The Curve Ball

by Emilia Beaumont

  “You’re a bit late, but I can probably bend the rules and squeeze you in,” a woman said who’d appeared by my side.

  “What?”

  “I could squeeze you in, let you join,” she said a bit louder, “it’s the least I can do after what you went through the last time. To be honest I didn’t think I’d see you back in here.”

  “Oh, no, that’s all right. I’m not here for that. Actually, I have a favor to ask.”

  Her eyebrow shot up with intrigue and I motioned her to a quiet corner closer to the bar and farther away from the energetic event.

  “Okay… should I be worried?”

  I shook my head. “I’m just trying to find the guy, Luke, I mean—”

  “Lucas, you mean?”

  “Er, yeah.” Another name. I just couldn’t keep up.

  “Oh, god. You’re not wanting to press charges are you?”

  “What? No! It’s nothing like that. He’s actually quite sweet when you get to know him.”

  “Don’t I know it,” she replied with a smile. “And it’s not what you think, either. He’s just a regular here.”

  “Good, so you might know where he is?”

  “Mmm,” she said and narrowed her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Look, I’m not a stalker or anything. He sent me some flowers the other day after we had a bit of an argument.”

  “Ha! So you’re the one he’s hung up on… At least he listened to me then, for once. Good boy.”

  “Yeah,” I said blushing. “I guess I have you to thank for that then. But ever since then I haven’t heard from him or seen him. He’s not answering my calls. I’m worried… sorry, what’s your name again?”

  “Ginny.”

  “I’m Cara. So yeah, Ginny, I’m really worried about him.”

  “Come to mention it, he hasn’t been in here either since a few days ago. Give me a moment, I might have his address somewhere in the back.”

  Ginny disappeared into the depths of the busy bar and I stood wondering if I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Guys stopped calling all the time. He could’ve changed his mind after sending the flowers, thought that I was perhaps too high maintenance or not worth the effort. But something in my gut was telling me otherwise.

  As I waited for Ginny to return my eyes wandered over the section of wall that was covered with a mass of postcards. Destinations from all around the world; it was an impressive collection. Like the scales of a snake they overlapped one another until there were no gaps to be seen.

  “Here, I don’t know if it’s current,” Ginny said as she sidled up to me and passed me a torn piece of paper from a notebook. There was an address scribbled onto it.

  “Thanks. You like to travel?”

  “Ah, you found my obsession. Not that you can miss it in here, of course.”

  “Looks like you’ve been to some amazing places.”

  “I wish. I’ve never even left the country. Nah, all these,” she flicked a hand to the board of postcards, “are just daydreams. Pieces of other people’s adventures. One day I’ll travel, but probably not anytime soon.”

  “You should, if it’s what will make you happy.”

  “Maybe.” We fell silent and I folded the note and shoved it into my pocket.

  “Thanks for this.”

  “Ginny, we need you for the event,” a waitress called from over her shoulder.

  “I better go or the singles will get restless,” she said and began to walk away but turned quickly around again. “Actually, maybe you should try the batting cages down the street first. Lucas has a thing for baseball. He tries to hide it, but he can’t fool me. I know the look of an obsessive fan. He adores baseball as much as I love tennis.”

  I smiled, grateful to her and her help. “Thanks.”

  The batting cages were a total bust. With a sigh I walked back to my bar. It was getting late for an unannounced visit, but what the hell, I was going to try anyway.

  “Hey, pretty lady,” a voice called as I dug my keys out of my pocket.

  I looked up to find two men dressed in black suits walking toward me from my car. Both were twice the size of an average man. Their three-piece suits put them completely out of place here and I knew that I wasn’t looking at a couple of men who happened to be lost. Something was seriously wrong here.

  Instead of running, I put on a bright smile and kept to my stride. “Can I help you fellas with anything?”

  One of them pulled his sunglasses off and forced me to stop, blocking my way. I stared into his cold eyes, a shiver racing down my spine. “Yeah, we are looking for someone.”

