Pinky Promises (The Promises #1)

by Ciara Shayee

  “When?”

  Indie’s voice didn’t falter, nor did her movements, but her eyes flickered to Grace, then to the slim gap between the curtains at the window. The sun was just peeking through, sneaking into the room to throw a thin line of light across the dirty carpet.

  “Soon,” she said once she’d finished the song. Peering down at Marley’s face, calm now and reassured for the moment, she sighed and brushed a trio of kisses over the little girl’s forehead. “We’ll go soon.”

  Less than an hour later, they pulled alongside the nearest hospital in the rusty old truck. Well, it was a medical centre, but according to the map they had, the nearest hospital wasn’t close enough in range for them to get there and back on such a small amount of fuel. Either way, there would be people in there that could use a phone to dial Reagan’s or Peter’s numbers, or contact the relevant authorities to get them on their way. It was risky, and possibly the craziest decision Indie had ever made, but she couldn’t see past the opportunity for Marley to get away from this whole mess. The only thing she could picture now was Marley with Reagan and Peter to protect her. They’d adore her. They’d see the spark in her eyes and nurture it in ways Indie and Grace couldn’t. Not while they were on the run from a madman intent on making their lives hell.

  Marley deserved Christmases and birthdays, presents galore. She deserved to know her family, to live in a proper home she was safe in, and to know she never had to want for anything.

  Indie and Grace couldn’t offer her any of those things in a dingy motel with rapidly dwindling money and a crazy man coming after them. Every tiny sound had Indie and Grace swinging toward the door, wondering if their tormentor was about to burst through. That was no way for a child to have to grow up, and Indie couldn’t bear the thought of Marley having to spend another day living that way.

  “Baby girl, are you okay?”

  Marley sucked in a breath through rosebud lips, frowning slightly as she peered up at Indie from the middle of the truck bench. She’d been dressed in comfy clothes, as if that would make this easier on her, though they all knew this wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  But in Indie’s overwhelmed, exhausted, pained mind, this seemed to be the only option. Right or wrong, she couldn’t contemplate any other outcome that wouldn’t result in Marley’s life being ruined completely. This way she had a chance. A fighting chance to get back to a normal life with a loving family.

  She’d sat and allowed Indie to plait her hair into a long braid down her back. She looked adorable, and utterly innocent. Marley had seen so much, and to look at her, she appeared to be an angel sent from heaven.

  For Indie, that was exactly what she was. Motivation and a reason to live and love and now, a reason to fight.

  “Have you got your things? Your picture and Mr. Bunny?”

  Marley lifted the bunny she never set down, then took the photo from her hoodie pocket. Indie had penned a note on the back explaining who she was, who Indie and Grace were, and instructions to contact the authorities who’d deal with a kidnap case in England. Indie had no idea how the international side of kidnap cases worked, but she hoped they’d be able to work together to get Marley to Reagan and Peter. They would have the picture from the original search campaign and the details of how Marley came to be, so they had no reason not to contact Reagan. She’d even given them his address and the last contact number she’d memorised.

  “Good girl, well done.” Ignoring the pain it caused all over her body, Indie scooped Marley into her lap and set her astride her thighs as she cradled her cheeks. She drank in every facet of the little girl’s face.

  The curve of her cheeks, a sweet button nose begging to be kissed between them.

  A rosebud mouth no artist could dream up.

  And her huge, bottomless sea-blue-green eyes framed by sinfully long lashes.

  She was a beautiful child with a face any person with a heart couldn’t resist loving. She was utterly precious, Indie’s entire world in one tiny little person.

  And she was letting her go.

  “Okay, baby girl, let’s get this adventure started, huh?” Injecting fake enthusiasm into her voice, Indie bounced Marley on her knees. Just once, but enough to send pain shooting through her body. She ignored it. “Do you remember the plan? You’re going to go inside with Grace and when she goes into the bathroom, you’re going to give the person behind the counter this note, on the picture. Grace is going to come back out and get me, and then our family, they’re going to come and pick you up. The nice people here will take care of you until then, all right?”

