Heavy: A Contemporary Romance (30 page)

***

I don’t think I could have been out for long, as I when I began to come to, I was being dragged into my bedroom by my now tightly bound wrists.

“She’s waking up, Josiah,” the woman who’d been at my door said
from the region of my feet.

“What are you doing?” I asked groggily, squinting as I tried to focus on what was happening
. My speech came out as if my mouth was full of marbles and my eyes were stinging and watering.

“Don’t fret, my dear,” an eerily pleasant-sounding voice replied from behind my head
. I tilted my head back, the room spinning from the movement, until finally the Santa lookalike from the car came into focus.

Wait, she’d called him Josiah
. Where had I heard that name before?

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Josiah continued
. “We’re just here for the boy.”

Then it hit me
. Charity’s parents. Thaddeus’ grandparents.

Josiah grabbed me by the arms and his wife took hold of my feet, which I noticed were also bound tightly together, and they lifted me onto the bed.

“What do you want with him?” I asked frantically, struggling to no avail against my bindings.

“Don’t worry about that, my dear
. The world will be purged of his evil tonight, so it best you forget you ever met him,” Josiah smiled.

“What do you mean?” I cried
. “He’s just a little boy! An innocent and sweet little boy! Please don’t hurt him,” I pleaded, tears further blurring my already sketchy vision.

“Take these and it will all be over soon,” the woman said soothingly
. She held a handful of pills in front of my face and I closed my mouth and turned my head.

“You’ll take them now, or we’ll forgo the purification ceremony and kill the boy right here and now,” Josiah said solemnly.

“Run, Thaddeus! Run!” I screamed as the crazy old man held me down.

“Too late for that now, Miss Hun
tington, the boy has already been dealt with and will not awake until it’s time for him to realize the extent of his evilness,” the woman said.

“Evilness
? Is that even a word, you psychotic fucking—”

But I couldn’t finish my sentence as Josiah took ahold of my chin and his wife pushed the pills down my throat
. I tried to spit them back out, but the old man slapped me across the face causing me to gasp and swallow involuntarily.

“Good girl,” he said in his creepy, soft voice
. “By the time you wake up, this will all just be a bad dream.”

The two of them left the room and I heard the sound of the door being locked.

Fuck! I didn’t have much time before whatever they’d just given me began to take effect.

The two lunatics had bound my hands and feet, but they hadn’t actually secured me to anything
. I swung my feet over the side of the bed, and braced myself against the dizzy wave of nausea that coursed through my body. Please let that just be head trauma and not from the pills I’d just swallowed.

I pulled open the drawer next to my bed and rummaged aroun
d in it desperately until I found the knife I kept hidden there. Ignoring the ropes at my wrists for now, as cutting through them would be the most time-consuming due to grip and angle; I made short work of the ones around my feet.

As soon as my legs were free, I ran to the bathroom and did what I thought I’d never have to do again
. I stuck my fingers down my throat and emptied the contents of my stomach. Only this time, there was no feeling of shame after doing it.

I raced to the door, knife in hand once again, and putting my ear to it, could still hear the sounds of movement in the house
. It sounded like they were about to leave though. I tried the door and there was no way I was going to get it open any time soon or without making any noise.

That only left the window
. Thank God this was a one-story house! I unlocked it and raised it slowly, so as to make as little noise as possible. I threw the knife out first, then somehow managed to scramble out despite the fact my hands were still tied together. Creeping around the side of the house, I saw Josiah carrying Thaddeus’ limp body down the driveway towards their mobile home. His wife climbed into the passenger seat of their car while her husband took Thaddeus into the attached caravan.

I looked around desperately
. If I ran for help they would be long gone by the time I even reached my neighbor’s front door. Fuck!

Josiah exited the trailer and made his way around to get into the car
. I didn’t hesitate. There was really nothing else I could do. Luckily, the car was positioned in such a way so that the house and me were behind it, with the detachable mobile home obscuring the couple’s view. I slid quickly along the wall, keeping to the shadows, and then sprinted like a madwoman towards the door to the trailer, praying to anyone and everyone that it wasn’t locked. It wasn’t. The mobile home began to move slowly forward as I opened it and hurled myself through the door.

Thatch

As it turned out, the U
nbalanced Bridge in Stage Two proved to be my downfall. It was nothing to be ashamed about, as I had successfully completed the Double Salmon Ladder that had taken out more than half the remaining competitors. I also went further than any rookie had ever gone in the history of the show.

