Read Payback Online

Authors: Melody Carlson

Payback (15 page)

BOOK: Payback
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“Go ahead and take one now if you want. I can get you safely home.”

“They’re in that wild-looking bag.”

So I get her bag, and we fish out the prescription. I hand her my bottle of water, she takes a couple of pills, and we’re on our way.

“Yes, this is a rather unique outfit,” she says as I drive away from the terminal. “But last night when they brought me to the hospital, I was a mess. My shirt was soaked in blood…so were my jeans. Plus they were filthy. I had no shoes—”

“No shoes?”

“He made me take them off.”

“Why?”

“To keep me from running, I think.”

“Oh…”

She leaned back into the seat and sighed. “It’s been a long couple of days.”

“I can imagine…Why don’t you just relax, Mom?”

So she does. And despite my burning curiosity to hear all the details of her recent misadventure, I simply drive and hope that her pain pills are working.

“We’re home already?” she says happily as I turn off the car.

“Yep.” I grab her bag, then run around and help her out of the car.

“Thanks, Samantha. But I’m really not an invalid. I can walk.”

“I know, but your pain meds…” I link my arm with hers and guide her into the house. “Besides, you might as well enjoy a little pampering when you can get it.”

She nods as I unlock the front door. “Yes. Good thinking.”

“Home sweet home,” I say as I flick on a light. “Are you hungry?”

“Just thirsty. I ate on the plane.”

“Soda?” I offer as we go into the kitchen where I’ve placed the floral arrangement in her favorite crystal vase in the center of the island.

“Oh, everything looks so lovely Samantha.” She sits on a barstool, then leans over to smell the blooms. “And fresh flowers too!”

I get a glass, put in ice, fill it with her favorite—natural raspberry soda—then set it in front of her.

“Perfect.” She takes a sip and sighs. “Oh, it is so good to be home.”

“And I know you’re tired,” I say. “And although I’m full of questions, I’ll wait until tomorrow before I start grilling you.”

She smiles, kind of sadly. “I appreciate that, Samantha. And don’t worry, I want to tell you the whole story. But I am tired.”

“You’re not going to work tomorrow, are you?”

“Probably not. I’m supposed to go see my regular doctor…for my shoulder. I already let the office know I had an accident, but I’ll call in tomorrow to see if anything is pressing.”

“An accident? Is that what you call it?”

“I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that I’d been kidnapped and shot by my ex-boyfriend, the con man.” She looks at me with weary eyes. “Do you think I’m terribly silly and shallow?”

“No, not at all. I don’t blame you. Not everyone needs to know all the details of your life.”

“My thinking exactly.” Her eyelids seem to be drooping now.

“Maybe we should get you to your room,” I suggest. “It looks like those pain pills are really kicking in.”

She nods sleepily. “Yes. I think you may be right.”

So I walk with her upstairs. I help her out of her sweat jacket and into an easy-to-get-on pajama top. Then I make sure she has a glass of water by her bed and her pain pills handy, although I remind her that she shouldn’t have another one until after two in the morning.

Two,” she repeats after me groggily. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“Here,” I say, reaching for a notepad on her dresser. “I’ll write it down for you.”

“Thank you, Nurse Samantha.” She gives me a goofy grin now. “By the way, you’re much prettier than last night’s nurse.”

“Thanks,” I say “I take after my mom.”

Then I help her into bed and tell her to sleep well. By the time I turn off the light, I think she’s already drifting off. Poor Mom.

The next morning I get up early My plan is to dress for school and then fix Mom some breakfast, which I’ll take to her in bed. But I find her already up. She’s downstairs in the kitchen making
coffee. She has that funky blue sweat jacket over her pajamas, but she’s actually humming to herself as she measures the coffee.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

She turns and smiles. “Pretty good actually.”

“Because I was thinking I could stay home if you—”

“No no…” She shakes her head. “I don’t want you missing school for me, Samantha. I’m fine. In fact, my shoulder seems much better.”

“But you’ll still see your doctor?”

“Sure. I don’t think there’s much to be done for it. It really is only a flesh wound. The bullet just skimmed over the top of my shoulder.”

That was lucky.”

She nods. “Or maybe God was watching over me.”

“Well, people were praying for you.”

“I could tell.”

