by Peak, Renna
I turned to Melissa. “Call Ryan back. Tell him you made a mistake. Tell him you need to know where they took her.” I somehow knew that the thought of calling him was too easy—it wasn’t as though Ryan would ever do me any favors. And considering her condition and that he knew he wasn’t the cause of it, he wasn’t going to do Melissa any favors, either.
She shook her head. “He barely spoke to me when I called. He’s not going to tell me anything. It was such a stupid thing to do. I’m sorry—I really am.” I could see tears coming to her eyes again. “I just didn’t know what else to do. I can’t afford to lose you, Brandon.”
I did roll my eyes that time. “You never had me, Melissa. You knew that. The only reason we did everything we did was to find Jen. You knew that. I was never yours, and I made that perfectly clear to you.” I pointed between the two of us. “Whatever it is you imagine happened … did not. There is no us. There is no you and me. There is Jen and there is me. Me and Jen. And you knew that—“
She interrupted. “But this…” She rubbed her belly as she looked into my eyes, almost pleading with me. “This changes things.”
“No.” I shook my head, trying to telegraph to her everything that I should have told her before. Every word I should have said to her when she told me she was pregnant. “That…” I motioned at her stomach with my head. “That baby isn’t mine.”
3
We hadn’t been in the car very long. I wasn’t familiar with Las Vegas at all, and I knew if I was somehow able to contact Brandon, I would be much help with giving him directions on how to find me. The sun was in front of us, and I was pretty sure it was afternoon, so I thought we must be heading west. But it might have been late morning, which would have meant we were driving east.
I sighed to myself, turning to look out the window and see any kind of street sign. Anything that might help me to help myself. But there was nothing but road and sand and the occasional sagebrush plant. I had decided to tune out the chatter of the three men—it wasn’t helping me. Listening to them only made me aware that they weren’t professionals. The driver might have been, but I knew there wasn’t going to be any reasoning with them. No promises of giving them money in exchange for my freedom. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to live to see another day the way it was going.
I tried instead to imagine my wedding. That piece of paper hadn’t been important to me in any way, but for some reason, it seemed very important to Brandon. And I wanted to give it to him. I thought of all the ways I had screwed up the past nine months—I could have run away with him. Things could have been so much different. I closed my eyes as I remembered that I had run away with him and that he had been taken away. And that he hadn’t come back. And I remembered all the things that Cade and Krystal had told me. It wasn’t all on me. I could have done something to help him find me, but it wouldn’t have ended any better than it was now. There was always going to be something—some new mess that was going to get in the way of our happiness. I wished it wasn’t true, but something inside of me knew that it was always going to be this way. I was always going to be looking over my shoulder and he was always going to be looking over his.
This was never the life I wanted.
I wanted quiet. I wanted a window overlooking the ocean where I could play my piano in relative peace. And calm. And there had been nothing calm or peaceful about my life since I had met Brandon. The only calm I’d had in the past two years was the few months I had lived in that tiny town in Maine. That was what I wanted. That idyllic life, away from everyone. Even if it meant having to live it alone—I just knew I couldn’t live like this any longer. I couldn’t survive another day in fear.
“Stockholm Syndrome. It’s a thing.” The younger fake cop in the front passenger seat was turned around, talking to Marty. “It’s where the hostage starts liking the people who took her.”
I shifted in my seat again, trying to roll the knots that were forming from my shoulders being pinned back by the handcuffs that still held my wrists behind me. I forced my mind to keep repeating what the driver had said to me. You have the right to keep your mouth shut, Jenna.
“I think that doesn’t happen until you’ve had a hostage for a while. A long time.” Marty nodded to himself. “We could try it, though. She’s worth a hell of a lot more than what they offered us.”
“You two are fucking idiots.” The driver finally spoke up. “You take her, you’re only screwing yourself. If you do this job and do it right, you earn trust. Do you two have any idea what that’s worth?”
Marty shrugged and the other man turned back around, almost as though they were children being scolded by a disappointed parent.
“I swear to God, Marty, you’ve been a cop for how long? Twenty years? And you seriously think that kidnapping someone like Jenna Davis is going to earn you points with your new employers? You really think that anyone will trust with anything you ever do again?” He shook his head. “That, my friend, is how you end up dead. Trust me. I’ve seen it too many times. It’s always the new guys, trying to make an impression, who do something stupid like that. You take her, you’ll both end up dead. And probably your kids and your wife, too.”
I looked out the window so that none of the men could see that my eyebrows had lifted in surprise. I hadn’t ever thought of these kinds of guys as being the types who had families. I had always thought of them as the Cade-type—loners who never settled down. Like Brandon. Except that Brandon had settled down. Just not with me.
