Zak stayed quiet. She wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t believe her or if he was beyond relieved at the prospect.
“We will have to go quickly,” she said, rooting under a folded blanket for a phone she’d kept secret. “But I know someone who will help us.”
“God will help us,” Zak said, his voice barely more than a breath.
“He will … but so will my uncle. He’s a good man.” She closed her eyes, remembering her wedding day and her uncle Hudson handing her a slip of paper with his cell number on it.
“I know I wasn’t around as much as I could have been when you were growing up, Tammy, but family is family. You need me, you call me.” He turned to look at Gary, his leather jacket creaking and his eyes narrowing as he took a slug from a bottle of beer. Hudson was huge. His presence couldn’t be missed. “Not all men know how to treat a woman right,” he went on, “and if Gary turns out to be one of those assholes, don’t waste your life with him. You’re worth more than that.”
She hadn’t known what her biker uncle had meant at the time. Of course Gary would be a good husband, and a fine father too. He was her world. She was head-over-heels in love with him.
Yet now she hated him. Hated him with a fiery passion that threatened to burn her up from the inside out.
“Daddy isn’t being good today,” Zak said.
“No, no he isn’t.” She kissed his head again. Zak had never said anything like that, the same way she’d never told him they were leaving.
It seemed they’d both hit their own wall. Their eyes were well and truly open. And with that, she could see a way out. She had to try. If she didn’t, she was dead.
If I escape and he finds me, I’m dead.
But being found wasn’t a certainty. The odds were in her favor if she went … surely.
Gary slammed down the stairs again, stomping along the hallway.
The basement door opened with a menacing creak.
She froze, air lodging deep in her lungs. He was gettingnearer. Any second now he’d be in the basement, and if he moved the bookcase she’d carefully slid over the entrance to their hiding place, he’d drag her out and beat her so bad there’d be no escaping for weeks.
Zak shook silently in her arms. The feel of his small limbs trembling steeled her resolve. This wouldneverhappen again. She wouldn’t let it. Even if her uncle had changed his cell, or had gone and gotten himself thrown in jail for hanging out with his no-good biker buddies, she’d still leave, figure it out some other way.
Thudding footsteps paced the basement. She could hear her husband breathing, hard, angry pants. It was as if his frustration filled the air, the space. He was livid, and his seething, red-cheeked face hung in her mind’s eye as she stared at the dark back of the bookcase.
“Damn that whore,” he shouted and accompanied the roar with a stamp of his foot. “Bitch!”
Then to her relief, he banged up the stairs, slamming the door behind him.
“Is he gone?” Zak asked.
“Gone from the basement,” she said. “He’ll get a drink now then go to bed, don’t worry.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“Me too.” Reaching behind herself, she found the bottle of water she kept for this exact situation. “Here drink, but be careful and go slow. Don’t let it make you splutter.”
“I won’t, Mommy.”
She brought the cell to life. It had just one number in it.
Hudson’s.
As soon as she was sure Gary had passed out into a drunken stupor, she’d make the call.
Please God, let Hudson answer.
Please God, let Hudson be true to his word about helpingme.
Her father had never gotten along with his brother. To look at them, it was as if they were from different worlds. Her father was a businessman based in Singapore. He had another new wife and he was a smart, expensive dresser. He liked fine dining and fast cars and wore a woman on his arm the way most men would wear an expensive watch.