Chapter 10
Strong arms around her, pulling her backwards and away from the spot where Selene was being set upon by three people clad in what looked like riot gear. Hands were running up and down her, squeezing but not lingering.
“Hey! What the hell,” she exclaimed, swatting at the hands.
Byron’s face filled her field of vision as he rose from squeezing her ankle.
“You’re all right, thank God,” he said, pulling her roughly towards him and engulfing her in the tightest embrace she had ever experienced.
“I am, I promise,” she said. “I’m fine—I was worried about you! What happened!?”
Rough hands clamped around her upper arms and forced her away from him until she was staring into his face. His eyes were frantically searching hers and his expression was pure confusion.
“I’m sorry, what?” he said, his voice low and hoarse, “You get taken hostage, held at gunpoint, and you’re worried about ME!?”
“Well...” Abigail shrugged, “Yeah, I mean, I didn’t know what happened to you—you didn’t come barging in when Michelle was knocked out, so I figured you were either outside plotting something or you’d been hurt. Those were the only things I could think of that would have kept you from coming in after me...”
Byron’s eyes softened as he took in her words. His grip didn’t, though, and she soon found herself yanked back towards him into another hug. This time, he dropped his head onto her shoulder, and she could feel his ragged breathing.
“I’m fine!” Abigail laughed, then pressed her lips against his ear and whispered. “I promise, I’m all right.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t kick the door down,” he said quietly. “I wanted to, but first we were jumped by two of his guys, then as we got them under control, a swarm of cars arrived—silently, luckily. Someone got a tip off and they only arrived two minutes too late.”
The yelling was dying down, and Abigail could now hear the sounds of Clark, his hired lackeys, and Selene being arrested—none of them were happy about it.
Gently, she pulled herself away from Byron.
“Well, I have to be honest, I think it worked out for the best, don’t you?”
“How is this for the best!?” he asked, his eyes going wide. “You could have been killed, so easily.”
She nodded, the lack of a firing pin in the gun aside—Clark still had a working one stashed away.
“I know, but... I got it all,” she said, nodding down towards her chest.
“You got... what all?” Byron asked.
Abigail smiled, unable to resist a cheeky smile.
“One of Bee’s gadgets, and the only way I managed to convince her and Cleo to actually stay at the house while we came out here on our little field trip.”
She rolled her shoulder, causing the buttons on her shirt to shift. A shiny black dome, the topmost button glinted in the light in a way none of the other plain black plastic buttons did.
“You cheeky lot,” Byron said. “Is it even admissible?”
Abigail shrugged. “I was filming in public spaces for personal use—I was experimenting with my memory and I wanted to be able to have a sure record of what actually happened.”
Byron’s face split into a wide grin. “You’re amazing. How are you so level-headed and calm after all this?”
That made her laugh and she let herself fling her head back carelessly as she did so.
“I’m not! I’m seriously not,” she said through the laughter, “but I have twin girls who attend a viciously competitive school, I’ve learned to stay calm in the moment and freak out later.”
His smile dropped a little. “You know we’re going to be in the police station for hours, right?”
“Oh yeah,” Abigail said, “but after that, my place? We can put a movie on, and I can sob violently while stuffing my face with popcorn until I fall asleep?”
Abigail pressed her face into the palm of his hand as he raised it to cup her cheek.
“Sounds like a date to me,” he said quietly, a soft smile on his lips.
Despite her outwardly calm exterior, the adrenaline was still pumping through Abigail’s system, and she could feel her heartbeat drumming against her chest.
What the hell, she thought, if he doesn’t go for it, I’ll say it was the shock that made me act a fool.
“Only if I get at least one more kiss like that one in the hotel,” she said in a low voice. “Otherwise, no deal.”
She pressed herself up slightly onto her tiptoes, knowing exactly what the motion would do, and watched as Byron’s dark eyes lit up.
“Just one?” he whispered, leaning slightly towards her.
“I said at least one,” she corrected.
It was taking all her self-control not to collapse into him, crash her mouth into his, and just kiss him, but she wanted him to kiss her—and not just once.
He smiled, the hand on her face gliding around to cup the back of her head as he lowered his lips to hers and pulled her tightly against him with the arm snaked around her waist.
