One Good Reason (11 page)

“Fine,” Ava
agreed. “But nothing I tell you will be of any value. Like I said, I’m a-”

“A Nobody,”
Hayden interrupted. “Yes, well, I think you are anything but a nobody. So
talk.”

Ava took a deep
breath and started from the very beginning of her life. She told Hayden about
where she was born and growing up in her small town. She told him about the
small school she went to and how there was only six other children in her
grade. She told him absolutely everything she could think of, and every major
event in her life, including her mother’s death and her estranged father.

As she told her
story, she watched Hayden move back and forth from the chair. He paced the
room, taking in everything she said, and then would sit back down to listen to
her when she got to the painful part of her life. She did her best not to get
upset when she talked about her mother’s death, but she knew Hayden could tell
it was still, even after this many years, a raw memory for her.

When she
finished telling as much as she could about herself, she waited in silence for
Hayden to respond.

“I’m sorry about
your mum,” he said sincerely.

Ava was taken
aback by his response. It was not what she was expecting. She expected him to
quiz her about something that seemed off in her life. Question her story that
she had in fact, told the truth and not a lie.

“Thanks. It was
a while ago now.”

“But she clearly
meant a lot to you and I can tell how painful it still is for you to talk about
her.”

Ava closed her
eyes and dropped her head. She didn’t want to talk about this right now. Not
here, not with Hayden.

“So your Dad…”

Ava lifted her
head and met Hayden’s eyes once again.

Hayden
continued, “Did he know you were coming here?”

“No. I haven’t
spoken to him in years.”

“Is he still a
journalist?”

“I couldn’t be
sure. Most likely though. He loved it enough to leave his wife and daughter for
it; I doubt he would ever give it up.”

“
Mmmm
.”

Hayden looked
out the window in thought.

“Do you think he
has something to do with this?” Ava asked confused.

“Maybe. Maybe
not,” he said, and then turned his attention back to Ava. “Nothing you’ve told
me, if it’s the truth, gives me any indication of why someone would want to
kidnap you. The only thing that strikes any kind of interest to me is your
father, and the fact that you have told me that he has worked on breaking some
of the biggest stories in the world. He is the only link to you that I can
think of that would make you vulnerable to a kidnapping as a means to get to
your father. But it still doesn’t make sense…” Hayden trailed off in thought.

“I need to make
a call,” he said finally, getting up from his chair and walking to the bag on
the floor.  

“I thought you
were going to tell me information about yourself. I told you everything about
me.”

Hayden stopped
and looked back at her. “Until I know for sure why they want you, I can’t tell
you anything.”

“They?”

“Yes, they.
Look, all I can tell you, is that I’m not a bad person.”

Ava coughed.

“I’m not. The things
I do, I do them for the greater good. The information I help collect, even if I
have to collect it in the worst possible ways, is information that saves
thousands of lives every day.”

“I’m sure.” Ava
didn’t believe a word Hayden said. How could kidnapping be okay in any form?

“I don’t have to
explain myself to you,” he said defensively. “Right now, I need to make a
call.” He then picked up the mobile phone from his bag and made a call.

Ava listened
carefully to his conversation.

“It’s me,”
Hayden said into the phone. “No time to talk. I need Intel on a subject…. Yes,
I have her here now and she told me what you had already said.”

Hayden avoided
contact with Ava as she looked at him in
confusement
.
Who was he talking to? How did they know what she would tell Hayden?

“I need
information on her father… Yes, Paul Harris…It’s the only link I can think of.
Find out if he has any involvement and find out where he is right now… I can’t
wait that long. The longer I hold her, the more suspicious they will get, I
need to know by tomorrow at the latest. They have connections here that I
don’t. It’s only a matter of time before they find us. Thanks, Sean. I owe you
one.”

Hayden hung up
the phone and placed it back into his bag.

Ava looked down
at her lap trying to hide the betrayal she felt. He was a kidnapper; she knew
that. But she still couldn’t help but feel betrayed that Hayden had made her
tell her all those things about her life, including the painful memory of her
mother’s death when he already knew.

