Phillip: Lanning's Leap - Paranormal Erotic Romance (9 page)

Chapter 8

Dottie left a message at Lanning Search and Rescue for the third time. She had no idea how to get in touch with just Phillip, but she knew that they did work at the rescue place. She’d seen it on their shirts that first day and had looked up the number in the directory.

When she hung up the phone, she looked at her husband, who was sleeping still, and moved to the window of their drabby hotel room. Trying not to look at the day old donuts, she decided that if she never saw a donut or sweet roll again, it would be just fine with her. She stepped out of the room to see young Max leaning against their car. The young man looked as if he were harmless, but she knew better.

“How did you get here?” He looked at the taxi that was just pulling out of the lot. “You shouldn’t have sent him on his way. I want you to go away and leave me alone. If you’d take a message to Phillip, I’d appreciate that, but I have nothing to say to you.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. I have to talk to you. And now is when it will have to be. Later will be too late.” He nodded to the restaurant, and she wondered if he meant to feed her. The need for something not sweet made her mouth water. “I’ll buy you a meal or two and leave you something if you help me. But you will feel better once you’ve eaten a real meal. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but if you don’t let me talk to you.... Lives are at stake for what you’ve set in motion. Charlie doesn’t deserve what you’ve done to her.”

“I know.”

He nodded once and led the way to the restaurant. Dottie thought about waking her husband, but knew that he’d not come or he’d take forever getting ready. She needed to eat now. And talking to this young man, she knew it was going to go a long way toward helping her with what they’d done.

As they entered the large open restaurant, she looked around. As much as she’d wanted to come here over the last several days, there had just not been any money for it. Instead, for the last week they’d been eating leftovers from the breakfast for each meal. It was too much. Food, something nutritious, was what she needed right now.

The coffee was brought first, and Max ordered himself a glass of unsweetened tea. She thought he was making fun of her, but as soon as she sipped the coffee, she knew a new kind of pleasure. As soon as the waitress took their order, Max put both his hands on the table and a woman appeared. It was Sonya. But even though she could see her, Dottie realized that she wasn’t there with them. It was just an image of the woman she’d grown to hate over the last several days.

“She’s the one that asked you to take care of Charlie. Am I right?” Dottie tried not to think about what else this kid could do, but nodded. He was scary, but for some reason she knew so long as she didn’t try to run or do anything stupid, she’d be just fine. “I won’t hurt you. But I have found out some things, now that you’re no longer working for Sonya, that you should know.”

“Like what?” The image moved again and there was her husband in a hospital bed with all kinds of tubes hooked up to him. She knew that this wasn’t an image from long ago, but now. Or soon. “You know this for sure, or are you trying to scare me?”

“He’s going to die soon without help. And you won’t be able to help him, and Sonya won’t. She’s washed her hands of you. Not that she won’t try to kill you both, but she won’t help you. Either of you. His diabetes has returned, along with your cancer. You, too, only have weeks to live. You must have known this.” Dottie nodded. She’d been having nose bleeds for the last two days and knew what that meant. And hiding it from Curtis was getting to be more and more difficult. “I’m sorry. If I could help you, I would.”

“I know you would if it were possible, but I’ve made my bed, so to speak, and now I must lay in it. I figured out that she’d revoked our bargain several days ago, but I thank you for being honest with me. I even called Phillip this morning to tell him what I knew.” Max nodded. “I see. That’s how you found us?”

“No, I’ve known for a couple of days where you are. So do the rest of them. Not Charlie yet, but she will soon enough.” Dottie nodded. She asked him if she hated her. “I don’t think so. She’s upset, but she doesn’t hate you. But after what you’ve done to her and about her, you have to help her. She needs to get on with her life, and she won’t if you continue to keep her from it. And you are. Just as surely as you are sitting here, you’re keeping her from it.”

