Breathless (Meadowlarks) (18 page)

“Not really a
big enough space to run,” he said, slyly.

“Don't. Please.
I don't want you.”

“You do. You were dripping the last time I touched you.”

“Temporary insanity.”

He chuckle
d, and rubbed his long erection through the material of his boxers.

Well, here goes nothing…

“Here's how this is going to go...” I whispered. “You're going to get into the shower, and wash that amazing thing before I take it into my mouth.” I licked my bottom lip, and Dane's eyes flared emerald.

He exhale
d, and smirked. “As you wish.”

“Go,” I breathe
d.

When he was
in the bathroom, and I heard the shower turn on and the sound of the glass door close, I scrambled to put on my shoes and grab my purse.

I quietly open
ed the door and bolted down the hallway, running with all might to the stairwell. This time, taking three and four steps at a time. I burst through the hotel door and ran up to the Lincoln parked, as expected, at the curb.

“Mr. Sullivan said to take me to this address, please.” I h
eld out a tiny piece of paper and I smiled at the driver. I climbed in the car, and he pulled away from the hotel.

And Dane.

Oh, shit.

He's probably losing it right now.

Good
.

The driver drop
ped me off in front of a coffee shop, and I smiled and thanked him. When the Lincoln was out of sight I ran down the street and turned the corner, briskly walking into the parking lot of a car rental shop.

I was
only two minutes into driving away in my new rental—a black minivan—when Dane's number appeared on my phone. I ignored it. He called back, again and again. Each time I pressed the button to disregard his incessant call.

I check
ed the rear view mirror every couple of minutes, fully expecting to see a Lincoln, but I didn’t. I rented a van, thinking Dane would never suspect me of driving this. Then again, he's got enough money to bribe anyone into telling them what I've rented.

Damn, didn't think of that.

I pushed my foot harder down on the gas, and got far away from Buffalo. I was just outside of Sheridan when Addison called me, I answered using the speakerphone.

“Riley, where are you?”

“Umm, I'm not in Buffalo anymore. Why?”

“Well, that arrogant asshole, Dane, called Alex. And Alex called me.”

Oh, shit.

“He told Alex he was with you. Then you left. Where are you going? Is it Isaac? Do you know where he is?”

“Addy, I was with Dane. Not like you think. But, I need to go to Maine. I'm going to bring Isaac home. I promise.”

“He's in Maine?” she ask
ed, her voice breathy.

“I don't know. You just have to trust me, please, Addy. I'm all he's got...”

Noise scratched through the phone, and I heard random muffled voices.

“Hello? Addy, are you there?”

“Riley...” Alex's voice rumbled softly though my ear, sending me spiralling—I haven't heard his voice in days. “Fuck. Just tell me you're okay.”

I breathe
d quietly, almost not at all. “I'm okay. I'm going to bring Isaac home. Trust me, please.”

“I do. I love you.”

“I—I...I love you, Alex. It's always been you.”

“Let me help you. Please, Ry...I need to fucking do something!” He
said, exasperated, and it made my heart ache.

“I can't. I will call you later tonight. Promise.”

I ended the call without saying goodbye, I couldn’t listen to his voice anymore. I was so hard on him at the rodeo when he told me he had lost Isaac. I know he didn't ignore him, or do it intentionally—I was just so freaking insane at that moment. An emotion one can't describe unless you've actually felt it for yourself.

I push
ed the pedal down again, and drove straight for the airport. According to the travel app on my phone, I had less than twenty-five minutes to get there, buy a ticket and not miss the fucking plane.

Chapter
Eleven

That was positively the longest flight of my life. Well,
flights
, considering there was one stop before I landed in Maine. I rented another car—err, minivan. Who would have thought I would be behind the wheel of one of these someday? I was surprised at how comfortable it drove.

The teller at Bangor Bank of
Commerce looked at me like I had asked for $448,000 in Yiddish. She blinked a few times, probably never having heard for such a crazy amount of money.

“You'll need to speak to the branch manager, Ms. Harrison. As we're just about to close. I'm sorry.”

“Okay, get 'em.” I smiled, impatiently.

Rose, as her name placard display
ed, rushed off and gently knocked on an office before she quietly entered and closed the door behind her.

I tap
ped my nails, which were now all but nubs from my chewing them relentlessly from anxiety, on the counter. I smiled, sweetly, at the security guard and when I saw him blush I knew I was in the clear—that I hadn’t stood here this entire time looking like a crazy person asking for ransom money.

Rose return
ed with a man, who looked younger than me. Far too young to be a branch manager, but nonetheless, that could play out in my favour.

“Ms. Harrison, sorry for the wait. I'm Zack; how can I help you today?”

“Zack,” I said, surprised but happy with the informality. “I need to withdraw a large sum of money from my bank account.”

