“In here!” Ryan bellows, and his sister starts to sob.
He hears scrambling outside, and now the dog is barking excitedly, and there are other voices, and walkietalkies.
“Stand back from the door!” a man calls. “Do you hear me, kids? Get back as far as you can!”
Ryan grabs his sister’s hand and the two of them move to the wall opposite the door—only a few feet away.
There’s a loud, whacking sound. Axe on wood.
Then the door splinters and is gone. Light streams in.
Daylight. So strange, after what felt like endless hours of imprisonment. Ryan could have sworn it would be the middle of the night. Maybe it’s tomorrow.
There are police officers, about a million of them.
“Everyone all right?” the closest one asks, helping Ryan outside.
He blinks against the glare.
“I’m okay,” he hears Lucy say. “You have to call my mother. Please…”
“Where’s the little one?” somebody asks. “Where’s Sadie?”
His eyes accustomed to the light at last, Ryan sees the cops looking at each other and shrugging.
“Isn’t Sadie the one who told you where to find us? We sent her for help.”
Ryan can tell the answer by their expressions, and his heart sinks.
“We got ’em!”
Hearing the message squawk over the police radio, Lauren bolts from the cruiser parked at the foot of the overgrown path into the woods.
“Wait, Mrs. Walsh…” Behind her, the nice young officer hurries to get out of the car.
Lauren has no intention of waiting.
Vines twine around her legs as she runs up the uneven path; twice she falls and picks herself up again, hurtling forward. Her knees rip open against the rocks, her palms, too, are torn and bleeding. She can still feel the agonizing cuts all over her body from the ground glass on her kitchen floor, but the physical pain means nothing. Nothing at all. She can bear anything but the loss of her children.
At last she emerges in a tiny clearing.
There’s a small wooden shack, and there are cops, and dogs, and…
“Lucy! Ryan!”
“Mom!” they scream in unison, and Lauren dives toward them.
Thank God, thank God, thank God…
She hugs them hard, and she kisses their hair, and she looks around for Sadie, too…
A chill shoots through her.
Uniformed officers are gathered in small, concerned knots, looking off into the trees, searching the ground.
“Where is Sadie?” Lauren asks frantically. “Oh God, where is she?”
“She went for help, Mom,” Lucy tells her.
“She was so brave.” Tears are streaming down Ryan’s face. “She didn’t want to go, but we made her.”
“Sadie!” Lauren shouts, and renewed dread creeps over her. “Sadie!”
Thirsty, exhausted, bug-bitten, bleeding from where she scraped the splinter out of her hand, Sadie sits with her back against a big tree, worried about her brother and sister.
Lucy and Ryan are counting on her to save them, but how?
She’s been walking in circles, and the woods are getting darker and darker, and she keeps hearing rustling in the branches surrounding her.
Lions? Tigers? Bears?
If night comes, they’re going to get her.
Mommy said they won’t…
But that was back at home, in her room, where it was safe. Now she’s lost in the middle of the jungle, all alone.
Ryan was right. She should have told the bad lady the truth—that she had snuck back down the stairs that day and taken the pink stuffed dog out of the tag sale box. That she couldn’t bear to part with it, because even though it wasn’t Fred, her father had given it to her.
But now look what’s happened, all because she told a lie.
Sadie wipes tears from her eyes, and the salt stings the cut on her hand.
She has to keep moving, but in which direction?
She forces herself back to her feet, brushes off her shorts, and looks around.
Nothing but trees.
This is it.
She’s had enough.
She wants to go home.
Opening her mouth, she screams out the one word that’s been on her mind since she ventured out on her own.
“Mommmmmmyyyyy!”
Staring at a rare, smiling picture of her son standing between her and Brett, Elsa recalls that it was taken on the day the adoption became official.
Even now, she’s amazed to note how much Jeremy resembles her, with his dark hair and eyes. No one ever questioned that she’d given birth to him.
Somewhere out there, the woman who did must have the same questions that cross Elsa’s mind every day.
Where is Jeremy?
What does he look like now?
Is he happy?
Is he alive?
His birth mother has no real reason to wonder about that last one, though.
Elsa had briefly toyed with the idea of trying to find her after Jeremy disappeared, to let her know what had happened. But she opted not to.
She’s not sure why. Maybe she resented the woman whose gene pool might have contributed to Jeremy’s problems. Maybe she didn’t want to meet someone who had willingly given away the child Elsa would give anything to hold in her arms. Maybe she was worried that if she let Jeremy’s birth mother into their lives, she’d have to share him when he came back home.
It wasn’t until last winter, facing the prospect of returning to New England, that Elsa changed her mind.
She called Mike.
“Can you find her?”
“I can sure as hell try.”
The records were sealed. But there are ways of getting around any obstacles, Mike told her, if you’re not hung up on legalities.
Mike isn’t.
But if he did manage to find out the birth mother’s identity, he’s chosen not to share it with Elsa.
It’s probably just as well. What good would it do now?
Staring off into space, Elsa remembers how she’d considered the born-again impatiens as some kind of sign about Jeremy.
