Chasing Amanda (35 page)

Rodney pulled his hands away, and Molly opened her eyes, instantly finding his and holding his stare. The Knowing passed between them like a secret. Rodney turned Molly’s hands over, placing the necklace and candy wrapper in her palms. He withdrew his hands and nodded. Molly stood on shaky legs, clinging to Pastor Lett as if she were about to slip underwater. “I know where she is,” she whispered.

Twenty Six

The afternoon seemed to Tracey to go on forever, and she was anxious to get out of their small room and play. She was proud to have remembered the words to their prayer this morning. Seeing the joy in Mummy’s face, feeling her happy embrace at her success had given Tracey confidence. She watched Mummy write in her journal, mumbling under her breath.

Mummy’s pencil stopped moving. She kept her eyes trained on the full page. “They didn’t want me,” Mummy said quietly, then scribbled furiously in the journal.

Tracey bit her lower lip, confused. “What Mummy?”

Mummy did not answer. Tracey knew better than to push. She sat quietly on the mattress watching Mummy, and wondering why Mummy was acting so weird. She stretched out on the mattress, her head resting on her forearms.

Mummy stood up and paced. Tracey rolled over and watched her. As if she’d just realized Tracey was in the room, Mummy abruptly stopped pacing and glared at her.

“I haven’t told anyone where he is. Not even our parents knew.” Pastor Lett’s eyes remained on the road before her. “They believed he was dead and buried.” There was a coldness to her voice, the shock of where they were headed still fresh.

Molly didn’t know what to do other than comfort her. “You’ve held onto this burden for so long.”

“It’s no burden,” she said. “Rodney is not a burden.”

“No, not Rodney, I’m talking about the secret. I mean, you must feel the weight of it, like a tether holding you down. You must have wanted to cut it free hundreds of times.”

She nodded.

“Your parents—why?” she asked.

“Because if anyone came looking for Rodney, as you did,” she looked up at her accusingly, “they would have found him if I didn’t have him buried—and he might have met the same fate once again.”

Molly asked her how she had been able to fake the burial, and her explanation seemed convenient.

“I told the coroner that I wanted to bring his body in and be with it until it was in the coffin and sealed for his final interment. I was long-time friends with the embalmer. He owed me one. I knew I could trust him.” She ran her hand over her face again, as if wiping away the thought of it. “That night we took him to his house, and together we nursed him back to health. He pretended to do the embalming, and we packed the casket with sand bags—a lot of sand bags, Rodney’s a big guy. My parents, they didn’t want to care for Rodney, not when he started having visions. It was too much for them. In the years he was with me here, they never even visited him, so I didn’t figure it was any worse for them if they thought he had passed on.”

“Jesus,” Molly said, instinctively covering her mouth with her hand, and whispering from behind her fingers, “sorry!”

“It’s okay,” she said.

Molly watched her reach into her pocket for her sunflower seeds and slip a few into her mouth. Her jaw quickly went to work on the tiny shells.

“Do you see him often?” Molly asked.

She nodded. “I see him often. You see, that’s the wonderful thing about being a pastor. No one holds your schedule. There is no time clock. I have freedom to simply tell my secretary that I’ll be gone a few hours, and she doesn’t question me, ever.” She sighed, a long, relieved, sigh.

Silent minutes passed like hours.

Molly’s nerves were on fire. Pastor Lett parked the car and Molly asked, carefully, “Does he remember…the beating?”

Pastor Lett shook her head. “He remembers living with me here, in Boyds, and he seems haunted by the little girl who was in a dark place with her mommy. Sometimes it gets really bad, and he goes into his own little world, rocking and saying things over and over, like he used to, but,” she smiled, “he’s alive, Molly, and for me, that’s been all that matters.” She stared at the road before them. “But the drawings,” she paused, then looked at Molly, “and the state he’s in today…”

As they pulled into the parking lot, Molly turned to Pastor Lett, “We have to make a decision. Do we go on our own or call the police?” Molly spoke before Pastor Lett could voice her concern. “I won’t mention Rodney. This can be all me—my vision, as far as they know.”

Pastor Lett’s body visibly relaxed. She pulled Molly’s cell phone from her bag and handed it to her. The light of the afternoon had gone, replaced with a cool, gray evening. Molly dialed Sergeant Moeler’s number, his voice instantly calmed her. “Mike,” she said, relieved.

“Molly,” he said flatly.

Molly paused at the tone of his voice, “I need to talk to you and Sal. I know where she is.” She listened to Mike sigh on the other end of the phone. “Mike?” she said tentatively.

“Molly, we’re not—”

“Mike! This is important. I
know
where to find Tracey!” she said emphatically, annoyed at his hesitation. Something was very wrong.

“Molly, we aren’t going to follow your leads right now,” he said in a professional, cold tone. “Officer Brown felt that today was a big waste of station time and money.”

Molly’s jaw dropped. “But—”

“Molly,” Mike said dismissively, then spoke in a kinder tone, “Sal and I appreciate all that you’re doing. We even think it’s possible that you might have these…visions…or whatever they are, but we can’t waste resources on hunches.”

“Sorry,” Molly said as she dialed Cole’s number. She told him what had transpired. “Cole, can you come with me? Please? I need you.” Nerves made her chest ache.

“Tunnels, Molly? You really want to go traipsing through some freaking tunnels in the dark? No way. Now you’re going too far. This is a job for the police, not you.” Cole’s voice sounded firm, angry.

“I told you, they won’t come!” she said defensively.

“Doesn’t that tell you something, Molly?”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what the police say, Cole. I know where Tracey is! I saw it all! Will you come or not, because I’m going!” her hands shook. She ignored the incredulous look on Pastor Lett’s face. She was consumed with anger, which only fueled her determination to go into the tunnels and find Tracey.

