My single form of peaceful entertainment in this house with Marietta and Embry has come in the form of watching planes. We're about ten miles away as the crow flies from a small air strip where Marietta's plane now sits. A few times a day, other planes glide across the sky. I watch them and daydream that I'm on them, flying somewhere, anywhere away from here. I've even acknowledged the fact that I'd prefer to be dead or have a plane take me straight back to prison rather than be here.
I watch them from my vantage point in the upstairs guest room in this house; I'm allowed to be in the guest room during the day provided Marietta or Embry is upstairs with me, but never at night. At night, I'm locked down in the basement because Marietta doesn't quite trust me yet.
She shouldn't.
She shouldn't because I've been the one to put a stop to Fran's abuse before it got to be too much. When Marietta ordered Embry to rape Fran yesterday morning, I was the one who stepped in front of both Embry and Marietta. "She's old," I said calmly. "We need her alive until the money is transferred, because you know they're going to want to talk to her before any money comes our way. I've been watching her after a beating, and I think her heart is weak. I'm concerned if we push her too much, she'll die before the Morgans can transfer the money, and we won't get it at all."
At that, Marietta screeched, grabbed a whip and lashed it across Fran's stomach a few times.
"My son and daughter are going to kill you!" Fran screamed defiantly.
"You mean your daughter-in-law," spit Marietta with another lash of a whip.
"I mean my daughter," Fran replied, her moan of pain belied by her anger. "She's been mine for two years now, and I love her like my own. She'll never stop until she finds you."
Marietta screeched again and then she laughed maniacally. She's quite unbalanced, the depths of her psychosis becoming more pronounced each hour I'm with her. She turned the whip on me and struck out several times. Then she ordered Embry to zip up and ordered me to take a picture of Fran.
Fran wasn't raped. I consider it a barely visible good in the abyss of horrible things I've done in my life.
Fran got under my skin the second she stopped crying and found a balance between fighting and calmly accepting her fate. It was her resigned, strong eyes that reminded me so much of my own mother. My mother was a kind woman who worked way too hard to provide for me. She died my first year at Oxford; she never had to know me as the monster I eventually became, something I've been grateful for several times in the past couple of decades.
Fran sees right through me, and she doesn't seem afraid to talk to me when no one else is around. She makes me remember the type of man I always thought I'd grow up to be whenever she catches my eye. When I was eighteen and set off for college, I imagined getting my degree and coming back home, getting a good job, and taking care of my mother like she'd always taken care of me. Instead, my mother died and I turned to Adrian Stancu for comfort and became someone I never thought I could be.
There's irony here, a mirthless irony: I never could get out of Adrian's trap. It took someone like Marietta breaking me out of prison to allow me to find the man inside me I always wanted to be.
Fran looks at me gratefully when I put salve or a cool cloth on her lash marks. Her eyes track mine when I sneak her extra food. She seems appreciative when I turn my back and give her privacy when she uses the bathroom.
"I'm going to die," she said last night while she was using the basement toilet. It wasn't a question, it was a statement.
I didn't know how to answer her. Yes, she was surely going to die. Marietta's already planned for it - as soon as the money is in our possession, we'll give out this address. And then we'll blow the whole place up, Fran included, and disappear.
"It's okay," Fran whispered. "You don't have to tell me. I'll see my husband again. He's close to me; I can feel him." She lifted her wrists to me so I could put her handcuffs back on.
"You're not afraid," I said softly.
"I have nothing to be afraid of when it comes to death. Do you?" she replied just as quietly.
Yes, I thought. Plenty. If there's a heaven and hell, I know where I'm going. I'm terrified of dying. I'm terrified about what comes next for me. It doesn't matter that I don't want to be here now, or that I want to find a way to set the kind, old woman free. There's nothing I can do to negate my past deeds. Nothing.
I searched Fran's face, but before I could speak, we heard footsteps on the stairs. I quickly got Fran back to her room and strapped to the table.
My only freedom in this house at night comes in being locked in the basement and a choice of two rooms - Holly's or Fran's. The room with the computer equipment and weapons is locked up tight.
