Then, right near the end of the summary, the news feed was interrupted with a breaking bulletin. A red warning flashed an apology for the interruption, and the camera view cut from the static image of Remo to a podium. Celia’s stomach—which had barely come untwisted—became a hard, aching mass. Neil Price and Detective Teller stood together, the former speaking into a microphone, the latter looking like a sentinel.
Celia shivered involuntarily, but Remo’s hand landed on the small of her back, steadying her body and mind. It was still hard to see Neil’s sincere expression and the accompanying words on the screen, and it was downright impossible not to imagine him saying them. She was just glad she couldn’t hear his voice. It would’ve made things so much worse.
She drew in a breath and focused on the subtitles. The first part of his speech made her bristle. He talked about how sorry he was for anyone who knew and loved Ms. Celia Poller, and added that she appeared to have no next of kin. He spoke of the injustice. He pleaded with Remo to turn himself in. And the fact that he seemed like he meant it made Celia want to shove the laptop straight off the counter. Anyone watching would believe him. But that wasn’t all. When Neil stepped away from the microphone and Teller moved forward, Celia tensed.
“Something’s not right,” Remo stated, his voice low.
She felt it, too. And a second later, the unpleasant sense of foreboding came to fruition. The subtitles announced that Mrs. Wendy DeLuca was missing. That the police had come by her house to discuss her son with her, and found the door unlocked, and the woman herself nowhere to be found. A picture of Wendy appeared in the bottom corner of the screen, and Teller reeled off a number for people to call if they’d seen her.
Remo’s fingers flexed on Celia’s back, and she knew his worry was as thick as hers.
“There’s just a tiny bit more,” Rupinder said.
And sure enough, the two men switched spots again. This time, Neil’s speech became a campaign spiel. He announced that he was taking the situation personally, adding that his city didn’t have room for these games, and that he wouldn’t rest until DeLuca was taken care of. There was no denying the ominous undertone of his words. He paused for a moment, as if to let them sink in. Then he looked directly at the camera, his gaze making Celia want to squirm, as he made another statement, this one an odd-sounding comment about how he would offer Mrs. DeLuca shelter at his own home, if necessary. In closing, he announced that he would be at the VPD’s main detachment around the clock. As soon as he’d said it, the screen cut back to the news studio, and the anchor there moved on to something else.
“He has her,” Remo announced, his voice grim and angry and concerned all at the same time.
Celia turned to face him, and repeated, “Has her?”
He gestured toward the laptop, his expression dark. “What do you think that nonsense was at the end? It was meant for us. He’s taken my mom hostage, and he wants us to know it.”
“I have to say that I concur,” Rupinder added.
“So he’s baiting us?” Celia said.
Remo nodded. “He knows I’ll come.”
Celia’s heart dropped, and she spoke before she could stop herself. “You can’t go!”
Across the room, Xavier dropped his book, drawing attention from all three adults. His little face was pinched with worry, and Celia immediately felt bad.
“It’s okay, buddy,” she said quickly. “You can keep reading.”
“Or I can take him back out to the playground?” Rupinder suggested.
Celia nodded gratefully, and her son jumped up. She waited until the two of them were gone before addressing Remo as calmly as she could manage.
“You aren’t seriously thinking about going there,” she said.
“I can’t just let her go when there’s a chance I could save her,” he replied, pacing back and forth across the kitchen. “And I’m not planning on sacrificing myself.”
“Not planning it doesn’t stop it from happening.”
“Celia.”
“You know they aren’t going to let you come out alive. If they were, they wouldn’t have done anything that could leave them publicly exposed. They probably have people watching for you to come. Neil is smart and devious and ruthless, Remo.” Tears stung her eyes, and she didn’t bother to wipe them away as they overflowed. “How we can even be sure that—”
She stopped short, but it was too late; Remo had already picked up on the end of her question. He ceased his pacing and faced her.
“I know she’s alive,” he told her, “because if Neil is as smart as you think, then he knows that with one, single shred of doubt on my part, I won’t come. He has to keep her alive, because otherwise I won’t show up.”
Celia exhaled, seeing the logic in his response. “There still has to be a better way.”
“Then give it to me. But in under five minutes, because that’s about all I’m willing to spare before I go.”
“Me.”
“What?”
“It’s not really you he’s after. It’s me he’s been chasing.”
“That’s true. But it’s my mother he’s got.”
“Then I’ll call the local news instead,” she said. “I’ll show them that I’m alive. The whole story will fall apart. It’s like Rupinder said. The first part is a lie, so the rest has to be, too. I can out myself publicly, and show everyone who Neil really is. I’ve got the pictures, and...” She trailed off as she realized there was a flaw in her plan. “And he has your mom. And if I expose him, then he has no reason to keep her alive.”
“Which is exactly why I need to do this. Would you do any less, if it were Xavier?”
“No. Of course not.”
Remo put his hands on her shoulders, then pulled her in close and pressed his chin to the top of her head. “My mom is my only living relative, sweetheart. I have to go. And I need to do it quickly.”
