Infinite Possibilities

Chapter Fifteen

Meg’s words hang in the air and she stares at me expectantly. I’m not sure what she expects me to say or do but I have a fleeting memory of the moment Liam had ripped the center of my dress with the dagger and I can almost feel the gentleness of his touch and kiss when we’d finally landed on the mattress. To me, Liam Stone is a man of infinite possibilities, but all of them still equate to one simple fact. He’s the man I love.

“We have to do this on our own,” Meg insists when I apparently don’t speak up soon enough.“We can’t trust anyone.”

“We don’t even know what they want…unless there’s something you haven’t told me.”

“You’re his sister. You have to know. Why else would he hide you like he did?”

Why? Is she serious? “I’m his sister who was barely eighteen when she listened to her family being burned alive. I was ushered into hiding with no explanations.”

She shakes her head, rejecting...what? My claim? The events? “You have to know what they want,” she insists.

“I don’t. Who was the man who met me outside the hospital? Surely he knows.”

“What man?”

Right. She met Chad years later. “Did you meet any of Chad’s friends?”

“He had no friends. I think that’s why we needed each other. He was alone. I was alone.”

My heart twists with how much her words remind me of me and Liam. “Looks like we’re starting from scratch, and that isn’t a good thing. I’ve spent six years trying to put together a puzzle without pieces. Now we have five days.”

“Four days. Now we have four. What are we going to do? We have to figure it out.” Her voice rises and she’s starting to sound hysterical. “They think I know what they want. I don’t know. I thought you’d know. What do we do, Amy?”

Call Liam, I think, but she’s so off the deep end I don’t dare press to involve him. I grab her arms this time, leveling her in a stare. “We’ll be okay.” I nearly cringe at the words I’ve forbidden Liam from saying to me. “We’ll figure it out.”

She inhales and lets it out on a choppy nod. The attendant passes and I release her to grab him, eager for a blanket. “Fifteen dollars for a blanket and pillow,” the uniformed man informs me.

I feel myself pale and some of the bravado of seconds before fades. I have no money, no phone, no resources.

“I got it,” Meg offers quickly and pays the man for a pillow and blanket for each of us.

Unwrapping mine, I snuggle beneath it, and remind myself that one phone call to Liam, and my situation changes. I’m choosing to give away control, and that is control, as he would say. My confidence returns.“What’s the plan once we get to your car?”

“We don’t have one.”

Wonderful. Terrific. “Do you have money? Can we get a cheap motel?”

“Yes. I have enough.”

“Albany isn’t a huge place and it’s a logical location to get off the train from what I could tell from looking at the destinations in the train station. Believe me when I say I’ve learned the hard way that logical choices are dangerous. We should pick a large metropolitan city outside of New York and then stop to rest.”

“Yes. Okay.”

Now she has the “okay” disease. It’s almost as bad as the “do nothing” disease I’ve lived for six years. I sink back into the seat.

“So what’s the closest big city?”

“Philadelphia, maybe.” She frowns. “It’s kind of backtracking so that might be smart. But really why hide out? They’ve found us already and they have Chad.”

“What happens when they decide they don’t need us but we know too much?” I ask.

“Right. Big city it is.” She takes out her phone and checks the internet. “Philly is less than four hours.”

“Philly it is then,” I agree.

I settle my pillow under my head. “We should try to sleep. It’s still a long drive on no rest.”

She hugs me. “I’m so glad you’re here.” Inching backwards, she tilts her head and drags her hand down my long, blonde hair. “You’re beautiful like he was.”

Discomfort ticks down my spine and I manage an awkward, “Thank you, we should rest.”

She nods and shrinks down in her seat.

I roll to my side, giving her my back and I cannot shake her choice of words. As beautiful as he was.

It’s several hours later when we exit the train station and reach Meg’s expensive grass-green Volvo. “Chad bought it for me,” she says, reading the question in my eyes.

“Nice choice,” I murmur, but as I settle into the plush leather seat, thankful for the seat warmers, the car bothers me. I was barely surviving most of the time and Chad paid cash for her Volvo, and he had to pay to park in Manhattan. It doesn’t feel right, but then Chad couldn’t just hand me extra money. It would have brought attention to him and me.

