Runaway - Chapter 44
“Hey, Alice,” I said as I balanced the bakery boxes in my arms. I set them down on the hostess stand.
“I’m so glad you came back,” she said. “You rushed off so fast earlier, I thought something was wrong. I guess you just forgot the boxes in the car?”
My hands froze. “What?”
“When you came in a few minutes ago. I asked you where the boxes were and you hurried off without responding.”
My heart started racing. “I wasn’t here a few minutes ago.”
“Of course you were. I saw you with my own eyes, Jane. Although, you were wearing different clothes.” She frowned. “Weren’t you just in high heels?”
High heels? It was like I could hear the click of them echoing around me, like I was back at Empire High dreading the sound.
I hated to admit it, but there was only one person who could pull off looking like me.
Someone who shared my DNA. And someone who I’d only ever seen in heels.
Even at private family dinners. I turned around, like I could feel Isabella’s eyes on me.
“Is everything alright?” Alice asked.
“Yes. I just…is Mil…” I cleared my throat. “Is George here?”
“Yeah, one second, I’ll go get him.”
As she walked away I hurried outside and looked both ways. I swore I saw a black SUV speeding down the street. Or maybe it was just a normal car. I blinked and it was gone. Maybe it hadn’t been there at all.
Miller rushed out of the restaurant. He spotted me standing on the sidewalk, staring at nothing at all. But I felt it in my bones. I’d felt her eyes on me. Isabella was here. She knew where we were.
“What’s wrong?” Miller said as he put his hand on my shoulder. “Alice said you seemed disoriented. How about we sit down.” He tried to lower me to sit on the curb but I pulled back.
“It’s her. She’s here.”
“Hey, take a deep breath for me.”
“I’m not having a panic attack! And I’m not disoriented. She’s here.”
“Who’s here? Brooklyn, look at me.” He grabbed both sides of my face. “What are you talking about?”
“Isabella.”
He lowered his eyebrows.
“I came into the restaurant and Alice said I’d just been in. And that I’d rushed off. I only just came in. It has to be…” my voice trailed off. “She found us.” Now I was pretty sure I was having a panic attack. “We need to go. We need to get out of here.”
But Miller didn’t move.
“We have to go!”
Miller looked over at a couple that was walking into the restaurant, who were blatantly staring back at us. “There’s security footage,” Miller whispered as he turned back to me. “How about you come inside. We’ll watch it together.”
“Why don’t you believe me?”
“I do believe you. But I don’t want to uproot our whole lives unless you’re 100% sure. Did you actually see Isabella?”
“No…but…”
“Let’s just look at the tapes.”
“Miller who else could it possibly be? Alice thought it was me. Isabella must have been dressed up like me. She must have…”
“Brooklyn.” Miller put his hand on my stomach that was getting bigger by the day. “I’ve pictured our whole lives here. The three of us. I don’t want to start over again. We have good jobs. We’re doing well here. Please, just take a deep breath and we can look at the security tapes.”
Miller had never seen someone watching us from the woods. He’d only ever heard my recounting of it. And he hadn’t felt the chill run down my back when I felt Isabella’s eyes on me. “I’m not crazy.”
“I never said you were. I’m just saying that I love it here. I want to raise my family here at the lake house. Please, Brooklyn. Just take a deep breath.”
I wasn’t crazy. But I knew my hormones sometimes made me feel that way.
“I’ve always protected you,” he said. “Let me keep protecting you. Don’t you trust me?”
I breathed in slowly and exhaled even slower. “Of course I trust you.”
“We’ll figure out if it was her.” He grabbed my hand. “Come with me.”
I walked with him back into the restaurant.
He started talking to Alice. Telling her that I hadn’t been in earlier.
Alice shook her head and laughed. “Yeah, as soon as I saw the surprised look on your face, I knew I must have made a mistake. I was slammed with tables this afternoon. I must not have gotten a good look at the girl.”
“Did you see what car she was driving?” I asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Do you mind if we look at the security footage?” Miller asked. “Just to see if we recognize her? It may have been family from out of town.”
“Of course. My office is unlocked.”
“Thanks, Alice.” He guided us into her office. Instead of going to the computer on Alice’s desk he went over to the corner and lifted up this secret cubby thing. There was another computer hidden behind the wooden facade.
I stared at Miller and then back at the screen.
He typed in a password and the security footage came up.
I looked back at him. “How did you know the password?” Alice hadn’t just told him. How did he even know to use this hidden computer?
“Because I set it up.”
“What?”
“I have security cameras everywhere, Brooklyn. I figured you knew that. Do you really think I’d let you stay home all day without surveillance?” He clicked a few buttons and then there was a video of the girl that looked like me walking into the restaurant.
But for just a minute I was a little more concerned about the surveillance comment. “You have cameras in our house?”
“No, outside the house.”
“Miller, it’s not your job to watch me all the time anymore.”
“I don’t watch you.” He turned to me. “I’m busy all day here. But yeah, I have an alarm on my phone that will go off if there’s any motion outside our place.”
“So when I go outside to garden…”
“I get an alert, yes.”
“And you click through and see that it’s just me in the garden.”
He sighed. “I don’t understand the issue here.”
“I just told you the issue. It’s not your job to watch me anymore.”
He ran his hand down his face. “I’m not watching you. I’m protecting you and our kid. And I’d set up most of this before you even came back.”
“You put up all these cameras before I moved in?”
“Do you think you’re the only one freaked out about Mr. Pruitt finding us? I used to lie awake at night holding a gun in my hand. The woods make terribly creepy noises in the middle of the night. I kept thinking he’d found me. I was pretty sure I was going crazy without you.”
I knew the noises that the woods made well. I remembered how spooked we’d both been when the deer had woken us up. But it was the last part of what he said that hit me the hardest. That he was going crazy without me. I’d felt that same way without him.
