OUR SECRET BABY

by Paula Cox

  Then I frown because I notice the light is off. Weird. It was on just a half-second before. I’d swear to it. I knew that glow—that one specifically. So I swing the Maserati over to the right, into the first spot I find which may or may not be a spot, but a bit of extra road for navigating around the motel, and put the car in park. There’s no way I can go up now. What if she’s just gone to sleep? If I come storming up and bang on her door demanding to see her to say I don’t even know what yet, then I’ll have no way in hell. Better move out now. Better put a bullet in my brain now.

  The words send impulses spiraling through my brain. My hand goes out unconsciously, feels in the passenger’s seat for a handle and—

  The light flickers back on, bright as a halo. I whip back to see it, almost cracking my neck. Not asleep. The hand that was finding the handle of the Item now finds the handle of the door but doesn’t open it more than an inch because the light is already off again. I slam the door shut, right as it goes back on. And off. And back on again. Almost like she was trying to send a signal.

  That didn’t make any sense whatsoever. If Maya still hasn’t called me about the Maserati, then she probably doesn’t know I’m still out here. And if she did know where I was, she’d just text.

  My suspicion drops into the pit of my stomach like a pebble. I’ve got a feeling—no, stronger than a feeling—an instinct, and a pretty damn accurate one, that something’s wrong with this situation. Those flickering lights are sure as hell a signal to someone, and I’m sure as hell certain they’re not from Maya.

  And with this thought swimming in my head, I catch the receiving end of the signal. Two flashes, lightning-quick, from a small car, parked near where I was parked. They’re so quick and so small I’d have missed them if I hadn’t been looking for them. Christ. I hate it when I’m right.

  I don’t dare move the car an inch. I hardly move an inch, just sitting there, waiting to see what happens, scrunching up my eyes so hard I see all these bright patterns through my eyelids. I do it for about thirty seconds, and slowly I begin to build a crude kind of night vision. It’s not much—nothing at all against the curtain of snow—but it’s enough to provide some reference if nothing else. Patterns and shapes.

  Shapes, like the four moving out of the motel entrance. The light is bad, but not bad enough that I mistake what I see. Four figures, one with something draped in his arms. Big guys—bodybuilder, guardsmen types like me, and one guy skinny as a pixie. I try to look closer, turn my eyes into adjustable lenses. They obey. The thing draped in his arms has two legs, a head, and is wearing a dress. Not in this cold. Why would she do that unless she’s either passed out or—

  Kirill’t even think it. Kirill’t you dare chase that thought to the end. My left hand has a hold of my right arm so tight the nails are drawing blood I don’t notice. Those men have Maya.

  My hand snaps to the Item like a magnet, and I kick the door open. Snow and wind flood the car. I take a step out and sink four inches

  The men are already to the car. Two of the big guys open the door to the skinny fellow, and he feeds Maya into the backseat as gently as he can.

  I take another step and almost fall. My upper body swings and lunges for balance. I get a grip on the Maserati, but my Item-hand goes flying, slamming into the side of the car. I lose my grip: the Item falls.

  Hopeless. The whole thing is goddam hopeless. The men are already back in the car. The headlights shoot on, and the engine revs, kicking up tracks of snow. I stand there and watch them curve out, move past, and slip out onto the deserted highway.

  No second thoughts for the Item. I get into the car and slam the door shut and put the thing in high gear and slush my way out of my puddle

  “She’s not dead,” I repeat to myself. Calm. Stay calm. There’d be no need to be gentle if she were dead. No need to lay her down in the back seat. No need to do any of the stuff they’ve done. Not dead. She can’t be dead.

  My lights spray the tracks of the retreating car, which is nothing but two misty red lights fast-retreating up the highway. I pop into third gear and slip into the tracks, but the engine gives a whine and the wheel jars sharp to the right. All of a sudden, we’re ice-skating. The damn thing can’t get a hold of the road.

  I tug the wheel the other way and when that doesn’t slow the hydroplane, slam on the brakes. None of it’s any use. I’ve already taken the corner too quick and now I’m sliding, twenty miles an hour, across three lanes of traffic, into the steel barrier which must have seen better days because the Maserati tears through it like Red Rover. If my brakes were useless on the ice, they’re even more so on the sand. The tires dig and the wheel goes flimsy. Then I hit the ocean.

  Chapter 27

  After about nine feet into the water, I hit the gap and plunge six feet. Icy water leaks in through the roof like the thing was made of paper. Everything goes black.

  I reach up and smack the ceiling lights to give myself at least a glow to work with. I’m still thinking of Maya and where those creeps are taking her, what they’ll do with her. That and only that is the reason I don’t give over to fear. As long as Maya’s in trouble, I’ve got to fight.

  There’s no Item to smash through the window. That’s the first thing they tell you to do when your car’s underwater: wait until the car’s hit the bottom of wherever it is you’re swimming to, then smash the windows. No going through the door—too much pressure or something like that.

