LuAnn took his hand in hers. “I want you to take Lisa away. I want both of you to go away.”
“There’s no way I’m leaving you alone with that guy in the neighborhood. No way in hell.”
“Yes you will, Charlie, because you know I’m right. By myself, I’m okay. But if he were to get hold of Lisa . . .” She didn’t need to finish the thought.
“Why don’t you go with her and let me stay here and handle it?”
LuAnn shook her head. “That won’t work. If I leave Jackson will come looking. Looking hard. So long as I’m around, he’s not going to stray too far. In the meantime, you two can get away.”
“I don’t like it. I don’t want to abandon you, LuAnn. Not now.”
She put her arms around his burly shoulders. “My God, you’re not abandoning me. You’re going to be taking care of the most precious thing I have—” She broke off here, as Jackson’s face planted itself squarely in her thoughts.
Finally Charlie took her hand. “Okay. When do you want us to leave?”
“Right now. I’ll go get Lisa ready while you pack. Jackson just left, so I doubt if he’s going to be watching the place. He probably figures I’m too frozen with fear to do anything. Actually, he wouldn’t be too far from the truth.”
“Where do we go?”
“You pick the place. I don’t want to know. That way nobody can get the information out of me. Call when you get there and then we’ll make arrangements to safely communicate after that.”
Charlie shrugged. “I never thought it would come to this.”
She kissed him lightly on the forehead. “We’ll be okay. We just need to be really careful.”
“And what about you? What are you going to do?”
LuAnn took a deep breath. “Whatever it takes to make sure we all survive this.”
“And Riggs?”
She looked squarely at him. “Especially Riggs.”
“I hate this, Mom. I hate it.” Lisa stomped around the room in her pajamas as LuAnn hurriedly packed her daughter’s bags.
“I’m sorry, Lisa, but you’re just going to have to trust me on this.”
“Trust, ha, that’s a funny one coming from you.” Lisa glared at her from across the room.
“I don’t need that kind of talk right now, young lady.”
“And I don’t need this.” Lisa sat down on the bed and stubbornly crossed her arms.
“Uncle Charlie is ready, you need to get a move on.”
“But we’re having a party at school tomorrow. Can’t it at least wait until after that?”
LuAnn slammed the suitcase shut. “No, Lisa, I’m afraid it really can’t.”
“When is this going to stop? When are you going to stop dragging me all over the place?”
LuAnn ran a shaky hand through her hair and sat down next to her daughter, putting an arm around Lisa’s quaking form. She sensed the pain coursing through the small body. Could the truth hurt her daughter any worse than this? LuAnn clenched her fist and pushed it against her right eye as she tried to stop her nerves from pouring right out of her body.
She turned to her daughter. “Lisa?” The little girl refused to look at her mother.
“Lisa, please look at me.”
Finally, Lisa looked at her mother, her small face a blend of anger and disappointment, a combination that was crushing to LuAnn.
LuAnn spoke slowly. The words she was uttering would have been unthinkable an hour ago. But then Jackson had shown up and his appearance had changed a lot of things. “I promise that one day, very soon, I will tell you everything you want to know. In fact, more than you will ever want to know about me, about you, about everything. All right?”
“But why—”
LuAnn put her hand gently across her daughter’s mouth, silencing her. “But I’m telling you right now that when I do it will shock you, it will hurt you and you might never understand or appreciate why I did what I did. You may hate me for it, you may be sorry I’m your mother”—she paused, biting hard into her lip—“but however you feel, I want you to know that I did what I thought was best at the time. I did what I thought was best for you. I was very young and I really didn’t have anyone to help me make my decision.”