by T. K. Leigh
“She certainly is.” He laughed slightly. “I’ve always said the easiest way to disappear is to hide in plain sight.”
“What do you mean?”
“The world thought she was dead anyway, so there was no need to go looking for her.”
“How did you find her?”
“I put myself in your father’s shoes and looked at his real estate holdings. To my surprise, about a year after you were born, he purchased a brownstone in Foggy Bottom in D.C. Then, a few years later, around the time Lauren seemed to vanish into thin air, your father hired an agency to rent it out. Since then, he’s made quite a pretty penny from the income. But that income stopped in March. He’d filed permits with the city for a complete remodel. As far as the city knows, that remodel has yet to be completed.”
I gasped.
“I called an old CID buddy of mine who works for the Bureau in D.C. He went over and got some photos. There were work trucks out front. It took a few days, but he eventually caught sight of Cynthia. She’s living there.”
I let out a tiny breath, wondering why my father would insist he didn’t know where she was when it was obvious he did.
“That’s not all,” Blake continued when I remained silent.
“There’s more?”
“I think I’ve figured out who’s behind it, or at least who’s involved.”
“What? How?”
“I analyzed photos from all the suspicious events surrounding Barnes in the weeks leading up to Cynthia’s faked death. I didn’t notice it at first, but after looking at the photos a bit closer, there’s one person who makes an appearance at every single event.”
“Who?” I asked, barely stepping on the brakes as the mountain dipped downward and I flew through the canyon toward the freeway.
“I ran his face through facial recognition. I got a hit back pretty quickly since he's a former cop. I pulled up his employment record.” He paused for a beat, then said, “Elle, is there someone named Bradley Mercer who works for Dante Luciano?”
My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach as I took my foot off the accelerator. I felt claustrophobic, like someone had just knocked the wind out of me.
“Elle? Are you there? Are you okay?”
I swallowed hard, struggling to find words. I came upon a sharp turn and slammed on my brakes, hydroplaning on a large puddle. Before I knew what was happening, my car spun out on the slick road. The phone dropped from my hand as I tried to get the car under control, but I was going too fast, nothing stopping it from careening down the mountain road. Seconds stretched as I clutched onto the steering wheel with all my strength, spinning faster and faster. I prayed with everything I had that this wasn’t the end, that I wouldn’t die before I had answers.
The car left the smooth surface of the road, flying out of control on the grass, down a long embankment, slamming into a tree. The airbag inflated with extreme force, my head hitting it. The sound of shattering glass filling the air was the last thing I heard before my world went black.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I’M GOING TO GET you,” my father growled playfully, searching for me through the upper level of our house. All I could do was squeal in delight, thinking I’d outsmarted him, that he’d never find me. “Where could she be? Where could my sweet Eleanor be hiding?”
I giggled as I remained still behind one of the long drapes adorning a pair of windows in the master bedroom. I rarely had the opportunity to play games like this with my father. If my mother were around, she would throw a fit, yelling at him for spending time playing with me when he had much more important things to do, saying he should hand me off to Gloria, my nanny, to take care of. But tonight, my mother was out with some friends, and my father had sent Gloria home early, giving us a rare chance to play.
The sound of footsteps grew closer and I held my breath, waiting and watching. Instantly, he drew back the drapes, bellowing, “Got you!” He swooped me into his arms with incredible ease, kissing my cheeks too many times to count. Our laughter echoed through the halls as he carried me to my room, placing me on my bed and pulling down the covers.
“Do I have to go to sleep now?” I protested.
“Yes, peanut. It’s past your bedtime.” He sat beside me, peering down at me.
“But I’m not tired. I want to stay up and play with you.”
“Not tonight. You can stay up later when you’re older.”
“But I’m already six! That’s old enough to stay up,” I struggled to say through a heavy yawn.
My father gave me a knowing look, his eyebrows raised. “Oh really?”
“Really,” I responded drowsily.
“I’ll make you a deal. Go to sleep now, then perhaps I’ll convince your mother to take you to Disneyland next weekend.”
“Will you come, too?”
He beamed, a genuine smile spreading across his face. Leaning down, he kissed the top of my head. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Okay then. Deal.” I shot my hand out.
“Deal,” he repeated, grasping my hand and shaking it firmly. Then he helped me under the covers, tucking me into my comfortable bed. After switching off the lamp on my bedside table, he placed one more kiss on my head, his lips lingering slightly. “I love you, sweet pea.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
“Sweet dreams.” He got up, heading toward the door.
“Wait!” I called out, sitting up. “You need to tell me a bedtime story.”
He looked back at me, his brow furrowed. “What book would you like to read?”
“Gloria doesn’t read me a book. She makes up a story.”
“She does, does she?”
I nodded fervently, grinning, displaying my toothy smile.
Sighing, he headed back to the bed, settling onto the mattress once more. He wrapped his arms around me and I snuggled against him, inhaling. He smelled like fresh-cut grass and mint.
“What kind of story would you like me to tell?”
