The substantial warehouse intimidated her five-foot, five-inch stature. All that echoed through the solid walls was the reverberation of the rumbling thunder. Inhale, exhale, she reminded herself while she lightly walked through the open void. She was exposed in the vastness, which sent dread through her bones. Once again, she felt hunted. A set of metal crisscrossed stairs led her to a rickety mezzanine that eventually opened up to the offices of Rita, Steven, and, at one time, Carter. Anne placed her ear to Carter’s office door, desperately listening for any type of noise or a voice. Again a crash of thunder shook the wooden frame. With an unsteady hand, Anne turned the door handle and flung it open; the office was empty.
It was as if she stepped into a time machine; she had not crossed the threshold into this space since his vanishing act. Carter’s taste was very old world; his office was decorated with large wooden pieces intricately designed and fabrics that danced with burgundy and bronze in meticulous paisley patterns. His smell lingered; he had recently been here, and was possibly still watching her from a distance, biding his time until she was completely vulnerable.
In the corner of the office stood a cherry armoire. Anne tugged at the black pulls, but it was locked. With all her might, she yanked on the door, breaking the latch as she tried to steady her balance. Papers, photos, and letters shuffled together like a deck of cards in the wooden enclosure. Through the flashes of lightning that flickered through the pane of glass above her, she could see faces of his family, Sam and other people he had befriended along the way, even pictures of her and him on their numerous retreats to the Bahamas, Australia and Italy.
Anne brushed aside letters written in Chinese and English.
Mr.Leeds:
Upon our agreement regarding Mr. Sam Goodman, you will turn over 40% of the life insurance money that will be collected from his widow, Lien (Yang) Goodman. Once I receive my money and you have your 60%, Lien will be instructed to return to Hong Kong and continue her employment with me.
Mr. Cheng
“Oh my god!”
Carter had bought Lien in exchange for Sam’s life. Anne shuffled through pages of life insurance policies, bank account information, and email correspondence between Lien and Carter. He had promised her freedom when in fact he was planning to send her back to Mr. Cheng, a ruthless and treacherous sex trafficker out of Hong Kong. He was known for kidnapping women and selling them like meat on the side of the road.
Anne immediately thought of their daughter. What would happen to her? Would Mr. Cheng own her too? She had to turn all this over to Victoria. Her hands trembled, grasping the ghastly evidence against Carter. He was a monster. He betrayed a man that he called a brother for fifty million dollars. The moment Sam took Lien out of Hong Kong, his fate had been sealed. Sealed by Carter.
Anne’s erratic breath burned her throat. On the verge of hyperventilation, she watched the sheets of rain pounding the window. As a flash of lighting streaked across the heavens, a hand grasped Anne’s shoulder, clenching its dominant claws into her collarbone. The combination of her petrified scream and the growling rumble of thunder set off a deafening resonance throughout the building.
The undertones of the darkness and faint light revealed a disheveled Adam Whitney. Scruff weaved auburn and coffee over his face. His eyes were dark and firm. They burned into Anne’s. Without another word, she lunged into his chest. His comfort she once knew so well enveloped her. Silently he laid his cheek on top of her still-damp hair. The miniscule droplets stretched over his skin. Pulling back, Anne looked up at Adam for a heartening expression; all that she saw was anger and distress, while he softly brushed the bruises and scrapes that lined her face. Flinching at the bruise that had surfaced on her cheekbone after Carter and she tumbled around on the floor, she placed her hand over his.
“I know what you’ve done…and Carter,” she whispered, lowering her head. “But I also know you were trying to protect me.” Quiet tears trailed her face, salting her pale lips. Adam brushed them with his thumb.
“I’m not proud of what I’ve done in the past and who I’ve dealt with, but I will never regret falling in love with you. Carter will never take that from me.”
The stream of emotion continued down her face. A cry escaped her. She saw, lying at Adam’s feet, two large black duffel bags.
“What are you doing? This is a bad idea, Adam.”
“Giving Carter what he wants, and in exchange he lets us live.”
