Protective Measures

by Maggie K. Black

  “Which reporter?” Leo asked, even though he knew the answer before she confirmed it. He could only think of one reporter who’d be responding to messages in the middle of the night. “Was it Killian Lynch?”

  She nodded. Leo could feel hackles rising on the back of his neck. So Killian had figured out who Zoe was, somehow linked that to the fact her parents had a cottage at Cedar Lake and then told Melody? Who else had he told?

  Melody was still smiling at him hopefully.

  “I hoped we could sit down like two responsible adults and talk through how best to sort things out for your daughters,” she said. She held up a plastic container. “I brought muffins.”

  “This is very unexpected,” he said. Yes, he knew he needed to talk to Melody about the letter. It said Marisa had wanted her to have custody of the girls. Whether that was true or not, her name was going to be all over the media, too. She was also a casualty in this. It would make all of their lives a lot easier if they could all get on the same page. “I realize it was a long drive and we can talk for a while. But I’m still not ready to tell the girls about the contents of Marisa’s letter. I’ve got someone looking into whether or not it was tampered with or faked. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to the girls, either.”

  Zoe retreated to the staircase and sat on the steps. He opened the door. Melody walked into the cottage living room and set a plastic container of chocolate chip muffins down on the table. Her blond hair was swept up in a long braid, like Marisa’s used to be. Her flowered blouse and skirt could’ve been picked right out of Marisa’s wardrobe.

  “Nice to meet you.” He shook her hand. It was soft. “This is my friend Zoe.”

  Melody shook her head and frowned in confusion, as her gaze swept over Zoe’s disheveled hair and unusual getup. Zoe stared back at her. For a moment it was like a window had opened in time and Marisa herself was peering through it. It was like Marisa herself was there in the room, meeting Zoe, judging him for falling for her and looking down on him for no longer being the responsible, sensible, cautious man who’d been the father of her daughters.

  “What’s going on with you?” Melody’s voice grew sharp. “Who’s she? I thought you agreed you needed a motherly influence in your daughters’ lives.”

  Something in her tone made it crystal clear that Melody had seen herself as applying for the job.

  “No!” A sudden cry filled the air—young and desperate. He looked up. Ivy was standing on the landing, still in her pajamas. She pointed at Melody. “Not her! You promised me I didn’t have to see her!”

  “Ivy!” Leo turned. “That’s enough. Melody is just visiting. She wants to help us.”

  “No.” Ivy shook. Fear and fury swept over her tiny frame, laced with a panic that shot him in the heart. Her eyes latched on Melody. “I will never go with you! Stay away from me and Eve!”

  Leo felt his own limbs tremble. Lord, have I been wrong? What have I missed? Ivy turned and ran for the bedroom, slamming the door so hard it shook. An unfamiliar hand touched his arm and stroked it. He recoiled under the touch.

  “She’s just a child,” Melody said. Her voice was soft and soothing. She reached for his arm again. “She’ll get used to it when she realizes it’s what’s best for her.”

  What’s best for her? The words rang hollow in his mind. Zoe stood and walked up the stairs after Ivy. She knocked on the girls’ bedroom door.

  Listen to her, Leo.

  But she won’t talk to me!

  Then listen to the words she’s not saying.

  There was a click. The bedroom door had opened. Eve had let Zoe in.

  He wished that he and Melody could just sit down and talk about Marisa, whether there was any truth to the letter and, either way, his need to protect the girls. It would make life so much easier if she agreed not to press for custody. And if his very worst fears came true, he needed Melody to agree to let him have visitation rights. But any hope of that faded the moment he saw fear filling his daughter’s eyes.

  “Ivy can’t be allowed to get away with disrespecting me like that,” Melody said. “I won’t stand for it. I always told Marisa that one was a little terror who had a serious attitude problem.”

  “I need you to leave,” Leo said. “We can talk again another time, when the girls aren’t around. But not like this and not while Ivy’s this upset. I need to go talk to my daughter, and you need to go.”