After a quick and final interview with Jan, I hurried to change into dry clothes and find my dad and Rufus and the rest of my die-hard supporters that didn’t have kids and who had stayed to the bitter end of my run.

“You did really great,” Chris my trainer said, slapping me on the back. “The gym is going to recruit a lot of new members thanks to you!”

“Thanks, man
. You staying to see who wins?”

“Of course, I am
. Aren’t you?”

“I kind of want to, but I also kind of want to get home to Thad and Cali too, you know,” I smiled, looking around for my father
. “Have you seen my dad? I can’t seem to find him.”

“He was heading back to join Ruf
us last time I saw him.”

“Oh, yeah, I see them now
. Talk to you later, man,” I said in parting.

As I approached the two men, I noticed they shared concerned expressions on their faces and a strange feeling came over me, settling in the pit of my stomach.

“What’s wrong, Pops?”

“I’m not sure yet, son, but something’s not right at Heavy’s house.”

“What do you mean, Dad? Is it Thaddeus?” I asked in an alarmed voice.

“I just read a message from Zak that he sent about an hour ago
. He went next door to check on our girl and there was no answer,” my dad said.

“Maybe they stopped to get something to eat on the way home
. Have you tried calling him back? They’re probably home by now.” No, no, no. This wasn’t happening again.

“I did
. He found the bedroom window open and neither Cali nor Thaddeus were there. They found some signs of a struggle, frayed ropes and the bedroom door locked from the outside. The police are already there, Thatch.”

I didn’t even stop to ask anything else
. I was already running at top speed in the direction of my car.

Cali

The fact that the mobile home didn’t stop informed me that my spur-of-the-moment stowaway maneuver had
, thankfully, gone unnoticed.

The space was small, containing a small
efficiency kitchenette and sleeping area. I hurried over to the bed where Thaddeus lay. To my dismay, not only was the little boy pale and unconscious, but his ankle was handcuffed to the metal bed frame. Fuck!

I felt his forehead and he was warm but not dangerously so
. Whatever they’d given him, he was knocked out cold.

Taking a seat next to him, I began to work on the ropes still binding my wrists
. It took a good ten minutes, but I was finally free from the last of my constraints. Now that I was, I frantically, yet quietly, searched the entire cabin for some sort of solution as to how I was going to get Thaddeus and myself out of this mess. There was no key to the cuffs to be found anywhere, which meant our kidnappers must have them on their person. The windows were nothing more than slits that I could barely fit an arm through, let alone try and alert a passing car of our predicament.

Opening the door to the trailer was too high a risk
. It faced the deserted and dark side of the highway, and chances were high that once opened, it would eventually be noticed in the passenger-side mirror. By now, I could tell we were on the Interstate where there would be no more pausing at traffic lights or any more chances to beg help from potential passersby. I looked in every drawer and cupboard, but there was no cell phone either.

What I
did
find was even more unsettling. Newspaper clippings of Thatch from the
Ultimate Ninja Athlete
competition, as well as surveillance pictures of Reston’s from a week ago
before
I was ousted on Twitter. A time when we weren’t being diligent about reporters following us. They had shots of everyone who worked at the tattoo shop and were obviously monitoring Thaddeus’ schedule carefully. The night of the Finals was highlighted, the date itself circled in every cut-out article mentioning it, and they must’ve seen it as the best opportunity to put their nefarious plan into motion.

I also found n
otebooks filled with handwriting – presumably Josiah’s – in which there were passages and passages of religious doctrine on how to banish evil. This wasn’t stuff from the bible – this was something else. He’d written about water and purification and rituals in which to banish evil through cleansing. There were diagrams sketched and a hand-drawn map of what looked like Lake Mead. It finally dawned on me that that was where we must be heading. Their intention was to somehow cleanse Thaddeus in water and purge his ‘evil’ from the world using the largest and nearest body of water at their disposal.

I looked at the little boy on the bed and couldn’t stop the tears of frustration and fear from coursing down my cheeks again
. What the hell was I going to do? How was I going to save Thaddeus from his delusional and dangerous grandparents?

I finally sat up straight and wiped my face on my sleeve
. If there was one thing I
was
certain of, it was that these crazy motherfuckers weren’t going to get their hands on him without a fight.

Thatch

In
no condition to actually drive, it was Rufus that pulled my car up in front of California’s house. I was already opening the door and jumping out before he could come to a complete stop.

