Don't Stop Me

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  “No, John, I didn’t know about you, or I can tell you things would have turned out differently.”

  Fiona slid around, taking in Vic as he faced John. With the two of them together, anyone could see he was his father’s son.

  “Right now I live in Salem. I own my own business. I’m a contractor.”

  She hadn’t known where he was or what he did. It surprised her.

  “Can I come visit?” John said.

  She was on her feet and stepping forward. “No, John, you have school, and visiting Vic right now won’t work.” She couldn’t allow this to keep going on.

  Vic only gave her a slight turn of his head. She knew he was aware of what she was doing, but this was too much. “Fiona?” His voice was low, but she could hear the warning clear. However, she wasn’t going to allow him to walk in and just take over. He couldn’t have her son.

  “John, I need to speak with Vic alone. Could you give us a moment?” she said, but John for the first time appeared as if he had no intention of listening.

  “No, Mom, I’m not leaving. I still have questions, like why you lied. And that name you called Mom…Badra?” He was too smart for his own good.

  “I had my reasons.” Her jaw ached, and she was so mad at Vic, who wasn’t saying or doing anything to help her out.

  “You need to tell him, Badra, before it comes out, all of it.”

  The last thing she wanted for her son was to have his world ripped apart, suddenly being forced to be someone he wasn’t. She stubbornly shook her head and rested her hand on her hip, running her other over her hair, feeling the dampness under her arms from the scrutiny she was under.

  “Mom, why does he keep calling you Badra? What is going on?”

  “Really, Vic?” she said. “Should I? Because that story doesn’t paint you too favorably. You were responsible for ripping my world apart and altering everything. You want him to know what a two-bit thug you were as a car thief and me a starry-eyed girl who was sweet talked into the back seat of your car? I loved the danger because it was a far change from the sheltered, bored, conservative life I had, with my ten o’clock curfew and parents who had to know my every move. You were exciting, and…” She wanted to cry, thinking back to how she had loved everything about Vic McCabe: his kisses, his fast talking, his trouble, his danger. She’d loved him, and he’d destroyed her. “I followed you, did anything for you, and I see now what a stupid fool I was.”

  John appeared so confused, searching her out, seeing her in a way she’d never wanted him to look at her.

  “My name was Badra Walker,” she finally said. “My mother was Muslim, my father an Englishman.”

  “But your family was Italian,” John said. You said you were Italian. You told me they were killed in a car accident. You’re not Italian? Was that a lie, too? What is the truth?”

  She knew Vic was watching her, maybe wondering why she’d created that story.

  What could she say? Italian was safer than Muslim. “Yes, it was,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  This was such a mess.

  “You stole cars… Were you in jail?” John asked Vic, but his expression was one of interest instead of condemnation.

  “I was a stupid young man, but I was lucky, and I turned my life around and made something of myself. Got a scholarship to Harvard and worked my ass off, which is something else we need to talk about and one of the reasons I’m here,” Vic said, and Fiona found herself holding her breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “There’s a reporter who wants to do a story on me, and it includes your mom. I think it would be best if you both came and stayed with me until this mess is sorted out.”

  Yeah, this was worse. “Vic, no,” she said. “We’re not coming with you. My life is here. John has school.”

  “But I have security and can control all this from Salem. I can’t keep coming up here, and I don’t know what’s going to come from that story—if she buries it or if that editor prints it. Having it blow up in your face with me down in Salem is far from ideal. No, I need to be a step ahead, and I can’t do that leaving you two here and knowing something could happen.”

  “What could happen? Are we in danger?” For the first time, John sounded scared. “What did you two do? What happened?”

  “He needs to know,” Vic said to her softly, but she realized he was trying to take the decision out of her hands. He was assuming his role, and she knew he’d never walk away from John or let her push him out of his son’s life. Vic had always been a fighter, and it terrified her now that he’d likely fight her for her child.

  “You can’t have my son, Vic. We’ll be fine here.”

  “Maybe, but you know all too well what happened to your parents. There was an overreach, and I could do nothing to protect you that time. This time, I swear to you, no one is touching John or you. I mean to be ready. You can’t stay here.” He stepped closer to her but then stepped back, maybe because she knew he was going to touch her. He lowered his hand.

  “I’m really confused here. What did you do?” John was looking to her and then Vic for answers. It was a wonder he was still talking to her. “Mom, you’re scaring me. Why would we be in danger? Why do we need protection? What did you do?” John’s eyes widened.

  “I was suspected of terrorism,” she said, and her son’s jaw dropped. For the first time today, John had nothing to say.

  Chapter 20

  Tish had two screens on her home desktop, and she had both stories up: the story she’d written and the one from the Phoenix Tribune fifteen years ago with the headline Terrorism attack foiled by local police. It painted the cops as heroes, but the reality of the story was the opposite.

  She’d left five messages for the reporter who’d written the story, the last one an hour ago, stressing the urgency of the matter. She also knew this reporter had long since retired to a mountain cabin in the Adirondacks and was divorced with three grown children, all married. He wasn’t calling her back, and she had one day to try to get some answers.

