Not You It's Me

by Julie Johnson

  “What the fuck is that?”

  I don’t answer him.

  The buzzing continues, loud and insistent, until Ralph leans forward and grabs my purse off the passenger-side floor. Reaching inside, he pulls out my sparkly blue phone and sneers at the screen.

  “Chase Fucking Croft. That bastard has half the BPD on my ass, not to mention that private contractor fucker who’s been tailing me. Haven’t been able to go home in days, thanks to Croft.”

  “Your new partner hasn’t been taking care of you?”

  The words fly from my mouth before I can stop them.

  His gaze, cold with fury, slides to mine. I think he’s going to ignore me, but he doesn’t.

  “Brett?” Ralph laughs bitterly. “He took my information. Said he had some grand plan, to bring down his cousin. But he cut me out. Used me. Should’ve known — he’s a fucking Croft, too.”

  If he’s working alone, we might just have a shot. Ralph isn’t the smartest kidnapper on the block. In fact, Ralph isn’t the smartest — period.

  “It doesn’t matter, though.” Ralph’s trying to sound tough, but I can hear undercurrents of anxiety in his tone. His eyes never waver from my phone as he tosses my purse into the backseat, watching as the screen flashes CHASE CALLING over and over. “I’ve got a new partner now. She’s smarter than both of them, combined. Not to mention a fuck of a lot better to look at. Together, we’re gonna make that whole fucking family pay. Literally.”

  She?

  There’s only one she I can think of, who’d want to hurt me and Chase, but it’s almost too ludicrous to consider she’d stoop low enough to work with Ralph.

  It can’t be her.

  Ralph grins to himself. “Guess we’ll find out how much you’re worth, Gemma. Me, I wouldn’t pay a goddamn cent to get you back.” His grin widens. “For your sake, I hope your new boyfriend doesn’t feel the same.”

  “Chase will be looking for me,” I say, attempting to reason with him. “He’ll suspect something’s wrong, if—”

  My words are cut off when Ralph’s hand flies out, clipping me across the cheekbone with the butt of his gun. Stars of pain burst behind my eyes and, for a minute, the road in front of me disappears entirely. I feel the car lurch, swerving out of its lane as my hands momentarily lose control of the wheel. A sharp horn blares from the car driving beside us. Chrissy’s shrieks echo from the backseat. Jolted roughly in his booster, Winnie starts to cry, little hiccupping sobs of distress.

  I register it happening, but it all feels distant as my head swims with pain.

  “Stupid bitch!” Ralph yells, grabbing the wheel and yanking us back on course.

  When my head stops spinning, I blink away the stinging ache and steady my hands on the wheel, trying to stay in control.

  Your godson is in the backseat.

  Your best friend is back there, too, with an unborn child in her belly.

  Don’t fuck this up, Gemma, any more than you already have.

  Eyes watering from the pain radiating through my rapidly swelling cheekbone, I see Ralph roll down his window and toss my phone onto the road. My gaze swivels to the rearview, just in time to see a car behind us run it over.

  “Take a left, up here.” Ralph’s legs are jittering again, and every few minutes he glances in the side mirror like he thinks someone might be following us.

  I turn the car down a road I don’t recognize. We’ve reached the outer fringes of the city, where the buildings are a little worse for wear and the people a little less polished. Graffiti streaks the sides of crumbling concrete overpasses, trash litters the streets, and few businesses are actually open, though it’s only late afternoon. We pass row after row of triple-decker public housing projects before entering a stretch of seemingly abandoned warehouses. Both pedestrian and car traffic grow thinner as we weave through this forgotten southeastern suburb.

  The sound of a phone beeping makes my entire body tense. For a minute, I worry it’s the second cell in my purse — the new one Chase got for me, which now symbolizes my last shot at escape — but it’s Ralph’s, buzzing in his pocket.

  “What is it?” he snaps into the receiver.

  I hear the faint sounds of a female voice, on the other end.

  “We’re almost there,” Ralph confirms. “Yes, I got her.”

  He pauses, listening.

  “No, not exactly.”

  Another pause.