“I know,” she conceded, unable to keep the words from cracking as she said them.
“We’ve made it this far,” he added.
“I know,” she repeated.
“And I won’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“I know.”
“And I’m probably going to use you as a bargaining chip.”
“I—What?” She pulled away, startled.
He smiled. “Just working through my options in my head.”
“Not funny, Remo.”
“I know.” He bent to kiss her, but she pulled back, suddenly thoughtful, and he paused, clearly sensing the change. “What?”
“It’s not actually the worst idea ever.”
“What?” he repeated.
“Using me and Xavier as fake bait.”
“It’s a terrible idea,” he replied.
But Celia could tell that he was thinking about it, too.
Chapter 21
It was almost impossible not to keep track of the minutes. As much as Celia told herself it only slowed things down even more, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She’d joined Rupinder and Xavier outside after saying goodbye to Remo—who’d left in a borrowed ball cap and sunglasses—but it wasn’t enough of a distraction. If anything, the playground only provided more things to measure by.
Six slides. Remo was probably done with the on-foot portion of his trip. His plan had included making a stealthy move out of the neighborhood before letting himself be seen.
Two under-ducks. Remo had probably called for a cab near the corner store Rupi had described as she half-laughingly said she’d never given a man runaway cash before.
Two more under-ducks. Three more slides. One game of tag. The cab was probably there, and Remo was probably climbing in.
Celia hated the thought of it all.
She hated their plan.
She hated the thought of Remo dangling her and Xavier’s location over Ne
il like the metaphorical carrot.
She hated that she didn’t know what he was planning to do once he’d convinced her cruel-minded ex that he would trade them in for his mother.
She hated that she had no real way of knowing if he was safe, or if he’d come through.
And she really hated that she wasn’t by his side.
Hate, hate, hate. All of it, she thought.
“Celia?”
At the sound of her name, she jerked her attention back to the playground. Rupinder stood in front of her, her adult-sized hand wrapped around Xavier’s little one. Celia forced a smile, belatedly realizing she’d been staring blankly at the gate. The last spot where she’d seen Remo before he took off.
“Are you okay, Mom?” Xavier asked.
“I’m doing just fine, buddy,” she replied.
“Your nose is wet,” he said, then pointed up. “It’s getting ready to rain cats and dogs.”
Celia swiped the back of her hand over her face. Sure enough, there were more than a few raindrops dampening her skin. The wind had picked up, too, and the clouds overhead did look ominous.
“I think the sky’s about to open up,” Rupinder added. “We were just saying that we should go inside and dig into my arts and crafts box. Maybe make some lunch.”
Celia made herself nod. She knew that she was just going to switch from counting games at the park to counting glitter and macaroni art, but she followed Rupi back into the apartment anyway, and even went through the motions of helping to prepare soup and sandwiches. But small talk was hard to manage, and her old friend picked up on it quickly.
“You’ve changed, over the last few years,” the other woman observed as she laid out slices of bread.
“Five years of mothering,” Celia replied ruefully. “It ages you.”
Rupi shook her head. “It’s not that, I think. I see more than my share of mothers come through. This is something different.”
“Well...I do have that whole memory-loss thing happening,” Celia joked halfheartedly.
“Maybe. But I think this is bigger.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you first came to me, you were scared. Understandably so. You’d been shot. You were on the run for your life. You needed to get as far away from here as you could, but you couldn’t leave without medical attention first, and you were sure that seeking it traditionally would get you killed.”
“Yes,” Celia agreed, unsure where Rupinder was going with the recounting of events. “All true.”
“But you were resilient, underneath that,” the other woman said. “Now it’s the opposite.”
“I’m not quite following.”
“Before...your strength was hidden and fear was dominant. Now your strength is visible, and your fear is underneath. If that makes sense?”
Celia started to argue, then stopped before she even got started. She could remember how frightened she’d been when trying to break free from Neil Price and the men who worked for him.
Not just frightened, she corrected silently. Terrified.
And that fear had dominated every aspect of her life. Which—as Rupinder had just pointed out—was completely understandable. But it had also seemed inescapable. Even after Xavier was born and she made the move, that underlying worry of being caught didn’t go away. There was a looking-over-her-shoulder kind of feeling ingrained in her. She didn’t know when it had stopped. She wasn’t even sure whether it was gradual, or if something had triggered it. But she was sure that Rupinder was right; she had changed.
She straightened her shoulders a little and glanced over at Xavier, who was happily coloring a page full of farm animals. “When I ran all those years ago, I felt like I had no other options. Everything led back to losing Xavier. And honestly...even if an easy one had presented itself, I don’t know if I would’ve been capable of taking it. I wouldn’t have risked it.”
“And now?”
“I’m still scared. But I feel like I might stand a chance of coming out on top. Maybe that even has something to do with why I came back, I don’t know.”
