Dead or Alive (21 page)

“He’s gone, Sis.” Constance rubbed her back gently, holding her as tightly as she could.  “It’s over.  You’re safe.”

***

Remy sped off down the deserted road at top speed until he could no longer see the run down little house in his rearview.  Only then did he let up on the gas, all while trying to fight the intense pain that immediately wrecked his body, tears stinging his eyes sharply.  Since the moment he’d seen her, he’d been trying to get rid of Violet Chambers.

He finally had.

In fact, he was almost positive that he would never see her again.

Good.  She’d been deceiving him from the start.  She’d believed he was guilty from the start, but she’d convinced him she was his friend.  His ally.  His love.

His heart lurched against the word.

The moment he heard it in his head, he realized he hated her for what she’d done to him.

He hated even more that all he wanted in the world was to feel her in his arms one more time.

***

Two hands came clapping down on the empty table, and the sound reverberated off the mirrored walls. “Where is Remington Archibald?”

Violet looked up at the red face man from where he loomed over her from across the table.  “I don’t know.”

Two hands slapped down, again. “I’ll only ask one more time, Violet.  One more time, and then we’re going to have a real problem.” He paused for effect. “
Where…
Is Remington Archibald?”

Violet’s bloodshot eyes lingered on the large, balding patch placed right in the middle of his head.  The interrogation room was freezing, but her teeth weren’t chattering from the cold.  She was fighting tears.  Had been for the last two days.

Had it only been two days since she’d seen Remy?  It felt like a lifetime.  She looked to the largest mirror in the room, the one that spanned the entire wall, the famous mirror that’d played a supporting role in all of her favorite crime shows.  She was sure her father and sisters were on the other side.  Well, Constance probably wasn’t there.  Having been the last person to see Remy, along with Violet, Constance was surely in an interrogation room of her own, as well.

Her eyes went back to the rosy-cheeked officer.  “You’ve been asking me the same question for two days. My answer isn’t going to change.  I don’t know where he is.”

“Were you harboring him in a secluded location?”

“Don’t answer.”

Violet’s eyes shot to her lawyer when he spoke, having forgotten he was even in the room.  Her father had found her legal representation, a friend of his who he’d graduated with twenty years ago. Yale Law, runner up for Valedictorian of his class, second only to her father. Violet appreciated that he was interjecting in all the right moments.  As a former lawyer herself she already knew when to answer, and when to shut her damn mouth, but still, she appreciated the support.

“He’s still out there, Violet,” the officer said.  “If anyone else gets hurt, and we find out you were involved, it’s your head that’ll be on the chopping block. Right next to his.”

The threat didn’t scare Violet.

It relieved her.

She didn’t want to live in a world that didn’t have Remy in it.

***

“Violet, honey… will you please eat something?  It’s been days.”

Violet poked at the food on her plate, not bothering to raise her eyes to her mother, or any of the other family members seated around the dining room table.  She could feel her parents, sisters, and her youngest sister’s fiancé, Rodney’s, eyes all on her, but she didn’t dare look up.  She wasn’t hungry.  She’d already been throwing up every night on an empty stomach.  She could only imagine the treasures that awaited the guest room toilet if she actually gave her violently sick gut something to work with, like her mother’s clam chowder.

“I’m going upstairs,” she grumbled, pushing back from the table.

“You’re not going
anywhere,”
her father, Chadrick Chambers, snapped.  “Sit. Down.”

Finally meeting her father’s eyes, and feeling about two feet tall the moment she did, Violet retook her seat, clawing her nails into the chair once she was back down.  She only had time to take in her father’s dated, greying haircut, matching grey eyes that power-leaped off of his skin, and his downturned mouth before her eyes were back on her plate.  She couldn’t stand the way he was looking at her.  She couldn’t stand any of this.

Two days.

Two days since she’d watched Remy drive away from her.  He was nowhere to be found, so the cops had turned to her.  But she didn’t have the answers, either.  He was just gone, along with the truck they’d swiped all those months ago.  She knew Remy didn’t have anywhere to go.  He didn’t trust anyone but Jason--and surely he wouldn’t dare go back to Jason’s house with the police still on his trail.

She still couldn’t shake the look in his eyes during their last bizarre conversation from her mind.  Even now, days later, she could feel the heat behind those intense blues, the unsettling mix of anger and pain.  She had no idea what had prompted it then, and the uncertainty owned her now.

She couldn’t stand the possibility that she might never get to the bottom of it.

He was out there somewhere, alone.

His leg wasn’t even completely healed.

Hot tears stung her eyes.  It was inevitable that they would catch him and put him away. They might even shoot him dead.  There was nothing stopping them now.  When the thought of throwing her body in front of his, faced with the threat of a million flying bullets, filled her with desire, she was sure she’d lost her mind.  She would rather be with Remy, because she knew that she was his best shot at
not
getting shot, even if it meant her own skin getting blasted in the process.

She hadn’t minded being his proverbial shield.  In fact, she’d quickly grown to love it.

And him.

Her lip trembled. She’d been his only hope, but she was now a prisoner herself.

Feeling her father’s hot eyes still burning a hole into the top of her head, she simmered with anger.  He’d all but barricaded everyone into the family house, locking all of the exits from the outside and setting alarms for everything else.  No one in the family was permitted to leave the house until Remy was found.  If anyone so much as touched a window sill or door handle, a skin-peeling alarm would instantly sound, alerting her father to an attempt at exit.  It was some serious Flowers in the Attic nonsense he was pulling, and she knew it was all about her, but Violet didn’t have the strength to fight.

