International Guy: Volume 4

by Carlan, Audrey

  “He has me.” Her voice shakes and wobbles as if she’s speaking through tears. “He says . . . says he’s gonna kill me.”

  Oh. My. God.

  Chills erupt all over my body, and I leave my tray and walk away from the line and toward the door of the cafeteria.

  “Tracey, who has you?” I ask frantically.

  “He’s hurt me, Sky. So bad.” She coughs and cries out in what has to be pain.

  “Where are you? Tell me where you are? I’ll get Parker and Paul and Royce and Bo. We’ll come get you.”

  “No!” Her voice is panicked, choked with fear. “You have to come alone,” she whispers, and whimpers. “He . . . h-he says if you come, he’ll let me go. I wouldn’t ask you, but he, h-he . . . he’s used a knife. I’m bleeding bad, Birdie.”

  “Oh my God, oh my God . . .” I spin around in a circle and look down one hallway and the next, searching for the exit sign. I see the green lights above one of the doors and head at a fast clip in that direction. “Okay, okay, fine. Where are you? How do I get to you?”

  “A-a-re you a-alone? He says he’ll kill me if you’re not alone. Birdie . . . I’m scared. So scared!” She cries and then screams out, and a banging sound like metal hitting concrete fills my ears.

  “Please, God, no. Please. Tracey! Sweetheart, talk to me!”

  “Come to Lucky’s.” She moans as if in pain.

  “Lucky’s?” I repeat as I push through the exit door before flying down three sets of stairs until I come out at the parking lot. It’s the opposite side of where we entered. I glance around, not knowing what to do or where to go. I have no car . . .

  Wait a minute. I do! Royce just gave me the key. I dig into my purse and pull it out and notice a panic button on the fob. I press the button frantically with my fingernail. For the love of all things holy, karma is smiling down on me, because I hear the alarm sounding off two lanes away.

  “I’m coming for you. Just do whatever he says. I’ll be there soon. So soon.”

  “Alone. You have to come alone, or I die.” She cries out in what sounds like excruciating pain.

  Tears hit the back of my eyes, but I tighten my fist, digging the keys into my palm to cut the emotional response with pain instead. “I’ll be right there. Do what he says . . . Tracey?”

  “Sky!” she screeches, and then the phone goes dead.

  No, no, no, no, no.

  I run as fast as my legs will carry me to the SUV, unlock the door, hit the panic button to stop the alarm, and get in. I’ve got the ignition turned and am barreling out of the parking lot when I see Royce alight from the stairwell exit I came out of. He’s waving his arms.

  I don’t stop.

  I can’t.

  He’ll kill her.

  The drive feels like it takes hours but probably only takes twenty minutes. When I pull up to Lucky’s, there’s only one car in the parking lot. I bail from the SUV, leaving the door wide open, and scramble to the back door of Parker’s father’s pub. I know it’s unlocked because I can see from ten feet away that it’s open about an inch. I curl my fingers around the heavy wooden door, and as quietly as I can, pull it open just enough to slip through.

  Once I’m inside, I make sure it doesn’t slam closed as my eyes adjust to the dark. Tiptoeing, I move down the dark hall to the front of the bar. When I get there, the backlight behind the liquor display is on, but nothing else. There, sitting atop the bar, legs dangling over the edge, is my best friend.

  I glance to the left and right, trying to ascertain where the bad guy is, but find no one. Then I hear a tapping sound, and my head jerks back toward Tracey.

  “Birdie, there’s no one here but you and me.”

  Her words hit me like a smack to the face. “What?” I whisper, still looking for the threat, then snap my gaze back to Tracey and realize she’s smiling. I scan her body from the top of her honey-brown hair to the bottoms of her sandal-covered feet.

  There’s not a scratch on her.

  What the fuck?

  “I assume you came alone.” She smirks.

  “Tracey, we have to get out of here. If he comes back—”

  Tracey tilts her head back and laughs. Hard. “God, you really are helpless. It’s a wonder I’ve been able to keep you alive and functioning all these years. Not that it didn’t take a ton of effort. Sky, you are a handful.”

  I curl my hands into fists, my nails digging into my palms. “What are you talking about, Tracey? We. Have. To. Go. Now!” I move toward her, but she puts her hand up in a stop gesture.