Electricity ran in pulses up and down the length of her body, and Abigail let herself be almost lifted from the ground as he pulled her even closer. When he let her go, it came as a bit of a surprise.
“Oh, sorry,” Michelle said, “didn’t know it was a nightclub. I thought it was a crime scene.”
Abigail’s face burned red, but she didn’t care—and as far as she could see, neither did Byron.
“I suppose it is a little unseemly,” Abigail admitted, glancing around at the obscenely large number of people milling around.
“Yeah, you’re making the SWAT guys blush,” Michelle said sarcastically.
Infusing as much meaning as she could into her expression, she looked back at Byron.
“We better had, you know, get on with things,” she said, gesturing around them.
Byron, too, was bright red, and the sight made Abigail want to laugh—but she thought better of it as they separated and straightened themselves out.
“Right, yeah,” he said, “I guess I’ll, uh, go check on John...”
“I’ve already checked on him,” Michelle said, “he’s fine.”
Abigail and Byron exchanged a glance but quickly moved on.
“Right,” Byron said. “You tell us then...”
“You come with me,” Michelle said to Byron, before pointing at Abigail. “You stay here with James. You two are probably going to be seeing a lot of each other.”
That didn’t sound good, Abigail thought.
Not that seeing Jacob would be a bad thing... but was she being paranoid, thinking that sounded ominous?
Jacob showed up next to her before she could voice any kind of concern, and Michelle had already taken off with Byron anyway.
“Hey... so, that was, uh... dramatic,” she said, smiling at her old friend.
He laughed as he nodded. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.”
From the corner of her eye, Abigail noticed some rickety chairs along the side of the warehouse wall. She gestured towards them, “I feel like we are going to be waiting a while…”
“That is definitely accurate,” Jacob said, “I think I could win gold for waiting by now.”
They slowly made their way to the chairs, various people stopping them to check in or ask where someone was. Eventually, they made it, and somehow, it felt like a heck of a lot further than ten feet.
“Twenty years, Jake,” she said slowly, “how did you last twenty years?”
Her old friend smiled at her as they tentatively took their seats.
“Time flies when you’re traumatized?”
Abigail caught her friend’s gaze. “I never believed you ran out on me, you know.”
It was true, technically. She had accepted the rumors, but she knew there must have been more to them.
“Or that I was dead, apparently,” he replied, “and we were kind of banking on that one.”
“Sorry about that,” she said, grinning back at him.
For a brief moment, it felt like it always had between them as they took each other in. After two decades, they were still goofy teenagers at heart. Abigail knew it wouldn’t last, so just let herself enjoy it until someone walking past jostled her with the large bag they were carrying.
“I am sorry, you know,” he said solemnly, “I knew we were doing something dumb, but I wanted so badly to be right... I feel like my stubbornness ruined your life.”
“Oh, no—absolutely not!” Abigail replied. “I love my life!”
He looked genuinely shocked. “You have a brain injury!”
Abigail smirked. “Yeah, so? I also have two gorgeous kids who I adore. The best co-parent anyone could ask for—weirdly, our divorce has actually meant we can stay friends, so don’t let that detract from the sum of the whole. A bunch of really cool friends—please, don’t feel bad. And if you insist on feeling bad, I’ll exploit it for information.”
Making Jacob laugh had always been one of her favorite things, and watching his sadness melt away as he snorted at her jab warmed her heart.
“Fine, what do you want to know?”
“What did he mean when he said I stole his gun!? How did we end up in the water?”
Jacob nodded. “Well, the first one is because you’re a bad ass. When they saw us, we had to run, he stepped in your way, and you punched him. You missed, hit his forearm instead, but you still really went for it. He dropped the gun and you scooped it up. I had no idea it was missing. I figured it got lost in the water.”
“Which water?” she asked, not wanting to lose this chance.
