John Gilstrap - At all costs

Carolyn’s stomach constricted at the news. Jake never called her at work. She assumed it must be Travis. I knew we should have taken him to the emergency room for his head. “Uh-oh,” she groaned. “I’ll be back.”

“Don’t make this a habit,” Phyllis called after her, as if one in a row was a trend.

Carolyn controlled the urge to shove people out of her way as she fought through the hordes of shoppers. Customer Service sat all the way in the back of the store, in the opposite corner from the Boys’ Department. Three minutes felt like ten by the time she got buzzed in behind the counter and reached over one of the customer service reps for a telephone. She ignored the dirty look as she stabbed the blinking light. “Jake?”

“Carolyn!” His tone was urgent; borderline frantic. “Where have you been? I’ve been hanging here for-”

“Is Travis okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. He’s fine, I guess. Listen-”

“Oh, thank God.” Relief washed over her like a refreshing dip in the pool. Then annoyance rushed in to fill the vacuum. “Why are you calling me, then? Phyllis already-”

“Carolyn, listen to me. I’ve been arrested.”

She distinctly heard the edge in her husband’s voice-a tone from a distant past. His words were like a cutlass, lacerating her soul and leaving her instantly light-headed. She sat heavily on the desk. “Oh, my God,” she gasped. They were the only words she could think of. Long-suppressed terrors flooded her brain as a wave of panic rose high and broke over her soul.

“Carolyn, listen to me, dammit!” Jake’s voice was a whispered shout, and she realized that he’d been trying to get her attention. She could barely hear past the blood rushing in her ears. “You can’t panic on me, honey,” he whispered. His tone softened as he regained her attention. “Are you there?”

She nodded, oblivious to the tears that she blinked onto her cheeks. “Yes,” she croaked. “Oh, my God, Jake, what’s going to happen to Travis?” The thought of her little boy being raised by strangers was too much. How would he ever survive if his parents went to prison?

The realization that people were listening hit her with a jolt, bringing her to her feet and prompting a nervous glance toward the line of CSRs, who quickly looked away. What had she said aloud, and what had she simply thought? What could they know? Suddenly, she was horribly aware of the fish-eyed security camera overhead, and she turned her back on it.

“I’m at the police station now,” Jake stated as calmly as he could. “They’ve got me on some bullshit assault charge, but I think Lucas Banks is talking them into letting me go.”

There was something in the measured pace of Jake’s words that ended the disastrous scenarios whirling through Carolyn’s head. He was trying to tell her something without telling her, but she’d missed it in her burst of panic. She wrestled with her mind to bring order to the random flurry of useless thoughts. They’d planned for this moment, practiced even, though not in a long while. Everything was in her head somewhere, but she was having trouble making it come back.

“I–I’m sorry, Jake,” she said, steadily gaining control. “Say that again.”

Now she could hear the smile in his voice. He knew now that she’d know what to do. “I said, I’m here on assault charges, but I think they’ll be letting me go.”

An endless list of questions fought to paralyze Carolyn’s brain, but she pushed them aside. Only one thing mattered now. “Are you being charged with anything?” Now, that question turned some heads.

“Yes. But only with the assault. They’ve already fingerprinted me, but Lucas Banks said they should be letting me go soon. Own recognizance, if he gets his way.”

It didn’t make sense, but she knew that Jake would not misspeak under these circumstances. She had no idea who Lucas Banks was, or why he’d be helping Jake, but none of that mattered much right now. It was time to fight or flee.

“So you should be home?” she asked. Suddenly, she was precisely aware of every word she uttered.

“Why don’t you just go on with your usual day, and I’ll catch up with you.”

“Usual?” Clearly, Jake couldn’t talk, but she still had to be sure.

“Yeah, usual. You know, what you’ve always planned to do today.”

Got it, she didn’t say. “And you?”

“Do what you’ve got to do,” he urged. “And if I get hung up here and can’t meet you, then you might have to pick up some slack for me. You’ll know.”

And that was it. The nightmare had begun. She felt ill, and for just a short moment, she wondered if she might throw up right there on the CSR’s burnt-orange suit. With nothing left to be said, she paused before hanging up. “Jake?” she said softly.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I love you, too.”

Everyone stared. Not just the customer service reps-and God knew they had a right-but everybody in the store. She’d see them looking away just as she turned to lock eyes with them. Somehow they all knew. Was that even possible?

Of course not. You’re just being paranoid.

She felt the panic welling up from somewhere deep in her gut, and she did her best to will it away. Suddenly, her mind was blank. There were a thousand things to do, but she couldn’t remember a single one of them.

One step at a time, she told herself. Step one: get the hell out of here.

Where was her purse? In her rush to answer the phone, she’d left it in the drawer under the cash register. She considered leaving it there, until she remembered that it held her car keys.

Their plan started to come back to her. First she’d go get Travis out of school, then…

“Oh, my God!” She said it at a whisper, but loudly enough to draw the attention of a shopper at the cosmetics counter.

“Are you okay, dear?” the woman said.

The field trip! Carolyn just looked at her, then quickened her pace. Oh, God… Oh, God…

There was a way to do this; there had to be. Nothing was going per plan- nothing. But that was okay as long as no one panicked. She’d just have to change the order of things a bit. There was plenty of time to think. Plenty of time. Okay, so how come she couldn’t make her brain work?

“Where have you been?” Phyllis snapped as Carolyn returned to her workstation. “I hope you told your husband that this is a place of business, not some-what are you doing?”

Carolyn hip-nudged Phyllis from in front of the cash register and removed her purse from the drawer.

“It’s not your break time!” Phyllis said, drawing looks from shoppers. “You get back here right now!”

Carolyn never said a word. Her mind was elsewhere, reliving the terrors of her past, wondering how this could have happened again. An assault charge? Isn’t that what Jake had said? Who on earth did he assault? She chastised herself for not paying closer attention.

The escape plan was built around a single theme: family first, at all costs; everyone and everything else second. Carolyn’s first mission, then, was to retrieve her son from school. Even without Jake, she and Travis could make a go of it. Jake was resourceful-brilliant, even-at these things. If they couldn’t make the initial rendezvous, he would figure out a way to catch up. But Travis was still a boy. He had no idea what awaited him. He’d have to be taken care of, guarded and protected.

Damn that field trip.

With family accounted for, the next priority was to obtain the tools for survival. Life would be harder where they were going. She shivered at the memories of their previous life in hiding as they learned how to disappear; taking refuge in safe houses owned by her Uncle Harry’s “business associates.”