“I wasn’t a terrible mother to her. There were times, which I’ll admit now, that I wished we’d not said yes to taking her. But for the most part, I loved the girl. But that’s neither here nor there. Sonya came to us almost twenty-four years ago. I was sick then too. The cancer in my head had spread to the rest of my body, and the doctor told me that it was fast moving and that I’d be dead within a month. Just as matter of fact as that. Then Curtis fell ill and I was ready to do one of those murder-suicide things when she knocked on my door.” Dottie had never told anyone the next part before, but she knew that this was her only hope. “I often wondered as the years went by if she’d made us sick to get what she wanted. Money was good, but we had enough for the two of us. It was our health that was going to end us.”

“Your husband was and still is a diabetic. His health, while poor, was not nearly as bad as you were led to believe it was. You, however, were healthy until then. There were no signs of cancer before that, so I believe you are correct in your thinking. It’s the same thing that Nic and I thought when we started digging. She used you both.” Dottie nodded, and when her food was set in front of her, she wasn’t as hungry as she’d thought. “You must eat. I can’t help you if you don’t stay at least marginally healthy.”

Dottie toyed with her food. It had sounded so good before this conversation. A hamburger and french fries, with all the trimmings. Dottie smiled a little then, remembering that this was Charlie’s favorite meal, one she would order no matter where they had gone out to eat. She pushed it away in favor of getting this meeting over with.

“We were to keep Charlie for the rest of her life. There wasn’t really any rules about how we were to raise her, but there were things she couldn’t do. The one that sticks out in my mind more than anything was that she wasn’t to date. That wasn’t hard to keep under control, as she never seemed to mind staying at home on the weekends. And when she did go out, it was with her girlfriends, and there wasn’t many of those either.” Max nodded and asked her if she told her why they were to watch over her or why she couldn’t date. “The dating part, she never said, only that it was necessary that she was kept from men. She was supposed to be something special. Not that I could see. I mean not really. I thought at first it meant that she had magic, like what cured us, but it was obvious that she was just as normal as I was. Maybe less so. Crafty but normal.”

“And your husband, what did he think of taking her in?” She thought of her Curtis. “I know that he had some trouble with some of his employers. But what I want to know is, did he resent her in any way?”

“No. He loved her, too. I mean, it was really hard not to love her. She was a good girl. But if you mean trouble with his boss, I’m assuming you mean that you know that we were skimming the books. I know it was wrong, but we never took that much from any of them at one time. We did end up with millions of dollars, however. But we didn’t spend it. It was for our rainy day.” She thought of the plan and how it had gone to shit in a matter of days for them. “I didn’t think he’d make it in prison, and I’m reasonably sure that he knew it, too. So from the start of us taking their money, we had a plan. I didn’t want to lose him, and, like I said, he’d have never made it on the inside. Someone would have murdered him as surely as he would have been on the streets. He was going to die should he get caught or come close to getting caught, and then go away until I could join him. Fifteen years, we thought, was a good number of years for him to pretend he was dead. And the money would go a long way to keeping us safe. Fat lot of good that did us. Someone found out about our stash, and now we’re broke.”

“I know who has it.” Dottie perked up, but he only shook his head. “It’s not yours, and the people you stole it from aren’t going to get it either. It will go a long way to helping people who need it. Medical expenses and other things like that. It’s been set up as a charity fund, and it will be called Grant Works, after you and your husband.”

There was no point in even begging him for it. She’d be dead; they’d both be dead soon enough. And even if Welshouse didn’t find them, she knew that she’d be gone in a matter of weeks anyway. When Max spoke again, she had to ask him to repeat the question. “Where is she? Do you know where Sonya is now?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have a way of contacting her either.” She looked at him and then at her plate. It took her several seconds to realize that she had eaten her lunch, every bite of it. “You did this? Why would you do something like that to me?”

“You need to keep your strength up. I only have a few more questions, but you’re weak and you know it. All right?” At her nod, he continued. “I’m here about the book, too. Who have you told about it?” She’d hoped that no one would know that she’d sold Charlie out. They were desperate when she’d called in a few favors, and now she regretted it. “Dottie, who did you tell about it?”

