Fight or Flight (9 page)

“Thank God. And thank you.” She tossed the painkiller into her mouth and drowned it with the full glass of water. “What time is it?”

“Nearly two.”

Shock swept over her. “No way.”

“Yeah. Tom and I slept through the alarm. We’ve all trickled out over the last half hour.”

Regan looked down at her rumpled clothes, abashed that she’d been the last one up when she was supposed to be leading this motley group.

“Hey.” Tyler lifted her chin with a finger. “Cut it out. You were injured. The rest of us were just tired.”

She thought about protesting, but decided to cut herself some slack. She
had
fought off a lot of men last night in addition to climbing ditches and running through woods barefoot.

“Okay. What’s the plan?”

Tyler raised his eyebrows in unconvincing innocence. “Plan?”

“You’ve been up for half an hour. There’s got to be a plan. Hold that thought,” she added, raising a hand. Her bladder had reminded her of priorities. “I’ll be out in a minute.” She retreated into the suite’s bathroom and took care of business, then started to wash her hands.

“Gah!” Her appearance in the mirror was so shocking she couldn’t suppress her reaction. Her hair, as long as Kelsey’s but not as dark a brown, had been wet when she went to bed. Now it rioted all around her face, which still looked gray and was covered with tiny nicks and scratches. Her eyes drooped with fatigue and sported dark circles.

Tyler
had
to have been lying last night.

Regan dismissed the thought, along with her frightening appearance, and used clips Van had bought to get her hair out of her way. After washing up and brushing her teeth, she packed the toiletries the others had left for her and went out into the main room.

She took a moment to look them over. Kelsey and Van sat at the table next to the kitchenette area. Kelsey appeared subdued as she ate a croissant and sipped from a takeout coffee cup, while Van seemed to be fully recovered and back to her spiky-haired, perky self. Her eyes sparkled and she looked adorable, despite the butterfly tape closing a gash on her cheek.

Tyler and Tom sat on the couch, deep in conversation. Regan realized how alike they were—both with shaggy blond hair and blue eyes, long legs, solid torsos…

And identical grim looks.

“What’s going on?” she asked. The men looked up—and though she hated to think of her daughter’s boyfriend as a man, that was what he was. His jaw firmed with determination and he shifted away from Tyler. Neither of them looked as tired as she still felt, despite the additional sleep she’d gotten.

“Nothing,” Tyler said, but Tom shook his head and stood.

“Tyler thinks we need to get out of here immediately but won’t say where he plans to take us. And Kelsey wants to know his story before we go anywhere.”

It was clear Tom sided with Kelsey.

“We need to compromise.” Regan crossed to the little table and took a croissant. “Who went out and got this?”

“I did,” Van answered. She leaned to open the microwave and handed Regan another paper coffee cup. “It’s just from downstairs. Kels said you like it black.”

“I do, thank you.” The coffee’s temperature was just right for drinking. She drank half the tall cup, and right away her lethargy began to fade and her thinking cleared. She walked around the perimeter of the room to help get her blood flowing and ease the cramps in her muscles.

“I’m just as eager as Kelsey to hear what Tyler has to say. But we can’t stay in one place for long, especially in this area. We need to put some distance between us and those men.” The back of her neck prickled, as if she could sense them bearing down on her.

“Who are they, Mom?”

“I don’t know.” Frustrated, she ground her teeth together. “I’ve never known. I have some explaining to do myself,” she admitted. “But not here. Not now.”

“Where?”

She’d been mulling it over since she woke up. “North. We’ll be harder to find in a city. Columbus is too close, and Cleveland is bigger. We need to make a stop first,” she told Tyler, who nodded.

“I’m still in, then?”

“I think you have answers we need. Plus, it’s your truck.”

“Ouch.” He gave an exaggerated sigh. “I had to ask.”

“Is everything packed?” Regan asked. They all nodded.

“Then let’s move out.”

