by Willow Rose
Diane closed her eyes again and focused on not panicking. She felt like all the blood in her body was stuck in her head. She was wheezing and pulling at every bit of air she could get through.
She felt Mike's hand tighten the belt further and finally gave up the fight. As she sunk into the ocean of stars, she could barely hear the shot blast through the air and she no longer cared.
Chapter 72
August 2018
Mike fell down on the asphalt. My heart stopped as I watched the guy I had once believed to be my friend sink lifeless to the ground.
I had shot him in the head. It took me a few seconds to gather the courage to, but it was the only way out. At first, I thought about going for the shoulder or the leg but knowing Mike, that wouldn't have stopped him. He was a big guy, six-foot-eight, and as tough as they get. And he had a gun of his own. I couldn't risk him going for that.
But it hurt like nothing else in this world.
I hurried to Diane. I grabbed the belt strap and loosened it. Still, Diane wasn't breathing. I bent down and performed CPR on her small, fragile body. Still, nothing happened.
"Come on, Diane," I said, weeping. "Please, breathe. Please."
I pressed her chest rhythmically, then blew air into her mouth, then back to pressing, while tears were streaming across my cheeks.
"Please, Diane."
Please, don’t' tell me I hesitated too long.
It would end up destroying me if I had. I knew it would. There was no way I could live with myself if I hadn't reacted in time.
"Come on!"
I pressed her chest again and again until she finally took in a breath. I called for assistance over my radio, and soon the paramedics arrived and took over. I sank to the ground as I watched them work, and more cars arrived. I sat on the sidewalk and couldn't stop crying when I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up.
Weasel gave me a sympathetic look. She nodded toward Mike's body on the asphalt not far from me.
"I’m guessing you have one hell of a story to tell me, am I right?"
I could only answer with a nod.
Epilogue
October 2018
I was holding the envelope tightly in my hand as I walked up the stairs, a rush of excitement going through my body. Downstairs, I could hear the kids playing in the living room while a thunderstorm raged outside.
Shannon was with them, and they were playing hide and go seek with the puppy—which we had named Molly. She was barking loudly and revealing where everyone was. I stopped for a second as I heard Abigail shriek when she was found, and I heard Shannon laugh loudly.
She was better. A lot better. After I had shot Mike and given Weasel my testimony, I had gone directly back to the motel and found her in one of the rooms. She had looked up at me with such deep sadness and guilt; it had torn my heart to pieces. I had walked directly to her, taken her into my arms, and kissed her deeply and lovingly the way I used to. I had cried and looked into her eyes and told her I loved her and that I never wanted to lose her and that she had scared me senseless getting high the way she did.
And then we talked. Four hours straight, we talked about everything. She told me how much pain she had been in and how she hadn't wanted to tell me because she didn't want me to worry and was probably scared I would tell her to stop the tour because of it, which she was probably right about.
We cried, we kissed, we talked, and we laughed. And we were back to being us again. Honest and with no more facades, no more lies. I told her honestly how seeing Diane again had awoken some old feelings in me, but also that I had realized those feelings weren't nearly as profound and important to me as the ones I had for my wife. The woman who had given me so much, the woman I shared a family with and so many children we could hardly count them anymore.
Shannon told me it made her sad to know that I had felt those emotions again for another woman, but that she understood. She also told me she had been terrified that I was replacing her, and I then told her Diane could never come anywhere close to replacing her. There was no way.
Then we kissed some more, and we agreed that Shannon was going to stay home and not do the rest of her tour. She was going to stop taking the pills and never touch anything like them again. Touring and playing concerts far away would have to wait until the kids were older and the pressure wasn't as tough. She needed to take care of herself first and foremost. And she needed to be with her family.
And then there was one more thing that I wanted. It was going to take her help, and, hopefully, my mom's as well. And maybe Sarah's, but we both agreed it was the right thing to do. As soon as Shannon was completely free from the pills and felt ready for it, it was going to happen.
And that moment had arrived now, a little more than a month later. She was ready she had told me, and now I had made the arrangements.
I walked down the hallway, thinking about Diane and how happy I was that she had moved to Tampa as soon as she was out of the hospital. She was going to sell the house, later on, she had told me, but she didn't want to be here in Cocoa Beach anymore. It was a great relief to me because I wanted to focus on my family now and, even though she was no threat, I knew Shannon saw her as one.
I stood for a few seconds in front of the door, finding the courage to knock. Then I did. A small voice answered.
"What?"
I opened the door and peeked inside. "Do you have a minute?"
Emily didn't even look at me. She seemed even smaller than she had the day before, and I felt a pinch in my stomach as I looked at her.
"What?" she asked and sat up.
I sat on the bed next to her, and she finally lifted her eyes and looked at me. I handed her the envelope, butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
"What's this?"
"Open it," I said.
"If it's something lame, Jack…"
"Just open it, will you?" I asked.
She did and pulled out something while wrinkling her forehead.
