage is, and then we can talk price.” The door closed and I held my breath for a few seconds, making sure he had left the apartment. Muffled voices and heavy footsteps descended the stairs and then my ankle vibrated once.
Get the fuck out.
Carrying the jewelry box to the Monster’s office, I started shakily putting it into the backpack. I clicked “Finish” on the program installing and shut down the computer, removing the USB drive. I put everything back into the backpack and headed to the kitchen window, looking out. The Monster’s back was to the window. I could see Six’s face, lit by the exterior lights.
He handed a stack of something to the Monster. I presumed it was money by the way the Monster started to count it. Six’s eyes flicked up to the window and narrowed. I knew he was pissed that I was still inside. I looked back at the front door, knowing that an escape was out – the Monster’s car was parked right out front. I moved towards the door in the living room, the door to the deck. It was my only option, short of climbing out of a window.
The deadbolt was secure on the deck door. There wouldn’t be a way for me to relock it when I was on the porch, so it would likely alert the Monster to someone having been in the apartment. I couldn’t dwell on that, however, so I unlocked the door and went out onto the deck. I quietly closed the door behind me and leaned over the railing. There were no lights lighting up the grass, telling me that the neighbors below were asleep.
I swung a leg over the railing, and then the other, and turned my body so I was facing the door to the deck. I held onto the railing firmly and then let each leg swing loose, one at a time, gradually bringing my hands down from the railing to the spindles. I heard the front door inside the apartment open and I let go of the spindles hastily, falling to the grass below. Immediately, pain bloomed on my left cheek and I knew I had caught it on the wooden ledge when I had jumped. I placed a gloved hand to my cheek and winced. Now was not the time to think about it.
I saw the light turn on from the living room inside the Monster’s apartment, so I dashed along the side of the building, my back to the vinyl siding. I breathed in through my nose, exhaling out of my mouth, calming my racing heart. And then I ran behind the dumpster, the same dumpster that had been the beginning of my escape the first time. Without looking back, I ran into the woods.
Per plan C, Six’s car was waiting about a mile into my run on a road that intersected the woods. I slowed my pace, my overworked muscles warming me despite the cooler temperature outside. I slid into the idling car and buckled up before Six sped off.
Anger and frustration were radiating off of him in waves. Ten minutes into silence, Six slammed his brakes, steering the car off the road and throwing it into park.
I felt his palm on my raw cheek and chanced a glance at him. “What happened?”
“I fell off the deck and must have caught my face on the wood.” I flipped the visor down to finally see what damage I’d done.
My entire cheek was flamed red, swollen. The abrasion itself was bleeding, my skin looked torn up. I could see small slivers of wood in the injury and hissed as I reached a hand up to pull one out.
Six slapped my hand away. “Don’t. I’ll clean it.”
It was silent for a moment. I saw Six’s hands grip the steering wheel tightly. A moment later, he smacked his palm on the steering wheel. Once, then twice, then a third time.
I didn’t say anything. This amount of emotion was something I’d never seen from him before.
“Did he see you?”
“No.” I didn’t bother mentioning that he nearly walked into the bedroom I was hiding in. “Sorry you had to damage your friend’s car.”
Six swung his head towards me. “Do you think I give a fuck about this car?” He was yelling. Angry Six was intense.
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing, just slid the gloves and beanie off.
“Besides, I hit his car with a tire iron. I couldn’t risk impairing our getaway car.” His voice was calmer, his anger subsiding.
“I hope you hit it hard.”
“Oh, I did. I beat the shit out of it.” I attempted a smile, but it hurt to stretch my injured cheek. “It was that or his stupid face.”
“How much did it set you back?”
“Fifteen-hundred. Worth it.”
Yikes. That was a lot of money. “I can pay you back. I have savings.”
Six grunted. “Good. That you have a savings. Keep it. I don’t need your money.” When I started to protest, he held a hand up and spoke forcefully, allowing no room for argument. “No. What I should have said was that I don’t want your money. I don’t need it, I don’t want it, and I won’t take it. Fifteen-hundred is nothing. So dr
op it.”
Wow, that was practically a speech coming from him. “I didn’t realize you were so loquacious.”
Six granted me one of his brief smiles, but kept his eyes on the road. “Only when you say stupid shit.”
