CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

The Argonauts

The guys I was with didn't play games and they drove us directly to the compound. This time, I was not taken through the break room or the garage. I was brought to the front facade, which had had some construction since the last time I had seen it. It was built to impress with large cement steps and overly large windows letting in the western sunset.

After I barked some choice words at the guys in the van about my injury, they brought me a stretcher and carried me in with several other men who were wounded or dead. It was hard to tell if they were dead since they weren’t screaming and swearing the way I was.

My first stop was their sick room, which was completely unprepared for the slaughter they brought home with them. Christian and Brandon were good shots. It didn't take the doctor a minute to flip me on my stomach, cut my shirt and bra up the back and cover me with gauze. He instructed them to take me to a private room prepared for me. He would be up as soon as he could to stitch the wound shut.

On the third floor, I lay on a bed on my stomach and pulled at my chain. I was handcuffed to the rail. The room I was in was stupid. White feather duvet? Please. I was toying with the idea of taking off my bandage and rolling around on the cover to stain it red, when someone came into the room.

“Who's there?” I asked like it was the last thing in the world that mattered.

“It's me,” Charles said, doing me the courtesy of entering my field of vision.

I greeted him icily. “Does my slap still hurt?”

“Yes,” he said. I felt his hand on my back as he pulled back the gauze to see my injury. I felt his eyes linger on my bare skin and the parts of me that should have been covered by my shirt.

“Get away from me,” I hissed.

“This could have been avoided if you'd just let me talk to you and explain things,” he said, mumbling and confusing his sounds.

“Shut up. Kindly replace my bandage.”

I felt it drop.

He sat down on the floor next to the bed with his back to the wall. “I thought you might like some company while you waited for the doctor.”

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t need to say I would prefer anyone to him because my expression said it for me.

“If it helps, I could pretend to be someone else. You really seem turned on by that—duplicity,” he said the words as if he'd finally managed to say something smart.

“I can wait alone.”

“Would you like to hear why Christian was pretending to be me?”

My breath caught and betrayed me. I did want to hear.

“Your father tried to contact me after the first summer I worked at Christian’s home in Belfron. Christian intercepted it and went to visit Lance in Toronto in order to tell them off in my place. He had a fake passport made with fake numbers and everything. That was the exact moment you had your hissy fit and ran away from school. They got footage of him kissing you (in my place) in front of your school. They tried to contact me again, but went through a different channel and got me—the real me. I didn’t know who you were, but they showed me the video of a man who looked just like me kissing you. Did you know it was Christian you were kissing?”

I groaned. “Of course, I knew.”

“Pervert!” Charles scorned, denouncing Christian so violently it made my fillings rattle.

“I think you’re the pervert. You saw that video and thought it should have been you I saw kissing?” I ridiculed. “You watched all that video footage of me and you think Christian is the one who is wrong?”

His lip quivered as he tried to think up a retort.

“You spied on us through windows and decided he was the monster?”

Charles didn’t answer. That was how he felt.

“Because of that, he sent me away. What he and I had was none of your business and for what you did, I hate your guts.”

He got up and for a moment, I thought he was going to leave as I asked, but instead, I felt him lean on my back. The pressure felt good. “Will you remember I did this for you?”

I refrained from snorting, and retorted, “Still trying to score points with me?”

He hesitated. “Maybe.”

“Hello, Bethany,” the doctor said cheerfully when he came in. He strode over to my side of the bed and seemingly unaware of my metal restraints, introduced himself. “I’m Dr. Hilliar.” He had painfully straight teeth, cheeks so round he almost looked boyish and hair two shades off pure white. His wrinkles fanned out from his eyes and mouth. “I’m your father’s doctor," he explained.

“Oh, you were in charge of bringing him back from the dead. Very impressive,” I said, my voice laced in toxicity.

“Not at all,” he said with a grin like he knew how to take a joke. His eyes twinkled like the glint of his teeth. He was an extremely dangerous man, and now he was going to touch me. I felt my whole body involuntarily quake.

“Let's have a look at your back, shall we?” he said as he donned a fresh pair of latex gloves and removed my gauze. “That's a nasty-looking cut.” Charles was soon setting out items from the doctor's bag. My wound was soon wetter and felt fresh. “That was an antiseptic,” he explained. “Here’s the anesthetic.”

I felt the prick of a needle. Soon afterward, I was under a magnifying glass while Dr. Hilliar pulled fragments of glass from the wound.

“Do you think you'll be able to get it all?” I asked, through sweat and set teeth.

“Yes. We'll get it all. We just need to be thorough,” he said patiently.

“Don’t you have other patients to see in worse shape than me?” I wondered aloud. “There were quite a few wounded men that came in with me.”

“It’s good of you to be worried about them. I’m not the only doctor on site. There are others to care for them.” Then he started stitching. “We'll have to do more than one layer. Those will dissolve and then the ones on the outside will need to be removed later. How are you feeling? How’s the anesthetic working for you?”

I was not in a great deal of pain. The wound looked worse than it felt. The tricky part was staying still when I wanted to run. “It’s fine,” I said.

