by Day, Laura
Once inside Axel sat down at the old, chipped kitchen table as his mother busied himself behind him. Plates and silverware clattered on the counter and she made him a sandwich. “Haven’t seen you as much,” she said slyly over her shoulder. “Something been keeping you away? Or should I say, someone...?”
“I hate living in a small town,” Axel said as he scowled down at the table.
“I’m not chiding you. I’m happy. I just want to know when I might get a chance to meet the lady.”
“Soon, Ma,” Axel said as she presented a sandwich to him. Ham and cheese with mustard and mayo. His favorite. He bit into it hoping it would stop the conversation, but his mother just sat down across from him and patiently waited for him to finish.
“What’s she like?”
“Funny, smart, beautiful, but also a little shy. She’s just getting out of a bad relationship.”
He looked up at his mother who was looking away from him now, the mention of a bad relationship sending her down into her own memories of her late husband. There were a lot of unsaid things between the two of them. There were things about Axel’s father he had never wanted to bring up. He knew talking about these things was too painful for his mother.
“Why didn’t you leave him, Ma?” Axel asked.
His mother fretted with the hem of her shirt and looked away from him for a moment before finally speaking. “I was scared. I didn’t have a job or money or any skills to make money and I had you. Things were different back then. Your father would have won custody if I had fought him over it and I couldn’t leave you alone with him. I thought about it, dreamed about it, but I couldn’t do it. It takes a lot of strength, courage, and luck to walk away from something like that. I was never very lucky. And then he passed and I didn’t need to leave. Had he lived longer...” She let the possibilities linger in the air.
Axel reached across the table and took her hand, giving it a light squeeze before withdrawing. “It was better when he was gone,” Axel said.
“It was, wasn’t it?” his mother agreed with a secret smile. “Your girl have a guy like that in her past?”
“She does. A real son-of-a-bitch.”
Mrs. Connelly shook her head sadly. “It’s good, then, that she has you. It’s good she has someone to lean on. I couldn’t imagine walking away from that all alone. It would be too hard.”
“She’s stronger than she looks.”
“My sweet boy, are you in love for the first time? My, how I’ve waited and prayed for this day.”
“Hayden’s not happy about it.”
“Oh screw Hayden,” his mother said, waving her hand as she released a rare profanity. “He is your coach, not the boss of your life. What does he know anyway? That man has never had a woman or been in a real relationship. Why would you listen to him? You should listen to your own heart. This is your life and you can’t let anyone else run it for you.”
Axel couldn't help but smile. It was always funny when his mom got all riled up like that. She was normally serene and little sedated. Until it came to love. Then she was like some unstoppable relentless force that wouldn’t stop until everyone she knew was happily married.
“I think I might have to let Hayden go,” Axel said. It was the first time he had said the words out loud and they sounded wrong to him. “I don’t like the thought of it. He’s been with me since the beginning, but he refuses to see my side on this issue. He’s become so rigid; he won’t allow any changes in my training regime even when they’re good for me.”
“Well, it would be a shame for you to let him go. But you’ve always had good instincts and you should trust them now. It’s possible you’ve outgrown Hayden; it happens in life.”
Axel sighed and nodded. He didn’t know how he would even begin to extricate Hayden from his life. Not only was he Axel’s coach and manager, but they were also close friends and had been since they were just a couple of kids. If only there was some way he could make Hayden come around on Marie. Maybe it wasn’t too late to fix everything.
But to do that he would need to get Hayden in the same room with Marie and the other man refused to do it. He refused any conciliatory gesture from Axel. His stubbornness was going to ruin him as Axel always knew it would. They say in fighting that you have to be willing to bend. You sometimes have to lean into a hit and change strategies mid-fight. Remain rigid and you’ll break. Bend a little and you can last long enough to stand back up straight.
His mother’s phone rang and she stood to pick it up. “Yes...hello?” he heard his mother's voice say from the next room. “Yes, he’s here, just give me one moment.” She came into the room with a cordless phone in one hand. She stretched it towards Axel and said, “It’s Ingrid, she wants to talk to you.”
He stood and lifted the phone to his ear. Panic coursed through his veins followed by the icy calm of his training. There was no point in panic. It did nothing. It only slowed you down. Panicked people made poor decisions. “Ingrid?” Axel said into the phone.
Her voice was a hurried rush, words were tumbling over each other in her haste to get them out, “Now I don’t mean to pry into private affairs, Axel. But I know you and Marie have become very close recently and I’ll be honest, I was glad to hear it. She’s a sweet girl and I know that at heart you’re a good boy-”
“What’s going on, Ingrid?” Axel said cutting off the old woman.