I consider this as I watch her filling the carafe with water. Is she just humoring me…or is there something more?

“I have a lot to tell you, Samantha.”

“I have more than an hour before I need to go to school,” I point out as I fill a bowl with Raisin Bran.

So while we sit at the island, eating cereal and drinking coffee, Mom tells me what happened.

“It was partially my fault,” she begins. “I’d been calling Steven all week, leaving messages. I hadn’t said anything specific, just that I needed to speak to him…that it was urgent. I think I was hoping I’d be able to talk him into giving me back the money he’d stolen. I thought I could reason with him.”

“Oh…”

“Yes. You’re probably thinking I was being stupid. I thought I was being brave and smart. Finally I got hold of him on Saturday morning. I called him from my office, and he actually answered. So I told him that I’d been the victim of some kind of credit-card fraud and that I needed his help to sort it out.” She shakes her head. “I told him that he was the only one I could trust, that I’d emptied another savings account, and that I was walking around with this big pile of cash, and I wanted to put it someplace safe.”

“You told him
that?”

“Stupid, I know.” She sighs. “It was the best I could think of—a way to lure him in. My plan was to confront him, to make him return my money or I would call the cops. I asked him to meet me at work. Even though it was a Saturday, there were a few people around. It seemed safer than being alone at home. But I never expected him to show up with a gun.”

“He brought the gun to your office?”

She nods. “He asked me where my stash of cash was, and I told him it was in my purse, which he immediately confiscated. Then, with the gun hidden beneath his jacket, he
escorted
me to my car.”

“Why did you go with him?” I demand. “Don’t you know that’s the worst thing to do? You’re always supposed to run, Mom. Once they have you in the car, your odds of escaping go way down.”

“That occurred to me, Samantha. But seeing that gun…knowing we had kids in the building…Well, I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“What about you?”

“I honestly didn’t think Steven would use it on me. And he actually told me that the gun was simply his means to protect us, in case someone tried to steal my money on the way to the car.”

“And you believed that?”

“Not completely. Part of me was saying,
run for it!
Another part of me thought I could control this. That I could make him see my point of view and force him to do the right thing.” She takes a sip of coffee. “Steven had on a nice business suit, and he was actually being sort of polite, almost charming as we went downstairs. But when we got to the car and he saw there was no pile of money in my purse, he was mad. He figured out that I was trying to trap him and that I knew he’d stolen my money. He told me to start driving.”

“And you did.”

“Yes. First we stopped at his car, which was parked a few blocks away almost like he’d suspected something was up. He made me get out, and with the gun at my back, he made me unload some bags and put them into the back of my car. Then we filled up my tank with gas, and he pulled out a map and told me to drive east.”

“East?”

“Yes. We drove to the other side of Oregon and into Idaho before he told me to start driving south. I had no idea where we were going. But he just sat there in the passenger seat with his gun and his map, and I couldn’t really argue with him. I tried and tried to reason with him. But he finally told me to shut up. He made it clear that he could easily get rid of me. Much of the terrain we passed through was desolate, and as he
continually pointed out, there were lots of good places to dump a body”

“Oh, Mom…” I shake my head. “How terrifying.”

“Yes. But I still thought I was going to get away. Until he made another phone call…It was after midnight by then. I don’t even know where we were. But he called someone as if to verify that the person was at the right address.”

“Huh?” Mom is losing me now.

“Our address, Samantha. Steven told me that he had a man parked outside our house, ready to break in and get you if I gave him any problem.”

“He said that?”

“At first I told him I didn’t believe him, but then he dared me to call his bluff…I didn’t think I could do that. By then I knew I was dealing with a madman. I started remembering other nice-looking, charming men who turned out to be sociopaths. Guys like Ted Bundy and Scott Peterson. They look good on the outside but underneath are the devil. That’s when I started getting truly scared.”

“What about when you needed to use a bathroom,” I suggest, thinking of all the ways I would have tried to escape, “or when you had to stop for gas? Couldn’t you have made a run for it?”

“Not with the threat of his buddy breaking into our house, Samantha. Not with you alone and not knowing what was up.” She peers at me. “Did you know what was going on yet? On Saturday night?”

