by Cox, Paula
In the video, Corinne chided her husband to calm down and finally turned her eyes upward.
I just need to know that you’re okay, honey. Please.
As Bates ended pushed stop and pressed the phone back into his pocket, Lily’s eyes burned with tears, and she held her face in her hands as her shoulders quaked. She couldn’t go through with it. Not according to her original ill-advised plan. Because if she really was just off for some fun, if she had the chance or the choice, she would have called her mother, and Corinne Nielsen would have understood. She said as much before Lily took off in the first place.
“So?” Bates asked as he took her hand again. “How did it really go down?”
Treading carefully, Lily told him the truth of her kidnapping and the horror that was the night of the auction.
“And Roberson bought you to play around with, right?”
Giving into the memory of Michael’s touch for all of a second, her mind struggled with how to make it sound anything but dirty and brutal, searching for a story that this man might believe so that she could win his Michael his freedom.
And then her mind turned to Sally.
“No,” Lily stated firmly. “He… protected me. And I’m going to stay grateful to him for that.”
“Protected you?” Bates asked as he arched his eyebrow and crossed his arms over his shoulder.
“Yes,” Lily continued. “He’s never made me do anything that I didn’t want to do.”
Which was entirely true. Maybe she hadn’t known what her body longed for most before she knew what it was to have his hands on her, but it was real and more than she had had with any other man.
“Fine,” Bates said. “Let’s say I can buy that. Even though his… presence at such a scene is… questionable.”
Holding his gaze, Lily held her breath and waited for him to continue.
“Why no contact allowed, Miss Nielsen? What’s that all—?”
Bates’s voice came to a halt at the sound of frantic, muffled voices from the other side of the room. Pulling away from her side, Bates moved to open the door when it pushed open via no effort of his own.
“Lily?” A familiar voice trembled. “Is it really you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE Corinne Nielsen stood in the doorway with a shaky smile on her face and trembling hands. The interrogation room seemed to melt away as Lily stood to meet her, walking on wobbly legs as she searched her mother’s face. All the anguish from the video was replaced by a look of infinite joy that expanded into the brightest of smiles as soon as she touched her daughter’s hair and pulled Lily into her arms.
“Oh God,” Corinne moaned as she clasped her close wept into her shoulder. Returning the embrace, Lily felt a wave of relief wash over her and met her mother’s face, her own eyes brimming with tears as she tried to speak.
“Mom, I… I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I never wanted you to be scared. I—”
“Lily?”
Glancing over Corinne’s shoulder, Lily saw her father and Dan standing side by side. Both men seemed to regard her as if she was an unknown entity. Dan made the first move and started to step forward to touch her when Craig Nielsen held him back and studied his daughter carefully.
“Are you alright?” he asked. “You… you haven’t been… spoiled in any way. Have you?”
Lily’s eyes expanded into a shocked stare. How could any man… how could her father of all people even ask such a question?
“Oh for god’s sake, Craig!” Corinne sighed as she kept Lily in her arms. “What is the matter with you?”
“I’m just—”
Before her father finished a thought that Lily already knew she had no desire to hear, Craig glared at Bates.
“A little privacy here,” Carted demanded. “We need to talk to our daughter.”
“Well, sir, she’s actually just been telling me that—”
“And if you don’t mind, I want to hear her tell it to us. So how about you just get back to dealing with the trash that did this to her.”
Bates started to slink away when Lily left her mother’s arms and dared to face her father.
“Is it Michael?” she asked. “What’s happening to him? Do you know something?”
Craig Nielsen gasped in amazement at the sound of his daughter’s words, and Dan took a step forward as Corinne kept Lily close to her side.
“Fine,” Bates said. “But there are still questions that Miss Nielsen need to answer.”
He was nearly out the door when Lily couldn’t resist the urge to call after him.
“Please! He didn’t do anything. It was good luck for me that he was there. Please?”
Hanging his head, Bates managed a soft nod as he stepped out of the room and gently closed the door. For a second, Lily felt her heart starting to calm. Bates would help her, would help Michael. She sank back to the chair in relief, her mother’s arm still around her shoulders as Craig barreled forward and screamed into her flushed face.
“Good luck?” her father challenged. “Was it good luck that your mother cried herself to sleep night after night just hoping that you were still alive?”
“Hush, Craig.” Corinne turned her daughter’s face to hers and patted her cheek. “How could I not miss you?” Corinne whispered. “But I know my girl. You keep your wits about you and—”
“Stop fucking coddling her!” Craig pulled his daughter from his wife’s gentle hold, Lily instantly felt her mother’s kind touch replaced by cold, hard hands. She whimpered as he pressed his fingers into arms and stared her down. As Corinne turned her head in frustration, Lily looked to Dan.