She resisted Kelsey’s badgering to talk in the truck and directed Tyler to a tiny town north of Columbus. The bank she needed was across the street from a park. Everyone wanted to go with her into the bank, but she knew they’d attract attention and refused. She only let Kelsey come, because she couldn’t turn off her need to train her daughter. Who knew when, if ever, this would be over?

“You always need to have an escape plan,” she lectured, trying not to limp as they walked uneven brick pathways. “Be prepared for anything. Including getting hauled away from your stuff naked and unconscious.” She stopped next to a statue of the town’s founder. “Anyone around?” It was late afternoon now, and traffic rumbled by but there were no pedestrians.

“No, we’re clear.”

Third brick from the right on the right, Regan remembered, studying the walkway. She found a small stick and used it to dig out enough sand between the bricks to pry up the third one near the base of the statue. Then she had to get low to reach into the hole and deep under the statue. But her fingers closed over the leather coin purse, right where she’d left it. She came up grinning.

“What’s that?” Kelsey stared at her. “It’s too small for ID or anything.”

“You’re right.” Regan replaced the brick and stood without Kelsey’s help. She unzipped the purse and shook out a key. “Safety deposit box.” She aimed her chin at the bank. “ID and money are in there.”

“Holy crap, Mom.”

“Hey!”

Kelsey ignored her. “What if they’d decided to replace the walkway?”

“There’s no place to hide something with zero risk of discovery. But I shoved it as deep as I could, hoping no one would find it. New bricks or cement would have made it harder to get to, though.” She started to cross the lawn to the road on the far side of the park. She’d approach the bank around the other side to scope out the area and make sure no one was watching them.

Kelsey matched her purposeful stride. “See that guy at two o’clock?” she asked quietly.

Regan cut her eyes that way. A hunched-over man in a green Army jacket pushed a battered grocery cart, about forty yards away and around the corner of the square.

“Yeah.”

“Just checking.”

Regan caught Kelsey’s smart-aleck grin and smiled back. God, she’d missed her. She wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed, then let go right away, not pushing the moment.

Kelsey moved ahead to open the bank door and hold it for her mother. Regan went straight to customer service—the branch hadn’t changed an iota since she was first here six years ago—and asked for access to her box. A few minutes later, she and Kelsey left the bank, a couple thousand dollars more comfortable and carrying driver’s licenses and credit cards declaring them to be Hestia Wallace and her daughter May. The documents weren’t exactly legal, but she’d pre-paid the balances on the cards, so at least she wasn’t committing credit card fraud.

“Passports?” Kelsey questioned, studying her old photograph. “I can’t believe I still match the picture. I was
ten
.”

“Doesn’t matter since it expired, but we’re not planning to leave the country, anyway.”

“I know. Still, it’s kind of exciting.” Regan eyed her. She shrugged. “You know, besides the whole being-chased-’cause-someone-wants-to-kill-us part.”

“Yeah.” Regan stopped walking. No one was nearby, and there was something she should say before they were back with the others. “Kelsey, you know we have to get Tom and Van home. Or at least back to school. They can stay with us for now because they deserve to know what’s happening.” It was difficult for her to allow, as it went against everything she’d believed for eighteen years. But it was too late to keep them out of their lives. They’d adopted the damned puppy.

“Well, gee, I appreciate that.” Kelsey’s sarcasm was a precursor to anger, Regan knew.

“They’re good friends. I understand, Kels. And as I said, they should know why they’ve been running through the woods and driving all over kingdom come. But they’re in danger as long as they’re with us.” She took a breath to say more, but Kelsey surprised her.

“I know, Mom. We won’t argue when the time comes. Well,
I
won’t. I can’t speak for Van.” She smirked, but Regan saw the loneliness behind it. Her heart cracked. For the first time, her daughter had true friends. In two short months, they’d become close enough to endanger themselves for her. And here her evil mother was, sending them away.

