Coming Home (32 page)

Chapter 21

“Ashley. I need you to do everything I say.” I held her
hand. “Promise me you won’t argue with me. I need you to do everything I say
without question.”

“Okay. What’s wrong? Why aren’t we going home?” Ashley was
starting to panic.

“Shh. It will be fine. I promise I will get you out of this.” If
it was the last thing I did, I would get her out of this. I was not going to be
the reason Vicki and Matt lost another child. I wouldn’t let it happen.

We sat quietly while he drove us further into the city. I had
already figured out he was taking us back to the office, but Ashley didn’t seem
to realize it until we pulled up. I felt bad for taking away the security that coming
to her parents’ building was giving her, but I needed her to know we were still
in danger.

I held her face and made her look at me. “Remember. You need to
do everything I say. Trust no one but me. Understand?”

She nodded her head right before the door opened.

“Leave your cell phones and get out.”

“Charlie?” Ashley again seemed relieved until I looked at her and
shook my head that this was not good news. “Oh.”

We left our phones as he demanded, and he grabbed me the second I
got out. “Give me your card.”

“Why don’t you use yours?” I didn’t want him to know I knew he
was fired yet.

He ripped my purse from me and dumped it to get the card. I
looked at all the things scattered across the parking lot. There wasn’t
anything I could use as a weapon. I looked up at Charlie and tried to figure
out what finally got him fired and what it was that set him off to hate me in
the first place.

He opened the door and shoved Ashley in. He turned to me and
opened the door wider. “After you.”

I glanced back at the limo. “Where’s the limo driver?”

Charlie shrugged. “Probably in a card game, losing the money I
gave him to drive you around tonight.”

I knew something felt off about this. “You set this whole thing
up, didn’t you?”

Charlie grinned obviously proud of himself. “I saw an opportunity
and took it. Ashley had been chatting up Mandy about this Dawson Lewis kid for
a while. I saw an ad that said he was coming to Dallas and asked Ashley if she
still liked him.” He smiled and shook his head. “It was costly, but very easy
and worth it. All I had to do was send her an email that looked like it came
from his official fan site. She replied with her entry even faster than I
thought she would. The hardest thing about it was when to make the switch with
Louis. I waited by Heather’s house and switched after you got in. I didn’t
expect you to get out with her.” He turned to Ashley. “Did you have a good time
tonight? Your life is about to change, so I wanted this to be special for you.”

“Rebecca, I’m sorry.” Ashley was crying, trying to push past
Charlie to get out.

“Why don’t you let her go? She has nothing to do with this.” I
didn’t want to enter the building until Ashley was back outside.

“We don’t need you anyway.” Charlie started to go in without me.

“Wait!” I grabbed his jacket. I didn’t want her in there alone.

Charlie turned to me and smiled. “That’s better.” He pushed me
through the door and Ashley clung to me. “That’s so sweet. I really am glad you
two got so close while you could. There’s nothing better than a sister, and it
would have been a shame if you two had missed that.”

Ashley kept looking back and forth from me to Charlie. “Who told
you?”

“I’m head of security. It’s my job to know everything. I have to
calculate all the threats and get rid of the bigger ones that have the
potential to do the most damage.” He shoved us in a conference room and pointed
to me. “She was doing major damage.”

“Ashley, who told him what?” I tried to get her to look at me.

“Oh, this is priceless. You really still don’t know. This will be
more fun than I thought.” Charlie turned to Ashley. “You know I am sorry to
drag you into this. There’s just no other way. I had planned on drugging you
and your friend so you wouldn’t know anything and take care of Avery here on my
own, but then they fired me. You understand I have to get back at them now. No
one treats me like that and gets away with it.”

“Wait a minute. Where’s Avery?” I looked around the conference
room. “I thought she died.”

Charlie shook his head. “Not yet, but very soon.” He tilted his
head to the side. “Ashley, do you want to explain it to her or should I?”

Ashley’s eyes were big and filled with tears. “I promised I
wouldn’t tell.”

I cupped her face and made her look at me. “It’s okay. You won’t
get in trouble.”

