Ransom (32 page)

My mouth dropped wide as I tried to absorb what I had just heard. Pa had accused
me
of collapsing the stage. Sanford had confirmed that piece of information, so I couldn’t understand who was in custody. I grabbed my cell. Even though it had gone flying in the accident and had landed in the foot well of the drivers seat, my cell was still usable. I punched in Sanford’s number. He picked up on the second ring.

“Sanford,” I said.

“Ransom? Are you all right?” he asked in a hoarse voice, cutting me off.

“Who do the police have in custody?” I asked, not bothering to answer his question.

“It’s Dave,” Sanford said in a rush of air. He ignored the niceties of conversation exactly as I had.

“Dave? Are you fucking serious? How did it go from me being set up, to Dave getting fingered?” I shouted.

“Your father gave you up too. You’re wanted for questioning and as far as I can see if you don’t come in soon they’re going to issue a warrant for your arrest. Dave got pulled into the mix when your father caught wind that you were on the run. He’s not dumb, he knows that the only way he’ll get you back is if he messes with Dave. He knows you Ransom, God forgive me but that bastard knows you too damn well.”

“Then I’m coming in,” I said in an even tone that was touched with ice. “There’s no fucking way that Dave’s going to take the fall for…”

“Something you didn’t do…” Sanford finished. “I know you’re upset, but for once in your life you have to keep a cool head. Not everything can be solved in a second, things take time.”

Sanford stopped talking, the silence stretched. I was so discomfited by the empty space in the conversation that I almost started talking; Sanford did instead.

“I’ve sat back and watched your father, watched him play people, move them around and arrange them like pieces on a chess board. He’s a master manipulator, but nobody but a select few know about all his underhanded actions. And anyone who does…well they get pushed out of the circle.”

He sighed loudly into the receiver.

 
“I’ve only stayed on this long because I’ve turned a blind eye to everything, pretended that I was naïve to it all, and in that way I’ve gotten closer to your father than anyone else. I never planned to really do anything about what he did but now, with this whole thing blowing up all around me…”
 

I heard static on the line like he had moved to a place where the service was poor.
 

“All I can say is give me time on this Ransom. I need some time. Stay away from here, away from the cameras, go underground…”

“How the hell can I do that I’ve got barely enough money to pay for a hotel room…” I snapped.
 

I knew that I should have been appreciative for Sanford’s help, but it all seemed too complicated, too calculated. I refused to be anything like Pa, who just as Sanford said, had played people his entire existence. I believed in facing my problems head on, but Sanford was asking for me to be something I wasn’t. I had no idea if I could do what he wanted.

“I have some money, I can wire it into your account so you’ll have what you need, but use it sparingly because the well isn’t infinite. Lose your phone because they’ll track you on it…I’ll try to get Dave out on bail, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post the bond if they set it too high…”

“Are you serious?” I asked incredulously.
 

How in the hell had everything gone so sideways in a matter of hours. It was as if someone had taken my ordinary life and replaced it with something out of a movie. As thrilling as it might have seemed in a movie, it was terrifying in real life.
 

“I’ve never been more serious in my life,” Sanford said in a quiet voice. This time it was me who went silent because it seemed too fucked up to believe that it was actually happening.
 

“Ransom, are you okay?” Lexie’s voice came to me, as if through a thick fog that I couldn’t seem to see beyond.

“Text me your bank details then lose your phone. Call me when you get a new one, and I’ll tell you what to do next,” Sanford said.

“What if I don’t want to do any of that… I mean Dave’s my best friend and he did nothing wrong and…”

“And you did?” Sanford said in a gruff voice. It sounded nothing like him.
 

“I’ve got to go, do what you feel is right Ransom. I can only hope that you’ll give me a chance to fix this.”
 

The line went dead. I sat in stunned astonishment. A multitude of emotions rolled through me, but nothing more developed than pure unadulterated rage. I jerked to my feet. Before I could stop myself, I fired the remote control at the wall. It connected with the surface, the batteries flew out to the side and jagged pieces of plastic scattered.