We were still in Michigan, which meant I would be more easily recognized from all the MISSING posters years ago. News of my disappearance had mostly died down, the case having gone cold. But once every year, the story popped up in the news again, highlighting the anniversary of the day I went missing.
Six stopped at a drug store and came out with a bag of supplies that he tossed into my lap before driving off to the hotel. I peeked inside the plastic bag and noted tweezers, ibuprofen, gauze, rubbing alcohol, a squirt bottle, antibiotic ointment, and band-aids. “Gonna perform surgery on me, doc?”
Six looked at me with exasperation written clearly across his face. “I wouldn’t need to if you didn’t eat it while escaping.”
Oh, was Six teasing me? This was new. “You know I’m naturally clumsy. I’m lucky I didn’t blow my ankle when I landed.”
Six pulled into the parking lot of our hotel. “Yeah, instead you merely fucked up your face. It’s a shame; you didn’t look too bad before.” He exited the car and opened my door.
I rolled my eyes and grabbed the plastic bag and the backpack, tossing the latter at him with more force than necessary. “Here. There’s lots of dirt on him in here.” Six slung the backpack over his shoulder.
“There’s a lot of dirt in your face. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Six directed me to wrap myself in robe and sit on the edge of the tub of the hotel bathroom while he got everything ready. He came back into the bathroom and tossed a small bottle of vodka at me.
“Mini bar,” he answered my unspoken question. “This is going to hurt like a bitch, so drink up. Just don’t pass out on me.”
I unscrewed the cap of the bottle and chugged, watching Six scrub his hands with soap and water, supplies laid out on a towel next to the sink. I watched him set the temp of the water before filling up the squirt bottle and then he looked over at me. “The scrape is close to your eye, so you’re going to want to keep them closed while I clean this. I need to flush the dirt out before I go in with tweezers.”
I nodded and swallowed hard. He sat on the lid of the toilet seat and cupped my jaw with one free hand, gently tilting my face to give him better access to my cheek. I closed my eyes and felt the warm stream of water over the wound. That didn’t feel too terrible. Water dripped down my face, collecting in the robe.
“You can open your eyes now. I’m going to get the splinters out.”
I opened my eyes and rubbed water from the left eye.
Six handed me a hotel washcloth. “Bite on this.” I rolled it and stuck it in my mouth while Six doused the tweezers in rubbing alcohol. This was going to suck.
I bit down hard the moment the tweezers touched the raw flesh. I probably said every swear word ever invented and then made up a few more as Six picked out the slivers and wiped them on a washcloth he’d soaked in rubbing alcohol.
When he’d finished, I felt hot tears tracking down my cheeks. Six pulled the washcloth out of my mouth and asked, “Do you want some water?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice to radiate strength. I gulped the water he handed to me as he refilled the squirt bottle.
He crouched in front of me. “Are you okay?” Six was normally so distant, emotionally-speaking, so to see him with concern and regret in his eyes was a new experience for me.
“Yes,” I croaked.
He moved back to sitting on the toilet seat’s lid. “I’m going to flush it again, several times, and then clean around it with soap, then flush it again. Then I’m going to put pressure on it for a few minutes to stop the bleeding.” He held up the antibiotic cream. “Then I’ll apply some of this and then we’ll bandage it, okay?”
“Is it pretty bad?”
Six shrugged and put the cream back on the counter. “You look like you rubbed your face up against some bark, so you’ll need a more realistic story. It’s definitely noticeable. And it’ll be more so with a giant bandage over it. Now close your eyes again.”
I did. Six chose this moment to ask, “So, you’re dating?”
I was caught off guard. “I’ve gone on two dates with Julian.” I felt water from the squirt bottle spray down my cheek.
“How do you know him?” Six was unusually inquisitive.
Eyes closed, I frowned a little. “He’s a tenant at the ranch.”
“What does he know?”
My frown only deepened. “Why? It’s not like I’ve told him I’m really Cora Mitchell, that girl that went missing from Michigan in 2003. He knows my favorite color and that I like to eat.” I knew I sounded defensive, but I didn’t understand or even like Six’s questioning.
“I saw how you looked at him. How serious is it?”
I pushed Six’s hand away from squirting water on my wound and opened my eyes. “Why the interrogation?”
