Providence Series Books 1-4

by Mary B. Moore

  “Calista,” Luke’s voice was soft but it wasn’t a pleasant tone. “I would advise you and your mother to leave town and not come back. You have twenty-four hours to get it done before I start putting into action everything that I can to make your lives a living hell,” he leaned towards her and she tried to merge herself with the wall by pushing back against it even though there was no more space between her back and the wall. “In fact, I’m still going to. But if you don’t leave then I will make sure that everything you care about, that means something to you, will be destroyed.”

  “You don’t have that power,” she whispered, her eyes darting over his shoulder like she was going to make a run for it.

  “If you choose to believe that, then fine, but I know that I do.” He reached out and snagged my hand, gently pulling me down the hall behind him. I knew from Calista’s reaction when he said he’d never touched her that she’d been lying, but it was like it was a subconscious fear that he had touched her, and her saying it, even if it was a lie, was still suffocating me. I don’t understand what he sees me, I don’t think I ever will, and the worry that he’ll find someone better is always there at the back of my mind.

  We got through to the foyer just as Dad was opening the door and was then dragging a screaming and kicking Jodie out of it by her hair.

  “I’m going to take you for everything you have,” she screamed at him, sitting on the gravel of the driveway where she’d landed. “You’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life!”

  “No,” Dad replied, standing with his hands in his pockets like he hadn’t just dragged his wife of thirteen years out the door. “The biggest mistake of my life was marrying you. You can try to get whatever you want, in fact, please do; you signed a prenup a week before the wedding and it clearly states on the prenup that any divorce settlement will be null and void if you have an affair or relationship outside of this marriage.”

  “You can’t prove it and I’ll just tell them that you had mistresses all over the country. Who do you think people would believe?” She screamed at him.

  “Guess what, I can prove it. In fact, I have proof going back years, Jodie, years.

  What do you think people would say if they saw it, hmmm?” He rocked back on his heels. Her face had gone gray and she was just sitting staring up at him.

  “You can’t do that,” Calista shrieked from behind us and ran through where Dad, Luke, and I were standing, bumping me hard. I had been standing close to the edge of the step and the force of the hit pushed me forward and I lost my balance. Just as I started to tip forward strong hands caught my arms and pulled me back into a hard chest; Luke.

  “Did you just…” Luke said sounding even scarier than before. “Graham,” he shouted at one of the guys who was our security detail for the day. “Did you catch that?”

  “Sir,” Graham’s said, his face looking grim and pissed off.

  “Call the police. I want her charged,” Dad yelled over at him and immediately Graham had his phone in his hand and was touching the screen.

  “I didn’t do anything!” Calista took over the screaming that her mother had been doing previously. I always thought that she was this Disney princess look-a-like, but seeing her now, I realized that there wasn’t any beauty to her; it was all fake.

  She started trying to pull her sobbing mother up off the ground and only succeeded in dragging her a couple of feet across the gravel; that was going to sting. Movement caught my eye and I looked in Graham’s direction to see him recording the freak show in front of him on his phone; smart!

  “You’re going to pay for this,” she screamed as her mom got her feet under her and managed to stand up while using Calista as her anchor and almost pulling her over.

  The rest of what she was going to say was interrupted by a police cruiser driving up towards us, there had to have been one in the area for them to get here so quickly.

  It parked up beside the two messes that were now screaming in surround sound at us with mascara streaming down their faces; it was a good look for them.

  Looking back on it, I wish I’d had my phone out to record the next five minutes as they both screamed abuse and lies at us, screamed at Officer Dooley, who stood there watching it like it was a carnival freak show, tried to make a dash down the drive and then as they were handcuffed and put in the back of the car. It was fabulous!

  “Isla…” Dad took a step toward me, but stopped when I held my hand up.

  “Not now, I need some time.”

  “I understand,” he sounded almost defeated as he nodded his head and turned around to look back down the drive.

  “I’ll call you later,” I said before making the decision to do something that I hadn’t done in years - I hugged him before walking to where Graham had the rear door of the SUV open for me and got in.

  We’d just pulled out and were heading towards the Townsend’s when Luke spoke up. “I never…”

  “I know,” I cut him off. “For a second, yes, but then, no.” I really didn’t want to relive that bullshit right now and proving that Luke really was the one for me, he seemed to pick up on it and left it alone. Thinking hard, I realized that one good thing had come out of this, I did trust Luke. Hearing Calista say she’d fucked him hurt and, for a short period of time, but I don't think I truly believed her. That realization helped heal one of the last jagged pieces inside of me when it came to my husband, and with that came peace.

  Luke and I were going to have to go and give our statements to the police tomorrow about what happened to me when I was a child, and ask the Montgomery’s to do the same. I didn’t want to think and relive it all right now, I’d think about it tomorrow.

  Three days later

  I’d just had my twenty-week scan and was now just under twenty-one weeks pregnant. The babies were healthy and growing as expected, and the twin that had been hiding had moved to the side so that I was now carrying them properly - side by side. The lady who did the scan had confirmed that Thing One was definitely a boy, but Thing Two was still being difficult and had been lying with their legs crossed.

