“Look at you. You have two children to two different men, a job that doesn’t come close to paying the bills without my financial support. Heck,” he mocked, “you don’t even have another dress to wear.”
“What are you saying, Sean?”
“The job I was offered in California was too good to pass up, and I already filed the paperwork for James. When you showed up on my doorstep last night, I figured I had played you all wrong. I thought maybe I could reconsider a custody hearing. But now it’s time to teach you a lesson. Consider it a done deal.”
“How low of you, Sean,” Annie replied, shaking her head steadily.
He shrugged, his face smug. “It’s the way of the world, kid. Eat or be eaten.”
“Apparently.” She nodded before drawing a breath. “Well, if that’s the case, I want to thank you for making this so easy for me. I realize now, more than ever, how much James needs me to protect him from you. I was busy last night, and perhaps a little...naughty.
“But as it turns out, not nearly as naughty as you. Inside that envelope, which you are too busy gloating to open, is evidence that can be used to incriminate you for forgery.” Sean’s patchy red complexion, which had grown warmer from the whiskey, now became a grave white.
Flipping frantically through the papers, he asked, “Where did you get these?”
“The original will of the Heiress of Chinoodin? I should ask where you got it.”
“I... I... You couldn’t have—”
“Tsk, tsk. Try to keep up, darling.” Annie felt a surge of fiery brazenness fill her. Terror splashed across Sean’s face as he thumbed through the documents. His grimace told her all she needed to know: her plan was going to work.
“Would you like to hear the specials?” their waiter asked, suddenly hovering over their table.
“It turns out we won’t be staying,” Annie replied.
“These are all copies,” Sean growled. “Where are the originals?”
“Which originals do you mean, Sean? The original will you forged so that company out west could buy the land preservation and pay you a very handsome finder’s fee? Your new BMW and motorcycle make a lot of sense now.”
“But...but—”
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Sean. Listen carefully, because your freedom depends on it. You’re going to accept that high-paying job in California and begin immediately. You’re going to drop the custody suit for James. You will continue to make child-support payments on time every month because he’s your only son and you care about his welfare. And most importantly you will have no further physical contact with James unless he chooses it. You may mail birthday cards, Christmas cards, thinking-of-you cards... I don’t care. I’ll make sure he gets them. But all other contact in person or by phone will be up to him.”
“Do you think you can threaten me with this and then waltz out of here scot-free?” Sean demanded.
“I’m counting on it. Because if you don’t comply, bad things will happen to you. If you threaten me or the children in any tiny way, my lawyer—”
“Your lawyer?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Who in this town would take your case?”
“My lawyer will access the originals and hand deliver them to the authorities.”
“Why wouldn’t you do that now?”
Annie paused, thoughtfully contemplating her answer. “I have my reasons, I suppose. One of them revolves around James and the legacy you’d be leaving him as a man and a parent. Whatever my reasoning, you’d be wise to take advantage of it, Sean. It’s the one and only chance I’m offering.”
“So you think you can leave me with nothing and get away with it?”
“I wouldn’t call your freedom nothing. And I’m still offering you an opportunity to rebuild a relationship with your son, albeit on his terms.” As the waiter returned with the bar tab, Annie stood, gathering her purse. “You can leave the bill with him.” Shoulders back, chin tilted, she faced Sean with a confidence she had spent years grasping to find. “I would say I’ll see you around, but we both know it’s in your best interest that I don’t.”
Sean glared at her. “This isn’t the end, Annie,” he whispered.
“It is for me.” And with a swelling pride, she strode out of Sean’s life, and her nightmare, for good.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WILLIAM SAT BACK on the leather seat and took in the familiar landscape. His hands throbbed from gripping the handlebars and throttle all day with no more than a few minutes’ break between long stretches on the road. He brushed bugs off the front of his jacket and noted that buying a larger windshield would have served its purpose. He’d put more miles on Old Red in the last two days than Dennis probably had in the fifteen years he’d owned her.
He reached into his pocket as his cell phone rang. Smiling at the caller ID, he crooned into the phone.
“I knew you couldn’t stay away for long.”
“William,” Annie breathed, a hearty laugh following. “It’s over. I’ve beaten Sean at his own game.”
“Are you okay? Are you safe?”
“Yes. I’m on my way home.”
“Good.” William nodded, running his hand through his hair. “You didn’t push him off a cliff or anything drastic, did you?”
“No,” Annie asserted, laughing harder. He could tell the stress she’d been harboring had finally found a release valve and was steaming out of her in bursts of giddy laughter. “But I did it. I actually did it, and James is going to be okay. He’s going to be more than okay. He’s going to be wonderful! Oh, William, I wish I could see you right now and tell you all of it. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve done. I can hardly believe it!”
“Where are you now?”
“Turning onto my road.” He smiled wider when he heard her gasp into the phone. “Is that you?”
He swung his leg off the bike and met Annie at her driver’s-side door. She had barely managed to cut the engine when she sprang from the car and flew into his arms.
