Secondhand secrets, p.23
Secondhand Secrets, page 23
She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to hear about what he’d give up for her, all while she failed to block out the man standing near with a gun pointed to her head.
Didn’t they know she’d ended things?
Why bring her here to hurt him some more?
She hated having him so close. Hated him because he didn’t hate her.
And he really should have.
Though she’d never been all that brave. Though she wanted to live. She didn’t want Chip to give the Syndicate more power than they already had. So even if the effort of speaking agitated the already minimal contents of her tummy, she found her voice all the same. “Please. Don’t. He won’t let us survive anyway.”
Yes, they would die, but this evil man would leave empty handed.
When had she become so gutsy? Maybe because, regardless of whether Mark killed her, she could already feel herself detaching from everything around her. She was getting so drowsy. So lightheaded. So confused.
Mark chuckled, making it clear he’d heard what she’d said, his crisp and clean powder-blue shirt and black pants a harsh contrast to her bloodied and muddied white summer dress.
“No, honey, you’ll die. And your friend here too, of course.” Not bothering to hold a weapon, he shifted his smug stare to Sarah, his reference to her acknowledging her part in Luciano Conti’s arrest. Meanwhile, Sarah’s eyes turned wide and glossy, and new tears slid down her cheeks.
Mark’s smile grew, and he crouched closer to Chip. “You might still be useful, but only if you’re willing to play along. What do you say, Chip?”
His over-pronunciation of Chip’s name dripped with disdain, but Chip was still quick to reply, his voice a soft rumble against her back. “Their life for mine and Stonewall. Let them live. Once I know they’re safe, you’ll get everything.”
“Now, let’s make one thing clear”—though Mark’s tone grew rougher, she couldn’t completely see him, like he put his face way too close to Chip’s—“you and this god-awful town have already caused me irreparable damage. I might respect the art of negotiation, but you’re not going to get everything you want, so it’s best you come to terms with that.”
“What do you want?”
Seeming mildly appeased with Chip’s question, Mark eased back, giving her a view of his slow shaking head. “Your sister was a bonus, and I have a moral debt to pay to my cousin. I’m not letting her go. No. She dies. And since I’m here now, so does Dean Holloway. Once we comb through the town and find him, of course. Now, your girlfriend?” He scoffed. “I’ll kill her just because I can, but there might be room for you to change my mind.”
The scorn in Mark’s plans turned her muscles lax while her heart found the energy to thunder in her chest. Sarah’s survival was off the table. The Syndicate would tear Harlow apart looking for Dean. And Chip’s only hope was bartering for her life.
His hands gripped tighter, his breaths a burst of sound and movement against her, like he grappled with grief and fading hope. “You know I have the code.”
His hollow tone held less confidence than before.
“It’s not enough anymore.”
Mark’s matter-of-fact delivery rang through the air, stealing all attention, stealing all will to debate, and so a laugh broke from her, manic and irrational.
Her shoulders shook from that unabashed and deep-down sound while more tears fell, and her head lolled forward. “Chip, the question isn’t whether you can change his mind.”
More laughter. More tears. Was the damage to her body and spirit so bad she’d lost her mind too? “The question is, can you trust him?”
She grimaced at having to crane her neck to eyeball Mark, the implicit answer to her question being no.
She meant to seem stoic, as though she didn’t care what befell her and that he’d lost this sordid game already. But she lacked the physical strength to maintain the façade for too long, and her eyelids began to flutter in an uncoordinated way.
Meanwhile, Mark’s gray stare gave nothing away. Literally, nothing. As though he regarded her with little more affection than he would a common moth trapped between two competing flames, his focus switching back to Chip.
“Like I was saying, Stonewall alone isn’t enough anymore, Mr. Overton. Your program is in its early stages and not designed for the purposes I need it for. So, the girl goes, and you stay to finish the job. Do you understand?”
“No, Chip,” she whispered, her eyes set on staying closed. She shook her head against the back of his so he could feel her. “Please. No.”
