by Adele Huxley
“Surprised,” he repeated flatly. “No, that’s not the right word for it. I think guilty is more accurate. What do you think, Beth?”
Kayla laughed nervously, glancing at me, her eyes begging me to defuse the tension she found herself caught in. Trusting my voice a bit more, I smiled sweetly at him. “Rick, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t we go into the gas station and get a couple things? Then we can head up the hill to the cabin and talk.” I prayed that Bryan was able to hear everything.
He squinted at me. Rick wasn’t an idiot. He could smell the insincerity a mile away, but he wasn’t sure what my angle was. If there was anything he’d stressed in our time together, both professionally and romantically, was that he held honesty above all else. I remember him driving the point home a few months after I started working at the club. He beat one of the strippers so badly she needed her left eye socket rebuilt, all because she’d been keeping some of her tips hidden before he got his cut.
Rick bit the middle finger of his glove and pulled it off, white teeth flashing in the light. He ran his thick fingers through his dark hair and sighed. “No, I think we’re alright here for right now. Why don’t you come out so we can talk properly, Beth? It’s been a long time since we had a good…chat.” The word dripped with insinuation.
I jumped as Noah tapped on my window. I’d been so focused on Rick, I hadn’t noticed him come around to my side. As he watched me with those cold, shark eyes, he tried my door. Locked. He motioned to Rick over the hood of the Jeep, telling him so.
I went on the defensive, fear lacing my blood with ice. There were only two things I had to do. Try and keep him as calm as possible, and wait long enough for Bryan to come find us. I didn’t think Rick would try anything in the middle of a public area, but his temper was unpredictable at best. “I talked to Kyle.”
He snorted, his breath floating away in a white cloud. “Yeah? And?”
“He told me you got released, but I know you’re here illegally.” I spoke slowly, calmly, like you’d speak to someone standing on a ledge about to leap. “You’re breaking parole by coming to see us.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched in the light. “Aren’t you the smart one? Seems you’ve gotten a real good education about the legal system this past year, haven’t you?” He bared his teeth slightly, less smile and more primal show of dominance.
“You’re risking worse jail time if you get caught,” I replied. I tried to sound concerned and not terrified. The entire time we spoke, I kept doing fast calculations in my head. If Bryan left the moment he heard me say Rick’s name, it’d take him a couple minutes to get to his truck. We’d been driving for at least five before he’d nearly run us off the road…
“Why don’t you let him worry about that, sugar,” Noah yelled through the glass.
Rick’s eyes finally fell on Kayla, who’d shrunk into the seat. “Why don’t you pop out of there darling? Beth and I have a few things we need to talk about.” She rose at his words, but looked to me, hesitating.
I shook my head earnestly, hoping against all hope she could hear the threatening undertones of his words. She knew I’d given the prosecution information in exchange for a lesser sentence, but seemed to think Rick wouldn’t mind. If Rick beat the tar out of some stripper he barely knew for less than a hundred bucks, what was he going to do to me for ratting him out? “Please,” I whispered.
Kayla’s hands froze on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white with tension.
When Rick spoke next, all the pretense had fallen from his voice. “Sin, I can pull you out of this window with one hand if I wanted to. You aren’t going to protect her from what happens next. You know what she did. You know there are consequences to our actions.” I shivered as a coil of deep, instinctual fear wrapped itself around my spine. “So, why don’t you just open the door and let me in?”
I screamed out as her hand slipped from the wheel to the door. “No!” In my fright, the phone dropped from my hand and fell to the footwell. Bryan’s tinny shout was audible to everyone. Rick’s eyes fell to the glowing phone, comprehension sliding across his face. His eyes went flat as he reached inside the car and manually unlocked the door. Ripping it open, he reached in and grabbed Kayla by the jacket, throwing her to the hard ground like she was little more than a bag of garbage.
Noah cackled like a hyena, pounding on the window by my head. I was trapped. I briefly considered trying to fly out the back but one of them would catch me.