“Ava,” Hayden
said softly.

Ava refused to
look at him.

“Ava, look at
me.”

Ava felt her
eyes burn with tears. After everything she’d been through. The pain she felt,
the humiliation. He had to go and hurt her the most with the memory of her mum.
She’d fought through it all, determined not to give up. But her mum, that was
something that broke her and every time she talked about it, it dug up painful
memories and feelings she tried to bury. Hayden had made her think about it
again, made her feel it all over again.

She looked up at
him. “You bastard,” she said, choking back tears. “You knew! You knew
everything and yet you still made me tell you! Why would you make me have to
relive that…relive my past like that?”

“I’m sorry, Ava,
but I had to know if you were telling the truth or not.”

“So, it was a
test?”

“Yes.”

“Well did I
fucking pass? I’ve only done everything you’ve told me to do and yet here I am,
tied to a fucking chair against my free will!”

Hayden knelt down
in front of her. “Do you think I like seeing you like this?” Hayden said
sternly. “But I have to do this. It has to be done like this.”

“You’re a sick
fuck, you know that?”

Hayden inhaled
deeply, and then rose to his feet. “It’s not like that. You think I’m the only
one that wants you right now? You walk out that door,” he said pointing at the
door. “And you’re dead.
Aun
won’t ever stop looking
for you. He’ll find you and when he does, he will do things to you that you
never thought possible, until you beg him to kill you to put yourself out of
the pain.” Hayden’s voice was cold and serious and Ava believed every word.

“
Aun
has connections. Do you really think you were just
going to jump back on a plane and fly home? He’ll be there waiting.”

“What about the
police,” Ava asked quietly.

“The police?”
Hayden laughed. “His highest paid employees are police officers. Your safest
bet is with me. I’m the only one you can trust.”

“How can I trust
you when you kidnapped me?”

“You’re just
going to have to for now. I can’t let you leave, Ava. I can’t protect you if I
don’t know where you are.”

Ava shook her
head. She was more confused than ever now. One minute, Hayden was the one
person she was running from, and now he was trying to tell her she was only
safe with him.

“Is this some
kind of game? Some stupid fucked up mind game?”

“No, Ava. I
promise you, it isn’t.”

Ava didn’t know
what to believe. Her head was spinning with emotions and thoughts, she couldn’t
concentrate. She leant back in the chair that had already began to pain her bum
and back, and looked out at the window. She couldn’t see anything but hotel’s
blocks away, as the room must have been on a high floor. She didn’t want to
look at Hayden or even think about him.

Hayden didn’t
try and talk to her again for the next few hours. Instead, he did the only
thing he could do and that was to wait. So he laid back on the bed and turned
the TV on. They both sat there in silence and watched the mindless junk on,
until a story grabbed both of their interests in a split second.

Ava watched as
the picture of her flashed across the screen. They were watching an English TV
station. So when the new presenter began to talk about Ava’s kidnapping, she
was gobsmacked. It was one thing living and breathing it; it was another seeing
someone talking about it. It felt even more real every second she watched it.
They showed images of where Ava was kidnapped, and pictures of what she looked
like. But the next clip made Ava’s heart clench tightly as she watched her
friend, Olivia, talk to the news presenters, telling them how she refused to
leave Thailand until Ava was found.

Tears fell down
her face as Olivia pleaded with the community for information, anything that
could help them find Ava. A reward was even being offered for her safe return.

Ava barely even
had time to take in the news report when Hayden was to his feet.

“That is your
friend, Olivia?” Hayden yelled at Ava.

“Yes,” Ava
replied confused.

“Are you
positive?”

Ava looked at him
like he’d gone mad. He was angry, yet she had no idea why.

“Yes, I’m
positive. Why what’s wrong?”

Hayden ignored
her question and walked towards her with a look that frightened her.

“I’m sorry, but
I have to do this.”

Ava watched him pick
up the piece of fabric for her mouth.

