Expelled

by Claire Adams

  “Not exactly. But you’d be surprised at how many people we’ve hidden here and how many criminals have tried to find them. It’s the first time someone actually worked their way into the property though. We’ve had deaths on our ranch before, but it’s usually ranch hands getting drunk and stupid.”

  “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have gone into town when I first got here. I’m so sorry,” I said through my tears.

  If I had been in my right mind, I would have been embarrassed by the number of tears I was still shedding. But I wasn’t in my right mind. I was a mess. The events of the last year had all culminated into that moment and my nerves were utterly shot. I could have been killed that night. If Sarah and I had decided to go back to my cabin, we both would have been dead at that very moment. It was enough to shake me all the way down to my soul.

  “Come on now, Garrett, that was months ago. We can’t change all that. The important thing is that you’re still alive,” Meredith said as she hugged me.

  I totally lost all control of my emotions as Meredith’s arms held onto me. It had been a really long time since I had a good cry and there seemed no better time than to mourn the lives of two men. I felt safe there with Meredith and even with Sid. He didn’t seem to be judging my tears at all, although his hands were still steady as could be. It was impressive to me that Sid had just shot two men and then wasn’t even shaking at all.

  Everything about my situation was more real in that moment than it had been since that day over a year before when I was pulled into the questioning room at the police station. This wasn’t the life I had hoped for, but it was my life and my mistakes. I hated that other people’s lives had been taken all because of mistakes I had made.

  I could hear the sirens roaring in the distance and felt like I was in a daze as they arrived on the ranch. Meredith and I walked over to the front porch and sat down while Sid talked to the officers. The sun was coming up and it helped to illuminate the full scene as the officers swept the rest of the ranch to make sure there were no other people hiding and waiting to kill people.

  Meredith talked to me and even held my hand a little as she calmed my nerves. I could tell she was a great mother and wished my own mom was still alive. I would have loved to of had a hug from my own mother that day. But Meredith would do just fine. She was sweet and calm as she kept me busy talking and tried to avoid any conversation about the incident that had just happened.

  When they got to the barn, one of the officers noticed the secret love nest in the attic and came to talk to Sid about it. I walked over toward him and was ready to admit to what had happened between Sarah and I, but apparently, I didn’t have to. Sid already seemed to know. Maybe it was because both Sarah and I had come out of the barn that morning, or maybe Sid had known all along; but he clearly knew that Sarah and I had been sleeping together.

  “No, they weren’t up there. My daughter and Garrett were up there,” Sid said as he pointed to me.

  “What’s your name?” one of the officers asked me, as he looked at his notebook and seemed not to be able to find the name that Sid had given him.

  It seemed like a simple enough question and yet I didn’t exactly know how to answer him. I had gone by Garrett Reynolds for a year, but that wasn’t my real name. Which name was I supposed to give him? Could I even trust him? I really didn’t know.

  “Garrett Reynolds,” I said with an unsure voice.

  “It’s okay, I know this man. His name is Chief Canter. You can trust him,” Sid said.

  That was all I needed to know. If Sid trusted the man, I knew beyond a doubt that I could trust him as well. I would have given the man my real name right away, but I had been told to never give that out when I arrived at the ranch.

  “My name is Malcolm Edwards,” I said.

  “The FBI will be here shortly; they are going to want to get Malcolm out of here and safe as quickly as possible. Can he grab his things from the cabin?” Sid asked.

  “I’ll have one of my guys go in with him.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sid patted me on the back as we stood there and watched the crime scene investigation as it unfolded. I was really glad I had been placed there with Sid and his family. I was certain had I been anywhere else, I wouldn’t have been alive at that moment. Sid had saved my life. I would always remember him and all my time at the ranch, no matter what else was in store for me with the trial and my future.

  It took the police over three hours before they cleared my cabin so I could go in and grab my things. Not like I had anything else to do with my time, but did seem like a very long wait for the five minutes that I was in the cabin to gather my things. There weren’t many things that I had to grab. Some clothes, my journal, and a few small items I carried with me when I arrived.

  The moment was surreal as I walked out the back door of the cabin with the same small bag that I had arrived with. I needed to find Sarah. I couldn’t leave without talking to her first. The agent was going to be there at any moment and I had to find her.

  “Where’s Sarah?” I asked Sid.

  “At the barn up north.”

  “I’m going to take Buckjoy up there and say goodbye before I have to leave,” I said as I started to leave.

  “Sorry, son. You’re not going anywhere; Chief Canter said I need to make sure you’re still alive when the agent arrives for you.”

  I looked desperately at the officer and then over to Sid, neither of them seemed to care at all that I would totally destroy Sarah’s heart if I left without even saying goodbye to her. I had to talk to her. I had to apologize for the lies I had told and the omissions I had left out. I couldn’t have her last memory of me being my yelling at her to go.

  “Please,” I begged Sid.

  “No.”

