Chapter 21
GEORGIA
When Cora walks into the holding room and sees me, her face goes completely blank. Confusion is an enormous understatement.
“Geor—June!” she says, catching on quickly, seeing what I need without understanding anything else that’s happening.
They tell her the bond amount and ask if she’s willing to take me home.
She quickly and emphatically agrees, practically opening her purse to get her wallet out before they’re finished.
She doesn’t ask why I’m there. She just helps me.
Thirty minutes and some paperwork later, and I’m in her car with Avery asleep in the car seat that is still strapped into the back, driving back to that house. She lets the silence sit in the air until I’m ready to speak.
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” I say, my voice breaking. “I’m so sorry to involve you and have you do so much for me...”
“It’s absolutely no problem. Are you all right?”
“No. I’m not. I can’t... Please, I can’t go back,” I say, and I begin to sob.
I cry so hard I can barely catch my breath and Cora pulls to the side of County Road 8 and tries her best to calm me.
I can’t even speak to tell her anything else.
I’m just choking on my own sobs as I try to keep them quiet and not wake up Avery, but I can barely breathe.
“Shhh, it’s gonna be okay,” she says, taking my hands, rubbing my back. “Oh, sweetheart.” Her eyes well with tears, too. “What in the world is going on?”
After I get myself under control, I still have trouble breathing as the crying remains like hiccuped spasms in my chest. My face is hot, my eyes burn. I try to tell her.
“I have to get out of here. I can’t go back. It’s not safe,” I manage, looking at Avery and back to Cora.
“He’s hurting you. I knew it,” she says.
“It’s more than that.”
“What? What’s he done, what do you mean?” she asks, and I have no choice now but to trust her, to tell her everything. I cannot go back this time.
“He’s holding me there. He won’t let me leave,” I say, and I see the realization of it all hit her—why I never go anywhere and don’t socialize or drive or anything—that I’m not a recluse, I’m a prisoner.
“But...last week, you went to town,” she says, clearly second-guessing what she had just put together.
I explain the frozen camera and my attempt to get to the bank and escape.
I explain the other escapes, and how I got the ID off someone on a park bench and the times before that, but I always get caught.
And when I finish, I see her face, and I’ve never seen that look on anyone’s face before.
It’s shock and horror, but still confusion as to how it’s possible he could be holding me prisoner in plain sight. Her face is white and frightened.
“Why didn’t you tell the police? When you were there? We have to go to the police,” she says, ready to pull out and turn the car around.
“No, stop. Please. I know. I know it sounds like it should be that easy,” I say.
“He’s a judge. It’s his word against mine.
I called them once, and he had a good laugh with them about how unstable I was.
He has set me up as an unhinged, depressed person.
There are medical records, prescriptions, the police report when I lost it and they found me to be the volatile one.
They would have no evidence that what I’m saying is true.
Just a respected man’s word against mine.
Zero evidence. They’ll send me home with him, and he will kill me.
I have to get out—get far away—but I don’t have any money or documents.
I have nowhere to go. He’s made sure of that.
” I tremble and bury my face in my hands.
Cora turns up the heat in the car and grabs a folded-up blanket from the back and puts it around my shoulders.
“Okay, listen. We’re gonna get you out. Let me help you,” she says, and I look up at her, blinking, unbelieving.
“You’ll help me? You won’t call the police?”
“No, you can stay with me.”
“I can’t. Your family will know and I can’t—Someone will tell...they’ll slip or they’ll act nervous. The police might come by asking about me—Avery will—I can’t risk that.”
“We have a mother-in-law unit by the pool in back of the house,” she says. “Nobody has stepped foot in there in I don’t know how long. You can stay there. It’s far enough away from the house, you won’t be heard. Finn and Mia don’t have to know.”
“He’ll be across the street.” My hands are shaking so violently that she has to take them in hers again and hold them on my lap.
“This is why it will work. If he’s looking for you, he would never look there. Right? He’ll think you’re running as far away as you can. It’s just until we make a plan. I can pull out some money. We can find you a safe way to do this.”
I throw my arms around her neck and just let myself completely break down.
I thank her so many times I’m sick of my own voice.
I can’t believe it. I knew it would take making a friend to get help, someone who I could trust and not a stranger who would call someone or tell someone and get me killed.
He made sure I never got close enough to anyone for that to happen.
The camera glitch might be the only reason I’m here, that we were able to talk.
Her persistence in making sure I felt cared for, even though I never returned the kindness, is the reason I’m here. Can this really be happening?
When she begins to drive again, I feel sick the closer we get to that house.
“Do you think he’s reported you missing yet?” she asks.
“I’ve thought a lot about that,” I say, “and I don’t know.
Do they really make you wait twenty-four hours to report?
I don’t know. If he did, did I make it out of there with seconds left before the cops figured out the missing person was June/Georgia?
Maybe he won’t report it at all. He said if I ever got away he’d spend the rest of his life hunting me down, if that’s what it took, and he’d kill me. ”
“I can’t believe all this time you were just right there and I didn’t know...” she says, and as we pull onto our road, she gasps and makes a sharp left. I look behind and see a cop car outside of our house.
“Okay, don’t panic,” she says.
“Oh, my God, oh, my God,” I say, starting to rock back and forth, my eyes blurring with fear. She stops the car.
“Get out,” she says.
“What?” For a split second, I think I’ve been tricked, that she is part of this thing with Lucas. Then, she opens the hatch.
“Here’s what we do. There are blankets in the back.
Do not wake Avery up. Lay her in the back, and lie next to her.
