Ruin

by Jette Harris

  That’s what Avery wants. The thought invaded her calm, turning her stomach.

  “Ugh!” she groaned. Dumping the coffee in the trash can, she hit the elevator button again, and the doors slid back open.

  Heather stepped in and hit the button for the top floor. She wished Rhodes could see her now.

  ****

  Heather’s throat was tight. It had always broken her heart to consider she never had the opportunity to say goodbye to her parents. She felt guilty for voluntarily denying her grandfather the same, but doing so would only put him in more danger.

  She stepped out of the elevator and pushed the door open for the stairwell. She could hear movement below, but ignored it. She climbed the three flights to the door opening to the roof.

  Here we are again. All she needed to do was run. It was the same thing she had been doing the past four years, the thing that had saved her life, that had lifted her up when she was down. How ironic…

  The clouds crowning Atlanta were bruised purple from the setting sun. Heather turned toward the city and yelped.

  Someone else was already there.

  Rhodes stepped into the air-conditioned lobby of Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The Braves cap was not pulled down so low as to arouse suspicion, nor was it so uncomfortable; He had accepted–reluctantly–that the Braves were more of a tradition than a talented team. He noted the white shirts of the TSA agents, but did not make eye contact. They did not notice him.

  Rhodes found the counter for Iberia Airlines, and was about to approach the attendant with a smile on his face when a large flat screen TV mounted on the wall flashed a picture of Heather Stokes, followed by footage of the hospital.

  His smile faltered. People flowed around him, but he was still. His throat wouldn’t cooperate; He couldn’t swallow. Every nerve in his body told him he needed to keep moving, to step to the counter, to leave, but his limbs had become as fixed as stone.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  Rhodes turned to find a TSA agent, a black woman quickly approaching elderly. He managed to swallow.

  “No, sorry, just… the news. I had been following the story for a few days. What a tragic way for it to end.”

  “Oh, yes,” she replied. “That poor little girl. And her poor family!”

  (Yes, her poor grandfather.) Rhodes was hit with an unexpected pang of remorse.

  “Thank you,” he said dismissively.

  “Have a nice flight,” the agent said with a nod. She ambled away. He stared at the TV for another minute.

  PHOENIX SURVIVOR COMMITS SUICIDE

  Setting his jaw, Rhodes turned around and hurried back out into the heat and humidity.

  The police had all but abandoned the hospital. Heart pounding, Rhodes used his real name to gain access, the first time he had said it in three months, and it tasted strange in his mouth. He had grown accustomed to Avery Rhodes in a way he had never taken to any of the other names.

  He paused at the elevator. Closing his eyes, he could hear clearly in his mind Heather’s voice as she called him that name. His chest ached. He should have told her his name, given her just that much.

  The elevator doors slid open, and he stepped inside with a nurse. She was texting furiously with obscenely-long acrylic nails. Rhodes wondered how she could insert a catheter or run a line with nails like that.

  “Going down?”

  “Oh, yes.” He had been so relieved by the distraction, he had forgotten to select a floor. He leaned forward and hit the bottom button. It didn’t light up. He frowned. The tapping slowed.

  “Where are you trying to get to?”

  “Uh… the morgue. I’m here to identify a body. That’s L3, right? It’s always L3.”

  “You can’t get in there. Only staff are allowed down there.”

  Rhodes took a deep breath. “You could help me with that.” Reaching behind his back, he pulled out a hunting knife.

  ****

  The chill of the morgue was welcome after the Southern heat. It felt like home. Leaving the nurse unconscious in a corner, he used her key card to buzz through three doors, but to access the morgue itself, he had to climb through the ceiling.

  Rhodes imagined Heather’s lifeless body on a rack. The image sent a shock of grief and bitterness through him. It made sense: She had only survived to care for others. He had stripped her of that. He should not have been so careful; They would be home right now if he had been willing to trade Monica’s life for Heather’s cooperation.

  He had never truly believed Heather had intended to push him over the banister.

  Swallowing hard, Rhodes sifted through the paperwork strewn sloppily across the coroner’s desk. Looking up, he found a diagram on the edge of the cold storage. It didn’t use social security numbers as the cold storage back home, but had names across it.

  Stokes, Heather Tuyen was in unit 12.

  Rhodes’s breathing became ragged. He could not believe his eyes were itching with tears. He had never cried a day in his adult life–not since his father had died. Yet, here he was: Standing before unit 12, sniffling back tears.

  His hand shook as he grasped the handle. Swallowing hard, he twisted and pulled.

  Remington zipped up his suit bag, reluctantly passing it to Steyer. The pair of jeans Wickes had bought him earlier that evening were slightly too tight, and the denim made his legs itch.

  “Something Heather said keeps bugging me,” Remington said.

  “What’s that?”

  “He said he would ‘give her the Phoenix.’ Do you think he could really do that? Just… stop?”

  Steyer sighed, hanging the bag on the rack in the back of his room. “Possibly. Not probable, but… he is incredibly focused. Incredibly. It’s not unknown for people with certain psychological disorders to… shift their focus. Why?”

  Remington rubbed his face and scratched his two-day scruff. “Do you think he’ll follow through with that even if she’s dead?”

