The Switch (13 page)

CHAPTER 16

Chase

Just calm down, baby.

I WAIT UNTIL
he disappears, and then I bring the bags into the kitchenette where I set them down on the counter. I need a minute before talking to Shelby in order to process everything that’s just happened. Having decided I’m not a particularly big fan of her father but not wanting to get into a fight about it, I will need to choose my words carefully. Unfortunately I can still feel the lasting irritation in my muscles. I would have argued with her father about his bullshit self-imposed, forty-eight-hour deadline, but I’m smart enough to know it would do no good. His giving me the deadline is just a formality, I’d venture to guess.

I’ve no doubt that he’s not stopping his investigation just because I asked him to.

Inside the paper bags are a collection of household goods and easy-to-make foods. Her father brought us paper towels, a few rolls of toilet paper, bottled waters, a few cans of beans, corn, hot dogs, hot dog buns, cereal and milk. And last but not least is a universal cell phone charger. I put my frustration with the man on back burner for the time being.

I’m not sure what I expected
to be in the bags, but this isn’t really it. Just as I think I’ve pulled out everything and moved to put the bags aside, I hear the telltale rattling of a bottle of pills. Sure enough, inside I find a bottle of Tylenol with Codeine—a particular medication I know for a fact requires a prescription to get here in the US.

For a brief moment
, I consider the fact that I could use this against Mr. Brignac, but then I look over to Shelby and realize how much she actually needs some relief. Her body will heal a lot faster if she’s not having to suffer through the pain.

Once I have everything put away
, I turn from the setting sun and lean against the kitchenette with my eyes on Shelby. She’s lying on her side, half-dead to the world, but she doesn’t look the least bit tired. She looks sad, defeated even. I’m glad she’s taking this seriously, because this entire situation could destroy more than just one life. It could ruin us all. Now that I know she gets how serious this is, I don’t want her to dwell on it. I’m not keen on torturing her. She needs to know there’s nothing more she can do right now. We have to wait to get into contact with Sarge and see where he’s at.

“Hey, you must be hungry,” I say.

Shelby’s eyes flick to mine, but just as quickly, she’s back to staring at the wall again. I let out a heady sigh, realizing it’s going to take more than the offer of food to perk her up.

I pull out a medium
-sized skillet, which compared to the tiny two-burner range looks massive. I fill it with a little more than an inch of water and turn the flame up to high. I decide not to watch the water boil and instead choose to busy myself. I turn the oven on to four hundred degrees. Opening the new cell phone charger, I’ve never been so thankful to be able to turn my phone on.

I plug my phone in first because I reason that even if Victor had called Shelby and left the most incriminating of messages, there’s nothing I can do about it until I hear from Sarge. I cast another look at Shelby as I focus on our dirty clothes. Her eyes are open, but she appears nonresponsive
. I’m not hopeful that she’ll snap out of it anytime soon. That means, unfortunately for me, I’m going to be stuck hand-washing the laundry.

I collect the clothes from the floor and remove the ones that cannot be salvaged. My shirt is covered in old, dried blood and ripped to high heaven. Shelby’s jeans haven’t fared any better—I cut them into several small pieces and strips in order to get them off her. Her jacket, shirt, bra, and underwear have survived
, as well as my cargo shirts and boxers. They are all well past disgusting and completely unwearable in their current state.

I poke through the kitchenette and the linen closet, but am unable to find any laundry soap. Neither one has anything even remotely close to laundry supplies which leads me to believe the Brignacs don’t spend more than a few days up here at a time. I continue to check back on Shelby, hoping she’ll respond and help me out here. It’s entirely possible I’m looking for shit that doesn’t even exist.

The water still hasn’t boiled, and the oven isn’t quite hot enough yet. Taking one more tour around the cabin, I find a large flashlight and am pleased to note it has fresh batteries and shines brightly. All I’ve got right now is time, so I decide to poke around outside as best I can, thinking there might be something out there in the shed behind the cabin that will help.

I flick on the outside light and step into the dry, cool evening air. With the cabin to my back, I’m staring at the small lake that separates the tiny, rustic Brignac cabin from their more ostentatious neighbors across the water. I make my way around back and toward the small shed just a few hundred yards away.

