Don't Stop Me

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  Fiona slid in the passenger side, and he closed the door and opened the back for Tish, but she looked behind herself and hesitated.

  “I’ll follow in my car,” she said, and he watched her walk down to a silver older-model Saab.

  Vic slid behind the wheel and started the car. “She’s going to follow. Is John at school?”

  Her lips were drawn tight, and she gave a stiff nod. “Yeah, he is. Why is she here, Vic? I asked you to take care of this, and now your shit has landed on my doorstep. Why can’t you leave me alone?”

  “You know what? Let’s talk about this upstairs. I told you I want you and John to come back to Salem with me, just for now, so I can handle this and you two are…” He was going to say “safe,” but there was nothing safe about this situation. He pulled into Fiona’s lot at the back of her apartment building. He glanced back in his rear-view mirror and saw Tish behind him.

  “Good God, Vic, seriously? She’s going to know where I live now. What’s going to stop her from showing up, and God forbid John is here and opens the door?”

  He pulled into a spot and unbuckled his seatbelt, seeing the worry written all over her face. “I guarantee you she already knows where you live, and there’s no one here. You want to talk without being overheard? This is it.” He pulled his key from the ignition when he saw Tish step from her car and lock the door. “Come on.”

  “Where are we?” Tish asked as she stopped in front of Vic’s black Charger, taking in Fiona, who closed the passenger door and dug in her purse for her keys.

  “Fiona’s, but I’m pretty sure you already knew that,” Vic said as he stood beside Fiona, wanting to touch her but afraid she’d flinch or push him away. There was so much between them rolled up in so much hurt and passed time, but it seemed almost like yesterday.

  The reporter only smiled, and Fiona made a rude noise and started to the door without a word.

  “After you.” Vic gestured and followed behind Tish and Fiona into the building and up the stairs, hearing a television blasting from the first-floor apartment they passed.

  “I somehow didn’t picture you living in a place like this,” Tish said as she stopped behind Fiona, who slipped a key in the lock. The icy glare Fiona gave her had Vic wondering what she’d say. There was no fondness here.

  “What?” Tish said and then looked back at Vic as if Fiona were the one with a problem.

  He just shook his head as he closed the door behind them, taking in the quiet and Fiona’s back as she continued walking into the kitchen. He wasn’t sure what she was doing but heard water running. “Why are you here, Tish?” he said. “Why are you pushing this story so hard? You were writing a story on me, so put the focus back on me and off what happened so long ago.”

  She pulled out her phone and pressed something, and he realized she was actually recording.

  “Turn that off,” he said and took in her frown. For a moment, he realized she was considering refusing. “Turn it off now, or you leave here and no one’s talking to you.” He wanted to add the threat that she could suddenly find herself in troubling circumstances, that doors could close and her cash flow could suddenly become pinched, that he’d make damn sure her resources dried up so she wouldn’t publish another story again and no paper would hire her. That would take some work, but he could cause enough grief that even the paper wouldn’t want to stand by her. But he didn’t say one word.

  Fiona was now back in the room, and he could see she’d heard. “Did she record me?” Fiona snapped. He realized she was holding a carafe. “I was going to make coffee.” She rested it on the table and wiped her hands together.

  “It’s off,” Tish said as she pressed something on her phone. “Why did you change your name?” She was taking in the room and focusing on a photo of Fiona and John taken a few years earlier at some amusement park. Fiona was standing stiffly and didn’t seem to notice as she pulled off her coat and rested it over the back of the sofa. He could see her anxiety.

  “After what happened, do you really have to ask that? It was necessary for people not to know me to not see me as the enemy. Fiona is safe. It’s just an ordinary name. I didn’t want to stand out.”

  It made a lot of sense. Who wouldn’t understand the need for safety and hiding?

  “Fiona Marino, but you didn’t change it legally. Tax records still have your real name,” Tish added, and Vic wondered how much digging she’d done. He didn’t like it.

  “So that’s how you found me,” Fiona said. She walked around the reporter, behind Vic, and over to the window. She looked out and then turned again.

  “It wasn’t hard,” Tish said. “I’d still like to hear your side of what happened. I mean, I can’t imagine what you went through, being assumed a terrorist because of the color of your skin, your religion, your name.”

  “But that’s the thing. I wasn’t Muslim. My mother was, my father wasn’t. I’m an American and never considered myself anything else. Aren’t we all people with the same rights? I foolishly believed that until…” She turned away, and Vic knew she didn’t need to say anymore. Until she’d called him, until her photo and name had appeared on the screen of his cell phone. Camera phones and caller ID had been new features back then, but they had been her family’s destruction.

  “What is it you want, Tish, to not print this story?” Vic finally asked, knowing Fiona was doing her best to hold it together. The chapter of her life she’d done her best to bury was being dug up and thrown back in her face in a way that wasn’t right.

  “The reporter I spoke with last night, Sam Laughlin, who printed the original story, said you had a brother, Fiona,” Tish said. “Vic, why would you not have mentioned him?”

