Chapter 3: Chapter Three—Swayze

The high-school sitter, Briana, jumped up from her spot on the couch half asleep, worry and heavy eyes on her young face. “You’re home early,” she said. “Ryker has been asleep for a while.”

I couldn’t think about what she told me because fear had taken over my body. I didn’t even remember getting into my car and driving home. “Listen—I need you to help me pack Ryker’s things while I start getting the necessities.”

“What? Is something—”

“Just do it,” I shouted.

She cringed, but I didn’t have enough time to apologize. I frantically went through my closet looking for bags, suitcases, anything to gather all my clothes and necessities. I could hear Ryker crying from the end of the hallway as Briana woke him. In my mind, I only had thirty minutes before he’d show up, and I needed to be out of town by then. “Do you want summer clothes—”

“Everything!” I shouted, tears coating my face. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. He’d been lying there so lifeless on the pavement, his eyes open, staring up at nothing.

My own husband. My person. My other half. He was dead.

Then I saw him, looking at me from the corner of the alley. I’d been in shock for what seemed like ages before he walked toward me, and all I could think to do was run.

I ran in my heels from our monthly night out. He’d gone out to the car—and hadn’t come back. I felt something sick in my stomach, sitting there at the table waiting for him.

All I could see replaying in my mind was my husband lying on the ground, dead, with his eyes wide open. Guilt built in my belly, suffocating my throat as I drove home. Leaving him lying there had been the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, but I knew Ryker would grow up without a mother if I hadn’t, and the man that killed him would still be free.

I tried to shove back the images of his face in the shadows watching me stare down at my life, my haven, the only person that had ever made me feel safe.

Ryker walked into my room, rubbing his eyes and crying for me to pick him up, drawing me away from my memory, but I couldn’t make eye contact, I couldn’t spare a second. He was only fourteen months old, and uprooting him wasn’t the plan, but plans change. Things change. People change…

Within fifteen minutes, I had everything I could shoved into my random Victoria’s Secret bags and into the trunk of the cab.

Briana stood wordlessly at the door, hands interlaced in front of her, as I handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “We’re leaving; please do not tell anyone anything you know about this.” I could only imagine what my friends would do once they realized I bailed, or the rumors that would surround my husband’s death and my disappearance.

But I knew better than to stay because I wouldn’t make it long enough to tell the police the truth. He’d come for us, too.

She frowned, looking at Ryker before kissing his cheek. “I won’t see y’all again, I guess?”

“No,” I said. “Go straight home, and do not talk to anybody. Okay?”

She nodded.

“Do not tell your parents about this, or friends. This needs to stay quiet.”

She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Okay. Bye, Demi.”

“Bye, Briana.”

I hurried us to the taxi, looking up and down the abandoned street, but only the streetlights and empty sidewalks were there. “The bus station, please.”

I watched my home, my car, and life fade away from the back window as we drove out of Georgia and toward—I had no idea where. It wasn’t until we made it to the bus station and I chose a random city that I saw him.

Standing on the corner, watching us ride away on the bus, knowing exactly where we were headed. His bright, blue eyes were the only thing I could focus on until he smiled—it was evil, cruel, and something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

I’d never forget those blue eyes and would never be able to run away from them. Leaving my dead husband behind would lead the cops toward me, but I had no choice. If I stuck around, I’d be dead before they could prove I was innocent.

She woke with a start, sitting up in her full-sized bed, her back stiff from the mattress she paid twenty dollars for at a flea market somewhere in the next town over. She was sure it probably had fleas itself. It’d almost been left behind, if it hadn’t been for the kind, old man that offered to carry it in the bed of his truck while giving them a ride.

The moonlight cascaded into her bedroom, illuminating Ryker asleep beside her, safe and sound. She wiped his sweaty, blond bangs from his forehead and looked around the dark room, letting her eyes adjust.

She pulled the sweaty strands of hair from the back of her own neck and sighed.

It hadn’t been the first nightmare to wake her from her sleep, and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last. It’d taken a year for her to fall asleep on her own without medication, which she saw as a step in the right direction.

Maybe Pine Valley wasn’t the horrible place she’d thought it was. Of course, there was Montgomery King who didn’t know how to take a hint. Pine Valley could be her redo—hopefully. She’d learned from her mistakes in the past towns, knowing who to trust, how to stay out of the public eye. Changing her identity and being able to work had been difficult at first.

She’d never been someone to know how to break the law easily. It’d taken her three towns before she’d found someone to set her up with a fake life. Swayze Miller. Twenty-six years old.

Before Swayze had worked at odd jobs that required manual labor and little information.

Peeling the sheets from her sweaty legs, she walked toward the small kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. Running from someone in your nightmares felt just as bad for her throat as doing it in real life.

She’d vaguely let thoughts of home run through her head during the day, but most of the time she didn’t because it hurt too much. Her mother had passed away of lung cancer five years before, and she left behind her memory and the hope that her children could survive without her.

Her mother was a single mom after her biological dad split shortly after she was born.