  It was like a switch had flipped inside Melody’s mind. A wall of noise greeted him, much like the constant sound that had hit his ears when he talked to her on the phone the other night. But instead of cheerful, this was angry, indignant, cajoling and threatening all at once. He’d never been a good husband to Marisa, she said, and the girls were better off living with her. But all her words seemed to blend together in an incoherent torrent of sound and fury.

  “I’m sorry, you have to go.” He held up a hand. “I need to go talk to my daughters. Alone. Feel free to pour yourself a cup of coffee and freshen up if you need to. But when I get back down I expect you to be gone. We can talk on the phone. I will meet with you in mediation. I will follow the law. But my top priority is going to be keeping my girls safe, whether that’s convenient or not.”

  He turned and walked upstairs, leaving her standing there in the living room, her mouth agape. Lord, why this? Why now? What do I do? The girls’ bedroom door was locked. He knocked on it gently. Eve opened it. She stood there alone in her pajamas, her eyes wide and Fluff clutched tightly in her arms.

  “Where are Ivy and Zoe?” he asked.

  Eve pointed to the skylight high in the ceiling. A single chair sat beneath it.

  “Ivy ran away. She begged me to go with her. But I couldn’t reach.” Tears filled her eyes. “Zoe went after her.”

  THIRTEEN

  Ivy was crying. Zoe could hear her scared, angry sobs on the far side of the cottage roof. Carefully she crept across the shingles toward the sound, praying as she went. Then she saw her curled into a ball next to the chimney, still in her pajamas with a pair of battered sneakers on her feet.

  “Hey, Ivy,” she said softly. Gingerly Zoe made her way across the cottage roof toward her. “Okay if I join you?”

  Ivy nodded. She sat on the roof beside her and watched as the sun rose slowly through the treetops.

  “I was going to run away.” Ivy looked up at her with tearstained eyes. “But I can’t go without Eve.”

  “You’re a good big sister,” Zoe said. “My big brother, Alex, is like that. We always have each other’s backs. When my mom died and it was just Dad and me, I was worried that if our lives ever changed it would make things worse. When I met my new mom she turned out to be very different than me, but still really cool. And Alex became my best friend. He told me to come up here with your dad to see you.”

  “Eve’s still little. She doesn’t understand a lot of things so I have to protect her. And adults aren’t always good at listening.” Ivy looked up at her, her eyes sincere and pleading. “You can’t let Melody take Eve away again. You have to protect her!”

  Ivy’s voice broke. Fresh tears filled her eyes.

  “What do you mean, Ivy? Did Melody try to take Eve before?”

  “I can’t tell you.” Her shoulders hunched and she buried her face in her knees. “I’m not supposed to talk about it. Please don’t be angry with me.”

  Suddenly Zoe saw herself, small and tiny, crying in the locker room time and again after Killian had baited and berated her in secret, worried she couldn’t tell anyone and that no one would believe her.

  “I’m not angry at you,” Zoe said. Her arm slid around Ivy’s shoulder. She held Ivy close. “I know what it’s like to be upset, scared and angry. I know what it’s like to think nobody will believe you and not know what to do.”

  And to do something stupid because
she was scared and in over her head.

  “Melody moved in next door when I was seven and Eve was three,” Ivy said. “She came over a lot and gave us a lot of attention and presents. Especially Eve. She tried to be just like Mommy.” She shuddered through her tears. “Sometimes when Mommy wasn’t in the room she’d say things. She said Daddy was a bad man and we couldn’t trust him, because men like Daddy are bad. She said she loved a man like Daddy once, in the navy, but he hurt her, and she lost her two little twin boys. She said it was all my daddy’s fault, so she wanted two little girls like Eve and me to replace them.”

  “That sounds scary,” Zoe said. She held her closer.

  “Then one night Mommy went out and left us alone with Melody. We were supposed to go to bed, but Melody told us we were going on a trip far away where Mommy and Daddy would never see us again. I said no. But she picked up Eve and took her to the car.” Hysterical tears started pouring down Ivy’s cheeks. “She grabbed my hand but I fought her. I tried to stop her from taking Eve, but I wasn’t strong enough. She took Eve and left. I hid in the closet and called 9-1-1. Then Mommy came home with the police and Eve came back. Melody said she’d only taken Eve for ice cream and that I’d been rude. Mommy promised me that I’d never have to see Melody again after that. But then Mommy died and I slept in Eve’s room so nobody could ever take her again.”