  “Well, she’s not exactly alone. Her friend was with her.”

  I hear a loud shriek reverberate from the other side.

  “Fuck you, Vanessa!” Ralph sneers. “She’s never fucking alone — Croft trails her around like a puppy. This was the only shot I had, so I took it.”

  Vanessa!

  A rapid stream of words screech in response.

  “Don’t call me an idiot, you bitch! You don’t know who the fuck you’re talking to.”

  My eyes drift to the rearview mirror and meet Chrissy’s. Her breaths are shallow, she’s got one hand pressed to her abdomen, and she’s starting to look panicked.

  I raise my eyebrows.

  She holds up seven fingers and mouths something at me.

  Seven minutes apart. Getting stronger.

  Shit.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Peachy

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  Vanessa is pissed. Super pissed. Probably because, when she envisioned kidnapping me for some kind of idiotic extortion-ransom plot to strike at Chase’s weak spot, she didn’t anticipate her partner bringing along a heavily pregnant woman having regular contractions, as well as a squirming toddler.

  Serves her right for teaming up with someone as idiotic as Ralph.

  “What is this, daycare?” she snaps, striding toward Ralph. “I told you to bring her alone! Not only did you ignore that instruction, you’ve created two witnesses to a crime, you amateur!”

  “I’m getting pretty sick of the name-calling, Vanessa,” Ralph snarls back.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did I hurt your feelings?” She rolls her eyes. “Too damn bad!”

  Winnie shivers in my arms and I hug him a little closer. It’s freezing down here.

  Ralph’s brought us to some kind of abandoned, underground parking garage, with ripped-up concrete floors, a handful of dim lights, and low, rust-stained ceilings that drip water on our heads as we stand against the wall, waiting for the two worst kidnappers of all time to sort out their shit. The age-yellowed headlights of my car do little to illuminate the space, but the bright LEDs of Vanessa’s Mercedes cast a huge halo around the cavernous garage.

  Chrissy’s got one hand pressed to her abdomen, as if she might stave off the pain with firm pressure, and her other is wrapped tight in mine, clenching hard enough to bruise the bones of my fingers each time a contraction moves through her. Right now, between waves of pain, her eyes are squeezed tightly shut as she focuses on her breathing and tries to tune out Ralph and Vanessa.

  “You’re such a bitch! I don’t even know why I teamed up with you.”

  “Because you needed me, asshole! It was my idea to grab her and force Chase to pay up.”

  “Well, I don’t need you anymore! I can do it without you.”

  “You’ve got half the Boston police force out looking for you!” Vanessa scoffs. “As soon as you make contact and Chase finds out you’ve got his girlfriend stuffed in a trunk somewhere, you’ll be dead fucking meat. You need me to negotiate. And, since you’ve been such a royal fuck up, I’m upping my price. I want seventy percent, now.”

  What’s all this about a trunk!?

  “We said fifty-fifty!”

  “That was before you brought a pregnant woman and her spawn into the mix!”

  They go on like this for a while. I rub my hand over Winnie’s back in soothing strokes, hoping it might calm him down.

  “Spawn?” Chrissy whispers, so only I can hear. “Really?”

  I glance at her and drop my voice so low, it’s nearly ina
udible. “Tell them your contractions are getting worse. Tell them you have to sit.”

  “Wouldn’t exactly be lying, if I told them that, Gem.” She winces in pain, holding her abdomen like it’s being torn apart from the inside. Probably because it is.

  “My purse, in the backseat. There’s another phone inside.” My words are hushed but intent. “Get it. Call for help.”

  Her eyes widen in comprehension as she nods, pushing off the wall, where we’ve been standing since Ralph forced us out of the car at gunpoint into this drippy, damp place.

  Vanessa is shrieking again. “Seventy-thirty, or I walk. You’re lucky I’m not asking for more— hey!” She breaks off abruptly when she catches sight of Chrissy, waddling toward the car with measured steps. “Where the hell do you think you’re going, preggers?!”

