Authors: Lisa Gardner
Seventy-three hours and thirty minutes remaining.
What would you do?
I
ESCORTED
T
OMIKA
, M
ICHAEL, AND
M
ICA
to the bus stop. It would take three more exchanges to get them to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but Tomika had an old girlfriend there, who’d set her up with job. New names, new life, new opportunity.
Tomika was crying.
“I love him,” she said, then brushed her cheeks with hands thick with finger splints and white bandages.
“He’ll kill you.”
“I know.”
“He’ll kill your children.”
“I know.”
Michael had his arm around his little sister’s shoulders. His expression, as he stared at his mother, was resigned.
“Mommy?” Mica finally spoke up.
Tomika glanced down at her daughter, sobbed harder. “I swear I won’t go back. I’ll be strong. I’ll take care of us, baby. I promise, I’ll take care of us.”
Given the state of her splinted fingers, I helped her organize the new IDs in her purse. I opened her wallet, withdrew her old driver’s license, slipped in the new one, made with the help of one of her Facebook photos and J.T.’s friend. In thirty seconds Tomika Miller became Tonya Davis. I wrapped my turquoise scarf around her neck, slipped dark sunglasses over her eyes, and added a bright hat to cover her uptucked hair.
For Michael and Mica, we had something simpler in mind. Michael gained a wig, becoming the seven-year-old sister, while Mica’s ponytail was summarily cut off, turning her into a four-year-old younger brother.
Later, at the bus stop, should Stan Miller ask questions, no one would know of a lone woman with an older son and younger daughter boarding the bus. They’d only witnessed two women and two children who climbed on together, with an older girl and younger boy. I handled all the tickets again, so Tomika could keep her bandaged hands hidden inside her coat. Another question Stan might think to ask, but no one in the bus depot would have the answer.
At the last minute, I got back off the bus, mentioning I’d forgotten something, would catch up later.
Right before exiting, I leaned down and slipped a prepaid cell, recently purchased from Wal-Mart, into Michael’s pocket. It was programmed with a single number—my own. I whispered in his ear, “Call me. Anytime. I’ll be there, Michael. I’ll be there.”
Then I was off. Five minutes later the bus pulled away, Tomika Miller and her two kids getting a fresh start in life.
Until the first time it grew too tough, and Tomika gave in to the urge to call her husband. Or broke down and told her story to a friend who’d tell a friend who’d tell a friend who’d tell Stan Miller. Or Stan himself managed to track them down.
Maybe this time, Stan would bring that ax. Maybe this time, Michael would call me, begging, pleading, screaming desperately for help.
Maybe it would be after 8
P.M.
on January 21.
And my phone would ring and ring and ring. Nobody left alive to answer.
I glanced at my watch. 7:42
P.M.
Seventy-two hours and fifteen minutes left to live.
What would you do?
I headed back to Tomika’s old address. I headed for Stan Miller.
T
HINGS
I
DIDN’T KNOW
about myself until the last year: I am, or used to be, deeply, deeply terrified of fighting back. First time my boxing coach tried to get me to spar in the ring, I couldn’t do it. Shadowboxing, sure. Heavy bag work, no problem. Speed bag, fun. But to hit someone, actually pull back my arm, then snap my fist forward, rolling my shoulder, rotating at the waist, stepping into the full velocity of the punch, committing to my opponent’s gut, kidney, chin, nose, right eye. Couldn’t do it.
I danced around the ring. Dodged, ducked, V-stepped, sidestepped, elbow blocked, swatted, did anything but throw a punch.
All those years of going along. All those years of being a brave little girl, a good little girl. I couldn’t retaliate.
My mother had trained me too well.
At the end of the sixth session, in sheer frustration, my boxing coach, Dick, a retired three-time world champion, nailed me in the eye. It hurt. My cheekbone exploded. My eye welled with tears. I recoiled, stared at him incredulously, as if I couldn’t believe he’d done such a thing.
He jabbed me in the other eye. Then the gut, the shoulder, the chin. My coach started wailing on me.
And I took it. I hunched over, fists in front of my face, elbows glued to my rib cage, and let him beat me.
Brave little girl. Good little girl.
Making my mother proud.