Wrong again, she thinks, closing the photo album and wiping tears from her eyes.
“Mommmmmmyyyyy!”
Of course there’s no reply.
The only sounds are the birds calling to one another overhead, the crickets and frogs chirping; a breeze rustling the leaves; and the lions and tigers and bears prowling around in the shadows beyond the trees, waiting for the sun to go down so that they can attack Sadie.
“Mommmmmmyyyyy! Help me!”
But it’s no use. Mommy is a million miles away.
Sadie is never going to see her again.
Or Daddy.
Or Ryan, or Lucy. She tried to save them, but she couldn’t. The bad lady is going to come back and shoot them. Maybe she has already. Maybe she’s killed Mommy, too, and Daddy…
Maybe I’m alone forever.
A tear plops onto Sadie’s scraped and dirty leg. And then another. And then…
Suddenly, she hears something.
A shrill, high-pitched whistle.
For a moment, she thinks it came from a bird.
But then she hears a far-off shout.
Did someone hear her calling for her mother?
Is someone out there?
Is it the lady with the gun?
Sadie dives into the brush and lies flat on her stomach, as still as she can be.
After a long time, she hears movement in the brush. If it’s animals, there are a lot of them. And a dog is barking, and then she hears a shout.
“Sadie!”
Someone knows her name!
“Sadie Walsh! Where are you?”
That isn’t Mommy’s voice, but it isn’t the crazy lady’s, either.
“I’m here!” she cries out, and the next thing she knows, there are policemen.
And, at last, her mother comes running toward her, arms outst
retched.
“Sadie,” Mommy sobs, “Sadie, are you okay?”
“Not really. I got a splinter, and my legs are bleeding, and I have to pee really bad.”
Mommy laughs for some reason, laughs and cries and hugs her close, and Sadie knows everything is going to be okay.
Two days later, Lauren tentatively walks down the hospital corridor toward Sam Henning’s room, a bouquet of flowers in her hand. She had thought of cutting some from her yard, but that didn’t seem like a great idea, under the circumstances. So she’d stopped off at the florist in the strip mall on the way over. Naturally, she ran into countless people she knows, and they all stared.
The news coverage has been nonstop for forty-eight hours now, given Congressman Garvey Quinn’s involvement. As his career crashes and burns around him, bits and pieces of a shocking truth—a mistress, an illegitimate son, a blackmail plot—have emerged. The puzzle is far from complete, but it has, predictably, consumed the scandal-loving New York press.
Alyssa came this morning and picked up Lucy, Ryan, and Sadie and drove them upstate to their grandparents’ house to keep them away from the media firestorm. Lauren, who is also headed up there later, can’t bear for them to see their father’s picture plastered all over the media. Right now, Nick and Beth are missing persons connected with the case.
Dogs picked up their scent at Greymeadow, and the police are searching the vast property for their bodies.
Lauren doesn’t know how, or when, she’s going to tell her children that their father is gone. Without evidence, it seems pointless—though she knows in her heart that Beverly spoke the truth about the double murder.
She’s going to have to find Nick’s mother, too. Wherever she is, she deserves to know she’s lost a child.
As for Lucy, Ryan, and Sadie…they’re going to have a rough road ahead. But they’re strong—so much stronger than Lauren ever imagined. Her babies…
Every time Lauren thinks about what they’ve been through…
But it could have been so much worse.
A nurse steps out of Sam’s room, sees Lauren, and raises her eyebrows. “You’re the woman from TV. The brave mom with the three kids who were kidnapped.”
“That’s me.” Lauren offers a tight smile.
“And you’re here to see Sam, right?”
“Yes.”
“We’re only supposed to allow family, but I know he’ll be glad to see you.” The nurse offers a conspiratorial wink. “Go on in.”
“Thank you.”
Lauren walks into the room. Sam is lying in bed, heavily bandaged and hooked up to an IV. He turns his head, sees her.
“Oh man, do you ever owe me one.” His voice is weak, but there’s a gleam in his eye.
Lauren crosses to the bed. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
“Yeah, you’re not the only one,” he says ruefully. “There I was, trying to impress you and rescue your kids, and…guess I pretty much suck as a superhero, huh?”
Lauren can’t help but smile. “Practice makes perfect.”
“Perfect is overrated,” he returns. Then he asks, “How about you? Are you okay?”
“Not really,” she tells him. “But I will be.”
She honestly believes that.
Sam must, too, because the smile is back in his eyes. “In that case, how about dinner some night, when we’re both okay?”
Lauren hesitates. She wants to say yes, but who in their right mind starts dating someone under circumstances like this? Talk about being jinxed from the start…
“I took a bullet for you,” Sam points out. “The least you can do is go out with me.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Lauren stays at his bedside until the nurse pokes her head in again, with a gentle reminder that the patient needs his rest.
“Come back and see me again, Lauren, will you?”
“Sure. Bye, Sam.”
She takes the elevator back downstairs. Waiting in line to buy a token for the parking booth, she glances over at the gift shop across the lobby—and can’t believe her eyes.
There, in the window, is a pink plush rabbit.
