Tears blurred her
vision as the bright headlights carved a path down the access road. She didn’t
dare speak until they hit the crossroad. “Which way?”
Tom inhaled and
after studying the landscape, he pointed to the left. “Let’s go that way.”
The massive
warehouse receded in the rearview mirror and she began to cry. Tears for Ty,
tears for Mike, tears for Tom’s wife and tears because the taste of freedom was
as sweet as she dreamed.
Tom reached over
and took her hand as she drove. “Ty was right, you were my miracle.”
Jessica shook her
head slowly as she cried. “No, Tom, Ty was the miracle. He let us go.”
Jessica reached
for the doorbell, hesitated and pulled her hand away, suddenly filled with
trepidation. “I can’t,” she whispered and looked into his impossibly blue eyes.
“Yes you can,” he
said and turned her back toward the door. “This is what kept you alive all that
time.”
“I know, I know,
it still doesn’t make it any easier,” she said. She rang the doorbell and held
her breath. Running feet and muffled voices approached the door, voices she
longed to hear for the past nine months.
The door flew open
and a young teenage girl gasped at the couple standing on the doorstep, both
highly recognizable, but for very different reasons.
A boy flew down
the stairs exclaiming the words the girl couldn’t find a voice to utter. “Mommy!”
he cried and flew past the girl into Jessica’s arms.
Jessica leaned
over and wrapped her thin arms around Eric. “Hi, angel boy,” she whispered in
his ear. “Hi, Em,” she said, looking up at her daughter through tear filled
eyes.
Emily looked up at
the man standing behind her mother and the remaining color drained from her
face. Emily started to shake and sat down on the stairs in stunned silence.
“Who’s there?” Daniel
called from the back of the house.
“Mommy!” Eric
announced with excitement. “And Clark!” he yelled and looked up at the man with
his mother for the first time. “Daddy, it’s Mommy and Clark!”
“Mom,” Emily
whispered, finally finding her voice, tears dripping down her cheeks in thin
rivers.
Daniel Connor
walked around the corner and stopped in his tracks. “Holy shit,” he uttered,
his eyes bouncing between Jessica and Tom in astonishment before landing on her
and gawking. “But you died,” he whispered as if he was talking to a ghost.
Jessica stood up
“Danny.” She squeezed the word out of her constricted throat; the relief
washing through her was tempered by Tom’s presence. She stepped into her house
for the first time in months throwing her arms around her husband’s neck.
“You died,” he
whispered again into her dark hair and then he wrapped his arms around her. “Oh
my God, I buried you.” His voice shook, laced with long buried emotions.
“I told you she’d
be back!” Eric danced around his mother and father. “I told you,” he said
triumphantly.
Jessica smiled
down at her son and then up at the man in the doorway. She pulled away from
Daniel’s grasp. “Please come in,” she said to him. “Danny, this is Tom, he’s
the reason I’m still alive.”
“It’s actually the
other way around,” Tom said and stepped across the threshold.
Eric tugged at
Jessica’s leg. “Where’s Ty?” he asked and both Jessica and Tom’s head swiveled
in his direction. “He made the bad man disappear,” Eric said. “Where is he?”
Jessica and Tom
exchanged a look. The last time they saw Ty, he was lying on the floor with
four bullet holes in his chest. That was days ago.
“Honey, who’s
there?” a female voice called from the back of the house.
Jessica looked at
Daniel. “Who’s that?” she asked as a very pretty blonde walked around the
corner.
Daniel answered
both questions with two words. “My wife.” He looked from one to another.
Jessica’s eyebrows
shot up and she went to say something. No words came and she clamped her mouth
shut glancing at Tom. His face registered a measure of relief and on the same
level, she felt like a weight had been lifted from her chest only to be dropped
on her foot. “You certainly didn’t waste any time.” She looked between Daniel
and the woman standing next to him, voicing the shock she felt.
“How?” Daniel asked.
“How are you alive? How are you here?” he asked. Uncertainty crossed the
woman’s face and she instinctively put her arm around Daniel.
“We were
kidnapped, our deaths’ staged.” Jessica moved closer to Tom.
“Why?”
“You don’t want to
know,” Jessica said and peeled off her tinted glasses.
