by Parker, Zoey
Her car’s in the driveway. I breathe a sigh of relief. Now all I have to do is hope she wants to talk to me. It’s been over an hour since I called her, with no reply. This is unlike her. I wonder who got to her in the time since she called. If she went to the shop at all, the possibilities are endless.
I go to the front door, knocking. It opens at the slightest touch. “Hello?” I call out, thinking she forgot to close it all the way. Silence.
I reach over to the light switch, flipping it. The house remains in darkness.
Shit. Why did I stop carrying a gun?
“Christina?” I open the door wider until it rests against the wall. There’s no sign of movement anywhere in the living room or the kitchen.
I take a step inside, and that’s when I see it. The porch light is on, showing me a dark stain on the carpet just inside the front door. Along with a purse. Christina’s purse, on the floor, contents spilled everywhere.
My heart immediately starts racing. My focus narrows. She’s gone. I know who took her. Why wasn’t I with her? I forgot how much she needed me. Too busy thinking about myself.
I have to find her.
Chapter 29
“I’ve told you all this already,” I say, sitting on the sofa in Christina’s living room. The lights are on, now, the cops having flipped the breaker. He didn’t cut the wires at least.
“Tell us again,” the cop asks. He’s sitting in front of me, on one of the chairs from Christina’s kitchen. I want to tell him to get his fat, snide ass off that chair. He doesn’t deserve to sit in one of her chairs. He doesn’t want to help her. He only wants to pin this on me.
“Don’t you get it? While you’re questioning me, that fucking maniac has her! He could be raping her, killing her, right now! And you’re not doing anything about it!”
“Maybe if you’d comply,” another cop says. A female this time. She hates me just as much as the rest of them do. She’s not even trying to hide it.
I take a deep breath, struggling to control my temper. “Like I said. I was coming here to talk to her. She called me earlier, wanting to make up after an argument we had—you’ve listened to the voicemail. I called her back. When she didn’t reply after an hour, I came here. I wasn’t worried about her safety so much as I was worried why she wouldn’t call when she sounded so ready to talk when she left that message. It seemed out of character.”
“And what did you find when you got here?”
I want to tell them to look the fuck around. “The door was almost closed, but not totally. I went to knock, but it swung open a little. I opened it all the way. I saw the bloodstain, the purse on the floor. So I called you.” I hadn’t wanted to. It was the last thing I wanted to do. But I remembered this wasn’t about me. It was about her. Finding her. A big fucking lot of good that did me, seeing as how they haven’t started looking yet.
“You say you two had an argument earlier today?”
Oh, no. Not this. “Yeah, a little disagreement.”
“What was it about?”
“It’s personal.”
“I thought you wanted to help your girlfriend.”
“She’s not…Anyway, how would this help you? What we talked about has nothing to do with this. I’m telling you, her ex is a goddamned lunatic. Did you find that clipping? It has to be around here somewhere. I just looked at it this morning.” I point to the coffee table. “It was right here.”
“We didn’t see any type of clipping anywhere,” the female officer tells me.
“Great. He probably took it!”
“You’re saying Miss Reardon has a stalker?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Her boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, was abusive. He was stalking her. She just recently blocked his number and blocked him on social media. Check it out—her laptop’s right here. You can probably log in and see for yourself. He’s insane. I know he has her.”
“We’ll take the laptop as evidence, and have our forensic team go through it.”
“You don’t need a fucking forensic team for this!” I’m shaking with rage. It’s like talking to a wall. “I’m telling you, I looked at her messages today! Just this morning. He said sick things. All you have to do is look, and you’ll see what I mean. You should be looking for this guy!”
“What’s his name again?” One of the cops takes out a notepad.
“Tommy.”
“Tommy what?”
“I don’t know. If you look at the account with the messages, you’ll be able to see.”
“Mr. Fairbanks, we can’t just log in to a person’s accounts without permission.”
I must be losing my mind. It’s the only explanation. “Even when you think there’s been a kidnapping? Are you kidding me? She’s not a suspect here. It’s not like you have to watch yourself. She’s the victim. She needs your help. Please. Help her. He took her. I know he did.”
“Mr. Fairbanks…” The woman cop looks at me, hands on hips. “How do we know you’re not just making this up?”
“The proof is right there.” I point to the computer.
“How do we know this isn’t some convenient excuse?”
“What? You mean you think I did something to her because I saw these messages and thought it was a good excuse? Like, oh, great, now I can kill this girl because I have somebody to pin it on? What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
“Don’t use that language with us, Mr. Fairbanks.”
“Or what? You’ll take me in?” This is a nightmare. A living nightmare. It’s all I can do not to explode in front of these people. I take a few deep breaths, screaming internally, telling myself to get a grip on my emotions.
“Listen. Please. I care about this girl. She’s very special. She’s in trouble. Please. I know…I know I don’t have a good reputation in this town. That’s all my fault. I get it. I did some bad things. Don’t make her pay for it. You’re looking at the wrong person in all of this. Just…do her the favor of looking into this Tommy guy. You’ll find his last name on those messages—I honestly don’t remember what it was, but I remember seeing it.” I look from one cop to the other, then back again. I might as well be talking to a wall.