I knew that the baby was his. Something inside of me just knew it. There was something in the way Melissa had acted when she had seen me with Brandon—something almost possessive. Jealous. The only reason she would have had to be that way was if that baby was his. And at that thought, weddings didn’t seem to matter anymore. Being with Brandon didn’t matter anymore. Maybe he had known and had decided to run away from his responsibilities or maybe he hadn’t known at all. But I wasn’t about to let Melissa sell me down the river to some two-bit kidnappers who didn’t even know what in the hell they were doing.
I sucked in a long breath, trying to slow my racing heart. “What do you guys want?”
I felt the eyes of all three of them on me, my words obviously stunning them.
I took another deep breath, steeling myself—telling myself that I was stronger than I thought, even though I was feeling anything but strength at that particular moment. “I’m not a piece of meat. I’m not just some object to be bought and sold. Stolen. Taken.” I fought the tears that filled my eyes at the words. I knew that was what I had become since meeting Brandon. I had gone from being someone who had some small amount of strength to being nothing more than a victim. Over and over, I seemed to find myself in the same situations. The same predicaments that took away all my power. But not this time.
“Tell me what they’re offering. Whoever it is—it doesn’t matter. Tell me what they’re offering you and I’ll double it.” I almost smiled, taking in another deep, satisfied breath. I felt somehow taller—definitely stronger—just making my own offer. Doing what I could to save myself this time, because somewhere inside myself I knew there wasn’t going to be a rescue operation. There wasn’t anyone to save me but myself.
I turned to look at the man seated next to me. The one they called Marty was staring at the back of the head of the man in front of him, his mouth gaping a bit. Something told me that he was the one to appeal to. He was the only one of the three with any sense about him. The former cop with a family, at least as far as I was able to glean from the conversations they’d had in front of me.
“Marty. I can help you. I can pay for your kids’ college. I can give you whatever you want. But you need to pull this car over and let me out. You need to—“
“Dead. Remember what I said? All of us. And I’ll make sure you go first, Marty.” The driver glanced at me through the rear-view mirror. “And you—you need to shut up now.” He glanced over his shoulder at Marty. “There’s some duct tape in the b
ox under the seat in front of you. Shut her up.”
You have the right to keep your mouth shut, Jenna. Shit.
I didn’t even struggle when he put the tape across my mouth, only rolled my eyes. So much for trying to rescue myself.
None of the men said anything else for the rest of the trip. I tried to count—keep track of how many minutes we had been driving. I still wasn’t sure what time it was, but I was reasonably sure we were driving west—into the direction of the sun. West of Vegas. I tried to do a little mental math, trying to remember how many miles it was to the California border. But it wasn’t like I was an expert on the geography of the area—I had been to Vegas only once before and I hadn’t really left the hotel. They may as well have blindfolded me and spun me around a few times—I would have been just as lost. I only knew we had to be driving west and that we weren’t on the main highway. Basically nothing—nothing that would help me find my way out of there, even if there was some possibility of escape.
Based on my counting, we had only driven about twenty minutes, give or take. Even though it hadn’t been a very long drive, it was empty—I hadn’t even seen another car on the road until we pulled up to an abandoned gas station. A black sedan was parked where the fuel pumps used to be.
The driver of our car pulled into a parking stall next to the empty building and got out, leaving the engine running. He slammed the door closed before pulling mine open. He stood in front of me, blocking my view of anything else as he motioned toward me, nodding in the direction of the other car, only a few yards away.
I craned my neck around to see through the back window, which only gave me a partial view of the door of the black sedan opening. Someone got out, but my view was mostly blocked. My heart began racing, almost exploding out of my chest. If my mouth hadn’t been taped closed, I knew I would have screamed as the person exiting the car came into view.
I felt dizzy, too weak to stand as the driver pulled me out of the car. I collapsed to my knees, my body trembling almost uncontrollably.
I didn’t want to cry, but I felt the tears streaming down my cheeks. He was the last person on the planet I wanted to see me lose control, but I couldn’t really even think. I held my breath, almost praying that I would lose consciousness—wishing that this was some kind of bad dream and that I would somehow be able to shake myself awake from it.
But it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t some hallucination and there was no way out of this for me. And the panic—hell, the absolute terror—that I felt at that moment was something that I had hoped I would never have to feel again.
No, this was no dream. And the man now standing in front of me was no hero and wasn’t anyone who was ever going to show me any kindness. This was not a rescue. It was another act of terror.
It was Daniel.
4
He’ll call back. I know he will.
Cade and I hadn’t been on the best of terms recently, but he cared about Jen. I knew at least that much. He might not be anywhere near here, but he would have an idea of who had her. Of who Ryan would have sent for her, anyway.
He’ll call back.
I sat there for what seemed like an eternity, almost forgetting about the woman seated next to me. I glanced over at her again, my stomach rolling with guilt as I wished I could go back and undo what I had done. Or hadn’t done, really. I hadn’t told her the truth—I had let her believe something for what I thought was her own good. And what was best for her baby’s well-being.
