Before she’d put her car in park, Tonya Davidson stepped onto the front porch.
As soon as she opened the door, Tonya called out, “Anissa? Is that you, hon? What are you doing here? Why didn’t you call?”
Steve joined Tonya on the porch and Tonya clutched his arm. “Anissa’s here.”
They watched her approach. Eyes wide, darting. Nostrils flaring. Heads shaking. It took Anissa a moment to realize that they’d caught her before she had a chance to fix her face or her eyes. She must look like she’d cried for hours. After all these years, they would interpret her sudden appearance to mean she had bad news.
Anissa jogged up the steps. “I found her. Alive. She’s alive.”
Tonya sagged against Steve. Steve wrapped his arms tight around his wife, his own shoulders shaking as enormous tears dripped from his chin into her hair.
Anissa kept talking. She knew they would need all the details, but for now, they needed to hear only the most pertinent points. “She was adopted by a family that loved her. Her adoptive mother had no idea she’d been kidnapped. She believed the adoption was legal. But you need to know that she has loved Jillian—she loves Jillian—with everything in her. Your girl has been safe and warm and fed and loved.”
Steve pulled Anissa into a hug with Tonya and they all cried. It didn’t take long for Tonya to recover enough to ask the most pertinent questions of all.
She looked at Anissa’s car. “Is she here? When can we see her? When . . . when can we get her back?”
Anissa pulled her phone from her back pocket. “She’s in Carrington. She had a bad cryptosporidium infection. But she’s doing fine, and she was released from the hospital yesterday. She’s with her adoptive mother, Velma, at a friend of mine’s house.”
Tonya’s disappointment was palpable.
“I have a picture though.” Anissa turned the phone around. Tonya took it from her like a sacred chalice. She and Steve studied the photograph, with awe and love and joy and confusion all fighting for dominance on their faces.
“She has your laugh, Tonya,” Anissa said. “She goes by Liz. That’s the only name she knows. And she’s a delight. She spent the better part of the past week encouraging a young patient who’d tried to commit suicide after . . .” Anissa couldn’t keep going. “She’s amazing.”
Steve studied the photo. “Does she know?”
Anissa nodded. “She does now.”
“When can we see her?” Tonya asked. So much hope. So much emotion in those five words.
“Tonight.”
Gabe paced the deck at Ryan and Leigh’s house.
Liz sat on the dock below. Alone. What must she be thinking?
She’d screamed at him after Velma told her. “You knew! You knew and that’s the only reason we’re here! That’s the only reason you care! I’m just a case to be solved!”
He’d let her yell at him because he knew she needed to yell at someone and she was afraid to yell at her mom. And when she ran back up to her room and slammed the door, he patted Velma’s arm and told her not to worry about it. That he’d been accused of much worse, by much worse people.
She’d eventually left her room and they’d let her go outside without stopping her.
Maybe by now she’d calmed down.
He walked to the dock, and when she didn’t tell him to go away, he slid off his shoes, rolled up his pant legs, and took a seat three yards away. He dangled his feet over the edge of the dock, cooling them in the water, and started talking.
He shared the parts of the story that were his to tell. He left out the parts that were Anissa’s.
Clearly Anissa needed to fight her own battles and didn’t appreciate it when he tried to fight them for her.
He told Liz about Jeremy and Brooke, and why he and Anissa had been at the hospital that day. That Anissa had recognized her immediately. That it was nothing short of a miracle that they’d been in the right place at the right time. About how he’d been taken by Liz’s joy. Her zest for life.
She was listening. He knew that much. At one point, she’d pulled off her own shoes and stretched her long legs toward the surface of the water.
He kept talking.
He wished Anissa was there, the way she’d been there the day he’d talked to Brooke in the hospital, to give him little signals to let him know he wasn’t messing this up. But she wasn’t. And even if she had been, there was no guarantee the message would have been positive.