“Are you going to do something about this?” Lily asked.
“About what?” Dan asked in a flat voice. “Seems to me that you should answer your father’s question.”
“Excuse me?” Lily asked. “What the hell is that supposed to —?”
“Were you taken?” Craig demanded. “Was it like that…what Nick says?”
“And what does he say?” Lily asked.
“That you were a prisoner against you will and he’s just looking for a payday?”
Hoping that Bates would move fast and spin her story in Michael’s favor, Lily shook her head and stayed in her father’s eyes.
“That’s not how it happened,” Lily said. “Michael saved me from a bad man.” She lifted her gaze to Dan and cocked her head to the side. “He’s been very good to me ever since.”
Craig pushed away from his daughter in disgust and grabbed his wife’s arm. “I told you,” Craig hissed. “Just trying to embarrass us.”
“Craig, don’t—”
“She’s nothing but a cat in heat! Sometimes I wonder if she’s even mine.”
Lily started to challenge her father when Corinne lifted her hand and smacked Craig’s face hard. He drew back with a wince and stared at his wife in shock.
“I’m not the one that had a side piece,” Corinne spat.
“Excuse me?”
“Not here! Not now!”
Corinne fell back to her daughter’s side and held Lily close.
“Somehow I knew… I just knew that you were okay,” Corinne whispered. “But why didn’t you call, honey? I—”
“I’d like an answer to that, too.”
Dan gritted his teeth as he spoke, and Lily regarded him carefully as Craig stepped forward and literally had his back. Maybe it was a trick of the light in the room, but Lily felt as if Dan was her father, an earlier version of the man who only wanted to keep her line and make sure that she said and did all the right things. His plea for the camera was not about her safety. He was just, he was still furious that he’d taken off without his sacred permission.
“Just off doing my hobo thing,” Lily said. “And you know what? I found a man who’s better than you in every way. Guess I got a little too caught up in that to even give you a second thought. Or a third.”
Dan grimaced and looked as if would strike her when Corinne stepped between them, her eyes wide as sh
e stared her daughter down. Corinne started to speak again, when Lily barely shook her head.
I’m sorry, Mom. But please play along. Please…
Corinne lifted her eyebrows, and Lily felt certain that she was catching her drift. Taking Lily’s hand again, she looked to the men and fixed a smile to her face.
“Guess girls just want to have fun,” she said. “And it all turned out alright in the end. So there’s no reason to—”
“Like hell there isn’t!”
Dan charged forward and pushed Lily’s body into the wall. Corinne cried out and begged to him stop as her husband held her back.
“Tell me you’re lying!” Dan demanded. “Tell me that he’s making you—”
“He made me do all kinds of things.” Lily stared back into his eyes, defiant. “And I loved every minute of it.”
For a second, her heart trembled as Dan’s face started to fall. This was wrong. Maybe she didn’t want him anymore; maybe she had never wanted him at all. Lily cringed at the thought that she had nearly fallen into the clichéd trap of settling for a man too close to her father. But Michael had saved her from that fate. Even as she feared for Michael’s safety, the thought of his hands on her body made her smile, and she started to relax into the memory when Dan’s spit hit her eye and he pushed away from away from her.
“You fucking whore,” he hissed. “You goddamn slut, I should—”
“You should take a step back, sir.” Bates was back in the room, and he took command quickly as he looked into Lily’s eyes.
“Is Michael okay?”
Dan grunted as Craig took his arm. Both men were nearly on her again when Corinne suddenly took charge and waved them off.
“She’s been more than clear,” Corinne said.
“Are you really this dumb?” Craig asked. “She’s brainwashed or—”
“No, dad. My head’s quite clear.” Turning away from them, Lily stared at Bates.
“Michael brought me here because I asked him to,” Lily started. “The man did nothing wrong. And I will not be pressing charges.”
“Of course you won’t,” Craig said. “No daughter of—”
“But she is mine,” Corinne said as she took her little girl’s hand. Lily felt safer and surer in her mother’s hold, and she ignored the whispers at her back.
“So will you let him go now?” she asked.
“Nick won’t like it,” Bates said with a wink. “But there’s no crime here. Not tonight.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. All of you.”
“I know,” Bates said. “And I believe you.”
Smiling at her daughter, Corinne appeared to be on the cop’s wavelength.
“So… so can I see him?” Lily asked, desperate for the desired answer.
“Don’t see why not,” Bates said. “He’s free to go.”
