Chapter 7: Jigsaw Falling into Place
There was a gun in the coat closet, tucked into the breast pocket of his father's old 60's tweed pea coat. This pistol in particular, from the others stashed within the house, housed two bullets alone. One to wound an intruder and one to finish them off with, and Jansen was certainly ready for either to come.
I left the bedroom and made sure the door was secure before quietly walking down the hall toward the linen cupboard near the guest room where Sam and Kate were. I opened it and reached onto the top shelf, underneath the stack of holiday tablecloths, to find the pistol that had gone unused for four years. The steel was cold in my hand but it warmed as soon as I heard more stomping, this time coming from somewhere outside on the porch.
I closed the cupboard door only to be unnerved by my brother's anxious presence behind it.
"Mort…"
"Jesus!" I yelled and began checking the gun for its two bullets. "You scared the shit out of me."
"Sorry, man."
I shook my head, counted the bullets as they fell into my palm, and then reloaded it with a click.
"What are you gonna do with that thing?"
"Protection, that's all. I'm going out to check out that fucking noise."
"Not by yourself. I'm coming too."
"Oh what, are you going to use your bare hands on the guy?"
"No…" he deliberated in a whisper; then turned back into the guest room for a long minute. I stood at the balcony of the staircase, looking down into the living room below and trying to see out of the front door but I couldn't. A second later I heard a shuffle of feet to carpet behind me and saw Sam swing a fireplace poker at my side.
"Watch it will you?!"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Let's go."
"Let me go first. I'm twice your size."
I rolled my eyes with a growl and followed behind him down the stairs into the living room and attached foyer, the both of us standing clear to either side of the front door with our weapons raised and eyes peeled on the flashing red and white car lights from outside.
"Can you see what's going on?" I asked him half loudly.
"No. You?"
I shook my head and attempted moving back the curtain on the door a little, but to no avail.
"Screw this, I'm going out."
I began pulling on my boots and coat, near the rack at the door.
"Mort, come on. Just wait it out, man…it could be nothing."
I grabbed the door knob and held firmly to the trigger of my pistol.
"'Nothing' doesn't wake people up at three in the morning on Christmas, Sam. I'm going."
The door slowly creaked open, a gust of chilled air blew inside and I pushed my weight out onto the front porch. The car lights were gone from sight and it was deadly silent outside on the snow covered drive. I could hear Sam sneaking out into the cold with me, the both of us moving carefully down either side of the house.
I wasn't even halfway around the corner to the mountain sloped end of the porch, when I heard spinning, anxious tires on the iced gravel. This sound, which made my feet stop, was then met with the agonizing sound of bullets shattering glass and deadly screams from the second story of the house, on the other side.
This made me run.
I knew the sound of those screams. I'd heard each of them before. And one, more times than I could barely stand knowing. There was no longer silence, just the hurried sounds of tires, gunfire, a jittery exhaust and worrisome voices above. By the time I made it around to the other side of the house, at the back of the drive toward the opposing slope and shed, I saw Sam coming at me. But he wasn't moving fast, he was limping.
"Sam!"
"Mort…man, they shot me in the leg."
I rushed to him and wrapped his large arm around my shoulders, helping him to limp back up the steps toward the porch again. Before I made it under the cover though, I glanced up to see the broken glass of the east window to my room, our room, the room I'd left my whole world in for safety. I clenched my teeth, helped Sam onto one of the rocking chairs and ripped at a hole in my t-shirt until I could get a strip of material torn away. I tied it around the gush of blood coming from his flannel pants and then ran toward the front door of the house again, my hands painted crimson.
"Stay there, Sam! I'm going to get Dad!"
I knew my dad would be the best bet for him, since we both had heard the countless stories of his time spent as a medic in Vietnam our whole lives. I heard him wince out in pain the second I threw open the door to the house again. Inside though, it was equal madness. Kate was coming at the door with tears covering her face.
"I saw it from the window…Mort, where is he?!"
"Just around the left side of the porch. He got shot in the leg."
She darted away nervously through the front door, even though I tried to stop her, and I heard more screaming and crying back upstairs that called out to me. I turned back and my mother came at me in a flurry, pulling me up the stairs.
"Where's dad? Sam's hit."
"Oh know," I saw her start to tear up anxiously, "He's up here."
And then I remembered.
