Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (26 page)

“We have to get back to Philadelphia. I don’t trust her alone with Ellie. Not now. Hold on.”

My father rises from his seat and paces to the front of the plane. I hear him yelling.

“What do you mean, you can’t go any faster? Full throttle, goddamn it!”

“Sir, the fight plan—”

“Fuck the flight plan, this is an emergency. Don’t you know who I am? I’ll fucking buy the FAA if I have to, just
punch it
!”

He strides back and flops in his seat.

“Goddamn incompetents, why can’t I find anybody that actually wants to do their fucking job?”

Exasperated, he punches the back of the seat in front of him. “You really married her?”

“Yes.”

“In an Elvis chapel?”

“Yes.”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I had to get a ring on her finger before you pulled some bullshit. Maybe you’d be afraid to disappear my legal, real-deal wife instead of just my girlfriend.”

“Disappear? What, like have her killed?”

“Yeah, Dad. Like have her killed.”

He stares at me. “You think I’d do that? What kind of a monster do you think I am?”

“The kind who wouldn’t let me see my girlfriend in the fucking hospital after her father died in a car accident where I was the goddamn driver, Dad. That kind. The kind who told me to stay away from her forever or I’d be cut off. The kind who had me watched and spied on so if I tried to leave anyway I’d be dragged back to the life you picked for me. The kind of man who doesn’t have an ounce of human empathy or emotion for anyone in his miserable life, not even his own son. If you want me to turn into you, I’d rather die first. Do you understand me?”

“No,” he says, very quietly. “No I don’t, not at all. We should be there in about two hours, this fucking thing won’t go any faster, apparently. For a hundred mil you’d think it’d have some afterburners or some shit. Frank!”

The curtain behind us parts and Frank lumbers through the opening and sits down on one of the seats in front of us.

“You heard all that.”

“Yeah.”

“I want your honest opinion. Completely, ah, frank. Tell me what you think. I promise no matter what you say, I will not hold it against you personally.”

He looks at me, and he looks at Dad.

“Sir, I’ve been with the company for twenty years. I have a pension. I’ve been your personal security for ten of that. I’m not going to risk my retirement and my family’s future by telling you what I really think.”

“I want your opinion.”

I shudder when my dad’s voice cracks a little.

“Well,” Frank sighs.

“I’ll fucking fire you if you protest anymore or I think you’re cupping my balls instead of telling me the truth. Out with it, goddamn it.”

Frank sighs. It’s like listening to a mountain sigh.

“He’s right,” Frank says, looking at me, and then looking at him. “You’re a huge fuckhead. As a person, I mean. Business is good, but you’re a total dick.”

“Thanks, Frank,” my fathers says, very calmly.

“What do we do?” I say.

“When did they take off?”

“After we did,” Frank shrugs. “Couldn’t have been too long, but they should be behind us. We’ll land and then intercept them at the airport.”

“Then what?” I say.

“Then I file divorce papers and put my entire legal team and staff of private investigators on this thing with the car crash, and grease a few palms along the back channels. I’ll have somebody on everyone from the cops at the accident down to the engineer that designed the fucking screws in the headlamps, and I will nail that conniving bitch to the fucking wall. She tried to kill my son. I don’t care if I have to run for president and appoint myself to the Supreme Court, I’m making sure she goes to prison.”

“If you think that’s going to buy my affection…” I say coldly. “After this, we’re done. I’m taking my wife and I’m going off to live my life, and I hope all your money and all your power keeps you happy. Maybe the fifth Mrs. Marshall will work out.”

“It would be fourth. Jessica is my third wife.”

“Whatever, like I care.”

“Son—”

“My name is Jack.”

“Jack—”

“Oh please, Dad. Don’t think you can convince me that your eyes have opened with some Mister Scrooge routine. You’re so full of shit your eyes are brown, as my mother says.”

“You saw her.”

“Yeah.”

“How is she?”

“She lives in a little house in a subdivision with her two daughters and her accountant husband and she’s goddamn happy, is how she is. Does that bother you?”

He sits back and doesn’t answer me.

“Two more fucking hours to Philadelphia,” he grunts. “Fucking thing won’t go any faster.”