“You’ll leave and they’ll hate me.” She started crying. “I’m not
supposed to tell.”

“Has Charlie been hurting you?” I would kill him myself if he’d ever
touched Ashley.

Charlie grabbed the back of my hair and ripped me from Ashley. “I
haven’t hurt anyone that didn’t deserve it.”

He threw me into the table and was on me before I could get my
bearings. Charlie picked me up to flip me on my back and slammed me back onto
the table. Wrapping one hand around my throat, he held me down. He slowly
started to squeeze and I couldn’t breathe. I started kicking trying to land a
good shot to get him to back up and let go. Ashley jumped on his back and
started hitting him. I wish I could have just told her to run.

“Stop it!” He stopped choking me to fling her off, and she landed
with a thud. He turned back to me. “See what you made me do! I didn’t want to
hurt her. Everything was going to be painless for her!” He grabbed me again.
“But not for you.”

I started fighting him and managed to scramble across the table.
“What did I do to you? Just tell me that.”

Charlie stopped as if he didn’t expect that. “You don’t even know
what you did? You tried to fix it, so I thought you had a clue, but you’re
telling me you don’t? You’re just a stupid bitch, aren’t you?”

“Call me all the names you want to, Charlie, but tell me what I
did.” I tried to keep the table between us as we walked around.

“How could you live with them, get to know them, and still not
know anything? I never thought I would say this, but I actually feel sorry for
you. I’m still going to make you pay, but I’ll make it hurt a little less now.”
He lunged for me across the table and I backed up.

“You’re not making any sense, Charlie.”

He stopped walking and looked down at Ashley. I wanted to look,
too, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. One small hesitation on my part
and he would have me again. I needed to make sure I never ended up in his grip
again if I was going to get Ashley out of this. I didn’t care what happened to
me as long as Ashley was safe.

Charlie looked back up at me and tilted his head again. “You hurt
Mandy.”

That was the last thing I expected. “Mandy?”

“She has so little and you took everyone from her. I wasn’t
enough even though I tried to be. She was so happy when I got her the job here.
Then you came and took them all.” He started pacing slowly. “First Wade had the
hots for you and dumped her. Then Vicki stopped confiding in her once she
learned that you came back.” He sat on the edge of the table. “I thought you
had tried to help by getting Wade to see they belonged together, but you still
didn’t have a clue then, did you? You were just trying to be perfect. Just like
the rest of your perfect family.”

“You haven’t met my family, and we are not perfect. What do you
care about Mandy for anyway?”

Charlie stood up fast and yelled. I saw Ashley jump out of the
corner of my eye, so I knew she was pretending to be knocked out. “She’s my
sister! Her bitch of a mother took her away from Dad and me. When we got her
back home, I promised to protect her. I’d do anything for her.” He turned and
looked at Ashley and lowered his voice. “You know what that’s like now, don’t
you?”

“I’m sorry. No one ever told me Mandy was your sister.” I stole a
glance at Ashley. “I do understand the need to protect at all costs. Ashley may
not be my sister, but we are very close now.” I looked at Charlie again. “Do
what you want with me, but let her go.”

Charlie started chuckling and shaking his head. “I have to spell
everything out for you. I thought it would have been fun to be the one to tell
you, but now I just find it annoying that you aren’t catching on at least a
little. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“What am I supposed to be catching on to?”

“Avery.”

“Are you seeing things?” I looked around the room again. By the
time I looked back at him, he had taken the opportunity to move right in front
of me. I didn’t get away fast enough.

Charlie grabbed my arms. “I’ll say this really slowly since you
seem to be having trouble. You. Are. Avery.”

All the air left my lungs as though I had been punched in the
chest. I started to collapse, and he grabbed my arms tighter to throw me in a
chair. He laughed at the obvious shock on my face. How could that be? How could
I be Avery? I thought she died, but no one really said that. They said they
lost a child, but not that they buried one.