Rupinder said something in reply, then excused herself when the shelter’s emergency phone line rang. But Celia didn’t hear her. Because the laptop caught her eye just then, and held her attention. The news channel was running its program about Remo again. Only this time, Celia noticed that Teller and Neil weren’t the only ones in the frame. A woman—a tall, well-dressed brunette with a tight-lipped smile on her face—stood just to the side of the podium. She was very attractive. Model caliber for sure. She was also very, very pregnant, and a prominent diamond ring flashed on her finger. But it wasn’t any of those things that made Celia almost drop the spoon she held. It was the way—when the woman turned just slightly—that her scarf billowed out, revealing an angry red mark on her throat.
That mark...
It brought it all back.
Celia sat on her couch, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the TV remote in the other. Xavier was at school, and she was on a late shift at the care home where she worked. She’d decided to take advantage of the rare few minutes of solitude and was flicking idly through the channels. But she stopped abruptly when Neil’s face came up on the screen. It startled her just enough that she forgot to flick it off.
Over the past five years, she’d spent an equal amount of time being afraid he’d come looking for her, and trying to forget he’d ever been a part of her life. Seeing him—alive and well and carrying on as though he’d never tried to have her and their son killed—filled her with cold dread. It should’ve prompted her to switch channels immediately. But something about the piece drew her in. She paused. She listened. She was sickened by the fact that Neil was running for office. But it was really something about the woman standing behind him at the campaign table that had stayed her finger on the channel changer.
At first, Celia didn’t see that the brunette was pregnant. She was too preoccupied with the way the woman held herself. A little nervously, maybe? Stiffly, for sure. Celia wasn’t able to pinpoint what it was, exactly, that held her. But just about anything was possible, where Neil was concerned. And as much as she wanted to turn it off, watching became something close to a compulsion.
The woman wore a decorative scarf. Black, with little red flowers. Celia noticed it because she liked it. She might even have picked one like it for herself, if she’d seen it in a store. So her eyes had hung on it for a few extra seconds. And that’s when the other woman bent over to speak to a boy who’d just approached the campaign table. The movement exposed both the baby belly and a horrendous mark on her neck.
Celia dropped her coffee mug, spilling the hot contents across her lap and onto the carpet. But she barely noticed. Because at the same moment, her ears had picked up what the newscaster was saying.
“And as the old saying goes...” said the anchor. “Behind every successful man is a successful woman. Neil’s wife, Felicity, is a little over eight months along with their first child, but that doesn’t seem to slow her down in the slightest. Her architectural firm is providing 49 percent of the financial backing for the city’s brand-new Parkour Extreme. People said the permits would never come through, but Neil and Felicity have made the dream a reality, and the outdoor facility is destined to please when it opens next week...”
The newsperson’s voice went on, but Celia stopped listening. She was too distracted by two sure things. One, Neil was abusing his pregnant wife. And two, the project had been pushed through. A project designed with children in mind. That put children at risk. What kind of god-awful monster was he?
Autopilot took over.
Celia grabbed her phone and dialed Neil’s office. God knew what she was thinking. Nothing reasonable. She was stunned that she still remembered the number and equally surprised when he picked up. But when she said nothing, and he responded to the long silence with
her name, she knew she’d been fooling herself by thinking for even a single second that he’d stopped looking for her.
First came the panic and the fear.
Then came the need to act.
The memory was so real—so close—that as Celia blinked it away, she half expected to see it frozen on the laptop screen again right then. Instead, what she caught was a repeat of Neil’s closing words. And that’s when Celia clued in. He wasn’t being metaphorical. He was being literal. When Neil had said he would open his home to Wendy DeLuca, he really meant he already had. And Celia knew exactly where in his house that “shelter” would be.
* * *
Remo was two blocks from the police station. He’d been there for a few minutes, just trying to find a viable way to approach. The rain was trying to move from a sprinkle to a solid beating, and it didn’t help with his planning at all.
Teller and Price undoubtedly had a slew of lackeys watching the place. They’d be looking for him both on foot and in a car. They’d have covered the major entrances, but would be paying close attention to the less obvious ones, too. Of course, Remo had no idea where any of those were. It wasn’t like he’d had time to stop by City Hall and check out the municipal plans so he could plot his way in. Everything he knew about the station was based on the few times he’d driven by, and the one time he’d gone in to pay a fine for a burned-out headlight. So basically all he had was the fact that it was an older, two-story building that sprawled the length of one corner.
“Fat lot of good that does,” he muttered. “Might as well mention that it’s brown, too.”
But he was sure that even if he’d been armed with insider knowledge, it wouldn’t have done any good. He was a suspect in a falsified fatal hit-and-run. All it would take to end it would be the addition of a falsified weapon. Remo could picture the headline.
Armed Suspect Approaching Police Station Shot by Local Officer.
It didn’t mean that he could walk away. His mother was somewhere under Neil’s control, and aside from Celia, he was the only one who could do anything about it. Even if he wasn’t a hundred percent sure what that was yet. Frustrated, he lifted his now-soaked baseball cap and ran a hand through his hair, then stuck it back in place and took another two steps toward the end of the block.
First Responder on Call Page 22