  Steyer opened his mouth to reply, but sighed instead.

  “Or do you think he’ll keep that ‘focus’ if he thinks she might still be alive?” Remington pressed on.

  Steyer narrowed his eyes. “Are you suggesting that we give him hope?”

  Rhodes could not stop laughing. He leaned back against the cold storage unit and slid to the ground. The plastic sheet, still crisp and folded, slid down and crumpled to the floor next to him.

  Trying to catch his breath, Rhodes clutched it and pulled it to his chest.

  Heather’s name was on all the appropriate paperwork. Her name was on the chart. It was still on the door. But her body, pale and wan, broken and repaired (Repeatedly!), was nowhere to be found. The unit was empty, except for the folded plastic sheet.

  Rhodes pressed the sheet to his face, trying to suppress his laughter.

  He could not wait to find her, to take her home, and to tell her his name.

  Epilogue I

  13 June

  Tuesday

  Remington tried to sleep on the bus, but between the uncomfortable clothes, his itchy scruff of a beard, and the bumpy ride, any snatches of sleep he caught were short-lived.

  The ride turned out to be twenty hours of unpleasantness until the Toledo skyline appeared on the horizon.

  Remington leaned over to say something to his row mate, but paused to search for her name. She had slept through most of the trip, waking only to force a bit of food down and transfer busses. Her blonde hair was cropped just short enough to reveal the earbuds she wore to drown out the noise of the ride.

  “Lauren.” He tapped her arm.

  The young woman started awake, a fleeting look of resentment in her coffee-colored eyes. He nodded toward the window. She followed his gaze and the look of wonder that settled over her face made the trip worth it.

  “Home, sweet home.”

  She sighed and stretched, raising her right arm over her head. Her left arm was strapped to her torso by a sling. Slumping back down, she fixed him wit
h a determined gaze.

  “For now.”

  ****

  “How would you like to die?”

  Wickes had been sitting on the ledge when Heather arrived on the roof. She should have known they would expect her to attempt to escape again. Wickes leaned forward and said it as if she were offering Heather a job. She held a thick, sealed manila envelope.

  “Is that…” Heather tried to find the words for what she expected the envelope to hold: a secret identity, a safe place, a mission…

  “A new life.”

  Heather exhaled slowly. Her fear eased as she let it out. It wouldn’t ease her pain… but it might keep her safe, keep her grandpa safe. After everything that had happened, she didn’t have many alternatives.

  “OK,” she nodded. “Let’s try that.”

  Epilogue II

  14 June

  Wednesday

  Thatch tipped his cabbie generously and left his luggage on the front porch, all except his black doctor’s bag and the rucksack over his shoulder. He set them down on the hardwood of his foyer as he crossed into the living room, and collapsed face-first on a leather couch. He had just wasted the last 36 hours of his life driving back to Charleston, flying to Spain, flying back through DC, and finally arriving in Colorado Springs.

  He swallowed hard; He had wasted his entire Sabbatical.

  The sound of footsteps invaded his melancholy. His eyes shot open and he twisted to look up. A dark-haired, broad-shouldered man loomed over the back of his couch.

  “What the fuck are you doing in my house?”

  “Welcoming you home.” Nick DeCamp handed him a tumbler of Scotch.

  Sighing, Thatch sat up and downed the generous portion. He pressed the chilled glass to his face and studied his cousin. “You look like shit.”

  “Yeah?” DeCamp rounded the couch and sat opposite. “I had to pick up a few overnight shifts when our usual surgeon was mugged and got his passport stolen.”

  Thatch bit his lip. “You must be really pissed.”

  “Grievously inconvenienced.” DeCamp poured each of them a fresh glass and set the bottle down. “I’ve been thinking about the best ways to punish you. I’m torn between making you cover my weekend shifts so I can run off to flirt with your ranch manager—”

  Thatch opened his mouth to protest.

  “—or making you have dinner with Mother and Father.”

  Thatch recoiled. “Please, Nick, I will take your next three weekend shifts, and I’ll even ask Ginny to feign interest in your conversations.”

  DeCamp shrugged and took a sip. “I told them we would be there, five o’clock, Sunday.”

  “Pretty sure I’ll be working.”

  DeCamp smiled into his glass. “RosaLynn is not very happy with you, so I’m sure she’ll give you the time off.”

  “You are fucking evil, Nick. You know that? Who taught you to be so evil?”

  DeCamp pointed at him. “Dr. Thaddeus Adams.”

  “That cocksucker.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  “Sucking cock? Don’t let your father hear you say that.”

  DeCamp wrinkled his nose. “I walked right into that one…”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “So, other than being mugged and trapped for a week, how was Spain?”

  “Very Spanish.”

  “Lead any cabana boys astray?”

  “Oh, yes.” Thatch leaned forward and studied his cousin. The words rose in his throat, but he bit them back and poured himself another glass of Scotch.

  “What?”

  “What?”

  “Last time you got that look, you were about to inform me my fiancée was cheating on me.”

  “What look?” Thatch took a gulp and sucked on the rim of the glass. DeCamp narrowed his eyes. Thatch leaned back, cradling the glass against his chest. “I met someone.”

