Under Duress

by Meghan Carver

  “Good.” Why was he surprised? Samantha was proving herself to be a capable and caring mother.

  Samantha cocked her head at him. “Why are you being so helpful? Giving so much instruction to a girl?” She hesitated, as if uncertain whether to continue her line of questioning. “The old Reid I knew in law school would have turned on those bad guys, guns loaded, and let them have it, just to be able to use the weapon. But now you seem so...protective. Paternal, almost.”

  He wanted to stop the Jeep and explain everything. He wanted to tell her about his glorious conversion and his ongoing struggle to leave his past there, in the past. He wanted to grab her hand and explain his incomprehensible feelings for her, his need for her to see him as a new and improved man, his desire for a normal family life that could never be fulfilled.

  Instead, he shrugged and affected what he figured was a look of nonchalance. “They’re after me as well now.”

  But as he held up his elbow to demonstrate to Lily in the backseat the strength of that point of the body, his forearm brushed against the sleeve of Samantha’s shirt. Like a sponge soaking up water, he absorbed the softness of the touch, the closeness to her in the enclosed Jeep, the scent of her strawberry shampoo. He exhaled, pushing out all thoughts of the future save for the one image he knew would be the truth. Him. Alone. There was no other way.

  “So, kiddo, the elbow. Keep it controlled. Wild movements don’t have strength.” If only he’d known the virtues of keeping control in his earlier days. What would his life be now if he hadn’t succumbed to his own wild movements? He tamped down a sigh and focused on the feisty ten-year-old in his backseat, praying that the woman in the front was listening, as well. “If you’re attacked from the front, aim for the attacker’s nose. Yell as you hit. It’ll add strength. I know it sounds weird, but it’s true.”

  Lily thrust her elbow into the back of the seat. “Is that why those tennis players on TV grunt so loud when they hit the ball?”

  Samantha chuckled. “Probably so.” She pointed out the windshield and looked at Reid. “Turn right at that next light.”

  “Okay, so grunt and hit. What else?”

  “If you’re attacked from the back, slam your elbow into your attacker’s gut. Or, even better, aim at his face, although you might be a little short still for that.”

  “Not for long.” Lily held up both arms to flex her biceps.

  “The face is delicate, especially the eyes, and that’ll stop him for a minute or more. If he wraps his arm around you to hold you still, step forward and then to the side, like the two-step.” He tossed a smile in Samantha’s direction. “That can throw the attacker off balance just enough for you, either of you, to wiggle free and run away.”

  The seat trembled as if Lily were moving her feet against it in the back. “So step forward and then to the side.”

  “You got it. And I have no doubt that you, kiddo, would be able to outrun any adult, since you’re so lightweight and energetic.”

  “What about Sam? Would she be able to get away?”

  Reid swallowed, pushing away the painful image of a villainous man with his hands on Samantha. He turned to see her watching him with large, luminous eyes. “Yes. Since you’re so...so lithe, you should be able to outrun just about any adult male as well, at least far enough to get to where there are other people.” Heat crawled up his neck, and he rubbed a hand against his nape. Had he said too much about her appearance, especially after her comments the night before? He didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, but he wasn’t sure what the wrong idea and what the right idea were anymore.

  “Hey, you want to see something cool I learned to do with a phone? Can I see yours, Mr. Palmer?” Lily apparently had had enough self-defense training. Perhaps a distraction was best anyway.

  “Turn left on Maple up there, and you’ll see it.” Samantha glanced in the side mirror. “I haven’t seen anyone following. You?”

  Reid shook his head and complied with her instructions to turn as he handed his phone to Lily. She leaned through the seats as much as her seat belt would allow. “My friend Abby showed me how.” She flicked her finger up on the main screen and then tapped an icon. Reid looked away from the road for a brief moment to see that the icon looked like a flashlight. “See? Like this.”

