by Amy Murray
The diamond caught the light and sparkled. “I have. Believe me.” I’d not spoken of James since the night I left him bleeding in that alleyway. I couldn’t. It was too painful, and over the last two years, Colin and I had both avoided bringing up the circumstance that brought us together. “It’s just that—” I stood and backed away from where Colin sat, but in my haste, I’d forgotten about the necklace, realizing it only when I heard it clatter against the wood floor at my feet.
He looked down at the same time I leapt to pick it up. I held it between my palms, but it was too late.
“What is that, Abigail?” he asked. His voice, while quiet, shouted in the silence.
I shook my head. “Nothing, it’s nothing. Just something I picked up.” I turned to my dresser and placed the necklace into James’s handkerchief.
“It doesn’t look like nothing.” I folded the edges of the cloth, one over the other, and when it was tucked inside, I ran my fingers over the embroidered initial B.
“Something you purchased?”
I faced Colin, but I couldn’t lie to him. “No. It’s old. Something I’ve had.” I picked up the cloth containing the necklace and moved to my wardrobe.
“May I see it?”
I stopped and turned cold. He was never supposed to see it. He was never supposed to know about it. But now that he knew, I couldn’t very well hide it from him. I extended my hand and he took the bundle from me. Carefully, he unfolded each corner until he revealed the sparkling necklace.
“It’s beautiful,” Colin said as he lifted it by the chain.
“I know.” The yellow stone threw fragments of light around the room. “Though it’s probably nothing valuable.”
Colin turned the necklace and shook his head. “On the contrary. This,” he said, staring at the pendant, “is a yellow diamond. A rare color. I’d imagine it’s quite valuable. Why haven’t you shown me this before?”
Just seeing it out on display made my chest compress. I took in a labored breath and blinked back my tears. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t.”
Colin looked at me with tortured eyes while the necklace dangled from his fingers. “This is the reason I found you in that alley.” He didn’t ask a question, but I answered all the same when I pursed my lips together and nodded my head.
He palmed the diamond and closed his fingers around it. “How did you get it?”
I coughed to clear my throat and took a few steadying breaths to calm my nerves. “James must’ve—I found it in my handbag that night.”
He lifted the yellow diamond closer to his eye and turned it over in his hand, examining it from both sides. I knew he’d see James’s blood still crusted in the corners of the prongs. So many times I’d thought to wash it off, but in the end, this was why he died, and a part of him, no matter how small, still clung to this hideously beautiful necklace. As long as it was there, I could hold a piece of him.
“This is beautiful. Priceless, really. Where’ve you been hiding it?”
I looked to my wardrobe. “There’s a loose floorboard there. I couldn’t risk anyone finding it. It was the reason he was killed. It’s the reason I’ll be killed, and I don’t want you to die because of it, too.”
Colin winced and placed the necklace back in the handkerchief. He folded the edges with the same care I had used moments ago and handed it back to me.
“I’m sorry I never told you before. I didn’t know how. That night, my life ended. Those men took my future. My dreams. And for what? This?” I held up the bundle. “Was James’s life really worth less than this?”
Colin’s forehead wrinkled with sympathy. “People kill for a lot less.”
“Evidently. Another man was killed that night. I saw him shot down like a rabid dog.”
“You knew him?”
“No, not me personally. It was James’s brother, Thomas. He gave James this necklace. I’m sure of it.”
“Did he say anything? Anything about who he was running from?”
“No, but he told James to tell her he was sorry.”
“Who? Tell who he was sorry?”
The memory of that night had never faded. Every smell, sight, and sound was a living memory that haunted my days and shattered my nights.
“I don’t know.”
Colin took a deep breath, his chest expanding as he looked toward the ceiling. Emotion surged and tears spilled from my eyes. All I could see was James’s blood. All I could hear were my own screams. Colin pulled me into his arms, his lips pressed against the crown of my head.