“If you could step into my office, we can settle everything in there.” He motion
ed toward the door he came out of with Rose.

I smile
d, nodded my head, thanked Rose, and followed Zack into his office.

“How
large, Ms. Harrison?”

“Riley,” I sa
id, pointing to myself. “The entire balance of this account, please.”

I slid a piece of paper across his oak desk, and he pick
ed it up, gazing at it for a beat. Then, he quickly typed a few keys into his computer and smiled at me.

“Okay, I'll just need your identification, and
how would you like the bills?”

I blink
ed, knowing I've heard these words before in many a Hollywood movie, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember how it was usually answered.

“What would you suggest?” I ask
ed, timidly, while opening my wallet and handing him my driver's license and Social Security card.

“Well,” he
said, leaning over his chair to check out the size of my purse. “You don't have a big enough purse for anything less than hundreds.”

Oh, shit!

I knew I was forgetting something on my way to pick up ransom money for my kidnapped child—I thought to myself—a bag big enough for his entire school fund, to hand over to the criminal that stole him from me!

Duh
.

“That'll do.”

I sank down so far into the seat of the minivan, hiding myself from the outside world, all while clutching for dear life onto my purse that theoretically held my son's life in it. Carefully bundled in strips of banker's paper. How was that
that
easy? I almost expected a S.W.A.T. team to drop from the sky and surround me on all sides.

“Girl, you watch
way
too many movies,” I whispered to myself and slid the messenger-style purse off my shoulder to carefully tuck it in front of the seat beside me. I drove to Milestone Avenue and parked on the street, five houses away from my parents’. Right behind a line of cars that must be guests at a neighbouring party.

Good
.

I
f Dane manages to find out I've flown here and rented another car, he shouldn't suspect a random minivan in a parade of other vehicles. I hope not, anyway.

I
crept up the lawn of my parents’ house, and toed around the back to let myself in.

The house
was in darkness, as expected since it was now after ten at night. Finding my keys in my purse, somewhere under all the Benjamin's, I unlocked the back door. Quickly punching in the alarm code to reset it after my entrance.

I pull
ed off my shoes and carried them upstairs, silently tip-toeing on the pads of my feet. My heart dropped from my chest when I walked in Scarlett's make-shift fairy fantasy. Scarlett was sleeping in her little pink canopied bed, knees tucked under her belly, with her little bottom stuck right up in the air.

She breathe
d softly, and I knelt beside the bed to watch her sleep. Tears flowed from my eyes, and I tried not to let my sniffling wake her. My fingers touched the soft curls of her dark hair, and I had to pull away as my heart just couldn’t take another second.

She look
ed so much like Isaac did as a baby, and yet, so much like Alex. Her delicate cheeks had an adorable dimple when she smiled, just like Alex's, and his blue eyes rang out so loudly against her black hair—she's going to break a lot of hearts, I know it. A true sleeping beauty.

“I love you, so much, Scarlett,” I whisper
ed and leaned in to kiss her warm cheek. “We'll all be together again, very soon. Mommy promises.”

I h
eld my breath when I walked past the bedroom my parents were sleeping in. Dad was snoring, and mom was sprawled out with her arm thrown over him. I smiled at the sight, and made my way back out of the house.

I spent almost an hour sitting and watching Scarlett sleep. When I check
ed my watch it was almost midnight—it had almost been twelve hours.

At 12:04 AM my phone
rang, and I coiled down again in the seat of the minivan to answer the call. Shielding the light from the screen.

“Hello?” I ask
ed, even though I knew who it was.

“Riley. Have you got the mo
ney yet?”

“Yes,” I answer
ed. “I want to talk to my son.”

The electronic voice respond
ed, “You're his mother, you should know he's sleeping at this hour. Since you have a flight or two ahead of you, get yourself to the airport and buy a ticket to Augusta. You're coming back to Maine.”

“You really don't give me a lot of time. What if I can't book a flight right away?”

“Do what you gotta do. When you get to Maine, find 687 East Torrance Street, and wait for my call.”

I h
eld my breath. “Okay.”

“Oh, and Riley?” The caller
said. “Don't try anything stupid.”

Now that is a line I've heard before, and I've got the Hollywood reply this time.

“I won't.”

The GPS alert
ed me that I had arrived at my destination, and I drove by, glancing in a blink at the bold brick building with large windows shooting right up to the sky. It's an older Augusta building, no doubt, but it's very rich and modern at the same time. People were walking in and out of the doors, with briefcases and trays of coffee, and paperwork.

There was no
name on the building, so when I parked a few blocks away, in front of a bakery, I Googled the address.

Stuart Match and Gleese Ltd., yield
ed over ten thousand search results. I skimmed through a few, seeing that it was a marketing firm based out of Orlando with remote sites like this one spread up the East Coast.