Slowly, the light from the side door fades into the night, and I’m left with the lone beam of the flashlight. There are all sorts of wild creatures in a place like this—snakes and God only knows what else. Wild things that are bigger and meaner than your average country garden snake. I’m no pussy, but I know damn well I can’t fight off an angry fox or wolf with nothing but my bare hands and a Maglite.

At the shed
, I see the door is unlocked. Upon opening the door, it creaks and a thick collection of cobwebs fall in front of me. I shine the light to check for spiders, but can’t see any. I decide that’s a good thing and not bad.

Inside the shed is a hodgepodge of junk from various decades
, including an old metal highchair with a bright red and blue pattern, reminiscent of my childhood. I assume the high chair was once Shelby’s, which tells me this shed is basically a dumping ground for all the crap the family has failed to get rid of over the years. But then I see it—an old laundry washboard in the corner, and directly to my right is a small box of shot gun bullets. They might not work, but I grab them up anyway and stride with the bullets and the washboard back to the cabin.

Inside, I set down the washboard and bullets by the side door and use the sink in the kitchenette to wash away the cobwebs and grime I collected in the shed. The water finally boils
, and I plop the hot dogs inside.

I turn my cell phone on and ignore the pings that signal I have voicemail to listen to. I find Sarge’s name in my contacts list and dial. It takes several rings before he answers.

“Guilliot,” he says in a strangled voice. I hear rustling of papers and the slamming of a door in the background. “Didn’t I say I’d get in contact with you?”

I’m immediately put off by his reaction. Here I’ve been on edge not knowing what the hell I’m supposed to be doing
, and after two days of it and no contact, all he has to say is that I was supposed to wait for him to call me?

“Well, damn. I’m real sorry about that, Sarge. Thing is, I’m holed up here in a cabin with a chick whose stab wound I had to sew up by myself. And all that EMT training I received, the whole week of it, got me through about the first two minutes before I wanted to gouge my own eyes out. So you got an update for me or what?” My tone is much
more clipped than it should be with my superior officer. I’m just finding myself not giving a shit. This situation wasn’t covered in my Academy training.

“Like I told you before, rookie, just stay put. I don’t want your ass leaving that cabin. Don’t head out for any reason.”

“Okay,” I agree immediately.

“I’m working on something big, Guilliot. I just need a little more time. Can you give me that?”

“Twenty-four hours,” I confirm, like I have a hand to play here. Maybe I do, but if so, I have no damn clue what it is yet. I figure if Shelby’s dad’s given me forty-eight hours, then if Sarge hasn’t given me anything by tomorrow, I’ll have at least a day to work with to figure out my next move.

On one hand
, I have my sergeant telling me to lay low and stay put, which I’m inclined to listen to. But on the other hand, Shelby’s dad is ready to move without me. If Mr. Brignac’s rescue skills amount to sending his daughter into the line of fire, then I’m not interested in seeing him in action trying to save Becca. Shelby nearly got herself killed with that stunt she pulled, and frankly, her father’s skillset doesn’t look much more promising. In order to keep my girl from losing her shit and to keep everyone alive, I need to keep Shelby and company out of it. This is police business, after all. It seems the Brignac family has forgotten that. But for some reason, I choose not to share this with Sarge.

“Twenty-four hours
, and you’ll stay right where you are. That’s an order, rookie,” Sarge says with a grunt. His voice is shaky with nerves, and I wonder how big of a lead he’s got over there. If he’s agreeing to twenty-four hours, he must be pretty confident in his ability to locate Victor and get Becca back within that time frame. My body relaxes immediately.

“Hang on there,
kid. I have something for you,” Sarge says and sets the phone down.

I cast a glance at Shelby whose head is tilted to the side. She leans forward, obviously having pulled herself out of that vegetative state she put herself in.

“What did he say?” she whisper-shouts.

I mute my cell phone and give her a reassuring smile.
“Sarge says to give him twenty-four hours. Wants us to stay here and not move.”

“What are you on hold for?”

“Sarge has something for me,” I say.

