“You want the same things I do, I’m sure,” he said, turning to her as he sped toward the freeway entrance. “A good home, a family—the old American dream, white picket fence and all. I’m sorta old-fashioned when it comes to all that. I always saw myself coming home from a hard day’s work, work I didn’t mind, because it was bringing in the money I needed to provide well for my wife and kids, know what I mean?
“I know you know what I mean,” he added before she could even think to respond.
“I don’t understand. You said your wife was pregnant when she died.”
“Did I? Well, I meant I wish she was pregnant maybe. Maybe then, she wouldn’t have died.”
“What?” Megan rubbed her forehead. “I’m so confused here, Steve. What does any of this have to do with Jennifer? How did you get her pajama top? Where is she?”
“She’s waiting for us, Megan. She’s safe. Don’t worry about that.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, starting to cry now. “Where is she? How did she get there?”
“You ever believe in fate, Megan, believe in destiny? I do. You ever hear a voice in your head, a voice you know comes from somewhere very powerful? Maybe it’s the voice of God. Maybe it’s the voice of fate, whatever. The point is, it’s there inside you, talking to you, telling you what to do and when to do it, telling you how to take advantage of opportunities. Understand what I’m saying?”
“No, Steve. I don’t understand anything you’re telling me,” Megan said. She watched them enter the freeway and speed up. “Where are we going exactly?”
“Exactly? San Diego. Remember my boat? We’re going to my boat. Consider it a kind of honeymoon,” he said. “No, not kind of, but really,” he corrected.
“Honeymoon? What honeymoon? We can’t be going on a honeymoon. We’re not married. Steve, please make sense. I’m very frightened and very confused. I don’t want to go any farther until you explain. Stop the car, Steve.”
“I don’t like your tone of voice right now, Megan. I’m sure it’s because you’re still recuperating. You’re just not thinking straight. Let’s both calm down for a while. Don’t ask any questions. Don’t talk. Just close your eyes and rest. It will all become clearer soon enough.”
“But—”
“Please. I don’t want to talk for a while,” he said. “I’m a little upset. I thought you’d be happier and have more trust in me. Well…maybe it takes a little getting used to, a little more time, but it will come.”
He sped up and then quickly slowed down, remembering the risk associated with getting a speeding ticket. Megan was quiet. She embraced herself and tried desperately to keep from shivering, not from any cold air as much as from cold fear now running up and down her spine like an electric shock. What was she to do? Really, what could she do? Open the door and jump out at this speed? There was no way to call anyone for help now. How had this happened?
She looked at him. He was concentrating on his driving, chewing gum vigorously, the muscles in his jaw moving like creatures living under his skin. She closed her eyes. The pain and nausea were getting worse.
“I’m not feeling well, Steve,” she said in a loud whisper.
He didn’t respond.
“I think we should stop somewhere. I feel like I might throw up, Steve.”
She didn’t think he had heard her, but all of a sudden, he slammed the base of his palm against the dashboard.
“Damn it!” he cried, making her jump in the seat. “Jennifer is waiting for us, Megan. She’s going to get frightened. The wind’s up a bit.”
“What?”
“I have the boat anchored away from the dock.”
“Why? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Just get a hold of yourself, will ya? Jesus. You’re really disappointing me, Julia.”
“Julia?”
He looked at her.
“You’re always thinking of yourself, damn it. Think of the family. Think of the family as a whole and not as separate people. My father never thought of his family as anything but a couple of burdens. You know, he once told me that if I hadn’t been born, he’d have a good life. That’s right. I was just a little boy, but I never forgot it because when he said it, I could see in his face that he was telling the truth, telling me what he really felt.
“How’d you like a father like that? Huh?”
She simply stared at him and then she began to dry-heave.
“Damn it!” he screamed again and pulled over to the side. Quickly, he reached across her and opened the door on her side. “Lean over and throw up if you have to,” he said. “Don’t throw up in the car.”
She did. He didn’t try to comfort her and he wasn’t impressed with her being sick at all.
“You always get sick when I want to do something that’s more like family. I wanted us to go to Disneyland, but you thought that was stupid. Why would two grown-ups go there? Right? What I wanted, see, was for you to see other couples with children, happy children, families enjoying being families, men and women realizing what they were made to be.
“You were afraid of that, weren’t you? You knew once you saw it, you’d realize what a selfish bitch you were.”
“Steve,” she gasped. “I’m not Julia. You’re confused. Look at me.”
He said nothing. He sat there, panting like a dog, looking out the windshield at the passing automobiles. An idea occurred to her, a desperate idea, but one that she thought she had to follow. Slowly, she unbuckled her seat belt. She did it as quietly as she could. He was deep in his thoughts now and didn’t see or hear her do it. When it was undone, she took a deep breath and then turned her body toward the open door and stepped out. Her movement caught him by surprise.
“Whaaa…?”
She went around the rear of the car as quickly as she could and just managed to get her arms up to wave at the passing traffic, but the cars were going by so fast, their drivers couldn’t have stopped if they wanted, and most didn’t even see her before he rushed around to grab her and scoop her up and rush her back to the passenger’s seat.
