Love Gone (9 page)

“Shhh…” Lisa said. “This isn’t one of
those things that needs a ‘thank you.’ Take care of that boy of
yours. And give us a call once in a while. At least when you get to
your mom’s place, okay? I’m going to worry about the two of you
until you do. It’s a long trip to make by yourselves.”

Faith hugged her even tighter in
answer.

With one last kiss, hug, and a
farewell, she got into the drivers seat, pulling the door closed
with a satisfying thud behind her. Inside the car, the air was
thick with unanswered questions and unsaid thoughts.

“Okay,” she said, falsely cheerful as
she put the Element in gear and turned toward her son. “Are you
ready for a road trip?”

He shrugged the way that only surly
teenagers can shrug and slipped his headphones into his ears, so he
wouldn’t have to talk to her she guessed.

Wonder if he’s going to listen to
those all the way to Nashville, she wondered, and then discovered
she didn’t care.

“I don’t blame you, you know,” Faith
told her son. It was almost under her breath, but not really. She
said it to see if he was listening, but also because she felt like
the air in the car was thick with doubt and she wanted to clear the
air if she could.

“And your father doesn’t blame you
either,” she added.

At her words she could see Liam’s skin
go a little pale and he shifted uncomfortably. Yep. He could hear
her, she knew.

Watching his thumb spin through the
music selections on his iPod she kept talking, almost to herself,
but mostly to him.

“I don’t blame her either, you know.
Emily.”

His thumb stopped spinning, but he
didn’t look up or say anything to her.

“She was being abused. She was just as
much of a victim as her father as Mac was. As we were.”

Still he looked out the window. By all
appearances, not listening to her.

“The police found cigarette burns and
rope marks all over her body. He’d been torturing her they said.
Physically. Sexually.” She felt uncomfortable even repeating that
last bit of information, and not just because she was talking to
her teenage son. The thought of abuse made her queasy. No child
deserved to suffer. Of course she couldn’t condone what Emily had
done. She could have run away years earlier, or called to turn her
father in years ago, but she hadn’t. She’d helped him choose his
victims, helped him stalk them, find out where they lived, even
helped him torture and murder them if he’d demanded it.

She’d confessed everything to the
Ketchikan police to help lead them to the whereabouts of her evil,
twisted father, but without any success, creating what the local
news was calling, ‘the biggest man hunt in Alaskan
history.”

“Nope, this wasn’t your fault or her
fault.” She repeated again. “Not really.”

She sighed, wondering if anything she
said would get through to him at some point.

“The police will catch him
Liam.”

“So what,” he answered.

“So what?” She repeated,
confused.

“Yeah, who cares if they catch him. I
mean, I hope they do and they fry him in the chair, but it won’t
bring dad back will it.”

He was right. Nothing would bring Mac
back. Not even when they captured the man responsible for his
murder.

“No, it won’t bring your dad back,”
Faith agreed. “But it might give us some satisfaction and peace to
know that he can’t hurt anyone else. No other family will have to
go through this.”

“I don’t care about anyone else,” he
said gruffly.

At that, she pulled the car roughly
onto the side of the road and turned to him. Surprised he stared at
her, headphones forgotten.

“Don’t say anything like that ever
again, do you hear me?” She asked him roughly. “Those are not the
words of the kind, gentle, loving son I raised. Your father would
hate to hear you say that. And I hate to hear you say that. You
think Mac died in vain? Did that monster kill him for nothing? No.
For some reason that girl of his came back to our house, none of
the other victims ever saw them again, but she came back to our
house and let herself be taken into custody. She confessed to the
police after she killed our Mac.”

Faith was shaking with fury and
indignation. “Do you think that’s a coincidence? This was supposed
to happen. It makes me sick to know that Mac was used by fate in
this way, but damn it Liam if you won’t admit that your father’s
death may have served to stop this sicko, then you and I have a lot
of conversation left and we’re not moving from this stop until you
give your father the respect his death deserves. He died and no one
else will have to die if the police can find the man that did this.
Mac did that. It was the last heroic thing he ever did, but he did
that.”

She was crying now and Liam was
weeping too, his head against the window, not looking at
her.

“I miss him so much mom,” he
cried.

“Me too baby, me too.”

She grabbed him and pulled him close
to her like the little boy he would always be to her. He didn’t
fight her embrace, just let himself be clutched tightly and cried
into her hair and shoulders while she cried into his.

They sat like that for what seemed
like an eternity. Crying and reaching out for Mac’s spirit to be
with them.

Finally they sat in silence. Each
emotionally spent and weary of the tragic turn their lives had
taken.

“Do you know the last thing your
father said to me?” Faith asked Liam gently.

He shook his head and rubbed his
eyes.

“He told us to live.”

Liam just looked at her
confused.

“Did you hear me,” she demanded louder
now. “The last thing your father asked of us was for us to
live.”

His blue eyes, so much like his
fathers, looked back at her, wet with tears and red with
sadness.

“So what are we going to do about
that?” She asked him.

At first he didn’t move; didn’t look
at her, but she could see the wheels moving in his head as he
thought about what she’d told him.

She watched as he steeled his
shoulders, arming himself with an inner resolve.

C’mon Liam, she thought as she gazed
silently at him, find it in yourself to get through this
baby.

Finally, he turned to her, his blue
eyes awash with unshed tears, but shining with a new steely
determination she knew he’d need to help him get through the
difficult months and years to come.

“OK mom, let’s do it.”

“Do what?” She didn’t want to push him
too hard, but she knew that for him to get through this he would
need to say the words out loud.

“Live.”

“Okay,” she agreed with a relieved
smile. “Let’s do that.”

They had a long road ahead of them,
both literally and figuratively. She hadn’t been to Nashville in
years and her mother hadn’t sounded too enthusiastic to hear from
her, even after all this time. It would be a chance for Liam to
meet his grandmother and explore his roots. It could be very good
or it could be very painful, she had no way of knowing what
direction it would go, but she didn’t have much of a choice. At
this point, there was only one way she could go. South.

“Okay,” she said to herself as she
pulled the car back onto the road, “Let’s live.”

About the
Author

Elizabeth wrote her first romance
novel at age fifteen when she discovered writing about boys was way
easier than actually talking to them. Since then, her flirting
skills and relationship techniques have helped hundreds of others
find their mojo. After earning a master’s degree in secondary
education from UNC, she worked abroad teaching English, bar-tended
at late night clubs in Chicago, and continues various philanthropy
projects that focus on empowering women. But she always returned to
writing. Though she’ll forever be a free-spirit at heart, she now
lives in Los Angeles with her two dogs. If she’s not working on her
latest sexy story, you can find her reading, watching reality
television, or indulging in her unhealthy addiction to rock
concerts.

One Last Thing. . .
        

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Other Elizabeth Nelson
Books

The Faith Series

Love Gone (Book
1)

Felicity (Book 2)

Tomorrow is Unknown (Book
3)