Run Away Baby (13 page)

She looked out at the dumpster and garbage by his apartment. A cat went ambling by. Charlie drummed his left hand on the steering wheel while his right resumed rubbing her thigh. He waited.

“Okay,” she said finally. “We’ll go inside. But this is the last time I’m going to be so careless.”

Charlie opened his door. “You coming?” he asked.

Abby nodded and followed him inside.

A few days after Abby gave her cellphone to Charlie’s cousin for safekeeping, she was lounging around the house on a Sunday, having a low-key morning. She came inside from the pool and found Randall lying on the couch watching television.

“Whatcha watching?” she asked as she dried herself off.

“Nothing. Just flipping around, seeing what’s on.”

“Want anything to drink?” she asked, since she was on her way into the kitchen for some lemonade. Randall didn’t respond so she got her lemonade and came back out to the living room.

“What time are the Reeds expecting us to be at their place?” she asked. They’d been invited to go boating with some of Randall’s friends.

“Sit down.”

“I’m still wet.”

“Sit down.”

“Okay.”
She sat down, not recognizing the disaster looming before her.

Randall’s face was glued to the television. He was watching a show that reminded Abby of
Schindler’s List
. She sipped her lemonade, thinking about the article she’d been reading earlier, advising her to cut dairy out of her diet. She decided maybe she’d give it a try.

Randall couldn’t take his eyes off the television. Now there were 1940’s style cars rushing some children off under the cover of darkness, and moments later a woman weeping in a church. Everyone was speaking in another language. To Abby, it sounded like German.

Randall cleared his throat and spoke, “Do you
like
this show?”

“I don’t know. What is it?”

“I’ll give you a hint. It’s not a show. It’s a movie.”

“Hmmm.” She took another sip of her lemonade. “I don’t know. It looks… educational, I guess, but maybe like something that you’d need to start from the very beginning to get anything out of. I’m not sure dropping in partway through is working for me.”

Randall nodded thoughtfully. “Interesting.”

“Do
you
like it?” Abby asked.

“What do you think?”

“I didn’t think you liked movies with subtitles,” Abby said.

“I don’t.”

“Then why are we watching it?”

“I thought
you’d
like it.”

“Oh.”

“Do you know what’s going to happen next?”

“How would I know that?”

“If you’d seen it before, you’d know.”

Uh oh.
Abby took another sip of lemonade, trying to remain calm. Did Randall have some reason to believe she’d seen this movie? Was she
supposed
to have seen this movie before? “Maybe I’ve seen it,” she said. “A long time ago. Maybe that’s why I can’t remember it.”

The next moment was a blur. Randall was in her face. The glass of lemonade was knocked out of her hand, flying all the way into the dining room where it shattered and a scattering of drops ran down the wall. Randall was on top of her, punching her in the stomach. Then, aware he could do too much damage, he flipped her over and started pummeling the back of her thighs with his fists. He pulled down her bikini bottoms and began raping her. Because of his Viagra addiction, it actually worked. The entire time her face was smashed into the thick furry rug on the floor. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She was floundering around, trying to catch her breath. She began seeing sparkling stars and passed out.

When she came to, she was the floor, lying on her side. Her ass was bleeding. She was certain her ribs were broken, and her face throbbed from being shoved against the floor. She couldn’t get up. The house was dark and quiet. Randall must have gone to the Reeds’ alone. She tried to stand up, but she couldn’t move. She lay like this for hours, oozing in and out of consciousness.

Hours later she heard Randall come in, put his keys in the drawer in the table by the door, go into the kitchen, and open the refrigerator. A moment later he was standing over her, sipping a bottle of water.

“You missed a good time tonight, Sugartitties,” he said.

She tried to speak, but she could only moan a little.

“What’s that? I can’t understand you.” He laughed. She expected him to kick her, but instead he kept talking. “You were missed today. Not by the women so much, but us men like to have some eye candy around. Fortunately, Earl Carver was there with his new girlfriend. Her name’s Amber. She’s a twenty-four-year-old preschool teacher. Isn’t that sweet? Her tits look like watermelons. Her face isn’t bad either. So we made do.”