That’s all Anne was to Carter—a bargaining tool to reclaim his dirty money.
“And you trust him?”
Anne shook her head, turning her back from Adam. She was still holding the papers she had found.
“He contributed to the murder of his best friend, in cold blood. What makes you think he’s going to let us live?”
Anne shook the papers in the air, wondering when Adam had become so naïve.
“Sam didn’t have what Carter wanted. I do. I have all the evidence. I’ll destroy it, plus I have the money from a deal that went south a few years back.”
“Adam, he kidnapped me and he was going to kill me. What makes you think he’ll just let me walk away? Did you know he had me?”
His head hung low. Anne knew the answer. Her chest tightened and the pain flowed out of her like a river, again.
“I knew you would escape. Carter told me he had you and if I even thought about coming to you, he would kill you. Carter wants power, not you. He’s only doing this because he knew how to get to me. He’s not who you think he is. He’s not Carter Leeds, he’s…”
Something or someone stirred a few feet from outside the office, tracking them. Adam placed his index finger to his lips, hushing Anne before a scream could escape her throat. Quietly turning on his heels, Adam started to walk toward the noise. Anne extended her hand to stop him but she was unsuccessful. He neared the frame of the door while Anne watched him peer up and down the corridor, then step out to the right. As the blood raced through her veins at Mach speed, her nerves became numb, and her skin tingled with pinpricks of anxiety. The air lay silent; it was abruptly interrupted by the sounds of shuffling feet, followed by two ear-splitting gun shots. Trying to stir the words from her mouth, Anne shouted for Adam. Illuminated by a bolt of lightning, a sinister shadow appeared in the opening to the office.
“No!” Anne shrieked to the malevolent being that stood before her, hearing the click of the gun as Carter aimed at her chest. She closed her eyes and inhaled her last obtainable breath.
Chapter 15
Carter appeared closer to her. He lowered the gun to his side and stepped beside her.
“I knew you’d come.”
“Who are you?” Disdain dripped from her lips.
“I know this must appear disconcerting, but it’s just business, Anneliese. That’s it.”
She moved a few feet from him and toward the corner of the room.
“You promised him you wouldn’t kill us if he did what you asked.”
“Well, you should know by now I can’t be trusted, and lying is like breathing for me.”
“Why Sam then?”
“He pissed our money away on some worthless whore he met at a club in Hong Kong, begged me to get them out of China because her boss was after them. He owed him money too. I made a profitable deal with her boss.”
Carter yanked the papers from her clutched hand and tossed them on the floor. Anne watched the damning evidence flutter around her feet.
“What about Adam?”
Carter chuckled and took two steps toward her. Anne slid her back against the wall, slowly inching to the door.
“Adam, Adam, Adam. Well, when he started working for Richard, he didn’t know what he was getting himself into. At first he just sat on the sidelines and took notes, but after he saw the money he could make, greed set in, and the hunger to be number one, to be the big shot. I will say, he had a few lucrative plans, but you can’t win ‘em all.”
He motioned toward the black walkway where Adam
’s body was lying, fading away from the gunshot wounds Carter had bestowed upon him minutes earlier. Bile began rising in Anne’s throat. She wanted to run to him, scream at his still body for all the hell he put her through, but also that she needed him and loved him. She wanted to beg him to live, to fight for them. She didn’t want to go against Carter alone but it looked like she was going to have to.
Pushing down every ounce of emotion was torture but necessary. Turning from Adam’s dying form, her hooded gaze locked onto Carter.
“You owed the Montgomerys money. That’s why they wanted him to kill you,” Anne alleged. Carter once again laughed with malice.
“They never asked him to kill me. I lied because I knew you two were conspiring together. Granted they wanted me dead, thanks to Adam and his shit scheme in Chicago. When the investment went sour I had to get out of there but Adam, oh, he decided that he would hide his millions and then snitch to the feds. Thought they could protect him,” he smirked. “Guess not.”
“Carter, we weren’t scheming together on anything. I had no idea this was going on, and I would never be part of something like this! That is blood money!”
Anne’s tears evaporated from the heat that radiated from her face.