  “Don’t come a foot closer. It’s my time now, and frankly, I’ve gotten real tired of your bullshit.” She lifts her other hand. She’s holding a black square box with a red button. “See this? It’s the detonator for an explosive device.” Tracey nods in the direction of a table in the center of the room, where a bigger black box and various items sit with something bright yellow wrapped with black tape. “That’s a bomb. The same one I placed on your boyfriend’s door. Not that it did any damn good.”

  Bomb.

  Placed on my boyfriend’s door.

  The pain of what she admitted blasts my soul. It feels like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck barreling at sixty miles an hour. I gasp and reach for my throat.

  “I told you he wasn’t good enough for you. For the longest time, I believed you’d get tired of him. Come to the realization that he’d never be good enough. Then he goes off to Montreal believing you’d cheated, and I was thrilled. Thrilled!” she seethes through her teeth. “Until you forgave him. After his dalliances with that blonde, big-boobed girl.” Tracey shakes her head. “Have I taught you nothing, Staci?” She calls me by a name I’ve never heard her use before.

  “I am the only one who cares about you. Me. Your big sister. I’m the one who protects you. Loves you. Not Parker or his band of lame asses. Not Wendy, the skanky redhead who wears a collar like a dog. Like a dog! And you took advice from her? Over me!” She makes an ugly, bloated sound and continues. “To think I got rid of Johan and made sure you got all the best parts in the acting industry and became ridiculously rich. Beyond what you’ll be able to spend in your lifetime. And for what? For you to toss me aside like yesterday’s newspaper? I don’t think so.”

  “Tracey . . . please. I don’t understand.”

  “Shut up, Staci! You will understand once and for all. Unlike those pathetic people you called your parents. Ugh! It was nothing to do away with those pesky people. Trying to talk you out of moving into the big-time roles and leaving me in the dust. That woman . . . the one who claimed to be your mother. Obviously not, since you and I have the same mother and her name is Laura, not Jill.”

  “Jill is my mother—” I attempt to butt in, but her eyes cut to mine, and they’re filled with rage. White. Hot. Rage. So intense I fear what’s behind them.

  “Don’t. You. Dare. Forsake our mother. She took care of you, Staci. For years. Wiped your tears. Fed you when you didn’t have the strength to hold up a utensil. Wiped your body clean of bodily fluids when you couldn’t get up to use the restroom as the cancer ate away at you. But . . . I saved you. Prayed and prayed and prayed God would be merciful. Then you left. For a while, I thought you were gone forever. I vowed then and there that I wouldn’t speak a word until you came back. A year went by. Then one day, I looked out my window, and there you were. Playing in the neighbor’s yard.” Her entire face lights up as she must be remembering.

  “You had come back to me. A different name, but I knew. I knew inside my heart”—she thumps her chest with her free hand—“that my very own baby sister had come back from death’s clutches and had been delivered to me. I knew that day I had to take care of you. Protect you from the evil of the world. Provide for you. Make sure you had the best life where no one, no one could hurt you. And here you are . . . Staci, my Staci. Except you told me you didn’t need me anymore. That you only needed that man!” She sneers, and it’s so ugly I don’t even recognize her, just see this vile casing of what
I’d always thought was my best friend.

  “Trace, it’s me. It’s Skyler. I don’t know who Staci is, but I’m not her.” Tears fill my eyes and start to fall down my cheeks.

  “Don’t. Lie. To. Me!” she screams as loud as she can, and I take a few steps back and bump into a chair and table set.

  “I’m not lying. Tracey, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what’s the matter with you, but I’ll get you help. I swear—”

  “Help!” She hops off the counter and takes a step toward me, waving the black box with the red button in the air. “I don’t need your help. I’ve taken care of you. I’ve taken care of everything. Blew up your so-called parents’ boat when they told you to stop working with me.”

  My parents.

  Tracey killed my parents.

  “No. Oh my God, no.” My stomach twists and churns, violently quaking. I want to vomit. Tears fill my eyes and fall so fast I can barely see while my heart pounds so hard in my chest the edges of my vision start to blacken.

  “And Johan . . . You know what I did to him. For you. All for you.” She waves a hand flippantly in the air.

