by Debra Doxer
by
Formatted by E.M. Tippetts Book Designs
Keep You from Harm
Sometime Soon
Wintertide
For everyone who loved Keep You from Harm and reached out to tell me.
Thank you.
May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“IT’S ME. My father knows we’re looking for him. He sent someone to get me. We had the wrong name, Lucas. We were never going to find him ourselves. My father says he can heal me, but that I need to come to him alone. And I need to go right now. I’m so sorry I have to leave this way…without you, without saying good-bye. But please don’t worry. I’m going to be fine. I love you. I promise to never stop loving you. All my heart is yours, Lucas. It belongs to you.”
I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it, like it knows more than it’s telling me, because this has to be a fucking joke. Raielle left the message less than ten minutes ago.
“You’re dripping water all over the floor,” Liam says from the doorway.
Ignoring him, I try her again. When I get her voice mail, I try again. And again. Growling in frustration, I hurl the phone at my bed, but it slides across the blanket and hits the floor with a thud.
Liam scowls, retrieving it and checking its condition. His lips are moving, questioning me, but I can’t focus on him.
I start pulling on my clothes, even though I’m still soaked from the shower. The T-shirt and jeans stick to my skin as I move around the room, planting my feet in my shoes and grabbing my keys off the dresser. I can be at her house in five minutes if I hustle, because I know she’ll be there. There’s no way she left. She wouldn’t do this to me.
“Boarding passes for you and Raielle?” Liam asks. “You’re going to Los Angeles? Is this what you wanted to talk to Dad about?” He lowers himself onto my bed, eyeing the passes I printed out earlier, two pieces of paper that represented a lifeline to me just a few minutes ago, yet may be completely irrelevant now.
“Sorry, Liam. Can’t talk.”
I grab my phone from his hand. Then I’m out in the hallway, down the stairs, and through the front door.
I peel out of the driveway, adrenaline pushing my foot down hard on the gas pedal. My hand slams against the steering wheel as her message repeats in my head. A voice-mail message? I put my phone down for five minutes to take a shower, and she leaves me a message like that?
After passing a slow-moving minivan, I blow through a red light. I’m driving like a maniac, but soon I’m approaching her neighborhood. Chloe’s car is pulling into the driveway just as I reach the house. Not bothering to turn off the motor, I jump out of the truck, run up the walkway, and try the front door. The knob turns and I push inside, ignoring whatever the hell Chloe is saying to me.
“Ray?” I yell down the stairs as I’m taking them two at a time. “Ray?”
When I get to the bottom, I look around the dark, quiet basement room, and I know. She’s not here. My harsh breathing is all that interrupts the silence.
“Lucas, is something wrong?” Chloe calls down to me.
I turn to see her watching me from the top of the stairwell. “Is Raielle up there?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
As Chloe begins to shake her head, I walk farther into the room, looking around the small space Raielle carved out for herself. When I spot her phone sitting on the nightstand beside her bed, my eyes close as its significance settles over me. If she’s really gone, so is the only way I have to reach her.
I sink heavily onto her bed and scrub my hands over my face. Maybe it’s not true. Maybe she’s coming back. But then I recall the way her voice sounded on the message. This isn’t a joke. The anxiety clutching at my chest knows this is no joke.
Picking up the phone, I scroll through the list of missed calls. They’re all from me. Why the hell would she leave her phone behind? I grip it tightly in my hand. Now what? Do I start running around looking for her? I could hunt through airports and bus stations. I could call Kyle and the police. I could reveal the fact that Raielle gave herself Penelope’s disease, a secret she begged me to keep, all in an effort to find her. But what would be the point in that?
She said her father sent for her, that he’s going to help her. Finding her father was our plan. A plan that was never going to succeed based on what she said. But why like this? Why would her father make her leave this way? Did he force her to go? She didn’t sound like she was being forced to leave me that message. She sounded despondent, but not scared or coerced.
“Lucas?” Chloe asks from behind me. “Is everything all right?” She blinks at me with wide, worried eyes, like she actually cares, like her husband’s long-lost sister was ever more than a means to an end for her. She wanted her daughter cured, but she never really wanted Raielle here. She’ll probably throw a party when she figures out she’s gone.
I slip Raielle’s phone into my pocket. “No, it’s all wrong,” I say. Then I walk past her without another word.
Getting back into the truck and pulling away from the house, I operate on autopilot, running on anger and confusion. It feels like I’ve been sucker punched.
I don’t know where I’m going, I just need to move. My eyes scan the sidewalk, peering inside passing cars, uselessly searching for her. My heart belongs to you, she said in her message. She’ll never stop loving me. Yeah, right.
She was telling me good-bye. I could hear it in her voice, the bleak resignation, the finality of her words. What the hell was happening when she said those things? She should have found a way to see me before she left. Or she should have fucking called back five minutes later.
I don’t know how long I’ve been driving when the sun begins to sink and the trees cast long shadows across the road. But somehow I end up at the bridge. I’m torturing myself coming here, making it that much worse by purposely immersing myself in memories. I think about the night I nearly made her mine. The night I found out that she was slowly dying, and she never intended to tell me.
