Chapter Forty-Four
O’Connor
“Where is he?” I grip Edmund’s hair tight in my hand, yanking his head back roughly.
“Don’t tell him, Edmund-” Merrill’s demand gets cut off as I fire a bullet straight through her temple. I’m tired of hearing her voice.
Edmund’s screams split my ear, but I only crank his neck back harder. “Where is your son?”
“Why? Why?” He cries like the pathetic piece of shit he is.
“You did this! You killed innocent people! Now where is he?”
“You’re going to kill me.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Then you can go to hell.”
My bullet explodes through his forehead. “Waste of my fucking time.”
I want to get back to my girls, but this wild goose chase for Turner is dragging this out. I stare at Merrill’s phone before picking it up and using her lifeless face to unlock it.
The open text screen has two messages.
Merrill: Bring the girl alive. Alone.
Unknown: Ok.
My boots are already thundering across the pavement.
Bring the girl. Alone.
I know what those words mean.
Bring the girl. Alone.
I’ve never bolted faster.
Bring the girl. Alone.
I can’t lose them.
Bring the girl. Alone.
* * *
I clear all four steps, hurling my body through the open doorway.
For as long as I live, I will never erase the image in front of me.
Linden’s horror-filled face as she screams for Turner to stop.
The gun in Turner’s hand, and his finger hooked around the trigger. A millimeter more is all it’ll take.
The blast from the gun.
Not his. Mine.
My bullet rips through the back of his head, and the air is sucked out of the entire room.
His body falls, and Linden’s scream goes down with him.
“Linden!” I dive towards them as her ragged gasps fill the room. I haul her body out of his grasp and cradle her in my arms. “Linden, baby! Talk to me!”
Her wide, terror-filled eyes are staring straight through me.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” I murmur, stroking her cheek, kissing her forehead.
Only then do her eyes shift back to life, flicking towards mine without even blinking. “Avery.”
Dread creeps in. “She’s not here?”
“They ran.”
I press my fingertips to my ear. “Eagle One. I need boots on the ground. Two innocents in the wind.”
“Copy.” The voice in my ear chirps.
“We’ll find them. Kay will keep Avery safe,” I assure her, hoping like hell that it’s true. Kay is a fearlessly maternal woman, but she’s 80 years old.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” She cries, curling into my chest finally. “I thought it was over.”
“I found Edmund and Merrill, and Turner wasn’t with them. I knew something was wrong. I got here as fast as I could.”
“He put a tracker in Avery’s purse. Even at his worst, I never thought he would be so evil. That bastard put Avery in harm’s way, again,” she cries painfully.
“I’m sorry, Linden. I never thought they could reach you here.”
She rocks her head back to look at me fully. “Is it over now? Are they all dead?” She asks dully, not a lick of remorse in her voice. Not anything.
“Every last one of them.”
She tips her head over her shoulder to look at the dead body beside us, and turns from it again. “Good.”
“Come on, let’s find your girl.”
She nods stiffly, staring vacantly past me, and I swallow back a lot of emotion that I’m not used to because I still have a job to do.
She’s in one piece, but she isn’t okay.
I bring her to her feet and use my shirt to wipe the rogue droplets of blood from her face before relaying into my ear-com. “I need a body removed ASAP.”
Her attention flits to mine, but she’s still unreadable.
“So Avery doesn’t have to see it,” I explain, taking her outside. Her gaze whips to the night sky when a helicopter flies over, spotlighting the neighborhood.
“I hitched a ride because I needed to get back to you fast. They circled back to look for Avery.”
Her face crumbles in fear and agony, but she nods.
“I need uniforms on the ground, locals. Anything you’ve got,” I say into my radio.
“Locals risk our operation.”
“I don’t give a fuck. I need bodies out here.”
“Copy.”
“Did they run out the front or the back?” I ask Linden.
“The back but…” She starts walking, and I fall in step behind her. Whatever her instincts are telling her is our greatest asset, and I’m just her shield.