“You think I’m going to believe for one minute that he didn’t say anything to you about his hidden wealth? That you weren’t luring me out of hiding so you could take my share and then the Montgomerys would finally end me once and for all?”
“What the hell are talking about?”
Every thunderous crack vibrated the wall Anne was leaning against, pulsating through her from the inside out. Carter’s glare was maddening. He darted toward her. Inches from the door frame, Carter leaped to Anne, pinning her tautly against the wall. His hot breath was unyielding alongside her neck; her heart thumped through her veins, almost throbbing as he pressed his weight into her.
“My Anneliese, we could have taken over the world, just the two of us, but you ruined it. I come back and see that you’re on his side, loving him, trusting him. Do you know how that made me feel?” Carter hissed. “Do you?” His russet eyebrows pushed together in consternation.
“You lied to me, Carter! You left me! You killed our baby! It’s your fault. Did you really think I would go anywhere with you after everything you’ve done? You drugged me, kidnapped me and were planning to kill me! You murdered your best friend in cold blood, watched him die right before your eyes, and now you’ve killed Adam, so just do it already—kill me! I would rather be with Adam in death, than with you alive on this earth.”
She could hear his teeth gnashing together; the gun shook between them in his dithering hand. He dug his head into her dirty blonde locks, exhaling hard. A small whimper fell from her lips while her head dug hard into the wall. She wanted this to end.
“Why must you push me? I love you so much it exhausts all rational thoughts. I know what I must do and if you won’t be with me, you won’t be with anyone and I’ll grant your request, but a life without you—that will truly kill me.”
“Good,” Anne seethed.
The gun was positioned downward toward the floor. She lifted her right knee, gouging it into his groin. Shoving his agony-stricken body away from her, his grip on the gun loosened. She kicked it from his hand; it flew back, hitting the opened armoire. Anne dashed toward the mezzanine that led to the warehouse, her feet stumbling beneath her. She was just a few feet from the stairs when her entire body arched backwards, like she was convulsing in mid-air. Her spine crashed into the metal floor. Searing pain shot through her body like an electric shock. Carter hovered over her, his face distorted like the devil himself had just been released. His elongated fingers wrapped themselves around her slender neck. In one swift movement, she was being hoisted off the ground onto her tip-toes. Her air supply was weakening, but Anne continued to fight Carter off.
Raising her hand and placing it on his scalp, she snatched a handful of wavy mane right from the roots. Carter flinched at the unexpected action, dropping Anne against the mezzanine’s top railing and slamming her lower back against the unforgiving metal. Ignoring the pain, Anne’s survival mode surged through her as she blindly began attacking the man she once cherished more than anyone in the world, the man she would have died for. Her arms flailed ahead of her, landing punches, scratches and gashes to Carter’s face.
Time stopped in the breath of a second, a cry lurched from Anne’s mouth. Her hands released the final thrust while Carter’s unbalanced body twisted over the mezzanine’s railing. She staggered forward. Carter grasped the top railing with his right hand, clinging to it, white-knuckled from the pressure of holding up his six-foot-three-inch frame with one hand. Anne leaned over the metal and stared into Carter’s blackened eyes, searching into the depths of his soul to find any good, any remorse at all. Her hands wrapped themselves around the chipped blue railing.
“Anneliese, please help me! I can’t hold on!” Carter begged between grunts.
The darkness surrounded them, the spider web of white flashes from outside reflected inside Carter’s sapphire eyes. Flashes of their life together, of a love she thought protected her from all the evils of the world when in fact he was the evil of the world, tore through her mind He was her pain, her suffering, her loss.
“Farewell, Carter.”
Flinching at her words, his struggle continued, his grip became less indomitable.
“Bitch!”
His hand flew through the thick dark air, reaching for her neck. Realizing his motion, Anne jerked back while Carter entangled his fingers around her pearls, pulling hard, thrusting all his weight into his clutch. The delicate strand shattered around them sending diminutive orbs of iridescent white soaring beneath them. Carter’s body began free-falling down into the infinite blackness. She quickly realized, so was hers.
