“What’s that?”
She twisted her head around so she could deliver her “no” with a glare. Then turned back to face the couch.
“Suit yourself,” I said in the same easy tone, though I was pissed.
What was her problem? Couldn’t she see that I was doing my best, that last night I had spared her despite everything urging me to do the opposite?
When the eggs reached a pale yellow, clumpy consistency, I emptied the pan into a giant roasting dish. This I carried and set on my rickety-ass table, which tipped toward me under the weight of the dish. Sitting down, I shoved my fork in and started eating. The mild taste wasn’t much—clearly, I needed to invest in some ketchup or just some good old salt and pepper. But the food woke me up enough to remember to check my phone, which I did.
What I saw made me smile: four missed calls from Daddy Pryce. Getting him to pay was going to be a piece of cake. If I played my cards right, this job would be done in no time and that stuck-up bitch would be gone for good.
Another glance at the couch revealed that she was sitting up and watching me eat.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“Eggs,” I replied with a hearty bite.
When she didn’t respond, I added, “You’re free to have whatever’s in the fridge.”
As I ate away, Alice rose slowly and cautiously before hurrying past me without taking her eyes off me, as if I were a lion that could lunge at any second.
No sooner had Alice opened the fridge door, however, she made a noise of disgust.
“Seriously? That’s it?”
I smiled sanguinely at her. “Haven’t been here in two weeks, princess.”
Alice’s glare flicked from me to my egg-filled roasting dish.
“So that’s it then?”
Taking an extra-big forkful, I nodded.
“That is it.”
With a sigh, she slumped onto the chair across from me.
“Fine.”
Folding her arms on the wooden tabletop caused the whole thing to tilt toward her, and a peal of nervous laughter to slip out of her lips.
“The table’s a piece of shit I found on the side of the road,” I said, and she giggled.
“Ever heard of IKEA?”
I handed her the fork.
“Princess, we discussed this. Not all of us grew up with Daddy to foot all the bills.”
At the mention of the previous night, her face darkened, although she accepted the fork.
After taking a small scoop and a tentative bite, she nodded.
“Hey, it’s not bad.”
“For a criminal,” I finished for her.
Taking another bite, she shook her head.
“Not what I was going to say.”
The fork was still in her mouth, and I clasped it and pulled it out.
Tapping it on her lips, I said, “No worries. Just admit that you expected us bad guys to eat rats and small children for our breakfast.”
As I dug my fork into the eggs, she snatched it away. Throwing the forkful of my eggs into her mouth with a cheeky smirk, she said, “No. That wasn’t it at all!”
Grabbing her hand and using it to shovel some eggs into my mouth, I asked her intent face, “Well, what was it then?”
She was speechless, her gaze locked on the eggs traveling toward my lips. It was easy to slip the fork out of her hand, easier still to lean in and do what her whole body was so clearly begging me too. But an inch away from her lips, Pip barked and I remembered.
Getting up and setting the utensil in the eggs, I said, “Looks like Pip’s in the mood for a little morning swim. Whaddya say?”
Alice’s gaze was on the fork atop the eggs.
“There’s a place to swim nearby?”
“Yeah, a little pond.”
Silence, then: “I don’t know…”
I went over and patted her head.
“Don’t you worry, princess. I won’t let you drown. You’re my money ticket after all.”
Alice scowled, and I backed away.
“Pip and I will be waiting outside when you’re ready.”
On my way to the door, I spotted the tank and peered in. The toad was sitting on top of my dirt mountain, regarding me expectantly.
“We can get some food for our toad friend while we’re at it,” I said, and as I headed out, Alice only murmured “his name is Gerald.”
Outside, Pip and I waited on the front steps. Pip spread herself out on her side, basking in the sun while I stroked her bristly white and gray fur. Every once in a while she would open one of her icy-blue eyes and peer over at me, as if inquiring whether I’d made up my mind on what to do about Alice, and if I had, why I was still dangerously close to breaking my resolution.
