Save Me

by Heidi McLaughlin

  “We need to talk.”

  “I know,” he replies, but without infliction in his voice. He knows what’s coming and is bracing himself.

  “I thought about asking you what you want, but it’s not going to change my mind. I have to think about Chloe—”

  “Her name is Claire,” he says interrupting me.

  I nod, agreeing with him. There’s no use fighting about her name.

  “I have to think about her and what she wants, and right now that is staying here.”

  “Then this is where I stay.”

  Tears build and seep over, but at this point I’m so used to crying that I let them fall. “I don’t want you to, Tucker. I need some time to figure things out. I need some space away from all of this. Months ago my life was great. I was happy. Then Ray hears a news report and emotions and memories are stirred up. Ted Lawson’s name is in the paper, and then I get an email from Buzz. I should’ve told Ray what was going on and I didn’t until it was too late. Now he’s dead by the hands of a psychotic woman who I knew would find me someday and I can’t help but think I could’ve prevented this.

  “I should’ve kept running, but I got lazy. I let love and family break my walls down and now I’m barely able to function. My body aches and my mind is freaking out on me. I love you, Tucker, I do, but I also love Ray and having you here will create a lot of questions that I don’t want to answer, not yet.”

  Tucker makes a sudden move and I half expect him to leave; instead, he stands and pulls me into his arms. He feels like home, like this is where I belong, but I can’t be there right now.

  “I told you I’d walk away from you if that is what you needed, but I can’t walk away from Claire. She’s my daughter and I want to get to know her. I want to make her breakfast in the morning and walk her to school. I want to run on the beach and have her show me how to shoot a bow. I have so much to learn and I’m begging you not to take that away from me.”

  Tucker’s words cause me to sob into his shoulder. Instead of yelling, he holds me, rubbing his hand up and down my back while trying to soothe me. Any other guy would leave, throw shit around the house and slam the door, but not Tucker.

  Not in this situation.

  RAINDROPS FALL AGAINST THE window of the plane as we land in Washington. Of all the days, today is not the one I want to see rain. My already somber mood is only getting worse as I stare at the gray sky with no hint of sun.

  I yawn and stretch as the plane taxis and rouse Nate who is sleeping next to me. Ryley and Evan flew back to San Diego to get EJ right after the funeral, while we stayed behind for a few more days. Rask, Cara, and River are across the aisle and he, too, is looking outside. Cara has been glued to him since we found him in the woods; of course she did the same thing to me, especially when we had to fly. Cara is good like that—making sure we’re getting justice the fair way. Technically, Rask, River, and myself should be handcuffed, but Cara didn’t bother with that shit this time.

  I have a feeling she’s making River testify against Lawson, which isn’t a bad idea. I don’t care what he does after he spills his guts about his wife. He needs to give us something. He needs to prove that we can trust him again.

  Leaving Penny and Claire was not my idea, but hers and one I had to accept. I could push for a relationship with Claire, but my gut tells me that I’ll only damage the foundation. She lost the only father she remembers and if I come in all guns blazing I’ll look like a damn fool. Even though it killed me to leave them behind, I did so knowing there’s a security detail in place until after Lawson’s trial is over.

  While we were in Vermont, Cara got word that his trial date was being moved up. She didn’t know why, but had a feeling that it had to do with Frannie’s death. Without her to testify against him, even though we know she would’ve never done that, the defense feels like the Feds’ case is weak. The only problem with their theory is that they don’t know we have River, which again leads me to believe he knows more than he’s telling.

  The plane comes to a stop and everyone rushes to stand up and push open the overhead storage, then they proceed to stand there and huff while the people in front of them do the same thing. So many people lack plane etiquette.

  Nate finally stands and stretches, his head not far from the top of the plane. He leans down and says something to Cara, causing me to turn away. They’re sweet to each other and it sends a pang of longing into my heart. Penny and I were once like that and I can only hope we get back there someday. And if not, I suppose I can try to find it with someone else.

  Once we’re off the plane, a car is waiting to take us back to Evan’s. I don’t know how long I plan to stay; this rainy weather isn’t for me and I miss the beach. Plus, Lawson is in California and that is where I want to be. I plan to keep my eye on that piece of shit and watch every move he makes. And I want him to know I’m there. Being in Washington doesn’t afford me the ability to scare the shit out of him.

  As soon as we pull into Evan and Ryley’s, EJ comes running out. He stops dead in his tracks when he sees River. An expression of confusion takes over his features as he stands there and stares at a ghost. It’s about a full minute before he turns and runs back into the house yelling for Ryley.

  “Yeah I’d run, too, buddy,” I mumble under my breath. I don’t care if River can hear me; right now I’m not his friend.

  I’m the last one to walk into the house and in time to see Cara direct River to sit down. If I didn’t know better I’d say he’s under arrest, but he didn’t exactly do anything, unless marrying a psycho bitch is a felony.

  “Tucker, before you take your stuff downstairs, can you sit please?” Cara asks as she motions to a chair across from River. I choose the one farthest from him for fear that I might develop a nervous tic and beat the shit out of him.