Six sat back and twisted the towel in his lap over and over. He didn’t meet my eyes. “I just worry. You’re all the way in Colorado. Maybe we should move you somewhere else.”
That really set me off. “Are you kidding me? What gives?” My voice raised several octaves. “I’m not a child. I’m not an object. You cannot just ‘move’ me.”
Six sighed. “Calm down. I told you, I just worry.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth. It was a habit I’d adopted from Six. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m a big girl, Six.”
“Stop frowning, you’re making it hard to clean this boo-boo, big girl.”
I huffed out an annoyed breath and allowed him to finish. Six flushed the wound several times before cleaning around the area with soap. The alcohol was starting to kick in on my empty stomach, so the pain wasn’t as intense as before. He pressed a square of gauze to the scrape and had me hold it while he cleaned up the mess and then washed his hands.
“I want you to wear your hair in the beanie when we get to the airport, and the glasses too. Once we get through security, I want you to put the red wig back on. You’re going to stand out with this bandage on your face, so we need to make you less recognizable.” He dried his hands and then grabbed the ointment and the band-aid before crouching in front of me again.
He peeled the gauze off my face and applied the ointment on the scrape and then on the center of the band-aid before pressing the band-aid in place.
“It’s two in the morning. Our flight leaves at six. You have two hours to get some sleep. Go.”
I stood up and stretched, wiping the excess water away from my neck. I walked by him on my way out of the bathroom but stopped short and turned around. “Thanks Six.”
He was bracing both hands on the bathroom sink, his head down. He looked at me and sighed, turning to me and opening his arms. I stepped into them and hugged him tightly. I felt him kiss the top of my head briefly before loosening him arms and shooing me off to bed.
I crashed onto the bed and fell into a dead sleep, only to fall asleep again in the car on the way to the airport. And the moment the plane took its ascent into the sky at 6 AM, I was asleep once more.
We landed in Denver at 7 AM thanks to the change in time zones and were back at the ranch by 8:30. Six didn’t stay, choosing to drop me off and leave once again for the airport.
That morning I aired out the cabins and placed welcome baskets in each one. After that, I helped Rosa set up the few rooms in the big house that would be used for guests. Rosa didn’t ask about the trip. The moment she’d seen me, she’d wrapped me up in a big Rosa hug, clucked over my bandage for a moment, and then helped me get started on work. Rosa knew me. She knew that I needed to have something to focus my energy on. If I got bored, I wallowed.
When the family reunion pulled in that afternoon, I helped them get settled into their cabins, only chancing a glance at Julian’s cabin. I hadn’t heard from him since we’d texted that Wednesd
ay night. I figured he’d been on a writing spell. Better that he not see me with the large bandage on my face anyway. I wasn’t in the mood to fabricate lies. I was sleep deprived and still tingling a bit from anxiety. I wondered if Six had started monitoring the Monster’s computer.
While heading back to my cabin for lunch, I detoured and walked to Julian’s cabin. I pulled my hair down over the bandage and then knocked on his door, hearing something fall from the other side before the door swung open.
The first thing I saw was his face. He was wearing black glasses, the frames rectangular. His hair was totally disheveled, like he had run his hands through it over and over in frustration. He was wearing a tee shirt that had seen better days; it was full of holes and the logo on the front was almost completely worn off. He wore flannel pajama bottoms and his feet were bare. My eyes swung back to his face, taking in the surprised smile and tired eyes and the hand he was rubbing through his hair.
“Hi,” he finally said. He leaned in as if he was going to give me a kiss before he pulled back, alarm in his eyes. “Wait. I’ve not brushed my teeth yet today.” He gestured me to follow him in while he walked back to the bathroom. It was dark, the shades drawn and only a lamp lighting the space. And every single surface was covered in soda cans and paper.
So he does have a flaw after all. “It’s three in the afternoon,” I said, taking in the mess all around his cabin.
“I haven’t gone to bed yet,” he answered, peeking his head out of the door of the bathroom.
“It’s three in the afternoon,” I repeated, confused.
“I’ve been awake since yesterday. Got some kick ass writing mojo around eleven last night and couldn’t stop.”
“Until now, since I’ve interrupted you and made you brush your teeth.”
He Found Me Page 16
