If I'm Found

by Terri Blackstock

  I freeze. I can’t even breathe, or I’ll give myself away. I wait for him to look at me and point and call the police or handcuff me himself, but instead he says, “Joanie, are you the one working on the child abuse story over at that school?”

  “Yeah,” someone says from the other side of the computer bank.

  “Got something for you,” he says.

  “Thank you,” I tell him. “It’s all there. I appreciate . . . your time.”

  I stumble from the room, wanting to get out of there before someone looks up and realizes that I’m the girl on the screen.

  Will they pay any attention to the leads on the papers I just gave them?

  I’ll just have to wait and see.

  32

  CASEY

  Because I have housemates, there is never a time when I can take off my makeup and see Casey Cox. I have to leave my eyes smudged and black, like some heroin addict who woke up in a gutter. At first it was messy at night, and I didn’t like the feel of it. My eyes continually itched and I longed to wipe them clean. But now I’ve gotten used to it.

  Sunday morning I wake up early, craving something to fill the emptiness in my soul, so I decide I’ll go to church again. I don’t have nice clothes, but I put on a pair of black pants and a shirt that doesn’t look too bad, and I apply my heavy makeup and tousle my hair. I go downstairs and start toward the door, when Miss Naomi stops me.

  “Where are you going, honey? Not to work on Sunday, I hope.”

  I turn around. “I thought I would go to church.”

  Her face changes. “Church? Hold on a minute. I want Lydia to go with you.”

  I don’t know what to say, but I stand there for a moment, trying to think of a way out. She runs up the stairs, leaving her grandson at the bottom looking up at me.

  I smile at him. “What are you playing with?”

  He shows me the dump truck he’s pushing on the floor and chatters in his minion-speak, using words and sounds I can’t quite understand. As I wait for whatever it is that Miss Naomi is doing, I check my watch. I’m going to be late if I wait much longer to leave.

  I imagine she’s upstairs, trying to get her daughter out of bed, but the likelihood of Lydia agreeing to go to church with me is pretty slim. I just hope her mother will hurry and figure that out.

  After a few minutes, she comes back down with Lydia dragging behind her, looking like a zombie. She’s wearing jeans and a pullover shirt that her mother probably dug out of a drawer and forced her to throw on. Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy. When she gets down the stairs she looks at me. “Church? Really?”

  “Thank you for waiting, sweetheart,” her mother says to me. “She’s been wanting to go to church, haven’t you?”

  “More than anything,” Lydia quips. “I’ve told her that in multiple nonversations we’ve had.”

  “Um . . . what about Caden?”

  “I’ll keep him here with me,” Miss Naomi says. “Just you two go on and have a good time.”

  “Right,” her daughter says in a bitter tone. “But I need coffee.”

  Miss Naomi runs to the kitchen and comes back with two Styrofoam cups, hands them to us as we start out the door. I take mine gladly and drink it down as I get into my car. Lydia plops into the passenger seat.

  “Why under God’s blue heaven would you suggest that we go to church when I was sleeping?”

  “I didn’t suggest that,” I say. “I told your mother I was going and she insisted that I wait for you.”

  “She told me she wouldn’t give me gas money unless I went. Tyrant. It ought to be against the law.”

  As I drive, I try to push back my disappointment that she’s going with me. I hope it doesn’t call more attention to me. I had hoped to sneak in the back again after it had already started so that I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone. I want to blend in. I want to see if I can capture that feeling again. But I doubt I’ll be feeling anything with Lydia along, except maybe irritation.

  We’re ten minutes late when we get to the church. I find a parking place, then hurry toward the door. She lags behind. I tell her she can sit outside on the steps if she doesn’t want to participate. I won’t tell her mother. But she comes inside, a bitter look of annoyance on her face, her arms crossed as if to deny anything suggesting vulnerability.

  We slip into the back row as they’re singing a song I’ve never heard. I watch the screens at the front of the room for the words, hungrily taking them in, not singing but playing those lyrics through my mind, trying to understand. I glance at her standing beside me, looking around, disengaged. At least she’s being quiet, which is something.

  We sit down after the singing and they pass the offering plate. Our section leaders start at the front of our section, working their way back. By the time it gets to our row, there are paper bills stacked on each other, a twenty at the top. When it’s passed to Lydia, she plucks the twenty out of the stack and wads it in her hand.

  I gasp as I grab the plate. “You can’t do that!” I whisper.

  “Why not?” she says. “I thought it was for the needy.”

  “It’s stealing!” I whisper. “Put it back!”

  I can see that she has no intention of doing that. She only grunts as if to say, “Make me.” I’m thinking her maturity must’ve stalled somewhere around the age of eight.

  I’m still holding the plate, and the guy looks our way and reaches out for it. But I can’t give it to him until Lydia puts the twenty back. When I realize she’s not going to, I grab my wallet out of my purse, pull a twenty out, and put it in the plate. The usher smiles as he takes the plate.

  I’m mortified. My face burns red as I sit through the next few minutes of the service. I offer a silent prayer asking forgiveness for letting that happen. Surely God has some law that stealing from him has to be punished right here in the sanctuary. Will lightning come through the window? I can almost smell an electric charge as we sit here.

