by LK Walker
“Yes.”
“You don’t even know my name.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now, any idea where the hospital is?”
Out of his back pocket, he pulls a smartphone and enters in the location before handing it forward. The hospital is another ten minutes’ drive. By the time we arrive at A & E Tony is unresponsive. I don’t want to find out whether or not he’s dead, so instead I run into the building screaming for help.
I watch as they pull him from the backseat of the car. His body is floppy. A nurse declares he’s still alive. The crowd of people that had descended on the car in response to my cries are now disappearing back through the automatic doors. I slump against the car, eyes skyward.
It’s over.
After parking the car, I rummage through its contents. There is a clean jersey under Tony’s suit jacket. I grab it and throw it on over my dusty clothes. It’s too big, but the sleeves cover the wounds around my wrists.
I head into the building. My feet stutter slightly at the threshold. One more step and the doors slide open. The smell of disinfectant invokes horrible memories. My last experience at a hospital was not a pleasant one. I had sat in the waiting room for hours, with Dad and Eli, before they finally told us Mom had died from her injuries. My body shudders at the memory. I shove the feelings down deep and pull my chin up.
After explaining that I’m the person who brought Tony in, they tell me that once he’s been stabilized he’ll be taken to ICU to ensure he stays that way.
It’s 0750 hours. A lot has happened in a short space of time.
I tell the lady behind the desk that Tony wants me to grab a few things from his house so I’ll be back in an hour or so.
“You’ve got a good heart on you, dear. You did well.” She pats the top of my hand.
Not so much a good heart, I think to myself, more a good sense of self-preservation.
Back in the car, I realize I still have Tony’s phone. Time to make some calls. I’m sure Tony won’t object to the charges.
“Jack?” I’ve called his phone but the person answering doesn’t sound like him. The voice is croaky. After the earthquake, I memorized his number in case I ever lost my phone again, but perhaps I recalled it wrong.
“Cara, is that you?” Now his voice is animated and I know it’s him. ‘Baby, where are you? They saw you getting thrown in the trunk of a car. I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m not that easy to get rid of, Jack.” I try to keep my tone flippant but I’m sure he can hear the tremor in my voice, all the same.
“Are you safe? Cara, where are you?”
“In Montana, and yes I’m safe. Police tracked me down.”
“The Police? They didn’t tell us they had any leads.”
“They must have, ‘cause they came to the rescue.” Lying to Jack is becoming all too common. Soon I won’t have to, I remind myself. That’s not a delightful thought either.
“When are you coming home?” he asks.
“They just pulled me out. I called you before anything else. I’m going to have to sit down with the Police and tell them what happened. And then I’ll be on the first plane home. I better go. I wanted you to know I’m okay.” There’ll be time to tell him all about it later. “I love you, Jack.”
“I love you too. Come home to me soon.” And just like that the stress of the last few days’ peels back enough for me to breathe.
My phone call to Eli is just as brief. I need to work out my story before I divulge too much of the truth. I’m going to tell them Tony grabbed the wrong person. There will be a lot fewer questions that way. The story develops in my head, as I drive back to the place where I’ve been trussed up for the past few days.
A big brown weatherboard house with a green tin roof closes in on me, as I find my way back up the long gravel driveway. I would’ve described this place as idyllic and peaceful if I hadn’t been held captive in its shed.
As I enter the house, I call out as a precaution but there’s no one here to disturb. The house sits soundless and vacant. My goal here is simple. Find the pills and destroy them. Tony promised never to touch them again. But when he has recovered, he might rethink the loss of one hundred and sixteen million dollars, so I won’t leave it to chance.