He began stitching. With such a long cut, the stitching would be time-consuming. The only moment of interest was when I heard him smack his lips and say, “You have such beautiful tissue in your back.”

I thought of a few scathing replies but kept my mouth shut. However repulsed I was by him, I needed him to finish.

As he stitched, I thought back to when I heard that my father and mother had died. Their funeral had been in Toronto, and I had been too sick to travel. I didn't see them die or see their bodies in their coffins at the funeral. It was shameful how little I had thought about him or my mother since Christian had taken charge of me. But what should I have thought? I didn’t miss them, because I didn’t know them. Once they were dead, they just sort of fell out of importance in my mind. Except now I was going to meet my dead father.

Afterward, Charles appeared in the doorway with a fresh nightgown and slippers for me, and I glared at him wondering how I was going to change with my hand handcuffed to the bed.

Doctor Hilliar got a call on his phone, something about one of the other patients, and he swept through the exit, leaving me alone with the last person I ever wanted to be alone with.

I sat up and put my free hand out. “I think I can manage it myself.”

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He frowned. “I realize you don't like it, but you are completely unable to put your arm through the sleeve if I don't unlock you.”

I didn't say anything and instead concentrated on keeping what was left of the front of my shirt pinned to my chest. He sat down next to me on the bed and took my wrist between his fingers.

I knocked his hand aside. “You may unlock my handcuff. I will not run and you will leave the room while I change. If anything else other than this happens, I will kill you.”

His expression was amused. Who knew how many times he had seen me undressed? If he got one good clip, all he had to do was hit play again. He had even made recordings of me himself in Scotland. He laughed because it was too late for me to keep anything sacred.

I tried again. “Whatever you people want from me, this is the worst way in the world to get it. Let me put on my own clothes.”

Apparently, that convinced him. He undid the locks and reluctantly left the room. Before he left he casually glanced at two places on the walls: a vent and a framed picture. Undoubtedly, that’s where the cameras were planted. Between the two places, there were no blind spots in the room. Hefting myself stiffly off the bed, I ambled over to the picture frame. I found the camera behind the glass. With a great amount of effort for a girl with a back injury, I pulled it off the wall and leaned the picture facing the wall. Then I tugged a pillowcase free and hung it over the vent.

Only then, did I change. The nightgown was white and hardly constituted more than a shirt, barely covering my butt. I left my jeans on, even though they were blood-stained. There was a housecoat too, that was so meager in fabric it was practically a hoodie, but it was stupid too and barely covered my elbows.

I carefully lowered myself onto the bed and enjoyed the pressure of my own body on my back, but I didn't have the energy for much more.

I was still like that when Dr. Hilliar returned. He glanced around the room, noticing the changes I had made, but refrained from commenting. “It's great to finally meet you, Beth. Your father has been in my care for almost seven years. He never fully recovered after the accident. Did you know he is confined to a wheelchair?”

“No,” I said blankly.

“He’s waiting just outside. Do you have any questions for me before I ask him to join us?”

I considered what he said. “When do you think I'll be able to get my stitches out?”

“We'll play it by ear, shall we?”

“Then, by all means, let him in.”

The door was automatic and my father wheeled forward. He looked the same as I remembered him. Perhaps there were a few more wrinkles, but it had to be him. Hanging out with Christian and Brandon had taught me to look for other identifiers and even though I couldn't capture his height with him sitting in a chair, his hands were the same as I remembered. His hair was immaculately groomed, the same as it had always been with not a single hair falling out of place.

“Hello, Bethany,” he said.

“Hello, Dad,” I said, my own voice sounding strange to me. “I want you to know that I take exception to this invitation. Kidnapping your own daughter? What do you want?”

“After all these years, this is how you say hello?”

“You want me to get up and swoon over you after the good doctor here just finished putting over four hundred stitches in my back?”

“Was it over four hundred?” my dad mouthed.

“I didn't count,” he muttered.

“Well, I was counting and it was over four hundred. So, no, I don't imagine this is the reunion you imagined. I thought this day would never come because I thought you were dead. Silly me!”

He rolled his eyes. “I guess Christian didn’t teach you to be respectful.”

“Christian was hardly around. He didn’t teach me anything except how to use a debit card. Did you go to boarding school? Do you know how attentive they are toward each and every child? So much more efficient than parents! You bastard! You were alive all this time and you choose to contact me now, when I’m an adult?”

“I had my reasons,” he said grimly.

“Which I would undoubtedly find fascinating… if I were still fourteen. You brought me here because you want something from me. Let’s avoid the mushy crap sandwich where you explain how difficult your circumstances were only to top it off with some pretty promises you never plan on fulfilling.”

He frowned. “I guess you haven’t had an easy time either.”

“Don’t act like you care what I’ve been through,” I snapped. “I have been let down and ignored and neglected until absolutely nothing you say could have the least effect. Just tell me what you want.”

He smiled. “I want you to stay with me for a few weeks.”

“Like hell, I’ll do that. In case you haven’t seen a calendar lately, it’s September in two days. I have classes. I have work, and I am really not willing to take a break from either of those things for you.”