Dick gave up first. Walked away in disgust. Muttering at me for not fighting, muttering at himself for beating up a defenseless girl.
And that did it. I finally registered my own pain. I finally heard someone calling me a
defenseless girl
and I lost it.
I attacked my fifty-five-year-old, gristle-haired, battle-scarred boxing coach and I tried to kill him. I threw jabs, right hooks, uppercuts, left hooks, solid punches, endless kidney shots. I chased him around the ring, corner to corner, and I discovered inside myself something I’d never known was there—rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. And not the good old, I’m twenty-eight years old and I’m finally pissed off at my mother rage, but the better, harder, I’m twenty-eight years old and I’m finally pissed off at
me
rage. Because I’d taken it. Because I was a good girl and a brave girl and I went along. So help me God I went along and I went along, and I was never going along again.
At the end of the session, my coach had one black eye and one swollen nose. I had two black eyes and bruised ribs. And we were both exultant.
“That’s it!” he told me again and again, dripping blood all over the boxing ring. “I knew you could do it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Now, that’s boxing, Charlie. That’s committing to the punch!”
Turns out, I didn’t want to be Tomika Miller, running from shadows, constantly looking over her shoulder.
I wanted it to be January 21. I wanted to open that door. I wanted to look my killer in the eye.
And I wanted to beat the shit out of him, before plugging three to the chest. One for Randi. One for Jackie. And one for me.
I’d been a good girl once.
Now I didn’t plan on being a good girl ever again.
I
ARRIVED BACK AT
T
OMIKA’S APARTMENT
in the tenement housing unit at 8:26
P.M.
I’d been told Stan’s shift as a security officer ended
at seven. Usually, he had half a dozen drinks with the boys, then came home to terrorize his waiting family around nine.
Big guy. Six two, 280 pounds. Not fit. His security job involved sitting in a booth, checking ID at a major manufacturing plant. Basically, he made twelve bucks an hour to sit around and look intimidating. Which must have pissed him off, because then he returned home and threw his weight around.
According to Tomika, he was often packing and seemed to have an endless supply of firearms. Where they came from, she didn’t know and she didn’t ask. But he and his buddies liked to shoot beer cans off the rear fire escape at nights, and none of them had problems producing a weapon.
So I had roughly thirty minutes to prepare for a mountain of man who might or might not be packing multiple firearms.
My palms were sweating. My heart beat too hard in my chest.
I worked on breaking down my plan into short, manageable steps. First, quick buzz through the apartment, removing lightbulbs. Darkness was my friend, surprise my best advantage.
The instant Stan opened the door, he’d be back lit by the hall, a clear target. Best moment of opportunity would be those first two seconds, when he was caught unaware and completely haloed, while I’d be nothing but a faint shadow in the dark recesses of the living room.
My countdown to January 21 would continue. His would not.
Next step, hastily ransacking all kitchen and bedroom drawers. I found a. 22 and a tiny little ankle holster gun. I kept the ankle shooter, dropped the. 22 in the toilet. Then I discovered Stan’s tool kit and went to work. A precaution built into a precaution built into a precaution.
In the back bedroom, I left the window access to the rickety fire escape open—always good to have an additional egress, especially if neighbors responded to the sounds of gunfire by crowding the inner halls.
Nine oh one. Jittery. Not good. My own anxiety started to piss me off. Nerves? I’d been training and practicing for a fucking year. What good were nerves to me? So sorry, Mr. Killer of My Two Best
Friends, but can we hold off on our confrontation for a minute, while I calm myself down? Want a drink? Want a Xanax?
Here, take two.
Fuck nerves.
I was a lean, mean killing machine.
God dammit.
Footsteps. Out in the hallway. Heavy and ringing.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart rate spiked. My black turtleneck constricted around my throat, and at the last second, I had to take my shaking left hand off my Taurus to wipe my sweaty palm on the leg of my jeans.
I’d locked the front door. Everyone did in this building. Now I heard the jangle of keys. A rasp of metal teeth engaging the first lock, then the second. Front door flung open.
Two hundred and eighty pounds of Stan Miller loomed in the entryway.
“What’s for dinner, bitch?” Stan boomed across the darkened apartment.
He sounded cavalier, almost like he was in a good mood.
