“Her mom . . . I guess she wasn’t the best parent, you know? She pretty much abandoned Lyndsey when she was really small. I mean she gave her a place to live and food to eat but that was about it. So, when Lyndsey got a boyfriend in high school, this Chris guy, she got really dependent on him.”
Raoul sighed, and I could see by the tenseness in his jaw and shoulders he hated hearing it almost as much as I hated telling it. I spun a spoon around on the table in front of me as I looked down.
“Her mom died before her senior year was over,” I said, not looking at him. “So she moved in with him. Chris. He was in college, playing ball for the university by then. So, she’s seventeen and she doesn’t have a high school diploma and no family, and the boyfriend starts slapping her around.”
“Goddammit,” Raoul muttered as he rubbed his hands over his face. “Son of a bitch.”
I could see by the look on his face that his mind was going a lot of the same places mine had when I heard Lyndsey’s story. “Believe me, man, whatever you’re thinking right now I’ve thought it and worse. But somehow, she made it out of there. I don’t know that part of the story, but she got here, and she found you and Leesa, and I thought she and I were on to something. Then this morning I wake up and that note’s waiting for me. No warning, nothing.”
Raoul had his hand in a fist pressed up against his mouth while his elbow rested on the tabletop. His brows were drawn down in anger. From the direction of the kitchen I could smell meat grilling, and I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything yet today. Somehow the idea of eating seemed useless when I didn’t know where Lyndsey was.
“Where’d she go, Raoul? I don’t know why, but I think there’s a lot more to all of this than she’s told me. I’m worried about her being alone. I’ve got to see her and at least try to talk to her. If she doesn’t want to be with me, then I’ll accept that, but I need to know she’s alright first.”
Just then Leesa came out of the kitchen, and walked toward us. “I knew you’d be showing up sometime today, kolohe.” She pointed a wooden spoon at me. “You don’t know where she is do you?”
She leaned down and gave Raoul a peck on the cheek, then stood behind him with her hand on his shoulder. He put his hand over hers and patted it. He couldn’t see her face, but I could. The flash of pain that passed over it as she looked down at the top of his head made me wince. If it felt this horrible to think I might have lost a woman I’d loved for a few months, what must it feel like to know you were about to lose the person you’d loved over half your life?
“He’s not such a troublemaker. Lyndsey left him a note this morning before she came to us,” Raoul said.
I picked up the note and handed it to Leesa. “Oh,” she gasped, her eyes welling up. “What could that sweet child have ever done to make her say these things about herself?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve got to find out. I have to talk to her again, Leesa. If she still doesn’t want to be with me, I’ll leave her alone, but I can’t let her go like this.”
Raoul looked up at Leesa and she nodded at him. I could see it right away. They knew where she was.
“We gave her the keys to a cabin we’ve got up in Volcano. She said she’s going there for a night or two and then on to somewhere else, but she wouldn’t tell us where. I made her promise she wouldn’t be gone too long though. Time means something different to me, you know.”
I nodded, steeling myself so that I didn’t dwell on the implication of what Raoul was saying. “How far is it?” I leaned forward and pulled my phone out of my pocket.
“Less than an hour,” Raoul answered. “It’s up the Volcano Highway . . .”
I got the address for the cabin, programmed it into the GPS on my phone, then gassed up my truck. I was on the road in less than fifteen minutes. I wouldn’t get there until after dark. Now all I could do was hope that Lyndsey had followed the plan she told to Raoul.
Lyndsey
After I’d checked out the cabin and made sure everything that could be locked was, I sat at the two-person Formica kitchen table and made calls. I quickly found that all the numbers I’d been given three years ago had been disconnected except for one. When someone picked up on the fourth ring I almost didn’t talk. I was drawn back to that moment the last time I’d dialed a number like this. I felt the air leave my lungs . . .