  “Tracey . . .” I choke out a sob, thinking of my poor sweet parents boarding that boat, waving to Tracey and me standing at the harbor, me waving wildly, my mom blowing me kisses I pretended to catch. And she’d killed them. “Tell me you didn’t kill my parents . . . please,” I beg. I cannot make myself believe she’s capable of something so horrendous.

  Her face contorts into a confident, evil smile. “Oh, I made sure they were very dead and couldn’t mess with my plans for you anymore. Of course, in all of this, I made one mistake.”

  A sob rips through my body. I close my eyes, the black threatening to take me.

  “I hired that man. But I had no choice! You needed to get your acting muse back, and I was right. He did help you. What I didn’t plan for was that he would fall in love with you. Not that he’s worthy of your love. I’m the only person worthy of your love. I’m the only one who makes sure you’re taken care of, right, Staci?”

  I shake my head. “Tracey . . .” I can’t even form the words there is so much fluttering through my mind. All the vile things she’s done. Killing my parents. Hurting Johan. The texts. The threats.

  “You set my apartment on fire?” I swallow, and she smiles.

  “You needed to come home. To New York” is her flat, emotionless reply.

  “And you set the bomb on Parker’s door. The one that almost killed Nate and Parker.”

  Her face contorts into one of malice. “Should have planned for a larger boom. Then it would have done what I’d wanted and taken them both out. Damn bodyguard. Smart, that one,” she sneers.

  “Jesus, Tracey. You sent those texts. Scaring me. Warning off Parker. Why?”

  Her head jerks back so violently it’s as if she’s taken a blow to the face by an invisible man. “To turn him away from you. He did a good thing by bringing back your muse, so at first, I wasn’t intending to hurt him. Just get him to back off. Since you apparently have a golden pussy, the man wouldn’t leave. That’s when I needed to ramp things up.” She runs her fingers through her long hair and sighs.

  “And Mr. and Mrs. Ellis?” I gulp down the bile that’s creeping up my throat.

  Tracey smiles wickedly. “Chivalry is not dead, it seems. He pushed his wife out of the way of my car so fast I couldn’t even swerve to hit her too. He took the brunt of my anger all on his own. I have respect for a man like that. I do hope he makes it.” Her response is nonchalant and lacking any humanity. The Tracey I thought I knew is gone. Maybe she never existed. It was all a big act.

  “Oh God,” I whimper, and wipe at my nose. “Why did you hurt them? They did nothing to you.”

  “You left. He stole you away from me to Brazil. I couldn’t get to you fast enough. Take care of you. I needed you home.” She shrugs.

  “This is all my fault. Everything. You did this all because of me.”

  “Staci, I’d do anything for you. I told you that when you took your last breath all those years ago. I’d bring you back. Take care of you. Be there for you forever. And you did. You did come back.”

  “I’m not Staci. I don’t know who Staci is!” I scream, and pound the table. “Tracey, you are insane. You need help. You’ve lost your mind!”

  Tracey smiles and starts to laugh. “Oh, Staci, dearest, you were always a funny girl. Now that you know everything, we can get on with it. I’ve been siphoning off a portion of your earnings for the past five years. I’ve got fake passports, and our travel destination is all mapped out. We’re headed to the South Atlantic Ocean to the tiny island of Tristan da Cunha. It has harsh weather but is so remote they say fewer than three hundred people live on it. Perfect place to live out our days in peace. No one can get to you there, Staci, I’m certain of it. There, I’ll be able to protect you forever. And you’ll never have to worry about that man again.”

  “I don’t think so,” a voice I love more than anything booms from the same hallway that I came through, attached to the one person in all the world I need more than my next breath. My guy. Parker.

  Tracey spins and points the black box at Parker, placing her thumb over the red button. “Ugh, you again. Why won’t you die? I’ve blown up your house, run over your father, and taken your girl, and you still come back for more!”

  Parker slowly enters the room, Royce and Bo behind him, but I don’t see Paul.

  Tracey’s gaze narrows at the three men. “Great, the whole gang is here.” Her head moves my way. “You said you’d come alone.”

  “I did! I have no idea how they found me.”

  Parker lifts up a single finger with a little black square that looks like a tiny microchip on it. “Trackers.”