  Her inbox dinged, and she sat up when she saw it was from that reporter, Sam Laughlin.

  “Yes!” She pumped her hand in the air. “Finally.”

  She hit a quick reply, sending her number and asking him to talk over Skype. She waited, linking her fingers together when her Skype box popped up on the computer, ringing. She answered, and an older man with a round face and white beard appeared on the screen.

  “Sam, I’m Tish Campbell. Thanks for calling,” she said.

  He nodded and with a deep voice said, “I saw your messages, and I have to tell you I almost didn’t respond, but I realized you weren’t going to give up. Persistent, aren’t you?” He laughed a bit, one of those lighthearted things people did when they were making small talk.

  “My editor and parents often say the same thing. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about a story you wrote fifteen years ago.”

  He furrowed his brow as if thinking, but she knew he had to have some idea. “I know the one. Saw your emails. There are some stories you forget, but that wasn’t one of them.”

  “I have to admit that I came across your story while doing research for a piece on Vic McCabe.” She had also put out calls, namely to the Phoenix PD, who hadn’t called her back, but it was only then that she’d received calls from a burner cell phone. She still had so many questions.

  “Oh dear, of all the stories I’ve written, that’s one I wish I’d never done, but being a reporter, you want that big story. I had a friend on the force who slipped me the tip, and everything just snowballed from there.”

  “What is the truth? What really happened? I spoke with Vic McCabe, and he’s telling me a different story, one with a lot of bureaucratic mistakes.”

  The man gave nothing away but seemed to be considering something. “It was the right thing at the time. How it was handled was the only way it could have been. You have to know it was after the attacks in New York, the Twin Towers and all that horror. We were all nervous and thinkin
g the worst, that it would be just one more attack against a bunch of innocents.”

  She waited for him to say more. She knew it had been a different time, but so much had happened between then and now that she wondered if they wouldn’t react the same way. Most likely, she was sure.

  “They got a call that anthrax was being transported in the trunk of a stolen car. The plate, make, and model were provided, and a city-wide manhunt was launched. The car was spotted within hours in the lot of the Phoenix Hilton. I’m sure you know the rest, as I wrote in my story. The young man was located, the car searched, and forensics and the Feds were called in to close down the area. The young man had a Muslim girlfriend, and the police said they had information that they were planning on crossing state lines and boarding a plane. Assumptions were made on how the anthrax would come into play, who the target was, and then the Feds tracked the parents of the girl, paid them a visit, and tragically they were shot in the process of the arrest. There were reports that they resisted, put up a fight, and one officer said he thought the father had a gun.”

  He was shaking his head. That was everything Sam had written in his story and the same details she had highlighted in hers.

  “But it wasn’t anthrax?” she said.

  Sam was shaking his head. “No. When the lab actually identified the contents, they discovered it was flour, just simple all-purpose flour. They didn’t know who’d phoned in the tip. The owner of the car was a retired English teacher who was out of the country and didn’t know the car had even been stolen, and the young man they had held without bail and interrogated for endless hours, and the Muslim girl, too, were released. The entire department and the Feds wanted to quietly sweep it under the carpet and needed it to go away.”

  Her stomach ached as she listened to what had happened. It was the same story Vic had told her, minus the part about the English teacher. Maybe he hadn’t known that part. “And you didn’t print a retraction?” She couldn’t believe the lives that had been destroyed. “And Badra and her parents?”

  He appeared confused for a second. “Who?”

  “The girl. That was her name, Badra Walker.”

  He was nodding. “Right, sorry. No, it was one of those things that stick with you. It happens where we don’t get it right and it’s ‘Oops, sorry,’ but this was different. I’ll tell you I spent a lot of years wishing I’d never gotten that call, never printed that story, but I was eager to get it out before any other news outlet got the scoop, so the morning paper printed it. The mistake was discovered not long after, and we never talked about it.

  “We were just happy the situation went away, and we never heard from the boy or the girl. My editor refused a retraction. I was just as happy, as I didn’t want my name on it. What reporter wants to put their name on something that says they got it all wrong and now two people are dead? Not me, not my paper, and not my editor.”

  “How did you sleep at night?” She wouldn’t have been able to if it had been her.

  “Not well. Still don’t, sometimes, as I think back on the part I had in it, but why are you so focused on dredging this all up?”

  “Because the young man in your story is Vic McCabe, kind of a bigshot contractor out here, with a lot of money and power. He swooped into Salem from California and is turning this town upside down, and I was doing a feature on him when I found your article.”

  “The trouble with the net is that so much there is far from the truth. Don’t write the story,” he said, and he actually leaned closer to the screen, his image bigger.

  She wanted to say that she wished she hadn’t and that it hadn’t been published yet. “I sold my editor on it. I’m trying to print the truth about what happened.”

  He was shaking his head again. “People don’t want the truth, not that truth. Do those folks a favor: Leave them be. There’s a lot of red faces, a lot of hurt. That family, those kids lost their parents. That’s one story that doesn’t need to be told.”

  Tish was confused for a second. “It was just Badra Walker who lost her parents. Vic McCabe, there was no mention of his.”

  “No, she had a brother,” Sam said.

