“There’s my Katie,” he whispered.
If he only knew, he’d kill her.
Keith took one long last sip of his coffee, set it on the counter and reached for her pulling her into a firm embrace. His lips found hers, deepening into a passionate kiss. “Last night was amazing,” he whispered into her ear before releasing her and heading out the door.
Katie wrapped her arms around her waist. How long would she have to keep this up? She picked up his coffee mug and finished what remained. She waited a couple minutes, making sure he didn’t return for something he forgot.
She looked at the clock. 8:15. She had forty-five minutes before the maid came. She rushed to her bedroom, threw on a pair of blue jeans and a sweater and went to meet Ashley at a nearby convenience store.
The girls embraced. Ashley pulled from her. “Are you sure, Katie?”
Katie studied her unsettled eyes. She took her hands and squeezed them. “I have to. I can’t live like this.”
Ashley nodded. “It’s probably not going to work, but I’ll see what can be done.”
“Thank you.” Katie turned from her and made her way to the pay phone. She slipped the quarters in and called her sister’s dorm room. Hopefully, she could catch her in between classes.
“Hello?”
Katie’s heart leapt. “Shelly, can you talk?” she half-whispered as blood rushed through her body. Her hands shook, making the phone bump against her ear.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” She could hear fear in her sister’s voice.
“Shelly, I’m going to leave him.”
The other end was silent as she waited for her sister to respond.
“Shelly?”
“Katie, I’m so happy.” There were tears in her sister’s voice. “When?”
“As soon as I can figure things out. I need somewhere to go. It can’t be home, but somewhere Keith would never think of.” Her stomach turned as she remembered the brochure the priest had given her. Ashley had quickly shot the nunnery down, saying Keith’s father had too many connections in the church.
“Jeff,” her sister shouted through the phone. “He’s living with his aunt in Tarboro.”
Every part of her chilled. Jeff, the one person Keith despised most. Would it be safe? Jeff would protect her, and Keith knew nothing about Jeff’s aunt.
“I’ll talk to him tonight, and we can start planning.” Shelly explained that Jeff had dropped out of school and was helping his aunt to run a bookstore.
Katie turned to Ashley and told her what she had learned.
The girl shook her head. “It’s too close. You have to disappear – start a new life. We’ll need to get you a new identity. Maybe I can find someone to help with that.”
“But he would never guess.”
“Katie, Keith will track you down. His family has resources you can’t imagine. When I say disappear, I mean disappear. You’ll have to forget about everyone you love.”
Katie stilled. She couldn’t forget about her family – she would die without them. Besides, Keith wouldn’t hurt her. He might drag her back, but that would be it. She’d just have to take the risk. But what if.... “No, I’ll stay with Jeff.”
Ashley’s eyes widened. “Katie.”
“God will protect me.” Katie turned back to the phone. “Call him.”
Katie ran a hand over the smooth plastic cover of the license. “How did Ashley get this?” A North Carolina driver’s license bearing the name Abby Langston – the name of a child who’d died the day after she was born. This child’s birth certificate helped Katie find a new identity, and would help her find a new life. Would it work? Ashley said no one would ever know until Keith tracked her down. Katie shuddered. Ashley had no confidence that she would be able to escape, so why did she help her? That would probably remain a mystery.
Katie took the driver’s license and the new birth certificate and hid them in a place Keith never looked, a box where she kept her feminine products. She sat on the cold bathroom floor. Two more days until everything would be in order. Ashley would have the passport ready and a plane would leave from JFK airport to RDU only a few hours after Keith left for work, giving her ample time to slip out the door of their home to safety. Only two more days of making love to Keith and pretending she found pleasure. Only two more days, of smiling when he came home from work and acting happy with whatever he bought her. Just two more long excruciating days.
She crossed her legs. The room at Jeff’s aunt’s was ready. She smiled. Jeff said, he would kill Keith if he showed up. He had even begun the process to get his gun license. Two more days. She stood up as the door to their apartment opened. She walked into the living room and smiled. Keith held a book she had mentioned she liked.
“You were listening last night.” Katie walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him.
He kissed the top of her head. “I always listen,” he said, tickling her chin.
“That’s debatable.” She kissed his chest, making him suck in his breath. Two more days.
NINE
The soft clanging of bells filled her ears, making her eyes pop open. Keith reached over her and pressed it off - his skin sliding over her bare body. A yawn escaped from her lips. She had barely slept last night. Katie rolled over on her side and focused on the wall - with her eyes trailing the lavender border at the top. This would be her last morning here. Keith breathed deeply as he struggled to wake himself up. Last night was another late one.
He pushed himself up and rolled out of the bed. “I should be used to this,” he said.
She smiled and brushed his bangs out of his face. Best to keep up appearances.
Their eyes connected and Katie’s heart jumped. His eyes glittered in the early morning light, making him look like a youth. Like the boy she had fallen in love with. Would a part of her always love him?
