Other than the portrait sketching, he didn’t let her go on errands with him, and their compound was set back in a secluded area behind his aunt’s farm. Sis had never seen a wanderer, though Kevin had brought a few women back here in the past year or so. That was good, because it saved her from being ridden. The only problem was that he didn’t want her to see or be seen when his women were here. Most times, when a woman was here, Sis was relegated to the shed, locked in the cage once again like an animal in the zoo. Other times, she was princess of the compound, though that didn’t mean much.
That was what he called it—a compound, even though it was only an old cabin with a slop sink, shower, and toilet. Outside was space for a garden, mounds of trash, and a shed that had once been used to store farming tools. Before Sis got here, Kevin had added a toilet and shower to the cabin, but the shed had no plumbing, which meant Sis had to use a bucket when she was locked in there. Sis hated that, but Kevin teased her that she was spoiled, expecting her own throne. Kevin liked to tease that the compound was his kingdom, and he was king of his castle. When he got high and mighty like that, Sis didn’t remind him that he was only here because his Aunt Vera had let him move in when everybody else let him down. Sis didn’t know why the rest of Kevin’s family didn’t help him. After six years, she didn’t know anything about his family, and she had never even seen Aunt Vera. She figured they were in Oregon because of the familiar sky and plants and weather, but she didn’t know for sure.
“But where are we?” she used to ask him, not so much because she thought she could escape, but because she thought it would feel better to know where she was pinned to the earth.
“You just want to know so’s you can git away. And then what would happen to ya?” he always asked her. “You’re ruined as far as everyone else is concerned. Like a dirty, used tissue.”
Although Sis knew it was true, she painted a pretend world in her mind: a wonderland, a postage-stamp view of the past in which her mom arrived on their block just in time to rescue her from Kevin’s van . . . or in which her dad busted into the beach house that first cold night and punched Kevin out like a hero in a cowboy movie. Sure, she understood why her parents wouldn’t want her now . . . now that Kevin had ridden her and made her filthy. And since she’d gone and gotten herself pregnant . . .
Those had been his words. “Now you gone and got yourself pregnant, Sissy! You trying to ruin everything?”
At first she had felt guilty about her growing tummy. But then, once there was a little flutter inside her, she had thought of the chicks she’d seen hatching at school, and she had starting liking the idea of a little chick of her own.
Her baby girl. Little Mac. Sis had been scared about having a baby, but once Mac was born, Sis could not love her enough. Mac had been born with blond hair like Sis’s; only on Mac it was downy and fluffy like a baby chick.
Little Mac. Now Sis turned to the rise at the back of the compound. The tiny gravesite was marked by a wooden plaque painted with an angel. Sis had painted that angel with extra loving care, trying to capture Mac’s little smile. Kevin had told her to write: R.I.P. Mac.
That stood for “rest in peace.”
Sometimes Sis looked at it and wondered if a person had to die to find peace. Maybe.
As she was hoeing, there was a bang at the gate. Kevin . . . he was finally back, and mad, from the sound of it. Drunk? She hoped not. How could he find the money for whiskey when he said there was no more money for food? Since he didn’t give a shout, she knew he didn’t have a girlfriend with him, so she didn’t have to hide in the shed.
There was a clank, and then the gate swung open. But instead of Kevin, two men peered in.
The hoe fell from her hands as she recognized their uniforms and stumbled backward. Police officers! She tripped over a ridge and landed in the grass.
She was in big trouble now. She could feel it as their angry eyes honed in on her as if she were a bull’s-eye.
Lauren’s fingers dug into the green, scraping up clover. If only she could disappear into the grass. Kevin would be so mad when he found out about this. And these men . . . would they lock her up in jail, as Kevin said. Jailbait, that was what he’d called her. They would crush her and toss her out like an old tissue.
A woman stepped in behind the two men. “Hey, there.” Something about her reminded Sis of an angel. Maybe her silver hair, maybe her eyes, big and round and framed by smart black glasses.
But angel or not . . . Sis couldn’t let them see her. This was against the rules. Kevin would be so mad.
She backed away, not sure what to do. It was too late to duck into the cabin or hide behind a tree. They had seen her. The two cops were headed right toward her.
“You okay?” one of them called.
Sis scrambled back, but there was no place to hide in this small, cluttered yard. There was no escaping.
“Hold on.” The woman stopped the cops in just two words.
Was it that easy? Sis stared, awed by the woman’s power.
“We’ve come to help you.” Sunlight lit her silver hair like a halo. “Everyone here wants to help, even though it may seem kind of scary, with us bursting in here.” The woman stepped forward, graceful but cautious. “So you don’t need to be afraid. My name is Paula. What’s yours?”
“My name’s Sis.” She grabbed the hoe and used it to lever herself up. “And this is private property. Not to be disrespectful, but you’d better get going. How did you get in here, anyway? Wasn’t the gate locked?”
“It was locked.” One of the cops, the leaner and younger one, held up a giant scissor thing. “We cut the chain.”
Sis shifted her head down, afraid to look at the cops, afraid to let them get a good look at her. Her ankle throbbed at the thought of Kevin’s anger. She would be blamed for this. This would mean another beating.
