by J. J. McAvoy
Chapter Nine
Amelia
“Thank you once again for coming, Ms. London.” The same woman from last night shook my hand once more as I got into the car.
“Thank you for having me. I hope you have a good day,” I said to her as I slid into the car’s backseat.
It was only when the hotel was nothing but a building in the distance that Austin’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror.
“You sure you are up for this?”
I nodded but didn’t answer, staring at my own reflection in the car window. My heart pounded so loudly that my ears were ringing. Every once in a while, I would look at the street signs. River Run Ave.—that’s were Bo had disposed of her body. I had no idea what to expect, and Austin didn’t want me here as it was, but like I said, the only way this didn’t look suspicious was if I was there as well.
“Amelia.”
“Yes.”
“Relax.”
How? “I’m trying.”
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Earlier, you asked me why I have to work so hard and if I thought Noah was an actor worth working for. And my answer is yes. I think Noah is that type of actor. However, I didn’t always. I didn’t take this job because I thought he was the next Daniel Day-Lewis. The truth is, I was selfish, plain and simple. I also grew up in Southbend. I lost to my brother to a gang. My sister took her own life, and it was hard on me,” he said, pausing, and I could still tell it was hard on him.
“But,” he went on, “I thought maybe I could help stop families from going through the same. But after a few months as a social worker, I realized it wasn’t possible. So many kids, not adults, had given up. They didn’t fight, and as much as I tried for them, they still didn’t care. It was slowly draining me. And the week I thought of quitting, I got Noah’s case. I would never forget how he sat down in front me. Total confidence, no fear, not even of Frank. He even tried to bribe me to close his case because he had a plan to get him and Bo away from Frank for good. It was a shitty plan. But I respected him for it—the lengths he was willing going to go. And I thought I’d at least help him before I ditched my life. When I did, he offered me a job, and I took it, not knowing a thing about Hollywood but desperate to get out of this damn city. It wasn’t a smart choice for him. I could have totally screwed up his life. In fact, I fucked up many times in the beginning, and he paid for it. But over the next ten years, I grew to truly believe in him and truthfully, it’s so much easier to fix other people’s lives than it is to deal with mine. That is why I work so hard. That’s the story.”
“It’s sad,” I whispered, playing with the necklace around my neck. “All of this, our lives— why are they so sad?”
“The moment you start thinking like that, you lose sight of some of the miracles. Like the fact that you met the love of your life at age nine and he is just as in love with you as you are with him. Or how both of your careers—careers that you are not only talented in but truly love— have returned with a vengeance, and for the most part you both are completely healthy. Yes, some awful shit has happened to the both of you, and you have the right to be sad at times, but your life isn’t sad. You being who you are, Noah being who he is—and you found each other. It’s a series of miracles.”
“And you? What about you? Your whole life is us?”
He smiled, looking into the mirror. “I’ll have my day … and we’re here.”
Quickly glancing outside, I saw it—the green street sign above me. And when he turned, to my surprise, it was a small hospital.
“Bo brought her here?”
“It’s actually the smartest thing he has ever done,” Austin whispered as we drove around to the back. “There is a morgue here … where better to hide the dead than in plain sight?”
“So we just waltz in there and take her out?” For some reason it seemed too easy.
Parking, he turned back to me and grinned. “Were you expecting us to get shovels and dig her up in the woods?”
I opened my mouth to reply then shut it, thinking better of it.
“Follow my lead, and don’t make eye contact with anyone,” he said, handing me a pair of sunglasses.
Nodding, I putting them on as we stepped out of the car. He walked in front of me, completely relaxed, and when we walked in, and I noticed that the place was mostly run down. And we attracted way too much attention.
“Austin—”
“Trust me.”
Maybe I had seen and acted in too many damn movies, but this was not at all how I planned this going in. My heels clicked across the lobby as we headed to the elevators. Somehow Austin knew exactly where to go. Relaxing when no one else was on the elevator, he hit “up” instead of “down”—I was about 90 percent sure they kept bodies in hospital basements.
When the doors opened, he glanced to the right and then left, nodding to himself when he saw the room numbers before going left. We walked down the hall until we stood at room 207. Tapping twice, we waited. Looking through the glass, I saw a fat sweaty man dressed in blue scrubs, with a fountain drink in his hand, walk around the curtain towards us.
“Austin, long time no see, man,” he said, smiling wide before taking a gulp of his drink.
“Not long enough,” Austin replied, walking in.
“Holy shit, you Amelia London? I love you!” He said when I walked in.
“Thanks.”
“This new movie—are you going to be fully naked, or is it one of those—”
“Joe!” Austin snapped his fingers, trying to get him to focus. However, that didn’t change the awkwardness that just took place.
“Right,” he said, rushing back over to the bed. “What do you think? Not bad for being in the freezer for three months, right?”
I froze when I saw her, her skin pale and white. But her hair was curled, her nails perfectly manicured and painted red to match her lips, along with the rest of her makeup. She was dressed in black with a pair of Gucci heels. I felt a chill go up my spine staring at her like this.
