Chapter 34

1st October 2015: 23:55 pm.

Zhang called and said that he couldn’t take it any longer. It was nearly midnight and I was on the road. Who knows where Ted was, so I gave him the address of the cabin where we were holding Barbara. Zhang said that the little girl was crying. She wanted to be free.

She wasn’t the only one.

This whole thing was giving me a headache. John thought that he had a lead with the money, and I had a feeling that he had something to do with it. But then again, if he did then he wouldn’t have asked Ted to buy the servers and the software to prevent the hackers from gaining access in the first place.

Someone was up to something and it was clear that it was an inside job. They just seemed to get into the network so easily.

I was tired.

Hungry.

And extremely confused. I just didn’t need Zhang to do something silly, not until Ted had arrived and knew what was going on. I needed him to see that I was desperate to be with him. That this was our ticket out. I had no intention of harming Barbara. Far from it. I was a mother, a compassionate one. I would never hurt another child. Not after last time.

“What?” I said as soon as the phone rang. When I was in the office Zhang must have called me about five times. Now, he was just getting on my nerves.

“Where are you?”

I looked at the GPS. “It says forty five minutes away.”

“Why didn’t you leave when I told you to?” Li asked Zhang and he didn’t bother answering that question. He was at the flat then he was gone. Now, he was back with Barbara. Unlike him, I didn’t fly or however he got from place to place so quickly. I had to drive, and with the darkness and these bloody freeway lanes not having any lights, I wasn’t going to kill myself getting there. Luckily Michelle could stay the night. It was going to be a long night.

“Zhang I told you that I’m on my way,” I cried as he called for the sixth time.

I was about to say something else, make sure that he didn’t do anything stupid like last time, but I knew that if I even suggested or hinted at it, that would probably be the one thing that he would end up doing. I couldn’t take any chances. I needed things to go well if this thing was really to work out.

“Just make sure you are or else!”

Then he hung up the phone, and a chill went down my spine at his threat. The phone started ringing again. I should have picked it up. Answered it, but I couldn’t move. My hands were frozen on the steering well, my beamer lights were keeping me in the slow lane in my Golf and the rain was beating down so hard, I was scared that if I even changed lanes that I would skid into the oblivion.

I took a deep breath as I reached for the bottle of water. I slowed down a bit, there was no one else on the road at this time of night, especially in this neck of the woods.

I hated leaving the city, because I hated being in the countryside. It made me think of mass murderers all hiding and wanting to live in these secluded areas.

Creepy!

I couldn’t have an accident or my baby girl would be without a mother. No, I had to drive slowly; there was too much at stake.

Ted needed me.

Elizabeth wanted me.

Zhang would just have to wait, he knew that I was on my way. I needed to take my time and get there carefully. The only thing that would stop me from getting distracted was to panic. I would put on some music and thought about something else.

Anything.

Apart from this miserable day.

***

1st October 2015: 23:55 pm.

“Don’t worry, they have no reason to hold you,” Bentley said as we sat on opposite sides of the bar. I’d thought that he wasn’t going to be my lawyer. The officer had said that I didn’t have one. Yet, here he was by my side.

“If the police refuse then we have to wait for the court hearing.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “What does that mean?” I asked, not sure about all the terminologies that everyone was coming out with. I’d never had any trouble with the police. I watched The Bill, The Good Wife, but for some reason, watching TV shows was completely different to what was happening in real life.

“It means that you will be locked up for a while.”

I shook my head, “But Barbara’s out there. I just don’t know what to do being locked up in here.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” he reassured me, but I could tell that something else was on his mind. “Besides both Will and Ted are looking for her right now. I’m sure that they can do more than you could if you were out.”

I laughed at the idea. It was the best joke that I had since being locked inside her like some caged animal.

“Will and Ted. You’ve got to be joking?”

The last time that they had been together was back in college when I had told Will that I was marrying Ted. I knew that I’d broken his heart back then, but the idea of not spending my life with Ted felt unthinkable. Looking back in hindsight, I was blind and stupid back then. I never should have married Ted. I never should have believed that he was anything but a cheating, lying excuse of a man.