“Surprised?” He grinned as she tightened her hold around his neck.
“What are you doing here? Denver will get you! He’ll arrest you right here in my driveway!”
“I needed to know you were okay.”
“William, no.” She kissed him, pressing his face between her palms as tears glistened in her eyes. “I’m so happy to see you, but Denver...”
“I’m meeting him next.”
“You’re what?” Annie gasped, gripping the collar of his jacket to give him an abrupt shake. “No, William, I won’t let you!”
“Annie,” he said, as calm and peaceful as a Sunday morning. “I’ve been thinking about it on the ride back here. Hours on the road give you plenty of time to think and assess your life. You told me I was a good man, and I’d do the right thing. And I’m actually going to. Thanks to you. I’ve already decided, Annie, and I know now that this is what’s best for us.”
“Us?”
“I’d like to believe there’s an us in our future.”
Annie kissed him quickly before pulling her face away again in protest. “But, William, if you meet Denver...how will you... What will he...”
“I know what I’m doing, Annie. I told Denver I’d meet him at the diner to turn myself in. When I was running, it felt wrong. It was wrong. I felt like I was delaying my real life from the beginning. If accepting whatever punishment they throw at me is what it takes to have a clean slate and a new life with you, then that’s a far better trade than years being free, but on the run alone. I know the life I want now. It took me forever to figure it out, but now that I have, I’m going after it with everything I’ve got.”
Annie smiled beautifully. And he warmed from the tips of his ears to the tips of his toes just from being near her in all her radiance.
“When do you meet him?” she whi
spered as he kissed her on the forehead.
“Now.”
“Now?”
“It will be all right. Go hug your babies. It’s the start of a new life for all of you.”
“Wait. I have to tell you what happened with Sean.”
“Whatever happened, I just wish I could have seen the look on his face.” He fired up the bike, but before pulling onto the street, he stopped to study her. “Is that what you wore?” She shrugged, a wry grin on her lips. William rolled his eyes. “That poor sucker never had a chance.”
* * *
ANNIE SLIPPED INTO the house, dropping her purse on the kitchen table. Through the window she could spot Marjorie and the children in the backyard, huddled around something in the grass. Whether it was a bug or flower, it had the children fascinated.
It’s the beginning of a brand-new life for all of us, Annie told herself. She wanted to declare it to anyone who would listen, but she had to take care of first things first.
Annie raced up the stairs and ducked into the bathroom, delighted to finally wash the last two days off her. She peeled the red dress from her body, dropped it in the backroom sink and paused to stare at it. In the light of day, her meeting with Sean over, her pledge to set the garment on fire now seemed foolish. Mia wouldn’t be too thrilled to learn about it, considering it was her dress. Perhaps a long, hot shower would be all she needed to recharge.
But as she recalled how she’d felt wearing it the night before, she reminded herself she was always a person to err on the side of, well, symbolism. She would never wear it again, and she wouldn’t let Mia be caught dead in it, either. It had to go. Now.
Rifling through the medicine cabinet, she found a matchbook from her wedding reception. Finding it appropriate, she flung three lit matches into the sink. They singed a hole in the center of the crumpled garment before the flames quickly fanned to consume the rest. Extinguishing the flames with water from the faucet, she assessed the damage. It was gone now. Gone and soon to be forgotten.
The shower was steaming within minutes, and Annie felt grateful. Hanging her head, hand planted on the shower wall, she exhaled slowly. She released the tension she’d been holding for more than the past two days, as the hot beads of water pelted her neck. She’d fought for years. Years. But her plan had worked, and Sean would be flying to California shortly without her sweet James. She let out a little yelp at the thought of it.
“Oh, William.” She chuckled. “Things will be okay now. I know it. Someday you’ll be home with us again and this period of my life with Sean will be as forgotten as that dress.”
Annie smoothed her hands over her face as she eased her head back into the water and replayed his parting words to her: “This isn’t the end, Annie.” She’d been so self-assured at the time, it hadn’t phased her. It was the sort of thing she would have expected him to say. He hated to lose, to be called out, to be in the wrong.
But it had been the end in her mind. The final chapter. Any rational person would pack his belongings and hightail it out of town before she changed her mind and notified the police. Sean wouldn’t be able to stand being caught and arrested.
She shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, just as a terrifying thought crashed over her. Sean wasn’t a rational person. He was unpredictable.
Instantly, the urge to get to her children hit her. Cinching a towel around her petite frame, she hustled from the bathroom and down the stairs, leaving a path of wet footprints behind her. Marjorie met her at the foot of the staircase.
“What’s wrong?” Annie gasped, reading the concern on her friend’s face. “Is it the children?”
“The children? No,” Marjorie said as Betsy and James ran into the hallway.
“Mommy! You’re home!” Betsy shouted, springing for her mother’s arms. “When did you get here? Wait a minute... Were you taking a shower?” Annie squeezed Betsy and James all the while never taking her eyes from Marjorie.
“I answered your cell phone,” Marjorie explained, holding it out for Annie. “She said to get to the diner immediately.”