“I wish they could stay with us, honey.”

“It’s all right, Mom. I know why they can’t.”

The white truck, splattered with dried mud, rumbled up to them. Tyler had circled while they were talking. Tom sat in the front seat now. Kelsey ran around and climbed in next to him, crowding the front of the cab.

Regan raised an eyebrow at Tyler. He lifted a shoulder. She bit back a response and climbed into the back of the cab.

“Still heading north?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah, let’s find a hotel in Cleveland. We’ll share information and rest some more. After that, though, we have to get Van and Tom back to school somehow.”

Their protest was immediate. Tom twisted to look over the seat, his expression earnest though she couldn’t hear his words over Van’s strident argument.

“I can’t understand either one of you,” Regan said, “and it doesn’t matter. You’re not safe with us. We’ll go to Cleveland, stay the night so everyone can rest properly and eat a couple of real meals, and then we’ll send you back to Whetstone. And Tyler, you’ll move on, as well.”

“And what are you and Kelsey going to do?” Tyler asked.

“Doesn’t matter, because they’re not ditching us,” Tom said.

“If you think I’m leavin’ my best friend to those assholes, you’ve got another think coming!” Van added. “She wouldn’t even have gotten away if it weren’t for us!”

“It’s out of the question,” Regan said. “Your help has been invaluable, but she would have been fine without it. More scared, I’m sure, and much more lonely. But she knows what she’s doing. It’s irrelevant, anyway, because
we are not putting you two back in danger.
”

“Making me leave you will put me in danger,” Tyler asserted. “My boss will murder me if I leave you alone.”

Anger flared in Regan. “What else does he expect of you? What do you have to do to us to avoid that fate?”

Silence descended in the truck, and no one spoke for several miles. Then Tom and Kelsey started murmuring to each other in the incomprehensible way teenagers have even with adults within hearing range of a whisper. Van leaned forward and joined in the debate. Regan watched unabashedly, not caring if they thought she was invading their privacy. She couldn’t read their lips or hear more than mumbles, but she could tell Kelsey was trying, and failing, to stand firm.

Regan sighed and closed her eyes, easing down in the seat until her head rested on the back of it. “How far to Cleveland?” she asked Tyler.

“About two hours.”

“Wake me up when we hit the beltway, please.” She shouldn’t fall asleep. It would give Tyler an opportunity to alter their course or hand Kelsey off to someone before Regan could react. But she was tired, and though the pendulum hadn’t swung all the way back to “trust him,” it hovered somewhere in the middle. He had to prove himself, but if he was against them, he’d worked awfully hard to help and protect them instead. It seemed too much effort to win them over, even without knowing why he might do such a thing.

Besides, even dozing, Regan kept part of her brain and attention on the movement of the vehicle and the sounds inside it. She was still in charge, even if no one knew it but her.

Kelsey argued, but Van was wearing her down.

“You need help,” she insisted for the third time.

“I’ve got my mother now, Van. I keep telling you, I didn’t intend to drag anyone into this.”

“You didn’t even know it was coming!”

“I can’t be responsible for anything happening to you,” Kelsey argued. “Your parents—”

“Have nothing to do with it.” Van’s eyes narrowed, but Kelsey saw hurt behind the lids, anyway. “I thought we were friends.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Van.” Kelsey rolled her eyes. “You know we are. I’ve never had a friend like you.” She flicked her eyes up to see her mother watching them, and lowered her voice even further. “Let’s hear what my mother and Tyler have to say, at least. We don’t even know what the danger is.”

“We’ve kicked ass so far,” Van said. “Tom, back me up.”

“She’s right. I know you have your mother, but what do you know about Tyler? She doesn’t trust him very much. You should have someone watching both your backs.”

She bit her lip. It sounded so logical. “My mother won’t go for it,” she said reluctantly. “And I really want you guys to be safe.”

“There’s no guarantee we’d be safe back at school, either.”