But once again, Mark spoke as though she wasn’t there. “You fly back to Boston with me now, and we let her go, Chip. You get Stonewall running, and she continues to live as if we were never here. And since you’re smarter than the average programmer, you continue to work for me, only me, and maybe, you’ll do well out of this whole ordeal too.”
Chip didn’t reply right away, but she felt the oh-so-slight sag of his posture, as though he mourned the use of his hard-earned talents for nothing more than aiding the Syndicate—his future reduced to a lifetime of engineering misery for people who really didn’t deserve to succeed.
She could imagine a world without her, but not without Chip, and she couldn’t see him remaining the same under Mark’s conditions. If this bargain did secure her survival, if they found a way to stay together, Chip’s sacrifices now would leave him even more soulless than her earlier fears of what a life in Harlow would do to him.
As for her fears back when they’d been in Boston—that he’d give up too much just to be with her—they were a heavenly dream compared to what unfolded now. Now, no matter how this played out, they would never be the same. Sarah and Dean would be dead. The people of Harlow would be traumatized. And he would most certainly come to regret choosing her.
“Chip, listen to me.” Her voice was a still whisper, and she squeezed his hand in a grab for his attention, for him to feel her unspoken love, and that maybe choosing the greater good was the only real choice he had. “This is so much bigger than us. Don’t give him what he wants.”
The little world she’d clung to. Harlow. Her art. Her family. Him. She’d never had to pull her head from the clouds long enough to fully embrace reality, but something changed here in this cold savagery of armed men and crushing ultimatums. She knew what she wanted.
She, too, could make hard sacrifices. Perhaps the ultimate sacrifice.
And so she let go of his hand. A metaphorical step away since she was bound to him and lacked the freedom to leave as she wished. To give him the space to decide without her shadowing him.
Even as she fought her instinct to survive, she knew she could release that too. For the sake of a world that she wouldn’t get to enjoy.
But her parents would. And her sister. And Whitney. Yes, Whitney. So many good reasons to run head-first into the inevitable. To force her eyes open now and stare into Mark’s cold glare.
“Chip won’t do it.” She gave Mark a small nod, even though she didn’t have the strength for any satisfying, smug smirks. To press the point that she’d come to terms with the truth of this situation and figured he could rot in hell for all she cared. “You won’t do it, will you, Chip?”
Mark’s frown dropped, providing the satisfaction she’d sought. He saw just how much she wasn’t bluffing. And even as she stared him down, she directed all her words to Chip. “I know you want to save us both but say you won’t. Say you’ll let me go.”
Though their hands no longer touched, Chip leaned his head back into hers, the action and his next words a plea for her to give him some other choice. “Ally.”
But as far as she was concerned, there was no other choice. As much as she wanted to demand his compliance, the best she could muster was an imploring whisper. “Promise me.”
“Chip, she’s right.” Sarah’s hushed tone cut through the tension, as ever, a voice of reason. “Either option is bad, but what this asshole is offering is worse.”
Sarah scowled at Mark, a glare that seemed to say, Fuck you before her gaze softened and fell to Ally. Ally closed her eyes and nodded. Her silent way of saying, “Thank you.”
Seconds passed under the weight of Chip’s implied thought, like he battled against what he wanted. To save her. And what she asked of him. To let her go.
Meanwhile, Mark’s gaze bore into her, as though he sought to gouge holes through her resolve with his voiceless promise of hell to pay should Chip choose against his wishes.
“I promise.”
Chip’s hands found hers again, his tight but reassuring squeeze a seeming goodbye. A goodbye she hadn’t given him in Boston, but one she wanted all the same.
Sarah’s eyes slammed shut, and her face crumpled to a grief-filled grimace. Next came the smoothing out of wrinkles over Mark’s cheekbones, his soulless stare assessing Ally one last time, like he too had something to come to terms with.
But then, his gaze flicked to the man with the gun pointed at her head. That man removed the safety while looking at Mark. “Boss?”