With my driving time coming up, I can feel the heaviness of exhaustion in my body, and I close my eyes, willing myself to rest since I hadn’t on the train. I have to consider my health and I need a clear mind to decide what to do next. Four days is all I have left to discover what has been a six year mystery. And even if I do, it won’t be as simple as figuring out what these people want. It’s figuring out how we get these people what they want and how not to get killed in the process. I wonder why in Meg’s panic she hasn’t thought of this.

I will an image of Chad to my mind and a smile curls on my lips when I can clearly see his face. Chad...

I wave goodbye to my best friend Dana as she pulls her Volkswagen out of the drive and I run up the stairs, stopping dead in my tracks on the top step, my eyes going wide at the sight of Chad sitting in the corner on one of the two outdoor chairs.

“Chad!” I rush him and he’s on his feet at the same instant I fling myself around him. “I can’t believe you’re here.” He’s been away forever it seems, first at college and then in Egypt. “Is Dad with you?”

“Yeah, but you know, he and Mom have to catch up.” He wiggles a brow. “At least they have a door. Those tent sessions they used to have could get awkward.”

I laugh and we settle into the seats. He kisses my head. “How’s school?”

“Miserable,” I confess. “I want to be in the field with you and Dad. So does Mom.”

“Finish school. It’s good for you.”

“You left college.”

“Dad needed me in the field and I didn’t leave. I’m working for school credit and you know I have windows of time when I’m in class.”

“Right. I guess.”

He sighs.“How’s Luke?”

“He took off to college in Austin.”

“Good thing I’m not there much. Don’t like the way the bastard looks at you. He’s lucky I don’t beat his ass.”

A hotspot forms in my chest. I’ve missed how he protects me. I miss our family. “Why do you hate him so much?”

“He’s a user, known for bed-hopping and then bragging afterwards. I don’t want you becoming a conquest.”

“Like you don’t bed-hop.”

“Out of necessity and because I’m not a one woman kind of man. I don’t live a life that supports a girlfriend, but I don’t brag and I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

Because he’s a goodbye waiting to happen. “When do you leave again?”

“Two days.”

The hotspot is now an ache. Two days. “Oh.”

“We’ll be back for your eighteenth birthday.”

In six months. I guess I’m supposed to cheer up now.

A loud sound jolts me and I sit up. “What happened?”

“We need gas,” Meg announces, and I glance around to find we’re at a gas station and her door is open. “You’ve been asleep about an hour.”

“Asleep,” I repeat, and frown with Luke’s name in my head. Luke. I know why I dreamed of my brother, but why does Luke keep showing up in my dreams? At least they are dreams, not flashbacks with blackouts, I remind myself.

“Want anything from inside?” Meg asks.

My stomach rumbles. “I need a snack, but I think I’ll go to the bathroom.”

“Just get whatever you want and put it at the register.” She climbs out of the car and shuts the door.

Grabbing my purse, I go still with a memory. My fake boss in Denver was named Luke. My fist balls over my racing heart. Chad had been trying to tell me he was alive. Don’t like the way the bastard looks at you. He’s lucky I don’t beat his ass. No. Chad, being bossy, macho Chad, had been trying to tell me he was about to beat Liam’s ass.

“Damn it,” I whisper. “He’s not the enemy.”

Shoving open the door and shivering against the cold, I glance at Meg over the hood. “I’m freezing. I really need clothes and a coat of some sort to make it the next few days.”

“Oh gosh, yes. I’m sorry.” She pops the trunk and opens it, displaying a couple of suitcases, unzipping one and handing me a jacket with a hood. “We can grab you some stuff on the road, too.”

I nod and slip on the jacket. “Any idea why Chad would have put a camera in the computer you gave me to use back in Denver?”

She snorts and shuts the trunk. “Yeah. He didn’t trust Liam Stone. He was determined to find a connection between him and the men he was in trouble with.”

I was right. The name Luke had been no accident, but it’s just creepy thinking my brother would tape me. What if he’d seen Liam and I having sex? Did he? The thought is choke-worthy. I refocus on Meg. “Did Chad find a connection to Liam?”

