The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

by Diane Chamberlain

  He didn’t respond, and she turned to look at him. His eyes were closed, his breathing soft and even, and she knew she would get no answers from him tonight.

  Chapter Ten

  It just occurred to me that you might have your driver’s license by now. All I can say about that is “Watch out, world!”

  There was something no one had anticipated: Although CeeCee knew how to drive—barely—she’d never driven a stick shift. She’d had her provisional license less than a year, and her foster mother had let her drive their car to run close-to-home errands, but the clutch and stick shift were alien to her. So alien that she hadn’t even thought to mention it the night before, when they’d told her she could have one of Naomi and Forrest’s cars.

  “All we’ve got is manual.” Forrest blew out a stream of smoke and looked from one rusted car to another. The dented vehicles appeared no better in the morning light than they had the afternoon before. Their paint was worn so thin it was hard to tell what colors they’d once been.

  She shivered inside her jacket. “I’m sorry,” she said to Tim.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you couldn’t drive?” Marty asked.

  “I can drive,” she insisted. “Just not a stick.”

  “Okay.” Tim put his hand on her neck and gave it a squeeze. There was so much strength in his fingers that she wasn’t sure if the gesture was affectionate or threatening in nature. “It’s no big deal,” he said. “She’s smart. I’ll teach her in ten minutes.”

  Thank God, Naomi and Forrest lived in the middle of nowhere so that she and Tim had the dirt road to themselves. The car bucked and stalled as she tried to find the balance between the gas pedal and the clutch. She felt nervous laughter bubbling up inside of her, but she stifled it, knowing that Tim was in no mood to make light of the situation. He’d awakened in his own head that morning. Any warm words from the night before were forgotten. He was a man on a mission to save his sister and that was it.

  “Well,” Tim said, as they parked the car in the yard after her lesson. “The good news is that there’s not much damage you can do out here in this thing. You’d better take your time getting back to Chapel Hill, though. You’re not ready for the highway.”

  Inside the kitchen later that evening, CeeCee hung back, rocking Emmanuel in her arms, while the three men studied the map spread out on the kitchen table. Naomi was baking trays of granola in the oven and the smell was tantalizing.

  Tim looked over his shoulder at CeeCee. “You should take a look at this, babe,” he said.

  “Here, let me take him from you so you can see.” Naomi slipped the baby from CeeCee’s arms and into the ever-present sling she wore over her shoulder.

  CeeCee stepped between Tim and Forrest and leaned over the table.

  “We’re here right now.” Tim pointed to a spot on the map. “And the cabin is here.” He ran his finger over barely visible lines on the map until he reached a long narrow strip of blue. “That’s the Neuse River. The cabin’s right next to the river, on a road that’s not on the map,” he said, “but I’ll remember it when I see it.”

  “Where do we get groceries?” CeeCee asked.

  “Closest store is ten miles from here,” Forrest said. “Over here.” He pointed to a spot on the map.

  When they’d figured out their route, CeeCee and Tim took the van to the grocery store. At Tim’s insistence, she wore her gloves as they perused the aisles so that any groceries she touched would not bear her prints. They bought canned tuna, soup and vegetables, a loaf of bread, toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, eggs, pasta, peanut butter, cookies, tomato sauce and two pounds of ground beef.

  “All this?” CeeCee asked worriedly as Tim put the ground beef in the cart. “How long do you really think this will take?”

  “I’m still hoping for a few hours,” he said. “Overnight at the most. But you should have enough food in case it’s longer.”

  They drove back to Naomi and Forrest’s house, where CeeCee transferred the groceries to the old car that she could now, for what it was worth, call her own. Marty decided to ride with her, in case she had any problems with the clutch, and they would follow Tim to the cabin. They said goodbye to their hosts, who couldn’t mask their looks of relief at seeing them leave.

  She stayed close behind Tim in the old car. Twice she stalled, once at a turn and once on a hill when she stepped on the brake instead of the clutch. To his credit, Marty didn’t utter a word. He was too wound up to chide her, she thought. All three of them were so focused on what lay ahead that they barely noticed what was happening around them.