  The car’s still sinking down and there’s water up to my ankles cold as hell. I bunch my knees up to my chest—the longer I stay out of the cold water, the more energy I’ll have. Looking over near the passenger’s seat I try to find something to work with—hammer, metal bar, something strong and sharp I can use to smash my way through.

  Nothing. Not on the floor, and not in the glove compartment. Shit. You’d think Theo would have armored these things up in case of emergencies, although he probably wasn’t expecting that his $200,000 car would be taking a swim like this.

  The wheels settle to the bottom of the sandbar. They submerge slightly, lurch a little to the side, and hold. What the hell am I supposed to do now? The thought worms its way into my head uncomfortably, but I shove it away. Survive, and rescue Maya. Survive.

  The water’s coming up fast: it’s almost at my seat. The ceiling’s ballooning down on me; I’ve maybe got a minute before it all comes crashing down. Maybe less—forty seconds.

  So I do something I’ve done before when I’m fighting. The old samurai guys always say that your weapon should be an extension of your arm, but when you’re doing hand-to-hand with a bunch of ugly fighters, it’s more than that: your weapon is your arm. And although weapons can get damaged, they can’t feel pain. I imagine that my elbow is a point of steel that I’m about to drive into some guy’s gut, direct it at the window and smash. Nothing except blunt pain ringing up through my arm and into my head. I ignore it, cock my arm back and go in again. Still nothing.

  The water slips onto my seat. One touch of that and I feel my strength flood out of me like through a stab wound. Christ—Christ. But I’m not dying here. If I die, Maya dies.

  Again. Again. My bone aches like hell. The sleeve of my shirt is wet with what I know is blood even if I can’t see it. Again. And again. And, then a chip. A tiny fountain of pressurized water as small as a kid’s straw.

  I forget about the pain I’d already promised myself to forget about, and cock back with what I’m hoping desperately will be the blow that shatters through. Then, I hear a tear. Everything goes dark and cold as ice.

  The first few seconds of being plunged into super-cold water is what I imagine taking a bullet is like. You know what’s happened but you’re so paralyzed you can’t even think. Then you try to work reality back into your system—take a few steps, move your muscles—and you realize you can’t. You physically can’t do anything. And then you want to throw up and curl up.

  All this flashes through my head the second the roof collapses in. I can’t
think—not of survival, not of Maya. The cold sucks the air out of my lungs like a vacuum. Ten seconds underwater feels like fifteen minutes. I’m so cold that the cold starts to feel warm.

  And that’s when I realize that if I don’t get myself out of the car in less than a minute, then I’m going to die. Simple as that. But facing the facts gives me a kind of armor. I don’t have time anymore. Every second counts because every second I stay underwater brings me that much closer to death.

  I don’t have the strength or the force necessary to smash through the window, but with the car completely filled I realize I don’t have to. Something small but unmistakable sparks in my head, filling me with just a bit of warmth. It’s not much, but it’s all I need.

  My deadly tired, numb fingers grapple around the car handle. They’re so stiff they don’t even curl: I’ve got to wedge my wrist up against the top part of the handle and move my fingers out, towards me. It’s a hell of a strain, feels like my fingers are breaking, and I can’t take a breath of air for more strength. I’ve hardly got enough air just to keep sitting there. Just a little more. My fingers can go to pieces—it doesn’t matter. Just a little more.

  I don’t hear the click but I feel the handle give and the door slowly pries open. My mouth opens in shock, surprise, and joy, which I know immediately, is a mistake because there goes the last of my oxygen. I’ll have to beat it to the surface with everything I’ve got and anything I don’t.

  Swimming, paddling, stroke after furious stroke. My lungs are on fire. My body feels like ground meat. The cold weighs me down, threatening to push me under the surface and hold me down. I don’t give in. I won’t ever give in.

  And then, at last, surface. Air, amazingly. My lungs drink it in. Spiky, piercing, painful but life-giving air.

  I roll out onto the beach, my back against the snow-covered sand, drinking it in. Suddenly, I’m exhausted. I’m more tired than I’ve ever been before. I could sleep for a thousand years, even in the cold and snow. It doesn’t bother me anymore. It’s even kind of warm, now that I’m out of the water.

  My eyelids are like lead. Just a little sleep. After all that work, all that energy. Need something to keep on going. I’m so close to passing out I can already feel the darkness coming on. Infinite, black waves pushing me out to sea on waves of ice. I turn over and roll to the side so that I’m facing the broken barrier. I’m on the tails of my consciousness, and I know that if I close my eyes now, then I’ll die, and that’ll be the end of everything. I’ve forgotten why I was so desperate to hang on in the first place.

  Then, through the haze, I see the light of the Motel Six. Warmth. A place to go. A way to save Maya. It all comes back, dull and tired, but stronger now than the desire to lay and rest and let exhaustion carry me off to death.

  Getting up from the beach feels like learning to walk all over again. I’ll never know how I managed to get across the street and into the lobby, as tired as I was. The only thing I recall of all this is that I stumble in wearing nothing but my socks and underwear. I obviously shed the outer layers, but I don’t have any memory of doing it.