“I’m so sorry, Abigail. If I could take it back I would.”
“Don’t be. You didn’t do it, and you can’t change what somebody else did.”
His arms tightened around me. “Marry me, Abigail. Let me make this right.”
Enveloped in his arms, I felt safe. I didn’t feel love, at least not the kind I felt for James, but I felt protected and even cherished. I didn’t doubt his sincerity, and our life together these last two years had been comfortable. Given the circumstances, there wasn’t another place I could imagine being. Realizing this, I nodded into his chest, answering his question without words.
Colin stooped to look me in the eyes. “You’ll marry me?”
“Yes.” It was a whisper of a word, but it was enough. Colin nodded, lifted my left hand, and slid the diamond ring onto my finger. It was a perfect fit.
The room came into slow focus. Mack stood in front of me, his hand still outstretched. I looked at his fingers, across his bare chest, and finally to eyes. There was an apology there, as if he knew what I’d seen.
“Abby, talk to me. The silence is killing me.”
I started to speak several times. I even muttered a few “I”s and “You”s, but I couldn’t get any words to follow.
“You tricked me. You tricked me into marrying you.”
Mack dropped his hand and cleared his throat, taking the time to look away and shove his hands into the pockets of his pajama bottoms.
“I didn’t trick you. You knew who I was.”
“I didn’t know you were a murderer. I didn’t know you were the one that killed Thomas and chased us into that alley. I didn’t know you murdered James.”
“Please, stop confusing my past life with my present. It wasn’t me. I didn’t do that.” His voice rose with every word.
“How could you do that to me?” I was beginning to sound hysterical. “How could you marry me? Tell me you loved me, when you knew you did the one thing that destroyed me?”
“Abby,” Mack’s voice held a warning, but I paid no heed, and soon we were speaking over one another.
“Why, Mack?”
“I told you why.”
“I mean—how could you?”
“Because I love you.” The words blurted from his mouth, and his hands went to his hair before running down his face. Whatever I’d been about to say froze in my throat, and I stood in shock. “Because I loved you,” he amended, and when he spoke again, his voice held a forced kind of calm. “That night, I risked everything for you when I came back. Don’t you see that?”
I stepped away from him and toward the door. My head spun, and my heart pounded. I grabbed the door handle and looked back at Mack. “Our relationship, our life together back then was based on lies, not love.” Mack’s jaw clenched in response. “I guess some things never change.”
Chapter Twelve
I stood in my darkened apartment, my thoughts racing and my body restless. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep after that. No way. I paced the length of my living room with my hands shaking and my thoughts whirling. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to react? I needed someone to talk to, or this overwhelming urge to break something would win. Down the hall, I paused in front of Gracie’s door.
I could knock. I could slip between her sheets and cry. I could spill my heart, and she’d comfort me. Well, after she freaked out, I’m sure. But instead of lifting my knuckles to her door, I turned, walked into
my bedroom, and pulled my cell from the nightstand.
I dialed James’s number and waited for him to pick up, desperate to hear his voice. He was the only person in the world that would understand, and the only person that could soothe the ragged discord thrumming inside me. The line went to voicemail, and my heart sank.
I couldn’t wait until morning to see him; I knew that as well as I knew my own name. Without taking much time to think my decision through, I left the apartment, still wearing my oversize cardigan and unlaced boots.
In the car, I tried James again. “Pick up,” I said into the receiver, but it was no use. I pressed end without leaving a message and hoped James would answer the door when I got to his house.
With dawn only hours away, the roads were nearly empty, and I could have counted the number of cars I passed during the fifteen-minute drive on one hand. When I exited the freeway, a pair of headlights flickered in my rearview mirror. A van was behind me and approaching at a speed I knew was too fast. The headlights flashed again as I merged into the lane next to me. I hoped to pull out of its way when a car horn blared. Looking to my right, I saw a black sedan in my blind spot.
“Shit,” I said under my breath as I corrected my wheel and jumped back into my lane.