“I’ll compensate you,” he said, reaching into the inner pocket of his suit coat for his checkbook.

“Put that away. I don’t take checks.”

“Cash?” he asked, looking hopeful.

“You don't get it. I don't want money. There are only two things in this world I want. First, I want you to drive me home and end this madness.”

“What's the second thing?”

I clenched my teeth. “To never see Christian Henderson again as long as I live.”

He leaned back in his wheelchair and stroked his chin. “What a surprise! Charles thinks you're still quite enamored with him.”

“Charles thinks I must be in love with Christian because I hate him differently than I hate all of you.”

“Ah, Bethany. You can’t trick me into believing you aren’t interested in the whole story of Christian Henderson.”

I grit my teeth and flicked my eyes away, irritation radiating from me. “There’s no trick. His reasons for abandoning me matter about as much as yours. Whatever the reasons were, I’m not interested. I got over you and I got over him. Just like that.”

He put his hand back on the armrest of his wheelchair and drew his eyebrows together. “What has happened to you? I would never have believed that a daughter of mine could be so jaded. Where's the Coldwell optimism?”

“Losing both your parents at a young age can make you forget whatever they wanted you to remember most.” I met his eyes crossly.

“And you don’t believe I just want to spend time with you?”

“I don’t care what you want. I don’t want to spend time with you. If you don’t take me home immediately, I’m going to report you to the police for kidnapping me at gunpoint.”

Dr. Hilliar and my father exchanged looks.

“Aren’t you a little worried about what might happen if you get kidnapped by Henry Brandon again?” my father suggested.

I snorted in the ladylike way Felicity-Ann had taught me. “Yeah, he's terrifying.”

“What about this, daughter?” my dad said as he showed me a print out of the letter Brandon sent him.

I wasn’t surprised. Looking at it, it was exactly what Brandon told me he was doing, except that the part about exchanging his tongue had been replaced with some nonsense about money.

I shrugged my shoulders and dropped the letter on the floor like I couldn’t wait to stop touching it.

“Oh, Bethany,” he sighed, retrieving the letter and putting it back in the pocket on the side of his wheelchair. “You are more innocent than I supposed. There’s no doubt about it. You were being held as a hostage. We rescued you. I just want you to stay here until things with Henry Brandon are settled, so he can’t use you as a hostage. I can’t let you leave. So, even if you call the police after we free you—that’s fine. I just want my little girl to be safe.”

I knew it was going to come down to that. I couldn’t leave no matter what. “Give him back his tongue and he’ll leave everyone alone.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he said, pretending to be too out of the loop to understand the latest slang.

I glared at my dad. “Do you have anybody else locked up, or will I be the only one?”

“You’re not going to be locked up,” he said cheerfully. “You are our guest. Lobster tails and something bubbly?”

That was the kind of food I used to like, long ago, when I was a kid and money was in everything, even in the food.

“I’ve hired a chef,” he continued. “You’ll be well taken care of.” He moved to roll out.

I glanced at Dr. Hilliar. He was unsatisfied. My father looked unhappy too, but not ready to give up. Charles looked like he was finally about to get what he had been working for all along.

“Dad, I’ll be pleasant… ish, if you can give me one thing,” I volunteered.

He blinked, surprised. “What is it?”

“You’ll keep that,” I said, pointing at Charles, “away from me.”

The air hung heavy for a full minute, while my father decided whether or not to give in to my demand. Finally, having made up his mind, he instructed, “Charles, stand guard outside my daughter's room and please do not enter without permission, but first, pull that pillowcase off the wall and fix that picture.”

After a strangely pitiable look, Charles did as he was told.

Before my father could turn his back on me I piped up. “Why must you spy on me?”

Clearly, I’d hit the plot square on the head. My father’s expression was aghast. He didn’t have the poker face Dr. Hilliar had. “The cameras are for your safety,” he argued.

I continued. “I'm awfully tired of having a video feed of me given as a reward to low-level goons. You won't get my cooperation that way.”

My father was feeling a little panicked by this point. He said nothing about what I accused him of, but instead gave instructions. “Charles, remove the picture. Call Steven in maintenance and get him to unscrew the vent.”

I smiled at that. I was getting Skull Boy Steve. He was my favorite of the boys I had met at the compound. I felt a little like I was winning, but I couldn’t let up for a second. “I want the audio equipment removed as well. It's a violation of my privacy like I can’t go to the bathroom without a bunch of thugs listening to me flush.”

He shook his head like he had to explain something to a child. “You don't understand why we need them, but if you desire it, I'll have them removed.”

“Thank you,” I said, sounding somewhat tamed.

“He has another girlfriend, you know,” he said because he wanted to show me something I wouldn't like.

“Who does?”

“Christian.” He got out a folder. I knew what it was before he showed it to me. It was a picture of me playing blonde Jill taken from a surveillance camera. Daddy didn't know it was me!

I smirked. “Why should I care about that? He should have some blonde bombshell. I bet they make a great couple.”

He scowled in reply.

I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned. The nightmare was never going to be over.