The Golden Couple (The Samantha Project Series, # 2) (20 page)

Jack was right. If Dave had somehow escaped from GlobalLife, then his main goal would be to find me and hide me far away from GlobalLife so I could live my life in peace. And it’s true that Dave wouldn’t know about the base codes or the timer. How could he? It was top-secret information. Dave didn’t have access to those files.

Colin put his arm around me. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going with her. I’m not letting her do this alone.”

“Same here,” Erik said. “Sorry, Dad. But you can’t forbid me from going. I’m 19. I can make my own decisions. Staying here does nothing. We have no leads on finding those base codes. At least this is something. A chance that maybe there’s another answer or another clue that might help us turn the timer off.”

Jack considered it. “Well, I’m not so sure about that. But I’m not sending the three of you up there not knowing what this is about. So we’re all going. That includes you, Brittany.”

“What if they won’t let us on the plane?” Brittany asked. “What if it’s only for Sam?”

“We’ll just have to try,” Jack said. “And I think we should leave today. The sooner we get out of this area, the better. But I need a place for the van. It has all my equipment. I can’t just leave it sitting on the street.”

Fisher overheard us as he walked into the room. “What about the van?”
 

I went over to him. “They’re all coming with me, so we need a safe place to store the van while we’re gone. Any ideas?”

Fisher went to the front window. “Hmm, it’s quite a bit larger than a normal van, but it might fit.” He turned back to us. “I know of a storage facility. It’s a short drive outside of town. A friend of mine owns the place. He has a lot of open spaces. I’m sure you could have one. And if you paid him for several months in cash, he wouldn’t even make you fill out any paperwork. That way your name wouldn’t be attached to it.”

Jack looked relieved. “That would be perfect. It’s exactly what we need. Oh, and one more thing. I hate to involve you like this, Dr. Fisher, but since we’re dropping off the van, would you mind giving us a ride to the airport? I know you don’t want to leave the house, but—”

“I can take you there. Actually I feel better about things now that I’m not holding on to this anymore.” Fisher gave Jack the flash drive. “Destroy it. I don’t want it anywhere near here.”

Jack smiled. “I understand. And thank you for being so helpful. We appreciate it. So I guess we’ll unload what we need from the van and then we can go.”

As we walked down the street to the van, I looked around at the old historic houses. They reminded me of
my
old house and I suddenly felt sad, knowing that I would never come back to this town again. I would never have a chance to say goodbye to the places and people I missed, like— “Allie!” I accidentally yelled it out.
 

Colin raced over to me. “Sam, why are you yelling? We’re trying not to attract attention.”

I lowered my voice. “I know. Sorry. But I forgot about Allie! We have to go see her!”

“What? We can’t do that. We can’t let anyone know we’re here.”

“Colin, you told me her mom hired a private investigator to find me. We can’t have someone like that looking for me. GlobalLife could find out. They probably already have. They’ll either kill the investigator or follow him until he finds me.”

“Some local investigator is not gonna find you, Sam. I’m sure he’s not very good.”

“But Allie’s parents wouldn’t hire some local guy. They can afford someone better. Someone with a lot of experience.”

“I guess. But still, I don’t think this person would ever find you.”

“But what if GlobalLife figures out who hired the investigator? GlobalLife will think they know something about me. They’ll come after Allie and her parents!”

Colin stopped. “Shit! You’re right!”

We got in the van and sat behind Jack, who was cleaning out the glove compartment. Colin told him about the private investigator and our theory about how Allie and her family were at risk of being harmed.
 

“No. You can’t go talk to her. It’s too dangerous.” He continued to clean out the front of the van.

“What’s dangerous about it? We go to her house, we talk to her, and then we leave,” I explained. “You can drop us off on your way to drop off the van. Then come pick us up. That way nobody will see the van sitting out front. Her house is on the way to that storage place.”

Jack still wouldn’t agree to it, so Colin tried. “Think about how many people they’ve already killed, Jack. We can’t let them kill three more innocent people. All we’re asking is to have a few minutes with her.”