  “Oh, so you did notice I’m pregnant!” I have to hand it to Chrissy — she never even breaks stride as she tosses the words over her shoulder. “Could’ve fooled me. But really, don’t let me interrupt your little tiff. I’m just going to sit because, well, there’s a fetus pressing against my cervix like a train barreling down the tracks. And gravity is really not my friend, right now, if you know what I mean.”

  Ralph steps forward. “Listen, bitch, I don’t care—”

  “What’s the going rate for infanticide, these days?” I ask, interrupting him. “Anyone know?”

  Vanessa rolls her eyes.

  “I think it’s 25 to life.” Chrissy shrugs. “Does Massachusetts have the death penalty? I can never remember.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure. But I don’t think juries look too kindly on baby-killers. Not to mention the inmates, in prison. I can only imagine what they’d do to a guy responsible for the death of a pregnant woman and her unborn—”

  “Okay! Okay.” Ralph’s looking a little rattled. “Get in the fucking car and don’t fucking move. And leave the door open!”

  “Christ, this is a fuck-up,” Vanessa mumbles.

  “Gladly,” Chrissy says, her voice more fake-sweet than a packet of Splenda as she waddles the final few steps to the car. I catch her eyes just before she slides into the backseat, and hope she reads the message in my gaze.

  Please, be fast. And please, be careful.

  She nods slightly in comprehension. I hug Winnie tighter, praying this will all be over soon.

  “This is taking too long.” Vanessa huffs, still glaring at Ralph. “Sixty-forty. That’s my final offer. You don’t like it, leave!”

  “I’m the one with the gun!”

  “Do you even know how to use that thing?” She taunts, leaning forward with her hands on her hips. I watch as Ralph processes her words, his face turning mottled red with anger.

  Oh, no.

  I know from experience, if there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s having his ego questioned. Especially by a woman.

  “I don’t know, do I?” he yells, swinging out his gun-hand and firing off two rounds. As soon as I see his finger on the trigger, I turn to face the wall, shielding Winnie with my body. The loud bang of the gun echoes through the entire space, ringing in my eardrums long after the bullets are embedded in cement ten feet to our left.

  When I finally peel my eyes open, all I see is the gray wall in front of me, and all I can hear are Winnie’s wails, each one louder and more heart-wrenching than the last.

  “Shhh, honey,” I breathe against his hair. “It’s okay. It’ll all be over soon I promise.”

  “You’re crazy!” Vanessa’s shouting, behind me. “What the hell is wrong with you, firing a gun in here? Do you want to get caught?”

  Glancing over my shoulder, I see her charging toward Ralph, a murderous look on her face. Despite the fact that he’s got a gun, Ralph does the smart thing for once — and backs the hell off. He retreats until he’s nearly at the Mercedes and she follows, screaming at him the whole time. I couldn’t care less, about their idiocy — not now, when there’s a clear shot between my position on the wall and the front door of my car.

  I swallow, hard.

  “Back off!” Ralph demands, his voice whiney. “Let’s just call Croft already, tell him we have her, and see what he says.”

  “You’re an idiot if you want to be anywhere near here, when that call is made.” She scoffs.

  “Then let’s shove her in the trunk, and be done with it!”

  I try to tune them out as I hug Winnie closer and begin to edge along the wall. Thankfully, his cries have died down to a low, steady whimper that calls little attention to us. My steps are small, hesitant, as I move ever closer to the car.

  “And what are we going to do with her friend and the fucking baby, huh?”

  “More to bargain with!” Ralph is getting defensive — his face is red with rage and his hands are shaking by his sides. “We can get an even bigger trade, for the three of them.”

  A phone starts to ring. I hear rustling, as someone pulls it from their pocket, and a second later, Ralph’s angry voice shatters the silence.

  “Why the fuck is Brett calling you?!” he barks. “You told me you weren’t working with him, anymore, Vanessa!”

  “I’m not!”

  “Then why is he calling you?” Ralph’s voice gets louder, crazier, with each passing second. His very, very small brain is only now putting it together that Vanessa has most likely double-crossed him — and he’s not happy about it.

  “Just calm down,” Vanessa says, but even she sounds shaken at Ralph’s sudden turn toward crazy-town. “We’ll sort this out, Ralph, you just have to trust me—”

  “Trust you?” His words are a little hysterical, now.

