No Safe Place

by Mary Head

  Hannah nodded, her lips curved in a small smile. She liked listening to Eli talk; he had a thoughtful way of speaking, like he measured every word before speaking it out loud.

  “So anyway, he had to do conference stuff, but I was only 14, and he didn’t want me walking around the city by myself, so I either had to go with him, or hang out at the hotel all day. Sometimes I went with him, sometimes I stayed at the hotel, but all in all, it was kind of boring. The Yankees were playing the Red Sox while we were there, but we didn’t have tickets, and Dad had to do his conference stuff, so I just figured we wouldn’t go. But then, on July first, he woke me up by saying, ‘Hey, Eli, want to check out a baseball game?’”

  Hannah laughed and raised her eyebrows. “He’d already gotten tickets?”

  “Yeah,” Eli said, grinning. “The game wasn’t until later that night, so we spent the whole day together, and then we went to the stadium after dinner. And Jeter, who was kind of my hero back then, made this awesome catch, he like, plowed into the stands. He got pretty bruised, but he was okay, and I was just in awe. Like, I just dreamed that one day I could make a play as great as that, you know?”

  Hannah nodded again, thinking about her days of playing soccer in high school. She may not have been as in love with it as Eli seemed to be with baseball, but she couldn’t deny the rush that came from making a good kick, or scoring a great goal, and hearing the crowd cheer.

  “So,” Eli continued, “fast forward to the next day. Jeter had gone to the hospital after the game, of course, so I didn’t see him then, but they were still in the city, playing the Mets at Shea Stadium, and somehow Dad got me in to meet him there. And he was beat to hell, but he signed my ball, and we talked for a little while, and it was just. . . a really awesome experience.”

  “That’s really great,” Hannah murmured sincerely, touched by the story. “And it’s awesome that you still have the ball.”

  “Yeah, it’s a nice talking point, obviously,” Eli said, the corner of his mouth rising as Hannah laughed. “And it’s a great memory, but now it sort of symbolizes my relationship with my dad. Like, he didn’t always come to my games in high school, and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to, he just didn’t always have time. But the ones he did come to, he was one of the loudest in the stands, even though I know he didn’t fully understand the game; he knew enough to know when a good play was made, especially if I made it, and he’d be on his feet, clapping and cheering and yelling for me. And it was really great that he’d bought the tickets to the Yankees game without me even saying anything about it, like he just knew I’d want to go, and spending the whole day with him like that, getting to explain the game to him and stuff. . . that’s the best part of that memory for me now. Getting to be with my dad.”

  Hannah smiled softly, and then nodded. “Yeah, that reminds me of a similar story about my dad. There was this trip my senior year, you know, the big senior trip kind of thing, and it was to New York City, like this long day trip, leaving early in the morning, coming back late at night. But, um, it was kind of expensive, and we couldn’t really afford a lot of extra stuff, so I couldn’t go. I could’ve asked my mom for money, probably, but. . . we didn’t have the best relationship, and I knew it would kind of hurt my dad if I asked her, so I didn’t.”

  “Did you want to go on the trip?” Eli asked.

  Hannah shrugged, tilting her head to the side. “I didn’t care so much about the trip as I did about just being with my friends, and with my boyfriend at the time, because they were all going. But I didn’t want to make my dad feel bad, so I tried not to let him see that I wanted to go. My best friend was a grade below me, so I figured I’d go to school that day and just hang out with her.”

  Hannah paused, her lips twisting as she recalled the memory, and then continued. “So when the day came around, I was planning to go to school, but I ended up oversleeping until like, 9 or something, and I freaked out, because I was late for school, even though it didn’t really matter. I didn’t have my car yet, so I had to take the bus, and I was gonna run down the stairs to the kitchen to look at the schedule, and halfway down, my dad suddenly appeared, and it startled me, and I tripped on the stairs. Luckily, he caught me – I think I scared him because he looked so worried – and I was just like, why are you home? And he told me he’d taken the day off, that I wasn’t going to school, and that we were going to spend the day at Virginia Beach.”

  Eli smiled broadly. “So you still got to have your own senior trip.”

  “Yeah,” Hannah replied, smiling too. “And it was way cheaper too, just the cost of gas to get there and back, we packed our lunch, but Dad told me to bring a change of nice clothes, and he took me to dinner that night before we came home. It was a really nice, really special day.”

  “It sounds like it,” Eli replied, still smiling. “But wait, if you were planning to go to school, how come you overslept?”

  “Dad turned my alarm off. If he did that now, I’d probably kill him.”

  They both laughed, and then fell silent for a moment. There was something Hannah liked very much about Eli. So far, he definitely was not like most of the guys she’d ever known, and she found herself wanting to know everything about him.

  A quick glance at her phone drove away the next question she was going to ask, and instead she sighed.

  “I should get home, I didn’t bring my school stuff with me, and I’ve still got some reading to do before class. Not to mention I haven’t had lunch yet.”

  Eli nodded, looking a little disappointed, and Hannah stood, bending to grab her bag from the floor and slipping it onto her shoulder.

  “I’m sure I’ll see you later,” she said, smiling at him.

