Beyond Resistance (The Ransom Series)

by A. T. Douglas

  “What’s wrong?” Lily asks as she steps in front of me. When I don’t immediately respond, she grabs the side of my face with her free hand and forces me to look at her. “I just gave you a Get Out of Jail Free card and you look like you’ve lost your puppy or something.”

  “I was expecting someone,” I explain. “He was supposed to be here to pay my bail.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I got you out first, then,” Lily replies proudly.

  I quickly pull out my phone and motion it to Lily. “Just give me a minute?”

  She nods and lets go of my hand as I dial Robert’s number and turn away, anxiously pacing down the parking lot as I wait for the call to connect.

  “Hello?” The female voice who answers catches me off guard.

  “Um, who is this?”

  “Who am I speaking with, please?” the woman says rapidly over a commotion of sound in the background.

  “What’s going on?” I demand.

  “Sir, there’s been an accident. This phone was found on the victim. He’s been transported to Eastern Maine Medical Center.”

  My heart feels like it’s just jumped to my throat. It seems impossible for my brain and mouth to form words, but they somehow find a way. “Is he okay? What happened?”

  “It appears his vehicle was hit by a drunk driver which caused him to go off the road into a tree. I don’t have any updates on his condition.” She pauses as someone yells something in the background. “Sir, if you’re family, I suggest you get the hospital.”

  I nod even though the woman over the phone can’t see me and hang up without another word. As I lower the phone from my ear, I feel like I’ve just been thrown into some kind of living nightmare. The full weight of what I’ve done hits me like a bulldozer to my chest.

  I caused this. My actions today may have just killed my grandfather.

  “Dante?” I hear Lily call to me before her quick steps approach and she stands directly in front of me, grabbing my shoulders softly. “What’s wrong?”

  Throughout everything I’ve been through in my life, through years of solitude and living like a fugitive hidden from the world, never have I felt so close to rock bottom as I feel right now. As Lily looks at me with concern, the worry lines of her face highlighted by the orange streetlight nearby, I want nothing more than to crumble right here and give up, because I don’t know if I can live with everything I stand to lose today. If there’s a risk the police can still figure out my fake identity, I’ll have to run, throwing away the only life I’ve ever known and the promising new beginning I started with Lily. If Robert dies because of my own careless mistakes, I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll never be able to look my parents in the eyes again, because it will have been all my fault. I will have caused them to lose one of the few people they have left in this world.

  “Dante,” Lily says forcefully, demanding my attention. “What is it?”

  “My grandfather,” I choke out, barely able to say the words through the guilt that is constricting my throat. “He was coming to get me. There was an accident.”

  “Your grandfather?” Lily asks quizzically. “I didn’t know you had more family around here.”

  I step back from Lily and run my hands over my face and through my hair. Let my fuck-ups continue. I’m clearly not thinking straight. The last thing I need to do right now is reveal more details about my life and my family to Lily. “It doesn’t matter,” I snap, not sure if I’m talking more to Lily or myself. “I just need to get to him.”

  Lily nods and immediately pulls her keys out of her purse. “Let’s go.”

  It’s not too long of a drive to the hospital in Bangor, but it feels like hours go by before we get there in the silence between us and the thoughts and possibilities flooding through my brain. When Lily pulls the car into the parking lot, the adrenaline pulsing through me hits its peak at the thought that I’m about to face whatever it is fate has in store for me.

  Lily finds the nearest parking space, and before she can even bring the car to a full stop, I’m already opening the door ready to get to Robert as quickly as possible.

  I get out and look back to Lily as she cuts the engine. “Thank you for the ride. Thank you for everything.” My heart physically hurts in my chest at the realization that I could never truly thank Lily enough for all she’s done for me. “I need to do this part alone, though.”

  I quickly close the passenger door and start to jog toward the emergency room entrance as I hear another car door slam behind me.

  “Dante!” Lily calls to me. By the time I’m at the glass doors of the hospital, she’s caught up to me completely, grabbing me by the arm. “I’m not letting you do this alone.”

  “Lily, I–”

  “No.” Her response is firm, and from the determined look on her face and the tight grip she has on my arm, I realize there is no point fighting this battle right now.

  “Okay,” I breathe out. Lily nods and lets go of my arm as we both move into the hospital.

  I approach the reception desk and don’t even wait for the female nurse behind it to acknowledge me before blurting out, “An older man was just brought in from a car accident. I need to see–”

  “Hey, you need to relax,” she calmly demands as she meets my crazed expression. “Are you family?”

  “Yes.”

  “You need to take a seat.” She looks at her computer screen for only a few seconds, but it’s long enough that I feel like to reach for it and flip it around so I can get the information faster. “He’s getting a CT scan to check for possible head trauma. Once that’s done and he’s settled into a room, you can see him.”

  “Okay.” I run a hand through my hair in frustration, not sure how much longer I can take waiting to find out if he’s okay. “Please let me know as soon as I can see him.”

  The nurse smiles in response, somehow managing to maintain her cool despite how demanding and frenzied I’m acting right now. “We’ll let you know the moment you can go in.”