After a while, Liz faced him, threw her hands in the air, and said, “How am I supposed to handle this? Can you tell me that? I’m not an idiot. I get that the Davidsons”—the name rolled off her tongue like it was a foreign word she was trying to get the hang of—“are my biological parents and that they never wanted to lose me, so I can’t be mean to them. I can’t leave them to be miserable. But my mom is sick. She might even be dying! What am I supposed to do about that? Leave her? Go live with my stranger-parents?”
She pulled in a shuddering breath. “No matter what happens going forward, someone is going to be hurt.”
“That’s one way to look at it.” He couldn’t argue with her on that. “There’s a minefield ahead of you for sure. But . . .”
Liz cut her eyes at him like she was daring him to find a way to make any of this better.
“Maybe a better way to see it is that, no matter what happens going forward, all of us will be different. And we’ll get to decide whether that change is good or bad.”
She frowned but didn’t argue, so he pressed on.
“We’ll all be more sympathetic. More loving. More willing to forgive. At least I know I will. I watched you with your mom. I know she hurt your feelings by hiding her illness from you, but you forgave her. You recognize that she isn’t perfect and she made a bad decision, but you still love her and you’ve forgiven her.”
“She’s my mom. She’s not hard to forgive.”
“Fair enough. But it was still a good example for me. There are people I need to forgive. For a lot of things. Some grudges I’ve been holding on to for a long time. And it’s time to put all that aside.”
“You mean about Paisley, don’t you?” Liz gave him an all-knowing smirk.
“Paisley is one thing. Yes.”
Liz grinned a little.
“But there are other people I need to forgive for hurting me. For messing up my life. They don’t even know they did anything wrong. Or they don’t care. Either way, I need to forgive them. Not for their benefit, but for mine.”
“What does this have to do with the fact that my birth parents are on their way here?”
“Because no matter what happens over the next few weeks, there are bound to be mistakes that will require forgiveness. I can almost guarantee you there will be hurt feelings and hard words and aggravations, and when it’s all said and done, the one thing you have control over is whether or not you’ll forgive.”
Liz didn’t answer. Her gaze followed a boat as it pulled a wakeboarder into the cove. The rider held on tight as the boat turned, his speed increasing with every second until the boat was straight again and he was jumping the wake on the way back into open water.
When the silence returned to the lake, Liz’s sighs were easy to hear. “Even the guy who took me away in the first place?”
Why did she have to ask him that? “That’s a tough one. That might be one that takes a lifetime to manage.”
“Probably.”
Gabe didn’t try to add anything. She stared at the water and so did he, watching the random bubbles popping up on the lake from unseen fish.
“Do you think they’re nice? The Davidsons?”
The fear in her voice was a vise on Gabe’s heart. “I’ve never met them. Anissa thinks they’re wonderful.”
“And you think Anissa is wonderful.” Liz didn’t state it as fact as much as a taunt.
“That is none of your business,” he said, softening the words with a wink.
Liz laughed. A real laugh. “I think you’d ma
ke a great couple. She’s gorgeous, with that long hair, and have you noticed her biceps?”
Gabe wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond to that. Of course he’d noticed Anissa’s biceps. He’d noticed everything about her. But that wasn’t a conversation he was comfortable having with a sixteen-year-old. Thankfully, Liz kept going with barely a pause. “She’s so healthy and fit. Is she a vegan?” Liz’s horrified expression pulled a laugh from Gabe.
“She is not. She eats a lot of salads. And a lot of fish. She grew up on an island and seafood makes her happy. But she eats junk food too. She loves pizza. And Coke. She’s barely human until she’s had a cup or three of coffee in the morning. She loves cupcakes, but she does this thing where she breaks off the bottom and puts it on the top so the icing is in the middle, and then she eats it like a sandwich.”
Liz’s eyes widened. “That’s a great idea.”
“Oh no. Not you too. I can’t have two weirdo women in my life, decapitating their cupcakes. Cupcakes are supposed to be eaten the good old-fashioned way.” Gabe pounded his fist on the dock.