"What's this?"
"It's tickets," I said. "Two tickets. For the two of us. To Bahamas. I’ve promised you we'd go since you were a little girl. I thought it was about time we did. Go find your family and meet them. Find out who you are. Where you come from."
Emily looked at me, her eyes wide, her mouth gaping.
"You're kidding me, right?"
I shook my head. "Nope. It's time, honey."
"And what about the kids?"
"Shannon says she'll take care of them. With a little help from grandma and Sarah, of course."
"And your work? Aren't you crazy busy?"
I shook my head. "Weasel let me have two weeks off. I figured it would be good for us. For you. The next two weeks are all about you. All my focus is on you."
Emily looked down at the tickets, then up at me, then down again. And then she smiled. For the first time in what felt like years, she smiled and, just like that, I once again felt hope that she was going to be all right. It was a small spark of hope, but it was all I had right now, and I was clinging to it like my life depended on it.
THE END
Her Final Word
Jack Ryder #6
Prologue
Lyford Cay, The Bahamas, March 2018
The dark ocean raged against the sides of the boat. They were going fast through the choppy waters, speeding through the night, laughing and holding hands. Ella Maria Chauncey and Henry Sakislov were standing in the front where splashes of water hit their faces. Their friends, Claire and Sebastian, were sitting in the back, making out on top of empty champagne bottles. Ella urged Henry to go even faster, and the boat almost flew across the waves, bumping across them, while she laughed wildly.
"Faster still," she said. "Faster."
Henry shook his head. "You're wild; do you know that?"
She laughed, and he pushed the boat up to its top speed.
Behind them, in the far distance, she could see the lights from Lyford Cay dancing, and she wished they could just keep going, ju
st continue till they reached Cuba or maybe the Keys. Maybe they could go even further than that. Just disappear, get out of here. Start a new life somewhere else. She was fed up with her life and their gated community. Ella wanted to see the world.
"We should be getting back now," Henry said and slowed down. "Before our parents send out the Coast Guard to find us."
"No," Ella said and stared into the darkness ahead, where promises of different countries and exotic cultures called to her. "Not yet."
Henry looked at his watch. "It's almost midnight. Aren't you scared that they'll find out that you’ve snuck out? That you've gone boating in the middle of the night?"
Ella sighed and looked into Henry's eyes. He was such a kid. He didn't know anything, did he? Not about her life, he didn't. She had never told him anything. But, for once, he was actually right about one thing. It was a cliché to say that your parents would kill you if they found out you had done something they didn't approve of, but in her case, she did fear for her life when she got back home, even more than the sharks in the ocean in front of her.
"Ella?"
She shook her head. "Sorry. I drifted off for just a second."
"Are we going back or what?" Claire asked and looked at her 2.4 million-dollar Rolex that her dad had given her for her sweet sixteen. "I have to get back."
"My dad is hosting a party, so I can stay out all night if I like," Sebastian said. "He'll never notice that I’m gone."
Henry scoffed. "Your dad never notices if you're gone."
Sebastian chuckled and emptied the last bottle of champagne. "Truth, dear friend."
"Claire is right," Henry said. "It's getting late. We really should be heading back."
He turned the boat while Ella exhaled, dissatisfied. She hated having to go back and could have gone on forever, the wind blowing in her face, continuing into oblivion where no one could hurt her.
Ever.
Lyford Cay, The Bahamas, March 2018
They docked the boat behind Henry's dad's house and went back on shore. Ella looked at the many lights coming from the mansion where he lived. It was more than a hundred and fifty thousand square feet and housed almost a small city of in-house help, trying to maintain the big property. Ella herself had grown up on a similar property—even though it was smaller—with almost as many people working for her, so it wasn't that part that bothered her family.
It was Henry's dad. Henry's father was a hard-partying retail tycoon. He was pompous and didn't belong in Lyford Cay with his long grey hair and Hugh Hefner-lifestyle. And, worst of all, he once tried to buy their property, offering them way below what it was worth. That didn't go over well. To Ella, it was just an offer, but the Chaunceys saw it as a threat. Everything about the Sakislovs was an abomination, according to the Chaunceys. The Sakislovs belonged to the newly rich. And they were destroying everything in the small quiet gated community that had, up until some years ago, only been for the few. Now, they had invaded it and were bound to destroy everything it stood for. Henry's dad, Sergei, in the front of the line with his lifestyle of partying and women, bringing in the worlds of fashion, celebrities, and shiny new money. He was going to turn this place into Hollywood or even worse, West Palm Beach, swarming their once-so-secluded paradise with Russian oligarchs, software-company-owners-turned-millionaires-overnight, yoga bloggers, and You-Tube celebrities. It was a concern shared with a lot of other long-term inhabitants of the exclusive neighborhood.
To Ella, it seemed ridiculous. They all lived in mansions that were worth hundreds of millions of dollars—even though Ella's family's estate was less than half the size of Henry's dad's and therefore only worth about half the money, not to mention a lot less overwhelmingly decorated. They all had their houses filled with imported household help, maids, and garden people.
