by Willow Rose
“Come on,” I say, and try again. “Pick up, pick up, pick up.”
The answering machine starts and I hang up again. “It’s not working,” I say. I look to Joey. “What do we do? I don’t like it.”
“I have a boat,” Chloe says.
“A boat?” Joey says.
“It might work. Olivia’s house is on the shores of the Intracoastal,” I say. “It had a great view, and it also had a big flagpole in the back yard that I would be able to recognize from the waterside. The moon is pretty bright out there tonight. We might be able to see it even in the darkness. Banana River goes right past it.”
Joey is shaking his head. “You’re not serious, are you? You’ll get arrested. Or shot. This is an army base. They’re not going to let a boat come anywhere close to the shore.”
Chloe looks at me. “We’ll tell them we’re tourists who took a wrong turn.”
I nod. I think it’s a brilliant idea. Joey, not so much. We don’t care. Chloe and I have decided to do it. I have to warn Olivia, no matter how much I dislike her and always have. She deserves to know that her old friend has it in for her. I won’t be able to live with myself if I haven’t at least tried to warn her. It is worth getting arrested for. Maybe not shot, but I don’t believe they’ll try and shoot us; we could, after all, really be tourists or just some drunk people on their way back from a trip down the Intracoastal highway.
“We’ll be fine,” I say, and call Salter at Sandra’s. I explain to her what we’re up to and ask her if Salter can stay till we get back.
“Sure,” she says. “It’s no problem at all. He’s a sweet kid. Be careful, though.”
I hang up, wondering why Sandra never had any children of her own. She would be such a wonderful mother. Maybe if she had married Alex instead, then everything would have been different for her. Who knows?
“Are you ready?” Chloe asks and looks at the both of us.
“As ready as we’ll ever be,” I say.
Joey doesn’t say anything. He only grunts, but still follows us out the door.
Chapter Seventy-One
March 1992
Ally is panting. She is running across the dunes. She falls and the air is punched out of her lungs. She is crying. She can hear the general yelling behind her.
“Come back here, you little whore. I’ll call the police if you don’t get back here immediately. I’ll tell them everything!”
But Ally is not going back. There is no way. She gets up from the dunes and continues to run. As fast as her legs can carry her through the heavy sand, she runs towards the city, towards the lights, leaving the three cabins on the beach behind her. She has a hard time breathing. Her cheek is hurting from the fist the general planted in her face before she managed to get out of his grip. Her nose is bleeding, but she doesn’t care. She wipes it off and continues. All she can think of is getting the hell out of there. Anywhere is better than that cabin of hell and the rough hands of the general. AK is still back there. There is no way Ally can help her, but she can save herself. Anything is better than him. Even the police. Even prison.
She had kicked him. As hard as she had ever kicked anything or anyone. He was holding her down and had put the gun on the table, because he needed his hands to hold her down. She was screaming and squirming when he tried to pull off her pants. That was when she got the opening. Just as he was about to mount her, she had planted the kick right in his balls. She had managed to do it hard enough for him to fly through the air and land on the floor. It had given her enough time to storm to the door and run out. He had grabbed her leg as she did and started to pull her back into the cabin, but she had screamed and kicked, and finally hit him in the face. Then she had run for her life.
“I’ll get you,” he is yelling behind her.
She is getting tired now. So completely worn out of strength, she slows down unintentionally.
No, you can’t. You have to keep going. He’ll get you if you slow down. Keep running. Just keep running!
“Ha! I see you,” he yells behind her. “Getting tired, are you? You will. But I won’t. See, I’m a soldier. I can keep running like this for hours. You can’t. Then I’ll get you. And then I will kill you. See, no one knows you’re here. They all think you’re on the run from the police. They think you’re hiding somewhere and they’ll never think to look for your dead body buried under a house belonging to the Air Force Base, will they? No, they won’t. Months will pass by and they’ll give up searching for you. After a year, your parents won’t even wonder anymore. They’ll forget about you, thinking you just ran off with your little friend and maybe you’re living on the streets somewhere or hiding in South America. And the best part is, they won’t care. Why? Because you killed someone tonight. You did the inexcusable and robbed someone of her life. People don’t look for murderers because they feel sorry for them or because they want to help them. They look for them because they want to see them hang or go to prison for life. When you kill someone, people stop caring about you.”
Ally is gasping for air. Her lungs are hurting. That damn moist air makes it impossible to breathe properly and to get rid of the heat. Her face is boiling. She is crying and tears are streaming down her cheeks. She senses he is close now and wonders if she should simply give up. She can’t run anymore. Her legs are so heavy they can hardly move. The general is whistling behind her. He is so close now; she can almost feel his breath.
There is no way out of this, she thinks to herself, seconds before she feels his hand on her neck. This is it. This is the end.
When her head hits the dunes, her mouth fills with sand. She is gasping for air, but getting nothing but sand. She can’t breathe. Pressure on her neck makes it impossible for her to lift her head.
Oh, my God, he’s holding you down. He’s going to kill you right here.
Ally struggles all she can, but the hand doesn’t move from the back of her head. Her nose and throat are filled with sand; she is gasping, but the little air she gets in her lungs is not enough. She is almost unconscious when she hears a voice in the distance.
