Chance (21 page)

Is he out looking for me,
right now? Would he think to come here? No, he has no idea where Bethany lives.

After tossing and
turning, with her thoughts racing a mile a minute, she finally fell into a
fitful sleep.

The very next morning,
Bethany woke her up with a gentle shake. When she left the room, Harry told her
there was some cereal and toast waiting for her on the kitchen table. After
using the bathroom, freshening up and patting her hair down into some semblance
of acceptable, she went to the kitchen.

As it turned out, there
was more than just breakfast waiting for her in the kitchen. There was also two
hundred dollars on the table.

“Let me know if you need
more,” Bethany said.

Charlotte tried to say
no, but Bethany insisted she take it.

“I know you’re good for
it…whenever you get back on your feet. Please take it. It'll make me feel
better.”

Charlotte relented, knowing
she didn’t really have much of a choice. Trying to survive in this world
without a dime to your name is extremely difficult, if not impossible. However,
even after looking at her situation practically and logically, she couldn’t
stop feeling simply awful about it.

Charlotte just shows up
on Bethany's doorstep, clear out of the blue, after having no contact with her for
months on end. That was enough to make her feel terrible. Hell, she'd turned
her back on Bethany and her other friends after they'd been trying to protect
her from making the worst mistake of her life. She also ignored all of their
attempts to keep in contact, choosing her psychotic, ultra-controlling husband
instead.

In addition to that,
Charlotte stays at the hugely pregnant Bethany's apartment, eats her food and then
takes her money. My word, she felt guilty, she felt like a human sponge.
However, she wasn't in any position to say no or to turn down help. She sincerely
appreciated everything Bethany and her husband did for her and gave her,
including the emotional support in her time of need. She vowed she'd return her
money as soon as possible.

Charlotte knew she
couldn’t stay with Bethany and Harry too much longer. During the night, she'd
woken a couple of times, mulling things over. While it would be nice to stay there
for a while, she thought it might be too risky to be that close in proximity to
Logan. Besides, if he really did have 'dirt' on her father, as he'd threatened,
she had to warn her dad and be there for him. She decided to use the two
hundred dollars to pay her travel expenses to return home to her parents.

“Thank you so much,” she
said to Bethany.

Charlotte promised to
keep in touch with her more regularly, now that she was starting fresh. Harry
dropped her off at the bus terminal an hour after breakfast. She stared out of
the window of the Greyhound as it motored along the expressway. Every inch of
road they covered made her feel as if she were moving further and further out
of Logan’s reach. 

Charlotte slept fitfully
during the long ride, waking up fully as she neared the small but prosperous
town where she'd been born and raised—where her parents still lived happily. It
felt strange, to return there after so long, but it was also quite comforting. The
town was a nice place, very welcoming. Everyone was friendly and always had a
smile for her.

Her parents were, as she'd
predicted, more than happy to see her. They accepted her back into the family
home with open arms. Although her first impulse was to make excuses for Logan,
she quickly realized she needed to bite the bullet and tell them the truth. It
wouldn't be easy for her. It hurt to think about all that had happened. To say
the words, especially to her parents, would certainly cause her much shame
about her actions and decisions. It would also make her that much more
painfully aware of how pathetic her life had become since she'd met Logan. 

However, Charlotte's parents
had wanted to know what had happened to her marriage. She'd always written
about being so happy with him in all of her emails. They deserved to know why
she'd left him in the first place. She thought they needed to know, especially
if she were living with them now.

Charlotte also had the
terribly embarrassing task of sharing her concern that Logan might have some
kind of damning information about her father that might somehow destroy his
career and prospects.
Should it be revealed
? As awful as she felt having
to confess such a thing, her dad simply laughed it off, finding the whole
situation bizarre and seemingly amusing.

“Oh Charlotte, he’s been lying
to you. Please don't worry. Everything will be okay,” he assured her.

“Are you sure?” she
asked.

“He’s got nothing on me,”
he shrugged. “I don’t see how he could have any information like that about me
since I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I didn’t
think
you
had,” she bit her lip. “But he sounded so sure of himself.”

“Well, he must be a good
actor,” he responded.

Charlotte felt relief
wash over her. She'd stayed with him, suffering as she did and living in fear
to protect her father from a bluff. She'd acted as a spy and risked breaking in
to his office all of those times and all for naught.

Thank God! We're all
going to be fine. My family will be okay. We're finally safe from Logan. I can
finally relax and rest assured.

This realization was
overwhelming for her. She'd been so worried for such a long time. As the
realization of her family's safety hit her, she felt herself becoming extremely
emotional. She couldn't hold it in any longer. Her mother put her arms around
her and gave her a warm, tender hug as Charlotte broke down sobbing...

“Did he ever hit you?”
she asked. “He seemed like the type.”

“No, Mom,” Charlotte
mumbled into her shoulder, her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.

“Although he did get
physical when he was angry, he never actually
hit
me...,” she confessed.

“I didn’t like him from
the moment we met,” her mother confided. “There's something very
off
about him. It's difficult to describe.”

“No, neither did I,” her
father agreed. “But by the time we'd met him, it was already too late to do or
say anything. You were already married to the bastard.”

“Dad!” Charlotte said,
shocked by his blatant statement.

“Charlotte, he
is
a bastard. You need to accept that fact and move on. It’s over now.”

“You should start the divorce
proceedings,” her mother advised.

Charlotte sighed. She
couldn’t even think about that right now. It was too soon. She was still
reeling emotionally to know Logan couldn’t do anything to hurt her family. The
fact that she finally knew her father was safe from Logan and his threats had
been empty and meaningless, was such a revelation after she'd been obsessed
with the issue for so long.

