You Can Run: A heart gripping, fast paced thriller (7th Street Crew Book 2), Page 2

  “Now, lay back down!” the intruder yells, as soon as the phone is hung up. The yelling is loud, inconsistent, angry and mad.

  Lisa studies the intruder’s pale face. There is something about the eyes that tells her this person isn’t well. The manic eyes, the constant rubbing of the hair, the hands that won’t stay still.

  It strikes Lisa that the intruder hasn’t covered their face. They’ll be able to identify the intruder for the police when it is all over. What does this mean? Could it be that the intruder simply forgot? That the intruder didn’t think everything through? Or…? Or does it mean…could it mean that this person doesn’t intend to release them when the money or the pizza arrives? That it was never the intention?

  What if it isn’t what the intruder came for?

  Part One

  With a Little Help from My Friends

  Chapter One

  January 2016

  “Let’s grab a table outside.”

  I follow Sandra through the doors of our favorite breakfast place, Café Surfinista. We have both ordered the Acai Bowl, which is amazing. The weather is nice and chilly, the winds blowing in from the north making it dryer and the air cooler. I like it. I like January in Florida.

  Sandra receives a glance from a passerby. She tries to hide her face underneath her cap. I feel a pinch in my heart. She has been used to people staring at her all of her life, but for a different reason. I’m wondering if she will ever get used to the stares she gets now. I fight the urge to yell something after the passerby.

  People can be so rude.

  Sandra’s skin has healed, but she is still disfigured from the acid my brother threw in her face three months ago. On the day he got away with murder. I still hate myself for not being able to stop him. I was so close, and then it happened. He did this to my best friend and ruined her life completely. Having a great career as a model, her looks were everything. They were her entire life. Her recovery afterwards was long and filled with many more trips to the hospital. At home, she was forced to wear a plastic mask twenty-three hours a day to help her wounds heal. For weeks, she had no reason to get out of bed. The crew and I took turns visiting her and getting her up. Still, she hardly ever leaves the house alone anymore. She cries a lot, even though she tries to hide it. She still isn’t herself at all, and I wonder if she will ever be.

  “So, how are you doing?” I ask her, as we sit down and the passerby is gone. I can tell from her eyes that the stares hurt her.

  Today is a victory. It took a long time of convincing her it would be good for her to go out for breakfast with me. She had all kinds of excuses. I can’t blame her. Every time she walks outside, she is reminded of what happened. There is no way she can escape it.

  She answers with a scoff. “I’m okay, I guess.” She pauses and finally looks me in the eyes. “I removed all the mirrors in my house yesterday.”

  “Good for you.” I say, almost choking on some granola. I cough and try to shake the feeling of guilt, but it’s eating me up. I can’t believe my brother got away with this.

  I haven’t given up on catching him and Olivia. None of us have. We want him to pay for what he has done. But finding him is proving to be a lot harder than expected.

  So far, we don’t know much. We know they ran away together. I’ve followed the police investigation closely, but so far, there has been no sign of life from either of them in two months. Not since a surveillance camera at a gas station in Ft. Lauderdale spotted my brother in November. The police, with Detective Chris Fisher in charge, lost track of him after that. Meanwhile, Chloe is using all her skills to try and track them online, tracking his and Olivia’s credit cards, but so far without any luck. I fear they could be anywhere by now. The police found the car that Blake escaped in, in Melbourne, abandoned. It’s my theory that he was picked up by Olivia there; her phone records show she received a phone call from a phone booth in the same area that day, and no one has seen her since. Both of their phones were found in a trash can near the Melbourne Mall. Chloe thinks Olivia might own a credit card or a bank account under a different name, and right now she is working on that angle. Meanwhile, the rest of the 7th Street Crew are doing all we can to keep our eyes and ears open. The two months of silence is eating me alive. Seeing Sandra suffer the way she does is tearing me up.