Liz’s giggles bubbled out of her. “’Cause you’re so old? What exactly is the old-fashioned way to eat a cupcake?”
“You bite into it, and if you get icing in your nose, then that’s just an unfortunate side effect.”
They both laughed. “I can’t see Anissa wanting to get icing in her nose,” Liz said.
“Good point.”
“But if she eats junk food, how does she stay so fit? She just looks strong.”
Liz’s words rang with admiration. Gabe got a feeling he might know where this line of questioning was coming from. Liz’s skin was still pale from her recent illness and her body was thin, but not in a healthy way. “Well, she doesn’t eat junk food all the time. Remember. Salads? Fish? Lots of both? But she exercises too.”
“A lot?”
“Almost every morning, unless she’s working a case and can’t go. She usually goes for a run on the weekend. And, of course, she swims.”
“Brooke said you called Anissa a fish.”
“You didn’t notice her gills?”
“She doesn’t have gills.” Liz jumped to Anissa’s defense.
“Okay. Fine. But she can hold her breath for a freakishly long time and she is the strongest swimmer I know.”
“Stronger than you?”
“Way stronger.”
The sound of doors opening and closing and then footsteps on the deck had them both turning around. Leigh leaned over the rail and called out, “I have supper ready. I wish you would come eat something. Velma says pasta is your favorite, Liz.”
“We’ll be there in a minute.” Gabe flashed her an okay sign.
“Pasta?” Liz rubbed her hands together.
“Are you drooling?” Gabe asked.
“Maybe.”
“Well, if you aren’t, you should be. Leigh makes her own pasta. It’s tender and delicious. Want to go find out what version she went with tonight?”
“I guess.” She stood, picked up her shoes, and squared her shoulders.
“It’s not the guillotine, Liz. It’s just dinner. Take it one thing at a time.”
Gabe followed her to the house. Lord, help us get this sweet girl through the next thing after dinner, because it’s going to be loco.
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing through the scope of the .270 hunting rifle, but there was no doubt about it.
That girl was Jillian Davidson.
And she wasn’t three years old anymore.
Anissa had to be involved. He wasn’t sure how, but if Jillian Davidson was hanging out with Anissa’s main squeeze, then there was no way Anissa wasn’t aware of what was happening. If he kept watching long enough, maybe she would show up.
But if he couldn’t get his hands on her by tomorrow . . . A new idea was forming. One that was sure to get him close to Anissa Bell—and eliminate the one person still alive who could identify him.
He’d done all the time in jail he was going to do. This time he wasn’t leaving anything to chance. He would get his revenge—and get as far away from here as possible. Live his life where no one would know what he’d done. Or care.
23
Anissa arrived at Leigh and Ryan’s at 8:00 p.m.
Liz didn’t look happy to see her, but she didn’t yell at her, so there was that.
Leigh shoved a plate with a salad, garlic bread, and a ridiculous portion of baked spaghetti in front of her as Ryan asked her when the Davidsons would arrive.
Velma was taking a nap.
Gabe was nowhere to be found.
Anissa washed her hands and settled onto a stool at the kitchen island. She bowed her head over the plate. Lord . . .
In that moment, she had no words. She should thank him for the food. She should thank him for safety. She should thank him for restoring a lost family. She should ask him for wisdom.
She tried again.
Jesus . . . I love you. You’re the best. Amen.
When she opened her eyes, Liz was standing in the space between the formal dining room and the kitchen. Arms crossed. Expression masked.
Anissa started with her salad. Two bites in, Liz moved to a stool at the far end of the island.
Three more bites of salad, two bites of spaghetti, and one bite of garlic bread later, Liz spoke. “So, you knew me as a baby.”
Anissa put her fork down and turned her head in Liz’s direction. “I did. You had blonde hair. It was almost white when you were an infant, but it got darker every year. And you spit green peas all over me when you were about seven months old. I told Tonya that if she insisted on feeding you slime, then you couldn’t be blamed for the result.”
