by Ciara Shayee
In the meantime, Reagan shoved essentials into a large black holdall in his bedroom, whirling around to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. His eyes caught on a photograph lying face-up on the mantle over the decorative fireplace. He paused, reaching out to touch it. The beech wood frame felt smooth under his wood-calloused fingertips, years of working hard on construction sites toughening the skin. Hot tears held back by his pride prickled Reagan’s eyes as he ran a thumb over the rosy cheeks of the smiling blonde in the picture. In this particular photo she had wild blonde curls, brilliant blue-green eyes that matched the Mediterranean backdrop, and not a care in the world.
Just two weeks later the rug was torn from beneath her feet.
A pair of officers had interrupted their barbecue bearing grave news. News of a car accident. One that had claimed the lives of their wives before the emergency crew could even get there. Reagan’s mind wandered, without his permission, to a time when he thought life couldn’t get any worse.
Four years later, it did.
“Daddy! Lookie-me! I’m swimmin’!” Indie sent a fountain of water through the air with splashing arms and legs, Grace squealing in delight while the two dads groaned loudly. Despite their groans, they weren’t upset in the slightest. Their girls’ smiles were the most heart-warming sight they could ask for. They lived to hear those giggles and see those grins.
“Banana, Daddy’s cooking. If you get the food wet, what will we eat?” Reagan winked to the giggly girls so they’d know he wasn’t really scolding them, shaking his head a little to dislodge the water in his ear.
Indie playfully rolled her eyes and let herself plop back onto her butt—which touched the floor because the paddling pool was only half-full. She and Grace, at four years old, would have loved more water, but under their daddies’ orders they were just enjoying the little they had. Ten-year-old Archie, however, had left them to it because of the ‘lame’ depth.
“C’mon, Gracie, let’s get our babies so they can swim also.”
Reagan and Peter watched with ear-splitting smiles as their floral, puffy swim-suit clad toddlers skipped inside, hands linked between them, chattering happily about their dolls. It still amazed them daily how much they’d grown. To Reagan and Peter, it seemed like only yesterday they’d brought their helpless daughters home swaddled in matching blankets. Overnight the troublesome twosome had gone from tiny babies to little princesses; ones who were insistent that they could ‘do it myself, Daddy!’
For Peter, it wasn’t quite so difficult to watch her grow up. After all, he and his wife Karen also had eleven-month-old identical twin girls, Heidi and Pippa. Reagan and Penelope’s days of baby-rearing were over, but Peter and Karen’s were far from it.
“Did you persuade Kay to let you get that table, Pete?”
Peter chuckled. “Not yet. She’s still saying we don’t need it. She’d understand what I mean if Gracie ever took all her princess stuff off the pool table. Damn thing’s all-but buckling under the weight of all her pink junk.”
For a few sunny minutes, everything was right in the world. The July heat was scorching, bathing the garden in warmth as they listened to Indie and Grace laughing through the cracked-open window above. The baby twins were taking their nap inside in the living room while Archie hid in his room on his new gaming console. The wives were out on a shopping run—beer at the top of their list so it wouldn’t run out when the afternoon drifted into evening. Nothing could ruin this perfect summer for them.
But it could. And it would.
In fact, it was about to.
“Dad? There’s a couple of policemen at the door. They, um, they wanna talk to you.”
Reagan’s eyes flashed from the barbecue to his son. Archie stood awkwardly just inside the patio doors, hands wringing in front of his stomach, eyes betraying his nerves. As he set down his beer, Reagan realised it was probably about the thieves that had broken into his van a couple of weeks prior. He grinned at Peter while walking towards Archie.
“With a bit of luck they’ve got the little shits who broke into my van. I want the tools they nicked. Bloody good ones they got away with!”
Peter laughed, waving him off. They both knew the tools were long-gone.
Patting his son on the shoulder as he passed him, Reagan shot an absent-minded glance at the clock hanging next to the kitchen door. It was later than he thought. With the sun dawdling on its way to the horizon, it had been easy to mistake the evening for afternoon. It was just before four when Penelope and Karen set off together to the supermarket—the cow-shaped clock read seven-fifteen.