  “Oh? I don’t work here.” I answered, placing a hand on my hip. “You probably want to ask inside then, though I think they’re closing up. So unless you’re looking for me, you might be shit out of luck.”

  “Who says we’re not?” the other answered, his voice flat. I nervously shifted my stance, wondering what the hell was going on here. Why would they be looking for me? I didn’t have any unhappy clients who would want to rough me up. Or was this something to do with James’ parents, wanting to scare me off?

  “Well,” I finally forced out, keeping the smile on my face, “I’m not anyone special. Seriously guys, let me past. I’m tired and hungry and just want to go home.”

  The guy without shades took a step closer until he was only mere inches from me, his eyes looking me up and down. “Where is he?”

  I immediately thought of James and my heart lurched violently against my chest. I would die protecting my son. “I’m not sure I know who you are talking about,” I said hastily, looking for an exit route. There was no way I was going to die out here in a crappy parking lot.

  “You know who we are talking about,” the other one said gruffly, leaning forward. “We saw him coming out of your apartment the other night.”

  Luke. They were looking for Luke. What for? What had he done to make these two guys want to talk or do worse to him? Was this why he was avoiding me? Did he know that these thugs were looking for him and that his life might be in danger and had skipped town? The questions went spinning like the tea-cup ride at Disneyland, except without all the happy feelings that went with it.

  Was I going to die in his place, guilty by association? Hell no.

  “Just tell us where Marcus is and we’ll let you pass.”

  Marcus? Mark… oh for fuck’s sake. How many names did this guy have? Though I supposed Mark, the name I found noted in the yearbook, could be short for Marcus… and Lucas, the name Ginny had called him by, was the long form for Luke.

  “I don’t know who that is,” I said, giving them an apologetic smile as I took two steps back. If I bolted the other direction, there was a cut in the parking lot’s fence that seemed to lead around the back of the batting cages. If I could get through and to the other side of the block, I could try to lose them in the traffic on the other side. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help, fellas,” I said clinging to my false sense of calm.

  The one without shades took a moment to look at the other and I bolted, praising my hours at the gym to be able to take off in a dead sprint. My legs pumping, I shot straight for the cut in the fence that would lead me hopefully to safety and the police.

  Cut ends of the mesh wire scraped my arms as I dove through and tried to pull my cell out of my pocket. But the tackle from behind came out of nowhere. One moment I was rejoicing internally that I’d managed to make it through the cut and the next I was laying face-first in the grass on the other side, my nose pressed into the blades. A knee twisted painfully in my back and I yelled out as both of my arms were wrenched behind my back, secured with something tight and strong.

  “Nice try, lady, but we move faster than you think.”

  I let out a curse as I was dragged upright, staring angrily at my two attackers. “What on earth do you think I can help you with?” I shouted, working at the ties at my wrists desperately. “I don’t know anything! I don’t know anyone named Marcus!”
<
br />   The goon with shades held up my phone. “Maybe she’s telling the truth. But this Luke guy looks awfully like Marcus Harris.”

  I stared at the screen, seeing the picture that Lucia had sent me. It had been taken at the party, one of the few times that Luke and I were actually side by side and both grinning at the camera, his arm around me casually. She had written our names digitally on the photo using one of those silly apps, and in a moment of insanity, I’d made it my background photo. Now that stupid move was coming back to haunt me.

  “So, let me ask you again. Where’s Luke?”

  “If you find out please let me know because I wouldn’t mind kicking his ass right now,” I spat.

  The other guy grabbed me by my hair and yanked it back painfully, leering at me as tears sprang to my eyes. “Don’t make me hit you,” he said softly, his voice belying the strength in his hand. “Tell me the truth.”

  “I swear that is the truth, I’ve been looking for him myself,” I forced out, the words coming out more like a sob. “We fucked, okay? He said he would call, but he didn’t. So your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Fine, keep lying.” He let go then and shook his head as the other goon flipped through my phone nonchalantly.

