Broken (14 page)

He lifts his foot and then backs up.

“Get up.”

Laila gets on her knees and turns around, giving him a look that doesn’t conceal anything.

“What are you gonna do?” he asks her. “Get up and sit in that chair.”

She winces as she stands, and then she sits in the chair. For a few moments he examines the room.

“You’re not very good at following orders.”

“How did you find me?”

He smiles at her as he examines her purse. Nothing in there worth finding.

“You know how easy it is to track people these days? Things like GPS. They’re simple and easy. You don’t need to be James
Bond to put one on somebody’s car. We could track you all the way to Alaska.”

James stares at her as she remains silent. “You’re looking very pale, you know that?”

She curses at him.

“Just saying the obvious, lady.”

James checks his cell phone again. Nothing. Then he holds it up to her face.

“See this thing? See this cell? You’re going to make a call, and you’re going to make it right now. And if you don’t, the
person on the other end of this phone is going to die. You understand me?”

Those eyes don’t move off him.

“You’re going to call your father and tell him that you’re coming home to see him. That you’re in a lot of trouble and that
you need a lot of money. I know your family is loaded, and after all the time it took to find you, it was certainly well worth
the wait. You’re going to say that you’re coming home and that you need a quarter of a million dollars and you need it by
tomorrow. You got that? You tell him this and tell him that if this doesn’t happen, you’re going to die.”

“Who says he’s going to care?”

James laughs. “Oh, he’ll care. I know he’ll care.”

“I haven’t spoken with my father in years. How do I know if he’s even alive?”

He slips out the photos in his back pocket and flings them at her. They show a shot of her father at his house, another with
her father and a man, another with her brother.

“A little older and less hair, perhaps. More gray hair. More of a belly maybe. But that’s your father, and that was taken
maybe a month ago at his estate. Pretty difficult even getting these, let me say.”

Something in Laila changes, and he sees this. Good. He’s getting through to her, and perhaps he should have done this when
he first saw her.

“Ready to talk to your father?”

She shakes her head. He goes over and hovers inches away from her face.

“Listen to me. You’re going to call him, then you’re going to get in a car with me and we’re driving back home. You’ve created
enough grief for my family, and I want what I deserve. You got that?”

“What’d you say to him?”

“Nothing.”

“How do I know that?”

“You don’t. But I said nothing. What would you care anyway?”

“He won’t give you money.”

“Yes he will. That I do know.”

“How?”

James laughs. “I just know.”

He recalls the conversation he had with her brother. A simple and straightforward conversation, but one that told him enough.

One that told him too much. One that gave him this idea. This idea that went nowhere.

He opens the cell phone and finds the number and then presses talk. He hands the phone to Laila. She grips it in her hand
and then drops it. James gets it, listens, and then gives it back to her. She clings onto the cell phone and brings it to
her ear.

“Hello?” she asks.

Her hands and her lips shake as her eyes and her face move somewhere else, far out of this room to somewhere far away.

“Papa?”

James puts his ear up to the phone and can hear the voice on the other end.

“Papa, it’s me, Laila. Yes. It’s me. I’m—yes, I’m here. It’s really me.”

Laila coughs and holds the phone down and cradles it for a moment, then brings it back up to her mouth.

“Papa, I’m in trouble, and you need to listen to me now. Please listen. I’m coming home, and I need you to give me some money.
I will explain everything when I’m there, and I will let you know why but right now all you need to know is that I’m coming
home.”

James nods and stares at her as she looks up at him. He motions her with his hand.

“I need 250,000 dollars. I know that’s a lot, but I’ll explain why. Okay? I just—I’m so sorry. Papa, I’m so sorry for everything
and for this, but I can’t help it.”

Laila swallows, fear filling her face. “Yes. Yes, I’m okay. I’m okay. It’s just—I need you to do this for me, and do it by
tomorrow—”

James takes the cell phone and shuts it off. Then he puts it back in his pocket.

