Even Now (16 page)

He looked at the picture now. It was faded, and their faces looked so young. Like that moment had happened to a different couple of kids altogether. He reached back into the box and the next thing he brought out was a handmade card, something Lauren had made him for his thirteenth birthday.

On the outside she’d drawn stick figures of the two of them on opposite sides of a football stadium. It reminded him of his parents and hers sitting at a high school football game, talking and laughing and watching the action on the field. He and Lauren had walked down behind the bleachers and there — in the shadows of the stadium — they shared their first kiss.

“Don’t tell anyone ever, okay?” Lauren’s cheeks were red. She could hardly wait to get back up to the bleachers.

“I won’t. We can stay on opposite sides of the stadium, okay?” He grinned at her. “That way no one will ever guess.”

“Okay. Let’s do that.”

He looked at the card now. It was lightly yellowed from the years that had passed. The stick figures couldn’t have been farther apart. On the inside she’d written, “How’s life on your side of the bleachers?”

He ran his fingers over the cover of the card and slipped it back into the box.

How had everything gone so wrong? They were the couple their friends liked to hold up as the perfect pair. Their families were best friends, they both had a determination to stay away from the pitfalls other couples fell to — either by spending too much time together or by getting too physical. It was that last summer, that’s what did them in. When he looked back, it made sense that they’d fallen. They were alone so much of the time, and by then they were almost too comfortable with each other.

He looked back into the box. It was half full of cards and letters. He reached in and pulled out one that was folded into a small square. Carefully so he wouldn’t rip the paper, he opened it and found the beginning. “Shane, we were studying zoo animals and Miss Erickson assigned me to work on the monkey. Which made me think of you. Remember the monkey? I never laughed so hard in all my life. Love you lots and lots, Lauren.”

The monkey. A chuckle sounded low in his throat. He and Lauren had gone to the zoo with their sixth grade science class. He’d been caught talking to her, and the teacher forced him to give a speech on monkeys to the class.

Again the memory dimmed, and he reached for another folded note. This one had a picture Lauren had drawn. It was a fighter jet with a little man sitting in the cockpit. She’d drawn an arrow to the figure and scrawled the words, “You’re gonna fly one day! When you go, take me with you.”

The evening wore on that way with one special picture or letter after another. In the end, he packed everything back in the box and slipped it back into his closet. Wherever she was, he needed her. And he was certain she needed him. She was his best friend, the girl at the center of all his good memories of growing up.

He stared out the window into the dark.
God
,
You know where she is and what she’s doing. I have to find her. Please
,
God. I don’t know what else to do.

The answer came clear and quick.
Follow me
,
son
,
follow me.

The words took him by surprise. He hadn’t been to youth group or read a Bible since he moved to Los Angeles. What he had done, though, was pray. And prayer felt more and more natural. Okay, so he’d follow Jesus. But what did that mean when it came to Lauren? When he told her he wouldn’t ever love anyone the way he loved her, he’d been telling the truth. He needed her like water, like air.

He would pray for her and he would look for her until he found her. As long as he lived he would look. And one day — he believed without a single doubt — he’d find her. And then they could go through the box of memories together and laugh at all the funny times they’d shared.

The stick figures and the stadium, and especially the drawing of the fighter jet. All of that and a baby too. He could hardly wait.

B
ill Anderson was in his office doing something he’d done every waking hour since Lauren left.

Talking to God.

He braced his elbows on his desk and covered his face with his hands.
I’m back
,
God. I need to talk to you again about Lauren.
His throat grew thick, and he held his breath to ward off the wave of sorrow. All he ever meant to do was love her. She was his precious girl, his only child. His daughter. Of course he wanted a bright future for her. Before Lauren’s pregnancy, if that future had included Shane, then wonderful. Everyone would win. But once a baby was involved . . .

Everything changed.

Bill forced himself to exhale. When he first learned about his daughter’s pregnancy, he was crushed. How he hated that his little girl would have to grow up too fast. But he didn’t embrace the idea of keeping her from Shane until he saw the shallow, biting reaction from the Galanters. Anger stirred in him again at the thought, and he shifted in his chair. How dare Sheila and Samuel make his daughter out to be nothing more than a cheap tramp! And that’s exactly how they treated her at the end. The more he thought about Lauren having the Galanters as in-laws, the more he felt angry and sick. She deserved so much more than that. But now, somehow everything had backfired.

God
,
I’m sorry. I took matters into my own hands
,
and now
,
well
,
I’m desperate.
He made his hands into fists and pressed them against his eyes. He hadn’t let Angela see him cry much, but the tears were there. Any time he thought about Lauren. Every few minutes he had an overwhelming desire to get in the car and drive after her, search the highways and byways from Chicago to California until he found her, until he could hold her in his arms and tell her how sorry he was.

I only meant to love her
,
Lord. Forgive me for not listening to her
,
for thinking I had all the answers. Give me a second chance with her
,
please. She’s all alone out there
,
and she needs us. She needs us more than she knows. Thank you
,
God
. He straightened and lowered his hands to his desk. He still had work to do that day, not the kind that used to keep his attention. But phone calls and meetings with a private investigator, someone who might help him find his daughter.

He pulled a list close and noticed that his hands were trembling. He missed her so much it was a physical pain, an ache slicing right through him. It was there when he woke up and when he turned off the lights each night. Where was she and what was she doing? How was she getting by without her their help?

