Liberty Begins (The Liberty Series) (17 page)

I was looking forward to the sleeping part, at least.

After he left I washed my face and brushed my teeth. I avoided my eyes in the mirror. I didn’t want to see what they looked like, given everything I was thinking.

I put my pajamas on and crawled into bed. I instantly
fell
asleep; I dreamed I was on a beach with white sand, running. It should have been pleasant, but it wasn’t. The turquoise water beckoned, but a voice in my head kept yelling:
run, RUN!

I woke up with a start, sweat covering me. John mumbled something incoherently and rolled over in his sleep. I was glad I hadn’t woken him. He had enough to deal with.

I made myself fall back to sleep. It was fitful, though, and I wasn’t surprised when I rolled over and looked at the alarm clock that it was already five am. I got up, showered, dressed, and headed up to the kitchen. I was looking for coffee, but I found Matthew instead. “It’s brewing,” he said in a groggy voice. “I promise.”

“I hate today,” I said, grumpily, sitting down on the perfectly neutral leather couch. “I hate this couch, and I hate today.”

“It’s understandable,” Matthew said, and he walked over in his sweats and tee shirt to sit on the equally neutral couch across from mine. “These couches are
really
ugly.”

“Ha ha,” I said, and then just waited, not willing to talk anymore. I sat quietly and listened to the coffee brew.

After it was ready Matthew poured me a cup without asking, with a lot of cream, just the way I liked it. “Thanks,” I said, gratefully. He sat back down opposite me.

“Hey. How come you didn’t follow Darius to Brazil?” I asked. “I thought you were our resident Darius expert.”

“I am,” Matthew said, thoughtfully. “But John thought I’d be more useful here.”

I nodded at him and focused on my coffee. I needed it. Today was a big day.

“How are you feeling about all this?” he asked, gently but curiously.

“I just want it to be over,” I said, and it was true. “I don’t want to have to think about Ray ever again. I’ve made a serious hobby out of forgetting him.”

Matthew nodded and drank his coffee. “It’ll all be over soon,” he said, soothingly.

He was right but of course, I couldn’t be soothed.

John came upstairs about ten minutes later. “Hello, my dear,” he said, leaning over and kissing me on the cheek. “Good morning,” he said, nodding to Matthew.

“Ethan’s already out there,” John, said, in full-military mode. “He just called and said we needed to be ready to go in about ten minutes.”

Matthew jumped up and headed upstairs. I sat there, on the couch, waiting for John to tell me what to do, what to feel. I’d gone totally numb.

“Eat,” John said, and put a blueberry scone in front of me. He took my coffee cup and refilled it, careful to include the proper amount of cream. “Drink,” he said, and put it on the coffee table in front of me. I just sat there, eating and drinking and fidgeting.

Ray.
I was so, so close to seeing him again.

John’s cell phone must have vibrated because he picked it up, looking at the number flashing on the screen.
What happened to the cell phone he gave me, back in Vegas?
I wondered randomly. We hadn’t been apart since then, so I hadn’t thought about it.

“Yes,” said John, answering, and I knew it had to be Ethan. John listened for a minute and then hung up. He turned to me.

“Let’s do this,” he said, and his voice was perfectly calm. “Go get your gun and meet me at the door.”

I did as I was told, my heart pounding. I looked at the clock; it was just six am. I checked the chamber on my revolver. It was full. My hands shook as I put it under my shirt, at the small of my back, just like John had told me. I wasn’t sure why I had to bring my gun. I figured it was because John would want me to have it if we became separated, if I had to protect myself.

I was waiting for him by the entrance to the house, my palms sweating.

“Good girl,” John said, and he leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. It filled me with hope, with reassurance. The guys were behind him, filing out into the garage, looking at maps on their cell phones and not looking at us. They’d mastered it.

“Let’s go,” John said. “Are you ready?”

“Let’s just get this the hell over with,” I said, exasperated. “I can’t wait to never think about any of this ever again.”

“Your chariot awaits, my lady,” John said, pointing out towards the garage.

We drove past the university, into the seedy area near Eugene’s downtown. I hadn’t been here in a very long time, and I hadn’t missed it. It was still early enough that there were homeless people asleep on the street, and it hurt my heart to see them out there. My mother could have easily been one of them, if I hadn’t managed to somehow keep a roof over our heads.

I wondered how many of them had been, or were, Ray’s clients.

I knew I couldn’t blame Ray for everything, even though it would have been lovely to do so. My mother would still have been a junkie without him. So, the question was: what on earth was I holding him responsible for today?

Tearing my family apart,
I thought. I remembered hearing him having sex with my mother in the next room, when she was clearly out of her mind; I remember Sasha packing up and leaving, and then the image of him trying to stick a needle between my toes flashed in front of me. I pictured him holding my head down.
I flinched. It made me sick. I was just a young girl, trying to stay afloat in a world that didn’t make any sense to me. There was nothing to prevent him from doing the same thing to another helpless girl, to any number of girls.

But I could stop him, today. I just had to find the strength.

We were driving in two cars, enormous sport utility vehicles that had been parked in the garage at the house.
It must have been a rental equipped for every bounty-hunting need,
I mused to myself, but I couldn’t find my thoughts at all humorous. I also couldn’t get used to the feeling of the gun against my back. I kept feeling myself sweat and it was slipping around. I could just picture us all, fanning out on the streets of downtown Eugene, chasing Ray on foot: the men in perfect formation, with me, stumbling alongside of them, sweating, worrying that I was going to shoot myself in the ass.

John looked over at me and patted my fidgety knee. “Try to calm down,” he said. He checked a text message on his phone — actually, all the guys (except Corey, who was driving) checked their phones at the same time. Something was up.