‘Shouldn’t they be back by now?’ he wondered as he strolled through the house.
“Good evening, gentlemen. How can I help you?” Reagan asked when he reached the front door. His chipper mood wouldn’t last long.
There the policemen stood, hats already gripped in their hands. Reagan tried to recall the shopping list Penelope had asked him to check before leaving. What he could remember only added up to about twenty things, all relatively simple. Why had it taken them so long to drive a ten minute journey there and back and pick up those few things?
“Reagan Ashby?”
He nodded, refocusing on the officer addressing him. He had dark brown hair and hazel eyes, his lips pulled down slightly. “I’m PC Danforth, and this is my colleague, PC Paulson. Do you mind if we come in for a moment?”
“Ah, sure. Come on in.”
A heavy ball descended into the pit of Reagan’s stomach as he ushered the two men through to the kitchen. Nothing good ever came of policemen arriving on the doorstep, that he knew. Especially not sporting expressions like the ones these guys were wearing. In the kitchen, they found Peter pulling a cold beer from the fridge.
“Did you want another, Ray? I figured you’d want a cold…one.” Peter trailed off, frowning, and set the bottles down when he turned to see his childhood friend flanked by the solemn boys in blue. “Did they find your tools?”
“Are you Peter Davies, Sir?”
Peter nodded slowly, reaching up to rub his stubble-covered jaw.
The officers shared a look that immediately raised goosebumps on the arms of both men. Their posture and stern faces said nothing good about their arrival on the doorstep.
“I think you might like to take a seat for a minute.”
Blindly following his suggestion, Reagan and Peter fell into seats at the newly decorated kitchen counter. Their hearts raced. The way they were being looked at didn’t make either of them feel comfortable, though they didn’t know why. Nor did the sympathy visible in the officers’ eyes as PC Danforth began to speak.
“I’m sorry to tell you that there has been an accident.”
Reagan’s and Peter’s veins turned to ice.
They were forced to listen as PC Danforth detailed the scene he had arrived at forty minutes before. The black car registered in Reagan’s name was submerged in Shinewater Lake, the car it had collided with hanging precariously from the crash barrier above. The air around them thickened with disbelief and sorrow as the two men—two fathers, two husbands—realised what the officers were saying.
Penelope and Karen were dead.
They’d been killed by a man four times over the drink driving limit. That man was still alive in hospital where he was being treated for minor injuries while Penelope and Karen were gone, their injuries too grave.
Reagan’s lungs squeezed all the air from his body, his mind whirring with this impossible situation. It must be a joke, he thought. A cruel trick.
Pronounced dead at the scene. It all happened very quickly. He was clocked doing eight on a forty limit road a mile back. Traffic police were in pursuit. There will be an investigation and charges will be filed. You have our deepest condolences.
“Deepest condolences…” It was a phrase Reagan remembered all-too-well from his childhood.
His father died after cancer ravaged his lungs. The doctor was speaking to his aunt while he pretended to sleep on her lap.
His mother had died giving birth to him, so for his entire life it had been his dad, his aunt Hetty, and his six-year-old brother, Theodore. Now it was just him and his baby brother, who was in the cafeteria of the hospital with Hetty’s boyfriend.
As Reagan and Peter tried to deal with the crushing news, Indie and Grace stepped into the kitchen. Indie’s mouth was pulled up into the widest, toothiest smile the policemen had ever seen. Her azure eyes sparkled behind a pair of too-big glasses that belonged on Reagan’s larger face, her feet making a clicking noise on the tiles in the bright red heels she sported—far too big for her tiny feet. Grace clicked behind her in a similar state of dress, but with purple shoes instead of red.
“Daddy, look! We’re just like Mummy and Awntie Kay! Can you take a pitcher to show them?”
With that, the two newly widowed men burst into tears.
Neither of them had had any idea that this was just the first of many losses to come.