  Eli nodded again, smiling back, and then, just as she turned to leave, blurted, “Do you maybe want to hang out this weekend?”

  She looked back at him, a mild surprised expression on her face, and he felt his neck go hot.

  “Like – we could have lunch or something. Talk some more.”

  “Yeah,” Hannah murmured, smiling again. “Let me give you my number, and we can hammer out the details later.”

  She stepped towards his desk, taking the pen and small notepad he extended to her, and jotted down her name and number before passing the pad back to him. He tore off the bottom of the page to write down his own number, and she looked at it a moment before folding it neatly and sliding it into her pocket.

  “I’ll talk to you later, then,” she said, meeting his eyes again and flashing one last smile before stepping from his cubicle.

  ◊◊◊

  It was after four o’clock when Chris and David returned, and after spending an hour filling out paperwork, David popped by Chris’s work station to tell him to go on home.

  “Finish up, and then let me have it. If I need anything else, you can do it tomorrow.”

  Chris nodded, and spent a few more minutes writing before standing and taking the forms to David.

  As he was heading for the elevators, he noticed Eli was still at his desk, and veered in that direction.

  “What are you still doing here?”

  Eli looked up and frowned. “Um, still filling this stuff out.”

  “Okay, well, that stuff is boring stuff, and you need to go home. You haven’t been here long enough to start wasting your life by working long hours.”

  Eli laughed softly and nodded, flipping the folder closed and stashing it in the bottom drawer of his desk. As he turned towards his computer to clock out, Chris frowned, thinking something seemed off about him.

  “You okay?” he asked. “You seem a little – different.”

  Eli shrugged as his lips curved into a grin, and Chris’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Okay, seriously, what happened while I was gone?”

  “I, um, met Agent Cole’s daughter,” Eli said as he stood.

  Chris knew instantly what was up with Eli, and an odd feeling settled in his chest. Of all the guys who had met Hannah since Chris start
ed working here, he could recall none of them having the look on their face afterward that Eli did now. Sure, there had been attraction, occasionally nothing more than lust, but it was clear that Eli was different. Hell, he practically had hearts in his eyes.

  “So I guess you like her?”

  Eli nodded as he and Chris started for the elevators. “I mean, we talked for a little while, and she seems really great.”

  “Yeah,” Chris agreed softly. “She is.”

  A small part of his heart had belonged to Hannah since the moment he met her, a fire that not even David managed to put out when he shot Chris down about asking Hannah out those few years ago, but as their friendship progressed, it became clear that Hannah didn’t feel the same way about him. Over time, he’d come to accept this, and while he didn’t know Hannah’s side in all of this, Eli seemed like the kind of guy she would like, and Chris decided that if something did happen between them, he wouldn’t stand in the way.

  It still made his heart ache a little, though, and he sighed as he and Eli stepped into the elevator.

  “Come on; let’s go grab some dinner at The Pint. It’s been a long day, and I need a burger and a beer.”

  Eli laughed and nodded. “Sure.”

  Chapter 5

  It was a few minutes after six when Hannah pushed open the front door, bracing her knee against the heavy wood as she tugged her key from the lock. She was grateful for the alarm remote on nights like this, when her hands were full and the last thing she wanted to worry about was punching in an alarm code in less than thirty seconds.

  The books in her arms were carefully shifted to one side so she could extract the mail and drop it onto the small table beside the door before nudging the door shut with her foot and sliding the deadbolt home.

  When she reached the living room, she dropped her book bag and purse on the couch, and then bent to set the stack of books and journals she’d checked out from the library on the coffee table.

  “Thanks, John,” she muttered as she straightened, shaking her arms to restore some feeling to her fingers. “I needed something to work on over spring break.”

  Turning towards the couch, she sat down to unclip her bag and pull out her laptop. She set it on the coffee table and started it up, then headed upstairs to change, shedding her shirt and sweater in favor of a plain white tank top, though she kept her jeans on; pajamas usually came after her shower.

  The sweater got tossed on the foot of her bed to be hung up later, and she carried her shirt into the bathroom to drop it into the hamper. A few extra minutes were taken to use the bathroom and remove the polish from her toes, leaving several orange, and slightly sparkly, cotton balls in the small trash can, and then she headed back downstairs.

  As she padded barefoot into the darkened kitchen for something to drink, not bothering to turn the light on, she wondered when her dad would be home and how hungry he might be, trying to decide what she should fix for dinner. She’d texted him earlier to ask what he wanted but he hadn’t yet replied; she’d have to check her phone when she went back into the living room.

  Her mind drifted to earlier that afternoon as she listened to the churn of the ice dispenser and the clink of the cubes as they dropped into her glass.

  While walking to the library from class, she’d seen Seth pass by in the other direction with some other girl, and though it’d been three years and she knew she shouldn’t care if he saw her or not, she’d still ducked her head, feeling her face redden. Her behavior elicited a strange look from her professor, who’d been walking with her, and she smiled and nodded when he asked if she was okay.

  With a sigh, she reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a can of Diet Coke, resting her forehead against the cool steel of the door as she popped the tab.

