by Jessie Cooke
“Stacey!” she screamed out, still not making enough noise to be heard. Her voice was almost gone, but the water that surrounded also seemed to absorb any sound she was able to make. She kept walking through it, pushing on. She had to find her friend and then they had to find her baby. She wasn’t going to give up hope. She was going to find him, and when she did, and he was safe, she was going to kill Spider herself. She was almost worried about how happy that thought made her. The thought of watching him take his last breath was the only thing keeping her going, though, so that was what she kept in the forefront of her mind as she continued her search. “Stacey!” She kicked her right foot out and again made a circle with it. That time she felt like it connected with something. She reached out with her hands and then down into the water, but she didn’t feel anything. The darkness wasn’t receding at all and her eyes weren’t adjusting to it. She was exhausted and discouraged and she ached to sit down and give up, but she kept going and after another few steps she felt something touch her leg. Impulsively, she screamed and pulled away. It took her several seconds to calm her heart and her breathing enough to speak. “Stace?” That time she heard a groan. With relief, the likes of which she’d never felt before, she crouched down in the water and began to turn around in circles, reaching out and feeling for her friend.
“Nick.” She heard a raspy whisper just before Stacey’s cold hand grasped hers. Nicole gripped onto it and pulled. Her friend was suddenly up against her, shaking uncontrollably and sobbing in heavy, raspy gasps.
“Oh, thank God! Thank God! When I couldn’t find you, I thought you were…”
“Dead?” Stacey croaked. “It’s a miracle that I’m not. I woke up as the water covered my face, and I sucked in a gallon or more of it before I was able to get up on my knees and wade in this direction. The water is still rising, Nick. Where are we?”
“In my parent’s basement, I think. I remember Spider pushing me through a door and locking it. Then the fire sprinklers came on and I passed out. When I woke up, I was almost underwater too. I’m sorry, Stacey. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Shh! Assigning blame is not going to help, but if you have to blame someone, look at that monster, Spider. We’re going to get out of this if for no other reason than to kill him.”
Nicole nodded and sucked in another slow breath to steady herself. “This basement spans the length of the house. There’s only one way in and out, the stairs that lead up to the hatch in the kitchen.”
“Okay, we need to find those stairs,” Stacey said in a shaky voice. Nicole could hear her friend’s teeth chattering together roughly, and it was breaking her heart to imagine that Stacey felt as miserable as she did. She swallowed that too. Stacey was right that this was no time for that. They had to get out of there and they had to find Liam.
“This way,” Nicole said, weakly. “…I think.” The two women slogged through the water in the dark, grasping each other’s arms like it was a lifeline. Nicole knew they couldn’t be far from the stairs and after a few steps, Stacey was the first to bump into something.
“I feel something,” she said, bending to reach down under the water. “Steps!” she said, excitedly.
Nicole reached her foot out until she contacted it. She put her foot on one and then a second and then a third step. “Yes! They’re narrow, Stace. I’ll go first. You hold onto me from behind.” Nicole had to adjust her body so that both of her feet could stand solidly on the bottom step. She felt Stacey grasp her wet shirt from behind and she stepped up to the next one. It was disorienting to climb blindly but by the third step they were above the water level, which was a significant relief. She’d spent a lot of her teen years down in the basement so she knew the stairs by heart. There were ten of them leading up to the door. They took them slowly and on the ninth step, Nicole reached out and grasped the doorknob. Hot tears of joy mixed with the cold water on her face. She wasn’t even deterred when she realized it was locked. She actually smiled, because she knew something that Spider didn’t know. The door often stuck and sometimes locked on its own, so her father had given her a spare key in case she got locked down there, and she’d hidden it along the top of the doorframe. With a silent prayer that one of her parents hadn’t found and moved it, she reached up and felt along the top of the door. Her fingers brushed against something metal and she tried to grasp it. She was wet and cold and shaking, so it took her several tries, but she finally got ahold of it. She let out a little cry of victory as she brought it down to where the lock was and began to fit it in with her trembling hand.
