“The pleasure was mine,” John said to his back as Mark waddled out the door.
When he was alone, John locked the door, emptied the rest of the cash from the safe into his briefcase, and slid out the back door where he walked a block over and hailed a cab.
“Where to?” the cabby asked.
“Evanston, as fast as you can get me there.”
13
ABBY AND DONNY FOLLOWED the black, late-model Lincoln on I-90. They were a few hours outside of the city, traveling through a section of pavement in dire need of resurfacing. The suspension on the Lincoln in front of them was being subjected to an endurance test by the combined 650-pound weight of its passengers.
Had Eric been with her, he no doubt would have recognized the two men in the Lincoln as the ones who had tried—unsuccessfully—to kidnap him at the airport, though somehow they had become even larger.
After the first uneventful thirty minutes, Abby had mercifully fallen asleep, waking up a few hours later as refreshed as one could be in such a situation. Not entirely sure why, after stretching and cracking her neck, she reached over and playfully scratched the back of Donny’s head.
He shined his warm smile, and a flash of Eric crossed her mind. Abby instantly felt guilty and pulled her hand away.
“Why are you helping me, Donny? Why are you still here?”
He shook his head. “I used to think you had low self-esteem, but maybe it’s that you have no self-esteem.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Really, Abby? Don’t you know why I’m here? Don’t you know how special you are? It killed me to see you in the condition you were in toward the end with Bryce before we got you out. The only thing that hurt worse than that was saying goodbye to you, thinking I might never see you again. You were going off to Trial Island, the memories of the last ten years of your life—including me—to be wiped clean. Then, from there to disappear off the grid. When you really disappeared, despite my own feelings, I was happy for you. But when you turned up dead, the day the news broke... man... I’ve never felt so low in my life.”
Abby watched as he went quiet and shook his head.
“I felt like it was my fault, you know? Like I should have been there for you. I felt so fucking helpless. And now?” He gestured to her sitting next to him. “The second I saw you at Rosso’s all those feelings just came rushing back. So, to ask me why I’m helping you?” He quietly shook his head again, thinking a moment before his tone took a harsh change. “I didn’t think. I just acted. It was what I was compelled to do. So here we are.”
They sat quiet, letting his words hang in the air. Abby couldn’t tell if he was angry with her or the situation. Either way, it hurt. She didn’t want to pull him in, to hurt him, to put him in danger like she did Eric. She thought about asking him to pull over. She could get out and go on by herself, but as she mulled that over, she realized, for better or worse, they were tied to each other now because the men back at the house knew he had helped her.
There was so much more that Donny wanted to say. Behind his gruff façade, the conversation continued in his head. To lose you AND the rest of my life at the same time—I would have gone crazy, so I stayed here. I thought about leaving a million times the week after you left, but where would I go? Montana, was it? I don’t know anyone there, and I wasn’t ready to start over. Part of me thought you might come back someday, or wished you would.
Abby broke his interior monologue before long. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I had no idea you were even still around.”
“Don’t be. I made the decision to stay and to get involved.”
“It’s a lot. Trust me, I get it. Trial Island was our plan, though. I’m sorry you had to go through what you did, but you know that’s not entirely my fault. Don’t be mad at me for what we planned together.”
“Sorry, I know,” Donny said. “It’s just... I know it was the right thing to do, I just didn’t realize how hard it was going to be for me. Sorry, I should have said something before.”
“No, no, I get it, and I needed to hear it. I honestly have no idea what you ever saw in me. I’m not the same Abby you knew a few years back.”
“No? Are you sure about that?”
She chuckled. “Oh, I’m sure. Have you not been paying attention these past couple hours?”
“Sure, some things have changed. Physically, mentally, you’re stronger; a fighter. Focused. Hell, that’s probably an understatement. But you know, inside I think you’re the same. We are who we are. Different traits might come out, but at our core, we’re the people we’ve always been. That’s my take on it anyway.”
They were quiet a moment before Donny continued.
“You said you have no idea what I ever saw in you?”
“Yeah, I mean... what is it, honestly? There must be something to me I’m not seeing. You put your life on the line to get Ava and me out a couple years back, and you’re doing it again. And Eric...” She stifled a tear at the thought.
Donny could see she was having some difficulty. “I didn’t know him, Abby. Just what I saw on TV or read about him, but he seemed like a good guy. He saw something in you, too.”
Abby shook her head. “He died for me. It was supposed to be me Bryce hit with the car. He pushed me out of the way at the last second.”
“They didn’t say that in the news.”
“That’s what happened, though. I should have been laying there dead on the lawn, not him.”
Abby’s heart wrenched at the thought of Eric, lying there, unable to move, willing to sacrifice himself for her. Then she heard Robert’s voice. Eric would not want you to spend your life in mourning. He chose for you to continue living, so if you want to honor his memory, that’s what you have to do!
She breathed deeply.
