Authors: Adrienne Giordano
Izzy slid into the rear seat so Peter could drive. “It’s all right.”
“Everybody okay?” Peter asked ramming the car into gear before grabbing his phone and dialing Billy.
“Yes,” Courtney said. “Isabelle, holy crap, you’re like the bionic woman.”
Peter brought his eyes to the rearview mirror and glanced at Izzy. Her head was back against the seat and she had closed her eyes. The comedown was a bitch.
Billy picked up on the first ring. “I hope this is you driving Izzy’s car down the driveway.”
“Yeah. Watch the house. I’ve got Izzy and Courtney with me. Izzy went apeshit on Seth and he’s in bad shape.”
“I missed it again? That is
so
hot.”
Peter snorted a laugh as he turned onto the road and floored it. “Sampson should be showing up any time. I called him on the way here. He said he’d get some agents out here ASAP.”
“I wish I could have seen her in action,” Billy said.
Peter hung up and exhaled.
“What?” Izzy asked, still with her eyes closed.
“He’s pissed he couldn’t watch.”
She rolled her head side to side. “He’s such an idiot.”
“Stop!” Courtney yelled.
Isabelle braced herself against the back of the driver’s seat as Peter hit the brakes in front of a deserted farmhouse about a half mile from the compound.
“What the hell?” Peter said.
Courtney paddled her hands toward the empty house. “Turn in here.”
“What for?”
“Please? There’s someone else.”
“Courtney?” Isabelle said, her energy suddenly roaring back.
Peter pulled into the driveway of the ramshackle farmhouse. The sagging covered porch, with its peeling paint and missing first step, should have collapsed by now.
Courtney turned to her. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell you, but I can’t leave her here.”
Dust kicked up around the car and Peter came to a stop in the driveway. “Who?”
But Courtney was out of the car already, half walking half running to the front door. A tattered orange no trespassing sign hung in the front window and indicated the house was in foreclosure.
“Iz?” Peter said as he got out of the car.
“Beats me.” She grabbed his hand so he could pull her from the backseat and they ran to catch up with Courtney who had already entered the house.
They stepped into the house and the oppressive heat and stagnant air hit Isabelle like a full speed garbage truck.
“Are you here?” Courtney yelled. “It’s me. It’s okay.”
The slap of a screen door came from the back of the house and a hugely pregnant young woman with greasy auburn hair stepped into view.
“Holy cow,” Izzy said.
Isabelle backed against Peter and leaned into him, because holding up her own body suddenly became too much.
Could this be…
Yes, the girl looked different from the glamour shot Isabelle had seen, but her hair color—not brown, not red, with flecks of gold—was the same. The cotton maternity shorts and grimy white top she wore strained against her ballooning belly.
“Please tell me you are Nicole Pratt.”
The girl stayed silent, but Courtney nodded. “How’d you know her last name? I never told you.”
Isabelle spun around, threw her arms around Peter’s neck and squeezed. She shut her eyes and breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. “Am I dreaming?”
He backed her up and gripped her arms. “You
found
her.”
Alive.
Isabelle turned and faced the two girls. Courtney stood still, her gaze bouncing between Peter and Isabelle.
Obviously, an explanation was owed. “I’m sorry I had to lie to you, Courtney. I’ve been working with the FBI to find Nicole. After Kendrick was killed they asked me to come here.” Izzy glanced at Nicole. “Your roommate told the police you’d been volunteering at the compound. They didn’t know you were living there. Your mother is frantic.”
Nicole brought her hands over her face and Izzy glanced back at Peter who shrugged.
“Courtney, what’s going on?” Izzy asked. “What is she doing in this house?”
But Courtney stiffened.
Defiance.
A reaction Isabelle understood all too well. She’d have to reassure her. “Nothing has changed. We are still going to help you. Both of you. Now more than ever, but you have to be honest with us.”
Courtney wrapped an arm around Nicole’s boney shoulders. “I trust them.”
The air grew hotter and less breathable, but Isabelle waited while Nicole considered them.
She finally said, “I found out I was pregnant just after Christmas. I couldn’t tell my mother. When I began to show I started wearing big shirts and didn’t go home for spring break. I stayed at school and told my mother I was going home with a friend.”
