Chapter Thirty-Three
Linden
Idon’t know if I ever truly fell asleep. I closed my eyes when the shadows passing by the windows felt haunting, and I buried my head against Avery’s hair at every faint creak or sound from outside.
I tried to put my mind to bed, but I spent more time stuck in a state of paralysis with a racing heart than I did with my eyes closed.
I should be livid at Jack for locking us in this room, but I’m afraid that I wouldn’t feel safer anywhere else.
What if he doesn’t come back?
I need him to come back. More than that, I want him here with me, and that thought feels like a betrayal when he’s done so much to destroy my trust.
But he saved us.
Over and over, he’s saved us. All the times he promised he would keep us safe don’t seem like an embellishment anymore. He was never overstating his desire to protect us.
I know now that he has the skill set that makes his promises all the more sincere.
“Mommy?” Avery’s soft voice wakes just after the windows begin glowing with the rising sun.
“Hi, baby. I’m here.”
“Mommy!” She buries her head against my chest, and we hold each other tight for a long time.
I don’t want to let her go, but Jack said we were leaving at dawn, and I have to put on a brave face for her.
“Guess what we’re doing today?”
“What?”
“Going on a trip!” I say as excitedly as I can despite the gaping hollow feeling in my chest.
“Where?”
“I don’t know, but Jack will tell us soon.”
“Mr. Jack is coming?”
“Yeah, he is.”
“Yay! I love Mr. Jack,” she squeals. I know her growing brain is still learning to sort out all of her big emotions, but I imagine being rescued by our neighbor last night had a big impact on her.
She’s always been fond of him, and now I’m afraid she’s getting too attached.
The lock on the door whirs just before the man himself opens the door. He’s dressed in his normal clothes. Jeans, T-shirt, and his low-fitted cap.
He seems to be in one piece. As if this is any other normal day.
“I have new clothes for you in the bathroom so you guys can freshen up. I can help if–”
“We’ve got it. How much time do we have?”
“About 25 min.”
“Okay.” I drag myself off the bed, and as soon as my foot lowers towards the ground, the throbbing becomes unbearable. My ankle is so sore, I can’t attempt to put pressure on my foot.
“I gotta go potty.” Avery hops off the bed and starts doing her little potty dance, and I know I don’t have time to stall.
“Go ahead, Avery,” Jack tells her and picks me up off the bed without letting me deny him this time.
I avoid looking at his stupid, serious, achingly handsome face the entire way as he carries me into the bathroom. A rolling chair that should be in front of a computer is sitting in front of the sink, and he sets me on it.
“Figured this might help for the time being. Doc said you should try to keep it elevated today and take it easy for about a week.”
I scoff. “Doc? Right.”
“For what it’s worth, I think he actually is a doctor.”
I look at him, and he shrugs. Does he even know if these men are who they say they are?
He leaves us to our business, and I don’t miss the water bottle and ibuprofen waiting on the counter, or our toothbrushes beside the sink.
The clothes he left are from our closet.
My favorite jean short overalls, my yellow top, and Avery’s favorite princess dress. Beaded bracelets, her purse, and a pair of flower-shaped sunglasses that she keeps in the kitchen for when she plays outside.
I try not to think about him rifling through my underwear drawer to pick out a new pair of panties, but my body can’t ignore it.
He picked out the ones that I wore the night I jumped him on his back porch, and my cheeks heat at the memory.
He also picked out a bra for me, though I wasn’t wearing one that night; I’m sure he didn’t want to assume.
I catch my reflection in the mirror before I know better of it. I look terrible. Bruised. Swollen. Spit out from the eye of a hurricane.
I can’t manage a shower, but I wipe every inch of myself with a wet rag until there isn’t a speck of dried blood or dirt.
“Ready, Mommy?”
“I guess so.” I scoot in my chair all the way into the hallway and wheel my way towards the living room, half expecting an entourage of men to be waiting.
I was prepared to yell at them to take off their masks before they scare my daughter, but luckily they’re nowhere to be seen.
Jack is in the kitchen, unsticking Avery’s drawing from the fridge.
He handles it carefully so it doesn’t rip, tucking the sticky part of the tape over to the back.
“Now what?” There’s a frog in my throat. Emotions that feel a lot like grief are clawing at me to get out. It’s not the house that I’ll miss, or our life here… But I know everything changes once we leave.
“Now, we go.”
“What about the rest of our stuff?”
He watches me warily as I stand stiffly and hobble to the door. “Packed what we could in the truck. I’ll replace everything else.”
I glance outside and exhale in surprise. The car that I left abandoned at the mansion is sitting in my driveway.