The van flashed his lights again. I sped up, ready to pass the sedan, when it cut sharply in front of me. Slamming on my brakes, I came to a sharp stop inches from hitting the car’s bumper, and when I looked in my rearview mirror, I saw the van’s headlights careening toward me. There wasn’t time to move, but that didn’t stop me from trying. I turned the wheel and stepped on the gas when the van collided with my back end.
My head slung back and hit the seat as my car bolted forward. I hit the rear end of the stationary sedan, and the impact caused my car to rocket around and skid sideways before stopping with a jerk. My ears rang in the sudden silence, and my body quivered with adrenaline.
I took a deep breath and uncurled my fingers from the wheel. The airbag in front of me was deflated, though I don’t remember it popping out. I pushed the gearshift into park and fiddled with my seatbelt, trying several times to get it undone without success. My hands were shaking and impossible to command.
“Ma’am?” My car door opened with a jerk, and I turned to the hulking man that crouched in the open space. I stared at his nose, and for a moment all I could do was question why it was so large. “Ya hurt?” His voice held a thick East Texas drawl.
“I—I don’t know. I don’t think so,” I said as I mentally assessed my body.
“Your name Abigail Swift?”
Confusion was replaced by alarm. “What? How did you?” I couldn’t focus. My thoughts jumped from one question to the next. “Did Mack send you?”
The man didn’t respond as he reached across my lap and unclasped my seatbelt. Grasping me just under my armpit, he pulled me from the car and pushed me to the ground in one fluid motion. A grunt was forced from my lungs when my chest hit the pavement and blinding terror exploded inside me. I pushed up, ready to run, but before I could get to my feet, the man dug his knee into my back and flattened me against the ground.
The urge to flee was overwhelming, but the weight he pressed against me made it impossible. I screamed when he grabbed my hands and bound my wrists with a zip-tie behind me.
“Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?” I asked, desperate for answers as my chances for escape diminished under his hold.
A familiar ripping sound sliced through the night. “No, please.” I squirmed under his weight and turned my head away from his chasing hands. “I promise I won’t scream. Tell me what’s happening.”
Silver duct tape was slapped over my mouth and wrapped behind my neck. I screamed into my closed lips, but the sound was muted. My breathing, harsh through my nostrils, had more volume. I was in trouble, and this had everything to do with my drift.
The man lifted my arms behind me in a way that my shoulders twisted to the point of separation. I scrambled to my feet to relieve the white-hot pressure and stumbled when he shoved me forward toward the van. The doors were open, and if I wanted to live, I couldn’t get in that van.
I took off in a sprint as soon as I had my footing. My feet pounded against the concrete, and I hoped to find a passing vehicle before I was caught. In the distance, a pair of headlights turned toward me, and my heart leapt. I ran into the road, directly in the path of the car, and screamed my futile screams.
The man was on me in an instant, but if I could fight long enough, there was a chance I’d be seen. I struggled against him and flailed my body in ways that made holding me impossible. I threw my head back, and after a satisfying crunch, the man groaned and let me go.
I spurred my legs forward and hope billowed in my chest until I saw the car turn onto a cross street. It disappeared, and the night never seemed blacker. The hope I’d held deflated, leaving me panicked and empty. Out here, I was alone. I hadn’t told anyone where I was going. No one knew to expect me, to check on me, to miss me. Heavy arms wrapped around my middle and choked out a muffled scream.
“Stop fightin’.” The man’s words were loud in my ear, and with a grunt, he threw me into the van.
My shoulder caught my fall, and I flinched when the back doors slammed with a hollow bang. Fear curled up from my feet and writhed inside my chest. It was a living, breathing thing, rolling and stretching under my skin. A dragon—a beast of helpless panic.
The van rumbled to a start, and I scooted to the furthest corner from the door. A partition divided the back end and the driver’s cabin, leaving me isolated and alone. Bits of light flicked through the painted windows, but I was unable to gauge where we were heading.