“So yes, I set up cameras to make sure I was safe. And then when you came? I set up a few more. He said he’d kill me if I touched you, Brooklyn. What would he do to me now? You’re pregnant with my kid.”
I swallowed hard. “I’d hope that he wouldn’t hurt the father of my child.”
Miller shook his head. “You’re giving him grace he doesn’t deserve.”
I’d had a lot of time to think about what my father had done to me.
I thought about it more than ever now that I was pregnant.
Now that I was about to have a kid of my own.
My dad swore he thought I’d agreed to the kidney thing.
I’d seen the tears in his eyes. I’d seen how grateful he’d been. He’d made a mistake.
But I still resented him. I felt exploited.
He made me feel weak. And used. When he kept me a prisoner it twisted things even more.
Was he trying to keep me safe from Isabella?
Or keeping me safe for himself, just in case he needed me again.
I liked to think it was the first one. That he was scared of Isabella too.
I hated my father. But now I wasn’t as sure that he was the monster I’d made him out to be in my youth.
Or maybe Miller was right. That I was giving him grace he didn’t deserve.
That the years apart from him had made me forget who he truly was.
Time played tricks on me sometimes. Making me remember the good instead of the bad.
Miller looked over his shoulder at the open door of Alice’s office. “We can discuss this more at home. Let’s see if it was Isabella, okay?”
I didn’t know what to say anymore. Honestly, I was relieved he had cameras set up.
But why hadn’t he told me until now? He knew before we had two cars that I was nervous being home alone.
He’d even taught me how to use a gun instead of just telling me there were cameras.
‘I figured you knew’ didn’t seem like a good excuse to me.
But he was right. We didn’t want Alice to overhear us.
Miller rewound the footage and paused it.
“It’s so blurry.”
He zoomed in a bit more but it didn’t help.
I looked over at him and he was squinting at the screen. “Do you really think that’s her? Why would she dress up as you?”
“Because she’s a crazy person.”
He switched to a different still, but it was equally blurry. “But why would she come here after all these years?”
“I don’t know.” It had been twelve years since I’d died. Twelve years and no word about anything from the life I left behind. Nothing from Isabella. Nothing from my dad. “What if my dad found us? And Isabella somehow figured it out? Saw something she wasn’t supposed to see?”
“We’ve been careful. This is pretty much the only place we come.”
“And she showed up here. The one place we’ve slipped.” I stared at the picture again. It had been a long time since I’d seen Isabella. Would I even recognize her now? Even if the picture wasn’t blurry?
“You heard what Alice said, though. That she realized it wasn’t you. She was just slammed. She didn’t even get a good look at her.” He pulled out his phone. “And if she knew where we lived and had gone to the house, I’d have an alert by now.”
I took a deep breath. “You really think it was a false alarm?”
“I hope so.”
Me too. Now that I’d had a few minutes to calm down, Miller’s words made sense.
I didn’t want to move again. I didn’t want to start over.
I put my hand on my stomach. This was where I pictured raising our kid.
I wanted to give our baby the life we’d lived here.
Long summer nights and lazy winter days. I wanted all of it.
“Stay here today. We’ll go home together after my shift ends. You can sit in a booth and…”
“Can I help you cook?” The last thing I wanted to do was sit around being nervous.
He smiled. “Of course.” He pulled me into his chest. “It’s going to be okay.”
It was easy to believe him when his arms were around me.
***
Miller had checked every inch of our home. We’d taken a walk around the lake, searching the perimeter of the woods for anything amiss. And then he’d checked the house for a second time. There was…nothing.
He handed me a cup of hot chocolate and joined me on the couch, lifting up the blanket to drape it over both of our laps.
I blew on the top of the mug. I’d had all day to calm down.
All day to think about the blurry face in the surveillance footage.
There was no reason why Isabella would suddenly think I was alive.
And no reason why she’d dress like me. Or dye her hair to be blonde like mine.
None of it made any sense. Isabella thought I was dead.
She was out there somewhere living her life.
I wasn’t on her mind anymore. Surely I didn’t haunt her dreams the way she’d haunted mine.
I took a sip of the hot chocolate, letting it warm my cold bones. “Why’d you think I knew about the cameras?”
“Because it’s my responsibility to protect you, kid.”
“You’re missing a key word there. Was. It was your responsibility to protect me.”
“No. It was my job to protect you when I didn’t know you. It’s my responsibility to protect you now. As your husband. As the father of our child. As the love of your life.”
I didn’t need the hot chocolate to warm my heart. He’d already done it. “You really think we’re safe?”
“I would never put your life in jeopardy ever again, Brooklyn.” He put his hand on my stomach.
I loved when he did that. Like his love radiated through to the baby growing inside of me. We’d decided we didn’t want to know if it was a boy or a girl. That it would be a surprise we’d wait for. But I had a feeling it was a boy. And I prayed to God it came out looking exactly like Miller.
I took another sip of hot chocolate, and his words finally registered in my head. “Wait. What do you mean again ?”
“At homecoming. When Isabella…”
I laughed. “You’re joking. You can’t possibly still blame yourself for that. Isabella injected you with something and locked you in the closet. That wasn’t your fault.”
“I left my post because I was pissed. I walked out of the ballroom of that stupid hotel because I needed air. If I hadn’t left…”
“Trust me, I would have left too. If I’d seen you dancing with a bunch of other girls.”
He laughed. “I would never.”
I set my hot chocolate down on the coffee table and straddled him. “Never huh? You only want to dance with me for the rest of your life?”
“Us against the world, Brooklyn.”
I leaned down and kissed him. I kept thinking that one day he might push me away as my belly swelled more. That he might be repulsed by the sight of me. But that never happened. If anything, he loved me more.