  “I believe you,” Zoe said. She brushed the tears from Ivy’s face. “Your daddy will believe you, too. We will do everything we can to protect you and make sure nobody will try to hurt you or Eve again.”

  Ivy swallowed hard. Then her arms flew around Zoe’s neck so suddenly, and hugged her so deeply that for a moment Zoe was almost afraid she was going to tumble down off the roof.

  “Zoe’s right.” A firm, strong voice floated over the roof. She looked up. Leo was sticking his head out the skylight. Zoe’s eyes met his over Ivy’s head. He mouthed, “Thank you.”

  Ivy turned toward her dad. “Really?”

  “Yes, really!” Protective love for his daughter filled the father’s eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand before. But I told Melody to leave. And I’m going to do everything I can to protect you now.”

  He reached up through the skylight, stretching his arms toward Ivy. She crawled across the roof, grabbed his hands and buried her head in her father’s arms. He helped Ivy gently through the hole. Zoe heard the sound of Eve diving excitedly into Ivy’s arms, and then Leo telling his girls he loved them.

  But Zoe stayed on the roof, alone. She stared out at her family’s cottage on the other side of the lake and hugged her knees to her chest.

  Lord, I never knew it was possible to love anyone the way I love Leo and his daughters. Please protect them. Please give them all the happiness they deserve. Please help me know how to say goodbye to them.

  Trees rustled to her right like the wind of an approaching storm. She looked down. A group of men in fatigues were walking through the forest toward the cottage. They were carrying guns.

  * * *

  “Leo, we have a situation.”

  He looked up as Zoe dropped through the skylight and back into the girls’ bedroom. He was crouched on the floor with one arm around each daughter. But in a glance he could tell that they were in trouble. He pulled away from his daughters gently and stood up. Then he leaned close enough to Zoe that she could whisper in his ear.

  “We’ve got hostiles,” she whispered. Her hand brushed his arm. “They’re in fatigues and carrying weapons. My guess is Eastern European.”

  Leo’s eyes met hers. “How many?”

  “At least six. Maybe more.”

  “Masks?” he asked. She shook her head. So it was a hit squad: brazen, unafraid of being seen and deadly. The drug smugglers had somehow found him. He’d known this was a risk when he agreed to take on the mission to intercept the smuggling data. But the mission had failed. He’d never retrieved the intel. Yet somehow they must think he had and were now willing to do whatever it took to get it. His eyes rose to the pale light filtering in through the skylight above. He could feel Zoe by his side, and Ivy and Eve by his feet. Help me, Lord, I need to save them.

  “Can you get to the truck?” he asked.

  Zoe shook her head. “No, it’s a terrible road, and they have it blocked. No signal on my cell phone, either, but even then it’ll take police half an hour to get here. Our only hope is to get to the speedboat and head across the lake to Josh. The girls will be safe there.”

  The doorknob rattled. Then they heard loud banging against the bedroom door.

  “You’re running out of time,” Melody shouted. “Some bad people are coming, and I can’t stop them.”

  “Call them off, Melody.” Leo’s voice rose. “We can still end this peacefully. Nobody needs to get hurt.”

  “I didn’t call them!” Her voice rose with a wail of desperation that told him she was telling the truth. “They won’t listen to me. I hired The Anemoi to help get me custody of the girls. That’s all. But they double-crossed me. They said they found out you’re some kind of spy who has information about drug routes, so they sold information about you to organized crime. The Anemoi told me I have until sunrise to leave the cottage with the girls. Then a gang’s going to break down the doors, take you and kill anyone who gets in the way.”

  Who was this woman? Why had she hired The Anemoi to destroy his family? But his desire for answers collided with the knowledge that the girls were right there, clinging to him, able to hear every word. There were some things he needed to protect them from hearing. A gun blast shook the room as Melody fired into the wall. The girls screamed. He had to get them out of here.