Lily’s soul lifted at the sound of those words, and she tugged on her mother’s arm as she moved to follow the cop.
“I want you to meet him,” Lily whispered. “He… he took care of me.”
Corinne hesitated for all of second before she sighed and held her hand tighter.
“Anything you need, Lily.”
She was nearly out of the room when she looked back to Dan for what would be the last time. Sure he smiled brightly at first and told her that he would see to her every need. But the man—the boy—came up short when it came to what she wanted most. Lily pictured him years down the line with a vapid little wife on his arm who never thought of dared to ask for what she needed most. And while a part of Lily pitied that phantom of a person, she held her ground and granted Dan the chance to speak his final peace.
“Guess I never really knew what kind of a whore you were.” He spat.
“No. No you didn’t.”
Leaving the room, Lily kept her mother close as they moved back to the main room. Nick grimaced as the frizzy blonde poured him a cup of coffee.
“Don’t mind him,” Bates said as he led them out into the sunlight.
“Wait!” Lily cried. “Where’s Michael?”
“Miss Nielsen—”
“I won’t leave him! I—”
“Lily, I’m right here.”
Standing beside his bike, Lily instantly took note of the fresh bruises on his face and fell into his arms.
“Are you okay?” she begged. “Did they—?”
“You did good,” he whispered into her neck. “I’m free and clear. And the Mad Angels can’t use any reward against us.”
Grateful for that, Lily held him closer as Bates patted Corinne’s back.
“So glad it all worked out for you,” he said. “Got a daughter myself. I know what it is to worry.”
Corinne shook the cop’s hand as he took his leave. Lily took a deep breath and dragged Michael to her mother’s side.
“Mom? This is… this is Michael Roberson. He saved me. And he brought me back to you.”
Biting down on her lip, Lily hoped for her mother to keep understanding.
“You had my daughter?” Corinne asked.
“Mom, I told you. It wasn’t like he—”
“I’m asking him.”
Michael held her mother’s gaze as raised his hand into the air.
“No,” Lily whispered. “What do you think you’re—?”
“Your daughter was taken, Mrs. Nielsen. But not by me. And you have my word that I’ve never hurt her.”
Lily started to nod when Michael folded her close, and she couldn’t resist the lure of his chest. Resting in his arms, she glanced at her mother and watched her blank face as she reached into her purse.
“Then I guess I should be giving this to you, Mr. Roberson.”
She pressed a thick wad of bills into Michael’s hand, and he studied the stack in shock as Corinne took her daughter’s face in her hands.
“Your man, your choice. When are you coming home?”
Michael still seemed stunned by the sight of the bills. Lily pulled on his arm, and he shot back to attention as Corinne repeated her question.
“Whenever she wants,” Michael said. “I go with her.”
Corinne started making plans, saying that they’d have to rent a car since there was no chance that Craig would drive her back.
“And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
Laying out a life of home-cooked meals and warm beds, Lily thought of wanting to share that and more with Michael. But even as her mother had trusted her, a part of her still worried when she failed to make contact. The Diesel Devils were Michael’s family. She couldn’t just let him…
“Mom, there’s something that we have to do first.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR “And she’s back.”
Lily let Michael lift her from the back of his bike as the Diesel Devils seemed ready to lay fresh tracks. Brendan shot her a sharp sneer as he turned his back, but Sophia moved forward in friendship.
“So what’s the deal?” she asked Michael. “Thought you said that you would run the other way as long as you could follow her.”
Michael blushed, and Lily held his hand, feeling stronger in the space of his touch as she peered into Sophia’s eyes.
“I followed him,” Lily said. “You really think I would let him go without saying goodbye?”
Sophia tilted her head and her lips slowly curled into a smile as she pinched Michael’s cheek. “Glad for that, boy. Come with me.”
Walking past the others, Sophia led them to Ken and Sally crouching behind a slab of stone. The girl started as soon as she saw them, and Lily left Michael’s hold to approach her.
“I’m sorry, Sally,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I—”
“It didn’t really hurt,” Sally said. “Nothing compared to having to keep running.”
Ken groaned as Lily snapped her fingers quickly in Michael’s face. He pulled Corinne’s wad of bills from his pocket.
“Jesus fuck!” Sophia cried. “What the hell have you two been up to?”
&n
bsp; Lily took the money and assured Sally that this was the reward. “And it’s ours now,” she promised. “So no more cops. Your father won’t have a way to track you.”
As Sally fingered the money, she seemed to search Lily’s face in the hope that her words were true. When Michael nodded and split the stack in two, Sally fell into her arms. Lily held her close as Michael conferred.
