Liberty At Last (The Liberty Series) (18 page)

“The
Denali
is
much
nicer than the van, John, much nicer,” Matthew said, his mouth overflowing with his Stop N Go burger. He’d ordered three burgers, large fries and a large vanilla frappe. And they were all disappearing, right in front of my eyes.

“Thanks Matthew,” John said. “Just don’t get food on the seats.”

We were somewhere in Pennsylvania. I was in the third row with Catherine; I’d stopped keeping track of the hours. Her other wrist was handcuffed, now; she had eventually let Sean tape her bloody wrist up, and change the dressing on her foot.

We were sitting together, sharing fries, like we were a couple of girlfriends on a road trip with her dad in his big shiny car. Except we
were
on a road trip with her dad and his big shiny car. I tried not to think about it, or to think about the fact that she was
married
to Angel Morales, the leader of the infamously vicious
Morales
cartel. And that I was the only one who knew that fact. I didn’t want to know it. I wanted to
un-
know it. But I couldn’t, so I just kept shoving fries into my mouth, my stomach alternately relieved by the food and hurting from it.

“When is Eva going to meet us?” Catherine asked out of the blue. She’d barely said a word since we’d left the fight. She didn’t ask her father anything about the men we’d left behind. Maybe she didn’t care. Or maybe she’d understood that John hadn’t killed them because he was trying to show that although he was powerful,
he
was merciful — he wasn’t going to kill people just because he could. Unlike the people he’d spared.

“She’ll be up tomorrow,” John said. “And Ian’s there. He’s very excited to see you.” He said this gently, like he was trying to coax some warmth out of her towards her grandfather.

“I hope you told him to lower his expectations appropriately,” she said, and that was all.

What John
wasn’t
telling her was that she was also going to be evaluated by a psychiatrist as soon as possible, and most likely committed to a maximum-security psychiatric facility within the next forty-eight hours. I was pretty sure that he was going to wait to share
that
big news with her.

Even though we had dumped the van two states back, I still worried we were being followed and that at any moment, the shooting would start again. But it stayed quiet. I was worried that trouble would find its way to us. It would be my fault if it did. I was responsible for bringing Catherine back, but she wasn’t the Catherine that had gone missing six years ago. She’d been changed, debilitated, and her sense of right and wrong, of loyalty, was all fucked up now. I thought of that cat in
Pet Cemetery
.
It came back, but it was never right in the head again…and the people who loved it were so happy to see it…but it was an abomination, some sort of inverted sick joke of the creature it had been before…and the people who’d loved it had to learn the hard way…

Stop it,
I said to myself. John was so happy to have his daughter back. He didn’t care that she wasn’t happy about being rescued. He was going to get her the best care in the world. She was going to be okay — whether she liked it or not.
Whether she was Mrs. Angel Morales or not.

I was pretty sure I was going to wait to share
that
big news. With anyone.

I woke up to quiet, the grey light of early, early dawn, and the sound of gravel underneath the tires. I sat up, looking past Matthew, who was driving now, up towards the gate with the big star on it. John heard me and turned around. He quickly looked at Catherine, was turned on her side, out cold; then he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “We’re home,” he said quietly. I squeezed his hand back as my eyes filled up with tears.
Home.
That it felt like it
was
my home was as much of a revelation as anything else. I felt like I belonged here, when not too long ago, I’d been wondering if I was good enough.

I felt like I’d outgrown that person. I pressed my face against his forearm gratefully. He smelled like sweat, some other sort of metallic odor that I associated with guns firing, but underneath all that was
his
smell, the smell that I’d tried to recall so desperately when I was alone in Matamoros.

“Ian’s waiting for us,” he said and smiled down at me. He looked tired. “I promised I’d text him when we got here. He can’t wait to see you,” he said. We looked at each other, knowing the real truth: Ian couldn’t wait to see me, yes, but it was his granddaughter’s return that had to have him sleepless with worry and excitement.
Heavy on the worry.

“What did you tell him?” I asked, nodding my head towards her.

“The truth,” John said, and he no longer looked just tired — I could see he was completely exhausted. “I told him she’s not the same person,” he said, careful to keep his voice low.

“She’ll be okay,” I said, wanting to believe it for his sake.

“We’ll see,” John said. “But I have to keep her on lockdown here, and that’s not going to help.” I looked over and found her awake and staring at us, a repulsed look on her face, like she smelled something unsanitary. I automatically dropped my hand from John’s face.

“Nothing’s going to help,” Catherine said. “And I don’t
feel
like seeing Ian right now, either. I need to sleep.”

“Fine,” said John, trying to sound like he didn’t care in the slightest and failing miserably. “Sean, can you take Catherine to the barracks? Have Jake come out to watch her. He knows we’re on our way.”

Matthew pulled up to the big house to drop us off. “Have a good trip home,” John said to him. “Give my regards to your family.”

