by Karen Reis
“He’s in the Witness Protection Program!” I blurted out. I clamped a hand over my mouth, not believing that I’d told Sean’s secret so easily. Nancy was looking at me like I was crazy though, so I felt compelled to defend myself.
“It’s the truth!” I said forcefully. “He was involved in some criminal activities a few years ago, got caught by the police and his boss was going to let him take the fall. So he told all, got a plea deal, and his boss got arrested. The Feds put him in the Witness Protection Program so he wouldn’t suffer reprisals from his old boss.”
Nancy shook her head at me sadly. My back went up further. “By the time we met each other, he’d turned his life around. Sean is a good man! He loves me! He was going to tell his handler about me when he got taken away by the Feds when he was at work. His boss saw everything. His apartment was cleaned out. He was taken away for his own protection and I don’t know where he is. And I’m pregnant. And that’s the whole story.”
Nancy snorted. “Sounds like a line to me.”
“I’m telling the truth!” I said vehemently.
“I know you are,” she said replied back just as vehemently. “I’m telling you he lied to you!”
“No, he didn’t,” I shot back.
“He’s in the Witness Protection Program?” Nancy asked me as if she really wanted me to hear what I had just told her. “He slept with you and then was magically carted away by the Feds. Don’t be so gullible, Carrie. It sounds like he was some sort of scam artist who wanted to get into your pants.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said firmly. “I know him.”
“You were a challenge,” Nancy continued. “You were a good girl living alone, and he took advantage of you. If what he said about his life was really true, and if he really loved you, he would have walked away the second he realized that the two of you were getting too close. But he didn’t. And now he’s gone, and you’re pregnant.”
I couldn’t say anything to that. Doubt about his true motives crept into my mind, and I wondered for a second if Nancy was right, and if I had just been some sort of mark, some kind of challenge. I hung my head and tried not to cry.
“So have you made a decision as to what you’re going to do?” Nancy eventually asked me after I’d gotten my tears under control.
“I’m keeping it,” I replied quickly, raising my eyes. “I thought about abortion – I even did some research, but that’s not for me.”
Nancy nodded. “Okay.”
“So what do I do?” I asked her, seeking advice.
Nancy shrugged. “You’re on your own for that.”
“What?” I asked, shocked. I no longer had my guard up, and her careless answer was like a punch to my gut.
“I told you a long time ago that if you ever got yourself knocked up you’d be on your own, Carrie,” Nancy said bluntly. “Did you think I was joking?”
I swallowed my heart and shook my head. “No. I thought you were just angry.”
Nancy shrugged. “Look around this place, Carrie. Does it look like I have the resources to take you in, take care of you, pay your medical bills, and get you outfitted for a baby?”
“I wasn’t asking you to do that,” I whispered.
Nancy turned back to her show but said to me, “Why don’t you go tell Judy you’re pregnant? She’s got the money to spend on someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” I asked in a high voice, my whole body cold.
“You’re an irresponsible little whore who couldn’t keep her legs closed. You two should have a lot in common,” Nancy said bluntly, her eyes not leaving the TV screen.
I got up slowly, and Nancy ignored me. I wanted to run out of that house, but I didn’t. I had to say one last thing. I couldn’t let Nancy have the last word, not like that. I walked between her and her precious television, blocking her view and forcing her to look at me.
“I am going to have a baby,” I said darkly, my voice terrible and low. “You are not going have a grandchild though. I refuse to give that to you. You are not my mother, and I am done with you. I am going to leave here, and I am never coming back. You can tell Dad that I’m pregnant, or not. It doesn’t matter because I’m officially out of both your lives, and I hope you rot in this miserable house.”
Nancy didn’t say anything in reply. She just turned up the volume on the TV, and I left. And that was that.