Donny went on. “He saw something in you Abby, same as me. Like I said, I didn’t know him and I can’t pretend to, but I can see why he felt that way about you.” He glanced at her in the passenger seat, and their eyes met for a moment before he turned back to the road as the conversation continued in his head. Those damned beautiful brown eyes get me every time. Something about the way you look at me makes me feel like I’m the only guy in the world.
They rode in silence while Abby pondered the future beyond the next day. She and Donny couldn’t possibly pick up where they left off. She wasn’t even sure where they left off. They spent years hiding their feelings, not only from the outside world but each other. They both knew how they felt, but never acknowledged it for fear of putting the other in danger.
Was she ready to move on with her life? She had only been with Eric for a year, but had given herself to him so fully it felt like it had been a lifetime. It had also been the better part of a year since he had died, and that seemed like a lifetime, too. Should I move on? Robert was right—she had to keep living. That’s what Eric would want. She knew the answer in her heart but wasn’t ready to admit it aloud yet.
She couldn’t deny she had feelings for Donny. So many times over her years with Bryce she had dreamt of running away with him. She looked at him, really looking at him, for the first time in a while. It wasn’t just that he was attractive; though he filled out the standard-issue mob suit better than just about any other man she had met. His black sport coat hid arms and shoulders that would rival most professional quarterbacks. His dark eyes held an intensity that was intimidating, but when he let you in, she remembered a softness to them that made her weak in the knees. It had been two days since his face had seen a razor, but the stubble only served to make him look more rugged.
She had to admit it was a sexy look.
Beyond his appearance, though, he had been her rock through years of hard times and had put it all on the line to save her and Ava. Now here he was again, no questions asked, by her side, ready to save her daughter again.
Donny was truly a man. Bryce, Rosso, the whole lot of them, were boys. Boys who intimidated innocent people
with guns and torture. Donny was a man who did what was right despite the consequences. She didn’t know how he had made it so long in the organization. Despite his tough-guy exterior, he had a big heart. He may have gone back to the mob life before, but he couldn’t now. Not that he wanted to. And not that there was much to go back to. Abby had seen to that.
She reached over and ran her hand down the length of his arm before finding his hand and giving it a squeeze. A silent thank you passed between them. He looked down at their hands, then back at the road. A barely detectable smirk crossed his lips just for a moment, but she saw it and gave him a little smile herself.
14
THE RIDE HAD BEEN uneventful to this point, but they were in the country now and it was getting harder and harder to stay unnoticed. It was late afternoon, and they had gone from the highway to an altogether deserted country road.
Donny stayed as far back as he could while managing to keep the Lincoln in sight, but there were only a couple of cars on the road aside from them at the moment. When they planned to follow Bryce’s men back to him, they hadn’t counted on being so exposed. They had been traveling this way for quite a while before deciding that the men in the Lincoln would have to be completely inept to not realize that they were being followed by the mid-level luxury car with Illinois tags.
Abby checked her .45 and .22, making sure she had spare magazines at the ready. Her knife, as always, was securely sheathed to her thigh. She still had a single flash-bang grenade on her belt; however, that would do them no good in the daylight and out in the open. She had no more quarter-sized explosive discs from Ace, and her canister had been lost in the shuffle somewhere at Rosso’s though she still had her small Taser and a few zip ties.
She didn’t intend to go with guns blazing, but these were dangerous men and she wanted to be ready for whatever might come her way when they got made.
“When they pull over,” Donny said, assuming that they have to at some point, “I’m going to continue on by and let them get behind us. Hopefully, I can find a spot to pull off the road and out of sight. When they go by us again, we’ll start the tail again.”
“You’ve done this before?” Abby asked.
“Once or twice,” Donny said.
They didn’t have to wait long. Minutes later, the Lincoln slowly pulled off to the side of the road and onto the shoulder.
As they were about to drive by Donny said, “You should duck, just in case they start shooting as we pass.”
Abby gave him an “Are you serious?” look, and then said, “Not a chance. I want to get a good look at these guys.”
“Just look straight ahead,” Donny said. “Glance at them if you want, but we don’t want them making you.”
Abby did as she was instructed, confident that she wouldn’t be recognized anyway. She glanced over at the stopped car, hand on her .45 with the safety off just in case. Fortunately, no one fired, and Abby and Donny continued by.
Had she continued to look at the driver and been able to read lips, she would have picked up on him saying, “Holy shit, do you know who that was?”
Donny continued forward and around a bend in the road a couple hundred feet. Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw one of the men get out of the passenger side just before the Lincoln disappeared behind thick trees on the side of the road. “I’m going to pull over, but I don’t think they’re coming.”
“Why not?”
“I just saw one of them get out of the car,” he said as he pulled to the side of the road.
Abby jumped out. “Give me a couple minutes to head back and check it out.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Just do it, OK? If I don’t come back in five, come looking for me.”
With that, Abby ran to the tree line, leaving Donny shaking his head in the car, watching her run away.
She followed the tree line until she reached the black Lincoln around the corner. Crouching low, she ducked into the trees and made her way slowly forward to get a closer look at the parked car.