  “Why would I? One, it’s none of your business, and her brother had nothing to do with this story. The story was about me, and now you’re shifting your interest to Fiona, who has put her life back together and tried her best to move past something that should happen to no one. Here you are, looking to dredge it all back up, and what…” He looked back to Fiona, who still had her back to him and the reporter. She turned to him but didn’t look at him. There was something she knew that he didn’t, but what, he wasn’t sure.

  “This story is so much more than that, Vic,” Tish said. “Badra?” She was gesturing wildly, excitedly, and Fiona now had her face in her hands.

  “I asked you not to call me that. My name is Fiona.”

  “Sorry, Fiona. Please, this is something people need to know. This is the kind of human interest story that could help change the minds of Americans, of others in the world, so they see that—”

  “That what? I’m no different than them? No, what your story will do is put a target on me and my life and put questions in people’s minds that weren’t there before. Some will sympathize, but many will say, well, she had to have done something. Her family must have ties to something bad. There will be the assumption and the looks, and then there will be the fact that I hid and changed my name. The story I created about being from a Chicago Italian family, about a car accident that killed them, will have people focusing on the lie and then saying that if I lied about that, what else did I lie about?” Fiona walked up to the reporter, and Vic could tell she was quickly losing her hold on the situation, but she was right about all of it.

  “And my business,” she said. “How long do you think it will be before patrons go elsewhere? Oh, sure, they’ll flock in like lookie-loos after the story to get a closer look at the suspected terrorist who isn’t who she says she is, but then employees will quit, and business will dry up. It will be like I’m reliving all that racial profiling all over again just so you can…what? Get your scoop, your big story, make a name for yourself? And to hell with me, to hell with…” She stopped, and Vic stared at her. She pursed her lips, knowing she’d almost spit out John’s name. “Please go,” she said, crossing her arms and turning away.

  “Look, it won’t be that bad. I promise you,” Tish said.

  “Stop it,” Vic s
aid. “Seriously, listen to yourself. You’re as bad as the reporter who printed the first story. Do you hear yourself? It won’t be that bad, and you promise, seriously? When her life is torn apart again, how much do you want to bet you’d also say ‘Oh well!’ and wipe your hands of it, moving on to another story, another scoop, someone else’s life you can fuck up in the name of news and your idea of entertainment value?”

  “That’s not fair. I’m not like that. I really do care about what happened and think someone should be held accountable for this tragedy. A family was ripped apart. Lives were destroyed. If you share your story, you may be able to stop it from happening to someone else,” she added, appearing genuinely hurt. “I think if you two actually think about it, this story could do a lot of good.”

  “Leave now, and don’t come back to my cafe,” Fiona said. “Do not come back here again.”

  What surprised Vic was that Tish had an expression that for a second seemed almost like understanding. He had to be wrong, though, as she stared over to him before gathering her purse, tucking her phone inside, and walking to the door. Her hand was on the knob as she turned her head, slowly this time, taking him in before resting her gaze on Fiona. “I’m so very sorry about what happened to you. It should never have happened. People should have done their homework, should have checked a lot of things, but have you ever asked yourself who it was who made the call to the police and set this entire shit storm in motion to begin with?”

  Vic said nothing as he watched the reporter walk out. As the door closed, Fiona’s expression told him she knew the answer to what Vic had always wondered.

  Chapter 22

  The black suitcase she’d bought years ago, still brand new, was open on her sleigh bed, which was neatly made, with a white duvet cover and pink flower hand-stitched quilt folded at the bottom. Her room wasn’t huge, but it was comfortable, with a cuddler chair and ottoman in the corner and a small table beside it, where she’d sit and read when time allowed.

  She lifted shirts, underwear, and socks from her dresser, taking in the dark circles under her eyes reflected back to her in the mirror. A tap on the door had Vic appearing, and she looked through the mirror to him, not turning around but taking him in. He was now so much more in control of who he was: calmer, quieter, but with a power that terrified the living shit out of her. This was a Vic she didn’t know.

  “You ready?” He took in her room and the stuffed suitcase on the bed.

  She closed her drawer and turned around, dropping in one last armful of shirts and undergarments. “Almost. I still don’t think this is a good idea. This is my home.”

  After the reporter left, Vic had ordered her to pack clothes, hers and John’s, saying they were coming to Salem with him until he could get a handle on the situation. She’d argued and tried to stand her ground—after all, he couldn’t force her—but he’d said the one thing that could turn her blood to ice. What if something happened to John because of the story? It could be him dragged away by cops next because of some mistaken impression.

  “You want to rehash this?” He took another step inside her room, his hand resting on the foot of her bed. With the way he seemed to take over the room, she realized she wasn’t immune to him even after everything that had happened. What was wrong with her? Her memories came out of nowhere as if it were yesterday: what it had been like with him then, a young man she’d given herself to, wild and insatiable. She couldn’t deny that she’d loved screwing him just as much.

  She said nothing as she walked back to her dresser and pulled out more jeans and pajamas and stuffed her suitcase until it would barely close. It gave her distraction and space, a moment to think of her family, her parents dead, her brother gone—ties she had long since severed.

