Sorry it's taken so long to update over here. My thoughts were stolen away by other things. I have actually had a partial chapter done for some time now, but when you have two half scenes that barely go together, it's a little hard to call it a chapter. But it's here now.
Chapter 28
Private plane. Now there are two words I never thought I'd be able to associate with my life. I'd never been in first class before and here I was in a luxury aircraft with five muscled men, the woman who gave birth to me and my boyfriend. That's right, my boyfriend. David was the new intern at Rangeman and apparently Steph – I had to assume it was Steph – had managed to convince Carlos to include him in this trip. Something about me having someone my own age to talk to, or whatever. I so wasn't complaining. Right now, David had me caught in a friendly score battle on Temple Run to keep my mind off all the thoughts and uncertainties running through my head. He was winning. I kept forgetting to jump over tree trunks.
Meanwhile, the Rangemen, Carlos and Steph were in a huddle a short distance away, probably deciding how best to handle the situation. If I asked, they'd probably include us in the discussion, but for now, I was content to continually be eaten by the evil mutant monkey things that kept chasing me. Odds were they'd give me a briefing before we did anything anyway.
"So explain to me what the deal is with your mom?" David requested, looking over my shoulder as I began my run. That so wasn't fair. My scores were already in the toilet and now he was asking me questions while I was playing? Well I wasn't going to answer him. Unfortunately, that decision lasted about three seconds as I forgot to jump over a gap in the path and plummeted to my death. He took the game back for his turn and rephrased the question. "Last we spoke your mom was dragging you from Atlantic City to Trenton every day for meetings with security specialists – which I assume means Rangeman – and now we're on a flight back to your home town because she's in hospital?"
"That's about it," I replied shortly.
He wasn't taking that as full disclosure. It was like he was included in the trip simply to get me to talk about things, to get my thoughts and feelings out in the open. I wouldn't put it past Carlos to scheme such a thing. While I glared at the back of Carlos's head, David asked, "So what happened to your mom?"
"She was bashed," I said, which was true, but it still wasn't full disclosure.
As he continued to flick and slide his finger on the screen, thereby beating my score yet again, he mentioned, "I know you're hiding something. And I know the Rangemen aren't telling me everything either. But we'll get to the bottom of this. Whatever this is."
"Thanks," I said, bumping shoulders with him and causing him to miss a slide and die. His score still wasn't as terrible as mine, but it wasn't a new high score for once, and I was happy about that. He mock glared at me, reluctantly handing over the device, but before I could start my turn Lester was standing over us. I hadn't seen him move. He was just there.
"We'll be landing soon," he said. "Ranger wants a word."
I promptly swung my chair around – oh my gosh, did I mention the chairs spin? It's like heaven on a plane! – to face him, waiting for his word. He met my gaze steadily, seeming to be searching for something in my eyes before he said, "The book doesn't exist." I raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for a further explanation. "As far as your mother is concerned, we don't know about the book Cal found," he said. "For all she knows, we heard she was in hospital and you insisted on coming to make sure she was alright."
"Which we are," I said.
"Yes," Bobby agreed. "But under no circumstances are we going let her know that we are suspicious of her."
I thought about that for a moment. It wasn't like I'd never kept anything from my mother, or pretended not to be mad at her for her benefit, but this seemed like such a massive scale. This wasn't the result of a petty argument about whether or not I could go to the party on the weekend. Nor was it keeping my failed test a secret. This was massive. Life changing. Potentially relationship degrading. And they wanted me to sit on it. To bite it back. To pretend it wasn't happening. That was gonna be hard.
"What are you thinking?" Steph asked, leaning a little closer and placing her hand on my knee.
I looked up from the hands I found myself staring at and met her eyes. "Mom may not be able to hide her lying, but that doesn't mean she can't tell when I'm lying."
"You're not lying to her," Steph assured me. "You're just not accusing her of anything."
"Yet."
*o*
Pain wracked her body as she slowly came awake. Her entire body ached like she'd been pummelled by a boulder. The memory of big, beefy fists beating her in the back alley flittered sluggishly through her head, and she figured she'd made a fairly accurate analogy. She kept her eyes closed, slowly taking inventory of her body, locating all the individual pains that screamed in perfect discord. It seemed that not one inch of her body was safe from the invading agony.
Having taken stock of all her injuries and decided that none of them seemed too bad, she started to think back over the events before she lost consciousness, trying to put things in order. She remembered clearly, the car explosion in New Jersey and fleeing before the dust had settled, just as she'd planned. Leaving Amabel in the care of Rangeman Security. She was safe there. Out of harm's way, and with Leah out of the picture, the housewives would most likely return to Minot to locate her. She'd been right, of course, and when she arrived home she found a message waiting for her on the machine, insisting on a meeting. Things were getting bad. They'd never contacted her at home before.