He paused to think about it, then let out a long sigh. “Fine,” he reluctantly agreed. “But once you get in her house, you stay there. No going outside. No walking down the street. Just stay put. And you’ll only talk to her, right?”

“I don’t think anyone else will be home,” I said. “Her dad usually goes into work on Sunday and her mom is always traveling.”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know how you two talked me into this.”
 

Colin and I quickly gathered our things from the van and put them in Fisher’s SUV.
 

“So I’ll lead the way and you follow,” Fisher told Jack.

“We have to make a quick stop.” Jack glanced over at Colin and me.
 

“What? Why?” Erik asked.

“I don’t have time to explain it now, Erik,” Jack said. “You can ask Sam about it later.”

Erik and Brittany both looked at me to explain, but I refused to tell them anything. I knew they would only argue with me about it. Erik tried to contact me privately through my mind, but our telepathy skills were almost nonexistent now.

Jack dropped Colin and me off at Allie’s house around noon. Her house was on a big corner lot. It was a huge old Victorian-style house. It looked more like a mansion. When we got to the door, we could hear the TV on inside. We rang the bell several times.
 

“I’m coming,” Allie yelled as she came to the door. When she finally opened it, she looked like she’d seen a ghost. “Oh my God! Sam?! Colin?!”

I looked back at our van, parked a few houses down. Jack wouldn’t leave until we were safely in the house. “Allie, you need to let us inside.”
 

The sound of my voice woke her from her shock. “Yeah. Come in.” She pulled me into a hug. “Where have you been, Sam? I’ve been looking for you for weeks! And Colin was helping me, but then he was gone, too.”
 

She released me and went to hug Colin. “Where did you go, you big idiot? I thought you were gonna help me and then you just disappeared.”
 

As she let him go, tears started running down her face. Allie hated people seeing her cry. She quickly wiped the tears away, but they kept coming. “I can’t believe you guys are here. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Come on. Let’s sit down.” I guided her to the sofa. Colin locked the door behind us then sat down next to me.

Allie stared at Colin. “What happened to you? Why are you all bruised?”
 

The remnants of GlobalLife’s attack on Colin still showed on his face. “It’s a long story, Al, but I’m okay.”

“Tell me everything,” Allie ordered. “Where have you guys been?”

Colin signaled for me to do the talking. “We can’t tell you everything, Allie. We’re only here because we need you to stop that investigation. Colin said your mom hired a guy to look for me. We need you to tell the guy that I’m fine and that he needs to stop looking.”

“Yeah, okay. Although I asked my mom about it the other day and she said he’d found nothing. Like you just disappeared into thin air.”

“Good. Now you just need to make sure he doesn’t keep looking. Will you do that?”

“Yeah, but you have to tell me more. Like where you’ve been. The news said you were missing and then they said you ran away. What really happened, Sam?”

I hated lying to Allie but it was my only choice. It was for her own good. “Okay, I’ll tell you.” I paused, trying to quickly come up with a story. “What you heard on the news was right. I ran away. I couldn’t deal with being here anymore. Memories of my parents were everywhere. And Dave was trying to take over my life. I hated it. So I left.”

Allie looked confused. “But that’s so unlike you, Sam. Leaving town? Without telling anyone? Not even me?”

“I know. And I’m sorry about that. I should have told you. But I knew you’d try to talk me out of it.”

“I don’t understand. I mean, I get that maybe you needed to get away for a few weeks, but why didn’t you come back? Why didn’t you tell someone where you were going?” Allie wasn’t buying it. I had to come up with something else.
 

“Okay, here’s what’s really going on. I did run away but there’s more to the story. Colin and I are, um, we’re um, getting married. In a couple weeks.”

I glanced over at Colin. He looked at me like I was insane, but Allie didn’t notice. She was too distracted by the news.

Allie burst from her seat. “Oh my God! Really? You’re really getting married?”

I grabbed Colin’s hand and kissed him. “Yes. We figured, why wait until we’re older? We love each other and we want to get married now. But you can’t tell anyone this, Allie. They would only try to stop us. Dave. Colin’s parents. They would ruin it for us. So we’re just in town to get some of my things and then we’re leaving. And we can’t come back here again, at least not for a long time.”