He let out a shaky sigh. His prayer was right on. Wherever she was, his little girl needed him, the way she always had. But now he understood something he hadn’t before.

How desperately he needed her too.

The truth was beginning to sink in.

Lauren was gone from their lives and she wasn’t coming back. Three months had passed, and none of their efforts had made a bit of difference. Angela finished cleaning the kitchen and put the kettle on. Tea was always good at this time of the morning, something to give her day a sense of normalcy. As if she wasn’t dying a little more every day.

Bill was home because it was Monday, the day he’d dedicated to finding Lauren.

“The business can do without me one day a week,” he’d told her. “I can’t stop looking. Not ever.”

The kettle began to rattle, the water inside halfway to boiling. She leaned back and surveyed her kitchen. It was bright an dairy, the sort of kitchen in the sort of home she and Bill had always dreamed of having. But the dream never materialized, because always it had included Lauren. She should’ve been there, enjoying her upstairs bedroom, excited about her senior year in high school.

Her loss was a constant ache for both of them, the way it would be until they found her. She crossed her arms and heard Bill coming in from the other room. “Making tea?”

“Yes.” She smiled at him as he walked through the doorway. “Want some?”

“Sure.” He took up his position opposite her, the kitchen island between them. “I have an appointment with another investigator. He wants more information, anything we can remember about her past. Things that might be significant.”

Angela took another mug from the cupboard and gave him a sad smile. “Shane Galanter.” She shrugged one shoulder. “That’s the most significant thing, right?”

He slumped a little. “Right.” He blinked and his eyes looked wet. “Pastor Paul’s coming over again tonight. There’s three more to the Bible study we’re doing.”

Bible studies and meetings with pastors, all of it was so new to them. Why hadn’t they found the richness of faith before, back when they were still living the perfect dream life, before Shane and Lauren fell to temptation and life turned upside down? How different things might’ve been if she and Bill had made faith more important to their daughter. To themselves.

The kettle began to whistle, low and steady. She flipped the burner off and poured the tea. “I love meeting with him. Everything he’s showing us, it’s just what we need.”

Bill bit his lip. “It’s what we needed years ago.” He took his tea, moved around the kitchen island and kissed her tenderly. “I’m sorry, Angela. I’ll tell you every day until we find her. It’s my fault she left.” He pulled back a few inches. “You asked me to think it through, and I didn’t do it. I thought . . . I thought I was protecting her, loving her.”

“I know.” She lifted her eyes to her husband. “We have to keep praying.”

“And searching.” He took the tea and headed back toward the doorway and the den around the corner. “I have a few phone calls to make before I meet with the PI. I’m guessing by now she’s enrolled in college somewhere. The PI wanted me to make a list of the schools she might’ve been interested in.”

“Okay.” She watched him go. First it had been a search on Lauren’s license plate, and then a search of the hotels she might’ve stayed in along the way. Next it was hotels in California, and now they were moving on to colleges.

It all felt so futile.

The only bit of searching that had turned up anything at all was the license plate check. According to the information found by the first investigator, Lauren had sold her car in New Mexico. Clearly she must’ve used the money to buy a new car, but that’s where the trail died off. Angela picked up her tea and remembered back, the way she always did at this time of the day. There had been no warnings, no sign that her daughter was about to bolt. Lauren had spent the night at Emily’s side, and when she left at four-thirty that morning, it was with the promise that she’d come back after she got some sleep.

Angela closed her eyes and drifted back to that day, the way it had played out hour after hour. By mid afternoon she was concerned about Lauren and where she might’ve gone. She called home, but there was no answer. Finally around six o’clock, Bill called her.

“I’m coming down.” He hesitated. “How’s Lauren doing?”

Alarm rang through her heart and mind. “Lauren’s at home.” She pressed the receiver to her ear so she could hear above the commotion in the waiting room.

“No, she isn’t.” His voice held instant alarm. “I thought she was there.”

“Have you checked her room?”

“No, I just thought . . . give me a minute, I’ll check.” He wasn’t gone long. When he returned, his voice was more strained than before. “She’s not here. It looks like she slept in her bed, but she’s gone. Maybe she’s on her way there.”

Back then, Angela was still furious with her husband, still barely able to talk to him without feeling hateful toward him for what he’d done by breaking up Shane and Lauren. Even if it had been done with love as the motive. When he suggested that Lauren might be on her way to the hospital, Angela didn’t push the issue; she only hurried the phone call and agreed that it would be wise for him to come. Maybe he was right, she’d told herself. Lauren was on her way back; that had to be it. She wouldn’t simply leave town — and Emily — without some sort of explanation, would she? Not when she hadn’t given them any warning. But after another thirty minutes, she had a certainty equaled only by the pain inside her.

Lauren was gone.

Again Angela called the police, and she was given the same answer: wait twenty-four hours and file a missing persons report. She was frantic at the thought of Lauren back on the road, setting out to find Shane, especially when she was so upset. After an hour Angela went to the nurse’s station and questioned everyone on staff, trying to figure out if Lauren had called. By all accounts, she hadn’t talked to any of them since she left the hospital that morning.

Angela’s only clue came when she talked to the woman manning the desk in the pediatric unit.

“Have you asked anyone in labor and delivery? Sometimes our calls get mixed up.”

She thanked the woman and hurried to the other side of the floor where labor and delivery was housed. The woman at the desk was pleasant, but distracted.

“Can I help you?” She had a novel in her hand, and she seemed anxious to get back to her reading.