“You got probably about another hour, maybe less, before she defrosts completely and the funk really kicks in,” Joe added, taking another long swig of his drink, his eyes drifting to me. “So who is she?”
“An icon,” I replied. And the fact that he didn’t know that for some reason bothered me. Getting a wheelchair, he sat her as best he could, and even went so far as to put shades and a sunhat on her.
“It’s perfect.” Austin reached into his jacket pocket and handed him a thick envelope.
“Thank you,” Joe said, trying to bow. But his stomach got in the way.
“I got her,” I whispered, stepping behind the wheelchair. For some reason, the moment Austin and Joe said their goodbyes, my mind went blank with the realization that I was pushing my mother’s dead, glamourized body in a wheelchair. I thought of the verbal and emotional abuse she put me through. I thought of how she always put herself, her needs, before me, and I reminded myself that she was behind the murder of one my friends and the fact that she was the reason Noah and I spilt up.
She was selfish.
She was mean and vindictive.
But she was still my mother, and the fact that I was doing this to her when she was gone—I was sad. But most importantly, I was sorry. So very sorry.
“We’re almost out,” Austin said, and I hadn’t realized until I saw the exit come into the view.
“Excuse me?”
Freezing, we stared at the nurse who rushed up to us. “Are you Amelia London? I’m a huge fan. There are some girls here who are also—”
“Sorry, we’re running late, and Ms. London isn’t feeling well,” Austin pushed her to the side slightly, making room for me to make my escape. But not before hearing a few of their comments.
“What did I tell you? Total bitch.”
“Whatever. She’s a piss-poor actress anyway.”
Rolling my eyes, I took a deep breath when we got outside. We had made it. Opening the door fo
r us, Austin paused before cursing under his breath.
“What?” My head shot back, following his gaze, and there, in a beat-up old truck, was none other than Bo, staring at us wide-eyed when he realized what we were doing.
“He was probably here to check up on his safety net. Get in now!” Without care, he picked Esther up, all but throwing her into the back, her body slumping over toward the window.
I didn’t even have time to close the door behind us when he pulled out of the lot as quickly as possible.
“You fuckers!” Bo honked his horn, speeding right up to us and smashing into the bumper of the car.
“Amelia, keep your head down!” Austin screamed at me, and I did, leaning right next to my mother.
“FUCKIN’ SHITS!” I heard before he blasted the horn again…and again…and again.
“Agh!” I gripped the seat when Bo once again rear-ended us.
“Idiot! The goddamn moron is going to expose all of us!” Austin looked over at me, the car accelerating forward.
“How long is he going to follow us for?” I yelled as Austin turned the corner sharply, the honking fading then disappearing. He didn’t answer. As we headed toward the park, the light thankfully changed from red to green.
“He’s gone?” I sat up.
“Amelia, down!” Austin screamed, and all I saw was the front of the car speeding right toward us. He tried, but there was no getting away from it. My whole body jerked forward, my heading hitting the back of his seat, the glass shattering all around us as the car spun out, the tires screeching until we hit a tree.
Silence. Which didn’t seem right. There should be noise. I heard everything one moment, and in the next, everything was silent.
Reaching up, I winced at the blood on the side of my head. The silence slowly changed into ringing.
“Amelia.”
“Amelia!”
I looked to the front, but he wasn’t there. Austin wasn’t there.
Austin?
“Amelia!!”
There he was, to the left of me, already out of the car, his face covered in blood. “Amelia, I can’t get you out from your side. You need to climb through.”
Why?
When I looked, I saw nothing but the brown tree bark we had collided with, the car almost bent around it. The only thing blocking me from it was the air bag.
“Amelia, can you move?”
I didn’t think about it until I tried to. My whole side was numb. I couldn’t feel anything, and panic started to kick in.
“Austin, I can’t move. I can’t feel anything!”
“Amelia, grab my arm.”
“Austin!”
“Grab my arm!” He reached in, over my mother’s body, pulling at me. Bits of glass dug into and cut my arms as he pulled me out, cradling me. “I got you. You’re okay. You’re okay,” he kept repeating as he rushed away from the car, laying me on the grass. The sky is so blue.
“I’ll be right back. We’ll finish this right now, okay. You’re okay.”
I didn’t know what he meant, and I still couldn’t move any part of my body but my head, and when I looked, he was rushing back to the car.
He reached into the window like he was trying to get someone else as dark smoke poured out of the front of the hood. What?
Esther. He was pretending to get Esther!
Fire!
“Austin!” I screamed when what looked like a small spark set the whole car in flames, and rolls of black smoke, my vision kept blurring.
“You really are a pain in my fuckin’ ass.” Blocking my view was none other than Bo himself. “How about we go on a little trip?”
No. Please no!
NOAH!
Noah
What the hell?
Sitting up, I tried to ignore the chill that went up my spine and the hair on my arms standing up.
“Are you alright?” Dalila asked.
“Yes, sorry, what was your question?” I tried again to focus.
“I asked how you felt when you saw that video of your father, not only involved with millions of dollars’ worth of drugs, but also a shootout with police?” she repeated, and I knew she had been dying to get on this topic for the last forty minutes.