All the conversations with Ashley and how she now had a big sister
came back to me. All the times with Vicki, she had treated me like her own
daughter and was desperate for me to stay with her. I thought she was just
clingy or needy, but she knew I was her daughter. All the times mom kept trying
to make me give Vicki a chance. She kept trying to push us together. Did she
know? Of course, she knew. I thought of that conversation I overheard between
mom and Vicki. She told her she knew from the first dinner. Why didn’t they
tell me? I bet Heather knew, too. But what about Ryan? Could he have kept this
from me?

Charlie could still have been lying. Charlie could have been
making this all up just to hurt me as he said he wanted to. But would it hurt
more if it were true or if he was lying? I wasn’t sure how long he stared at me,
letting me work through this. He seemed to really be getting off on my obvious
state of distress.

“Last year before you came back and right after Vicki’s parents
died, she confessed to Mandy that her first child was taken. She was upset that
she didn’t find you before her parents died. It almost killed her.” Charlie
looked at Ashley. “If it weren’t for that kid right there, she probably would
have died, too.”

I had to get my composure back. I could figure out all of this
later, but I just couldn’t hear it right now. “I still don’t see how Mandy came
to the conclusion that I am Avery. She could be wrong.”

“No, she overheard Matt trying to calm Vicki down. Vicki wanted
to tell you, but Matt didn’t think you knew you were adopted. Matt actually had
your parents investigated, thinking they had something to do with the
kidnapping.” Charlie stood and walked towards me. “Once they were cleared, it
became the great debate on when or if to tell you. I must say I’m glad they
didn’t. This is a lot of fun.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, but you won’t get away with
this.”

Charlie placed a hand on each arm of the chair blocking me in.
“But I’m not going to do anything. You are. It was your card that got you in
here. You’re going to write a letter letting everyone know how sorry you are
that you wrongfully accused me. Then you’re going to kill Ashley and yourself.”
He bent down and got in my face. “You see none of it will be me.”

Behind Charlie, I saw Ashley close to the door and wanted to give
her a few more seconds of cover to sneak out. “You’re right, I will kill
someone tonight, but it’s not going to be Ashley or me.”

I brought my leg up quickly and caught him harder and better than
I thought I would, and he went down coughing. I started to jump over him, but
he caught my ankle and brought me back down. I landed hard on my stomach and
the air got knocked out of me. I still managed to roll to my back and kick at
him to get free. I had never been so happy that I made myself run so much on
the treadmill in my entire life.

I took off in a dead run away from the front door. I hoped Ashley
would be trying to get out for help, and I didn’t want to lead him in her
direction. I ran towards the back where you could go out and have lunch on the
patio. Those doors were locked and he still had my card. I turned to run a
different direction, but he was at the end of the hall, waving my card.

“Did you need this?” Charlie started walking towards me slowly.
We both knew I was trapped. “You just don’t know when to be grateful, do you? I
just told you I was going to go easier on you and you hurt me?” He shook his
head. “Not a wise move on your part.”

I was looking around and trying to find my way out. He wouldn’t
let me kick him again. I’d have to be smarter than that. I had to keep him
talking until I figured something out. “Why did you do all of those things to
me?”

“I’m really not a bad guy, Rebecca. I tried to embarrass you into
leaving. I put up Ryan’s picture that you had drawn first as a stalker move.
Stacy had already told everyone you acted like a love-struck idiot and said you
wanted to draw him within two seconds of meeting him. Everyone would have
thought you were obsessed with him, but you took them down before people could
see. Then I drugged your coffee and started the rumor you were on drugs. No one
believed that.”

Charlie tapped his chin. “When embarrassing you didn’t work, I
tried to scare you. I punctured your tires and made it obvious someone had been
in your apartment. Then I had to destroy your apartment, thinking you would go
home. You’re resilient, I’ll give you that. You just moved in with mommy and
daddy.”

If I couldn’t find a way out, I would at least get his
confession. “How did you get in to my apartment?”

“Wade. He came over one night after he had been drinking with
you. That’s really what pissed me off and made me hate you. You wouldn’t give
it up for him, so he came to my sister as a consolation prize.” He shook his
head. “She’s no one’s second best. He had your keys and I took them and made a
copy. I knew I had to get rid of you one way or the other.