Chapter 6 Collette
Panic. I couldn’t panic.
Ian didn’t want me dead. I tried to reassure myself, but it was hard to hear over the buzzing in my head. Ian Holdt had no reason to want me dead. These events were all a bizarre series of lucky breaks, ending with me getting this job.
No, not luck. I had no idea what Ian actually wanted me for, but something was wrong with the ‘luck’ scenario. Nothing had happened like I’d expected. I thought I would’ve been shown to a desk and given tasks, and when nobody was looking, I’d snoop around.
The windows in the SUV were blacked out, like completely opaque. Not only could no one see me, but I couldn’t see where we were going. The glass partition was up, making me essentially blind. My mouth went dry, and I locked my knees so they wouldn’t shake as I closed my eyes. If I couldn’t see, then maybe my other senses would kick in. Hopefully, I'd be able to pick up something about the direction we were headed in case I needed to run for my life.
The tires made a familiar rumble as it went over a bridge. The only question was which bridge was it?
I wasn’t as familiar with San Francisco as I’d been with L.A.
Oh, Andy… Memories assaulted me as I held in the tears. They came unbidden and at the worst times. The darkness made them more vivid now, little slices of my life, with a side of regret.
He’d been the one to leave L.A.
I’d only been to his place twice over the years. Most of the time he’d visit me wherever I was living at the time.
Now that I thought about it, he’d always been the one who reached out. He’d made sure that he was in my life. My heart clenched, and I locked my jaw to prevent my mouth from quivering. I couldn’t sob now.
Protector, older brother, friend, and more, he’d filled so many roles. It hadn’t even occurred to me how much stuff he did for me.
He never let me down.
When I’d had a huge test for a professor that I'd hated and it was a pass or fail for the class, the doorbell would ring.
There Andy would stand with my favorite food—fried dumplings.
“Hey there, Lettie. Got something to help you cram.” He’d hold out the bag to me, shaking it back and forth with his big brother smile. The smile he only shared with me.
The food had helped me to cram for the test, but I’d felt so much better that he’d shown up. I always felt better when Andy was around.
“Give me those flashcards. Let’s make sure that you pass this test.” He’d worked with me most of the night until we’d both crashed, high on knowledge and sugar.
The test hadn’t been nearly as hard as I’d thought, or maybe it was just all the good study help I’d had.
I smiled fondly at the memory.
Andy had always had a way about him that made learning easy. He should have been a teacher. It would have suited him perfectly.
It had never crossed my mind how much he’d given up to be there for me. Not until he was gone.
He'd always known when I'd needed him the most. It was as if he had a radar that alerted him whenever things got sticky. I'd never had to ask or question him. He dropped what he was doing, and he was there.
Before meeting him, there'd been so many homes over the years, they all started to run together.
Every move started with a pattern that I knew in my sleep. Collect all of the things I claimed as mine; clothes, shoes, sometimes a stuffed animal I managed to keep hidden, everything went into the black trash bag.
Foster children didn’t rate suitcases. We had to go with whatever was the most convenient. Sometimes, the only thing we left a home with were the clothes on our back. Nothing was fair in life but I’d gotten used to how the system worked.
The social worker would pull up, I’d get in the car and be taken to a new place. Some were nice. Others weren’t quite as nice, and not just in the type of home or neighborhood.
A shiver went down my back at an unwelcome memory of a few of the homes I’d stayed in.
But the best memory I could ever have was the first time I’d met Andy. Bitterness might have taken over my life if it hadn’t been for him.
It had been my first night in the new home. I'd been so nervous. The situation that I’d been pulled out of wasn’t great. It had made me more cautious.
The first hours after arrival in a new home were always the most vulnerable. Any other children would try to test the new kid to see how much they could get away with. This time had been no different.
Forced into flight or fight situations more times than I could count, I assessed the situation—ready to flee if necessary.
“Guys, knock it off. She shouldn’t have to put up with your pranks until she can get you back with her own.” Andy stepped between me and the other two boys. They were both a lot younger than me, but together, they would have made my life miserable.
I kept my eyes on the ground. It was better to not make eye contact with bullies. They took that as a challenge. I wasn’t in a position to make waves. It was better to just stay in the shadows and not draw attention to myself. I hoped this house would be better than the last, but it was smart to be ready for it to be worse.
Andy noticed my anxiety. “This family is pretty good. It’s not a bad place once you get used to it,” he'd assured me. “They won’t let anything happen to you here.”
Somehow, he’d known that there had been other places where bad things had happened. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was in the system with me. There wasn't a foster kid that didn’t have a bad placement story to tell.
“I’ll be right outside your door. Then you won’t have to worry about anyone coming in or trying to bother you.” He’d winked at me. Not in a bad way, but like a fellow conspirator.
His intervention was the only reason I’d been able to sleep that night. It normally took weeks before I would settle into a new home, but Andy somehow made me feel safer.
I’d checked more than once during that night. He’d been right there with his back against the door, protecting me. I often wondered why he took on the big brother role so instantly with me, and not with the others. But I'd been too chicken to ask. I had to deal now with never knowing the answer.
I’d been so grateful to find someone who had my back.
The Bakers had been thrilled to have me join their family. Taking care of small infants and toddlers was hard and having a built-in set of babysitters made their lives easier.
We’d spent hours playing with the little ones, and all the love we’d missed out on as children was transferred onto the ones that needed it the most.
Now he was gone and would never marry or have children of his own.
