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PART III

The day of the bonfire, Heather was wondering where she’d gone wrong.

Or rather when the world around her had changed.

Her father had refused to let her out for several days and suddenly, her airy, sunlit summer home was just as gloomy as their dark and foreboding mansion in New York.

Men she’d never seen before had come in and out of the house and security had been tightened to the point where she was almost afraid to breathe.

A knock at her bedroom door sent her heart into a frantic pounding rhythm.

“Heather?”

“Yes?” She slid off the side of her bed and moved a few steps toward the door.

The door opened and Mateo, one of her father’s security guards stepped into the open doorway. “Your father would like to see you in the kitchen.”

Kitchen?

She turned her head slightly to the side, narrowing her eyes at the man in his dark suit. “The kitchen? Are you sure?”

He seemed as confused as she was. “That’s what he said. I’m not about to argue with your father.”

“No.” She agreed. “I don’t blame you.”

He pushed the door open and stepped to the side so that the doorway was open for her. “Would you like me to come with you?”

She paused halfway to the door. “Did he ask you to bring me there?”

Mateo paused and looked at the floor a moment before he replied. “Only if you wouldn’t come on your own.”

Okay. She bit the inside of her cheek and walked past him with her head held high. Whatever it was that her father wanted to tell her, she wanted to hear it, mostly because she hoped he’d let her go to the bonfire. She needed to see Mark before they left for New York City in the morning.

She wanted to do more than see him, but first things first, she had to see her father and hear what he wanted to tell her.

The kitchen was empty except for her father. That was strange.

“Dad? Where’s Janice?” Their cook was always moving around the kitchen. If she wasn’t baking fresh bread, there was always something cooking on the stove top or in the restaurant quality ovens along the back wall.

“Come in and have a seat, Heather.”

Her heart dropped into her stomach, but before she could summon up her voice, she pulled herself up into a seat at the counter, her feet dangling down like a child’s. She couldn’t find another reason to change seats and just sat there, waiting.

“I’m sending you to the bonfire tonight.”

She barely held back a bright and ebullient smile. Changes in her expression were like furtive movements in front of a predator. It was likely to bring a hunter’s instincts to the fore.

“I’m sending you with Tanner.”

Okay. She was more than fine with that.

“And I want you to stay by his side the whole time. Don’t wander off.”

Her breath caught in her throat, and she searched his face for any indication that he knew about Mark.

“I might need to call you back before it ends. Tanner will be the one in contact with my security staff. He’ll let you know if I need you back sooner.”

She nodded but couldn’t stop the odd and unsettling feeling in her belly at his words.

When she left the house with Tanner, her father didn’t seem to care when they came back, especially on the last night of the summer events.

Knowing that he might call them back sooner than planned, Heather worried about the reason, but she knew that her father would never explain things to her.

All of her life she’d been told to listen instead of question. And it had suited her until she met Mark.

Until she discovered that there was a life outside of her empty existence.

“Did you hear me, Heather?”

“Yes,” she jumped at the chance to answer. She didn’t want to upset him. Not now. “I heard you, Dad. I just… never mind.”

She wondered what it would be like to have a parent that she could talk to rather than one who required her to follow orders blindly.

“Go ahead and get ready for tonight.” He waved a hand in the direction of the hallway door. “And make sure your things are packed before you go.”

His subtle emphasis on the word before was just another odd sensation roiling around in her middle.

She wanted to ask him ‘Why?’

She wanted to know what was going on that had him talking to her in the kitchen instead of his office.

She wanted to be free to see Mark in the open and tell her father that she was in love. Not just young love. She knew that the love she had for him was the forever kind.

“Is there something you need, Heather?”

Need? She stumbled forward as she realized that she’d been standing there in the kitchen instead of leaving the room.

“No, I’m sorry. I guess my mind was stuck on the idea of leaving early.”

He sighed. “There are so many important things to think about, Heather. Trust you to pick one of the most mundane and inconsequential things to be stuck on.” He shook his head and pointed at the door. “Go and get ready. Tanner will be here to pick you up at dusk.”

She walked into the hallway wondering if Tanner might know the reason her father had been acting strangely. As her dad’s lawyer, Tanner’s dad might have said something to his son or around him at home.

Feeling some of the weight on her shoulders lifting away, Heather climbed the stairs to her bedroom on the third floor. She’d go to the bonfire because it meant that she’d get out of the house and because she knew that she’d see Mark there.

From the moment that Tanner picked her up in his convertible, she had the strangest feeling that he was walking on pins and needles around her.

