Page 23 of Don't Leave Me
“This is your son,” she said, then swallowed. “His name is Daniel. He’s thirteen months old. He’s a little late walking. But he wants it so bad that when he falls, he always pitches a fit. He loves bananas. He hates peaches. And he’ll only eat vegetables if I trick him. He’s a good sleeper sometimes. When he doesn’t sleep, it’s agonizing. I love him with every breath I take. And he’s the reason you can’t get this wrong with Evan. If you go after him, you get it right, or you put all of us in jeopardy.”
I blinked. She’d lost me at the wordson.
“I know,” she nodded. “I know what this is going to do to you. I know how much more you’ll hate me for not telling you. But he is the reason I did what I did, and I don’t regret it. Now, I have to go, and you can’t follow me. You can’t leave any kind of trail to us. You have to promise, Marc.”
Ash was demanding something. Her voice was stern. She was holding a baby named Daniel. Who didn’t like peaches. I’d always hated peaches.
My son.
Thirteen months. I did the math in my head. It worked. If I’d gotten her pregnant in Vegas. Unless she’d lied to me about Evan touching her. Unless she’d wanted to spare me the fact she’d been raped.
Except now, I knew Sanderson was a sick bastard who fucked underage girls. Ash had only been his prop.
My son.
I was sitting there with the words rolling around in my head, forcing them to make sense, when they wouldn’t. All while Ash put him back in his stroller, snapped buckles around him, much to his displeasure if his wails were to be believed, then started to roll him away from me.
I got up and started to follow her. “No. Wait. You can’t just tell me this and leave.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, over her shoulder. “It’s not about you. It’s about him, and I have to do everything I can to protect him. You can’t follow us. You can’t see us again. You can’t swing at Evan and miss. If you decide to do nothing, I’ll understand that, too. It might be the better choice. To walk away. Leave it behind you, and move on with your life.”
“Move on with my fucking life?” I roared. “That’s my son!”
She was crying now, but almost running as she pushed the stroller in front of her. I followed her across the street. To her sensible car in the parking lot of the strip mall. I watched her hands shake as she tried to get him out of the stroller.
There was a baby car seat in back. That’s what I’d seen yesterday when she drove away. Something about the car which hadn’t registered in my brain. She snapped the baby in and said a few gentle words to him, but the kid was still wailing.
Had he heard me shout at her? Was he upset because I was yelling at his mother? Were the first words my son heard from his father filled with anger and fury?
Fuck. Me.
“You can’t do this, Ash.” I said, lowering my voice. “You can’t drop this bomb on me and take off. It’s not fair, and you know it.”
“I do know it. I do.” She opened the driver’s side door. “But we have no choice. You have to let me go. You have to think about everything I said, about every awful thing I’ve done to you, and ask yourself what it would be like if we were in each other’s lives. What it would be like for Daniel to sense all that boiling resentment you must feel for me. You went to prison because of me! We’re poisoned, Marc. It’s neither of our faults, but it’s there. I can’t have that for my baby. I won’t. I’m sorry.”
Oh. Well. She was sorry. She was telling me to forget the fact I had a kid, but she was sorry about it.
She got in the car and shut the door, locking it quickly, before I could react. The car started, and I took a step back instinctively as she pulled away.
Away. She was leaving and I didn’t know where she was going, or how to find her. The only information I’d been able to find about this Marie Campbell was related to the bakery.
Because this woman was hiding.
I don’t know how long I stood there looking at an empty parking space. A closed bakery. Feeling a sense of loss for something I didn’t even know I had. Until finally, there was nothing left to do but go back to my motel room, pack my shit and leave Florida.
I’d come looking for Marie Campbell and I’d found her. That mission accomplished, it was time to take on the next. I would worry about Ash and Daniel after I took Sanderson down. Eliminate him as any possible threat to her and the baby, forever.
I was going to New Jersey and nothing was going to stop me.
* * *
That night
Ashleigh
It wasn’t the first time I’d stared down at my sleeping son, lost in the wonder of him. His soft, brown hair, the little snorting noises he made as he slept. His butt perched in the air, because, no matter how I put him down to sleep, he always rolled onto his belly and slept this way.
Now Marc knew he existed.
