She dialed Miller’s number. When she heard Abby’s voice answer, it took a few seconds for the reality to sink it. “Abby? Are you with your dad?”
“Yes. He found me.”
“You’re safe?”
“Yes. We’re going to look for Jack now. Where are you?”
“I’m on my way to get Jack. He’s in the barn at Levi’s.”
“We’ll meet you there.”
Emily sped toward her family’s property with more urgency than she’d ever felt. Now that she knew where Jack was, she couldn’t wait to get to him. The headache that had never really gone away was raging hard, and her head was swimming. Since she was almost to Levi’s, she refused to give in to her concussion. This whole day was so screwed up and seemed to be lasting so much longer than a day should. But really, this day hadn’t started when she woke up. It actually started long before Levi had beaten her father. It even went farther back than when she ran away fourteen years ago. They were all paying for sins that happened so long ago. The sins of her family were passed on through the bloodline, like defective DNA. There was no end to it.
When she got to the barn, she ripped the crime scene tape back. She had to push the door open with her shoulder because she needed the strength of her whole body behind her. It was already dark outside. Inside the barn was darker. Levi hadn’t installed any electricity, so she had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness. The moment the ladder to the loft materialized, she sprinted to it, scrambled up it, and found Jack lying on a blanket on a cot, like in the picture Alan had showed her.
She ran to him, knelt beside him and wrapped him up in her arms. “Jack,” she said, pushing his hair off his sweaty forehead. “Wake up, buddy. Wake up.”
“Emily?” Miller’s voice came from down below.
“I’m here. I’ve got Jack.”
Within a minute both Miller and Abby were up in the loft with Emily and her sleeping son.
“How’s he doing?” Abby asked.
“He’s asleep. Alan gave him Benadryl.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s going to be fine. I’d really like to get out of here.”
Miller squatted down and took Jack over his shoulder. “After the day you’ve had, you don’t need to be carrying anything. I’ll take him. We can all fit in the truck.”
When they were all loaded in the truck together, with Jack in her lap, Emily felt the first twinge of relief. That was all she could let herself feel, though. When Jack was awake she’d feel better.
“How did you get away from Alan?” Miller asked.
“It’s a long story. Let’s just say Alan’s lying handcuffed to his bed thinking he’s going to die any minute now because I injected him with bleach. How did you find Abby?”
“Long story. Let’s just say when Alan finally gets out of his handcuffs, he’ll see his Facebook page was hacked. I think I will get finally get on there myself.”
“You are not getting on Facebook,” Abby said.
Jack’s eyes fluttered open briefly. He took a deep breath and smiled. “I didn’t move a muscle.”
“You did great, buddy.” Emily kissed his cheek. “Perfect.”
“Can I have waffles?”
“You sure can. You can have whatever you want.”
“Can I have waffles and spaghetti?”
“Absolutely.” Emily’s phone vibrated in her pocket. When her mom’s name appeared on the caller ID, she hesitated. She didn’t want to deal with her mother right then but knew she had to eventually because she was going to keep calling.
“Where have you been, young lady?” her mother demanded as though she was still sixteen. “I have been waiting for you. You were supposed to be home hours ago, and now we’re almost out of time.”
“I’m on my way home now, Mom,” she lied and then mouthed, “My mom’s at her house, waiting for me. Tell Owens?”
Miller nodded and pulled out his phone.
Her mom sighed. “Okay. Good. I’ll be so glad to see you.”
“Okay, Mom. See you soon.”
“Hey sweetie?” her mom asked.
“Yes?”
“Will you pray for me?”
Emily hadn’t prayed in years. Not really. Sure, there were those quick moments of pleas that her car wouldn’t run out of gas or that she could make it through the checkout line of the grocery store before Jack’s fit got too bad. “I haven’t prayed in a long time, Mom.”
“I’m in your room waiting for you. Promise me you’ll come pray with me.”
“I promise.” She hung up as Miller pulled his truck up in front of his house.
“Owens said he could have someone there within five minutes. He wants us to go to the station, but I told him if he wanted to talk to us, he’d have to come here.”
“I should go meet him there and help him with my mom.”
He put the car in park and turned off the ignition. “Um, I don’t think that’s a very good idea. She still has two needles.”
“You think she’d use it on me?”
“You think she wouldn’t?”
Miller was right. Her mom sounded very anxious for her to come home. “I’ll go visit her later, after Owens does his thing.”
They all piled out of the truck, and Miller smiled as he took Jack from her. “I can get used to this,” he said.
She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “Me too.”
“You sit with Jack and rest. Abby and I will make dinner.”
“I got spaghetti,” Abby called out and started to pull pans out of the cabinets.
Miller winked at Emily. “Guess that leaves me with waffles.”
Emily sat with Jack’s head in her lap and brushed his hair off his face, watching him slowly wake up. “How ya doing?” she asked when both his eyes were open.
“Is that mean man gone?”
“Yep. How do you feel?”