  Marley’s lower lip jutted out in slow-motion, trembling. Her eyes glistened with tears, but she valiantly fought them back, visibly steeling herself. Indie and Grace had never seen anything like it.

  “Good girl. Oh, Marley, I’m so proud of you. You sweet, brave little angel.”

  Then, it was time.

  Indie peppered Marley’s face with kisses. They were pure desperation, misery, and sadness. She missed the little girl already and yet she still felt the warm weight of her on her lap. She missed her smiles, the silent giggles she hid behind her hands. She missed waking up to the heaviness of a wriggling little body atop hers, of a bony elbow jutting into her side.

  But most of all, she missed the stolen opportunity to raise Marley.

  Fighting against her every instinct, Grace climbed out of the truck, tugging her hoodie up over her head as she accepted Marley into her arms when Indie passed her down. The little girl was rigid in her arms, but the look on her face was all Indie.

  Determination. Resolve. Undeniable spirit.

  As Grace turned to walk away with Marley on her hip, Indie reached out a hand and pressed it against the window, fingers stretched wide as though she could press it through the glass and touch Marley, one last time. Each step felt impossible. Grace’s legs were weighed down with lead and painfully heavy. Her heart thumped so fast she felt dizzy. And despite it all, she kept moving, somehow. She made it over the road. Up the steps. Into the lobby.

  It didn’t even cross her mind to marvel at the automatic doors or the TV screen on the wall advertising some sports brand or other. She barely managed to mumble a ‘hello’ to the receptionist behind the desk before ducking her head and rushing past towards the restroom. It felt ridiculous to not stop and cry, to beg and plead with the receptionist to help them. To admit who she was, who was sitting in the truck outside, but Grace ignored the urge—however strong it was. She’d wanted to go to the authorities for years. To be free to report Garrett for his crimes. To out him for all he was. Here, she had the perfect chance, and she was going to blow it. She was going to climb out of the bathroom window and leave Marley despite all her instincts telling her not to.

  She was going to do it so that Marley could be safe. So that she and Indie could hatch their plan to end their torment once and for all—whatever that took. “Ok, Mars, give me a hug.”

  Marley stretched onto her tiptoes, her shoes squeaking on the linoleum bathroom floor as she wrapped her skinny little arms around Grace’s neck, squeezing tight.

  “I love you, Mars.”

  With a tiny, tremulous smile, Marley stepped back and pressed her fingertips to her lips, then pressed them to Grace’s cheek, just in the corner of her mouth. I love you, too, the touch said.

  “God, I can’t do this,” Grace breathed, feeling like she was choking. She stared at the little girl, so like her childhood best friend, through tear-blurred eyes. She was fierce and beautiful and everything she wasn’t, despite being five years old to her twenty-one.

  She was Indie, made over.

  And that’s how Grace knew. She knew she’d be all right, because she had all the best parts of Indie.

  With that thought, she pressed a long, hard kiss to Marley’s head, brushing a wayward lock of hair back towards her braid before squeezing her to her chest once more.

  One last hug for the little girl whose first breath had turned both Grace’s and Ind
ie’s lives upside down.

  “All right, time for your big adventure.” Marley’s lips curled up just a touch, almost like she was asking if it was okay to smile. Grace managed to force the smallest of grins to encourage her. She didn’t want to make this any harder than it had to be. She didn’t want to frighten Marley by bursting into the tears threatening to escape. “Time to go and meet your family, okay? Our big, crazy, mish-mashed family.”

  Brushing a wild lock of Marley’s hair away from her face, Grace savoured the little girl’s hesitant smile. She’d been amused by Indie’s and Grace’s descriptions of their big, conjoined family which wasn’t technically a family at all, but a bunch of close friends.

  Sighing, with one last squeeze of one of only three women she’d ever met, Marley braced herself and walked towards the restroom door, glancing back at Grace as she pushed the door open.

