27. Helen
I’m about ten gloriously short steps away from the bathroom when the clerk calls after me: “Inside ladies’ bathroom is broken, hon. You’ll have to use the one out back.”
Son of a preacher. I hope I can make it that far. “Okay, thanks!”
I hobble outside, attempting to keep my legs pressed together and not making very good progress as a result. Thad’s busy filling up the tank, so I don’t know if he can see me, but I make a waving motion and point behind the building to let him know where I’m going.
The bathroom is one of those creepy concrete things that is about a hundred yards back from the main building, which increases both its spooky factor (why is it so far away, is this the bathroom for plague victims?) and its inconvenience (again, why so far away?). At least we aren’t in Chicago, so I won’t literally freeze my tushy off, but it’s still an outdoor bathroom with no heat in February.
But it’s open and has a working toilet, and beggars can’t be choosers, so I relieve my poor, overtaxed bladder. Ah, sweet relief.
When I step out of the stall to wash my hands, I stop short.
There is a middle-aged man standing in the entrance to the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe. He’s on the shorter side but bulky, with scars on his face and neck, suggesting he’s not an accountant or bank teller. He smiles when he sees me, but it is not a nice expression, and one of his teeth glints gold in the fluorescent lights.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” I blurt out stupidly.
He straightens. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. My car’s right outside. You’re gonna come with me and get inside and not do anything stupid. And no one will get hurt.” He lifts his coat to show me the gun he has holstered against his hip. “Understand?”
My brain freezes at the sight. I’ve never seen a gun before. Not in real life. Based on TV shows and movies, it feels like they should be everywhere, almost commonplace, but I realize in this moment just how bizarre it is to see one up close and know it might be used against me.
“I understand.” I hear myself responding woodenly.
Another mean grin. “Good girl. Dean always said you were smart.”
“Dean sent you?” For a moment, I’m calmed by the thought. This isn’t some random man trying to kidnap me out of a bathroom. It’s a man who knows Dean, and who for some reason has followed me here. The distinction isn’t great, but it’s something.
“In a way,” says the man, with that not-nice smile, like he’s laughing at some joke that’s entirely at my expense.
I remember what Thad said about bad people coming after Dean, and any hope I feel about this being a gentler sort of kidnapping vanishes. He’s not here to take me to Dean. He’s here to use me as bait.
“You set off on this little road trip out of the blue, so I figured you and your boyfriend must know where Dean is. Think you can lead me to him, sweetheart?”
I don’t know which is worse: To tell him the truth, that yes, I think I might know where Dean is, and throw my brother to the wolves. Or to lie, and give this guy absolutely no reason to keep me around. Maybe if he believes I don’t know where Dean is, he’ll just leave me here.
But there’s also another alternative that does not end so well for me if he decides I’m worthless.
I make myself nod. “I can do that.”
“Good girl.” He reaches for me and I shudder, but obediently move toward him. “You are a good girl, aren’t you? You wanna help your brother get out of this?”
I nod again, more out of fear than agreement. I don’t want to do anything, especially in this enclosed space, that will anger this man.
“Good girl,” he says again, making my skin crawl. “I’m sure you’ll be able to help us convince Dean to give us back our Molly.”
The first coherent thought that snags my mind is the word Molly. I may have lived a relatively coddled life, but I know that Molly is another name for a drug—I think maybe ecstasy? Dean stole this guy’s ecstasy? I know from what Thad’s told me that Dean has been getting into worse and worse crimes, but somehow it’s still jarring to hear he’s gotten mixed up in the world of drugs. And now, apparently, I’m mixed up in it, too. Because somehow I’m meant to persuade Dean to give it back, and something tells me I’m not going to have a lot of say in just how I’m used to persuadehim.
Grinning with his gold-flecked teeth, the mobster grips my arm and leads me outside.
My mind is racing frantically, trying to figure out what to do next. My hope was I would see someone outside and be able to call for help, but there’s no one back here—except for another man, sitting in the driver’s seat of the car waiting for me. His expression, like the man holding on to my arm, is one of unambiguous menace. I don’t know for certain what they plan to do to me, but I know it isn’t going to be good.
