Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(33)

He reached for her, putting his arm around her back, pulling her closer, trying to warm the chill that probably started deep inside her. “This voice told you to run.”

“Fast and far. I wanted to get…away.”

“So it’s not your life on the lam with Aunt Pasha that makes you so impossible to hold.”

“I have to have an escape route,” she admitted. “In fact, I kind of freak out if I don’t have a way out of…anything.”

Anything like a relationship, a permanent hometown, even her friendships. Very slowly, threads of that tapestry that was Zoe started to form a picture.

“Life with Pasha just magnified that trait,” she said. “First, Pasha was my escape hatch, then that lifestyle felt normal. I know anyone hearing this, even close friends, will have a hard time understanding that, but it’s true.”

He tried to imagine that life but couldn’t. Not that he couldn’t imagine how she had lived that way, but why? “Why not try to change the situation? Why run? Why not fix it?”

“I’m not the fixer you are, Oliver. I’m the runner, remember?”

“But why didn’t you report the guy to the social service people who checked on you?”

She shook her head as if the question was crazy. “You don’t understand. The other girl threatened me.”

“She threatened you?”

She lost the battle not to drink, picking up the glass and gulping. “It wasn’t rape. She wanted to have sex with him, and in return she got stuff: clothes, money, drugs. She was his favorite, and it worked for her. I had to shut up and cover my ears, always, always under that pillow.”

He tried to imagine the suffocating feel of the bedding, the sounds, the horror for a little girl, and it turned his stomach.

“But I listened to that voice,” she said quickly, as if she were more concerned about how he felt right then than the memories. “The voice would soothe me. The voice told me what it would be like when I ran, when I was safe, when I could roll around beautiful green hills or even fly.” She smiled wistfully. “I wanted to fly so much. And not a plane, although I had to take those flying lessons, too, but I wanted to float.” She closed her eyes and sighed the word. “Just go up and away and hear silence. That was my greatest fantasy. A quiet, far away balloon has always been my happy place.”

“So Pasha helped you?” he asked.

“That summer, foster * guy lost his job and he was home all the time with that girl.” She closed her eyes. “They…did stuff all the time. So during the day I spent every possible moment with Pasha.”

“Did you tell her what was going on at your house?”

“No, I was too scared. But she knew something was wrong, because she read my palm.”

“And figured it out?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice.

“She saw the fingernail gouges from me digging into my own hands.” She gave a wry smile. “Say what you will about her fortune-telling skills, the woman is intuitive as hell, and she recognized a kid who was getting progressively more f*cked up as the days went by.”

“Is that why she took you?”

Zoe shook her head, kicking her feet in the water to make waves again. “That girl, the fostertute, as I liked to call her, got taken away. There was some trouble or something. The state services person was on the take, I think. I don’t know. I was too young to understand it, but when she was gone, I knew I’d be next.”

More unholy heat blasted through him. “What happened?”

She turned, her eyes dark with pain. “He managed to corner me and…try. Got his hand down my pants and his tongue down my throat.”

He buckled a little like he’d been shot. “You were ten?”

“He liked ’em young, doc.”

Bile rose in his throat. “What did you do?”

She almost smiled. “What do you think?”

“Ran?”

“After I bit his f*cking tongue until it bled and slammed my knee in his nuts, yeah. I ran like hell to Pash—Mrs. Hobarth’s.” She nearly drained her glass before finishing. “And Pasha, it turned out, has a superpower. That woman can pack and disappear in less time than it takes most people to take a shower. She knew it was no use reporting that guy, and it was only a matter of time until I was his next…” She shook her head. “The voice screamed ‘Run, Zoe, run,’ and, this time, I did. With her.”

“She saved you, Zoe.”

She turned to him, her eyes wide. “Duh. Why do you think I’m so determined to do the same for her?”

“You’re covering for her by running and hiding,” he shot back. “That’s not saving her.”

She didn’t answer, turning away.

“You could argue that to any judge,” he insisted. “Or police or FBI or sheriff—”

“Stop. I would never talk to those people.”

“Or a lawyer,” he continued, undeterred. “She doesn’t have to live with this sword hanging over her head anymore. Hell, you could find that foster father and—”

“He’s dead. I’ve kept tabs on him and he died in a house fire. I hope he’s still burning.” She shuddered a little. “You have to know what Pasha did is illegal, by any stretch. She broke every law there is by using fake IDs and dead people’s Social Security numbers. She had this whole underground network of people who are all up to their asses in criminal shit.”

He thought about Pasha for a moment, about how little he knew about a woman whose life he wanted so much to save. “How’d she do it? Didn’t anyone check up on you? How did you get into schools or rent apartments or make money?”

“Pasha has money, thousands in cash, she keeps stashed in places like the freezer or—God, this is so cliché but true—under the mattress.”

“Where does it come from?”

“I really don’t know, but we never were destitute. She always found odd jobs, and then I did. Waitress, sales clerk, cleaning lady, seamstress. Whatever, until people started asking questions and then, sometimes for no reason I could figure, we’d blow out of town and move to the next place.”

“How did you get into college?” he asked.

“Miracles. Strings pulled. Pasha’s relentless determination that I get a degree. She homeschooled me and made sure I passed every test. She managed to find people who make fake IDs and create real people out of thin air. I even have a birth certificate and I do have a Social Security card. I got into the University of Florida, for crying out loud. She made that happen—it was so, so important to her that I go to college.”

She kicked her legs a few more times, the soft splash punctuating the pride in her voice. “But that’s just the story of what happened, Oliver. That’s not the story.”

He gave her a questioning look, not following.

“What I mean is, that’s not who or what my Aunt Pasha is made of. She saved me, yes, and maybe what she did was illegal and wrong in the eyes of the law, but she sacrificed her entire life for me, too. She’s my friend, my confidante, my mother, my sister, my soul mate. She would die for…” She dropped her head into her hands. “But I don’t want her to.”

He settled her against him the way her pain settled on his heart. “We’ll do everything possible and more,” he promised.

“Can you save her life?”

He inched her around to look at him. “Zoe, I will do everything in my power and in the power of my team to save this woman who saved you. You have my word.”

She inched back. “There’s a ‘but’ coming.”

“There is,” he acknowledged. “I’ll save her if I can, but what will you do with that life if we save her?”

She didn’t answer.

“Zoe, I can see the agony in your eyes and practically hear that voice in your head.”

“Yeah? What’s it saying?”

“Take the easy way. Run, hide, and avoid the trouble. Protect yourself and Pasha and don’t take any chances.”

She gave him a slow smile. “You can hear that voice in my head?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Then why don’t you do what it’s screaming at you to do?”

He leaned closer, wrapping both arms around her. “This?”

“You must be stone deaf.” She put her hands on his face and brought his mouth to hers. “Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me. Hear that now?”

He did, and it was music to his ears.





Chapter Twelve

Heat like she’d never felt before rose up from deep, deep inside her, burning a hole in her chest and making her want to scream with the need to relieve it. And yet Pasha’s whole body was chilled.