“What’s going on here?”
Finally, the pressure on her neck is lifted and she can raise her head into the air. A bright light hits her face.
“I am so glad you came, Officer,” the general says. “I captured this girl and stopped her. I believe she is one of the two girls you are looking for. I saw it on the news earlier, and then spotted her down here on my evening walk.”
“Thank you, General,” the officer says, and grabs Ally by the arm. He helps her to her feet. She coughs and spits out sand.
“Well, little lady. Guess you’re done running.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
September 2015
“GO AWAY.”
Olivia waves violently at the woman on the other side of the window. “Get out of here.”
But the woman doesn’t move. The way she stares at Olivia makes her break a sweat. What is she doing here? She tilts her head still while staring at Olivia, and still tapping her fingernail rhythmically on the window.
Tap-tap-tap
Tap-tap-tap
It’s driving Olivia insane. She opens the sliding door leading to the backyard and walks out. The woman keeps tapping while she turns to look at her.
“Enough with the tapping, would you?” Olivia says angrily. “It’s driving me nuts.”
The woman stops. Olivia forces a smile. “Now, get out of here,” she says. “My husband is coming home soon. He won’t be happy to find you here.”
“Am I pretty?”
“What?” Olivia stares at the woman wearing the surgical mask covering the bottom part of her face. Does she really think no one will recognize her because she is wearing that thing?
“Am I pretty?” she repeats.
Olivia frowns.
What the heck is all this?
“What are you talking about? Go away. Go back to wherever you came from and leave me alone. I have enough to deal with as it
is.”
“AM I PRETTY?”
The woman yells so loud a dog starts to bark from one of the neighboring houses.
Oh, great. Now they’ll start talking, and soon the general will know.
Olivia sighs. “What do you want? Can’t you just tell me what it is so we can move on?” she asks.
“Am I pretty?” the woman repeats with a lower voice.
“What? Why do you keep asking me that? Sure, you’re very pretty.”
The woman grabs the surgical mask and pulls it off. Olivia can feel how her blood freezes when she sees what is underneath.
“How about now?” she asks.
Olivia can’t speak. She stares at the woman like she is paralyzed. “I…I…I…”
She doesn’t even notice the scissors in her hand until they’re in the air and the woman is leaping towards her, moving almost unnaturally fast. But then, something else happens. Olivia is about to scream when she hears voices cutting through the darkness.
“Olivia!”
The woman is about to plunge the scissors into Olivia’s throat, but the intruding voices coming from the river disturb her and she hits her arm instead. Olivia screams in pain as the scissors pierce through her right arm. The voices are coming closer as she falls to the ground, blood gushing out of her wound. Meanwhile, the woman runs around the corner of the house, dragging her long black coat after her. Olivia tries to speak as she watches Mary Mills’ face come closer. She is flanked by two other faces that Olivia remembers well from school.
“Olivia, are you okay?” Mary yells. She leans down and sees the scissors in her upper arm. “We need an ambulance.”
Olivia looks down, and, to her terror, watches as the blood colors the grass and she feels dizzy. She closes her eyes and tries to calm herself, but the dizziness soon takes over. She has no feeling of what is up and what is down, what is real and what is not. She can hear many voices and steps; she is certain she hears someone yell and others scream. She is even sure she can hear guns being pulled, and is that a helicopter? She doesn’t know what is going on, and she hardly cares anymore. When she loses consciousness, she is certain she even hears the voice of the general.
She can’t stop smiling, thinking at least he can’t touch her now.
Chapter Seventy-Three
September 2015
“EVERYBODY STAY STILL.”
I am lying in the grass. I have someone’s boot in my back. He says he is from the Military Police. I believe him. After all, I have just entered the military base from the waterside without permission. I know I am in trouble. There are weapons pointed at us from all sides. Even a helicopter swirling above us. But I am happy because I believe I saved Olivia Hartman’s life. She was about to be killed, but my screaming as we approached shore in Chloe’s boat disturbed her just enough to have AK miss her target and hit Olivia’s arm instead. Olivia is passed out, but I have heard them call for an ambulance, and soon she will be in the hospital getting the treatment she needs. I, on the other hand, am in deep…over my head.
“I’ll take this one from here,” a voice says.
The knee is removed from my back and a pair of boots appears in front of my nose. I am pulled up by my hair and I look into the face of the man I know as the general.
“General Hartman, I presume,” I say, and sit up on my knees.
The general stares at me. He is skinnier than in the articles I have read about him. I am guessing he keeps himself in great shape, the suntan tells me he might be one of those who constantly runs on the beach. He is maybe twenty years older than me. Just the sight of him fills me with disgust.
“And you must be Mary Mills,” he says with a stiff upper lip. “Sister of the infamous Blake Mills.”
“Can’t say it’s a pleasure to meet you,” I say, and rise to my feet.
“What the hell are you doing here, breaking into a military base after nightfall? Do you realize I could have you shot and no one would lift an eyebrow?”
I wipe away some blood from my nose. I have hurt myself falling to the ground with that MP on my back.