“No, please!”
Ava pleaded.

“I’m sorry,”
Hayden said as he grabbed the bit of material and tied it around her mouth and
head again.

She groaned as
she felt the tightness of the fabric restrict her mouth movement.

He then checked
her restraints on her wrists and ankles before grabbing his bag and heading for
the door.

“I have to go do
something. I’ll be back as quick as I can,” he said, and walked out of the room
before Ava had a chance to reply, not that she could of said much apart from a
mumble.

Ava sat back in
the chair, trying to kick and push it so she might be able to push it towards
the hotel door to escape, but Hayden must have already thought of that, as it
was the legs and back of the chair that was tied securely to the headboard on
the bed. The ties were so tight that she was barely even able to make either
the chair or bed move.

She
felt the ties around her wrists and ankles, but again was disappointed to find
there was no way she was getting out of the restraints. She was stuck here
until Hayden returned, if he ever did…

10 OPEN MIND

Hayden had been gone for just over an hour now. Ava knew because he’d left
the TV on, so she was able to keep track of the time and entertain herself.
She’d gone through enough dark and lonely days in the past two weeks that she
didn’t think she could handle being like that again. Although the silence can
be calming at times, it also made her feel like she was going insane. She would
fixate on every single sound and movement when she was captive in that room.
She felt herself starting to imagine things.

The
hotel room was very different from the room in the woods, thankfully. The TV
kept her mind populated with thoughts and feelings that she was ‘back in the
real world.’ She listened to the news updates and felt strangely comfortable,
even though she was bound to a chair.

Her
stomach once again ached for food. She didn’t know where Hayden had gone, but
hoped he would bring her back some food. If she was to trust him, as he wanted
her to, he needed to start showing it, and food at this point would definitely
be a start.

Just
as the commercial break came on the television, she heard footsteps near the
hotel’s door. Her head snapped to the sound as she waited, listening to the
door unlock. If her mouth was not bound at the time, it would have dropped to
the floor, for the last person she ever expected walked through the door with
Hayden trailing behind her.

“Ava!”
Olivia cried out to Ava as she ran to her.

She
wrapped her arms around Ava on the chair. “You’re alive! You’re actually
alive!”

Tears
fell from Ava’s eyes as she felt the warmth of Olivia’s body against her. It
had felt like a lifetime since she’d seen her best friend. She wanted so badly
to hug her back but her hands were still tied.

Olivia
pulled back, tears also falling down her face. She then looked back at Hayden.
“Was this really necessary?” she asked him.

Ava
looked between Olivia and Hayden confused. If Olivia was here, that meant that…

“No!”
Ava tried to scream out to warn her friend, but only a muffled cry came out.

She
thrashed herself in her chair. He’d kidnapped Olivia as well! He’d taken her!

Olivia
knelt down in front of her. “Hey! Ava, stop! It’s okay. It’s not what you
think,” she said calmly, and then turned back to Hayden once again. “Can you
hurry up and untie her?”

“She
better not go all crazy on me when I untie her. She’s tougher and smarter than
what you think. That’s why I had to tie her up like this,” Hayden said, as he
walked over to Ava and started untying her from the bed.

“Oh,
I don’t doubt it,” Olivia replied smiling. “When Hayden unties you, you got to
stay calm, Ava. If you bring too much attention to this place, you could put us
all in danger. I’ll explain it all as soon as you’re free.”

Ava
nodded her head. She trusted Olivia. Although everything in her body told her
to scream and make a run for it, if Olivia was telling her not to, she had to
listen.

When
she was completely untied, she wrapped her arms around Olivia, holding her
tight. “I never thought I’d see you again,” Ava said, crying into her shoulder.

“There
was no way I was going to let those dickheads get away with taken you, Ava. I
was going to find you and bring you home no matter what,” Olivia said as she
pulled from the embrace and wiped Ava’s tears away.

“But
how-”

Olivia
interrupted her. “I think it’s best I start from the beginning.”