“If you go, Molly, that’s it. I’m done.”

“What?” she could not believe the threat.

“You heard me. This time, Molly, you’re going too far. You’re putting yourself in what could be severe danger—and if the police don’t believe you, then back off. You have no business in those tunnels, and I’m not going to be waiting around when you come out empty-handed.”

Molly had never heard Cole that angry, not once in all the years she had known him. She contemplated his words but could not turn her back on Tracey as she had on Amanda. Molly was haunted by images of five-year-old Amanda’s terrified eyes, her screams, as she was shoved into the black minivan almost ten years earlier. The look of the man’s eyes as she turned to Molly in the parking lot and said, “She didn’t get the dolly she wanted.” If only she’d gotten involved. If only she’d followed her gut. If only she hadn’t turned her back on the dreams she’d had over the ensuing three days. Maybe then Amanda would still be here, alive, her abductor in jail. She’d be damned if she’d have the blood of another child on her hands.

With no small amount of fear—fear at what looked like the end of her marriage—she said, “You do what you have to do, and I’ll do what I have to do.” With trembling fingers, she disconnected the call.

The church parking lot was empty, illuminated by two lights perched at either end of the lot. As she drove over the curb and up the grassy hill toward the campsite, Pastor Lett tried to convince Molly not to go forward with her plans, citing the dangers, the unknown, but Molly was adamant. She asked Pastor Lett to wait outside the tunnels, just in case she did not return. On the outside, Molly was confident, determined. On the inside, she was petrified. The thought of losing Cole devastated her, but the thought of Tracey being in those tunnels for one minute more than she had to be, the thought of not finding Tracey alive, drove her to override her own dilemma and push forward. Pastor Lett stepped out of her car and opened the trunk, returning with two industrial-sized flash lights.

Molly nodded, afraid her voice would fail her.

They crested the hill to the end of the tree line that led to the clearing. Molly took long deep breaths to calm herself. She turned to Pastor Lett and said, “I’m sorry, for everything.”

She nodded solemnly. They got out of the car and walked down the path toward the campsite, her energy renewed with each step, hope forming in the illuminated path before her. Pastor Lett put a hand on Molly’s shoulder. “Are you sure you want to do this? You could be endangering yourself and maybe even Tracey,” she tried again to dissuade her. “We could go to the station and convince them, come back later.”

Molly took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I’m doing this.”

Molly changed her cell phone setting to vibrate, trying desperately not to let the thought of no cellular service in the tunnels scare her out of continuing. She ignored her trembling hands, shoving them deep into her pockets as they walked. Against her will, her mind drifted to Erik, and she swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, knowing she could not turn back.

“What’s the plan?” Pastor Lett asked.

Molly approached the first wooden box where she’d found the candy wrapper. The taste of apple candy once again tickled her senses. “If Rodney and I are right, then I think the entrance is in here.”

Pastor Lett looked at her as if she were crazy.

“Come on. Help me open it, will you?” she asked, irritated by her look.

They propped the box lid open and peered inside. Molly’s heart sank. There was a wooden floor in the box. There was no passageway.

“This is where I found the candy wrapper. This is where she had to go in,” she said, frantically looking around.

Pastor Lett cocked her head, “Candy wrapper?”

Molly rolled her eyes, too frustrated to explain, “Nothing,” she said. She kicked the corner of the box with her foot, making the lid slam shut. “Shit,” she said, and they lifted it up again.

“What in the world?” Pastor Lett peered into the box.

Molly pushed past her to see.

The slamming of the lid had jarred the bottom loose. The left front corner of the bottom plywood had dropped, revealing a gaping dark hole. Molly and Pastor Lett looked at each other, a nervous smile forming across Molly’s face, a frown across Pastor Lett’s. They lowered the lid, slowly, silently.

“Molly, are you sure you want to go in there?” she asked.

“Hell yes, I’m going in there.” She took a step away from the box, thinking not of her fear or her crumbling marriage but of her plan. “Give me your sunflower seeds,” she thrust her hand toward her.

“Bread trail,” she walked back toward the box. “I don’t know how far I have to walk to get to them, if they’re even in there, but if I’m not back out in a few hours, call the police—please.”

“Molly—”

She put her hand up, silencing her. “I’m going. I don’t know if my phone will work or not, but if it does, I’ll text you if something happens.” She took one last deep breath and hoisted herself onto the edge of the box, seeing the ominous hole below her as her ally—the only thing keeping her from Tracey now would be her own fear, and she was not going to let that happen. She hopped off her precarious perch and into the hole, landing with a loud thud. Pastor Lett quickly dropped a flashlight down to her.

“Two hours. If you’re not back, I’m getting the police,” Pastor Lett said.

“Not worried,” she lied. She directed the beam of the flashlight in front of her, then back up the eight-foot hole to see Pastor Lett’s worried face staring down at her. She shrugged, “Here goes Alice.”

Molly’s heart thumped in her chest. The entrance behind her quickly disappeared. The tunnel smelled of wet earth. The dirt walls were not much wider than her body, the ceiling a few feet above Molly’s head. The flashlight illuminated ten feet in front of her, beyond that it was pitch black. She prayed the batteries would not fail. She dropped her hand to her pocket, feeling the safety of her cell phone. The urge to try it was overwhelming, but she was afraid of making any unnecessary noise, already worried about Tracey’s abductor seeing the flashlight. She tried to keep her fear at bay, but could not deny the urge to turn back and run.
Move it!
she told herself.
You’re fine. This time it will not be your fault.
She looked into the abyss of the tunnel, and silently prayed, as she knew Pastor Lett was doing above her, that she’d find Tracey and bring her home safely. Quickly, she reached into her pocket and withdrew a handful of sunflower seeds, dropping a few every couple feet.