He’d taken leave from work and spent the last few days focusing on ensuring she wasn’t charged with any crimes.  With his power, and many important connections in Redding, he’d succeeded.  She wouldn’t be charged for aiding and abetting, or harboring a fugitive.  She was an unwilling hostage suffering from a terrible case of Stockholm Syndrome, brought on by a murderer and master manipulator.  At least, that was what her father had convinced everyone was true.  It took everything she had not to holler at the top of her lungs that she believed Remy innocent, but it would be a foolish move.  If she had any chance of helping him, she had to play it smart.

And playing it smart meant humoring her father in his, almost psychotic, goal of making sure she didn’t leave that house.  The last two days had quickly proven that time hadn’t changed him.  He was still the controlling dictator he had been her whole life, and she felt she was now fighting for her own freedom as well as Remy’s.  The need to do everything her father wanted just to please him was all but gone.  She thanked god for finding the will to turn down Mark’s proposal all those weeks ago.  If she’d accepted, she’d have never met Remy and would probably be in the middle of picking out centerpieces for a wedding she didn’t care about with a man she didn’t love.

With a heaving breath, her eyes finally rose to the other individuals at the dinner table.  She found them all looking back at her with a mix of wide-eyed curiosity and concern.

Her eyes instantly fell back down.

They all thought she was crazy.

Maybe she was.  They knew as well as she did that if, by the grace of God, she found some way to leave that house, the first thing she would do was go looking for Remy.  And if not that, looking for a way to prove his innocence.

Innocence.  Something came alive in her, and she moved to stand from the table, once more, not wanting anyone to see her cry.

Her father’s voice exploded into the air once more. “
Sit down.
”

Violet’s blood boiled, but she sat back down.  She continued to defy him, challenge him, and then yield to him.  Her father was taking her hesitant obedience as capitulation, having no idea that Violet was far from surrender.  Her eyes held his. It was important that he believe she still feared him.  It was the only chance she had of getting passed him, and out of that house.

His eyes bore into hers, squeezing into tight slits as he spoke.  “You’ve disappeared for three weeks, evaded the police’s questions, refused to speak one word to any of us—your family—who you’ve scared half to death with your ridiculous shenanigans.  The least you can do is sit down and eat your mother’s clam chowder.”

Violet proceeded to stare down at her plate, all the while wondering whether her clever prison guard of a father had the foresight to arm the window in the attic during his work securing the house.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”  When Violet didn’t look up, Chadrick exploded.  “Answer me, Violet. If it weren’t for mine and Mark’s connections at the station, you’d be in jail right now, charged with harboring a fugitive, aiding and abetting.  Yet you sit at my table and pretend you can’t hear me?  Mark says you don’t even have the decency to answer his calls, when he just wants to be sure you’re okay.  It’s bad enough that you ended a relationship with the only eligible man who’s ever shown you interest, to ignore him is just poor etiquette, and I didn’t raise you that way. When are you going to come to your senses?  Or do you only fraternize with murderous white men these days?”

“Daddy,” Jackie Chambers, Violet’s younger sister, finally jumped in. “Why don’t you take it easy on Violet, huh? I mean, she’s clearly lost her mind.  Look at her.” Jackie motioned to Violet’s apathetic face, gazing blankly off into nothingness.  “She’s not even fighting you back.  She’s a shell of herself, so stop tearing her down.  Jeez.”

“Maybe she needs to speak to someone,” her mother jumped in.  “I’m worried, sweetheart.”

“I made an appointment with Dr. Flatt for next Monday.  It’s the soonest I could get.”

Violet carried on pouting down into her lap, not even hearing the concerned conversation that her family was having.  As they continued speaking about her like she wasn’t in the room, she unfolded the
WANTED
flyer she’d swiped from the police station and had kept clenched tight under the safety of her clenched fist since.  Both she and Remy’s faces were plastered on the flyer, side by side, with the words ‘
WANTED,
first degree murder; kidnapping’
splashed across the page in red, bold letters. The old Violet would have been furious about the fact that they’d chosen such a dated photo, on one of her worst hair days, to plaster on a poster that had surely made the rounds all over the country, but the new Violet could only find herself getting teary as she took in the pain in Remy’s blue eyes.  They blasted right through that cheap mug shot, and yanked at her soul. When she realized it was the only photograph that she’d probably ever have of the two of them, she felt even more helpless.

“You see, Dad.  She’s crying for no good reason. When have you ever known Violet to cry?”

Chadrick didn’t answer, and Violet hadn’t realized he’d been making his way over to her until he was already there, catching sight of what Violet was fiddling with in her hands.  The moment he saw it, something changed in his eyes, and he snatched it from between her fingers without another word.

Violet’s world grinded to a halt.  “Give it back.”

Her father held the photo up in front of her, his own hands having begun to tremble.  “This man is not your friend.  He may have been your lover, but he was never your friend.  He is not on your side.  The only side men like him are ever on, is their own.”

Violet’s teeth bared themselves.  “Give.  It.  Back.”

When he stood tall, and ripped the paper in half, the tears that had been building in Violet’s eyes finally bubbled over.

“Daddy,” Jackie protested.

This time Violet jumped from her seat without a word and didn’t acknowledge Chadrick when he called out to her.  She hurried into the living room and, with crazed determination, attempted to yank the front door open.  Not only did it not budge, but the action immediately triggered an alarm, sending high-pitched, deafening screams bouncing off of the walls from every direction.  In seconds, her father was speeding around the corner of the living room, followed closely by her mother, Jackie, Rodney, and Constance.

Eyes narrowed, Violet watched in frustration as her father punched a code into the alarm panel on the wall, disabling it.  He turned back to her.  “Nobody comes or goes from this house without my express permission until that lunatic is found.”  His chest heaved.  “And by nobody, I mean you, Violet.”