“No. Not before he...you know. I’m shocked you found out about the camera. He was confident you wouldn’t.”

I don’t say anything and I’m confused by how she claims to not know anything about how Chad had set up my living situation, and yet she knows so much. My gaze lifts to the store and it hits me that I can call Liam and tell him I’m okay. I need to hear his voice. I think he needs to hear mine.

I motion to the door and start walking when Meg calls out, “Amy.” Turning I tilt my head in silent question and she says, “Either he’s one of them and he’ll kill us the minute he has what he wants, or he’s not, and they’ll kill him for getting involved.”

Suddenly the ice in my blood is far colder than the winter air chilling my bones. I don’t reply. She’s right. I can’t involve him. I have to let that idea go. I give her a choppy nod and start walking, and it hits me that I was wrong. She has thought about what happens when and if we hand over whatever these people want from us.

Inside the store, I find the bathroom, where I lock the door and let air rush out of my lungs. Think, Amy. Think. But nothing comes to me. I have no plan. I walk to the sink and the girl in the mirror is a horror show of puffy eyes, no makeup, and witchy blonde hair. My hand flattens on my belly where my reason to survive above all else rests. I’m going to figure out an answer. I just have no idea how.

Wanting the comfort the gun offers, I flip open my purse, and instead stare at the contents: a makeup bag that I unzip to find well-stocked, a brush, hairspray and a wallet. If the make up bag is stocked....I grab the wallet and flip it open, to stare at the wad of cash inside and the black American Express Liam had once given me and I’d discarded, that he’s replaced. Liam has made sure I was taken care of and then some.

Without a bra to tuck the cash into, I take off my shoes and distribute it between them. I hold the credit card in my hand and I’m certain it’s being monitored. One swipe at a register would tell Liam where I’m at, but Meg’s warning rolls through my head. They’ll kill him. It’s not the first time she’s said it. I’m convinced that at least part of her story is true. And of Chad being alive. I believe he’s alive. One swipe of the credit card and I know Liam will be alerted to where I am. I stick the credit card in my shoe, my dire emergency plan, and my way to reach Liam when I’m ready. Which will be when I know he won’t end up dead like everyone else in my life.

Meg is at the register when I exit and I gather a couple of protein bars and some fruit. We are just settling into the car when Meg’s phone rings. Her eyes go wide, terror in their depths. “My purse.” She starts scrambling for it. “Where is it? That’s the phone. That’s the one they gave me.”

My heart jackhammers and I search behind us and on the floorboard, grabbing it and handing it to Meg. The phone stops ringing.

“No!” Meg shouts and hits the steering wheel, her head dropping onto it, her long hair draped over her face.

“Try to call it back,” I urge, wondering why I doubt someone this distraught, but I do.

She lifts her head, tears streaking her cheeks. “Been there, done that. It doesn’t work.”

The phone beeps with a text and she glances down and goes even paler than she already is. “What is it?” I whisper, barely able to breathe.

She hands me the phone and I read the message, my blood running cold. You’re wasting time that Chad doesn’t have in gas stations and highways. Get on a damn plane and get me what I want or your lover boy is dead.

Meg turns to me and grabs my arm, her fingers pinching into my flesh. “What do we do? What the hell do we do?”

There is one answer and it is both right and wrong in every way. We go to Texas, where this started and deep down, I’ve always known it will end. Liam will find me there, though, and it’s clear we’re being watched. But I’ve warned him he’s in danger. He’ll play it cautious, and watch me from a distance like they, whoever they are, seem to be doing. I might even be safer for that reason. He won’t charge into Jasmine Heights and claim me as his. Who am I kidding? This is Liam Stone I’m talking about. Yes. Yes, he will. And these people I’m dealing with have killed before. They’ll kill again. They’ll kill him if I don’t find a way to protect him.

Meg grabs my arm. “Amy. Please. What do we do?”

“We go to a cheap hotel where we shower, change, eat real food, and sleep at least two hours. Then we figure it out.”

“We should figure it out now.”

“No, we don’t. We need to figure it out right. The wrong move and people die.” And no one else is dying on me. That’s the only “The End” I’ll accept.