by Snow, Nicole
“What part isn’t true then? That you haven’t been searching for someone who may have killed an old girlfriend who dumped you years ago?”
“She didn’t dump me, and she wasn’t my girlfriend!” Damn. Even if it’s true, I can see why she’s scorned, why what she just heard doesn’t make sense. “I’m here to—”
“Stop! Drake, just stop.” She shakes her head. “I’m so flipping sick of being lied to my entire life. By Gramps. My parents. And now, it’s you. I should’ve known, considering the way this started with that stupid marriage. It’s all been a lie.” She swipes the tears off her cheeks, and venom fills her face. “Screw you, Drake Larkin.”
She whips around and starts walking.
“Bella!” Her name is just a roar, and my footsteps only make her race out faster.
The back door slams shut before I’m in the kitchen. I shove a chair out of the way as I round the table and kick the box of candy canes that’s on the floor.
My chickens just came home to roost, but they’re too big, too mean, too ruthless.
It’s not chickens coming back to tear my life to hell. Instead, I see dragons.
17
Family Mistakes (Bella)
My lungs ache like I’m drowning under water.
The pain just consumes me. That bastard phony.
Lying to me. Just like everyone else. I can’t take it anymore.
None of it.
So I run straight to my Jeep and shove the key in the ignition. Thank God they’d been hanging by the back door. It seems like I haven’t started it in over a week since we’d always taken his truck into town.
The driveway is a blur. I wipe away the tears and stomp down on the gas.
How could I have been so stupid? Believing someone like him would’ve stayed and taken care of Gramps because they were friends.
Believing he’d go through this much to dismantle Jupiter and Avery Briar because it was the right thing to do?
It was all for a woman.
A woman he loved and hid in his messed up, convoluted past, which I suddenly want no freaking part of.
Stupid me. So, so stupid.
I’m still kicking myself when a sudden flash, or a noise, or something makes me glance out the passenger window.
Crap. It’s Edison.
Running beside the fence line, where he shouldn’t be, probably chasing me.
He’s going to have to go home on his own. This time, I’m not turning around.
I stomp down harder on the gas, hoping he’ll get the hint, putting more distance between us.
Of course, he doesn’t.
The pain, the hurt, the betrayal over Drake’s deceptions spar with my love for the horse.
I can’t be stringing him along like this. Edison is too old to run this fast for too long. The highway is just ahead. The fence will stop him, I think.
Wrong.
I’m almost to the mailbox, when he scales the fence, flying at it and leaping in mid-air.
Holy shit!
Slamming on the brakes, I wrench the wheel to keep from hitting him as he tumbles out in front of me. The Jeep ends up crossways in the road, but I’d missed him. Barely.
I stare at him and just groan. His sides are heaving from running so hard and the exertion.
If I thought this day couldn’t get any worse...
The tears hit me again, harder. Throwing open the door, I step out. “No, go home, Edison! Back to the barn. I can’t be here right now. It isn’t you...”
He lifts his head and nickers loudly, almost like he’s shouting back. Or is it a warning?
I glance up the road. Tears blur my vision, but there’s a distinct dust plume and a truck. Drake.
Somebody shoot me.
“Barn, Edison! Right now!” I look behind me, to see if there’s enough room to back up, but just then a car swerves along and parks itself on the other side of my Jeep. A white BMW.
Ugh, my parents. As if there isn’t enough fun to go around.
The passenger door opens, showing an empty seat. I start moving, planning to just stick my head in and tell them I’m in the middle of...I don’t even know. But I can’t do this right now.
I run to it, glancing at the plume of dust getting closer. At least it might give me a minute to hide from Drake and get my crap together, so I flop in, slamming the door behind me.
“Hey, I’ve only got a minute, but –” I cut off the instant I realize something isn’t right.
The car swerves back on the road and flips itself toward town. Then we’re flying down the road at a speed I don’t think Mom or Dad would be caught dead driving.
