Breaking Out

by Lydia Michaels

  Evelyn took the gilded elevator to the thirtieth floor, then walked past the elevators that dropped guests into the lobby. She took the one delivering guests to the fitness center. Moving quickly, with her head lowered, she hurried down the hall, past the gym, past the indoor pool, and out the side entrance.

  The cold March morning air cut down the collar of her coat and she tightened her scarf. She should have grabbed a real scarf. This one was nothing more than an accessory. Looking left, then right, she saw no one she recognized and quickly headed east, away from the front of the hotel.

  It was still fairly early, and the morning rush of pedestrian traffic mostly moved into the commercial district to settle in with their first cups of coffee for the day. The sidewalks were fairly vacant, lacking the blending roar of the footed rush hour of Folsom. Cabs busily chauffeured people where they needed to go, and as the cold, blustery morning again cut through her clothes, Evelyn considered hailing a taxi for herself.

  She didn’t really have a plan. She only knew she had several hours until Lucian returned and this would likely be her only chance.

  “Ms. Keats!”

  Spine stiffening, Evelyn turned and saw a man in the unmistakable Patras uniform chasing after her. He held a phone to his ear and ran awkwardly through a cluster of pedestrians.

  Are you kidding me?

  Decision made, she threw up her hand and a yellow cab pulled quickly to the curb.

  “Ms. Keats!” the man called again as she slammed the door.

  “The old St. Christopher’s church,” she said as her heart raced. “Go!”

  The Patras employee neared just as the cab pulled away. She felt bad for whoever the man was. Twisting in her seat, she stared out the rear window of the cab as his shoulders drooped and he spoke into a phone, despair clear on his face.

  “You know that church ain’t open no more,” the cabby said. His voice spoke of too many cigarettes, and the scent of the cab’s interior confirmed he was a smoker.

  “I know.”

  “Girl like you shouldn’t be in that section of town alone. You picking someone up?”

  “I don’t know.” It honestly all depended on if she found Parker and how he was doing.

  The driver was quiet the rest of the way as he navigated down the busy streets. She tapped her foot anxiously and fiddled with the zipper of her purse. If Lucian was in a meeting he wouldn’t be disturbed. Seth, his assistant, knew better than to interrupt Lucian when he had important clients in town. She hoped whenever Seth got the call advising she’d left without Dugan that such would be the case. If Lucian was occupied she would at least have somewhat of a chance to find Parker and get back to Patras safe and sound so she could prove he had nothing to worry about.

  Her cell phone buzzed. Unzipping her bag, she pulled it out and looked at the screen. It was a missed call from Dugan.

  “Shit,” she mumbled under her breath. People probably escaped the Nazis easier than one could escape Lucian’s paid staff.

  Not wanting the bother or the heartburn, she shut off her phone and stuffed it back in her bag. Twenty minutes later the cab pulled up in front of St. Christopher’s. It was so familiar and at the same time different.

  Lucian had funded a great deal of the renovations. The church and old school had new roofs, and the stone facing had all been repointed. The concrete steps were redone, and the dilapidated railing going up the center was now gone, replaced by a brand new sturdy one. There were no cars in the lot, but she expected that. Residents had to be out of the shelter by eight and couldn’t return until curfew.

  “I told you. Nobody’s here.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a twenty. “Thank you.” Handing the money over the front seat, she reached for the door.

  “You want me to wait?” the driver asked.

  There was no point in him sticking around. She knew Parker could be hiding in a ton of places by this time of day. She was going to have to walk back, but she’d made that walk a hundred times before.

  “It’s okay. Thanks though.”

  “Okay,” the driver said reluctantly. “You be careful. A girl like you shouldn’t be walkin’ these parts alone.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She climbed out of the cab and watched as it slowly pulled away. Trepidation, having everything to do with Lucian and nothing to do with her surroundings, tickled her spine. She should have been uncomfortable in this part of the city, but she wasn’t. It was home, her home before Lucian, even if he was her home now. Besides, she’d grown up at the tracks. St. Christopher’s district was like a country club compared to the tracks.

  She knew no one was there, but she tried the heavy doors anyway. Locked. Walking around the perimeter of the building, she searched for signs of the living. Sometimes people would find a place to rest in the empty flowerbeds, being that the brick embankments were slightly raised and could block a good bit of wind.

  She’d forgotten how quiet this section of the city was. No cars rushed by. No pedestrians walked on the broken pavement the city council tried to pass off as sidewalks. Even the basketball nets were without the jangle of their netted chains. Once Parker read her a book called How the Grinch Stole Christmas! This section of Folsom looked like the Grinch had been by. Even the mice running over the storm drains looked emaciated and cold, without even a crumb to nibble on.

  The sound of gravel crunching directly behind her had her pivoting quickly. She hadn’t realized anyone was around. She squinted at the mangy face staring back at her and recognized the eyes belonging to a man who sometimes stayed with the rest of them at St. Christopher’s. Paul or Marty was his name. She couldn’t remember.

