Troy scanned the room, but apparently didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Jennie Anne could see why. The clothes Nedda had taken from the closet and folded in a stack on her bed really didn’t stand out from the crowded piles of junk around the room.
Her uncle snorted in disgust, tossing the dull brown hair on his head. “Geez, Mom, you can hardly fit in here for all this stuff.”
“What do you want?” Nedda’s voice clearly showed her anger, and Jennie Anne crouched even farther down by the bed in anticipation of another fit. Why couldn’t Troy leave them alone?
“Look, Mom, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. But don’t get me angry, see? Once I get the real money, I’ll give you some. Maybe move you down to Arizona or someplace warm.”
Nedda’s face said, I don’t want no part of it, you creepy excuse for a son. Now get out before I call the cops. What came out of her mouth was, “Okay, Troy. Whatever.”
He grinned at her. “I’m gonna shave and then take care of some business. By tonight I’ll know more. This is going to be big.”
He went to the bathroom and they heard the water running. Nedda sank down on the bed, staring into space, her plump arms folded across her belly. Jennie Anne craned her head to see her expression. Did that mean they weren’t going after all? Why did that suddenly seem even more frightening?
They sat in silence, listening to Troy in the bathroom. Forever clicked endlessly by until he emerged and the outside door slammed behind him. When the sounds of his old Chevy truck faded into the distance, Nedda arose and walked into the kitchen. With Troy gone, Jennie Anne felt secure enough to follow.
“. . . I know it’s an inconvenience,” Nedda was saying into the phone, “but I’ll pay you. It’s just to the airport. Thanks. I owe you one. Thanks a lot.”
They were still going!
Nedda went back to her room, but Jennie Anne stared at the phone on the wall. The numbers to Mickelle’s old phone number and the new one to the Wolfe Estates collided in her mind. She wanted more than anything to call Mickelle, to say goodbye. But what if she came running over? What if Troy hurt her?
Mickelle would wonder, though, what happened to her. She would be sad.
Jennie Anne decided to call the old house. They had installed an answering machine, and went there occasionally to move their belongings to Wolfe Estates. They would get her message within a day or two, and she would get to say goodbye.
“Hi, it’s me, Jennie Anne,” she said when the machine picked up. “My aunt’s taking me away, and I wanted to say goodbye. Don’t worry about me. I’ll call. Bye.” She wanted to say “I love you,” or even “Please come and get me,” but this first stuck in her throat and the other was too dangerous.
Then, because she couldn’t bear to go without at least hearing Mickelle’s voice one last time, she dialed the other number. The ringing sounded three times before a voice answered.
“Hello?” It was Belle.
Tears slipped out of Jennie Anne’s eyes. She quickly hung up the phone.
“Whatcha doing!” Nedda grabbed her bruised arm and pulled her away from the phone.
“Nothin’—I . . . Ow!”
“Oo, you’re making this hard on me!” Nedda exclaimed. She raised her hand as Jennie Anne cowered, but no slap came. “Just don’t call nobody,” Nedda said. To Jennie Anne’s surprise, she hugged her.
Jennie Anne’s emotions tumbled about inside her like a twig tumbled in the water when she tossed it into the creek. She stood there without moving but feeling so much.
Her aunt drew away. “There now, Franny’ll be here in a minute. Get your stuff. I’ll keep a lookout for Troy.”
Jennie Anne obeyed. When she was finished, Nedda told her to watch for Troy while she retrieved her money from the secret place under one of the piles in the bedroom. Jennie Anne knew where it was, but she had never touched it.
While Nedda was gone she went down the pathway to the couch, deciding that she could hear Troy’s truck just as well from there. Resentment built up inside her with each step. Troy had ruined everything. He’d stolen her sleeping place and had hurt her repeatedly. She wished she could hurt him back, especially since he was planning bad things for Mickelle and Damon. Not for the first time she wondered if that beautiful man had anything to do with the plan. She had thought he was Mickelle’s friend, but now she wasn’t so sure. He had never come to see her, even after Mickelle was hurt. Jennie Anne had tried to talk about him once to Belle, but her friend refused to listen, saying she hoped he fell off a cliff. Since Jennie Anne was forbidden by her aunt to talk about him anyway, she had let it go. She didn’t even know his name.
Her eyes fell on something under the couch—a suitcase, similar to the large one in which Nedda had packed her clothes. It had been squished flat to fit in the six inches of space where Jennie Anne kept her treasures when Troy was away. Jennie Anne pulled it out, driven by a fascination she couldn’t explain. They were leaving Troy behind, and he would never know she had touched his things.
She opened the suitcase, empty except for a few items of clothes. One of the inner pockets bulged. With a trembling hand, she reached in and pulled out a sheaf of bills. Her eyes opened wide. She knew those numbers now on the first bill, and it was as large as most of the first graders knew how to count.
“Jennie Anne!”
She jumped at her aunt’s sharp voice, but she didn’t put back the bills.
“You was supposed to be watching out the door. What if Troy had come—” She broke off as Jennie Anne wordlessly handed her the bills.