The two men were both outside the vehicle, with driver leaning on the trunk with his forearms, pushing down the rear shocks to an impressive degree. He appeared to be watching the road ahead, waiting for someone to appear. The small gun in his meaty hand confirmed that they had indeed noticed they were being followed.
The other man stood on the grass next to the passenger side of the vehicle, holding up his phone and walking around staring at the screen, probably looking for service. As he started punching at the screen with his thumbs, Abby stepped forward to place herself near the edge of the trees, hoping to hear anything that might get said. When she did, she unintentionally rustled a patch of dry leaves that had probably been sitting there since last year, causing both men to look her way immediately.
“There she is!” cried the fat one behind the car. He raised his gun and fired in her direction, doing nothing but tearing bark from the trees around her.
The one with the phone stuffed it into his pocket and took out his gun, opening fire a second later.
Abby dropped to the ground, raised her weapon, and fired six quick rounds at the men. As the slugs crashed into the glass and sheet metal, it made a lot of noise but did no damage to her targets.
As the men dove for cover, Abby realized that all of the accuracy she had honed over the past several months was done with targets that didn’t shoot back. The adrenaline rush she felt trying to dodge bullets while shooting was unlike anything she had felt before.
Just a short distance away, she heard the squeal of tires as Donny came speeding to her aid.
She didn’t see him coming, but her targets did and turned their attention to Donny. The fat man behind the Lincoln repositioned himself more toward Abby’s side of the car and started shooting at Donny as soon as the car came into sight.
Donny swerved as two bullets cracked his windshield and struck the passenger seat where Abby had been sitting just minutes before.
Abby took advantage of the distraction, raised her .45, stared carefully down the sight, and dropped the beast standing behind the car like a Costco-sized sack of potatoes with a single round to the side of his knee. His head smacked into the corner of the bumper on his way to the ground, and he didn’t move from where he landed.
Donny sped toward the parked car, window down, gun drawn and firing. He hit the man with the phone with three rounds to the chest, sending him rolling down the hill toward Abby. By the time he came to rest, he was dead.
Donny’s car slid to a halt on the gravelly shoulder behind the Lincoln, and he jumped out, running toward Abby. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She looked up and down the road, not seeing any cars coming. “Quick, search the car. See if we can figure out where they were going.”
“Right.”
Donny ran toward the car and began going through the contents of the glove box, suddenly hearing moaning from behind him. He looked back to see Abby club the man on the ground with the butt of her gun.
“Holy shit, Abby! Didn’t you kill him? I thought you shot him!”
A few seconds later, his hands and feet were zip-tied. “I shot him in the knee. Come help me drag him to the side of the car.”
With a colossal effort, the two dragged him to the side of the car so that no one driving by could see him. They spent the next several minutes looking through the vehicle.
Abby backed out, frustrated. “Eventually someone is going to come along and see this. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Donny was still in the car. “Nothing but a ton of empty take-out bags.”
She walked over to the car and picked up one of the many discarded bags from the floor. She read the name of the restaurant aloud, “Buena Sera, Sunny Point, NY...” She peered at the floor in the back seat. “There have got to be twenty bags back there.”
“Well, they’re some big guys. I guess they must spend a lot of time there.”
They looked at each other and had the same though
t at the same time. A restaurant—one of the best places to launder money according to the accountant.
“Come on,” Abby said running to their car.
Donny jumped in and they took off, kicking up gravel as they sped away.
The fat man who had rolled down the hill was quite dead thanks to Donny, though his phone wasn’t. When it finally found a weak signal, it sent a terse message to Bryce:
BAD CELL SERVICE, CAN’T CALL. ABBY IS ALIVE AND FOLLOWING US. WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
15
BRYCE SNEERED as he read the message on his phone.
“Well, looks like Mommy is coming to get you after all,” he announced to the empty room.
He was in his office at the back of Buena Sera, a restaurant Rosso bought as a place for Bryce to lay low and launder a little cash for the outfit. He didn’t buy it outright, of course. That would have tipped off the feds. But it was his money that found its way through various accounts until it wound up in the pocket of one “Hunter Bryson”, Bryce’s new identity. Thus was born the finest Italian cuisine in Sunny Point, New York.
Out front stood a deck with outdoor seating for fifteen tables, which overlooked Lake Erie in the distance, a little less than half a mile down a gradually sloping avenue. Inside was a comfortable waiting area by the hostess stand, with a plush Oriental rug and several rich leather sofas. Off to the side sat a handsome dark wood bar, with half a dozen tables for diners to enjoy drinks and appetizers while they waited for their table.
Through the columned archway, guests found a finely decorated dining room with seating for another twenty tables. The dining room was unmistakably Italian while avoiding the tackiness that so often accompanied such a place.
The brick opening into the gourmet kitchen allowed guests to hear the chatter of the Italian-born chefs calling back and forth to one another, adding an additional layer of authenticity. Italian arias played quietly through the sound system in the ceiling in lieu of the Sinatra tunes that usually found their way into the background of so many Italian restaurants.
Escape, Dead End Page 11