  The scan couldn't have been timed better because the day after they were arrested, I’d gone to the police station to give my statement about what Jodie and Calista had put me through as a child. The statute of limitations wasn’t up on some of them so charges had been pressed, not that it was necessary, seeing as a lot of their evil lifestyles had been revealed and people were coming forward to press more charges against them. Because of some of the allegations, bail had been denied and they were going to be remanded in custody until their trial.

  Dad and Luke had been present for my statement, and when Dad had heard about me being pushed into the swimming pool and held under the water, as well as how I actually broke my arm and ended up out in the snow that time, he’d cried. We’d ended up going back to Gram’s place and having a heart to heart talk. Apparently, whenever something had happened involving me as a child and Dad had said that he would speak with me, Jodie had told him that it would be better coming from her as my ‘mother’. He hadn’t been happy married to her and that had got worse after I’d moved out to live with Grams and then effectively cut him out of my life after I hit eighteen, but he said he already had one failed marriage behind him and hadn’t wanted to admit to that marriage being a mistake too. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to forgive him for being so negligent and not protecting me, but I was willing to take it one day at a time with him to see what semblance of a relationship we could have. He hadn’t returned to Italy yet, so we had time.

  Luke had to go back into the office, but now that I was past the twenty-week mark, I wanted to look at baby stuff and start getting an idea what I wanted to get for them, so Maya, Cole, and I were currently standing in a baby store forty minutes outside of Piersville with our ever present security detail.

  So far, I’d picked some baby grows, body suits and socks, and Maya and I were looking at the cribs to get an idea of the style that we both want
ed.

  “Why are there so many?” She asked and I had to agree. There were so many styles and colors that it was making it impossible to choose. “And you have to buy two of everything!”

  “Hey,” Cole interrupted, walking up to us holding something in his hand. “What the shit is this?”

  Maya was obviously more clued into baby paraphernalia because I had no clue what it was. “It’s a breast pump, Cole.”

  “A what?”

  “That’s what they look like? Jesus it looks like a method of torture!” I said taking a step back.

  “You put it on your ta-ta and pump to get the milk out and then freeze it or whatever for the baby,” Maya said, laughing at the expression on Cole and my faces. I really wasn’t sure I’d ever want one of those.

  We should have guessed what he’d do next, but I was still too caught up in the mental images of being tortured by the gadget in his hand. Maya was still explaining it when Cole looked around him, lifted up his shirt, placed the doohickey over his nipple and started pumping furiously.

  “Cole, I’m not sure…” I started, watching in horror as he pumped and pumped.

  “It’s not so bad you know,” he cut in, speeding up the pumps and giggling as the suction started to…inhale his nipple into the doohickey. It started to go purple and Maya and I watched in horror as Cole pumped and looked around him and then the next second screamed and started tugging at it. “Oh my God, it’s cutting my nipple

  off!”

  A woman came running from the front of the store towards us and started trying to get it off him. “Sir, you’re not meant to try the merchandise. If you’d just stand still…”

  She gave it a ferocious tug and Cole jumped back away from her. “Stop pulling, you’re tearing off my nipple. Oh holy Jesus!”

  Finally losing patience, a grim faced Graham walked up to Cole and gave it a yank successfully freeing Cole’s nipple and making him scream. Both Maya and I looked at his chest in horror at how swollen and purple it was and the circular bruise around it as the saleswoman grabbed the invention of hades from Graham and walked away muttering.

  Still whining and rubbing his chest, Cole followed us toward the ‘mother’ aisle looking at things, giving his abused nipple a rub every now and then.

  “Nipple cream?” He asked picking up a tube and looking at us. I could count the things that I recognized and knew about in this aisle on one hand so I just shrugged.

  Maya, though, said, “It helps your nipples not be sore and cracked when you’re feeding the baby or using the pump.”

  He didn’t need to say anything, the expression on his face said he was buying the cream. I’d picked up some mother moisturizer and stretch mark oil and was looking at other things when he called our names. “What the fuck is this?” He held up what had to be the biggest maxi pad I’d ever seen, it looked almost like half of an adult diaper.

  “That’s for after the birth,” I started, and then got an evil idea. “Because remember it’s like a weapon of mass destruction went off down there afterwards and you need to catch it…”

  I turned back to the mother range giving Maya a high five on the way as Cole stumbled away gagging and whimpering. Damn that was fun!

  Chapter 18

  Luke

  I was just finishing up the work that had taken me away from Isla after the scan. I couldn’t stop smiling after seeing the babies and hearing that they were on target and healthy. We still didn’t know what Thing Two was going to be, but I had a feeling after seeing it today that it was going to be a girl; Isla was adamant that it was a boy, though.

  Packing up my desk and shutting down my computer, I was about to call Isla and see if she was still at the baby store so that I could join her when my cell rang in my hand and Brett’s name came up.

  “Hey man!”

  “Just had a call from Mace,” he rumbled down the phone. “His man Neil picked up the beige car guy from the CCTV footage and passed him over. Mace is meeting us at the old Ferguson farm.”

