Chapter 3 #3
“And that’s possible if anybody finds him,” Hayden noted, “but again, not your problem. I get that you don’t want to hurt anyone, but you also must understand he would not give you the same consideration, not again.”
“Meaning that if he sees me—”
“If he ever sees you again, you’re dead. That is a given. So, keep your concern and compassion for those who deserve it. None of these people in this kidnapping group qualify.”
“You really think they’re all bad?”
“They’re not good. They had a goal, and they left instructions for you to not talk anymore. I don’t know whether that was meant to be your death warrant or just multiple broken bones or to cut out your tongue. Several potential options exist with generic orders such as that.”
She gasped in horror at that, and he held up his hands, trying to calm her down.
“These people don’t play, and this is their world,” he reminded her.
“I’ve seen it time and time again where people misunderstood who they were dealing with, what they were, and what they wanted, only to have it all come crashing down when they found out the whole ugly truth.
Please, do not be one of those na?ve people. ”
She nodded. “I’m working on it.”
“Good,” he said. “For you to be a decent human being, you need compassion. You need empathy. You need heart. But these guys are out there killing, kidnapping, trafficking college students, running extortion games, and hurting families. Those aren’t the good guys.
They deserve to be punished for their crimes.
Think of the carnage they left behind. Think of their victims who didn’t get away. ”
She groaned. “I sound so na?ve.”
“Maybe a little,” he conceded. “Yet you want the truth to come out. You want people to know what happened. But you probably don’t want everybody knowing exactly what happened because you don’t want to be seen as a victim.
And that’s fine, but sometimes life doesn’t give us a whole lot of choice.
Just remember that you are a survivor, not a victim. ”
She nodded and just let him talk.
“Some things are going on here that we cannot control from here. We have to get out into the trenches and deal with it,” he explained.
“That’s where these decisions come in, and that’s where we make the hard plays.
And it doesn’t matter whether you agree or not.
These plays have to be made, and they almost never turn out the way we want them to be. ”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” she stated crossly. “Now, can we go get coffee? If you’re done with your lecture, that is.”
He burst out laughing. “I’m done.”
As they headed to the parking lot, she glanced around. “It seems very weird to think that they might still give a crap about me.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” he asked. “You got away—which is huge for you, but it’s also huge for them. You weren’t supposed to get away. They don’t know what you know, unless you told them something.”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t exactly a conversational meeting.”
“Did they talk to you at all?”
“Not very much,” she replied, staring at him. “I’m not even sure if they talked to me or just around me. Part of it was fear and part of it was me working on loosening my bonds, so I wasn’t really paying close attention to what they were saying.”
She shrugged, as if to shake off some evil. “I was so scared and so worried that I wouldn’t get out of there that I hyperfocused on doing everything I could to loosen my restraints. Then, when the opportunity came for me to bolt, I took it and ran.”
“Good,” he stated. “That’s exactly what you should have done.”
She rolled her eyes at that. “According to you, I did everything right.”
“According to me and anybody else in this industry,” he stated, “you absolutely did everything right. The first rule is to survive.” At that, he saw tears come to her eyes.
“You should congratulate yourself for what you accomplished. Don’t keep hounding yourself, thinking you were supposed to do something better or different because that’s the reality in this world. Survival is everything.”
“Got it,” she muttered. “And I did survive.”
“You did.”
“I’ll still have nightmares, won’t I?”
“Most likely, yes,” he replied. “Just as the police artist told you, chances are some of it will come and go. But some of it will probably stick around in your brain for a while, until you can work your way through the fact that you’re fine.
The hardest thing is often the what-ifs.
What if I hadn’t gotten loose? What if I hadn’t got past that guy?
What if I hadn’t done this or that?” He kept his gaze on her as he spoke.
“That’s what is likely to sit there and to haunt you for quite a while. ”
She stared at him, a sheen in her eyes. “Yeah, I can see that,” she murmured. “What a crazy world we live in.”