“See? See how easy that was? Now we’re going to take a little drive to Brady, Texas. And you’re going to be a good girl and
stay with me or else ‘Papa’ goes bye-bye. You got that?”

He sees a bag on the ground and asks if that’s all she has. She nods. He tells her to get her things and to put her shoes
on.

•   •   •

They are about ready to leave when the devil arrives.

Laila has her duffle bag in her hand and the purse over her shoulder, and in between her and the door stands James. When the
door opens, both of them look to see who’s there.

“Hello, Laila. James.”

Connor smiles, and then James turns from Laila to Connor.

“Going somewhere?” Connor says.

And then he looks at Laila and widens his eyes and sticks out his tongue.

“Connor, man, what are you doing—”

She knows this time he’s real. James can see him, and he’s real.

For a moment Laila looks at the door and at the figure, and then she sees James turning to face her and she sees the two twin
beds and the television and the framed piece of art and suddenly she’s fifteen again.

She reaches in the duffle bag, slips her hand under some clothes and finds the gun. She aims it at James and fires. He falls
clutching at his arm just as Connor drops to the floor and crawls out through the doorway. She fires again and then again.
Then she goes to James and puts the gun against his forehead.

“Give me your keys.”

“You stupid little tramp, you shot me in the arm, you ignorant—”

She bashes the butt of the gun against his mouth, splitting open his lip and squirting blood over her hand. “Give me your
keys.”

He finds them in his pocket and gives them to her. His cell phone drops on the floor, and she takes it as well.

She neglects to tell him that the “conversation” she just had with her father was only one-sided since she had pressed the
mute button.

“What’s your car look like?”

“I’m going to kill you.”

She sticks the barrel of the gun in his mouth. “I’ll do the same thing I did to your brother.”

He mumbles something, and she takes the handgun out of his mouth.

“A black Hyundai Sonata. It’s a rental.”

“You’re not getting it back.”

He moves toward her but she backs up, still aiming the gun at his head.

“Connor isn’t dead,” he says, laughing at her.

She looks toward the doorway.

“Yeah, he’s out there, and he’s going to hurt you for what you’ve done.”

“He’s going to have to find me first.”

She takes the pistol and whips it against his face. She can feel and hear something in his face crack. He crumbles to the
ground with a cough as she steps over him and heads to the hallway.

She’s not afraid of what’s out there, now that she’s holding this gun.

Now that she knows the man she’s dealing with is alive and not a ghost.

•   •   •

Lex rushes out of the gas station and doesn’t see Kyle’s car. He runs around to the back but still doesn’t see anybody. He
shakes his hands in disgust and then goes over to his car. For a few minutes sitting inside the car, he stares out the window
trying to figure out what to do. This exit is about ninety minutes west of Atlanta, heading toward Birmingham, though Lex
can’t be sure where Kyle was headed.

He rubs his eyes and then jerks when he hears the knock on his window.

He rolls down the window.

“Why are you following me?” Kyle asks.

“What are you talking—”

“Just shut up and tell me why. Are you the guy who called me the other day?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to find my sister.”

Kyle stares at him for a minute. His expression changes under the bruises and cuts on his face.

“I can show you my license.”

“You don’t need to. Not anymore. I thought you looked like her. When I saw you go into the station.”

“Are you driving to her? Do you know where she is?”

“What do you want with her?”

“What do
you
want with her?” Lex asks.

“Did she call you?”

“I haven’t seen her in eight years. And haven’t talked to her in the last few years. But just like that she called me, out
of the blue. Just the other day.”

“She called me today.”

“And?”

“Look, I don’t know you—”

“It’s Lex.”

“I don’t know you, Lex.”

Lex puts out his hand, and they shake. “I need her to come home.”

“Why?”

“It’s personal.”

“Yeah, well, this is personal too.”

“I think she’s in trouble,” Lex says.

“I know she’s in trouble.”

“Why?”

