The Sunday Wife: A Lockdown Thriller Read online

  “What I know,” I answered quickly. “And what I took.”

  “Freya, what are you involved in?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I shook my head, trying to work out the pieces. “But I’m going to keep publishing what I know anonymously to any news outlet that will listen.”

  “Even if it means risking your life?”

  “Especially if it means that. Don’t you see, the more I dig, the more I find. And the more they’re rattled by me, the more I know to keep digging.”

  “Frey—'' Bradley twisted his fingers in mine. “You know I've always loved you. I’d go to the ends of the earth and back, I’d protect you and our family if it kills me—”

  “Again?” I uttered, knowing my words would light a firestorm of possibility in him.

  “Always, Frey.”

  “I’m scared,” I finally admitted.

  “You don’t have to be here as long as I’m here.” Bradley stood, rounding the table to gather me in his arms. “I missed you so damn much, I won’t let go this time. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  I nodded, quiet tears burning my eyelids. “Anything?”

  “Always,” he affirmed again.

  “Good. Because I think the only answer is to fake our own deaths. On the mountain.”

  He held me at arm’s length, eyes crashing around my face until darting around the coffee shop to make sure no one had overheard me. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I wish I was.”

  He guided me out of the cafe quickly, shuttling me down the street a block before catching both of my shoulders in his hands. “Tell me again, I’m praying I misheard you.”

  “You didn’t.” I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins. “Look what they did to my mother, this is life or death. It always has been. I think C is Chuck, Tav’s father. The man that strung my mother along for years, the one that had her accident arranged to shut her up.”

  “Are we really talking about the same man?”

  I nodded, scared of my own assumptions. “What now?”

  Bradley waited long moments as he seemed to gather his thoughts. “Now, I guess Brad and Freya die.”

  Hot tears spilled at my eyelids.

  “I love you, Frey, I just regret that when I finally persuade you to say I do, it won’t be with the beautiful name you had when I first met you that day at Sunday school, but it won’t make the day any less sweet.”

  “You’ve always been too good to me.”

  “I feel the same way. It’s always been you and me, no matter what the world throws at us, I wouldn’t trade a single Sunday out of the next three thousand with you.”

  Bradley wrapped me in his arms then, the years of history woven between us knitting together tighter than they’d already been.

  “Frey...if anyone harms a hair on your head, I swear to God I’ll kill them.” I tensed at my oldest friend’s words.

  “W-why does it feel like…” I trailed off. Why did it feel like Bradley knew more than he let on?

  His voice lowered. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but someone sent me a message...they’re on our team, Frey.”

  “They?”

  He nodded, eyes warm with pity.

  I hated him at that moment. Hated that he seemed to know more than I did. “Who are they?”

  “I-I don’t even know for sure. They know everything, and they just kept repeating that they’re on our team. If anything happens, it’s their opinion that we stay in populated areas, but keep a low profile. It’s easier for them to keep an asset on us, digital or otherwise. They said now that Tav is out of the picture, it’s important.”

  “Oh my God,” I pressed a hand over my mouth before whispering, “is Tav really dead?”

  “I-I don’t think so, Freya, but they said he left you everything. His life insurance and the sole inheritor of a variety of safety deposits and lockboxes around the East Coast. I think it doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t, it matters that on paper he is.”

  “Oh.” A cold numb sensation spread through my veins. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “I shouldn’t leave you, that settles it, I’ll hire someone to clear out our houses, we’ll move as far away as you want. Whatever it takes for you to feel safe.”

  “Safe?” I slumped against the brick wall of the coffee shop. “If—if they are on our team...who isn’t?”

  Bradley’s shoulder lined with mine against the brick wall. His voice low and steady, he whispered, “Foreign actors. Ecuadorians maybe. They repeated that they couldn’t reveal much, but that Tav struck a deal with a very important oppositional leader for access to his father, under the assumption Tav’s father would win the election.”

  “Tav struck a deal?”

  “Tav struck a deal and accepted a down payment in cryptocurrency for brokering what would be the historic conversation.”

  “And now that Tav is dead, they want their money?”

  “And you’re the lucky winner that has it.”

  “Me?” I shook with disbelief, before anger at Tav’s clever plan to set me up to fail shook through me. “I don’t even know anything.”

  “They have assets on you, Freya. They’re waiting for you to go to the bank and collect the USB drives with the encrypted seed codes to his cryptocurrency wallet.”

  “I—I don’t have any of that. I didn’t even know he left me a house until…”

  “Until they told you.”

  I clamped down on my lip, softening my muscles. “I still don’t know if Tav was the good guy or the bad guy. If I could trust him or not.”

  “Both.” Bradley wrapped me in his embrace again. “I think he was both.”

  “W-why did they tell you and not me?” I finally thought to ask.

  “They said they tried to warn you at the chalet, something about photos in a locked room?”

  I groaned. “Unbelievable. Everything was so carefully orchestrated to reveal itself slowly to me in the most indirect way possible.”

  “Because if nobody tells you directly, no one implicates themselves.”

