Return (Coming Home #1) (16 page)

And we’re kissing again, his tongue tangled with mine,
my hands roaming over the tight muscles of his back, his shoulders, his heat so strong I
feel like I’ll combust and turn into dust that floats on the electric charge we create. His breath is in my ear, his lips on that tantalizing soft spot under my jaw, and his hands are all over me, remembering.
 

“God, Carrie, I really do want to explain,” he says, his voice husky and earnest. “I’m not who you think I am.”

I’m torn. I press against him, feeling his desire for me, our bodies betraying
the part of me that remembers him kissing Claudia.

“What does that mean?” I ask, shaking my head, starting to peel myself out of his arms.

No, Carrie. No. Not like this. He was kissing The Claw! He arrested your dad! You can’t give in to your feelings. You can’t.

“I want to explain everything. All of it. Every bit, going back to three years ago.”

A wave of numbness takes over my body. “Three
years?” I grab his shirt at the neck and tighten my fists around the fabric. “What does that mean, Mark?”
And what does he mean, he’s not who I think he is?
 

“It means—”

The dogs start barking, loud, sharp sounds that make me and Mark freeze. Something’s wrong. Something is
horribly
wrong.
I feel it in my bones before I can even think it.
 

“Oh, my God!” Minnie screams. Mark takes off down the
hallway toward the waiting room and I follow him.

“Not Amy!” Minnie cries out as she drops her phone. I hear the glass on the screen shatter, and then everything goes into slow motion. My heart slows down. My skin feels like it’s coated in molasses. Every movement Mark makes is like a voice recorder slowed down so that one second in real time is ten seconds in this new unreality.

Minnie is
screaming Amy’s name and Mark is reaching for two different phones in his pockets, both lighting up at the same time. He looks determined but puzzled, then drops one phone back into his pocket as Minnie oozes to the floor. I move toward her, my eyes drawn upward to the television.

To this day I don’t know why I look up.

There
i
s Amy’s face.
Her high school graduation picture, back when her hair
was so different. Someone abruptly turns the sound high on the television and I hear a few words:
 

“...security footage at the parking garage shows a woman being abducted...”

“...taken by force and shoved in a van...”

“...authorities reached out after...”

“...a private citizen came to I-Center-News to give us the scoop on this emerging story...”

My head begins to buzz and
swell
up, as if
I’m an old-fashioned balloon and flames are pouring white-hot heat into me, making me expand. Amy. Abducted.

Amy.

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

I start screaming and can’t stop. Mark’s arms are around me in seconds, his hands firm against my shoulders, his words a jumbled mess of syllables that grow louder and more urgent.

Soon it all blends into the howling of all the dogs, our cries of alarm
whipped
into one big sound of pain.

Right after Dad was convicted, Amy gave me a bottle of tranquilizers. She said she got them from a friend of a friend of a friend. I now know that was a lie.

Minnie has a bottle of them in her medicine cabinet.
Back then, Minnie must have quietly known they would help me. She’s always thinking about ways to help other people.
 

Elaine and I have spent the last twenty-four hours
taking turns sitting in the house with Minnie.
We’re feeding her a careful supply of the drugs to help her stay in a haze. She begged us to. She can’t bear the pain of wondering what’s happened to Amy. Right now she’s sleeping. Soon the police will arrive to question her.
 

Last time they tried she cried so hard she vomited, then fainted.

The phone won’t stop ringing. A bunch of white news vans
are all over their front lawn and street. They’re parked in a jagged line, like all the drivers were half drunk when they arrived.

Here’s what we know: Amy left work
a day
and a half ago. No one realized anything bad the next day because she had taken the day off for scheduled medical appointments. She never arrived for those.
I
t was only when she no-showed at work that they started calling her
emergency numbers. Minnie’s phone had changed in the last few months, and Amy hadn’t updated the paperwork with her Human Resources department.