"Roxanne…the kids…"
I was breathing heavily and she tried to calm me down as I raced for the dearest life up the staircase, tumbling through the dark hall and back toward the bedroom. My wet boots hit the wood floor of the room as I shoved the door against the wall in a rush, and saw in a flash, someone flying deep into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably. She pummeled me like I was the last thing of comfort on the face of the earth and together we fell down to the floor of the room in a heap.
"M-Mort…Mort they…the window…and…the kids…and…"
Between the choking breaths and tears, I listened to her account of the horror, rubbing her back and stroking her hair furiously as I looked over her shoulder from the floor, to see my mom holding onto Madeline and Max. I didn't see my dad and assumed he'd already run off to help Sam, for which I was grateful enough. But then, when the kids wriggled free of my mother's arms to come down and attack the both of us with fearful hugs and bawling I was all the more grateful.
I heard 'daddy's' and 'mommy's' until I went deaf from the terror surrounding me. I heard my name a million times in one ear, felt the skin in my neck being torn apart by clinging fingers left and right, and I couldn't deny any of it, not for the very life of me. Consumed in my arms was life.
Roxanne eventually took a deep breath and began speaking coherently again as she looked in my eyes.
"Mort, I don't want to stay here anymore."
I sighed, knowing I had just been thinking the exact same thing.
"It's too much now. It's the kids and everyone and--"
I cut her off with my hands on her cheeks, holding her face close to mine.
"I know, I know. Just relax; it's okay for right now."
"They might come back," she mumbled.
I shook my head at her. "They aren't coming back, not tonight sweetie."
"But eventually they will…which is why we have to get out of here."
She sat curled in my lap, tugging anxiously at my coat, the tears falling down in waves to my shirt.
"Please…get us out of here."
I couldn't say no. I couldn't deny her the security she seemed desperate for. Same as me.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(Roxanne)
"Do I need boots, Mommy?"
I stared at Max blankly with his boots in hand, trying to figure out a good answer to the perfectly logical question: boots or no boots? Were we going somewhere it was snowing or not?
"Mommy, can I bring Ollie?"
I moved my eyes to see Maddie, holding her stuffed octopus in a chokehold up towards me from the floor. All I could do was nod as she squeezed him into the manic pile of clothes in her suitcase.
"You get to go with us, Ollie…" she petted his pink body and then began tearing through her closet again, barely managing to pull down shirts and scarves and shoes at her height.
I stood up from the small bed and went to help both of them, still in a daze, but functioning a little more normally when my hands were occupied. And then my always curious son asked the one question that brought me tumbling right back down again in confusion.
"Where are we going?"
He was innocent as ever, standing before me three feet shorter with eyes that glowed bright and wild. I knew those eyes so well, those were the eyes of question and inquisitiveness; Mort's.
"I'm not sure yet, honey."
I knelt back down to his level and brushed through his messy hair.
"What about our presents?"
"Yeah…" Maddie chided in agreement.
I turned back to her, then to Max again, and sighed. It was unfair for their Christmas to be spoiled over all of this insanity. It wasn't right. So, I made an executive decision to be Mom of the Year for a moment.
"Tell you what…I'll pack your bags. You guys go and open presents with Jake and Emily."
Their eyes grew spirited and their little feet pattered up and down on the wood floor in excitement as they raced each other for the door. They were gone down the hallway before I even managed to slump against the bed on the ground, my legs stretching between two suitcases.
I sat for a while there, thinking about a million things, wondering how Sam was holding up downstairs with the treatment Mort's dad was giving him on the kitchen table, and trying to figure out in my mind, just what the hell these people or person wanted from us this time. Part of me almost hoped it was someone attached to the Kline's. At least we knew how to survive them pretty well.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The room was an unbearable mess. The bullets that had flown through the window, left glass scattered from one end of the room to the other, on the dressers, all over the bed where I tried not to imagine Roxanne and the kids having been curled up beneath the line of fire, and especially all over the floor. I worked my way around to the place of impact at the window on the left side of the bed, my side. My boots crunched on glass as I stood sweeping it for what felt like forever.
But it was when I noticed a large, shadow of an object sitting at the low foot of the bed on the floor, that I stopped sweeping and knelt in the glass to reach for it. It was a rock, a huge one, and tied around its width was a wrinkled piece of paper.
"What the hell?"
