Chapter 21

We drove by my house slowly, and there didn’t seem to be anyone around. I had Marv drive around the back, and I looked all around for anything suspicious, but there was nothing that stood out. Stanley sat in the back seat watching the house with me too.

Unfortunately, I did have a feeling that someone was following or watching us. I made Marv leave and then drive all over town to make sure no one was following us. I didn’t feel safe to go into the house and get my camera.

“I’m not sure, Marv, something felt off. What do you think?”

“I felt fine,” Marv said. “Do you want me to just go inside with you? Maybe Stanley could go inside, and I’ll stay outside?”

“No, let’s just get back home; maybe I’ll go back tomorrow.”

I couldn’t put my finger on what was going on, but I felt like something bad was going to happen. I looked everywhere and had not seen a single thing out of place, though. It was entirely possible the events of the last few weeks had made be jumpy and were the only reason I couldn’t feel safe.

“Well, I have to work all day tomorrow. How about we go back in after work?” Marv suggested.

Marv was a good man. Willow sure had found herself a keeper. I used to make fun of her for getting married so young and starting her family. But seeing how Marv took care of her and the kids, it certainly was more than any woman could hope for in a partner. They both seemed so very happy, and it was something to look up to in my future relationships.

I wasn’t sure if I could keep Marcus around or not. He certainly got me hot and bothered when we were together. There was chemistry between us that I had never felt with any other person. It was hard for me to imagine that there was another man out there that I could feel so bonded to so quickly. It was a different bond than what I had with the other guys, and I really hoped he stayed safe, and we could work things out. Having Marcus around made life exciting.

In the morning when Marv went to work, I decided to go with him. I wanted to keep an eye out through the town and see if I saw any suspicious vehicles. Since his office was right downtown, I could easily watch people from the comfort of his building. No one would even know I was there since he had tinted windows that overlooked the main street of town.

Originally, I had planned to venture out into the town a little bit, but I lost my nerve. I was terrified of going out by myself, and I couldn’t ask Marv to stop working to babysit me. He was starting to think I was crazy as I watched all the cars that came and went throughout the city.

“There’s a black SUV, that’s unusual. Right?”

“No, that’s the Edwards’ new SUV. They just had a baby and needed more room,” Marv said as he became more and more annoyed with me.

“Oh, wait. Look at this sedan. I’ve never seen it before.”

“Isabella, that’s the city manager’s wife. I’m pretty sure she isn’t going to try and kill you.”

“Seriously Marv, what about that minivan. I’ve never seen it around town before.”

“Isabella, that is the Johnsons’ van. Either sit there quietly, or I’ll take you home. I can’t keep doing this all day; I won’t get any work done. Where is Stanley, maybe he wants you to sit at his work?”

“Alright, I’ll sit quietly,” I said, knowing that Stanley wouldn’t want me at his office either.

I did sit quietly for the remainder of the day. It was very hard for me to do as I watched car after car going by throughout town. But I decided to wait until I could see the drive, and then I almost always knew who it was. There was one woman that drove by in a minivan that I didn’t know, but then I thought it would be silly to think a woman in a minivan would be the one coming to get me.

Marv seemed to appreciate my silence, and he worked quickly on his projects so he could get off from work early. He packed his things at a quarter after four, and we loaded into his truck to head over to my house. We were going to wait for Stanley, but Marv was tired and just wanted to get it over with.

It was only a few blocks, but I felt relieved to have him with me. I was thinking and worrying so much about someone following us that I could hardly think anymore. I just wanted to relax and feel safe again, and that wouldn’t happen until Marcus got back from Chicago.

“I don’t see anyone around, do you?” I asked.

“No, Isabella, you are fine. Just run in and grab your camera and come back out.”

“I also wanted to grab some clean clothes. Do you think that will be alright?”

“Yes, just hurry up. I don’t want to be out here all day.”

I jumped out of his truck and made my way up to the door of my house. I got too scared and turned around and came back to the truck.