  “I’ll take that bag of yours there, missy,” he said and Evelyn noticed, gripped within his dirty fingers peeking from the frayed tips of his gloves, was a small, but very sharp, knife.

  She frowned at him in no mood for nonsense. “Do you know where Parker is?”

  “How you know Parker?” He didn’t lower the weapon.

  “I’m Scout. You remember me, right?”

  He looked her over, his gaze snagging on the bracelet Lucian had given her. When his eyes met hers again he said, “You don’t look like Scout by the way you dressed, but you got her eyes. I ain’t seen Parker in months.”

  Months? Evelyn’s stomach dropped. Oh, God. Was he dead? Her voice shook. “Do you know where he went?”

  The man shrugged. “Maybe I’ll be able to remember more if you give me that bracelet.”

  Anger had her clamping her jaw tight. “Look, I’m trying to find my friend. You can either help me or not, but you aren’t getting a damn thing from me. If you tell me where Parker might be I can give you enough money for something decent to eat—”

  “I think you confused, Scout. You see, I gots me a knife and all you gots is some fancy clothes, new jewelry, and that big expensive pocketbook where this money you talkin’ of is probably hidin’. I’m thinking with all that I can get more than a decent meal. Now hand it over.”

  “Or what? You’ll cut me? I don’t think so.”

  His dirty face darkened and he took a step forward. Evelyn immediately stepped back, her hands balling into fists. She didn’t spend twenty years on the street not knowing how to take care of herself. This motherfucker was going to lose a hand if he came any closer with that dingy knife.

  “Last chance, Scout. Give me—”

  There was a strange click. “Step the fuck away from her.”

  Evelyn spun on her heel and came face to barrel with a handgun. “Jesus!” She jumped out of the line of fire and saw Dugan looking fiercer than he ever had.

  “Go get in the limo, Ms. Keats.”

  “Dugan, I—”

  “Now.”

  She looked back at Paul or Marty or whomever, who looked about ready to piss himself, and decided it was time for her to leave
. She quickly walked back to the limo and found it unlocked. She clambered inside, suddenly sick to her stomach. This was not good.

  The front door of the limo opened only a minute later and Dugan climbed behind the wheel. He stuck his gun in the glove compartment and lifted his phone to his ear.

  “Dugan—”

  “Not. A. Word.”

  “Dugan, please . . .” The privacy glass went up. The doors clicked, all locking on command, and the limo pulled away. Well shit.

  Chapter 8

  Chastised and then some . . .

  Unlike normal kids, Evelyn never had a room to be sent to. There was never a specific age at which point she could cross the street, because that would be like marking a time for a toddler to cross the kitchen in a typical home. She never went to school, so she never really could get into trouble there either. Her life followed the simplistic cause-and-effect patterns of nomads, and every consequence she ever faced had been a natural one.

  Her knee bounced anxiously. Dugan stood across the common area of the condo, arms braced over his broad chest, scowling at her. She’d given up trying to reason with him. The uncomfortable nausea that swirled in her belly, a mix of panic and uncertainty, battled with the indignity of being treated like a child.

  “I wouldn’t have let him rob me,” she snidely said to her chaperone. His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

  Unable to match his stare, she lowered her gaze to her lap and waited. They had been sitting there for over thirty minutes. She knew they were waiting for Lucian, but she didn’t know for how long. He had meetings all day and didn’t plan to be back until seven. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

  Long ago she’d given him her word that she wouldn’t venture into that section of the city alone. Today she broke her word. That bordered on lying, something Lucian had zero tolerance for.

  The private elevator to the master suite pinged softly in the hall. The mechanical buzz following the swipe of a keycard sounded. Evelyn’s breathing accelerated. Maybe it was just housekeeping. The sound of Lucian’s briefcase hitting the hall table told her it wasn’t. She sat up straight and waited.

  Lucian walked around the corner, jaw set as though it were made of granite, eyes a stormy shade of the darkest onyx, and his movements stiff as stone. He didn’t look at her.

  Dugan moved from his post at the wall and nodded to Lucian. Lucian walked right past her, somehow avoiding making any eye contact, and moved to stand in front of the glass window. She didn’t turn or say a word. The air seemed to be escaping the condo by the second, making it harder and harder to breathe.

  Facing forward, she could only make out his shadow in her left peripheral from where she sat on the sofa. The door to the condo clicked shut. The elevator gave a muffled ping, and then took Dugan off to wherever he was going. Evelyn had no idea what having a father felt like, but seeing Dugan go sort of felt like her last hope of any champion was abandoning her.

  Silence.

  As the quiet consumed her and everything else around her, she began to notice sounds she usually overlooked. Traffic, thirty-two stories below, whisked by in a shushed hum. The clock on the accent table actually clicked with each second. Lucian’s breathing was measured and heavy, but slow as well.

  “Do you mind telling me what the fuck you were doing there?”

  She jerked in her seat as his initially quiet question ended in a shout. He turned and faced her from behind his desk.

  “I—”

  “You could have been killed!” he bellowed, his hand sweeping across the messy surface, taking everything, including the antique lamp perched at the corner, with it.

  She instinctively flinched, her back pressing further into the cushions of the couch.

