Chapter 25 #2
He’d parked his car on the access road along the south boundary, pulled off into the grass where it couldn’t be seen from the house or the county route. He’d known exactly where to put it. He and those damned drug runners could’ve compared notes.
He opened the passenger door and shoved me in. “Don’t fight me, Eleanor. You’ll just end up hurt.”
I bit back a cry of pain as he grabbed both my hands and jerked them toward him. The zip tie bit into my wrists as he cinched it tight, and then he was in the driver’s seat and the doors were closed and we were sitting in silence with the car pointed toward the barn.
“I didn’t want it to go this way, Eleanor.
” His hand settled on my left forearm, just above the tie.
He wasn’t squeezing, just holding, the way he used to hold my wrist at dinner parties, his fingers wrapped around the bone, letting every person at the table know I was his.
“I tried everything. I tried to be patient. I tried to be understanding. I tried to give you the space to figure it out on your own.”
“Let me go, Carter. What we had is over.”
“Don’t say that. We can have our lives back. I need you to understand what I’ve done for us.”
His voice was measured and calm, and the calm was what scared me most. Carter was most dangerous when he was composed, when the violence lived in the logic instead of the volume.
“Do you remember the Whitfield Foundation?” he said. “Last fall. You applied for that grant, and you were so confident about it. You told your little banker friend it was a sure thing.”
I hadn’t told anyone how confident I was about that application. The fact that he knew sent ice down my spine.
“I called their program director. Expressed some concerns. Financial mismanagement, instability at the leadership level, questions about whether the organization was really viable long-term.” He shrugged. “A few conversations with the right people, Eleanor. That’s all it takes.”
My chest constricted. The Whitfield grant had been the first to fall through, nine months ago. I’d been told the committee went in a different direction.
“Then Breckenridge,” he said. “Same approach. Different people, same result. Donor relationships are fragile things. A few well-placed doubts, and suddenly nobody wants to fund a risk.”
Two grants. Two applications I’d poured weeks into, two organizations that should have funded me based on five years of documented outcomes.
“Montana Rural Services was the easiest one.” He was watching my face now, reading the impact of each name. “I barely had to do anything. By then, your reputation was already damaged from the first two. Word travels in those circles.”
I stopped breathing. It all made sense now. Grants I’d had no problem getting for years drying up.
“You killed my grants. You’ve been following me.”
“I redirected the conversation. Every dollar those organizations sent you was another reason to stay here, and I needed you to run out of reasons. And I needed to know when it was the right time to bring you home.”
Three grants in a row. Three applications that should have been funded, three doors that closed without explanation. I’d told myself it was bad luck. I’d told James at the bank that I didn’t understand what was happening, and it had been Carter the entire time.
“And then the Pinnacle Property Group.” He said the name the way someone would announce a business deal.
“That’s mine. I created it all by myself.
Bought your second mortgage through an investment vehicle no one could trace.
Every letter you received from Pinnacle, every payment demand, every legal notice—that was me, Eleanor. ”
He looked at me as if waiting for me to tell him good job. Way to think outside the box!
He was unstable. His grip on reality obviously slipping. I needed to get out and away from him before we started driving. The door handle was to my right. The zip ties were tight, but my hands were in front of me. His grip on my left arm was tight, but I could break free.
But I’d only get one chance.
“I invoked the acceleration clause myself,” he said. “I had to! You’d started making payments again. Getting your feet under you. Getting more confident about your decisions. The birthday parties, the bookings. I couldn’t let you stabilize.”
“No, no, of course you couldn’t.” I needed to tell him what he wanted to hear. Get him to relax.
“I’ve been around here for a while, Eleanor.” His voice dropped, quieter, almost gentle. “On this property. Multiple times. I watched those drug runners use your back road for weeks. Nobody was watching the back of your land while those men were here.”
He leaned closer. “I watched those cameras go up for the raid, and I watched them come down after. You have no security. Nothing between you and me except forty acres of grass and some stupid animals.”
He’d been watching me. On my property. For weeks.
How could I not have seen him? Sensed something off?
“You don’t know how to keep yourself safe. But I do, don’t worry.” His hand moved from my forearm to my jaw. He turned my chin toward him, redirecting my attention the way he used to across restaurant tables, from whatever I’d been looking at to him.
“Everything I did was for us. You can see that, right? I know you can if you just listen to logic. If I can get you away from this place and this ridiculous job, you’ll remember who you are. We can start over. You’ll thank me.”