“Good for them. If they need any help, don’t hesitate to ask.”
My dad was taking an interest in my life. I wanted to scream with excitement. The noise came back into the room. I wasn’t sad our time was ending since my parents wanted to talk tomorrow. We normally only talked once a month at best.
“Nikola, I probably need to go, but know I love you. Your mother and I love you. Your mom wanted me to wait, so don’t tell her, but we’re coming back to America after this year. I’m buying out the rest of my contract.”
The dam in my eyes broke as he said those words. Feeling the love from my dad, even after the funeral, felt like we may be changing our comfortable paths we’d become accustomed too.
“You’ve made my day. I can’t wait to tell Brandt. I’ll act surprised when Mom tells me. Thanks, Dad. I love you, too. I’ll talk to you and Mom tomorrow.”
“Can’t wait. Night.”
“Night.”
I pulled into the parking lot to wipe my eyes and decided to text Brandt.
Me: My dad told me he loves me and wants to talk again tomorrow. They’re moving back to America!
Brandt: I’m glad, baby. He’s always loved you. Should I come home?
Me: No, I’ll be there in an hour or so. Don’t cancel the meeting with the lawyer.
Brandt: Perfect. May need to make use of our room before it’s gone.
Me: Deal! Also, would you go with me to Grandmama’s house later? Dad reminded me that she left something special for me. I remember Grandmama talking about it in the hospital.
Brandt: Of course. We’ll go whenever you’re ready.
Me: Thanks. Love you!
Brandt: Love you, too.
Brandt helped keep me centered and balanced. I guess we did that for each other in many ways. I started back for the house and my phone rang. It was Gavin.
“This is Nikola.”
“Hey, Nikola. This is Gavin. Have I caught you at a bad time?”
The last thing I wanted to do was work, but he was the client. “No, I’m on my way to the house while Brandt handles some business in town. What can I do for you?”
His voice was still a smooth velvet. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for your loss. Ainsley updated me.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” I was ready for him to get to the point of the conversation. My emotions were a little raw after talking with my dad, and I wanted some time to process. The last thing I needed was to cry on the phone with a client.
I heard a vehicle door open and close. “Well, I’m sure you’re wondering what the point of my call is about since I’m not a man for idle chat. My girlfriend and I will be in Atlanta for a function tomorrow, and I wondered if maybe you and your husband would be up for lunch. Ainsley and her significant other would be welcome, too.”
“Thanks. Let me check with Brandt, and I’ll get back to you in a bit. We’re meeting in about an hour. Does that work?”
“Perfect. See you soon.”
I hung up. Gavin was an odd equation. He seemed personable, but he also seemed fake. I wasn’t sure how to categorize him. The meeting with the board wasn’t for another three days. However, it seemed normal, with the sum he was paying me, that he’d want to meet eventually, since they might hire us for the other Livingston Cleaning Products. For now, I was going to blame all these weird thoughts on all the stress I’d been under.
I pulled into the driveway, hit the button to open the garage, and got out. The neighborhood was quiet. I stopped right outside the garage when something caught my eye. It was a bird soaring in the sky. For whatever reason, I felt peace as I watched it glide through the air to wherever it was headed. As I was about to start moving again, a sharp pain tore through my body, starting with my head. I tried to stay upright, but my legs became jelly as the world faded from color to gray to black. The last thing I heard were tires screeching and then—
I felt cold.
I saw only black.
I heard nothing.
“Why is it taking so long? Is she going to be okay?”
Brandt. He sounded so concerned. My body felt like lead. My veins felt like sludge pumped through them, weighing me down. My eyelids felt taped down.
There was so much sound in the outside world. It hurt my head. I was lying on concrete. Am I dead? I felt the wind blow against my arms. I don’t think I’m dead. I tried to speak, but my muscles wouldn’t cooperate.
Fingers touched my jaw. “Sir, your wife is stable. Her heart rate is increasing. How long was she out?”