Her eyes grow wide
, and she flails her arms in the air. “Hang up, Chase. Hang up!”

Now she’s screaming at me. I’m not entirely sure why she’s flipping out. Whatever it is Sarge went to look for it must be important for him to have me wait on the line.

“Hang up the goddamn phone!” she screams so loud my ears vibrate with the sound.

She’s thrashing around the bed
, and in a moment of fear that she’ll hurt herself, I hang up the call and set the phone back down on the counter. I stride quickly over to Shelby and scoot onto the bed. She calms instantly.

“What the hell is going on?” I ask from atop her head.

“How long was that call, Chase?” she asks.

I think for a moment, wondering if it was over or under a minute. I know what she’s getting at—the fact that Sarge could have been attempting to trace the call.
Not that I’d think he would do that, especially not when he told me he didn’t want to know where we’re at. Either he’d want to know or he wouldn’t.

“I don’t know. About a minute, I think,” I say. “And listen, I know what you’re thinking, but the sarge is clean, okay? He’s not one of Victor’s guys. I promise. Just calm down, baby.”

Shelby whispers words of concern into my chest, and I hold her, rocking her slightly from side to side. Once she calms down, I extract myself from her grasp and go to fetch the buns and hot dogs from the heat. I check my phone and see that the call lasted a little over two minutes, but I don’t tell Shelby that. I can’t allow myself to believe Sarge would betray me.

CHAPTER 17

Shelby

Hey, baby, I’m just checking to see that you’re okay.

OVER DINNER—HOT
dogs with mustard—we sit and talk. It isn’t until Chase drops mustard on the sheets that we decide the sheets are pretty much done for. That’s when he relocates me to the couch—carrying me bridal style, which shamefully enough, sends an overload of ideas swarming in my brain.

For the first time since the shower incident, I attempt to stand and walk on my own.
I figure now’s a good time since Chase is outside in the shed looking for supplies—again. Apparently, he’s found a few gems out there. I’m still hobbling, but at least I can put weight on my leg now. I suppose that’s the difference between a day-old injury and a three-day-old injury.

I hobble across the cabin toward the kitchenette where Chase’s phone is charging. Upon inspection, I see that it’s near a full charge. Next to Chase’s recharged phone is my dead one. I pull the AC cable out of the wall and unplug Chase’s phone. On the way back to the living area
, I find that if I just give my wounded leg a chance, I actually can walk on it with relative ease.

Back at the couch, I plug the charger into the wall and then my phone into the charger. Plopping down on the worn cushion, I feel something hard beneath me. I reach under the cushion and pull out my findings. It’s my gun. I check to see that the safety’s on and
set it down on the couch next to me.

There was a time when I didn’t want anything to do with that stupid gun. I hated the damned thing. My dad used to keep it in the house “just in case
,” but I always felt uneasy about it. That gun sat in a drawer in our kitchen, next to the dishwasher, loaded, for years. When I went through my anti-war phase in high school, I told my father the gun was an instrument of hate. Looking at it now, I can’t say I feel any differently. Unfortunately, considering the situation I’ve gotten myself and Chase into, it’s also a necessary tool. I just hope I’ll never have to use it again.

I turn away from the gun and power on my phone. It takes a minute as the battery had been completely drained. Once it’s on, the phone alerts me that I have ten new voice messages
, twenty-five new text messages, and a handful of emails.

First I read the text messages. They’re all from my mother and father. Each one is vague
—they’re too smart to put it all out there. They’re asking where I am, if I’m okay, et cetera. Calling my mother is the next step—I haven’t spoken to her since she handed me the gun in Jackson Square. She must be worried even though I know my father’s told her I’m safe. She was worried before I told her what happened with Becca and even more worried when I asked for her help. I knew she wouldn’t turn me down, though, and she didn’t. My mother tries to be a good, law-abiding citizen, but it’s been tough with her being married to a man who bends the law at his own leisure and not just for his job.

My voice mail messages aren’t much different. There are two from Victor, though. The first message makes my skin crawl.

“Hey, baby, I’m just checking to see that you’re okay. I haven’t heard from you, and we didn’t meet like we were supposed to. Call me back, baby. Becca would really like to hear from you,” Victor says, his voice sticky sweet.