Kelsey’s insides froze. She hadn’t thought of that. Her imagination dutifully provided rapid-fire images of Tom and Van being slaughtered with knives.

“They know we were with you,” Tom pressed. “They’ll figure out who we are, and it wouldn’t be hard to take us at school.”

Van jumped on that. “Yeah, they could use us as bait to get you. Or hurt us to make you come in.”

“Van, sit back and put your seatbelt on, please,” Regan said. Van scowled but obeyed. Kelsey and Tom turned to face front. Kelsey laid her head on Tom’s shoulder, torn.

Tom slung his arm around her and dipped his head to murmur in her ear. “I’ll do whatever you want me to, no matter what your mother says.”

His words comforted her, though she knew he didn’t have a chance against her mother. “Don’t underestimate her.”

When they neared the city, Regan directed Tyler to find a hotel with suites and an underground lot. Regan checked in at the lobby, paying cash, and led them all to the suite she’d booked.

“I think we all should rest some more before we do anything else,” Kelsey said as soon as they walked in the door. She wasn’t ready to face leaving Tom.

No one answered her. Tyler and her mother cased the suite, checking every room, every doorway and window. Tom went immediately to the information folio and flipped to the room service menu.

Van came out of one of the bedrooms. “Looks like we’re sharin’ again.”

Kelsey pressed her lips together. She was already tired of being surrounded by bodies. The only body she wanted to lie next to was Tom’s.

Not that she was going to tell her mom that.

They collected in the sitting area, a black-and-white room with rectangular furniture and plain vases on shiny tables.

“What do you want to do?” Tyler asked her mother.

“Anyone else hungry?” Tom asked. “I’m gonna call for some chow.”

“Let’s eat and rest,” Kelsey said again, trying not to sound desperate.

“I thought you wanted to know what was going on.” Her mother had a knowing look.

Kelsey swallowed, wondering why she felt guilty. “I do. But I think we’ll all feel better if we eat and rest.”

To her relief, her mother chuckled. “You’re either trying to prolong being with your friends, or you’re afraid of my mood.”

Kelsey raised her eyebrows hopefully. “Okay if I say both?”

Regan smiled. “Nice try. Food, we can do. Then we’ll tell you what we know and move on.”

“Okay except the moving on part,” Van grumbled, but accepted the menu from Tom to make her choice.

While Tyler called their order in, Kelsey slumped onto the couch next to Tom and rubbed her eyes.

“I’m so tired.” She wiggled on the hard cushion. “Who bought this furniture?”

“You can sit on my lap,” Tom leered, making her laugh.

“Yeah, with my mother right there.” She studied her for a minute, trying not to be concerned. She didn’t look any better now than she had when Kelsey first saw her just before dawn. The shadows under her eyes had darkened and though she was using her left arm, it was clear it still hurt her.

Van came out of the bathroom and bounced onto the sofa beside her. “Ouch. Not very soft.” She bounced again. “Could be fun, though.”

Tyler hung up the phone and perched on the arm of a chair. Regan remained standing behind the love seat opposite the couch where Van, Tom and Kelsey sat.

“Where do you want to start?” Tyler asked.

“At the beginning.” Regan sighed. “It’s about time.”

Kelsey held her breath. The beginning meant her father. She leaned forward and dug her fingers into Tom’s leg. He flinched and gathered her hand gently into his.

“Chelsea Conrad met Scott Harrison at Blaydes Academy when she was seventeen,” Regan began.

“What?” Kelsey burst out. That wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. “Who’s Chelsea Conrad?”

“I was.”

Kelsey stared at her, barely hearing Van’s noise of interest or feeling Tom’s comforting squeeze. “You changed your name?” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t known. Now it seemed obvious, with the little bit she knew, but… She pressed a fist against the betrayal in her gut. It was stupid, just a name, but it skewed her view of her mother, already. How much more would the story change?