“Whatever you want. Gloria says her stories are real, but I think she makes some parts up. There aren’t such things as witches. And there’s no Santa, either.”
“Who says?” my father asked, aghast.
“Momma,” I answered in a despondent tone.
“Well, I like to think there’s a Santa, just like there are princesses and dragons.”
“Is this another stupid fairy tale? Momma says they’re not real, that they’re nothing but far-fetched stories no one with half a brain should believe in.”
“Fairy tales can be real,” my father insisted. “Like this story. It’s a real-life fairy tale.” A thoughtful expression crossed his brow as he gazed down upon me. “And it starts the way all good fairy tales do.”
“Once upon a time,” I said in a sing-song voice.
“Yes. Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved a girl very much. But the boy was a prince, and the girl was a commoner, not someone he was allowed to love.”
“What’s a commoner?”
“Someone who doesn’t have royal blood.”
“Do you have royal blood? Is that why you get to make laws?”
He laughed slightly. “No, sweet pea. I don’t have royal blood. The people elect me to be their voice when it comes to enacting laws.”
“Oh,” I replied. “So what happened to the prince and the girl?”
“Well, the prince was betrothed to marry another woman, a princess from a neighboring country. She was highly intelligent and came from a good family. Of course, his parents approved of the girl, but he had no feelings for her. His heart didn’t leap in his chest when he looked at her. His stomach didn’t do backflips. His entire being didn’t brighten when in her presence, not like with this common girl, his one true love, his sparrow, as he’d begun to call her. But he couldn’t stay away from her, even though he had obligations to his family and this princess. The prince and the sparrow would sneak out together, where they could both forget about all the outside forces
keeping them apart, even if for just a few hours.”
“That’s not fair,” I said.
“What isn’t?”
“If they love each other, they should be together.”
“I agree.”
“What happened next?”
“The prince and princess married, and all the important people of the two kingdoms were there. The prince was so wrapped up in acclimating himself to his new life, it was a while before he was able to sneak out and see his sparrow again. When he finally did, he saw that she was pregnant, just days away from giving birth to his child.”
“But they weren’t married,” I protested.
“No, they weren’t.”
“But don’t you have to be married to have a baby?”
“Not necessarily, peanut. What’s most important is that the two people love each other.”
“And the prince loved the sparrow, so that made it okay?” I lifted a brow, trying to understand how two people could be married if they didn’t love each other. I couldn’t quite wrap my little mind around that.
“Yes, at least in his eyes. But, somehow, a man who worked for the princess’ father, the king, found out about the baby. This man was a wizard of sorts, but not a good wizard. He was an evil, manipulative wizard, a man who used his power to hurt people. Needless to say, the king wasn’t happy when he learned the prince had fathered a baby with a woman other than the king’s daughter, so he told the wizard to take care of it.”
“What did he do?” I asked with wide eyes.
“Just days after the sparrow had given birth, while she was struggling to figure out how to take care of a baby on her own, the wizard paid her a visit and convinced her to give up the baby. Then the prince and the princess would raise the baby as their own so no one would find out about the prince’s infidelity.”
“In-fi… What does that mean?”
My father hesitated briefly, his brows gathered in. “It means he had a baby with someone other than his wife.”
“Oh,” I said in understanding.
“When the prince came home from riding his horse one day and saw the princess holding the baby, his heart dropped. The princess claimed the wizard showed up and dropped the baby in her lap with no other explanation than that it was her job to take care of the infant now. Something about that didn’t sit right with the prince, so he mounted his horse once more and rode with incredible speed to his sparrow’s cottage, only to find it empty.”
“She was gone?”
His eyes grew wet with unshed tears as he slowly nodded. “For weeks, months, the prince tried to find her, all while he watched the princess, his wife, pretend to be the baby’s mother. Then, about a year later, the prince was out riding with a good friend when he stopped in a local tavern. Much to his surprise, his sparrow was working there. She tried to run again, but the prince had already lost her once. He couldn’t lose her again. When he confronted her about why she gave up their baby so easily, she broke down crying, saying she didn’t have a choice. He brought her into his arms, soothing her tears, assuring her it would all be okay. Then the prince asked if she wanted to see her.”
“Who? The baby?”
“Yes. So the prince snuck the sparrow into the castle. For the next several years, when the rest of the castle was asleep, the prince continued to sneak the sparrow inside the walls. They could pretend that everything was okay for those brief moments, that they were happy, that they were a family, just like they always wanted.”
I remained still, absorbing my father’s version of a fairy tale. “That doesn’t have the same kind of ending as the stories Gloria tells me. Those usually end with ‘and they lived happily ever after’.”
My father let out a long sigh. “Sometimes you don’t get to live happily ever after. But you learn to make the best of a bad situation. Like the prince did with his sparrow. Despite everything, he never stopped loving her. That’s the important thing. That his love never faltered.”
“But do they get to live happily ever after?”
He considered my question for a moment. “I don’t know yet, sweet pea.” He kissed the top of my head, squeezing me. “I don’t know, but I hope they do.”