“Well, I was just wondering - but not prying, mind you- if something had happened between you and Marie. She just called in a hurry saying she was awful sorry, but she had to leave. No notice or anything. She said it was an emergency back home, but I had sort of gotten the feeling she didn’t have anyone back home. No family, if you get my meaning. She looked upset and I’m worried about her. She’s packing as we speak and I just wondered if maybe you and she had got into an argument-”
“I’m coming over now. Don’t let her leave,” Axel said into the phone. He ended the call and headed towards the door. “Something is up, Ma. I have to go. Do me a favor and stay inside tonight. Lock the doors and draw the curtains. I’ll have someone come and check on you a little later.”
“What on earth is going on?” Mrs. Connelly demanded, clutching at the collar of her shirt.
“I think Marie is in trouble. I need to go to her,” he stopped at the door and looked at his mother. There was fear in her eyes, but she clenched her jaw and nodded at him.
“You be careful now,” she said.
Axel nodded and stepped out into the warm night. He jogged to the car and started the engine, peeling out of the parking lot and heading to the Hawk’s mansion. He sped up as he raced down the back roads going double the limit as his heart began to pound.
Why hadn't she called him? Why was she running without even so much of a goodbye? She was probably doing something crazy like trying to protect him. But he couldn’t let her do it. Marie was not going to spend forever on the run. He wouldn’t permit it. His engine roared as he skidded onto Main Street. He parked in a red zone in front of the mansion and jogged up the large marble steps before yanking the large wooden doors open.
Chapter Thirty-Six
She raced back to the daycare and grabbed Cate. The five-year-old was furious and demanded to know why she had to leave. Marie tugged on her hand and pulled her down the road as she frantically looked around for a familiar face. He knew she was here, or he would know soon. She had to leave. She had to take Cate and go.
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. She hadn’t planned on settling down so quickly. She was going to work a series of odd jobs, hop from town to town for a couple of months before finally settling down. She was supposed to leave a trail that would be impossible for Austin to follow. But instead she had fallen in love with the first town she had stopped at.
She fought back tears as she pulled her daughter down the street. Finally, she had enough and she stop and knelt down in front of her crying daughter. “Cate,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, “I know you don’t want
to do this, but we have to leave. Today.”
“Why?” Cate demanded and tears streamed down her face. “I like it here. I don’t want to leave. Why do we have to go?”
“Because I said so,” Marie said standing back up. What else should she say? Your father’s coming and he’s dangerous and violent so we’re running away? No, Cate was too young. She wouldn’t understand. It was easier this way. There would be no more questions or discussions.
She continued to walk while, next to her, Cate’s tears dissolved into hiccups as she demanded to know why over and over again. But Marie remained stern and she walked Cate up into the mansion and then their apartment and told her to wait in the living room. Once she had started to move, everything became easier for Marie. This was normal; she remembered how to do this.
She would pack one bag for each of them. They would have to leave a lot behind. Cate’s drawings from daycare that were taped up around the walls would have to be left. The giant stuffed panda Axel had won her at a carnival, too, there wouldn’t be room for all of it. Marie focused on essentials. Shoes, clothes, coats, nothing else.
Cate refused to look at her as she moved across the living room. She crossed her arms and pouted on the couch and Marie did her best to ignore her. The materials for Elmsworth College sat on her dresser and she dropped them into the trash before grabbing some jewelry. The necklace Axel had given her, her grandmother’s ring. She packed only the most essential items. Her fancy dresses from her dates with Axel were left on the hangers.
She called Ingrid from inside the closet. “I’m sorry to do this to you on such short notice. But there’s an emergency back home and I have to leave. I won’t be able to come back. I’m really sorry,” and here she began to cry, though she fought the tears as hard as she could. “I really liked working here.” She hung up before Ingrid could say anything.
By then her bags were packed. She grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and took one last look around her little apartment. They had only been there about two months, but already it felt like home. It wasn’t Arizona she would long to return to; it was this place, this small town and this mansion that had harbored her for so long.
There was one last thing to do. She grabbed every picture of Axel from every picture frame and pushed them into her bag. If Austin was going to come here, she didn’t want him finding out about Axel. Austin would want to go after him; he could kill him. Axel was strong, but he was also honorable. Austin wasn’t. He wouldn’t bother with a fight; he would just shoot to kill.
“Let’s go,” Marie said standing at the front door. She couldn’t think about what she was doing or what she was leaving behind. She would never meet a man like Axel Connelly again and she knew it, but she couldn’t let that stop her.
“No!” Cate screamed and then the little girl jumped off the couch and raced to her room slamming the door behind her and then locking it.
Marie looked aghast at the locked door. She raced over to it, but the knob wouldn’t budge. “Catherine DeSantos, you open this door right now young lady. You are in a lot of trouble.”