Of course she'd turned up to the meeting. God only knows what would have happened if she hadn't. Probably, she'd be dead right now. As it was she was pretty lucky to be alive. She could have died from complications caused by her injuries if someone hadn't found her in that alleyway.
She attempted to move into a more comfortable position, but the weight of the cast on her leg along with the weakness of the rest of her body meant that it was practically impossible to move.
"Try not to move, Mom."
Leah froze in her ever so slight movements at the sound of her daughter's voice. Thoughts ran through her head at a million miles an hour. How long had Amabel been back in town? Better yet, what did it mean that she was back in town? Was it a good thing or a bad thing? Who had contacted her? Had she come back on her own? Was she in danger?
"Amabel?" Leah croaked.
A hand lightly gripped hers. She recognised it immediately and forced her eyes open. "I'm right here," Amabel assured her, standing directly beside the bed so that Leah could see her face without having to move too much.
"How-," she tried, but Amabel shook her head, turning slightly before leaning in a little closer, a cup with a straw hanging out of it in her hand.
"Small sips," a deep voice reminded them from somewhere beyond her field of vision.
Her eyes widened at her daughter in both fear and question as she shied away from the straw. There was so much that could be wrong with the situation if that voice belonged to one of the hired thugs that had taken her out in the back ally. Nothing was safe. The water could be poisoned. They could be holding Amabel captive. Blackmailing them both into what they wanted. How could Stephanie have let this happen? Panic was starting to seize her body, making it harder to breathe.
Amabel's brows furrowed with worry, and she squeezed Leah's hand reassuringly. "It's okay," she said softly. "That's Bobby. He's the medic from Rangeman. He wouldn't try to hurt you. Just take a sip of the water."
Hesitantly, she wrapped her lips around the end of the straw, keeping her eyes locked on Amabel's for any change of expression. If she started to look concerned she wouldn't take a sip. Thankfully, her daughter's face remained smooth and calm as always, so she gave in to the urge to suck some cool water into her mouth. The relief was instant and soothing.
"What happened?" Amabel enquired, placing the water on the table nearby.
*o*
I watched as she swallowed a few times, her eyes darting around the room before she finally opened her mouth to reply. The tension building from the guys behind me was making the hairs on the back of my neck. There was so much riding on her reply. We would know immediately if she was lying, but she would know that we would know as well. So she was probably going to stick exactly to the truth, but problems arose in the form of not knowing how much she'd left out of her story.
Finally, Mom gulped and began her explanation. "I was at the mall and these two large men approached me. They asked for me to come with them and ushered me out a side door into an obscure alley." She paused, taking a slow breath to calm herself before continuing. "I lost track of how many times they hit me and threw me up against the wall," she informed me, her eyes going wide. "I never thought I'd be grateful to lose consciousness, but I was. They finally left me alone."
"To die in an alleyway," I pointed out, feeling the stress of the situation pummel me once again. My knees were getting week, so I pulled my chair closer and sat down, still holding Mom's hand. I looked over my shoulder to where Carlos and Bobby sat, out of sight of my mother. Lester and Hank were keeping guard outside the door as an added security measure. And Tank had taken Steph to my house serving the dual purpose of allowing Steph to have a lie down or rest while catching up with Hal and Cal's progress. I wasn't going to think about them at the moment; I was still peeved at them about my mother's underwear drawer. Before we'd split in the parking lot outside I'd told Tank to warn the panty sniffers to expect the wrath of a hormonal teenage girl. I'm not entirely sure they would take the threat seriously, but for sure they would never take it lightly again. I'd been planning out what I was going to say and do to them when I eventually met them and it wasn't going to be pretty.
But back to right now.
Carlos sent me a slight nod. I wasn't sure what he meant by it, but I took it to mean that I was doing okay, so I sucking in a breath asked the logical next question. "Did you know them? Why would they want to do such a thing to you? Have you spoken to the police?" Okay, so it was more like three questions, but once my mind seized on the first, the other two just tumbled out.
I glanced at the men out of the corner of my eye and noticed their approving blinks. I was acting appropriately for the time being. It wasn't hard. I was honestly curious as to who on earth would want to hurt my mother. As far as I was aware prior to this whole situation she'd never hurt anyone, and the jury was still out as to whether or not she'd hurt anyone. I'd taken Carlos's instructions completely to heart. It was the only way I could get through this. The book didn't exist. Mom was just Mom, not a killer or a suspected killer or any other variation of such. My questions were all born of concern for her wellbeing.
Do drop me a line to let me know how I'm going, won't you? The review button it just there. Yes. That's it. You're hovering over it right this second. All you have to do is press down on the little clicker part of the mouse.