  “But you have no idea how many things you have in your house where you can see your own reflection,” Sandra says, sucking in her breath. “Just using my silverware or putting a pot of water under the faucet in my kitchen won’t let me forget. Every freaking second of my life, I have to face it.”

  “What about surgery? What do they say?” I ask, knowing she has been through a marathon of reconstructive surgeries already.

  A couple walks past us on the street. The woman stares at Sandra. The disgust is oozing from her eyes. Yet, she can’t stop looking.

  Sandra turns her head away and closes her eyes.

  “You ain’t exactly a looker yourself, lady,” I say. I sound like an idiot, but I am so frustrated, I can’t help myself.

  Sandra places a calm hand on my arm. “You don’t have to defend me,” she says. “It’s okay. It’s not their fault.”

  She sighs and removes her hand before she continues.

  “They can’t do anymore. The damage is too severe. This is it for me. This is what I am going to look like for the rest of my life. I just have to learn to live with it. The worst part is Ryan. I can tell he is trying hard, but just looking at me still makes his eyes water. He has that look of disgust that I see in everyone who looks at me. And he definitely doesn’t want to touch me. He used to be all over me, but now he tries to avoid even looking at me. He works constantly, and I think he might be avoiding being home because it makes him feel uncomfortable. I can’t blame him. I would run away too. But I can’t. I’m right here. All the time. I can’t run away from myself.”

  “I am sorry, Sandra.” I say. I am at loss for words and try with a joke instead. “I can beat him up for you, if you want me to?”

  Sandra chuckles, but she isn’t smiling.

  Chapter Two

  January 2016

  Marcia Little walks across the street at Minutemen Causeway. She hurries up and a car misses her as it rushes by, honking its horn.

  “Ah, come on,” she yells after it.

  The driver throws a finger out the window. Marcia blows raspberries and laughs. In her hand, she is carrying a bottle of gin. It is wrapped in a brown paper bag. She has just bought it at ABC Wine, and now she is heading for the beach by Coconuts. The air is chilly today. The scarf she always wears doesn’t keep her neck warm enough. Too much wind. She knows the others won’t be in the usual spots.

  Billy is the first one she sees. He is sitting in front of the Beach Shack, in the dunes, a guitar in his lap. He smiles and yells her name. Where he is sitting, you can’t feel the wind when it is in the north.

  With the sun in a clear blue sky, it will be nice to sit on the sand, she thinks to herself and joins him. He is finishing up a beer. Neither the Beach Shack nor Coconuts on the beach have opened yet. It’s nice and quiet right now. Just the way Marcia likes to start her day. Especially since she lost her job at CVS on 520, the third job in just as many months.

  Billy is playing a tune, and after a couple of sips from her bottle, Marcia is humming along. She used to be a great singer, back in high school, and everyone thought she would pursue a career in music, but…well it never happened. She played bars and venues all over Brevard County for nothing but free beer and food for years. That’s how she met Carl, the father of her four children. He owns a bar in Orlando, where she would play regularly. He liked her and kept asking her to come back. Soon, they hooked up, and she never got any further with her career. As soon as their firstborn came along, she was done singing anything but nursery rhymes.

  Marcia had always been fond of drinking. Ever since her teenage years, when she had her first beer, she had known she liked it. But it was also what killed
her marriage. Carl liked to drink too, and over the years, he turned violent. Finally, one day, it became too much for Marcia. That was when she caught Carl beating their youngest, who was only two-years-old till he was bruised on his entire back. That was when she knew she’d had enough. Carl could beat her all he wanted to. That she could handle. But not when he took it out on the children. That was it for her. So she left and came back to her hometown with the heavy load of having to raise four children on her own. She often wondered where the years went, how come her breakthrough never came, why she never got the career she had thought she would. Where did it all go wrong?

  Well, you can’t have it all. At least she has a place to live. She doesn’t have to sleep on the beach or the streets like Billy and most of the other guys she hangs out with. At least she has a roof over her head and a bottle in her hand. Who needs a career?