  Grace smiled even though it killed her inside, and nodded. “You go, baby. God, you’re going to love our family so much. Tell them we love them, too, all right?”

  Marley nodded, and with that, she was gone.

  Knowing it was only a matter of time before the receptionist burst in looking for her, Grace grabbed a wad of tissue from the nearest stall before clambering up and out through the window in the corner, using one of the small bins as a stool.

  She was across the grass lawn when Marley made it to the desk.

  She’d just crossed the road when Marley reached up to get the receptionist’s attention, and then passed her the picture after pointing to the note on the back.

  She was in the truck when the receptionist came around her desk with a frown on her face and a knot in her stomach, crouching in front of Marley.

  She’d started the engine, Indie a ball of misery on the other end of the bench with her face hidden in her knees, when the receptionist checked the bathroom stalls, then noticed the open window.

  And she was gone, the squealing tires leaving behind a cloud of dust in the air when she burst through the front doors of Central Montana Medical Centre.

  There was nobody there. Nobody but an abandoned child with a photo clutched tight in her tiny fist, tears leaking from eyes the most beautiful shade of blue.

  Her mother’s eyes.

  Indie’s eyes.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Meanwhile, in Rome, Italy – April 21st

  (the same day as Reagan’s phone call)

  A crop of short, artfully mussed chocolate hair emerged from the water first—the suntanned, rippling shoulders of a man who obviously worked hard on his body following closely behind. Droplets of cool water tumbled over a toned six-pack as the swimmer stretched out of the water, pulling himself effortlessly up onto the patio. Not unlike a dog, he shook his head to send a shower of glittering beads flying through the air in all directions. They splattered the flagstones with slightly darker spots.

  In the muted light of the early morning, Laker McKinley rubbed water from his short, trimmed beard and moved lithely around the villa. He gathered up a towel from a white Adirondack chair before using it to rub most of the moisture from his body, sliding his feet into flip-flops as he entered his home to stop the floor from getting too slippery.

  Ten minutes later, Laker left the relative cool of the air-conditioned villa in lieu of heading into the garage that doubled as a workshop.

  Dressed only in a pair of pale blue cargo shorts, brown flip-flops and a dark grey baseball cap, he moved with the grace of someone who was comfortable in his body. Someone at ease with his surroundings. There weren’t many places he felt this way, but his villa just an hour outside Rome, near to where he’d been born, was absolutely one of them. Still early in the year, it was nowhere near warm enough to be wearing so little clothes—for most people. Laker had always run hot. He hated to wear trousers unless absolutely necessary. As a child, he’d driven his caregivers to distraction with his refusal to swap his beloved cargo shorts for jeans.

  Warm, mint green eyes roamed over the fine piece of woodwork awaiting him as he stepped in through an unlocked side door, running his fingertips over the smooth wood.

  “Perfetto,” he murmured, grinning with pride. It only needed staining before it would be ready to go to Mr. Alvarez, his elderly neighbour who’d requested the table for his newly renovated dining room.

  For a short while, the only sounds in the workshop were of tools clanking together, thumping against wood, or hitting the concrete floor. When the silence became oppressive, Laker switched on the radio and got back to work. He’d never been one for silence when he was alone. Paradoxically, if he had company he was more than content to bask in the quiet, but he hated too little noise when he was by himself. He’d often wondered if it was a result of being an only child.

  The morning passed slowly. Italian musical favourites blared from the dusty radio on the side-table, the tell-tale smell of wood leaking from the workshop throughout the morning and into the afternoon, when Laker wandered out for a late lunch break. At one p.m., it was a fairly balmy fifteen degrees, but the heat was muggy and stifling with only the slightest of breezes to send soft ripples along the surface of the pool. Hard work had him too-warm and considering another swim. Wiping sweat from his brows with a hand towel, Laker gazed over the kidney bean-shaped pool, wondering what to do with himself for the rest of the day. His boss, who also happened to be his grandfather, was holidaying with his wife and had given him free rein to do whatever he pleased for the duration of their six-week cruise.

