AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When we got our boats in the water, I paddled with Claire because the other girls didn’t like her. Pippa had made sure to help her with her life jacket, and I hadn’t paid attention when Claire said it felt heavy. Said it felt like rocks were in there. But I was too excited to go out on the long trip to the island in the middle of the lake.
As we passed by Wendy and Pippa in their canoe, a pop rang out, and suddenly, our canoe sprang a leak between the shore and the island. Too far from safety.
We sank fast. We screamed. A lot. The counselor was already on the island—Becka had led the way. There was supposed to be a counselor behind the group, too, but she wasn’t there. I found out later that she had food poisoning. No one knew if that was intentional … but I think Wendy and Pippa did something to her food. I’ve always thought that. After everything else they did, why not that, too? Those girls were evil. Pure evil. And their parents were too rich for it to matter.
The more I think about it, the more I can’t breathe. Just like Claire.
Tears stream down my face, and I can’t stop seeing her in front of me. “I’m sorry, Claire. I didn’t know.”
Not that it matters now. In the water, I kicked and kicked, trying to get to the surface. My life vest was weighted, too, but I wriggled the clips open and got out of it, and swam for the surface. Someone threw a rope toward me, but it was too short and panic splashing made me sink. When I did, there was Claire. Dead.
I screamed underwater and thrashed for the surface, kicking Claire’s body in the process. Sometimes I still feel that sensation when I’m in the water. The softness of it. Soft, but still solid. I knew right then what I’d done, and the thought made me blackout for a flash.
But it was that little extra push which got me back to the surface, like kicking off the bottom of the pool. She saved my life because I had her body to propel me upward. It was instinct—I was kicking wildly, didn’t have a plan or a thought in my head. I didn’t want to use her like that. It just happened.
I’m not in the lake.
Chanting that over and over is the only thing that will keep me from losing my shit right now. My face is cold from the tears dripping down it, but that doesn’t matter because I’m not in the lake. I’m dry—face aside—and I’m not blacking out. That is not an option. I am present and I am not drowning and I am going to get the fuck out of here somehow.
Focus. Breathe.
If not for myself, then I’ll do it for Claire. Because when I get out of here and I get my money, I’m going to open a firm to help people who get stepped on by everyone else.
-
Chapter 37
JUNE
Hours pass by. It has to be hours, because the only two things that have calmed me down are thinking about the firm I want to start and counting the seconds, and I’ve reached over eight thousand and that’s over two hours. That is, if I’ve been counting actual seconds.
I haven’t thought about Claire in so long that it feels fresh. Therapy—lots of therapy—helped me to stow those thoughts away for processing later because every time I thought about her as a child, I had intractable panic attacks. No meds touched them, so my therapist thought it best I lock the thoughts up for the time being.
Now, I can’t stop thinking about her. But it doesn’t have to be entirely for naught. Back then, it was a horror in the truest sense of the word. Still is. But if I can use that horror to bring some good into the world, then I will. I’ll help people who have been wronged.
Maybe I’ll track down Pippa and Wendy and make their lives a living hell while I’m at it. I’m sure I can dig into their family’s financials and find something wrong.
“Claire, I will make them pay. All of them.”
But to do that, I have to start with making Anderson pay. Oh, Anderson. God, could this be more complicated? Maybe I shouldn’t have told them about our relationship. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. I don’t know. It’s hard to know what the best?—
The rectangle of light says someone is opening the far door. A slim figure walks through it, and I’m not sure if it’s better that it’s the woman coming toward me right now, but it feels like it’s better. Silly, really. She could have a gun or a knife or something. She’s just as much of a threat as the big guy. But I still feel better that it’s her.
An overhead light comes on—one of those humming fluorescents. It takes a minute before my eyes clear up and when they do, the woman is untying me. It makes me want to celebrate, but that feels premature. She’s pretty, but plain. Brown hair, brown eyes, nothing remarkable about her at all. The perfect kidnapper.
And another face I’ve seen when I would prefer not to see them. One more person I can identify is one more reason for them to kill me.
When I’m untied, she says, “Follow me.” Then she turns on her heel and heads for the far door.
I stand up and almost lose my balance. Pins and needles in my calf. “Leg’s asleep. Just a moment.”
If she’s annoyed, she doesn’t show it. She merely stands near the door, waiting. I hobble toward her as best I can and by the time I reach her, I’m awkwardly walking like a newborn horse, but I can travel. She gives a curt nod, then opens the door.
We’re in a hallway. It’s rudimentary and a little bare. It reminds me of the time I had to go through a mall’s back halls because I got locked in after it closed and the security guard had to help me get out. But then we go through another door, and we’re in a lobby with a bank of elevators. There’s no outer door from the lobby, and no windows, either. But there are guards. Lots of armed guards. This place is a fortress.
Running is not an option. I want to ask a thousand questions, but I doubt she’d answer any of them, and I don’t want to annoy her. Nervously rambling won’t make things better.
Anyone who has a fortress in the middle of Boston—if we’re still in Boston—is dangerous. I shouldn’t have said shit about Anderson. Hell, I probably shouldn’t be involved with him, either. Not if being involved with him gets me here. This is about his family. Not me. I don’t have anything to do with anything this nefarious.
