House of V (Unraveled Series) (8 page)

So the fact that Fred’s name was on
some list made no sense to him whatsoever. He wondered what the list was for
anyway. Did it matter if his name was on this apparent list if Holston Parker
was dead, anyway? What danger could he possibly be in?

He swirled the last drink of Scotch
in his glass as he thought of the harm in meeting this guy. It was in a public
place in downtown Oshkosh in the early evening. The Wisconsin summer stayed
light until around nine anyway. According to his parole, he wasn’t allowed to
carry firearms, but he didn’t feel like he needed any protection. After all, he
didn’t have anything to hide, and as far as he was concerned, didn’t have any
enemies anymore. The crowd he ran with back in the nineties was long gone. They
had all broken up and gone separate ways. Some probably dead, others in jail,
maybe out of state or otherwise. Hell, he didn’t even remember half of the guys
anyway.

Fred was in his mid-fifties now,
the heyday of his youth long past him. He sat here with nothing to show for his
name other than a small, rented apartment in small-town Wisconsin. No family or
friends. They were long gone, disowning him for his past. He didn’t blame them,
but it was just so lonely.

He was lucky enough to get shift
work at a packaging plant that kept him just busy enough and paid him barely
enough to afford living expenses, including food and the crap apartment he was
sitting in. Everyone told him how horrible prison would be, however no one had
told him how miserable he would feel after.

He looked at the clock again to see
that ten minutes had passed. It would take him fifteen minutes to get down to
the pizza place. He had five more minutes to make his decision.

He played the message again,
listening to the voice of the man. The caller seemed relatively calm and
collected except for when he mentioned Holston Parker. The name had caught in
his throat. Fred closed his eyes as he finished listening to the message. The
answering machine clicked as it stopped and the humming of his window air
conditioning unit filled the silence.

Hell, he knew he had nothing to lose.
Heading out for pizza tonight with some guy seemed
better
than staying here. Plus, he was a little curious how his name ended up on some
list that Holston Parker kept. Fred knew that Holston was taking out criminals
when he was alive, but that was the key phrase,
alive
. Holston Parker was long gone, and he shouldn’t have to worry
if his name was on some list. Yet Fred kept going back to
how
he had gotten on that list anyway. Call it morbid curiosity.
Maybe the caller would know.

He set the glass back down on the
table, contemplating if he needed to change his clothes. It was a hot day in
the plant, and he definitely did his fair share of sweating, yet he knew that
no one expected much from a sex offender anyway. It was hard to disappoint
anyone.

He grabbed the glass and set it in
the sink before he wiped the table with a towel from the counter. He took the
towel to his own face, wiping it before he threw the towel back down, and
grabbed his wallet stocked with exactly eleven dollars and his driver’s license.

He had eleven dollars to get him
through the night and nothing more until tomorrow’s pay day. It would be enough
for some pizza and maybe a beer if he was lucky.

Fred grabbed the keys to his
ten-year-old Chevy Cavalier and ran his fingers through his hair.

Just be normal
, he reminded
himself as he walked to the door. He pulled the door open with a quick sweep
and looked up to see a man in a baseball cap and glasses waiting in front of
it. He wore khakis and a button down shirt.

“Can I help you?” Fred asked,
dangling the keys in his hand.

“Are you Fred Sullivan?” the man
asked in a cool and steady voice. Fred recognized the voice; it was the caller
from the answering machine.

“Yeah,” he answered, still holding
the door open. Nothing about the man alarmed Fred. He was used to hanging
around convicts and criminals. This guy didn’t seem like one; he was shorter,
somewhat stocky, fit, but not muscular; maybe in his late fifties, early
sixties.
Nothing to get worked up about.

“I’m the guy that called you about
the list,” he said, holding up a piece of paper. “Do you mind if I come in?”

Fred opened the door wider,
allowing the man to come in, not knowing that the glass of Scotch was the last
he would ever drink.