“I can’t go in there alone. Will you go with me?”

“Oh man, Isabella, just go in there. There is no way someone has been waiting here for two weeks just for this moment. You are fine.”

I stood next to the truck and just shook my head no. I felt like I was going crazy, but I was so scared to go back into my house. I needed Marcus to go with me, but since he wasn’t there, Marv would have to do.

“Please Marv, I know I’m horrible. But I’m too afraid to go in there by myself.”

Marv turned his truck off and climbed out of the cab. He seemed really annoyed as he walked up to the door of my house. I put the key in the door, but it wouldn’t open. It looked like Marcus had jammed something into the door to keep it from opening after it had been kicked in.

“Let’s go to the back,” I said as I started around the side of the house.

This made Marv even more annoyed at me, but he was a good friend and came with me. I was really regretting not waiting for Stanley to get home from work. Or even calling Rob to see if he would come over too. If I had all three of the guys there with me, I certainly would have felt more comfortable.

I used my key to get into the house and then waited for Marv.

“You go first,” I said as I stood in the corner of the kitchen.

“Oh, man, Isabella, you are going to owe me big for this.”

Marv slowly started moving through the house, and I stayed in the kitchen and waited for him to tell me everything was clear.

“Is everything alright?” I yelled up to Marv as he made it to the top of the stairs.

“Yes, just come get your things.”

I hurried up the stairs and into my bedroom. I grabbed a bag from the closet and started to fill it with some more of my clothes. I wanted to grab everything, but I knew Marv wouldn’t be alright with that. Instead, I just grabbed some clothes from each of my dresser drawers and a couple pairs of my favorite shoes. I had forgotten to grab shoes last time and wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

“I’m going to wait for you out in the truck,” Marv said as he made his way down the stairs. “All is clear, just grab your things quickly and let’s get going.”

“No, no, no. I’m coming. Don’t leave me here,” I said as I tried to hurry and pack my things as quickly as possible.

“You are fine, Isabella, just grab what you need and then head out to the truck.”

I heard him finish moving down the stairs and go out the back door. I looked out the window and watched him get into this truck and start it up. I did feel a bit silly for making such a scene, but it was really hard to be in my house after everything that had happened. I didn’t know if I could ever feel safe in my home again.

As much as I didn’t want to blame Marcus for this feeling, I couldn’t help it. If he had never moved to Bain, then none of this would have ever happened. It was a mix of emotions for sure though because I was really missing Marcus and Zed. I wanted to know that they were both safe, and I had no way of finding out. The anticipating was making my paranoia worse.

I went back to packing my things and tried not to freak out. I looked through everything one last time and then headed down the stairs. My hands were shaking from the adrenaline, and I almost fell right down the stairs.

“Don’t scream,” I heard a familiar voice say as I got to the bottom step.

He reached out and wrapped his hand around my mouth and then tilted my head up to see him. It was Zed. He looked different. His dimples were covered up by a beard, and he looked like he hadn’t showered in the weeks since I had seen him last.

“Zed, what are you doing here?” I said as I tried to calm my nerves.

There was something different about him and how he interacted with me, though. I had an uneasy feeling and didn’t want to be alone with him. Something was going on. My gut said that it was something bad.

“Go tell your friend he can leave. You aren’t going back with him.”

“I am supposed to stay with them until Marcus gets back.”

“Tell him now!” Zed said as he yelled at me.

Something was wrong; I didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t want to find out. Zed had been sweet and nice to me before, and now he was rude and agitated.

Suddenly the thought came to me that Zed wasn’t one of the guys with Marcus. Maybe he was some sort of a double agent and really worked for the bad guys. I tried to remember the times I had seen Zed before, and I thought he worked with Marcus, but I had never heard that directly from Marcus before.

Marcus had said he was working with the bad guys and pretending to be one of them, maybe this Zed guy was really one of the bad guys who were trying to get to Marcus. Maybe taking me with him or hurting me was the only way they could get Marcus out of hiding.

