Sliding (The Stone Series)

by Kitty Berry

  “Give me your cell phone now” Mac orders.

  I hand it over without question, not knowing if I’m being kidnapped or saved. I watch as Mac tosses my cell phone through the window of my Porsche then he returns and climbs in the front seat. The ignition is turned on and we are speeding down roads heading to I-95 in an Audi Q7.

  “Mr. Taylor has a GPS system on your phone and in your car so he could monitor your whereabouts. That’s why I needed your phone and why we left your car. I know this is all very confusing but I am doing what I must to keep you safe. I will explain everything in good time. Please don’t be scared, trust me I won’t let anything happen to you” Mac tries to reassure me.

  We are speeding down I-95 south towards New York City when the news on the radio reports the explosion.

  “We are live on the scene in Connecticut where there has been a home explosion and it is suspected that the homeowners were inside at the time of the explosion. No names are being released at this time. The cause has yet to be reported. Stay tuned, as more information becomes available we’ll bring it to you.”

  Mac is now wearing dark mirrored sunglasses so I am not able to gauge his reaction to the news on the radio.

  “Is that true?” I ask Mac “Were Asia and Ted in the house when it exploded?”

  “I told you, I’ll explain everything later” Mac snaps at me impatiently.

  I sit quietly the rest of the ride into the city, too in shock to even cry. We take the FDR to a heliport where we leave the SUV and jump into a helicopter. I am not enthusiastic about flying in this contraption but I realize I have no choice in the matter. Mac and I are sitting with our legs touching in the helicopter and I feel safe in his presence. When I glance at him I notice he’s still covered in soot from the explosion. I’m starting to realize that I am being saved not kidnapped; I just don’t know what I’m being saved from but I’m scared all the same. So much has happened since I decided to answer that phone this morning. I wish I had just ignored it and left for the airport. I wonder how different my life will be now from just that one decision.

  After what feels like hours but is only minutes Mac apologizes and claims it’s for my safety when he asks me to wear the blindfold he provides me. We land and I hear Mac greet someone then he leads me onto another plane. Once on board he removes my blindfold and says, “Sorry about that Mrs. Taylor, now we can talk. We have hours of travel time ahead of us so I should be able to answer all of your questions in that time. Where would you like me to begin?”

  When Mac started this assignment, his last planned assignment; he never planned to have feelings for the woman he is now protecting. He planned to do this one last assignment figuring it would be quick and pain free then he could retire to an island somewhere like his ex-partner and try to forget everything he’d witnessed in his short life, all the pain and violence, all the trauma and suffering. But feelings for this woman he does have. She is a tiny brunette with a head full of wild curls that makes you want to lose your fingers in them. She is high spirited and full of life. But as Mac looks at her across the seat on the plane he notices that some of that life has been sucked out of her already and she doesn’t even know the half of it. He knows the facts that he is about to share with her will most likely take away the rest of that glow of hers that he has become accustomed to seeing every day. Mac knows he should do this like ripping a bandage off an exposed wound, in one fast pull but he can’t bring himself to do it that way, not to her. Maybe if he eases her into the story it will be easier on her psyche to process. He understands that he is about to make her question her entire life and he’s seen women fall apart over much less.

  “How about we begin with you calling me Brook? I think after kidnapping and blindfolding me calling me by my first name is acceptable don’t you agree?” I sarcastically ask Mac.

  A small chuckle manages to escape him and he agrees. Mac suggests that we begin at the start. He tells me his name is Tony Macintosh but his friends and colleagues call him Mac for short. He went to military schools growing up then to West Point before the Marines. Mac comes from a long line of born and raised Military men. Mac joined the Special Operations unit shortly after 9/11 and went to work to conquer terrorists in and out of our country. I can tell by the dark look that passes over his face when he talks about his time in the military that he has demons he is keeping hidden behind that tough guy armor.

  “I was working for the government investigating Ted and his links to the mob and certain terrorist’s cells of interest. He got himself in pretty deep with the wrong people. He was stealing money from his company and the people he was working for. He was investing money from one party to make money for another. His life was spiraling out of control but through him we were getting close to a terrorist cell and their money. It was our goal to freeze their assets and get them into custody. Ted of course was going to go down with them for his part in the deal but other things crept up along the way. We had his home and office bugged and that’s how we knew he was looking for a private investigator. When he made the appointment to meet with the person we got there first and I posed as the man he thought he was meeting. He hired me to spy on his wife whom he suspected of having an affair, that’s where Asia and Mr. Taylor come in.”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready to hear about that yet. Can we skip that part or at least the details of it for now, please?” I beg.

  Mac has a look of sadness in his eyes; it’s as if he feels the pain for me, like he wants to take the pain for me. I ask him to continue with the story and he lets out an audible sigh releasing the tension that’s building within him before continuing.

  Mac doesn’t know how to explain to Brook the sight he found early that day. Should he tell her about the bondage, she knows from the pictures he shared with her that Asia was into it, did it with her husband? Instead of going there now he decides to tell her how he got involved with her.