“Well... we jumped into the nearest car with keys in the ignition, you threw up out of the window as we drove away—very classy,” he teased, “but it was actually kind of fortunate. They chased us. I lost control of the car out by the lake. Because you’d had the window down, I was able to grab you out of the back seat and swim to the surface. Because we went into the lake, they lost us. Local cops picked us up. They told me later that they had relocated the car to a small pond or something. They waited for you to wake up to judge how much support you’d need—and if you needed to be in the program. When you didn’t remember anything... they figured it was better for you to stay in the world, no one knew who you were, or so they said.”
Silence, heavy with emotion and too thick to break for a moment. Abigail digested what he had just told her. In a weird way, it made sense, though she resented all the times she had been told the memory of the water rising around her had just been her imagination.
“Thank you,” she said, “for telling me. Getting answers has been... well, like pulling teeth. And... I’m sorry I didn’t remember. Maybe we would have made it if I had...”
Jacob shook his head, “not likely. They don’t like to keep people together unless they have to—like family.”
“We were family, Jake.”
He looked over at her and smiled. “I’m glad you’ve been happy. So have I, I think. Maybe after all this, I’ll be able to have my own life... if any of it works.”
“I have a sneaking suspicion that it will,” Bee’s bouncy voice broke into their conversation as she and Cleo approached where they were sitting.
“Oh?” Jacob asked, raising an eyebrow at her playfully.
“Yeah,” she said, “guess who called the tip in?”
Abigail pointed at her and Cleo expectantly.
“Give that lady a cannoli.”
“A cannoli? Isn’t it a cigar?” Jacob asked.
“Usually,” Bee said, “but I can’t stand smoking. Also, cannoli is more apt. We found out some more about the crash in Italy—the one your folks supposedly died in? Well, we found witness statements from the time that said half the people interviewed at the hotel they had been staying in thought something was up with your mom. She kept loudly telling people your father was an alcoholic who never let her drive. Then their car showed up with one burned to a crisp and the other very easily identifiable as your dad? Nah. I knew something was up with that.”
She flinched as Bee spoke and turned to watch Jacob’s face for some hint at his reaction, but despite the performance he had given his mother earlier, he seemed very calm indeed.
“Wow, that’s really heavy...” he said, “but what made you think she was here?”
Bee and Cleo glanced at each other guiltily.
“What!?” Abigail insisted.
“I may have volunteered you for some yard work at MR Fletchers, next door,” Cleo said, “while he was fussing with something in the other room, I kind of... stole his video doorbell camera footage. When I saw her walk past and casually swan up to the house, I recognized her straight away. I didn’t ‘know’ so to speak, but it felt.... like the right thing to do.”
“Did you get it all?” Bee asked, pointing to Abigail’s chest.
“Bee!” she exclaimed, crossing her arms. “I haven’t had the chance...:”
“You were filming the whole thing,” Jacob said, smiling, “don’t look so shocked—I have a lot of time on my hands and, for some weird reason, spy cameras, covert surveillance, and all that nonsense is of particular interest to me...”
She burst into peals of relieved laughter, “Oh, thank goodness, I really did think you were going to yell at me then...”
“Why do you think I asked Clark such specific questions—got him to correct me about the victim’s name?”
Abigail grinned at Jacob, “You really are brilliant, you know.”
“Thanks, Abs. That actually means something coming from you,” he winked at her, laughing playfully before adding. “Oh look, it’s your boyfriend.”
They all looked in the direction he was pointing in and saw Byron.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said, feeling herself blush.
“Well damn, Abs, if he’s not your boyfriend, I hope you don’t make out with casual acquaintances like that....”
“Make out!?” Cleo exclaimed, “Sorry, but who’s been making out!?”
She sent Jacob a playful glare, “You always get me into so much trouble.”
“Come on, they need to talk to you all down the station for official statements—and to get a copy of that video,” Byron said, ushering them all towards the door.
He grabbed her wrist as she went to walk past him, and the contact sent a bolt of heat up her arm and into her stomach.
“Did I hear your high school sweetheart talking about you making out with someone?” he asked. “Should I be jealous? I mean, I know we haven’t even been on a date yet...”
Abigail could see that he was joking with her and, for the second time, decided she was just going to jump in the deep end.
“He thinks you’re my boyfriend...” she said, teasingly.
Byron’s eyebrows went up, but he smiled and leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“Well, I’m not going to argue with a smart guy like that...”