Tony was in the driveway, along with five or six uniformed policemen.

“Thatch,” Tony called out, trying to stop me as I ran past him. “You can’t go in there!”

I ignored him and shouldered my way into the house and got as far as the living room before two men were able to stop me.

“Someone had better tell me what the fuck is going on! Where are my son and girlfriend?” I cried out angrily to the men in the room. I knew I was acting irrationally, but if I stopped for even a second, my mind would start wandering into dangerous territory I was desperate to avoid. Anger was keeping those kinds of thoughts at bay.

“Mr. Reston
? I’m Detective Dale Johnson from the Las Vegas Metropolitan P. D. If you wouldn’t mind please stepping outside so as not to contaminate the potential crime scene, I’ll fill you in on everything I know so far, okay?”

“Crime scene?”
I blurted out. “Do you think that…” But I couldn’t finish the sentence or say the words. Thaddeus’ aviator hat was lying on the floor near the door. I picked it up and my whole body just went numb.

The detective took my arm and led me quietly outside
. He didn’t stop, motioning for Tony to follow along behind us, until we’d gone through the side gate and ended up on the patio by the pool.

“Please take a seat, Mr. Reston and I’ll tell you all I know.”

I looked at him blankly, the words not fully registering yet, and it took Tony to guide me onto one of the patio chairs. No one tried to take the aviator hat away from me, as if they already knew there wasn’t a chance in hell I could or would let it go right now.

“Approximately
two hours ago,” Detective Johnson explained, “your neighbors discovered what they thought to be evidence of a break in here. There was no answer at the door, and they later found an opened window and the house empty. These facts alone would not immediately raise a red flag, but as both this house and the neighboring one have state-of-the-art surveillance systems, we’ve been able to piece an idea of what happened here tonight. As this concerns a missing child, I can assure you Las Vegas Metro are doing everything humanly possible to find your missing loved ones. I also have to ask you a rather delicate question too, Mr. Reston before I show you what’s on the tape.” The detective hesitated for a few seconds before he continued. “Is there a chance this could be a similar situation to Miss Huntington’s last…kidnapping?”

“What you’re trying to tactfully ask is
, do I think my girlfriend staged this whole thing for some media attention?” The anger in my tone more than illustrated exactly how I felt about his ‘delicate’ question. “No, California did not fucking stage this, nor any other damn kidnapping, okay?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Reston, but you understand I had to ask.”

Why did people say that? ‘I had to ask.’ It was a dumb question and there was no way for him to know if I was telling the truth or not. Just more fucking time wasting.

“What did the surveillance show?”
I asked in a hoarse voice, making a concerted effort to get my emotions under control.

“I would like to show you if you don’t mind, sir
. It would be extremely helpful if you were able to identify the people in this video.” The detective held up his iPad and pushed the play button.

He had the clip cued to what I assumed was the best of all the clips from both sets
of security cameras. My jaw was clenched so hard I thought my teeth might snap. I gave a hiss as I recognized Charity’s parents carrying Thaddeus and putting him into the mobile home attached to their car. Just as Josiah entered the car, a figure ran out of the shadows and across the narrow driveway. Even with the grainy texture and dim lighting on the screen, you could still make out the fact that the person running had their hands tied with rope. As the RV began to pull away, the figure wrenched open the door and jumped inside.

It was California.

“The couple in the clip are Josiah and Mary Jones. They’re Thaddeus’s grandparents and back in New York I took a restraining order out against them. Their license plate number will be included in that paperwork.” My voice came out in a dazed monotone. To say I was in shock was an understatement. “I can tell you this with all certainty, Detective Johnson. Those two are complete lunatics – cult members and religious zealots that truly believe my son to be an evil being and responsible for the death of their daughter three years ago. If they’ve taken him, you can bank on the fact that their goal is to do him harm. They won’t hesitate to hurt California, too, if she’s discovered.”

The detective
nodded to me that he understood, stepped away from Tony and me, and hurriedly punched some numbers into his phone, no doubt relaying this new information back to his headquarters.

“There’s nothing we can do now until the police track down their vehicle, Thatch
. Come over to our house and let’s wait for an update, okay?” Tony said quietly.

My dad came around the corner toward us, evidently just arrived
. He caught the end part of Tony’s suggestion and showed he was in agreement when he pulled me up out of my chair and slung his arm around my shoulders.

I nodded at him slowly
, allowing myself to be led in the direction of the neighboring house. What else could I do?