  It annoyed her that Seth still had an effect on her, that she let him still have an effect on her. He was a jerk who had treated her badly, who cheated on her for almost the entire time they were living together, and who slapped her across the face the first time she truly stood up to him upon discovering his affair.

  But he was also the first guy she’d ever loved, and even though she hated him now, sometimes the thought of him still made her heart ache.

  Another sigh escaped her as she took her glass from the dispenser tray and filled it slowly, watching the foam fizz away before tossing the empty can in the recycling bin next to the trash can.

  When she turned back towards the refrigerator, her eyes fell on a picture stuck to the door, and her thoughts of Seth vanished as the corner of her mouth rose. She lifted her hand to the small dry erase message board, pulling the pen from its holder and tugging the cap off with her teeth. She changed the number on the countdown and then erased the message at the bottom of the board, her smile widening as she wrote a new one before replacing the cap and snapping the pen back into its holder.

  She took a sip of her drink as she started back to the living room, staring thoughtfully down at her now bare toes, and smiled again as her earlier encounter with Chris ran through her head. He seemed to find her love of different nail polish colors amusing, and always commented on her toes when he saw her. She had a new color she wanted to try, a deep, shining purple, and thought maybe she’d do that before starting on her homework.

  Her smile lingered as she looked up, and then faded when she saw the man standing in the middle of the living room. He was tall and thin, with brown hair and sad eyes, and his expression was apprehensive, and just a touch regretful.

  Before she could ask who he was or what he was doing in her house, a pair of strong arms circled her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides, and the glass slipped from her fingers, shattering on the floor. She felt the chill of the ice on her feet, but barely paid attention to it, her heart pounding as she lifted her legs and arched her back, hoping to throw him off balance. He stumbled, but didn’t fall, and her legs came down, her feet landing hard on the floor. There was a sharp stab in the bottom of her foot, and she cried out, feeling warm blood mix with the cold ice as pain shot through her heel and up her leg like electricity.

  It clouded her mind, but not so much that she didn’t realize his hold had loosened, and she brought her arms up, breaking free of his grip entirely. Her elbow shot back, catching him hard in the stomach, and she hurried forward, limping towards the couch, her eyes on her purse. Her phone was inside, and she thought if she could just get to it and call her dad, it would fix everything.

  The other man was standing just beyond the couch, and she glanced at him as she reached the couch. He stared at her like he wasn’t quite sure what to do, and then the man who had grabbed her suddenly tackled her from behind, knocking her to the floor.

  A cry of pain escaped her as she landed hard on her hip, and then another when the man’s weight pressed on top of her, the rug offering almost no cushioning as he pushed her harder against the floor. He rolled her onto her back, sitting on her legs, and tried to hold her down. Her hands came up in an effort to push him off, or hit him, or scratch him, anything that might get him off of her, and he grabbed her wrists, squeezing tightly.

  Resisting his attempts to pin her arms to the floor, refusing to let him get the upper hand, she struggled desperately, and one sharp jerk of her arm sent his elbow flying towards her laptop, cracking the screen.

  The force of their struggles pushed the coffee table askew, and Hannah heard the muffled slide and thud of her books falling to the floor. She ignored the pain as the sharp corner of one bounced off her leg, trying to push him to the side, needing to get him off of her. She almost succeeded, forcing him back long enough to reach up, fingers fumbling for her purse. She had just brushed the strap when he was on her again, grabbing her arm and sending her purse tumbling to the floor.

  The contents spilled out, and she tipped her head back, finding the small black shape of her phone and stretching her arm towards it. The man grabbed her arm, yanking it back and forcing a strained, “No!” from Hannah as she squirmed underneath him
.

  “Get the phone!” he snapped, startling Hannah, because it was the first time he’d really spoken, beyond grunted orders for her to hold still. She stared at him with wide eyes, noticing for the first time that he was probably around her dad’s age, but seemed older, his face lined and worn, his light blond hair almost white in places.

  The other man stepped forward and grabbed the phone from the floor, glancing at Hannah before sliding it into his pocket. She had a sudden wild thought about fingerprints, hoping one of them had touched something, but then realized just as quickly that they were wearing gloves.

  For the first time, she had an idea that this had been planned, that it was not just some random home invasion, and she felt her first real flash of fear, wondering what they intended to do to her.

  “Hold her arms.”

  Another command, a sharp look shared between the two men, and the younger one knelt, a hint of reluctance passing over his face as he gripped her arms. Hannah strained against him, and almost freed one arm, but the older man glared, and the younger man tightened his grip.

  Once the younger man had a good grip on Hannah’s arms, the older man sat up, and she watched as he reached inside his jacket, withdrawing a syringe a moment later.

  “No, no, no!” she whimpered, her fear increasing sharply, and she renewed her struggles, wanting to keep him from doing whatever he planned to do with that needle. Her struggles proved futile, however, when he shifted slightly and then suddenly jabbed the needle into her thigh. She cried out at the sharp pain, gasping a little as she stared up at him. He stared back, his expression cold and uncaring, his light blue eyes calculating.

  Tears blurred her vision, and she thought he smirked, but the drugs were already starting to work, making her feel stupid and heavy.