Diane Chamberlain - The Lost Daughter

“Do you promise?”

He nodded.

“You’ll know where we are if you can keep your mouth shut about it, that is,” Marty added. There was a threatening quality to his voice that reminded CeeCee of her initial discomfort around him.

“Of course she will.”

“But …” CeeCee was trying to see into the future. Her future. “Does that mean I’d always have to see you on the sly?” she asked.

“Not necessarily,” Tim said. “If you come to wherever I end up, we can have a relationship out in the open. I just won’t be Tim Gleason anymore.”

“But I’m applying to Carolina ,” she said. “I have to stay here.”

“We should have you apply to a couple other schools, too, then,” he said.

“You two lovebirds can talk about this later,” Marty said. “Let go of each other so I can reach the pizza, okay?”

Tim let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair as Marty helped himself to another slice.

“There’s one thing, though,” Tim said. “A lot of people know that you and I are seeing each other. They’ll ask you questions after I so-called disappear .”

She hadn’t thought of that.

“So whether you agree to help out or not, you and I have to fake a breakup, okay?”

“No.” She felt like crying.

“It’s for your own protection, CeeCee,” he said. “We don’t want anyone to think you’re in on it. And it will all be an act.”

This was so complicated. She loved things the way they were. She loved seeing him in the coffee shop in the morning and spending her leisure time in the beautiful mansion. Whatever she decided, things would never be the same. Andie’s fate hung like a shroud over the brothers and she knew Tim would never rest until he’d done everything he could to save her.

“Okay?” Tim asked, when she didn’t respond.

“When do we have to act like we’re breaking up?”

“Soon,” he said. “This week sometime. Even Ronnie has to think we did.”

She nodded. She looked down at the piece of paper on the table. “If I helped out,” she said, “the governor’s wife would be able to identify me.”

“We’ll work up a real good disguise for you,” Marty said. “Get a blond wig. Or maybe a redhead.” He looked at her long wavy mane of dark hair. “Will that hair fit under a wig? Maybe you need to cut it.”

“No, man,” Tim interjected. “She’s not cutting her hair.”

“I can pin it tight to my head,” she said, though it would be a challenge.

“I think you’d be a fine-looking blonde.” Marty tipped his head to assess her. “And you’d wear a mask. Tell the wife a name other than CeeCee. She’ll never know who you really are.”

“Is there a phone at the cabin?” she asked. “How would I know what’s going on between y’all and the governor?”

“There’s no phone,” Tim said. “Which is why we can’t stay there for our negotiations.”

“So, how will I know—”

“You won’t, at least not right away. We’re going to give him, like, three days. My guess is it’ll only take a few hours.”

Marty laughed. “Who knows, though? The dude might like having some time away from his old lady.”

Tim didn’t smile. He glanced at her list. “What else do you need to know?” he asked.

“Would I have to keep her tied up or something?”

“No,” Tim said. “I mean, we might have to cuff her in order to transport her if she doesn’t … cooperate. Once she’s in the cabin, there are dead-bolt locks and you’d have the keys, so you wouldn’t have to worry.”

“She could scream, though. Neighbors could hear her.”

“It’s a very isolated area,” Tim said.

“Ain’t nobody for miles.” Marty took a swallow of beer. “Might be bears, though. How d’you feel about bears?”

“Shut up, Marty,” Tim said. “You’re not helping.”

“What if I fall asleep?” She couldn’t believe she was asking questions as though she might actually agree to help them. “If it turns out to be two or three days, I’ll have to sleep sometime.”

“Well, yeah, you’ll need to sleep,” Tim said. “She might have to be handcuffed to something then. To her bed or something. You’re smart enough to be the judge of what you need to do.”

“She’d fight me, though, wouldn’t she?” She could just see herself getting into a fistfight with the wife of the governor of North Carolina.

“You’ll have a gun,” Marty said.

Tim shot his brother a look. Marty had crossed some kind of line.

“I don’t want a gun,” she said.

“We’ll give you an empty one,” Tim said. “Just to use as a threat.”

The fact that Tim had a gun bothered her more than anything. She didn’t want to lose sight of who he was: the man she was sure had given her five thousand dollars and who treated her like a gem and who loved her more than anyone had since her mother was alive. The serious graduate student who wanted to advocate for people who had no power of their own. Suddenly she gasped.

“Your degree!” she said. “If you do this … underground thing, how will you finish your degree?”

“Some things are more important.”

“But you’ve worked so hard.”

He smiled at her as if she were too young or too naive to understand. “It really doesn’t matter all that much, CeeCee,” he said. “It’s a piece of paper versus my sister’s life.”

Marty leaned toward her. “The government kills innocent people all the time,” he said. “Andie got fucking railroaded, and we’re not going to let her be one of them.”

“We won’t be in this alone, CeeCee,” Tim said. “Some other SCAPE people know what we’re planning and are behind us one hundred percent and are ready to help. They live underground, so I’m not going to tell you much about them yet. Not that you’d tell anyone,” he added quickly. “I know you wouldn’t.”

She shook her head.

“They live near this cabin we’re talking about, so we can stay with them ‘til we’re ready to move on the whole thing,” Tim continued. “We’ll make sure the cabin has food and everything you’ll need. They have an old car you can use, so the day of the.” He seemed suddenly hesitant to use the word kidnapping. “The day we do it, you’ll drive to the cabin and we’ll drive to Jacksonville where the house with the phone is and then meet you back at the cabin. Make sense?”

“How will you do it?” she asked. “How will you be able to get to her?”

“We know her schedule,” Marty said. “She teaches an evening Spanish class at Carolina. It’s dark when she gets out, so we’ll nab her in the parking lot.”

She pictured the scene: a woman walking alone to her car at night, two men jumping out of the darkness, muffling her screams with a hand over her mouth as they drag her into the rear of a van. “You’ll terrify her,” she said.

“Well, yeah.” Marty laughed. “Brilliant deduction.”

“We’ll make it as easy on her as we can, babe,” Tim said. “We won’t hurt her. Our whole objective is to prevent people from being hurt.”

She looked down at her plate, translucent with grease around her uneaten slice of pizza. Both men were quiet, as though they knew she needed a minute to absorb what they’d told her.

“When would you do it?” she asked finally.

“A few days before Thanksgiving,” Tim said.

“And what if the governor says he’ll commute Andie’s sentence and then goes back on his word once his wife is home?” she asked.

“He’d damn well better not,” Marty said in a threatening voice. “Or then we go to plan B and I don’t think you want to know about that.”