“I need to go to the hospital,” Abby managed to whisper.

“What’s that? I couldn’t hear you. You said you want a blanket? I can get you a blanket.” He took one of the cashmere throws that was draped over a chair by the fireplace and knelt down, carefully arranging it on her. Except for one ankle, she was on the wood floor, not the faux fur rug, and in too much pain to move herself onto the rug. As he stood up he said, “I don’t know why you’d want to sleep there. It’s not very comfortable. But suit yourself, Sugartitties. Do what you want to do. You’re the boss.”

“Hospital. Please,” she whispered.

“Clark Lorbmeer was there today. I let him know you’ll be out of town all next week. I thought he’d be upset to not have you around the office on such short notice, but he really didn’t seem fazed. Tell me you’re not just taking up space there, because, frankly, that would be an embarrassment to me.”

“Please…”

“What?
What’s
that? I can’t understand
what
you’re trying to say. Now, before you so rudely interrupted me, I was saying that I told Clark you’re going to a spa retreat for a week. I told him you need a little rest and relaxing. Spiritual healing. All that bullshit. Do you think you can remember that if he asks you? Do you?”

Abby nodded a teeny bit. It felt like she was nodding, anyway. Maybe she wasn’t even moving.

“Good. Do your best. It can be hard to keep up with all your lies, but do your best to remember that one, at least.”

She tried to nod again.

“Goodnight. Sleep tight,” he said. Moments later, the house was dark. Another couple of minutes went by and she heard his loud chainsaw snores coming from their bedroom as he fell into a peaceful sleep.

“I’m ready to make this happen,” Abby told Charlie. “I’m ready to disappear.”

“Well then, I guess it’s time for us to get serious about it,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess.” She pulled the brim of her baseball cap down a little, and sank down farther in the booth.

“You nervous?” he asked.

“Well, always.”

He didn’t respond. Instead he took a long, noisy sip of his shake.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him.

“Nothing.”

“You’ll still help me come up with a plan and make this actually happen, right?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. He looked down at his burger, picked it up like he was going to take a bite, and set it back down. They were sitting in a little restaurant on the edge of town. A tiny diner. Someplace Abby had never been before, and that Charlie said he’d never been either. People stopping in together once were forgettable, but a regular bringing in a stranger was memorable. It seemed that they were being properly ignored by the waitresses, but still, Abby couldn’t relax.

She was about to go to the cottage. She hadn’t been there for over two weeks, since she’d been lying in bed, healing that whole time. She’d been out of touch with Charlie, constantly afraid he was going to try to find her. Fortunately, Danielle at the law office had told him that she was at a spa when he’d riskily inquired about her whereabouts.

“So, you’ve really been at a spa?” he asked for the third time.

“Yes,” she said. “Do you want to try this?” she asked, offering him a bite of her sandwich.

“No thanks. You were there that entire time?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going away?”

“Randall surprised me with it at the last minute and I didn’t see any way I could let you know.”

“Where were you again?”

“Arizona.”

“You couldn’t call me from the airport or something?”

“Sorry.”

“I was
really
worried about you. I thought maybe he’d done something to you, or maybe you’d decided to go off and disappear on you own, without involving me. I had no idea what was going on.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to reach you without getting caught. Randall’s friend sent his wife too, and she was pretty much my chaperone. I never had a moment alone.”

“Okay,” he said. “But if anything like that ever happens again, you need to find a way to let me know what’s going on.”

“It won’t happen again because I’ll be gone from Randall soon,” Abby said.

“When can we see each other again?
Really
see each other.”

“Like I told you, Randall’s amping up my surveillance...”

Charlie sighed. “And your survivalist classes are over now, so you won’t have that as an excuse.”

“Yeah,” said Abby. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. I guess we’ll see each other at the law office. At least there’s that.”

“What made him get so much more suspicious all of a sudden?”

“It’s nothing new. If anything, he’d gotten a little lazy because he was busy with work, and now that his project is over he’s back on track, watching me like he used to.”

“Your bill,” said their waitress, slapping it down on the table.

