Thankfully, my small black duffel was one of the first bags off the carousel. The heels of my Chanel boots clicked steadily against the tile floors as I headed toward the rental car service. My pace was brisk, my face serene but unapproachable. Not a trace of the flailing, starstruck girl who’d stumbled through the airport three years ago, eager to start her first-ever adventure, was visible anymore.
Within the hour I was behind the wheel of a compact sedan, heading down the highway toward my parents’ house far faster than the legal limit. The music was cranked up, Florence + The Machine’s Shake It Out screaming from the speakers. The windows were rolled down, drenching me with mellow California heat and blowing my hair into a tangle around my face. Sixty minutes on the West coast, and I could already feel the tension seeping from my bones.
I was going home.
***
“You’re so thin!” Meadow shrieked before I’d even set down my suitcase. “Have you been doing hot yoga?”
“Your hair is different.” Saffron’s nose scrunched up in distaste as she examined me from head to toe. “Darker.”
They shot questions rapid-fire, not giving me time to answer a single one.
“Is that a Prada blouse?”
“Those are the new Chanel boots! How did you get those?”
“What happened to your frumpy jeans-and-a-t-shirt look?”
It was the typical sisterly greeting — what I liked to call antagonistic affection. Our interactions were full of advice and admonishment. Equal parts smiles and snide remarks, excited compliments and underhanded criticisms. My older sisters were mostly well-intentioned, though I couldn’t say I’d missed them tremendously in our time apart.
Except for Rain. She was silent as she hugged me tightly, and her smile was as warm as her embrace.
“Dad is doing fine — a few bumps and bruises, but he’s stable and conscious. They’re just keeping him overnight for observation,” she whispered in my ear. “It’s good to see you, Faith.”
“You too, Rainey.” I pulled away and turned to face my other two sisters, who were still clucking like mother hens over my appearance.
“We didn’t know you were coming,” Meadow said. “No one expected you would.”
I bit my tongue.
“There’s no bed made up for you.” Saffron made a tsk noise. “I’m sure your room is a dusty mess.”
“That’s fine.” I shrugged and resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m here to see Dad, not to lounge around in bed.”
“Dylan and Lennon can’t make it.” Saffron’s voice was thick with disapproval. “They’re on some kind of snowboarding trip in the Himalayas.”
I did roll my eyes, that time.
“Bill is at home with the kids.” Meadow’s words were welcome — I wasn’t eager to see her brood of children or their father. Bill rarely pulled his eyes away from the television long enough to speak, and her kids were simply blurs of movement, racing around the house so fast it was impossible to make out their features clearly.
“So is Steven,” Saffron added. “He’s watching the twins.”
My relief was palpable. The last time all my nieces and nephews had seen me, “Auntie Faith” had ended up with permanent marker all over her face and a rat’s nest hairstyle it would take hours — and several clumps of lost hair — to undo.
“So, speaking of the men in our lives…” Rainey had a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Are you dating anyone?”
Meadow and Saffron instantly leaned in, their attention fixed so intently on me I had to fight the strong desire to run away.
“Aw, crap, is that the time?” I exclaimed, glancing at the nonexistent watch on my wrist. “If I’m going to see Dad today, I’ve gotta go.”
“Faith.” Rainey’s voice was playfully stern.
“We’ve already been to the hospital today. Visiting hours are practically over, by this point,” Saffron said.
“Really, it doesn’t make much sense for you to go now,” Meadow chimed in. “But then, you never were exactly plagued by good sense.”
Rainey saw the look on my face and pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.
“Well, apparently that’s genetic,” I snapped, glancing from Saffron to Meadow determinedly. “Dad was just in a car accident — forgive me for not wanting to talk about my social life. I’m only here for two days. I’m going to see my father.”
With that, I turned on my heel and headed for the car, chiding myself for not going straight to the hospital. I could still hear Meadow and Saffron grumbling about their stubborn little sister as Rainey’s laughter chased me out the door.
***
It was great to see my parents.
They both teared up when I walked into the hospital room which, of course, immediately made my eyes water as well. Three years without seeing them suddenly felt like an eternity.
My mother was wearing a long flowing patterned dress straight out of Woodstock and though my dad was dressed in a hospital gown, his John Lennon glasses were still firmly in place on the bridge of his nose. They both looked exactly the same and I found deep comfort in that. Everything else may’ve changed, but my parents were one fixture that never would.
My dad was in far better shape than I’d been anticipating, boasting nothing more than a dislocated shoulder and a slightly bruised ego after my mom spent several hours making fun of his driving skills. The CT scans showed there was no internal bleeding from the bump on his head, and all the other tests his doctors ran came back clear. He’d be released tomorrow.
We’d been catching up for a while when a nurse came in to tell us visiting hours were over. We said goodbye to my dad, promising to pick him up in the morning, and soon enough I was walking toward the parking garage, arm in arm with my mother — something I’d thought, for a very long time, I’d never be able to do again.
“I’m sorry,” I said abruptly.
Her head turned toward me. “For what, baby girl?”
“For running away because I couldn’t face my past.” I swallowed hard. “And then for staying away.”