  Ahead of her, Tim turned onto a road that was even more rutted than the one Naomi and Forrest lived on. She felt every jarring dip of the road in her spine, and Marty put his hand on the dashboard for balance. They were in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing except acres of tall pines and the narrow ribbon of dirt on which she was driving.

  Finally they came to a fork in the road. Ahead of her, Tim stopped his van and although she couldn’t see him, she imagined he was looking in one direction, then the other.

  “I think we go right,” Marty said. He had started to open the car door when Tim apparently came to the same conclusion, driving onto the right tine of the fork. CeeCee followed him, her hands gripping the steering wheel as potholes threatened to wrench it from her grasp.

  “Man,” Marty said, looking from left to right and back again. “Not sure how we’re going to find this place. It’s so overgrown out here.”

  Just then, Tim turned right onto a gravel road. She followed him and, after about a hundred yards, spotted the corner of a building.

  “All right!” Marty gave the dashboard a celebratory slap with his palm. “Eureka!”

  The minuscule cabin was sided with bleached-looking cedar. It had white shutters, a cutout of a pine tree on the bottom of each one, and a steeply sloping roof. It appeared to be in good shape. Better than Naomi and Forrest’s house, at any rate. She parked behind the van, and as soon as she opened the car door, she heard the roar of rushing water.

  “Come see the river!” Tim shouted to them over the din.

  They climbed over rocks and tree roots to the rear of the cabin, where the yard fell away to the bank of the river. The water swirled over a cluster of smooth boulders, striking them with such force that thousands of small puffs of foam shot into the air. She could feel the spray on her cheeks.

  “Isn’t this a cool place?” Tim came to stand beside her.

  “It’s nice,” she agreed. She wished she were looking forward to a romantic week in the cabin with Tim instead of a few hours with a woman she didn’t know. Being here made it all so real. She held her jacket closed against the chill air and stepped away from the river. What was she doing? What had she gotten herself into?

  “Do you have your gloves?” Tim asked.

  She pulled them out of her pocket.

  “Put them on now,” he said. “And don’t take them off until you’re miles away from here, okay?”

  She helped the men carry the groceries and her small suitcase into the cabin. It was cold inside and Tim turned the knob on the thermostat. The electric baseboard heat clicked on, and the smell of burning dust quickly filled the air.

  The cabin was a small square box, divided into three main rooms—a living room and two bedrooms—as well as a tiny kitchen and tinier bathroom. She and Tim put away the groceries in silence. The empty pantry had mouse droppings on every shelf. She turned on the faucet, which did nothing, and Tim searched for the shutoff, finally locating it in a cupboard. The water poured from the tap in a rusty-brown stream.

  “It’ll clear,” Tim said. “Just let it run a while.”

  She dampened the paper towel with the brown water and wiped away the mouse droppings, then lined the open trash can in the corner with one of the grocery bags.

  “Let’s check out the place,” Tim said, taking her gloved hand.

  One bedroom had a double bed with an iron headboard. The
other had two sets of bunk beds.

  “This is the room Marty and Andie and I would stay in when we visited our cousins,” Tim said, a look of nostalgia in his eyes. “We brought sleeping bags, because there were too many of us.” He lifted the bedspread from the corner of the upper bunk. “Maybe you should have the governor’s wife sleep up here,” he said. “That way she can’t do anything fast and fake you out. You can cuff her to the headboard if you end up being here overnight.”

  “Okay,” she said, but she was thinking, This isn’t really going to happen. “Where are the…the handcuffs?” she asked.

  Tim gave a quick nod as though he’d only now remembered them. “I’ve got them in the van in case we need them when we pick her up,” he said. “I’ll give them to you when we bring her tonight.”

  “Tim…” She was still wearing her jacket and folded her arms across herself in an anxious hug. “I’m nervous,” she said. “You’re going to just drop her off here with me and then leave, and I’m somehow supposed to keep her from escaping during the night. Couldn’t you at least stay here for a while after you bring her?”

