Tee It Up: A Wilder Brothers Romance

by Megan Hetherington

  “No, you don’t. You don’t know what you’re saying.” I can sense the agitation in his voice and it scares me. “He came to the apartment. I had to get you out of there.”

  “What do you mean he came to the apartment?” I whisper.

  “That man. When I tried to save you. He came.”

  “Dale, I don’t understand. Did you do something to Johnson?” Panic clear in my voice.

  He shakes his head. “No, I told him to go away. Like you would have done.”

  I blow out a shaky breath and scout around the room.

  “Where are we Dale?”

  “Home.”

  “How did you get me here?”

  He points to a large suitcase, on wheels and titters behind his hands.

  My stomach knots imagining being zipped up in that confined space and wheeled out of my apartment.

  I weigh Dale up, understanding for the first time, that despite his hunched inward-looking appearance he must be strong to have lugged me around.

  It makes my ideas of overpowering him seem futile and limits my options of making my way out of here. Alive.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Johnson

  I didn’t sleep well at all last night. I had visions of my father taunting me on the golf course again. This time he was telling me I was a loser and not worthy of the Wilder name.

  It's still dark when I go downstairs and fail at the simple task of making coffee. Forgetting to put the jug under the spout and watching it spurt black liquid over the counter top for several seconds before I leap to the thrust the jug underneath it.

  “Fuck,” I cuss, as I mop up the spill with a kitchen towel.

  I take my coffee out to an Adirondack chair on the patio at the back of my house to watch the sunrise. Its early spring and the mornings are chilly, so I light the gasoline patio heater and sit under it watching over the golf course at the bottom of my garden.

  The birds are busying themselves and rabbits hop across the lawn unchecked. One particularly noisy Magpie dominates the space, perched at the top of a tree. It’s fine for them to all be getting on with their lives. They have no baggage, it’s simple for them. Another magpie flies by and the one perched on the tree joins it. Jostling in the air until they finally land on a hedge together.

  I gulp back my coffee, wincing at the bitterness, and when the warmth of the cup dissipates, I switch off the heater and go through to my garage to pull together my practice set of clubs. I take them straight to the car and drive around to the golf course.

  Meredith has made it clear by her final text yesterday evening she doesn’t want to speak, so I will not torment myself with repeated checks of my messages. So, I leave the phone in my car.

  The only conclusion I can draw is the revelations about my womanizing life are too much. And, I can’t blame her for that.

  It’s with a perfunctory approach that I take myself around the course, leaving at the ninth hole when other golfers start to turn up. I don’t want to chat or share space with anyone today.

  It’s not that I’m morbid, more resigned to how my life will be. I’m not going back to how it was. Meredith has shown there’s an alternative and more fulfilling meaning to my life. But I can’t envision a life without her.

  When I get back to my car, out of habit I pick up my handset and I’m concerned to see a missed call from Meredith. I take a breath and dial the number, bracing myself for her voice; surprised when a man answers instead.

  “Who’s this?” I ask.

  “Thanks for calling back, Johnson. It’s Hector, Meredith’s boss.” I look at the phone screen again, it’s her office number I’ve returned the call to.

  “Sure, I remember.” I rub my temples with my forefinger and thumb.

  “I wondered if you knew where Meredith is?”

  “No, I don’t. Why do you ask?” I halt rubbing my temples.

  “No particular reason. I’m sorry to have called you.”

  “No, wait. You’ve got me concerned now.”

  “It’s just she didn’t turn up for work today and I can’t get hold of her.”

  “No, me neither.” I murmur, thoughts turning over in my head. “Was she at work yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she say anything about what she might do last night?”

  “No.”

  “There is something wrong, Hector. Does anyone have a key to her apartment?” I position the key into the starter.

  “Yes, I do. I still have it from when I looked after her cat, when she was away with you the other week.”

  “I need to meet you there. It’ll take me an hour.”

  I turn the key, throw the car into gear and wheel spin out of the car lot, leaving a plume of dust behind me.

  On the way, I call Meredith’s cell, but it goes straight to voicemail. Again, and again.

  I wonder if she’s sick or has fallen in her apartment?

  When I eventually pull onto her street, I slow and spot her car parked up down a side street. I stop to check it is definitely hers and that she’s not in it. Then I see Hector pacing the sidewalk ahead, with his cell to his ear.

  “Any news?” I call out of my open car window.

  He shakes his head.

  “Have you been inside?”

  “No, I was waiting for you.”

  I close the car window and pull over to a spot in a no park zone.

  Hector holds out the apartment keys and I grab them from him, rush up the stairs, open the door and run across the hall to her apartment door. The lock opens easily and I hesitate at the entrance. It’s quiet and, even though I intend to search through every room, I’m certain before I step forward there is no-one here.

  Everything appears exactly as it was on Saturday night, even the flowers I bought her, placed in the sink.

  I rush off toward the bedroom and slow as I near the door, a thought interrupting my mission.

  She put the flowers in a vase. In her office.

  I freeze.

  “What is it?” Hector asks me, stroking the cat that has appeared and is meowing loudly at his feet.