I've been staying with Holly mostly. She's a quiet, broken girl, and she hardly says a word to me. The first time I laid down on the bed beside her, she shifted slightly so she could lift her nightgown, and then rolled over, offering herself to me. I pulled her nightgown back down and covered her with the blanket. "Sleep," I said to her before turning on my side so my back faced her. I'm not certain, but I think she started crying then.
Last night, I felt the need to be around Fran. Her time with us was going to start being measured in hours instead of days very soon. Plus, the temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees outside, and it had dropped at least fifteen in the basement. So last night, after Holly was asleep, I grabbed a blanket from her room and went to Fran's room where she was strapped on a table, her naked body shivering and her lips tinged with blue. I tucked the blanket around her, and when she still shivered, I started rubbing her arms, trying to warm her. "I'm sorry," I whispered to her.
"Then do something about it," she said through chattering lips.
Do something? What could I possibly do? We're locked in a basement at night and during the day, Marietta is never far from me. I have no access to the phone, and either Embry or Marietta watches me while I'm on the computer. The second I make a move to end this situation I didn't want to be a part of , Marietta would blow off my leg and I'd bleed out.
But I thought about options most of the night while I watched Fran sleep. I thought about them this morning when Marietta came downstairs and really went after Fran with the whip.
I thought about them when I sent the picture of Fran off to some strange email address that was supposed to inhibit anyone from tracking the image of Fran with welts and the instructions about three million dollars. I'm not sure where the initial emails go, but it's obvious someone else is helping Marietta.
I thought about options this morning while I drank coffee and watched a couple of small planes fly through the air behind the house.
I was still thinking about any potential way out of this situation late this afternoon when we were all sitting around the kitchen table discussing where we would first go when the money was in our possession. Embry bought Marietta's wistful yammering about someplace warm and tropical hook, line and sinker. But I saw and heard the deceit. There was something huge she wasn't telling me or Embry.
"Wouldn't you like to go someplace warm?" she said in a sickeningly sweet voice to her son. "Someplace warm where our family could completely start over."
"Father Christmas?" Adrian asked with his garbled lisp. The kid has been obsessed with Christmas stories and books since I got here, despite the fact that it's only October.
"He'll find us wherever we are," Marietta said. Her eyes glanced up and held my gaze. "We could be having auctions in a couple of years, don't you think? Small ones to start. And little Adrian could carry on his father's legacy eventually."
Fuck. Bloody hell.
Embry grinned in anticipation, and I grasped for words that might make Marietta trust me when I was distracted by the sound of helicopter blades filtering into the house, but it all sounded wrong. Marietta stood with a panicked look on her face, but I shook my head and tried to calm her. "Let me look," I said.
Secretly, I was hoping the cavalry had arrived; at that point, I'd be fine with Fran Morgan safe and me back in prison. But it wasn't the cavalry. It was a white helicopter with UK AERIAL TOURS plastered brightly in blue on the sides, and the bird was obviously in trouble.
I watched it struggle while Marietta joined me on the porch, and then I watched it touch down hard against the ground when the engine gave up. Instinct took over, to help the people on board the helicopter, while selfishly trying to figure out if there was a way I could make this work to my advantage and get Fran - and maybe myself - out of here...
I realize how very little I've run and how out of shape I am about halfway across the field, but I'm still outrunning Marietta easily.
I'm outrunning her enough that I'm the only one who sees the shadow of the woman in the passenger seat of the helicopter move her arms towards the pilot.
I'm outrunning her enough that I get there just as the passenger is dragging the pilot out of the helicopter and saying loudly, "He's not breathing!" The man has a nasty looking gash on his forehead.
Marietta arrives breathless and watches the passenger as she attempts CPR. Marietta doesn't recognize it; at least her face gives nothing away, but I notice it. The slight breaths the pilot is trying not to show.
My heart soars. Maybe it's the cavalry after all.
I distract Marietta from the scene and say, "Let's check the radio."
It's as I expect. The radio has been purposefully fried, but Marietta doesn't know her ass from her armpit when it comes to helicopters and planes and electronic equipment. "It must have been an electrical problem," I say to the red-headed lunatic next to me in the cockpit.
"He's breathing again," the woman calls out.