  “I got it,” he said, looking up at me. “Time to send the message.”

  I looked up in time to see a fist flying toward me and sank into an inky blackness.

  25

  Luke

  My phone vibrated and I ignored it, throwing some of my clothes into a duffel bag I’d found in the back of my closet. I had just gotten home from working a sixteen-hour shift, missing out on the baseball practice with the little guys in order to make up for the time I was going to miss from work. There was no vacation time for me, no sick leave that allowed me to still get a paycheck and go on this trip. The foreman had been gracious enough to give me an extra few hours of overtime so that I could not feel the pinch so badly, but that had meant letting Darren run the practice instead. I hated it, I really did, but I needed to be able to pay my rent.

  The phone went off again and I swore, putting down the balled-up socks on the bed before walking over to the dresser where the phone was on the charger. It was another text from Cara and I hesitated, wondering if she had gone to the practice and noticed my absence. I didn’t know what I was going to tell her and while I hated to keep secrets from her, I knew it was in her best interest to not know what was going on. Even if I told her I was visiting my parents, there was bound to be questions I could not answer. Still, though, I was missing her and just the thought of her reaching out again and me ignoring her made me feel guilty.

  Thumbing over the screen, it took me a second to register what I was looking at. Darkness and heavy dread clouded my mind.

  It was a picture of Cara. She was sat on a chair but was slumped over, her head held back by some unseeing hand. Her jaw was blooming with a bruise and I could see the tears streaked down her cheeks. She looked unconscious.

  Furious, I scrolled to the text that came with the picture and my heart took a long dive into my stomach. If you want to see her alive, come to the old warehouse near the waterfront park, alone. You got two hours.

  I knew immediately what this was about. The previous texts, my father showing up, it was all connected. Never in my life had I thought Cara would end up in the middle of it, though. I’d kept her at a distance precisely because I knew deep down my life still wasn’t my own.

  Shoving the phone in my pocket, I grabbed my keys and exited the apartment, heading to my truck. There was no way I was going to allow her to be hurt because of my past. They wanted me, they would have me.

  I gunned the engine and at the same scrolled to a number I hadn’t ever used but kept in there, just in case.

  It didn’t take me long to reach the warehouse. There wasn’t another car in sight as I pulled the truck up along the side of the building, and I reached for the revolver I kept under the seat.

  It wasn’t the safest place to keep it, but for this one time, I was glad it wasn’t locked away somewhere out of reach. My father had forced both me and my mom to learn how to properly shoot a gun in the first few months after our relocation and there weren’t many people who could say they learned marksmanship techniques from US Marshals. Now I was a concealed-weapons card-carrying member, though I hadn’t actually shot the gun in more than two years. There hadn’t been a need and I truly hoped that wouldn’t be the day, but if it was, I prayed the lack of care I’d given the gun wouldn’t bite me in my ass. And if they so much as looked at Cara funny, or hit her again, I wasn’t against filling them with bullets.

  Climbing out of the truck, I tucked it into the waistband of my jeans and pulled my T-shirt over it. Adrenaline pumped through my veins and I had to take a few deep breaths. I grabbed the baseball bat for good measure, too. A decoy of sorts.

  My main concern was Cara and how I was going to get her out of there with both of us alive. She didn’t deserve to be caught up in this mess and I vowed that I would spend the rest of my life apologizing to her if I was able to pull this off.

  Despite the wealth of emotions that flowed through my veins, I gritted my teeth and strode to the door and pulled it open with as much confidence as I could muster. Stepping inside of the large warehouse, a dank smell of old and dry sawdust intermingled with a faint odor of fish overcame me.

  No one jumped out at me as I took a few steps inside. My eyes were peeled, trying to see past the gloom looking for any sign of Cara or the men who had taken her. It was dark in the warehouse, just the barest hint of light filtering through the cracks in the battered walls. I made my way toward the back, where there was another door. Throwing it open, I was greeted with the sight of Cara, still tied to the chair, awake and looking royally pissed off.