I closed my eyes and lost myself in the movement of my hand, the softness of Pip’s fur, and the lively symphony of the forest. I didn’t want to think about it, because truth be told, I had made up my mind, and yet somehow it wasn’t making any difference in what I was actually doing.
“You two look comfy,” a familiar voice said.
I opened my eyes to see Alice looking as amused as she had sounded.
“So you’re up for a swim then?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“No, but I am up for a walk.”
“Great. We’ll let Pip choose which way to get there. She always finds the best routes,” I said.
And so we did, following the far-off blur of gray and white as she rocketed into a patch of trees a little off to our left.
We didn’t say much; the air was filled enough with what we didn’t. When I glanced over, she wasn’t looking at me. I didn’t blame her. This was only to pass the time. There was no point in swapping more words, in getting into this deeper than we had already, making this harder than it had to be.
Besides, the forest was enjoyable enough. Something about how the trees threw speckles of light onto the ground, how every chipmunk and squirrel seemed to be running in pointless haste or loitering extravagantly, something about the never-repeated collaboration of rock and foliage made me smile.
Maybe that had been my dad’s problem: Tucked away on the 23rd floor of a vomit-colored apartment building in the middle of New York City, trees were scarce. Sure, there was always Central Park, but I didn’t remember ever having gone there. I couldn’t even recall a single tree from the harried images of my childhood.
No, I remember harsh voices and hands raised, sneering mouths and staring eyes, but not a single tree or a kind smile. Nothing except…
“So, you’ve lived in Denver all your life?”
Alice glanced over, surprised by me breaking the silence.
“Yeah. Why?”
“No reason,” I said.
There was no point in getting into it. It hadn’t been her. There were thousands of brown-haired, blue-eyed girls; what were the odds?
Even as I walked on, Alice’s gaze wouldn’t shift.
“Why do you ask?”
“It’s stupid, all right?”
She said nothing, so, finally, I said, “What about trips then? You ever take a trip to New York when you were little?”
Alice stopped walking.
“Yeah, with my dad when I was ten. Why?”
“And the American Museum of Natural History—you didn’t go check that out, did you? Look at the big old dinosaur bones?”
Her face went white.
“What the hell, Jake?”
“Well, did you?”
Her eyebrows arched, her eyes flashed, and her lips pressed together.
“Screw you; I’m not telling you until you tell me why.”
“Okay. It’s just…I don’t know; it’s stupid. When I was a kid, must’ve been ten also, right before my dad died, we went there. It was a shitty trip; we spent the whole time arguing. But it had been the first time I’d been to a museum since I could remember.
“So, I was standing close to the dinosaur, way too close. Dad was a few feet off, on his
phone I think. He told me to back up, but I didn’t. I wanted to see the dinosaur bones from below. I had never seen anything like it. I fell on the display and an alarm went off. As a big, tall, frowning security guard advanced from one side and my shouting dad from the other, as tears came to my eyes, I turned around and saw her: a little girl with the most beautiful blue eyes and brown pigtails with red ribbons. And as I looked at her, time seemed to freeze, and she—”
“Smiled at you,” Alice said softly. “Smiled at you and took your hand.”
As I gaped at Alice, she nodded and continued. “And then your yelling dad caught up with you, grabbed you by the arm, and ripped you away, while the security guard tailed you both.”
My eyes scanned her face, passing over the perfect ski-slope nose I could now see was faintly freckled, the upturned lower lip, the eyes in which I now saw the look I had seen then. It was the same impossible look, one that had seemed impossible then and still did now. It was a look of goodness, of kindness, of caring.
“It was you,” I whispered, and she nodded, taking my hand.
“It was you,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. “That day…that was the day I decided I wanted to help people and work for a charity. That was the day I started sponsoring Saffie in Sierra Leone. That day changed my life.”