7

June 18, 8:45 a.m
.
Norway

My eyes flashed open to see the
numbers
glowing
a light yellow that I could barely
read. I blinked in rapid succession, trying to moisten my eyes when I realized
my brown contacts were still in. I closed my eyes long enough to count, and
when I opened them, I read 8:45 on the clock. The morning sun was streaming
through the windows now, casting light on Ryan’s bedroom.
Our
bedroom.
And the bag that I
left beside the bed was now sitting on top of the dresser right in front of me.

Shit.

I thought of the dream I’d just
had, the cowboy running through it with a vengeance. He was trying to tell me
something, warn me of what was to come. Someone wanted me back; someone was
trying to get my attention with the death of Father
Haskens
and the threats to Sister Josephine. I wondered how far this person would go if
I didn’t come back. Would he move on to the Jones family -
my
family? Who would be next? Delaney? Mark? I knew I had to go
back. I couldn’t let Sister Josephine end up like she had in my dream, and I
sure the hell couldn’t risk the rest of the Jones family’s lives.

I turned to see an empty spot next
to me. I felt my shoes heavy against the sheets and my canvas jacket
restricting my movement. I was fully dressed, lying in bed. I should be gone by
now.

Shit, again.

I was abruptly brought back to the
time when I was seven, living with Holston - even in my memories, I can’t
resign myself to calling him my father - in a tiny, single-story home he’d
rented. It was right before he had made all his money; his empire still in the
budding stages as he scratched his way to the top. He had just come home, and
it was past my bedtime, by a long shot, I was sure.

I had packed a suitcase with my
toothbrush and one pair of underwear, determined to leave. He hadn’t muttered a
word to me, but simply stepped aside, letting me stroll through the front door.
Holston had shut the door behind me. So there I
was,
a
seven-year-old with a tattered suitcase, set to take on the world. However, I
had never moved from that front porch, and instead, had curled up on the bare
concrete like a cat. I had awoken in the morning to find myself in the same
clothes from the night before, suitcase still by my side and a low grumble in
my stomach. I had walked back through the front door, Holston sitting at the
table, drinking coffee with a stoic stare. A single apple sat across from him.

Are you finished?
Those are
the only words he had said to me as I sat down across from him. I replied with
silence, knowing that I couldn’t leave him or that house.
At
least, not then.
I would obey, I had no choice.

And now here I was, fully dressed
and unable to leave again. It was different this time around, though. I didn’t
want to leave. I had someone here that loved me, and I loved him. That was the
problem.

The fresh aroma of coffee beans
wafted through the air and beckoned me into the kitchen. He would be there,
waiting for me. I thought about snagging the bag and crawling out the window,
but I owed it to Ryan to talk to him one last time, so I walked through the hallway,
feeling the shame wash over me. I hated myself for the last twenty-four hours.

He stood with his back to me and
looked out the window above the kitchen sink. He knew I was standing behind
him.

“I thought you said
we
were going to stay,” Ryan said, not
turning toward me.

I was silent because I didn’t know
what to say. How could I argue with him? He was right; I had lied to him.

“Why didn’t you go then?” he asked,
putting the mug of coffee down on the counter before turning to face me. He
held the knife he had given me in his other hand and twirled it for a moment
before setting it down. The emptiness sank into my chest.

“I don’t know,” I answered. Why did
he have to love me so much? Why did he have to look at me with those eyes? Why
did
I
have to love him so much?

“That’s not good enough,” he
replied. I knew he was right.

“Come with me,” I said.

“You know I can’t.”

“I love you.” The words didn’t
quite come out right. They fell empty in the kitchen, the distance between us
too far.

“But not enough,” he retorted,
leaning his hand against the counter.

“I can’t stay here knowing that
Sister Josephine is in danger.
That my family is in danger.
I just can’t do it. This is who I am. I can’t pretend that I am someone else.
I’ll get in and out before they’ll know I’m even there and then I’ll come
back.”