“You didn’t think you could tell her?” Isabelle asked.
Nicole shook her head. “My mother is the highest ranking Republican in Congress. She’s an ultra-Conservative who has spent her career talking about family values. She wants to run for president. A pregnant, unmarried nineteen-year-old doesn’t fit.”
And Isabelle understood. After all, she’d been protecting her own family secret for years. “I’m so sorry.”
Nicole stared at the floor. “I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to have an abortion. I didn’t
want
to have an abortion. I figured I could give up the baby, but I was afraid the press would find out. I went to Tomorrow’s Family Network and gave them a fake name. They sent me to see Seth and Kendrick. I knew it was illegal, but it meant no one would know. I told my mother I wasn’t coming home for the summer and I told my friends I was. No one knew where I’d be and I would have the baby before school started. It seemed like my only option.”
Isabelle glanced at Nicole’s very large belly. “When are you due?”
“Next week.”
“Next week!” Peter said. “What the hell are you doing in this rat hole?”
“That’s the problem, rich boy. She decided she wanted to keep the baby, but Seth and Kendrick wouldn’t let her go. They were afraid she’d go to the police and told her it was too late, that they’d already made the deal.”
“Why didn’t you call someone?” Isabelle asked.
“They threatened her. Said they’d kill her and the baby before they let her leave. Then Seth took her car keys and cell phone.”
Nicole nodded. “I couldn’t risk my baby.”
Isabelle’s mind raced. “When did he take the phone?”
“A few days before I ran.”
Isabelle turned to Peter. “He must have shut the phone off. That’s why the feds couldn’t get a location.”
Peter shifted to Nicole. “Where’s your car?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think Seth dumped it,” Courtney said. “The car disappeared two days after Nicole left.”
“Peter, could he have hidden it on the property somewhere?”
“Who knows with that dumbass. Nicole, how did you get out of the compound with the sealed windows?”
“They weren’t sealed then. Seth had it done after I ran. Courtney helped me climb out my window and she lowered me to the porch rail. It wasn’t that far, but it was a little awkward with my belly.”
Isabelle’s mouth flopped open. She couldn’t help it. “How on earth?”
“We waited until everyone was asleep, tied a couple of sheets together and wrapped them around her like a sling. I wrapped the other end around me to anchor her, and she lowered herself over the edge of the roof to the porch rail. She’s pretty tall so it was only a few feet.”
Two pregnant women doing this? They both could have gotten hurt. Desperation must have driven them to it.
“Girls,” Peter said, “that was way too dangerous.”
“We had no choice,” Courtney yelled.
Peter raised his hands. “Don’t get mad.”
Isabelle glanced around the room. The empty, filthy room. “You’ve been here the whole time? How have you been surviving?”
“Courtney has been sneaking me food and water. The water here still works, but I didn’t want to use it in case the utility company noticed and figured out someone was squatting. I’d kill for a shower right now because sponging off with bottled water doesn’t quite do the job.”
“Wow,” Isabelle said.
Nicole shrugged. “Courtney sneaks down here once a day. It was only supposed to be for a few days until I figured out where to go. Then Courtney said my picture was all over the news. That’s how Seth figured out my mother is a congresswoman. I didn’t think about the press. If I went to a shelter, someone would recognize me.”
Peter turned to Courtney. “You didn’t know who she was?”
“Not until her mother reported her missing and her picture hit the news. That’s when Kendrick panicked. I overheard him and Seth arguing one night. Kendrick thought they should hire an attorney because he was sure Nicole would run to her mother and tell her about the illegal adoptions. Then Seth disappeared for a couple of days and Kendrick wound up dead. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one.”
“Hang on,” Isabelle said. “You suspected Seth was a murderer and you didn’t call the police?”
Courtney looked at her like she was hanging upside down. “Are you crazy? If the guy killed his friend he wouldn’t think twice about making us disappear. I figured the police would at least
question
Seth about it and they’d find proof. Then he’d be arrested and Nicole and I would be free, but nobody even
talked
to him. What kind of investigating is that?”
Peter rubbed his hands over his mouth and after a few seconds said, “The feds told the P.D. to stay away from the compound because they were sending someone in undercover. A congresswoman’s daughter trumps Kendrick.”