  DeCamp’s eyes shot wide. His glass slipped from his fingers, but he managed to catch it. He placed it safely on the table. “Say that again?”

  “I met someone. I spent the last several weeks with them.”

  “What’s his name?” DeCamp pressed his fingers together, blinking skeptically.

  Thatch drained his glass and filled it again. “It’s a her.”

  DeCamp choked. He coughed for a good two minutes. “I have heard myths and legends that you once bedded women, but I have never seen you so much as hug a woman–Ginny doesn’t count.”

  Thatch laughed.

  “And I have never seen you spend two consecutive weekends with the same guy, so… was it the mugging? Did you suffer some kind of brain injury? Does that cure the gay?”

  Thatch laughed. He placed his own glass safely on the coffee table and clutched his ribs.

  “Who is this Spanish enchantress?”

  “She’s…” Thatch caught his breath and wiped a tear from his eye. “I met her on my layover in Atlanta.”

  “Oh, I heard Atlanta was the prime location for crazy shit this summer, but this takes the cake.”

  Slipping off the edge of the couch, Thatch rolled on the floor, laughing. DeCamp chuckled and finished his Scotch.

  “So… Wait… Where is she? Why isn’t she with you?”

  Thatch took a deep breath and held it. “She… uh… She had just been through a lot and wasn’t ready to accept what I offered her.”

  “What does that mean? You’re finished? Doing a long-distance thing? What?”

  “She… disappeared.”

  DeCamp’s brow furrowed. “Disappeared?”

  “Yes. I don’t know where to find her. But you know me.”

  “I know you.”

  “I’ll find her soon enough.” Thatch leaned back, cradling his glass. “I promise.”

  Let others know what you think about RUIN by clicking HERE.

  For bonus content and a note from the author, read on…

  A Note from the Author

  George Orwell, in his essay On Writing, wrote, “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness,” but it wasn’t until RUIN that I understood fully what he meant. Unlike COLOSSUS, which just kind of happened, writing RUIN was like pulling teeth. The bulk of it was there, since I wrote a large amount of Two Guns and RUIN while I was writing COLOSSUS, but finishing the draft and revising it was a struggle.

  Several factors contributed to this, such as life changes, but I suspect the main reason was because I finally realized that I couldn’t just put a book out there, and its intended audience would find it and pass it around. I would have to promote and market it. I would have to sell it, which is not something that comes as naturally as story-telling, especially not for a Southerner who has been taught that people should be humble and not boast about things they created, and we do not, under any circumstances, discuss money.

  I have learned a lot over the past year, and part of that is to boast about things I’ve created, especially if they’re good. I’m sure I’ll learn the rest eventually.

  Meanwhile…

  I’ve left Heather Stokes in a pretty dark place, with a glimmer of hope.

  But Thatch has a glimmer of hope as well.

  If you’d like to see more of their journey—apart and against one another—reach out and let me know. Leave a review, share the books (or the Amazon links!) with a friend, or leave a tip in my digital tip jar (http://ko-fi.com/jetteharris). I have four, possibly five, but definitely one, more RUN RABBIT RUN books I’d like to share with you, but after the second book’s underwhelming reception and being ground down by RUIN, I need to know that Heather and Thatch are worth the time and effort.

  Thank you for following me this far,

  Jette Harris

  A Very Rhodes Christmas

  Flint Ranch, 2004

  Two ranch hands walked along either side of the line. Five children, aged 6 to 12, sat atop the smaller horses, bouncing with excitement. The ranch hands tightened straps and corrected posture when necessary. The horse
s shook their heads or flicked their tails, but were otherwise patient with their young riders.

  Ginny Roanhorse paused as she folded an extra blanket, and leaned against the stable door. She frowned. Six children had arrived this morning, yet there were only five horses. A troubling thought tugged at the back of her mind. She knew where she would find the stray child.

  Jason, the older ranch hand at 20, mounted his horse and took the head. Matt, being only 18, took the rear. They started off slowly, calling words of encouragement to the beginners. They were too young and inexperienced to see what Ginny saw, but she noted exactly what tips to give which children as they disappeared along the quarter-mile trail.

  Taking a deep breath, Ginny tossed the blanket on top of a pile and hurried to the house. The kitchen was empty and quiet, a pleasant change from the chaos that had passed through as the children gathered that morning. She stepped slowly into the living room, listening. A sound, almost inaudible, drew her to the two doors under the stairs. The large door opened into a bathroom. The smaller door concealed a coat closet.

  Ginny placed her ear against the closet door for a few seconds. She heard a gasp as she pulled it open.

  A girl of thirteen sat on the floor under the coats, hugging her knees tightly to her chest. At first her hazel eyes looked relieved to see the woman standing above her, but her lips quivered. Her face was pink and blotchy. Chestnut hair clung to her wet cheeks. She lowered her head. Her shoulders began to quake.

  Tucking her legs under her body, Ginny knelt to the floor, letting the girl know she was not about to make her come out—not yet. She peered out as Ginny's eyes flicked over her. There was a yellowing bruise on her wrist, a souvenir from a rough hand.