“Welshouse. I think his first name is Gilbert or Ray, something. I can’t remember exactly. He’s the one that is mentioned in the first few pages of the book. And when I told him I knew where it was, he said he’d take care of me once he had the pages. I’m sure that what I think of as taking care of me and his way of thinking aren’t the same. He’s going to kill me, I know it.” Max only nodded. Yes, she’d been thinking that was what Welshouse was going to do, but to have it confirmed was terrifying. “He said that when I got the book from Charlie…the pages, he kept calling them…he’d give me whatever I wanted. I’m not sure that I can do that to her now.”

“He knows who she is and where you are. As of yesterday morning, there are three men watching you and your husband at all times.” She looked around, and Max told her to relax. “They can’t see us. I won’t let them. But they are aware of where Charlie is, and soon they will make their presence known to us. Then he will die. But not before he tries to kill you and your husband first.”

“What are you?” He smiled and told her. “And Doran, is that something I should know about? Are there more like you?”

“Yes.” That was all he said, and it was enough to make her body stiffen in fear. “So long as you heed my warnings, you’ll be safe where you are. Run or try to change the order of things as I’ve set up for you, and they will kill you. And no one will ever find your bodies. He means to cover his tracks, and there is a path that leads to you right up to the hotel room where you’re staying.”

Dottie wanted to beg him to save them. She knew that she’d done a lot of things wrong, hurt a great many people along the way, but she was different now. She supposed that staring death in the face, as she was, could change a person, but she truly did regret hurting Charlie. She knew that the boy, the one warning them to keep quiet and that made her eat her lunch, was going to be her last contact with Charlie.

“Will you tell her that I love her? Charlie, I mean, will you tell her that I’m sorry and that I love her so very much?” He said that he could do that. And what hurt her so much more than knowing that she was going to die was the fact that the boy hadn’t told her that she could tell Charlie herself. It was that done of a deal.

He couldn’t have been much more than fifteen, if that. Yet Dottie was terrified that even though he’d said that Welshouse would kill them, she knew it would be worse than that. They would suffer greatly for doing anything that this kid did not okay. And Charlie would be hurt as well. When he stood up, she watched as the waitress brought him a large bag and he handed it to her. She could smell the warm food in it and nearly sobbed, she was so grateful.

“Every day someone will come by your place, and he’ll give you food and water. Don’t go out of your room. If you do, there isn’t any way for me to protect you. When he knocks on the door, you are to look out the peephole. He’ll show you this.” She look at the coin that he had in his hand. It was the face of a woman, beautifully chiseled out of gold. But what made it so much more unique was that it was in color…even the blue of the woman’s eyes was there. “There are only five of these in the entire worlds. If he doesn’t show you this, he doesn’t work for my family. Understand?”

“All right. But what about the other men, the ones that are watching us?” Max told her that they’d never seen either of them since she’d opened the door and found him standing there. “Why can’t you just take us someplace safe? I mean, please? I don’t want to die.”

“Because there is nowhere you’ll be more safe than right here.” The chill of his words made her bladder tighten up. “Go back and talk to your husband. Tell him what I’ve told you. And make him understand how important it is that you listen to what I’ve told you. If you leave the hotel room, you are as good as dead.”

Even after he left her at the door, Dottie had questions. Most of them centered on whether they would live long enough for them to have food the next day. She knew that she wasn’t going to live long, but it would have been nice to know just how long she had. Looking at her sweet husband, she didn’t want to wake him but knew that it had to be done. As she set out the food, still hot from the restaurant, she had another thought. What if Sonya found them before Welshouse did?

Don’t look for trouble that isn’t at your doorstep.
She wasn’t surprised to hear the boy talk to her, wasn’t even thrown off when he told her to remind her husband to stay indoors. Dottie was pretty sure that her life, short as it was going to be, was about as abnormal as it could get.