“Okay, pull over at the next block, on your right,” Matthew instructed, and Corey nodded silently, checking his mirrors. Eugene was still sleepy at this hour. There was little traffic out on the road and Corey had no problem pulling over behind the other car. John checked his watch and his cell phone again.

“This is him,” said Robert, one of the guys I hadn’t really met. I felt my heart drop into my stomach. “Number 38. Third floor.” I saw him motion, almost imperceptibly, to a silver car parked across the street.

“That’s Ethan,” John told me, gesturing towards the silver car. I nodded a little and continued to fidget. “He's been out here since we got in last night, doing surveillance. Ray came here after two a.m. and hasn’t left yet.”

“Is this his mother’s place?” I asked, looking around, not recognizing the neighborhood.

“No. We think it could be a friend’s, or a girlfriend’s,” John said. “We don’t know who’s inside, and that’s the problem. We don’t want to go in blind.”

I nodded again, not really able to speak, anxiety bubbling like acid in my stomach. Suddenly the door to the building opened and there he was, live and in the flesh, wearing an aqua tank top, stonewashed jeans and a black backpack.
Ray.
My whole body went tense.

He lit a cigarette as he walked. He squinted up at the sky. He appeared to not have a care in the world.

“Grab him,” John said suddenly, and before I even knew what was happening, Matthew opened his door, sprung out and grabbed Ray in a headlock. John opened the back door and Matthew literally threw a struggling Ray across our laps.

“WHAT THE FUCK?”
Ray screamed, and in that moment, our eyes locked. I don’t know what on earth came over me, but I became unfrozen. I smiled at him. My real smile. It only lasted a moment, but comprehension dawned on his face — he recognized me.

Sean was next to me, on my left. He’d been scrambling to get something out of his bag since we’d spotted Ray, but I hadn’t bothered looking; now he quickly held it out and I could see it was a black bag. He pulled it over Ray’s head in one fluid motion and pulled cords on it to secure it; simultaneously, John took handcuffs out, managed to push Ray on his side, crushing him up against me, and cuffed him. Ray kept screaming, over and over. “HELP!” he screamed. “SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP ME!”

“No help is coming for you, Ray,” John said. His voice was deadly. He rolled Ray back over onto his back and punched him square in the gut. “UGH!” Ray shouted.

John looked at him and shook his head, exasperated. “Shut the fuck up,” he yelled.
Boom!
He punched him in the face next, through the black bag, and then Ray’s body went still.

Sean casually checked his pulse. “He’s fine,” he said banally, like he was commenting on the morning commute.

My palms were sweating and my stomach was still roiling, but now it was like I was high. Adrenaline coursed through me.

“Where are we going?” I asked John, lowly.

“Someplace safe,” John said, squeezing my hand quickly and releasing it. He sent out a couple of quick texts and then leaned back, looking out the window, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

It was less than five minutes when we pulled up to what appeared to be a deserted warehouse. I looked at John, questioningly, as he and I slid out from under Ray’s legs and got out of the car. John nodded to Matthew and he went into the back seat, with Corey close behind; they carried a limp Ray out and into the back of the warehouse. John, myself and Sean followed. I looked around wildly, petrified that someone was watching, that we could be caught. I could see the other SUV parked in a lot next door; when we walked in they were already inside, covering up any broken windows.

It was dark inside, and musty; no one had used this place in a very long time. “Where are we?” I whispered to John as Matthew set up a still limp Ray in a chair. He started tying him up.

“This building is safe,” John said, patting me on the back. “It’s private. No worries.”

“How do you know?” I asked. I had plenty of worries at the moment. We all had guns, including some large ones, and an unconscious kidnapping victim with a backpack that was probably packed to the gills with drugs.

“I bought the building recently. I told the local authorities I was going to be coming out to do some measuring.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, nodding at him, as if buying a building across the country to have a safe place to torture and possibly kill a hostage was the most normal thing in the world.

Matthew was done tying Ray up, and he had managed to sit him up properly. He came over to us. “Is he awake?” I asked.

Matthew shook his head. Not yet.

“Okay,” John said, clapping him on the back. “I”m going to ask you all to leave me and Liberty alone now. One car can go back to the house and start packing, but I want you and Corey to stay outside and monitor the premises. And tell Michael to stand by.”

“Yes sir,” Matthew said.

“And Matthew, nice work today,” John said, and nodded at him approvingly.

“Thank you, sir,” Matthew said, a smile breaking out over his face, and then he jogged off towards the others.

They were gone in a moment. John turned and looked at me. “Okay, honey,” he said, gently, stroking my hair. “He’s going to wake up soon. Do you know what you want to do?”

I shook my head,
no.
What could I say to him? Suddenly, I wanted him to hurt the way that I hurt. All the time alone in my empty apartment, everyone dear to me gone — I wanted him to feel what I felt.

But that was going to be impossible, because I was pretty sure he didn’t have a heart.

As I watched he stirred a little, and then he must have realized he was tied up, because he started to jerk violently, trying to break free. I looked at John; his face was impassive, calm.

“I’m ready,” I said.

John stood behind Ray and pulled off his mask. He looked around, disjointedly and wildly at first, trying to get his bearings. Then his eyes focused on me.

“Liberty?” he asked, incredulous. “I thought that was you.
What the fuck are you trying to do to me?”

I shook my head and shrugged. “Not too much,” I said. John’s eyes locked with mine, over Ray’s head, and Ray turned around and looked up at him.

“Finally got a boyfriend, I guess,” Ray said, bringing his gaze back to meet mine. John walked over to the side of the room — close enough to be there if I needed him, but letting me have my space. I could feel the tension rolling off of him, the desire to hit Ray. But he was restraining himself.
This was my show.