Tommy’s Baby

After that I don’t know where he took me. He was the only person I’d seen. He brought me a meal twice a day and some water. He emptied the bucket. He wouldn’t speak to me. I’d tried begging, promising, threatening. He knew I had no power, nothing to hurt him with.

  My ankle was chained to a pipe. I could walk from the mattress to the bucket and reach the chair. That’s it. No exercise, no light source except when he opened the door twice a day. It was silent. Which told me one of two things—I was somewhere remote, or the place was soundproofed. Warehouses were near docks or rail lines or airports or trucking hubs of some sort. So common sense told me that no one could hear me scream. I had tried that, too. The only person who came was the pilot who was also my keeper. He had opened the door, pushed back his jacket so I could see the gun on his hip. That was enough. The silent threat that I could shut up and stop annoying him or I could be a body found in a warehouse six months from now.

  It wasn’t hard to stay quiet when despair seized me. I didn’t think I’d lose hope so quickly, but I was chained to a pipe. There was nothing I could do but cry and wish I’d done things differently. My mood swung between hoping Tommy would carry my memory in his heart all his life and hoping he’d forget me and never hurt from my sudden absence, the fact that I had left him again. I had set out to run because Lucci’s men had found me, but that didn’t change the fact that I had left him without a word of goodbye. I hoped, most of the time, that I was the only one who would carry regret for what we’d almost had.

  But despair must have been what took me about four days in, before I gave up counting. Because I started puking. When I tried to eat the sandwich left for me, the sight and smell and texture made me gag. I tried to force it down, but I threw it up. All over the floor. I couldn’t get away from the stink of my own vomit all that day, and my stomach rolled every time I so much as thought about eating. I had rinsed my mouth, drank my water.

  When my keeper returned and saw what I’d done, he came back with a roll of paper towels and tossed them to me. I had to clean it up. I also figured he wouldn’t be so nice about it if I kept this shit up.

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” I had tried to tell him. “I think something was wrong with the meat.”

  Nothing was wrong with the meat. It was me. I was sick with dread, with the fact of my imprisonment and my lack of hope. All that lay before me was whatever Lucci decided to do with me, which would probably make my imprisonment look like a goddamn trip to Disney World by comparison. I couldn’t dwell on what might happen to me. There were too many horrible possibilities, and I’d watched way too much CSI to let myself consider any of it.

  I was sick again when he brought soup. This time I threw up in the bucket. I even moved the bucket closer so I could lie on the mattress and just heave up on my elbow to throw up. I didn’t feel feverish, no chills or sweating. I didn’t ache. I was just seasick, only I was lying still. I slept most of that night and felt better. Until I got up and my head swum with dizziness. I dropped back down on the mattress and threw up some more.

  It was that day I quit trying to figure out how long I’d been gone. They’d disappeared me from a motel parking lot in the Caribbean where I’d be assumed to have checked out early and gone home or wherever. No one was going to report me missing or look for me, not that they’d know where to look. I had been so careful to make sure I couldn’t be found. Now I saw that all I’d done was make my body harder to locate when the time came. Because my friends didn’t know where I took off to or what name I’d used. I cried some, threw up, and slept. That’s what I did for hours or days or weeks, until all I knew was the stink of the bucket and the pressure of the bleak darkness on me from every direction.

  Finally, one day I was able to eat my supper. There were crackers on the side of my bowl of soup. I nibbled a cracker and managed to keep it down. The salt tasted good to me. I wanted one million crackers. And Gatorade. God, I would kill for a red Gatorade. Had he given me crackers because I was sick? Was it a gesture of kindness? Probably not, but I took the comfort from the thought anyway.

  I wondered if I should save some of the crackers and hide them under my mattress in case he never brought any more, but it was ravenous all of a sudden. I gobbled down all eight crackers and guzzled my water and felt much better. When he came to take the tray and empty the bucket, I thanked him. He didn’t respond. I wondered if that was part of the torment of this—the silence. I shuddered, wondering how much worse this would have to get before I’d give anything. For sunlight or water or one phone call. A blanket. A shower. I cried a little then, thinking of Tommy.