“Why, there are thousands of dollars here,” Nedda said after a moment of counting. “Ten at least, maybe more. Why that dirty sneak. He’s been holding out on me. He never told me it was this much.” She seemed to debate for a minute, before tucking it into her purse. “He owes me this and more, and I’m going to take it. He ain’t going to be any madder than he already is when he finds us gone. By then it’ll be too late. Makes up for all I’m leaving behind for the landlord, too.” Nedda stared a little misty-eyed at the stacks around her. With one hand she fluffed her short curly locks, which were showing gray near the scalp. Jennie Anne knew that now she would have enough money to get her hair done. That would make her happy.
A sound of an engine outside galvanized them into action. Thankfully, it was only Franny, and in minutes they were ready to leave. As Franny sped away, Jennie Anne fixed her eyes on the sad old house and Nedda’s rusty car. She felt heartsick when they faded from view, but didn’t know why, since she wouldn’t miss any of it except the willow tree where she had spent many hours swinging on the branches.
The new coat Mickelle had bought her when she had taken her to Wal-Mart suddenly seemed to weigh a ton.
Belle! her heart said. But even more deeply it cried, Mickelle!
* * *
Mickelle asked Damon to swing around to the old house to pick up a list of things she had been needing—especially her box of roses now that her curio cabinet had been restored and sat in a perfect place in Damon’s main sitting room. She couldn’t wait to set them out and hoped that doing so would cheer her up.
Bryan immediately disappeared into his room to collect more of his belongings. He’d been quiet all the way home, and while things weren’t perfect between them, at least he’d not interjected his negativity into the conversation.
There were other items, like her cookbooks and her special spices that she also wanted. As she packed them, she listened to the phone messages. The last one made her heart nearly stop. She had only missed it by a half hour. “Damon!” she called out the door.
He sprinted in from the car where he had taken her roses. “What?”
“A message from Jennie Anne . . . on the phone.” She pulled him along as she ran back to the kitchen. She punched the replay, then impatiently sped up the tape. Finally, Jennie Anne’s voice came through, sounding thin and scared.
Damon started for the door. “There might still be time.”
“Bryan, we’re leaving,” Mickelle shouted. “Hurry! Or we’ll come back for you.” She ran for the car, pain shooting up and down her bruised thigh.
Bryan came hurrying out, a box in hand. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Jennie Anne. Her aunt’s taking her away. We have to see if we can stop her!”
Damon shoved his Lexus into gear as they slammed the doors. He sped the three blocks to Jennie Anne’s as Mickelle sat praying. Her head had begun to hurt again. “That’s why they wouldn’t let her go this morning, I’ll bet,” she said.
Damon’s mouth tightened, but he concentrated on his driving.
“Did she try to call the other house?” asked Bryan.
Wordlessly, Damon handed over his cell phone, and Mickelle dialed quickly. “Hi, Tanner, this is Mickelle. Did Jennie Anne call?”
“Not that I know of. Belle answered the phone once, but nobody was there.”
“Check the Caller ID, would you?”
There was a pause and then Tanner said, “Yes, she called. Maybe it was her when Belle answered.”
“When was it?”
“A half hour ago. What’s going on?”
“We’ll explain when we get home. I have to hang up now.”
Had Jennie Anne needed help?
They arrived at the old house. The rusty car was still there, and everything appeared as it usually did. Mickelle was out of the door before the Lexus had come to a full stop. She half ran, half hobbled down the broken sidewalk. Damon reached her as she knocked on the door.
No answer.
They alternately rang and knocked for several minutes. Mickelle tried the door. “It’s locked.”
“I’ll try around back.”
Mickelle listened at the door, but heard nothing. She tried to peek through the window to no avail. In a few minutes Damon returned, shaking his head.
“Locked.”
“I should have called the police about the bruises.”
He gathered her in his arms, but Mickelle’s heart was so broken that she refused to be comforted.
“We’ll find her.” He was so confident, so in control. Sometimes it made her angry.
“What if we never do?” That would be worse, the not knowing.
“Come on.”
Damon led her back to the car, where Bryan stood uncertainly. Mickelle didn’t look at him. Everything hurt too much.
* * *
“I got to stop someplace first,” Nedda said to Franny. She glanced back at Jennie Anne. “To drop off Jennie Anne.”
Jennie Anne couldn’t contain her gasp of dismay.
“Now don’t get upset, girl. You know I was never much of an aunt to you. I’m too old and ornery. Can’t take you with me or Troy’ll catch up to me. He’ll be looking for an old lady with a kid. Can’t have that. He’s crazy. He’d kill me.”
Jennie Anne only knew that leaving her behind meant that Troy would find her. “I want to go with you,” she choked out.
“No.” Her aunt shook her head. “I got it all planned. Right now I got to do what’s best for me.”
Jennie Anne wrapped her arms around herself in misery. What would happen to her now?
She paid little attention as Franny drove. Scrunching down to reach her backpack, she pulled it onto her lap and thought hard. She couldn’t let Troy find her. Without Nedda, things would be much worse.
She decided to jump for it. As soon as the car stopped, she would jump out and run. Old Nedda and her friend wouldn’t be able to stop her. Of course, she’d have to leave behind the green bag with most of her clothes. Carefully, so as not to alert her aunt, she unlocked the car door.