I take a deep breath and resign myself to biding my time until I have the opportunity to let this woman know I'm not the enemy here.
We don't go guns blazing into the house. My blood is finally pumping, thick with adrenaline, and I'm tempted to, but the last thing we need at this moment is for someone to scream. Or an errant bullet to fly that would alert Marietta and Patrick that all is not peaceful in this house before they get back here with JJ and Nick.
Gil and I practically tiptoe up the front steps and I turn the knob on the front door quietly. The living room is surprisingly quaint with simple country furniture and an old player piano against one wall.
Embry doesn't hear us, doesn't even turn, just keeps heading towards what looks like the kitchen. The young girl with blond hair - Holly - is following him and still holding the toddler. Adrian. It's that little boy who sees us first, his head perched over Holly's shoulder. His wide blue eyes look like his mother's, but the rest of his face is his father's. I shake off the shiver I feel run through my body.
"Father Christmas?" he asks while looking at Gil.
Jerry Garcia to me and Santa Claus to a toddler. Damn. I don't know if I can do this.
Going against every instinct I have, I raise my gun and point it at the child. "Turn around. Nobody make a sound," I say calmly.
Holly turns and clutches Adrian to her. She doesn't look frightened, she doesn't look anything at all. She just stares at us mutely. Embry, on the other hand, whimpers, and then looks like he's going to scream.
"I fucking mean it!" I say harshly. "Put your hands up Embry. If you make a sound I'll put a bullet right in your head. You're no value to us. What was that note you left in my house? Your turn to pay the piper, asshole."
Evidently he believes me, because he bites his lip and remains quiet as he raises his hands. "In the kitchen," I say raising my chin and indicating the way. I want us out of sight of the front door.
We step forward and I lean my head towards Gil. "Get him tied up."
I stand calmly. I'd told JJ ten minutes; I needed her to buy us ten minutes from the time whomever inside the house showed up at the helicopter until they headed back our way. According to my watch, I still have eight minutes left. I watch until Embry is cuffed to a kitchen chair, his feet are tied and the strip of duct tape is placed over his mouth.
I lower my gun and look at Holly and Adrian. When Adrian begins to fuss, she clamps her hand over his mouth. I'm trying to come up with some brilliant fucking plan. I won't hurt the baby, but I don't know what to do with a teenager who can identify us. I take in her watery eyes and the chaffing around her neck from a collar.
"Are you going to kill me?" she whispers with trembling lips.
There's no way I can kill her, but at the moment, I feel like I'm about to lose the meager lunch I managed to eat all over her.
"Fran," Gil hisses to remind me, and I nod. I've got to get it together.
I reach into the pocket of Clyde's tactical jacket and finger the syringe there, using my thumb to push off the cap. "I'm not going to kill you," I say as I step towards her.
"It's okay if you do," she whimpers.
Before I can think about those words, I move my hand. The needle plunges into her thigh before she can react and it's only a few seconds later that she's slumping towards the floor. I catch her, and thereby catch Adrian as she falls, trying to lessen the impact.
"He's about 30 pounds," I say to Gil when I right myself with the baby in my arms. He nods and reaches into my pocket for another syringe, releasing nearly all but a small bit of the liquid before plunging it into Adrian's thigh. He whimpers slightly and stares at me for a few brief moments, and then his eyes flutter closed and he slumps against me.
Three minutes left.
"Watch him," I say to Gil. I lay the little boy on Holly and grab her arms, pulling them both around the corner of the kitchen island. I don't know what the hell we're going to do with either of them, and I'm frantically trying to alter my plan.
Get Fran and call Marcus Klaus is the only thing I can come up with. Let the authorities handle the clean up. No matter how much I want no loose ends, the thought of killing a woman in cold blood while her child is in the house is something I don't think I'm capable of.
I'm about to turn to Gil and say something to that effect when we hear footsteps on the front porch. We press ourselves against the wall of the kitchen, both of our guns raised at Embry as we hear the front door open.
"I saved my whole life to come to Europe. I haven't even been here a day and this happens," says JJ with a slightly shaky voice.
"Help Patrick get the pilot on the couch and I'll make you a cup of tea, Love," Marietta says. "Then you can use our phone."