I cringe, my finger hovering over the button to delete the message. But then I think better of it and save the message instead.

The next one was sent just a few minutes ago. There are a few days between the messages, and now Victor sounds as though he’s at his breaking point.

“Shelby, baby, you have to call me back. Becca won’t hang out if you don’t call me back. I don’t want to lose you both, baby. Please.” Victor’s voice shakes with desperation
, and I wonder what the hell is going on over there. Nothing good, I bet. My stomach rolls with nausea, and before I know it, my chest heaves in panic. “Call me back, baby, or I’m going to have to let Becca go. And I know how much you don’t want that.”

Tears stream down my face at the thought of Becca. I’ve been so stupid and so selfish the entire way through. First I involved Chase
, which proved to be stupid on several counts. Then I let him know what’s going on, and now, because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, he has me holed up in my dad’s cabin instead of out there helping Becca. I got her into this mess, and I’m going to have to be the one to get her out.

But first thing’s first
—I have to call my mom.

“Shelby!” my mom exclaims, picking up on the first ring. “I’ve been worried sick. Are you okay?”

I tell her everything that’s happened, sans my bed romp with the good officer. We may be close, but that’s a topic she’d rather not hear about and I’d rather not get a lecture on. First and foremost, she would want to know how I could even think of sex at a time like this, and quite frankly, I’d like to know the answer to that myself. I’m attracted to Chase, sure. And I had nothing else I could do to help Becca at the time, but I still feel shame over the fact that Becca is out there suffering and I was here starting something good with Chase. As I go through everything, Mom listens patiently.

“Don’t tell your father I said this, because I will deny it, but he told me he likes Chase. He said he’s a good man,” my mother says.

A small weight lifts from my heart, and I allow myself this small moment to feel victorious. Chase may not be my dad’s biggest fan, but at least my dad can see the good I see in Chase. This will go a long way in the three of us figuring out how to get Becca back and what to do next.

“He is a good man,” I say.

In the distance I can hear some kind of low rumbling, but it’s too far off to make out what it is. I go back to the conversation, convinced that it’s Chase and he’s dragging something back in from the shed.

“Listen, I need your help. Can you have
Daddy get word out to Buster? I have to get the guy’s name first, but I think Chase’s sergeant might be dirty. Buster would know, right?”

My mother is silent for a long moment, then says, “Buster would know. But Shelby, your dad doesn’t want me sharing this information with you. After his talk with Chase
, he said he had a lot to think about. He said it’s about time he stops letting you steamroll him into dangerous situations.”

I bite back the scream that builds in my throat. I know Chase is only trying to help
, and I do love that he’s being protective of me, but I got along just fine before he came along, and I’m sure I’ll figure out how to get along just fine once he leaves me.

The thought of Chase leaving me brings on a fresh wave of pain. It’s not as deep as the pain that settled in when Becca was taken, but it hurts all the same. The thought reminds me of how temporary this all is between
us. There’s just no way for us to make it work long-term. Chase is one of the good guys, and while I don’t know what I am exactly, I highly doubt I’ll fit into his world.

Romantic entanglements aside, I’m likely going to be in a lot of legal trouble. I committed armed robbery, assault on a police officer, and if you count the things I did for Victor in a moment of weakness, you could probably add another five felonies to my rap sheet. The thought of spending time in jail
—or prison!—makes me ill, but I don’t let my mind wander down that path right now. I have much larger issues that need attending to first. First Becca, then Chase.

“Please,
Mama,” I beg. “I got us into this mess. Please trust me to get us out.”

She lets out a heavy sigh and says a few choice words about getting my life together before she agrees and then hangs up on me. She calls back immediately to apologize and tell me she loves me, ordering me to be safe.

After the phone call with my mother ends, I give myself a few moments to grieve the situation. At one point I was just like everybody else. I was a full-time student at the local community college majoring in nothing because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Never in my wildest imagination could I have predicted this would be my life. When I graduated high school, I thought Becca and I would go to nursing school together and move out into our own place, and eventually we’d both be in relationships, and then before we were thirty we’d have a couple of kids. I still don’t know how I got here—to this point where I’m a felon on the run from a madman.