“Jesus always said, too much sleep brings about poverty,” she said, hoping to remind him of his Bible. Maybe he would find comfort in it after she was gone.
Keith kissed her head, sending the familiar tremors through her before leaving to wash up.
She laid out his clothes, and made him coffee. Her heart tugged. She pressed down on the side of her head. Why now? All week she had despised his presence and now part of her wanted to stay and see if she could make him change. No, he wouldn’t change. He had never changed one bit for her.
Keith came into the kitchen, fully dressed for work with his coat in his hands. He drank the coffee down and reached for her, pulling her into his arms. He gave her a long, sensuous kiss that made her toes tingle.
“I can’t wait to come home tonight,” he said, before leaving.
But she could. Katie sat at the kitchen table and let the tears pour down her face, trying to purge all her emotions out. It shouldn’t be this hard. Why did her emotions conflict this much? Yes, he was being loving now, but tonight he could easily lock her in the room again with no thought. She looked around the kitchen she had shared with him for a few brief years. Over the stove hung the chicken towel he had made fun of when she bought it. He had called her a country bumpkin. She ran a hand over the blue cover mats on the table. They had picked these out together. Katie balled her hand into a fist. Things would only get worse as Ashley said. It would be best to leave before he did hit her.
She slipped the rings off her fingers and made her way to the bedroom, placing them in her jewelry box and then picked up the 8x10 wedding picture. She would bring one memory and nothing else.
Two hours later, Katie took a cab to the airport. In her hand she clutched the fake I.d. which rattled in her shaking grasp. She closed her eyes. Please God protect us. All of us and please Lord let Keith find you. Let him become the man you want him to be.
Once at the airport, she pulled a black baseball cap as far down her head as it would go. She must look like a terrorist instead of the wife of a billionaire’s son since she wore nothing but gray sweats and a small book bag was her only luggage. S
he walked up to the counter, and handed the clerk her plane ticket. The woman brushed a lock of her hair out of her face, stamped Katie’s ticket, never once looking at her I.d..
Katie took the document and smiled. Now she only had to make it on the plane and through the rest of her life without Keith catching up to her.
People bumped into her or rushed past while she waited behind a long line. She had forgotten what it was like to go through security and to have her luggage checked. Keith and she had always slipped through checks with not one person batting an eye, but now it took her three hours just to be able to board a plane.
She focused on the end of the terminal as she walked through the long blue hallway. Once she had run through one to get to Keith, jumping into his arms. His eyes had glowed that day. Her stomach turned. She needed to stop thinking of him, or she’d never be able to move on.
The sides of the plane appeared to press in on her with all the passengers crowded together. A baby cried at the back, while a man talked on his cellphone loud enough for all the passengers to hear. Katie found her seat and stretched her feet as far as she could, a mere half a foot in front of her. Her life with Keith had spoiled her. She would have to relearn how to live with just enough.
She closed her eyes and leaned back into her seat as a weight pressed upon her and her nerves began to calm down. No one had tried to stop her. The Wilkerson arm must not reach as far as Ashley thought it did. A yawn escaped from her lips. Maybe it wouldn’t be too hard to avoid him.
Katie’s eyes popped open as someone tapped her shoulder - every part of her stiffened. Keith.
A young woman with light brown short hair and an inviting smile touched her shoulder again.
“We have arrived at RDU, ma’am.”
Katie nodded. She had made it. This was too easy.
Keith walked into the apartment and dropped his briefcase. He walked to the couch and sat down, letting his body sink into the cushion. It had been another long day. The money his firm slipped around today had greased the wheels for another lucrative government contract. He turned his head to the side. Where was Katie? Usually she appeared, when he came home either with a cup of tea in her hand or a dinner plate.
“Katie,” he shouted out, but he heard no response, or feet moving in the apartment. He stood and walked to the bedroom. Maybe she was tired and had laid down. He opened the door and noticed the sheets were not disturbed. He flicked on the lights. She was not there.
“Katie,” he shouted as he opened his phone, and called hers. He listened to it ring, and then lowered it from his ear when he heard a sound from the kitchen. He went there, following the sound of the ringing. He stopped when he saw the phone on the table.
“What?” he whispered as he picked the phone off the table; catching a glimpse of white paper. He picked it up and read, “Keith, I’m fine; don’t come looking for me. Please read your Bible.”
He crumbled the note in his hand as a deep heat spread throughout him. She was nowhere around. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Stay calm. You can bring her back. He flipped her phone opened and pulled up Shelly’s number.
It rang several times, but no one answered. He dialed it again, but this time, he left a message. “Shelly, if she’s with you, have her call me.” Keith closed the phone and brought it to his lips, slightly banging it, even though he wanted to fling it across the room.
He picked his phone up and called Arther.
“Hello.”
“Katie’s gone!”
“Son?”
“She’s gone! She left me a note!”
“Katie left you! Check the accounts; she probably wiped them clean.”
“Got ya.” He hung up the phone and went to the office, turning on his computer. The light reflected against a stack of bank cards. He picked them up and dropped them one by one. She had left every single one she owned.