Oh, Jesus. I don’t know why I even bother turning to see if it’s them. I already know the answer.
My heart hits the back of my throat even before I get a good, long look at him.
“Who the hell are you?” I whisper, grabbing at the handle, but the door won’t open. Even if it could, there’s no way I’d be able to leap out at this speed without taking on a serious risk.
The man smiles as he stomps the gas. “Child safety locks. Greatest fucking invention known to man.”
I wrench harder on the handle with one hand, trying to slide the lock open with the other hand.
But he reaches over, grabs my arm and pulls, twisting it behind my back until the pain steals my breath.
“Ah, okay! What do you want?” I growl through the pain.
“I’m just your ride, my dear. I’m taking you to see your parents,” he says coldly. “You made it easier than I thought it’d be, Annabelle.”
He’s driving with one hand and holding my arm behind my back with the other. I can’t move.
The pain makes me wonder if he’s already pulled my arm out of its socket.
“Far easier.” He gives my arm another twist and shoves me forward.
I cry out and grab at the dash with my other hand to keep from hitting it or the windshield.
He laughs. “Careful, Bella, don’t want to damage Mommy and Daddy’s car. It was real nice of them to loan it to me to swing by and pick you up.”
I don’t understand. Clearly, he’s gotten their rental, but I don’t recognize him. He’s too young to be Avery.
I twist, trying to get a better look at him. Big sunglasses and a baseball cap obscure his face. “Who are you?”
He whips the car into the other lane, a smirk on his lips.
I glance up and can’t pull my eyes off the semi barreling toward us as he’s passing a tanker truck in the lane we should be in. That’s when my life starts flashing before my eyes.
Oh my God.
But the BMW barely makes it around the tanker and back in the right lane when the cattle truck in the other lane flies past, horn blaring. The one behind us honks too.
What the hell have I gotten myself into now?
“Are you trying to get us killed?” I glance at the dash, looking to see if there’s any way I can pull the key out of the ignition.
Nope. It just has to be a push start.
“Quite a mouth. Shut your yap already,” he growls, shoving me harder into the dash.
Pain fires through my shoulder and winds down my arm. I close my eyes as we fly up behind another vehicle. There are cars in the other lane, too.
I can only hope he won’t kill us, and that Drake saw the BMW.
It’s like that all the way to town, this deadly, senseless dance on the road. He almost kills us three more times. I’m too shocked to even scream.
Then he peels off the highway onto a side road half a mile before the city limits. This road just goes past an old implement dealer and then back into town.
“The hotel’s on the other side of town,” I say, wondering why I bother. He’s clearly not taking me to Mom and Dad.
“Exactly. They’re not kicking up their heels at the hotel no more. Your folks have got some meaner digs now.”
Jesus. I don’t like how he says it at all.
I know it’s useless, but I can’t hel
p asking again, “So who are you? What do you want? If it’s money –”
“Nah, fuck your coin. That’s what my old man wants. Me?” He chuckles, this harsh, dry sound like burning leaves. “My tastes are a little more sophisticated.”
We roll past the mobile home park, shoot across the East-West highway that would’ve taken us to the North Earhart office, and then keep going toward the park. There’s nothing else on this road.
It ends at the very edge of where Theodore Roosevelt National Park begins in all its rugged, hilly glory. I think of how vast those Badlands are, how Gramps would take me out here and we’d look out over miles of nothingness that go on forever. I shudder.
The road ends, but he doesn’t stop driving.
He rolls over the edge of the parking lot, and then tears up the gravel pathway leading to the big pavilion where I’d attended Fourth of July celebrations every summer.
My shoulder went numb a long time ago, but the rough terrain bounces the car, creating fresh stabbing pain as he shoves me into the dash.
We drive around the pavilion, onto the grass, and keep going.
Miles later, we top a hill and start down the other side.