“I was a little worried,” I admit. “But I got home late from the prom-surveillance thing, and I just figured you were out with
Paula and would be home before long. I didn’t realize you hadn’t come home until morning. Sorry…”

“It wasn’t your responsibility, Samantha. I’m the parent, remember.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, my bathroom breaks were either in roadside rest areas where Steven accompanied me to the door and waited, or desolate stretches where I had to use a bush outside the car. But after a while, I was so dehydrated I didn’t even need to go.”

“Poor Mom.” I refill her coffee cup.

“Yes. That’s one thing they immediately treated me for at the hospital. I can’t even remember how many IV
s
they used on me.”

“So how long did you drive?”

“I lost track, but more than twenty-four hours. Naturally, Steven didn’t want to use the major freeways, didn’t want to be spotted. I’m sure he thought someone would be looking for us by then. We took lots of back roads, lots and lots of back roads, and New Mexico is a long way from Oregon.” Mom gets a kind of lost expression now, like she’s still on the road and thinking she’ll never get home.

“So you saw the sign to Las Cruces,” I say, hoping to hurry things along. “Twenty-eight miles…and that’s when he tells you to pull over.”

Mom blinks. “How did you know that?” Then she nods knowingly. “Oh, yes…the girl up in Oregon who had a vision and called the FBI.”

“Actually, it was a dream, and Ebony called the FBI.”

She sort of smiles. Thank God for both of you.”

“So you were afraid,” I continue. “You thought this was the end, Steven was going to shoot you, you would fall facedown in the dust, and the coyotes and vultures would pick your bones clean.”

Mom looks stunned now. “You got that too? In the dream?”

“God’s amazing, Mom.”

“I know…”

“So…Steven told you to get out of the car?”

“Yes. I knew by then that he planned to go to Mexico. He had someone already down there…a woman…probably his next victim. It was late in the day; it would soon be dark, no traffic. It was time to get rid of me. I’d been useful as a driver, and my car came in handy since he’d hoped it was less recognizable than his. So he told me to take off my shoes and get out. At first I stayed in the car, and I pleaded with him to let me keep my shoes—and even to give me my purse and cell phone. I told him that I would wait, giving him plenty of time to get across the border before I called for help. I even promised that I wouldn’t turn him in at all. He didn’t believe me.”

“No, of course not.”

“I asked him about you then, if you would be okay if I cooperated with him. And he said yes—as long as I cooperated. For a moment I thought he wasn’t really going to shoot me. I thought he was just going to ditch me. No shoes. No phone. No money. I’d probably be stuck out there all night…and he’d be long gone. Why not? Then he reached over and took the keys out of the ignition and told me to get out. That’s when I saw something cold and evil in his eyes, and that’s when I knew…”

“That he was going to shoot you?” She nods sadly “I knew.”

“So what did you do?”

“Very, very slowly I took off my shoes. I was trying to think of something, anything to stop this…and I even prayed, Samantha. I begged God to protect you, to keep you and Zach safe. And then I got out of the car and walked around to the other side where Steven was out and waiting for me. And just then I noticed a vehicle coming toward us. A yellow pickup, quite a ways down the road, but rolling along just the same. Steven saw me looking, and he turned and looked too.” Mom pauses as if to catch her breath, and it’s all I can do not to say, “Hurry up! Finish the story!” But I wait as she takes a sip of coffee.

“The minute Steven turned his head to look at the truck, I took off running,” she says. “And even though I was barefoot, I ran as fast as my feet would take me. I heard him yell ‘Stop!’ but I just kept going. I don’t know how far off the road I was when I heard the gunshot, but when it hit me, I fell down. I wasn’t even sure where I’d been hit, but something told me to stay down. So I did.”

“Was it painful?” I ask.

“I don’t remember feeling it then. I was so scared. But then I heard the car door slam. He started the engine and peeled out like he was making a big getaway. Not long after that, I heard another vehicle, which I assumed was the pickup. It wasn’t going nearly as fast as Steven, but it wasn’t slowing down either. I don’t think the driver noticed a thing. I considered standing up and waving, but just like that, the pickup was gone. In the next instant I got up and ran for cover. For all I
knew, Steven might be coming back to finish me off. So I ran and ran, finally hiding behind rocks next to some low hills.”

BOOK: Payback
8.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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