It doesn’t take long to find where he’s been sleeping. I pass two empty bedrooms, both are orderly and uncluttered. His room is untidy, and there is a sickly, acidic smell hanging in the air. A suitcase sits on the floor in one corner, its lid propped up against the wall, spews forth clothes. A white metal frame bed is pushed up against the adjacent wall. The bed is unmade, the red duvet and white sheets have been thrown back and left where they fell when Tony stepped out of bed this morning. Beside the bed is a small bedside table. It’s draped with a red and white checkered cloth. And there, all alone on the table top, sit the pills, all three packs of them, lined up as if they are the most precious items amid the chaos.
Popping each pill out of its foil packet and dropping it into the toilet is surprisingly therapeutic. I push the flush button and watch the instigators of my torture swirl out of my life for good. I leave the empty packets scattered on the bathroom floor and return to Tony’s bedroom.
A plastic shopping bag, thrown in the corner, away from the rest of his belongings, gains my attention. Grabbing the bottom, I upend it, spilling the contents onto the bed. My phone and watch fall out, both still intact. I’d assumed he’d ditched them somewhere. It gives me a small thrill of delight to see them. The phone is practically new and cost me a small fortune, a replacement for the one I lost during the quake. I tuck it safely into my back pocket, glad to have it back. Tony’s suitcase is a tangle of garments. I pick through them to gather a couple of changes of clothes and scoop up his toiletries to take to the hospital
There’s one last thing to do. The gun can’t stay here.
On the way out, I procure a towel from the linen cupboard before making my way to where we left it, lying in the shed.
Cautiously, I push the shed door open. I’m not sure what I expected to find, but the place gives me the chills, like some psycho axe murderer will jump out and start swinging. No one does. The place is quiet.
The empty chair still sits up against the pole, right where I left it. I kick it as hard as I can with the sole of my foot. It crashes into the far wall and skids to a halt on its side. I gather up the gun in the towel, before leaving the shed for the last time. I’m tempted to burn the place to the ground to help purge me of my demons.
Chapter 30
A nurse takes Tony’s possessions from me and asks if I want to see him. I politely refuse. It’s all sinking in now and I’m angry that he’s getting off lightly. If I see his face again, I might rat him out to the Police, out of spite. That’s not going to help me keep my name out of the news. Instead, I leave him alone in a strange hospital with his own demons. He better hope that we never cross paths again. I can’t be held responsible for what I might do next time I see him.
Before I change my mind, I leave the hospital and head for the Holiday Inn.
There’s a bounce in my step. I can tell that my beaming smile is making the concierge uncomfortable. She’s probably never had anyone so ecstatic to be a guest here. Cautiously, she hands over the keys and directs me to my room.
I shower and clean up my wrists as best I can. Having to put on my dirty clothes again is a disappointment. They’ll be going straight into the rubbish, when I finally make it home.
Compared to last night’s sleeping arrangements, the bed at the hotel feels like a soft cushy cloud. It takes a few good tugs to release the blanket from its tight tuck. I don’t want to feel tied down. From here, pillows piled behind my head, I can survey the whole room. The phone is oddly out of place. Its once-white casing has a yellow tinge of decaying plastic. The buttons are big enough for three of my fingers to push at once. Unlike the other modern appliances in the room, it looks old and dated but it works as well as a new one. I drag the phon
e over so I can lay prone on the bed and call Jack again. This time I talk to him for longer than the minute I gave him last time. His voice is calming, so much so, I can almost believe the last few days never happened.
It’s my turn to do the talking and my stomach churns as I tell him a fabricated series of events. It’s what I’ll tell them all.
I was kidnapped by a man who mistook me for someone else. The Police were alerted to a woman screaming and responded to the callout. And there I was.
That’s the basic story but I ad-lib to make it seem real, adding in shades of terror and desolation. And like any good fairy tale, it has a happy ending. I finish it with the man being dragged away and no longer a threat to anyone. We will never see him again. It’s a pretty easy sell. Jack believes every word I say.
“Who was he?” Jack asks.
“I only knew him as Tony. I never asked for his last name. I don’t want to talk about him ever again.”