I could use your legal expertise
. That’s what Kendrick had said to Isabelle in her office that first day. Isabelle’s stomach launched upward.
She spun to Peter. “That’s why Kendrick came to see me. In his sick, demented mind, he thought he could hire me as his lawyer.”
Peter raised his eyebrows. “Crazy son of a bitch.”
“Yeah, he was,” Courtney said. “He knew if they got caught he’d get in trouble for the adoption thing, but he was more worried about statutory rape.”
“What?” Isabelle tried to process the information before she plummeted to the floor in shock.
“Rebecca’s baby is Kendrick’s. Rebecca told me her mother made her do it. Mary Beth had a baby last fall and wanted to stay on because they had nowhere to go. Plus, Mary Beth doesn’t want to get a job. She had the bright idea that Rebecca should get pregnant. Kendrick was happy to help.”
Isabelle pressed her fingers into her forehead. “Is that why she ran last week? She wants to keep the baby?”
“All she knows is she doesn’t want to be a baby-making machine. Especially after Seth beat her.”
Tears bubbled inside Isabelle as the sickness terrorized her. “He beat her?”
Courtney nodded. “He gets off on whipping rule breakers with his belt. He does it on the back so no one sees it.”
“Jesus,” Peter said.
“Then he panicked because she started spotting. They hauled the doc in when you left to pick up the rich boy at the airport. The doctor left ten minutes before you pulled up.”
Isabelle turned to Peter. “The clothes you found must have been Rebecca’s. I didn’t see her before I left so I didn’t know what she was wearing. This is so sick.”
If she’d exposed Kendrick years ago, this would never have happened. She was partly to blame.
But Peter stepped behind and enfolded her in his arms. “It’s okay.”
The sound of his voice, his breath against her ear, eased her battered mind and she melted into him, let her head fall back on his shoulder. “I can’t believe this. It’s too twisted.”
Her cell phone’s ringer pierced the silence in the room, and Peter reached into her front pocket, pulled it out and handed it over. His roughened fingertips brushed hers, reminded her of his hands on her body, and all she wanted was for everything to be right between them. For him to still love her after what she’d done. She glanced at the phone’s screen. “It’s Wade.”
“Tell him where we are,” Peter said. “Sorry, girls. Time is up. You have to tell the feds.”
“Hi, Wade,” Isabelle said into the phone. “We’re just down the road. Head south. There’s an abandoned farmhouse. You’ll see my car in the drive. Get here fast. You won’t believe it.”
“Isabelle,” Wade said. “I’m on a seriously weak limb here. I’ve got agents locking down that compound. Courtney better be ready to talk.”
She glanced at Courtney then Nicole and triumph overtook her sadness. “Trust me. That limb will hold.”
Late that night, Isabelle knocked on the motel room’s adjoining door. She knew the door wasn’t locked, but waited for either Billy or Peter to open it. She glanced at Courtney, asleep on the double bed with her hand sloped across her protruding belly.
Isabelle swallowed her uncertainty and the ensuing rush of tears. They’d make it work. With Nicole on her way home to her family, Courtney would also get to keep her baby and have a life.
The door swung open. Billy stood wearing only a towel while his shoulder-length dark hair dripped fat drops of water down his chest. The guy needed to be on a beefcake calendar.
She didn’t notice his rock-hard chest. Really. She didn’t.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yep. Where’s Peter?”
“I don’t know. I was in the shower. His wallet is here. Maybe he went for a pop or something.”
“I need to find him. Will you watch Courtney? She’s sleeping, but she’s pretty strung out from all the questioning and might wake up in a panic.”
“No prob. Leave the door open so I can hear her.”
“Thanks.”
“Iz?” he said when she started to turn for the outside door.
She stopped and moved back to him so their voices wouldn’t wake Courtney. “Yes?”
“Whatever happened this morning with Monk—before the shit hit the fan—it freaked him out.”
Isabelle nodded. “I know. I want to fix it.”
“That would be good. I mean, it’s none of my business, but you guys fit. Ya know?”