“I pulled up right as that motherfucker hit her on the back and she went down. That was twenty minutes ago.” It was Brandt’s voice answering.
“Was there any point at which you noticed that she wasn’t breathing?”
I wasn’t able to place the person asking the questions.
“No,” Brandt said.
My mind loosened, trying to free itself.
Someone spat from the distance: “She’s nothing but a teasing whore. I hope she dies.”
Where do I know that voice from? It sounds so familiar. Lance. Is that Lance? It sounds like Lance. Why is Lance here? Why is he calling me a teasing whore?
There were sounds of commotion all around me. I couldn’t make sense of all the noise, but it sounded like fighting. My heartbeat drummed in my ears as I tried to piece the scene together.
Brandt. I need Brandt. I willed my voice to work. “Brandt. I need Brandt.”
“Sir, your wife is waking,” said the voice that had been asking the questions.
Next, I felt familiar hands on my face as my eyes fluttered open. Brandt’s concerned, deep blue eyes were looking down at me. He had a cut on his face. “Baby, you’re awake. How do you feel? Thank God you’re awake.”
I tried to sit, but the world spun as the paramedic spoke. “Mrs. Mattox, let’s stay lying down. We want to check you out at the hospital. How do you feel?”
I nodded as I lay back down with Brandt’s help.
“My head hurts. What happened? Was that Lance? Were you fighting?”
The paramedic with sunglasses on top of his head had crystal green eyes, like mine, and messy blond hair. He motioned in the air. I heard wheels rolling on the concrete. I turned my head slightly and saw a gurney being lowered. Part of me wanted to rebel, but my head was still spinning.
Two additional paramedics came into view. On the count of three, they lifted me and we were off to the ambulance. They were all speaking about my condition, but it was fast and hard to process. I wanted answers. They lifted me into the back of the ambulance, the big doors closed, and then we were on our way. The blond paramedic checked my vitals again. The inside of the ambulance smelled like a hospital. There were lots of doors and cabinets, and there wasn’t much working room. In a real crisis, I imagined things could get pretty crazy in here. Brandt’s eyes searched me over. His shirt had spattered blood on it.
“What happened?”
The paramedics sat back after they finished with me.
Brandt scrubbed his hands down his pants before grabbing my hand. “I was just a few minutes behind you. The meeting was canceled, and I wanted to surprise you. I hurried through town to make it to the house before you left. When we were texting, I was already in the car. As I came into the neighborhood, I saw Lance running from his car to you. He hit you on the back of your neck with a bat and you collapsed right as I pulled into the driveway. He started to run, and I chased that motherfucker down. The cops came, and Lance is in custody.”
Brandt trembled as he tried to control his rage. His hair was pushed back. I knew he’d probably beaten Lance’s ass. Not knowing how serious it was, I didn’t ask any other questions. From the amount of blood spatter, I guessed Lance looked worse.
“Thank you for being there. Are you okay?”
Brandt leaned forward and kissed my hand. “You’re okay. That’s all that matters. I’m fine. I thought I’d lost you. You’re my beginning, end, and everything in between. I will always
be there for you. Thank God the lawyer canceled because of his car wreck otherwise I wouldn’t have…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, and ice shot through my veins. It was a scary thought—how different things could have been. There truly was a domino effect to life, one event altering others in ways we couldn’t understand until all the dominos had fallen.
“Are you sure you’re up to going to the precinct? We can go another time. I want to take you home and hold you.”
I’d been released from the hospital after several hours. They’d diagnosed me with a mild concussion. My head throbbed, but the aspirin helped. We were almost at the police station. The police had come by and asked us to come to the precinct as soon as possible. Brandt had wanted them to talk to us at the hospital, but it was important that we come down to the station. I’d agreed before Brandt could turn the police down.
The concern and love Brandt had for me was what fairytale ever afters were made of. In the hospital, Brandt had fussed over me, making sure every part of me was okay.