Daniel recoiled. “You’re
not Jessica. Her eyes were brown.”
Jessica’s eyes
were now an interesting conglomeration of blues, greens and grays, surrounded
by an outline of brown that matched her original color.
“Opening the door
changed her eyes Dad, just like mine,” Eric said from in front of her.
Daniel looked at
Jessica and then down at Eric and the connection between the two slammed into
him. Eric had been with her in some way through this entire ordeal. “I need to
sit down,” he said and headed to the back of the house. Everyone followed.
“You mean I’m
married to two women?” he asked after a few minutes of awkward silence, trying
to push the connection and what that really meant far out of his mind.
Eric and Emily sat
on Jessica’s lap and Tom took the spot on the couch next to her.
“Looks that way,”
Tom said looking from Jessica to LeAnn and back.
They all looked at
him.
“Sorry,” he
apologized holding his hands up.
Jessica squeezed
her children, looked up at Tom and then over at Daniel and LeAnn. “Danny, what
do we do now?”
There was sadness
in Daniel’s eyes as he spoke. “I let you go, Jess. As much as I loved you, I
let you go.” He drew a shaky breath. “I know this marriage...” He looked at his
hand clasped in LeAnn’s and held it up to bring his point home. “This marriage
is where I belong. I’m in love with LeAnn. So I’m not really sure what the next
step is here,” he answered truthfully.
Jessica nodded and
fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. As much as she didn’t want to admit it,
she knew he was right. She knew this was not where she was meant to be either. She
loved Daniel, but it wasn’t the same as what she experienced with Ty and it
wasn’t the safe harbor that Tom provided and yet the rejection hurt. She took
Tom’s hand and attempted to smile. “I can’t be away from the kids right now. I
need them.”
Tom broke her
grasp and reached over her shoulder, pulling her close. He stared dumbfounded
at Daniel. “You have got to be kidding?”
Daniel looked at
him. “What?”
“If Jessica was my
wife and she came back from the dead, it wouldn’t matter who I was with. I
would thank the heavens above…” he trailed off, leveling a sharp stare in
Daniel’s direction.
“I thought she
died,” Daniel said. “I moved on.”
“Well, then you
couldn’t have loved her that much, now could you?” Tom challenged.
“Stop. Please.” She
looked over at Daniel. “After everything I’ve been through, I can’t come back
anyway,” she said, freeing him of his obligations. “You would never begin to
fathom the hell we went through.” She paused and closed her eyes for a moment.
“Tom understands, he lived through it too, saw what I saw and protected me when
it counted.” She sighed and looked over at the television. It was on but muted
and she froze, the blood draining from her face, leaving her dizzy.
Tom followed her
gaze and his jaw dropped.
“Turn up the
sound,” Jessica whispered. The news story unfolded on screen.
“Holy shit,” Tom
whispered.
Eric looked up at
him and laughed. “Clark said a bad word.” But no one in the room heard him.
“Eric, Emily,
leave the room now.” It wasn’t a request, it was a command delivered in a sharp
stern tone—one neither of them questioned. They left the room, glancing back
only once in her direction, but she pointed and they disappeared down the
hallway.
Daniel gasped,
recognizing Jessica in the video. He turned up the sound.
“Aris Technologies
CEO Frank Aris ran an underground pornography and S and M ring with sister
Marian Aris and stepbrother Ty Aris over several years, which included shooting
videos of various sex acts, mutilation and murder. We believe their last two
victims escaped after the Aris’s self-destructed. The following video is
disturbing and not suitable for children. If anyone has any information
regarding the whereabouts of the witnesses, please contact the following
number.”
Jessica gasped as
the view of the room came on the television and the last few minutes of their
horrific ordeal rolled across the screen.
When the screen
changed back to the news anchors, Jessica and Tom were both shaking and Daniel
was deathly pale.
“You were shot,”
Daniel sent his wide-eyed gaze in her direction.
Jessica laughed. “That
was the least of what was done to me, Daniel.” And she moved her shirt so he
could see the scar. “But this is the only physical scar I have.”