“See my face?” Kyle looks around the station, then back at Lex. “You hungry?”

“Am I hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“Not really.”

“Well I am. And I was going to scoot out of here when I saw you walking into the store looking for me.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I just knew. You two are related. I knew when I saw you. Plus, if you really were some bad guy, you wouldn’t be so
obvious trailing me. You’d sure fail as a spy. Or a thug.”

“I’d fail at a lot of things,” Lex says.

“Follow me over to that McDonald’s and we can talk, okay?”

Lex nods, sighing, shifting the clutch as he feels his heart continue to pound away.

“You have her eyes.”

“I’ve heard that before. Even though I haven’t seen them in quite a long time.”

Kyle is halfway through his burger. “You not hungry?”

“Not really. I’m still getting over the thought that I almost lost you.”

“How’d you know I was going to find her?”

“I just knew.”

“You just knew, huh? Just like that?”

“Yeah.”

Kyle’s eyes probe him. “Where are you from?”

“Cedar Park, Texas. It’s not far from Austin. I work at a country club.”

“That close to where you grew up?”

“Not far.”

“And you’ve been tracking down Laila because of a family thing?”

“Something like that.”

“Why’d she leave?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

Kyle sums up their relationship at the bank and tells him about the last week, starting when she suddenly decided to have
dinner with him and explaining how they borrowed his cousin’s gun and ending with him getting beaten up by a stranger.

“He worked over your face pretty well.”

“Yeah, I know. The bank told me to go home. My manager said his branch wasn’t a fight club. Pretty funny. I gotta give him
that.”

“Who was the guy beating you up?”

“I don’t know. Said that Laila owed him something.”

“Why didn’t she call the police?”

Kyle shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I mean—I helped give her a gun. You want to know something crazy? In twenty-nine years of living, I’ve never
really thought much of what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. But it’s like—this will sound crazy—but one night changed
it all.”

“One night with her?”

“Yeah, but not like that. Not that kinda night. Just—just being with her. I mean—I just seemed to come alive. It was like
someone opening up my lid and letting me start to come out. I’ve known the same types of people all my life with the same
personalities and families and lives, and then she came along.”

“Laila has always had that effect on men.”

“Maybe. But it’s not just a physical thing.”

“You really believe that?”

Kyle nods.

“Looks always comes into the equation with Laila. You can’t take it out.”

“I don’t know,” Kyle says. “I just—I woke up today wondering what happened to her and wishing I could help, and then she calls.”

“What’d she say?”

“It was as if—as if she was worried that her phone was bugged. It wasn’t even her phone she was calling from. She told me
she was in a lot of trouble and didn’t know where to turn or who to go to and that’s why she called me. She said she could
trust me. Out of everybody else she could trust me.”

“Must’ve been some night.”

“She worked with me for several months, remember. We’re friends.”

“Laila’s never been the most trusting soul. But she has reasons not to be.”

“Why?”

“She just has her reasons,” Lex says. “Where did she say she was planning on going?”

“She told me there was a place that she had once mentioned, a
place she said she always could see running away to, a place that time had seemingly forgotten about. She warned me not to
say it out loud. Like I said—she thought the line was bugged. She said that if I wanted to help—that she wanted me to help—she
told me to go there and that she’d find me.”

“And just like that, you left?”

“Yeah.” Kyle laughs and lets out a sigh. He takes a sip of his drink. “Maybe one of the craziest things I’ve ever done in
my life. But you know—sometimes you gotta do things like that. Things like they do in the movies. Where you wake up and just
go.”

“So where are you going? Obviously it’s somewhere down south.”

Kyle finishes his food without saying anything.

“You can trust me, you know.”

“I know you’re her brother, that I know. But how do I know you’re not following her for the same reason those guys are? How
do I know you’re not with them?”

“Why would I be?”

“You said yourself you haven’t seen her for eight years. Not much of a relationship there.”

“I’d never hurt Laila.”