  It’s all overrated anyway.

  Marcia sips her bottle and lets the alcohol settle the uneasiness she always wakes up with in the morning. The mornings are the worst. Until she is able to send the kids off to school on the bus, she strives just to stay upright. Her entire body is usually shaking in withdrawal. That’s why she normally starts the day with a couple of painkillers to keep her going until she can make it to the gas station, where she has her first beer of the day. After that, she is up and running again.

  Today is a special day. Today, she is celebrating the fact that the court has told Carl to pay her a thousand dollars a month in alimony. Not that he will feel it. His bar is doing really well.

  About time he pays up. After all, they’re his kids too.

  But the extra money means Marcia doesn’t have to hurry up finding another job. She lost the condo two months ago when the bank took it and they moved into a small townhouse across the street from the beach instead that was much cheaper. The money from Carl is enough to pay her rent and groceries, so it’s only the extra stuff she needs to make herself. With the money she borrowed from her sister last week, she’ll get by for a couple of months, even if she doesn’t find a job. It suits Marcia, since she hasn’t been doing so well lately. She needs a little time to get better.

  Chapter Three

  October 2005

  “I know he’s in there somewhere, Mom. I’m certain. Why won’t you listen to me?”

  Daniel looks intensely at his mother. Her eyes are tired, exhausted even. “I am telling you, Daniel. We’ve tried everything.”

  “I refuse to believe that my brother is going to have to live like this. I am the one who knows him best. I am the one who has been the closest to him all of his life. I know he understands what we tell him. He might not be able to speak, he might not be able to communicate, but he is in there. Behind those eyes is an adult who needs to be heard, Mom. There’s got to be some sort of treatment.”

  His mother, Michelle, sighs deeply, then closes her eyes while shaking her head. “You’ve got to stop this, Daniel. Peter has Cerebral Palsy. He hasn’t spoken a word in the twenty-five years he has been on this planet. He is and will always be impaired. You’ve seen how he is getting worse every day. You’ve seen the muscle spasms in his face, his neck, his torso and his arms and hands. You know it’s hard for him to stay in one position, that muscle contractions sometimes twist his spine and clench his fingers in a useless ball. He can hardly make eye contact and keep objects fixed in view. He wears a diaper, for crying out loud. He can’t even dress himself. He can walk only if someone steadies him; otherwise, he gets around by scooting on the floor. All we have ever been able to communicate with him is by his screams when he’s unhappy and the chirps when he’s excited, but he can’t control his vocal cords. His last assessment shows he has a very low IQ. That guy, the clinical psychologist, that Wills fellow, assessed Peter and found that his comprehension seemed to be quite limited. Those were his words, Daniel. Quite limited. Remember that? He also said that Peter’s attention span was very short and he lacks the cognitive capacity to understand and participate in decisions. Peter can’t even carry out basic, preschool-level tasks.”

  Daniel’s mother grabs his hand in hers and smiles. “I know you love your brother. I know you want what’s best for him. We all do. But we have fought this fight since he was a small child, trying to find treatment for him. Back when your father was still alive, we had him tested constantly; we refused to face the fact that Peter is severely handicapped and he will never be able to communicate with us.”

  “But…” Daniel tries, but his older sister sitting at the end of the dining table stops him.

  “Leave it, Daniel. You heard Mother. We have tried everything. Peter is our brother, but he will never be able to communicate with us.”

  “Just leave it alone,” his older brother chimes in. It annoys Daniel how they always stick together.

  His four siblings sitting around the table in their parent’s old estate seem to all agree.

  “Am I the only one who hasn’t given up?” Daniel asks.

  “He is twenty-five now, son,” his mother says. “I’m getting old. We have help here day in and day out, and he can stay here till I die, but as I said earlier, I want us to take a look at his other possibilities for when I’m not here anymore. All of you have jobs and families. You can’t take care of him as well.”

