“Ginger, you mentioned before that you already knew what the kids’ names are going to be,” Zac said, about five months later. Ginger had begun to show quite a bit, much to her liking. She enjoyed the fact that people could tell that she had another living soul inside her. “What are they?”
She smiled and put her apple down. “If it’s a girl, then Jennifer Anna.” He nodded, liking the name. “If it’s a boy, Christopher Joshua.”
“Christopher? But it’s so common.” She shook her head.
“So is Jennifer, but you don’t seem to be commenting on that,” she said. He shrugged and stated he had liked the name. “Well it’s either Christopher Joshua or Carlton Joseph.”
“Carlton? Fine, if it’s a boy, then he’ll be Christopher Joshua.” She saw him close his eyes and cross his fingers. “Let it be a girl!” he whispered. Ginger laughed.
“There is nothing wrong with Carlton,” she said. He gave her a look. “All right, so it is sort of a preppy name, but I like it.”
“Yeah, but then again your name is Ginger, so I shouldn’t be questioning anything.”
“What the hell is wrong with my name?” she asked. Suddenly she felt a small kick to her stomach. Her eyes filled up, and she smiled. “The baby just kicked!”
“Dude,” he said, putting his hand on her stomach. The baby kicked again. Zac felt it, smiling. “Whoa.” He kneeled, now having his ear to her stomach. Zac remembered doing this with his mother, putting his ear against his mother’s stomach, hearing a tiny kick. He always thought it was so cool, that another person was inside his mother. It was completely different now. This was part of him inside his wife. He couldn’t believe it.
“I can hear you thinking, Zac. I can’t believe it either.” He closed his eyes and gently kissed her stomach. She smiled down at him, running her fingers through his short hair. Just then Taylor walked in and his eyes grew wide.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ginger realized what he had meant and shook her head.
“You sicko,” Ginger said. “He’s listening to the baby.” Zac stood. Taylor nodded, smiling.
“Sure. That’s what you want me to think. I’ll leave now, but you have to realize that you people have a very open house, four people who come in here very often, and you’re in the kitchen,” he said and started to walk away.
“Taylor, you’re 22 years old! Get your mind out of the gutter!” Zac said. “You know one of these days you’re going to walk in on us actually doing something and I can tell you that it’ll scar you for life.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. You guys are insane.”
“And darn proud of it too. Where’s Kris, isn’t she usually hanging on you?” Ginger asked, smiling.
“She’s at home, I came over for the daily check-up. Roni and Ike have been gone all day on some date or whatever so I had to come.”
“You left Kris alone?” Ginger asked, sternly.
“Just for two minutes, she needed to be alone!” Taylor stated, defensively. She pushed Zac out of the way and advanced on Taylor.
“A ton of things can happen in two minutes, Taylor! She agreed that she would not be left alone again, especially if she’d been attacked at home before!! You do not leave Kristina alone!” she yelled.
“Man, how are the mood swings coming along?” Taylor muttered. She contained myself from hitting him and heard the screeching of tires. She punched him in the face and ran out of the room, and out of the house. She saw a car speed off, barely making it around the corner. Silently praying it was someone in a hurry from another house, she ran as fast as she could to Kris’s house.
The door was open, wide open. Fear rushed over her as she ran inside. “Kristina!” she screamed, running through the house and checking every room. The last room she checked was hers. It was a wreck—torn carpet and a bit of blood on the edge of the bed.
Taylor and Zac suddenly appeared in the doorway. She turned around, pushing Taylor to the wall with all of my strength. “This is all your fault! I told you, I told you never to leave her alone! Whoever was doing this was waiting for her to be alone, waiting just around the corner! He must have seen everyone leave and now she’s gone! Taylor my sister is gone and it’s all your fucking fault!!”
Ginger noticed a welt on his face from when she had hit him, but she didn’t care. Ginger let go of him and sank to the floor in tears. Neither of them went to comfort her, knowing another slap in the face would be a result of it. She stayed in tears until Roni and Isaac came home, three hours later. They had the time of their life that day; they went to a Cubs game and for the first time actually toured the city. The two of them came up the stairs to meet their dread.
“What happened?” Roni asked, keeping her tone low. She noticed all of them were in tears.
“She’s gone,” Ginger whispered. “He took her.”
“Ma’am, I apologize but we have nothing to work with. We’re looking for evidence and finding none. The blood on the bed was your sister’s. Whoever did this knows what he’s doing and knows what we would look for.”
“So there’s nothing you can do?” Ginger asked. He nodded his head, a sorrowful look on his face. “Dammit.”
“Ma’am, we’ll have a monitor on your calls, both your house and your sister’s. Whoever’s doing this wants something, that’s why he has your sister.” Ginger sighed and sat down. It’s been 24 hours since she was taken and nothing, absolutely nothing.
The phone rang. Well that was quick, Ginger thought and waited for a signal to pick it up. “Hello?”
“Hello Ginger, I have your sister.” The voice was familiar; it was someone she knew. She heard squealing in the background and she paused to remember it, and it came. She gasped.
“Alex?”
“Oh, so you catch on quickly! That’s good. Now in exchange for your sister, I want your necklace.” She laughed.