43
Hashtag and another guy were waiting as Zack skid into the huge parking lot of the even more massive hospital in downtown Nashville. He slid off the bike and ran toward the entrance. Hash and the kid with him followed him inside. Zack stopped at the information desk and a little old lady with blue-tinted hair looked up at him and smiled. “Can I help you?”
“I need to know what room…shit! What the hell is his first name?” He knew it, but his brain hurt and he couldn’t grasp it.
“Michael,” Hash said, softly.
“Shit, that’s right. Michael Lee Johnson II.” The lady looked offended, probably with his language. “I’m sorry ma’am,” he said, taking a deep breath. “My girlfriend’s father was in an accident and she’s out of town. She asked me to come and make sure that he or her mother didn’t need anything. I’m just worried. She’s very close to him.”
She looked slightly appeased with his apology but said, “You think she would have just called and found out where he was.”
“She was very distressed and probably not thinking clearly. I’m sure you see that a lot?”
She raised a gray eyebrow and finally put her fingers on the keyboard and began typing…slowly. Zack’s patience was completely gone, and he could picture himself wrapping his hands around the old woman’s neck and choking her until her eyes bulged out. He knew that was horrible, but she was as slow as a fucking slug. Finally, she looked back up at him and said, “I have a Michael Lee Johnson II on the tenth floor, west wing ICU.”
“Thank you.” Zack saw a security officer standing a few feet away. He motioned at Hash and the other guy and forced himself not to run for the elevator. Once they were in, he pressed the ten and then the button to make the doors close before others could get inside and he held it until the number ten lit up. The doors slid open into a long hallway and he followed the signs for the ICU. When he got there, he had to push a button and wait until a female voice asked:
“Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Michael Johnson II.”
“Are you a family member?”
“Um…I’m his son-in-law.”
“I don’t have you on the list sir. Mrs. Johnson is in the ICU waiting room; perhaps you can ask her to add you.”
Zack was already moving toward the waiting room. When he opened the door, he was relieved to see that besides Mrs. Johnson, who was on her phone with her back to them, there was only one other person there. Zack motioned with his head, and Hash and his friend took a seat on either side of the middle-aged woman as Zack approached Mrs. Johnson. She must have felt him behind her because she suddenly turned around. When she saw it was him, the look on her face went from annoyed to something more like fear, or maybe anger. “I’ll have to call you back,” she said to whomever she was talking to before ending the call. “What are you doing here?” she snapped at Zack.
Zack tried to keep his cool as he said, “After your son beat his father unconscious and stole your money and cars last night, he kidnapped Nicole, her friend, and Liam. I need to know where to look for them.”
She rolled her eyes. If she only knew how close she was to death, she might have chosen a different look. “I don’t know where Michael is.”
“Look, I’m doing everything in my power right now to keep from killing someone. I’m going to snap, soon. I hope that the person I go off on when I do is not you, because unlike your son, I usually don’t
hit women. But the thing is, I can’t promise you that it won’t be you, especially if you refuse to cooperate with me. Spider is already in a shitload of trouble. If he hurts those ladies, or that baby…there won’t be anything you can do to help him ever again. Help me find him before that happens.”
“You don’t want to find him so that I can help him. You hate my son.”
“Yes, I do, but I promise you that if I find Nicole and the baby safe, I’ll let the police deal with him. You can pay off whoever you have to at that point to save his ass. Tell me where he is.”
“I really don’t know. He has the Maserati, which has a tracking device on it in the event it got stolen. All I know is that the car is still in Clarksville.”
Clarksville wasn’t that big. It would be hard to hide a Maserati. “Does he have friends in Clarksville, or more family?”
“He grew up there. He has a lot of friends.”
“Shit!” Zack reached out to grab her and Hashtag was suddenly at his side.
“What about her parents? Stacey said her parents still live there.”