“Are you crazy? What are you doing? You want to cause an accident and bring attention to us or something? You know how long it would take us to get to Jennifer then?”
He pushed her firmly into the seat and buckled her seat belt, tightening it a bit. Then he slammed the door closed and stepped back, looking at her. She had her eyes closed and her head back. The activity effectively jolted him back to the present. He glanced at his watch and then quickly went around to get into the car and pull back onto the freeway. Now he would take the chance of getting a ticket, he thought, and sped up.
After a few minutes of weaving in and out to make better time, he looked over at her. She still had her eyes closed and now looked like she had passed out.
“I’m sorry, Megan,” he said. “You just don’t understand it all yet, but it’s going to be all right. It’s going to be fine. We’ll be there soon and together, the three of us, together…forever.”
He drove on, his confidence returning.
When they reached the dock, he pulled into a parking spot and poked Megan. She had fallen asleep.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Almost home,” he said. “We’re getting out here. I have a dinghy moored just there,” he said, pointing, and then pointed out to sea. “There’s my boat. Beautiful, ain’t it? Wait until you see how pretty it is inside and how modern, too.”
The sky had cleared considerably with now only some puffs of clouds scattered toward the northeast. The sight of all the stars renewed him. If fate hadn’t wanted this, the weather would have been as severe as it had gotten the day Julia died or had to die. Nature itself reconfirmed everything.
“C’mon,” he said. “Jennifer’s waiting.”
He got out and went around to her side to open the door and help her to her feet. She wobbled a bit, but gathered her strength as they made their way to his dinghy. She looked around for someone to c
all to, hoping beyond hope that maybe there would be a policeman about or some security personnel, but there was no one. Suddenly, a man appeared on the boat in the next slip. He was picking things up and closing and locking doors. The Spanish radio station he was listening to was quite loud. Shouting to him might be futile and who knew what reaction Steve might have to that. No, she had no choice but permit him to lead her forward and help her get into the dinghy.
As soon as she was seated, he untied it, started the small engine and aimed them toward his yacht.
The only thing that sustained her was the realization that soon she would have Jennifer in her arms again.
She couldn’t even begin to imagine what would come after that.
Scott thought about calling his father at home. Primarily, he wanted to hammer down his innocence and make his father feel bad about even having any doubt about it, but he also wanted to show him that he was just as much a man of action as his father ever was. But then he realized his father would want him to go directly to the police and that all that time would be wasted explaining what he had done, how he had found things out and why he hadn’t called them as soon as he had discovered a dead woman on the floor of her kitchen.
He was beyond this business between himself and his father now anyway. He wasn’t after his father’s respect. Megan was missing. Why would she have left the hospital? It had to be that she had had no choice. What was the point of it all? He couldn’t think of any reasonable motivation if a demand for money wasn’t forthcoming. Unless…this guy thought he could get even more by kidnapping Megan, too.
The madness of what he was now attempting to do all by himself didn’t occur to him until he was well into his drive to San Diego. For one thing, he had no weapon. He had seen this man, faced him. He looked strong, even vicious. Could he overpower him? What if he died trying? What would become of Megan and Jennifer? What would his father think of him then? He could almost hear the eulogy: Just like my son to take things into his own incompetent hands and screw things up.
These self-doubts were short-lived when he envisioned Jennifer in a state of abject terror. He had placed his wife and child in this jeopardy, he thought. If he hadn’t been such a failure as a husband and a father, Megan would never have tried to cut him out of their lives, and she and Jennifer wouldn’t be where they were now.
No, he wasn’t going to run to his father for help, or to the police or anyone else for that matter. This wasn’t simply an attempt to rescue his wife and child. It was an effort to rescue himself as well, rescue himself from all the inadequacies that had dominated his life and made him the sorry excuse for a man that he now believed he had become.
I’m not a James Bond or some cartoon character like Spider-Man, but I am a man and this is my responsibility, he told himself. He practically chanted it for another hour or so in the car and that chanting kept him strictly focused on what lay ahead. All hesitation was left behind, cowering in some dark shadow. In its place came his rage and indignation. It filled his veins with courage. He would do this thing.
What was it Tricia had told him in her doorway? The man was Megan’s guardian angel?
Well that was what he would be now, what he should have been from the beginning.
He had to stop a number of times to get directions to the dock, and once he arrived, he had no idea how to find the exact slip. He looked about for some help, but saw no one until a man dropped something on his boat and then began to disembark. He hurried toward him.
“Excuse me,” he shouted.
Sanchez Rosario turned and squinted. A man in a jacket and tie was jogging down the dock. When he reached him, he put his hands on his hips and gasped a few moments to catch his breath.
“Qué pasa, amigo?”
“I need help. Habla inglés?”
“Oh, yes. What help?”
“This slip number,” he said, digging into his pocket. “Dónde está?”
“That’s right there,” Sanchez said, pointing.
“But the boat, yacht, whatever?”
“Oh, si. Mr. Wallace, he put his boat offshore. It was there,” he said, pointing somewhere out in the ocean.
“Where is it?”