  “Take the girls to safety.” Leo’s eyes locked on Zoe. “You can go through the skylight and run through the woods to the dock. The trees will give you cover. I’ll stay here and try to buy you some time. Hopefully they won’t notice you’re gone until it’s too late.”

  “I can’t leave you here,” she said.

  “Yes, you can,” he said. “I won’t fit through the skylight and it’s the only way to keep the girls safe. Please, Zoe, rescue my girls. I need you to save them.”

  A second blast sounded. The bullet hit the doorway. Wood splintered around them.

  “Girls, go with Zoe.” Leo crouched down and pulled both girls close to him. “Go quickly and quietly. Do exactly what she tells you to. I love you, and I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

  He picked both girls up in his arms at once, whispering prayers for their safety. Then he lifted them each in turn through the skylight. They scrambled onto the roof. Their worried faces peered down at him. He turned to Zoe. “Your turn.”

  “Hang on.” Her eyes darted around the room, and then she dove toward the bed, reached underneath and pulled out a small, bundle of fur. She cradled Fluff to her chest. “Okay, now I’m ready.”

  Gasps of relief echoed down from the girls above. Emotion swelled in his heart. He yanked his sweatshirt off and draped it around her like a sling, tying the puppy against her chest. Then Leo swept Zoe up into his arms. His lips brushed hers, and then he lifted her up above his head. She climbed onto the roof beside his daughters.

  A third blast shot through the door, sending wood flying. Melody’s aim was getting better. Above him he could hear Zoe and the girls crawling across the roof. He pressed himself against the bedroom wall and waited. Another blast, this one taking out the door handle.

  The door swung open. He leaped through the doorway and onto the landing. In one clean, swift motion he knocked the gun from Melody’s hands.

  “Who are you, really?” He pushed her against the wall. His gaze searched her crazed eyes as he tried to put together the pieces of the terrible story Ivy had told on the roof with everything that The Anemoi had done. “Why did you stalk Marisa and terrorize my girls five years ago? Why did you hire The Anemoi? Why a
re you trying to steal my daughters?”

  “Because you stole my family from me!” Melody spat. “You destroyed my fiancé’s life and career! You turned him into a monster and made him do things he wouldn’t have done, like taking my boys from me.”

  The sound of footsteps above had stopped. Then he heard the clatter of them landing on the roof of the shed. Ivy and his daughters had almost made it to the ground.

  “You’re Tommy Ferrier’s fiancée,” he said slowly. “He lost his naval career and went to prison after my friend Josh tipped me off to him smuggling drugs on my ship. He went to jail, dealt drugs, hurt you and made you miscarry your twins. You blamed me for losing your family, so you went after mine and tried to steal the girls from Marisa. But Ivy stopped you. So, you waited, and when you saw me and the girls all over the media, you convinced The Anemoi to take them from me.”

  A crash in the brush outside dragged his gaze to the picture windows. He saw Ivy, down on the ground by the tree line. His heart ached to run to her. Then he saw Zoe grab her hand and pull her to her feet. Eve leaped on Zoe’s back and held on tightly. They ran into the trees.

  “I hired The Anemoi to kidnap them!” Her voice rose. “But they failed me. All they wanted to do was scare you, hurt you and try to trick you into letting me have them.”

  “They wanted to destroy my life, make me worry I couldn’t protect them and make me doubt they were even really mine,” he said. “Then you were going to walk in, with a letter from Marisa, and demand custody of them.”

  It was a cunning plan. But how foolish they’d been to think anything in the world, even his own failings and doubt, would ever stop him from fighting for his girls.

  “They let me down!” Her voice rose to an indignant wail.

  His head shook in disgust. The fiancée of the same small-time drug smuggler he’d kicked off his ship five years ago had hired a ragtag group of thieves to destroy his family. Instead, they’d sent violent drug smugglers after him. Ones who he had no doubt would be all too willing to torture a military officer for intelligence information.