Burned Gasoline (17 page)

              “What? How do you know my name? And give me…” with three short steps across the dark room he stretched out his arms to grab a hold of Nova, awake but quiet in Sarah’s arms.

              “Fuck… ouch! What the hell are you doing?”

              “Oh, my God, what is going on in here? Give me my baby!” Raylyn turned the corner and slammed her hand on the light switch bathing the room in what was almost midday sunlight, making Nova’s eyes squint.

              “Oh, my god you’re bleeding!”

Jefferson’s grabbed his lower arm tightly with his large hand trying to stop the cut to open any further.

              “One more step, and I’ll cut you too.” Sarah’s arm suddenly came up, holding the sharp tip of a box cutter. “Or perhaps, I’ll see how you’d react if I touched your skin with this, probably be like cutting through soft butter. But you’d squeal too much.” She mumbled, and ran the blade sideways across Nova’s chubby cheek.

              “NO!” Excruciating screams came from both Raylyn and Jefferson, as they stood motionless at the other side of the small room. Suddenly Jefferson turned to Raylyn, and whispered.

              “You trust me, right?”

She simply looked at him in complete shock and fear. “Please, don’t do anything stupid. Please, please.”

              He turned away from her again, and looked at Sarah, still holding not only Nova but the blade in her hands.

              “Sarah, you know that isn’t your baby, right?” Jefferson slowly pushed Raylyn behind him, to get her out of view.

              Sarah’s hands caressed Nova’s head slowly, running a long finger softly down the ridge of her nose. “She will be.”

              “No. No!” Raylyn screamed from behind his back, and it took him all his might to hold her back, and in place securely behind him in the hallway.

              “Sssh.” He turned his head slightly, motioning to Raylyn to try to compose herself.

              “She looks like me. Or I can make her just like me. Either way. She’s mine now. And I will take care of her. Don’t worry. You’re a couple, you have each other. You can make a new baby.” Sarah looked up at them with a vision clouded in sorrow.

              “Sarah. Put Nova back in her bed. She needs to stay asleep and she belongs to Raylyn. Raylyn is Nova’s mom. You realize that don’t you? You’re a smart girl.” Jeff motioned softly. Emerging his calmness over the situation. “Sarah. Are you listening? You need to put Nova back in her bed right now.”

              “I don’t need to do anything.” She answered sharply, a flash of rage hinting in her brown eyes. “You seem very calm and are far away whenever I hold her close to me like this. If I put her down in the bed, you’re going to rush in and take her away from me. I know it.”

              Jeff felt a slight tugging at the back of his shirt, and turned his head around. Raylyn was gnawing nervously on her knuckles, a screaming plea shot through her eyes. Tears fell down the side of her bleak face but she didn’t utter a single sound.

              What was he going to do? This was too delicate of a situation to make a sudden move and manhandle Sarah to the ground. She was still holding Nova tightly in her arms, and as he had no clue if she was hiding any other weapons than the sharp knife she’d just put into his arm, he didn’t want to risk Nova’s life. There had to be another way. There had to be.

              Raylyn was sinking into utter panic and despair behind his back, while Nova’s room was sheltered in Sarah’s calmness. Too much calmness for a person accused of this type of crime. Something seemed strange. It seemed like a silent stand-off between them.

              Taking a deep breath, he straightened his back.

              “Sarah, do you find me attractive?” The two women on either side of him suddenly seemed frozen in time. Both staring at him with incredulous eyes.

              “Yes.” The answer came faster than he expected. “I’ve seen you around, a lot. I do like you.” Her eyes focused on him instead of Nova still lying quiet in her arms.

              “What if I said I would choose to be with you instead of Raylyn, would you like that?” He said softly, caressing her with his eyes.

              Sarah’s eyes looked over his shoulder to where Raylyn was standing, her hand still in her mouth. The other arm grasped around her own waist, twisting her t-shirt at her side. “She doesn’t seem to like your idea though, she’s all squirmy behind you.” Using the blade of the box cutter she pointed straight at Raylyn.

              He didn’t turn back. He knew what she looked like from the tension her breath was creating to the back of his neck.

              “So, is that a yes, Sarah. Would you like us to be together?”

              Her gaze lifted from her lock down with Raylyn and she nodded quickly. “But I want Nova. Too. She’s perfect.”

              Jeff used one of his strong hands and pushed Raylyn away from him, shoved her to the other side of the doorway. Leaning against the wall, she shook her head erratically and stomped one of her feet hard on to the wooden boards of the floor. Still biting on her knuckles, she stayed quiet. Just as he had ordered her earlier.

              “So, Sarah, shall we go?” He moved himself away from the door way, creating an escape path for her and the baby. For a second she hesitated and took a second glance down in her arms where Nova was lying. “Just need a second blanket; it’s a little bit of a walk for us going back to my place. Oh, I mean,
our
place. I’ll show you the way.”

              Turning around she grabbed the knitted scarf hanging on the back of the rocking chair. The same blanket Raylyn used to cover herself with while softly rocking Nova to sleep at night.

              “Good idea, Sarah.” Jeff said agreeingly. “Thinking of the baby’s well being is important. I can help you with that. I’m good with Nova. You and I will be good together, I can feel it.”

              Sarah didn’t seem to respond, instead she put all her attention into wrapping the scarf around the baby in her arms.

              “Let’s go.” She said suddenly. Holding Nova tight to her chest she pushed passed Jeff in the door way, and eyed Raylyn pushed up against the wall outside of the room before she started her was down the stairs.