  I had kept myself from it for a long time. Brooding about him wouldn’t help. But once the image of his face intruded on my mind there was no pushing it away. It was comforting somehow to think of him. To remember how close we’d been, how safe and whole I’d felt. I even had a dream about him that night, that he was taking me on the Ferris wheel. I could feel his hand in mine, and the flutter in my stomach as he leaned in to kiss me. As I parted my lips in the dream, he disappeared, and I lurched forward onto his empty seat.

  Waking up, I realized I’d rolled off the mattress onto the floor, which was even colder. Shivering, I climbed back up on the mattress, heart pounding, eyes wet with tears at the loss of Tommy even in my dream for the moments I’d felt like he was with me. I curled up in a ball to try and keep warm, cursing the O’Shea’s polo shirt and shorts I had on when I called that car on the fateful night. If I’d only grabbed a sweatshirt, changed into long pants. Another in a long list of regrets. This place was as cold as Chicago.

  Chicago. Of course, Lucci would have me brought back to his stomping grounds. The only thing the driver had said when he gave me to the pilot was, “Mr. Lucci is out of town for a few weeks. He’ll deal with you when he gets back.”

  Back would mean back home, as in the Windy City. That made sense, and somehow gave me something to hold on to. I was pretty sure I was in a warehouse near the river. If I ever had a shot to get away, I’d at least have a clue what I was dealing with. Like the fact I’d die of exposure before I got very far considering that it was winter and lake effect wind was a bitch. I didn’t even have shoes. So a lot of my escape fantasies just got even more impossible. It wasn’t like the city cops were going to go beat the bushes down by the river looking for a failed restaurant owner who got nabbed by the loan shark. A missing woman who was missed by no one.

  Days tumbled by me. When I was sick and throwing up, I slept most of the day. When I wasn’t sick, I tried to remember movies I’d seen and retell the story to myself or think of song lyrics or poems I had to learn in school. I cataloged recipes in my mind, trying to think of one for every letter of the alphabet. Anything to keep myself calm and to try and keep from losing my mind in the dark captivity without hope.

  One day—or night? —the big concrete room got even colder. A storm perhaps, but I couldn’t stop shaking. It was horrible. I tucked my legs up into my shirt and pulled my arms in the sleeves. I wondered if I could rip the cover of the mattress to crawl in it for warmth, but I didn’t think I was strong enough. I’d been sick for so long, and I was weak.

  The terror finally crept in. As more time passed unmarked by me, I felt the weight of dread, of the horror of Mr. Lucci’s eventual arrival. His decision what to do with me. I couldn’t pay him the money. I wouldn’t have run if I could have paid him off. He could torture me or have someone else do it while he watched and ate ice cream. It wasn’t like there would be any consequences for him. I’d been waiting there like a rat in a cage for so long, which made it obvious how unimportant I was. I was low on his list of crap to deal with. An annoyance. One he could have raped and beaten and dumped by the river to freeze to death. An annoyance he could sell to recoup his initial investment. He could drug me or make me transport drugs. I was a thing now, nothing but a way to get his money back or to get some revenge on me. I threw up so much just thinking about it. I sat shaking on the mattress, teeth chattering. When the man cam
e in to bring me food, I shook my head, crying in front of him for the first time.

  “Please let me go,” I said. “I’m so scared. Please. I won’t tell anyone. I don’t know anything about you so I can’t incriminate you. Please.” I was beyond pride. I was begging for my life. Begging a man who wouldn’t even answer me or let me have a wet wipe, for fuck’s sake. Not a likely source of mercy.

