The Arrangement [Box Set]

by Abby Weeks

  —Oh no! she said.

  Jack fired his gun through the opening in the doors and the attackers retreated back down the corridor.

  —Jimmy! Jack said. You take the girls back to the vehicle. I’ll hold these guys off.

  —You won’t stand a chance, Jimmy said.

  —I’ll be able to hold them off long enough for you to get to the truck.

  Reluctantly Jimmy acknowledged the plan. It was their only hope. They would leave Jack here to stop the pursuers coming down the corridor after them. The only problem was that Herb would send someone around to the other side and within minutes, Jack would be surrounded. He wouldn’t be able to hold them all off from both directions and he’d most likely be killed or captured. April thought desperately for a different plan but there was no alternative. If they were to get away at all, Jack would have to stay here and block the pursuers.

  Jimmy took the two guards to a walk-in freezer and pushed them through the door. They wouldn’t be able to open it from the inside. At least not for a while.

  Then he shouted for the women to follow him.

  —What about Jack? April said.

  —There’s no alternative, Jimmy said. We have to go now.

  April ran to Jack and gave him the most passionate, heartfelt kiss of her life. She owed him everything. If it wasn’t for the sacrifice he was making, they’d be caught for sure. There would be no way they’d make it down the length of the open lawn with Herb and Walter and the other guards behind them.

  —Thank you, Jack, April said.

  And that was it. In a blur of frantic action she and Midge pulled up Lucy and Mary and followed Jimmy through the kitchen. Even before they’d made it to the far end of the kitchen they heard more gunfire from Jack’s direction. April had no idea how long it would take a guard to come around the house using a different route. They had to hurry.

  They fled down the corridor, passed all the service rooms, till finally they burst through into the dressing area and sauna room and then out to the patio by the pool.

  —We can’t stop, Jimmy said, and led them down some steps and out onto the lawn.

  They were at an all out run now, running down the length of the lawn, past fountains and decorative hedges, all the way to the trees at the far end of the property.

  —Keep running, Jimmy shouted.

  April winced every time she heard a gunshot from back in the direction of the house.

  They began to make their way through the forest, heading south back toward the place they had first climbed the wall. More and more gunfire kept coming from the house.

  —Jimmy, April called at last.

  —What is it? We can’t stop.

  —You have to go back for Jack.

  —You’re crazy. What if they catch you. It will all have been for nothing.

  —We’ll keep going. I can make it to the truck. You go back. We’ll wait for you at the truck.

  —I don’t know, April. Jack will kill me if anything happens to you. All he cares about is getting you out of this place.

  —Midge and I can hold our own. We’ll get to the truck and if you don’t come in five minutes, we’ll leave without you.

  Jimmy looked at her, and then at Midge.

  —Ok, he said.

  Taking a shotgun, two handguns and a rifle he made off back in the direction of the house. April led Midge and the girls carefully through the trees. It was almost completely dark but they made their way as quietly and steadily as possible. They heard the gunfire off in the distance and after a few minutes it intensified markedly.

  —That’ll be Jimmy, Midge said.

  April nodded.

  —April, Midge said. Where did you find those two? They’re risking their lives for us.

  —I know, April said. I can’t believe it.

  Eventually they reached the southeast corner of the property. The wall was high but there were stumps of trees and an old fence post that they could use to help get Midge to the top. When she got up April passed Lucy, and then Mary to her. Then she followed.

  Thankfully the truck was where they had left it. It appeared as though no one had been anywhere near it.

  —Ok, she said to Midge. I’ll drop down. You pass me the girls.

  The two girls were beyond being afraid at this point but the relief of having their mother and Midge there to care for them appeared to outweigh even the terror of the gunfire and the dark forest. It appeared to April as if they had grown in the weeks they had been away from her, not just physically but psychologically and emotionally too. They must have been through so much, she thought.

  She reached up and took Lucy and Mary down, then helped Midge. Then they got into the cab of the truck and waited.

  —What if they don’t come? Midge said.

  —They’ll come.

  —I know, April. Midge looked at her friend seriously. But what if they don’t?

  Midge felt under the wheel. The keys were there, in the ignition. Thank God for Jimmy’s thinking ahead.

  —We’ll leave without them.

  XIV

  THE NEXT FEW MINUTES WERE so intense that April could hardly stand them. She and Midge sat with their hands gripping each other. They had the two girls between them and periodically they said something soothing to them. They told the girls that they were just waiting for their friends and would be ready to go home at any minute. The looks they gave each other told a different story, however. There was nothing but sheer terror in their eyes.

  Then they heard something.

  It was people approaching. April was in the driver’s seat and she turned the ignition, ready to put her foot on the gas if whoever was coming was not Jack and Jimmy.

  But it was! First Jack, and then Jimmy dropped from the wall and jumped into the back of the truck.

  —Let’s go, April. Let’s go, Jack yelled.

  April put her foot down and pulled out of the position they’d been in with a spray of dirt and leaves behind them. It wasn’t a moment too soon. Gunshots flew by the vehicle, one bullet even grazing the mirror next to Midge.

  —Holy crap, holy crap, April kept saying as she skidded and slalomed along the narrow, dirt track.

  Jack and Jimmy were in the back of the truck and it was everything they could do just to hold on and not get thrown from the vehicle. With the gunshots and the crazy way April was driving it was a miracle they were both still there.

  The truck burst off the track and onto the macadam road that led through the windy hills back toward civilization. April didn’t stop to switch drivers. There was so much adrenaline flowing through her veins at that moment that she couldn’t have stopped even if she’d wanted to. She wasn’t sure where she was going but eventually the road brought her to Old Dominion Drive and from there she found her way to the Leesburg Pike. At the ramp onto the Dulles Toll Road she pulled over.