The woman stopped pressing forward, but she didn’t take her eyes off Sis.
“Young lady? Can I ask you something?” The older cop with a big chest like a football player tilted his head as if he could understand her from a different angle. “How old are you?”
Keeping her head down, she swallowed back the smell of clover and fear. This was something she could answer. “Seventeen.”
“That’s young to be living here alone.”
“My brother lives here with me. He went to town to get some groceries.” She didn’t explain that he had left two days ago.
Where was Kevin? He would know what to do with these people . . . how to handle them. She hacked away at the dirt, and then frowned up at the intruders. “So . . . yeah. My brother will be back any minute, so you’d better get going.”
“This brother . . .” The older cop’s badge caught a wink of the June sun. His uniform was dark and crisp, reminding Sis of a cop on one of the kids’ shows Mac used to like. Those videos were still stacked in the cabin. “Is his name Kevin? Kevin Hawkins?”
Sis’s heart stammered in her chest. Was this some kind of a trick? “That’s him.”
“We have him in custody, young lady. He’s not coming back here anytime soon.”
“He is? What did he do?”
“We caught him trying to rob a store. But the important thing is that he’s confessed. He says he kidnapped you some six years ago.”
Sis stared down at the dirt of the garden and retreated into herself as the world began to drop away around her. She was like a scrawny ant frozen in place as the hoe came down all around her, chopping her earth away.
“So we came here to help you,” Paula said. “To rescue you. The worst is over, honey.” The woman seemed kind. She had eyes as dark as chocolate and a softness to her plump figure that made Sis want to bury her face against her and close her eyes.
“Are you ready to come with us?” the older cop asked.
“No . . . no! I need to stay here.” Lauren’s whole body began to tremble at the thought of the trouble ahead. To the outside world, she was jailbait. Trash. A filthy slut. Kevin ha
d warned her about going out there. If she just waited here in the compound, Kevin would be back to take care of her.
And then . . . then the woman called to her, real gentle.
“It’s going to be okay, Lauren.”
Lauren.
The name was like the breeze that cooled you off at night. A drink of water when your throat was dry. But it also made Sis hurt inside—one of those deep, dark aches that you never outgrow.
Paula reached out to her. How did the woman manage to inch so close?
“Come with me, Lauren. We’re going to get you home.”
With trepidation beating in her chest like a panicked bat, Lauren put down the hoe, took Paula’s hand, and followed her out of the veggie patch.
Chapter 7
The sea of royal blue shrank as the graduates filed out of the high school gymnasium. Still sitting in the bleachers, Rachel and Julia held hands, their faces streaked with tears.
“Life is fickle, I’ll give you that. I never thought it would be this way,” Julia said. “I thought John and I would be looking forward to empty-nesting at this point. You know, getting ready to kick it together when we sent Nora off to college. I never dreamed that he wouldn’t bother to attend his daughter’s graduation because of a family commitment on his girlfriend’s side. I thought Lauren would make it back in time to graduate. That’s unrealistic, I know. A true delusion, coming from a licensed therapist. But she was always such a good student; she could have caught up.”
“It’s not deluded at all.” Rachel sniffed. “Look at me, attending a graduation when my daughter never even made it to junior high.” Tears blurred the dissolving river of blue down on the gym floor as she recalled Sierra’s sharp words just last night.
“You’re cray cray, Mom! Doesn’t your therapist tell you that? Doesn’t she tell you that you’re crazy to keep acting like Lauren is going to turn up after all these years?”
Rachel had been tempted to argue that therapists were not in the business of telling people they were crazy; they had a million other ways of saying that. Instead, she had tried to keep it positive. “Honey, I just want to sing ‘Tell Me Why’ while we do the dishes. It’s a women’s tradition in our family. It’s our thing.”
“It’s your thing. Yours and Lauren’s, and you keep singing it because you know ‘she’s looking out at the very same stars at night.’ ” Sierra’s mocking voice had been downright offensive. The little brat. But Rachael knew the responsibility was hers for neglecting Sierra while she scoured the earth for Lauren. It was a no-win situation, but Rachel had chosen to focus the bulk of her attention on the daughter who desperately needed it.
“Don’t you ever think of her?” Rachel had asked. “You were so young. You probably don’t remember.”
“OMG!” With a grunt, Sierra had tossed a wet baking sheet onto the granite counter. “I try not to think of her because I am trying to live in the present! And I was six when she disappeared, not six months!” She wiped her hands on the dishcloth and tossed it into the sink before storming dramatically out of the kitchen. “I quit.”
Left to her own devices, Rachel had leaned against the sink, searched the night sky, and started mouthing the song, minus the harmony. “Tell me why the stars do shine . . .” Singing in a low, soothing voice, she had scrubbed and dried and buffed the countertops to a reflective gleam. “Because God made the stars to shine. Because God made the ivy twine . . .”
Now, Rachel squeezed her friend’s hand as Julia mentioned the grief John had been giving her about paying his half of Nora’s college tuition. Talk about cray cray. This did not sound at all like the John Berton who had seemed like the model father.