Frank looks at me and I look at him. He shrugs his gargantuan shoulders and turns around to sit facing forward.

The engines drone. Time ticks by like a dripping faucet that goes just fast enough to set me on edge. There’s no clock in here and I don’t have a watch. My phone is gone. No way to tell time until the pilot comes on the intercom and announces that we’re starting our descent into Philadelphia International.

Not fast enough, goddamn it.

Calm, Jack. She’ll land after we do.

The intercom crackles. “Sir, I need to speak with you after we land.”

My father gets up right this moment and rushes to the front of the plane even as the descent begins.

He charges back to his seat and throws himself in, clips his seatbelt, and pounds the armrest with his fist.

“They’ve already landed.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t fucking know, some shit about a tailwind. What do I look like, a goddamn astronaut? When this son of a bitch gets us on the ground, we need to go.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Frank says.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dad snaps. “For fuck’s sake, did you really say that? I have a bad feeling about this? Thanks for the jinx, Frank.”

“Sir, may I speak freely once again?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck you, sir.”

“That’s why I like him,” Dad mumbles. “You ready to move? Sorry about having my guys rough you up, but I could tell you weren’t going to cooperate.”

I sit up and flex my arms. “Yeah, I’m ready to move.”

“Frank, you ready?”

“Fuck you, sir.”

“Okay, that’s enough of that.”

“Yes, sir.”

I grip the armrests in both hands, my heart pumping faster with each beat.

Frank isn’t the only one with a bad feeling. There’s a hook stuck in my soul and it’s tearing at my chest. Ellie’s in trouble.

Ellie

I can feel the hair rising on the back of my neck. Something is off. It’s not just the landing, either. I can’t stand to look out the window and see the ground coming up at me. When the plane actually touches down, I cry out. The whole thing fishtails on the landing and sends my stomach on a ride.

The tension eases just a bit when the plane actually stops and the engines start spinning down. Mom…

Jessica
sits up and looks over at me, smiling.

“We’re home, honey. Let’s get back to the house.”

I drum my nails on the armrest and stand up when she does. She steps in front of me and walks down the stairs first. There’s a car waiting for us. I could run now, bolt and cry out for help, but Richard’s people would drag me back.

Maybe I could slip a note to one of them, or something. Not that they’d believe me. They’d probably jump off the roof if someone told them to. I don’t have much of a choice. I have to get in the car.

Fitzgerald. When I see him I’ll be safe. I’ll talk to him and get him to help me and he’ll help me get away. Something isn’t right. Maybe she knows I know. I keep glancing at her through the fringe of my hair, trying to catch some subtle cue in her expression or movements, but she’s the same as she always is. Same as she always was. A hint of crows feet around her eyes, but if there’s any gray in her silky blonde hair and her body is the same as she was when she married my father. It’s like she hasn’t aged at all.

It’s not a long ride home.

Home. It feels so strange coming back here. I feel like I left a thousand years ago. The city has become mythical, a dream. It’s like there’s another layer over the world, obscuring the truth beneath. I’ve only now noticed it.

The driver takes us right up to the house and stops, double parked. Jessica opens my door for me. I step out, and the air tastes familiar. I turn and look back at my childhood home, the house where I’ve spent about ten years without even really leaving more than a few times, and I’m stunned by how small it looks. Downright tiny, wedged between two bigger houses with its little alleyway backyard.

The world is so much bigger than this.

Fitzgerald. I walk steadily toward the door and step inside. Jessica converses with Richard’s people and follows me up.

“Fitz!” I cry out, “Fitz, where are you?”

“He’s not here,” she says calmly. “He let someone abduct you. He needed to be let go.”

“That’s not your decision. He works for me.”

She arches her eyebrow.

“What did you say?”

“This is my house. It’s my family’s house, not yours. You don’t live here anymore. You married another man. I want your things out of my house by tomorrow morning, if there’s anything left. You’re leaving. I’m calling Fitzgerald now. I’m rehiring him.”

Her bottom lip trembles, and she bares her teeth.