I’ll cover you up. When we pull in, I’ll park in the back drive.
I will go out front to ask what’s going on so you can sneak into the guesthouse.
Got it?” she asks, and I nod, jumping out and unstrapping Avery gently from her car seat.
Cora pulls a key off her ring of keys and hands it to me.
“This is to the room,” she says. I take it and shove it into my pocket.
As I lay Avery down in the back, I watch Cora pull out the car seat and toss it next to somebody’s garbage can in the alley.
I would never have thought of that. Her grace in a crisis is really something to behold. She covers us up.
“Don’t worry. There is no reason for them to look for you in my car. You’re not a criminal. This will be fine,” she says. But I don’t feel like anything will be fine ever again. As she drives the few short blocks, I can hear my heart beating. I try to hold very still and take deep breaths.
“Shit,” I hear her say. “Okay, the cop just waved me over before I could turn into the back. Do not panic.”
I suppress a whimper as I hear her roll down the window.
“Oh, my goodness, what’s all this?” she asks so calmly it’s hard to believe. I feel bile rise in my throat. Avery pushes against me, making a small sound—the tiny whine that happens just before she lets out a wail. Hot tears spring to my eyes, and I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears.
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but we’re looking for a missing person. Do you live here?”
“Yes, right there. Who’s missing?” she asks.
“Your neighbor, it looks like. Georgia Kinney. Do you know her well?”
“Oh, that’s terrible. No, not very well. How long has she been gone?”
“Just a few hours, but...”
“A few hours? How is that missing? You had me worried.”
I put my hand over Avery’s mouth before she gives us away. My tears are hot on my cheeks as I push away the overwhelming feeling of guilt—that I’m hurting her, that I’m a terrible mother—as I keep her quiet.
“Look, her husband is certain something is very wrong, and he’s someone who wouldn’t overreact to this sort of thing, so we’re taking it seriously and don’t want to lose time.”
“Well, I will definitely keep a lookout and ask around,” I say.
“Thanks. We might have more questions later on,” he adds.
“Of course. You know where I am,” she says, and I hear the window close.
I feel the car pull into the alley and I exhale, taking my hand away from Avery’s hot, angry little face.
She howls and cries in overwhelmed hiccups.
I kiss her over and over and tell her it’s okay as Cora pulls into the back driveway and parks.
I dig in my bag for some candy to distract her and she takes it with wide eyes and calms down a little bit.
“It’s to the left on the other side of the pool.
Go. When they leave, I’ll come out to check on you,” she says, and then she gets out, clicks open the hatch ever so slightly, and when I hear her footsteps disappear and the back door open and close, I slide out the back and hike my bags over my shoulder.
I pick Avery up as gently as I can, and I try to steady my shaking knees as I walk the short path to the guesthouse.
I let myself in and lay Avery down on the bed.
It’s a tidy little space with a kitchenette and full bathroom.
The bed is covered with fuzzy pillows and a fluffy down comforter, and no matter how in danger I still am, I have never understood the feeling of safety as acutely as I do now.
I’ve never felt overwhelming relief the way I do right now.
I lie down next to Avery, and my mind reels with all of the scenarios where he finds me.
Could he suspect Cora of helping me, after finding Avery there that one time?
When I hear the click of the door, I leap to my feet and feel like my heart will explode. But it’s just Cora. She comes with sandwiches and bottled water. I cross the room to leave Avery sleeping, and we sit at the small table near the kitchenette. She pushes a notepad at me.
“Make me a list of whatever you need for a few days. We have plenty of food, but we’ll need diapers and any other things for Avery you can think of, toiletries, whatever. Finn is gone for the night, and Mia lives in her room, glued to her phone, so don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”
“I can’t believe what you’re doing for me. I really can’t ever thank you enough. I’ll never forget it,” I say.
“It’s what anyone would do,” she says simply, but it’s not.
“Look, I was actually getting a little bit worried about you...”
“Me?” Cora says, hand to her chest.
“You kept coming over. Lucas noticed. I don’t know what he is capable of outside that house. I could be paranoid. But he’s well connected and always tells me he could kill someone and make it look like an accident,” I say, fearing she might change her mind, but I need to tell her everything.
“Oh, if he came for me, I’d blow his head off,” she says matter-of-factly, and I can’t help but let a small laugh escape my mouth.
“And so can you,” she says, unlocking a cabinet and indicating the gun inside.
She hands me the key. “And there is an alarm on this guest house. My mom used to visit and insisted on it because she was afraid of her own shadow. Keep the blinds shut. You’ll be okay, and I can certainly handle myself,” she says.
“I can see that,” I say with a smile.
“You’re not alone now. We’re gonna get the stuff you need immediately, and we’ll sit down and work out a plan. We need to get you a phone tonight so you can call me if you need me. I’ll do that now.” She stands and goes to the door. She turns and points to the wall cabinets.
“Oh, and Georgia...”
I look up from Avery and back to her.
“Extra blankets are there. There’s cable, remote is there, and most importantly, there is wine in the minifridge.”
I stand up and walk over to her.
“Thank you. My real name is Nicola, by the way. Nicola Dawson,” I say and hold my hand out to formally meet her.
“I’m sorry?” Cora says, tilting her head in confusion. “Wha—I don’t...”
“I’m not Georgia. He wanted to make sure my family couldn’t find me, no one I loved could trace me, so...”
Cora closes her eyes and shakes her head, a compassionate and empathetic gesture, and then takes me in her arms and hugs me tight. “Oh, sweet girl. I’m so sorry.” She holds me for a long time and then says, “Nicola, I’ll be back soon.”