Page 49 of A Bloody Merry Christmas
“You’re coming home with me, you little bitch. Tell your mother you were joking. She’s threatening to call the cops.” He paused, smiling sinisterly, as he reached behind himself to grab something out of his pants. I froze when the silver glint of a handgun caught in the sunlight streaming through the windows. He waved the weapon at me. “You wouldn’t want your mother to get a bullet in her airhead, would you?”
I exhaled. “You wouldn’t do that to your sister.”
“I would. You know I would. What about your boyfriend? What wouldhelook like with a hole in his head?” He flashed me his missing teeth again. “Come with me without a fight. Make a scene outside for your neighbors and I’ll be happy to finish themoff, too. There’s a nice old lady outside next door. She was very suspicious of me. Don’t make it worse for her.”
I thought about Eleanor and her midmorning coffee clutched in her hand as she stood outside and judged how the postman delivered her mail—“He doesn’t care if he crinkles my letters, Ezra. It’sverydisrespectful. My granddaughter was thoughtful when she wrote it for me.”—and how despite her complaints, she was always nice to everyone. I nodded.
“I’ll come with you. Just don’t hurt her. Or Sam.”
His eyes lit up. He thought he’d won, but he didn’t know Sam. How would I get a message to him without Gary being suspicious? Gary wasn’t going to let me leave a note. What if Sam thought I’d left him? The idea made my stomach churn. I refused to let him believe I’d gone willingly.
“Come on.” He seized my elbow and yanked me, and I was nearly dragged right off my feet. There was no competition between us when it came to strength. Gary was the clear winner, which meant I had to be smart about this. If there was something Gary didn’t have, it was intelligence. I liked to think he’d had all sense knocked out of his thick skull. Maybe he didn’t have any to begin with.
I let him drag me outside, and when I caught sight of Eleanor, exactly where I’d imagined she was with her cup of coffee, a plan formed in my mind. I’d never called Garyunclebecause I’d never considered him family, but if Eleanor heard me call him that, she’d certainly go to Sam when he got home from work, right? She liked me, and if she saw I was in danger, she’d find a way to get me help, but it had to be inconspicuous. Gary couldn’t know she’d run to Sam.
Gary yanked me roughly down the pathway that led to Sam’s house, his gun hidden in his coat, and I nearly slipped on the fresh snow that layered the cement. It was cold without a coat,but Gary hadn’t stopped to think how it would look with me walking in the freezing weather without one.
Eleanor straightened, her eyes wide and alarmed. She hesitated, taking a step forward.
Gary leaned into me to whisper furiously. “Tell her everything’s okay or I’ll shoot her in broad daylight, you little bitch.”
I inhaled roughly through my nose and gave Eleanor a wobbly smile, one I knew she wouldn’t trust. “Hey, Eleanor. This is my uncle. We’re just...going for a drive.”
She gave me a hesitant smile in return, but I saw the alarm in her eyes. She knew. She knew this wasn’t right and she’d tell Sam.
Gary snorted and hauled me toward his beat-up white Toyota, shoving me into the passenger side. He waved merrily at Eleanor as he strode around the front of the car, and I shivered when she gave him one back, but she was already turning on her heel and walking as fast as her little old legs could carry her on the snow trodden pathway that led into her house. She had Sam’s work number. She’d call him, right?
Gary threw himself into the driver’s side and turned the key to start the ignition. His car rumbled to life and he put the pedal to the metal, forcing the Toyota forward in a fast, hard pace that had my teeth knocking together painfully. He was a shitty driver, but he was pretty much awful at everything.
“Why are you doing this? Why do you care what Mom thinks?” I snapped, shivering as the cold air bit my exposed skin. He didn’t have the heater on because the car was an old piece of crap.
“I don’t, but I also don’t need the cops sniffing around with abuse allegations, do I?” He grunted and slapped his hand on the steering wheel. “Your mother’s always been a pain in my ass, from the moment she was born. Oblivious bitch.”
Bitch was his favorite word for me and Mom, and even though I wouldn’t forgive her for not seeing the way he treated me, I was beginning to understand that maybe she was in a similar situation. That didn’t make her a nice person, though.
“And this won’t bring the cops? You saw Eleanor. She didn’t trust you.” Now that we were away from her house, he wouldn’t risk turning around and hurting her. Would he?
I shivered harder and my teeth chattered. It was too fucking cold and my skin hurt. I’d end up an icicle before we even arrived at his house. The sensation on my skin threw me back to the winter nights on the streets, fighting for heat and food, and desperate to survive. I couldn’t go back to being like that again. Gary was the reason I’d been homeless in the first place.
“They won’t know where to find me.” He grinned, proud of himself. “I doubt you told your sissy boyfriend your real name. You homeless kids are good at hiding. You probably told him all kinds of lies and spread your legs for a home.” He crowed like he was the smartest man alive. Fucking idiot. I hadn’t told a damned lie to Sam about who I was, but Gary didn’t need to know that. “They won’t even know where to find you.”
He had no idea how wrong he was. I really hoped Bee would put her detective skills to work, but I wasn’t sure how long Gary would keep me before he decided I was too much trouble. I was going to give him hell. No way would I let him win. Not this time.
13
SAM
“You know I think this is a really bad idea,” Bee sighed and gave me a look through the phone, her blond eyebrows raised in an unimpressed gesture. “If Ezra said not to go after his uncle, why do you want the information?”
“He’s worried about us.” I shook my head as I finished signing and glanced around. As far as I knew, no one at my workplace could speak ASL, and no one had tried to learn, either. They relied on me using the phone app to speak to them and the area around me didn’t have cameras. “He deserves justice. What did you find out?”
She stared at me for a long moment, her blue eyes judging but also concerned, before she gave a second big sigh that told me she was going to answer. Her hands moved. “The uncle lives in an old, rundown neighborhood. The people who live there are elderly and don’t rely on technology. I did a drive through and couldn’t see any cameras in his street. It’s a poor area. We won’t have to worry about being seen.”
“And?” I signed while smiling at a coworker who walked past me, and he gave me a nod in response. I was in the break roomat the back of the lab, and right now there was only me. People came and went, but they didn’t stick around, too busy now that we were approaching the end of the year, which meant final reports to hand in to the bosses.
Bee glanced around before she started signing to the camera again. “He has two counts of domestic abuse from ex-wives. Both in the nineties. He nearly killed one of them with multiple lacerations, broken bones, and a gunshot wound to her shoulder. He had a good lawyer and the bastard managed to get off on the charges.”
“So, he’s dangerous?”