  “The flowers.” I go back to the kitchen to inspect them. They’re similar but not the same. These have a different color film wrapped around the stems. I study the self-adhesive label on the wrapper that advertises the florist they came from. It’s not the same one that I bought mine from.

  I take them from the sink. “Come on, Hector.” He tips the contents of the cat food pouch from the counter into the cat bowl and scurries behind me out of the apartment.

  “Do I need to call the police?” He asks, as he tries to keep up with me.

  “Yes, but I’m not waiting for them to turn up.” I stride off.

  “What do I tell them? We don’t know if anything has happened,” he asks breathlessly.

  When I reach my car, I stop and turn to him. “I don’t know what’s happened Hector. But I’ve got a hunch something isn’t right. She was supposed to go out with me last night and she wouldn’t answer the door or any of my calls when I got here.”

  He snorts. “Maybe she changed her mind because she had a better offer.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “I doubt it. But it doesn’t explain why she didn’t turn up for work.”

  “Hmm. That is out of character,” he murmurs, tapping into his cell before putting it to his ear. “What if the police ask us to wait here?”

  “You can wait if you like, but I’m going to find out where the hell these flowers came from.”

  “No… I…” He turns to the apartment block and then back. “Wait!” he shouts, running around to the passenger door and climbing into the seat.

  I listen to his half of the conversation with the police and when he hangs up the call he relays the outcome.

  “They’ve said I can file a missing person’s report but because she’s an adult, and there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of foul play, they won’t take any action just yet and I should follow up in a few days.”
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  I huff out a breath and pull the car up onto the sidewalk outside the flower store.

  The florist peers through the window at my discourteous parking and looks shocked when I burst in through the door. She cautiously looks at the bouquet and when I explain the situation to her she hesitantly admits to remembering the guy that bought them. When she describes him, it rings a bell. It sounds like the asshole that bumped into me when I was coming out of Meredith’s work. It turns out he paid cash and took them away, so there’s no name to match it to, not that the florist was certain to give me it, anyway.

  Hector shakes his head. “Doesn’t sound like anyone I recognize. Meredith probably duped you, maybe she was seeing someone else, and this guy bought better flowers.” He laughs, for the florist’s benefit, and I glare back at him.

  As we walk back to the car I tell him, “No Hector, that’s not Meredith’s style. I’m sure this guy has got something to do with her going missing. And I’ve not got a good feeling about this. At all.”

  “What do you suggest we do about it?” Resting his hand at the top of his open door.

  “Do you have CCTV at the office, on the outside of the building, perhaps?” I ask him, over the top of the car.

  “Probably. I’ve not had cause to ask.”

  “Can you make a call, while we drive over there. I’m sure that guy was the one I bumped into when I picked Meredith up the other night. Can you check with the security guard now, so we’ve got footage to look at as soon as we get there? Then we should access Meredith’s calendar. Get that guy’s name.”

  We climb back into the car and I pull off into the painfully heavy traffic, toward Hector’s office. When we arrive, the security guard has already pulled the CCTV footage for the last week and he fast forwards through until the time I arrived with the flowers.

  “There,” I call out. Jabbing my forefinger at the screen.

  He rewinds and pauses at the image of me and the guy crossing in the doorway, but the angle of the camera and the bunch of flowers I have in my arms disguise him. We watch him walk off across the car lot toward a red van, but it’s on the edge of the frame and we can’t see him get in. The guard fast forwards the tape and the time counter shows it to not move for at least an hour. What worries me most is that happens to coincide with me dropping Meredith back at her car after our visit to the bar.

  “Who is he?” I ask.

  “I’ve no idea,” Hector admits. “Shall we check Meredith’s diary? See who she was meeting before you arrived that night. Although I’m not convinced that there is anything awry.”

  I cut him a look, and he scurries off to the elevator.

  “See if you can make out that plate, while I go with him,” I call out to the security guard as I run after Hector.

  Hector lets us in to his office and pulls up Meredith’s calendar on his computer. He identifies her last appointment that day was with a Dale Simmons.

  “Are his notes on that system? Can you pull up his address?”

  He hesitates. “Yes, but it’s confidential. There’s no way I can divulge that information. Anyway, we can’t be sure if Dale Simmons is the guy you bumped into.”

  I lean on to the desk and put my face into his. “Hector, this is important. It’s a matter of life and death and if anything happens to Meredith, I will personally cut your balls off and feed them to her cat.”

  Shocked, he scribbles down the address on a sheet of paper, folds it up and stuffs it into his jacket pocket.

  “I’m not telling you the address, Johnson. If anyone asks, you’re simply along for the ride.”

  “Fine. But I’m driving, so you will have to tell me at some point. It’s nearly twenty hours since anyone last saw her. Fuck knows what’s happened to her since then.”

  “I believe we should call the police again now.”

  “Fine, you do that Hector and tell them what exactly?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Meredith

  “Mother said it was rude for guests not to eat what their host has prepared.”

  I look down at the congealed topping on the pizza Dale has reheated in the microwave.

