by Josi Kilpack
© 2007 Josi S. Kilpack.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, P.O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City Utah 30178. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book. Deseret Book is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company.
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kilpack, Josi S.
Sheep’s clothing / Josi S. Kilpack.
p. cm.
Summary: Fifteen-year-old Jess, the oldest of seven children, feels like a loser until she makes a new friend in an online chat room, but when “Emily” turns out to be a sexual predator who abducts her, the FBI, her parents’ emergency training, and the prayer of her Mormon community help her to survive.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59038-746-7 (pbk.)
[1. Online chat groups—Fiction. 2. Kidnapping—Fiction. 3. Christian life—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Family life—Utah—Fiction. 7. Mormons—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K55915She 2007
[Fic]—dc22 2007002447
Printed in the United States of America
Malloy Lithographing Incorporated, Ann Arbor, MI
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To parents everywhere, especially mine, who loved me despite myself
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
Epilogue
Author’s Notes
About the Author
Acknowledgments
As always, it took a village to get this story right. Thank you to my sweetie, Lee Kilpack, for his help with the original idea and continuing story from day one of this project. Thanks to my dear friend Julie Wright, for the months of brainstorming and support, along with Tristi Pinkston, Bob Bahlmann, Heather Moore, and Shirley Bahlmann for their priceless feedback. Thank you to BJ Rowley for his excellent editing skills at the end and for the details about toilets and contacts I would never have known otherwise. Thank you to Willard Boyd Gardner for help with the details about police work, and thanks to my writing groups—Logan, Utah: Janet Jensen, Arianna Cope, and Carole Thayne; and Willard, Utah: Anne Ward, Jody Durfee, Ronda Heinrickson, and Sheryl Compton—for the months of feedback that helped me get things fine tuned.
Big thanks to the talented staff at Deseret Book: Jana Erickson, product director; Jay Parry, editor; Sheryl Smith, designer; Laurie Cook, typesetter; and Lisa Mangum, editorial assistant. It has been an absolute joy to work with these individuals, and I can’t thank them enough for all their efforts in this book’s behalf.
Hugs and kisses to my family for all their enthusiasm and support, especially my husband, who is always the first to tell me that I can do anything. He is my foundation. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to tell me how another book I’ve written has touched, entertained, or edified them. You can’t know the difference you make. And, of course, thanks to my Father in Heaven, for all of the above and so much more.
Prologue
January 22nd
The invincibility and insecurity of adolescence had made everything so easy. They had met through a website used mostly by teens, mybulletinbored.com. So many young girls looking—searching—for someone to make them feel special.
If only Terrezza hadn’t led him on. He’d been so careful, building her trust, and assuring himself that she was the one. And then she betrayed him just when he thought she finally understood. She tried to leave after he’d worked so hard for them to be together. She wouldn’t even give him a chance to make things work, and he’d known from the beginning that he could never let her go home. If she would have just accepted his love, and loved him in return, they could have been so happy.
He parked the car, then went around to the trunk, scanning the area to make sure he was alone. But January in Alberta, Canada, kept very few people from coming this far out of town. Plus, night was gathering fast. After opening the trunk he hefted his load onto one shoulder. Though it was not an official landfill, that detail hadn’t stopped the residents of Jasper from using this place for years. Old appliances peeked out of the snow, and the corners of black garbage sacks fluttered in the wind. He navigated the unsavory and uneven ground in order to reach the middle. He wouldn’t risk leaving her on the outside edges where she could be easily discovered.
An old stove sat at an odd angle toward the middle of the area, and in the gathering grayness of evening it looked like a tombstone silhouetted against the sky. That’s where he would leave her. When he reached the stove, he hefted the body, wrapped in a blanket he’d bought at a secondhand store that morning, and laid it on the ground.
“It could have been different,” he whispered, his words carried away by the wind. He wanted to see her again, look at her face, but he resisted. She was dead. He needed no more reminders of what could have been. Obviously, she wasn’t the one.
Turning around, he headed back toward the car. It was forecasted to snow that night and all the next day. He was counting on the snow to eliminate the need for a burial. As he walked, he reflected on the years that had led up to this, all the girls he’d met online, all the opportunities he’d been afraid to pursue in person. But now he needed someone to share his life with. It wasn’t about the thrills anymore, the explicit online chats he’d been having with girls for years—it was about love and having a life with that special someone. He’d been wrong about Terrezza, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
Back at the cabin, he packed his things and circled the date March 22 in his planner. That was exactly two months away—plenty of time to make a new game plan, plenty of time to analyze what had gone wrong and mourn Terrezza properly. After all, he loved her.
It was hard not to be discouraged. It’s okay, he told himself as Canada disappeared through his rearview window. You’ll love again, and next time everything will be perfect.
1
——Origin
al Message——
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 9:03 PM
Subject: Hi
Jess—
i just ran across your bored on mybulletinbored.com and thought i’d say hi. my name is Emily and i live in pennsylvania—go flyers! do u like hockey? i play the piano too and also love the mountains like u do. just thought i’d pop in and say hi. i’d love to be e-pals. tell me more about yourself.
Emily
With all the children finally down for the night and the dishwasher started, Kate dried her hands on a dish towel and scanned the now-clean kitchen. With six kids, a clean kitchen was a rare enough event to deserve the notice, and since overcoming a particularly nasty bout of the flu the previous week, Kate was still catching up around the house. Lying in bed and having life go on around her had been absolutely miserable. The kids had caught it, too. Luckily, they recovered better than she did.