I thought about what sort of damage that lone rock could have done if it had landed any higher or further to the right. And then I stopped myself because I was being paranoid and I ripped the paper from the stone, unfolding it carefully to see red pen scratched on it.
There were only three words. Names.
Roxanne Hayden. Maxwell Rainey. Madeline Rainey.
I felt my heart do a dying flip and then sink into the pit of my stomach. I gulped. I winced. I nearly cried but stopped myself when I heard soft footsteps coming in the doorway of the room. My reflexes worked to crumple the paper and out of instinct, I raised my head over the bed and struggled against the pain to say something of worth.
"Watch your bare feet. There's still some glass around."
Roxy paused in the doorway and looked at me and I think she knew something was wrong. Well, more wrong.
"Are you okay?"
I nodded quickly and stood up again, tucking the paper in the back pocket of my jeans.
"What's that?" She asked as she wrapped herself tighter in her sweater against the cold sunrise that was just coming in from the broken window.
"It's nothing. Just a…" think, fast, make something up "…a dollar I found under the bed."
Dollar? Nice one, genius.
She tiptoed around the bed until she found her slippers and put them on before coming toward me on the glassy side of the room. Her arms were crossed, almost suspiciously, but she just smiled and plopped down on the corner of the bed, tired and sick looking.
"The kids stuff is packed."
I was still trying to decide where we were going to run to, and now, with that note suddenly rotting my brain, those names, the names of my life, all the life I'd found and created, I was plotting in a completely different direction.
"They're opening presents."
I hummed a response of interest as I swept over the rest of the large pieces of glass.
"Are you sure you're okay? You're acting funny."
I looked up at her and gave a meek smile before finally, somehow, coming across the answer as I looked into her wonderfully, crisp green eyes.
"What's the plan, Mort?"
With a sigh, I swept the glass into the dust pan, emptied it into the trash can I'd brought into the room, and then turned back to her with a simple seriousness plastered on my face. I didn't answer her question with my response.
"I want you to make sure you pack your passport."
Her eyes widened at me, her jaw twisted downward and she shook her head in confusion.
"What?"
Ashville Regional Airport – 8:20 am
Chicago…Flight 480…on time…departs at 8:40
I stood holding onto my mother, the woman who'd saved the day completely with a simple yes. She was hugging me so tight I could hardly breathe, and I was glad for it for once. The words that my eyes scanned on the screen overhead as she tightened her hold on me were the details I'd remember for the rest of my life if this went badly, or if it worked the way I was hoping.
We left them on Christmas Day, put them on a plane headed to Chicago and prayed it was right.
Is that how we would recall this moment years from now, months, days?
"You take care of Roxanne and that baby, do you hear me?"
I nodded against her shoulder and pulled back when she did, grabbing my face and pulling it to hers.
"Don't let anything happen to her. She's the most important thing right now, you hear?"
"Yeah, mom. I know. I promise."
She cried a little, hugged me again and kissed my cheek before letting my dad get his goodbye in. He grabbed me fiercely and hugged me like I'd never known he could, at least not since I was a kid.
"Make sure you call everyday and check in."
"Okay, dad."
"And wherever you end up, be careful. God knows who pulling this bullshit…"
"Yeah, we will. Don't worry."
He pounded my back hard when I did his and then I looked over to see the sight that let me high and dry without a warning at all. Roxanne was half crumpled to the floor with Madeline and Max in her lap, squeezing them for all they were worth and crying against their tiny heads as she kissed them multiple times. I walked over and knelt at her side, taking Max from her to sit in my lap.
"Mommy and I are going on a little trip and you guys are going on a little trip. Okay?"
Max nodded bravely but Maddie looked up at me from Roxy's shoulder with the biggest teary-eyed pout. It killed me, I'll admit it firmly.
"It's alright, sweetheart…" I rubbed her little chin as Roxanne continued to kiss her head, "We'll be back home before you know it."
Her lip quivered and a tiny tear fell before she buried her face in her mom's shoulder again, understandably.
"Where are we going?" Max finally chirped.
"Chicago, with Gram and Poppy."
"Is it cold there too?"
I laughed a little and rustled his hair, "It's way colder, buddy."
"Is it fun?"
I looked between my parents who chuckled a little to each other, then over at Roxanne who had caught my eye, and then back to him.