“You don’t look like a Chelsea,” Van said.

Regan’s smile was sad. “No. I haven’t been for a very long time. But that’s who I was then. My parents had been killed, and I wasn’t doing well in foster care. An excellent social worker found Blaydes for me, and everything changed.” Something flashed in her eyes and she looked distant, but she brought herself back to the apartment and focused on Kelsey.

“I fell in love with your father immediately. He wasn’t perfect—he partied pretty hard and he had some friends from the football team who were jerks—but he was smart and sweet and fun, and when he was determined to do something, he succeeded.”

“Like taking the team to State his junior year.” It was one of the few stories her mother had told her.

“Yes.” She blew out a big breath and tucked her left hand into her pocket, wincing as she shifted her shoulder. “I found out I was pregnant when we’d been together nearly two years. I was terrified, but Scott was positive we would get through. He was so excited.” Her eyes welled with tears, and her eyes met Kelsey’s, earnest and pleading, though Kelsey didn’t understand why. “He wanted you so much, Kels.”

She sniffed and jerked her hand up to swipe at the tear dripping down her face. She felt like a tower loomed over her, a jagged, tilting pile of everything she’d missed, not having a father. For a moment it overwhelmed, about to bury her. She took a deep breath and pushed it away.

“You’ve told me that, Mom.” She cleared her throat when her voice came out thick. “But you never told me what happened next.”

“He went to tell his parents. I didn’t want him to go. They were career military and very controlling. I was afraid they’d make us give you up, or worse. Or take you from us to raise ‘for our own good.’ Or Scott’s, anyway. I knew they saw a brilliant future for him.”

“Did you ever meet them?” Kelsey asked. She’d always been curious about the only grandparents she had alive, out there somewhere, perhaps unaware they even had a grandchild. But her mother rarely talked about them.

“I did. They were very nice to me and seemed glad Scott was happy. They let me join them during parents’ weekends since I didn’t have any. They cheered me on during my karate competitions.”

Kelsey gaped at her. “You did martial arts?”

“Yep.” She grinned, a hint of pride in the expression. “First place, six times in two years.”

“Awesome!” said Van. Kelsey turned her head. Her friend’s eyes were wide, her hand clutching the side of the sofa.

“But you don’t do martial arts now,” Kelsey accused.

Regan shook her head a little. “It’s hard to keep it up without a partner, and joining a dojo wouldn’t have been smart. It would have connected me to Chelsea.”

“How come you didn’t go with Scott—I mean, Dad—to tell his parents?”

Her mother’s indrawn breath shook, as did her voice when it came out. “I was afraid, and he knew it. He was going home for the long weekend and knew he couldn’t keep it from them. He was too happy. He wanted me to go, but told me to stay at school until they knew and he’d proven to me everything would be all right. It turned out,” she choked, “to be the best thing he could have done. For us.” She indicated herself and Kelsey.

No one moved, waiting for what they knew was coming.

Her mother’s face tightened. Her shoulders squared, and her voice came out stronger this time. “I talked to him on the phone Monday morning. He said things hadn’t gone as planned and I should pack a bag. He was coming to get me. He sounded scared but determined. I didn’t hesitate. I packed everything I could into one suitcase and waited outside my dormitory. Two hours after he was supposed to have gotten there, I had to go to the bathroom. When I came out I heard a voice, a man’s voice, in the common room around the corner. Something made me stop—I never figured out what. But he was asking one of the other girls about me. She said she’d seen me outside with my suitcase and that I must have left.

“When I went back outside, even though it had gotten dark and there was no one around the entrance or the parking lot, I hid behind the bushes. Scott drove up in his Mustang an hour later. I ran out and started to get into the car, but he opened his door and fell out onto the pavement.” Tears began streaming freely down her face, though she continued in the same strong voice. “He was bleeding. All over. I couldn’t tell from where, but I think he had at least a shoulder wound and probably his kidney.”