  He didn’t look at me at all when he answered. I wasn’t sure if he was angry at me for wanting to say goodbye to Sarah or angry because I was pushing them to say goodbye even after they told me no. Maybe he was angry that Sarah and I had been together; I really didn’t know. But I had to risk it. If I risked nothing else at all, I had to risk them being angry at me so I had the opportunity to see her and explain my side of things.

  I looked to Meredith for help. She was kind and understanding, certainly she would say something in my defense so I could go say goodbye to Sarah. Meredith wouldn’t want her daughter’s heart-broken; I was sure of it.

  But as I looked at Meredith, she turned just shook her head and motioned for me not to push it. She was on their side. No one wanted me to see Sarah or say good-bye to her. My stomach was in knots thinking about how much she was going to hate me.

  We waited and watched as the coroner came and picked up the dead bodies. Then, just like clockwork, Agent Walker arrived to take me away. He exchanged pleasantries with the local police and then with Sid before coming over to check on me.

  “Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. And sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

  “I have a friend that’s up at the north barn. I need to say goodbye to her before we leave,” I responded to him without exchanging the normal pleasantries.

  Agent Walker looked at Sid who shook his head no, and that was all it took for my request to be denied. I knew I had lost the battle. I was exhausted from the events of the morning and the adrenaline had drained from my body and left me so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. As much as I wanted to see Sarah, I had to admit defeat.

  “Let’s get you back home. They have scheduled you to testify via video tape and are hopeful that Gordano will take a plea after seeing that you’re still alive.”

  “Okay,” I said in defeat.

  I turned toward Sid to tell him what I thought of him and all he had done for me. Sure, I was angry that he didn’t want me to say goodbye to Sarah, but that didn’t matter. I knew he had gone above and beyond to keep me safe and that deserved my praise.

  “I’ll never forget you, Sid. You’re a man I’d like to be someday. Thanks for ev
erything,” I said as I extended my hand and he grabbed a hold of it.

  “Keep yourself out of trouble.”

  “I will.”

  Meredith walked over and I was about to extend my hand to say goodbye to her, but then I reached for her and gave her one last hug. She had been the first person to hug me when I arrived and she would be the last hug I got before I left.

  “You tell Sarah the truth for me. Tell her what we had was real. Please,” I said in her ear.

  Meredith just looked at me and smiled as I pulled away. I wanted to hear her say that she would tell Sarah. I needed to know that Sarah wasn’t going to be told what a horrible person I was. It might not matter at all, but I wanted some sort of affirmation that Meredith would tell Sarah the truth.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you,” Meredith said sweetly as she stood there with Sid.

  They both waved at me as I walked to the car and got in with agent Walker. My time at the Miller ranch had saved my life. They had provided me the protection I needed while I waited for the trail and all I had given them was a horrific crime scene to clean up after.

  I felt empty as we drove away. Like nothing I had contributed over the last year had mattered at all. All I could hope for was that they would forgive me for my mistakes and that Sarah would be able to look back fondly on the time we had together. I had to truth that she would be able to see I was genuine with her, even if I had lied to her about my past.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sarah

  “Do you want to come help me with breakfast?” my mother asked me as she stood over my bed.

  “No, I want to sleep.”

  “Honey, it’s been two weeks. We need to move forward.”

  “I’m tired mom. Maybe I’ll get up tomorrow and help.”

  My mother meant well, I knew it. She just didn’t like seeing me sad. Hell, I didn’t like being sad. I had expected Garrett would leave eventually, but I had always expected to have plenty of time to say my goodbyes. I just wasn’t ready to have him totally gone from my life without any notice at all.

  For months, we had spent every single day together and then suddenly he was gone. I tried to understand why he had left; my brain knew it wasn’t his choice and he had probably no option to stay. But my heart hurt. It hurt thinking of Garrett living his life without me.

  Even though we had settled on our relationship being just fun, deep down I thought it might be more someday. I thought he would grow to care about me and decide he wasn’t going to run off to Washington for that job.

  But as the details of everything unraveled, I learned that Garrett wasn’t going to a job in Washington. He wasn’t going anywhere. My father had been hired by the FBI to hide Garrett at our home and keep him safe until he testified against some drug dealer or something. It all sounded really good and legitimate, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that Garrett had lied right to my face. He hadn’t just done it once; everything I knew about the man was in question.

  “You know your father and I weren’t allowed to tell you about the program. We are sorry we had to lie to you. But Garrett, I mean Malcolm, wasn’t allowed to tell you either. You can’t stay mad at us all forever.”

  “I’m not mad, mother. I’m tired. Can you just let me sleep?” I lied.

  Of course, I was mad at Garrett, or Malcolm, or whatever his name was. And I was also mad at my parents for keeping me in the dark during the whole thing. If my parents were allowed to know all the details, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t have been told about everything.

  Instead, the three of them conspired to keep me in the dark and pretend that Garrett was a totally different person. This Malcolm guy wasn’t even someone I would have liked. I hated the corporate guys who were so self-absorbed that they couldn’t see a decent woman standing right in front of them. I liked Garrett, the drifter who wanted to make something of himself. That was the man I had fallen in love with.

  “All right, but I’m coming back to check on you after breakfast.”