Mark nodded, and she squeezed her eyes shut, ready to die.
A series of echoey bangs shook the air. A hard thud hit the ground beside her. Where was the pain? The oblivion? Was she dead already?
She opened her eyes. Not dead.
The man nearest to Sarah fell to his knees, a small round wound at his collarbone seeping a wide bloom of blood over his shirt before he toppled over completely.
Mark fell too, but not out of injury, more like him taking cover behind her. Another explosion of bullets had Chip’s tormentor dropping, too, his chest quick to coat in liquid red.
Ally’s entire body coiled in defense. She couldn’t cover her ears, and her head rung from the deafening sounds, exacerbating her incessant need to vomit.
The man nearest her groaned, the same man who’d leered, and groped, and threatened her in the woods. As much as she should have smiled at his agony, all she felt was weak and numbness while trying to decide whether to be elated or horrified at this twist of fate.
Once again helpless, she watched as Mark lashed out a hand and stole that man’s gun, quick to roll in the opposite direction until he held the weapon to Sarah’s head. “I’ll shoot her, Holloway.”
Ally startled at Dean’s surname but forced her body to twist so she could see over her shoulder to the open barn doors. Sure enough, Dean was there with the sheriff, both men’s weapons trained on Mark.
“Not if I shoot you first.” Dean glared through his gruff warning. “Drop the gun.”
Mark shook his head, the skin over his face glistening with sweat, his once-pristine shirt torn and soiled from his interaction with the ground.
He fished a hand into his pants pocket and produced his phone, using voice-command to place a call, although his only words to the person on the other end were, “Start the jet.”
He tucked the phone back into his pocket and stood, pressing the gun closer to Sarah’s temple. “Just one bullet and she’s gone, Holloway. How much do you trust you can kill me first?”
He narrowed his harsh stare at Dean while Sarah’s forceful breaths pushed the loose flaxen strands from her ruffled ponytail, her wide stare also glued to Dean in a plea for him to do something. To save her.
“And there are two guns, to your one, Mr. Farro.” The sheriff’s calmer tone filled the space, perhaps a man with less skin in this race or just a man with more years and patience on his clock. Sarah was near to a daughter to him, after all. “You don’t have enough time to kill us all. Step down.”
Mark held impossibly still and silent, his attention bouncing between Dean and the sheriff. A man who’d made Chip weigh the value of his life, now forced to do the same for his own.
High-pitched jet engines howled from outside, the ear-splitting whir adding pressure to the moment, a pressure the sheriff seemed to capitalize on. “Last chance, Farro.”
Mark’s jaw tightened in a show of disdain, and he kneed Sarah in the shoulder, the gun still pointed at her head. “Get up.”
She did as asked, rising as he hooked an arm around her neck and used her as a human shield. Her breaths turned to pitchy gasps, and she clawed her fingers into his arm, fighting for freedom.
Not slowing to allow her any kind of sure footing, he pulled her backward, the hiss of displaced straw following each rushed step toward the barn’s rear exit. If anyone followed, he would shoot. But time was quickly running out, and there was no knowing where he would take her.
The barn door gave a loud and rusted creak that matched the lurch of Ally’s tummy, and he disappeared around the corner with Sarah, Ally’s world turning overly still.
Dean and the sheriff’s thudding footsteps boosted the race to save Sarah, the pinpricks of light through the barn’s wooden beams betraying Mark’s direction via his shadow.
What would he do when he got Sarah to the plane?
Would he take her with him? Let her go?
Or kill her before takeoff?
Though muffled against the jet’s engines, more loud shots broke from outside. Unable to protect herself from sounds she didn’t want to hear, Ally dipped her head and buried her face in her knees, too afraid to lift her gaze long enough to see who, if anyone, would return for her through those barn doors.
Thirty-Eight
The jet took off, and its roar soon faded to the background, making room for Harlow’s rural quiet to take over. Ally dared to lift her head and open her eyes, but nothing had changed in the barn to signify who survived the commotion outside.