Normally, he’d make a couple of jokes, some of them off-color, about how she’d spend the evening with Mark.

He hadn’t come out and said it, but there were hints in his words and the tone of his voice. It made spending time alone with him… uncomfortable.

“You know,” he hesitated, “I think it’s a good idea for you to stay with me tonight.”

“Stay with you?”

“It’s like I have a parrot in the car.”

The harsh edge of his tone cut into her feelings.

“I was just… I mean, you know that Mark and I were planning to meet at the bonfire. Just like we’ve done at all of the events this summer.”

“But this time,” his hands gripped the wheel tighter, “your father said to stay with me . I don’t see why this is a problem.”

She fidgeted in the passenger seat, her hands grabbing onto each other as the world passed by.

Tanner spoke again. “I think it would be fun, Heather. You and me. We have a good time together, right?”

“Right. As friends.” Her teeth ground against each other as she sat there in the convertible. For the first time he seemed like he meant it when he said they’d stay together. That, and he sounded so happy about spending the whole night with her. Something was wrong.

Shivering, she looked out the window at the closed shops they were passing by.

“Hey. You okay? You’re shaking.”

She blinked back confused tears. “I’m just a little cold.”

He put his hand on her knee, and she pulled away, pressing against the door.

Tanner snatched his hand back and slapped it on the steering wheel. “I don’t have a disease.”

“I know,” she forced herself to turn and look at him, trying to offer a bit of a smile. “I just… wasn’t expecting it.”

He glared at her and cursed under his breath. “I’m just as good as he is.”

“Of course.” She fought to push the words out past her lips. “Of course you are. That’s why we’re all good friends.”

“Yeah,” he groused and took a corner without slowing, “fucking friends.”

At the party, Heather felt like she was shackled to Tanner’s side. When he moved from one area to the next, he’d wrap his arm around her shoulders, or her waist, and sometimes grab her wrist and pulled her along behind him.

It was starting to feel like a strange nightmare or like that thing they said about killing a frog. You put them in water and heat it up slowly until it’s hot enough to boil but the frog doesn’t jump out of the pot, they just die.

“Here.”

Tanner pushed a bottle into her hand, and she looked down at it.

“It’s beer.”

“Yeah? Good. That’s what I wanted.” He lifted his bottle, and she could see the name on the side of it in the flickering warm light of the fire. Tanner took a long, draining sip from the bottle and then looked at her. “Go ahead. Drink it.”

She shook her head. “Is there a water or a soda? I’d rather have that.”

Tanner snarled at her. “Drink the damn beer, Heather. Don’t be such a prude.”

“No.” She pushed the bottle toward him. “You know my father. I doubt he’ll ever let me drink. You take the beer and drink it since you like it so much. I’m going to go look for Mark.”

She hadn’t even managed to turn away before he had her arm in a vice-like grip.

“Tanner!” Heather tried to shake him off, but he only tightened his hold on her arm. “Let go!”

He pulled her closer, lifting her arm up until it hurt her shoulder at such a steep angle. “I’m going to tell you this once, so listen up.”

She thought she saw a moment of regret in his eyes, but it was gone just as quickly.

“I’m done being used.”

Heather blinked at him, stunned. Is that how he saw it? He’d always encouraged her to meet with Mark. He’d joked about it so many times!

“Either you agree to stay with me, or I take you back home right now.”

His hold on her arm was punishing.

She should have just agreed to stay with him, but her heart felt like it was breaking.

Heather opened her mouth to speak, and the truth came out.

“I just want to say goodbye to him.”

Everything around them seemed to go dark.

“Oh, you’ll say goodbye all right.”

Without another comment from either of them, Tanner dropped the bottles of beer on the sand, splashing her legs and the legs of others based on the surprised gasps and a few curses. He started walking, dragging her with him toward the parking lot.

It took a few minutes to wind through the crowd on the sand and by the time they got to his car, Heather was half-blind with tears.

She was barely aware of the world around her when the passenger door slammed, and Tanner’s hands slapped down on the top of the door.

“You should have just stayed with me. You should have just stayed.”

They were almost back to her house when Tanner nearly blew through a red light. Her fearful scream had him stomping on the brake.

“Shit, Heather! What the fuck?”

“That’s a red light!” She shook her hand at the traffic light. “A red light!”

“It’s almost fucking midnight! There’s no one out here besides us!”

She tried to open the door of the car, but her hands were fumbling with the locks. “Let me out, Tanner! Let me out!”