  “You finally made it. Oh and the big tough guy brought his bat, too.”

  I looked over to see two extremely large men standing nearby, both of them with their arms crossed over their massive chests and frowning.

  “Yeah so I made it,” I said slowly, looking for any guns in their meaty paws. When I saw none, I forced myself to relax. I didn’t want this to turn into a shooting match and put Cara into any more danger than I created for her. “What the hell do you want?”

  One of them eyed me, sizing me up with his cold stare. “First, you better drop that weapon before I bitchslap your girl here.”

  Immediately I let the wood slip from my hand. It fell to the floor. The clatter echoed around the enclosure.

  “Good boy. Now we want your father,” the tallest man said as he came closer, stepping farther away from Cara.

  I chuckled then, shaking my head. “Dude you are in the wrong state for that. My dad is thousands of miles away. So you and your friend can go fuck yourself.”

  The blow came out of nowhere, his fist punching me hard in the stomach. Cara yelled obscenities. But her screams were cut short, a hand covered her mouth and I all I could hear was her muffled cries for me. I felt the nausea rise up and forced it back down, hoping that his fist hadn’t damaged anything internally. God it felt like I had been hit by a train. I coughed a few times before I was hauled up against the wall, my head slamming hard on the sheetrock.

  “Ow! You little bitch,” the other man said with surprise. “She fucking bit me.”

  “And I’ll do it again if you touch me ever fucking again.” If this were any other time or place I would’ve grinned at her. She was a spectacular, one-of-a-kind kinda gal.

  The goon holding me turned his attention back around. “I don’t like wise guys.” His hand was wrapped around my throat, squeezing the air out of my windpipe, crushing it slowly. “So I am gonna ask you one more time and you better get it right or I will do some damage to that pretty little thing over there. And I’ll make you watch.”

  My eyes connected with Cara’s and I saw the fear in her eyes, hitting me like another sucker punch to the stomach. In that moment I knew I would do anything to protect her, including givi
ng up my dad.

  “He’s in Minnesota,” I forced out, feeling the flex of his fingers on my throat. “Under Theodore Pines.”

  He released his grip and I fell to the floor, coughing violently.

  “You got what you wanted,” I wheezed, struggling up to a sitting position against the wall. “Now let us go.”

  The goon who had jacked me up against the wall laughed, his entire body shaking. “You aren’t serious, are you? You know we can’t leave any witnesses.”

  “We won’t say anything!” Cara cried out, struggling against the ties that were holding her hands behind her. “I swear it.”

  “I wish I had a dollar for every time we heard that,” the other one laughed, taking off his coat to reveal a crisp black shirt, though there were darkened sweat patches staining his underarms. “Don’t worry it won’t be messy darling. We tend to make it quick.”

  I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and knew I had to act fast. This was going to be my only chance to protect Cara from what was about to happen.

  With a grunt I pushed myself to my feet and launched across the room as the door exploded from its frame. I collided with her and the chair and covered her body with mine as the deafening sounds of flash bombs went off all around us.

  Then it was absolute chaos.

  Noise like I’ve never heard before assaulted my ears. Yells, orders, and screams from all sides. For a few moments I clung to her, keeping my arms around her body and hugging her tightly to my chest. I could feel her erratic breathing on my neck, the way she whimpered as the room was awash with the sound of the good guys storming in, shouting demands at our captors.

  Finally everything went quiet and for a second the silence was unnerving. Had I gone deaf?

  “Mr. Harris,” someone said in my ear, shaking my shoulder hard. “Are you hurt?”

  I lifted my head and looked at the FBI agent, giving him a quick shake of my head. Parsons had done good. I had no idea how he managed it, but he must’ve called in a few favors to get these guys all here in time. “No, I’m good. We are both good, I think. Cara, are you hurt?”