I didn’t have the heart after that to tell my secret to Clarissa and my sisters. I just went home and cried myself to sleep on my bed. They found out anyways, through Nancy, who thankfully didn’t say one word about the FBI or the Witness Protection Program, and all three women gave me the hugs and support I so desperately needed at that time. I apologized to Clarissa tearfully for the way I had treated her at the hospital, but she just shushed me and rocked me in her arms, telling me that she understood now and all was forgotten.
In between their scouting trips up to Seattle, Lindsay and Vanessa helped me submit my paperwork for Medicaid and went with me to my first doctor appointment. Days and weeks went by, and Lindsay graduated from her schooling. My sisters started packing then, and they urged me to move with them.
“We’ll have a two bedroom apartment,” Vanessa urged me. “Me and Lindsay could share a room, and you and the baby could have the other. We’d all be together then.”
The idea appealed to me. There were job opportunities in Seattle. Nancy and my dad were not in Seattle.
“You won’t have to worry about childcare,” Vanessa persisted when I didn’t say anything. “Between the three of us, our little baby will be well looked after.”
What if Sean came looking for me though? He had left me in Las Vegas. If he ever would be able to come for me but found me gone, he would have no way to find me.
“It would be a fresh start,” Vanessa said, taking hold of my hand.
On the other hand, I thought, there was no guarantee that Sean would or could ever come looking for me. I couldn’t hang my entire future on the chance that he might one day show up, could I?
Moving seemed to be the logical choice.
That day I put in my two week notice at the library. I sold my car and most of the things out of my apartment, and on January 5th, I loaded what was left that was mine into my sister’s moving van, said a tearful goodbye to Clarissa, and left Las Vegas, Nevada.
And I didn’t look back once.
Chapter 15
It turned out that moving to Seattle was easy. Settling in was not.
Everything was different. I didn’t know where anything was, most of the streets weren’t labeled properly, and everything, from the grocery store to the DMV, was far away. People in Las Vegas are horribly pampered, I discovered. In Vegas, you can drive to virtually any store you want and only spend ten minutes on the road. In Seattle, plan on a half an hour or more, depending on traffic and the weather.
And don’t get me started on the weather. I will say that it was very lush and green, but it was also gloomy and dark and rainy. I missed the sun five minutes after arriving. Vanessa and Lindsay were ecstatic about Seattle though. They loved the water and the markets and the old buildings. They smiled while I tried to hide my depression over this latest drastic change to my life. To make matters worse, we settled inside the city itself, with its block after block of buildings and people and concrete and cars.
“Weren’t we supposed to live in a small town?” I grumbled one day as an ambulance and police car woke me up by speeding right underneath my window. Las Vegas had been a city, but not like Seattle. Seattle was big city. It overwhelmed me.
The winters here, while moderate considering our latitude, were still much colder than what I had experienced in Vegas. The wet didn’t help. I was always cold, but I was grateful for the fireplace our apartment sported. I had it going most days. Lindsay and Vanessa complained that it was too hot, and I simply told them I was heating for two.
Get it? “Heating” for two?
I know. That was pretty pathetic. But my
sisters bought it.
Happy as Lindsay and Vanessa were with our new home, they were no picnic to live with. Lindsay was a neat freak and Vanessa was a slob. Lindsay insisted that everything had its place and usually blamed me for Vanessa’s mess. Her dog Harvey, well recuperated by then, was just like her, except instead of leaving dirty dishes all over the place, he peed all over my room almost every day.
After two weeks, I was seriously considering moving back to Vegas. I was sure Aunt Clarissa would take me in, if no one else.
On the other hand, both of my sisters loved to explore, and our weekends were full of shopping and sightseeing. We went to museums and parks. We got our hair and nails done, even me, and we went out for dinner several times to exotic restaurants. One month went by. I was four months pregnant and I finally started to feel better about living in Seattle. At least, I no longer cried when I got lost driving around.
I just cried whenever I thought about Sean and my fatherless baby.
“We haven’t been to Pike’s Place Market yet,” Vanessa suggested one Saturday morning. “Let’s go there today.”
