“Did she force your hand on her ass, too? Make you groan like that when you—”
His mouth is on mine, shutting me up. I struggle against him, not wanting to be so easy. Not wanting to give in so easily. I melt into him, though. My body knows what it wants even as I pull away and take two reluctant steps backward.
“I’m sorry,” he rasps. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Our eyes meet. A lightning bolt of pure lust flows between us. I swear I can see it, as if my brain conjures it.
“No, you shouldn’t,” I say, wiping my mouth even as I need more of him. The craving to taste him again is so strong. I’m wet and wanting now, my body pulsing for him. He’s breathing hard and giving me a look that I can’t resist for much longer. If he keeps looking at me like that I’m going to—
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 is 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.
Chapter Nineteen
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. It 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.
This 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. In 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 r
elax 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.
Even 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 those 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 television begging for the captors to release Amy. That 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.
After 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.
They’re a strange mix of cool steel and stormy compassion.
I don’t envy him his job right now.
My phone buzzes. It’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.
Elaine’s already made coffee. Great minds think alike.
Mark has pictures spread out on the table. I do a double-take when I see them. Five pictures. Five women.
Only one is Amy, but the other four could be her sisters. If she had them.
My hands begin to shake as I bring them to my mouth. “Oh, my God,” I mutter from behind my fingers.
Elaine gives me a sharp look. “I know,” is all she says.
I’ve seen the news reports over the past week. Even when I lived in Oklahoma City last month, the third disappearance made national news. Once it became clear the women looked alike, it became cable newsworthy. I don’t look like Amy, but I know plenty of women who do.
Mark’s jaw is so tense it looks like he could snap a pine tree in half between his teeth.
His phone rings and he stands abruptly, letting go of Minnie’s hand. “Paulson,” he snaps into the phone. His long legs take him out the back door with four steps, and as the screen door slams shut I hear him say, loudly, “What the fuck, Chase? I told you to keep Allie safe!”
Chase? Allie? Who are they?
Elaine pours a cup of coffee then adds cream and sugar. She moves to Minnie and sits down next to her, gently placing the cup in Minnie’s hands, urging her to drink. Something about Mark’s agitation with his phone call sets the back of my neck to tingling. That’s not a work call.
And Mark’s not angry.
He’s worried.
“She looks like all these missing women,” Mark hisses. My heart begins to do jumping jacks in my chest. “You need to dye her hair or cut it or get her out of this area.”
I stand as close as I can to the window near the deck where he’s pacing. Who is he talking about? Not Amy.
“You heard me. This has all the benchm
arks of a brew home.” The last couple of words out of Mark’s mouth sound slurred. Weird. They sound like “a brew home” but that makes no sense. I must have heard him wrong. What the heck is a brew home?
“I’m sitting here, Chase, with the grieved mother of a missing woman. We have all the pictures of the five who were taken spread out in front of us at her kitchen table.” Veins bulge in Mark’s neck. I’ve never seen him so commanding. Austere. Visceral.
“And you’re fucking arguing with me?” Mark continues. I can’t stop listening. I’m completely hypnotized. Sweet, warm, intense Mark has just flipped into being a man I don’t know. His words pop back into my head:
“I’m not who you think I am.”
Mark stalks over to the back railing, but his voice is loud enough for me to hear his next words.
“…and now I have to get Carrie out of this mess. She’s front and center. He’s coming for her next, even if she looks nothing like these other girls. But Allie does. You need to protect Allie and I need to get Carrie the fuck away from all this before she finds herself in the middle of a mess that makes her dad’s death look like a kid’s birthday party.”
All the air leaves my body. My legs become noodles and I grab the counter to avoid slipping down to the floor in a puddle of shock. What is Mark saying?
A loud rushing noise fills my ears. I slip down to the ground. My back is propped against the lower cabinets. I’m turned away from Elaine and Minnie. They can’t see me. My vision fills with black and tears. My ears sound like I have white water rapids running through them. This is too much. This is all too much.
My dad is dead.
My best friend is missing.
My new boss may be the one who killed my dad.
My ex-boyfriend is kissing my new boss’s daughter.
And now it turns out Mark knows who did this, but isn’t telling anyone.
The screen door slams open and Mark rushes in. He walks right past me and then halts. He turns around and bends to my eye level. His face is bright red and his eyes dart around the room, like he’s being preyed upon.
I know the feeling.
“Carrie? Why are you on the floor?” His voice is gruff.
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