~~~~~~~~~~
EVERYTHING SEEMED SO MUFFLED, distant, cloudy. I tried to open my eyes, but they were too heavy. My limbs were no better, feeling like a weight pinned me against wherever I was, an outside force preventing me from moving. It was a miracle my heart still beat, my lungs still inflated, my brain still attempted to tell my body to move, to wake up from this dream and try to make sense of this confusing world I now found myself in.
I coughed, my tongue feeling like sandpaper, my throat desperate for a drink of water. As my vision cleared, I slowly took stock of my surroundings. All hope that someone had found my car and called for an ambulance immediately vanished into thin air. Dark coverings shielded the windows, but a sliver of light peeked through, indicating it was day. I wondered what day, how long I’d been unconscious. Plastic sheeting covered the walls, and I felt like I was trapped in an episode of Dexter. I tried to move my arms and legs, but was unable to, my wrists and ankles bound to a twin-sized bed.
Suddenly, the door to the room opened, light filtering in from the hallway. Squirming, I fought against my restraints, desperate to run, to hide, to get as far away as possible. Nausea rolled over me when a dark figure appeared in the doorway, my eyes unable to focus on the face, my mind hazy. Foreboding footsteps echoed in the stark room, a chill trickling through me, my limbs shaking as I tried with the little strength I had to free myself from my bindings.
“Shh,” the figured soothed, running his hand down the line of my face. I cringed, doing everything to avoid his touch.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, tears welling in my eyes.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Bradley’s familiar voice barked. His features came into focus and I stared at him as he hovered over me. Remorse flickered on his stern face, his expression faltering, revealing his human side for the first time since I met him. “I didn’t have a choice,” he repeated, softer this time. He placed what looked like a medical aid kit on the bedside table, then sat on the mattress beside me.
“There’s always a choice,” I insisted, still not sure what was going on.
He reached for my face once more, delicately peeling away a large bandage covering the left side of my forehead. “Not this time.” His chin quivered, his voice catching. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, his betrayal seeming to eat him up. “I told him to walk away from you.”
“Dante?”
“I didn’t want anyone else to get involved.”
“Then let me go,” I begged. “I don’t know anything.”
“I can’t do that. The wheels are already in motion.”
“What wheels?” I demanded, my voice growing louder, the fog of my unconsciousness slowly wearing off. “What’s going on?” A wave of pain shot through me as he pressed a piece of gauze, wet with some sort of astringent, up to my head.
“I need to keep this wound clean so it doesn’t get infected. You banged your head pretty hard when you slammed into that tree.”
“Why? It’s obvious you’re just planning to kill me anyway.” I glanced around the space. “Why else would I be restrained in a room that looks alarmingly similar to a serial killer’s workspace?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Ms. Crenshaw. Just do what you’re asked and, hopefully, no one else will have to lose their life.”
I struggled to swallow, a sour taste in my mouth. “Who else has lost their life?” I choked out, my voice shaky.
He simply looked at me, his shoulders slumped, then returned his attention to the gash in my head.
“My father…,” I continued, frantic and desperate. “I called him. He knew I was on my way to see him. You won’t get away with this for much longer. Someone’s going to come looking for me.”
“Not likely.” He stood and grabbed a needle out of the kit, then filled it wit
h some fluid. When he cleaned a patch of skin on my arm, I tried to wiggle away from him. “Don’t,” he said in an even tone. “It’s useless. You need to save your strength.”
“For what?” I grimaced as he injected me.
Briefly closing his eyes, he returned the needle to his kit, then stepped back. “I wish I knew.”
My eyelids grew heavy, the room spinning around me. “Why are you doing this?” I asked again, barely able to enunciate the words, the quick-acting drugs rendering me nearly comatose.
“I told you. I didn’t have a choice.” Bradley’s voice sounded like it was in a vacuum as he gave me the same response. I watched him retreat through heavy eyelids, fighting against unconsciousness. When he reached the doorway, he paused briefly. “It’s the only way to keep my daughter alive.”
Then the darkness found me again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I HAD NO IDEA how long I remained drugged up, in a strange room, with absolutely no idea what was going on or when that door would open and someone with far less compassion than Bradley would walk in. Based on his comment when I first arrived, he wasn’t the one pulling the strings. I tried to recall everything I’d learned the past few months to figure out who was behind it all, but my cloudy brain refused to function properly.
Bradley continued to check on me on what felt like a regular basis, treating my wounds, bringing me water and a meager amount of food, undoing my restraints so I could use the bathroom and eat. I tried to track the days, but I couldn’t be sure how long the drugs kept me knocked out. I could have been here for days or weeks. I had no idea. During my brief moments of clarity, I thought about Dante. Bradley refused to answer my questions about where he was, if he was safe. I prayed he was.
Over the course of my captivity, I supposed I’d become comfortable with the routine. Slowly wake up. Tense up when I heard the familiar jangling of keys outside my door. Blow out a somewhat relieved breath when Bradley walked in. At some point, the dread that filled me when that door opened had disappeared, now that I’d grown accustomed to him bringing me food and water.