The screen filled
with a man who had an uncanny resemblance to Ty, with one exception; his face
was perfect, unblemished, scar free. He apologized to the families of those
victimized and Jessica watched him closely. He played a good part, just the
right tremor of indignation and pain in his voice punctuated by the tear-glossed
eyes. The caption said his name was Christopher Aris, but she knew better.
Her son’s question
in the foyer reared in her mind. She hadn’t fixed Ty, but he certainly had the
power to do such a miraculous thing. The man droned on and her attention
snapped to his words.
“Never in a
million years could I have fathomed this was going on, and I deeply regret the
pain it has caused so many families. I will do my best to make this right for
those who have lost so much.” He paused, “Again I am truly sorry.”
Jessica had
stopped listening after the phrase a million years.
She stared into
the eyes of the man on television and his name flashed in her head like a
beacon.
Ty
Her dream blazed
to the forefront of her mind and Jessica knew it was only a matter of time
before he came looking for her.
“Ty?” the little
voice in the mirror called. He looked up to see Eric.
“Hey,” Ty managed
to say.
“You don’t look so
good,” Eric said and leaned down over him.
“Don’t feel too
good,” Ty said and everything started to fade to black.
Eric put his hands
on Ty’s chest, closing his eyes and concentrating, pushing, projecting, sending
every ounce of healing mojo he had into Ty’s body.
Pure white light
enveloped the room and Ty gasped, his body arching in response to the burning
sensation filling his chest, not quite pain, but nothing like what he felt
earlier when Jessica released her magic.
Is this heaven?
“No. It’s just me
fixing you,” Eric said sleepily and the light died down around him. “You saved
my mom. Thank you.” Eric removed his hands from Ty’s chest.
“No, Eric, thank
you,” Ty said and reached up, messing Eric’s hair.
He blinked and he
was alone in the cell. He sat up, running his hands religiously over his chest,
feeling nothing but smooth perfect skin under his hand. He hopped to his feet
and turned toward the mirror expecting to see his torn cheek but what he did
see sapped the strength out of his legs and he collapsed. With his wide shocked
eyes locked on his reflection, he crawled forward until he was within an inch
of the mirror.
His image reached
up with both hands, running his fingertips over his bearded face. His perfectly
unscarred bearded face. The scar he had lived with for so many long years was
no longer there, even on close inspection. Only perfect, unblemished skin. He
blinked and looked around the room, again wondering if he might be dead and in
heaven. The thought produced a quiet laugh. He wasn’t heaven bound, not in a
million years.
“I’m alive. Holy
shit, I’m alive.”
And damn if I don’t look like the spitting image of Chris.
The first thing he
did was take a shower, washing the blood and gore from his skin. He wiped the
mirror and scraped the scrappy beard off his face. Clean shaven¸ he studied the
reflection and a thought tingled through him.
Could he pull off
one last switch?
“Jesus.” He sprang
into action.
He cleaned every
surface in the entire place, including turning on the sprinkler system in the
room where his blood soaked the floor and then sat down at the control center,
choosing four discs from the archives and dropping them into the duffel bag on
the floor.
He pulled down the
archive discs that had Chris in them and lined them on the counter, including
the bit with Jessica. Then he accessed the original feeds based on the catalog
dates and deleted each and every one of them. Erasing any record of Chris’s
involvement.
The control panel,
console, and keyboards were all wiped down and he rummaged through the control
room gathering every item of Chris’s, throwing it into the duffel bag with all
the discs, filling it to the brim.
Ty looked at the
ceiling and exhaled. He needed to find the back up that Frank had and after a
final look around, he headed to the elevator. On the floor next to the elevator
was Frank’s eye. Ty picked it up with a Kleenex and pressed the elevator
button. He held his breath as the scan light rolled over the eyeball and let it
out as the doors opened. He dropped the eye where he had found it, turned the
key and left behind the carnage and pain.
He opened the back
door, looked around the garage, and smiled. Chris’s car was still right where
he left it. He tossed the bag inside and returned to Frank’s office.
He opened the
computer and the last item that had been on it, still was. It was the view of
the room, the feed that Marian must have pulled up before she came barreling
down with the gun.