  Daniel grunts. He wants to say something, but he knows it won’t help. They’ve all made up their minds. Their mother has made all of them legal guardians of Peter when she dies. He will be their responsibility when their mother passes away. Daniel has feared the day for years. He is the one who has been closest to their youngest brother. Being only five years old when he was born, Daniel always felt responsible for him. Unlike the others, who were a lot older when Peter was born. Their oldest brother was nineteen and their sister sixteen. None of them have the same relationship with him that Daniel does. Not even the two other brothers who were seven and nine when Peter was born. They just don’t get him like Daniel does. Still, he knows he can’t take Peter in either once their mother dies. His wife would kill him for it.

  Daniel looks to Peter, who is sitting in his wheelchair in the corner, his chin touching his chest. He wishes deeply that Peter could speak for himself. That he would speak up right now. Tell them they are wrong, that he can still have a life. That it is wrong of them to simply hide him away in a home somewhere after the death of their mother.

  What if he hears everything? What if he understands everything? What if he just can’t tell us?

  The very thought terrifies Daniel. He hates the fact that his brother is trapped in his body like this. He has seen it in his eyes. Peter isn’t stupid. He is smart, he is intelligent. The doctors have told them it is impossible. Over and over again, they have told them that Peter is out of reach. Yet Daniel stays convinced that all it will take is someone else besides him who believes it to be possible. Someone who knows of another way to reach into Peter’s deeper inner self, inside where his thoughts are trapped.

  Chapter Four

  January 2016

  “Mark you know you’re not allowed to wear a hat indoors. Please, take it off.”

  Mark tries to avoid looking at his teacher, Miss Abbey. She is standing in front of his desk. He stares at her jeans while holding onto his cap.

  “Mark. I told you to take off the hat.”

  Mark bows his head even further down. The entire class is staring at him. Some are whispering. He feels his face blushing.

  “Mark!”

  Mark doesn’t react. He is holding onto the cap like his life depends on it. It sort of does. For an eighth-grader, this type of thing can ruin your life.

  “Mark. I am not going to tell you again. You’re being very disrespectful towards me right now. I am going to count to three and then you’ll take off the hat or I see no other choice than to send you to the principal’s office…again.”

  Mark closes his eyes and wishes it would all go away. His mom used to tell him it was possible.

  “If only you want it enough, then
you can change everything with your mind. Isn’t it amazing?”

  Mark opens his eyes, but she is still there. He doesn’t understand why he can’t make the teacher go away or even just this awful situation. Maybe he doesn’t want it enough, like his mother said?

  “One…two…”

  Mark draws in a deep sigh and looks down at his desk.

  “Don’t make me say three, Mark.”

  Carefully, he lifts his cap and finally looks up at his teacher. When she sees what is underneath, her expression changes completely. A loud wave of laughter bursts through the classroom.

  “Mark, what have you done to your hair?” Miss Abbey exclaims.

  Mark’s eyes hit the floor in embarrassment. “I…I…cut it.”

  He’s lying. It wasn’t him. It was his mother who did it that very morning, right before school. She came running into his room with the shaver in her hand, held him down on the bed, and shaved his hair off in big clumps, yelling weird things about some angel visiting her at night and telling her that Mark’s hair was infested with flesh-eating bugs and that she needed to cut it off before he infested anyone else. Mark screamed and tried to fight her. He ended up running out of the house, grabbing his backpack and a cap on the way out. At school, he had looked at himself in the mirror in the bathroom and realized it was all uneven, that here and there big clumps of hair were still sticking out, while it was completely shaved off in other areas. That was why he didn’t want to take off the cap.

  “Mark…I…I…why would you cut it like this?” Miss Abbey says, baffled, while the laughter and giggling continues mercilessly. “And, come to think of it, what…are you still wearing your pajamas?”

  Another wave of laughter rushes through the class. Mark blushes again. “I…I…guess I forgot to get dressed.”