“Who?”
“Karrin.”
“Really? Why?”
“She said immediately.”
“Why?”
Marjorie shook her head and clasped her hands at her chin. “Now, Annie. Go now.”
* * *
WILLIAM CRUISED UP and down the Chinoodin city streets, stretching out his short ride to the diner for as long as he could. A calm had swept over him as soon as he’d made the decision to call Denver. Even though he could be heading to prison, he somehow already felt like a free man. He knew what he wanted from life and saw the path needed to get it. Perhaps the system would go easy on him. Perhaps not. But he didn’t want to fight any longer when he had people who needed him.
As he drew closer to Pop’s Place, things didn’t seem right. People milled around on the sidewalk, many straying out into the street. The thought of a party letting out of the dinky diner was the only explanation his drained mind could muster, but even in his exhausted state, he knew that notion was ridiculous. It wasn’t until he got closer that his mind could even accept the full severity of what was happening. The sudden shock of it all.
From the roof at the back of the diner, smoke billowed. It was more smoke than he had ever seen. The sliver of moon, a clipped fingernail rising higher with each passing minute, flickered in and out of view beyond it. Nearly dumping the bike against the curb on the opposite side of the street, he gasped up at the sight in horror.
Before him was a monster, a fiery locust engulfing every inch of his mother’s diner with uncompromising destruction. The near-white flames edged with goldenrod yellow, spouted from the roof before coiling up, rising in an intricate dance of nature’s most primal and demolishing element. Smoke illuminated red and orange by the flames climbed several hundred yards into the air before camouflaging the sky. He imagined the trail of smoke stretched for miles and perhaps would still be visible by morning, although Pop’s Place would most definitely not be.
Seconds ticked by, and the trees and hedges around the diner flew up into singed ash. The Pop’s Place sign crashed to the ground with startling calamity, the bubbling, sweltering paint easily visible. The awning had dissolved into nothing more than a black rib cage while the roof at the front had sunk in like a charred wooden spoon. The brick building was blistering into a pile of wreckage before him, and like the surrounding crowd, he couldn’t tear away his eyes.
Onlookers stood aghast, unable to find their feet. Cell phone cameras emerged, the sporadic glow of screens flickering like fireflies to capture the sight. Perhaps it was the only thing a person could do when there wasn’t anything left to do. But they startled and fled when flames burst from the windows, shattering glass across the sidewalk like a million tinkling diamonds.
William shielded his face with an arm as he ran through the crowd and toward the blaze. His only thought was of his mother. Was she here? Had she made it out safely? Peeking out above the crook of his arm, which had warmed from the heat, he wafted a flailing hand in front of him, weakly probing to find his way. The wind had shifted a cloud of smoke over him, encompassing him in near darkness. It consumed his lungs. Choking and sputtering for any pocket of fresh air, he yanked his shirt over his nose, a makeshift filter that was weak at best. His eyes scratched with each blink, tiny fragments of debris saturating the air swirling around him.
The wail of dueling fire engines gaining in the distance cut through the screams and shouts reverberating around him. Their piercing sirens both relieved and terrified him as the trucks arrived on scene. Firefighters scrambled to their stations. The rev of their engines rumbled in jarring shifts as they hooked up hoses and lifted a ladder to tower over Pop’s Place. Police cars swarmed from every direction, their flashing lights no competition for the raging flames, which picked up velocity by the second.
The first familiar face William spotted was Bobby, who had pulled his apron up over his nose to breathe. As he locked eyes with William, he flagged him to keep going.
“Joyce is around back!” he shouted.
William tore through the crowd to the back, where Karrin was comforting his mother. Her eyes were swollen red slits she could barely pry open between harrowing sobs.
“Will!” she screamed as he joined her. “It’s awful! Dear God, it’s awful!”
William threw his arms around his mother, clasping her tightly as she buried her face in his chest. “Miles!” he called. “Is everybody out?”
“Yes, but I don’t know how it started. It wasn’t from the kitchen.”
“Somewhere from the back!” Karrin yelled over the sirens piercing through the deafening roar of the fire. Another fire engine had arrived in the back parking lot, sending people scattering like ants in all directions.
“How could this happen?” Joyce wailed. “What will I do?”
Another explosion sent people scrambling for protection, and William used his body to shield his mother. When he looked up again, he spotted Denver at the far end of the lot, hauling Sean off the ground in handcuffs. William blinked, straining to decipher if his eyes were telling the truth. But it only took him another moment to understand exactly what had happened.
“Mom, we have to get you home,” William coaxed gently in her ear while leading her toward to the barbershop.
“Karrin called Earl for me. He’ll be here any minute. If I leave, he’ll be upset, William. I have to wait for Earl!”
The spray from the firefighter’s hose was forceful, but futile attempting to extinguish the flames. The firefighters would have to prepare themselves for a long, hard fight. One that would probably last through until early morning. He couldn’t leave now. He had to stay. To see. He had to bear witness to the end of Pop’s Place. The end of it all.
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