So I shot him.
I
PULLED LEFT
. Don’t ask me how, don’t ask me why. But I fucking pulled my shot left. Doorjamb exploded, Stan dropped like a rock and rolled toward the kitchen, screaming. I cursed a blue streak and, through my shock and rage, realized now I was in for it, not to mention that if my firearms instructor J.T. ever heard about this, he’d kill me anyway and spare me the miserable pain of the twenty-first.
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!” Stan was yelling. “Where’s Tomika? What’d you do with Tomika?”
“Killed her!” I called back at him. “That’ll teach you not to pay your debts.”
(I was making this up. Precaution built into a precaution, right? Always gotta have plan B, and if I couldn’t kill Stan, plan B was to lead him to think that his family was dead. A man like Stan had to owe somebody something somewhere. It just figured.)
“You’re a girl,” Stan said. And just like that, he stood up in his kitchen. Apparently, being attacked by a girl didn’t scare him nearly so much.
So I shot him again.
This time, I hit his shoulder. He howled, dropped again.
I felt better about things.
Until good ol’ Stan popped back up and fired off four rounds in my general direction. This time, I dove for cover, cursing myself all over again. First two seconds. Battles are won or lost in the first two seconds. He’d been standing right there, lit up beautifully, 280 pounds of target. How the hell had I missed 280 pounds of target?
Dammit!
“Gonna hurt you,” Stan bellowed now. “Gonna find you, gonna hurt you. With a knife. Bad.”
I crawled behind the overstuffed recliner, leading with my gun, and peered out, trying to penetrate the gloom of the kitchen. Couldn’t see a thing.
Shit.
I took a second to get my bearings. Stan seemed to be doing the same, the apartment falling eerily silent. I strained my ears for sounds from the rest of the building. Neighbors yelling about gunshots, or banging the ceiling to say
quiet the noise
. Police sirens already screeching down the street.
Nothing.
Maybe 9
P.M.
was too early for most residents of this building to be home yet. Or maybe, in a building where men routinely spent their evenings shooting beer cans off the fire escape, nobody noticed gunfire anymore.
I did. My ears were ringing, my heart pounding, my hands a shaking mess of adrenaline and fear. Even my stomach felt funny. Hollowed out, queasy, and butterfly-y. Shock, probably. Terror. Rage.
I tried homing in on the rage. Fear would get me killed. Anger was the only hope I had left.
“Who are you?” Stan boomed again. “I don’t owe nobody nothin’, so who the fuck are you?”
I didn’t answer, but traced the sound of his voice toward the hall to the left of the kitchen. I could just make him out, his gray sweatshirt a faint glow on the dimly lit floor. He’d shimmied out into open space. Probably to sneak around on me, but also to keep himself from getting cornered. The tiny kitchenette was no good to either of us; too small and cramped. Family room was better. Rear bedroom, with its open window leading to the fifth-story fire escape, best yet.
But for me to get to the bedroom, Stan had to get out of the hallway. Fine.
I shot him again.
For a big guy, Stan moved pretty fast. Sprang out of his crouch and leapt through the doorway into the kids’ room. Couldn’t tell if I’d got him or not, and didn’t wait to see. I bolted down the short hallway into the back bedroom, as he opened fire behind me. Carpet exploded at my feet. Sheetrock rained down from overhead.
He was an even worse shot than I was. Course, spending the past few hours in a bar probably didn’t help his aim, thank goodness for me.
I took four zigzagging steps and staggered into the rear bedroom. Another ringing shot, and I was hurling myself over the windowsill, wincing as I flopped awkwardly onto the metal fire escape. I could feel the rickety deck sway upon impact. Couldn’t stop. I’d be trapped on the tiny fenced-in balcony, and he’d come for me, like shooting fish in a barrel.
I didn’t think anymore, I moved. Crabbing around, trying desperately to find the top rung of the descending metal ladder in the dark. I banged my head against another set of metal rungs, the ones heading up, staggered back, and a meaty fist clamped onto my shoulder.
Stan thrust his massive head and shoulders through the window and held tight.
“Gotcha! Gonna make you hurt, girl. Gonna get my ax, gonna get my hammer, gonna get my knife. Gonna make you pay.”