Deceived

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  My eyes popped. I turned my face back to the window, grateful for a short ride. The car bounced over speed bumps reentering the lot. I balanced my precious cargo in both hands, prepared to make a run for the couch. I couldn’t have this conversation, not with her, whoever she was. I reached for the door, ready to make a break for it. Nicholas waited outside in the dark next to the door we had escaped through. His arms were crossed over his chest. There was menace on his face.

  As she shut down the engine, he strode into the lot and approached the car on the driver’s side. I worried for a minute that she was about to lose a car door. He knocked hard on her window with one knuckle. She smiled at me and held up one finger. I dropped my hand from the door. Then she cracked the power window a millimeter.

  “Get out here, Sara, now,” he growled.

  “Wait here a second, sweetie,” she whispered to me and let her eyes run up to the tiny crack in the window. I looked there with her. She winked and slid out.

  “Are you insane!” he barked in a hush. I saw only their torsos from my seat, but thanks to the tiny crack, I could hear them loud and clear.

  “She wanted coffee. You should know the girl needs her coffee.”

  “That’s not funny. Do you know what you did to me? I went to check on her and she was gone!”

  “Were you worried I was gone?”

  She sounded jealous.

  “No, actually, once I realized you were gone, it all made sense. Who else would take her without telling me? You always have to pull this crap. We’re not twelve anymore.”

  Then I was lost.

  “No, that’s true, Nicholas. You’re actually acting more like you’re sixteen than twelve.” Her voice was light, teasing.

  His tone dropped. He leaned in closer to her. “Who have you told? Did you tell Mom?”

  Did he say Mom?

  No way. My mind searched for any other explanation. It couldn’t be.

  “Mom and I might’ve talked about it on Sunday afternoon.” She pushed his chest playfully.

  His hand shot up. I guessed he was rubbing his neck. “Who else was there for your weekly luncheon? I suppose Nikki and Lily were there? And Olivia? Oh, you’re killing me, Sara. What about the guys? Tell me what I need to know. I don’t want to be ambushed. You owe me that much.”

  “No, I know how they get. Matter of fact, little brother, you might want to tone it down before you announce it yourself.”

  She reached behind her back to open her door and leaned inside. “Be good to him.”

  Before I could speak, Nicholas went around the car and pulled open my door. He hauled me out, held me against his chest, and spoke over my head. “Thanks for buying her coffee.”

  I turned in time to see the door close against the building.

  “Your sister works on your team?” I spoke into his chest. I didn’t want to let go an inch.

  “She’s here being nosy. Sara works as an intern with the Marshal service in D.C., but she grew up on this story. She’s a senior at William & Mary. We’re a real dynamic duo.”

  “She’s your big sister? She looks pretty young.”

  “Right. She calls me little brother because she knows it gets on my nerves. That’s what sisters do, right?”

  I wouldn’t know.

  “So she’s not your older sister? I’m confused.”

  “No. Well, she is by like a minute.” He bobbed his head. “Seven minutes. If you ask her, she’ll be specific. Seven minutes.”

  “She’s your twin!” Well, that explained the dimple. Scratch the crude thought about their wedding pictures. Ick. “Why’s she still in college?”

  “I went to school every summer. She went to Key West.”

  “Nice.” I smiled. He scoffed.

  “I about had a coronary when I went into that room and you were gone. Actually, I knew you were gone when I saw the light off. You’d never lie down and sleep, especially here, like this.”

  I ignored him. I had bigger things to address. “She said you like me.”

  He pulled my chin away from his chest and bent at the knees until he was in my face. “Like does not begin to describe what I feel for you. I’m trying hard to make that clear without getting fired. You’re a slow learner.” His dimple caved in.

  I melted into the hug, where my cheeks threatened to catch fire.

  “The office, though, they have to wait.”

  I smiled like a ninny. “Who are Lily, Nikki, and Lisa?”

  “Olivia,” he corrected. “Lily, Nikki, and Olivia. Olivia is our big sis. Nikki and Lily are our cousins. We’re all nearly the same age. We grew up like siblings. We’re always together. The guys, too. Andrew and Jacob, both younger. They’re our little brothers.”