Ava
listened, while Hayden sat on the dinning chair across the room, as Olivia
started to tell her about one night she went to a college party, “It was that
night that I met Jaime,” she explained.

Ava
remembered Olivia telling her all about Jaime years ago. They ended up hooking
up that night and continued dating for over six months. Ava never got to meet
him, but felt like she knew him pretty well from what Olivia told her.

“As
you already know, that was the night we met and hooked up. What you didn’t
know, is that, that same night, I also met one of Jamie’s friends.” Olivia
looked at Hayden.

“Hayden?”
Ava said in disbelief.

Olivia
nodded. “Hayden.”

“I’m
surprised you’re even able to remember it,
Liv
. You
were blind drunk as I recall,” Hayden said smiling.

Liv
? Only Ava called her
Liv
?
What the hell?

“Ha,
ha,” Olivia replied sarcastically, and then looked back to Ava, ignoring Ava’s
obvious confusion. “Anyway, that was the first time I also met Hayden. I didn’t
see Hayden again until a couple months later, when I went to Jaime’s house one
day and he was there. Jaime never really talked about Hayden, so I assumed he
must’ve not liked him that much. The day I saw him again, it turns out I was
very wrong. Jaime and Hayden were like
besties
. We
all spent the day together getting lunch and watching movies. I ended up
getting along really well with Hayden. We talked about everything together and
he came across as a genuine guy, and then he took a phone call and everything
changed. He was no longer the cool, casual, nice guy, but cold and distant. He
left shortly after the phone call with little explanation. The whole thing was
really bizarre. I tried to get it out of Jaime what was wrong with him, but he
kept reassuring me that I was over-reacting and it was nothing, and to let it
go. But you know me, Ava-”

“She
wouldn’t let it go,” Hayden interjected.

Olivia
smiled and shrugged. “I wouldn’t let it go. I tried finding out more about him,
but it seemed like he didn’t even exist. Jaime refused to talk about it, until
one drunken night when I…” She smiled her cheeky grin. “Well, let’s just say I
managed to get it out of Jaime.”

Hayden
let out a cough.

Olivia
ignored him and continued, “So, it turns out there was a reason why nobody
talked about Hayden or knew anything about him. He’s in the army, but more
specifically, he is SAS.”

“SAS?
But what does that have to do with anything?” Ava asked.

“It
has to do with everything,” Hayden replied. “There are only a few people in the
world that know I’m SAS. Jaime should have kept his mouth shut,” Hayden said
crossly.

“And
if he did, I wouldn’t be here right now,” Olivia said, matter-of-factly.

“Nobody
knows that I am in the SAS for a reason. What my job entails… The things I have
to do… Nobody can know that I do them.”

“You
mean get information?” Ava asked, remembering what he’d said earlier.

“Yes,
Ava. To put it short and sweet: I kidnap terrorists and get information from
them. That’s what I was trying to hint at earlier. Every person I’ve ever had
to interrogate has been a known terrorist. The information I get from them has
been used to save thousands of lives. It’s not a job for the faint hearted.
What I did to you was nothing. Every case is different. I knew from the moment
I met you, the only way I was going to break you was mentally, and in a very
different way to how I would break other people.”

Ava
had seen the interrogations, or to put it better, torture, that Hayden was
talking about in movies before and was grateful he’d never taken that approach
with her.

“However,
I also knew from the moment I met you, that something wasn’t right. You’re not
the typical person I get. The more I tried to find out from my superiors about
you, the more suspicious I became that something wasn’t right.

“…
The day you escaped, was the day I planned on coming to you and finding out the
truth. I was planning on talking to you, like I did earlier, and using my
connections to find out why you were so important to ‘them’. I never expected
to get back and find out that you’d escaped. I’d never been so angry or so
upset in my life. What you did to
Aun
… I knew in that
moment, he would never stop until he found you, and if I didn’t get to you
first, I knew what he would do to you.