After twenty minutes, I hang up feeling a little lost in a world where I constantly lie to Jack. I don’t deserve him. He’s playing it cool, but I can tell he’s been worried sick since I disappeared. Hopefully, this will be the last time I’ll have him wondering if I’ll survive.
*****
I’ve been sprawled on the bed for a couple of hours now, working out if there are any other loose ends I need to tie up before leaving Missoula. Other than throwing the gun into a deep lake, I can’t think of anything. I’m drifting off to sleep when I hear three solid thumps on the hotel door.
Tenderly, I pull myself up off the bed. The minute I open the door, the hulking frame of JT is on me, squeezing me tighter than my bones appreciate.
“You lied to me.” He mutters in my ear. “I didn’t know if I was ever going to find you.”
“How did you know?”
“I fell asleep on the flight here. Zander was panicking, not like a little flustered either, but a yelling-at-everyone type of panic. The guy wouldn’t stand still. He kept pacing the whole time I was there.”
“He’ll get over it,” I say.
“You’ve scarred his psyche. It might take a while.”
After that last kiss, I’m well aware what I did to Zander. I was trying to forget. “Thanks for coming all this way for nothing. It’s good to have you here.” I pat JT’s arm.
“You were lucky you were here. I was under strict instructions to call in the cavalry if you weren’t.”
“I’ve already called Jack and Eli and let them know I’m safe.”
“Those boys must have anxiety issues every time you leave the house. You have a higher than average likelihood of not returning,” JT jokes.
He’s not wrong. I can’t help but laugh at the idiotic smile he has on his face.
“What now?” JT asks as he surveys the hotel room.
“Feel like buying me lunch? I’m starving and I don’t have any money.”
“I came all this way to buy you food?”
“You don’t get a better friend than that.”
“You’ll have to swap out that sweater before I take you anywhere.” He opens the bag he brought with him and pulls out a t-shirt and jersey. “They won’t fit, but they’re better than what you’re wearing.”
I take them and go to the bathroom to change. He doesn’t need to see the state of my wrists.
Over lunch, I fill JT in on what happened. He looks aghast when I explain how close I came to being dead. Over and over he repeats how lucky I am.
“What does it mean for our future?” he asks.
“I guess we find out next nap time. But hopefully, we’re in the clear. No one knows what happened. There’ll be a 911 call that I’d been shoved in the trunk of a car, and investigation notes but that should be it.”
“I train a cop at my gym. He owes me a favor. I’ll see if I can get him to scratch your name off the report.”
“There shouldn’t be any mention of Tony. But if there is, can you get his name scrubbed too?” I ask.
“Why? Why would you want to protect this guy? Did you two become friends over the barrel of a gun?”
“Don’t be daft. With both our names gone, it’ll be like this whole fiasco never happened and if anyone from the future looks for any reports, they won’t find a thing.”
Chapter 31
If I thought JT’s hug was painful, I was very wrong. Jack grabs hold of me and squeezes tight like he’s trying to mold us into one person. I give him as good as I get. There was a short time when I thought I wouldn’t see him again. It’s hard to believe that was only this morning.
The other people walking out of the airport gate have to find a way around us. Not even the small trolley bag, that crashes into my ankles, makes me want to let go of Jack. There were no direct flights from Missoula, so at Salt Lake City JT and I parted ways, him back to San Francisco and me on to Seattle.
It’s way past dinner time, but I’d promised Jack I would wait to eat with him. By the time the plane landed I was already starving, which made the drive home take forever. My meal times haven’t exactly been abundant over the past few days and I’m dying for a good feed.
As soon as I walk through the front door, I can see Jack has gone to considerable trouble to have the house looking perfect for my homecoming.
“I had a bit of spare time on my hands and didn’t feel like sitting down,” he says as I look around at all his hard work. Our framed pictures have been hung on the wall. It took nearly eight months in the last house to get that job done and even then, we did it grudgingly.