Spider’s mother rolled her eyes again. “Those people. They didn’t think my Michael was good enough for their perfect girl. He wouldn’t go there.” Zack and Hash looked at each other. Hashtag looked like he had the same idea as Zack did…if Spider was in self-destruct mode and looking for revenge on those who spited him in some way, Nicole’s family might be on that list. “Where do they live?”
“In Clarksville…” Zack pushed Hashtag back and grabbed her by her suit jacket.
“Look, bitch, you are pushing every one of my buttons. I’m going to ask you again and you better have a less sarcastic answer. Where do Nicole’s parent’s live?”
Her eyes were filled with fire, but her voice was steady as she said, “I don’t know their exact address, but they live in one of those dusty ranch houses out on Lewis Road.”
Zack let go of her and said, “If you’re a praying woman, I’d pray that your monster offspring hasn’t hurt her.” He and Hashtag and Hash’s friend were almost to the door when the old witch spat back:
“If he did, she was asking for it.” Zack balled his hands into fists and used them to hit the door open without looking back.
It took what seemed like a lifetime for Nicole to finally get her hand steady enough to put the key in the door. She felt Stacey grip onto her tighter as she turned it in the lock and they heard it click. If Spider was in the kitchen, they wouldn’t get over the threshold. She took a breath to steady herself and turned the knob. There was no need to go slowly; if he was there, he’d see them either way. She pushed open the door, and the empty kitchen was both a welcome sight and a cause for more anxiety. It meant they would have to search the four-bedroom house, and the only advantage they would have was that Spider wasn’t expecting them. Nicole pulled Stacey through the door and shut it quietly behind them, relocking it, just in case. Then, with her fingers to her lips, she led Stacey across the faux wood floor, leaving a trail of water that dripped off their clothes and hair in their wake. When they got to the dining room door, Nicole pressed her ear against it and listened. She thought she could hear voices, but they sounded far away, like they were in the backyard or way down at the end of the hallway. She looked back at the door that led outside, and the empty key rack near the door caught her eyes.
“Stacey,” she whispered. “Dad’s Polaris is out in the big barn behind the house. There’s an extra key to it in the top drawer of his worktable. It’s in a black plastic case. If you open it, he has them all marked. Take the one that says Ranger. Push the car out of the barn toward the dirt road. Don’t start it until you can’t push it any further, and then go as fast as you can until you run into a dirt road. Make a right, and that will take you to the main road that runs in front of the house about a mile up. You’ll see the house to the left; take a right and follow that road into town. Find a cop.”
“Nick…”
“Don’t say you can’t leave me. You can. Getting help is probably the only thing that will save us. Spider is spun out on drugs and he has a gun. We can’t do this by ourselves. Please, Stacey, go.”
Stacey nodded and then slid her arms around Nicole and hugged her tightly. “I love you.”
Nicole forced a smile. “I love you too. Thank you, and I am so sorry about all of this…”
“Shut up.” Nicole stood and watched Stacey go. Once the door was closed behind her friend, she took another deep breath and pushed open the dining room door far enough to peek out. She couldn’t see into the living room, but she heard something strange…her mother was humming. What the hell? Spider was holding them hostage and her mother was humming a Christian song that she used to sing to her when she was a little girl. Nicole stepped back and closed the door. She looked around the kitchen until her eyes fell on the block of knives near the stove. She went over and took out the one with the largest blade. Her mother was particular about her cooking knifes. Nicole knew it would be sharp; she just prayed that if the time came for her to use it she would find the strength.
Once the men were outside Hash took out his phone and looked at Zack. “I’m calling Stone and asking for backup, okay?”