  “Good night! How many kids are in your family?” What he described sounded like a small village. I couldn’t imagine having all those kids in my family.

  “Five at our house, but there are eleven cousins and six aunts and uncles that go with them.”

  I looked at him.

  “Does that scare you?” He looked sad. “You like solitude. My family is intense. Your worst nightmare, I think.”

  Au contraire. It was my dream come true. A life filled with people who really knew me, people who shared my inside jokes and humiliating stories. I desperately wanted what he had. “It sounds wonderful.”

  Evidently he liked my answer because he smiled and hugged me tighter. “Ah, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I wondered if I’d ever meet his family. I didn’t know where my dad was. My boring, predictable life suddenly resembled a puzzle thrown into the air.

  “You know, you and your father are always welcome. ‘The more the merrier’ is branded on my mom’s forehead.”

  I considered adding mind reader to his lengthy list of attributes. Crazy topped the list because that was an insane thing to say.

  “We’ll invite him for a visit when we’re out there for Thanksgiving.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Nicholas took me to the couch room and left me there with the light on and door open. I finished my coffee. My mind wandered over everything from my first day in Ohio until that night.

  There were several holes in the Reaper story. Pacing around the room, I worked over the pieces, but something didn’t fit. The notepads on the end table caught my eye. I grabbed one and picked up my purse off the floor. Nice to know all of my personal information and my phone weren’t lost or in the possession of the man who had attacked me. I dug through my purse, fruitlessly. Pens always disappeared in an emergency. I stuck my head out of the doorway to see if I could borrow one. No one was there.

  I walked into the open area near the door we had arrived through, but the cubicles were empty. Voices filtered through the conference room wall where I’d been questioned. Seven heads nodded in unison from the chairs inside. Their backs faced the glass wall separating us.

  Facing me, against the far wall, stood a giant corkboard on wheels. Women’s faces covered the board, along with crime-scene photographs and other things I couldn’t read. They’d arranged the pieces on some sort of timeline. Near the bottom right a photograph of me stared back. I was six. My father’s and my mother’s photos were pinned up beside me, surrounded by newspaper clippings and current photos of Dad and me as well. My heart stopped.

  Sara turned and saw me. I couldn’t run or hide. I didn’t care if I was being nosy. I wanted to know why my mother was on that board. At my core, I hoped I didn’t already know the answer. My mother wasn’t in a car accident.

  “Elle.” Sara moved to my side. Her words were muffled. I saw my kindergarten photo, my dad’s photo, and my poor mother. It didn’t make sense. He wouldn’t have abducted my mother, a then thirty-year-old woman, a mother. He wouldn’t have chosen her any more than he would’ve chosen Pixie.

  “Sweetie, let’s go talk.” She pulled me along, back into the couch room. I stumbled awkwardly beside her. She didn’t have to ask me to sit. My legs were near collapse. I
wondered how much my heart could take before it gave out.

  Heartbeats played the score to the slide show of oddities running through my mind. Some made sense. Others floated without purpose outside the screen. They belonged, but I didn’t understand how. Pixie and Mom, for example. My mom. Tears flowed. I remembered Nicholas’s face on the day we met, not by accident, assigned to my school, to me, not Pixie. The man had stalked me, followed me, entered my apartment, and taken the photo he later stabbed a fork through. It was always about me. It made perfect sense. Now. Nicholas spent his time with me, no one else. He’d warned me repeatedly not to be alone. How had I been so ignorant?

  The irony set off a rumble of nervous laughter in my chest. I sounded like the villain in a cartoon. How many times had I thought myself ordinary? I’d imagined my life to be boring. Making a retired serial killer’s hit list wasn’t boring. What about me was messed up enough to bring him out of a decade-long retirement? For the briefest moment, I was thankful that my dad’s job had kept us moving. If it hadn’t, I might not have been so lucky. Then again, if he’d chosen the school first and me second, it wouldn’t have mattered.

