L
ILLY LEFT THE
hospital in a hurry, expecting Drake to be close behind her. Her heart stammered in her chest, her body bathed in cool sweat. Lightning strikes flashed in the rain-blackened sky, the stars hidden by angry storm clouds, and she jumped as a crash of thunder hammered at her nerves.
It began to pour.
Once inside her car and protected from the sheets of water, Lilly pulled out the piece of paper that held Ellie’s address. She’d quickly accessed an untended computer and was able to find the baby’s records. Reaching for her phone—a prepaid one she’d picked up at a local Wal-Mart—she dialed Ellie’s number. The phone rang, and she waited with her breath still for an answer.
None.
She peeled out of the parking lot. Ellie lived north of Denver, and it would take Lilly over an hour to reach her. Lilly hoped she could make it ahead of Drake and get her and the baby out of the house.
As she pressed the speed limit, she was thankful she was traveling in the opposite direction of rush-hour traffic. The roadway became clogged with workers making their way into the city. Her thoughts raced as to what her plan was going to be when she actually reached Ellie’s house.
Lilly glanced at herself in the rearview mirror. She looked like she’d been sleeping in the mud. The rain had washed her mascara off her eyelashes, leaving dark heavy lines down her face. Licking her finger, she began to scrub off the trails with her spit. The heavy rubbing was able to remove the make-up, but left red blotches behind. She smelled like she’d showered after a work-out without using any soap and sighed at the fact that there wasn’t anything she could do about that. How was she going to get Ellie to trust her when she looked like a homeless person? Lilly opened the case beside her and took out the weapon, keeping it near her on the console.
Lilly drummed the wheel incessantly with her fingers, the song on the radio driving them faster. She didn’t know a safe place to hide Ellie and her baby girl. Nathan had put his job on the line by not arresting her for Dana’s murder, and hotel hopping from night to night was not going to be an option for a preemie infant. Perhaps it was best to leave the state entirely until the DNA testing on the babies proved Drake’s paternity. Nathan was working behind the scenes with a private lab to get that accomplished. All she knew was she had to get them out of the house and out of the city. She’d figure everything else out later.
The craftsman-style home sat up off the street, nestled back on the top of a gentle slope surrounded by oak trees. Grabbing her gun and exiting the car, Lilly jogged up the steps and rang the doorbell.
A blonde woman peeked through the side window, then scurried away. Lilly tested the knob. Locked.
She slapped the glass several times. “Ellie!”
Lilly took the gun out and held the barrel in her hand, using the handle to break the glass. Reaching through, she unlocked the door and entered the home, closing it behind her. She saw a formal dining room off to her left and grabbed one of the chairs to brace it under the door to prevent Drake from coming in.
She wasn’t planning on leaving that way, anyway.
“Ellie! I know you’re afraid, but I need to talk to you.”
Lilly saw her at the top of the stairs, holding the baby in her arms.
“You can’t have her.”
Lilly tucked the gun into her pocket, trying to ease Ellie’s fear with the downward motion of her hands.
“Ellie, listen. I’m Lilly. I don’t know if Kadin ever told you who I was but I am the mother—”
“I’m their mother now!”
Lilly pulled her wet, tangled hair from her eyes.
“Ellie, I don’t want to take the babies from you, but I’m not leaving this house without both of you with me. Drake is on his way. He’s going to kill you, her, and me if we don’t leave before he gets here.”
Ellie tightened the baby to her chest. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Lilly bounded up the stairs. Ellie backed into a bedroom. Lilly found the twins’ room. Rifling through the closet, she looked for something to pack away the baby’s clothing. Finding a suitcase, she flipped it open and pulled out one of the dresser drawers.
Boy’s clothing.
She checked another drawer, seeing a sea of green and pink. She began to empty the dresser into the suitcase. Returning to the closet, she grabbed two packages of unopened diapers, retrieved the clothing, and made her way back downstairs. In the kitchen, she spotted Ellie’s purse and dumped out the contents, grabbing the house keys. After several false starts, she found the garage and loaded her supplies into the car. She noticed several gallon jugs of water and placed three in the trunk beside the suitcase. Making her way back into the kitchen, she found the stock of formula and grabbed several canisters and bottles and stowed them, as well.