I was still getting Go-See-Seattle spam on my email, and it described Pike’s Place Market the place to go in Seattle. “They do that fish throwing thing there,” I said. “It’s supposed to be pretty fun to watch.”
Lindsay had no objection, so we went. It was chilly and wet out when we left the house, but like I said before, that was normal. We took the public bus, since that was cheaper than trying to find a parking spot for the day. We brought lunch with us, and walked and walked and shopped and shopped. By three o’clock I was done. My feet were killing me, my back was killing me and I was getting a headache.
I also had to pee like you wouldn’t believe. When I caught sight of a bathroom, I excused myself from my tireless sisters who were ogling a matching pair of porcelain dolls in a shop window and told them I’d meet them back there at that spot when I was done. They barely heard me and I couldn’t wait to make sure they wouldn’t forget and walk off. So I ran to the bathroom, which mercifully didn’t have an overly long line. I did my business and washed my hands, checking myself out in the mirror.
I looked good, I thought. My hair was shorter now and more stylish, my complexion good. I was starting to gain some weight from being pregnant, but I didn’t have a baby bump yet. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t wait to put on more weight. I couldn’t wait to feel my baby kick and move and hiccup. I had heard it’s heartbeat on my last doctor’s visit, which had been exciting. Is it a boy or a girl? I wondered for the millionth time as I smoothed my shirt over my abdomen and felt the solid form under my skin which was my growing uterus.
I looked good, I realized. Healthy. Happy. Well, relatively happy. There was one thing that would just put me over the top. You can probably guess what that was. I sighed and left the restroom. I stopped to sit down on a bench outside the restroom just to let me feet rest a little longer – my sisters could just wait for me – when the impossible happened.
I saw him. Him.
Or, at least I thought it was him. The backside of him. Of Sean.
He had just come out of the men’s room. I watched him, frozen in place, as he began to walk away. I caught only a glimpse of his face as he stopped and turned to say something to a vendor who had called out to him. He had a beard I saw, along with a full head of hair underneath a beat up ball cap, but his profile was right, so was his height and his build. The shoulders were the same. The walk was the same.
And he was walking away from me. I panicked, standing up and moving towards him as quickly as I could despite the crowd. I didn’t dare take my eyes off of him, and I weaved my way after him, running into a few people in my pursuit. “Sorry,” I said several times, but I didn’t stop.
My brain said, “That couldn’t possibly be Sean. He’s gone, and you need to get over yourself and move on.”
But my heart said, “You need to see his face, hear his voice. You need to make sure. You need to know.”
So I kept after him. I used every trick I’d ever learned from every spy and mystery book I’d ever read. I didn’t get too close – I tried to work my way around him to try to get ahead of him, to try to get a good look at his face. And I did. I got a real good look at one point, and he didn’t even notice me. The trouble was, he looked so different – there was all that hair, plus his eyes were a different color too – that I still wasn’t sure whether or not it was really him. So I tried to edge closer without him noticing, because I had to hear his voice. I thought, the hair could be new growth and the eyes could be colored contacts, but his voice, if it’s really him, will still be the same.
He was alone though, doing some vegetable shopping, and he wasn’t doing much talking that I could hear over the din of the busy market. He sent off a text message, and soon afterwards his cellphone rang. Of course he had to go somewhere a little quieter to hear the person calling him. I took advantage of his distraction and edged closer. The man walked quickly away from the crowd, and I followed.
“Hello?” he said into his phone, and a shiver went down my spine. “Oh, yeah. Thanks. 10:45? I’ll be there.” I sucked in a breath. “Bye,” he said.
I let my breath out. It was him. It was Sean, and he was standing only four feet away from me. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to yell, to do or say something, but I had no idea what to do. Sean began to walk again, and I automatically started following him again.