“I know. I think I pushed him too far though.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve pushed him too far before and look at us now.” Billy blasted her with what Peter called his “chick-magnet smile” and crossed his fingers in front of his face. “We’re like this.”
She couldn’t help laughing at him. He, more than anyone, knew Peter’s wrath and yet they still managed to be friends. Maybe it was a testament to both of them and their can-do attitudes.
Whatever it was, it gave her hope.
“So, I’d really like to hug you right now, but with you in that towel, I don’t think it’s appropriate. And, with my luck, Peter would walk in and blow an artery. But thank you. For everything.”
He jerked his head and sent more water drips flying off. “You bet. I am still pissed at you though for not waiting for me when you laid Seth to waste. That would have been better than porn.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re a dope, but I like you.”
“Story of my life.” He flicked his thumb toward the outer door. “Go find him and let’s get this ship sailing again.”
“That seems to be the story of
my
life.”
“Waa, waa, waa,” he said.
Dope
.
But she was smiling when she opened the outside door and—
voilà
—there was Peter, leaning on the metal railing, talking on his cell. He wore his trademark do-rag and cargo shorts with a plain white T-shirt that was just tight enough to set her mind on a path to somewhere else. At least he’d forgone the combat boots in favor of flip-flops. He glanced over at her, held his finger up, and she stepped onto the balcony where her bare feet hit the warm cement.
“I know,” he said into the phone. “I’d like to have given you more notice, but it didn’t work out that way…Right…Okay…Talk to you tomorrow.” He hung up, lopped his head forward.
“Everything okay?” Isabelle asked.
He pocketed his phone. “My mother. I was filling her in on Courtney.”
Isabelle held her breath for a second. Mrs. Jessup’s help wasn’t crucial, but it would move them along in the Courtney-needs-a-life plan.
“She’ll help,” Peter said. “I told her I’d bring Courtney by when we got back to Jersey.”
Isabelle closed her eyes. “Thank you. I’ve been watching her all night trying to figure out what we were going to do.”
When she opened her eyes again Peter had his elbow propped on the rail and was watching her.
“You like this girl, huh?” he asked.
She took a tentative step toward him. He didn’t flinch. A good sign. “I see parts of me in her. The not so good parts. I want to pound them out of her. Smooth out the edges, I guess. She’s never had anyone who cared.”
Peter rubbed both hands over his face. “I can’t stop imagining that pregnant girl falling off a roof and Courtney tumbling out after her. This whole thing is bizarre. I mean, it shocks me—and that’s saying something—that Nicole didn’t feel she could go to her own mother.”
“Oddly enough, I get it. I know how the fear of the truth can paralyze someone. Even someone who is rational and normally level headed. It’s crazy.”
Their eyes met and held for a second before he rested both elbows on the rail and looked out over the parking lot.
Now or never. Here goes.
“About this morning,” she said.
“Yeah. I knew this was coming.”
What?
“Peter, I was wrong. It was a dumb plan. I just didn’t realize it at the time. I was too caught up in getting answers.”
He turned to face her. “But that’s the problem. We’re in different worlds when it comes to sex. The abuse taught you to treat sex as a function.
I
don’t see it that way. For me, it’s about trust and intimacy. I don’t want to be in bed with you staring into Creepy Izzy’s eyes. I want more than that. And I want it all the time. I can’t always be stepping onto landmines. It’ll shred me, and with my job, that won’t work. This is a deal breaker for me.”
The words wrestled around in her mind and she closed her eyes.
Talk to him
. She needed to tell him things she had no idea how to translate. Her heart knew what to say, but by the time it reached her brain the filtering started.
“I couldn’t do it,” she blurted. “With Seth. I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier, but when you walked in, I was in the process of getting out of there.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“I know you don’t want to hear part of this, but I think you have to. When I took that run at Seth and he…well…he wasn’t turning me down, it made me sick. I tried to flip the switch, but it didn’t work. All I could think about was you touching me. And suddenly, I couldn’t deal with him. I couldn’t make my body do it.”
Peter pressed his fingers into his eyes and she stepped an inch closer. Testing. He didn’t move.