By the time Minnie said something to Mark and Mark went to the police chief, it had been over a day and a half. One call from the chief to the owner of the parking garage had led to a security camera check—and there it was.

Plain as day.

Amy’s abduction,
caught on camera.

All you see is her walking from the elevators, then a van appears, The back door opens, two thick persons appear, grab her, and drag her in. She doesn’t fight. It’s so quick she couldn’t have fought.

It’s so quick it’s like blinking. A split second with your eyes closed and you miss everything.

“I don’t want her to accuse me of being a hovermother.”

Minnie’s words haunt me.

All I can imagine is the fear. Amy must be so afraid. According to the police chief, she’s the fifth young woman with black hair and big, brown eyes to go missing in the tri-county area. So far, none of the other four have been found.

Dead or alive.

That’s my only hope now. Finding her alive.

Someone taps softly on the front door. I walk to it and open it.

“You should have asked who it was,”
Mark growls, standing outside, glaring at me.

I motion toward the camera flashes that now dot my vision as a million photographers start clicking at us. “Right. Because the
big
bad kidnapper was going to march up to the front door and snatch me away in front of all these news reporters.”

He gives me a sour look.

“May I come in?”
he asks in a clipped voice.
 

A crowd appears on the lawn, most
of them carrying microphones and calling out to us. Mark steps in quickly and slams, then chains, the door.

The roar of disappointed shouts makes my stomach flip-flop.

I remember all this.

The news channels did the same thing when Dad was arrested. Back then, it was Amy and Elaine who ran interference for me.
Now it’s my turn to return the favor.
 

T
his is not a favor I ever
wanted
to return.

“
How are you?” Mark asks, his eyes darting around the world. He’s nervous.
 

No. Not nervous.

He’s
alert
.
I
n combat mode. Like the star of a spy movie in constant surveillance, ready for anything. Then again, he
is
a cop. And if there were ever a time for a cop to be like this it’s
now
.

“
Me? You’re worried about
me
? Minnie’s the one who’s falling apart.” My eyes fill with tears and I look up
at him. His face softens with compassion. “Poor Minnie,” I continue. “She feels so guilty she didn’t call Amy’s work to find out where she was.”
 

He puts a hand on my shoulder and rubs, slowly. “She shouldn’t feel bad. Amy’s a grown woman.”

I shake my head. “Elaine and I are doing what we can. Minnie’s doctor has us giving her anxiety pills to help her relax and just snooze, but...”

He sighs.
“But she can’t be too knocked out for the police interview.”

“Right.”

“Well,
I’m
the police interview,” he says reluctantly.

I jerk my head up at him. “You?”

“
Yeah.” He runs a hand along his chin. “Me.” His eyes are troubled and have gone dark. I resist the urge to hug and comfort him. There is this terrible horror between us, and right now he has a job to do. Finding Amy is more important
than anything else.
 

E
ven compassion.

Noise. A strange disturbance.
The back door opens and Mark rushes it, startling poor Elaine,
who is trying to sneak in before the camera people see her
.

“Oh, my!” she cries out as he comes toward her, one
arm
wrapped behind his back, his hand on his gun. “Mark! So glad you’re here.” Elaine starts panting, her arms filled with a grocery bag. Mark gently
takes it out of her hands and sets it on the counter.

She gives him, then me, a hug.

“How’s Minnie?” she asks, holding my hands. “Brian’s just sick over this. Just sick.”

“
I’m here,” says a voice behind us. We turn to find Minnie standing there in her bathrobe, hair on end, her skin the color of bleached pavement. She lurches forward and almost faints. Mark reaches for her and guides her to
a chair at the small two-person kitchen table.
 

Elaine gets Minnie a glass of water while I stand there, feeling useless.
When life goes bad in a really public way, a lot of your time is spent filled with stress but also with too much time. There’s nothing to
do
.
 

But there’s plenty to
feel
.

Elaine pulls me aside and whispers, “Has she been out this entire time?” Elaine left about four hours
ago.