There was a flicker of a smile, but Liz extinguished it.
Anissa went back to eating. Maybe, just like when Liz was a baby, the key to getting her to handle the less appealing things would be to give them to her in tiny bites, with lots of breaks between.
“How did you know my . . . my family?”
Anissa twirled spaghetti onto her fork. “Your father . . . birth father . . . Steve, was the youth pastor at the church I attended. That church had supported my family on the mission field for years. I’d known Steve and Tonya since I was, well, younger than you are now. So I was a natural choice to babysit.”
She held the fork aloft, ready to pop the food into her mouth. “I changed a lot of your diapers.”
Liz wrinkled her nose and shook her head like she’d gotten a whiff of something foul. “Gross.”
“But true.” Anissa smiled at her and took a bite. She needed something to keep her busy, because while she rarely felt the need to hug people, she was aching to hug Liz. No. She was aching to hug Jillian.
Lord, help us get through the next hour.
She finished her meal—well, half of it, with Liz still sitting on the stool at the end of the island. Anissa helped herself to one of Leigh’s ready pile of to-go plates. She put her leftover spaghetti, more salad, and another piece of bread in the container and snapped the lid on it. She winked at Liz. “If it weren’t for Leigh, most of us would starve.”
She popped the container into the fridge and turned back to the counter. “What did Leigh make for dessert?”
Liz got a funny expression on her face. “Cupcakes.”
“Oh. What flavor?”
“Chocolate. With different icings. Peanut butter. Salted caramel. And cream cheese.”
Anissa pretended to swoon. “Salted caramel. Yes.”
She found the cupcakes, guessed the one with salt crystals was the one she wanted, and put it on a paper plate. Liz watched her with an abnormal amount of intensity.
Anissa gave the bottom of the cupcake a gentle tug and it pulled away from the top. Then she sandwiched the icing between the top and bottom of the cupcake, squished it down a little, and took a bite. She’d barely put the thing in her mouth when Liz roared with laughter.
“What?” Anissa asked around a mouthful of cupcak
e.
“Gabe said that’s what you would do. I tried it. It’s a much better cake-to-icing ratio that way.”
They’d been talking about her?
Anissa tried to keep things light and breezy. “Gabe thinks I’m weird.”
Liz rolled her eyes in spectacular fashion. “Gabe is in love with you. Anyone can see that. He gets all swoony when he says your name. It’s really cute.”
“Swoony?” This needed clarification.
“You know.” Liz attempted a sappy look complete with batted eyelashes as she clasped her hands together and dropped her voice an octave. “‘She grew up on an island and seafood makes her happy.’”
Liz continued in what was more radio personality voice than a true imitation of Gabe’s voice. “‘She isn’t human until she’s had coffee.’” The giggles set in and she couldn’t go on.
Anissa took another bite of cupcake while Liz wiped her eyes.
“If I ever find a guy who says stuff about the food I like and how much I need coffee in the morning—and he says it like that makes me the coolest, most amazing creature in the world? I will marry him the next day.”
Anissa swallowed fast to keep from choking.
“If my parents will let me.” She had been laughing moments earlier, but now the tears filling Liz’s eyes were not tears of joy. “Are they going to try to take me away from my mom?”
Anissa wiped her hands and mouth before answering. “The legal situation here is complicated. But they love you. I know that’s hard to understand, but they’ve loved you your entire life. Give them a chance to find a solution that works for everyone.”
Anissa’s phone buzzed. She answered. “Anissa Bell.”
Tonya was on the other end. “We’re almost there. Is she okay if we see her? How’s she handling everything? How’s her . . . her mom? Should we call her Liz?”
Anissa reached out and grabbed Liz’s hand. “She’s expecting to see you, and I think she’s handling everything like a champ. She’s nervous.”
At this, Liz nodded.
“And she’s worried about her . . . well, her mom.”
“Of course she is. How is she? Her mom?”
One Final Breath Page 24