“You want my necklace? Fine, you can have it.” There had to be more to it, she knew it.
“Ginger you don’t let anyone speak, now do you? I don’t want just the necklace, I want the necklace and you! I want my sister back.” She scratched her head.
“Well I guess I’m not catching on now cause I’m rather confused. What do you want from me? Do you just want me or what?” She heard him groan.
“Ginger I want you to come home with me. I want to catch up on the lost years we had. Plus I want you so we can be with mom and dad.”
“Um, Alex, mom and dad are dead. We can’t be with them.” She wasn’t catching on, not yet. She was scared out of her mind, thinking of what he was doing to her sister. He was a sick freak. He wasn’t her brother anymore.
“Exactly. That’s why when I get you I’m going to kill the both of us. Then we can share eternity in heaven with our parents.”
“I hate to rain on your parade but I don’t think you’re going to heaven.”
“That won’t get you anywhere, Ginger. For that comment, I think I’ll kick Kristina around a little bit.”
“No!!” she yelled. “Don’t hurt her, please. Alex, we’re happy here in the land of the living, we don’t need to go to heaven and be with our parents. I mean Alex they’re watching over us now.”
“I’ll give you two days to make your decision. You or Kristina, either way one of you is going to die.” He hung up. She looked to Zac, who heard the conversation over the recording tape. Everyone heard it. He was chewing on his nail. It was between what the police could do and what we could do.
“I hate to break the silence, but we need to know who Alex is,” an officer said. Ginger sighed, staring at Zac.
“Alex is my brother.” Zac sighed. He knew it; he knew it had to be Alex doing this. The way he stared at the necklace, the way he stared at Kris, how he was never around. The pieces all fit together, to the point where it was obvious, but Zac just never thought of it.
She was so nervous she had to eat something. Food would fill the empty void in her stomach. At least she hoped it would. She pulled out the mustard, the potato chips and two slices of bread, and stuck them all together. Everyone stared and her and winced when she took the first bite.
“What?” she said. “It’s good!” They all went back to their work. Zac walked over to her. “I knew it had to be him,” she said. “I knew it had to be Alex. Why didn’t I realize this sooner?”
“Come on, you’ve been stressed out all day, it’s not good for you. Leave them to their work and I’ll take you up to bed.”
“Zac I’ll go upstairs but I can tell you I will not be able to sleep. I didn’t sleep last night and I don’t expect to sleep tonight either. I’ll be up until Kris comes home.”
“I hate to say this to you but it’s going to be a while before she comes home,” Zac said. “Please, just try.” His eyes pleaded with her. She could tell he was stressed too, possibly more than she was.
“You look just as bad as I do, Zac. Come on, if I have to sleep so do you.”
“Ginger, I gotta help out down here.” She shook her head and put her foot down on the subject.
“It’ll be hard enough to sleep alone. I can’t sleep at all if you’re not there right next to me. Please, Zac.” He sighed, letting his determination to help out fade. “Taylor’s going to be on this enough for the three of us, don’t worry.” She knew the only reason that she was so determined to have him stop was that if she couldn’t have Kristina she needed Zac.
He followed her upstairs, and she effortlessly got ready to sleep. She slipped into the bed and waited for Zac to roll in. She smiled, realizing that Zac never just lied down on the bed; he always fell over and rolled into the bed. Tears pricked her eyes as she remembered trying to fall asleep the night before Christmas with Kristina. They’d stay up hours and hours, wondering what they had gotten and when they would get up. When they were nine, the two of them heard a noise downstairs and saw their father putting the presents under the tree. It had been years since they’d stopped believing in Santa Claus, and now they had their proof. Even though they saw their presents being wrapped and stuck under the tree, they still were surprised. She wished those days were back again. Then the realization that her sister was gone hit her and the tears fell. She reached out for Zac and he was right there, welcoming the attention. She held onto him and cried. The tears wore her out and before she realized it, she'd cried herself to sleep.
Zac still hadn’t fallen asleep when the clock turned four a.m. He didn’t want to move; afraid he’d wake her up again. He stared at the ceiling, thinking and absently stroking her hair. He had calmed her down a lot by just being there. But now all he was doing was thinking.
I knew it was Alex all along, why hadn’t it clicked until everyone knew? If I just knew a few days ago I’d be able to stop this from happening. I’d be able to confront Alex and probably get a confession or some kind of information. Or he could of taken me instead of Kristina. Dammit I’m screwed. What the hell was with the ultimatum? It was Kris for Ginger…how can we change that?
Zac sighed, and looked down at Ginger. She had her head against his bare chest, an arm around his waist. All he’d wanted to do since he met her was check the roots of her hair to see if it was real. He found out once he married her that it was. He also wanted to know if her eyes were really violet, and found out that they were also real. There was nothing fake about her.
Sighing, he looked down at her swollen stomach and couldn't help but smile, although so many things were going wrong. For a moment he'd forgotten about the days events when he saw her and the baby that was growing inside of her. She had gotten so big lately, now to the point where it was completely noticeable that she was pregnant. Just four months…four months left until he was a father. The thought brought a content feeling upon him and he felt himself relax. Zac kissed the top of her head and let himself sleep.