  Cara stays standing after Rask, Ryley, Evan, and Nate take seats around the table. It’s like she’s the teacher and about to school us on some random subject we’re being forced to take.

  “I know the last thing you guys want to discuss is Frannie, but River has something to say and I think you guys should hear him out,” Cara states, standing behind River. I’m not sure how I feel about her solidarity toward him and maybe that’s why she’s a good agent—she’s impartial where I’m quick to judge. I think my judgment is warranted, though, considering his connection to all of this.

  River takes a deep breath and finally lifts his head up so he’s looking at each of us. Since the shooting, I believe this is the first time he’s made eye contact with any of us aside from Evan. I know they’re close, but this entire time I’ve felt like he’s hiding something from us. If he tells us that he knew how sick his wife was I’ll make sure he’s sharing a cell with Lawson.

  “I knew something was wrong when we came home. We all did,” he starts. “But for each of us it was different. I didn’t write her as much as the rest of you wrote home because I didn’t have a lot to say. The shit we saw out there—it’s not something you tell your newlywed wife. And honestly, after being gone so long, I wasn’t sure I was even in love with her. She didn’t know I was coming home because I hadn’t told her. In fact, after being gone so long, the last letter I sent her told her to find someone else. Six years is a long time to go without moving on and letters do not serve our families justice.

  “I know I said this before, about how I thought it was weird that Frannie had my favorite beer in the refrigerator, and my first thought was she never threw it out, but the expiration dates were dates that hadn’t even happened yet, which lead me to my second thought—she had started drinking. So I watched her for a few days at lunch or dinner when I’d have one and she wouldn’t touch them. I then thought she had done as I asked and moved on and the guy just happened to like my beer. Not uncommon.

  “When I got to our house, I knocked, half expecting someone else to answer. When she did, she said, ‘Hey, glad you’re home’ as if I had only been gone a few days and not six years. There were no tears,
no slap in the face for me telling her to move on, just a very nonchalant greeting. She was making dinner and there were fresh flowers and the table was set for two. I immediately asked her who she was expecting and she said, ‘You’.

  “If she knew we were coming home, why didn’t she tell the other wives and why didn’t she meet us at the airstrip? Those questions immediately started plaguing my mind. While she finished preparing dinner, I went upstairs and started unpacking, and that’s when shit got weirder. Clothes hung in my closet that weren’t mine and I was okay with that. I had told her to move on, but my clothes were there as well and my shoes had been recently polished. In the bathroom I found a pregnancy test on the counter in broad daylight, and on the wall I found a calendar. The best I could ascertain is that the days she marked with a star were the days her and her boyfriend were together. The sad face was a failed pregnancy test since according to the calendar she had taken one that day and the x’s were when her period had arrived.

  “I wasn’t mad, but overly confused. She welcomed me home, albeit somewhat coldly, kept all my stuff but was trying to get pregnant. She was also eerily quiet, like she’d pop up and scare the shit out of me. I’m a SEAL, I should be able to sense stealth movement, but I just couldn’t detect hers.

  “That night, I sat at the table and she talked as if I had been home the whole time. Asking how my day was, wanting to know if we wanted to go to Ryley and Evan’s for a bar-be-cue this weekend, and wondering if we should have Tucker and Penny over one night for dinner. It’s only the next day that I find out what everyone was going through.

  “But that night, after dinner, I felt odd. There wasn’t anything I could do about it except lie down. I was in and out of consciousness for most of the night, riddled with dreams about Cuba, the fighting, and sex. In the morning I kept having these flashbacks about watching someone having sex and couldn’t place them. This happened the first few nights and I had finally had enough so I didn’t eat what she cooked because each night I didn’t feel right afterwards. I pretended to act the same nonetheless that night only to find out that my wife was having sex in our bed with me next to her.”

  The collective gasps aren’t lost on me. I think at this point I’m so desensitized about Frannie that nothing shocks me these days.

  “Oh, River, I’m sorry,” Ryley says, reaching for him.

  “I’m not because it opened my eyes, I just couldn’t tell anyone. The one mistake I made was letting Evan move in. Everything stopped, and I think it’s because she couldn’t drug you.”

  “Lucky me,” he mutters.

  “Yes, lucky you because you weren’t subject to spying on your wife. I asked her over and over again whom she was seeing and the answer was always the same, ‘I’m not seeing anyone.’ But I knew differently so I’d follow her and she’d end up at different hotels, in the backs of cars, and even in parks. It wasn’t bad enough that she was blatantly cheating and lying about it, but she acted as if we were this perfectly happy couple in front of everyone.

  “I finally got a good look at the guy, waiting for him to leave the hotel one day, but didn’t have a clue who he was. It was only after some Appropriations Committee thing was on CNN did I recognize him as Ted Lawson and that was when I really grew suspicious. Evan had moved in by now, but I couldn’t wait. I planted tiny cameras around the house to watch her, to see what she was doing. I had her on tape, putting the cell phone in the bathroom, but Evan got to it first.