“Oh, he’s gone off. Not long ago, I saw him get into his dinghy and go out to it.”
“Did he have someone with him?”
“Si, he did. I think it was a woman,” Sanchez added. “Maybe you can reach him on the radio or on a cell phone. Okay?”
“No,” Scott said sharply. He looked at Sanchez’s boat. “Can you take me to his yacht?”
“Take you?” Sanchez started to laugh. Scott reached into his pocket and drew out his wallet. He had six fifties, seven hundreds and six fives.
“I’ll give you all this,” he said.
Sanchez looked at the money, counted it mentally and then started to shake his head.
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars more. Two thousand,” he added when Sanchez just stared at him. “Here’s my driver’s license. I am a wealthy man. You hold onto the license and tell the police if I don’t give you the money.”
Sanchez looked at the license, the cash and Scott.
“You have a credit card?”
“Yes, sure,” Scott said and took out his cards. “Whatever card you like.”
“Okay. I take credit cards. I take people fishing.” He plucked the Visa and Scott’s license. “I’ll write your license number on the card.”
“Yes, yes, do whatever you want, only let’s get started. How long ago did they leave?”
“He left about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago. I don’t know if we can catch them. I can’t guarantee—”
“I think you can do it,” Scott said firmly. “Right?”
Scott put the money into his hand.
“Consider this a tip and charge another thousand dollars if you do catch up to the yacht.”
Sanchez smiled. “If anyone can do it, I suppose I can,” he said.
“Good. Let’s go.”
He started for Sanchez’s boat.
“Why is this so important, senor?”
“My wife and daughter are on that boat,” Scott said. “I think their lives are in danger.”
Sanchez paused. “You should call the police.”
“No time. Just get me to the boat,” Scott said. “Hurry.”
“Mr. Wallace, he did this? Took your wife and daughter?”
“Yes.”
Sanchez nodded. “I can believe it,” he said, and boarded the boat.
Scott waited until Sanchez got them underway.
“Why did you say you can believe it?”
Sanchez shrugged.
“My grandmother she had an expression: el que mal hace, bien no espere. Whoever does evil, do not expect something good. Mr. Wallace, he never trusts, never accepts a favor without waiting for the cost. He never expects something good, comprende?”
“Yes. Your grandmother is very wise.”
“Si. She still lives and still teaches me.”
“Someday I’d like to meet her,” Scott said, and looked out into the darkness where his wife and his daughter waited for some miracle that he hoped he could bring them.
After Steve helped Megan board the boat, he tied up the dinghy and then led her slowly to the state room. She hadn’t said a word. She was too terrified now to question anything he was doing. Her eyes widened when he took out keys to unlock the stateroom door.
“You locked her in there?”
“Just to make sure she didn’t get hurt wandering about the boat,” he said. “You know, a real father thinks about these things. A real father is always concerned about dangers for his children. I’m not saying he has to turn them into sissies, but he should be protective. My father practically told me to go out and play in traffic,” he added, and opened the door.
Megan gasped.
The room was a mess, food wrappers everywhere. Jennifer, obviously in some state of shock, had her thumb in her mouth and was drooling. She was
curled in a fetal position, but her whole body was shuddering as if she were experiencing an electric shock, and her eyes looked sewn shut.
“Jennifer!” Megan cried, and charged forward. She sat on the bed and lifted her, embracing her and holding her closely, rocking and kissing her forehead and cheeks. Jennifer’s eyelids fluttered. “Oh, my darling, my baby, my Jennifer,” Megan chanted through her own sobs.
“You guys get settled in,” Steve said calmly from the doorway. “I’m getting underway.”
Megan ignored him. She continued to stroke Jennifer’s hair and kiss her cheeks, rocking her. Gradually, Jennifer started to come out of her tremors and her eyes remained opened.
“Mommy,” she moaned.
“Shh, honey. I’m here.”
“I want to go home,” she said.
“Yes, honey. We will. As soon as we can.”
Above, Steve got the yacht underway, but the wind had come up again and the waves were rougher, higher. He checked the weather report. It wasn’t promising. The clear skies he had seen were a false hope. The storm that had ridden in from the southwest was still approaching. He had precious cargo now and he didn’t want them to be unhappy. He didn’t want to turn back, but he’d have to keep his speed down. Hopefully, they could reach Playas de Rosarito before it got too rough out here. Normally, it would be only two hours, but at this slower speed, it would take a little longer.
Once there, he would take them to great restaurants and shops and buy Jennifer something new to play with. As the weather improved, they would make their way farther down the coast on what he continued to believe would be his honeymoon. Sure, they were both upset right now. It was quite a sudden change, after all, but he remained confident that it would all turn out well, turn out just the way he had planned and dreamed it would. He flipped the radio dial to get some music and settled in comfortably.
Below, Megan could hear the music vaguely. She felt as if she had been dragged and dropped into a well of madness. She was swirling like someone caught up in a whirlpool. Her mind had to make a sharp turn from believing Scott had become some sort of monster to the realization that it was her so-called guardian angel who was the monster.
Guardian Angel Page 23