  “I share everything with you! My homes, my possessions, my staff, my money, I even give you my goddamn heart, but you can’t even offer me the truth!”

  He was shouting in a way she had never heard him speak before. Lucian didn’t raise his voice. When he spoke softly he was menacing enough to demand the attention of an entire auditorium. Her throat constricted and even if she had something to say she wouldn’t have been able to get words past the lump choking her.

  The hot burn of an unexpected tear flipped over the edge of her lashes and skittered down her cheek.

  “Say something!”

  “I don’t know what to say . . .” she whispered in a voice so constricted she could barely hear it herself.

  “How about telling me what you were looking for?” Then his face contorted and he sneered, “Or should I say who?”

  Be honest. “I wanted to find Parker, to see if he was okay.”

  “And you felt the need for secrecy why?”

  She shrugged stupidly. “I knew it would make you angry. I didn’t want you to worry about anything.”

  “If there was nothing to worry about, then why not tell me what you were really doing? Why be deceptive?”

  “I wasn’t trying to be—”

  “Bullshit.” He was suddenly in front of her, leaning over her, boxing her in. “You purposely tried to keep this from me. Why, Evelyn?”

  “I don’t know!” she sobbed.

  “You know.”

  “I don’t. I didn’t want you to be angry—”

  “Tell me the truth!” he snapped. “Say it.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say!” She pleadingly reached for his face, but he ripped his body away before she could touch him. “Lucian, please—”

  “Just admit it.”

  She didn’t understand what he was trying to get her to admit. “Admit what?”

  “You fucking love him!”

  Her breathing stilled and her mouth opened. She stared unblinking at Lucian’s back as her mind tried to wrap around his words. Finally, she croaked, “What?”

  In a voice sounding defeated and all too quiet, he whispered. “You love him.”

  “Lucian . . . no.” How could he think such a thing?

  “Then why?”

  “I don’t know why. I was worried about him. That’s all. I swear it. I don’t see him that way. Please, believe me. I haven’t seen or talked to him since we had that fight last fall. It’s been months. The man at the shelter said he’s been gone for a while.” Her voice broke as she cried. “I’m worried he’s . . . what if something bad happened?”

  Lucian turned on her, his face haggard, but his eyes again narrowed on her. “And what if something did happen? What if you found him and he said he needed you? What would you do then, Evelyn? Would you go to him?”

  “That’s not a fair question.”

  “Would you?”

  “I’d want to help him if I could, but only because he’s my friend.”

  “And what if he was just fine? What if he somehow made it off the street just like you did? Would that change your feelings?”

  She shook her head. “Parker has no one. I don’t think that’s what happened. Lucian, I swear, I only went because I can’t shake this feeling that he’s in trouble, like something bad happened to him.”

  “Do you intend to continue to look for him?”

  He seemed to hold his breath, as did she. There was no right answer to that question. She couldn’t look at him. Lowering her gaze to her hands fisted in her lap, she whispered, “I need to know he’s okay.”

  There was no sound. No reaction to her words. Minutes passed. They seemed to reach a stalemate. Finally, Lucian sunk into the chair across from her.

  She peeked at him from under her lashes. She was completely unprepared for the desolate look in his eyes. Instinctively, she went to him, but as she reached for his hands, he flinched away from her touch. “I need you to not touch me right now, Evelyn. Please go away.”

  Pain crushed down on her chest. Air choked off as an agonized whimper left her throat. Her hands began to shake
so violently even her shoulders trembled. Tears fell unchecked from her eyes, skittering down her cheeks and dropping onto her knee to mark and soak the fabric there. She wiped at her suddenly runny nose with her cold fingers and sat back, nodding.

  When she found the strength, she stood and awkwardly walked to their bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, unsure of what to do.

  Should she pack her things? Move her belongings to the guest room? She’d never known such an ugly, unwanted worthlessness. Her voice spilled past her lips in a sharp, gasping sob. She didn’t know what to do.

  Thinking things couldn’t get any worse, she realized just how stupid she was. The sound of the front door opening and slamming closed echoed through the empty condo. She had finally pushed too hard. He hated her. And he’d left.

  Chapter 9

  Uncertainty

  It was after two in the morning when Lucian finally came home. Evelyn’s eyes opened, the only light a green glow coming from the digital clock on the nightstand. Her lashes felt glued together with dried tears, and her nose had run so much she could barely breathe through it. As she heard him moving around in the common area, there was a thud and he cursed.

  She peeled her tear-dampened cheek off the pillow, forced herself out of bed and quietly walked to the hall. Standing at the edge of the hall in the dark, she saw Lucian examining his sock-covered foot. She squinted into the shadows and saw that the antique lamp he had knocked off the desk lay shattered. He must have stepped on it. Wanting to help, she stepped forward.

  “Go back to bed, Evelyn.”

  Her steps faltered and her jaw trembled. “Are you hurt?”

  He placed his foot on the ground and grimaced. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

  “I was awake.”

  He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. She waited for him to look at her. When he said nothing she asked, “Do you want me to leave?”