She paused at the bottom of the stairs, wiping the sweat, rain, and dirt from her face. Slowly she walked up. The twins’ door remained open, but the door to the master remained closed.
That’s when she heard sirens in the distance. Ellie must have called the police, which meant they’d likely apprehend Lilly, which would leave Ellie and the baby an open target for Drake’s eventual arrival.
Lilly tested the knob. The door wouldn’t budge.
Stepping back, she kicked it open. Ellie was huddled on the bed, the phone at her side, the baby clutched in her arms.
“Ellie, I know you’re afraid. I’m not here to hurt you, but Drake is coming, and I swear to you none of us will be alive if we’re here when he gets here.”
“Why should I believe you?”
Someone pounded on the front door so hard that the whole house vibrated. Lilly looked out the front.
Not the police, but Drake.
Three successive bangs, like the sound of a car backfiring, reverberated through the structure.
She turned to the frightened woman and grabbed her arm, the sounds a convincing blow to Ellie’s will. As they came to the top of the staircase, the damage to the front door was obvious but the chair remained in place and Drake wasn’t visible at the moment.
Where had he gone?
Lilly pulled Ellie down the stairs and into the garage.
“Get the baby secured,” she ordered, and made her way to the driver’s seat.
Once Ellie was in the passenger side, Lilly laid the weapon in the space between them. Turning, she grabbed the spare blanket she’d thrown in the back and placed it over the baby’s car seat.
“What are you doing?”
“I need you to stay low once we open the garage door. He’s going to shoot at us. I need to protect the baby from the glass.
Ellie began to tremble. Lilly took her hand and tried to still it.
“It’s going to be all right.”
“Is it?”
Lilly punched the garage button and as soon as she felt she could clear the bottom of the garage door, she pushed her foot into the accelerator and shot backward into the driveway as if they were loaded on the end of a catapult. The front door of the house now stood open. The car launched into the street. Lilly threw it into forward just as Drake made his way out the front. As they drove away from the home, the back windshield imploded, glass raining down into the interior compartment. Ellie screamed. Lilly watched through the rearview mirror, seeing Drake bound down the stairs and retrieve his black Hummer.
He gained on them quickly.
The rain sheeted over the windshield. Even with the wipers at max speed, it was difficult to keep the glass clear. Ellie had unbuckled her seat belt and was flipped around, checking on the baby.
The grill of Drake’s Hummer was zooming up on their rear bumper.
“Ellie, sit down and get buckled.”
“He’s gaining!”
“Ellie—”
She flopped back in her seat and complied. “What are you going to do?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
Lilly took the next left turn she could make. The car fishtailed to the right, hitting the curb with a jolt before continuing on. Drake cut the corner, not even slowing down to make the turn.
Now he was closer.
“Where is the nearest police station?”
“I don’t know.”
“The closest major street.”
“Turn right!”
Lilly cranked the wheel and controlled the slide of the vehicle a little bit better. She saw the intersection ahead, but there wasn’t any way she could get into the flow of traffic. She slammed on the brakes. Her decision was Drake’s opportunity to pounce, and he rear-ended their car, sending it into oncoming traffic.
All Lilly saw was a blur of red. Then glass, air bags, and dust filled the inner compartment of the vehicle. Lilly’s head hit the air bag that unfurled from the driver’s window, but it was not the soft pillow she imagined, and her vision darkened.
Ellie’s screams broke through the haze, and Lilly lifted her head. She groaned and reached for her neck as Ellie began to shake her ruthlessly from her position in the car.
“Faith!”
“What?”
“The baby! She’s not here!”
Lilly unclipped her seat belt and turned to the back. The car seat was gone, and the driver’s-side back-passenger window was punched out. She checked her door and found it easily opened. She grabbed the gun and stepped out.
Chaos ensued in the street. A man was checking the driver of the vehicle that had T-boned them. She could see Drake’s Hummer at the intersection, but he was not inside. Traffic was stopped. People exited their vehicles. The roar of rain and thunder made it difficult for her to hear.