  He didn’t even roll his eyes. Just dropped the paper plate on the floor beside the mattress, took the bucket and walked out. Later, after I’d forced down part of a piece of bread between sobs, he came back. He had a blanket. It looked like the kind they use in moving vans, dark blue and quilted, rough. I reached for it eagerly and wrapped up. I blubbered a thank you as he left. When I woke up, shaking with fear again, there was an orange light. I got up and tried to go toward it, but the chain on my ankle wouldn’t let me get close. As near as I could get, I felt warmth. Not much, but a trace. It was a small space heater. Not enough to heat the whole room by a long shot, but enough to take the edge off the chill. I fell on my knees in gratitude. It turned out I didn’t want to freeze to death. If I’d had the choice of freezing versus facing Lucci, I would’ve picked freezing, but when it came to the point, I wanted to live. I had a fierce, stubborn desire to live. Not only to live but to get back to St. Martin and tell Tommy that I was an idiot, but I was his idiot and would be for the rest of my life.

  The next time I woke, it was to blindingly bright light. A strip of fluorescents high above me were switched on, illuminating the impeccably suited Rocco Lucci as he entered my room.

  “Stinks in here,” he said with a sniff, looking back at my jailer. “Bring my coat. It’s fuckin’ cold.”

  The man who’d been guarding me brought what was honest to God a fur-lined overcoat and draped it over Lucci’s shoulders. I would have given damn near anything for that coat, to curl up in the furry warmth. I was aware of how filthy I was, how I looked and smelled. I had nothing to bargain with. I had to face my fate, and I didn’t like it one bit. I wanted out. I wanted to go back to Tommy without this hanging over my head.

  I waited, not wanting to be the first to speak. I would have stood up, but the danger of getting dizzy and throwing up was too real.

  “Miss Kelly,” he said at last, “you’ve disappointed me greatly. I thought we had a deal.”

  “You kept changing the terms,” I said as coolly as I could.

  He smiled, shark-like, just like his minion on the island had. It didn’t reach his eyes.

  “That is just how the game is played,” he said, spreading his leather-gloved hands as if it were merely a law of nature.

  “It’s not a fair game. It’s rigged in your favor.”

  He gave a short bark of a laugh at my defiance.

  “You can pay me what you owe me, or you can work off your debt,” he said as if the choices were obvious.

  “You know I can’t pay you,” I said.

  “I suspected as much. Work, then.”

  “What kind of work?” I said, eyes narrowed at him.

  “I have a stable of real nice girls. You should fit in fine. Once they clean you up. You look like shit now. And smell like it.”

  I gritted my teeth. He was going to prostitute me. I knew exactly what he meant. I swallowed hard, trying to push down the bile that rose in my throat. This detestable man who had defrauded me and hiked the interest every three months until I could never pay off the loan, this crooked piece of crap was going to pimp me out. I wanted to strike at him. I did. I lunged for him, wanting to claw his face. The chain on my ankle held and yanked me back like a mad dog on a leash. He laughed, a hearty belly laugh at my inability to reach him, my laughable helplessness in the face of this threat. I screamed with frustration and fury. Whatever in me that had been timid and afraid was gone now, swept away by rage. This filthy son of a bitch. I’d tear him apart as soon as I could reach him. Claws out and mad as hell.

  Weeks in a warehouse prison didn’t break me. It taught me how to wait.

  Chapter 23

  Tommy

  “You look like hell,” Connor grunted.

  I lined the glasses up on the shelf behind the bar the way I liked them, perfectly spaced. I didn’t respond. Just went on working. He was right and there was no sense arguing the point.

  “You lost weight?”

  Again, I didn’t answer. Of course I had. It was hard to eat knowing that she left me. Not a note, not a message. Nothing. Her number didn’t work anymore. She took the scorched earth approach to cutting me out of her life. Sure, I’d accused her of cheating, but it was a fight. You don’t leave the love of your life over one crappy fight. She wasn’t the kind to give up like that either. When we’d broken up years ago, it had been after weeks of arguing and crying and begging and bargaining. It wasn’t a decision made rashly, lightly. It wasn’t something decided on impulse because I pissed her off.

  This was out of character for her. She was stubborn, but she wasn’t heartless or cruel. I had seen her feelings for me. Liza had looked me in the eyes and told me that she loved me, and she’d never stopped loving me, not one day in the decade we were apart. There was no reason to say that if it weren’t true. She already had me in her bed, if that had been all she wanted. There was no advantage to be gained from lying. And she’d never been a liar, not to me. She was keeping a secret. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

  “Tom!” Connor’s voice cut through my reverie.