She heard the lock click and the next time she pulled on the handle, the car door opened up. Heather got out and closed the door behind her. With her gaze swimming through tears, she stared at him in disbelief. “I’ve known you for years, Tanner. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that you’d be so horrible and cruel! Don’t ever talk to me again!”

She ran off through the waist high brush until she couldn’t see the road or any sign of Tanner’s car. Then she stopped to catch her breath and get her bearings.

Heather knew she was too far from the bonfire to go back, but she was about a block away from her home. She was shaky on her feet, but she didn’t have a way to contact the house or Mark and have someone come to get her. All she had was her key in her pocket and her ID.

Taking a few deep breaths she started for home.

If she was lucky, she could get into her house without her father knowing that she’d come home alone.

The last thing she wanted to do was answer questions about what happened when she still didn’t understand it herself.

The house was dark when she walked up to it.

She had no idea what she expected to find as she wasn’t set to come back until the morning. Taking out her key she made her way through the maze of hedges leading up to the back of the house. They were cypress trees that had likely been growing for decades, rising up above her head.

The darkness that surrounded her was oppressive and she remembered too late that there always seemed to be spiders and webs in the dense foliage. She wished that there was light to illuminate the path so she wouldn’t walk into the side of the maze, but it was too late to go back and start over.

Then again, an errant spider was likely better than enduring her father’s wrath for her early return.

The small side door that she entered through opened up into the back of the pantry, a hidden door that she’d found playing around the first year they’d owned the house. Without playmates to take her away from the house she had to occupy herself.

Now, it was likely her savior.

Feeling her way along the wall, she stopped just shy of the door to the kitchen.

It was partially open, and she could see a little light turn on and the vacuum release of the refrigerator.

Seeing her father in silhouette froze her in fear, but when he began speaking, she realized that he had company.

This might be the right time to rush through the kitchen and head up to her bedroom. Her father might be mad, but he’d rarely taken her to task in front of others.

He might be steaming from his ears, but he’d wait to yell at her when they were alone.

She moved forward, but something reached out and pulled her back. A firm hand over her mouth and an arm around her stomach made her freeze in fear. Before she could gather her nerves to fight, she heard the rough whisper of a voice in her ear. “Stay still and quiet. We’re with the FBI and we’re here to help you and your father.”

Her mind whirled with thoughts and her heart pounded with emotions.

Could she believe him?

Could she trust him?

What about her father on the other side of the wall?

“I’ve told you before, Pio. You can’t just go off and do whatever you want, either you do what you’re told, or you won’t have to worry about the next five years, you’ll be gone in five minutes.”

That was Tanner’s dad, Troy. He was her father’s attorney, but the way he was talking to her father said that their relationship wasn’t what she thought. Troy sounded like he was the boss talking to her father.

And there was an open threat in his words.

And his voice.

“You wanted me to look like I’m in charge, Troy. Now you’re giving me orders.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no audience here. Just you and me and a few of my… associates.”

The far door barely made a sound as it opened, but Heather could see two men walk in. They were both almost as wide as the doorway, their shoulders whispering past the doorframe.

“Who are these men, Troy?”

“They’re the ones who are going to make sure that you do what I’m telling you to. Or they’re going to do it and make it look like you put the gun to your own head and pulled the trigger.”

Oh My God! Heather felt her whole body go cold at the picture in Troy’s words.

Her father dead.

By his own hand, or at least that’s what Troy wanted it to look like.

Heather couldn’t wait to see if the FBI were going to do what they needed to.

No. She had to try and stop it before she lost her father.

In one heartbeat she went limp, sagging back against the man who had his arm around her and his hand on her mouth.

In the next moment she lifted her foot and brought it down.

Luck was on her side. She planted her foot on his and he loosened his hold on her.

But she wasn’t free.

She still had a hand over her mouth.

A hand she bit into with panic riding her emotions.

“Fuck.”

She pulled away and ran into the kitchen.

A few hours later she’d realize how stupid it was to run into the kitchen with no plan of action, but her heart didn’t always consult her head, and it wasn’t until she saw the two new men turn to her, their hands pulling free of their suitcoats with guns. In a second, she came face to face with the folly of her actions.

The sounds echoing off of the tile and metal in the kitchen made it feel like the Fourth of July or New Year’s Eve. They didn’t bother her as much as the invisible wall that she slammed into.

A wall that exploded and sent her flying back against the ovens.

She sank down to the ground with a soundless scream on her lips and a tear rolling down her cheek.

She’d never see Mark again. Why was that the last thought in her head?