  “Maybe make it after lunch so I can actually get some sleep,” I said as I pulled the blankets up over my head.

  I wasn’t mad at my mother or my father; frustrated would have been a better word for it. As an educated woman, I understood there were rules in place around them agreeing to work with the FBI. In fact, I found it pretty cool that they had been hosting FBI witness protection people for the last twenty years. It made a lot of sense to me when they started explaining everything. I remembered so many of the men who had been at our ranch. It made a lot more sense that those men were from the program and not people my father had chosen to hire.

  Like the guy who never worked past noon. I could never figure out why my father kept him around. It had been one of those things that baffled me and my father never could give me a good explanation for keeping the guy. It was a relief to have some of those puzzle pieces from my past finally falling into place. But I stubbornly still wished that they had been able to tell me the details of what was going on. If I had been informed, I would have been much more emotionally prepared when Garrett left the ranch.

  I wasn’t mad at Garrett, or Malcolm, either; if I really thought about it, I wasn’t angry—I was sad. My mother had explained to me that he wanted to say goodbye before he left and she told me how sad he had been that they made him leave without seeing me. From what she told me, I could tell that he was a decent guy, but it still didn’t change the fact that I had started to have feelings for a man who wasn’t at all who he said he was. And even if I did get over that information, he was gone and would never be back again.

  My heart still hurt though and I couldn’t make the hurting stop. Garrett and I were friends, at the very least, and I thought he would have given me some sort of clue to what was going on. He couldn’t have thought I would tell anyone. I wished I could talk to him, or write to him, but my father didn’t have contact information for him at all. Well, I hadn’t specifically asked for it, but I assumed he didn’t know how to get in touch with Malcolm. Once the FBI came to take him away, my father’s job was complete, and Malcolm was back in the hands of the government.

  I knew that Garrett’s real name was Malcolm Edwards, but I didn’t know much more about him at all. It was weird to have known a man intimately and then found out he wasn’t that person at all. I Googled him and found out he own an airline or something like that. There were photos of him out at clubs with beautiful women and partying with celebrities; that man, Malcolm Edwards, looked like the man I fell in love with but he wasn’t the same person.

  Tons of questions constantly ran through my head when I remembered conversations that we had had together. Were his parents really dead? Did he really come from Wyoming? Was he really writing in a journal so he could write a book someday? There was no way of knowing what had been real and what had been just part of his story.

  I questioned everything that he said, every conversation and confidence we had had together. How much of the Garrett that I knew was the same as the real man named Malcolm? I might never have the answers. There was a genuine possibility that I would never see Garrett again and that I would have to learn to live with the questions that were filling my mind constantly.

  My mother was right; I needed to get up out of bed and start participating in my own life again, but I was just so tired. My whole body physically hurt at the thought of climbing out of bed and each day I put it off. I kept telling myself it would get better. I would stop missing Garrett. I would get over him. But the truth was that it had been two weeks and I still missed his touch terribly.

  Garrett had been a great love to me. His personality, his smile, even his damn body were embedded in my brain and I couldn’t forget about them. I didn’t know if I wanted to forget about them. I had fond memories of our time together and I just needed to figure out how to combine those fond memories with the reality that he was gone and would never be coming back.

  As much as I wanted to sleep my morning away, I just couldn’t slee
p. My mind raced with thoughts and questions about Garrett and I finally sat up in bed and turned the news on. The morning national news was bound to lull me back to sleep.

  “International drug smuggling king, Frank Gordano, was found murdered in his cell this morning,” the newswoman said. “He was set to stand trial after murdering a pilot with Edwards Aviation last year. The CEO of Edwards Aviation, Malcolm Edwards, had been in hiding preparing to testify against the drug king. It’s unknown if he will retake control of his company now that Gordano has been murdered.”

  I sat up in bed at looked at the screen in awe as a picture of Garrett, or Malcolm, flashed across the screen. He looked so different in the picture they had of him. He was in a tailored suit with his hair shorter and it took me a minute to realize the person on the screen and the person I knew were the same. He didn’t look like the douchebag I had seen in the clubs when I had searched Google for him.

  When my father had explained what the protection program was and how it worked with our ranch, I knew that Garrett had been mixed up in something dangerous. I knew it the moment I had walked out of the barn and saw poor Ralph and Devin murdered. Garrett looked so distraught in that moment and I only wanted to comfort him, but he wouldn’t even allow it. I could only make assumptions as to why he pushed me away, but it didn’t matter any longer.

  I was happy for Garrett though. The news that the man who wanted him dead was actually dead himself had to be good for him. I hoped he would be able to get back to his own life and maybe even forget about the horrors he had gone through at our ranch. Even if I never saw him again, I wished only happy things for Malcolm. Under the lies that I still had to sort out in my head, I knew he was a good man. Maybe not the right man for me, but he was a good man.

  The news had given me a small feeling of closure though. Garrett was going to go back to his old life and I figured I would have to go back to mine. There was no use in sleeping my life away, I needed to get up and get moving. My mother was right: I had a life of my own to live and lying around in bed wasn’t going to help me at all.