I’ve only been out here once before, but I vaguely recognize it as the storage facility a mile behind North Earhart’s main building. He drives alongside a chain link fence, then turns, speeding along a shorter distance before entering an open gate.
Then I get a good look at where we are.
There are trucks, storage buildings, shipping containers, and large round tanks holding crude oil.
My mind plays havoc, trying to remember to breathe.
They never tell you panic becomes a state of being.
All I can think is this is why I needed a bodyguard. In the form of a husband who was meant to be a farce. Who got too real. Who lied to me.
And now he’s gone.
I’m totally screwed. Drake will never find me here.
My captor maneuvers around too many things to count before screeching to a stop near a metal storage building. Right next to a familiar black SUV. Avery Briar’s.
My insides lock up when it finally dawns on me. Oh, no.
“You’re...you’re Avery’s son, aren’t you?”
The man Drake warned me about.
The killer with a trail of missing women behind him.
The monster.
The pain no longer matters, I can’t go down like this. For a second, I think of Gramps, and I know he’d tell me to fight.
Fight like hell.
I kick and twist against his wretched hold as he drags me over the center console and out the driver’s door. Once I’m free from the car, there’s more space.
I throw myself into it, kicking and hitting and scratching anything my fingernails can touch.
He gets hold of my other arm and flings me around. I’m dizzy when I see the dragon tattoo on the side of his neck. I’m momentarily stunned, it shouldn’t be possible. “When...when did you get out of jail?”
“I was never in jail, you stupid bitch.” Holding both of my arms behind my back, he picks me up by them.
Electric pain tears through my bones, so sharp and sudden my lungs lock up.
My toes drag on the ground, but I can’t move them. His hold has me paralyzed.
Or maybe, it’s the thought that Drake lied to me again. That’s the same tattoo. What the hell?
He knew that was Avery’s son in jail and never told me. Never told me the little psycho was out, either.
Maybe that’s why I lose what little leverage I’ve got. If I can’t even fight my way through these lies, these stories, how do I stand any chance against a seasoned killer?
A door smacks open and he carries me through it.
“Take her over there, Adam,” a voice grinds out.
It’s dark, so I can’t see him, but I recognize Avery Briar by the sound.
“That didn’t take long,” he says.
“She met me at the end of the driveway like she was waiting for it. I love when they come to daddy.”
Even through my pain, my nose wrinkles at how disgusting, how wrong, how evil he sounds. I’m trying not to vomit when another voice splits the room in two.
“Annabelle? Oh my dear God, Annabelle, no!”
“Mom?” I shout.
“Let her go, you despicable beast!” Mom roars, a violence in her tone that shocks me. “You have us. You have your hostages. Let my daughter go!”
The demon son carries me around a big truck, where a desk lamp glows in its ash grey neck from on top of a big toolbox. My parents are there, sitting in two plastic chairs. There’s a third next to them, empty and waiting.
Then it’s all just a blur.
Mother, still shouting at the top of her lungs for them to let me go, and all the horrible things she’ll do to them if they don’t.
It’s honestly a little touching to hear her fight for me like this. She never has before. But we’ve never been in anything like this.
Dad has a dirty rag tied around his mouth that he’s trying to shout through.
I fight against the numbness filling my body, try to kick, or hit him again with the back of my head, but it’s useless.
Adam tosses me in the chair, then binds my wrists behind the back of it. My parents both have their hands tied. A little while later, I notice their ankles are strapped to the chair legs with plastic zip ties, too.
“What happened?” I ask, when there’s a small break in the torture.
“These reckless, deviant fools kidnapped us,” she says, not caring whether or not they hear her. “I told them not to bring you here. They must be deaf. Because I said it already a hundred times – let her go!” She screams the last part so hard it pierces my ears.
I start kicking then, but Briar steps up and grabs one leg, and his son the other. An impact shoots up my leg as my knee connects with the son’s shin, and then there’s just a dull ache.