“Ransom! Stop!” Lexie shrieked.

The fear in her voice was enough to bring me out of the red haze of fury that had rendered me completely deranged. I locked on her, witnessed her wide-eyed expression, the way her bottom lip trembled, and how she clasped and unclasped her hands. I saw terror in her stance, and I had put it there. I remembered Ma, and how Pa had done that to her. Made her a shadow of a human, someone who reacted to life, never daring to step forward into the thick of it. For all I hated and despised Pa, I was more like him than I had realized. If it was possible to cut away the pieces that made me like him, drain the parts of my blood that connected us, I would have.
 

All the muscles in my body that had been filled with tension and hate, and too many feelings to name, uncoiled until I felt like jelly, unable to stand. I collapsed into a heap on the floor. I felt wet on my face and when I touched my cheek I realized that I was crying. Pa’s voice rang through my mind,
men don’t cry only sissies cry, are you a sissy Ransom, are you a girly boy.
High-pitched laughter followed the deprecating words.
 

I felt so small and insignificant, like the cardboard box that something good came in, worthless and disposable. I buried my face in my hands, wishing that I could see Gab again, carry him on my shoulders when he couldn’t walk. But more than that I wanted Ma to be there, to never have died, to have never left me with the monster that was my father. As the shudders of pain worked through me I felt impossibly gentle hands touch my hair, stroking it with care.

When I looked up Lexie was there, and all I saw was her face. Tears glittered in her eyes, but she was smiling too, as if saying that everything was going to be all right. In that moment I wanted so much to believe her. I wanted to imagine that somehow Pa would disappear and Gabriel would be safe and whole, that Dave would no longer be blamed for something that he didn’t do, and for the first time in my life I would be free. When I peered into Lexie’s beautiful eyes I saw hope there, a chance for something different from what I had always known.
 

Without planning to, I pulled her in to me, until her cheek was pressed against my face. I felt her chest expand against mine and the rapid beat of her heart ticking with life. She wrapped her arms around my waist then burrowed beneath my chin, her silky hair smooth against my flesh. And as I wept for every injustice that I had endured, we held each other and for once in my life it felt like someone cared about me. Just me.

24. LEXIE

I had never seen a man cry before. It was horrible to watch Ransom in the state he was in. From the outside he looked solid, made of rock, something that you could smash and hit over and again, and still you’d never leave a dent. Clearly I had been wrong, he could be damaged.

Witnessing his intense grief made me wonder if Gabriel had died. I felt like the least equipped person to comfort anyone with their anguish, but as far as I could see I was the only one in the room. I tentatively stepped closer to him. I was still on edge after the explosive scene that I had witnessed before he had broken down. It was hard to downplay the crazed look in his eyes, like a beast who wanted to rip someone limb from limb. His moods swung so wide and so extreme that it left me jogging to catch up.
 

I moved closer until I was standing directly above him, he didn’t seem to notice that I was even there. It was then that Ransom stared up at me. The sorrow in his expression made something that had never quite healed, rip open inside me again. In his eyes I recognized the pain that I suffered every time I woke up, and remembered that it was one more day since Mom had left me.

 
I felt tears well up in my eyes. Even so I tried to smile, as if it would make him feel better. Without planning to, I squatted down next to him. I watched him for a few minutes, before I did what felt as natural as smiling at a baby, I wrapped my arms around him. I held him against me as his body shuddered with release. My head fit perfectly in the crook of his neck. Ransom’s arms came around me and he pulled me as close as our bodies would allow. His arms were so tight around me as if I was the only thing that kept him tethered to the world. His scent, warm skin, salty tears and just showered clean, enveloped me. Neither of us said a word as we held each other.

“What happened?” I whispered when Ransom had calmed.
 