  I nod and turn around to find Lily staring at me with somber eyes. She opens her arms to me, and with nowhere else to go, I take the step into them and let her hold me. My hands snake up her back as we tightly grip each other, and I’m immediately grateful I let her come inside the hospital with me. I’m used to going it alone, to facing my demons and getting through life with only my shadow by my side, but to have a loving and caring girlfriend here supporting me through this is the greatest relief.

  “Let’s go sit down,” Lily suggests as she pulls back from me. In the slight upturn of her lips, I can tell she’s trying to put on a positive expression to make me feel better. She knows how much I love to see a smile on her face.

  Lily takes my hand and leads me toward the chairs in the waiting area. We sit down next to each other, and for the next excruciating hour, Lily does nothing but comfort me with her touch and soft kisses. With her help, I find a state of calm that I’ve desperately needed after the potentially life-changing events of today. For at least these moments together with Lily, I can temporarily remain in denial of my mistakes and their awful consequences. It’s only temporary, but I’ll take it. I need any form of respite at this point even if it’s as fleeting as a dream.

  An older woman in a white lab coat emerges from the double doors that I’ve been starting at for the past hour, and it takes a moment for me to truly believe she’s there. She heads straight toward me and Lily as we are the only two people left in the waiting room at this late hour.

  “I’m Dr. Thompson.” She introduces herself with an extended hand as both Lily and I stand up to greet her.

  I briefly shake her hand but am ready to move past the introductions to what I need to know. “How is he?”

  “He’s stable. There’s no apparent internal bleeding or significant head trauma, though he does have a mild concussion. We’ll continue to monitor for blood flow and pressure issues in the brain. He’s bruised up and has a broken arm, but we expect he’ll make a full recove
ry.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief at the same time Lily takes my hand and squeezes it tightly.

  He’s going to be fine.

  Everything will be okay.

  “You can see him now,” the doctor says with a smile as she motions to the double doors on the other side of the room. “He’s unconscious, but you’re welcome to stay with him.”

  I immediately turn to Lily next to me and pull our connected hands to my chest, hoping I’m not about to upset her with what I’m about to say. “Thank you for being here for me, but I need to see him alone.” I see the workings of a refusal on her face and quickly add, “I want you back there with me, but I can’t. I just need you to trust me.”

  Lily opens her mouth to say something but quickly thinks better of it. She nods toward the double doors with an understanding grin. “Go see him.”

  I kiss the top of her hand before letting go and following the doctor through the doors and down the hallway to Robert’s room. Despite knowing the prognosis is good, the moment I walk through the door and see Robert’s unconscious body splayed out in the hospital bed, I feel completely shattered inside. My eyes burn with the sting of tears at the sight of the bandages on his wrinkled face and the sling that holds his broken arm. He looks so fragile lying there, and I’m immediately reminded that I’m the one who caused this. It’s my fault that he was out driving to begin with. He never should have been on the road when that drunk driver hit him.

  It’s all my fault.

  “I’ll leave you alone. Press the call button if you need anything,” the doctor says with a gentle smile. I nod at her, unable to manage anything more for fear of letting these emotions inside me emerge and overwhelm me.

  Taking a seat in the chair next to the hospital bed, I grasp Robert’s free hand in mine, being careful not to disturb the device encompassing his forefinger or the IV in his arm. His skin feels cold, as if death had its grip on him long enough to leave this trace of it behind. I hold his hand and dip my head for a moment, needing to find the courage to look Robert in the face and say what I need to say even though he’s not conscious to hear it.

  With a deep breath, I look up at him. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” The tears I’ve been holding back finally fall, my body’s expression of guilt over what I’ve done. “This never should have happened. I was selfish and careless, and in the end you paid the price. I let you and our family down, and I’ll never do that again. We have so little in life yet so much to lose, and I won’t risk it anymore. I can’t.”

  “You have to,” Robert whispers in a raspy voice, and if I wasn’t watching his lips move as he spoke, I would have thought I was imagining his response. He clears his throat and sluggishly opens his eyes. “There’s no actual living in a life without risk. I learned that the hard way with your mother.”

  I immediately release his hand and stand up at the side of the bed, unsure how to react in my shocked state of seeing Robert awake and speaking. “They said you were unconscious. Hell, you were unconscious.”

  A hint of a smile crosses Robert’s bruised and bandaged face. “I’ve been awake for a while. I just pretended to be asleep. It’s a little trick I learned from another elderly gentleman who was part of your life.”

  My thoughts quickly move past his reference to Jack to ask my burning questions. “What were you listening for? Why didn’t you tell me you were awake?”

  “I may be old and retired, but I’m still a detective at heart. I was gathering information.”

  I can’t help smiling at Robert’s admission. “Even about me?”

  “Maybe so,” he replies with a sly grin before his face turns more serious. “Are you safe to be here? How did you get out?”

  “Lily convinced the guy I beat up to drop the charges. They let me go.”

  Robert nods just slightly. “That’s a good start. You’re not completely out of the woods, but the risk is much less now.”