~ oOo ~
Grace stared hard at Indie, sleep still crowding her brain. It took a moment or three for her to really comprehend what she was saying.
“Leave her? Why?”
Indie sighed, leaning down to inhale the scent of Marley’s hair. She always smelled sweet. Like a little girl should. “She needs to be safe. She isn’t safe with us.”
“Of course she is!” Grace whisper-yelled. “She’s always been safe with us! We protect her, we’ve been protecting her for her whole life! How can you…how can you even consider abandoning her?”
Scowling, Indie shook her head. “I’m not abandoning her, Grace, but if she stays with us she’ll have to run. We can’t go to the authorities until we know where…where he is, in case he finds out and hurts our families. He’s said he knows important people, hasn’t he? You’ve heard him. What if we report it to the police but he’s warned them, or paid them to tell him if we go to them? What if they just hand us right back? We’ll never get away again, Grace, never. He’d kill us and you know it. He wouldn’t even care about doing it, either.”
Indie’s words came thick and fast, each one laced with fear and panic. “He’d kill us without a second thought and then what would happen to Marley? She’d be with him and we wouldn’t be able to protect her.”
Grace gawped at Indie, sure she was having a breakdown. “You’re just overwhelmed, Indie. I am, too, but this…if we leave Marley with strangers what do you think will happen then? They won’t know who she is or anything! How will they be able to protect her?”
Indie seemed to contemplate this for a while. Grace couldn’t find the words to ask what was going on in her head, so she waited, heart in her mouth, for Indie to explain her crazy thought process.
“We’ll watch her go in, and give her a letter saying who she is, who we are. Yes, that’s good. Then they’ll know who she is and—”
“And what? What do you think they’ll do? They can’t just trust a random letter dropped off with a kid, Indie! Anybody could write a letter saying whatever they like!”
“I’ve thought of that already.” From the pocket in her hoodie, Indie pulled two things. The first was the photo of herself, Grace, and Archie that she’d found in the study. Grace took it from her with shaky fingers, stroking the apples of her cheeks, then thumbing Archie’s riot of dark hair.
“Where did you…” she breathed, tears dripping onto the picture.
“The study. I have a folder of information—I’ll show you. But I’ll give this to Marley, and write on the back who she is, who we are and where she came from, and I can give them…I can give them the phone numbers Dad and Uncle Pete had. They can call them.”
Gazing at Marley with tears spilling over her cheeks, Indie inhaled a big breath that made all three of them tremble. Marley stirred, rolling to curl into Indie’s chest with a soft sigh that tickled the older girl’s collarbone. She was so peaceful, so content, when she slept this way. As though she had no worries and was a normal girl. A normal five-year-old.
“She can have a family. Our family.” Indie looked at Grace. The earnest, desperate look in her eyes was frightening in its intensity. “Grace, think about it, she can go home to Dad, to your dad. They’ll look after her and she’ll get to have a family and a home where she can learn and grow. Where she can be safe. Until we know he’s not a threat anymore we can’t go with her, but she can’t stay with us, don’t you see? She’s a target all the time we’ve got her. He could use her against us.”
Slowly, Indie’s reasoning warped until it began to make sense. It was horrific to consider leaving Marley anywhere, let alone with strangers and unable to speak, but in a way, Grace knew Indie was right. Marley wasn’t safe with them, not really. Not with the huge target on their backs. And she had to admit the image of Marley safe between Reagan and Peter made her heart thump unevenly. She wanted that. She wanted it for Marley, and for their peace of mind. But the risks were so many, and options so few.
If, like Indie suggested, they left Marley with the authorities at the hospital with a note and proof of who she was, there was still no guarantee they’d be able to track down Reagan or Peter. After all, the phone numbers they’d had the girls memorise as soon as they were old enough were twelve years old. There was a huge chance they’d been changed in the years since their abduction, and no way for them to know. They had no phone. They had no clue how far-reaching his powers were, no idea if he was tracking them at that very moment.
“She’ll be so scared,” Grace murmured.
