by Jeff Shelby
“Whatever, kid,” Ike said. “You’re good with me. And take the day off, alright? I haven’t sat my fat ass over in that sand for awhile and my tan’s fading. I got it covered today.”
“You sure?”
He nodded. “Positive. I’ll find you tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Ike,” I said. “Really.”
“Quit thanking me, kid,” he said, smiling. “Gonna make me feel like I need to hug you or something.”
We said goodbye and I shut the door. I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done if it hadn’t been for Carter setting me up with Ike. There weren’t too many people who would just give you a place to live and a job without asking a million questions. No matter what happened, I wouldn’t just disappear on Ike. He deserved better than that.
The cell phone chirped and I jumped, unused to having a phone around. I dug it out from my pile of clothes and answered it.
“Noah.” It was Bella, her voice high-pitched, garbled. “He’s gone.”
“Alex? Where did he go?”
“No. Jackson.”
FORTY-TWO
Blood leaked from the corner of Alex’s mouth. He lay sprawled on his back on the sofa, his left eye swollen shut. Bella sat on the floor, squeezing a handful of Legos, tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t look up when I burst through the door.
“Tell me,” I said.
“I was asleep,” Alex said, his voice groggy. “But I heard something. Thought maybe he’d gotten up for a drink of water or to go to the bathroom. I went back to look and got jumped. Saw at least two before I went out. Hit me with a gun, I think.”
“Did you see anything?” I asked Bella.
She didn’t respond, just sat there clutching the tiny bricks, as if the handful of Legos would somehow morph into her son.
“Bella.” My voice was harsher than I intended. “We need your help. What did you see?”
“I was already in the shower,” Bella said, her voice hollow. “I didn’t hear anything. I got out, put on my clothes and found him in the hallway.” She motioned to Alex. “I ran to Jax’s room and it was…empty.”
A sob tore from her chest and I looked away. I knew what it was like to lose someone.
“David.” There was no question in my mind.
“He took him,” she said, her voice breaking. “It was him.”
I nodded and felt the same rush of guilt I’d felt walking into Liz’s condo. I should’ve stayed with them. I shouldn’t have left them. I shouldn’t have been so stupid.
“I’m so sorry, Bella,” Alex said, trying to sit up. “It’s my fault.”
She bit her lip and folded her arms across her chest, her fingers still wrapped around the Legos. “No. It’s not. It’s mine. For letting this go on so long.”
“Noah left me here,” he said. “I should’ve gotten up when you got in the shower.”
She shook her head. “It’s not your fault. David was going to make his point one way or another. And he decided to do it.”
I bent down next to her. “Bella. Listen to me. He did this because he’s pissed at me. Because I showed him up.”
“He took my kid.” Her voice broke and I put my hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll get him back.”
She looked at me with a ferocity I’d never seen. “Promise?”
The guilt sat on my shoulders like dead weight. My decision to get her out had hurt Jackson. It was on me to fix it and I hadn’t been good at fixing anything in a really long time.
“Promise.”
She dropped the bricks she was holding and stood. “Tell me what to do.”
I fingered the Legos on the floor, thinking. “He wants his money, Bella. And he wants me. Because I did this to him. Put him in this position.”
“No,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “He’s doing it because he can.”
I waited, watching her. The sadness and helplessness were battling with some other emotion inside of her. Anger.
She paced the floor. “Control. I told you. He needs control. Just like Evan. When you told him I wouldn’t run for him anymore, he lost control of me. Now he’s got it back.” She paused. “Only way he’s gonna give that up is if he’s dead. I promise.”
Alex finally managed to push himself into a sitting position. He grabbed a tissue from the table and wiped at his mouth. “Not if we get you to San Diego. He won’t go that far.”
She sat down next to him. “It doesn’t feel like I can get far enough away.” She hesitated. The anger died out and the tears resurfaced. “And now he has Jax.”
The sobs came out in short bursts. Alex put his arm around her and she collapsed into him, her body shaking as she cried against him.
I watched her, helpless.
Liz’s voiced whispered in my head again.
Be you.
“Gimme your phone, Alex,” I said.
He looked at me, confused, but dug into his pocket. He fished it out and handed it to me.
I opened the contacts and found what I was looking for. “I gotta go outside and make a call.”
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Bella pushed tighter into him, her crying muffled as she pressed into his chest.
I headed for the door. “Being me.”