  “Enough with the hypocriticism,” she whispers.

  This must be another one of her combo words, but I can’t be a hypocrite when I never claimed to be anything. “I didn’t criticize you,” I whisper back.

  Eventually, Lydia nods off to sleep, so I lock onto the preacher’s words and try to absorb their meaning.

  “We’re not talking about some mythical messiah who used to live two thousand years ago,” he says. “We’re talking about a living Savior. What is he doing right now? He’s sitting at the right hand of God, making intercession for us.”

  I’m not entirely sure what intercession is, but it’s as if the preacher reads my thoughts.

  “What is intercession?” he asks, then his voice dips almost to a whisper. “It’s prayer. Jesus is praying for you. John 1:3 says, ‘All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.’ All things. The whole world! Yet what is he doing right this minute? He’s praying for you. Translating your prayers to his Father. Listening to what’s on your heart.”

  I try to imagine the Christ who died on the cross and was raised from the dead, now sitting on a throne next to his Father, talking to him about me. If that’s true, then maybe my prayers aren’t random thoughts that fly into the ether, then vanish if someone doesn’t happen along to catch them.

  “When you pray,” the preacher goes on, “it’s like you’re whispering into the ear of God himself. None of those prayers go unheard. They might not be answered like you hope or think they should be. You might ask for a car, and God gives you a bicycle. Turn with me to Romans 8 and look at something with me.”

  I pull the Bible out of its pocket on the back of the seat in front of me and open it, looking for Romans. I have no idea where it is, but I quickly find the index, then make my way to it.

  The preacher waits for us all to get there, then says, “Let’s start with verse 26. ‘In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us
with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.’”

  The words are like balm to me, exciting me in deep places of my soul, making me want more. I look up, waiting for the preacher to go on.

  “What is he saying? Paul is telling us that we sometimes pray for a new car, when Jesus knows that what we really need is self-worth. So Jesus takes those prayers that we pray for whatever we think will make us happiest, and he translates them into what really will make us happiest. Look at the next part of that passage. Verse 28 says, ‘And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.’ How many things?”

  The congregation answers, “All things.”

  “Some things?”

  I smile and answer with them. “All things.”

  “Listen, people, that’s how your prayers work. They come out of your mouth the way you want them to happen. Jesus translates them to the Father, telling him what it is we really need. And whatever happens, he makes sure that all things that happen are for our good, if we love him and—look at that last part—‘are called according to His purpose.’ That means that our very existence is for his purposes. That our lives have meaning to him. Called means invited. Chosen. We’ve been chosen for a purpose, and it’s for our good. Does that just blow your mind, or what?”

  Yes, it blows my mind. I don’t know why I’m wiping tears, but I’ve never felt quite like this before. Sitting here in this place gives me the most peace I’ve felt in years—maybe a decade, maybe more. I haven’t really had peace since my dad died. There’s been a bitterness eating a hole deep in me, burning the edges of my insides. But here I feel as if that heaviness is lifted, as if I can think more clearly. I can feel a power greater than me working right in front of me . . . and even through me.

  Maybe God does care about me after all.

  The service is almost over, and the congregation is on their feet, singing the last song, when I grab Lydia’s arm and tug her out. She slept through the sermon, then came awake when the singing started again. Now she blinks at me sleepily. “You gotta be somewhere?”

  “I just don’t like the traffic,” I say as we get to the foyer and push through the doors.

  “You know, you didn’t have to put that money in. Twenty bucks won’t break an outfit like that.”

  I don’t answer her, just walk down the stone stairs a few steps ahead of her, trying not to lose the feeling.

  33

  CASEY

  Sunday afternoon I don’t have to work, and I can’t decide where to spend my time. I haven’t watched Candace Price in a few days, so I go to her street. I don’t see her car where she usually parks it. She probably left earlier. I’m discouraged. I can’t find anything to link Candace and Keegan, so I’m probably in Dallas—dangerously close to Shreveport—for no reason at all. The TV station hasn’t yet reported what I took them Friday. I have a sinking feeling that they’ve tossed it onto a desk somewhere and covered it over with pageant queens and local events.

  Curious, I use my phone and go to the news station’s website. My mood changes instantly when I see that the first story is the one I’ve given them. I click on the video that played at noon today when I wasn’t home. They report the Trendalls’ reputation, their history of lawsuits and accusations, and the fact that Child Protective Services has taken Cole’s kids into custody. The TV station has even done an interview with him, and they have a clip of him saying that these baseless accusations have deeply impacted his family and traumatized his own children, since they’ve been taken from him and not even placed with a family member.

  I bang on the steering wheel and whisper, “Yes!” That’s something, even though they left out the part about the Trendalls giving Ava over to that man. Maybe they’re sitting on that until they have his full name and more evidence. I drive over to the Trendalls’ street, eager to see if they’re showing any reaction to the news.

