The bullet hit the case beside me, and glass exploded. I landed hard on the floor. Pain ricocheted through me. My breath stuttered in my chest, and white stars spun in my vision. I lay on the floor for a long moment struggling to catch my breath and not lose the contents of my stomach.
When I finally managed to push myself upright, Arnold was writhing on the ground. He had lost his grip on the gun. I kicked it aside. The elbow of his gun arm was clenched between Frank’s jaws. Arnold swung wildly at him, fist glancing off of the poodle’s head, but Frank maintained his grip, snarling low in his throat.
Arnold drew his fist back, but I caught it in my own before he could strike my dog again. I grabbed his forearm and shoved his clenched fist toward his body in a swift movement that snapped his wrist. I heard the pop of bones even as he howled.
I patted him down roughly as he curled into a fetal position, sniveling and moaning. He carried no other weapons on him.
“Ease up, Frank,” I said. I knelt as the poodle came to my side. I ran my hands over him gently and found no wound or places that made him cry out. I rubbed his ears and peered into his dark eyes. “Good boy.”
“Fuck,” Arnold groaned. “You snapped my damn arm in two.”
I stood and holstered my CZ before I caught him by the back of the collar and dragged him down the hallway. He yelped and struggled against me. His flailing sent flairs of pain through me, and I was ready to put a bullet in him when he aimed a kick at Frank.
The poodle leapt back before Arnold’s boot made contact. I stopped and twisted my fist into his collar until his air was cut off. I could hear his choking gurgles. “I can snap your fucking ankle, too, if you try that again,” I warned.
He went limp, and I loosened my grip on his collar. I dragged his dead weight down the hallway. Once inside the break room, I flipped the light on and let go of him so suddenly his head bounced against the floor with a thump.
Frank padded into the room. When I pulled a chair close to Arnold’s prone form, the poodle sat beside me. “Sit up,” I barked at the man.
He pushed himself carefully upright and leaned back against the wall. His face was devoid of color, and sweat lined his brow and upper lip. He cradled his broken wrist against his stomach. His gaze darted to the gun at my hip. “Either shoot me or arrest me,” he said, voice tight with pain and fear.
“I’m not going to do either,” I said. “I’m taking a page from your buddy Jake’s book. I’m blackmailing you.” His eyes widened, but I continued before he could speak. “You lied about a lot of things, but you didn’t lie about your wife being ill.”
“Leave her out of this,” he whispered.
“Elaine is her name, isn’t it?” I asked, and he swallowed. “She was diagnosed with ALS thirty years ago. That’s a long time for someone to live with Lou Gehrig’s. It’s a cruel disease.” His eyes grew damp, and I knew it had nothing to do with the pain in his arm. “Let me tell you how this is going to go down. When I leave here, you are going to clean up. Go to the hospital to have your wrist taken care of. Then tomorrow, call the police. When they arrive, you’re going to tell them that Larson killed Jake Martin and then ordered you to get rid of the body. And you’re going to take that story all the way to court.”
“That will never work,” he sputtered.
“You’re going to make it work. You’ll do a little time yourself for obstruction, but you’re going to do it, and you are going to stick to the story that Larson killed Martin.” I leaned forward, and he flinched back from me. “Because if you don’t, all that money you’ve put into Elaine’s care, into making sure she’s comfortable and can continue to be so for as long as she has left, is going to disappear.” I had not thought it possible, but his face paled further. “If you don’t, she’s going to be put in a musty old folk’s home with caregivers who don’t give a rat’s ass about her and who will let her rot away in a corner. Bed sores will eat through her flesh straight to the bone. She’ll lie in her own piss and shit. She’ll drown in the fluid that builds up in her lungs. And no one will sit by her bed and hold her hand and tell her how lovely and loved she is.” His chin trembled, and I softened my voice. “I know that’s not what you want for her, Arnold.”
“Go fuck yourself.” A fine tremor worked its way through him, though. After a long moment, he looked up and met my gaze. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” he whispered. “Whatever you want. For Elaine.”
I patted his shoulder with more force than was necessary. “I’m glad we understand one another.” I called Frank to my side. “I’ll leave you to your confession. Keep your story straight. Elaine is depending on you.”
“You’re a cruel son of a bitch,” Arnold whispered, a tremor shaking his voice and a tear finding a path down his face.
I stopped in the doorway and turned back to him. “You’re not the first to think so, and I’m certain you won’t be the last.”
thirty-six
FAYE
“I can come with you,” Evelyn said.
For a moment, I considered saying yes. I had lived a life on the run before, though, and knew the toll it took.
“I don’t have another ID for you,” I said. “And when everything comes out, you’ll be accused of being an accessory.”
She blew out a breath and began refolding the stack of sweaters I placed on the bed and packing them in the duffel bag. “I was one.”
A rug hid the bloodstain that we had not quite been able to remove completely from the hardwood floors.
She said she did not need the details, but I explained everything to her, the papers I had drawn up, and the history that made this necessary. I remained quiet as I loaded the pistols and ammunition into the gun case.
She caught my hand, and I paused. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I promise, if you are found one day, I will take care of Sam.”