From the first moment I saw her, she’s been making me crazy. I knew I wanted her, and she made me work for it. She never stopped making me work. One minute, I think I’ve gotten through and all her walls are down. She’s right there with me. Then the next, they’re built back up again, and she’s lost behind them. One step forward, two steps back. But now I’m so far back, she’s completely out of reach. Was it hard for her to leave me? Did it tear her heart out, the same heart she promised was mine forever just seconds before she ripped it away?
I groan as I lean back against the truck and sink down to the ground, running my hands over my face, trying to keep my shit together. Then I reach into my pocket and pull out her phone. I’m not sure why I took it; I just wanted it. I begin searching through it, looking for a phone number I don’t recognize. Maybe her father called her. But right off, I can see that he didn’t. I mostly see my number, and the numbers of her only friends here in Fort Upton, Myles and Gwen. Then, because I’m a glutton for punishment, I open her texts, and read over the conversations we’ve had. Next I start looking through her pictures. She doesn’t have many, a couple of Penelope at the park, and one of her and Gwen mugging for the camera. But it’s the last one that stops me cold. Everything inside me stills.
It’s of us dancing at the prom.
Swallowing against the growing thickness in my throat, my eyes greedily travel over every part of the photo. I take in her long blonde waves flowing down her back, curling over my hands, which are pressing her close to me. I remember the satiny feel of that blue dress, and
the soft tickle of her hair against my fingers. My eyes travel up the long line of her neck to the small smile curving her lips as she looks at me.
This was taken before I told her that I loved her and she said it back. But I can see it in her expression, because it mirrors mine. Even then, we were already in deep. She’s not trying to mask it or deny it here. Her eyes are shining with it, and I can’t hold back the emotions tumbling through me. I know Raielle. I know her heart. She wouldn’t willingly walk away from me like this.
Looking at us together, everything becomes clearer. When I left her in the schoolyard this afternoon, she told me she loved me, and I know she meant it. She intended for us to go to Los Angeles together to find her father and somehow, someone convinced her to go without me. I was letting hurt cloud my judgment because I know my girl would only leave me this way for one of two reasons. Either someone was holding a gun to her head, or she was trying to protect me from something.
Anger overtakes the hurt, and I start to feel calmer. Anger is familiar. It’s driven me most of my life. It’s constantly simmering inside me, just waiting for something to provoke it and bring it to a boiling point. My thoughts are focusing. My brain starts to work again. Sitting there on the side of the road, a face coalesces in my mind. We had the wrong name. That was in her message, too. Alec gave us the wrong name when we asked him what he knew about Raielle’s father. Alec.
Just the thought of him has me gritting my teeth and clenching my fists. He’s caused Raielle nothing but pain. He had her mother killed to bring her here. Then he played on her emotions to manipulate her. He’s the one who should be dying from Penelope’s disease, not Raielle. That was the deal. It was supposed to be his fate, one he absolutely deserved, and he had the gall to smile when he found out he’d escaped it. He was the only one who knew we were leaving to look for Raielle’s father. Soon after we talked to him, her father came and took her. There’s only person who could have told him. Alec.
Before I can second-guess myself, I’m back in the truck. The drive takes too long and I’m about to jump out of my skin by the time I pull up to his house. When I see the driveway is empty, I worry that Alec’s not here. But then I spot him, sitting on the steps leading to the front door. He’s watching me. It almost looks like he’s waiting for me.
I get out of the truck and stalk toward him as he stands, eyeing me with a neutral expression. Calmly, he watches my approach. “I’ve been expecting you. We can talk inside.” Then he turns and goes in, leaving the door open behind him.
When I understand that he knows something, the pounding in my chest doesn’t lessen. It builds, its rhythm moving up inside my head and roaring in my ears. He was waiting for me.
I follow Alec inside and slam the door closed behind me. It wasn’t intentional, but I may not be in complete control of myself at the moment. I watch as the sharp sound pulls him up short. He turns around and tenses. He should be tense, because I’m not leaving here without the information I came for.
His hands go up. “You need to calm down, son.”
I waste no time. “You gave us a bogus name and sent us on a wild-goose chase.”
Alec closes his eyes and takes a breath. “No. The name I gave you is the only one I’ve heard Raielle’s father use. But after you left here, I did what you wanted to do but couldn’t. I helped her.”
I take a step toward him. “What did you do?”
He clears his throat. “I’m not in touch with Raielle’s father, but I do know how to get in touch with him. I sent a message when you told me about her condition. Despite what you think of me, I never wanted Raielle to be hurt. I wanted to help her. It was unlikely you would find her father, but you were right about him. He’s her only chance. He’s probably the only one who can cure her, and I made sure she found her way to him.”
I can see that the explanation sounds perfectly reasonable in his own warped mind. He almost looks proud of himself. “If you wanted to help her so badly, why didn’t you tell us this when we came to you?”