“See you in a few,” Matthew said. He sounded happy. He must miss his wife and his son; he was gone so much. I wondered briefly how much John paid him. It must be enough to make it worth all that time away, if that was possible. “I’m gonna go get my tan on. And try to relax before we start all that training next week.” He winked at me evilly and I frowned at him. And mentally gave him the finger.

I got out of the car and John leaned back in, towards Catherine. “I love you, honey,” he said, quietly. I watched as she just turned away.

I hooked my arm through his as the car pulled away. It wasn’t morning yet but the sky was brightening. I stood still for a moment and closed my eyes. I heard the ocean and I could smell its saltiness; I heard the wind in the pine trees, I turned around and opened my eyes to look at the big, rolling lawn. I looked up and saw the last stars visible in the sky and I thanked them. I felt wild with happiness, suddenly. I reached up and threw my hands around John’s neck.

“I’m so happy to be here,” I said, and kissed his unshaven cheek. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” he said, and although I knew that he meant it, I could hear that weariness, that sadness in his tone.

“It’s okay,” I said, and hugged him to me. I patted the side of his face as he leaned on me. I could feel all the tension in his body he’d acquired from shielding himself from rejection. “It’s going to be okay.”

“He’s asleep,” I said wearily to Ian as I sat down next to him at the breakfast bar. I’d made John go and lie down after he’d showered; I stayed and rubbed his back for a couple of minutes, and by then he’d fallen into a deep, motionless sleep. I was going to join him soon, but I needed to see Ian first. And to eat more.

“I am so happy to see you back here in one piece,” Ian said. “It was a ridiculous thing that you did. Brave, but ridiculous.”

“It was more ridiculous than brave, Ian. I admit it.” It was too early for breakfast, but Ian had scones and bagels and tea set out. He poured me some and I gratefully accepted it, adding milk and two sugar cubes.

“But you brought her back. No one else could do it, not for all these years, and you managed to. It makes me think that you and John are more alike than it appears on the surface. You might be just as tough as him, and that’s saying something,” he said.

“It was fool’s luck, Ian,” I said. “And honestly? The way Catherine is now? I’m not sure it was really all that lucky I found her.”

“She’s not okay, is she?” Ian asked. I felt for him — this was his granddaughter we were talking about, who’d been a sweet eighteen-year old when he’d last seen her. Certainly not the same person who’d burnt me with her cigarettes for sport and most recently referred to me as a “fuckwad.”

“She’s really not okay,” I said. I’d thought about it before, and I’d decided that my approach should be the same with Ian as with John. I was going to be honest, so they didn’t get their hopes up too high, but I wasn’t going to be
brutally
honest, so that any hope they’d managed to keep alive crashed and burned.

“Matthew says she’s been turned,” I said, and shrugged helplessly. “I guess I agree with him. She wants to go back — she thinks she belongs in Mexico. She’s fought us kicking and screaming the whole way back. John told me there’s something called
Stockholm syndrome
— he thinks she has it. When a person who’s been kidnapped starts to identify with their captors? More than the people they left behind?” I asked.

He nodded. “There’s been some high-profile cases where that’s happened,” Ian said. He looked a little grey at the thought.

“She’s been so mean to him,” I said. “She’s really been horrible. I know she’s your granddaughter, but it’s been rough,” I said.

“No worries,” Ian said, taking his glasses off and cleaning them with a cloth. “I’ve spoken to both Matthew and Sean on the phone since you’ve been on the road. Without John knowing. I wanted to hear what was really going on. John sounded so distant, he was so brief — and at the same time, he was so happy to have you back in one piece — that I knew it had to be bad.” He put the cloth back into his glasses case and clamped it shut. “I really wanted to talk to you, but I knew you needed to just be with John and I heard about your sister —”

He jumped up and hugged me out of the blue. I laughed. “Here I am, only thinking about Catherine, and I forgot to ask you about Sasha,” he said, beaming at me. “How was it?”

I smiled at him and laughed. “A little awkward,” I admitted. “It’s been a while.” I took another sip of tea and thought about it. “She’s not used to seeing me on my own. Plus we hadn’t seen each other in so long — I was still mad at her for that, so that was hard. I’m not used to being mad at her.”

“And now?” he asked. “Are you two going to stay in touch?”

“Absolutely,” I said, and I knew in my heart that it was true. “I don’t care about what happened. I forgive her. I love her; she’s my sister. And she’s all the family I have.” I shrugged.

“Exactly,” Ian said. “Good girl. But now you have to help John see that.”

“He sees it,” I said. “He’s the one who flew her to Nashville and made me have dinner with her.”

“I mean — John needs to see it about Catherine. That she’s still his daughter. That he can’t give up on her,” he said.

“He’s not giving up on her, Ian,” I said. “He’ll do anything for her. It’s written all over his face. It doesn’t matter what she says or how she acts. He loves her, regardless. She can tell, too. But she doesn’t seem to care.”