And Then She Was Gone

by Noonan, Rosalind

  “I only knew that something was majorly dysfunctional there. If I called to report every dysfunctional asshole out here, there’d be no one on the streets.”

  “Where is Mac now?” Hank asked, getting to the point. “Who paid to adopt her?”

  “The Stained Glass Sisters, Heidi and Holly Cannady.”

  Chapter 54

  “What a harrowing afternoon,” Alice O’Neil said. “You were very brave to meet him, Lauren, and it sounds like you didn’t take any crap from him.”

  Lauren smiled. It was weird to hear her grandmother talk that way. “I tried not to, Grandma.”

  “I just hope this information gets us somewhere with little Mac,” Doug O’Neil said.

  “I think it’s a good break,” Dan said. “We know Hank’s doing his best, and Rachel, she’s relentless.”

  Lauren and her father were sitting out on the deck with her grandparents, enjoying the September sunshine as the stress of the day drained away. The meeting with Kevin had loomed over Lauren’s future since she’d known she had to face him, and now that it was over, she needed to re-energize. As her fingertips traced the pattern in the tablecloth, she felt the desire to sketch for the first time in months. In the quest for therapy and healing, she had put her artwork aside, thinking it was too solitary and too much a reminder of the dark days in Kevin’s control.

  But now . . . now alone-time didn’t seem lonely.

  “Isn’t that your phone?” Dad asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Oh, yeah.” She wasn’t used to having a cell phone like everyone else. She pulled it from her pocket and saw Rachel’s photo. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Rachel, are you still at Grandma and Grandpa’s?”

  “Yes. What happened?”

  “It’s the Stained Glass Sisters in the cathedral house.” Her mom sounded breathless. “They have Mac.”

  No one spoke as Doug O’Neil pushed the boat to full throttle across Mirror Lake. When Mom told her to have Grandpa take them by boat to the cathedral house, Lauren had nearly fallen down the deck stairs. She couldn’t get there fast enough. Her pulse was thumping with a driving rhythm, telling her to move. To go. To get her girl.

  Now as the wind rushed over her and they all looked ahead, she hoped and prayed that Mom and Hank were right. Mom said that Ben Juza had admitted to setting up Mac’s adoption by the two women who owned the stained glass shop, Heidi and Holly Cannady. Mom and the police had rushed over to the stained glass booth, but the women weren’t working today. Their employee admitted that they had adopted a little girl in the past year. But then Mom learned that they lived on Mirror Lake, right at the spot where Grandpa had seen the little blond girl. “I knew it had to be Mac,” Mom had said on the phone.

  As far as Hank knew, the sisters were law-abiding citizens, but he was worried that they would try to flee with Mac if someone from the store tipped them off. The police chief sent a patrol car to the top of the hill. That would stop them from leaving by car. And Mom suggested that Grandpa take the family down by boat, just in case the sisters tried to leave that way.

  “They couldn’t get too far, Rachel,” Dad had argued as Grandpa chugged out of East Bay at the excruciatingly slow speed limit. “Sure, they might make it to the city docks, but it’s not like they’re sailing up Hudson Bay.” Whatever Mom had said, Dad had agreed, then hung up. “Rachel is right. No use taking a chance of letting them slip away.”

  As they passed through the tunnel, Grandma had talked about how Grandpa used to have to drop everything and go on rescue missions like this back when he was in the Coast Guard. Lauren tried to picture her grandfather as a young man, coiling ropes on a boat or throwing a life preserver to someone in the sea. The happy image lasted only a few seconds before the cold-water panic came rushing back in and she bent forward to hug her knees. Dad gave her shoulder a reassuring nudge, but nothing could lift her from this agony. Nothing but Mac.

  The boat hopped and rocked over wakes in the lake, but Grandpa kept the boat at top speed until the looped shoreline of Phantom’s Bluff was in sight. Staying low, Lauren moved to the front of the boat and squinted over for a better view of the patio with the small little beach hut and sitting area. She saw movement.

  “There’s someone there,” she shouted to the others.