  He sighed and pulled her from her thoughts. Looking over, she could see he hadn’t moved, maybe because she hadn’t answered him. She was done arguing. She realized he had made his mind up, and there would be no reasoning with him. He was so in her face, so much more stubborn and strong willed than she remembered. It was unsettling.

  “When this is over, Vic, John and I are coming back here.” Would she try to forget he existed, go back to how things were? As if.

  This time he didn’t say anything as he lifted her suitcase from the bed and carried it to the front door, where John’s suitcase was already packed and waiting. “I want to ask you something,” he said.

  “Ask what?” She was tense again, but then, she realized not a moment had gone by since Vic McCabe walked back into her life that she hadn’t been tense.

  “What the reporter said before leaving about who called the cops and provided the false information that started all of this. Your face…” He stopped, and she knew what he meant. It was something she’d also rehashed over and over, trying to make sense of it.

  “I don’t know, Vic.”

  “But you have some idea.” He lifted his hand, and of course her gaze went right there, taking in the size, remembering how they felt sliding over her skin and touching her in places only he ever had.

  “I don’t know anything,” she said, but it wasn’t true. She had told her brother what Vic had done and about the car he’d taken. He was supposed to cover for her with their parents, but he’d been furious that she was with Vic, living a life of danger that got her adrenaline pumping. But he’d never have put her in danger, her or their parents.

  Her phone was ringing, and she reached into her purse, which was sitting on the coffee table. She saw the coffeehouse name on the screen. “Hello?”

  “Fiona, it’s Barbara. Is everything okay? You said you’d be back, and it’s been hours, and…”

  Barbara and the other girls probably had a ton of questions, most likely all thanks to Barbara herself, who was always talking about everything and everyone and could only mind everyone else’s business. It couldn’t have helped that she’d left with Tish and Vic, whom she knew for a fact her employees were all drooling over.

  “I was about to call you,” Fiona replied. “I need you to hold down the fort for a few days. I had an emergency come up and have to take care of some things.”

  “What things?”

  She wanted to bang the phone against her head but knew Vic was watching her. She could feel his interest, and she didn’t want him poking anywhere in her business. “Listen, can you handle the cafe for me, close up and open and make sure everything is running smoothly?”

  “Of course I can. Listen, is everything okay? Because you’ve never taken time away, and I can’t help noticing mister good looking is still here and that you left with him.”

  Her car was still at the cafe, too, but she had no intention of answering any of this. “Barbara, please, I don’t have time for this. If you can’t handle things, let me know and I’ll ask one of the other girls.”

  Her reaction was instant. “Of course I can look after things.”

  Fiona wanted to roll her eyes, knowing Barbara wouldn’t take kindly to being second or having to suddenly report to one of the other ladies, whom she considered junior employees. “That’s great. Listen, call if there’s an emergency, but the only thing expected is the bread order tomorrow, so everything shouldn’t be a problem. Tell the others I’ll be away, and if there’s an emergency, you can get a hold of me on my cell.” She had walked in a circle and didn’t miss the way Vic was watching her from the door, his leather coat pulled back as his hand rested on his hip.

  “Okay, well, you take care” was all Barbara said, and Fiona didn’t waste any time getting off the phone. She took in her living room, neat and tidy, and she realized she’d never spent a night away from here. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that.

  “Any problems?” Vic asked, and Fiona had to look up, wondering what he meant. “With the cafe?” he added.

  “No, just a little too much interest in what’s going on in my personal life, with you here and now the reporter. She introduced herself with a card to Barbara, so everyone knows, and my dull life ha
s suddenly become something the girls will likely share with everyone as they all speculate about what it is I’ve gotten myself into.”

  Vic didn’t smile. Instead, his expression took on something she couldn’t make out. “Let’s go. Did you call the school to tell them we’re picking up John?”

  Okay, so he wasn’t interested in the chitchat and gossip of a bunch of women. Great, neither was she, except when she was the main focus. “I did,” she said as he pulled open the door, and she lifted her coat and purse and went to take a suitcase.

  “I got them. Just get the door,” he said before he lifted both suitcases and carried them down the stairs as if they weighed nothing.

  Neither of them said a word as he tucked both bags in the trunk and Fiona settled into the passenger seat, taking in a man she had known very well at one time. She realized Vic wasn’t the same impulsive, energetic young man she’d fallen in love with.

  As he slid behind the wheel and pulled away from her building, she feared that it was just a matter of time before everything she’d built for herself and John would be destroyed, because with a man like Vic McCabe, she never could have a happy ending.

  Chapter 23

  Fiona had slept for half the trip after trading spots with John, slipping into the backseat, and leaning her head against the window. For the first few hours after he’d been pulled from class and taken the front passenger seat, John had questioned both Vic and Fiona about where they were going. What surprised Vic was how much John seemed okay with a trip to Salem and staying with Vic for a few days. To him, it was all fun and excitement because he was going to have time to get to know a dad he hadn’t known existed.

  John chatted nonstop, talking about his friends, his classes, and the fact that he wanted a PlayStation 4. Vic had to remind himself that this good-looking kid was his son, and he’d missed the most important years of his life. That was when the dark feelings toward Fiona that he couldn’t seem to pacify would sweep over him and have him squeezing the wheel tighter.