Fern returned to work a few days after Bailey's funeral. Mr. Morgan had covered for her for almost a week and he needed her to come back. It was easier than staying home and moping, and Ambrose would be there at the end of her shift. By ten o'clock Fern was exhausted. Ambrose took one look at her and told her to go home. Which prompted tears and insecurity from Fern, which prompted kisses and reassurances from Ambrose, which led to passion and frustration, which led to Ambrose telling her to go home. And the cycle repeated.
“Fern. I am not going to make love to you on the bakery floor, baby. And that's what's going to happen if you don't get your cute butt out of here. Go!”
Ambrose dropped a kiss on her freckled nose and pushed her away from him. “Go.”
Fern was still thinking about sweaty sex on the bakery floor when she walked out of the employee entrance at the back of the store. She almost couldn't stand to leave him. Being apart had become torture. Soon Ambrose would be leaving for school. And with Bailey gone and Ambrose far away, Fern didn't know what she was going to do with herself.
The thought caused a flood of emotion that had her turning back toward the employee entrance, eager to return to his side. She wondered what Ambrose would do if she followed him. She could register for school and get a student loan. She could live in the dorms and take a couple of classes and write in the evenings and follow him around like a puppy, the way she'd done her whole life.
Fern shook her head adamantly, took a fortifying breath, and walked toward her bike. No. She wasn't going to do that. In recent days she had thought about what came next for them. She had made her feelings known. She loved Ambrose. She had always loved him. And if Ambrose wanted her in his life permanently, not just as a temporary distraction or a safety net, he was going to have to be the one to say the words. He was going to have to ask.
Fern knelt by her bike where it was chained to a downspout and clicked the combination absentmindedly. Her mind was far away, wrapped in Ambrose and the thought of losing him once more, and she reacted slowly to the sudden rush of footsteps coming up behind her. Steely arms wrapped around her and shoved her to the ground, causing her to lose her grip on her bike so it teetered and toppled beside her.
Her first thought was that is was Ambrose. He had surprised her in the dark before, just outside the employee entrance. But it wasn't Ambrose. He would never hurt her. The arms that gripped her were thinner, the body less corded with muscle, but whoever it was, he was still much bigger than Fern. And he intended to hurt her. Fern shoved frantically at the weight that pressed her face into the sidewalk.
“Where is she, Fern?” It was Becker. His breath reeked of beer and vomit and days without a toothbrush. The immaculate Becker Garth was coming undone, and that scared Fern more than anything.
“I went to her mother's house but it's dark. I've been watching it for two days. And she's not at home! I can't even get in my own house, Fern!”
“They left, Becker,” Fern wheezed, trying to keep the terror at bay. Becker sounded hysterical, like he had lost his sanity when he'd forced Bailey off the road. The police didn't think Becker knew that they had Bailey's 911 call. Maybe he had thought he could just come back home now that the dust had settled and nobody would be the wiser.
“WHERE ARE THEY?!” Becker grabbed Fern's hair and ground her cheek into the sidewalk. Fern winced and tried not to cry as she felt the burn and scrape of the concrete against her face.
“I don't know, Becker,” Fern lied. There was no way she was telling Becker Garth where his wife was. “They just said they were leaving for a couple days to get some rest. They'll be back.” Another lie.
As soon as Rita had been discharged from the hospital, she’d given her landlord notice and Sarah had put her house up for sale with a local realtor and asked that it be kept private. Rita was devastated by Bailey’s death and they were afraid. With Becker unaccounted for, they didn't feel safe in their homes, in their town, and they liquidated everything they could and had decided to take off until Becker was no longer a threat, if that day ever came.
Fern's father had arranged to have their belongings sold and what couldn't be sold was kept in a storage unit owned by the church. He'd given them $2,000 in cash, and Fern had dipped into her own savings account. In less than a week, they were gone. Fern had been so afraid for Rita. She hadn't thought she needed to be afraid for herself.
Fern heard a snick and felt a slide of something cold and sharp against her throat. Her heart sounded like a racehorse at full speed, echoing in the ear that was pressed against the sidewalk.
“You and Bailey turned her against me! You were always giving her money. And Sheen tried to take my kid! Did you know that?”
Fern just squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for deliverance.
“Is she with Ambrose?”
“What?”
“Is she with Ambrose?” he screamed.
“No! Ambrose is with me!” Just inside the door of the bakery. And so, so far away.
“With you? You think he wants you, Fern? He doesn't want you! He wants Rita. He's always wanted Rita. But now his face is all messed up!” Becker spit the words into her ear.
Fern felt the nick of the blade against her skin, and Becker moved the knife from her throat to her face. “And I'm going to cut you up so you match. If you tell me where Rita is, I'll only mark up one side, so you look just like Ambrose.”