“And if you actually do it, which I
highly doubt, what’s going to happen the next time?
And the
time after?
What is it going to be the next time something pulls you
away from me? You want me to sit and wait?” Ryan asked, his brown eyes staring
straight through me. I knew it wasn’t fair. Not to him. Not to us.

“It’s not like that, I?” I
stammered, looking for the right thing to say, but it didn’t come.

“Just go,
Evie
,”
he said, pointing to the front door as he hung his head down in rejection. He
was tired and so was I. “Just don’t expect it to be like last time. Don’t
expect me to come chasing after you again. I won’t do it. I will never do it
again.”

“And if I come back?”

“What do you want me to say? You
want to know that I will be here
if
you come back?”

Silence.

“I don’t know if I can do it,
Evie
.”

It was all I needed to hear. It
shattered me, yet I did what I do best. I turned and left without saying a word.
Without muttering,
I love you
or
I will come back
. I didn’t know if he
would be here waiting for me, but I left anyway because I had to.
Because I was
Evie
Parker.

***

I made one quick stop before
heading to the airport to catch my flight. I knew Ryan would disapprove, but at
this point, I didn’t know if Ryan ever wanted to see me again. And I knew I
couldn’t turn my back on someone who reminded me so much of
myself
,
of the lost little girl I once was. This could be my last chance. The last time
I set foot in Norway.

Aaron’s wife Linn had followed me
as I walked along the road to town for a solid two minutes before I finally
agreed to get in her car and accept the ride. She had pulled just outside the
building, and I asked her to wait in the car.

I swung open the door to Bernard’s
bakery. The fresh aromas of the bakery teased my nostrils, trying to dissuade
me from what I needed to do. I shook it off and focused on the man bending down
behind the counter. The man I needed to have a word with.

I leaned across the counter and
silently snagged a six inch blade he was using to slice his bread. I moved
back, waiting for him to pop up and attend to me. As soon as he did, I leaned
across the counter again and pulled at his shirt with one fluid motion. I held
the knife up to his throat, pressing it lightly into his skin.

Before he could utter a word, I
warned him in a steady, cool voice in broken Norwegian that I knew he would
understand. “Do not lay a finger on Rolf again, Bernard, or I swear to you, I
will come back here, hunt you down and make you regret every single thing you
have done to that child. Do you understand?”

Bernard’s pale face shook with
fear, his eyes widening as I pressed the knife until the smallest trickle of
blood appeared on his skin.

“I promise you that, Bernard,” I
said as I let his shirt go and pushed him away from me. He straightened his
shirt, brushed off his apron and then nodded his head. I walked out of the
shop, leaving the knife on the display shelf right before I walked back into the
sunlight with a roll in my hand.

***

I stood at the
Svolvar
airport, watching the next airplane to Oslo pull to the tarmac. Ivy Stone had
made it through the first check.
Only two more checks to go,
Oslo and New York, before I headed to Chicago.

I had been flagged for buying my
ticket with cash, and the attendant had looked over my IDs with scrutiny.
American student with an emergency at home, I had explained to her. My mother
had died, and my dad had wired me cash to pay for the ticket. I had shrugged my
shoulders with a solemn look on the verge of tears. The hairy-eyed attendant
pushed me along, barely looking in my bag. Death had that effect on people. No
one wanted to deal with a sobbing woman, make that college student, in the
airport.

I turned to the seats behind me,
scouring the faces of my fellow passengers. I glossed over a woman with three
kids, two of them kicking each other while the third played a handheld game.

Not worth the hassle.

I was nearing the end of the row
when I spotted a man in a business suit
who
was busy
with his cellphone. He was leaned over, a briefcase sitting near the sheen of
his loafers. His blonde hair was trimmed and molded to perfection, and his tie
pulled tight to his neck.
Most likely not American.
Just what I needed.