“Yeah. We’ll do that. In the meantime, don’t go anywhere.” Both officers move to the kitchen, leaving me alone.
I don’t believe it. I’ve never felt so completely helpless in my life. Not even when Marissa died. This is a new level of hell. I thought I’d been through it all. I had no idea how bad things could get.
“Christina…” I whisper. I close my eyes. Where are you? Are you still alive? I open my eyes, and immediately they fall on the blood stain. My fists clench. I’ll kill that son of a bitch. I just have to find him.
The cops aren’t doing anything. It’s up to me.
I take a look in the kitchen, where the two assholes who questioned me are talking with their heads close together. I know I’m their prime suspect. I know they’re trying to cook up a reason to take me in for further questioning. I can’t let them do that.
There are a few cops outside, looking for footprints in the back yard. There’s another one upstairs, checking to see if the attacker left anything behind. I’m alone for the moment.
I see something sticking out of Christina’s purse, half spilled out onto the floor. Her phone. Shit. Maybe he called her? I glance back to the kitchen, making sure they’re not watching me, then slide off the sofa into a crouch and swipe the phone.
I sit back on the couch, phone at my side. It’s been turned off. No wonder she didn’t know I called—if she was even able to take a call that that point. I have no idea when Tommy took her. I turn it on, waiting for what seems like years for it to start up. Then the home screen comes up. Thank God she doesn’t lock it.
There’s a message—mine, I assume. And a handful of texts. I look again at the cops in the kitchen. They’re oblivious. I open the texts. They’re from an unknown number, but they’re clearly from him.
I’ll make you love me a
gain.
You’ll see. We can be happy.
I’ll take you back to the tower. That’s where we fell in love. That’s where we’ll start fresh.
The tower? What the hell was this guy on? What tower?
I have to find out what this means, but I can’t do it while I’m stuck here. They’re still deep in conversation in the kitchen, their backs to me. Good. Let them stay there.
I put the phone back, only this time I leave it on the floor by the purse instead of halfway inside. These idiots need all the help they can get. I have no idea where they learned to be cops, but they’re fucking terrible at it.
Then I slide off the couch again and duck low enough to go unseen as I leave through the open front door. I don’t hear any noise behind me, so I know they don’t hear me go.
There’s no one out front. It’s like they don’t want to find her at all! Like they’re convinced I killed her. I swallow the bile in my throat. My bike’s still in the driveway, behind her car. I run for it, jumping on and wheeling it backward with my feet. Only when I hit the street do I turn over the ignition, then ride as fast I can away from that house. I have to go home and get myself ready.
I don’t know where to go or what to expect, but I have to find some way to get to her. There has to be some clue somewhere. I hope I can find it before the cops find me.
Chapter 30
I make it home in record time, especially considering the way I looked behind me almost constantly. Waiting to see those flashing blue lights. They’ll be coming for me at any minute.
I can’t help remembering all the times I’ve had to outrun the cops in the past. All the shit we used to get into, me and Adam and Frankie and all the rest of the guys. Nine times out of ten it seemed like we were outrunning somebody. I’d thought it was fun at the time. Anything to belong somewhere.
Frankie, especially, was a god to me. He could do no wrong. He was the guy we all wanted to be. Always getting laid by the most gorgeous women, always commanding respect. We adored him. Especially me, with no father figure in my life or even a big brother to look up to. He took me under his wing, made me feel special. Like I belonged.
I remember the first time he ever sent me on a job. I was barely eighteen, trying to pretend to be strong and badass. It’s easy to be a badass when you don’t have to back your words up. Then Frankie asked me to go along with a couple of guys to rough up a rival gang. Just shake things up, nothing major. Maybe destroy a few bikes, shoot out a few windows at their clubhouse. Nothing major. I was scared to death.
My heart was beating a mile a minute the whole way to the clubhouse. I knew I shouldn’t be scared, considering this wasn’t that major. There were actual club members, not just prospects like me, who’d killed people at Frankie’s order. All I had to do was fire a few shots. At least I’d fired a gun before.
What if they fired back, though? Every time I thought about, I wanted to throw up. The only thing stopping me was the presence of my friends. One surefire way to miss out on getting patched in: puking on your first job.
I did well on that first job, wrecking three bikes before a handful of guys ran out of the clubhouse, firing. The van started to take off, and I ran after it. My guys reached out to me through the open back doors, pulling me in before we sped off. I was elated, on top of the world. They slapped me on the back, told me what a great job I’d done. It was a high. I’d never felt so accepted before.
When we got back to the clubhouse, Frankie was proud of me. It was my first show of faithfulness to the club, and I’d done them proud. I was hooked. I was never sent on such an easy job again, but I didn’t care. I wanted to patch in as quickly as possible.
I was such an idiot. Now, no matter what I do, I can’t live it down. I could leave town completely, move across the country, start a new life for myself. But that would be like running away. I can’t do that either. My pride stops me every time I so much as consider it.
Besides, it would feel like leaving Marissa. I can’t deny the attachment I still feel toward her, even though she hasn’t been with me for a long time. That was her house, hers and mine. Leaving that would mean leaving her.