My mom was silent for a long moment.
“I didn’t plan any of this,” I whispered.
“‘Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans,’” she quoted softly.
A smile broke out across my face. “Do you have an appropriate John Lennon quote stashed away for every occasion?”
“Pretty much.” She titled her head to the side in contemplation. “But I’m sure your father has even more of them memorized.”
My smile stretched wider.
“Don’t be sorry for the choices you’ve had to make to survive, baby girl. You are who you are. Embrace it. Live it. Love it. And never, ever apologize for it.” Her arm tightened around mine as she pulled me closer. “No matter how many years go by without seeing you, or how far from us you travel, we will always love you. There are no boundaries or time limits on love — it’s eternal.”
I felt tears gather in my eyes. “Who said that one?” I asked in a choked up voice. “Lennon again?”
“No.” She kissed my temple. “That one is all me.”
***
When you’re away from home for a long stretch of time, you almost forget how good it is.
You convince yourself that the feeling you get when you’re surrounded by family can somehow be satisfied by sniffing a “Home Sweet Home” scented jar candle or by looking through old photographs and conjuring memories of times gone by. But the truth is, there’s no substitute for the real thing — for being embraced by your Dad in a too-tight hug that makes your ribs ache. For having your Mom stroke your hair like you’re still her baby girl. Even for your oppressively overbearing siblings.
By the time I had to leave on Sunday, I was an emotional wreck. I drove away from the ranch house I’d called home for eighteen years, not knowing when I’d be back again. Looking in the rearview mirror at my family as they waved goodbye from the front porch, for the first tim
e in years I felt a few tears slip down my cheeks.
I wasn’t ready to go back to my fake life — not yet.
But staying wasn’t an option. The sad, simple truth was that I didn’t belong here anymore.
I didn’t belong anywhere.
So I drove. Two hours on the highway with the wind in my hair, listening to The Beatles sing about all the lonely people. It felt appropriate.
I shouldn’t have stopped at the rest area. I should’ve driven straight to the airport without looking back.
But I had to pee.
Who would’ve thought a full bladder would be the thing to seal my fate?
***
One moment, I was walking back to my car, brushing still-wet hands against my Donna Karan skirt and lamenting the fact that both the air dryer and paper towel dispenser had been out of service… and the next, a palm clamped over my mouth, the purse was snatched from my grip, and I was deposited neatly into the trunk of my rental car before I could so much as reach for the gun in my thigh holster.
I thrashed and screamed but whoever had grabbed me was far too strong — there was no way to escape his hold. I never even saw his face before the trunk slammed shut and I was enclosed in the cramped, dark space. My cellphone lay uselessly in the bottom of the Prada bag he’d so easily taken from me.
I screamed though I knew there was no one around to hear the muffled sound. The rest area had been practically deserted.
The unmistakable rumble of the engine starting made my heart pound faster. Sweat began to bead across my forehead when I felt the car pull out of the parking space and merge back onto the highway.
I kicked and clawed at the taillights, but they wouldn’t come loose. I bloodied my fists against the metal latch, banging until there was no strength left in my arms. With a scream of frustration, I was finally forced to accept the fact that I wasn’t getting out of this trunk until someone opened it from the outside.
Reaching down, I pulled my Lady Smith from her holster. Five rounds were all that stood between me and… well, whatever unpleasant things my captor had planned for me. They’d have to be enough.
We drove for hours.
That’s what it felt like, anyway. In the dark, I had very little concept of time.
I tried not to cry or panic. It was easier to keep my cool at first, with one hand clenched around my pistol so tightly I thought the metal would leave permanent impressions in my flesh. But as the minutes ticked on, the claustrophobia set in — as did the realization that wherever he was taking me, it was so far from civilization, we’d had to travel several winding roads off the highway to get there.
I was haunted by the fact that no one would know I’d been taken. I’d said goodbye to my family with no promises to call when I got home safely. I hadn’t even told Lux or Conor that I’d be returning to New York.
Essentially, I was an idiot.
But the guy who’d snatched me — he was an even bigger idiot. And, if I had anything to do with it, soon he was going to be a big, dead idiot.
Seriously, who kidnaps a girl without checking to see if she’s armed first?
After an eternity, the car slowed to a stop.
I listened to his door open, to his footsteps approaching.
My grip tightened on the gun, my body was poised to leap from the space.
The trunk creaked open…
And I fired.
Chapter Forty-Two: FAITH
PRETTY LITTLE PISTOL
“Fuck!”
I ignored his curse as I jumped headfirst from the trunk and hit the dirt. Instead of executing the perfect roll I’d intended — I mean, they did it in every spy movie, how hard could it be? — I literally landed on my face. This was no lithe, Catwoman-esque tumble. When I finally skidded to a stop, I was covered head-to-toe in dirt and had somehow managed to swallow a large clump of earth as well as several small pebbles. I moaned in both pain and mortification as I spat dust and grass tufts from my mouth. Scrambling to my feet, gun still firmly clenched in my right fist, I tried to stand tall as I spun to face my captor, but that was pretty hard considering I’d lost one high heel in my disastrous leap for freedom and was now wobbling on uneven footing.