Anne’s life halted. Her memories suspended around her in the warehouse. A horrified Adam lunged over the railing, reaching for her, screaming her name. She could see the torture twist across his face. He pulled out a cell phone, screaming at someone in the receiver. Anne couldn’t hear him, she couldn’t move and her vision was failing her once her body crashed into the cold cement.
An excruciating pain electrified her body, deflating all oxygen from her lungs. A tunnel of black began closing in. Before succumbing to her fate, she willed her eyes to shift to her side. Carter lay beside her, motionless. Relief washed over her with the knowledge he was dead. She could let go. Silently, she said good bye to Adam and then, there was nothing…nothing but peace.
Chapter 16
The blinding white light grazed Anne’s cornea while Dr. Rasmussen examined her. She could hear the humming of machines and smell the aroma of bleach and latex. He glanced at each eye, with his own eyes displaying worry. That was not comforting her at all. Her body ached and throbbed.
“Can you hear me, Anne?” Dr. Rasmussen asked.
She willed her voice to come forth but it rebelled.
“Can you feel this?”
He squeezed her hand. Anne could see in her peripheral vision that various tubes and wires twisted over her watery skin. She could feel him but couldn’t respond. Anxiety plagued her trapped body. Her heart rate accelerated, announcing her anxiety through the machine that sat next to her.
“Calm down, Anne, you’re all right. That’s good that you’re responding.”
Anne concentrated on the liver spots that dotted Dr. Rasmussen’s hand. Why couldn’t she move? Was she paralyzed? Her inner dialogue began spiraling out of control. Where was Adam? Was Carter dead?
“Listen to me, Anne, this is good news. You’re making progress.”
Anne could feel his warm hand pat hers. A tall red-headed nurse swept in with a syringe and administered the contents into the IV. A wave of euphoria overtook her, calming her muffled hysterics.
“Good morning, Anne, my name is Judy. I’m one of your nurses. This will help you relax, okay?”
She didn’t wait for a response because
she knew there wouldn’t be one.
“Anne, you were in an accident. You’ve been in a coma for three weeks. You have bruised ribs and pelvic fracture, and there was swelling in your brain. You opened your eyes early this morning. Do you think you could blink for me?”
In Anne’s puffy, muddled brain, she coaxed her heavy lids to do as she was asked.
“Good girl.”
Polaroid flashes of that night lit up her mind. She had found Adam. Carter killed him then tried to kill her. Carter clung to the railing before reaching for her. She lost her balance and flew over the railing, falling toward the concrete floor. She thought she had seen Adam, with grief etched across his face. But how could that be? Carter had shot him.
Dr. Rasmussen stepped to the side, revealing Dr. Lindsey standing rigidly in the corner. His face held a look of melancholy but he gave Anne a weak smile. She observed their whispered exchange, and then Dr. Rasmussen was gone. Dr. Lindsey cautiously approached her hospital bed. She had never seen this side of him. His typical therapist façade was non-existent. He was just a middle-aged man wearing jogging pants and a T-shirt.
Anne continued to coax her limbs to move and her voice to demand answers, but there was nothing. She could feel a tear escape, trailing slowly down her cheek. Dr. Lindsey sat down in a small blue chair, and then he wiped her tear away.
“Oh Anne, I know you are frustrated. I can see that you want to move and talk so badly but you can’t.”
He paused, contemplating how to explain to her what was happening.
“You’re in a private facility being cared for by the best doctors in the country. Your recovery will depend on how badly you want retribution. Blink once if you understand what I’m saying.”
She blinked, leading him to go on.
“Carter survived.”
Those two words set her machines off.
“Anne, calm down or they will come in again. They are under Carter’s thumb. You must stop. Control your breathing.”
She tried to focus on Dr. Lindsey’s soft voice, just as she did during their many therapy sessions. Her muscles trembled at just the thought of Carter still roaming this earth alive. She had survived—why not him? He never dies. The man has nine lives. The machines slowly quieted while Dr. Lindsey waited for someone to barge in, but no one did.
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