Page 132 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
“Honey, I’m home,” Taylor sang, exiting the van. Michael didn’t move as she sashayed over to him, nor did he acknowledge the kiss pressed to his cheek when she passed. “Oh, lighten up, Mikey. I brought you someone to play with.”
Bruce kept a firm grip on her arm when he pulled Jamison from the van and over to Michael. She held his mismatched stare, and the defiance he must have seen had his jaw ticking.
Parker went ahead, chatting with Krystal as they walked around Michael, neither of them acknowledging the other. The crowd dispersed, following Taylor inside through the front door. Jamison wasn’t sure, but she thought she counted about eight people, mainly men of various ages.
Emmett Watson had been one of them. Standing in the open front door, he held Madison’s hand as the little girl cheered when she saw Parker.
“Who wants Daddy when I’m here?” Taylor lifted the girl into her arms. As far as Jamison could tell, Madison looked healthy and unharmed. “How have you been, my beautiful girl?”
With the crowd gone, Bruce stopped directly before Michael, holding her out to him. Breaking from her gaze for a second, he dipped his head toward the guards at the gate, signaling them to shut it.
“How?”
Michael’s question wasn’t for her, and she pressed her lips together. The drugs were clearing her brain finally, and if she had to pull the eyeballs out of every single one of these Zanmi freaks to get out of here, she would and take all the info she’d gathered with her.
“Parker got the call,” Bruce said. “Taylor pitched a fit that you were going after Kris, saying it was the perfect opportunity to snag Jamison. I told them I would tag along in case they needed help, since I stayed behind when we sent Emmett back here.”
“How did you get here so fast?” Michael clarified as he looked her over from top to bottom, not missing anything. “Nice dress, by the way.”
“Plane,” Bruce answered. “Taylor called in a favor.”
“Tracked?”
“Don’t think so.”
Michael’s lips twitched with a smirk when he caught sight of the flip-flops peeking out from under the wedding gown. Jamison scrunched her toes, slightly embarrassed.
The move had Michael’s smirk turning into a grin. “If it belonged to Bryan, it wasn’t tracked.”
“It belonged to a friend of Bryan, from what I was told,” Bruce said. “You know Taylor. She ignores the details and just does shit, yet it somehow works out.”
The two women who had been with them the entire time slid past, pausing right beyond Michael to stare at the house. The dark-haired one laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Not for much longer,” Michael murmured to the woman and then addressed Bruce. “Casualties in the grab?”
“None.” Bruce shrugged. “Maybe. Her guard was a big son of a bitch and wouldn’t go down, so I had to juice him up pretty good.”
“Who was the guard?”
“New boy. Didn’t know him.”
“Carter.” Jamison supplied the answer in a small voice. “His name was Carter. It was his first day.”
“And probably his last,” Michael said as the noise inside kicked up a notch. Taylor was speaking, and once or twice, a cheer or clapping could be heard. “If not, then this Carter might deserve to be dead. Anyone stupid enough to stay around the Fairweathers for too long gets what’s coming to them. A smart person would run.”
Fighting the urge to stomp on his steel-toed boot, Jamison sneered instead. “Run, run, run as fast as you can. Isn’t that what you weirdos say all the time?”
“It’s a stupid phrase to latch on to, don’t you think?” The tiny hint of amusement over her attire disappeared from Michael’s eyes, replaced by a deep cynicism one would expect from a man like him. “Run, run, run as fast as you can. Do you know the origin of the phrase? Why Toby said it?”
Of course she did. It was a trick question. Toby would chant the phrase when he hunted his victims. He admitted to using it in his initial confession, and Zanmi continued to taunt them with it throughout the years. Everyone knew this.
“The day your mother died.” Michael nodded at Bruce, who released his hold so she could stand on her own. “On the morning of July 4, 1999, the kids—including you—played tag on the side lawn. Selah opened the game as he always did by shoutingrun, run, run as fast as you can. It was the last normal moment your family shared before the end.”
“Toby told you that?”
Michael shook his head slowly, a measured back-and-forth movement. “No, Toby didn’t tell me that.”
The dark-haired woman removed her hand from Michael’s shoulder and walked with her smaller counterpart toward the house. Jamison gritted her teeth, annoyed that the double vision wouldn’t permit her to see their faces. The hold the drugs had on her was wearing thin, but not enough where she could see those two.