“My head hurts.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“Pamprin.”
“Pamprin?”
“It stops the pain before it stops you.”
How had she even gone an hour without Jack? “Oh how I missed you.”
Miller’s phone rang. He called out, “Can you get that?” from the kitchen.
She answered it and cringed when she heard Owens’ nasally voice. Something about it pierced her skull and shots hot barbs through her brain.
“Is this Abby?” he asked.
“It’s Emily.”
“Oh yeah.” Owens grunted. “Anyway. Tell Miller we didn’t find your mom anywhere in her house.”
“That’s impossible. I got off the phone with her less than ten minutes ago. She said she was at home waiting for me.”
“Well, she ain’t there.” There was a long period of silence then he said, “I’ll be out there in a bit, after I check on Alan.”
Emily hung up. Where could her mom be? She’d said she was at home, that she was waiting for her. Why would she have left?
Miller came around the corner holding a wooden spoon. “Everything okay?”
“My mom’s not at her house.”
“That’s weird. Are you sure she said she was home?”
“Yeah. She said she was waiting for me in my room. I don’t understand why…Oh God.”
“What?”
It was starting to make terrible sense to Emily. “I think she’s is in my room. My old room.”
“Huh?”
“Call Owens again, and don’t let Abby go upstairs.”
“I sent her to her room to get you a pillow.”
“No, Miller. This is my old house, and Abby’s room is my old room. My mom’s up there.”
Miller dropped the spoon and took off running for the stairs. Emily scooted out from under Jack’s head and followed him. When they got upstairs, they found Abby standing in her perfectly clean room over her perfectly made bed, staring at an unconscious Gail.
“What was she going to do with that?” Abby aske
d, pointing to the full, uncapped syringe that was in Gail’s hand.
Miller and Emily looked at each other.
“How long do you think she’s been here?” Miller asked.
“She started leaving me messages hours ago, telling me to come home. I think she must’ve gotten here right after we left with Alan.”
“Abby would’ve been here alone when she showed up. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“Alan saved Abby’s life.” She moved closer to inspect the syringe that was meant for her and watched her mom’s chest slowly rise and fall. She was still alive. Underneath her mom’s head was her prayer book. She took the syringe from her hand and squirted the bleach out. “I need a few minutes alone with her, if you don’t mind.”
“Are you sure?”
“She’s no threat to me now, and I promised her I’d pray for her. Five minutes. Then you can call Owens.”
Miller and Abby stepped out of the room. Emily took the prayer book, sat on the bed, and laid her mom’s head onto her lap.
“You came to pray with me. You kept your promise,” her mom said in a weak voice.
“I said I would.”
Gail opened her eyes briefly. “Did you find the syringe? Did you clean yourself?”
Emily cringed at the physical pain that came from knowing her mother would have injected that syringe into Abby. Her mom was sick, and Emily hadn’t even known it until today.
“I did,” she lied. “I’m clean.”
“That’s good,” Gail sighed.
“I know Hoyt’s my father. What happened?”
Gail ignored her question. “All this time it was your blood that needed to be cleaned. Now we’re all clean.”
“Please. I need to know.”
“I was engaged to your fa…to Norman. I wasn’t happy. Hoyt came along. He was older, charming, and so handsome. He said he loved me and offered to take me away. He said he’d take me anywhere I wanted to go. He never did take me anywhere…except to a dirty room in a cheap motel. When I told him I was pregnant he laughed at me and said, ‘Tell Violet we’re even.’ Then he left me, and I was heartbroken. I told Mother and she blamed me. I never did find out what happened between the two of them. He used me as some kind of a…I don’t know…a…a…” Her breathing was becoming more and more shallow.
“As a weapon?”
“No. A reckoning.”
“Mom, I’m so sorry.”
“I was going to get rid of it…of you. Mother told Norman, and he made me keep you. You were supposed to be my punishment, but I’ve always loved you. I could never let them see how much I loved you or they would have made it harder for you.”
Emily touched her mother’s cheek. “I knew you loved me.”
“You said once that God has names.”
“Yes.”
“What do you call God?” Gail asked in a voice that was barely a whisper.
“‘God.’ I know He has names, I’ve never learned them.”
“Do you think He knows my name?”
She was pretty sure she knew where her mother was going with her questions because she had asked these very same questions herself. “Yes.”
“Do you think He saw when Hoyt broke my heart?”
“Yes, I think He did.”
“Do you think He knew I let you be hurt?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Then why did He let it happen?”
That was the question of Emily’s life. Why had God let her parents hurt her? Why did He let Jack be autistic? Why did He let her ex cheat? She didn’t know. All she knew was that bad stuff happened and maybe there would come a day when she could say it was all worth it. Hopefully she would recognize it when it happened.
“I don’t think God’s job is to keep evil from happening.”
“I’m so tired. Will you pray for me now?”