I can’t let them get me inside that car. I know that much. I may have spent five years as a sister, but I was a sister in Boston, and we were trained to be wary of our surroundings. Never let someone get you into a car and take you to a second location. When in doubt, cause a scene.
So, I do.
I have no idea if anyone’s even close enough to hear me, but as soon as we’re out of the bathroom, I scream like my hair is on fire. Like I’ve opened my car to find it’s full of cobras. Like I’m swimming in the ocean and see a fin cutting through the water toward me.
I’ve heard you shouldn’t scream “Help me!” because people will ignore it, maybe thinking that you’re playing some kind of game, or maybe just not caring because you’re a stranger. According to our safety training, you should yell “Fire!” which is something more likely to bring people running. That might be good advice, but instead I find myself shouting the only word that I’m confident will bring someone racing to my rescue.
“Thad!”
I shout his name again and again, praying that he didn’t change his mind and go inside, or that he isn’t sitting in the car with the radio turned on, drowning out my cries.
And while I’m screaming, I make myself the biggest possible menace to hold on to. I kick. I hit. I scratch. I wave my arms like a windmill. I make my body go limp. I drag my feet. Anything I can think of to keep this man from getting me into the car.
I have at the very least succeeded in pissing my captor off. “Hey, cut it out! Larry!”
The guy in the driver’s seat starts to get out. Knowing I have to move quickly, I do the only thing I can think of and bite the arm of the guy who’s holding me.
“Ow! You bitch!”
He releases me and backhands me, hard. It takes me by such surprise that I lose my balance and hit the asphalt.
“Hey!”
I open my eyes to see Thad rushing onto the scene, his face like nothing I’ve ever seen before. He is a storm cloud, a vengeful god. He is shouting a string of swear words like a war cry. He is Achilles, demigod and powerful warrior, exacting his revenge on Hector.
The way he moves is incredible. I know, this is kind of a bizarre thing to notice as I’m lying on the ground after almost being kidnapped by two mobsters who are after my brother. Maybe I’m in shock? All I know is I’ve never seen anything like this before, outside of those WWE matches Dean used to watch when we were teens. Thad half rolls, half propels himself across the hood of the car so he can get to the guy who threw me down. He seamlessly transitions this into springing onto the guy and tackling him to the ground.
The mafia guy is pressed down flat on his stomach with Thad on top of him, but still I warn him, “He has a gun in his coat.”
Thad fishes it out and aims it toward the other guy, Larry, who’s been edging back into the car. “Stay right there.”
With the driver-side door still open, Larry starts the engine.
“Shit.” Thad scrambles to his feet, pulling the other mobster along with him, aiming the gun at his temple. “Helen, get behind me, now!”
I do as he says, and realize why as soon as I’m on my feet. There’s a very real possibility that the guy in the car will drive it forward and try to run us over. Thad’s gambling that he won’t want to kill the mobster Thad’s holding hostage, but it’s a bluff. There’s no way to know which way this will go.
For one tense, breath-holding moment, Larry stares us down. Then abruptly, he backs the car up, swinging it around so he can drive off. Before he rounds the corner, he reaches out and pulls the driver-side door shut.
“Shit,” Thad says again, but there’s relief in his voice. It would have been better, sure, if he could have apprehended the other guy, too, but at least we’re all still standing. “Helen, I need you to reach in my pocket and get out my phone. Passcode is 11-22-33.”
The mob guy snorts. “Original.”
Thad ignores him. “Call the police and tell them where we are.”
I move to do as he instructs. As I reach into his pocket, our gazes meet. Thad’s eyes roam over my face, searching, before catching my gaze again. He swallows. “You okay?”
My first instinct is to say something reassuring, to ease that almost furious worry on his face. But the mobster can hear everything we’re saying, and I was seconds away from being kidnapped. As the weight of this catches up to me, I realize if I try to say anything, I’ll burst into tears, and I really don’t want the mobster to see that. It seems important for some reason that he never knows just how much he scared me.
Thad must see all of this on my face, because he nods to me like he understands, and tightens his grip on the mobster as I take a few steps away to call the police. “Hello? I need to report an attempted kidnapping…”