They got into the vehicle, and he drove to a coffee shop not too far away. He had located it online while she had been working with David. Even as they drove into the parking lot, she looked around, frowning. “This is quite busy, isn’t it?”
“Is that good or bad?” he asked, pausing in the vehicle before turning off the engine.
She turned to him. “I think maybe, for the moment, it’s a good thing.”
He smiled. “I thought you might prefer crowds right now.”
“Crowds but not crazy crowds,” she suggested. “I need some peace, and I need some semblance of order and safety. I don’t know what that’ll look like.”
“Let’s try this coffee shop and see how that fits into what you’re considering.”
And, with her in tow, he led the way inside. As he walked indoors, he realized that she stood nervously at the front door. He smiled at her and reached out a hand. “It’s okay.”
“But is it?” she muttered. “I mean, what if he’s here?”
He stared at her. “I would find that highly unlikely, but you’re right. So take a moment and just look. See if anything here bothers you. See if it looks safe because you should decide whether it is or not.”
She shot him a quick glance, and he nodded.
“I’m not kidding, enough things can go wrong in life, and we don’t want you going in blindly. If this doesn’t feel safe to you, then we move on and go somewhere else.”
She took several deep breaths and then walked into the coffee shop, glanced around with a shrug, and said, “I think it’s probably fine.”
“And, if you ever get a feeling that it isn’t fine,” he added, “we’ll change the place. We’ll just move and go somewhere else.”
She smiled at him. “You’re being awfully amenable. Why?”
“Was I an ogre before in our relationship?” he joked, but glanced at her curiously.
She shrugged. “No, but you were driven, focused on your career.”
“I was doing work similar to what I do now but not as experienced, not as elite. So, if that seemed as if I were driven, maybe that’s what it was. I don’t know. Yet I certainly felt that what I was doing was necessary and very important.”
“Oh, I get it, especially now. Maybe I wouldn’t have before, but right now?
I absolutely get it.” She sighed. “I had never even considered that this was even possible for work, but that’s because it was beyond my realm of consideration.
” She stared down at her hands. “Plus, I was just trying to get through my life while dealing with my father.”
As they sat down, a waitress showed up, filling the cups she brought with her. She pointed to the menu on the big board near the counter, then smiled at them and left.
Hayden asked Andrea, “Do you need food? We haven’t eaten at all.”
“Maybe,” she replied, looking up at all the menu options on the big board. “I guess food wouldn’t be a bad idea, would it?”
“No, not only would it not be a bad idea,” he shared, “I suspect it’s something that you really need.”
She smiled. “Okay, so I guess maybe a breakfast wrap for me then.” She made an offhand wave of her hand.
He nodded. “I’ll go order them. Be right back.” He got up and walked a few steps, then turned to eye her with concern. “Is that okay?”
She nodded. “I’m okay. You go do what you need to do.”
And, with that, he turned, headed to the counter, and quickly placed their order. He kept an eye on her just to see how she handled being alone in a crowd. After what she’d been through, she could experience various reactions.
The last thing he wanted was for her to have a full-blown panic attack while they were out for the first time since the creepy sketch came to life. That reaction would make it much harder for her to go out afterward.
When he returned to their table, she asked, “Will they deliver it to our table?”
“I’ll have to get it.” He smiled. “And you did just fine.”
She smiled genially. “It wasn’t a very big test.”
“It was big enough,” he stated. “Take everything in little steps. Remember that.”
“Right.” She glanced around and added, “It’s funny because I really wasn’t thinking about afterward. Once I got safe, I presumed that would be the end of it. I felt I was home free and just figured everything would go away. At least I hoped it would.”
He smiled. “There’s a whole lot more here than just hope,” he pointed out. “And we can work on whatever it is that’s still bothering you. The bottom line—”
“I know,” she snapped sharply, quickly looking away. “The bottom line is that I got away.”
“That is literally the biggest thing.”
“So now I guess I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I mean, do I go back home? Do I stay here? What?”
“You tell me. What is next on your list?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered, shaking her head. “That’s a huge part of my unknown right now. I don’t have a clue what to do.”