“In a crisis, they’ve come together. Now, let me talk to the man in charge and get you out of here.”

“Okay,” I whispered, thinking that Bentley was being optimistic. I had been here for hours. Nothing had changed, apart from the curious part as I was being led out of the room back to my cell. Something that I’d never expected.

Will and Ted working together again. That was totally unexpected. I thought that Ted wouldn’t accept Will’s help, or maybe vice-versa. I wasn’t sure. I just knew that I had to keep sane for not only Barbara’s sake, but my own too.

My mind drifted to when we were back in college; Will had known about my relationship with Ted. He knew that we were officially an item. Maybe back then he’d thought that Ted would get bored and then we’d go back to the way things were before I hooked up with Ted. I knew that after we met in the library that day, it would never be the case.

I went into the room, he was sitting in the library. I knew that he was expecting me. Six o’clock sharp would be our time to tackle the equations, something that Ted and I could never do together. We would get distracted. I looked at the tables full of students talking and the majority of them just socializing. Taking selfies before they sat down. I never understood why you would need to take a selfie in a library? Then again, sometimes I felt that I wasn’t as hip as the rest of the students.

I smiled and waved with only one person on my mind. Will.

Ted had proposed, he said that when we had our final exams next month then we would start planning our wedding. It was a romantic night. He did everything that he was supposed to do. Ted had prepared a picnic under the moonlight on the hill. A violinist and Ted on one knee and the answer to his question was yes.

Now it was the moment of truth. I was expecting to hurt Will so badly that I thought about chickening out by not telling him face to face, but by just sending him a text or even changing my status on Facebook. I changed my mind thinking that he deserved better than that. We’d discussed it. Talked about the best way to let Will know about our love. Ted wanted to do it, after all he was his best friend. But I thought that I would do it. I would let him know that it wasn’t Ted’s blue eyes or dark hair that made me decide that he was the one. And it certainly wasn’t the riches of his family, I was a simple girl. It was the promise. It was the choice that I had made from the time that Ted had told me that he wanted me to be his. Will had never said it. Hinted maybe, but it was neither here or there. He waved at me to sit with him. The same way he did every time we met. I knew what it meant to him. As if we were on a date, alone. The only time we didn’t meet up with Ted. What it meant to me back then was the fact that he was someone I could rely on. A friend. Someone that I could tell a secret too and I knew that he wouldn’t tell a soul.

Will was my friend.

Ted was my lover, the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I didn’t beat around the bush. I sat down and said, “I’m getting married to Ted.” I thought that maybe he didn’t hear me. He just carried on looking at his notes and then he lifted his book and said, “Well, you need this to pass the exams on Wednesday.”

I asked, “Did you hear what I said?”

He nodded and said, “Just don’t expect me to come to the wedding.”

I should have asked him why not. I should have told him that I was sorry for the way things had worked out. I needed Ted. He was giving me everything that Will had never promised.

“What does this mean for our friendship?”

He got up and grabbed his things and said, “It’s gone.” I had never seen a man cry. Not even shed a tear, but for the first time since I accepted Ted’s proposal, I felt sad. There was a cloud that sat on top of me and no matter what… it never went away. I had broken my best friend’s heart and I knew that part of me was broken too and I just couldn’t figure out exactly why.

I opened my eyes to see that I was still in my cell. The guard came by and said, “You better get comfortable. It looks like you’re going to be here a while.”

I stood up thinking about Will, that he would get me out of this mess. But then I remembered Bentley’s words, he’d said that Will was with Ted. The guy that had betrayed him. They were looking for Barbara. So, being in here wasn’t be so bad. I just needed to have faith that they would be alright. After all, I’d prayed to God. I’d asked him for strength and so far he had kept his side of the bargain.

“I didn’t make bail?”

She spat out, “Taking two kids and doing God knows what with your own. No chance. Besides that, Liz—”

“Li,” I corrected her, which seemed irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I had put all the pieces together and the puzzle was so clear. She had done this. Set me up, but for what? I didn’t have a clue. Part of me didn’t care as long as Barbara was safe.

“Well, she thinks that you may harm her. So, it’s best for everyone that you just stay here.”

Everyone.

That meant anyone that wasn’t me.