  “Squ-a-awk! Squ-a-awk!” Marty walked into the room making barnyard noises. “Do I detect a chicken in here?” he asked.

  CeeCee ignored him. “Please?” she asked Tim.

  “Can’t, babe,” Tim said. “We’ve got to start on the negotiations right away and we can’t do that from here. You know that. We have to strike while the iron is hot.” He tugged a strand of her hair and gave her a distracted smile. “It’s going to be fine.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out two keys held together by a rubber band. “These are to the dead bolts,” he said, handing them to her. “We’ve got to take off now.”

  “Already?” she asked, startled. “You’ve got to leave now?”

  He nodded. “We have to be in the parking lot when her class gets out.” He kissed her cheek. “You’re gonna do great.”

  She wasn’t so sure. Through the bedroom window, she watched the brothers leave the cabin. Daylight was fading, highlighting Tim in its red sunset glow, and he looked slim and young and vulnerable. What if the police caught him during the kidnapping? What if they killed him? Her heart twisted at the thought. How would she ever know? She had no way to communicate with the outside world.

  She locked the dead bolts on the front and back doors and pocketed the keys. Then she checked the windows. All but one were swollen too tight to raise, although she supposed her captive could break the glass. Even with the windows closed, the sound of the rushing river filled the cabin.

  The bunk beds were neatly covered with bedspreads, but unmade. She found musty-smelling sheets and pillowcases in the closet of the larger bedroom and made the bottom bunk of one set and the top bunk of the other. She wandered through the rooms, peering into closets stuffed with sleeping bags, blankets and games. The medicine cabinet contained a bottle of aspirin, a packet of razor blades and some dental floss. She found cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink, so she scrubbed the counters and then cleaned the sink and tub in the little bathroom. There were a few books on a shelf in the living room, and she sat down on the ragged living-room sofa and tried to read, but concentration was impossible.

  Giving up, she lifted her legs onto the couch, wrapped her arms around them, and tried to push away the dark and troubled thoughts that filled her mind.

  Chapter Eleven

  You don’t get scared very often, but you shake like a leaf when you do. You came into my room this afternoon, trembling all over, and I knew Dr. Watts must have told you I don’t have much longer. You were trying hard to hide your fear. You handed me a glass of juice and spilled it all over the blanket and when you tried to clean it up, your hands and arms were shaking so hard, you couldn’t. I felt so bad for you. I wanted to fix it, like I do your scraped knees and bee stings. But there was nothing I could do except hold you. I held you until you finally stopped shaking. Do you remember?

  Night fell early outside the cabin. She ate tuna from the can for supper, barely tasting it. There were no shades at the windows, and she felt exposed to whatever or whoever might be lurking in the woods. A strong breeze came up and the world outside crackled with the sound of swaying branches. She jumped at a thud on the small front porch and unlocked the dead bolt to peer into the darkness, but the chilly wind made her shiver and she quickly shut the door and bolted it again.

  Should she sleep? Who knew when she’d next get the chance? She turned off all the lights in the house and lay down on the bottom bunk bed she’d made, but she was trembling all over. She got under the covers, but the blankets didn’t help; it was not the cold that was making her shiver. How was she going to control a grown woman? She’d felt so young these past few days, so aware of the age difference between her and Tim and Marty and Naomi and Forrest. She wondered again if Tim regretted asking a mere kid to be responsible for an important part of his plan. He should have asked the girl from SCAPE.

  She curled into a ball. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to get the governor’s wife. Please don’t let them get her. Tim would be sorely disappointed and she felt bad about that, but self-preservation was kicking into gear.

  The slamming of a car door jolted her awake. She sat up in the darkness, still shivering, although the cabin had grown quite warm. She heard voices outside. Jumping from the bed, she ran into the living room to peer through the window into the darkness. She couldn’t see anything at first, and she felt dizzy, as though she might pass out or throw up. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself.