Rick slid into the driver’s seat, shutting the door behind, and rolling the window back up. Kayla was on her feet but stood motionless, Noah quickly moving to her side in case she decided to intervene. “I think maybe we should go someplace to talk,” he muttered. His voice was villainous, devoid of any emotion but dull anger. For the first time, I genuinely feared for my life. All of the terrible things he could do to me flashed through my mind, the worst of which was killing me and hiding my body someplace where I’d never be found. The thought of my dad going through that sort of torture absolutely wrecked me.
Rick pushed the car into drive with a violent shove, slamming on the gas so hard the tires sprayed gravel a few seconds before gaining traction. They tell you that your chances of survival during an abduction practically disappear if you let them take you away from the original scene. That’s all I could think of. If I left Kayla, if I let Rick take me away from the gas station, I’d never come back.
I clawed at my seatbelt with one hand, the other grabbing the door handle. I didn’t have time to think. As he whipped the Jeep around to head back into town, my door swung open and I rolled out. The ground rushed up to meet me, knocking the wind out of my lungs as I hit. I must’ve rolled three or four times, stopping on my stomach in a gasping heap. Even though I couldn’t breathe, my only thought was to stand. Stand! Surely, he was going to reverse and try to run me over. He was going to come back and grab me. I had to stand.
I faintly heard Kayla screaming my name in the distance, but my ears were ringing too badly to make out exactly what she was saying. In my panic, I figured she was shouting a warning. My nails dug into the frozen ground as I tried to push myself up and suddenly, a pair of strong hands were on my shoulders, yanking me upright. Noah.
I slapped against him, trying to free myself from his grasp. Regardless of what was going to happen, I refused to let him touch me ever again. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” At first I didn’t recognize him, but Bryan held me close to his chest as he shouted. I finally stopped fighting him long enough to shake my head.
“No, I think I’m…” I gasped, the air not fully retuning to my lungs. “I’m okay,” I whispered. The panic rose quick in my chest. Where was Rick? I looked over Bryan’s shoulder and saw his truck idling, door wide open. A few people standing around the gas station were watching the scene agape. Kayla stood about twenty yards away, her gloved hands clasped over her mouth. Noah had a hand on her shoulder, almost as if he were comforting her. I spotted the Jeep idling not far from where I’d rolled out, the memory so fresh it made me sick. From that angle, I couldn’t tell if Rick was still behind the wheel. I doubled over, the cold air finally flowing into my chest.
“Where is he?” Bryan growled, his hand on my back. He was scanning the parking lot but with so many lit cars, it was difficult to make out which shapes were who.
“I don’t know,” I panted, “but Noah’s still here. They were in the same—he could still be—” Just as I was about to say that he could still be in the Jeep, its white reverse lights came on as it came flying towards us. Rick spun the car around wide enough we didn’t feel threatened and pulled forward, edging up beside us with his arm casually hanging out of the window.
“Aw Beth, are you alright?” he asked with a smirk. His eyes fell to my torn and bloodied jeans. “You know it’s dangerous to jump out of moving vehicles, right?”
Bryan’s hand tightened around my arm. “Go to Kayla,” he whispered harshly. I looked up at him in fear. “I…I—”
“Go!” he snapped. I wobbled backwards a few steps, my body trembling in shock. I wanted to tell him to be careful, to remind him of all the things I’d told him about Rick the night before. The words jumbled in my throat. Kayla rushed up behind me, threading her arm through mine, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from Bryan. I noticed he had a rifle slung over his shoulder. That detail wasn’t lost on Noah either as he came around to the side of the Jeep.
Bryan stepped between me and Rick, squaring his shoulders. The headlights threw bizarre shadows across the ground, dark figures stretched to impossible heights. Everything felt surreal, slow and fast at the same time, quiet and loud.
“Listen, this really has nothing to do with you. Beth and I go way back. I think you might’ve gotten the wrong impression last night,” Rick started. He sounded like a guy trying to talk himself out of a speeding ticket but I saw his eyes dart to the gun a few times.
“Get the fuck out of their car, get back in the truck, and drive back to whatever shit hole you crawled out of. Whatever Liz was to you, she’s not anymore.”