I hear the front door close, feet shuffling and the unmistakable click of a lock and then the rattling of keys. My eyes open wide and I look at Gil, who is looking equally concerned.
Marietta calls out, "Embry. Holly. Where are are you?"
I raise my rifle on my shoulder and point it at Embry. But it makes no difference how quiet and compliant he's being, because just a moment later, I hear Marietta's voice again.
"Tell me, Jennifer Jareau, did you really think that brown hair and brown contact lenses would make me not recognize you?" She laughs before she continues, "Well, perhaps I wouldn't have if Embry hadn't been drooling over your pictures all summer long. More than drooling. He took quite a liking to looking at your face while participating in activities of a more...personal nature. I used to laugh as I watched him. I feel like I know your face as well as my own at this point."
I'm about two seconds away from full-blown panic. What do you know, Emily? Clyde's voice echos in my head, calming me.
She's got a son. She's obsessed with Adrian and had his son, I think.
It's all poker, Em. Remember that. If you get dealt a shitty hand, it's all about getting inside your opponent's head and making them believe your bluff. You can do this.
The sound of feet shuffling our direction is evident. "EMBRY!" Marietta yells. "I have a present for you. I'll let you play with her before I kill her. Where the fuck are you, you useless bastard?"
She's clearly crazy. I learned a long time ago after years of going undercover that the best way to fight someone is to become like them. She doesn't care that much about Embry. She won't buy it if I say more people are on their way.
I can play a mean game of crazy when I have to, and it's time to go all in. Game over, I think. But not for us.
After being out of this line of work for over two years, I'm all adrenaline and rage again at the immediate threat to JJ, a woman who is like family to me. The numbness I was feeling is long gone. No way is anyone putting their hands on JJ. No way in hell is this going south. I'm bringing Fran and JJ home.
I get the knife out of my pocket and slice it across Embry's throat before he even knows what's happening. Before Marietta rounds the corner with JJ, I've got a sleeping Adrian back in my arms, my handgun cocked at his face. Gil doesn't miss a beat, turning and pointing his gun towards the opening of the kitchen.
Who the fuck am I? It's the voice of the Emily of the past two years rattling around in my head, but I don't have time for her right now.
Marietta gasps when she rounds the corner clutching JJ's body in front of hers and sees the situation. Gil, with his gun pointing at her and Patrick. Embry slumped over, dead at the kitchen table, with a pool of blood forming around the base of the chair and on the table. And me, with a gun pointed at her child's head.
JJ's eyes open wide in disbelief at the sight.
"Put the fucking gun down!" I yell. "Your son is only sleeping now, but I can make that permanent and I will. Put the gun down and back away."
Marietta presses her gun more firmly against JJ's temple and I don't hesitate. I turn my gun and aim at Patrick, who's right behind her, taking aim and hitting him in the left shoulder. He grunts and goes down. That's right, asshole. I'm a far better shot than I am a fuck.
"I fucking mean it! The next bullet goes in your son's head," I scream.
She hesitates for only a second and then loosens her grip on JJ and lowers the gun. "OK. Just give me my boy," she cries. Her eyes are crazy, but filled with tears.
Gil reaches out and grabs JJ, pulling her behind him. "Gun in my backpack," he says quietly to her.
"Put the gun on the floor!" I scream at Marietta.
Marietta does, and I lay Adrian on the ground. I go to her and pat her down, finding only keys.
"Where's Fran?" I demand.
"My boy," she says.
I can see Nick now, passed out on the sofa and a nasty looking gash on his forehead. I'm vaguely aware of JJ, now armed, entering the picture and patting Patrick down. She stops when she reaches his GPS unit and glances at me. "It's a bomb," Patrick grunts.
And it's in that one sentence that my focus shifts away from Marietta and thoughts of a barbiturate that might loosen her tongue. Maybe we don't need her tongue at all.
Gil keeps his gun on Marietta who's crying for her son while I stand over Patrick. "Where's Fran?" I ask him.
"Basement. Behind the shelf with the canned goods in the kitchen. But those aren't the keys. She keeps the keys for the basement in her bedroom upstairs."