Kelsey released Tom’s hand and wrapped her arms around her freezing body. “From what?”

“I don’t know. Gunshots, or knife wounds.” She thanked Tyler for the box of tissues he handed her. “I don’t know how he managed to get back to Blaydes. Sheer force of will, I guess. He fought off my attempts to help him and clutched my shoulders. His eyes burned with intensity.” She closed hers, as if lost in the memory. “He said I had to run. They wanted the baby and would do anything to get her—he always believed you were a girl.” She dragged in a hitching breath. “They’d tried to kill him.”

Her mother’s eyes opened, and the anguish in them was more than Kelsey had ever experienced. She pressed the heel of her hand against her chest, against the sharp pain that had grown there over the last fifteen minutes.

“Then what?” she whispered.

“Then he told me he loved me. Loved both of us. And died.”

Van gasped. “He died? In your arms?”

Tom’s hand wrapped around Kelsey’s again. She was having difficulty breathing, as if the room had turned into a sauna.

“What did you do?” Tom asked.

“I did what he said. I ran.”

“You left him there?” In a second grief flared into outrage, and Kelsey leaped to her feet. “You left his body in the parking lot?” She could barely hear over the roaring in her ears.

Her mother didn’t look the slightest bit apologetic. “I didn’t think I had a choice. Someone had murdered your father and he believed you were in danger. And someone—maybe even the same someone—was looking for me.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“I was too scared.” She flattened a hand over her abdomen, as if remembering the baby she’d been carrying. “Even then, when I was only a few weeks pregnant, I was fiercely protective of you. I had bad memories of the police from when my parents were killed—I didn’t trust them. What if whoever killed Scott could get to me through the police? Worse, what if the police thought
I’d
killed Scott? So I ran.”

“To Ohio.”

She laughed, a bitter sound. “Oh, hell, no. I wasn’t very smart in the beginning. Scott’s parents lived in Northern California, so I went south. Got a lousy job, found a lousier place to live, gave birth to a beautiful, delicate baby girl, and decided it had all been nuts. I convinced myself Scott had been in an accident or something, and was delirious. It was too late to go back, but I fooled myself into believing we were safe.”

Kelsey couldn’t remember a time when her mother had felt safe. “What happened to change that?”

“They found me and tried to kidnap you when you were only a few weeks old. Two men came in. I fought one, but my karate was competition-oriented and his training wasn’t. He pinned me to the floor while the other guy got you from your nursery. They left me there, carrying you out with your diaper bag slung over one shoulder, like you belonged to them.”

“But you got me back!”

“I did.” Her smile was a fraction of what it had been when she mentioned her wins, but it bore the same mark of pride. “I had bought a gun, when we first moved down there. I pulled it from the towel drawer where I had hidden it and shot one of them. I got you away and left, and never took anything for granted again. Any time I got too tired or too overwhelmed, or felt silly for my paranoia, I remembered what it had been like to see them carrying you out the door.”

Tyler, who had remained still and silent until now, asked, “Where did you go?”

Regan’s eyes narrowed on him, and Kelsey could see her brain working.

“Wondering how I evaded you?”

He shook his head. “I never knew you existed until right before I moved in next to you.”

“Why don’t you tell us about that?” Regan circled the love seat and sat on its arm, facing Tyler on his chair arm. They reminded Kelsey of the old adversaries in black-and-white movies, the couple who were at odds but loved with a fiery passion in the end. She looked back and forth between them, her mind flashing over romantic scenarios.

What the hell are you doing?
Her musings came to a screaming halt. They were on the run, and Tyler could be the enemy. But she knew what was going on—subconsciously she was trying to escape from the agony of grief over the father who’d died to save her. The father she’d never known. It was unfair to blame her mother for that, and she gulped back the fury trying to spill over. She wanted to stop all the talking, make everyone go away and let her process what she’d just learned, but there was no time.