“I promise. I want to get this out of the way. See what options we have. I don’t understand why Lance would come into the picture after all this time. I haven’t spoken to him at all.”
I was still trying to make sense of everything. It had all happened so fast that I wasn’t sure how I felt. Part of me felt as though I should be terrified, but the cops had Lance. Brandt was with me. Maybe if I’d been conscious through the ordeal, I’d feel different. But, besides the headache, everything felt the same.
For the millionth time, Brandt asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I am. I promise.”
We parked the car, and Brandt leaned over the console to rummage in his bag he kept in the back. He came back up with a Thrillhammers T-shirt he used to work out in. He pulled his bloodstained dress shirt over his head after unbuttoning the first couple of buttons. Brandt’s tribal tattoos showed on his ripped arms. His abs were flexed as he pulled his tee over his head.
“Do you think they’re going to press charges against you for attacking Lance?”
Brandt looked at me. “I don’t think so. And if they do, we’ll get the best-damned lawyer there is. I’m not worried.”
“Okay.” We were both trying to read each other. I cleared my throat. “I don’t want you to think I’m hiding my feelings from you. I’m scared for you, and I’m not sure how I feel about what happened to me.”
He let out a breath. “I’m still shaken by what I saw today. I don’t know why he came, and I want answers.”
“Me, too. Thanks for being open with me.”
Brandt took my hand, and gave it a kiss. “Let’s go inside.”
I nodded. We got out of the SUV and headed inside, hand in hand, ready to face whatever was to come our way—together.
Brandt had given his statement exactly as he had recounted to me. There weren’t going to be any charges pressed, which was a huge relief. Afterward, the officer had asked if I could stay and answer some questions. I agreed to, as long as Brandt could be with me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to help, since I couldn’t remember anything. We were sitting in a conference room with bland, gray walls.
Running a hand through his hair, Brandt squeezed my other hand. “If you start getting tired, let me know.”
“I will. I wonder what they want to talk to me about.”
The door opened. Brandt sat up and whispered, “We’re about to find out.”
Two officers entered in their black uniforms. One was a slender female with a severe bun, probably in her late twenties. The other was a man in excellent shape with a brown crew cut.
“Mrs. Mattox, I’m Officer Denton, and this is officer Spear. How are you doing?” The man had a deep voice.
I took a sip of my water. “I’m okay. Why did you want to speak with me? I don’t remember anything from the attack today.”
“We’re working on getting a little more information. Do you know a Gavin England?”
Gavin? What does Gavin have to do with this? I tried to make the connection.
“Yes, Gavin England is with Livingston Cleaning Products. He hired me to go through a product line and analyze it to see if there was any way to increase market shares of one of their lines. I spoke with Gavin this morning, and he wanted to know if we could meet him and his girlfriend tomorrow for lunch when he flew into Atlanta. Gavin was to present the overall presentation to the board in three days. I’ve been paid seventy-five percent of the agreed to amount. The rest was to come next week.”
They were writing on their notepads. “What is your association with Lance Thomas?”
The officers weren’t answering any questions, and something in the deep recesses of my mind told me that somehow Lance and Gavin were associated.
“We dated for about a month. I broke it off with him. For a while, he kept trying to get a hold of me. We lived in the same apartment complex. He would ask me things about why I hadn’t been home lately and how much he missed me. One night, when Brandt I started dating again, Lance texted me. Brandt called him to ask him to leave me alone. I never heard from him again until today.” I cleared my throat as they kept writing. “Can you please tell me specifically what is going on?”
The female officer, Officer Spear, looked to Officer Denton. She waited for him to speak. Officer Denton tapped a manila envelope.
“We searched Mr. Thomas’s place and we found a shrine to you, Mrs. Mattox. He was obsessed. He planned to abduct you today and take you to a place in the mountains. The details were mapped out in a suitcase we found in his vehicle.”
The blood drained from my face. Hearing all this made my stomach hurt. I’d tried to distance myself from what had happened, but this forced me to accept the truth.