I couldn’t disobey Zed, though; I could tell in his eyes that he wasn’t messing around. So I walked out to Marv’s truck and did my best acting job ever.

“Hey, Marv, I’m feeling better about things, and I think I’m going to stay here,” I said and then turned around and came back to my house.

I hoped that if I were confident in how I talked to Marv, he would believe me and head back to his house. I didn’t look back at all as I walked around to the back door and Zed was standing there with my bag.

“I need my camera too,” I said.

“No, let’s go.”

Just then, Marv came around the corner and saw Zed. Marv threw a few punches, and Zed easily avoided them. Then Zed threw one single punch and knocked Marv out cold.

“Zed!” I screamed and then ran to Marv’s side.

I could tell he was breathing, but he had been hit pretty hard. It wasn’t likely that he would wake up anytime soon.

“Why did you do that?” I said.

I could feel myself getting angry, but I wasn’t about to show Zed that. Something was different about him, and I didn’t know if he was on Marcus’s team or if he was working for the bad guys. There was just too much unknown about this situation, and I thought it would be best if I kept quiet. I had to wait and see what was going on before I started to be defiant with a man who could clearly hurt me very badly if he wanted to.

“He just tried to hit me three times, what do you mean why? Get in the SUV.” Zed grabbed my arm and carried my bag in his other hand.

When I got to the SUV, he put me into the back seat, and I was just about to let myself out when I realized there were no handles on the doors.

I looked at Zed, and he watched me through the mirror. Something bad was going on, and I just landed myself smack dab in the middle of it.

“Isabella, I know you don’t understand what’s going on, but you remember what Marcus told you about his work, right? Try and listen to me, and just do what you are told.”

My mind raced as I tried to put all the pieces together, and they just jumbled up. Zed was a good guy, I knew it. So why was he grabbing me like this? Why was he punching Marv?

He took off driving down the road, and I looked back and saw Marv as he started to move around. I felt a slight bit of comfort knowing he was alright, but I certainly didn’t feel comfortable or like I was going to be alright.

I didn’t know what was going on, and I could scream for help. I had just watched my friend Marv get beaten by the guy who had me in his SUV. I knew him as Zed, but I really didn’t know anything about him at all.

Over the last few weeks, everything that I thought I had learned about people had turned out to not be true. I didn’t trust my own opinion at all anymore. Nothing was as it seemed, and nothing about this situation seemed safe to me.

Zed had come to take care of me after Marcus was shot and taken away, and I thought he was nice. I thought he worked with Marcus, but I couldn’t know for sure. Now he was being rude and seemed much scarier that he had before. Perhaps it had just been the intensity of the situation, but Zed no longer seemed like a nice person. He had a new arrogance about him that had been missing from our last encounter.

I sat in the vehicle and looked around to try and figure out what was going on. There were two other men in the vehicle and Zed drove. When we got a few miles down a dirt road, Zed pulled over and moved to the back seat and let the other guy drive instead. I sat quietly and looked at each of their faces. I tried not to make it too obvious that I remembered what they looked like. But the more I looked at them, the more I realized that if they were the bad guys, they wouldn’t be letting me look at them so much.

Unless they didn’t plan to let me live. If they planned to kill me, I figured they probably wouldn’t care at all if I saw them. Maybe Zed was undercover? Maybe he was one of the bad guys for the sake of this mission or whatever was going on? I knew Zed; I knew him intimately, and Marcus knew him. I tried to relax and understand that Zed must have been playing a role for these men.

I swallowed hard at the thought that the two guys in the back of the SUV probably weren’t good guys and wanted to kill me. Only a few weeks before, I would have never even considered such a thought, but now it seemed like my whole life had changed. Everything that had once been normal was gone, and a new normal was right in front of me.

“Where are we going?” I finally managed to ask.