He pulled up his accounts. There was not one withdrawal. Maybe he could close them, but then if she withdrew something he would know where she was. He picked up her phone and called her parents, but no one answered. “Hey Mr. Morris, if Katie is with you could you please call me? We had a spat and I just want to apologize.” He closed the phone.
“Why did she do this?” He laid his head on his hands. “She was happy.” Keith jumped to his feet and knocked the computer screen onto the floor, making it break open. “She fooled me.”
TEN
Keith walked into his father’s office, sat down in front of his desk and glared at him. He didn’t want this conversation, but best to get it over with. His father would help him get her back and then make her stay. He had done it once before with his mother. Now, Keith understood the anger that had pushed his father to reclaim his wife. His mother should have stayed. All she had to do was listen. Just like Katie should have.
His father leaned back into his seat – his white dress shirt stretched with his movements. His eyes narrowed contrasting with the full smile. “So she left you. I told you to have Sullivan keep an eye on her,” his father said. “But you wanted no one looking at your wife, but you.”
Keith’s father’s lips curved in a smirk. He was mocking him.
Keith folded his hands in his lap. He wouldn’t respond to his mockery, letting him see how each word fueled the heat boiling in him.
“Did she wipe out the accounts?”
“She took nothing.”
Mr. Wilkerson raised his eyebrows. “Nothing?”
“Not one penny.”
“Did you call the airlines?”
Keith leaned his head into his hand, pushing down. “Yes, and there was no plane ticket anywhere under her name. I even checked her maiden name.”
“She’s been planning this.”
He looked to the side. “She must have.”
“Someone didn’t talk to her, did they?”
Keith banged the table. “She doesn’t know anything,” Keith said through clenched teeth.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find her and bring her back.”
“What if she ran off with a guy?”
“I’ll still bring her back. She’s mine!”
Mr. Wilkerson chuckled. “That’s my boy. You are almost there.” His father looked back at the papers on his desk. He had been dismissed with not one word of advice. Apparently, he would have to figure this out on his own.
Keith stood and walked out of the office. He went to a small office where an intern sorted through a stack of legal documents. He dropped Katie’s phone in front of him.
The intern looked up at him. “Sir, can I help you?”
“Call everybody in this phone and find my wife. Say you’re a friend who is looking for her. And tell no one.”
The intern nodded and picked up the phone.
Keith went to his office and sat behind his desk, looking at the rows of manila folders. He picked up a pencil, grabbed a yellow notepad and wrote, Where could Katie have gone? He traced the name over several times. Marvin would do a good job calling her friends. The young man, a few years younger than him, had already proven he had a sly hand and knew that nothing went beyond the Wilkerson’s law office doors. His father was already grooming him to be one of the firm’s top lawyers.
“Mr. Wilkerson.”
He looked up and noticed the intern had walked in and shut the door. “I called the first person on the list Shelly, and well she knew I was working for you.”
“She did?”
“Yes, sir, she said for you to leave Katie alone.”
“That is where she’s at. Don’t you think?”
“If I had to guess sir. Yes.”
“Call the other people on the list, and tell me what you find out.”
The intern nodded and walked out of the room. Keith turned to his computer and pulled up their bank account info. The balances still had not changed. He shook his head. Why hadn’t she taken anything?
Shelly and Katie lay on the bed at Jeff’s. Nei
ther wanted to move, but just hold each other. Jeff sat at their feet, with his hands gripped together. The childhood friends now stood as one, waiting to face the challenge ahead together. Katie buried her face into the black cotton of her sister’s shirt. She didn’t want to face this challenge. Shelly had left their parents a note, in their mailbox, telling them not to talk to Keith, but to please meet them at Jeff’s. They were expecting them soon, and as every hour passed, the more Katie’s nerves unraveled. She didn’t know how to tell her father that the man he called his son was an abusive control freak.
The sound of a knock on the door made Katie squeeze her sister tighter. Jeff stood from the bed and walked to the front door.
“Hello, sir,” he said.
She flinched at the heavy clumps of their father’s footsteps. Her parents were here.
Katie sat up when the door to the room opened and her father walked in, with her mother behind him. Something sharp pierced through her heart. She would give anything to make things how her father believed them. He loved Keith as much as she once had.
“Hey baby,” he said as he sat on the bed, and gave her a hug. He pulled her from himself. “Did you and Keith have a fight?”
His eyes looked soft as if he waited to soothe her. How could she fight this? Katie looked at her sister and lost it - the tears poured down her face in unending streams. She reached for her and pulled her into her arms - hoping her sister would battle for her. Any strength she might have had, had long been demolished by Keith.
Her father caressed her back. “Katie, all couples grow through rough times.”
Shelly shook her head. “Mama, he’s horrible to her.”
A gasp that must have come from her mother filled the room.
“Katie.” Mr. Morris ran his fingers down her hair – the touch just made her tenser. “I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be worked out.”