CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The rest of the flight back to the small private airport south of Newark had me on pins and needles. The entire time, I expected the pilot to turn around and take me back. When we finally landed, the passengers beyond sloshed, no one was happier than me to feel the gust of cold New Jersey air.
One by one, we shuffled out, me with paper towels wedged between my blood-crusted foot and stained flip-flop.
Julie didn’t say a word the remainder of the flight or bother looking at me when we passed the cockpit.
“Goodbye. It’s been a pleasure.” The pilot doled out the polite nods. “Take care. Be sure to take a cab, Barb,” he said to the woman staggering out in front of Julie.
“Aye-aye, captain!” Barb replied.
When it was my turn to pass the captain, his face turned a pale shade of taupe. Our eyes met, and I knew he recognized me.
What can he do now? I was surrounded by non-club members, and I would fight tooth and nail if he so much as laid a hand on me.
I leaned toward him as I passed by. “I don’t think they’ll reward you for setting me free, but I won’t tell if you don’t.”
The captain’s face turned red with anger, but he looked away toward the staggering stragglers behind me.
I limped down the steel staircase and looked up at the sky. I made it. I fucking made it. Only now I’d have to contend with the painful fact that this wasn’t over.
Mr. Rook killed my Cici. He murdered her. And for all I knew, they’d planned to do the same to me after he’d had his own fantasy fun.
In either case, it wouldn’t take long for them to find me. I had to act quickly.
I got into a cab and told the driver to take me home. “That’s a two-and-a-half-hour ride home, lady.”
I didn’t have a purse, wallet or cell phone. But I had an emergency credit card at home in my dresser. I could pay him with that. “How fast can you drive?”
Exhausted and emotionally broken, I returned to the home I had once shared with Cici. The slower than expected three-hour drive, due to an accident in the road, had given me clarity, but not a solution.
Rook had to pay for what he’d done. I didn’t care why he’d lied or to what end. All that mattered was that Cici got her justice.
Of course, I felt enraged and heartbroken over having fallen for Rook’s slick lies, but I refused to feel like a fool for who I was. I’m done with that. I was done ridiculing myself for believing in love or being the person who dared to risk it all for a chance of having it.
So I loved too much?
So I cared too deeply?
So the fuck what! That didn’t make me weak or worthless. It made people like Rook monsters and nothing more. This very morning, I would go see Warner and tell him what I’d found. Rook and his aunt would get what they deserved not because I was vengeful, but because I wanted to live, and I deserved to.
Standing in our old yellow kitchen, I looked down at my foot. The paper towel I’d taped on had saturated with blood and was dripping all over the old brown and white linoleum. Dammit. I needed to get to the ER. My dad’s car, an old beige Volvo, was parked in the driveway. He always left it for us when he traveled, which was pretty much all the time.
I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall above Cici’s kitten calendar. Her kindergarten class had given it to her last Christmas, and it still displayed June—the month my world came crashing down.
I walked over and changed the page to October. I had to move forward now—if not for her, then for my own sake.
Okay. It’s almost seven thirty in the morning. I could get my foot mended and then head into the city to see Warner.
A loud knock at the front door startled me down to the marrow in my bones.
Wait. It couldn’t be James or his aunt. They were four hours away by plane, plus the drive time. Unless he figured out I left and followed. He said they had two jets.
I hesitated, thinking about running, until I spotted a shadowy figure at the back door, which was next to the side carport.
“Stephanie!”
Warner. Fucking Warner. I covered my face with my hands and blew out. How did he know I was here?
What does it matter? I wanted to see him anyway.
I jerked open the back door, finding Warner Price not dressed in a suit, but in a black long-sleeved shirt and black pants. A black baseball hat covered his short dark hair.
“Mr. Price, how nice of you to stop by. I just got back and planned to see you this morn—”
He reached his large hand through the doorway, grabbing a fistful of my hair. “You think you can just take my money and blow me off, you little cunt?”
“I didn’t! I didn’t blow you off!” I screamed as he dragged me outside. Somewhere, in the recess of my mind, I knew there were more men with him. Someone was lifting my legs while he dragged me to the trunk of his car and then threw me in.
“Please,” I pleaded for my life, “I didn’t fuck you over. I didn’t. I promise I got what you needed.”
Warner Price looked down at me with those unkind eyes. “The only thing I need is you at the bottom of the ocean.”
The trunk slammed shut, sealing me in complete darkness.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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