  “The redheaded skank, I assume.” Tracey sighs and rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter. My Staci, the girl you think is Sky, and I are leaving. Without you three.” She moves over to me so quickly she’s practically a blur as she grabs my bicep, her fingernails biting into the flesh.

  “Over my dead body,” Parker growls, and my heart clenches.

  “Honey . . .”

  “Great! Funny you should mention that . . .” Tracey backs us up toward the front of the pub where the main entrance is. “This little box is attached to that there bomb.” She gestures to the table where the scary-as-fuck number of bomb-like things is sitting. She puts her hand and arm straight out. “I press this button and you are all dead.”

  “Then you are too,” Bo states.

  She grins. “Yeah, but I don’t care if I die, as long as my sister, Staci, goes with me.”

  “Staci?” Royce rumbles. “Who the fuck is Staci?”

  Tracey shakes my arm. “This is Staci. My baby sister!”

  “Uh, what you been smokin’, sugar?” Bo says dryly. “That’s Skyler. Your friend. Your best friend. A woman who trusted you.”

  Tracey looks at me and back at Bo, then scans the room before she looks at me again, shaking her head. “No. No. No. This is Staci. She pretends to be Skyler. She’s an amazing actress. Extremely talented. She’s been acting since we were kids!”

  Parker lifts his hands. “Tracey . . . I know you don’t want to hear this, but your sister, Staci, died when she was eight years old. She’s gone. You met Skyler a year later. If you look at her closely, you’ll realize that’s not Staci. It’s Skyler . . .”

  Tracey stomps her foot. “Shut up! Just shut the fuck up! You don’t know anything. This. Is. Staci. Pretending. To. Be. Skyler!”

  Parker shakes his head but approaches one slow step at a time.

  “Tracey, I’m not Staci. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you lost your sister,” I say, but her hand cinches my arm so tight I cry out.

  “Shut up. None of you know what you’re talking about! Keep your mouths shut, or I’m going to blow this entire place up with all of you in it! Now, I know Staci doesn’t want that because her heart is pure, but you so much as move one more step and I’l
l do it. You know I will.”

  “No. You. Won’t,” a deep voice booms from directly behind us, and a gunshot rings out.

  I barely have a chance to see Paul standing at the entrance to the bar, gun pointed out in front of him, when Tracey roars out in pain and drops the black box to the ground. Parker jumps forward, knocking Tracey down at the same time that Paul catapults over his brother and Tracey, scrambling for the black box and securing it across the room.

  Tracey is on the floor screaming in pain, her hand holding her other limp wrist, blood pooling all around her, until her cries stop and she passes out.

  Paul grabs for the mutilated wrist that looks to be hanging on by a thin string of skin and tissue while I stand stunned in the center of the pub watching the guys tend to Tracey.

  “Get a fucking towel!” Paul hollers, and Bo moves into action, grabbing one off the bar and rushing to his side. “Call the police!” he continues.

  “On it.” Roy’s deep timbre enters the fray.

  Parker leaves Tracey in Paul’s capable hands and moves directly in front of me so that I can no longer see the hideous vision of what was once my best friend now bleeding all over his father’s bar. He curls a hand around each side of my neck. “Sky, baby, you okay?” He dips his face down so close I can smell the mint on his breath as he invades my space.

  “Uh, uh . . . no.” I shake my head, staring numbly at my man’s blue eyes.

  “That’s okay. I’ve got you,” he murmurs softly.

  “Um . . . Paul shot her?” I repeat what I saw, looking over his shoulder to watch Paul and Bo move around Tracey in what seems like slow motion.

  “Yeah, babe, he did.” He wraps his entire arm across my back and tucks my cheek to his chest. My body starts to shake violently, or maybe it was always shaking but I’m just now noticing it.

  “That was . . . that was . . . a g-good sh . . . sh . . . shot.” My teeth are chattering, and I can’t stop them.

  Parker rubs his hands up and down my back and arms. “Shit, Sky, you’re going into shock. I want you to breathe with me. Okay? In for four beats . . . out for four . . . Focus on my breathing.” He breathes in deeply for four counts and then lets it out for four beats. I follow along with his breathing pattern as a whirlwind of facts sprints through my mind . . .