If I had left before now, I wouldn’t have met Christina. Would anybody else have found her in the snow? Who’s to say? She could be dead now if it weren’t for me.
She could be dead now. He could have killed her. The thought makes me gun the engine.
I know they can’t take me in without some proof I did something. That’s probably what they were trying to come up with when they were standing in the kitchen. Some trumped-up reason to bring me in. I have to outsmart them. It shouldn’t be too hard.
I run into the house, then straight upstairs to the box I keep under my bed. I haven’t opened this box in two years, ever since Marissa. I told myself I wouldn’t open it ever again. I only kept it here to remind myself of the man I used to be. How guilty I am of so many things. Punishment for my sins.
I pull out the key, inserting it into the lock. There’s the Glock, along with several clips. I load one clip into the pistol, then take two more. They go into my pocket while the pistol goes into the waistband of my jeans. I haven’t felt a gun in the back of my jeans in years. It rests against my skin, so familiar.
Now I have to figure out where to go. Damn it! I close my eyes, trying to remember where she told me they met. Was it at school? Yes. They met in college. In Texas somewhere. Christ, how many fucking colleges are there in Texas?
Blue senses my mood, jumping up and down, trying to get my attention. I’m beyond agitated, nearly panicked. I remind myself to stay calm. She needs me to stay calm.
I stand, glancing over at the photo of Marissa before I turn to go. I can’t let another woman I care about down this way. I can’t. I have to save Christina.
I run downstairs, then immediately sit in front of the computer. If there’s anything worth finding, it’s gonna be online. I log in to Facebook, hoping she’s the type of girl to post lots of pictures.
She is, thank God. I breathe a sigh of relief as I go through her photos. There are a million albums. This might take longer than I thought, and I don’t have the time.
All I can do is think of her. How terrified she must be. Does she know I’m looking for her? I should hope so. I hope she has something to hold on to while she’s going through this. I hope she knows I’d never desert her.
One photo album looks the same to me as any other, so I open one and start looking through the photos. She had a lot of friends in school—I look at the dates on the photos, do the math, and figure this had to be around freshman year of college. Here she is, on a boat with a fish. At a club. On the beach. Those freckles, that smile. She was so pretty, in a fresher, younger sort of way. Now she’s a beautiful woman.
There’s nothing here to tell me anything, so I go to the next album. This is the holidays. Christina and her parents. They look like a nice couple. I can see they love her like crazy. There’s a lot of laughter in these photos. Big smiles. Corny Christmas sweaters. I always wanted a family like this.
Still no clues. The next album is a birthday party. Again, there’s Christina, the center of attention. There are even pics of her baking her own birthday cake. It’s beautiful. For a young girl, she did a great job, even piping the icing in swirls. Photos of people with slices on plates, giving a thumbs-up. I’m getting a clearer picture of this woman. Someone with a lot of love in her life.
Then something changed. There’s another album of her. Just her. No friends. Just a bunch of photos somebody took of her. She looks thinner. Tired. In a few photos, she’s holding her hand up like she wants to shield herself. She doesn’t want her photo taken. But the person behind the camera insisted.
It had to be him. This was after she met him.
I look back at the albums, knowing there have to be photos of him in here somewhere. I have to see him. I need to look at him, know who I’m after. Hopefully I can find something that will tell me where he might take her.
>
There they are. It has to be him—she told me he was her only boyfriend, didn’t she? He has his arms around her, hers around him. They’re young, fresh-looking. Big smiles on their faces. Was this before or after he hit her the first time? Is she full of hope? I wish I could go back to that girl and warn her about him.
And him. He just looks like somebody I’d fucking hate if I met him in person. I’ve known enough bullies in my day to recognize one when I see them. Thick, burly. He has a smile that’s more like a half-sneer. Blond, curly hair in a tight cut. Beady gray eyes. He likes to hit women.
And they’re standing in front of a tower. Just like he talked about in his text.
I go through more photos, realizing these are pictures of them at college. Where is it? I look at the name, plug it into another browser tab. It’s about five or six miles from here. I go to the website. Sure enough, here are photos of a tower on campus. That’s where they “fell in love.” That’s where he’s taking her. So that’s where I need to be.
How much of a head start has he gotten? I look at the time. Hopefully not more than a couple of hours. If I move fast enough, I can hopefully catch up with them in time to stop him from doing anything crazy.
I stop to put some food in Blue’s bowl. “Be back soon, buddy. I hope. And I’ll bring her with me.” There’s no other way this can end. I have to bring her back. I open the door.
Flashing lights off in the distance. Shit. Here they come. I run to my bike, deciding to ride through the woods instead of taking the main road. They can’t follow me there.
I have to dump the bike. How else can I get to Texas? Steal a car? Right, and give them another reason to chase me down. What, then?
Adam. He’s my only shot. Nobody else will speak to me or even see me. Why would any of them care, anyway? They don’t know her, they’ve never met her. Adam at least has. I hope I can appeal to him, remind him of her. Tell him she’s in danger. He’s the only one I can turn to.