  “The boat house door is up.” Dad pointed. “Looks like they’re getting ready to take the boat out.” The boat was slowly chugging backward, driven by a woman in a baseball cap.

  “And look. Someone’s coming down the lift,” Grandma said.

  The double seat held another woman and a little girl with curly blond hair and a distinctive tilt to her chin.

  “Mac.” The word was so soft when she should have screamed it across the lake, but everyone had heard.

  “Take us over to the dock, Dad.”

  But Doug already had the boat moving forward, as fast as he dared without risking slamming into the dock or the other boat, which was also trying to dock.

  “Get back!” the woman called from the boat. “This is private property.” She kept steering right and left, apparently not an experienced driver.

  “We’re coming in, ma’am, by order of the Mirror Lake chief of police.” Grandpa sounded so official. “That child is a kidnap victim.”

  “Kidnap?” Even more flustered, she steered right, banging the boat against the dock. “That’s impossible. She’s our daughter. I’ve got adoption papers to prove it.”

  “Amateur,” Doug mumbled under his breath. “We’ll tie up and talk about it.”

  “No, no! And you get your boat out of there right now! You’re keeping me from docking mine.”

  “Too bad, ma’am. We’re coming in.” With calm precision, Grandpa steered the boat in.

  As it floated next to the dock with a gentle touch, Dan jumped off with a line and extended a hand to Lauren. “Let’s go get your girl.”

  She hopped ashore and raced up the steps to the lift landing pad. The chair was dropping slowly, still a good twenty yards away, but Mac and the lady had noticed the activity below, and Mac’s face lit up as she started jumping in the chair.

  “Mama! Mama!”

  Lauren soaked up the wonderful sight of her little girl. “It’s me, Mac!” she called, blowing kisses and waving like a crazy person. Even the obstacle of the woman sitting beside Mac could not stop Lauren’s heart from bubbling over with joy.

  “It’s really her.” Dad was beside her, looking up at the little girl who was now chanting for her mama, despite the annoyed woman sitting beside her. “Wow. She looks just like you, when you were little.”

  Once the chair landed, Mac had herself unbuckled and out of there before the woman could scowl at her one more time. Lauren knelt down on one knee with open arms as Mac, all golden curls and button eyes and wild smile, flew at her.

  “Oh, my sweet girl.” Lauren caught her and held her close, breathing in her curls and soft skin and warm neck. “Mac. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I know!” Mac exclaimed. “Where have you been, Mama? I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  Lauren let out a breath. Mac’s spirit didn’t seem to be broken. “I’ve been busy looking for you.”

  “Well, no wonder. Heidi told me you went away to heaven, but I knew you wouldn’t go anywhere without me.”

  Lauren smiled. “I missed you so much.”

  In that moment, Lauren knew it was going to be okay. Everything they’d been through, all the pain and loneliness and shame, one day it would all be a small ping in the back of their minds. They had each other, they had Mom and Dad and Sierra and the grandparents, and they were going to be just fine.

  Out on the lake, the one sister’s boat was spinning in circles as she yelled at Grandpa and tried to navigate to the dock. Grandma paced on the patio, giving Mom an update on her cell phone. The other sister on the lift was arguing with Dad, saying they had papers, legal documents, all kinds of proof.

  Dad stood guard over Lauren and Mac, keepin
g the woman at bay.

  The whoop of police sirens sounded from up above, and Lauren noticed police officers making their way down the zigzagging path.

  Amid the chaos, Lauren knelt beside her girl, checking her button nose and shell-pink ears, her honey curls and monkey arms, perfect for holding on to her mom. “Still got two arms and two legs,” Lauren said. “How are your feet doing?”

  Mac did a little hop and stretched out one foot decked in a red canvas shoe. “I got new shoes,” she said proudly.

  “I see that.

  “Promise me you never do that again,” Mac said, pressing on Lauren’s nose.

  “I promise. I was sad without you, but from now on, we’re going to be together, and you’re going to love your new family.”

  “Like on Seventh Heaven?”

  “Sort of. Maybe better because they’re real.” She started telling Mac about her Aunt Sierra and her grandpa who drove a fire truck and her grandma who liked to bake cookies. They could swim in the lake and paint pictures together and ride real horses. And Grandma had already found a wonderful little school for Mac.