              Having Sarah already taking the short staircase down two steps at a time, Jeff quickly grabbed at his sweater hanging over the railing and pulled it over his head while starting down the stairs himself.

              “You know what to do.” He locked eyes with Raylyn before his head disappeared out of view, down to the first floor, and out the front door.

              The house turned quiet. Too quiet for a mother who should be hearing sleeping noises from her young baby at this moment. A baby that just went out the door hugged tightly to another woman’s chest. “I’m not loosing another baby.” She thought, feeling the panic raise to high alert levels inside her, just as she had felt many years ago when her early pregnancy had literally gone down the drain and she had lost the first of several pregnancy she had been so happy about.

              Her mind snapped back into reality and with her hands she pushed herself off the wall in the hallway and ran down the stairway, two steps at a time, grabbed her thick winter coat, hat and gloves, then winter boots off the bench just inside the front door and puckered up for the frosted landscape she knew was meeting her as soon as the front door opened up to the outside.               With a fast hand she moved her mother’s old landscape painting picturing the Midwest at sunrise, and grabbed the hunting rifle her mother had left her in the will as well. Hopefully some of her mother’s bravery would mix into her own blood at the moment, as she sure as hell knew she would need it. Before sliding the painting down into place she grabbed the box with the two last shots of ammunition that had been left after her mother as well. Who knew her mother was such a tough ass, and it seemed like she had to live through her mother’s strength and toughness for what lay ahead tonight.

              With the rifle locked and loaded, she pulled down the thick hat over her ears, grabbed the phone in her other hand and dialed 911.

              “911 what’s you emergency?”

              “I’m Raylyn Masterson, 53 w Wigglie Rd. White house, red barn, old Chevy parked outside. My baby daughter has been taken from her bed and I am going after the intruder, who’s with my boyfriend, into the forest behind the building.”

              “Maam, do not follow…”

              “I have a rifle. It’s loaded, and if I get a clear shot I’ll shoot.”

              “Maam, I repeat. Do not attempt to follow. The sheriff is on…”

              “I’m wearing a dark blue winter coat, and a gray hat.”

              Not waiting long enough to hear the response from the dispatcher, she pressed the end button with a firm finger and with large steps headed towards the front door. As soon as she opened it, the chilly breeze blew some snow icy snowflakes into her face, and she pulled the jacket tighter around her, and hitched the rifle higher up on her shoulder before she took the first steps out into the dark world, only lit up by the snow that had recently fallen.

              She sucked in a deep breath and whispered, hoping her words would fly across the snowy landscape and find their way into Nova’s soul. “Don’t worry love. Mommy is coming.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

              The crisp surface of the snow crunched under her boots with each step she took, pressing her foot down into the snow with great force, just making sure she moved forward in an attempt to find the way Sarah and Jeff had taken. With Sarah living not more than a few miles away she must know the trails of the woods like the back of her hand, but at least she wouldn’t be able to hide as two different pair of footprints appeared in the snow.

              “This would have been the time to have had Mollis by my side.” She mumbled quietly, wishing the friendly, soft hearted Labrador the quickest of gallbladder recoveries anyone could ever have. “You would have found them already M, and taken Sarah down without any hesitation.”

              The trees of the forest grew in tightness around her body, sometimes having her walk sideways between the thick trunks growing sharp branches hitting her in the face like icy razor blades. As one boot gave away and sunk almost the entire length of her leg into the snow below her, an eerie shriek almost tore her heart apart. Nova. With just an inkling of where the sound could have come from, she forcefully pulled up her boot from underneath the thick blanket of snow and barely made it forward without tumbling face forward into the whiteness that was silencing everything else around her.

              She heard them, the footsteps. Among the heavy snowflakes she saw him coming. Jefferson.

              “Where is she?” She heard herself yell, as he bent down to grab her arm, it was then she noticed he was bleeding from the top of his head.

              “Oh, my God, what happened to you? Where is Nova?”

              “I’ve been better, but I’ll live.” He mustered as he grabbed her arm and pulled her up from the deep snow.

              “Where is Nova? Where is my baby?”

              He’d let go of her arm and held the sleeve of his jacket to his head. “She stoned me, Raylyn. She stoned my fucking head; she cut it open, and must have taken off with Nova. I blacked out for just a few seconds and after I tried to grab at her but she must have taken that opportunity to get ahead.”

              “Let’s go.” She couldn’t listen to his story any more. It was her baby that was out there in some other woman’s arms. A woman delusional enough to think Nova belonged to her.

              The wind plastered their faces with wet flakes of white snow until they couldn’t see much anymore and decided to take shelter. She’d seen a tower moose hunter’s used when they ambushed their prey for above during one of her first hikes in the forest, but at that time she’d used a map and it had been broad day light without snow. Not like today, not in this wind. Still she ushered them forward, her motherly instinct telling her she’d rather die of exhaustion or frost bite than leave her daughter behind. She remember the tower not being more than a thirty minute walk from her house, and without looking back to see if Jefferson was still with her, she strode through the snow covered grounds, stumbling when it got uneven, ran when it was flat. Ran until she found it.

              The tower was still standing tall, hiding slightly behind the long branches of a fur. Without hesitation she slung the band holding the rifle over her shoulder and started to climb up the wooden ladder until she reached the top and pushed opened the thin, homemade door to the hut and threw herself onto a pile of rubbish. Just seconds later Jefferson tumble in, and shoved the crooked door against the blistering wind outside before he knelt down to catch his breath.

              “We have to go on.” She mumbled and started to stand, but Jefferson’s strong hand held her down.