The conversation prompted
her parents to ask about Logan’s career, and how it was that Charlotte could've
ever believed he'd come across such information in the first place. Truthfully,
if anyone else had told her that her father was a crook, she would've laughed at
the notion. She'd only given the idea credence because of Logan's criminal
connections and dubious ‘work’ colleagues. That made it seem possible to give
him the resources to come across information like that,
if
anything had
been there to be found.  

When she finally told
them she believed he was involved in organized crime, they didn’t seem as
surprised as she'd expected. They were simply relieved she was away from it all.
They wanted her assurance that she wouldn’t change her mind and go back to him.
She promised them she definitely wouldn’t.

A matter of weeks later,
she'd break that promise. Of course, it would never have been her choice to go
back to him. What happened was kidnapping, plain and simply. However, nobody
would know that for sure until much later.

Charlotte got settled in at
her parents’ home. She'd given up everything; left most of her clothes and possessions
at the house she'd shared with Logan, but she didn’t mind. They were just
'things'—freedom and the people she loved were what she valued. She didn't want
to waste any more of her time or energy on regrets. She'd wasted far too much
of her life living in constant fear.

Charlotte had a little
bit of money and her parents took care of everything else. At times, she felt
like she was a teenager again. However, she was quietly determined to rebuild
her life and start over. She still had talent as an artist and a designer, and she
was determined to get a new job, after being forced to give up her career.  

She decided she'd stay there
for a while; until she was able to get her life worked out and found a new job.
She'd start by doing freelance work via the internet, without needing to move
back to the city. She hoped with some savings built up, she could eventually move
back to Chicago and start her career and her life over.

Her first priority was to
pay Bethany back and to start paying her parents some sort of rent. They
insisted it was unnecessary and it didn’t matter. However, it
did
matter
to her. Charlotte's newly found independence meant the world to her. She didn’t
want to be indebted to anyone, ever again. She wanted to stand on her own two
feet.

Charlotte had hated
having to rely on Logan whenever she needed money. She hated having no access
to her own bank account, because
he
didn’t think it was necessary. At
first, it almost seemed nice to be treated like a princess and to be looked
after all of the time. Nevertheless, that got old, incredibly quickly,
especially when the other side of his personality had come out. She realized,
those ploys of his were actually ways he could further exert his complete
control over her.

Charlotte was also nervous
about the idea of moving back into the city where she'd lived with Logan. Even
though it was a vast metropolis filled with millions of people, she'd always
feel wary while being there. She'd always wonder if he was lurking just around a
corner, watching and waiting for her. Her emotional wounds were still so fresh.
She tried to put it out of her head and just get on with life.  

***

One morning, two weeks after
making her escape, she'd walked down to the center of their town to pick up some
bread and milk. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the seagulls were raucous.
Charlotte felt a rush of happiness and a new sense of optimism. She bantered
happily with Mr. Benetta, the local shopkeeper, before heading back outside. 

She was swinging her bag
as she walked, happily humming a Katy Perry song when a dark car slowed down alongside
of her. She didn’t even look at the vehicle, at first. She was lost in her own
world, thinking about her future. However, when she'd finally heard the hum of
an electric window opening beside her, she stopped walking and looked at the
car. She expected someone to ask her directions.

She didn’t recognize the
car, nor the driver who was leaning out of the window towards her and pointing
a gun at her face.

“Get in,” he nodded his
head towards the backseat.

She froze, then she took
a step backwards as she glanced up and down the street, trying to see if anyone
else was around who might be able to help her. There was not a single witness
in sight. She was totally on her own. This man could shoot her and kill her right
there in the middle of the road, then drive off. No one would know who did it
or why.

She was in an impossible
position. If she tried to run, he could shoot her. If she attempted to argue
with him, he could shoot her. If she screamed, he could shoot her. Therefore, she
did nothing, just stood there frozen, too scared to move. Her heart was thumping
loudly in her chest. She stood on the sidewalk with her eyes locked on the cold,
black barrel of the weapon.

“Get. In. The. Fucking. Car,”
the man repeated loudly, enunciating every word slowly and menacingly.

His head was completely
shaved. He wore sunglasses and a black suit. He looked like a gangster from a 40’s
movie. He was no actor though. He had a menacing manner and a harsh, snarling
way of speaking that made her realize somehow, this was no joke. Of course, her
recent reality, which had included seeing actual guns in the house where she'd
been living, had expanded her possibilities.

“Don’t make me ask you
again, Charlotte,” he said calmly, pointing with the gun towards the back seat.
“The door’s open. Get in.”

He knows my name. Shit!
Logan must've sent him! He must be one of his hired guns.

There was no other
explanation for what was unfolding on the street of this nice, small town. Her
hands were trembling as she reached for the door handle. She slowly opened it,
slipping into the back seat, as she'd been instructed. She pulled the door
closed.

“Belt up,” the man told her.

She did as he said,
remaining silent as she did so. The car sped off, driving briskly through the
town. As they passed her parents’ house, she made a point of not looking at it.
She didn’t want Logan or his men to know where they were. Of course, an instant
later, she realized they already knew. That was how they'd tracked her down.

 Once on the main road,
the man put his foot down on the gas. She watched the countryside whoosh past
her so quickly she'd thought he risked being pulled over for speeding if the
car had been spotted by police. She began to pray for just that to happen. If a
policeman came close enough, she could scream for help and tell them she'd been
kidnapped.