We stared at each other, her words as if I had said them myself. That day, the strange fleeting kindness of that little girl, had given me hope in my darkest of times. And yet I swallowed this admission down. I couldn’t say it aloud.
Instead, I released her hand, looked away, and started walking again. If I admitted it, if I let the feelings that were bubbling inside me break free, if I let myself embrace Alice the way I wanted to, then everything would be ruined.
“You coming?” I called, and the crunch of footsteps after me was my answer.
I kept a pace fast enough that she’d have to jog to catch up. I didn’t look back.
I couldn’t explain it to her, couldn’t make her see that I destroyed everything I touched.
Chapter Nine
Alice
The rest of our trip to the pond was silent. Pip was always just at the edge of our sight, always waiting for us, as delighted by the scenery as we should’ve been—as we had been. Jake had ruined it. I glared at his back as he trudged, too fast on purpose, through the forest ahead of me. I hated him. He had ruined it, and he kept ruining it. We’d had a moment back there, and he had ruined it.
More than that, as I trudged over the slippery mud and tufts of grass and inconvenient tree roots, I hated myself. Why was it that whenever I was within 10 feet of that heartless man, I lost all sense of control? He was a criminal, my kidnapper no less, and forgetting it could mean the difference between me being getting away and being stuck there, maybe even the difference between life and death.
It seemed like hours had passed by the time Pip stopped moving. As we advanced, it soon became clear why: We’d reached the pond, in all its weeping willowed glory. Really, it was less a pond and more a watering hole for the delicate trees. Surrounded by willows on all sides, the pond itself was a forest of bowing branches with lance-shaped leaves blowing in the wind.
“Kinda secluded,” Jake said.
I said nothing. Pip bounded into the water ahead of us, barking excitedly at some escaping ducks. Jake passed me and, a few steps in, paused.
“You coming?”
I shook my head.
“I told you I’d come, but I’m not joining. I don’t swim.”
Jake tilted his face and scratched his short-haired head.
“Don’t, or can’t?”
Sitting down, I looked away.
“Both.”
“Oh, okay,” he said.
I could feel his gaze still on me, but I didn’t look up. Finally, he walked away. I heard the rustling of leaves and the thud of his clothes hitting the ground. When I looked up, he was half obscured by the leaves. He wasn’t looking at me anymore. He and Pip were swimming around each other, grinning like they’d just won the lottery or something.
It was funny seeing him like this. He looked like a regular, happy guy—a good guy, a kind one.
“You sure you don’t want to join?”
Jake had stopped and was staring at me. I shook my head, got up, and walked away. At a nearby tree, I sat with my back leaned against it and my eyes half closed. I exhaled my worries and inhaled the clear forest air. Footsteps sounded, and then something settled right beside me.
“Sorry,” Jake said. “I don’t mean to be pushy. Seems like a delicate subject for you. Did something happen?”
I stood up and started walking back the way we’d come.
“My mom was bringing me home from swimming lessons when she died. I never went back. Swimming only reminds me of how it was my fault and… Never mind. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Jake jogged up behind me.
“Hey, we don’t have to. It’s just—”
“No, Jake.” I stopped and turned to face him. “Let’s not pretend this is something different than what it is. You kidnapped me. You are my kidnapper—not my friend, not my lover, and certainly not my confidante. So stop playing whatever game it is you’re playing and please, please, just leave me alone.”
Jake’s face assumed its mask-like appearance. His hands balled up, he watched with a cold look as I turned away.
The walk back was quiet. The soft padding of Jake and Pip behind me was audible, but they made no attempt to catch up. When I got back, I waited on the porch for Jake to open the door.
He, however, made straight for the black van.
“Front door’s open,” he said as he opened the driver’s door.
Then his phone rang.
“Hello? Yeah, yeah, Mr. Pryce. Your daughter is right here. You wanna talk to her?”
Walking over to me with a sardonic smile, Jake shoved the phone at me.