  “I’ll be there,” I hung up the phone and looked up at Baz who was standing waiting for me at the door. “They got the driver, we’re headed there now.”

  When we pulled up outside the run down barn on the old farm grounds, there were four black SUV’s and about ten bikes parked in front of it and I hoped they hadn’t started without me. It would be a fucking miracle if I didn’t kill him with my bare hands before he started talking.

  Walking in, I saw Mace, Brett, and Coleman waiting for me. I followed them through to the back where a man was tied to an old metal chair, surrounded by Coleman’s men and Mace’s team, who were all standing watching the asshole. I had to admit, I’d probably have shit myself if I was in his shoes because they made up a formidable group.

  “Has he said anything yet?” I asked as I walked up to him taking him in. He had greasy hair and looked and smelled like he hadn’t washed in weeks. His clothes were torn and stained and I wasn’t sure how much of it had happened when he’d been caught or if he’d been like this anyway.

  “Nah, we were waiting for you,” Brett said, sounding bored but I knew he was far from it.

  Nodding I stood and watched as Coleman put on a pair of plastic gloves and then walked up to the asshole suddenly grabbing his hair and using it to tip the chair back but hold him up at the same time.

  “Name,” he ground out. When the guy didn’t say anything he used the grip he had on his hair and shook him; the sound of the guys teeth hitting each other audible in the otherwise silent wreck of a barn.

  “Rick,” the asshole gasped.

  Coleman let go of the handful of hair and the chair fell backwards, the asshole’s head meeting the ground with a thud before one of Mace’s guys came forward and picked it back up again so that he was facing us again.

  “Right, Rick, got a couple of questions for you,” Brett said walking forward with his hands in his pockets.

  “I don’t know shit, man.”

  “How do you know that?” Brett replied. “We haven’t told you what we’ve got questions about.”

  “I don’t know shit about anything, I swear.” There was blood trickling down the side of his neck so he’d obviously cut his head when Coleman dropped the chair.

  “That’s disappointing,” Mace said walking around to the asshole’s side. “That means that we have no use for you then, so we may as well just get rid of you.” His voice and the expression on his face was one I’d never seen before and, admittedly, it freaked the fuck out of me.

  He immediately started shaking his head furiously and trying to move the chair away from Mace, who cocked his head to the side watching him. After a couple of minutes, he looked up and jerked his chin at one of his Marine buddies who stepped forward, taking a pair of shears out from under his jacket and passed them over to Mace.

  The man was trying even harder to move the chair away from Mace, so Baz stepped forward and just held it still and stared down at the man.

  “You sure you don’t know anything?” Coleman questioned from beside me. “Maybe you should hear the questions before my friend here starts testing his new pair of shears. He had to replace his old ones when he cut out the last guy’s tongue…”

  The asshole who was shaking in the chair now looked at Coleman and gulped and then looked back at Mace who was slowly opening and closing the shears. “Ask.”

  I decided it was time for me to join the party. “Why did you set the bomb in my house and my wife’s car?”

  “I didn’t set no bomb,” he replied still watching Mace who took a step toward him. “I swear it, fuck, I don’t know one fucking thing about no bombs, man.”

  “Who did it then?”

  “I just said I didn’t know!”

  “Why were you buying the shit to make them then?” Brett asked. “We’ve got you on tape doing it and driving off.”

  The asshole’s eyes widened. “That? The guy rang me and told me he’d pay me twenty g’s to go and pick this shit up.”
/>   We all looked at each other at this news. “Who was the guy?” Coleman asked.

  “I don’t fucking know, he was some guy. I never saw him.”

  “How did he get your number?” Mace asked.

  “No fucking clue! I was in a titty bar getting wrecked cause I made it in a game and was celebrating, ya know, then my phone rings and I hear that. He paid me five g’s up front, left it in the back of the car. I needed the money and it was easy, so I did it.” He looked desperately around the room at everyone. “What would you do? I was in deep and needed it!”

  “I don’t think I believe you,” Mace said walking up to him. The next thing, a dark patch appeared on the asshole’s crotch, he’d pissed himself.

  “I swear it!”

  “Why would he call you? Where would he get your number?” Mace quizzed, letting the shears click shut right in front of the guy’s face.

  “I said I don’t know,” the guy yelled in a high pitched voice. “He said he had an offer I couldn’t say no to cause Spinelli and his guys were gonna come after me for the fifteen g’s that I owed him. I had to take it. Spinelli don’t allow no debts.”

  I saw by the expression that crossed Coleman and Baz’s faces after he’d mentioned the name Spinelli that they’d heard of the guy; this still didn’t answer why the fuck he’d come after all of us.

  “Why did you try and kill me?” Brett asked, walking closer to the guy.

  “I didn’t man,” the asshole was now shaking so hard that the chair was making a tapping sound on the floor.

  “Where did you get your bomb knowledge from?” Brett continued. It looked like the guy genuinely didn’t have anything to do with this, but I agreed with Brett’s tactic of asking anyway.

  “I don’t know nothing about making bombs,” the asshole screamed. “I make bets, bad bets; that’s all I do.”

  “So, he paid you to pick some shit up and then what?” Mace questioned.