I could picture the dingy phone booth I’d stood in, late at night outside the DQ. The cheap plastic windows in the booth were so scratched I couldn’t see through them. I’d shivered so hard I almost couldn’t speak, even though the springtime air around me was mild, and the sky was clear. Every set of headlights that pulled into the parking lot had made me nauseous, every loud voice passing by on the sidewalk was a reason to panic.
“Hello?” the voice on the other end of the phone said.
“Uh, hi. Um, is this Emma Gentry?” Emma Gentry was the underground group’s code for emergency, to let the safe houses know you needed help.
“Yeah, this is Emma. Where are you?” That was code for, are you somewhere safe you can talk?
“I’m safe,” I replied.
“Good. Let me grab some paper . . .Alright, tell me what you need?”
“I’m uh . . . my name is Lyndsey, and three years ago I got out. You guys helped me.”
“Okay, but Lyndsey, you know the rules—we can’t help you if you’ve gotten yourself into another unsafe relationship.”
“I know. It’s not that. He—the guy from before—he’s found me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. He broke into my apartment when I was gone and left me a note. It’s him for sure.”
“Alright, Lyndsey. I was around three years ago. Did we meet? I’m Keisha.”
“I’m not sure, I was kind of out of it, I don’t remember anyone from that night very well. I was eighteen then, blonde hair in a ponytail. The guy . . . he was a football player at the university.”
“Oh, yes! You were . . . oh, well, yeah. I remember you.” Her voice faded and I could almost feel the embarrassment through the phone waves.
“It’s okay, you can say it. I was pregnant. I gave her up . . . the baby. When I got here. But that’s why it’s so important that I get out of here now. He didn’t know I was pregnant when I ran. He can’t ever find out about her. Not ever.”
We spent the next fifteen minutes trading information and planning my next escape. A flight to Vancouver would leave Honolulu two days later and I now had a ticket on it, paid for with my new credit card that said my name was Jessica Stuart. There was a packet with things like a passport and bank cards in it, waiting for me at a house in Honolulu, and my savings account that I’d kept for this very situation was now empty. After I disconnected the call, I sat and stared out the windows in the front room of the cabin for a while, unable to move. Outside, the palm trees rasped in the breeze that was picking up as the day wore on.
I thought about the life I’d built for myself in Hilo. The first time I’d ever worked for Raoul, when he’d looked at me with such sad eyes after I told him I didn’t have any parents. The way Leesa had always packed me leftover food to take home those first few months. “Look at all this stew I’ve got left tonight,” she’d say. “It’ll all go to waste. Lyndsey! There you are. Would you take this home and eat it? I hate to waste food.”
I’d furnished my apartment, one yard sale at a time. Without a social life, I’d had a lot of time to look for deals, and I’d found all sorts of cheap stuff to bring home and paint or clean. I thought about how Jack and I had learned the beaches and the campus, and how, gradually, we’d forgotten to be afraid. In less than three years I’d made a home. In less than three days I’d lose it all. It was done. I was on the run again.
Two hours later the sun was getting lower in the sky and I knew I needed to get my plans made for the next day before it got dark. If that car following me had been Chris I couldn’t risk turning on lights in the cabin after it got dark; I needed to use the light from outs
ide while it lasted.
I laid out what I’d need for the night and the next morning, then looked at hotel options in Honolulu and found one that was cheap and near the airport. I made a reservation under my new name and then used the GPS on my phone to show me how to get to the house where my new IDs would be waiting. Finally, my life thoroughly dismantled and on the way to being reconstructed, I went to sleep.
Nick
Three hours after I left the Grill, I drove through Volcano and pulled into a gas station to use the bathroom. As I walked back to my truck I watched cars move along the main street of town and did a double take when I saw Lyndsey’s car in a parking lot across the street. The sign over the parking lot said Laukapu Auto Repair. My heart pounded and hope rushed through me like a big wave on a sunny morning at the beach. I sprinted across the four-lane blacktop, heedless of the cars that ambled along in both directions.
I rushed in to the front office, expecting to see Lyndsey sitting there. Instead, I was greeted by a heavyset guy sitting on the edge of a chair, a woman doctoring a wound on his head.