There’d been gunshots. Indistinguishable words. While dead or dying men lay strewn on the nearby ground around her. Chip, he remained tied with his back to hers.
“Are we the only ones alive?” Her weak voice cut through the barn’s empty stillness. “Oh God, are we going to starve here, alone?”
That’s if my injuries didn’t get me first.
“I’ll break us out of here somehow, okay?” Chip rubbed a thumb over her hands still clasped in his. “Now, shhh, what’s that noise?”
She did as told and even held her breath so she could hear. A female cry filtered through. Sarah? Ally had seen no other women here. It had to be her. Sarah was alive? Plodding steps joined the chorus. Footsteps. As in, plural.
More than one person survived.
The sheriff was the first to re-enter the barn, the afternoon’s sun behind turning him into a glorious silhouette. He removed his hat and rubbed the back of his wrist over his brow.
Dean walked through, and she almost cried, his arm wrapped around Sarah, who half-sagged against him. Still bloodied and covered in dirt, of course. A different kind of tears welled in Ally’s eyes, and her mouth dried with an inability to speak.
As this new reality settled in, a strange calm took over. Mark was gone. Everyone she knew survived.
While Dean sat Sarah on a low wall and crouched before her, inspecting her wounds, the sheriff cuffed the only surviving henchman, who groaned on the ground beside Chip.
“I’ve already radioed the medics, so you two just hang on.” He got down and placed his hat on the ground before tinkering with her cuffs. “Pulled a bit of old wire off the front fence. I might be able to work these free.”
One of her cuffs popped open, and she pulled herself loose, her hands leaving Chip to meet with the rough barn floor while she curled forward and dry heaved—her stomach already empty from her vomiting in the woods.
She lifted her gaze to the sheriff’s smile, albeit with a crosshatch of wrinkles over his forehead that denoted concern. “It’s a normal reaction, dear.”
He hooked a hand under her arm and tried to help her stand, only her world spun, and she stumbled.
Chip, still cuffed, turned, his scrunched stare darting about her face. “That bit’s not normal, is it?”
“No.” The sheriff shook his head and helped her to the ground again. “Best you stay down for now.”
So she stayed on the ground, legs folded before her, and tried not to look at Chip, though the sight of her red-raw wrists also made her want to cry.
The sheriff huddled in front of Chip and worked on releasing his cuffs, too, a light chuckle escaping him. “Seems my experience with these things have finally paid off. Figure I can open just about any pair.”
Chip’s cuffs clunked to the floor, and he shot forward, kneeling before Ally. “Your head.”
Despite her attempts to avoid his gaze, he cupped her face and peered into her eyes—the soft concern in his forced her tummy to stiffen. She didn’t want concern. Especially not his. Not over her. Not over the breakup. Not over this. She also didn’t want to give him false hope.
Even as he took her hands, she winced at his insistence, sensing a need to unleash the talk she’d avoided in Boston. Only now, things were worse, and she didn’t know how.
So of course, she went with changing the subject, turning her attention to the sheriff standing over her. “How did you and Dean find us?”
The sheriff scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, and his lip twisted into a small grimace. “Well first, you and Sarah didn’t show at our agreed meeting point, then came a report of an undeclared jet landing.”
“Once we spotted the plane, we hid the patrol car down the road and legged it over here,” Dean called over from next to Sarah. “We held our position on the opposite side of the barn, making it hard for anyone on the plane to see us.”
“Yeah, well”—the sheriff shook his head, his attention cast to the ground—“I don’t suppose that’s the last we’ll hear of Mark or the Syndicate.”
Dean’s expression firmed, and he nodded. “We’ll need reinforcements around town.”
“Lots of folks won’t be happy about that.” The sheriff jammed his hat back on. “But I’ll see what I can muster.”
“We’ll need more than that. They have my laptop.” Chip turned to the sheriff just a little behind him, his hands still holding hers. “I buried my work in an encrypted file and deleted any obvious data outside of that, but it’s not impossible that Mark could still recover something.”