Brandt cursed under his breath and said, “What does Gavin have to do with this?”
Officer Denton took another a deep breath. “Gavin England and Lance Thomas are one and the same. Or, at least, the version of Gavin England Mrs. Mattox talked to. We spoke to the real Mr. England today and he’d never heard of your firm. Mr. Thomas purchased voice changing software and pretended he was Mr. England from Livingston Cleaning Products. The emails you received had a hyphen between ‘Livingston’ and ‘Cleaning’ and ‘Products.’ The real Livingston Cleaning Products does not have the hyphen. We also discovered that Mr. Thomas inherited a large sum right after New Year’s. This money was how he paid for your services and the other purchases, such as the cabin in the mountains.”
“What? Are you sure? So Gavin was a lie all along.” My voice was barely audible as I tried to assimilate the information.
Gavin is Lance. Lance is Gavin. He was going to take me.
Officer Spear spoke. Her voice was calming. “We have all his e-mails and the phone conversations you thought you were having with Mr. England. He taped them. He will remain in custody, and we’ll work with the prosecutor to see what can be done.”
I was in shock. Ainsley and I had both been talking to a predator. Piecing it together, I said, “That’s how Lance knew where I’d be today. I talked to Gavin—I mean Lance—on the phone. He told me about flying here tomorrow with his girlfriend. I told him where Brandt was and where I was headed. I can’t believe it.”
The shock of the situation was still sinking in. Gavin is Lance. Lance is Gavin.
“That motherfucker.” I looked over at Brandt, and his rage boiled over. His knuckles were white as he gripped the table. “Whatever you need from us. Whoever I need to hire. Let me know. I want this asshole locked up. No plea bargains.”
“We’ll do everything we can, Mr. Mattox. We’ll keep you updated. We needed to verify with Mrs. Mattox, of course, to start the proceedings. We’ll be in contact.”
The officers stood, and I followed. Brandt wrapped his arm around me, and I felt numb. What if he gets out? What if he comes for me again? What if he gets me this time?
MOTHERFUCKER. I BROUGHT Nikola to me. Today could have gone much differently. The thoug
ht of losing her was unthinkable. I couldn’t imagine being without her. She was my life. The pale yellow, aged walls of the precinct hallways felt like a prison closing in on me. Lance was in this building, and I needed to get Nikola out. I needed fresh air. I wrapped my hand around her waist and fought the urge to hold her too tightly.
This whole situation with Lance was one of my worst nightmares. We cleared the doors and walked up to our car’s passenger door. The fresh air helped settle me—slightly. Taking slow, deep breaths, I tried to calm myself.
Nikola went for the door handle. Her hands were shaking. I wasn’t able to let go of her yet. “Can I hold you for a second longer?”
She turned, and I saw that she was chewing on her cheek. I knew she was upset—we needed a few minutes to ourselves. There was anxiousness and fear in her eyes. Nikola nodded and buried her face in my chest. She sniffled, and I held her tighter to me.
Her voice was muffled. “Brandt, if you hadn’t come…I just…I don’t…what would have happened to me?”
I tried to soothe her, even though my imagination ran wild with all the alternate scenarios running through my head.
Rubbing her back, I tried to be reassuring. “Baby, he didn’t get you. Let’s not focus on what might have happened. We’ll drive ourselves crazy. You’re safe.”
Sniffling, she said, “I know. I’m trying. But I’ve been talking to a predator this whole time. I let him in my life. I never called the headquarters main line. I researched him online and everything. It seemed legit, especially with the contracts I received. Gavin, I mean Lance, always said it was best to reach him by his cell. I’m so stupid.”
“There’s no way you could have known. There’s no way. You’re okay and in my arms and that’s all that matters.”
I tried to follow my advice, but I was failing miserably. We needed a distraction, something to take our mind off the foul thoughts that were only going to fray our nerves. Holding on to my other half, I remembered her wanting to go to Anne’s.
Domino Effect Page 25