  Jimmy hopped out of the back.

  —Nice driving, sweetheart, he said as he took her spot in the drivers’ seat.

  She climbed into the back of the truck where Jack was sitting with his back to the cab and she sat next to him. Sitting that way, they were sheltered from the cold wind. Jimmy pulled the truck onto the freeway and pretty soon they were southbound on the Capital Beltway. A few minutes more and they were on the I-95, leaving Washington DC behind altogether.

  Jimmy kept driving south through the night and didn’t stop till they’d entirely cleared the state of Virginia. They’d passed Richmond and Norfolk and headed straight for the coast. As they got closer to the Atlantic, April began to feel a change in the atmosphere around them. It was as if the world was telling her that things were getting safer and that a new chapter in her life would be beginning very soon.

  Jimmy took them to Corolla, North Carolina, a place none of them had ever been before. The road grew quiet and windy and the sky overhead was calm. The stars twinkled brighter than April could ever remember seeing them. She took them as a sign that thing would go well.

 
; Jimmy finally pulled up outside a Motel on the edge of a small beach town. It seemed like the kind of place where no one would ever come searching for them. The two girls were fast asleep and it seemed to April that Jimmy and Midge had been getting along quite well up in the cab. It had been too loud for her and Jack to talk much so they had just sat silently, Jack trying to keep her warm by wrapping her in his strong, comforting arms. April could safely say that she had never felt so safe and protected in all her life as she had felt in the back of that truck with Jack’s arms around her. Even despite the circumstances, the fact that one of the richest firms in Washington DC would be after her, she felt better than she’d felt in a long, long time.

  She was stiff when she climbed out of the back of the truck. The place was dark and peaceful, with a strong sea breeze blowing from the east. The long grasses growing in the sand around the parking lot swayed and made a rustling sound that she found intensely peaceful. She could see the beach across the street, the sandy dunes leading to an expanse of calm ocean that glittered in the moonlight as if made from diamonds. This was it. This was the place her new life would begin. This was the place that her, Midge, and the two girls would have a chance to find out what it was like to live in a world where no one was trying to treat them solely as objects of sexual gratification.

  Jack and Jimmy went into the office to see if there were any rooms available and April and Midge waited in the cab with the sleeping children.

  —I can’t believe we’re here, April said to Midge.

  —I can’t believe it either, Midge said.

  They looked out the windshield at the glittering ocean. It was too cold to swim but they felt so happy and free they might run naked into its water at any minute.

  —Thank you for coming back to save me, April said. You risked so much. Don’t think I don’t appreciate that.

  —I had to, April.

  There was a level of emotion in Midge’s words that April had never heard before and it surprised her. Midge had always been so cool and collected. She’d acted as if everything in her life was just the way she wanted it. Now it was as if she was revealing the deepest part of her soul to April. She was making the difficult admission that she’d been a complete slave back at The Oaks and that everything in her life had been abusive and possessive.

  —It wasn’t just for you that I came back, Midge said. It was for myself too. I had to get out of there. I’ve allowed myself to be a slave to those people for long enough. If I didn’t come now, I’d never get another chance. And if anything had happened to you, April, I don’t think I’d have been able to live with myself.

  —Well, I’m really glad you came when you did, Midge. If you hadn’t, Kit would still have me in that room.

  Midge leaned over the girls and hugged April as hard as she could.

  Then she said, —Did Jack tell you what happened back at the house?

  —No. It was too loud to talk out there.

  —Well, according to Jimmy, they beat up the two guards, and then Jimmy beat up Herb while Jack beat the crap out of Walter.

  April laughed.

  —I wish I could have seen that.

  —Me too?

  —And what about Frank? Where was he?

  —I don’t know. He wasn’t with them.

  —I wonder where he went to.

  Midge nodded.

  —Will you miss him? April asked.

  Midge shook her head.

  —No. I’ll miss my kids, but they’re grown up now, and they barely know me anymore. Kit completely brainwashed them. They know that technically Frank and I are their parents but they don’t care. All they care about is getting into Harvard or Yale or some other Ivy League school and they know that Kit and Herb are going to do that for them.

  —I’m sure one day they’ll realize what they’re missing and come looking for you.

  —I don’t know, Midge said.

  She looked sad and April could sympathize. She’d been so close to letting the same thing happen to her own two girls. She leaned down and kissed them both on the cheek.

  Jack and Jimmy returned. The way Midge was looking at Jimmy she knew some sort of relationship was beginning to blossom between them. Together they would all make a strange new family. It might not be ideal, and it certainly wouldn’t be easy, but April found herself praying that things would work out so that she and Jack, and Midge and Jimmy, could all stay together and look after each other for a very long time. She knew things would be a lot easier for her and Midge with these two selfless, brave men to help them in this new life.

  The guys said they’d been able to get a big room with two double beds, one for the four girls, one for the two boys.

  —You didn’t use a credit card, did you? April said.

  —What do you take us for? Jack said. We’re on the run. From now on it’s cash only for us.

  April liked the sound of that. From now on.

  Exhausted, they carried Lucy and Mary into the room and April and Midge got in next to them. Jack and Jimmy went outside and had a smoke before bed. April didn’t fall asleep till they came back into the room and she heard them get out of their clothes and into their double bed.

  When she heard their breathing slow down, and knew that everyone was asleep, she breathed a silent sigh of relief and for the first time since she was a little girl, she said a prayer. It was a prayer of thanks for all that had happened, and of hope for what might happen yet. She prayed that things would go well for the four of them and that they could each find love and safety in this new life that they had all begun together.

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  Also by Abby

  The Neighbor 1 (Free!)

  The Neighbor 2

  The Neighbor 3