“Ah, fuck! You shitty whore.” He grabs my upper thigh, digging his fingers deep into my flesh and lets out an ugly growl. “Do you really wanna do this here? I’ll fucking finish you right in front of Mommy and Daddy before the big fireworks.”
“Not this now, son,” Avery says, an ice cold contrast to his hell-spawn. “Tie her ankles. Leave her.”
“What’s going on?” I yell. “What are you doing?”
Avery chuckles, a low, chaotic murmur rippling through the vast spaces.
“Today’s the day you folks messed up. I’d say your parents shit the bed, treating me like a fool, but...I know he put you up to this, missy. I know old Jonah made you smart enough to think you could pull one over.” He shakes his head. “It’s rather sad. A black day for Dallas. The entire Reed family, while waiting to show me the facilities they’re so willing to sell me for a song, die in a tragic accident before I even get here.”
Dies? I try not to hyperventilate. I just look at him in disgust, my stomach turning over.
Avery pulls a lighter out of his pocket and flicks it, holding the flame to my face. “A terrible fire. The kids might even tell scary stories about this one someday, about how this whole place turned into a crater, leaving you and your dear sweet folks to haunt the place. How does Bella Reed, the lady of North Earhart sound? I used to read a lot of ghost stories once upon a time. My, you might even take on a little of Amelia’s legendary shine. Jonah would appreciate that.”
The smell of gas and crude oil hits me like freezing rain.
Fear like I’ve never known, like lead filling me up from my toes to my ears.
Suddenly, my wish that Drake saw the BMW and followed it ends.
I don’t want him anywhere near this place.
I don’t want anyone to die.
“Excuse me. Mr. Asshole, did you hear me?” Mom again, her voice turning hoarse, but she carries on like it’s nothing. “I said, get that fucking lighter out of her face and let her go, you maniac!”
Avery actually rocks back, wincing, holding
a hand to his throbbing eardrum. Small satisfaction.
Dad tries to shout too. Something in his mumbled gibberish gets through. Something that sounds like will.
“Briar, if you kill us, you won’t be able to buy North Earhart,” I say, trying to steel my voice.
He shakes his head sharply. “You’re wrong. I know what Jonah’s plan was. Do you really think he was the only man in this industry who ever spied on his competitors?
I don’t like the sneer on Avery’s face.
“My father was a Lafayette Oil VP. Big company, way back when. He’d talk up Jonah at every conference, where all the bigwigs met to scheme and drink – or find better places to stab each other in the back. But it wasn’t like that with Jonah. Lafayette wasn’t on his turf, so him and my old man were friends. He was the man who got your father’s foot into Jupiter, knowing a guy who knew a guy...”
He smiles again. This time, it’s a little more distant, almost sad.
I don’t know why, but that makes my heartbeat quicken even more.
“My old man thought he was doing Jonah a personal favor, and he was happy to do it.” An ugly scowl covers his face as he points his glare at Dad. “Oh, Dad was so proud of the fact that Gary was a college graduate, too, something rare in those days in this field. I was in junior high then. He shoved it down my throat that I needed to be just like Gary Reed if I wanted to climb to the top. Go to college. Learn more from guys in suits instead of the boys who got their hands dirty. Learn to help the industry.” Rage flashes in his eyes. “God, I hated your self-righteous bullshit before I ever met you.”
“Gary didn’t do anything to you!” Mom snarls. “Neither did Annabelle or me.”
“Shut your yap, you stinking mummy, or I’ll have Adam find out what parts of you are still real,” Avery explodes, and I finally see what the Briars have in common. Terror and bullying.
“Anyway, that’s not the point,” Avery snaps, still eyeing Mom coldly.
Afraid of what he might do to her, I search for a way to buy time, to defuse him. “Then what is?” I ask as calmly as possible.
He turns his glare on me, that vicious smirk returning. “Lafayette left a lot of friends in high places I could bribe. People Jonah was real comfortable around. Sometimes when he got drunk, he had a big mouth.”