“…
Doing what I do, means I have to work with all types of people, not all of them
good people.
Aun
and his men weren’t there because of
their duty for their country to help stop a terrorist; they were there for the
money, simple and true.”

Ava
listened to everything Hayden said, trying to take in everything he was telling
her.

“The
same time I tracked you down, I also found out from Mason that you were telling
me the truth about yourself. The only thing that was missing, was why you? Why
did ‘they’ send me after you? So I did the only thing I could do, and I took
you back here to the hotel room. I had no idea that the Olivia you were talking
about, was the Olivia I knew. Like you, I haven’t seen a bit of news in weeks,
and when you said you lived in a small town and had a friend Olivia, there was
no reason why I would think it was Jaime’s ex-girlfriend Olivia.”

“So
that’s why you left earlier, to find her?”

Hayden
nodded at Ava. “I wouldn’t have left you the way I did, but I knew you wouldn’t
believe me, and would try to escape.”

Ava
buried her head in her hands. “This is all too much,” she said quietly.

“I
know it is, Ava. But the good news is we are both here to help you, and figure
this mess out,” Olivia said, reassuring her friend.

Ava
looked up at Hayden. “The things you did to me… What you put me through…” She
couldn’t help the tears falling from her eyes as she remembered being in the
dark room.

“I’m
sorry, Ava,” Hayden said sincerely. “If I had of known who you really were, I
would never have done it. You have to understand; when I am given an order, I
follow through no matter what. I don’t question it. I can’t question it. Even
when I knew something wasn’t right, it killed me even to think those thoughts.
I’ve spent years of training and discipline to teach me never to go against an
order.”

“It
still doesn’t change what you did.”

“I
know it doesn’t. If I could take it back, I would. But I promise you, I will
fix this.”

Olivia
hugged Ava as she cried harder. “When was the last time she ate, Hayden?” she
asked, still holding Ava close.

“I’ll
go get something,” Hayden replied, as he walked out the door, leaving Olivia
and Ava alone.

Olivia
pulled Ava onto the double bed so they were both lying down and held her close.
They stayed holding each other crying until their crying became quiet sobs.

“I
know I can never even begin to understand what you must have gone through. You
don’t ever have to talk about it, but I’m here if you need me.”

“Thanks,”
Ava replied softly.

“You
know he really is sorry. If he had of known…”

“It
doesn’t change what he did,” Ava replied.

“We’ll
sort this out, Ava, I promise.”

Ava
closed her eyes on her friend’s chest and felt a wave of exhaustion go over
her. Everything she’d just been through and everything she’d just been told,
took its toll on her mentally, emotionally, and physically. She didn’t fight
the sleep as it took a hold of her. For the first time in weeks she felt
completely safe, even though she knew it was far from over. Someone wanted her
kidnapped and she didn’t know why, and now
Aun
and
his men were scouring Thailand to find her. She was far from safe, but in that
moment, she and Olivia were reunited and that’s all she cared about.

***

Riley
let himself into Stevenson’s office, ignoring the fact Stevenson was on a very
important phone call with the finance department.

Riley
approached his desk eagerly and held out his mobile phone. “You need to take
this,” he said seriously.

Stevenson
frowned at Riley’s rudeness and continued his conversation on the phone.

“Now,”
Riley said sternly.

Stevenson
looked between Riley and the phone.

“I’ll
call you back,” Stevenson said into the phone, hanging up his conversation with
the department and grabbing Riley’s mobile from his hand.

“Stevenson.”

“Where’s
my daughter,” the voice asked on the other line.

Stevenson
shot a look at Riley. “Your daughter is exactly where she needs to be, Paul.”

“I
asked for proof of life and you have yet to give me any. You crossed the line
with my daughter. If I don’t get proof of life soon, I’ll finish you,” Paul
threatened.

“I
think you value your daughter’s life more than your stupid story, Harris. I’ll
have your proof of life when I feel you have earned that right.”

“Excuse
me?”

“You
have one week to give yourself, and your files up. I’ll arrange a secure
location for the meeting to take place-”