  There’s no manager or anyone on duty from what I see, not until I lunge over and look behind the desk. The guy’s all done up in ropes and has got a gag of socks in his mouth. At least he isn’t dead.

  My memory is spotted from here on out. I must have helped the guy get untied, but with my frozen hands, I don’t know how that would be possible. The next thing I know, I’m on the floor, right there in the middle of the lobby. And this guy—not more than a kid from the looks of him—is shaking me for all he’s worth, telling me I can’t go to sleep, I can’t go to sleep, I can’t.

  Black holes. White holes. Little yellow holes like suns with faces that look down at me then disappear. It all goes flashing through my mind, glittering, brilliant, and brief like a shower of confetti, and then I’m out.

  Chapter 28

  And then, just like that, back on. Or maybe not ‘just like that.’ It’s more like a climb up a mountain where you can see the peak, but it’s so far away no matter how much you climb you never seem to get any closer, even when the climbing gets harder. And laying down wherever I was laying down, that peak was a lamp of orange light, smothering me like a large animal.

  Closer and closer, but still too far away. My eyelids flicker but don’t open all the way, even when I want them to. My brain tells me I’m still a far cry from being back in control of my body, but my will begs for me to keep trying anyway. And I do. I’ve got nothing else to do.

  “Hey,” someone says. “He’s waking up.”

  “Already?” someone else says. I strain and fight and force my eyelids to stay open, even though it makes my eyes go all teary and hot.

  I see red wallpaper, a painting of a landscape that looks like a generic hotel print, a TV, a few chairs, people in the chairs. One of whom looks exactly like Theo Butler.

  “Quinn.”

  Son of a bitch. What the hell is he doing here? I try to ask him but my lips are heavy and clumsy, and all I get are a few puffs of air and some moans.

  “What’s he saying?” another guy I recognize—the motel manager asks.

  “He’s only trying,” Theo says, taking a sip from his scotch. Kirill’t know why I’m not surprised by any of this. Could be because the water and the snow turned my brain to such mush I can’t tell what’s real from what should freak me out. Maybe none of this is real. Just some interactive dream. That’d make more sense—it’d account for the reason I can’t move or talk, or even see very clearly. Everything’s still in the same underwater haze. The snowy, salty haze.

  Theo turns to the kid and adds, “You’ve been very, very helpful,” meaning he wants to talk to me alone. If talking is what he’s got in mind. Suddenly I’m remembering Maya’s contract. Could Theo know about that? There’s no way. She only gave it to me last night, and it’s not like she’d go out of her way to tell anybody. There’s just no way. Last night? When was last night? How can I even know how much time has passed since… since everything? What if it’s been days? Weeks? Christ—what if Maya’s dead already? That’d be reason enough for Theo being here. I’m not a guy who gets scared easily, but I forget that when Theo moves his chair in closer to get a better look at me. I shrink a little.

  “You’ve had a lot of exposure to the elements,” Theo says. “It’ll be some time before you’re able to talk. At least that’s what the paramedics said, although I have a feeling that it’ll be sooner than that. I know your type. I knew it the moment I hired you. You’re a fighter. Why, that’s the very reason I hired you. I needed someone who could fight when the time called for it.”

  He sits back and takes another sip. “You’ve done your job; that’s certainly clear. So don’t try to talk until you’re comfortable. Let me do the talking for both of us. After that, we can have our little dialogue.” He sets the scotch down on the carpet—bright red patterned motel carpet.

  There’s something different about Theo Butler. Something I’d never noticed before, not during any of the times when I went over to his mansion to get my intel on his daughter or the goings-on of the company. He looks tired, for one thing. For another, I see the lines in his face very clearly, like they’ve been traced with a pen. He doesn’t smile either. The look on his face is the furthest from a smile I could imagine, and I realize it’s not one thing I’m noticing now about Theo Butler, but a whole bunch of different things, all of which add up to someone who looks extremely old and extremely tired of life. Maya asked me to put a bullet in his heart, but to me, the guy already looks dead.

  “A little less than two days ago, my daughter stole a car from my garage and drove to a part of the city, the best word for which I can find would be unseemly. She stayed there several hours. I know all of this because every one of my cars is installed with a GPS tracking system that instantly tells me their whereabouts and the duration of each stay. Maya was reported missing to me by my staff within the hour, and it didn’t take us
any more than ten minutes to piece together her disappearance and the missing car. I was asked whether I wished to pursue her and take her back: it is my regret I did not answer immediately.”

  He pauses, sips his drink down to the rocks and clanks them around in the empty glass.

  “We’ve had a severe difference of opinions these past several weeks, you see, over the fate of poor Kit Holcomb. My daughter holds firmly to her idea that I’ve made her a prisoner of my will, possibly involving her in deaths of which she has the highest disdain and disgust. Over these past weeks, she’s transferred this disgust over to me, for what I do and for what I stand for.”

  Another pause. “And I understand entirely why she feels the way she does. My daughter believes I am a monster. What is more, I feel like one myself.”