Emily ran her finger along the spine of the book. The silver letters of the title, Prayers for a Better Tomorrow, were mostly worn off. She opened the book to the earmarked page titled, For the Sick and the Dying, and began to read a prayer to a God she didn’t understand, whose name she didn’t know, for a healing she knew wouldn’t come. She was glad for the chance to feel close to her mother before it was over.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
Miller
When Owens walked into his house, Miller said, “Follow me,” and led him through the house to the stairs.
“I checked on Alan like Emily suggested,” Owens said as he followed behind Miller.
“And?”
“Found the yellow pads of paper and a couple of plane tickets to Colorado with his and Emily’s names on them.”
“Interesting.”
“I’ll look into it some more. I guess it’s possible Emily was telling the truth.”
“Where’s Alan now?”
“Still on his bed.” Owens grinned. “Still waiting to die.”
“You didn’t tell him that wasn’t bleach?”
“The boys at the station and I have a bet to see how long it’ll take him to figure that out on his own. I’ve got three hours. If it goes over that, I’ll fill him in.”
They walked into Abby’s room. Miller knew when he saw Gail that she was dead. Crazy old lady died smiling. Emily’s torso was slouched over Gail. Poor thing was so tired she fell asleep reading to her dying mother.
“Em,” he said in a low voice and gently shook the arm that was draped over Gail. “Sheriff Owens is here.”
She didn’t move. Miller shook her arm harder. She still didn’t wake up. “Wake up, Emily,” he said, shaking her as panic set in. He tried to sit her up so he could shake her harder, but she fell back over her dead mother and Gail’s old prayer book fell out of her lap. “Sheriff, I think you better call for an ambulance.”
***
Miller watched the nurse hurry by him again. He didn’t know what to be bothered by more—that two weeks after they put Emily into the medical coma for the head trauma Alan had inflicted on her they were still running these tests, or that this time the tests were taking so damn long. The fact that the nurse’s eye contact had gone from hopefully sympathetic to nonexistent was something he wasn’t willing to accept as anything other than a professional necessity on her part. She was obviously too busy taking care of the woman he loved to cater to his anxieties.
The nurse passed by him again, slower this time. Then the doctor came out and said something to another nurse, who took off in the other direction.
Miller rose and shook the hand he offered. “Well?” he asked. “How does it look?”
“I think you should sit down, Miller,” the doctor said.
“I don’t need to sit. Just tell me.”
“There’s been another complication.”
“What?”
“Seriously, Miller. You should have a seat.”
The hope in Miller’s heart plummeted into his stomach like a twenty-pound weight, forcing him to sit back down. He swallowed hard and asked, “What?”
“There’s been another complication.”
“You said that already.”
“I know. I need you to understand how serious this is. We can’t care for Emily here anymore. We’re going to have to move her to Oklahoma City.”
“That’s three hours away.”
“It’s where she needs to be.”
This wasn’t what he had hoped to hear. The hope that she would be able to wake up soon was getting him through the exhaustion. The drive into Durant was growing longer by the day, but a three-hour, one-way drive?
“The kids. How am I gonna—”
“It’s where she needs to be. You know what?” The doctor looked down the hallway and then back to Miller. “Let’s go to Emily’s room. I think it’s better if you see for yourself.”
Miller stood back up. As he followed the doctor to Emily’s room, the weight of hope in his stomach had shattered into shrapnel. He should have known better than to hope Emily was going to be ok
ay, hope they’d have a shot at a second chance, hope for happiness. He stepped into her room. The doctor was already at the head of her bed, standing next to the heart rate monitor that was attached to her.
Miller looked at the monitor and then at Emily. “That can’t be,” he whispered.
“Like I said, we have to move her. We’re not equipped.”
Miller nodded, said, “Okay,” and then started to cry.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
Miller
Miller woke to the sound of water running in the bathroom and opened his eyes to the empty side of the bed. He was tired of waking up to the empty side of the bed. He’d been sleeping in the middle of the bed ever since Sara left. Now, no matter where he started, he always ended up on one side with his hand touching the vacant pillow.
He got up and went into the bathroom. Jack was standing in front of the sink on the stool Miller had put in there for him and holding a hairbrush under the running water. He put the wet brush to his head and plastered the front of his hair diagonally across his head, leaving the back dry and sticking up.
“Whatchya doing?” he asked.
“Have to look handsome.”
“That top button looks a little tight.”
“You got any perfume?”
“Definitely not. I do have some cologne though.” Miller retrieved his cologne from the medicine cabinet, sprinkled a few drops into Jack’s hands, and showed him how to apply it.
“Do I look handsome?”
He held the boy out at arm’s length. “Yep. Best-looking kid in the first grade. Go on down to the kitchen. I’ll be right there.”
Jack darted out of the room but came right back, said, “Thanks,” and took off again.
Miller pulled on dirty jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt and went downstairs. He was pouring the pancake batter onto the griddle when Abby came downstairs waving her hand in front of her nose. “Who took a bath in the Eternity?”
Secondhand Sinners Page 27