  I edge closer to the car.

  “What was the plan?” he continues. “Pin the kidnapping on me, while you collect all the money and get off scot-free?”

  “No, of course not!”

  I angle my body, so my back is to them and my front is facing the car. If anyone’s getting shot when I make a run for it, it’s not going to be the little boy in my arms. My eyes catch on Chrissy’s, through the back window, and I see hers are full of pain and fear. Heart pounding in my chest, I dart a glance back at the kidnap-twins and see Ralph advancing on Vanessa, until she’s pinned against the wall.

  By my guess, there’s about twenty feet of space between us.

  How long does it take a bullet to travel twenty feet?

  Not long, that’s for damn sure.

  Still, when I see him turn fully away, so all his attention is focused on the cowering blonde before him, I know it’s now or never.

  Pressing one last kiss to the top of Winnie’s head, I push off from the wall like a shot and race for the car as fast as my legs will carry us.

  ***

  We’re halfway there when I hear Vanessa cry out.

  “Ralph! Stop her!”

  Shit!

  I hear a muttered curse, the sound of pounding footsteps, and the unmistakable rapport of a gun firing in my direction.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Searing pain grazes my shoulder, causing me to stumble. I’m nearly blind with agony, but I force my feet to keep moving, one after another. The welcome clicking sound of the gun running out of rounds reaches my ears.

  Thank god.

  We’re almost there.

  A final burst of hope shoots into my bloodstream, like a needle of adrenaline straight to the heart, as I fly across the pavement faster than I’ve ever run in my life.

  “Gemma, you fucking bitch!” Ralph screams. “Stop!”

  I don’t.

  We’re nearly at the car when the front door flies open. I see Chrissy, legs still in the backseat, half-lying on the center console, and I practically toss Winnie into her waiting arms. My ass isn’t even settled on the front cushion when my hand hits the shifter and my foot slams down on the gas pedal.

  “Gemma, you bitch!”

  Ralph sprints for the car, head on, and I swerve around him at the last second.

>   “Hold on!” I yell, just before my hands tighten on the wheel and whip it all the way left. The U-turn is so sharp I think we might flip — but eventually the car rights with a squeal of tires and the smell of burning rubber. I press the pedal flat to the floor and blast past my rat bastard ex, who’s still screaming like a crazy person.

  Probably because he is a crazy person.

  “You okay?” I yell to Chrissy, as we race up the ramp toward daylight.

  “Just peachy!” she yells back, doing the final buckle on Winston’s car seat.

  “Winnie okay?”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “Fetus okay?”

  “Let’s just say, it’ll have a great story to tell about its day of birth.”

  “Damn straight.”

  I look back in the rearview and see the Mercedes slam to a halt next to Ralph. Vanessa’s at the wheel, steaming mad, from the looks of it, and as soon as Ralph jumps in, she peals out after us. Her engine is faster, newer, stronger — even with my foot pressing the pedal to the floor, she’s eating up ground twice as fast as my car.

  “Gemma, they’re gaining on us,” Chrissy says, looking over her shoulder through the rear window.

  “I can see that, Chrissy.”

  She swallows nervously, but falls silent as we barrel through the exit and swerve onto the empty access road. Squinting at the sudden brightness, mere seconds later I watch in my rearview as the Mercedes flies out of the garage.

  “Can’t you go faster?” Chrissy asks, sounding nervous.

  “Going as fast as I can.” I clench my jaw.

  “Well, can’t you do any evasive maneuvers, like in the movies?”

  “Chrissy, do I look like James Bond, to you?”

  She sighs.

  “If we can make it to the end of this stretch, we’ll be back in semi-civilization,” I say, not sure whether I’m reassuring her or myself. “They won’t be able to follow us, with other cars and people around.”

  My car starts to rattle, a sure sign the engine is straining as we fly down the seemingly endless straightaway. Chrissy moans in the backseat, her back arching as another contraction hits her, hard.

  They’re getting closer together.

  “How you doing back there, Chrissy?”