FORTY-THREE
Fifteen minutes later, I walked back into the house and handed the phone to Alex. He still had his arm around Bella. She’d stopped crying, but looked lifeless against him.
I sat down on the coffee table and touched her knee. “We need to get you packed.”
She didn’t move, but her eyes shifted in my direction. “I’m not going anywhere without Jax.”
“I know,” I said. “You have my word. We’re going to go get him and then we’ll get you to San Diego. But we need to be ready to go and that means getting you packed. Whatever you need to take with you. We’ll figure out furniture and things like that later on. But anything you and Jackson need for the short term? We need to get it packed now.”
“Why?” she asked, sitting up from Alex. “I don’t understand.”
“The only thing you need to understand is that we’re going to get Jax back and then get you both to San Diego,” I said. “But I don’t wanna waste time. As soon as it’s time to go, you need to be ready. So that means packing.”
Alex’s arm tightened around her. “And it’ll give you something to focus on. This is something you can do.” He looked at me and I nodded. “Best thing you can do is be ready to go when we bring him back.”
I hadn’t known Alex well back in San Diego, but in that moment, his willingness to just go along with me without asking questions and to suggest exactly what I’d been about to suggest, made me very glad that he’d come to Florida.
“I don’t know if I can,” she said.
“Start with your stuff,” he said. “Let me talk to Noah for a minute and then I’ll come help you with Jax’s stuff. Alright?”
She looked at me. “You swear we won’t go until he’s back?”
“I swear, Bella,” I said. “We aren’t going anywhere without Jax.”
She looked at Alex and he smiled at her and there was something in the smile that made me feel left out. Not in a bad way, but there was something intimate there that I wasn’t a part of. She stood and walked slowly back toward the bedrooms.
As soon as she was out of earshot, Alex said “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I should’ve been awake,” he said, the features in his face tight with anger. “So stupid.”
“Why were in you Bella’s room?” I asked.
He sat up straighter, surprised. “How’d you know?”
“Whoever came in here, if you were on the couch, pretty sure you would’ve heard them sooner,” I said. “And pretty sure you would’ve scared the shit out of them and they would’ve done worse to you than they did.”
His shoulders fell and he exhaled. He rubbed his hands together. “Yeah. Right. I was in her room. She didn’t wan
na be alone. Nothing happened. We just talked. She couldn’t sleep.” He shook his head. “We talked most of the night. About Jackson. His dad. Liz.”
I don’t think I winced outwardly at the mention of her name, but everything inside me did.
“We fell asleep on her bed together,” he said. “But nothing happened.”
“I’m not asking,” I said. “None of my business.”
“I know,” he said. “But I don’t want you thinking I’d do that. Take advantage of her or whatever.”
“I didn’t think that. I’m glad you were here to be with her. I think she likes you. That’s good.”
He shrugged. “For all the good I did.”
“Over and done,” I said. “And you’ll get a chance to fix it.”
He raised the eyebrow over the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. “Yeah?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I need to go do a few things, but we’re going to go get him tonight.”
“You’re sure it’s David?”
“I’m gonna find out for certain,” I said. “But, yeah, I feel sure.”
“So what are we gonna do?”
I stood. “I’ll tell you tonight. But we’re getting him back.”
He started to say something, then stopped. “Okay. Whatever you say. I’ll be ready.”
“No one comes in the front door but me,” I said. “Anyone else tries, shoot them.”
“Done,” he said.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” I said. I nodded toward the back of the house. “Stay close to her. Just reassure her. And let her know she’ll be safe in San Diego.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Be okay if she stays with you for awhile when you get there?” I said. “In San Diego?”
He smiled. “Yeah. That’d be okay.”
I smiled back. “Thought it would be.”
FORTY-FOUR
An hour later, I had confirmation that David had Jackson.
I took Alex’s car and drove back to David’s house, parking two blocks away. I got out and walked up the street and was a block away when I saw Red at the end of David’s driveway. I was three McMansions away when he headed toward me, the bulge of a gun on him visible even from that distance.
“Can’t let you go in, man,” he said, meeting me half way.
“That right?”
He nodded. “Yup. I ain’t got no issue with you, dude, but I ain’t working for you.”
“You like working for an asshole like Hanson?”
He shrugged. “It’s a job. If not him—I work for some other asshole. Know what I’m sayin’?”
I nodded. “Got it. You okay with him taking the kid?”
