Her Name Was Annie by Beth Rinyu (the little red hen read aloud txt) 📕

the rift in my marriage, and had almost taken Jack from us. I hated him with every fiber of my being. Suddenly the queasiness I felt just thinking about him or hearing his name turned to rage. A rage that needed to be released. It’s somehow easier to let it all out when so much rage has built up inside. Francesca’s words played over in my head on auto loop. She had reached her tipping point with Dominick Cavlan and discharged her wrath, and I had reached mine with Guy Antonaci. “Ted?”

“Yeah,” he replied as we waited for the elevator doors to open.

“I have a favor to ask…”

_______________

I had sensed uncertainty on Ted’s face when I laid my request out to him, but he didn’t decline. We stepped off the elevator, and I remained a few feet back while he spoke to the police officer standing outside the hospital room door. His words were just a murmur, low enough so I couldn’t hear. The police officer nodded and Ted looked my way, then waved me over to where he was standing.

“I’m going to relieve him for a few minutes while he goes and gets some coffee.” I knew coffee was code for the police officer is going to pretend he doesn’t know what’s going on while Ted was minding the shop or in this case, the prisoner.

“Okay.” I nodded, feeling the adrenaline coursing through every facet of my body. Ted nodded to the police officer, who took that as his cue to leave.

Ted anxiously assessed the area and whispered, “If any hospital staff come in the room while you’re in there…you work for the agency.”

“Got it.” I took a deep breath, taking the first wary steps into the lion’s den, but this time, I was the lion and he was my prey. Stopping in the doorway, I assessed the man sitting up in the bed, shackled to it with one handcuff. I had seen photos of him before when I was asked to identify him after the accident, and nothing much about him had changed in those years that passed. Same dark hair, same smug look plastered across his face, maybe just a little bit more weight added to his stature.

“Let me guess, they’re thinking I’ll cooperate if they send a female officer in here. Hate to burst your bubble, babe, but I prefer blondes.” His arrogance and complete and utter lack of remorse for what he’d done was even more astounding than I could’ve ever imagined.

“I don’t really care what you prefer. I’m not here to try and entice you. I’m not here to ask you any questions. I’m here to let you know what I think of you,” I snapped.

“And just how do I know you?”

“You don’t. But I know you.” The years of pent-up anger were boiling inside of me like a covered pot of water ready to combust. “You are a poor excuse for a human being. You deserve to be dead, and I wish to God you were.”

A slow, devious grin spread across his face, and it took everything inside me not to smack it away. “I do know you.” He squinted his already dark beady eyes at me. “You’re McGuire’s wife. Sweetheart, it’s you who should be dead along with your baby.” He smirked as if it was all some big game to him. My heart felt like it was going to combust, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he had affected me in any way. I wouldn’t waste any tears on the scum sitting just a few feet away from me.

I shook my head and smiled, taking him a little off guard with my reaction. Cleary, I wasn’t giving him what he wanted, which was to either have an emotional breakdown or throw something at his head. “Death would’ve been too easy for you.” I shook my head. “Where you’re going is much more fitting. Too bad your father isn’t still alive so you could ask him for some survival tips.”

“You bitch!” he shouted, pulling on his shackled arm, trying to free it. The mention of his father had hit him where it hurt, and there was something so much more satisfying in that than flying off the handle in a fit of rage.

“Jack’s going to walk out of this hospital and be at your trial to watch you finally get what you’ve got coming to you, and no lawyer in the world can save you from that fate this time. Rot in hell, you piece of shit!” My eyes locked with his, and I wouldn’t allow myself to look away first. I was no longer that pathetic, sad woman he had made me into for all those years. Unlike Francesca who was forced to bury everything away for all those years, I had stood up to the person in my life who had caused me the most pain—and there was something very freeing about it, not only for myself, but for Jack and our baby boy as well.

“You okay?” Ted asked when I exited the room.

“Surprisingly, I’m better than I’ve been in a long time.”

I reached for my phone in my purse when I heard it beeping with a text.

Kara: The hospital just called. Dad is coming out of it. Just finishing up with eating and heading up there.

I let out an unidentified noise sounding like a gasp combined with a sigh of relief. The tears of pain I had been holding back just a few moments ago while I was in that room had now been released, morphing into tears of happiness.

“Everything okay?” Ted asked.

“Yes.” I nodded. “Jack. He’s coming out of it.”

“Oh. Thank God.” Ted let out a relieved breath. The police officer who had been standing at the door arrived back with a cup of coffee in hand. “Well, I think Agent McGuire needs to pay the next patient a visit,” Ted joked.

“Yes. Yes, she does.” I couldn’t control the massive grin that was stretched across