Swayze watched her shadow dance along the walls as she walked back to her room, putting her half empty glass of water on the nightstand before slipping back into bed with Ryker.

There were too many skeletons in her closet for her to ever move on completely.

But she would try because her son’s sanity relied on her.

Everything was always on her.

She didn’t need anyone else’s help or concern. Swayze would provide for her son like her mother had for her children.

She just hadn’t realized it would be that hard.

***

Swayze walked into the restaurant for her opening shift fifteen minutes late. Dobbs hadn’t made it in yet. Only Oscar was there preparing for the breakfast rush that would start shortly.

“Sorry, Oscar,” she hollered from the front. “Ryker threw a ten-minute tantrum as we were leaving this morning. He didn’t want to wear the shoes he had on—”

“It’s okay, sister,” he said in broken English. “Hurry before Dobbs gets here. I clocked you in already.”

“Thank you,” she said. Swayze started getting her morning menus in their place and counted down the register from the night before. She straightened the flyers for the parade coming up soon. Apparently, it was a thing for Megan’s staff to walk in the Founder’s Day parade wearing their uniforms and dancing to some popular song.

She’d asked Dobbs if she could skip it but got a rude “no” in return. It was just what she needed, to prance around in some small-town parade and waste her time.

The Sweenys’ BMW pulled up the same time Dobbs’ rundown Buick swerved in. Swayze cursed underneath her breath as she tied her apron around her waist.

It was a Sweeny morning, which meant she’d be walking on pins and needles for the next two hours because believe it or not, that was how long it took Mrs. Sweeny to properly judge and complain about her waitressing skills.

“Good morning,” she greeted them as they walked in as a group.

Dobbs waved at her, almost dismissively, and walked the couple over to their usual spot. Swayze looked back over her shoulder at Oscar, who lifted a heavy eyebrow at her and grinned. He didn’t speak much, but he had a way of relaying his feelings on his face, and she took solace in knowing she wasn’t the only person who could see right through these people.

Dobbs gave Swayze a warning glare as he dropped them off at their table. Gathering herself, she walked over to take their order, already knowing exactly what she wanted.

“Coffee, please,” Mrs. Sweeny said before Swayze had a chance to ask. “And he’ll have the same.”

Swayze smiled tightly. “Be right back.”

Swayze greeted a few more tables, trying to get as many as she could before Tonya made it in at 10:30. She’d been there the longest and thought everything should be given to her.

But Swayze had become accustomed to sucking it up as her momma called it when it came to problems. If she cried about everything that went wrong, she’d be swimming in her tears for the rest of her life.

By the time 10:20 hit, the place was packed, and she had enough tip money in her pocket to get them a couple days’ worth of food and to pay Lena for keeping Ryker.

Swayze placed her last ticket order in the window for Oscar, who wiped his eyebrow playfully and grinned at her.

“Swayze!”

Dobbs stood at the Sweenys’ table with the same disappointed look on his face. She guessed she could be thankful for Dobbs. She’d never had a father figure growing up, so his disappointment made up for the loss in high school.

“Yes,” she said.

Dobbs made a gesture toward her shirt.

She glanced down, thinking maybe she had forgotten to wear an undershirt and you could see her bra. Or hell, maybe she’d forgotten the bra. It wouldn’t be the first time since Ryker was born that she had. “What is it?”

Mrs. Sweeny snorted, glancing out of the window past her sleeping husband.

“Your attire is not appropriate. You have food on it.”

Swayze considered going in the back to grab something to dig the wax out of her ears because surely he didn’t complain about food being on her shirt? She worked in a restaurant; of course, there was food on her clothes.

“Did you miss that I’m a waitress and work with food?”

Dobbs’ cheeks puffed out in aggravation. “Mrs. Sweeny said you had something yellow on your shirt when she got here, and she was the first customer. We work very hard to be presentable here.”

Yeah, the skimpy attire really hit that on the head.

Why did Mrs. Sweeny have Dobbs by the balls? Did they have some sort of affair going on behind Papa Sleeps-A-Lot’s back?

Swayze looked down at the stain on the bottom of her shirt, her apron almost covering it up, and felt herself go hot all over.

Ryker had had a banana for breakfast, and during his ten-minute tantrum that morning, had rubbed his banana hands all over her shirt. She was actually shocked that there wasn’t more.

“My son did this,” Swayze whispered to Dobbs. “He had a meltdown today—”

“That’s no excuse.”

“Do you have children, Dobbs?”

She already knew the answer because she couldn’t think of one female that she’d ever met that would give Dobbs the time of day. “No…”

“It’s very hard to have a three-year-old by yourself. I’m trying—”

Mrs. Sweeny cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry, Swayze, but a dirty uniform is against our policy. I’m gonna have to give you another strike.”

Strike two. Holding in the scream that was bursting at the seams of her throat, she swallowed hard as the door dinged opened.

She half expected to see the King brothers, one of them at least, and she prayed not together again—that had given her a headache.

