Tim said. “Some other SCAPE people know what we’re planning and are behind us one hundred percent and are ready to help. They live underground, so I’m not going to tell you much about them yet. Not that you’d tell anyone,” he added quickly. “I know you wouldn’t.”
She shook her head.
“They live near this cabin we’re talking about, so we can stay with them ‘til we’re ready to move on the whole thing,” Tim continued. “We’ll make sure the cabin has food and everything you’ll need. They have an old car you can use, so the day of the.” He seemed suddenly hesitant to use the word kidnapping. “The day we do it, you’ll drive to the cabin and we’ll drive to Jacksonville where the house with the phone is and then meet you back at the cabin. Make sense?”
“How will you do it?” she asked. “How will you be able to get to her?”
“We know her schedule,” Marty said. “She teaches an evening Spanish class at Carolina. It’s dark when she gets out, so we’ll nab her in the parking lot.”
She pictured the scene: a woman walking alone to her car at night, two men jumping out of the darkness, muffling her screams with a hand over her mouth as they drag her into the rear of a van. “You’ll terrify her,” she said.
“Well, yeah.” Marty laughed. “Brilliant deduction.”
“We’ll make it as easy on her as we can, babe,” Tim said. “We won’t hurt her. Our whole objective is to prevent people from being hurt.”
She looked down at her plate, translucent with grease around her uneaten slice of pizza. Both men were quiet, as though they knew she needed a minute to absorb what they’d told her.
“When would you do it?” she asked finally.
“A few days before Thanksgiving,” Tim said.
“And what if the governor says he’ll commute Andie’s sentence and then goes back on his word once his wife is home?” she asked.
“He’d damn well better not,” Marty said in a threatening voice. “Or then we go to plan B and I don’t think you want to know about that.”
Alarmed, she looked at Tim. “What’s plan B?”
“He’s jiving you,” Tim said. “We’re not going to need a plan B. Plan A is foolproof.” He pushed his plate away and lit a cigarette. “Don’t decide right now, CeeCee,” he said. “We’ll finish up here, then have a nice relaxing night. In the morning, you can see how you feel about it.”
After dinner, she and Tim went upstairs to his bedroom. They made love without uttering a word about the kidnapping, and she put it out of her mind as best she could, pretending that things would always be this easy between them. She lay awake after he’d drifted off, though, thinking. Other people were ready and willing to support Tim and Marty in their scheme. She found that reassuring; it made the plan seem less crazy. She thought of the photographs of Andie displayed around the house. Her beautiful smile. The brutal rape that had driven her to murder her attacker. She imagined how frightened Andie must have been during her trial as she concocted alibis to try to save herself. She’d failed miserably. Now it was up to her brothers to do whatever they could to save her. No one would be hurt. The objective was to prevent people from being hurt, Tim had said. And Andie’s life would be saved.
Listen to your heart, her mother had written. Make a decision and dive in.
And that was exactly what she planned to do.
Chapter Eight
I want you to know what happened between your father and me. I met him at a high-school dance my sophomore year and he swept me off my feet. He didn’t go to my school. I didn’t find out ‘til much later, but he was a dropout. He was a good liar and very handsome and charming. He had hair just like yours. Dark and wavy and kind of out of control and beautiful. As a matter of fact, he was kind of out of control and beautiful himself, and I think that’s why I fell for him. He was just so different.
When I got pregnant with you, I was afraid to tell him. I was almost three months along before I got up the nerve. I had this fantasy that when I told him, he’d ask me to marry him and then he’d take care of me. I went over to his house—he lived with his parents—and we were hanging around in the rec room playing Ping-Pong while I tried to figure out what to say. He was in the bathroom when the phone rang. No one else was home, so I answered it. It was a girl asking to speak with him. Her name was Willa, and I knew she was pretty just by her voice. When he came out of the bathroom, I told him about the call and his face lit up. He didn’t even try to hide it. We started playing Ping-Pong again, but I knew his mind was on Willa, because he was hitting the ball any old way. We finished the game and he said he didn’t feel well so maybe I’d better go home. I left, and I knew I’d never hear from him again. I was right.
ONCE SHE TOLD TIM AND MARTY THAT SHE WOULD HELP them, she felt as if she were on a roller coaster. The ride started out nice and easy, as the brothers perfected their plan with little involvement from her, but she knew it was going to speed up quickly and she would have no way to get off.
Her role now was to set the stage for her breakup with Tim, so she began fabricating problems to discuss with Ronnie.
“He got a phone call from another girl while I was there last night,” she confided to Ronnie as they dressed for work one morning. It was very early. Still dark outside.
“How do you know?” Ronnie pulled on her jeans, then peered over her shoulder to check them in the mirror, making sure they were flattering to her backside.
“I answered the phone,” CeeCee said. She tugged a wide-toothed comb through her hair. “There was this pause. Then a girl’s voice asked for Tim. He sounded happy to hear from her and went in another room to talk.”
Ronnie turned to look at her, hands on her hips. “Did you ask him who it was?”
“No.” CeeCee set down her comb. “I don’t want to be clingy.”
“You have a right to know.” Ronnie was indignant. “You’re in a serious relationship, not some fling. You should know everything.”
CeeCee flopped down on her bed. “He seems … kind of distant all of a sudden,” she said.
“CeeCee.” Ronnie sat next to her. “You’ve given him the idea you’re his, no matter what. It’s really time you act like other guys are interested in you. And that you’re interested in them. You’ve got to let him know he can’t take you for granted.”
“I don’t want to pretend I’m interested in someone else,” she said. “I just want Tim.”
She was surprised when tears filled her eyes. It was easy to imagine how she would feel if she lost him, because that was currently her biggest worry. How were they going to continue their relationship with him in hiding? She’d raised the issue a few times since their meeting with Marty, and each time he would hold her close, reassuring her that they would work it out.
“It’s too good between us to just throw it away,” he’d say. If she pressured him for details, he’d get annoyed. “I don’t know the specifics, CeeCee. I don’t even know where I’m going to end up yet. You’ll just have to trust me on this.” She did trust him, but she’d never been comfortable with uncertainty.
He told her that the breakup had to be public. “Did you take drama in high school?” he asked one night as he drove her home after a movie.
She shook her head. “Did you?”
“Yes,” he said. “So I figure, I’ll pretend I’m really pissed at you for something.” He glanced at her with his full-lipped smile. “I can’t imagine what you could do to piss me off, though.”
“I told Ronnie I thought you were interested in someone else.”
“Brilliant!”