“I couldn’t. I had to check with him first. I also didn’t want to give you false hope in case he refused to help.” He slips his hands into his pockets and just watches me, so in control again, and such a two-faced prick.
“Why would he refuse to help her?”
Alec shrugs. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s complicated?” I ask incredulously. “Is that why he had to take her like this? Make her disappear without telling anyone where she went?”
Alec seems to be weighing his next words. “He has to be careful. He’s made some enemies.” Then his jaw sets, letting me know that he doesn’t intend to tell me more.
I tilt my head at him, trying to figure him out. “Why are you in touch with her father anyway? Raielle’s mother left you for him.”
He swallows and leans back on his heels. “He contacted me the first time a few years after she went with him. Since Angela and I were still technically married, he wanted me to take her in with Raielle in tow. He was in some trouble, and he thought they’d be safer here.”
He removes his hands from his pockets and grips them together in front of him. Then he shakes his head. “But I’d already moved on. Having Angela back in my home wasn’t a possibility. Since I was still her husband, I helped him admit her to a treatment facility in California. She already had a drinking problem by then. Once that was done, I tried to divorce her. But she wouldn’t sign the papers. Then she disappeared. That’s why we’ve had reason to be in touch from time to time. Both of us were looking for her.”
And that’s probably when Raielle landed in her first foster home; neither Alec nor her father were willing to take her. My thoughts are spinning, connecting all the dots. He’s been in contact with Raielle’s father for all these years, but he never bothered to tell Raielle that. He turned his back on Raielle’s mother and eventually had her killed.
Eyeing his perfectly combed silver hair, his Polo shirt, and his neatly pressed khakis, I think this suburban grandfather facade is barely hiding the putrid pile of shit that exists beneath the surface. And I know one thing with certainty. He either knows where Raielle is, or he knows how to find out.
“If you really want to help Ray, you’ll tell me where she’s going. She needs me.”
He grins mockingly at me. “You mean, you need her.”
His words play on my fears. I try not to show it, but he’s right. I do need her, more than she ever needed me. “Just tell me. It makes no sense to keep us apart. I’m no threat to him.”
“I can’t.” His back straightens. “But I will tell you this—if you want to find her, stick to your original plan.”
My eyes narrow. “Our plan? You’re talking about going to Los Angeles? That’s where she’s headed?”
“Yes.”
Watching his placid expression, I don’t know whether to believe him or not. “LA is a big place. I need something more specific. I need to know how to contact her.”
“I told you. I can’t say any more.” He appears resolute.
“You might as well have said nothing. I can’t find her with what little you’ve told me.” My hands fist at my sides as I take another step toward him. He sees something in my expression that makes him take a step back.
“Go to Los Angeles,” he insists, his patience slipping. “Once you’re there, I’ll let her father know. Then it will be up to him to decide if you can see her. That’s your only option for finding her.”
But I can’t accept that. I’m trying to figure out how else I can persuade him before I give up and do something I probably won’t regret, when a thought occurs to me. “If you can contact Raielle’s father, why didn’t you ask him to help Penelope?”
His gaze flicks down to the floor, hinting at the answer.
“You did ask him, didn’t you? You asked him and he said no?”
He says nothing. There’s no denial.
“Why would he do that?”
Alec sighs, shifting away from me. �
�He said she couldn’t be cured, not without extraordinary measures. I understood what that meant. That’s when I decided to offer myself so that he could give her disease to me. But he refused, and he wouldn’t be persuaded. I had to go to Angela for help next. She, of course, refused, too.” Alec is scowling now.
“Ray was your last hope. Jesus,” I mutter, but I’m stalled on what he said before, knowing what it means. “Then her father can’t cure her either. He can only give her disease to someone else, a blood relative, if he can find one. A relative that he doesn’t mind killing.” My eyes begin to burn. The stark reality is that even with her father’s help, Raielle may not live through this.
Alec eyes me carefully, sensing my change in mood. “I’m sorry, son.”
“I’m not your fucking son.” I am seething. My eyes squeeze shut as I turn away from him. I have to get to her; she can’t go through this alone. I look back at Alec. “I’ll go to LA, and you’ll convince her father to let me see her. You have to. She saved your granddaughter’s life. You owe her.”
“I’ll do everything I can,” he says.
I bite back my frustration and the impulse to keep pushing him for more. Looking at Alec’s sympathetic eyes and his downturned mouth, I know this is all there is, and I have no choice but to believe him.
AS THE land flattens out into endless fields of burned grass and straight, uninterrupted highway, pressure builds behind my eyes. Punishing sun beats down on the car, and even with the wraparound sunglasses Apollo offered me back in Missouri, it’s fueling my headache, causing me to shift in my seat and exhale my misery.
“Can we stop for more aspirin?” I finally ask, leaning the side of my head against the window, squeezing my eyes shut.
“You’ve already downed a whole bottle and it’s done shit. We could stop at the next town. I could try to find you something stronger.”
I’d shake my head at him, but it would hurt too much. “Forget it. Just keep driving,” I whisper.