  “But then why you, why now? How can I even trust you? Or that the message you received was real? Did you have a conversation? I don’t know what or who to believe anymore.” Tears burned in my eyes. “Even my own memories.”

  “That’s the point, Freya, to scramble your world and keep you scared.”

  “And controlled.”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter.

  “I just need to get some sleep, I can’t take this in and try to make a decision about where to go or what to do tomorrow. I can’t even call the police and report this, how could they believe me?”

  “I’m not leaving you.” Bradley faced me, features stern. “That’s why they called me Frey, because they knew I’d come right up here and defend you with my life if that’s what it takes. You and I are forever, remember?”

  “But how...how could they know?”

  “They’ve been watching us for a long time...they know everything. They’ve seen everything. Even the things we didn’t say out loud…” he lowered his tone again, “they know about the baby.”

  Anxiety rocketed through me. Nobody knew about the baby. “I never told a soul about that night, Bradley.”

  His eyes darkened. The memory of our one elicit night together selectively lost to the recesses of my memory.

  “They’re probably listening to this conversation now, they have audio and visual capabilities on every power pole and streetlight throughout every city in America, that’s why it’s safer if we stay in the cities.” Bradley finally grit.

  I shook my head, more determined than ever to gather my thoughts alone.

  “I need to think and then sleep. I’ll catch up with you in a few days, Bradley, just go home. I’ll be fine.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes,” I pushed him away gently, “seriously, I’ll call you.”

  His brow furrowed, but he began backing away. “Text me on t
hat encrypted app we talked about if you need anything.”

  I nodded, taking the phone out of my bag and going to the app store right then to download the app he’d spoken of.

  “Are you sure you want me to leave, I can rent a hotel room next door if you need me—”

  “I won’t.” I hit download on the app store and watched as the status bar indicated its download to my device. “Here you are.” I searched his phone number easily, pulled up a new message in the app, typed out a quick hi into the blank space. When the front box asked for my name, I typed Shelly instead of Freya, and then hit send. “See?”

  A tiny alert sound popped up on Bradley’s phone. “From Shelly,” he read. “I like the name.”

  I blew him an air kiss then turned without giving him another look.

  I didn’t know if I would see Bradley again, I didn’t know if it put him more in danger one way or another, but at least I’d let him think we were good for now.

  Tomorrow, if I decided to leave for good, I would ditch this phone number and then disappear, only a flicker of a memory in Bradley’s past.

  An engine idled at my side as I walked. I turned to find Bradley’s puppy dog eyes on me. “It’s not too late to come home with me, even a night or two.”

  I waved him off. “Bye, Bradley.”

  He shrugged, then spun out as he took off down the street.

  I walked nearly a half mile to the small roadside motel I’d rented for myself outside of town. I turned the key in the lock, anxious for my head to hit the pillow and rest my eyes when my phone beeped to life with an alert.

  The app.

  I pulled my phone out and swiped the screen. A new message from an unknown number popped up instantly.

  “Who in the world…?” I murmured as I took in the few words.

  Can we talk? There’s more you should know.

  Forty-One

  Fear sizzled in my veins. Anxiety tunneled my vision.

  I typed a quick reply and hit send before I could second guess my decision.

  Yes.

  My phone rang with an alert an instant later. I gulped “Hello?”

  “Step inside your motel room, you don’t want to call attention to yourself.” I shivered as the disguised voice murmured over the speaker.

  I nodded, suddenly aware that whoever this was could in fact see me.

  Was there a chance this was Bradley, watching me just out of view? I thought of the other possibility, Tav, my undead fiancé who’d probably assumed a new name by now. Would he have a reason to contact me like this? Maybe about the safety deposit boxes I wasn’t supposed to be aware of? I stepped inside the motel room and closed the door behind me, heart hammering as I turned the deadbolt and then peaked through the small peep hole.

  “You’ll need to do a better job at staying under the radar.”

  I clenched my teeth into my bottom lip, tears stinging my eyes. “I-is everything true?”

  “Yes, with more that can’t be disclosed at this time. The only thing you should know is that your life is in danger, we’ve done what we can to halt any attempts on your life, but you’ll need to stay alert and aware.”

  “Or else I’ll end up like my mother?”

  The speaker hung silent for long beats as I thought of the mess she’d found herself in starting all of those years ago.

  “Yes, but that wasn’t us. Tav tried to scare you off the investigation, the more you know the details, the more in danger you are.” The voice lowered an octave, deep tones jumbled with the use of a voice distorter. “You cannot publish the articles, anonymous or otherwise.”

  “W-what? Why?”

  “It degrades the integrity of the investigation, the public isn’t ready for the implications of this type of surveillance warfare.”

  “You don’t have the right to—”

  “It’s not about rights, it’s a matter of security.”

  My throat burned as my fingers itched to hang up on this man. Rewind my life to a time when nothing of this existed, my days simple if not a little unsatisfying. “W-why now?”