He glanced away from me and didn’t say anything.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I thought. Takes a different kinda asshole to take a little kid, doesn’t it?”
His eyes shifted back to me and held mine.
“I mean, taking a kid’s a bit different then shaking down some junkie who owes or some mule that’s skimmed,” I said. “Special kinda asshole right there.”
Red’s mouth twitched.
“That’s the kinda asshole that’s gonna end up dead,” I said. “Soon. Be a shame for someone just pulling a job to go down with him.”
Red stared past me down the street before looking at me again. “Kid’s fine. Got chips and ice cream up there. I bought it myself. Played video games with him. He’s alright.”
“Oh, yeah, sounds way fucking better than, you know, being with his mom.”
“He ain’t gonna get hurt,” he said.
“Fucking A right he’s not,” I said. “He does, everybody in that house is dead. That’s a promise. Last thing you’ll see is me feeding you a gun. So you better pick a side. Fast.”
Red raised an eyebrow. “That right?”
I stared at him and nodded.
He tried to hold my gaze, but finally blinked. “Look, man. I work for Hanson. He wants his money. That’s it. He’s just trying to scare the girl, but he wants the money. Give him the money back and he’ll let the kid go.”
“And he’ll still be all over the girl’s ass,” I said, shaking my head. “This is going to end. All of it.”
“You sure you know who you’re messin’ with?”
“Hanson?” I asked.
He nodded.
“I’m not afraid of Hanson,” I said, smiling. “If he knew anything about me, he’d be afraid of me. Begging me to keep the money and tripping over himself to give the kid back.” The smile died. “He has no idea about me. And neither do you.”
Red’s gaze wavered and he looked unsure of himself.
“All I wanna know is the kid’s gonna stay safe,” I said.
Red nodded. “He’ll be safe.”
“Okay,” I said. “And when I come calling, you can either get the fuck out of the way and we part friends. Or you can go down with the ship. Because I’m taking it down.”
“How you know I’m not gonna go back and tell him all this?” he asked.
“I really don’t give a shit if you do,” I said. “Either way, I’m coming. What you do is your choice. You were cool with me the other day so I’m returning the favor. Only thing I’m asking is that you keep the kid safe.” I paused. “Because you don’t seem like that special kinda asshole.”
I turned and walked away before he could respond.
FORTY-FIVE
I drove back to Fort Walton and found Ike on the beach, soaking up the sun and guzzling water from a gallon jug.
“Thought I told you to take the day off,” he said, perched on a short beach chair that hovered just above the sand.
“I am,” I said. “But I need a couple things.”
“Alright.”
I glanced around to make sure no one was close by. “Couple of guns. Two at least, three would be better. At least one auto. Don’t care what it is. And I need them today.”
Ike shifted in his chair. “Don’t suppose I should ask why.”
“No. You shouldn’t.”
“Good rather than evil?”
“In the larger sense, absolutely.”
He nodded slowly. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do.”
“The other thing. I may be gone tomorrow.”
“Gone?” he asked. “As in gone gone?”
I nodded. “I told you this morning I wouldn’t just up and bail on you. You’ve absolutely saved my ass, Ike. In more ways than you know. I owe you. So it’s the least I can do. Good chance I won’t be around tomorrow.”
“I shouldn’t ask where you’re going, right?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I said.
“And I’ll assume this is tied to your need for guns?”
“Good assumption.”
He nodded and stared at the water. “You need anything? To go, I mean? You good with money?”
“I’m good,” I said. “You’ve overpaid me the entire time I’ve been here and I’ve barely spent a penny. I’m good. And, obviously, I’m paying for my order.”
He waved me off. “Kid, this is Florida. Guns aren’t exactly like buried treasure. Look in any trashcan and you’re likely to come out with one. Don’t worry about it.”
“If I owe you, I wanna know,” I said. “I’ll cover the cost.”
“And you need them today?”
“Yeah, as soon as you can get them to me. If I’m not home, just leave them there.”
He nodded. “I’ll make a couple calls. Gimme a couple hours.”
“That’s fine.”
He stared again at the water. “People were talking today. About some guy on the water this morning. Surfing like nobody’s business, doing things the tourists can’t do on a rental. Then he apparently passed out in the sand for awhile.”
My mouth curved into a small smile before I could stop it. “That right?”
“Yeah, but when they said he was good looking, figured it couldn’t have been you.”
I chuckled and nodded my head. “Right.”
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