Nothing about the name or business
struck me as familiar, and I decided that they've probably just chosen this building because of its bustling activity—nothing would cause a scene if someone were to simply hand over a briefcase to someone else.

Whatever
was baking in the store next to me, was lingering through the brick walls and wafting right into the minivan. Tempting me, teasing my empty and aching stomach.

I check
ed all around me, seeing nothing or no one I knew, and I pulled the extra-expensive purse over my shoulder to walk into the bakery and eat something. I chose a latte and a cherry cheese danish. Smiling slightly at the memory of how much Scarlett loves them, and how badly I miss both of my children.

I guiltily eat the danish, praying that Isaac is not j
ust playing video games—but he was being fed too. My phone vibrated through my jeans, and I answered it right away, not looking at the caller I.D.

“Riley, I know you're in Maine.”

Awe, shit.

“Listen
to me clearly. Normally I would lose it, but under the circumstances of this situation, I will disregard you leaving me in a hotel room in Redneckville, hard and waiting for your mouth.”

“Dane, listen...”

“No, you listen. You'll finish whatever pastry you're eating, and come to my office. The same building your father had his appointment in. Ten minutes.”

“What? How do you know where I am?”

“Welcome to the modern world, sweetheart. It's called
technology
.”

“No, thanks. I'm just fine without you.”

“You're not.”

“I am.”

Oh, the childishness was flowing at full force today. I shook my head and hung up the phone. Dane didn’t call back.

I shove
d the last piece of danish into my mouth, not wanting the sweetness or the food, but needing something in my belly. I finished about half of the latte and got up to leave before a glint of light flowed into the bakery, sending little rainbow trickles all over the wall.

Right in front of the wide store window
stood one of the tallest blondes I had ever seen, her sunglasses covered most of her face, and as she lifted her hand to wipe the hair off her forehead. Her enormous diamond ring sent twinkles into the store again.

She
spoke to someone on her cellphone, and waved her arm in the air when a black Mercedes pulled up to the curb—right in front of my rented minivan. The back door opened from the inside and I gasped when I saw who smiled at her before sliding across the back seat to make room.

Aldo
.

Just when I
thought my brain couldn’t fathom any more, the woman removed her sunglasses and bent out to pull the door of the Mercedes shut.

Celeste
.

***

Uncle Wes took me to Fiji when I was sixteen. Well, me and Wife #3—I lovingly referred to her as Twyla Tightass. But, to the rest of the world she was Twyla Thomas, recent window of Vincent Thomas, the billionaire yacht builder and playboy.

Vincent died when he fell of a yacht, drunk and alone...apparently, anyway. Twyla met my uncle, who knew Vincent as well, at the funeral.

How classy
, right?

Twyla gripped her tissue and sobbed crocodile tears into
Uncle Wes' shoulder, and then sunk her teeth into him. She had him so whipped he had to ask for permission to piss, I'm sure of it.

The trip to Fiji was spontaneous, and my parents had planned on going along but both became ill with the flu and couldn't go. Uncle Wes insisted I still come for the trip, and
even stood up against Tightass' dagger-glare when she blatantly refused to humour the idea.

“Riley deserves to go, she's sixteen. She needs to see the world,” Uncle Wes had said. “Twyla, please.”

“Fine, she just better stay out of my way. I'm there for
my
pleasure, solely.” Twyla sneered right at me.

I rolled my eyes at her, and smiled at my uncle.

Fiji was...breathtaking. No words could describe it, and how much fun I had. I flirted with almost—okay, every—young guy I could find. Danced my sixteen year old ass off, and eventually made my way to a local bar and grinned when they let me right in.

Inside that bar I found Twyla Tightass, grinding and sucking face with some poor
fresh sap that had no idea the venom this woman could spit. I held up my camera and took a picture of her, and showed it to Uncle Wes that very night.

Twyla stayed in Fiji, and we flew home a day later. Uncle Wes divorced, and pouted for a few months because she didn't even put up a fight.

Now, here we are—two wives later. The latest blonde cobra just slithered into the car with my son's father's personal assistant.

In what world am I living in?

I shoved my sunglasses on my face and raced out of the bakery, clambering to the minivan. The key didn’t turn quick enough, but eventually I was off, climbing my way through the traffic, on the tail of the Mercedes.

***

“Ms. Harrison, what exactly are you doing?” Detective Campbell asked dryly when I gathered some guts to answer his phone call. “I went to your hotel and they said you've been checked out. You haven't answered my call for over a day.”

“I'm sorry. I...I found out something, but I was afraid to tell you. I don't want Isaac to pay the price for my stupidity!”

“Riley, what? Tell me!”

“Someone called me, told me they had Isaac and even sent two pictures. He's smiling in both of them, so I don't think he's been hurt—I pray he hasn't been hurt. They also demanded money.”