No one answered me. In fact, no one even turned to look at me. It was like I didn’t exist. I turned to watch the countryside go past as we moved along a back road. It wasn’t a major highway, and it wasn’t a county road. Instead, we were moving down a gravel road at a speed much faster than I was comfortable with.

I knew gravel roads all too well, and they weren’t meant for going 60 mph on them. These types of roads were unpredictable and way too dangerous at that speed. I tightened my seat belt and looked for something to hold onto. These guys had a much different level of comfort with speed and danger than I did.

I wanted to ask again where we were going, but I didn’t. Instead, I just stayed quiet and tried to pay attention to as much as possible. We were going North East, and I could tell they seemed to know where they were going. They didn’t use directions, and the driver guided the SUV along the back roads with expert precision.

The driver also looked familiar, his big build and blond hair were very familiar to me. I thought I had seen him on the same night that Marcus was shot. I thought he had been one of the men that actually carried Marcus out to the SUV after he had been shot. The other person in the front seat did not look familiar to me at all; he had a reddish tint to his hair and freckles on his face. Although he looked equally built and muscular as the other two men in the car, he did not seem as standoffish as the driver. The red haired man looked back and smiled at me a couple times during the drive.

Zed seemed to be amped up and wasn’t nearly as friendly as the night when Marcus got shot, but he appeared to have calmed down a bit since getting into the SUV. I still had no idea what was going on, but I started to feel a little more comfortable because they were all much more relaxed the further we got away from my house.

I started to worry what Willow and Marv would think had happened to me. They knew things were getting crazy, and they knew about Marcus being shot. They knew that Marcus had taken off to try and figure out who had come after him. It would be a likely conclusion that they would think something bad had happened to me. I couldn’t handle the thought of them worrying about me.

Willow wouldn’t sleep as she thought of all the bad things that could happen to me. I knew I needed to get word to them that I was alright. But I didn’t feel safe to say anything yet. I decided to wait until we got wherever we were going, wherever that was.

I leaned my elbow against the window and put my hand on my face. I closed my eyes for a moment out of extreme exhaustion. I couldn’t prevent my eyes from closing, and my body drifted off to sleep. It seemed like a quick sleep, but when I woke up, we were obviously very far from Bain, Missouri. The city lights of what I thought was Chicago flew by as we drove down a major interstate. It was late at night now, and I had been asleep for several hours.

“Do we have anything to drink?” I asked Zed.

This time he seemed to have no problem realizing I was there, and he handed me a bottle of water. I guzzled it down quickly and then regretted it. We had been in the vehicle for at least eight hours, and I had to use the restroom badly. When I drank the water, it just made everything worse. I couldn’t hold it another second, or at least that is what I felt like.

“Are we going to stop soon? I need to use a restroom.”

“We stopped about an hour ago; you were out of it. We will be there in an hour. Can you wait?” Zed asked.

I contemplated the question, but I really didn’t think I could wait. I wasn’t used to having to hold my bladder. It gave me anxiety right away.

“No, I don’t think I can.”

I saw a look of compassion from Zed that reminded me of the night I met him and the intimacy that we had once shared. The night Marcus had been shot Zed was so sweet to me. He didn’t seem annoyed by my answer. Instead, he leaned forward to the driver and whispered something.

Within a minute, we had pulled into a gas station, and Zed got out and walked with me to the restroom. When a couple walked past, Zed grabbed my hand and held it like we were a couple. I tried to hide the shock of the moment but was pretty bad at it. When the couple finally walked around the corner, Zed let go of my hand.

I didn’t quite understand his reason for the hand holding, but it seemed that he really wanted to blend in as much as possible. Or perhaps he just didn’t want me to run away and start screaming that I had been kidnaped. I went to the restroom, and Zed waited outside; when I finished, we went back to the SUV together, and we quickly returned to the interstate to make our way to wherever we were going.

My eyes took in everything I could see, and I tried to remember each turn we made. I didn’t know for sure these guys were safe, and I wanted to be prepared for my escape if that needed to happen.