  “And while you guys were talking to NCIS, I was duping her computer and hacking into Ted Lawson’s personal email. Everything about our mission was in there. Everything about how Frannie came into my life, years earlier, was there as well. Lawson’s affair with Christina Charlotte was detailed and Frannie’s involvement with her murder.

  “Aside from the fact that my wife …”

  The way he says the word wife is laced with disdain. I don’t know how he stomachs using that word to describe her right now.

  River clears his throat and starts again. “She was in an incestuous relationship with her brother. They share the same dad, but different mothers. They also have a child together, who is about twelve. She was one of the girls we rescued in Cuba.”

  River lets out a heavy sigh and shakes his head. “I had no idea she was this fucked up. There were no signs, not that I was looking for any. Mental illness isn’t something to mess with and Frannie, whose real name is Donna Ingram, was so caught up in a delusional world that the only way to stop her was to shoot her.”

  “Explain your house then,” Nate demands.

  River leans back in his chair and shakes his head. “She knew I was on to her. I refused to sleep with her, or eat her food, and asked her where she was when Ryley and her mom were at the hospital. I knew where she was because I could see her on my phone fucking her brother all over the house.

  “The day my house blew up, I had left her a note saying that I knew about her relationship with her brother and I was going to out them, publicly. I didn’t know she was responsible for the care packages at that point, and I definitely didn’t know Lawson had done anything to Claire. If I had, I would’ve killed them both.

  “Anyway, she left after I confronted her. I held a gun to her head and had fucking tears in my eyes because even after everything I had found out, at one point in my life, I loved her. I was stupid and let her talk me down only to have her run out the back door. I chased her, but lost her. There was a car waiting for her down the street.”

  “That’s not what you told us,” Evan says angrily. “In fact, you told us that she left you because you had been apart for so long.”

  River nods. “I know. I wasn’t sure what you knew, but I had a feeling. I knew you’d want her, but I wanted her dead. I wanted to see the life leave her eyes for what she had done to us. It was my job to protect you.” He looks at Rask, Evan, and finally me. “I let you down. I bought the evil into our lives and I needed to be the one to extinguish it. That day you guys came over I was at my lowest. I wanted to end my life after you detailed everything you knew. All I could think about was the pain everyone went through because of me.

  “I had rigged my house earlier, hoping to end both our lives. I couldn’t live with the idea that I failed my team and I couldn’t let her continue to live, but my weaknesses got the best of me and instead of blowing up the house with her and I in it, she had escaped. The day you came over, I had a gun sitting on the table and you didn’t even notice. I was going to end my life because I had failed you.”

  “You failed yourself,” I say, harshly.

  He shakes his head and wipes away the tears on his face. “I had no idea where Penny was, McCoy, or I would’ve told you.” He looks from me back to Evan and Nate. “After you left, I had no choice. I had to hunt her down and prevent her from hurting anyone else. The moment you walked out, I got up and walked out my backdoor, tripping the line to set off the bomb.”

  “Where’d you go,” Ryley asked.

  “Back to the hotels where Frannie had met her brother. Every few days I’d have an idea of where she was, but she knew I was after her so she moved around a lot. I hacked Cara’s phone and found out where you were looking.”

  “How’d you know she was in Penny’s house?” Nate asks.

  “I followed these four SEALs I know and they led me right to her.”

  “I KNOW YOU SAID you needed space, but I can’t not talk to you now that I know you’re alive,” I tell Penny who is silent on the other end of the line. “I hate this. I hate that we’re not together. I hate that you’ve lost Ray. I have never been so confused in my life. Loving you has been the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but not having you in my life is the hardest.”

  “I know, I wish things were different for us.”

  Does she? Can I ask her without her closing up and refusing to talk or do I change the subject? There isn’t a book on how to win your wife back after she’s been married to someone else for so long because she thought you were dead. I need a
fucking instruction booklet of things I’m allowed to say, ask, and think when I’m talking to her because the last thing I want to do is upset her.

  “I’m sorry, Penny. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  “I know you didn’t, Tucker.” Her voice is soft and there’s a hint of tiredness. Glancing at my watch I see it’s almost eleven for her and should probably let her go, but this is the first time she’s answered since I left her in Vermont.

  “I think you’re a brave woman. I should’ve told you that when I saw you, but my words were jumbled and everything was happening so fast. I can’t fathom being in your situation, thinking I’m gone and having to deal with Lawson. I’m going to kill him when I see him, Penelope.”

  “Please don’t.”

  Her simple statement takes me back. In fact, I’m confused. Why wouldn’t she want this piece of shit dead?

  “Why not?” I brace myself for her reasoning.

  “Because you’ll go to jail and I can’t have that.”

  My heart starts to beat faster, giving me hope that someday her and I will be together again; that we’ll be a family and living the life we thought we would. So much of me wants to dissect her statement and ask her what she means, but I don’t want to force her into anything she’s not ready for.

  “I’m going back to California tomorrow,” I say instead, changing the subject. “As much as I love Evan and Ryley, living here isn’t my home. Not that a place in Cali will be either, but it’s what I know. I also have a hearing next week in front of a JAG judge to get my life back. Carole, Ryley’s mom, has been working her tail off for Rask and I.”