Or Montgomery, because he was an expert at bad timing, but it was a young kid, maybe twenty, holding a bouquet of flowers. Her heart hit the floor in a run as he scanned the restaurant. Flowers shouldn’t make a girl want to vomit, but it did for her. The last time he almost caught them he had sent flowers to her job. Almost like it was a game to him. To give her a head’s up and watch her run with a grin on his face.

“Swayze,” Dobbs said.

“I understand,” she whispered, walking toward the counter.

Tonya walked in, making her way past the flower delivery man and toward the counter where Swayze stood. She coughed her smoker’s cough, and in her normal raspy voice asked, “Who’re the flowers for?”

Swayze had been afraid to ask, but after a few confusing minutes, the delivery man walked to the counter, looking over his small framed glasses. “Are you Swayze Sways?”

Lord have mercy. Swayze snatched the flowers from the frightened delivery man and read the card.

Sways, Please forgive me for last night. I was only trying to help.

Can we start over? Please let me take you out?

P.S. I won’t stop asking until you say yes.

Montgomery King She had started to hate everything about the man, down to the too neat handwriting. There had to be something wrong with him. Obviously, if you asked his brother, he’d tell you because there seemed to be many things wrong with Mont according to Kaden.

Girlfriend stealer being number one.

But that shouldn’t matter to Swayze.

“Humph,” Tonya said.

Swayze pressed the card to her chest, looking over her shoulder, smelling the overwhelming stench of cigarette smoke and Vaseline. She knew Tonya had been eavesdropping. She tugged and tightened her frizzy, dyed, black ponytail and then tied her apron. “How in the hell do you know Mont King? He just got back.”

“I don’t,” Swayze said.

“Seems like you do,” Tonya said, shrugging her thin shoulders before walking to the back to clock in. Swayze was tempted to throw the vase at the back of her head.

“I can’t take these,” Swayze said.

“You’re not Swayze?” he asked.

“I am, but I’m not taking these.”

He frowned. “You have to.”

She lifted a brow. “I don’t have to do anything.”

“Okay,” he said, starting a weird stare down.

Then he bolted.

Swayze grabbed the flowers and went on a rampage after him, but she stood in his dust of the delivery van when she finally made it outside. She didn’t want the flowers, so she went inside, found a few cups, and started making little vases.

Dobbs didn’t object, she assumed because the Sweenys had made a run for it after her humiliating banana incident. Surely Mrs. Sweeny would be allergic to flowers and have them removed.

Maybe Swayze would tell Dobbs to give them to Mrs. Sweeny during one of their secret rendezvous—or to shove them up his ass.

***

Swayze spent her night off with Ryker, playing outside in their dirt driveway until the sun set over them. After supper, a bath, and reading Llama Llama fifteen times, she put Ryker to bed.

She started on the dishes that had piled up from the last two days, looking at the leftover flowers from her bouquet sitting on the counter. She should have thrown them away, but they were beautiful tulips that would brighten up the kitchen.

Sighing, she finished the dishes, putting the leftover flowers in a small, plastic cup on her secondhand kitchen table.

“I can just pretend I bought them for myself,” she said to no one.

The slightest screeching of metal grinding against something drew her from her thoughts and to the locked front door. Was she hearing things? Shaking her head, she walked toward the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Her red-rimmed, puffy eyes had seen better days, and the lack of sleep with double shifts and a toddler showed on her face. She had once looked young and she thought pretty, but the situation slowly drained the life out of her.

Changing clothes, she slipped into a long T-shirt and her only pair of fuzzy socks that made the trip. With her hair in a messy bun on top of her head, she walked toward the kitchen to get a glass of water to bring with her to bed.

6:00 a.m. would come early, and it didn’t matter what time Ryker went to bed; he would be up with the birds.

Swayze made it to the living room when she heard the scraping sound again. Panic overtook her stomach, cementing herself to the floor, making each breath troublesome.

She waited, hoping she had imagined the sound, but it happened again. Walking slowly over to the door, she pulled back the curtain and looked out the window.

She waited for her sight to even out in the darkness, but nothing stood out to her, just the sound of the growing wind and the movement of the trees in the distance.

Then it happened again, the grinding sound that seemed more like scraping than the time before.

She shivered, thinking about her son asleep in her bed, so she unlocked the door and walked outside into the humid, night air.

Call her crazy, but she didn’t have anyone to call to check for her. She was the daddy that went to check on the noise. She made her way around the duplex, the sound growing as she neared the backyard. Part of her wanted to run for the hills and grab her stuff and Ryker, because in her head, it was always him.

It would always be him she thought of in the line of danger.

Pacing herself, she slowly rounded the corner, noticing her tin trash can lid as the wind moved it against the concrete around their back porch.

She let out a little sigh but jumped as a raccoon popped its head out from the can and bolted. She wasn’t above beating the thing with the lid because they scared her to death. Any animal that looked like a criminal did not need to be in her backyard.

“Geez,” she sighed.

She walked back to her front door, locking it behind her. She felt a small relief, knowing he hadn’t found them, but that didn’t mean she should let her guard down.

Because she felt if he found her this time, she might not make it out alive.