  Answers stared me in the face. I only moved them in circles. Someone had left a ribbon in my locker on my first day at the academy. Was it an accident? Could the killer have followed me from my last home? Did he know my mother had worn one like it? I pictured her face beside mine on the corkboard. I thought of my dad’s photo, feeling relieved he’d moved far away.

  The picture of my mom popped back into my mind’s eye. Mom’s picture and the ribbon. The Reaper wouldn’t have taken her. I needed that to be true. For the first time in my life, a car accident seemed like a great way to die. I couldn’t handle thinking that the Reaper had starved, tortured, and beaten her. Then thrown her away as if she wasn’t even human.

  “What you saw in there wasn’t meant for you to see. Not now. We planned to tell you everything in the morning, after our meeting. We’re here to put together what we can. Now that you’re in imminent danger, you have to be debriefed, with or without your father’s approval.” Sara looked over her shoulder to the doorway where Nicholas stood. His expression was unreadable, a blank stare. His soldier face.

  Sara patted my knee gently and moved toward the door. “I’ll keep them at bay.” She closed the blinds on the window behind her.

  Nicholas stayed against the wall. I wished he’d come to me, but he kept his distance, and my heart ached. I couldn’t look up when he began to talk. My body was locked in a coma. My mind was numbed with frustration. Tears formed and dropped in pointless rhythm, landing on the rug beneath my feet in tiny crystal piles.

  “I was assigned to the Reaper case, and to you, in the spring. The agency knew the Reaper had found you again. We knew he was likely to follow you first. We believe he wants to make it more painful for Special Agent Smith.”

  My eyes shot upwards and my cheeks were on fire. I waited.

  “Your mother did die in a car, that part wasn’t a lie.” His eyes moved to the floor then. “It wasn’t an accident, though. The Reaper shot her.”

  My hands grabbed at my neck and chest knowing the information would kill me. I stood to run like a chicken that had lost its head. I bolted forward, but a wall of muscle stopped me short. Nicholas didn’t let me anywhere near the door. He pulled me back to the couch.

  “Shot?” Tears and distress blazed hot in my throat. “A serial killer shot my mother.” There was nothing more horrific. Any hate I had toward the Reaper based on some old newspaper articles and the idea that he had stalked me and Pixie looked like rainbows and unicorns compared to the fire burning in my heart. He killed my mother.

  “Your father saved her, in a manner of speaking. The Reaper was escaping with her. Your father managed to stop their car. If not, you know she would’ve been through so much worse.”

  “Special Agent Smith.”

  My father, the insurance adjuster who moved at the drop of a hat, was some kind of federal agent. Had I slipped into the looking glass? My life was an extended two-hour crime drama set for prime time.

  “Special Agent Smith was very close to naming him, Elle. We believe the Reaper planned to kill all of you that night, as punishment for your father’s interference.” He looked proud of my dad.

  “Your father blames himself for not being able to save her. He chose this life to protect you. We had no way of knowing how dedicated the Reaper would become. Leaving everyone behind to keep you safe only caused you a messed-up childhood, and it never really kept him away. He was never more than a year or two behind you guys.”

  “That’s why we moved?” I had a small epiphany. “Not because Dad’s been chasing him but because he’s been chasing us?” The room began to brighten around my periphery. I worried I was about to black out. I fought against it, needing to stay alert and collect information. I needed to process. I covered my heart with one hand as it beat against my rib cage.

  “The cabin. He didn’t have downtime between assignments. We were going off-grid.” A barrage of memories knocked the wind from my lungs. The cabin had no address. We got mail from a post office box in the next town. No Internet. My cell never worked there. He scouted for firewood every morning and evening, probably checking for signs of a killer, or calling the freaking FBI for updates from his phone, which always worked.

  “In theory, separating you from your father this year should’ve slowed his progress. It was supposed to buy enough time for you to leave for a large college and disappear.”

  “The agent and his family who died before naming The Reaper?”

  Nicholas nodded once to my question. “Your family.”