One of Rick’s eyebrows shot up in amusement, the corner of his mouth curling to match. He ran his tongue along the front of his teeth, a habit I recognized. I’d seen him do the same thing when Candi insisted she’d given him all her tips.
“Listen, you yokel, absolutely none of this is your concern and frankly, I’m sick of you showing up where you aren’t wanted,” Noah said, stepping forward. I got the distinct feeling that Noah had never been in a fight. Having Rick at his back somehow gave him the balls he lacked.
As Rick opened the door and stepped out, Bryan’s hand slid up the strap, readying himself. I was so terrified I thought was I was going to collapse.
“Lemme know if you need anything,” Walt yelled out as the doorbell tinkled.
“I, uh…” Kayla’s face popped out from behind an overflowing stack of hats. “I’m actually looking for a pair of skis.”
That perked the old man up a little. He slowly climbed to his feet, grinding his knuckles into his back, stretching his spine backwards. “Well, lemme take a look at ya. You been skiing long then?” he asked, looking at her over the rims of his glasses.
“A little while. Do you have any skis with flowers on them? Cherry blossoms, preferably,” she said in a cutesy voice.
I popped out around the corner, avoiding plain sight for long enough. “Well, I don’t know what the hell a cherry blossom is but I’ll show you what I’ve got.” Their voices drifted away, muffled by the piles of jackets and gear. I scanned the rest of the workshop, hoping I’d catch a glimpse of Liz, but she was apparently back at the cabin.
I got straight to work as soon as Walt pulled Kayla away. The dirty look she shot me was apparently all the thanks I’d get for making sure she didn’t asphyxiate in her sleep. I could tell Walt was in a great mood. Selling a couple hundred dollars’ worth of stuff seemed to perk him up to no end. It didn’t hurt Kayla was a bubbly, young girl who flirted with anything with a pulse.
Grabbing the child’s snowboard once again, I laid it flat on the work bench and sighed. The body was rippled and warped, apparently because the owner had left it leaning against a hot wood furnace. I did what I could, but a half hour later it was still a wreck. The bell above the door tinkled as Kayla left. “Walt, this thing is jacked but I need you to take a look at it. You might be able to work your magic.”
He finished counting the money in the register for the second time, shutting the drawer. I’d nearly groaned when I saw she’d paid for everything in cash. Gee, wonder where you got all that, honey…don’t think the resort pays you that well. I knew it was hypocritical to judge her and not Liz, but I couldn’t help it. Something about her just rubbed me the wrong way, not least of which was her nickname for me. Walt tipped his head down to look at me over his glasses. “Magic, eh?”
“I don’t know why you even said you’d take a look at it.”
Walt ran a hand across the wavy board and nodded. “Ain’t no magic can fix fucked. You’re right. I’ll give Grant a call later.” He sat down on the wooden stool with a groan. As I moved to grab the next item that needed tuning, he exhaled slowly, blowing out his cheeks. I’d been with Walt long enough to know that meant I was in for a lecture. I snatched a pair of skis from the rack and checked the order sheet. Hot wax, great. It couldn’t have been an edge sharpening or something that required loud machinery.
To be honest, I begrudgingly enjoyed Walt’s lectures and rants. While he was nothing like my father, it felt good to have a father-like presence in my life again. I liked to think he saw me as a son, though his exterior would never melt enough to show it. My instincts about taking the job were spot on. For two years, I’d avoided everything and anything to do with skiing. Whether he knew it or not, Walt was a better psychologist than any of the half dozen I’d been sent to.
He sniffed and crossed his arms, watching me tighten the ski into the vice. “How’d the date go?”
I smirked and nodded, not meeting his eye. “Alright.” Switching the iron on, I grabbed the wax from the cupboard.
He scratched his chin idly, eyes still glued to the work I was doing. “You that bad in bed?”
I chuckled, dripping the wax along the ski. “Didn’t get far enough to disappoint her.” I glanced up, debating whether or not to continue. “Her ex showed up from out of town. He’s…uh, apparently in some trouble with the law.”