  “What? Jesus, you don’t have to yell,” I grumbled.

  “You were ignoring me. Now tell me what I just said and stop rearranging those damn glasses.”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I was distracted.”

  “You have been ever since she took off. And left me in a hell of a bind, too. I misread that situation. She seemed responsible. Eager, even, for the job. Either you ran her off or she was a pretty good actress to convince me at first that she wanted to work.”

  “Liza’s a terrible liar. She’d never fool you or anyone. She did want the job.”

  “Yeah, wanted it so bad she took a hike and left me in the lurch. We got one cook working doubles and cussing me and saying he’s gonna go work at a resort and have a regular shift. We got the kitchen in disarray and the one cook we got left is in a permanent shitty mood and yells at everyone.”

  “Well, they work for you, so a short temper shouldn’t bother them,” I pointed out.

  “That’s the way you’re gonna address this dilemma? Being a smartass with me? I thought you were smarter than that, baby bro,” he said.

  “You think I’m scared of you, old man,” I said, teasing him but with a warning in my voice. I was spoiling for a fight, and any brother would do at this point.

  “Taking a swing at me won’t make you feel better. We gotta find another cook before the one we got burns out. I swear, you’d think a restaurant owner would’ve been more responsible.”

  “What?”

  “Liza. She owned a restaurant in Chicago for a few years. She told me that’s what she did before she came here. Didn’t you know?”

  I shook my head. Then I took out my phone and Googled “Liza Kelly restaurant Chicago”. A few hits came up for a restaurant opening a little over three years ago, a feature in the city magazine about the up-and-coming young chef and her innovative style. A couple good reviews in newspapers and travel websites. Then a headline that the place was forced to close for financial reasons a few months ago. The owner and head chef, Liza Kelly, could not be reached for comment at press time. She would have been devastated, I knew. But it wasn’t like her. Not to defend herself, explain herself in the press. To let her employees go, to give up. No one with her skills and the location the original article had listed could have failed at a restaurant unless some serious shit went down. There had been no scandal, no closing down repeatedly due to health violations or any criminal charges about money laundering or anything. So there had to be an explanation. This was a woman who,
at twenty-one, had held on and stayed true to me for months even after she told me she didn’t think she could be with me anymore. Until we officially broke up the day before I shipped out, she had never wavered. Not when it was hard or sad or upsetting. This was a woman so stubborn, so loyal that she couldn’t have lost a restaurant through mismanagement in three years, couldn’t have run off on a vacation afterward and gone back to working in a greasy bar kitchen like nothing had happened.

  “It doesn’t sound like her at all,” I said in disbelief.

  “Maybe, just maybe, she changed in ten years, bro. We all do. And maybe she went through some shit or whatever and she changed for the worse. It isn’t like we’re the same as we were in our twenties. You can’t expect her to be this—angel—you’ve been thinking about for years, the one that got away. She had a place of her own, she blew it, whatever. She took off on you. Left her job and her man without saying shit. It’s a crappy way to behave, but plenty of adults do it. That doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy at work here. Just because you don’t wanna believe she’d do any of it.”

  “I know. I know. But it feels wrong.”

  “Course it does. It feels like you got your guts ripped out. It feels like shit. Brandi left me, remember? When she was pregnant, and I didn’t know it. I acted like a lion with a thorn in its paw—"

  “You were a complete jackass. You acted more like a grizzly bear with gangrene in its paw.”

  “Fine. Whatever. Point is, it hurts like hell, whether it’s her fault or yours. But she did what she did, and she’s gone. You know what you have to do.”

  “I can’t just let her go. Not this time.”

  “Who the fuck told you to let her go? Do what I did. Go after her. I got a PI in Seattle that’s really good. Found Brandi for me. I’m gonna send you his number.”

  I sagged against the bar with relief. When he shared the contact, I dialed the number.