  “So, I’m what? In witness protection? I’ve been in witness protection for my entire life and no one bothered to tell me?” My voice pitched into a series of squeaks. Hysteria. I rubbed my chest against the pounding. My periphery twinkled once more.

  In the bigger scheme of things, witness protection seemed insignificant, but I was mad. My voice grew louder as I explored that truth. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” I pounded my feet against the soft carpet. “I was followed twice before he got a hold of me. I thought it was my imagination! Didn’t anyone ‘in the know’ think maybe, just maybe, it would’ve behooved me to actually know I was being stalked by a murderer? For crying out loud! I almost forced myself to walk home from the coffee shop that first night because I wanted to face my fears. I thought I was way too old to be afraid of the dark! Ugh! And that ribbon! And those cigarette butts! The car!”

  I was on my feet again, shaking out my wrists.

  Nicholas joined me. “I wouldn’t have let you walk home.”

  “Oh. Yes, that’s right.” The words came in a flood. They sounded like gibberish to me, running together. “I’ve been spied on every day of my entire existence. Tell me, Nick, who followed me around before you did? I’ve been stalked by one good guy and one bad guy all my life. Super. Wonderful. Lovely.” My every adolescent faux pas had been documented somewhere. Anger ripped through my muscles. I wanted to hurt somebody.

  “I want to talk to my dad. Now.”

  I marched to the next room with Nicholas on my heels. The room emptied. I dialed Dad and waited for the inevitable voicemail.

  “Gabriella.” Dad’s voice was low and troubled. “I’m very sorry for what’s happening here. I owe you an explanation. I know. A few explanations.”

  Bad things built on my tongue and I clamped my teeth tight to keep them there. I settled on the obvious. “You lied to me. About everything.” I sniffled and shoved images of my mother at the hands of the Reaper from my mind. “Why? Didn’t I deserve to know?”

  “No.” One angry word stood alone between us.

  I crumbled.

  “You deserved none of this. None,” he growled. “What was I to do? Tell my six-year-old daughter whose mother was murdered in cold blood that I should’ve been more careful? Should I have explained to a kindergartener that her daddy should’ve been less certain he had ev
erything in control? That I was the reason her mother was gone?”

  “This isn’t your fault. Don’t start that. I need answers. I need to know why you lied to me every day after I was six. In case you didn’t notice, I’m not six anymore. You’ve had years to tell me instead of running away.”

  “You’ve never been a parent. You can’t understand. It’s impossible. I made the decision to hide us, to cut ties and run. For years, every day was about you and your nightmare. Counselors barely gained your trust and it was time to move again. I’ve stayed on the case. I’ve seen him. I wanted to be the one to make him pay, but I couldn’t find him again. I turned around a few times, and I was gray and you were in middle school. I couldn’t tell you I’d lied for six years waiting for you to be old enough to understand. Hell, I don’t understand. You were happy, or as happy as I could expect you to be. How could I tell you the truth? Time disappeared, Gabriella. Before I knew it, you were applying to colleges and asking about boarding school. I couldn’t tell you I’d lied, and I couldn’t tell you the truth. Not if I wanted to keep you safe.”

  The obvious irony hung in the air. I wasn’t safe, and, thanks to the lies, I didn’t even know to be afraid. My biceps burned where his fingers had been. Invisible brands from the monster who’d taken Mom away. The sobbing racked my chest until I found myself back on the couch, curled onto my side. The phone long forgotten.

  My every personal travesty ran over my conscience. I was never alone! Nicholas had said my dating life wasn’t worth documenting. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment and total humiliation. What else did Nicholas know about me? The questions and memories overwhelmed me. My mom. A fissure in my heart widened until I doubted it would ever heal.

  “It was my dad.” Nicholas stood over me. He folded himself onto the floor.

  “My dad was assigned to the Reaper case after your dad stepped down from leading the investigation. They were colleagues for many years. Your dad worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My dad worked here. The two branches aren’t big on cooperation. Nobody likes to share. Everyone wants to win, but those two knew each other outside the office.”