Marian royally
fucked up. He sped through the electronic back up and deleted the same records
he had in the control room and erased the keystrokes in the computer memory. The
last vestige of Chris’s was the fingerprints and retinal scan in the
permissions file. With a few keystrokes, Chris’s name was replaced by Ty’s. Only
three people now had access to the sub-basement according the file, Ty Aris,
Frank Aris and Marian Aris.
He went deeper
into the program, making sure his fingerprints and retinal scan was not even a
shadow in the memory. Nothing the cops could trace back and when he was
satisfied, he closed down the permission module and left the last gruesome shot
on the computer. He unplugged the keyboard and cleaned it, careful to not leave
prints when he reattached it.
He chuckled. This
would give the secretary a hell of a start when she came in to turn his
computer on and the authorities would have access to the back up.
The ambient time
of day – between darkness and light – covered the landscape and he took it all
in, driving away in his brother’s Ford Taurus after finding the spare keys
under the floor mat. Some things never changed and as he drove away into the ever-lightening
day, he tasted freedom for the first time in years.
He had roughly
twenty-four hours before Frank’s secretary turned on the monitor. Twenty-four
hours to complete the identity switch. The lock on his apartment didn’t slow
him down, he, like his brother had back up. Under an overgrown bush sat one of
those fake rocks, he picked it up and slid the key panel, dropping the single
key in his hand. He wiped the rock with the tail of his shirt and dropped it
into the dirt and then with the toe of his shoe, he pushed it back in place.
Once inside the
apartment, he closed the door and reached in his pocket, slipping on latex
gloves. With a deep breath, he went to work. The first place he went was the
bedroom closet; he pulled open the doors and removed a couple floorboards,
quickly turning the combination on the safe beneath the floor. Passports,
licenses and IDs were stored away for both him and his brother. He pulled
anything with Chris’s information, dropping them in a bag and then wiping down
each and every piece before he put them back in the safe. Then it was time to
wipe out any record of fingerprints and he covered any and all surfaces,
including all the dishes in the kitchen, praying he didn’t miss anything.
The computer was
next and he accessed his special network - the national database of dental
records - his playground for almost a decade, forging, changing and switching
records to suit his needs.
He found his
records, temporarily changing the name to Ty Ryan before searching out his
brother’s files. A few keystrokes and he replaced Chris’s name with Ty
Alexander Aris. The mouse hovered over the save button and he exhaled.
“Sorry Chris.” With
the press of his index finger, his brother’s records transformed, leaving a
trail to the death of Ty Aris in the event the authorities ever found his
brother’s remains.
Another flurry of
activity across the keyboard brought him back to his records and his hand shook
as he stared at the last update. The pointer poised on the save button and he
bit his lower lip, staring at the name now attached to his files.
Christopher James
Aris.
With a deep intake
of air, he clicked the command, forever altering his life.
Before he closed
the database, he erased any trace of the changes, any audit trail that would
lead authorities back to his door and then he did the same on the hard drive,
wiping out the memory of the day’s transactions. Even the most brilliant of
computer geniuses wouldn’t be able to trace his actions.
Standing at the
entry glancing around his cold empty apartment, he blinked back the sudden
onslaught of tears. Sorrow gripped him, wrapping a tight fist around his heart.
The loss of Anna and Chris and now himself diluted the overwhelming sense of
freedom flowing through his skin and he sighed, turning away from the memories.
“Good-bye, Ty.”
* * *
*
Chris Ryan stared
out the window overlooking the Manhattan skyline of his brand new apartment. Months
had gone by since he left Albany.
He had been
cleared of any wrongdoing in the scandal and was named the sole heir to the
Aris family fortune. That kind of inheritance was heady to say the least and
with more money than he knew what to do with, he tried to make good on the
damage he caused.
He sold the
company to the highest bidder and earmarked a large chunk to a trust fund – a
victim’s fund—doling out checks to the surviving families as the feds uncovered
the identities of the captives from the tapes they found.
He legally changed
his name, reverting back to his original surname and escaped into obscurity,
leaving the Aris family legacy and the publicity that came with it far behind.
He could see the
reflection of the video playing on the screen behind him, her voice seductively
flowing from the speakers.
“Tell me you love
me,” she said.
He sipped his scotch
and exhaled, watching snowflakes drift from the night sky.
“Someday.”
The End