  It’s a huge weight off my shoulders to hear Robert say this. I may not have to run after all. I may actually get through this awful day unscathed.

  “I meant what I said,” I reaffirm. “I’m really sorry about all this. It’s my fault you’re in that hospital bed.”

  Robert raises his free hand in a feeble attempt to stop me from saying more. “You can’t control fate. It has a mind of its own.”

  I shake my head in disagreement. “Fate may have led you to be on that road at the exact moment of the accident, but I’m the one who put you on the road to begin with.”

  “You can’t live in regret, Dante,” Robert replies decisively. “I won’t let you.” He stares at me for a moment, and if I look closely enough, I can almost see the tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “So many things led us to this moment, a lot of them really horrible things, but if they never happened, we may never have reached this point. You may never have existed.”

  He’s describing perfectly the part of my family’s story that was the hardest for me to understand when my parents first told me everything as a teenager. It was unfathomable to me that people could find love and happiness while experiencing such pain and absolute darkness. It took some time for me to understand that although we have no control over what’s already happened, it’s where we end up and what we make of our lives that matter. Our pasts don’t define us; they only shape who we are today.

  I look away as I can feel my emotions threatening to get the better of me. I need a change in subject or I’m going to lose it here. “I should probably start making phone calls. I couldn’t bring myself to call them until I knew you were okay.”

  “Call your parents. I’ll call Cindy. You know I’ll need to talk her off the ledge when she finds out where I am.”

  I nod back to him just as there’s a soft knock at the door. A young nurse peeks her head in before walking into the room completely. “You’re awake,” she says cheerfully to Robert.

  She immediately starts fussing over him, adjusting his pillows and checking his IV. In the moment she turns to look at the monitor with his heart rate and other information, Robert gives me a silent look of understanding that I should go make the call that needs to be made while the nurses and doctors tend to him.

  “I’ll be in the waiting room if you need me.” I grasp Robert’s free arm lightly and return his warm smile with my own before leaving the room and closing the door behind me.

  Relief continues to wash over me as I walk down the hallway back to the waiting room. Robert seems in relatively decent shape and in good spirits, all things considered. The doctor seemed comfortable that a full recovery was likely. I just have one final hurdle to jump over before this painful day is over.

  As I’m pulling out my phone and deciding how best to explain to Lily that I need to make this phone call alone, I push through the double doors and enter the waiting area again. Lily’s sitting right where she was before, but something’s different. There’s a look of horror on her face. All color is gone from her skin, and when I get closer to her, I see the tears running silently down her cheeks.

  I reach her in just a few more long strides, immediately kneeling down in front of her. “What’s wrong? Lily, talk to me.”

  When her eyes meet mine, they’re swirling with a mixture of emotions: fear, shock, pain, and something I can’t quite place. Is it pity?

  “Dante,” she whispers, her voice trembling, “I know who you are.”

  23

  I stare at Lily in shock as she bursts into tears and throws her arms around my neck. I need to ask her about what she said, to understand what happened in the time I was with Robert, but I can’t have her making a scene like this here. We need to go somewhere private, so I scoop Lily up in my arms and carry her through the glass sliding doors into the darkness outside.

  A bench down the sidewalk near a lamppost catches my attention and I make my way there, carefully setting Lily down on it before taking a seat next to her. My hands move in soothing circles on her back in an attempt to calm her down,
but the longer I wait for her tears to subside, the more panicked I become about what she said.

  “Lily, I need you to tell me what you meant,” I say unsteadily, unable to wait a second longer to find out more from her.

  “Robert Whitford,” she chokes out quietly, and at the mention of my grandfather’s name, my entire body stiffens. “The nurses changed shifts while you were gone. The new nurse at the reception desk asked if I was waiting to see Robert Whitford.”

  I don’t dare move or speak. I don’t make any further acknowledgement that I know what Lily’s talking about.

  She takes a moment to breathe as her tears finally start to slow. “The thing is, I know that name. It came up in my research for a class about social media in journalism. His family’s case is the textbook example of viral social media campaigns fueling a news story. For years the entire world was absolutely determined to find that baby.”

  Lily’s eyes meet mine, and my immediate reaction is to run. She’s not just looking at me; she’s seeing inside me, past the facade I put forth to the world to view all my secrets hidden within.

  “I thought the name was just a coincidence,” she continues, “but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. You’re about the right age. You’ve lived here your entire life. You were homeschooled and were barely let out of the house growing up. You have all these secrets about your past.” She pauses and waits for me to say something, but I’m too terrified to speak. I feel like I can barely breathe. “You’re him, aren’t you? You were that missing baby.”

  I feel like my entire world is collapsing in on me and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. Lily knows who I am. She knows my family is here.

  She’s a fucking investigative journalist with the story of the decade in her back pocket.

  I don’t realize my hands are shaking until Lily grabs them both in hers and squeezes tightly. I’m vaguely aware of her trying to talk to me, but I can’t process what she’s saying. I can think at all right now as my mind races through the implications of this and the possibilities of what happens next.