“Her car seat is installed in the backseat of my truck already. Your car is staying behind,” he says cautiously, seeing where my line of sight has gone.
“I know you’re heartbroken about that,” I mutter, and turn just in time to see a quiet smirk cross his serious face.
“We goin bye-bye?” Avery asks, clutching Jack’s leg.
I look at Jack fully this time, needing to hear him say it, and he looks back at me with nothing but certainty on his face.
“Yeah, we’re going. I need to check on one last thing, but I’ll get you settled in the truck first.” He doesn’t take his eyes off of my face as he talks, having a private conversation just between us two.
He’s searching for something… How I’m feeling, or maybe he can see all of the questions swirling in my head. All the things I won’t ask him in front of Avery.
“We have to go,” he whispers this time, telling me one thing for sure. It’s not safe here anymore.
With all of their money and resources, I’m afraid of what lengths Merrill will go to take my daughter from me.
I nod stiffly, and he picks Avery up to take her to the truck, but while he’s buckling her in, movement catches my eye.
A man at the edge of the yard walks along the property line before doubling back and disappearing. Another man with a mask.
“They’re Ghosts,” Jack says suddenly from beside me, making me flinch. “I’m a Ghost. We’re privately contracted operators. I sent out a distress signal last night, and anyone near this vicinity came to my aid.”
I look at the bandage wrapped around his bicep. “Because you got shot?”
He glances at his arm like he forgot it was there. “No, this is just a graze. I called for help as soon as I saw Avery alone in the pasture. I knew something terrible had happened if you two were separated… and I wanted all the help I could get.”
My throat feels too tight to swallow.
“And you trust them?”
“My boss only hires operators with strict tactical requirements. I know they are qualified, and they follow a code. But they also came in blind and without hesitation when I called… When I wasn’t sure if I would find you alive or dead… So yeah, I trust them.”
I can’t focus on the way he speaks about that moment. The sadness I hear in his voice feels too raw when I’m struggling to make it through the next minute.
“What code?”
“Eliminate evil. Protect the innocent.”
I search his eyes, and he lets me see everything. He doesn’t move away from me or shift his gaze like he’s done so many times in the past. “What happened at the mansion when you left here?”
He sighs, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m not sure you’re ready for the details.”
I scoff. “I thought we were past lame excuses.”
“I’m not making excuses. It was bad. Really fucking bad, Linden.” I can see the truth in his deep, emotion-filled eyes. He’s not lying.
“I need to know.”
“The Scotts were gone.”
“And?”
He looks at the ground and then at the sky. Whatever it is… He really doesn’t want to say it.
“Tell me, Jack.”
“Everyone was killed.”
“Who? The guards? I know you killed them.”
He shakes his head. “They eliminated all of the other staff. They were dead before we entered the house.”
“What? You mean the house staff? Weren’t they innocent?”
“Probably. But people like the Scotts don’t care about that. They only care about protecting their secrets.”
“How many?” I ask, horrified.
The housekeepers… The cooks… They were the only decent people in that house.
“13 staff members were found executed. All 20 hostages in the basement were also DOA.”
Bile rises in my throat. He was right. I wasn’t ready to hear what happened. 33 innocent people… Murdered.
“This is my fault…”
“No, it isn’t.”
“If I hadn’t seen what was in the basement, they’d all be alive. This happened because of me!” I cry, clutching my stomach. “Oh, God. What did I do?”
“They killed everyone to cover up their secrets. It wasn’t your fault.”
“But it is! I was the one who saw what they were doing!”
“Linden, we already suspected them. We were onto them. It isn’t your fault.
They would have done it at the sign of any threat.
” He grabs me by the shoulders to hold me steady as I slump against the door frame.
“I know how dangerous they are. That’s why we’re going to end this before they can hurt anyone else.
” He wipes the tears that escape down my cheeks.
“How? How do you end this?”
“The rest of the guards are dead, but we kept one alive to get intel from.” He stops, but I know there is more.
“Alive… Where?”
He nods over his shoulder towards my house.
“Oh, my God.”
“You’re never going back in there. These houses will be torched when they’re done.”
“Which guard is it?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know his name. Seemed to be a higher rank than the others.”
My spine stiffens. “I want to see.”
“No.”
“Jack, I’m not asking. I need to see who it is.”
He swipes his hand through his hair in frustration before righting his hat. “Fine.”
He keeps his truck running, and I motion to Avery that we’ll be one minute, but she’s preoccupied with a coloring book that Jack must’ve handed her.
“Before we go in, you need to prepare yourself,” he says, helping me hobble along.
“For what?”
“He’s not willingly handing us intel, Linden. We’re forcing it out of him.”
Torture?
“I can handle it.” My stomach disagrees.