Marietta becomes a snarling monster at those words, her son momentarily forgotten. She lunges towards Patrick and Gil brings the butt of his gun down on her head, silencing her into unconsciousness.
I raise my chin at JJ and nod towards the stairs. She's off in a flash.
"Who's helping you? Someone has to be," I say to Patrick.
Patrick manages to sit up, his right hand clutching his left shoulder. "I don't know. But I think it's the person who helps send the pictures of Fran. The computer is in the basement, too."
"Why?" Why are you telling us this?" I ask.
Patrick considers me. "I never wanted to be here. You're prettier as a brunette," he says.
That tells me that he recognized me, remembers me, and likely didn't tell Marietta that he knew me.
"Are your kids okay?" he asks.
I don't have time for the gratitude I feel for his sincerity that I don't understand. I give him nothing more than my hard stare as JJ comes down the stairs with keys in her hand.
"Watch him," I say to Gil.
JJ and I shove the shelf away in the kitchen and we experiment with keys until we find the one that opens the door. The staircase is longer than I would have expected, and I'm reminded of Adrian Stancu and his obsession with underground rooms and passageways. Nearly two stories down, we come to the landing and see three doors.
"Fran!" I scream.
I hear nothing at first and then a low moan that's barely audible through the thick wooden door to my left. JJ jumps forward, fumbling with the keys.
The door opens, and Fran's there. She's right there. She's gagged and dirty and naked and beaten and strapped to a table, but the woman who I think of as a mother more than my own mother is is right in front of me.
I don't quite contain the sob in my throat as I move to unfasten her wrists. JJ works on her ankles. "Fran," I whisper.
"My Emily," her voice rings out softly. She's present and strong and still her.
She sits up on the table and I shrug the backpack containing clothing off my shoulders. I toss it at JJ, who has tears streaming down her cheeks. I can't give way to tears just yet. "Help her get dressed. I have to find the computer. We have to find whoever else was involved."
"The baby," JJ says.
"There's a teenager, too," I respond. I shake my head, at a temporary loss. "I don't know."
JJ nods and tosses me the keys. I give one extra moment to Fran and kiss her cheek.
I find the equipment room next to Fran's room and go straight to the computer, ignoring the pictures of myself and my family hanging on the walls. I briefly take in the guns and bombs on the table. I grab the burn phone from my pocket.
"We've got her," I say when Garcia answers. "I need to know everything that's on the computer sitting in front of me."
I keep my eyes low as I follow Garcia's instructions to grab the IP address of the computer, but once I give it to her, they keep drifting up of their own accord. The picture above the computer is identical to one we have at home. Taken back in June, it's the four of us, Rory laughing while sitting on Derek's shoulders and me kissing the top of Derek's head while Leon smiles in his lap. It was taken on Derek's birthday, just from a farther vantage point and a slightly different angle than the one in my possession.
My eyes well at the thought of my family, the first time I've let them enter my heart and mind fully since I got on the plane to London. I don't know what to do. The plan was always to kill the people behind this and set one person up to take the fall. Now I've got a teenager and toddler upstairs and a man I killed in cold blood strapped to a chair in a quaint English kitchen.
I'm distracted from my thoughts by a beep. I look up to see where the sound came from just as Garcia hisses frantically in my ear, "Get out of there, Emily. The camera on the computer is on and someone is watching you right now."
I hear her voice at the same time I see forty-five seconds begin to tick down on the two bombs on the table.
"JJ!"
She's there in the doorway with Fran. "Go!" I scream.
We scramble up the endless stairs. Fran is running on her own, thankfully. "Jayje, the girl by the kitchen island. Grab her if you can. We have about thirty seconds before this place blows. Fran you go straight out the front door."
I suck in a breath and scream out as we approach the kitchen door. "GIL! Get Nick and get out of here!"
It all moves seamlessly before me as we hit the kitchen landing and turn towards the living room. Gil has Nick, supporting him with his shoulder. JJ immediately goes to the girl and grabs her, dragging her towards the front door, and Fran keeps running towards the front of the house. Patrick has keys in his hands and is unlocking the door.
And I bend to grab the baby. We have less than ten seconds and I'm stepping towards the door that is now open. I'm only behind them by a couple of steps when I feel something grab my ankle. I pitch forward and land hard on top of Adrian.