It was the one request I made of her. “Thank you. I’ll miss you,” I told her, and her eyes welled with tears. Mine burned in response.
We went back to packing. I kept it to the basics. Weapons and clothing. Sam had several more bags than I did, because I could not bear to make him leave more behind. We walked outside, depositing everything in the drive.
Sam clung to Evelyn when she knelt to hug him. She let out a trilling whistle, which he mimicked, and when she drew back, her face was damp. She held up her hand. “High five, bud.”
For the first time, he did not just place his palm against hers but drew back and cracked their hands together. She laughed and ruffled his hair as she straightened.
She hugged me for a long time, with her arms wrapped tightly around me. I closed my eyes and imprinted the moment on my memory. When she finally drew back, she plucked her glasses off and polished them on the hem of her blouse.
“This time, I think you should go with blonde,” she said. “That color would suit you better than the black.”
My chuckle was waterlogged. “Be well, Evelyn.”
She turned and retreated toward the inn. “I’m not telling you both goodbye,” she called over her shoulder. “And I’m not going to watch you leave.”
I watched her leave, though. I waited until she disappeared inside before I turned and began loading our bags in her car. She signed the title over to me, and I gave her cash to get another vehicle.
“He hasn’t been reported missing yet.”
I froze at the sound of his voice, heart sinking into my stomach. I swallowed and placed a hand on Sam’s head. When he glanced up at me, I nodded toward the side yard. “Go play over there for just a few minutes.”
He could sense the tension humming through me, and he clung to my hand.
Hector moved slowly down the drive, Frank trotting at his side. In the crook of his arm, Hector carried a little red bundle of fur.
When he reached us, he offered the puppy to Sam. The little boy’s face lit when Hector placed the puppy in his arms and the slim blue leash attached to the puppy
’s collar in his hand. “You’d be doing me a favor if you took this guy for a walk.”
Sam glanced up at me, torn by excitement over the small, wriggling bundle he held so gently and carefully.
I forced a smile. “Go ahead.”
When boy and dog were out of earshot, I looked up and met Hector’s shrewd gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said carefully.
Hector studied me, his gaze lingering on the swollen, bruised side of my face. He looked as battered as I felt. His nose was broken, the swelling and bruising spreading out around his eyes. He held himself gingerly, as if even standing and breathing were a painful experience.
He was silent for a long moment, and his gaze moved from my face to focus on Sam and the puppy. “One thing I’ve learned about the law in the last thirty years is that it isn’t fair and it isn’t just. Not always. Not even most of the time. The men and women standing behind the law, the ones securing the blindfold and loading the scales. They determine whether justice is served or not.” He turned back to me. “Would you like some company?” he asked. When my brows went up in surprise, he tipped his chin toward the boy and dog. “The road is a lonely place.” He said it as if he knew from experience.
“I can’t take your dog.”
Hector rested his hand on Frank’s head where the poodle sat beside him. “I know a poodle breeder in the area. I contacted her the other day to see if she had any puppies available. That little guy was the last of the litter. I didn’t get him for me or Frank, though.”
I struggled to wrap my mind around what he was telling me. “You…bought Sam a puppy?”
He looked away, and I thought he might be embarrassed. “I know when I was a boy, there was nothing I wanted more than a dog of my own.”
“I…” I was not certain what to say. A peal of laughter drew my attention to Sam, and my heart crept into my throat. He knelt on the ground with the standard poodle puppy bouncing up and down in front of him trying to lick his face. It was the first laugh I had heard from him in five years, and the knot in my throat was difficult to swallow around. “Thank you,” I said around the lump in my throat.
When I glanced at him, I found him watching Sam and the puppy with a faraway look in his eyes. Sensing my gaze on him, he turned to me.
“I would do anything to keep him safe,” I whispered.
“I think you’ve proven that,” he said without a trace of irony in his voice.
“With Kevin…” I swallowed. “It was more than just physical abuse. He would have crushed Sam.”
“If she knew, she would be relieved that you took him and spared him that.”
My gaze flew to Hector’s. “How long have you known?”
“That Sam is not your son? Since I ran your fingerprints and found the case report on Mary Gibson’s murder.”
The instinct to run was almost overwhelming. My heart galloped away from me, and I struggled to slow my breathing.
“Do you need to sit down?” he asked when I bent double and braced my hands on my knees.
I shook my head, but I could not form any words yet. I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath through my constricted throat. There was a nudge against my legs and then a cold, damp nose pressed against my cheek.
I blinked and met Frank’s dark gaze. The poodle stared into my face with such a canine look of concern that I could not help but smile. I straightened, and he moved to press his head against my leg. I stroked his ears and looked to Hector.
“I didn’t kill her. I…” My voice broke, and I cleared my throat before continuing. “I loved her. She meant everything to me.”
“Did Hastings know?”
“About our relationship?” I nodded. “I knew things would be different. I didn’t expect things to continue like they had been between us. But I gradually heard from her less and less until I realized it had been months since I had seen her or received even so much as a text from her.” I closed my eyes and remembered my heartache and my resentment. “I should have been more concerned, but I was busy with my bakery, and it was painful, losing her. I thought some distance would help. I just…I didn’t realize what the distance signified on her side.”