"It's really fun. They have huge boats that take you across the river. And the buildings almost reach the sky. And they have trains. Pop will take you for rides on the trains! Won't you Pop?"
My dad nodded wildly at him with a smile. "Sure will. We'll ride them all day, Max-a-million."
"See?"
His grin widened and he threw his arms around my neck as I stood swinging him around. Roxanne stood with Maddie too, clinging to her with jaw-tight arms and legs, not wanting to let go. I could hear her whispering to her and it broke what was left of my heart for the day.
"You'll love Chicago, Madeline. Gram will take you to all the pretty shops, and they have a doll store there too." Her wet little face poked out again at this mention, but she was still sniffling. "You'd like that wouldn't you? To see all the dolls in Chicago?"
She nodded tiredly, lack of sleep, full on distress and agony setting in fast. I heard a woman call for the boarding of their flight and quickly traded Max for Madeline with Roxanne. When my little girl was in my arms she was like the sweetest thing I'd ever held, the most delicate, and the most tender. She was always this, but this morning, under the circumstances life had thrown my way, it was even more apparent.
Maddie cried even more when I held her, holding onto me like I was the answer to all her fear and worry. And I was glad I was in some respect, but I had to let her go and it wasn't working. So I thought of something that I know only works with my daughter. She picked up this song on the radio, Jack Johnson, and it's become a strange sort of addiction for her. When it comes on, she dances, no matter where we are or what we're doing, my little girl dances to this song.
I tried to hum the sound of it in my head, tried to think of how it went.
"Hmm…hmm…it's as simple as something that nobody knows…and her eyes are as big as her bubbly toes…" I heard her begin to giggle in my neck, the tears strangely drying with mock speed, "…when you move like a jellyfish, rhythm don't mean nothing…you go with the flow, you don't stop…" and I don't know the words to this crazy ass song, "…la da da da da da…."
When I saw her eyes meet mine, her bright sea green eyes like another set I'm so fond of, I smiled wide and she did too. I wiped her nose and tears like a good dad, I kissed her like the father that knows what he's losing for a while, and I walked her over to my dad before I became so much of a wreck that I couldn't focus on saving Roxanne and myself.
"Come to me, my little spider monkey…" my dad's Dracula voice resonated something even happier in her and she giggled out like mad when he took her in his arms. She adored him like most kids usually did.
"You guys are going to miss your flight. We'll let you go."
"Alright. We'll take care of these little booger monsters."
Maddie smiled quick as I kissed the top of her head and turned back to see Roxanne barely managing to hand Max over to my mom. I walked over and tried to help separate their limbs gently, taking Roxanne into my arms instead as my mom stepped away with Max.
"It's alright," I whispered in her ear, holding her in swarm from behind as we watched them head for the attendant's desk and then through the door to the boarding tunnel. "Everything's okay, they're going to be fine." She cried deep and waves of emotion rolled against me as her body shook.
I waved to my parents before they turned for good and was hurled back a second later when Roxanne spun in my arms to hide her face in my chest, wetting my shirt thoroughly. I held her like shackles to wrists, tight, so tight I feared I might break her weak form.
"We're never going to see them again…I just know it…"
The words spilling from between her sobs were the worst I'd heard in a long time.
"Don't say that, it's not true. They're going to be safe in Chicago."
"That's where Kline's men are though," she wailed into my arm like a child.
I granted her the point, but knew it couldn't have anything to do with this. It was the reason I sent the rest of our family home safely and the reason I was sending the kids to Chicago with my parents. Because our past with Kline has nothing to do with what was going on now, I just knew it. The note, the three names, they were of my wife and kids, but not me. If that was a list of people they were hunting, or warning, then there was a reason I wasn't on it. Kline's men were done searching to kill us. This was someone else, with a motive to do away with what I loved instead of my last breath.
Spinning around with her in my arms, I saw the large screen of departure flights at a distance and held her firmly as I walked towards it. She kept crying into my shoulder until I landed in front of the screen and pulled her face up gently to see too.
"Honey, look."
She did, but a little less than enthused.
"All these places to go, in the whole world."
She sighed and let her head fall to my arm again. "So?"
"So, pick one. Decide where we're running this time. You're good at that."
Her head rose a second time, her eyes narrowed up at mine and her mouth twisted awkwardly at me.
"Anywhere, Mort?"