“That boy has been a bad influence on you—”

“Jessica, I’m not fifteen anymore. That
man
is my husband and he’s welcome in my house, not you. You need to leave, right now.”

She steps toward me. I retreat into the kitchen, looking around for the phone. Or a weapon.

There’s a knife block on the counter. I could go for it if I need to.

“I’m not leaving, and Jack isn’t staying. His father will take care of that.”

“You are leaving.” I lift the phone from the cradle. “I’m calling the police if you don’t leave.”

I shift the phone awkwardly in my hand, rather than trying to poke the buttons with my useless claw.

Jessica moves viper quick, and slaps the receiver out of my hand. It clatters on the floor and I jump for it, but she knots her fist in my hair. I scream as she yanks me back.

My bad hand hits the knife block and it topples to the floor. One steak knife teeters on the edge of the counter and I snatch the handle and swing it wildly around, trying to slash her arm.

Jessica grabs my wrist with her free hand. With my other all I can do is bat uselessly at her grip. She yanks hard on my hair as she pries the knife out of my hand.

The blade touches my throat, and its bite is cold. I go still.

“Shut up and walk upstairs. Now.”

“Jessica—”

“Now.”

Her voice is flat, toneless. I awkwardly shuffle up the stairs with her behind me, holding the serrated edge of the steak knife to my neck. I can feel my pulse against it. The edge longs for me, digs into my skin with all the anticipation of a hungry man just biting into the firm flesh of an apple. One little jerk and she’ll open the vein and I’ll die.

“Please,” I whimper, “if there’s something you want, I’ll give it to you.”

“You are going to give me what I want. Finally.”

“Mom, don’t do this,” I plead, desperate. Maybe that will work.

“You can stop calling me that now. It’s tiresome.”

She pushes me hard into my bedroom and then into the bathroom.

There’s a handwritten note on the vanity. She pushes me closer and then shoves me forward. I reach for it but she stops me by poking the tip of the knife into my back.

“Don’t touch that. This has all been very carefully set up.”

I don’t need to pick it up. Just going by skimming the first line, it’s clear what it is.

It’s a suicide note with my signature.

It feels like ice water creeping up my legs into my body.

“What is this?”

“Stand there,” she says, stepping back.

I don’t move from my spot, but I turn just enough to see that she’s wearing my gloves, and holding my father’s gun.

“Now we just have to wait. Jack will come rushing through that door any minute now, and you’re going to put a bullet in him, then blow your brains all over the ceiling.”

“That won’t work. You’re insane.”

“Recognize this?” she says. “I thought it would be appropriate.”

“This is nuts. You’re not going to get my money. I don’t even have that much. What do you even need it for? You’re married to the fifth richest man in the world.”

“Fourth,” she says, grinning. “You have to understand, Ellie, that now that Jack has proven that he won’t play ball with his father, he’s going to be a liability, and let’s be honest here. If I get rid of him, Richard’s money goes to me. He doesn’t live a very healthy lifestyle. A sudden heart attack, so tragic. Oh, the other bitches get a cut, but I made sure I’ll get most of it. I’m going to get what I deserve. You know what the real reason is, though? I started with nothing. I became one of the best financial planners in the industry, and what do I get? People say I sucked cock to the top. They credit my success to your father, or to Richard.”

She sneers. “Of course, that’s not the main reason. This is personal. If you’d just fucking done what you were told, I’d be managing a media empire by now. You had potential, Ellie. It’s almost a shame to see you ruined like this. I’m doing you a favor, saving you from living the rest of your life as a freak. He’d get tired of it, eventually. He’s a young man and young men think with their dicks. How long before he gets tired of waking up next to
that
?”

“You’re wrong.”

Someone pounds on the front door.

“Ellie!”

Oh God. It’s Jack.

“Don’t say a fucking word,” she says, very softly, “or I’ll shoot you right now.”

I have to do something, I have to. I take a half step and she jerks her arm straight, aiming at my head.

“Not one step. Not one sound.”

A crash. He must have kicked the door in.

“Ellie!”

“Jack!” I cry out.

Too late. He rushes into the room.

My eye follows the gun. Jessica swings it around, aims, and grins. Jack spots her.