  A flash of light nearly as strong as the lightning last night blinded him temporarily. Spots danced in his vision as Samantha shielded her eyes. “Come on, Lil. Put that away. I don’t need to know anything like that.”

  Lily tapped again, and the same flash appeared. “You can leave the light on if you want, but I think just the flash is fun.”

  “It’s not fun. It’s dangerous, especially with Reid trying to drive. If you flashed that in darker circumstances, we wouldn’t be able to see a thing for several seconds.”

  “Aw, seriously, Sam? You don’t like it?”

  Samantha clucked her tongue. “Seriously, young lady. Give it back to Mr. Palmer.”

  Reid rubbed his eye as the color spots stopped twirling. “If she calls you young lady, kiddo, you better obey.”

  Lily flopped against the seat. “Yeah, figured that one out a while back.” She held the phone out to Reid.

  Reid turned into the parking lot of a two-story structure with a cross outlined in the brick. “Is this it? It looks like a mall.”

  “This is it. Follow that one-lane driveway around back.”

  A white privacy fence surrounded what looked like a day care playground with a slide and swing set rising above the barrier. “The parking lot is empty, and I haven’t seen a tail of any kind.” He pulled around the building and spotted the pavilion and the pond, as well as a smaller playground nearby.

  He stepped out of the Jeep and slammed the door behind him as Samantha and Lily joined him from the passenger side. A quick scan of the area revealed a quiet country setting, probably completely unknown to all but the members of the church.

  Samantha stopped at the edge of the parking lot and inhaled deeply. “Maybe, just for a moment, I can pretend that none of this has happened.”

  “Okay, but only for that moment.” Reid stopped beside her, waiting for her to move forward. “Maybe we should practice those defensive moves. Just in case.”

  “Do we have to?” Lily backed toward the pond, her head tilted sideways. “Hear those frogs in the pond? Think I could catch one?”

  Samantha shook her head and grinned. “Go ahead, but don’t fall in. The last thing I need right now is a bunch of muddy clothes.” Lily skipped to the water’s edge, less than a stone’s throw from the pavilion. Samantha turned to Reid. “Do you think that’s all right?”

  “I think so. It’s close.” He touched the small of her back to guide her into the pavilion. “Let’s sit at that picnic table closest to the pond and see what we can piece together.”

  “Well, you said at the bank that you think those guys are hired. That would mean there is someone else behind this.”

  “Yes. Someone with some computer savvy.”

  “Is that why you keep asking about Lily’s father and what he did on computers?”

  “Exactly.” Reid ran a hand through his hair. “Remember the scrapbook? Lily’s mementos of her father? It was the most torn-up thing in your entire house.”

  “So they’re looking for something? Something they think we have?”

  “Or some knowledge you possess.”

  “That’s the most confusing part. I don’t know anything. I barely knew the man.” She ran a finger over her lips, deep in thought.

  “Maybe you know something you don’t know you know.”

  “Well, that clears it right up.” She grinned, a sparkle in her eye.

  Reid allowed himself to grin back. Gratitude for her levity filled him. Perhaps this moment to breathe would be beneficial to them all, but he couldn’
t let them linger. Movement seemed to be the best way to avoid detection. “At the hotel, you said that Lily’s father gave her a key chain. Where is it?”

  “It’s in my bag, in your Jeep. Want me to get it?”

  He held out his palm “No, you stay put. I’ll just bring the whole bag.” He jogged back to the vehicle, unwilling to allow her to leave the security of the pavilion. A moment later, he laid it on the table next to her.

  She dug around and extracted a set of keys with a silver heart-shaped key chain the size of a fifty-cent piece. “Lily wanted it to stay safe, so I put it on my regular key chain. We knew neither of us would lose it that way.”

  Reid removed the heart from the other chain and held it in the palm of his hand. One half was plain silver. The other half was covered in crystals. Rhinestones, maybe, or bling, he thought he’d heard it called. Whatever it was, there was a clear dividing line down the middle of the heart.