Kate turned off lights on the way to her bedroom, then shut the door, and the day, behind her. As she crossed the room to her jewelry box, she took out her earrings, glad she’d felt well enough to go to Enrichment that night even if the presentation hadn’t been one of the better ones. Rather than being inspiring, it made her feel guilty for all the things she didn’t do right. She hated that.
Brad was brushing his teeth in the adjoining bathroom and winked as she began getting undressed. She smiled and modestly turned her back to him. After seventeen years and six children, she no longer had the same confidence in his seeing her body that she’d once had. He always said she was beautiful, of course, but what else could he say? And even if he had made peace with the differences—thirty-five pounds in all the wrong places—she hadn’t.
“How are you feeling?” Brad asked after spitting into the sink.
“Tired,” Kate answered. “But good. Thanks for coming home early enough to run the kids around. I was glad I got to go.”
“Did you see that note from Caitlyn’s dance teacher?” Brad asked while rinsing his toothbrush. Kate had been home for almost an hour, but with family prayer and scriptures, bedtime, and half a dozen end-of-day necessities, they hadn’t had a chance to talk much.
“Yeah,” Kate said as she fastened the last button on her pajama top and turned to face him again. “I kept telling her she’d get in trouble if she didn’t follow the dress code—hopefully she will now.”
“What was Enrichment about?” Brad asked, surprising her. He didn’t usually ask about those kind of details.
“Womanhood,” Kate said. “Being a good woman, a good member of the Church, and a good mother. It was good, but the kind of presentation that makes you feel like you’re not doing nearly enough.”
Brad laughed and filled up a paper cup with water. “Well, it sounds like of all the Enrichments you could have missed, this one would have been it. You’ve got that whole womanhood thing down.”
Kate smiled at the compliment. “Except I can’t seem to get my teenaged daughter to say four words to me most of the time, and Keith’s teacher sent home yet another note about him talking too much and not turning in assignments. He might just flunk out of the second grade.”
“Everybody deals with that stuff. Jess is quiet—she always has been—and Keith is the class clown like he always has been.” Brad swished his mouth out one final time. “There’s no such thing as a perfect parent.”
Kate nodded. She knew that, but still, she wanted to be perfect. Overall, she was happy with her mothering, but there was always something she felt she should be doing better. Maybe everyone felt that way.
She passed Brad in the doorway of the bathroom, and he wrapped an arm around her waist and stole a kiss. She wriggled away, shaking her head at him. “Stop it,” she said with a laugh.
Brad got into bed, but she could see his reflection in the mirror as she wiped the mascara from her eyes. His dark hair and brown eyes both contrasted and complemented her fair complexion, blue eyes, and red hair. Their children were a grab bag of features and coloring from the two of them, and with each pregnancy she and Brad had wondered what this newest addition would look like.
“By the way, your mom called again,” Brad said, watching her.
Kate felt her smile fade, but she quickly pasted it back on and continued her skin-care regime. She’d heard it said that every person has two chances at having a family—the one you’re born into, which is beyond your control, and the one you create, which is entirely up to you. She was very proud of the family she had created. Glad to have a second chance. The reminder of that first family, if you could call it that, was not necessarily a welcome one.
Brad continued. “She was wondering why you didn’t call her back last week.”
Kate shrugged. “The message didn’t sound all that important.” But she did feel bad. She could be hard on her mother, but was she any better when she ignored her mom’s efforts, trite and lacking as they were?
“It’s been months since you talked to her.”
Kate looked at him in the mirror. “I know. Did you tell her the kids and I have been sick?”
“Yeah,” Brad said.
Kate let out a sigh. “I’ll call Mom back tomorrow.” The irony, however, was that she and her mother really had nothing to talk about. Two very different women, with different lives, different ambitions. It was hard to believe they were even related sometimes, and the conversations always felt choppy and strained. She was glad Brad said nothing more, letting the subject drop.
When her face was slathered with moisturizer, Kate shook one of her antibiotics from the prescription bottle before popping open her case of birth control pills. She noticed she was on her last one and made a mental note to pick up her next round from the pharmacy in the morning. She filled a paper cup with water, swallowed the pills, and found herself wondering if she wanted to start another month of birth control. She glanced at Brad in the mirror. Was he ready to discuss Thompson number seven?
After five perfect pregnancies, her last one had been different. She’d been put on bed rest for her blood pressure, then hospitalized, and even with that intervention, Chris was born a month early. Luckily, the complications were only on her side—Chris had been fine. However, the doctor had said the same problems could arise if she got pregnant again—but he’d said it as if the idea of having seven children wasn’t a consideration anyway. For most people, it wasn’t. Even Brad was willing to stop. But Kate had spent her childhood dreaming of siblings, of dinners at the table, and being a part of a real family.
When she met Brad—who was one of seven children—Kate determined that even though she hadn’t had it for herself, she desperately wanted a family like that for her children. His siblings were his best friends, and his parents were amazing people. Brad’s mom was more of a mother to Kate than her own mother had ever been. Being a part of them had been like coming home for the first time in her life. They both wanted that sense of family, that knowledge of belonging to so many people, for their own children.