“Honestly, when I saw it, I didn’t connect to it. I didn’t feel anything but sadness for the police officers who had gotten hurt and a sense of pride in the city for getting that many drugs out of circulation.”
“When you say you didn’t connect to it—”
“I mean what I have been trying to explain to you—nothing. When it comes to Frank, I don’t see him as my father. I don’t see him as anything but a pitiful human being who has only ever cared about how he can use people to benefit himself. So when media repeatedly refers to him as ... father of former child star and actor Noah Sloan, for the sole purpose of boosting ratings, I get frustrated. I’m not a prop. I’m my own human being.”
“I understand that, but he is your father, and you can’t escape that—”
“Dalila, there is no perfect family. So imagine if you or anyone else was judged not based on their own actions but that of another grown adult. I cannot control Frank’s actions. I wish I could. I wish he was a better human being. But I can’t and he isn’t. That isn’t my fault. I refuse to let him define who I am at this present moment. I refuse to accept the responsibility of atoning for another man’s sins. If you or anyone else wants to insult me or drag my name through the mud, do so, but do so for my own actions, not Frank’s. I hope he is caught soon and when he is, there will be no support from me.”
“Before I—”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Sloan,” Daniel rushed to the patio, interrupting her right in the middle of taping me.
“Who is that?” Dalila snapped, pointing to him. “Excuse me, we are—”
“Mr. Sloan. It’s an emergency—it’s Amelia.”
That feeling. The fear. It all rushed back, and I was up pulling off the microphone as I moved toward him.
“What’s going on?” I asked as he ushered me through the suite, and one by one, I noticed people start checking their phones. “Daniel!” I yelled when we got in to the hall, now running toward the elevators.
“There was an accident. There are videos of Austin pulling her from the car, but then Bo took her.”
“He took her?” I repeated as he pushed the lobby button several more times.
“Kidnapped her. He kidnapped her, sir.”
Why? Why? It was like he punched me. All the air in my lungs vanished, my throat went dry, and I could feel my heart racing far too quickly. Why couldn’t I ever protect her? Why was I always dragging her down? Why didn’t I just walk away?
Loving me was the worst thing that ever happened to her. She always got hurt because of me!
“Ugh!” No. Not now! I held my own hand, breathing slowly. In and out. In and out. I could not break down here. Not now. Not when she was just out there without anyone.
“Sir?”
Pushing myself off the wall, I stood straighter. “I’m good.”
“The media is—”
“I don’t care. What happened to Austin?”
“From what I’ve heard and the video, Austin rushed back to get Ms. London, Amelia’s mother, from the car when it went up in flames—”
“What? Esther? He went to get Esther from the car?”
He nodded, not understanding how that should not have been possible.
“He got Amelia out first, and then went to get her mother, but the car went up in smoke and fire sparked. He’s been rushed to the hospital. He’s badly burned.”
“That’s where we’re going.” Something didn’t make sense. If Esther’s body was in the car, that means they—both Austin and Amelia—went to get her themselves.
“Mr. Sloan!”
“Noah!”
“Is your own father holding your girlfriend for ransom, Sloan?”
“Noah, have you heard from either your father or brother?”
They
were like a swarm, their damn cameras and microphones in my face. Daniel had to actually push more than a few of them as he made way for us to get out.
“Noah, is this just an act to help your father escape?” I paused right before the door and turned to him, his microphone pushed closer to my mouth. I grabbed it out of his hands and pulled him out from the crowd right into my fist. His whole head turned, and they all backed up, allowing his fucking body to fall on to the ground.
“Go ahead and sue me, you fucking piece of shit,” I told him before getting into the car and slamming the door behind me. I punched the seat in front of me. “Fucking shit! Goddamn fucking damn it!”
Exhaling through my mouth, I pulled out my phone. It was stupid. It was useless. But I still had to try. I called her phone.
“The number you have reached is…”
Amelia. Please. Please, be okay.
Biting my fist, I gripped the phone, for the first time hoping that either Frank or Bo would call. Whatever they wanted, they could have … I just needed her.
Amelia
“Wakey wakey,” someone slapped my cheek.
“Urgh…” I groaned, my whole body feeling like an open wound. “I’m gonna be sick.”
“You’re going to be worse than that in a few hours.” Another low deep voice said to the right of me.
My eyelids felt heavy, but I finally managed to open my eyes. I was staring straight at Bo, a toothpick in his mouth. My arms were chained to a pipe behind me.
“Welcome back, princess,” he said calmly, reaching up as if to touch me. He reached past my head for a cup of water with a bendy straw. “Drink.”
Keeping my lips shut, I only glared at him.
“I can see why your brother likes her.”
In the corner of the room of what looked to be some sort of old factory was the son of a bitch himself, peeling an apple with a knife in hand and sliding slivers of it into his mouth. His nose was broken and had dried blood around it, and he hadn’t shaved. Even from the distance between us, I could tell he reeked of booze. In a way, he didn’t look human anymore. However, his eyes—they were the same blue-green as Noah’s, and I found comfort in that.