I figured he’d have either run for the hills, terrified by my unexpected bullets, or at the very least be cowering in fear, lest I shoot at him again.
Sadly, I was mistaken.
He was leaning against the car, his arms crossed casually over his chest as if he had not a care in the world. His breathing rate was perfectly normal, while I was still heaving in oxygen faster than a freaking vacuum cleaner. Not a speck of dust coated his black-on-black jeans and leather jacket combo, whereas I looked like the creature from the Black Lagoon. But it was that goddamned crooked smile, fixed so happily on his face as he watched me hack up globs of soil, that really tested the limits of my sanity.
“You,” I spat, glaring at him and trying very, very hard to remind the less-forgiving parts of my psyche that first-degree homicide was a bad, bad thing that would send me to prison for a long, long time. The gun twitched in my hand.
“Me,” Wes agreed, grinning at me like we were old friends.
Yep. There was only one option here.
I’d have to kill him.
***
“Give me one reason not to shoot you,” I growled, my eyes narrowed on his face and my hands wrapped firmly around my gun as I aimed it at him. I tried to keep my gaze cool, clinical, but damned if he wasn’t even better looking than he’d been three years ago — a realization that pissed me off beyond measure. Light five o’clock shadow dusted his jawline, making it seem even more chiseled. His hair was slightly longer than it had been last time I’d seen him. I didn’t look in his eyes — I couldn’t bear to see what emotions they held — so I watched his mouth instead.
“Do you even know how to use that thing?” His smile was condescending.
Without taking my eyes off his face, I fired a shot into the dirt, missing his boot by mere inches.
“I don’t know,” I said, batting my lashes like a bimbo. “Do I?”
He lifted his hands in surrender, though his grin stretched wider. “So, the kitten grew some claws.”
“You think I’m joking around?” I took a step closer and my voice went arctic. “You ruined my life. I would be all too happy to shoot you. Honestly, it would be poetic justice.”
His eyes dropped to my torso, as though he could see through my clothes to the ugly, circular scar that lay beneath.
“Eyes up, asshole.” I gripped my gun tighter when his gaze lifted and met mine for the first time. It took all the strength I had not to react when our eyes locked — dark chocolate flashing against caramel, the connection instantly making the air around us sizzle with electricity. I felt a physical jolt move through my body, like I’d stuck one finger inside a socket, and all the fine, feathery hairs on my arms stood on end as my gaze, full of rage and distrust, burned into his dispassionate one.
His face was a mask, that happy grin he wore concealing every real emotion, just as smoke and mirrors hide a magician’s slight of hand. I could read nothing in his expression.
Some things never changed, I supposed.
He took a step closer to me and opened his mouth to speak. “Listen—”
“Stay back!” I shook the pistol as I moved away from him, keeping a distance of about ten feet between us.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I would have already.” His voice was exasperated.
“You kidnapped me,” I snapped, swallowing forcefully and trying to gather my composure.
“Well, considering you’ve got a gun trained on me right now, you can’t exactly blame me,” he pointed out. “I knew the only way I’d get you to listen was if I cornered you.”
“Except you didn’t ‘corner me.’ You threw me in a trunk.”
“You say potato, I say—”
“Shut up.” I waved the gun menacingly and he stopped speaking, though his grin grew even wider. I to
ok a deep breath. “You were right about one thing. I have no interest in listening to anything you have to say.”
I backed away from him until I reached the driver’s side door, which he’d left ajar. He didn’t shift from his spot against the trunk, though his eyes tracked my every move. When I looked inside and saw the keys were missing from the ignition, I lifted my gaze to glare at him.
“Is there a problem, officer?” he mocked, raising his eyebrows.
“Do you have a death wish?” I shrieked, taking several steps toward him.
He shrugged.
I held in a scream. “Give them to me.”
“What, these?” He held up the keys. “No. Not until you listen to what I have to say.”
I couldn’t contain it anymore — the scream escaped, a screech of sheer frustration and anger. “Ruining my life once wasn’t enough for you? You really came back for round two?” My voice was borderline hysterical. “God, what don’t you understand? I don’t want to talk to you, or listen to you. I hate you.”
Something flickered in his eyes, but it was gone far too quickly for me to read it.
“Still stubborn as a fucking ox, I see,” he muttered under his breath. “The thing is, I don’t give a shit what you want. You’re going to listen.”
I stared at him, fuming. Adjusting my grip on the gun, I tried not to let him see that my hands were trembling with effort to remain in control.
Just looking at him ached like a bullet wound to the stomach. It was like seeing the ghost of everything I’d ever wanted in life, come back to haunt me. I stared at the man I thought I’d loved, at the lie I’d so easily fallen for, and I felt myself slowly bleeding out inside. Blood filled my chest cavity as my shrapnel-shredded heart was ripped open again for the first time in three years. It was a miracle I managed to stay standing as whatever scar tissue had managed to heal over was torn away like paper, the old wound made fresh once more.
I dragged a deep breath through my nose. “There’s nothing you can say that will affect me or my life.”
Erasing Faith Page 23