Allie lived for a good love story and she ate this one up. “My two best friends are getting married! I’m so happy for you guys! Sam, let me see the ring!”
 

“Oh, we don’t have rings yet. But we’ll get them.”

Allie gave Colin a strange look. “Do you want—”

“No.” Colin abruptly cut her off.
 

“What was that about?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Colin answered, keeping his eyes on Allie.

Allie took a seat again, sitting at the edge of the sofa. “So Colin, how did you propose?”

Colin gave her an awkward smile. “Um, I think that should stay between Sam and me.”

“No, come on, tell me,” Allie pleaded.

I knew Colin wouldn’t come up with a story so I stepped in. “After I ran away, I missed Colin so much that I had to call him, just to say goodbye.”

“Why would you say goodbye? Why not just ask him to come be with you?”
 

“Because I didn’t want him to miss school. And graduation. It was too much of a sacrifice for him. So anyway, he pretended to go along with it, pretended to say goodbye, but of course, he ended up coming to see me. And no, I can’t tell you where that was, Allie. But it was somewhere warm and sunny. So I was sitting at this cafe one day thinking about how much I loved and missed him when the waiter comes over and gives me a postcard. It had a picture of that old movie theater downtown. You know, the one where Colin and I had our first date?”

Allie was getting more and more excited. “Yeah, I know it. Go on.”

“I turned over the postcard and Colin had written a note, but it was written like a movie theater listing. It said, ‘The Wonderful Life of Samantha and Colin, Showing today, and every day, for the rest of our lives. Please join me for this invitation-only event. A ticket has been reserved in your name.’”

Colin stared at me like I had now completely lost my mind. I smiled at him, then back at Allie.

“Oh, that’s sooo romantic,” Allie gushed.

“It’s really kind of lame,” Colin muttered. I squeezed his hand, urging him to go along with it.

“So I turn around and Colin’s standing there with a bucket of popcorn and a dozen roses. And then he got on one knee and proposed.”

“Awww, Sam, that is so perfect for you! Because it’s not too sappy, which you hate. But it’s clever, which you like. And then the movie theme because you love movies! Colin, that was sooo perfect!”

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” he said, after I squeezed his hand another time.

“So the wedding’s in a few weeks?” she asked.

“Yes, so we need to—”

Before I could finish, we heard someone at the door. Colin had locked it, but someone was trying to get in. And from the struggle this person was having with the door, it had to be a break in. GlobalLife! I thought. They must have been watching Allie’s house and seen Colin and me. Now they were trying to break in! Colin and I froze, not sure what to do. Then suddenly, the door burst open.
 

A tall, thin woman entered the room, placing her purse on the floor. I felt my heartbeat return to normal when I realized it was Allie’s mom. At first, I didn’t recognize her. She was covered head to toe in a long black coat with a red scarf wrapped around her dark, wavy hair.
 

Allie got up and went to the door. “Mom, what are you doing here?”
 

Allie’s mom hung her coat and scarf on a hook near the door. Like her daughter, she was always well dressed. She had on a dark gray tailored suit with a crisp white blouse unbuttoned enough to show off a large diamond necklace that matched her diamond earrings.
 

“I took an earlier flight home. I couldn’t get my key to work in that door. Remind me to ask your father to fix that.” She leaned down to kiss Allie on the cheek. “Hello, sweetheart. How are you?”

Allie’s mom hadn’t even noticed us sitting in the living room.
 

“Mom. We have company. Now don’t freak out.” Allie walked her mom over to us.

“Oh my goodness. Samantha? Colin? What are you doing here? I thought you were missing. I hired a—” Allie’s mom talked fast, just like her daughter.

“Mom. You need to call off that investigator. They don’t wanna be found. They’re getting—um, never mind.”

“Hi, Mrs. Taylor,” I said as her and Allie sat down. “Nice to see you again. What Allie was saying is that Colin and I have decided to, um, live together. Away from here. Out of state. His parents don’t approve, so we need to keep this quiet. Please don’t tell anyone.”

Mrs. Taylor looked at Colin, then back at me. “Well, you’re both of age. Eighteen, right? I think you’re old enough to make that decision.”