What did it even matter?
Claire and Ella hugged goodbye, and Ella watched her best friend help her boyfriend across the lawn to their golf cart they had parked there when they arrived. Sebastian insisted he wasn't too wasted to drive and took the wheel. Ella chuckled as she watched him zigzag across the lawn, scaring a flock of the three-hundred peacocks, parrots, and cockatoos that Henry's dad had free-ranging on his property.
Henry grabbed Ella's hand and kissed the top of it.
"I had a wonderful time," she said. "I wish we could do this every night."
Henry sighed and they walked toward the house, him holding his arm over her shoulder.
"Me too," he said.
There was something in the way he said it that had her worried. It had been in his eyes all night long. A sadness that she couldn't really figure out. Was something wrong between them? Was he breaking up with her? Did he know what she had done?
They walked inside and through one of the dining rooms, where Henry's dad had his fifty-foot dining table that could drop down into the floor and become a disco dance floor, once dinner, and bird droppings, were cleared. Ella chuckled when thinking about all the many times she had been at the house when younger for karaoke nights, where a flock of the young women he sometimes had staying with him danced while Henry's dad sang I Did it My Way.
She missed those times when their families didn't quarrel. When she could hang out with Henry anytime she wanted.
Henry kissed her forehead as they walked through the thirty-thousand-square-foot grand hall with its huge glass ceilings that Henry had once told Ella weighed a hundred thousand pounds.
Why the forehead and not my lips?
He walked her to the front door and closed it behind him. In the distance, they could hear the party Henry's dad was hosting by the pool at one of the guesthouses. It was far enough away for anyone not to be able to see Ella and Henry together.
Henry leaned over and finally kissed her properly. He smelled of champagne and ocean.
"You could stay," he said. "Sneak out in the morning?"
"That's probably not a good idea," she said.
"Why not?" he said, disappointed once again. He seemed aggressive in his way of talking to her, more than usual when she refused him.
They had been dating for a year now, and Ella hadn't been giving him what he wanted. She held it back, simply because she knew that was what you needed to do with a guy like Henry. He was used to girls throwing themselves at him and giving him everything, so he grew tired of them quickly. Keeping him chasing you was the only way to maintain his interest. But it left him frustrated every time.
"Come on," he said and kissed her again.
She pushed him away. "Not now, Henry."
He kissed her once more, holding her face between his hands so she couldn't move away.
"You're drunk," she said.
"So what?" he asked. "Since when does that stop you? Since when does anything hold you back from sleeping with anyone?"
"What are you talking about?" she said and pushed him away.
Henry always got worse when he was drunk. More demanding and entitled. This was the point when she needed to leave. She smiled, then stood on her tiptoes.
"You know I don't do drunks," she said and kissed his soft lips, then walked off, holding her sandals in her hand. Her swimsuit underneath her dress was still wet and had soaked the dress, keeping her nice and cool in the warm night.
"Ah, come on," he said, "You can't just leave me hanging like this?"
But she didn't give him more. Knowing she had to get away from him quickly, she waved casually.
"You sure I shouldn't walk you home at least?" he yelled after her, his voice quivering with the same sadness she had seen in his eyes.
She turned, and her dress swirled around as she walked backward, facing him.
"I'll be fine. Besides, you don't want anyone to see us together, do you?"
"I don't care," he said.
"I do."
"Are you sure?" he asked. "I could walk you halfway?"
"I'll be fine," she said.
"You sure?" he said, his eyes glaring at her hungrily.
; She nodded. "Yes. It's a gated community, remember? What could possibly happen?"
Lyford Cay, The Bahamas, March 2018
She felt lightheaded from the champagne still in her veins, but remotely happy. Ella felt hopeful at this moment in her life for the first time in months. Turning sixteen made her even closer to that magical eighteen that she had longed for her entire life. The year when she would finally be able to leave, to decide for herself what to do, and do whatever she wanted.
She was supposed to go to Harvard. She knew it was expected, but Ella had other plans. There was an entire world out there waiting just for her and, like the European kids she often met at Jaw's Beach, she wanted to travel. She wanted to get away. And with the way things were, she probably would never return to what she often referred to as her prison because of the gates and the guards.
For most people, it was a dream to grow up in the Bahamas, but not for Ella. She dreamt of different places. She dreamt of New York and Paris. Her family owned condos in both places, so she wanted to stay in one of those, maybe go to an acting school, become an actress. She just hadn't quite figured out how to ask for it yet, and she kept postponing it, probably because she knew how her family felt about acting and Hollywood. It was going to kill them. Ella had always been the good girl, the one who did everything she was supposed to and never complained. It was going to come as a shock to everyone, especially to Henry. She wasn't sure if she loved him; for Ella, love had always been strange, and she wasn't sure she knew exactly how real love felt. But she liked him. She had fun with him.