Eli is in the kitchen, dishing dinner. He drops the spatula to come welcome me and it sends a stream of red sauce cascading down the cupboard front. He grabs at my wrists not knowing they’re sore. They’re so much better than they were, but I still let out a squeal of pain. There’s no hiding my injuries now. I show them the wounds. They’re equally furious. If Tony was here, I doubt he’d make it out alive. Both of them fuss over me. Jack has the first aid kit out, tending to my broken skin. His hands are gentle as he wraps bandages around my wrists.
I tell them about my ordeal, leaving out a few pieces of information and substituting others to keep the story credible. Neither of them ask any extra questions, I assume because they’re too revolted by what happened to push me for an explanation. It means we quickly move on to catching me up on what happened in my absence. They tell me about their conversations with the police here. I don’t mention that I had called the police while I was waiting for my flight in Salt Lake City and told them the whole abduction was all a big misunderstanding, a prank by an old friend. They took a bit of convincing, but closed the case, only after I gave them a heartfelt apology for wasting their time. Hopefully, JT will be able to amend the records, so my name is nowhere to be seen.
By the time bedtime comes I’m knackered. I don’t ever remember being so tired. My joints are aching and my wrists throb. Jack is gentle with me. He has been since I returned. I wonder if he thinks I might snap again. I do what I can to convince him I’m alright. His protective arms are encasing me when I fall asleep. It’s nice to feel secure again.
“Indigo …” Ryan’s voice cries out from above my head. “Indigo, she’s back. Cara’s back.”
I hear the rush of footsteps and suddenly Indigo is trying to hug me. It’s an awkward maneuver since I’m lying flat on my back.
“Why does everyone want to crush me to death?”
She lets me sit up and wipes away a tear. Her face is beaming. Ryan stays where he is and instead of smothering me, he offers an old-fashioned hand shake.
“Good to have you back,” he says.
“You’re such an egg,” Indigo tells him. “He plays it all cool now, but he’s been freaking out like the rest of us. He’s only left that seat to pee. Wow, you don’t know how good it is to see you.” It looks like Indigo might hug me again but restricts herself to a firm pat on the leg. “We were so worried.”
“Where’s Zander?” He’s always been there when I wake. It’s always be
en his voice I hear before I open my eyes.
“Zander had to go away for a bit. He had a friend who desperately wanted to catch up with him.”
“And he thought now was a good time?” I’m shocked that he disappeared before he knew I was safe. Shocked—and hurt.
“It couldn’t be helped.” Indigo tries to console me.
“When’s he coming back?”
“Not for a few days.” She gives me an elusive answer, like Zander would.
“Oh, was it something I said?” I know I sound whiny, but I can’t help it.
“Of course not. He has a few errands and then he’ll be back.”
The room has been redecorated. The walls and ceiling are lined with a silver reflective material. “Did you not like the old color?” I point to the wall.
“Just a bit of added protection,” Ryan says.
“Does it stop them finding us?” It seems like the most obvious answer.
“It helps. But it does make phone calls difficult.” He walks over to the door and opens it, taking one step out. After touching his thumb and little finger of his left hand together, the gray swirl covers his eye. “Valkyrie rides again. Tag the message for Zander.” He steps back in and closes the door securely behind him.
“If Zander was here he’d crush the wind out of your lungs too,” Indigo tells me.
There’s a high-pitched alert tone which repeats over and over again until Ryan makes it to his station. “The Viking has initiated delta.”
Indigo translates, as Ryan is now too busy on his computer to pay me any attention. “JT will be with us momentarily.”
That’s good news. I bound onto his bed and straddle him. When he opens his eyes, mine are only centimeters above his. He lets out a yell and struggles against me before his focus can adjust to my face hovering above his.
“Viking is secure,” Ryan says more to himself than anyone else.
“Welcome back, Viking,” I tease.
“I’ll get you for that.” He sits straight up, sending me crashing backwards, down on my butt.