Heavy breathing sounded in my purse, and I dug for my phone while keeping my eyes on Sean. It was Lindsay calling me. “Yeah?” I asked in a low voice.
“Where are you?” she asked. “You were supposed to come right back after you went to the bathroom.”
“My eye got caught by something,” I said, dodging a pair of kids running through the street.
“Well, we’re ready to go home. Meet us at the bus stop, okay?”
“Uh,” I said in a panic. I couldn’t meet them yet. I would lose Sean. I mean, it wasn’t like I could look his name up in the phone book – he most likely had a new name and I had no idea what it was. “Uh, I’m not ready to leave yet.”
“What are you doing?” Lindsay asked peevishly.
“I’m doing something important,” I snapped, having dropped to a safe enough distance away from Sean so that I could speak in a normal, if testy, voice to my sister. “Look, I’ll meet you at the bus stop, but I might be a little while, so you don’t have to wait for me if you don’t want to. Okay?”
“Okay. We’ll wait,” Lindsay grumbled. “I’m not going to leave you alone in the city. It’s going to be dark soon, so don’t be too long.”
“Thanks, bye,” I said, and crammed my phone back in my purse and tried to calm down.
It seemed that Sean was ready to leave too. He was headed for a nearby parking garage and walking fast. The crowds thinned at this point, and I dropped back further and further, hoping that he wouldn’t sense my presence and turn around and look, because weirdly I wasn’t prepared for that.
Once in the parking lot, I watched Sean from behind empty cars and slunk along, probably looking like a serial killer/stalker, but at that moment I wasn’t thinking particularly rationally. He didn’t have a truck anymore. Instead he drove a little Pontiac coupe that looked like it had seen better days. He threw his purchases in the passenger seat and started the engine. I took a deep breath and got as close as I dared, hugging the side of a brown SUV parked conveniently in the row directly behind his car. I had to see his license plate, and I had to see his face one more time.
901PEG. I memorized it, saying the numbers and letters over and over again in my mind as he backed out of his spot quickly and took off like he had a fire to put out. 901PEG, 901PEG, 901PEG. I could not forget that license plate. I figured that there had to be some way to track a person by their license plate number. I’d look it up online that night.
I was determined. Unfortunately, the squealing tires of a car coming to stop directly behind me distract
ed me from my scheming. I whipped around to look at what was going on. Two yelling men and the cold hard point of a gun at my temple told me that whatever was going on, I was in big trouble.
Chapter 16
“Put your hands on your head! Now!”
The voice came from the man who was holding the gun to my head. His voice was very commanding and very scary. My hands shot up into the air and I thought for sure that I would pee my pants.
“What’s going on?” I asked in a quavering voice.
“Shut up!” the man commanded, pressing the gun at my temple more forcefully so that my neck bent under the pressure. “Get down on your knees! Slowly!”
I obeyed despite the fact that I was scared and totally confused about what was going on.
“Get down on your stomach!” the man yelled at me. I moved to comply, and the man helped me by using a foot to shove me down and then pin me to the asphalt. He had handcuffs on me so fast that I didn’t have time to protest the treatment.
I was jerked to my feet roughly and spun around. My two aggressors both wore suits and flak jackets with FBI written in huge blue letters on them. My heart beat frantically as I tried to understand what was going on.
The man who had cuffed me got in my face and asked me menacingly, “Who are you?”
“C-Carrie Vitagliano,” I stammered.
“That right?” he asked over his shoulder at his partner.
Somewhere along the line my purse had been taken from me, and the man’s partner had it in his hands, checking it for hidden weapons I guessed. He pulled out my wallet and looked at my ID. He nodded. “Yup. And her purse is clean.”
My agent quickly patted me down. “So is she,” he man said curtly. Then to me, “Who are you working for?”
I shook my head. “No one. I’m by myself!”
“What were you doing following that man?”
Tears formed in my eyes. “I just thought I knew him. I swear that’s the truth! I wasn’t going to hurt him!”