  He tried to wedge a fingernail in the division, but his nails were trimmed too short.

  “Look here.” He pointed to the line as Samantha leaned in close. The scent of strawberries and wildflowers made his head swim, and he swallowed hard. “I think the heart comes apart. Can you work on it?”

  She held the heart in her fingers and pried at it. It popped open, revealing the end of a computer flash drive. “I had no idea. I thought it was just a pretty bauble. A thoughtful gift from a father to his daughter.”

  Reid just stared. “It was thoughtful. Quite a bit more thoughtful than you thought.” He shook his head. Had another piece of the puzzle been found, and if so, what did it mean? What was on the flash drive, and why was it so important? Was this what the thugs were after? “We need to see what’s on it, but I don’t have a laptop. My old one crashed, and I was going to buy a new one after I got to town.”

  “What about my office?”

  “No. They’re probably keeping tabs on the place.”

  “The public library?”

  Could they sneak in? Remain undetected? What were the chances of being found out? Reid sighed. “Best not. It’s the public library.”

  Samantha snapped the heart back together and handed it to Reid as if it was a poisonous spider. Fear was etched across her face. “I don’t want it.” She glanced toward Lily, who was leaning precariously over the water’s edge with her back to them. “Let’s find those guys, give them the flash drive and then let me go home with Lily.”

  “We don’t know that that’s all they want. And if they’ll resort to violence, there’s something illegal here. Those guys need to be brought to justice.”

  Samantha pushed herself up from the table and walked to the edge of the cement floor of the pavilion. She stared toward Lily for a moment, and then raised her hands to her face as her shoulders began to shake. Her gentle sobbing grabbed at Reid’s heart.

  What he wanted to do he could never do. He should never even think about doing it.

  He wanted to wrap her in his embrace and whisper to her that he hated that she was scared and hurting. That he cared for her. An image flashed in his mind. His own father, kneeling down next to his mother, in that very embrace and whispering those exact words. The father, now an inmate, comforting his mother, the victim.

  What good was his faith if, in the end, he would still turn out just like his father? Perhaps, no matter what his efforts to change or his faith in God, he was still condemned. The numbers swam in his vision, the statistics that showed that children of abusers typically grow up to be violent themselves.

  He pushed the numbers and accusations from his mind and strode toward Samantha. He wrapped his arms around her slender, shaky shoulders, and she turned into him, letting his T-shirt soak up her tears.

  As her sobs quieted, he stroked her silky hair. Lily had moved to the side of the pond and seemed oblivious to them. He could stand there forever, holding her, protecting her. But it couldn’t last. He wasn’t made for relationships. “We ought to move on,” he whispered, and he drew away, coldness seeping between them even in the midst of the humid summer day.

  TEN

  Samantha called to Lily that it was time to go. Go where, she wasn’t sure, but she shouldered her bag as she watched Lily toss her stick into the middle of the pond in a long, graceful arc and trudge toward the Jeep.

  The church quickly disappeared from the Jeep’s side mirror as rows of townhomes whizzed by in the afternoon sunshine, morphing into single-family homes and then back to the commercial strip of Heartwood Hill. She swallowed down the bile that threatened in her throat. The thugs hadn’t found them yet, but wasn’t it inevitable? Would they be able to escape again?

  She closed her eyes and fought back more tears.

  A gentle hand touched her shoulder. “Sam? Are you okay?”

  A verse came unbidden. She girds herself with strength, and strengthens her arms. She needed to be strong for Lily. “I’ll be fine.”

  Reid reached over to squeeze her hand, then returned both to the wheel. “We seem to be catching a break. I haven’t seen anything as we’ve been driving. But we better stay off my phone,” he said quietly. “Just in case they’re tracking us.”

  “You think they found us through your phone?”

  “Could be. They discovered my identity at the hotel last night, so maybe they’re tracking me now. We may never find out, but for now, I think we better not use my phone anymore.”