Fern squeezed her eyes shut, panting in panic, praying for deliverance.
“Tell me where she is!” Becker raged at her silence and backhanded her. Fern's head rang and her ears popped and for a moment she lost herself, floating out and beyond, a momentary reprieve from the terror that gripped her. Then Becker was up and dragging Fern by her long red hair before she could get her feet under her, pulling her over the curb, crossing the street, and moving across the field that extended into the dark trees behind the store. Fern scrambled, crying against the pain at her scalp, trying to stand. And she screamed for Ambrose.
“Do you feel that?”
The words came into Ambrose's mind as if Paulie stood at his shoulder and spoke them in his ear. His deaf ear. Ambrose rubbed at his prosthetic and stepped back from the mixer. He flipped it off, and turned, expecting someone to be standing there with him. But the bakery was silent and empty. He listened, the silence expectant. And he felt it. A sense of something wrong, a sense of foreboding. Something he didn't have a name for and couldn't explain.
“Do you feel that?” Paulie had said before death had separated the friends forever.
Ambrose walked out of the bakery toward the back door, the door Fern had exited less than ten minutes before. And then he heard her scream. Ambrose flew through the exit door, adrenaline pulsing in his ears and denial pounding in his head.
The first thing he saw was Fern's bike, laying on its side, the front wheel pointing into the air, the pedals holding the front half up in a slight tilt, freeing the big wheel to spin slightly in the wind. Like Cosmo's bike. Smiling Cosmo, who wanted his family to be safe and his country to be delivered from terror. Cosmo, who died at the hands of evil men.
“Fern!” Ambrose roared in terror. And then he saw them, maybe 100 yards away, Fern struggling with someone who held his arm around her throat and was dragging her across the field behind the store. Ambrose ran, sprinting across the uneven ground, his feet barely touching the earth, rage pouring through his veins. He closed the gap in seconds, and as Becker saw him coming he yanked Fern up against him, shielding himself. In a hand that shook like someone who was strung out and beyond reason, he held a knife out toward Ambrose as Ambrose hurtled toward him, closing in fast.
“She's coming with me, Ambrose!” he shrieked. “She's taking me to Rita!”
Ambrose didn't slow, didn't let his eyes rest on Fern. Becker Garth was done. He'd killed Bailey Sheen, left him lying in a ditch, knowing full well he couldn't save himself. He'd abused his wife, terrorized her and his child, and now he held the girl Ambrose loved like a rag doll, shielding himself from the wrath wrapped in vengeance that was coming for him.
Becker cursed viciously, realizing that his knife wasn’t going to prevent a collision with Ambrose. He dropped Fern, releasing her so he could escape, and screamed as he turned to run. Fern screamed as well, her fear for Ambrose evident in the way she staggered back to her feet and spread her arms as if to stop him from hurling himself into Becker's knife.
Becker had staggered only a few steps before Ambrose was on him, knocking him to the ground the way Becker had knocked his wife to the ground. Becker's head collided with the dirt the way Rita's head had collided with her kitchen floor. Then Ambrose let loose, fists flying, pummeling Becker like he'd done in ninth grade when Becker Garth had terrorized Bailey Sheen in the men's locker room at school.
“Ambrose!” Fern cried from somewhere behind him, anchoring him to her and to the present, slowing his fists and calming his rage-fueled barrage. Standing, he grabbed Becker's long hair, the hair that looked like Ambrose's old locks. And he dragged him, the way Becker had dragged Fern, back to where Fern was swaying on her feet, trying not to collapse. He released Becker and pulled Fern into his arms. Becker fell in a heap.
“Don't let him get away. We can't let him find Rita,” Fern cried, shaking her head and clinging to him. But Becker wasn't going anywhere. Ambrose swept Fern up in his arms and carried her back to the store where her bike still lay, its front wheel still spinning gently, impervious to the drama that had played out nearby.
Fern's face was bloody along her throat and blood oozed from an abrasion along her cheekbone. Her right eye was already swollen shut. Ambrose sat her gently against the building, promising her he would be right back. He grabbed the wiry bike lock that dangled from the downspout, and digging out his phone, he called 911. While he calmly told the 911 dispatcher what had transpired, he hog-tied Becker Garth with Fern's bike lock in case he regained consciousness before the cops arrived. Ambrose hoped he did. He hoped Becker woke up soon. He wanted him to know how it felt to be trapped on his back in the dark, unable to move, knowing he couldn't save himself. The way Bailey must have felt in ninth grade in a black locker room, lying in his toppled chair, waiting for rescue. The way Bailey must have felt, face down in a ditch knowing his attempts to help his friend would cost him his life.
Then Ambrose walked back to Fern, fell to his knees beside her, and pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her gently, humbly. And he whispered his thanks into her hair as his body began to shake.
“Thank you, Paulie.”