That’s when she saw Drake, just a few paces away from her, holding the infant’s carrier, a gun pointed at the baby’s head. Ellie had made her way from the vehicle through the driver’s door as well and dropped to her knees, begging heaven for mercy as she witnessed the dire straits her daughter was in.
Lilly raised her weapon, positioned herself, and placed Drake’s forehead in her sights.
“Well, well, well. What a quandary we find ourselves in,” he chided.
Lilly checked her peripheral vision. It seemed as if each passerby was either talking on their cell phone or taking stills and video of the scene.
“I think you’re at your endgame, Drake.”
“That’s probably true, considering this little one has a brother I didn’t quite know about. Fertile, aren’t you?”
“Just put her down and walk away.”
“And let you shoot me in the back? I don’t think so.”
“What do you want, Drake? Haven’t you destroyed enough lives as it is?”
“I might as well finish my work. Don’t you think?”
“Then kill me.”
It was after she uttered those words and placed her arms wide, with visions of Kadin’s broken and battered body in her mind, that Lilly finally understood what life was about.
Having a love so powerful for another that your own life didn’t matter anymore.
Sacrifice.
A man giving up his life as a payment so others could be saved.
Her willingness to put her own life aside, to meet whatever was beyond, made it possible to understand why Christ chose death on the cross.
And as she looked at Drake, her conversation with a stranger began to replay in her mind, a conversation about making a choice for a life.
At first, she thought it was about her babies.
But her visitor had said one life.
Drake’s life.
In that moment she felt a vibration swell up within her and a voice, crystal clear, speak a thought in her mind.
What you see before you is what I saw when I died on the cross.
A criminal.
A person who left utter destruction and broken lives in his wake.
A life left better to rot in the depths of hell than for another to lay his life down for it.
As I came for you, I also came for him.
And as she looked at Drake, she understood the weight of that truth. It broke her.
“What are you going to do, Lilly!”
A car horn blared.
Drake turned his head.
Lilly took aim and fired her weapon.
I
T WAS TRUE
when they said the wheels of justice were slow to turn. Lilly fingered the gold cross that hung around her neck as Nathan clutched her other hand. Kadin sat on the other side, his arm around Ellie as each of them held squirming eighteen-month-old infants on their laps. The babies were happy and healthy, seemingly unaffected by Lilly’s abuse of alcohol early in her pregnancy. Lilly felt a smile tug at the corners of her lips, as Ellie’s eyes met hers and she gave her a thumbs-up.
The media storm would come to an end, and hopefully the relentless playback of the video of that fateful morning would become a distant memory in a society that craved new media and found it difficult to follow a story for more than a couple of days. She had to give them credit.
Her story seemed cemented.
With Ellie’s account of events, they were able to arrest Drake on a host of charges. That put him in jail until the initial DNA tests showed the father of Lilly’s twins was genetically related to his two sons that had died in the fire. After that, they were able to pressure the courts for a witnessed blood draw that showed Drake was the father of the twins. Since it was documented that Lilly’s pregnancy was the result of rape, the door opened up for an additional slew of charges. It also called into question the crime that Drew had been imprisoned for all those years ago. Meryl Stipman had also been arrested and jailed on accessory charges for her attempts to cover up her son’s crimes.
Kadin had recovered from his injuries and was slowly making his way back into private practice. When he was able to finger Drake for the beating, most people considered him a hero for defending Lilly’s secret to the brink of death. Of course, the two-hour
Dateline
special cemented his stature, and he was currently turning clients away.
Then there was Nathan.
The one man who had stood by her without question.
Who defended her, despite the odds.
The one who had placed an engagement ring on her finger.
Happily, they were all family, and Lilly felt blessed that Ellie allowed her to have a relationship with the children: Faith and Levi.
The members of the jury were ushered in and handed the court clerk their findings. Having already been found guilty on a myriad of crimes, Drake stood, his arm limp at his side from the nerve damage caused from the gunshot wound to the shoulder he’d suffered when Lilly shifted the aim of her weapon away from his head.
The death penalty.
The gavel fell.