Walt nodded knowingly, like this sort of thing happened all the time in his world. “You take care of him?”
My fist tightened around the handle of the iron. I might’ve had a temper, but I wasn’t a violent man. All the things Liz had told me and all the things she’d said between the lines, well…it was enough to drive me to do some pretty terrible stuff to protect her. “I wasn’t aware of who he was until after I’d gotten her safe.”
“That’s good. A man shouldn’t be quick to anger,” he nodded. He cleared his throat. “If you ever need help, you can call.”
That sentence triggered a memory and my mind went back to something Noah had said at the party. At the time, I’d been so focused on protecting Liz the comment slipped right past me. “Noah said he’d called him…” I muttered, the scene playing out in my head. We’d been standing outside Liz’s door, Noah jumping around like an excitable dog.
“What’s that, son?”
I set down the iron and looked up at him, pressing my knuckles against the workbench. “You know the mountain owner’s kid? The one I knocked out a couple weeks ago?”
“Little twat deserved it,” Walt grumbled. He’d enjoyed hearing how I’d put it to one of the Richards. It’d earned me honorary townie status in his eyes.
“He was all excited because Liz’s ex brought drugs to the party. Noah said he was glad he’d called him.” I blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of it. “Liz thinks Rick followed her out here on his own, but what if the little shit had something to do with it?”
Walt scowled at me. “Why would he do that?”
For the life of me, I didn’t know. “He’s a drug dealer, maybe that’s why? Maybe he’s looking to go into business with him? You said yourself the Richards family is pretty ruthless. Drugs have been flowing into the town for a couple months now, right?”
“If that’s true, then it’s odd your pretty little thing just so happens to live in the same cabin as that shit. And her ex just showed up, you said?”
The ball of tension knotted up in my stomach. The questions hit me in rapid succession. Liz couldn’t still be involved with this stuff, could she? Was she playing me? Did she actually know who I was and therefore how much money I had? Why would she tell me all that stuff about him going to prison if she were trying to con me?
A wave of nausea washed over me as my eyes met Walt’s. I’m sure he could see the fear there, but he had no way of knowing how deep it went. Could she really be that good an actress?
I jumped as my phone buzzed in my pocket. Liz. I almost
didn’t answer it, my mind already racing. It rang a few times before I finally picked up.
“Hello?”
The juxtaposition between Liz’s voice and what I’d just been thinking was jarring. She sounded so happy, so perky. I couldn’t believe she’d be capable of screwing me over -- but then again, if con artists weren’t good, they’d never be successful.
Walt gave me a knowing look as I stood. I walked to the back of the shop as we spoke, my worries thawing by the second. As distraught as she’d been with her ex appearing, a part of me wondered if she’d fall off the radar now he was in town. It seemed like she genuinely wanted to get together, so I offered to cook her dinner, thinking I could get to the bottom of everything.
“What the hell is this guy doing?” I heard Kayla yell in the background. My heart jumped into my throat. I waited for the screech of tires, the sounds of shattering glass, the scream of twisting metal…and bodies. PTSD can be a real bitch sometimes. I squeezed my eyes shut but the sounds never came. Within seconds, my skin was coated in a thick sweat. I didn’t remember moving back to the front of the shop, but found Walt looking at me with concern.
“What’s going on?” I said with a choked voice.
I paced across the floor as Liz told me they were pulling over into the gas station. I strained to hear Kayla, to try and get a sense of what was going on.
“I’m coming, don’t hang up.”
“You really don’t have to—” There was no further response. I heard muffled talking in the background, the sound of clothing rubbing against the receiver. I couldn’t distinguish the words but I could hear the tension.
“Liz, are you there?” Walt stiffened in his seat. I paced away from him, pressing my finger in my other ear so I could hear. There was a man’s voice but I couldn’t make it out. I couldn’t make out what she said, but I definitely heard Kayla’s voice. Then Liz spoke.
“Rick, what do you want?” An electric shock of fear shot through me. No one was that good of an actress. She sounded terrified, like she was hanging on by a thread.