Linden keeps walking down the sidewalk, and I scan the yards between the houses with the light on my rifle.
“There.” Linden points to the old brick building down the block that’s been there since I was a kid.
“The community center,” I say in relief. Of course.
“She brought us here today. I think Kay would know we’d check here.”
I nod in agreement. “Let’s go.”
We get to the building, but the doors are locked. That doesn’t mean anything, though. I’m sure Kay has a key.
“What do we do?”
“I could break the door in, but I’m afraid it will scare them.”
“I need to know if my baby is in here, Jack.”
“Let me try one thing, and if it doesn’t work. I’ll kick the lock.”
She nods, watching closely as I raise my fist and knock in a sequential pattern. Slow. Knock, knock–then fast. Knock, knock, knock.
“That was it? That was your grand plan?”
“Kay used to knock on my door like that when I was a kid to wake me up in the morning.”
“What if she can’t hear it? What if she doesn’t rem–”
The blinds on the windows in front of us shift slightly, and then spring open. Kay’s standing on the other side, shaking her head from side to side in relief.
“I knew you’d find us,” she says after she opens the doors.
“Where’s Avery?”
“I hid her under the bean bags in the reading corner.”
Linden takes off running, and I follow her because she seems to know where she’s going. I haven’t been here in a long time, and I don’t remember where each hall leads.
“Avery!” Linden yells as soon as she turns a corner.
“Mommy!” A bean bag flips to its side, and Avery’s head pops out.
“Are you okay?” Linden falls to her knees in front of her, wrapping her up in a hug.
“I otay,” her voice wobbles as she clutches Linden’s neck.
“I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to be scared like that again,” Linden cries.
“I wanna go home,” Avery murmurs, and Linden pulls back to look at her, swiping the hair out of her face.
“I, uh…”
“Mr. Jack! You’re home!” Avery calls out once she notices me over her mom’s shoulder. She doesn’t let go of her, but she reaches for me.
I kneel beside them, wrapping my arms around both of them. “I won’t leave again. You guys are safe.”
“You go home with us now, Mr. Jack?”
“Of course, I will.” I glance at Linden. “Do you mean Aunt Kay’s house? Or somewhere else.”
She nods. “Aunt Kay said I could have ice cream if I ran fast.”
Linden drops her head in relief, and Kay chuckles from behind us. “Yes, I guess I did say that.”
“You can have all the ice cream you want,” I tell her, kissing her head.
* * *
I can’t sleep. Not because I’m lying on the hard floor of my childhood bedroom, but because I can’t get the vacant look in Linden’s eyes out of my head from earlier.
I got everyone home, and Avery is fast asleep beside her mom in the sailboat bed, but I don’t feel like things are settled.
Their enemies are finally dead, but Linden is still being haunted by them.
I sit up from the floor, bracing my forearms on my knees, and glance over at them. Avery’s blonde hair is cascading off the side of the bed, and Linden is tucked behind her, resting her head on the inside of her arm.
Her eyes are closed, but after I rub my hands over my face and look at her again, she’s watching me.
We look at each other silently for several minutes, and I’m afraid that’s all it will be. I don’t know what she needs. I don’t even know what’s really going through her mind.
“I love you,” I mouth, looking at her deeply.
Her lips turn down in a frown, but she starts crawling slowly off the bed. I track her as she tiptoes towards me, and I open myself up as she plants herself in my lap.
Her arms entangle themselves around my neck, and I sigh in relief as she melts against me. I rub my hands down her back and her hair, around her hips in slow circles, soothing whatever I can with my touch.
Words are harder.
“Something that Turner said has been bugging me,” she whispers. “I mean, he said a lot of awful things, but he said that Avery’s blood was tainted.”
“They never did anything to her, Linden. I read all of the files. They documented everything. They never did anything but draw her blood and test it. She’s perfectly healthy.”
She shakes her head. “He said it because she’s a Scott.”