“I got it,” Charlie said, picking it up and wiping it off with a napkin. The waitress had planted it right in a puddle of ketchup.

“Thank you,” Abby said.

“It’s no big deal.” He took out a credit card and set it on the little plastic tray. It occurred to Abby then that she had no idea what Charlie’s last name was. It was far too late in their relationship for her to ask. She tried to discreetly take a look at the card without him noticing, but the waitress reappeared and snatched it back up.

Charlie wasn’t done with his meal. He kept piling cold fries in his mouth. Abby looked at the ice cream sundae menu, waiting for the waitress to return.

“Want any?” Charlie asked, gesturing toward the remainder of his fries.

“No thanks.”

“Have a great day,” said their waitress, setting the card and receipt in front of Charlie. He stuffed them both in his wallet before Abby could catch a glimpse.

They both stood up. He’d accidentally dribbled some of his milkshake on his belly while he was eating. Like a messy kid. It made her sad. Even though they were in public, she took his hand and they walked out to the parking lot together. She gave him a long hug as they stood between their vehicles.

“You sure you don’t want me to come with you to the cabin?” he asked.

“I’m positive.”

“Call me soon,” he said.

“I will.”

He got in his truck and she got in her SUV and they went their separate ways.

The first thing Abby saw when she got to the cottage was tire tracks in the tall grass beside the driveway. From someone installing cameras, she assumed.

She let herself in and took a look around. Nothing immediately seemed out of sorts. The room appeared as clean and tidy as she’d left it. To her left was the steep, narrow staircase. In front of her was a small closet. To her right was the living room, looking cute and quaint, the pink, midcentury sofa as stylish as she remembered. An old wicker rocking chair creaked slightly from the breeze blowing in through an open window. Who would have left a window open? Had she? Would a security company be that unsecure?

She went over to close the window. The covered porch that wrapped around this side of the cottage had kept the recent rain out. She stood back and surveyed the room from this angle. The latch hooked throw pillows seemed a little crooked, but maybe she was imagining things. She scanned the ceiling and corners, looking for anything new she didn’t recognize, be it a spider or a camera. Nothing unusual jumped out at her.

It wasn’t until she got in the kitchen that she knew something was definitely wrong. An old, cheap toaster she’d never seen before was sitting on top of the kitchen table, plugged into an outlet halfway up the wall. Abby hadn’t eaten a piece of toast in years. A toaster was one thing she would never buy at a flea market. Furthermore, she would never leave a toaster plugged in. As a child, her mom had warned her and her sisters practically daily about how many fires were started by toasters.

She stood there, staring at the toaster. Randall knew about her toaster-phobia. Had he planted it here? Was he trying to mess with her head? It looked so innocuous sitting there beneath her newly acquired collection of plaster wall fruit art that it was hard to believe it could actually mean something menacing. Abby went over to it and pressed down the lever. A quiet, vibrating purr began to fill the room and the coils inside began to glow.

Over the sound, she heard a tiny creak above her head. She looked around the kitchen, wondering what else might be different. Hadn’t there been a dish towel hanging from the handle of the oven? Was she crazy, or could she smell a lingering hint of fried eggs?

There was another creak above her head, a shifting of weight on old floorboards. The inappropriateness of it registered to her, and all her attention was diverted to what was happening upstairs.

When she had arrived, she’d hung her keys on the hook by the front door. She couldn’t get to them without passing right by the staircase.

There was another creak, a little farther away now. A little closer to the top of the stairs.

Move! Move! You have to move,
she told herself.

And suddenly, mercifully, her legs began working again. She turned and darted for the door, grabbing her keys, ripping the wooden key holder right off the wall, and ran back outside. She fumbled with the remote as she ran, attempting to unlock her SUV, and in doing so, she dropped her keys in the tall grass. She gasped, falling to the ground, trying to find them. Her body still ached from Randall’s beating, and throwing herself down like that made everything hurt all over again. She looked back at the cottage, just as her hand closed around her keys. She pushed herself back up, staggering toward her vehicle. She attempted to hit the unlock button again and this time it worked. She jumped in, locked the doors, and took off as fast as she could go.