“Papa?”
“Alice, oh God, Alice!”
There were tears in his voice.
“Alice, are you all right?”
“Yes, Papa, I’m fine. He hasn’t done anything to me. I’m fine.”
“Thank God. Alice, where are they keeping you?”
The phone was snatched out of my hand, and then Jake said into it, “There you go, Daddy. Proof as requested. Now, either you pay up, or that’s the last time you’ll be talking to your daughter. Your choice.”
Hanging up, Jake shot me another sneer.
“Man, is Daddy a real businessman. Even wanted to bargain his way out of this.” Tucking the phone in his pocket, he added, “But the price isn’t up to me; I’m just the middleman.”
For another minute, we stared at each other. Then he flung out his hand toward the door behind me.
“Stay inside. I’ve got errands to run. I’ll be back tonight.”
Then he got in his van without another word. I started for the door and then stopped halfway. The van’s engine revved up, and I turned around. The vehicle hadn’t moved yet; its black bulk was in the same place as before. I could still join him if I wanted to. After all, being stuck here wasn’t going to do me any good.
Hurrying up to the van, I creaked open the back door and hopped in just as it started moving. The engine roared just loudly enough that my shutting the door was inaudible as the van rumbled onto the road.
Huddled in the back, I was less than comfortable. Jake was driving so fast over the bumpy roads that I wondered if he knew I was in the back and was doing it on purpose. The whole vehicle was clattering so much that I thought I was going to go crazy.
After a few minutes, Jake apparently calmed down, because the van was no longer rocketing ahead at an insane speed. Before long, I was able to sink back onto the cool metal, close my eyes, and relax.
The previous day may have been overwhelming, but today was turning out to be no walk in the park either. What was Jake going to do to me if my dad didn’t pay up? Would he really turn me over to his boss and let the guy kill me i
f need be? Minutes passed, and the quivering of the rope coil next to me became some sort of rhythm until, suddenly, it stopped. The van had stopped.
Straining myself to sit upright again, I saw we had driven into a dark, high-walled alleyway. At the sound of voices, I shifted my gaze and saw two big burly men to my right walking straight for the van.
Ducking, I grabbed the rope and curled myself into a ball, though it would make no difference, really. If those men came in the back, I was done for.
I heard the slam of a front door and popped my head up. The alley was empty.
Voices came from the front. Thank God. The men had gone in the front with Jake. I was safe—for now.
The van continuing on once more. Peering out the back window, I watched as we drove away from the alley, pulled onto a street, and passed Paramount Theater, some impressive skyscrapers, and other tourist attractions. Downtown Denver. That was where we were.
A turn brought us past Shelby’s Bar and Grill, Papa’s and my favorite brunch place for bacon and eggs. Then we took another turn past a towering hotel and one final one that brought us in front of an ivory building that was so tall and symmetrically perfect that it looked like some kind of religious building. The sign, however, read Bank of the West.
We stopped there, and I gulped. Whatever the reason we were here, it couldn’t have been good.
The slam of the front doors sounded, and through the back window, I saw Jake and the two burly, black-shirted men walk toward the bank, their backs to me. Now was my chance.
I got out of the back of the van and found myself following them. I told myself to stop and speak with the people whose heads were turning after Jake and the men, but my feet continued on, driven by some strange urge.
One step into the bank, only a few feet behind the men, and I knew.
Masks. Jake and the two burly men were wearing black ski masks. They went nicely with the guns raised in their hands. The explosion of gunshots was just part of the chaos, paired with the yelling and people racing by.
The ski-masked man in front was yelling at the teller. “The safe—now!” he said. He shot at the bear head mounted on the wall and hit it dead between the eyes. This was all a dream. It had to be. Then the men in the black masks saw me, and I quickly realized this was happening and I was in very real danger.
Steal The CEO's Daughter - A Carny Bad Boy Romance Page 43