Even in death, Turner is leaving his mark on her.
“She isn’t like them. That name means nothing anymore. You guys never have to be associated with them again.”
“But what does that leave her? No family. No history. I can’t tell her about all the horrible people she comes from. I don’t want to think about all the lies I’ll have to tell her until she’s old enough to understand how fucked up the first years of her life were.”
“You will protect her like you always have, but this time there aren’t any new threats looming over your head. You will explain the truth one day, and she will understand because she will know you always did what was best for her.”
“When Avery asked to go home earlier, I didn’t even know where she meant. We have nothing to go back to. I have nothing to give her. What if she hates me for all of this?”
“She’ll never hate you. You two will always be close, and you’ll get through anything together.”
“I would have thought that was true about my mom, too.”
“What did they say happened when your childhood home burned down?”
She leans back to look at me. “I don’t know. Faulty wiring or something. It was an old house.”
“And you were freshly postpartum and had no reason to suspect anything malicious.”
“What are you saying?”
“Shit happens, but I think your parents are more victims of the Scotts. They wanted to make sure you had nowhere to run off to. They made sure your parents weren’t a threat to them. They didn’t want them having access to their granddaughter.”
“Oh, my God. You think they caused the fire?”
“Your parents’ home insurance was suspiciously downsized the month before the fire. It didn’t cover appliance fires. Your parents’ microwave spontaneously combusted.”
“All this time I’ve been angry at them for not making more of an effort. I was so mad they hadn’t come to meet Avery, but they were just struggling to survive like I was.” She hides her face in her hands. “How do I even fix all of this?”
“Well, you still have plenty of time to give your parents another shot if you want. And this time without fear from anyone else. You can do or go wherever you want, Linden.”
“I should go see my parents.”
“I think you’ll feel better if you did.”
“But then what? We just start over?”
“Whatever you want, baby.”
“What do you want?” She asks hesitantly.
“I want whatever will make you happy.”
“You make me happy,” she whispers.
“Good, because you’re stuck with me.”
“That’s not a bad problem to have,” she says softly.
My thumb traces her cheek lightly. “We can stay, you know? If you’re happy here with Kay. There are playgrounds. Schools.”
“You would want that? After everything you went through here?”
“The neighborhood has changed over the decades. What happened back then doesn’t define this place now. But I had good memories here, too, and I think Avery would do well here.”
“You really mean that?”
I nod. “We can make a home here. New memories. Good memories.”
“Do you think Kay will mind?”
“Aunt Kay has already started buying princess bedroom furniture; I almost guarantee it.”
Suddenly Linden smiles. Her head tips back and her joy illuminates from within, filling all of the hollowness I saw inside of her earlier, and filling my lungs with air now that I know she’s okay.
There will still be rough days, and I’m sure she and Avery will have to work through all of the trauma they’ve experienced… But they’re strong enough to get through it, and I’ll be beside them every step of the way.
“I know that Avery won’t ever be my daughter biologically.” Linden’s gaze drops to my face. “But I will treat her like she’s my own. I will take care of you both, and help you raise her. As far as I’m concerned, she’s mine. You both are, and have always been. No one will ever know otherwise.”
“A fresh start?”
“Yeah. And maybe a name change.”
“You want us to change our last name to O’Connor?” She giggles, and then goes serious when I nod. “This doesn’t sound like a marriage proposal.”
“It’s not… This is way more than that. I want to erase the name Scott from your life completely.”
“Like new identities?”
“Not new, not exactly. The same intelligence that they used to make me a Ghost can fix your paper trail. I can build off of a life that never involved Turner Scott. As if you were never married at all, and he was never on the birth certificate.”
“I don’t know, this sounds crazy when you’re saying it out loud.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” She’ll never be able to fathom the lengths I’d go to ease her burdens.
Her cheek lies heavily in my palm. “Can I have time to think about it?”
“I just need to know before I quit Project Obsidian.”