“You’ve ruined Creepy Izzy,” she said half laughing. “And now Fun Izzy isn’t so much fun because she’s in this emotional nightmare and doesn’t know how to get out. I think
you
can get her out. I want you to get her out. It’s like you said, I’m terrified, but I
want
to be terrified. All of a sudden, when it comes to you, I like how terrified feels. I like knowing I can depend on you. That you understand my own special brand of insanity and don’t judge me for it.”
“Iz—”
“For the first time in my emotionally fractured life, I’ve experienced giving myself to someone who loves me. Someone who makes my body come alive in ways I’ve never known. More than that, I love when you hold me and that’s never happened before. So, I’m asking you to forgive me. I ignored how important it was to you that I not encourage Seth. It sounds dumb to me now, but this morning it seemed like the way to get information from him. I was wrong. I understand now. It will never happen again.”
He shook his head, let out a little sigh. “I knew you’d shred me. Early on, I told Vic that.”
Oh, boy.
This didn’t sound good. Isabelle closed her eyes.
She concentrated. Hard. She deserved whatever he was about to say, but her heart pounded and the ache almost broke her. So she stood a little taller and waited for Peter to toss her on her ass.
A cricket’s chirp from the trees next to the motel drew Peter’s attention. He shook his head and turned back to her.
“Izzy, I broke every rule with this op. Given how I feel about you, I shouldn’t have been here. I was so bent on keeping you safe and proving Vic was wrong, that I wound up putting you in danger because I couldn’t control my emotions.”
Isabelle waved her hands. “But it all worked out okay.”
“Yeah, it did.
You
made it happen. You didn’t need me.”
She started to protest by shaking her head, but he wrapped his fingers around her skull to stop the motion. “It’s okay that you didn’t need me. It makes me realize I can’t fix everything. Billy went at me today over Tiny and Roy, and it actually made sense. Shocking as
that
is. I can’t take responsibility for everyone anymore.” He laughed. “It’s so much damn work.”
“That it is.” She stepped closer and grabbed his hand, entwined her fingers with his. “But Peter, I did need you. You kept me sane. You listened when I talked, you let me be the raw, stripped-down version of me who doesn’t always make sense. And through all of it, you didn’t treat me like a freak. I’ve never had that kind of emotional connection.”
With a crooked grin, he pulled her into his side and kissed the top of her head. A head kiss. Not good. But she wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed, because if he was dumping her she wanted to hang on for just a few minutes more.
A curling stream of panic wormed into her chest and she swallowed hard.
Talk to him
.
“So, what now?” she asked.
“This may surprise you, but I have a plan.”
They both laughed and he pulled her a little closer. “My plan is to go back to Jersey, finish my vacation and give myself a break. I think I need to grieve for my friends, and the only way to do that is to stop for a while. Hell, maybe I’ll take my mother to lunch a few times so she stops being a pain in the ass.”
When he turned and looped both arms around her the curling panic slipped away. “That’ll make her happy,” Isabelle said.
“But more than anything, I’d like to spend time with you. Normal time. Going to dinner, and hanging out on the beach for what’s left of the summer.”
He wanted her. And not just for sex.
Relief, in all its weightlessness, swarmed her. “You want to start over?”
“No. Starting over means forgetting what we’ve done together. We know too much to start over. I want to pick up right where we left off. How’s that sound?”
Where did this man come from? After all the torment, he still came back strong.
Yes
.
He’s the one
.
Thank you, Fun Izzy.
She threw her arms around his neck, kissed him hard, the way he liked it. With everything she had, holding nothing back.
“I guess you agree?” he asked while he kissed her.
“I love you, Peter.”
He inched back, cupped her cheeks in his hands and their eyes fused together for a long moment. “I love you, too.”
But he stepped away, knocked lightly on the motel room door and Billy answered.
“I need my wallet.” Peter ducked into the room for a second. “You’re on Courtney for a while.”
“Sure.” Billy closed the door leaving Peter and Isabelle alone on the balcony.
He grabbed her hand, dragged her toward the stairs while her bare feet slapped against the cement. “Where are we going? I don’t have shoes on.”
“You don’t need shoes. I’m getting us a room so we can screw each other stupid all night. Plus, you haven’t had a rumba lesson in a while. This’ll just be a horizontal one. We’ll work on that problem with your hips.”