  “Vic never mentioned a brother, and neither did the original story. Why not?”

  “Don’t know why they would have,” he said. “I didn’t add in the brother because I didn’t know about him at the time. Look, there isn’t much more I can tell you except that whatever you do, this isn’t the kind of thing anyone wants to see rehashed. There are those people who’ll think those two kids must have done something.”

  She took in his expression. It was cross and irritated, filled with heartache, most likely because of what had happened. “I don’t know if I can get my editor to drop it,” she said. “He wants something,” she added, but Sam wasn’t going to help her figure it out. “Anyway, Sam, thank you for getting back to me.”

  After Sam said goodnight, Tish sat there for a few minutes longer. All she could think about was why no one had mentioned Badra’s brother.

  Chapter 21

  “Natalie, I’ll be back tonight,” Vic said. He planned to be, anyway, after having been forced to grab a room in a three-star hotel the night before. Fiona had refused to leave her place, and John was now furious at her for all her lies. He could understand both sides, though, her need to protect him and his need to know.

  “What should I tell the inspector you were supposed to meet first thing this morning? He’s backlogged for weeks, and Al said rescheduling again will put you way past the deadline.”

  He didn’t have to see Natalie to know she was feeling some of the stress, as were Al Brown, the employees, and probably everyone else who depended on him, considering he was the one who made the final decisions on everything. “Have Al meet with the inspector,” he said. “Call Steven, too, and ask him to tag along.”

  Sending a proxy wasn’t something he normally did, considering inspectors could put a hold on a project if everything didn’t tie up neatly, and sometimes these meetings called for him to think on his feet. He could do it, but he wasn’t sure Al could. “And one more thing,” he said. “Reschedule everything else I have today. Handle what you can. What you can’t, send me a text and I’ll deal with it here.”

  He tossed the phone on the rumpled queen bed, which had seen better days, taking in the basic hotel room. Then he dropped the damp towel he’d looped around his hips from a quick shower and pulled on yesterday’s clothes. He’d picked up a toothbrush and paste from the front desk the night before, and he brushed his teeth, taking a look at the two-day shadow of whiskers staring him back in the mirror. He ran his fingers through his short damp hair before his cell phone started ringing.

  He picked it up from where he’d tossed it on the bed and saw a number he didn’t recognize, and he debated letting it go to voicemail. “Vic McCabe,” he finally said.

  “Vic, there’s a reporter here by the name of Tish Campbell. She’s out front in my cafe, and she asked for Badra.”

  He’d have known Fiona’s voice anywhere. What he hadn’t expected was the emotion he heard in it. “I’ll be right there. I’m just checking out of my hotel. I’m about ten minutes away.”

  “Okay, but…” Her voice was low as if she was trying not to be overheard. She hesitated, and in the background a door closed.

  “What is it?” he asked, grabbing his coat, his keys. He looked around the room to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything before he walked out to the elevator.

  “My staff are starting to wonder. First you, now this reporter. You’re messing with my life here.”

  Of course her workers would be wondering. Too much about her was coming out. He wanted to wring that damn reporter’s neck for giving him the run around. It was bullshit. “I’m on my way,” he said. “I’ll handle it.” He’d been clear that Tish was to leave Fiona alone, but maybe not clear enough.

  He pocketed his phone as he stepped into the elevator and jabbed the button for the lobby, then waited as it descended four fl
oors. He stepped out, then stopped at the front desk and rested the key card on the counter to check out.

  “Just email the receipt,” he called back to the clerk as he walked out the front door and to his car, parked in the lot. The sun was just coming up. It was too early to deal with this kind of shit, so he pulled out his cell phone and dialed as he slid behind the wheel and started the car. She answered on the second ring.

  “Mr. McCabe, I guess I should have expected you to call,” Tish said, and he could hear background noise from the coffeehouse. He pulled onto the main road.

  “What are you doing there? I told you to bury the story and now you’re poking around, trying to do what?”

  “I’m just doing my job, and after speaking with the reporter who printed the original story last night, I realized this story has to be told. I mean, how many others has this happened to, the overreach by the authorities, the lives destroyed, and they’re not being held accountable?”

  She was serious. He pressed the gas, speeding up after he turned the corner, seeing the cafe and an open spot in front. “I’m pulling up in front right now. Meet me outside,” he said before disconnecting and angling his car in the parking spot. The door to the cafe opened as soon as he stepped out, but it wasn’t the reporter; it was Fiona, pulling on her brown jacket. She was wearing a turtleneck underneath, blue jeans, and a face that said she’d slept little the night before.

  Tish followed, carrying a coffee to go, wearing a black wool coat, her long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  “Vic, do something,” Fiona said. “The girls are now asking questions about who Badra is.” She was in his face, her hands jammed in his pockets, and he didn’t have to glance up to see the interest from passersby and two sets of eyes staring out the front window from her employees.

  He rested his hand on Fiona’s shoulder. “Let’s take a drive,” he said, knowing the only way to handle this now was to get this away from Fiona’s business and off the street. He went around to the passenger door and opened it. “Tish, come on. Let’s go.”