“We’ll explain everything to her. She knows about Dad, and Uncle Pete and Archie, Laker…we’ll tell her to wait for them.”
“Indie, I don’t think you’ve thought this through. It sounds great in theory, but if something goes wrong, Marley’s stuck in the hospital, potentially with the police and a ton of people she doesn’t know. She’ll be freaked out and terrified. How can that possibly be good for her?”
“Because she’d be free, Grace,” Indie finally breathed after a long while. “She’d finally be free.”
~ oOo ~
Despite Grace’s hesitation and the sickness clawing at Indie’s throat, the following morning before the sun had even risen, the trio of girls sat in a triangle on the bed, their crossed-knees touching.
“Marley, baby girl, we need you to do something really, really brave today, okay?”
Marley cocked her head, clutching Mr. Bunny close to her chest with a solemn, patient expression.
“You remember we talked about our family, in England?”
Marley nodded slowly, clearly bemused.
“Well,” Indie swallowed hard, “they’re going to come and get you, to take you home.”
As soon as the word ‘home’ fell from Indie’s lips, Marley’s eyes widened and she leapt into her lap, scrabbling to grip her wherever her little hands could find purchase. It took a few seconds before Indie’s shock evaporated enough for her to realise her faux pas.
“No, baby girl, not the ranch. You’re never going back there, you hear me?” She pulled back to cradle Marley’s cheeks and stare into her eyes. “You’re never going back to the ranch,” Indie enunciated slowly and clearly, willing Marley to believe it. She could feel the moment the little girl relaxed.
“I promise you, sweet girl, the ranch is gone. You’re not going to have to step foot there ever again. So listen, okay—you’re going on an adventure. We’re going to take you to this place called the hospital where lots of really nice people work. They’re going to look after you until our family comes to get you, okay? They’ll keep you safe.”
In her five years of life, Marley had never said a single word. She’d made sounds, sure. A whine when she was protesting something, a cry when she was a baby, or a whimper when she hurt herself. But never a word. Indie and Grace had begged her for them when she was smaller, spending hours speaking to her in the hopes she’d imitate them just once. She never had.
That said, she could communicate in other ways, and with her limited options available to her, the fa
vourite was definitely communicating through touch.
She reached out a tiny hand, resting her palm over Indie’s cheek. A small blue bruise had blossomed there, perhaps from when she hit her head. It didn’t hurt, so she leaned into the little girl’s touch, knowing what she was asking without having to question her.
“We can’t stay with you, baby girl, but we won’t be far, okay? We’ll make sure the people who take care of you are kind, and we’ll see you again soon.”
“You can’t promise that,” Grace whispered, tears streaming freely down her cheeks as she stared at Marley staring at Indie. “You can’t promise that when you don’t know.”
“I do,” Indie said. “They’ll get Marley to our family and she can be safe while we sort this mess out. He’s too much of a threat right now. He’ll come for us and Marley will suffer. I can’t let him hurt her, Grace. I couldn’t bear it.”
Marley whined a little and reached forward to hug Indie, resting her head over her heart and pressing a kiss to Indie’s hand when she raised it to stroke her hair. She hated seeing Grace and Indie upset. She’d seen it far too often in her short lifetime.
“I can’t see another way forward, Grace. If there’s another way to keep her safe from him, then tell me. But I can’t see one and it terrifies me. The thought of not being able to hold her petrifies me.”
It would have been easy for Grace to say ‘well, don’t do it, then.’ It wouldn’t have taken any effort at all. She was desperate to say it, desperate to say those words and have Indie agree and say ‘okay, we’ll keep her here with us.’
But she knew, in her heart of hearts, that despite it being scary for them and scary for Marley, with Garrett Smith still on the loose, Marley would be his number one target.
Because he knew. He knew that harming the little girl would kill Indie, and it was no secret that he liked to hurt her.
Watching Indie cradle Marley, rocking their bodies gently side-to-side while humming a tune so soft she couldn’t make out what it was, Grace dashed tears from her face and cleared her throat.