The darkness wrapped around me, making the memories brighter, the pain deeper. I inhaled and wrenched my mind to the times he'd given me so much joy.
College graduation day. Excitement at finishing this chapter of my life, but sad there wouldn’t be anyone to cheer me on.
The Bakers, my longest term foster parents, had other obligations for their younger foster children. They’d been so kind to let me into their home in the first place, but they’d never really been my family. I hadn’t expected them to show up to my college graduation.
No one else had developed into a long-term friend besides Andy. By this time I’d grown used to being alone.
Each person graduating had been given four tickets, or six if they could find someone that wasn’t using theirs. I’d given mine away. There was no point in keeping them when another family could see their special child graduate.
So it had been a shock when someone screamed my name as I crossed the stage to receive my diploma.
Andy had arrived just in time. He hadn’t told me he was coming in case something had happened and he hadn't been able to attend. He'd made up for it when he'd mobbed me after I’d stepped out of line when the festivities were over.
I threw my arms around him in happy shock, only to have him pop one of those confetti bombs over me.
There'd been confetti everywhere. In my hair, down the front of my dress, in places I didn’t think were possible.
We laughed, and it was one of the happiest moments in my life.
He’d made one of my classmates take our picture together.
Then at everyone he met, he’d yell out, “This is my baby sister. She just got her degree.”
He kept hugging me and devoted all his attention to me. He wouldn’t go longer than ten minutes before he’d tell me how proud he was of me.
He’d splurged for a special dinner at a fancy restaurant with all of the extras.
I hadn’t questioned it. He’d just gotten a new job, and I didn’t want to take away from the specialness of the day by asking about finances.
Now, I was curious.
Where had he gotten that kind of money? It had to have cost him a good three hundred dollars for that one meal. Money that wouldn’t have been easy to come by.
I squeezed the bridge of my nose to keep the tears back. Showing up red-eyed and frazzled was not what I needed to do.
I’d just taken everything about Andy for granted.
His killer couldn’t get away with it. I had to prove that I was worth his love.
There would be more stuff he’d kept secret even from me. I wasn’t naive enough to think he’d told me everything. There had been girls and jobs he’d taken that I’d had no idea about until they were long over. I might have been his sister, but he’d known more about my life than I’d known about his.
Andy was a survivor. He would've done anything if he thought it would help him get a stable foothold in the world.
I was a horrible person to think that. I squeezed harder to stop the tears.
Toward the end, I'd been so busy. I silenced so many of his calls with a promise to myself that I’d call him back tomorrow. Now I had run out of tomorrows.
Our regular monthly get-togethers had been pushed to the wayside. We’d only managed a few calls that lasted minutes instead of hours.
Grad school was not kind to the lives of students.
Each week had been filled with classes, huge papers, a thesis, and working as an intern for a starter company. I’d barely had time to breathe.
Those were just excuses, though. I should have noticed that Andy wasn’t going out of his way to find me or come over as often.
My head had been so full of other stuff that I hadn’t seen the obvious. Andy was doing something he hadn’t wanted me to find out about.
I hadn't believed Ingrid when she’d arrived on my doorstep to deliver the news. I had dialed his number one last time, only to have some federal investigator answer it instead.
The SUV stopped. The driver opened my door, and I stepped out, nerves jangling, blinking in the sudden light. After the long dark, it dazzled me.
A cabin sat surrounded by trees, secluded and alone in the middle of what appeared to be a forest. It gave off a forlorn appearance though it looked well maintained.
I guess most getaway cabins were located in the middle of wooded acreage, but this one gave me the impression of being more isolated than normal.
Maybe I was imagining things, and this wasn’t somewhere I could scream for hours without a soul to hear me.
My heart thumped. Why did this suddenly feel so Silence of the Lambs?
Or, it could be because he’d killed my brother? There was no rhyme or reason to it. It made absolutely no sense. What could he possibly want with me here?
Running water sounded in the near distance.
Crickets chirped.
The sound of a helicopter roaring was the only civilized thing in this wilderness location.
A helicopter could be one way to escape if I needed to. If the pilot wasn’t on Mr. Holdt’s payroll.
The driver stood next to me as I watched the helicopter land on a cleared out space near the driveway.
Ian Holdt stepped out, followed by his bodyguard, Rossi.
I hadn’t realized that Rossi wasn’t in the vehicle with me. I'd thought he was up front with the driver. I needed to pay more attention to his whereabouts. Escaping when I was done depended on how closely Rossi watched me.
Mr. Holdt didn’t strike me as the type to do the dirty work himself, when he could just order it done.
If they were going to come out here anyway, why couldn’t they have just flown me over as well? I wouldn’t have been able to recognize anything blindfolded in a helicopter.
Frightened that I’d missed vital pieces of information, I vowed not to make the same mistake again.
The secrecy seemed a bit of an overkill to me. Did it matter if I knew where I was right before they murdered me?
This was Holdt's deal though, and if I wanted to find out the truth, then I needed to play his game.
Mr. Holdt approached, then motioned for me to walk in front of him.
My stomach sank.
What if they already knew about my connection to Andy and were simply bringing me here to get rid of me?
All that stuff about a job might have been their way of covering their asses before offing me.
What if I never left here alive?
Andy’s face the last time we met, smiling at me over a beer, flashed before my eyes, and I straightened my back with determination.
Whatever needed to be done to bring his killer to justice, I would do it.
The cabin door squeaked as I opened it—an ominous and foreboding sound which didn’t reassure me about my fate.