  He’s at least helped me up into a chair, but he has tied my hands behind my back with tape. For my safety he told me. There are sharp knifes around and he said he doesn’t want me to harm myself with them.

  His twisted logic has made him say several things which I am having difficulty keeping up with. Although my headache has subsided and my vision is less blurry, but with nothing to drink or eat since yesterday lunchtime and the impact of stress on my body, I’m shaky and weak.

  “No, Dale. Your mom didn’t mean it that way. She meant that you shouldn’t force someone to eat unless they were a guest in your house. As I am not a guest, then you need to let me leave and invite me back again as a proper guest and then I will eat.”

  “No, no, that’s not what she said. You’re trying to twist everything.” He clutches at his hair, patches ripping out in between his fingers.

  I appreciate the signs are not good; he is becoming increasingly agitated and I fear he will do something stupid. I spy my purse over near the window and wonder if my cell is still in it. I can’t remember the sequence of events, just remember the flowers and not much else. I thought I opened my door, or was it open already? Yes, I remember that.

  The daylight permeating through the rough fabric of the curtains leads me to deduce this is a different day, and I wonder how long I must have been unconscious for. One night has passed, but whether that was at home or here, I’m not sure.

  Then I hear a screech of brakes outside, and two doors closing, one after the other. I hope my mind is not deceiving me, making me hopeful about the familiar noise of those car doors. My heart rate increases and my mouth becomes even drier.

  Please let it be Johnson.

  Dale doesn’t notice the noise of the car outside and he continues to pace up and down, stopping momentarily to put the pizza back in the microwave again.

  Then my heart rate ratchets up when I hear footsteps in the corridor outside and a rap on the door. Dale rushes toward me and stuffs a dishcloth into my mouth, then scurries to the window and pokes his nose into a small gap he makes when he pulls back the curtain.

  I try to scream but the cloth is muffling my attempts, my cheeks blowing out with the effort. I writhe my bound wrists against the frame of the chair, but they are tied tight.

  There’s another bang on the door and this time Johnson calls out my name.

  Tears well up in my eyes from the frustration of not being able to respond, mixed with the heightened anxiety that Dale’s pacing and mumbling into his fist is adding.

  Then the microwave dings and it’s enough to make Johnson bang harder, shouting out my name. I rock on the chair, hoping the noise of the legs scraping on the wood floor are enough for him to hear.

  It seems it is as the door shakes with the force of Johnson kicking at the lock. Finally, the wood splinters around the lock and Johnson barges through the broken door.

  Dale scuttles backwards and cowers in a corner. His hand curled over his head to protect himself from attack.

  Johnson rushes over, drops to his knees before pulling the rag from my mouth and takes my face in his hands.

  “Meredith, are you okay?” His eyes searching into mine. “Did he hurt you?”

  I shake my head, tears flooding down my cheeks.

  “Call the police. Now.” Johnson barks at Hector frozen in the doorway.

  “And you,” Johnson growls at Dale. “Don’t you fucking move, you piece of shit.”

  Dale only whimpers.

  “Has he got a weapon or anything?” Johnson asks me.

  “No, I don’t believe so. He’s harmless,” I sob.

  “Harmless?” Johnson looks at me, his face aghast.

  “My hands. Untie me, please.”

  Johnson looks around for a knife and takes one from a set in the corner of the kitchen. Swiftly, he cuts through the tape in
between my wrists and drops the knife to the floor. I move my aching shoulders and bring my hands around so I can rub the circulation back into them.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.” Johnson pulls me up and supports my weight for a few steps before picking me up into his arms and carrying me out of the room.

  Hector looks on with a wide-open mouth and his phone clutched tight to his chest.

  “Make sure that piece of shit doesn’t move a muscle.” Johnson barks.

  Hector looks as if he is about to run away, the thought of being with the kidnapper on his own too much to stomach.

  “Are the cops on their way?” Johnson asks.

  Hector doesn’t answer because the sirens mean they have.

  As Johnson carries me outside, two armed cops rush passed us. While another ushers us toward their car.

  I shield my eyes from the bright light as Johnson lowers me down into the back seat of the police car before squatting down at the curbside next to me.

  “You’re safe now, babe.”

  “Thank you,” I mouth to him, letting myself lean back on the headrest and succumb to the tiredness that engulfs me.

  The cops want to take a statement, so Johnson gives them brief details before an ambulance turns up. Two paramedics help me onto a stretcher in the back of the ambulance and we speed off to the hospital.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Johnson

  The medical staff confirm there are not likely to be any lasting effects from the bump to her head, but Meredith should stay in overnight and then refrain from alcohol or any strenuous activity for the next few days.

  She throws me a mischievous look when the doctor gives her the advice and digs her fingernails into the palm of my hand. She hasn’t let go since they transferred her from the admissions room.

  When we are left alone, she curls her lip at me. “I want to go home,” she says.

  “You can’t, they need to make sure there are no latent effects from the concussion.”

  “Well, you should at least go home and rest. There’s nothing more you can do here.”