  Little Ava is playing outside by herself again, digging in the yard with a small shovel. I watch her from my place several houses down. A half hour or so later, I see Nate storm out to the white four-door pickup in the driveway. He throws the back door open and yells for her to get in. Her hands are covered with soil, but she runs to obey anyway. Then I see her mother staggering out. She walks like a drunk across the yard, trips in a hole her daughter has dug, and falls in the dirt. Even as far away as I am, I hear her cursing as she gets to her feet. She doesn’t go back in to clean up. She simply dusts herself off and gets into the truck’s passenger seat.

  They back out of the driveway and head away from where I’m parked down the street. I start my car and follow. They turn right at the stop sign. When I reach the sign, I see that they’re three blocks away from me. I turn and try to catch up, keeping a couple of cars between us.

  The truck veers off the road a couple of times, then quickly rights itself. I wonder if Nate, who’s driving, is drunk too. Has anyone made Ava buckle her seat belt?

  After several miles of driving through town, they turn into a neighborhood. I follow, closer than I’d like, and when they pull into a driveway of a corner house with a chain-link fence that goes around the front and back yards, I drive past as if I have business down the road. As I pass, the man I saw the other day—the one Ava was terrified of—emerges from the house, and Tiffany gets out and slides open the back door. Ava doesn’t come right out, so Tiffany reaches in and jerks her out. Tiffany slams the back door, then turns back to the man and talks animatedly, arms flailing. She’s clearly angry, though I can’t hear what she’s saying.

  The man takes hold of Ava and pulls her into the house. Tiffany and Nate back out of the driveway, leaving her there.

  I feel sick again. I think of calling the police, but what could I say? That the Trendalls just left Ava with a man? What if he’s her uncle or her real father? What if I’m way overreacting?

  I look for something to write on, but there’s only a copy of the pages I gave the TV reporter, still lying on my passenger seat. I turn it over and write down the name of the street. I can’t see the number of the man’s house, but I scribble the numbers of the houses on either side—233 Cattonelle Avenue and 237 Cattonelle. I want to stay at the house to keep an eye out for Ava, but she’s not where I can see her. I don’t know how to help her.

  When the Trendalls are almost too far away, I decide to follow them instead. I get to the closest main street and see them several cars ahead of me.

  I follow them across town to the TV station. They both go to the door like they’re on a mission. It’s locked, so they bang on the glass, but no one opens it. I can’t pull in, so I drive past, then go around the block. When I get back, I see that they still haven’t been let in, so they’re heading back to the truck.

  I have to stop at a red light way too close to them, and I look the other direction so they won’t see me.

  Suddenly my passenger door flies open. I scream as Nate comes across the seat, shifts my car into park, and yanks me out. “Who are you?” he demands.

  “Get your hands off me!” I scream.

  Tiffany jumps into my driver’s seat. “I told you she was following us!”

  “What do you want?” he shouts, shaking me.

  I twist and slip out of his grasp, but he knocks me to the pavement, and my chin and elbows scrape on the ground. I scramble back up, screaming as he throws me against the car, but it’s Sunday and no one comes.

  “Who are you?” Nate demands. “What do you want?”

  “Are you crazy?” I shout back. “I was just driving by!”

  “She’s working for him!” Tiffany screams, jumping out of my car, waving papers. “Look what I found!”

  She’s holding up the copy I had on my seat—the stuff I gave to the TV station, with the address of the house where they left Ava. He holds me by my hair as he skims it, then grabs my chin and bangs me back against my car again. “So it
was you who gave them that.”

  “Most of it’s public record,” I bite out. “They would have found out eventually.”

  His breath smells of tooth decay and alcohol. “What business is this of yours?”

  “I know Cole Whittington,” I say. “He’s a decent man. They took his kids and now he’s suicidal, and you’ve done it all for money! Meanwhile, you let that man molest your daughter!”

  I bring up my knee and hit him hard, making him drop his arms and double over. Tiffany comes at me, but I shove her back, toppling her. I rush to my car and jump in. I slam the door and lock it, then screech away, leaving them behind.

  I’m trembling so hard I can’t even hold the steering wheel, but I get far enough away that they won’t find me. When I get back to my house, I sit in the driveway for a while, until I can make my hands stop shaking. I must be crazy, I tell myself. I must be as insane as them.

  What is wrong with me? My sister would absolutely die.

  I get to my room without anyone seeing me. Then I jump into the shower and clean off the bloody scrapes on my chin, my knees, my elbows and hands.

  I stand in the shower, trying to decide what to do next. I finally get out, shivering, and get dressed and climb into bed. I pull the covers over my head and try to think.

  I’m so tired of evil winning. I try to form a plan, but my thoughts race from my problems to Cole’s . . . and then to Ava’s.

  I pull myself back together, and I sit up and try to think. I could leave town, but I haven’t finished with Candace Price. I got sidetracked with the Trendalls, but I need to focus on Candace and her link to Keegan. Despite how things look, she has to be the link.

  If I don’t, I’ll wind up on the run for the rest of my life. My sister is right.

  I have to stick with the plan. The Trendalls don’t know where I live. They don’t even know my name. I got away from them before they had time to get back to their van and follow me. It’s okay. There’s no harm done.