“I’m saving your wife’s life,” I say. “Those scissors were about to land in her throat. Had we come a few seconds later, she would be gone by now.”
I turn and look at Joey and Chloe, who are still face-down in the grass. Chloe’s small speedboat is parked halfway on the lawn. We took that baby as fast as we could onto the ground, then jumped out. I feel a little like James Bond. Or Tom Cruise. Definitely Tom Cruise.
The general is looking at me, completely baffled. “You saved her…why?”
I am surprised he believes me. Something in his eyes, a look, tells me he loves her. It doesn’t fit well with the picture I have of him.
“We went to school together. Three of her other friends from back then have been killed—with a pair of scissors stabbed in their throats. I believed Olivia might be next. Guess I was right. You’re very welcome.”
I can see the vein in the general’s forehead grow. The porch light lights his face. I wonder if I should tell him whom I believe is behind this or if it would be a stupid idea. He is, after all, her guardian, or was when she was younger. I don’t know what kind of relationship he has with AK, but I can’t help wondering if he is in on it all as well. He looks like he could kill someone just by snapping his fingers. But again, he is a soldier, a general in the U.S. army, so of course he could. And he probably wouldn’t even blink. I have to remember, he framed my brother.
The general growls and runs a hand through his hair. A soldier approaches him. “Sir. What shall we do with the prisoners, sir?”
The general sighs. I can feel my heart rate go up. I know the general wants me wiped off the surface of the earth along with my brother. I believe he is the one who set my dad’s house on fire, or at least had someone do it for him. I hate his guts and I want to spit in his face, but I also know he is the one in control right now. He has the power to put me in jail for treason. My life is completely in his hands right now.
What will he do?
“Let them go,” he says.
What??
“Let them go, soldier,” he repeats. “They pose no threat to us. It was all just a mistake. A mistake that saved my wife.” He turns and looks at me. I fight my urge to rethink my opinion of him.
He almost killed your father. He put Blake in jail.
“Now we’re even,” he says. “Remember that.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
September 2015
I sleep in Joey’s bed again while he takes the couch. I don’t close an eye all night. I stare at the ceiling while going through everything in my mind. I feel so confused, so frustrated.
Why did he let me go? Why didn’t he arrest us?
I don’t understand. I thought the general had it out for me. Maybe he is really just angry at my brother for sleeping with his wife. I can’t blame him. I wanted that coffee house girl gone from the planet once I found out about her and Joey. I couldn’t even stand driving by the coffee house. It was like torture. I wanted her to get fired; I wanted her entire family to be fired and never work again. I wanted all the world’s misery to come upon her and her descendants for all eternity. But, in reality, I knew it wasn’t her fault. It was ours. We hadn’t taken care of our marriage. We had lost touch with one another.
I think about us back then. Me and Sandra hanging out in the school cafeteria, Joey coming up to us with his tray between his hands and sitting next to me. Us talking about waves being good, talking about skipping a few hours of school this afternoon when the tide is going out. I think about AK and how she would always send me hateful looks when we passed each other in the hallways. How she and her little gang would whisper as we walked by. She scared me back then. But I also felt sorry for her. Until she shot my mother.
Mommy, no! Mommy, no!
I see her in my inner eye as she falls down the stairs again and again. It makes me feel the sorrow that I felt back then, the emotions I had tried so har
d to forget for so many years. I hate that I can’t stop it, that I can’t hold it back like I used to. A tear rolls from the corner of my eye onto my pillow. Another follows, and soon I am crying heavily, sobbing, pulling my legs up under my chin. So much sadness, so much anger. All these years.
Burn in Hell Mills!
I close my eyes and turn to the side while crying. I don’t even notice when the door to my room opens and someone enters. A body creeps into bed with me. I feel his warmth, his arms around my waist, as he spoons me and caresses my hair. I can’t stop crying. Not now that I have opened the faucets.
Joey is kissing my neck and holding me tight. I let him. I have missed him and his touch. I can’t hold it back anymore. I can’t pretend like I don’t love him, like I don’t want to be close to him.
I want this. I want to be with him again. What’s the use in fighting it?
Joey moves his mouth to my ear. “Don’t give up on us,” he whispers.
I turn my head and look into his eyes. I see such deep intensity in them. It moves me. I touch his face, the rough edges, and the unshaved chin.
God, I love him! Why does it have to be so hard?
His eyes drop to my lips. I can tell he wants to kiss me. This is it; this is the moment when I make my decision. I want him to kiss me; I want it desperately. But everything inside of me screams that I can’t. That I shouldn’t. That it would be wrong of me.
He was the one who cheated on you, remember? You’ll only get hurt again. Don’t fall for it. Don’t.
Yet, I close my eyes and pull him closer. He hesitates, then kisses me. Gently at first, then demanding, insisting. His hands are on me, on my body and soon my T-shirt is pulled over my head.
I’ll explode if I don’t let him.
It’s like a surge of electricity that goes through my body when he enters me. I realize I have wanted this for so long, ever since I threw him out, ever since I found out about him and that coffee house girl. This is what I have craved…him, being close to him, feeling him inside of me again. I don’t think of consequences, I simply give in to this urge of mine.