“I’ve lost everything,” he said in a croaky voice. The statement seemed to confirm my initial fears that Gabriel had died.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said in a voice that sounded emotionless even to me. How many times had I heard that little panacea directed my way, and every time I had, I had thought that it meant pretty much shit all, because it couldn’t scrape away the loss that clung to every part of your life. Yet here I was saying the exact same thing. Death made us uncomfortable, like the elephant in the room that nobody wanted to admit was there, but that eventually had to be acknowledged.

Ransom tipped his face to mine, his rich chocolate eyes focused on me with an intensity that left me breathless.
 

“Gabriel is fine…for now at least,” he said.

“Oh,” I said, relieved.
 

I didn’t want him to suffer through something like that. I, more than anyone, knew how death changed you, made you something you never would have dreamed.

 
I shifted in his grasp, but he held me tight as if he couldn’t bear to let go. I would have been lying if I had said that it didn’t feel good to be held like that.

“Then what happened?” I asked, ignoring Ransom’s need to keep his life and problems private.

“A million buckets of shit have hit the biggest fan in the Universe, and it’s left quite a shit storm in it’s wake,” Ransom said with a brittle grin.
 

I was as clueless as I had been before.

“Meaning?” I probed.

“Meaning that I’m a fugitive on the run and I have no idea when or if, I’ll ever be able to go home, or if there will even be a place to call home after all is said and done.”
 

“I don’t understand,” I said, not getting much of anything he had said. Ransom scooped me into his arms and stood up. He moved to the bed and laid me there tenderly as if I was made of lead crystal, then slipped into the space next to me. I was speechless at how comfortable he was around me. But in reality lying on a bed together, fully dressed was a far cry from having had passionate sex the night before. Everything between us was like a movie that started at the end, then played out in reverse.
 

“The Coles Notes version is that my father’s a prick who hates me, and whose trying to pin the stage collapse, which so happens to have not been an accident after all, on me. And since I took off before he could get my ass tossed into jail he got the next best thing, my best friend Dave…”
 

His gaze locked on the ceiling above as if there was something interesting there. But when I followed his stare there was nothing special to see, just a plain white-spackled surface.

“Shit,” I said in a rush of breath.
 

It was the only thing I had. If what he had said was true, it made my so-called crappy life look like a vanilla ice cream cone on a hot summer day.

“I think that sums it up nicely,” he said, bringing his eyes to mine.

It seemed impossible that something as simple as a look could completely throw me for a loop, but the more time I spent with Ransom, when if tallied was almost no time at all, the more I felt connected to him. Sometimes he made me feel like I had always known him, but had forgotten him and now my memory was gradually coming back. It was a little too Harlequin romancy for me, yet true all the same.
 

“So what are you going to do?” I asked, as if the question was perfectly reasonable.

He sighed hugely. “That’s the million dollar question now isn’t it,” he said returning his stare to the ceiling. “Should I turn myself into the police and go down for something I didn’t do, or should I hide away and let my friend rot in jail, waiting for Sanford to come up with a plan.”

“Who is Sanford,” I said, feeling as if I had started reading a book in the middle.

Ransom shook his head then crossed his arms over his wide chest.
 

“I shouldn’t be spilling my guts like this to you. You don’t need to be involved with this shit, you hardly know me and I’d say that we’re even now.”

“I want to know,” I said without really planning to. “I want to help you.”

Ransom gave me a sidelong look that said he was surprised by my statement.

“I’m bad news,” he said simply.
 

“I have a place,” I blurted out. “If you need to disappear for a little while, then we could go there.”
 

His eyes seemed to bore into me like he couldn’t quite believe that I was for real. Ransom pushed up onto one arm, twisting his body toward me.
 

“There is no we. I’m going to leave in the morning and that will be that. You’ll never have to see me again.”
 

His words indicated that the subject was non-negotiable.

I mimed his move, turning toward him, until our bodies were almost touching. The rational part of my brain screamed for me to let the subject go, let Ransom go. The obsessed part of me couldn’t let Ransom and the chance to see Gabriel Sanders slip through my fingers, though I wasn’t sure if seeing Gabriel was the only reason I wanted to help Ransom anymore.