“No! I hate you! I don’t want to leave,”
Marie looked around desperately. Not now, she did not have time for Cate to throw a temper tantrum now of all times. Marie dropped the bags and ran to the kitchen where she ripped open drawers in her search for a screwdriver. She knew there was one around. Her one window had been rattling something fierce and Axel had fixed it for her. He told her to leave a screwdriver in the kitchen because she would need it again sooner rather than later.
She found it in the knife drawer and she raced back to the door and took a deep breath. “Cate?” She called out. “Honey, I know you don’t want to leave. But we have to. I can’t explain right now. You just have to trust me.”
“But why?” Cate screamed again.
“Open the door, Cate. This isn’t funny. You can’t be alone in there. What if something happens? How am I going to get to you through a locked door? Please, baby, please open the door.”
“No. I don’t care if anything happens to me.”
Marie quelled a scream as she got down on her knees and began quickly unscrewing the doorknob. The screw moved slowly and it seemed to go on forever. Patiently Marie continued to spin. What would Axel think when she just disappeared? She had already thrown her phone away. He would have no way to get into contact with her. They would never see each other again. He would go on to have a great career and be a famous fighter and she would be working in some diner off the freeway.
She could already see herself as a worn out old woman working at a greasy spoon regaling the younger girls with the tales of her wild youth. Did I ever tell you about the time I dated a MMA fighter, she would say? What else could he hope for in this life? She would always be running from Austin. She could never really be settled. She could never have a real life and a real family.
The screws moved ever so slowly. Finally, one fell out and she moved onto the next. What if she confronted Austin? What if she took him to court over Cate? She had a job and place to stay; she could win custody. But what if he fought for custody and won, or what if they had to share it? She would have to see him and deal with him all the time. She would need to move back to Arizona. What if he decided not to bother with the courts? Austin had always considered himself above the law. He would never abide by the ruling of some judge. He could grab her and Cate and then what?
The second screw came out and then the third. Her hands were starting to cramp and she could hear Cate quieting herself in the room. If this were any other time she would let Cate tire herself out in there. Eventually the little girl would come out with an apology on her lips ready for her punishment. But Marie didn’t have time for that.
Her heart was pounding. She kept glancing over her shoulder thinking a shadow in the corner was a man watching her. She would see it over her shoulder and gasp as her heart sped up, only for her to realize her mistake a minute later. She was driving herself crazy. She needed to leave. She needed to be on the road. She wasn't planning on leaving any clues anyone could find, but they still needed to be gone before Austin arrived.
Finally, the final screw came off and Marie opened the door and Cate looked over at her confused. “Didn’t know I could do that, did you?” Marie demanded. “Car. Now.”
Marie wiped her eyes and headed for the door. They left the apartment behind and walked down into mansion. Leslie, the part time grad student, was at the foot of the stairs wringing her hands. “Marie,” she said as they came down the stairs. Leslie saw their bags and she looked confused as Marie pushed right past her. “Is everything okay? Ingrid said she doesn’t want you to leave before she can talk to you. Are you leaving?”
“Yes, I’m sorry,” Marie said struggling with her bags. “But I do have to leave right away.”
From downstairs the bell rang. There were people here for the tour. “Go and get that,” Marie said. “That’s your job.” She turned away and headed down the back stairs and she was pleased to hear Leslie head in the other direction. She slipped into the office. There were a few things in here she still needed to grab before they could go.
“Hey, babe,” she heard a familiar voice say.
Her stomach dropped and she squeezed Cate’s hand. Slowly Marie turned around until she was facing Austin. He was leaning against the doorway to the office smirking at her.
Marie glanced behind her, hoping Leslie wouldn’t come back. “What do you want, Austin?” she asked as she stepped in front of Cate.
“What do I want? Is that a serious question? You took my kid, Marie. You just left in the middle of the night. You made me look like a man who can’t control his woman. You made me look like a fool and I had to spend a lot of money to find you this time. But now I’m here and it is time for all of us to go home.”
“No,” Marie spit. “I’m not coming back with you. Not ever.”
“Oh yes you are. Let’s go. Time to get in the car.” He said reaching towar
ds her.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Axel looked around the mansion. Even in the bright afternoon the interior was dark. The wood paneling was absorbing the light, casting everything in a dark shadow. He walked to his left and looked in the ballroom, but she wasn't there. He heard voices upstairs, and one he recognized as Marie’s. He couldn't hear what they were saying. But he heard hurried footsteps heading to the back. It was more than one person. There was a strong steady gate, and then one that was lighter and faster. It was Marie and Cate; it had to be.
Axel moved through mansion travelling through the formal living room, the kitchen, the gift shop and then finally the office door. He felt alert and ready. His every sense was on high alert. He heard everything. His eyes were wide and nothing was missed. He moved smoothly towards the door, his footfalls silent on the floor.
He heard voices, a man’s and a woman’s.