  “After Ted hired me I started following Asia and Mr. Taylor and I bugged the place where they uh…frequented. That’s how I knew you were looking for a head of security. I decided working as a triple agent if you will, would be the best way to serve all the purposes at once. I did the same thing with Mr. Taylor as I did with Ted. I listened in to conversations and when Mr. Taylor scheduled an appointment for a security specialist I intercepted their appointment and got myself hired to be your head of security in Connecticut while your husband was planning to leave for California.”

  Mac stands when a young attractive woman enters our view. She takes our drink order and I can’t wait to feel the cool liquid of my drink slide to my stomach then hopefully it will go directly to my head. I need to be drunk if he’s going to continue this story. The alcohol actually clears my head and it gets me to thinking about me with Mac in this plane and where we’re heading to and why.

  “Um…then who are you working for right now? Why are you taking me somewhere and while we’re on that topic where are you taking me?”

  “I am not working for anyone at the moment. This was my last job with the government. When it was over I planned on retiring and getting some well-earned rest and relaxation in the sun. I am taking you to my ex-partners home at a destination its best you don’t know about. You may think right now that you won’t contact Mr. Taylor but in a few days you’ll want to and I can’t chance you being found right now. I don’t want you to contact anyone and tell them where you are and put yourself in danger and that goes for your family too. I have put in orders for your family to be contacted so they’ll know you are safe, Mr. Taylor included but no one will know your whereabouts. The people who killed Asia and Ted can easily link you and Mr. Taylor to the money and come after you looking for what they feel are owed to them.”

  I interrupt him, “So wait that means that Tate’s in danger too? Who’s keeping him safe?”

  “Dominick has been contacted by my team and he’ll keep Mr. Taylor safe, he’s good at what he does, Mr. Taylor will be fine and I am making sure that yo
u are as well.”

  Mac doesn’t tell her that he is taking her to Jonesie’s island getaway in the South Pacific. He doesn’t tell her that this is not entirely necessary but that his main motivation is just to keep her safe. Mac is taking her to his ex-partner’s private home in paradise that after years of service he well deserves. He’s taking Brook there to keep her safe first and foremost but also so he can spend time with her, to get to know her, maybe take away some of the pain her husband has caused her. She deserves a man who will treat her like a princess, the way she should be treated and cherished, and a man who would never betray her with another woman, a man like him.

  I don’t know what part of this horrific story I can deal with next. Should I ask Mac what happened at Asia and Ted’s house or what occurred between my best friend and my husband? I choose to ask Mac to continue with either part. Mac says that he has to excuse himself for a while to check in with his superiors and file a report then shower off the soot and grim covering him. He promises to continue when he returns and suggests that I try to get some sleep while he’s gone.

  As Mac goes into another section of the plane I settle in to reflect on the happenings of today. With all that happened I have not yet stopped to think about what this all means to my marriage. I feel as if my whole relationship with Tate has been a lie. How many other women were there over the years? When did he start cheating on me? I start thinking back over the years to every time I questioned Tate’s fidelity.

  I think back to the first night at the school dance. Why did Tate pick me to dance with? Why did he ask me to be his girlfriend? When Tate asked me to dance instead of any another girl there that night I thought that it must have been some kind of bet he had with his friends or a prank. I was waiting for him to start dancing with me then leave me on the floor alone looking stupid while everyone laughed and pointed at me. Now I wonder what really did make him choose me.

  I start to question why Tate was always so possessive over me. Was it because he assumed that I was doing to him the same thing that he was doing to me? So any time I spoke to another guy he just assumed that I was fucking him and that’s why he went crazy? There was that time when my friends met some boys at a carnival and Tate lost it. I wonder now why it upset him so much when I repeatedly told him I didn’t talk to those boys. Was it because if that was him at a carnival with his friends he would have talked to another girl? Then there was the time in New York when he gave me a bunch of hickeys because some older boy saw me cheering and asked Bobby’s brother who I was. Why should that have upset him so much? Could it have been because he was also checking out girls and wanted to do more with them?

  The stress of the day and the alcohol of my now third drink mix together and affect me more than I thought it would. I find myself drifting off to sleep in my seat.