They both looked up as I charged in the door, and the guy reached into a desk drawer, watching me with narrowed eyes as I slowed to a stop and tried to catch my breath.
“Hi,” I said quickly. “I’m looking for someone, the girl that came in with that little Honda parked out front? Is she waiting somewhere for it?”
The woman stood up and put her hand on the man’s shoulder; she looked really fucking scared, and I could tell something wasn’t right.
“Look,” she said. “We don’t know anything about that woman and we don’t want more trouble. The other guy, you can see what he did,” she gestured at the man’s head wound, “I don’t know what she did, but we’re not part of it. We can’t help you.”
I took a deep breath and tried to regain some measure of control over my racing mind. Obviously these people were confused, and I’d only piss them off if I couldn’t explain things rationally.
“I’m not here to give anyone any trouble, I promise. I’m just trying to find my girlfriend. That’s her Honda Civic out there, the silver one in the first parking space. She left Hilo this morning and I’ve been worried about her. I just need to make sure she’s okay. Did her car break down or something?”
The guy stood up then and when he did I saw that he’d taken his hand out of that desk drawer, and a gun along with it. “I’m going to tell you just what I told the other guy. I wish I’d had time to get this—” he waved the gun in his hand, making me want to hit the floor before he accidently set the damn thing off, “—before he got me, but I won’t make that mistake again. I don’t know what the hell you’re up to, but I’m not going to tell you where that girl is. Even if she did something wrong, I’m not going to be the one who sends crazy men after her.”
He glared at me, and the woman clutched his arm. My mind was churning, trying to figure all of this out, while at the same time a fucking gun was being waved my direction.
I put my hands out to my sides so he could see them clearly. Then I talked as clearly and calmly as I could manage, trying to channel Scott from some of our more tense sessions. “So, there was another guy who came looking for the woman who owns that Honda? Lyndsey Anderson. That’s her name. Someone else was here looking for her?”
“Damn right he was.” The guy scowled. “Said the same thing you did—he’s her boyfriend, just wanted to make sure she’s alright. When I wouldn’t tell him where she was he knocked me out and grabbed my work orders. It’s got her address and phone number on there so I imagine he’s on his way right now. If you’d walked in two minutes later I’d have had the police on their way up there too.”
My mind spun with possibilities. No one I knew who’d be looking for Lyndsey would assault the local mechanic to get to her. She had only ever mentioned one guy who would do something like that. Fuck.
I searched my memory for some detail she might have told me about him. All I could come up with was he’d been a year ahead of her in school, and he played football. “This guy, was he about my age? Athletic looking?”
“Yeah, that’s him. Had a football jersey on, number forty-two on the front.”
Shit. “Okay. Hey, man, I’m sorry to scare you, I really didn’t mean any harm. I’ll just head on out now if that’s alright.” I started to back toward the door, hands still held out to my sides.
“Yeah you go on and do that, and you should know that I am sending the cops to her place, so don’t think you can head there and try anything.”
“No problem, I’ll just be on my way.” I reached behind me for the door handle, opened the door, and backed partway out before I turned and bolted to my truck, running faster than I’d ever gone in my life.
I cranked the engine, gunned it, and peeled out of the parking lot hitting Main Street going far too fast, and headed toward the turnoff to Raoul’s cabin. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I chanted to myself as I tore onto the dirt road, the truck bouncing helter-skelter along the narrow pathway. Was that why she’d left? Had her bastard ex found her? I mentally shuffled through the last couple of weeks—the near miss in the parking lot at school, the break-in at Lyndsey’s apartment, the way Jack had been tied up nearly strangling. Was that all him? Was he stalking her here in Hawaii after all these years? It seemed impossible. Why the hell hadn’t she said anything if that’s what was happening? “Dammit, Lyndsey! Where are you and what the hell is going on?”
