Page 107 of Resurrection

“Was that Carys?” Lena’s voice startles me. “I heard you talking. Is everything okay? You sounded upset.”

“She’s been arrested.” My voice is dull, dead. “By the F-B-fucking-I.”

“The FBI? Why would they want her?” Lena draws her robe tight.

“Conspiring with terrorists.” My mind runs over the details Sook said and didn’t say. “My guess is something to do with the stolen shipment we never traced or bothered to report. At least some of the product seems to have found its way to the PLA or someone similar.”

“The PLA?”

“A bunch of fucking losers in Ireland who think anarchy is cool. Charles dealt with them in the past—left that shit for Carys.” My focus keeps straying to our room upstairs and then back to my phone.

“When will they let her go?” She leans against the kitchen island.

I can’t make the words leave my lips.

Her eyes go wide. “Oh, God.”

A feeble cry sounds from upstairs, and in a minute or two, it’ll become a full-on scream. Feeding time, and the kid loves to eat.

“I’ll fix him a bottle.” Lena gathers everything for his night feed in jerky movements.

I’m stuck to the middle of the floor, paralyzed by rage, indecision, and this intolerable frustration because we’ve come so far together to land here.

She gives me the bottle and puts her hands into the pockets of her robe. “What will you do?”

“I’m going to feed Lucas.” I gesture to the bottle. “And I might contemplate joining a fucking religion or finding a god to prayto, or maybe I’ll sacrifice something. Do any of those religious things actually work?”

She grimaces. “People believe what they believe because it makes them feel better.”

“Well, the only thing I’ve ever believed in is myself. If Carys gets out of this mess and back here, I might have to become a born-again something.” I step past her and head toward the stairs as Lucas ups the volume.

“That’s the plan?” she calls after me. “We wait?”

“If you come up with a better one, you let me know. Until then, yeah, that’s the fucking shitty-ass plan we’re going with.”

I take the stairs two at a time and then stand outside our bedroom door, calming myself. It’s not good for me to go in there so wound up, even I understand that. When I’ve got the rage and frustration down, I turn the handle and start the shushing noise which signals someone is there.

When I lift him into my arms and stare at him, I’m glad he’s not old enough to need an explanation for his mother’s absence. ‘Life is cruel’ doesn’t seem like a Carys-approved lesson, even if the sentiment is true.

Settling into the rocking chair, I tilt the bottle into his mouth and push off the floor with my feet. With each back-and-forth motion, a Plan B forms.

It only takes two weeks for me to decide Sook doesn’t understand how the hell to get Carys out of this, and she’s not coming home to us. The lawyer’s last phone call tonight didn’t go well. In a rage, I hung up on her, ripped the handset out of the wall, and threw it into the fire.

The situation is a setup—has to be. Maybe I just want it to be. Charles always took risks, and she picked up where he left off. Sook told me many of the dirty deals happened while she was recovering from her last miscarriage. Considering she ended up with an unexpected baby, it’s easy to believe she might have made less than stellar decisions during that period.

That night, as I rock Lucas, I send two texts and book myself a flight out of Switzerland. When I put my phone beside me, he stretches his little arms and his eyes connect with mine.

“Don’t worry, little buddy. I’ll get your mom home.”

The faint outline of the family photo Carys forced me to take when we returned from Russia is barely visible in the dim lighting. I’ve stared at the picture enough the last few weeks the image has become seared into my retinas. At some point, I’ll close my eyes and the photo will haunt me—a comfort, a damnation, what might have been, what will never be.

Soon everyone will get what they deserve.

The next morning, I fill Lena in on my sudden trip abroad. While she holds Lucas, she searches my face, trying to figure out if there’s any hidden meaning. One of my texts went through, but I don’t have any idea if the second one did.

When I land in Cape Verde, Jay is at the airport to meet me. Carys insisted he stay here to keep everything on track with the casino, even after she got arrested. Sook told me that no matter what happens to Carys, she wants me and Lucas to have the life we planned to have together. Fuck that.

Fuck that.

---