  Mac showers, gets changed into clean clothes then calls in to file his report. He knows he should have placed this call at least an hour ago but he has been avoiding truly processing the scene he saw at Ted and Asia’s home. He knows it will bring back demons he needs to stay buried deep now more than ever. He gives a brief summary of the call Ted placed to Brook and states that he shared pictures with her of Asia and Tate in numerous compromising positions. He cringes when he remembers the look it replaced in her eyes. He speaks about the state of the house when he arrived then the gun shots. He explains about the locked windows, the broken window and the entrance he used. He wants to skip over how he found the victims but he knows that he can’t. He has to remove himself, remove his past from what happened today. He tells his superior that Ted was positioned in a chair at the foot of the bed. He was bound and gagged and undoubtedly force to watch his wife raped by at least one if not more men. His wife was gagged and bound as well but in a sexual bondage manner. One she was known to find kinky and often requested her lover to put her in. Each victim had been shot twice, once in the chest, one in the head. He explains about the ticking sound and the explosion. His superior thanks him for his service once again and promises he’ll have everything he needs when he arrives at his destination and that they’ll stay in touch as more information becomes available. He’s told to be safe and when he hears the name that turns his stomach Mac hangs up the phone and downs his drink in one gulp then heads into the bathroom to throw up. He splashes water on his face and pushes his demons that have surfaced back to their dark cave deep inside him. He knows sleep will not come tonight without them resurfacing with vengeances.

  As I sleep my subconscious mind continues where my conscious mind left off. My mind starts checking off each time Tate questioned my fidelity or I questioned his. There was the time he got mad that I was going with my cheer squad to the States game, questioning me if I was going to have boys in my room. He flipped over Adam, my cheer partner before he knew he was gay. Then there was the Lindsey Crooke fiasco when she told me in the bathroom that Tate and Bobby had been getting sex lessons from Bobby’s older brother, Eric. Not long after that Tracie DelRicco came up to me and told me that Tate was not a virgin when I lost my virginity to him and I thought he lost his to me, she said he slept with her and other girls before me. Over the years I heard that some of the older guys Tate hung out with went to parties on the college campus and hooked up with girls. Now I wonder if Tate went with them. Did he hook up with girls there? I always wondered what he did during those weekends at UNC when he didn’t come to see me. I know what happened at the parties I went to at the University of Kentucky. The athlete’s were able to have any girl they wanted, many times more than one girl at a time. Did Tate do that too at UNC parties? When did he start cheating on me? Was Asia the last one or is there a girl right now in his bed with him in California? I am forced awake at that thought to find Mac sitting across from me watching me sleep.

  “We’re almost ready to land and I hate to have to ask this again but…” and he hands me the blindfold. “It’s for your own safety.” He is clean and dressed in different clothes, a tight white t-shirt is stretched across his broad shoulders and well defined chest and stomach and he’s wearing faded jeans slung low on his narrow hips. I ask him how long I have been asleep for and he tells me not to worry about it, I was exhausted and in shock, my body needed the rest. I put on the blindfold again as the plane lands and Mac guides me off the aircraft and into a car. Mac sits next to me in the backseat, someone is driving us but they never speak, not even to Mac. I can smell Mac’s shampoo, cologne and manly scent and they are intoxicating, my sense of smell is so much stronger when I am unable to see. When we arrive at our destination Mac helps me out of the car. Once the driver has driven away he removes my blindfold and we are in paradise. The weather is beautifully warm without that Connecticut humidity and the sun is shining. I look at him and for the first time realize just how gorgeous he is. This feeling I’m starting to have in my stomach is unsettling but I’m sure it’s just because I feel like Mac’s saved me. They say people start to have crazy feelings and ideas like this about someone who has saved them in a crisis, some sort of hero worship. And I ‘m sure that’s what’s happening to me right now, nothing more.

  Chapter 10: Paradise

  We are on an island by the look and feel of things and in front of us is only what I can call a compound because it’s just too grand to be called a house. Upon further inspection I learn that there is a main house, servant’s quarters, a pool house and not one but two guest homes that are larger than most people’s full time residences.

  Mac and I walk to the guest house closest to the ocean and he tells me that this compound belongs to his ex-partner.

  “I thought you worked for the government? You make this kind of money?” I ask.

  “Not from the government, Jonesie and I do what you civilians call “going rouge” Mac responds.

  As we approach the guest house he informs me that it’s a four bedroom so we’ll stay in the same house so he can be close by just in case I need him. He assures me I am completely safe and as far away from harm’s way as I
can get but I am still shaken up over the events of the last…I have no idea what day or time it even is at this point. My senses are in such disarray I feel exhausted just thinking about it. It’s all starting to hit me hard now, the shock is wearing off and I need to be alone and fast so I can allow myself to crash. When Mac offers to show me around I decline his offer and ask just to be shown to my room. Mac looks let down for some reason but complies.

  My room is peaceful and the view is stunning. There is a complete wall of glass that looks out to the ocean at the back of the house. There is a switch on the wall that darkens the glass so no one can see in but I can still see out or I can pull the blinds and curtains and the room will become blanketed in darkness. There is a king sized bed with lush bedding in taupe and a soft lavender. The three walls are painted a matching taupe color and the bathroom matches the room perfectly. There is a chenille sofa in a blue hue with red and orange pillows to add some pop of color to the room. It is facing a huge flat screen television that is suspended on the floor to ceiling electric fireplace complete with blue stones. Mac asks me to make him a list of toiletries, clothes and anything else I require for at least a month’s stay and I just nod. Mac gets the hint and leaves me alone to deal with my grief.