Chapter 15 Megan #2
Ric walks around the counter and opens the wall cabinets for me to view the contents.
It’s a cake maker’s paradise. Gio did this for me?
I don’t know how, or when—we only decided to relocate here yesterday—but somehow, he made it happen, and the flush of love spreading through me reinforces my belief that he’s still alive.
I glance at Ric, and he doesn’t need to say anything. He’ll give me the details later, when Amber isn’t around to hear them.
Is this it? Is it all over? Will we be able to get on with our lives now without constantly looking over our shoulders? Will I ever get used to living without that fear?
A sweet buzz of joy passes through me, and I have the urge to run outside and scream myself hoarse to let it all out.
“What cakes shall we make then?” I ask Amber.
“Mountain cakes.” She doesn’t even look up from her near-empty plate.
“Mountain cakes?” I raise my eyebrows at Ric; this must be his idea. But he shrugs in response.
“There are mountains outside.” Amber says this like she’s informing me that it’s raining. Again. “So, we need mountain cakes.”
I get up and cross the living room to the bay window.
The view takes my breath away. We’re surrounded by vibrant green mountains, giant sunflowers and carpets of white daisies leading towards a glassy lake down below.
Some peaks still have snow, and I imagine how beautiful Stowe must be in the winter.
I remember now that Amber said she wanted to build a snowman, but when I turn around to look at her, she’s still coloring in her book, still eating her waffles, unfazed by the lack of snow.
“It’s beautiful.”
Would it be quite so spectacular if we were still on the run from Amber’s father? I guess it would cast a shadow over the view, but Vermont is stunning whichever way you look at it, and I don’t know how I got so lucky.
Ric is still leaning against the counter.
“Can we go outside?” I ask.
I’m aware that I’ve been wearing the same clothes for twenty-four hours, and that I need to shower and brush my teeth, but I feel like a kid on vacation who wants to cram everything into the first day and then crash.
Amber stuffs the last morsel of her breakfast into her mouth and climbs down from her seat. “I want to go outside.”
Ric sets his coffee cup down on the counter and heads for the front door. “Let’s go get some fresh air.” He addresses me. “I think we should leave the exploring for another day?” The sentence rises at the end like he’s asking for my approval, and I nod.
That’s when the fear starts to crawl back in.
Perhaps I’ll never be able to let it go, but I sense there’s plenty Ric isn’t telling me.
After living in the city, taking a deep breath in Stowe is like sucking in pure oxygen. I cough, my eyes watering as Amber runs around the cabin with her arms raised above her head, letting off steam.
The cabin is at the foot of a grassy mountain with perfect views of the lake resort below our elevated position.
Other cabins are dotted around the hillside, surrounded by private gardens filled with wildflowers and trees the name of which I have no idea, strategically placed to give the occupants privacy.
Movement in the sky catches my eye, and I glance up to find a cable car ferrying people up to the peak of the tallest mountain.
“The SkyRide Gondola,” Ric says, tracking the cable car with his eyes. “That’s Mount Mansfield, the tallest mountain in Vermont.”
“Do people ski down it in winter?”
“Sure, this is typically a winter resort.”
He’s wearing his tour guide hat again. But I can’t stand here soaking up the fresh air and acting like I’m a tourist with nothing more to think about than which hiking boots to wear. Not when I have no idea where Gio is.
Amber runs past us, circling the cabin like a kid who has never seen grass and mountains before.
Well, to be fair, she hasn’t seen mountains in real life before, but I love her reaction to the sheer freedom of running around with no one telling her to watch where she’s going or to stay away from the road.
I’d run and shout and wave my hands in the air too if Ric’s silence wasn’t scaring me so much.
I wait until she’s out of earshot before I speak. “Ric, is Gio…?”
Alive? I can’t bring myself to say it out loud.
“He’s safe, Meg.” He faces me then, perhaps so that I can see that he’s telling the truth.
“But?”
“But The Fi—Amber’s father got away.”