  Samantha groaned. When was this going to end? It only seemed to be getting worse. “Perhaps Lily and I would be just as safe at home as with you.” What was she saying? He had gone out of his way to take care of them, but fear had snaked its way up her spine.

  “Wait a minute.” He held out his hands as if to ward her off.

  “What if you can’t protect us? What if you decide to do whatever it takes to take care of number one? You.” Her worries burned in her chest, a whisper of appreciation for Reid flicking through her stress. There had been plenty of opportunities for him to leave them on their own, yet he still sat in the driver’s seat. How could she think such a thing, let alone give it voice?

  “Now, hold on.” Antagonism flickered in his eyes like the sheet lightning they’d seen last night, but it was soon washed away by the rain of his own tears. Clouds of remorse seemed to settle in as he turned to her when he stopped at a red light. “If that’s what you think, there’s nothing I can say to prove otherwise to you. But you’re going to have to go on faith. Faith that God is protecting us. Faith that my goal is to protect you and Lily.”

  “It’ll be fine, Sam.” Lily’s gentle tone infused calm into the charged atmosphere.

  The light turned green, but before he hit the accelerator, Reid turned around to Lily. Samantha saw him mouth thank you to the girl.

  There was no way the girl could know the end result, but it was sweet of her to say so. Yet that part of Samantha’s mind and spirit that had been lied to and hurt before by two different men wanted to nurture the seed of doubt that had been planted. Bad things came in threes, right? So here was Mr. Three. But he had changed, hadn’t he? He had proved it over and over. His talk about God and change and prayer wasn’t just an act.

  Reid pulled into a convenience store and parked next to the side of the building, behind a large cargo van that would hide the Jeep from the road. He swiveled in his seat toward her and grasped her hand, his touch warm and comforting.

  “I’ve said it once, but I’ll say it again. As much as you want to hear it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was a jerk in law school. I’m sorry you have that memory of me.” He paused to swallow. “Will you forgive me?”

  Forgiveness? That was where the rubber met the road for a Christian. Samantha rolled her shoulders as if she could shrug off his request. As important as her faith was to her, she wasn’t very good at forgiveness. Her relationship with her father was a testament to that sorry f
act. But now there were young eyes and ears in the backseat of that Jeep, watching and waiting for her to say the right thing. To set a godly example.

  “Y-yes.” Remorse burned within her. “I’m sorry I doubted you. Will you forgive me?”

  “Definitely.”

  The late-afternoon sun slanted through the Jeep as Lily clapped her hands. “Good. That’s done. Now can we get something to eat?”

  Reid offered her a tenuous smile. “It is getting close to suppertime. I was going to run in here and get a burner phone. I think you’ll be safe here for a couple of minutes, especially since no one from the road can see us. While I’m gone, think about where we might be able to get another car and some cash. Sound good?”

  Lily tipped her head toward Reid. “Good, but add to your list one of those gigantic candy bars for me. Okay?”

  “Depends on what Samantha says.”

  “Fine, but make sure it’s chocolate. No nuts.” The soothing powers of the cacao bean might provide some temporary relief, but what would happen the next time those thugs showed up? They couldn’t keep running indefinitely. He wanted her to say that they could go to her father. That her father would help them and take care of them. Dealing with her father after more than a year of hurt and estrangement? Even that would be better than this continual chase. But would she be able to utter those words when Reid returned?

  * * *

  Reid scanned the parking lot as he approached the store, but nothing suspicious presented itself. It seemed they had escaped again. But the running was becoming wearisome. When would he finally be able to find that apartment, settle in with his take-out Chinese and get started on his new life? Whatever the Lord’s plan was in this, he couldn’t see it.

  And if Samantha didn’t agree to call her father... Well, he had no idea what to do next.

  A flash of pink caught his eye. He turned to see Samantha and Lily walking toward him and the door. Lily caught up and grabbed his hand. “We’re tired of the Jeep. Can’t we come in with you?”