Zack nodded and looked at Hashtag’s friend. He was older than Zack had thought he was at first glance, but not much. He was probably barely old enough to get into a bar legally. He had shaggy dark blond, almost brown hair and really big, dark eyes. He was big, as tall as Zack and even more muscular. He had a tattoo on his neck that said “Krissy” with a heart at either end of it. He was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, but while Hash was on the phone, he reached into the saddlebag of his Harley and pulled out his leather kutte. He slid it on and Zack saw the name on it said “Levi” but what really got his attention was that the guy was wearing a Defenders patch. “Why are you here?” Zack asked him.
The guy looked at him with his big, dark brown eyes and Zack thought he looked a little bit like a hound dog. “Hashtag thought you guys might need my help and Chaney was all for it, if there was a chance I could find Spider.”
“I’m telling you right now, there’s a pretty damned good chance that when I find him, he’ll be dead shortly after.”
Levi got on his bike and slipped a red skullcap on his head before casually saying, “If you don’t make him dead, I plan to.”
Zack wasn’t sure he liked the idea of trusting a Defender, whether Spider was still one of them or not, but Hashtag trusted him, so he was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. He climbed on his bike just as Hash ended his call. “They’ll meet us there,” he said. Zack nodded as Hash got on his own bike and the three men headed toward Clarksville. The drive from Nashville to Clarksville was about fifty miles. In normal traffic and weather, it would take about forty-five minutes but Zack planned on making it in a lot less than that. As he weaved in and out of traffic, he lost sight of whether or not Hash and Levi were keeping up with him. All he could think about was getting to Nicole and Liam before that crazy son of a bitch that took them did something he couldn’t undo.
Zack had the GPS on his phone set with the name of the street. He wished that he had an exact address, but from the looks of the map on his phone it was a rural area, and a Maserati would stick out like a sore thumb. When he reached the edge of town, he slowed down enough to make sure he wouldn’t get pulled over and have to waste time with the police. As he slowed down he heard Hashtag’s and Levi’s bikes behind him. They followed him through the little city and when they hit the outskirts of town once more, he sped up and so did they. They had gone about two more miles when he saw something that looked like a big ATV coming toward him along the side of the road. The vehicle wasn’t what got his attention, it was the woman driving it. It looked like Stacey. When she was close enough to see him she stopped the Ranger and started waving her arms furiously. Zack had barely pulled off the side of the road when she scrambled out of the little vehicle and stumbled toward him. She looked like she could barely stand on her own
two legs, and her hair and clothes were all wet. One side of her face was bruised and blood was crusted around her nose and her swollen upper lip. Before she reached Zack, Hashtag made it to her and she fell into his chest and started crying and talking almost incoherently.
“It’s okay, you’re safe now,” he told her.
“Nick, and Liam…they’re not safe. Spider is still there. Please, please help them!”
“Where are they, Stacey?” Zack asked her.
“At Nicole’s parent’s house. It’s on Lewis…” She sucked in breath and let it out in a big sob before she said, “I didn’t think to look at the address. Oh, shit! Damn it! I’m so stupid!” Hashtag was still holding her, and he ran his hand down her hair and whispered something to her as Zack said:
“It’s okay, Stacey. Are they okay?”
She began to sob. “I don’t know. Nicole was looking for Liam when I left. Spider had us in the basement. I don’t know if Liam’s okay!”
Hashtag pulled her in tighter and gave Zack a look that said, “Back off.” Zack felt horrible for her, but they didn’t have the time right then for sympathy. “Stacey, just tell me what the house looks like, and what’s around it.”
“It’s yellow. The house is yellow and there’s an old barn in back. It sits off the road a way…Spider’s car was still in front, a red one, a sports car.”
Zack was back on his bike in seconds. “Stay with her,” he told Hash, “and let Stone and the other guys know what to look for.” Hash nodded as Zack and Levi took off. They drove for another mile or two before coming to Lewis Road. Zack was going so fast that he almost laid the bike down in the middle of the road when he took the turn but he couldn’t slow down. He felt like he was losing his mind. It would only take Spider seconds to kill her if she found him before Zack got there, and if he knew Stacey had gone for help, it would only take him seconds to leave with her and disappear too.