I look back. Marietta has my ankle in her hand. "Give me my son," she snarls.
Just then, I'm rocked by what feels like a thousand earthquakes as the bombs go off in the basement. The floor gives under Marietta first and she disappears, her grip on my ankle gone in a moment of shock as she falls to the fiery pit below.
It takes a second for me to realize that I have no purchase under my feet, the floor is literally disappearing from under me. I lunge out towards the piano and grab onto one leg and manage to snag my other hand on Adrian's sweater as the floor completely falls from under us.
I can feel the heat below me and my sweaty palm is slipping on the leg of a piano that is still, miraculously, on a bit of remaining floor in the living room. I can't pull myself up with an unconscious child grasped in my free hand, and I'm going to fall any second.
"How did you do that?" I called. I was breathless, sitting on a small rock ledge. My shoulders ached in a good way and I didn't dare look down, knowing that a two-hundred yard drop of sheer rock surface was all I'd see. Instead, I looked up about twenty yards, where Derek's feet dangled over the edge of the peak of this climb.
It was a wildly unseasonably warm Saturday in February and Derek suggested heading to Roanoke for the weekend. I'd agreed. Then he suggested an easy rock climb, and I'd agreed. I wasn't a complete novice to rock climbing, but it had been a long time. Now I didn't know what I was doing - I was literally stuck between a rock and a hard place, my only safety net a harness and Derek's capable hands.
"Pretend you don't have a harness, and just go for it, Emily. You can do it. I won't let you fall."
"That's your expert advice? Just go for it?"
"Yep!"
I smiled at the confidence in his voice. I blew on my fingers to warm them. This wasn't a hard climb, and if I couldn't make it to the top, I could always repel down or have Derek pull me up. But I wanted to make it on my own and get up there with him.
So I stood. I stood and reached for that little lip of rock I thought I couldn't reach before. I pretended I didn't have a harness, that it was just that rock separating me from Derek, and stretched myself completely and then gave a little jump. My fingers landed firmly where they needed to be.
I let everything go, all fear, all apprehension, my only thought about getting to him. And I climbed.
When I finally hoisted my leg over the cliff's edge, I laughed. I rolled onto my back and looked up at him and the cool, blue sky above him and laughed. This had been a good idea, a distraction when we needed it. Neither one of us wanted to pretend our existence surrounded me trying to get pregnant, and neither one of us was doing a very good job.
I didn't know back then that I was already pregnant; I would have never taken on that climb if I had known. I didn't know that in a few days, we'd get a call about Leon. At that moment, it was only me and Derek and an otherwise seemingly deserted national park.
I looked at him, his face in shadows because of the blinding sun, and laughed merrily.
"Hungry?" he asked.
"Very," I said. But when he handed me a sandwich, I pushed it away. "That's not what I meant."
I could see the white of his teeth as he grinned. "Here?" he asked.
All I had to do was nod once before his lips were on mine.
I never felt the roughness of the rocky surface on my back that day; I only saw the resulting minor scrapes later in the bathroom mirror at our hotel. I stopped feeling cold the second his body formed a blanket mine.
He was my harness in life, and no matter if I never got pregnant, or whatever our future held, we weren't going to let go of each other…
There's a ledge of wood to my left and if I can get my other hand on it, I'll be able to hoist my leg up and over and onto the floor remaining around the piano. I can almost see Derek sitting there on that ledge, his legs dangling over the edge, his smile lighting up his face while he waits for me.
"Emily!" JJ's voice calls out. "Hang on. We're trying to figure out how to get to you. There's not much floor left. We're coming!"
I'm barely hanging on and don't know if I can make it long enough for someone to help me.
I sob in despair and close my eyes for a brief second before opening them. I make a decision in that moment that I never thought I could make in my life. I have to get home; there's no other option. And that means I have to let the baby in my hand go.
"Forgive me," I whisper. I'm not sure if I'm saying it to the unconscious child dangling by his sweater in my left hand, or to a God I'm not sure I believe in, or to Derek or my children or my family or myself. But I say it and start to release my fingers from Adrian's sweater.