Julia was still talking when Rachel’s phone buzzed. Rachel pulled one hand away and saw that it was from the City of Mirror Lake. “Sorry, Jules, but I guess I should take this.”
“Go right ahead.” Julia waved her off. “I need to pull myself together before the festivities continue.”
Rachel pressed the answer button. “Hello?”
“Rachel, this is Hank Todd from MLPD. Are you sitting down?”
“Well, yeah.” Rachel scratched the back of her neck. “What’s going on?”
“We found her.”
Her confusion bubbled into joy. “Lauren? You found Lauren?”
A gasp from Julia, who began shaking Rachel’s shoulder in a celebratory cheer.
“We’re taking her into custody now,” Hank explained. “Apprehended the alleged kidnapper this morning on another charge. She seems fine, Rachel. Scared, and a little shook up, which is understandable. But it was damned good to see her.”
An image of her daughter, blond hair lit by the sun, burned in Rachel’s mind. “You found Lauren, and she’s okay? Our girl’s okay?”
“That’s what I said. Dave is on the phone with your husband. There’s going to be some questions and social service protocol at the precinct. You want to meet us there?”
Bag slung over her shoulder, Rachel was already halfway down the bleachers. “I’m on my way.”
Everything familiar and safe was falling away around her . . . pushing her to the big, bad world Kevin had always warned her about. Sis wiped her sweaty hands on her flowered shift, embarrassed as the two cops poked around in the shed. They would see her chamber pot. And the cage, that big, hateful kennel. Although she had draped flowered sheets over it to soften the cold metal look, it was still a human cage. She didn’t want them seeing that, thinking of her as a smelly, dirty animal.
“Are the police arresting me?” she asked, limping along beside Paula.
“No, sweet pea. You didn’t break any laws. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Then why can’t I stay here?” Sis stopped walking, tugging Paula to a halt. “I need to stay here.”
They kept saying that they would take her home, but this was her home, wasn’t it? Long ago, she had given up dreaming of the sort of home other people had, with a family and friends and dogs. A life with places to go and people to meet. Sis couldn’t imagine sleeping anywhere but in her little tent beside the cabin. Even the cage in the shed was more of a home than anywhere in the strange world over the hillside.
The thought of walking over that hill reminded her of the day Kevin had forced her out onto the rocks in the ocean. The other side of that hill was a cliff, a drop-off to terrible things. Punishment and shame. Rejection from her parents.
“They forgot about you pretty fast,” Kevin had told her years ago when she’d bugged him with questions about her family. “You’re lucky I found you, ’cause a man like me, I’ll take care of you. And I’ll never let you go.”
She hadn’t chosen this; never, never, never would she have chosen to live here with Kevin. But there was a weird security in knowing that he would do his best to take care of her.
Clasping Sis’s hands between hers, Paula faced her squarely. “Let’s talk about this a minute. Can you tell me what’s keeping you here? Why do you want to stay?”
I don’t. I want to run away, bounce away, flap my wings and fly away like a strong bird.
Sis closed her eyes, trying to hold back the tears. Finally, after six years, she had her chance to leave, and she couldn’t take it. She couldn’t even squeeze out a word to this nice woman.
“You can’t think of a reason to stay, or you’re too overwhelmed to talk?”
Sis shook her head as a hot tear rolled down her cheek. “I don’t know.” Her lips warbled. Everything was wobbly and unsteady.
Paula patted her hand. “That’s okay. You’ll find the words one of these days, and when you do, they’ll flow fast and furious like the Columbia. Do you remember studying rivers in school?”
The smell of chalk and stale peanut butter came to mind as Sis sniffed back a tear. There had been a lot of things she did not like about school—homework, boring recess, and a P.E. teacher who seemed heartless when kids got hurt. But all things considered, she would choose a dull school day over a day of weeding or toting wa
ter in this compound.
“Here’s what I’m thinking.” Paula kept talking to her as if she mattered. Sis liked that. “Change is hard. We all fight it, and leaving here means a huge change for you. But through that gate and over that hill are people who love you. They’ve been searching for you and praying for you for years, and they’re going to jump for joy when they see you.”
Paula was wrong about that. If her parents had wanted to find her, well, they would have found her, plain and simple. But right now, Sis didn’t see that she had much choice but to go along with the police, the men with guns.
“Is there anything you want to take along? Any clothes?” Paula looked over her shoulder toward the cabin. “I’ll help you pack up.”
None of the clothes Kevin had bought appealed to Sis. He had gotten them for her from thrift shops and discount stores. “Clearance sale!” he would crow, then show her some granny dress. But then she thought of Mac. He had taken most of her clothes, but she had hung on to her blanket and her magic shell.
“There are a few things I want to take.” The words rasped from her dry throat. She was parched and tired and exhilarated, and she hadn’t even stepped outside the gate yet.
Paula squeezed her hands. “Good girl.”
She held onto the woman’s hands a moment, thinking how good it felt to hear those words. Kevin was nice sometimes, but mostly he spoke when she did something wrong. Her gaze traveled from Paula’s sturdy hands and up to her wrist, where a splotch of red blood dripped down her arm. She gripped the woman’s hand and turned it, gently. “Are you bleeding?”
And Then She Was Gone Page 4