  Did they know I was the last person to see Tav? Did they think I killed him? Had I blanked it and done it and they’d witnessed everything on a hidden recorder somewhere?

  Silence, before a clipped answer came. “When you’re notified of the lockboxes, we’ll need access to them. Immediately.”

  “W-what lockboxes?” I played ignorant.

  “The ones Bradley told you about.”

  “H-how can you hear my conversations?” I interjected.

  “One of the apps on your phone is connected to our tech contractor, we have a back door.”

  “I-isn’t that illegal?”

  Silence before the stranger continued. “We’ll need access to those boxes immediately, as a matter of national security.”

  “Does that mean Tav wasn’t one of you?”

  “One of us?” A garbled chuckle and then the measured tone returned. “We’ve had tabs on Tav since he was in high school. His father has been a very important man for a long time.”

  “Chuck—this all comes back to Chuck?”

  “He’s not just Chuck anymore, he’s an elected official and as it stands there are too many important people that will lose big if he doesn’t win big.”

  “So that’s why my mother was handled?”

  Another long silence drove like a dagger through my heart. “A message was sent by foreign opposition before we could interject it.”

  “A message? You know who—who murdered my mother?”

  “It’s my understanding there was an accident.”

  “But the medical examiner mentioned foul play.”

  “I am sorry for your loss.”

  “Tell me more! I know there’s more you’re not telling me!”

  “Your mother took an offer from a foreign actor that she couldn't refuse, perhaps it cost her more than she bargained for.”

  “You son-of-a-bitch, why did you call me? To threaten me not to publish my mother’s things and blackmail me into not telling the world the corrupt underbelly of their reality?”

  “We advocated on your behalf, Freya, but if you become a disruptor like your mother it won't end well. That will land you out of our control. There were assets placed on your mother for months before her untimely accident, but she caught onto them quickly and either threatened them in public or ditched them whenever she could. Protecting your mother became a liability of her own making—we would advise you not follow the same path.”

  “So...that’s it then, don’t become The Sunday Wife literally?”

  “The chalet was meant to keep you safe, through election season and beyond, if necessary. Tav was adamant about that.”

  “Tav...how do I know you’re not Tav? Maybe this is all a ruse, a mind game to keep me on my toes and tortured forever.”

  “I’m not Tav.”

  “Of course not now, Tav would have changed his name by now.” I knew I sounded crazy, like the lunatic Tav often made me out to be, but I didn’t care. “If you’re not Tav, tell me your name.”

  “Agent Masters. Hopefully this is the last time we speak.”

  I laughed bitterly into the phone, desperate tears clogging my eyes. “Sounds fake.”

  “It is.” The voice confirmed. “After some deliberation we’ve concluded if you're anything like your mother, your own best protection is yourself. We knew though, that if you weren’t at least somewhat informed you may inadvertently put yourself in harm’s way.”

  “Like my mother,” I hummed with defeat. “Just one thing is...is Tav in witness protection?”

  “Please keep your head low, that’s all we ask. And notify us of those lockboxes.”

  “Why do you want them? What’s inside of them?” I ventured.

  “Dig deeper, find the story. Keep this app installed and we’ll reach out if we come across anything that impacts your security. We wish you the best.” The speaker went silent then.

  I dropped to th
e floor, fresh tears stinging my eyes.

  With or without Tav, my world would never be the same.

  I sat silent for long moments, my mind unwrapping the information bombs that’d just been dropped on me. My fingers shook as I remembered the strange note I’d received earlier. I typed out a sentence on the app and sent it to the anonymous number.

  The reply took only a minute.

  Chuck must have sent the threatening note. He’s convinced you killed his son in that hotel room. Don’t worry, he’s covered in security detail at all times, he can’t do anything. His political enemies make him a liability, he won’t be active long.

  I replied: so my family is collateral damage in Chuck’s political career?

  More like strategic political targets by foreign enemies. Tav was a target too. Came the reply.

  I thought over my next question, then asked without considering the implications. Tav’s overdose was an accident, right? There wasn’t foul play?

  There is always foul play. As long as the information you have remains concealed, so will ours.

  They knew. They’d found the security footage of my leaving Tav’s hotel room, or worse, had evidence that implicated me. I thought of the syringe then, maybe they’d dusted it and found my muddled prints. I still didn’t believe Tav was dead, which meant whatever evidence they had on me could be used to publicly implicate me in Tav’s apparent overdose.

  The air vacated my lungs.

  I was still a captive, only my captor had changed.

  My fingers darted over my next question, but then I deleted it. I didn’t need the answer confirmed. If Tav and I were targets, Bradley was too.

  I didn’t reply, only shutting down my phone and vowed to toss this one over the bridge tomorrow, right after I bought a disposable one. I didn’t want anyone to find me where I was going, not if it put them at risk.

  I sucked in a deep breath and stood. If I had any hope of getting through this next phase of life, I'd need to believe that Tav was alive and we’d both escaped the chalet in our own way, this time anyway.

  It was the only hope I had at carrying on.

  Epilogue

  One Year Later