  “So I can go to school, just like on Full House?”

  “Exactly,” Lauren said, remembering how, just months ago, her favorite television shows had been the frame of reference for “normal” and “happy.”

  “Oh, Mama.” Mac touched Lauren’s cheeks, her eyes just inches from Lauren’s face. “I’m so happy.”

  “Me too, honey.” It was a smooth, sweet feeling Lauren had given up on. The ability to fly after years of slogging through mud. “I’m happy, too.”

  Chapter 55

  Rachel paused in the doorway of Lauren’s room and chuckled. She had come up to check on Mac, but found her daughters stretched out in bed on either side of the sleeping girl. She went over to the bed, swallowing against the bite of tears in her throat. “You look like an O’Neil sandwich,” she whispered.

  “We’re three peas in a pod.” Lauren lay on her side with her body curved around Mac’s. Her face glowed with a new peace. Total contentment.

  Rachel got that.

  “Don’t tell me you three are sleeping in this bed,” Rachel said. “There are plenty of sleeping bags, a pullout sofa in the den, and a perfectly good bed in Sierra’s room.”

  “But we’re having a sleepover.” Lovingly, Sierra wrapped one of Mac’s golden curls around her finger. “All the O’Neil girls, together at last.”

  “It is something to celebrate.” Rachel perched on the bed and smoothed the comforter over Sierra. “But you have school in the morning, Sierra. Don’t stay up too late.”

  “We won’t.”

  Lauren nuzzled into the pillow. “I’m tired. What a day, Mom.”

  “What a day.” Lauren had that knack for minimal summary. What had begun with a trip to the county jail for Lauren to face her abductor had somehow spiraled into a rescue mission on the lake and now—little Mac, here in their home. Her home, now. There were still a million details to straighten out with the Department of Human Services and the police. Officially, Mac should have been removed from the Cannady home and sent to foster care until all the legalities were dealt with. However, considering the circumstances, Hank and Paula had been able to cut through the red tape so that Lauren could take her daughter home tonight.

  “Good night, cuties.” Rachel gave kisses all around. By the time she closed the door, the girls were already giggling about something else.

  Downstairs, she found Dan settled into the family couch across from the gas fireplace. He smiled up at her. “All good?”

  “All good.” She stretched out on the sofa and leaned into his lap.

  “Do you realize that by the time Mac goes to college I’m going to be fifty-nine, pushing sixty?”

  Rachel chuckled. “No, I hadn’t made that calculation yet.”

  “You do realize that we’re going to need to share some of the parenting with Lauren.” Dan stared into the fire, ever the planner. “She couldn’t possibly handle raising a child alone.”

  “I welcome the journey. And I love that you’re so responsible.” She lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles. “We’ll have to take care of each other so we can be around to get Mac through college.”

  He smiled. “That’s a deal.”

  “I still don’t know what to make of the Cannady sisters.” The women claimed that they would have surrendered Mac had they known she was a missing child. When Rachel had arrived at the cathedral house with Hank, she had listened carefully as Heidi had explained their situation. They had argued that they had legal custody, since Kevin Hawkins, the child’s father, had signed away all rights to Mac in a document drawn up by their attorney. They seemed like reasonable people, and once the police arrived, they cooperated.

  “My sister and I have gotten very attached to Mackenzie,” Heidi had said. “I don’t want anyone to think we’re weirdoes. We’ve been on the county’s foster family list for years. A dozen kids have come through this house at different times. Good kids who needed a break that we could give them. That was what we saw in Mac. Kevin Hawkins . . .” Her eyes had iced over at the mention of his name. “That man is trouble. When we heard he was giving Mac up for adoption, Holly and I stepped up. Yes, we offered to give him money if he would sign the papers and leave us alone. And we used Ben as a middleman to keep Hawkins away. He is not a trustworthy man. We knew that if we took Mac on, we would need to protect her and ourselves from the likes of him.”

  Well, Rachel thought, they were right on that score.