Minutes passed, and there was no sign of slowing down. If I was going to survive, I needed to calm down. I needed to think. What had Mack told me? I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to remember everything he’d ever said about my drift, the diamond, and the man who’d thought nothing of killing me for its whereabouts.
Nino Roselli.
A thousand questions beat inside my skull. How long had he known about me? How many others had I put in danger? How did he know where I was or where I was going? Was I being followed? Had he been waiting for a night like tonight? A night I’d be alone and could disappear before anyone thought to look?
I twisted my wrists with every unanswered question, hoping to wiggle free, but the unforgiving plastic binding cut into my skin, and a warm slick of blood trailed toward my fingers. The van made a sharp left turn, and the tires hit something large. The bump lifted me an inch off the floor, and when I dropped down, I was thrown to the side, sliding toward the front of the van as we began a steep downhill descent.
The van slowed, swaying heavily from right to left before coming to a gentle stop. The driver’s side door opened, and I cringed when I heard his footsteps. He was coming for me.
I squeezed my eyes closed and sucked in a breath. I held it until my lungs screamed for release and only exhaled when I heard the pull of the handle. Now was not the time for weakness. Now was the time for courage.
The back doors opened. “Come on out, now.” The man gestured with his hand and widened the door with the other. If it were possible, his nose was larger than it had been before. Blood stuck to his upper lip and congealed in the hair at his chin. If I hadn’t been so afraid, I would’ve smiled.
“I don’t wanna come in there and getcha, but don’t think I won’t.”
I had only two options. I could stay in the van and wait to be forcibly removed, or I could exit of my own accord and save strength for when I had a reasonable chance to escape. I went with the latter, and kept my eyes glued to the man as I inched toward the door.
When I was within arm’s reach, his hands gripped my feet and yanked me forward. As soon as my lower body was out of the van, he grabbed my shoulders and hauled me out with a shove. I fell to my knees and yelped when I hit the concrete.
I wasted no time assessing my surroundings. We had veere
d off the main road and down an embankment. The freeway soared overhead, and all around us were concrete pilings, built to hold the structure up. No road led to where we were, and the overpass above obscured us from sight. No one would hear me scream. No one would see me die.
“You gonna run?” His voice held a nasal quality that hadn’t been there before, and I felt a small sense of satisfaction knowing I’d contributed to that.
I shook my head, and he knelt in front of me.
“You gonna scream?”
“Mm-mm,” I said and shook my head again for emphasis.
The man pulled a small pocketknife from his pants and flipped open the tiny blade. “Stay real still,” he said as he brought the knife to my face. “I don’t wanna cut cha.”
I felt the tip of the blade next to my chin, and I closed my eyes. He needled it under the tape and cut through the width. Grabbing the severed end, he ripped the tape sideways and freed my mouth.
“Ah,” I said with a cry. It stung, and when I licked my lips, I tasted blood.
“Now git up and walk,” he said in a clipped voice. When I didn’t move he pulled me up by the arm.
“Where are we going?” I asked. “Where’re you taking me?” I dug my heels into the ground, and as the man pulled my elbow to spur me forward, I leaned away, afraid of the darkness ahead.
“I said walk.” A hefty shove against my back had me running several steps to avoid falling forward. “Keep goin’.”
Each step took me farther into darkness, until the shadows were more prominent than light.
“That’s enough,” another voice said. My head turned toward it, not recognizing the cultured sound.
The speaker stood a bit behind the other man, his face more difficult to see. “What do you want from me?” My feet were braced apart, my knees slightly bent, ready to run if the opportunity presented itself.
“Abigail Swift.” The words were slow and methodical, like he was tasting my name on his tongue.
I wasn’t dealing with another clumsy hired hand. The voice, the way his words commanded attention, turned the frigid air to ice. I took a step back, wanting to distance myself from the threat I couldn’t see.