Memories of Becca’s
and my childhood and eventual adulthood fly through my brain, hitting me in the gut so hard I have to shut my eyes to keep from sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

Becca just looks at me, her brown eyes filled with tears. She nods. It’s the best I’m going to get right now, and I don’t take it for granted. She’s stuck by me through so much. I wonder when she’ll call it quits and decide to befriend someone a little more stable, a little less inclined to getting herself into trouble.

“I just don’t get it,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders. She’s trying to give off the vibe that it doesn’t matter, but I can see in her eyes that it does matter. “You were so excited. You passed the entrance exams and everything.”

“I don’t know what happened,” I confess.

I hate
that conversation. We’ve only had it a hundred times before. Becca and I plan something
,
and then I screw it up and she ends up going at it alone.

Like when
we were kids and I begged her to sign up for Girl Scouts with me. I didn’t want to do it alone, and I thought we could have fun doing it together. Less than a month in, I was done.

A few years later
, we begged our parents to let us go to summer camp. It was one of those sleep-away camps that lasted for something like a month. It was my idea to begin with, and I was instrumental in creating our plan of attack for us to be able to go. Unfortunately, a week in, I was so homesick that I manufactured an illness to be able to go home. While I was spending my days lazily on the sofa, watching reruns of classic TV shows and eating my weight in Sno Balls, Becca was swimming off ropes from tree branches into the cool lake water, having her first kiss, and her first heartbreak.

The first thing she did when she came home from summer camp was to throw her arms around me and tell me all the exciting things that happened. Our happy reunion didn’t last long
, because the moment she saw the scowl on my face—my apparent jealousy—she ran home and refused to talk to me until school started some weeks later. I was the one who had ditched her, and then I had the audacity to be jealous of all the fun she had. At the time, I thought she was just upset because what’s-his-name had broken her heart, but looking back years later, I can see why she got so upset with me.

Even in high school
, when we took our senior trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Becca and I spent three months planning the entire trip from start to finish. We had a long list of everything we wanted to do once we got there. But I was an idiot and imbibing way too much alcohol than I could reasonably handle. I thought I was being cool, and for a little while, I guess I was, but I was too hung over or too drunk the entire trip to do anything on our list, leaving Becca at the mercy of the theater geeks.

I guess the joke was on me
, because Becca met her now ex-boyfriend Kyle on that trip. He was one of those theater geeks, eventually going on to study at UCLA’s film school. Last time I checked the internet, he was working as a production assistant on the set of some chick flick titled
Marital Bitch
. It sounded lame, I mean, how much romance can be in a movie with a title like that? Regardless, it scored the hottest director and had a large budget, so he must be doing something right. To this day, they are still really good friends and see each other whenever he comes back to New Orleans.

The low rumbling sound outside grows louder, alerting me to an approaching vehicle. I clutch my phone tightly in my hand, prepared to call 911 shou
ld I need it. But then I remember what kind of trouble calling the police out here could bring. My head shoots up, and my eyes dart around as I search frantically for any sign of an unwanted visitor at the windows and doors. Then I realize my dad was just here a few hours ago and could very well be returning to restock some of the items he said we were low on—like clean sheets.

At the time
, his comment seemed innocent enough, but the more I think on it, the more I realize how stupid I was to begin with. My father has been a private investigator for nearly twenty years and has seen everything—from cheating spouses to people with secret, strange proclivities and even complete nutcases who barely knew who they were. Of course he would know what sex looks like. Of course he would be able to tell by the rumpled sheets, my messy hair, and the fact that Chase and I were wearing his pajamas at the time. The very idea that my father knows what I was up to in his cabin makes me blush.

I laugh lightly at my paranoid nature. Here I was freaking out, ready to call 911 or blow someone’s head off. I hadn’t even considered it might be my father bringing me some much-needed linens and pain medication. Just as I set my phone down and let my shoulders slump, the rumbling outside stops and the bright beams turn off. I check myself to make sure I’m decent and turn toward the door just in time to see it being kicked in.