  He still had five weeks to go.

  The young man was already getting antsy for something to keep his mind and hands occupied, and he’d promised himself he wasn’t going to step foot in the music room. It only frustrated him when he sat at the piano and his hands, his mind, didn’t cooperate.

  Startling Laker from the humdrum of his thoughts was his phone ringing from the patio table a few feet away. He reached out and snagged it on the third go, just barely managing not to drop it. He grinned lopsidedly when he saw his best friend and his young sons’ faces flashing on the screen. “Hey, man.”

  “Laker! How ya doin’, bro?”

  “Not too bad, not too bad. Can’t complain. How’s Carl-Roman? And Chase?” Laker reclined on his free arm, head tipped back to the sun, eyes slipping closed. It had been a while since he’d spoken to Archie. Too long. Guilt pressed on his chest.

  “Actually, we’re pretty…I dunno. God, this is harder than I thought.”

  Frowning, Laker coughed pointedly for his friend to continue.

  “They, er…Dad got a call last night. Some guy from the FBI.” Laker’s eyes flew open as Archie added, “They’ve found Indie and Grace, man. They’re alive.”

  The names of Archie’s sisters made the hair at Laker’s nape stand on end.

  Indie and Grace…

  Two young girls he remembered so vividly from his trips to England.

  They were Archie’s shadows and followed him everywhere. Not that he complained. Laker’s mouth stretched into a still-catching-up, rueful grin as he recalled his best friend’s willingness to do anything for his little sisters. Being an only child he could only imagine what the bond between Archie, Indie, and Grace felt like—especially the latter, who wasn’t even related biologically to the Ashby siblings. Archie never treated her differently, though. Indie and Grace were like the older version of Grace’s younger twin sisters, though the elder three weren’t as close to the younger two as they were to each other, Laker remembered.

  Three peas in a pod.

  Laker tugged the bill of his hat around to the front of his head. His silence wasn’t just for his own sake. Archie was sniffling. Having known each other for going on twenty years, Laker knew Archie would want a minute to steady his emotions.

  Though he hadn’t been in England at the time, Laker remembered all too well the agony on Archie’s face when Indie and Grace went missing on their way home from school one day. Archie’s face, along with those of the girls’ dads, was on every news stati
on throughout Europe. Some even further afield when the search on home ground didn’t yield any results. The search grew and grew, yet it was somehow never quite big enough.

  “They’re in Montana. Dad said they didn’t say much, but they’re alive, and we know where they are.” Blowing out a big breath, he added, “It’s mad. All this time we’ve wondered and hoped…and now we know. Just like that. It’s sorta surreal, actually.”

  Archie explained the scant information he, Reagan, and Peter had been given while Laker relocated to the edge of the pool where he dangled his legs in the refreshing water. It helped keep a note of reality in his mind. The knowledge that the girls were alive and out there was definitely welcome, but an enormous shock.

  During the childhood he’d spent being passed from pillar to post between Italy and England, Laker had latched onto the mish-mashed Ashby-Davies family. In fact, during his teenage years, when he was old enough, he’d chosen to stay in England with his paternal aunt and uncle just down the street from Archie and his family. He’d been regarded as an extra family member. A brother to Archie, the sole boy in a group of five.

  Absorbing everything Archie had said, Laker asked, “So what’s happening? Ray and Pete are flying out, I guess?”

  “Yeah, that’s actually what I’m calling about…” Archie trailed off.

  Gazing up at the cerulean sky, Laker prompted him to continue.

  “I can’t leave Carl-Roman and Chase, LJ. I mean, hell—I’ve never left them longer than an overnight sleepover at Dad’s or Uncle Pete’s. They wouldn’t cope if I took off for God knows how long and couldn’t come back if they needed me. And work...I already took a load of time off when Carl-Roman was sick in January, so my boss would go nuts if I asked to take off again.” Another pause kicked Laker’s heart rate up a notch.

  Where’s he going with this?