  Moving to another window, she spotted the light inside the van. She watched Marty reach into the passenger seat and pull a woman to her feet. CeeCee caught a glimpse of a white blindfold tied around her eyes.

  Her mask! She raced back to the bedroom and quickly wrapped her hair around her head, dropping some of the bobby pins on the floor with her trembling, gloved hands. One of the brothers pounded on the front door as she pulled on the blond wig and slipped the mask over her face.

  “Coming!” she called. “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she whispered to herself as she ran into the living room and unlocked the dead bolt.

  It took both Marty and Tim to pull the blindfolded woman through the doorway. She was nearly as tall as they were.

  “Stop it!” the woman yelled, her cuffed hands batting the air. “Let go of me!” Her short red hair was mussed, her cheeks crimson, from the cold or from crying. She wore a fur coat. Real fur, CeeCee thought. Dark and rich and shimmery. And she was very fat.

  “She’s an obstinate bitch,” Marty said to CeeCee as he pushed the woman past her, but even with her eyes covered, the woman’s expression looked more anxious than obstinate.

  “Don’t be afraid,” CeeCee said to her.

  The woman stopped fighting. “Who’s that?” she asked.

  She hadn’t thought of a name for herself. “Sleeping Beauty,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  “Her name’s Genevieve,” Tim said, as though the word tasted bad in his mouth. He reached up and untied the woman’s blindfold. She blinked against the light, blue eyes red and puffy from crying, and her gaze fell on CeeCee. “Who are you?” she asked. “Why are you wearing a mask? What’s going on?”

  “Does she have to have the handcuffs on?” CeeCee asked Tim.

  “You going to behave now?” Tim asked the woman.

  Genevieve didn’t respond. She stared at CeeCee, trying to peer into her eyes behind the mask and CeeCee felt an unexpected connection with her: They were both trapped in this situation.

  Tim pulled a small key from his pocket and unlocked the cuffs. The moment Genevieve’s hands were free, she slapped him hard across the face, much the way CeeCee had during their breakup performance on Franklin Street.

  “You bitch!” Marty grabbed the woman’s wrist, but Tim merely smiled. He looked unsure of himself, though, as if he’d gotten in over his head. It scared CeeCee to see him that way. She needed hi
m to be certain that what they were doing was right. Certain enough for both of them.

  “Let go of me!” Genevieve tried to twist her wrist out of Marty’s grasp.

  “Let go of her,” CeeCee agreed. She was not trying to protect the woman as much as ease her own discomfort. She didn’t like physical conflict, always fearing it might escalate into something worse. The woman was a massive and imposing figure in the fur coat. She could do some damage if she chose to. “She’s okay,” she said. “She can’t go anywhere.”

  Marty let go, and the woman rubbed her wrist.

  “Take off this animal you’re wearing,” Tim said. He helped her as though he was helping his girlfriend in a restaurant. When the coat slipped from Genevieve’s shoulders, it was clear she was not fat after all.

  “She’s pregnant,” CeeCee said.

  “Well, at least one of you can face reality,” the woman said. She was wearing a long, navy-blue sweater and pale blue slacks. “I’ve been telling these jerks that the whole way here. I’m thirty-seven weeks and this is a high-risk pregnancy.” Her voice broke as she rested one hand on her belly. “Please take me back,” she said to Tim.

  “Did you know she was pregnant?” CeeCee asked Tim, but Marty answered.

  “It’s no big deal,” he said.

  It was a big deal, CeeCee thought. This was a human being they were dealing with. Two human beings.

  “If your husband does what he’s told,” Tim said, his eyes were on the woman’s huge belly, “you’ll be home before you know it.”

  “Thirty-seven weeks,” Genevieve repeated to him. “That’s more than eight months. Do you understand?”

  “I’ve got it,” Tim said. “That’s all the more reason the gov should want you back safe, and soon.”

  “If anything happens to this baby,” Genevieve said, “you two will be in worse trouble than you are now, I can tell you that.” She leveled her eyes at CeeCee. “You three,” she said. “My husband will never give in to blackmail.”