I nod.

She purses her lips and frowns. She looks like a disapproving church lady. “I know the doctor said it was fine to give her t
h
ose pills, but...”

I shrug. I figure they’re the grown ups. I have no idea what I’m doing. All I can offer is comfort. Meanwhile, I’m freaked out on the inside. Maybe it doesn’t show on the outside, but I’m an internal mess. All I can think about is how Amy
must be so scared. Are they hurting her? Why did they kidnap her? Who are “they”? Why is Mark the one doing the questioning of Minnie?

Elaine interrupts my rambling thoughts. “And as if it all weren’t bad enough,” she hisses, her voice a mix of anger and sadness, “the gossips all over town have their tongues wagging double-time. They all say Minnie should be out there on televis
i
on begging for
the captors to release Amy.
T
hat she should be part of the search parties all over the three counties. Like any of them know what Minnie’s going through.”

My own rage flares up on Minnie’s behalf. “Those bitches.”

Elaine startles. “Carrie!”

“Well, they are,” I reply, emphatic.
I’m not going to apologize or back down for telling the truth.
 

Her eyes narrow and she slings an arm around my shoulder.
I swear she’s hiding a smile. “Yes,” she says with a sigh. “They sure are. If they’d take half the energy they put into talking about Minnie behind her back and use it to bake a casserole or come over here and chase off the news reporters....”

But they won’t. I know they won’t. Because they’re the same bitchy McBitchersons who gossiped behind my back when Dad was arrested and convicted.

There’s
a certain class of people in this world who take a deep joy in watching other people suffer.
Sometimes they’re
the same people who teach Sunday School, who volunteer to run school groups, and who are pillars of the community. Not all of them, of course.

But all it takes is one.

A
fter Dad was arrested
, I learned a harsh lesson: just because you’re a grown up doesn’t make you mature.

And just
because you do good in a community through volunteerism and leadership doesn’t mean you can’t be a slimy jerk in private.

A town scandal is the fastest way to separate the jerks from the truly good people. I am so sorry Minnie is learning this herself, up close and personal.

Mark clears his throat just as Minnie finishes her glass of water and sets it down on the well-worn laminated top table.
It clicks with a sound all on its own. I look at Mark. His eyes are on Minnie.

T
hey’re a strange mix of cool steel and stormy compassion.

I don’t envy him his job right now.

My phone buzzes.
I
t’s the missing persons center I’d contacted, hoping for more social media coverage to help get tips on anyone who might have seen Amy when she was being kidnapped.

I hold up one finger. “It’s a group
I reached out to,” I say, turning away and walking into the family room off the back of the house. As I talk and give the basics about Amy’s experience to the person who takes all my information, I roam. I know Amy’s house so well. I practically lived here in high school. We were besties—
are
besties.

Are
.

I can’t start thinking of her in the past tense.

No.

Just...no. She’s alive, and she’s
fine, and she’s fighting. I’m sure of that.
I can hear her in my head, calling out for me. I can feel her anger and pain and confusion and horror. I can taste metal in my mouth, like rotten copper, the taste of dread. I can run my hands up and down my arms a thousand times to warm myself as the chill of not knowing where she is seeps in to my core.
 

Amy is somewhere. Somewhere alive.

All of
this shoots through my mind as I fight tears. The person on the other end of the phone assures me they’ll start sending out messages on all the social media networks to dig up leads. I know from Mark that the cops are trying in their own way. I also know from listening to Mark gripe in the past about how police departments are so far behind in using the Internet that I have to do something on my own.
I have to find help outside of law enforcement.

Sometimes the system fails to do its job.

I know that lesson all too well.

I end the phone call and let out a long, slow sigh.
My shoulders ache with tension. I haven’t showered in nearly a day. My hair hangs in ropy loops along my shoulders. I realize Minnie needs to eat, and walk down to the kitchen. Mark’s sitting next to her, his hand on hers,
his other hand taking notes.