Stand In The Rain

Twenty Six

Though Sandy Jareau came from family money and then some, she preferred things quiet. Had she gone down the road of elitism, like it had been expected of her, she would have never met her husband, married him, or given him three beautiful babies. Dashiell had been her best friend, and they'd had such adventures together.

Certainly the most memorable times were when they'd lived as nomads, traveling with different charity groups to Third World countries, helping to distribute food and build schools and clean-water wells. They'd loved every minute of it, but stopped and finally settled permanently when they realized that Archer was on the way.

Some of their crazier accounts, though, included Sandy and her husband, as well as their colleagues, getting kidnapped by local opposing forces that weren't too pleased to see them. As a result, Sandy learned quickly about survival instinct, and she was always able to think of an escape route and get everyone out without losing a single person.

She was a confident that she could escape form Oscar Lee because he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed and also because she was in a city that she knew like the back of her hand. Things were different this time around because she had a family and a whole host of people who had to be looking for her now, and she also had bad asthma now. It had developed just after Archer was born and gotten worse with age, but she always carried her inhaler and a refill cartridge in her purse... which she had been forced to abandon in the mall parking lot.

"The old fish cannery, Oscar?" Sandy questioned when she realized where they had gone to. "Really?"

"Shut up!" Oscar snarled as he gave her a jab in the back with his gun. "And you're my hostage, so you're in absolutely no position to protest!"

Sandy had already decided back in the parking lot that she was going to go down the route of 'show no fear,' but Oscar Lee had already made a flub: the factory, now abandoned for years and years, was now used by squatters wanting to sleep and local kids looking for a place to have drinking parties. They were bound to get discovered even faster now.

Oscar Lee had led Sandy to one of the rooms on the second floor, and the large conveyer belt in the middle of the room told her that this was where the actual packaging of the fish had taken place. Another surveillance of the room told Sandy that Oscar Lee had been sleeping here, now that people were looking for him.

A sudden fall brought Sandy back to her senses: Oscar Lee had pushed her down, and now she had to act quickly to catch herself. Luckily, she didn't break anything when she landed.

"What do you want?" Sandy demanded. "You know I have my family and the FBI looking for me by now! Are you going to shoot me?"

Oscar Lee spoke in a mocking tone. "Shoot you? I'll only do that if you don't cooperate with me because I don't need you forever."

"Then what's your plan?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

It was to cross the border into Florida because he had a friend who could help him escape to Cuba.

"Okay, fine. Then at least tell me why you've been doing all this killing? I've known you since you were in your mama's belly, Oscar Lee, and I remember you as a bully, but never once did I believe that you go so far as to kill people, especially innocent ones like my nephew Tinsley! You knew for his entire life, so why?"

"I killed him and all the others because they got too close!" he yelled, perilously close to screaming at her.

"To what?" Sandy demanded.