“How did you find out?” he asked.
“She came to me.”
I swallowed, remembering the knock on my door in the middle of the night, recalling the emptiness in her eyes. She had been so silent and fragile. She was soaked to the skin from the storm raging outside, chilled and shaking. When I led her into the bathroom and helped her take her clothes off as the shower heated, I saw two bruises. One was in the shape of a hand print around her upper arm, the other a set shaped like fingers on her thighs.
“He’s usually careful not to leave bruises,” she said, voice so hollow and dead it terrified me.
I had also seen the burgeoning swell of her stomach.
“Stay here with me,” I told her. “I’ll help you.”
She placed her hand against my cheek and smiled at me with such sadness it broke my heart. “There’s no help for me. Not with him.”
And it was true. Within several hours, there was another knock on my door. When I met her gaze, I saw the terror in her eyes.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she whispered. “He’ll hurt you to get to me.”
“Don’t go back with him,” I begged. “Let me call the police. Surely they can—”
“I’ve tried the police,” she said, and then she crossed to the door.
He still had the same unwavering gaze I remembered from when I first saw him in the club. But now instead of interpreting it as confidence, I saw it for what it was. Arrogance and cruelty.
He gripped the back of her neck, and I saw her flinch, but his voice was all soft charm. “Darling,” he murmured, “I’ve been so worried about you. It’s time for you to come home.”
I stood, but her eyes flashed to mine in warning. Her shoulders bowed and her head dipped, and I wanted to kill him. But instead, I let him lead away the person I cared about most in the world.
I did not see her again until after she had Sam. She showed up in the middle of the night again with just the clothes on her back and the baby in her arms. She and Sam stayed for three days before Kevin arrived.
It was the same pattern for the next three years until the day she arrived with panic written into every line of her body. Sam’s arm was in a cast.
He was quieter than usual, his laughter and toddler chatter subdued as I led him into the bedroom I set up for him. I left him with the toys I collected for him and joined Mary in the hallway.
“We can’t go back,” she whispered. She placed her hand on her slightly curved stomach. “And I can’t have this baby.”
“Then you don’t have to,” I promised her.
I took her to the clinic and sat in the lobby with Sam sleeping in my lap while she had the abortion. I left my assistant in charge of the bakery, and we moved to a different part of the city every month. I thought it was an easy city to hide in. We managed it for five months. But his connections were too vast, and I had underestimated how ruthless and determined he would be to find them.
Mary had not, though. I frequently awakened to find her absent from my bed. When I went to find her, she was always inevitably sitting guarding the front door with the pistol I purchased balanced carefully on her knee. I knelt at her side and rested my cheek against her thigh.
“Come back to bed,” I said softly. “You and Sam are safe.”
“I’ll just keep watch a little longer,” she would always respond. “Just to make sure.”
She was not the Mary I had fallen in love with, though I loved her still. She was no longer bright and effervescent. Her confidence had been stripped away, and that spark that always clung to her had been snuffed out.
I could not fix this Mary. The pieces of her had not been broken. They had been shattered and ground underfoot. I could only sweep those sharp, slivered fragments into a pile a
nd cradle them in my hands. But even that was not enough.
When I heard the knocking on my front door, I assumed it was the concierge delivering the food I ordered. But then I heard the sharp rise in Mary’s voice and the sharp crack of my front door being kicked in. The screams came after that.
I snatched Sam out of the bathtub and stood paralyzed by fear for an instant. His naked, soapy body felt so fragile in my arms. He should have cried. Another child would have. But he had been through this too many times already in his short life. He was frozen against me, eyes wide and unblinking, like a small wild creature staying impossibly still to avoid being seen by a predator.
All the while, Mary screamed. The sound of furniture being broken and glass shattering punctuated the screams. The sound of blows connecting with flesh interrupted her cries. I clutched Sam to me and ran into my bedroom, closing it as silently as I could manage and locking it behind me. I raced to the window and my hand fumbled at the lock. As I yanked it open, Mary suddenly went silent, and after a moment, I heard him calling my name.
I bit my lip so hard it bled. I would not be quick enough on the fire escape, and I couldn’t risk falling with Sam. Heavy footsteps seemed to thunder through the penthouse.
I left the window open and raced to my bed, dropping to my knees just as the doorknob rattled. A whimper escaped Sam, and I pressed my hand over his mouth as I lay down and slid us under the bed.
“Shh, baby,” I murmured right in his ear. My voice shook. “Shh. We have to be quiet. Don’t make a sound.”
I clung to him. We both flinched when my bedroom door burst open and cracked against the wall. I cupped my other hand over my own mouth to keep myself from screaming and closed my eyes tightly.
I left Sam hiding under the bed when Kevin finally left that day. The silence was so loud it seemed to echo. I crept down the hallway, dread building inside me. The penthouse had an open floor plan. As soon as I reached the end of the hallway, I saw her.
HIDING PLACE by Meghan Holloway Page 23