I raked a hand through my hair, closing my eyes. I would have given anything to be able to go back in time just then, back to that night. That one stupid night when I had been so absolutely sure—so certain that it was Jen that I had brought Melissa with me. It had seemed like a good idea—Melissa was alone. Ryan had beaten the hell out of her the week before when he found out she had been helping me try to find Jen and I had felt some amount of responsibility for it. Hell, I had felt completely responsible for it.
“What are we doing?”
Her words pulled me out of my momentary fugue and I looked over at her again. She was a broken woman, and I knew I was at least partially responsible for it. Maybe more than partially. And I had allowed her to believe the lies she was telling herself. I closed my eyes, shaking my head. “About what?”
“Sitting here. Where are you taking me?” The puppy dog eyes started again, making my stomach roll with something much more like nausea than guilt that time.
I turned my focus to the car parked in front of us just outside the airport. “We’re waiting for a call.”
“Do you want me to call Ryan?” She heaved a long sigh. “Because I don’t really want to. It was a hard call for me to make in the first place—“
I turned back to face her, heat flashing through my body that had nothing to do with the temperature outside. “That was not a call you needed to make. I shouldn’t have asked you to help. I thought—“
“You thought I cared more about her than about you.” She pointed at her stomach. “But you forgot about this. I care more about the baby I’m growing inside of me than about either of you. And if you think I’m going to let Jenna take anything else that’s mine—“
“That is not my child, Melissa. I’m not going to say that again. We can stop by the hospital for a paternity test if you want. I told you I would help you and I will. But I never…” The tone of my voice lowered to almost a growl again. “I never said it was mine.”
“We were drunk. When it wasn’t her—when we were so disappointed that it was another false lead… We both got drunk that night, remember? And I hadn’t been with Ryan in almost three months, Brandon. It’s physically impossible—“
I interrupted. “I took sex ed in sixth grade. I know how it works. I also know that you actually have to have sex for a woman to be impregnated. And we did not have sex. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
“You were drunk. You probably just don’t remember—“
My body tensed, my muscles almost quivering with my rage. “You were drunk. You are the one who doesn’t remember that night.” I put my hands on the steering wheel again, my fingernails digging into the leather. “That was the last time I took a drink—that night. And believe me, I hadn’t had enough to not know what was going on. I wish I’d had enough to not remember what happened that night—“
“You can’t wish that the baby isn’t yours, Brandon. You can’t wish that we didn’t have sex. It happened and you have to deal with it just like I do.”
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I had hoped that I would never have to tell her about this. I did wish that she wouldn’t remember what had happened that night and that I could just bury it away somewhere, never to have to think about it again. But then she was pregnant and she had just assumed that we were together. And I had let her believe it.
I took another breath, calming my nerves a bit before opening my eyes and turning back to face her. “I passed out, Melissa. That night—I fell asleep and when I woke up, you weren’t there.”
“Bullshit. That is the biggest line—you just don’t want to accept responsibility, and I totally get that. But I have to accept it and so do you. You don’t just get to opt out—“
“I heard you. Next door. I heard your obnoxious laugh through the walls of that cheap motel and you were next door.”
“You’re a liar—“
“We’ll get a paternity test, then.” I had to stop myself—I had to push away the image of what she had done that night. I couldn’t deny that I had seen a lot in my life—too much by most people’s standards. But that—what I had seen of her… It took a lot to disgust me, and what I had seen was more than even I could process.
“I knew you were going to do this. I knew the second you found her you’d dump me. You’d choose her over me. And it isn’t fair, Brandon. You’re the father of this baby and you owe me—“
“I AM NOT THE FATHER OF THAT CHILD.” My words came out much more harsh than I had intended, and I foun
d myself almost glad that I was screaming at her from the privacy of a car instead of in the all-too-public airport. I took another breath, forcing myself to lower my voice. “I went over there when I heard you. That night. Melissa…” I raked my hands through my hair again—I didn’t want to tell her what she had been doing. It was going to hurt. Both of us. She clearly didn’t remember and I didn’t want to have to revisit that memory myself, but I knew I had to. For both our sakes. For Jen’s sake, too.
“The only thing I remember about that trip is not finding Jenna and waking up naked in bed with you the next morning. That’s it—and isn’t that enough? People don’t just wake up naked and end up pregnant, Brandon. You’re the only man I’ve been with since I left Ryan.”
I couldn’t even bring myself to look at her. “You were naked because you didn’t have any clothes on.”
She laughed and I realized how stupid that last statement must have sounded.
I closed my eyes, trying to force my own smile away. There was nothing funny about what had actually happened that night, but she didn’t have to know all of it. She didn’t have to know what was going on in that room next door. She definitely didn’t need to know about how she had asked me to join them. And the memory of what I had seen her doing made me sick to my stomach again, and I had to force the bile back down before I vomited.