  “Do you think they’ll go to jail?” Rachel asked Dan as she relaxed against the warmth of his body.

  “I don’t know. I don’t completely buy their altruistic image. I’m relieved to let the justice system deal with people like Ben Juza and the Cannady sisters.”

  “And their claim about saving Mac makes me wonder about Lauren. If they were leery of Kevin Hawkins’s possible abuse of children, why didn’t they intervene on Lauren’s behalf when they saw her being forced to peddle her art in the marketplace?”

  Rachel knew that the Cannady sisters were not alone in their neglect. Ben Juza had pegged Hawkins as a psycho, yet Juza did not think to help Lauren. Nor had hundreds of customers moving through the market . . . or, for that matter, cops.

  “Portland has its fair share of homeless and runaways,” Dan said. “I don’t want to think that Lauren was overlooked because she blended with that group, but it’s the truth.”

  Another harsh truth. Rachel sighed. “We can’t solve the problems of the world in one day.”

  Dan chuckled. “But I have to say, today we sure came close.”

  Epilogue

  “Silent night, holy night . . .” Lauren, Rachel, and Sierra sang the Christmas carol in harmony as they made cookies.

  Sitting on a high stool at the kitchen island, Mac stopped decorating a reindeer-shaped cookie to watch and listen. Enthralled, she swayed her hands through the air in time to the song.

  Lauren grinned, almost missing a note over Mac’s antics. Her little girl was such a ham.

  The cookies, icing, and colored sugars were set up in the expanded kitchen—part of the renovation done to the house when it became clear that their family had grown. Now a new hall off the dining room led to a two-bedroom suite for Lauren and Mac, all funded by Lauren’s art.

  When a few auction houses had come around with offers, Lauren had decided to sell most of the artwork from the compound, relieved to part with the pieces that reflected the loneliness of those difficult years. She realized that its monetary worth was inflated because of her celebrity as the survivor of a six-year-long kidnapping. That label would probably always stay with her—her public image—but the people who knew her personally recognized her as a loving, creative, generous person. A person centered on joy—the union of the black and white yin-yang swirl.

  Over the past few months, they had begun to build a life. Mac was a star pupil at the Little Red Schoolhouse. Lauren worked at Spirit
Ranch, caring for the horses, loving up Yoda, and assisting with children’s riding lessons. She missed seeing Jazz every day, now that he had gone back to college, but soon he would be off for an entire month during the Christmas break. And she had gone back to her art. Some evenings after supper, Lauren and Mac would set up two easels and paint together. Lauren believed that Mac had the gift, but then she believed Mac brought magic to everything she touched.

  At first, Mom had been disappointed that Lauren wasn’t planning to go to college, but she had come to see that her daughter needed to follow her heart right now—and play to her skills, as Wynonna often pointed out. In a few months, when the sun returned, Rachel and Lauren would start working together toward a GED. Lauren figured she could do that much, as long as they could study in a classroom under the sky.

  When the carol ended, there was a moment of silence, lovely as new-fallen snow. Then Mac clapped.

  “Mama, can I ask you something?”

  Lauren smiled. As if there were any stopping her. “Sure.”

  “What pole does Santa Claus live on again?”

  “The North Pole,” Lauren answered.

  “Oh, yeah.” Mac hugged the post at the end of the kitchen island. “Is it like this pole?”

  “The North Pole is a place. I can show you on the globe,” Lauren told her, realizing she had never talked to her parents about Santa Claus. At eleven, she had known he wasn’t real, but had wanted to keep believing. Now, she could keep it all going for Mac.

  “And it’s really cold there. It snows all the time,” Lauren added.

  “I think it’s time to break out the Christmas movies.” A puff of flour rose from the marble slab as Rachel dusted the ball of dough. She explained how Santa lived up north in a magical place with Mrs. Claus. “And every Christmas, Santa travels around the world in his sled to deliver toys for good girls and boys.”

  “I know the part about the toys,” Mac said. “And they have poles there made of striped candy canes and cute little people who work, work, work with little hammers to build toys.” She mimed pounding away with a hammer the size of a toothpick.