Chapter 14
Lyndsey
I dreamed that Nick was talking to me. “I love you, baby. You didn’t really think that I was going to let you go like that, did you?” he whispered in my ear. I tried to roll away from his voice, something wasn’t right, but he wouldn’t let me go. He squeezed my arms and pulled me up against him. “You’re mine, Kristi, and we’re done with this crap of living apart. You’re coming home with me, and everything will be like it was before, except now I’ve got an offer from the pros and I can give you anything you want. Right, baby?”
My mind was in a haze of sleep, I tried to open my eyes but it was as dark in the room as it was in my head. Something felt so wrong, and why had he called me Kristi? He didn’t know me when I was Kristi. “Nick?” I said groggily.
The impact of the blow was enough to bring me to full consciousness instantly. I tasted blood inside my mouth and my eyes were fully open, but I still couldn’t see more than the outline of a man who sat on the bed next to me, holding my arms in a vise grip that sent pain shooting clear down to my hands. My cheek throbbed where he’d hit me, and with the clarity it brought I knew this wasn’t Nick.
“Let’s get something straight right now, baby. I don’t ever want to hear his name out of your lips again, you got that?”
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat as I heard his voice. Chris. “How . . .” I cleared my throat and tried to speak in a strong voice even though I felt like I might pass out. “How did you find me?”
“Private investigator.” He moved his hands up and down my arms now. “I would have come sooner but I needed a lot of money to hire the best. As soon as I got my advance from the NFL I found this guy in New York, and it took him about two months, but he got you.”
I felt his hand leave my left arm and next it brushed over my breast. My nipple pebbled at the contact and he groaned when he felt it. “Oh yeah, I knew you missed me too,” he whispered. He grabbed my breast hard and pushed me back onto the bed. I felt my heart race as his weight settled on top of me. God no. God no. Anything but this. I had to distract him from this.
He shoved his knee between my legs. My arms were pinned at my sides, and he was crushing me under the two-hundred-and-twenty pounds of football-honed muscle he carried. I struggled to catch my breath, the combination of his weight and my panic forcing my lungs shut. He sat up for a moment and grabbed both of my wrists bringing them up above my head and securing them with one of his hands. It had always been his favorite position and apparently not much had changed. Then with his f
ree hand he reached down under the large T-shirt I’d worn to bed, and tore my underwear off in one violent move.
I could smell his sweat as he got more and more stimulated. I retched, my eyes watering from the heaving sensation, and he squeezed my wrists tighter. As his free hand moved to the fly of his shorts, I struggled to keep from fainting. I could see the sparks on the edges of my vision and feel my breath coming in short, shallow gasps.
“Chris?” I panted. “Chris?”
“Mmm, what baby?” he said absent-mindedly as he got his cock free from his shorts and ran his hand over it.
“Can we talk first? About where we’re going? I want to hear about your contract with the pros. I’m . . ” I gagged again and screwed my eyes shut as he rubbed his dick against my stomach. “I’m so proud of you for making the NFL. Tell me all about it.”
He groaned as he simultaneously stroked himself and rubbed against me. “There’ll be plenty of time to talk later, Kristi. Right now let’s make this a real reunion, huh?”
He shifted then, reaching down behind my knee to bring it up so that he could enter me. I went along with the motion, took that momentum and brought my knee into his face, making contact with his chin and nose. It wasn’t a super hard hit, but it was enough that he released my wrists to bring his hand to his face.
“Fuck! You stupid bitch!”
I took the leg that I’d kneed him with and planted my foot in his chest, shoving as hard as I could from the confined position I was in. It pushed him off of me, but not enough for me to get away, and he grabbed my ankle before I could do anything else. I tried to scramble to the door, but with his hold on my ankle, I flew half off the bed, my head striking the floor. Stars danced in front of my eyes, and the pain shot into my skull, making nausea roll through me. Chris stood up, my ankle still in his grip. I tried to sit upright with my leg held high above my head. I kicked at him with my free leg but he sidestepped it and leaned over to backhand me across the cheek.
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