The world spins like a carousel, and it takes me several moments to catch my breath and bring the clear blue lake back into focus.
It isn’t over. He’s still out there somewhere, and we’ll never stop trying to get away from him.
Goosebumps pop on my arms, and I rub them briskly to keep myself warm.
The sun is peeking out from behind the mountains, and the only clouds in the sky are the wispy ones like dandelion puffs, but the scenery has already dulled with this information.
“Is Gio hurt?” My voice is dull, the words clambering to be left unspoken.
“He’s fine. He doesn’t want you to worry about him.”
My relief is short-lived, soaring like a gull above the waves and then dipping again to face the next problem. “Does he know where we are? Amber’s father.” Ric almost called him something else, but I’m not sure what it was.
“No, Meg. I wouldn’t be letting Amber run around like this if I thought that he’d followed us here.”
He’s right. I can still hear Amber when she’s behind the cabin, but it only takes a moment for someone to snatch her and run away with her. I need to get as much information out of him as possible while she isn’t listening.
“So, what do we do now?”
It’s obvious that we can’t stay here indefinitely. I was so caught up in the excitement of escaping the city that I forgot to ask what our next steps would be once we made it here.
“We sit tight.” Ric stares straight ahead, his expression neutral, as if we’re discussing where to eat dinner tonight.
“The other cabins—that’s where the rest of the security team are staying.
There are no tourists on this part of the mountain.
No one will even get close without us knowing about it. ”
That’s what Gio said in New York, and Amber’s father still slipped through the net.
“You think he’s going to try though, don’t you?”
“We’re not taking any chances, Meg.”
“Okay, so are we allowed to look around or are we going to be trapped inside the cabin?”
I mean, there are worse places to be imprisoned, but Amber is a five-year-old with extreme levels of energy. If we’d stayed in London, we’d still be living our lives as if her father didn’t exist. I’d be working in the cake shop. Amber would be going to school.
And I would never have met Gio.
“The boss wants you to enjoy the resort, but we can’t let you go anywhere without a team of bodyguards. You understand.” It isn’t a question.
“What will happen if he finds us?”
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but forewarned is forearmed, or so they say. I’d be happier if I was oblivious to what was going on, but Amber’s life would still be in jeopardy, and I would never forgive myself if I didn’t do everything in my power to keep her safe.
“We’re going to set you up with a panic button. Keep it with you, even when you’re in the shower. If you see anything remotely out of the ordinary, you press it, and we’ll get you out of the situation before you can blink.”
Deep breath. My pulse is never going to stop racing.
“Where are you staying?” I felt safe with Gio in his New York apartment, but now I feel more exposed than ever.
“In the cabin with you and Amber. He won’t get in.” At least he doesn’t add “I promise”.
“And if he does?” I meet Ric’s gaze. “Just trying to cover all bases so that I understand the process.”
“You hit the panic button.”
I peer behind me at the open door of the cabin. “Is there another way out?”
He hesitates. “There’s a hatch in the floor of the guest bedroom.
It will take you to a secret bunker. If—and it shouldn’t come to this, Meg—but if he finds the cabin, you take Amber to the bunker and you wait there till we come for you.
Don’t be a hero and climb out of a window.
There’s nowhere for you to hide out here. ”
I’d been holding it in, the fear, but now my knees feel like they’re going to give way and leave me in a sloppy quivering mess on the path outside the cabin.
How has it come to this, hiding in a bunker? This kind of thing only happens in the movies, in thrillers where you know the heroine is going to have to kill the monster if she wants to escape. It doesn’t happen to ordinary people.
“How will I know it’s you if I’m stuck inside a bunker?” I have visions of heaving open a heavy metal door to find Amber’s father grinning at us with his dead eyes and his wonky front teeth.
“We’ll agree on a password.” Ric sighs. “It’s a last resort, Meg. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The promise is missing again, and that’s what I remember when I head back inside the cabin with Amber.