Of course. A visitor brought the original stuffed toy, festooned with a Mylar “It’s a Girl” balloon, to Lauren’s bedside when Sadie was born here four years ago. Whoever it was must have picked it up in the gift shop, which obviously doesn’t change inventory very often.
Forgetting the parking token, Lauren hurries over to the shop.
The woman behind the counter looks up. “Yes? Can I help you?”
“Absolutely,” Lauren tells her with a bittersweet smile.
A few minutes later, she steps out into the summer sunshine with a pink stuffed bunny in her arms.
“Come on, Fred. Let’s go home.”
Sitting with the photo album open on her lap, a cup of tea on the table beside her, Elsa studies the picture of her husband and son. They’re dressed almost alike: polo shirts, khaki slacks. Behind them, against a rolling green backdrop, is a sign that reads “Harbor Hills Golf.” Brett’s hand is resting on Jeremy’s shoulder, and he’s smiling.
At a glance, Jeremy appears to be smiling as well.
But now, looking closer, Elsa can see that it’s more of a smirk. Why didn’t she notice that before now?
At the time, she remembers, she was simply relieved that they’d made it to the golf course at all, after the usual morning drama. That he actually agreed to pose with Brett—and cracked a grin at her “Say cheese”—had seemed too good to be true.
Jeremy didn’t want golf lessons.
“Do it for me,” she begged him, and, when that didn’t work, “Do it for Daddy.”
That didn’t work, either. He went, kicking and screaming—literally. It wasn’t unusual. It was the way Elsa got him to school some mornings, and to whatever doctor he was seeing at the time.
When they got to the golf course, Brett was waiting. Jeremy underwent one of his miraculous temporary transformations.
But it didn’t last for long. God, no.
Elsa shudders, remembering.
That was the day she realized Jeremy needed more help than they’d been giving him. Serious help.
She’ll never forget the sight of him marching off onto the green with the madras-clad instructor and a quartet of eager junior golfers, one an adorable little girl with blond braids swinging behind her.
Nor will Elsa ever forget the bloodcurdling screams that reached her ears a half hour later, as she and Brett sat waiting, sipping gin and tonics with the other parents.
One of the kids, ashen-faced, came dashing down to the clubhouse bellowing, “Call 911! Hurry!”
All hell broke loose.
Elsa remembers tearing across the plush grass in heels, her heart in her mouth, fearing that something had happened to Jeremy.
Brett beat her to the scene. By the time she made it there, people were hovering around a crumpled figure on the ground—the little girl with blond braids, now streaked with red.
Anguished screams from the child’s mother, chaotic voices all around.
“What happened to her?”
“Is she breathing?”
“Does anyone know CPR?”
Brett turned to look at Elsa, and the moment she saw his face, she knew. Knew even before she spotted Jeremy, standing there with the bloody seven-iron still in his hand.
“What did you do?” Brett hollered at him, as medics carried away the unconscious child.
“I didn’t mean it. She laughed at me, and I got mad.”
The child survived, thank God.
And so, somehow, did Elsa and Brett.
But Jeremy…
Less than six months later, Jeremy was gone.
Elsa closes the book and sits, for a long time, looking back.
Maybe it’s time she stopped doing that.
Maybe it’s time
she started looking ahead after all. Maybe it’s time she gave serious thought to the question that’s been floating around for a while now, in the back of her mind, where Jeremy lives.
Have you ever considered another child, Elsa?
And hope, like the dangling ribbons of a helium balloon on a soft summer breeze, drifts back within her grasp at last.
Epilogue
Dallas, Texas
The sun is blistering hot today as he steps out of the air-conditioned pickup truck in front of the barbecue joint out on North Stemmons.
His boots kick up a cloud of dust from the parking lot to the front door, and sweat breaks out on his forehead beneath the brim of his Stetson. He’s never been big on hats, but when in Rome…
Stepping over the threshold, he’s greeted by a welcome blast of air-conditioning and a decidedly unwelcome blast of honky-tonk music.
Damned Texans.
“Hello there, sugar.” The hostess is teased and dyed and primped to death, with a pair of double Ds sticking halfway out of her denim shirt. “All by your lonesome?”
He shrugs. He’s been alone for just about as long as he can remember, but never lonesome.
There are women. They always come into his life willingly—and some leave that way as well, never knowing his secret, but perhaps sensing that something is off.
The ones who don’t…well, they leave, too. He gets rid of most the easy way—“It’s not you, it’s me… I’m not ready for a serious relationship… I think we both need to see other people…”
Some women are more tenacious than others, though. Stubborn. Nosy. Asking too many questions. He takes care of them the hard way…
Then again, is it really so hard at all, anymore?
You do what has to be done, and then you wash your hands and you move on.
He heard that somewhere, a very long time ago. It stuck with him. It’s served him well.
The hostess consults her clipboard. “Gonna be about a ten-minute wait. You wanna step over there into the bar and have a cold one till I call you?”
“Why not?”
“You sure you’re twenty-one?”
“Hay-ell, yes.” Tossing her a look, he walks toward the bar.
“Wait, sugar?”
He turns to see the hostess with a pen poised over the clipboard.
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