The car stopped at a red sign which Jennie Anne now knew said “stop.” Jump, she told herself, but her legs wouldn’t work.
She closed her eyes and clutched the backpack. I got to do it.
Twice more the car slowed, but Jennie Anne still didn’t jump. Finally, the car stopped, and Jennie Anne sprang out. What she saw stopped her in mid-stride, jaw gaping open. It couldn’t be! It couldn’t be!
“Give them this note,” Nedda told her gruffly. “It explains everything.” Her mouth twitched a little as though she had something caught in her front tooth and was trying to worry it out with her tongue. “Bye, girl.”
There was no hug, no explanation, but there wasn’t need for either. Jennie Anne understood, as surely as if her aunt had spoken, that Nedda loved her. Maybe not as much as her mother had, or as much as Mickelle, but this time it was enough.
* * *
Mickelle tried to gain her composure on the drive home. She felt as though a piece of her was missing, the same way she’d felt when Bryan had left with the police the night before. Poor Jennie Anne. She wondered what the child was thinking and where she was at that very moment. Would they ever learn what happened to her? Would Mickelle spend a lifetime wondering?
“We’ll find her,” Damon said for the third time. He’d already talked to someone on the phone about it, and Mickelle realized that he was good at giving orders—not a bad thing as long as he used the talent wisely. She bet that Bryan’s refusal to comply with his desire ate at him more than he was willing to admit. So far he had been fairly patient.
At least Damon had the resources to search for Jennie Anne.
They drove up the long driveway in silence. “Well, look who’s here,” Damon said in amazement.
Mickelle gazed out toward the house, and gasped in surprise. “Jennie Anne!” She began opening the door.
“Wait a minute! I’ll stop in front. No need for you to have to run across the driveway—your leg.”
Mickelle was out the minute he stopped. Forgetting her sore leg, she ran up to the front steps where Jennie Anne sat with a paper in her small hands. Her battered yellow backpack was at her feet and a large green duffle sat next to her on the step. She seemed calm enough, but her freckled face was pale and splotched with tears. Luminous brown eyes, rimmed with red, lifted to Mickelle’s. In the next second Jennie Anne was in Mickelle’s arms and began sobbing uncontrollably, her former calm completely dissolved. Mickelle resisted her own urge to cry in an effort to soothe the little girl. She held on to Jennie Anne tightly, rocking her like a small baby. “It’s okay. I promise. It’s okay now. You’re never going back. Not ever.”
After Mickelle had calmed her down, Jennie Anne drew away slightly, and pressed a now-rumpled note into her hands. “I sat here to read it. I can’t read all the words. It’s messy.”
Mickelle’s eyes scanned the scrawled message, her breath coming more quickly.
I’m going away. Won’t be back. Take good care of Jennie Anne. She’s yours now.
Nedda Chase
P.S. I never hit her. It was Troy.
So bare and abrupt, but it was everything Mickelle could have hoped for. She hugged Jennie Anne again. “I love you,” she told her fiercely.
Damon came up next to them. He read the note and then held out his arms. “Don’t I get a hug, too?”
Jennie Anne gave him a tremulous smile and then hugged him tightly. A lone tear slipped from her eye.
“This calls for a celebration, don’t you think, Kelle?” Damon asked, winking at her with one of his marvelous amber eyes. “Now that we have all our kids back home. And it’s high time we introduce Jennie Anne to my famous Sunday chocolate chip cookies.” He picked Jennie Anne up high and set her on his shoulders. “How about helping your mother with Jennie Anne’s bags, eh Bry?”
As they bent for Jennie Anne’s things, Mickelle marveled at how quickly her mood had changed. One moment everything was desperate, and then a miracle occurred.
She was about to follow the others into the house when she felt an odd sensation. As though I’m being watched. Her eyes went instinctively to the camera she knew was hidden in the light near the front door. Of course, she thought. All the same, she scanned the driveway with her eyes. There was nothing out of the ordinary.
With a shake of her head, she entered the house.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Troy studied the man who sat across from him in the cheap motel. Two days had passed since his mother had stolen his cash and cut out on him. Now this man before him, the educated fancy boy he had grown to detest over the past few weeks was going to give it back to him—one way or another.
“I’m sure it’s your niece,” Colton Scofield said. “Your mother and a friend dropped her off.”
“She handed the brat over just like that?”
“Appears so. I’ve been watching the house. Can’t get too close, though. They’ve got cameras.”
“So what’s the plan? They ain’t gonna give me the kid. Not for the asking, anyway.” Troy knew the other man had a plan, no question of that. The ten thousand dollars Colton had already given him might be gone with his no-good, stealing, cheat of a mother, but there would be more where that came from. A lot more. Only they wouldn’t be able to extort money from the rich guy for Jennie Anne’s custody as they had first intended. So what else was there?
“The school.” Colton sat back in the squeaky chair and steepled his hands on the Formica tabletop. “We’ll grab her at the school. Not just her but Wolfe’s daughter. We leave a little note, and they pay up. Simple.”
“What about the cops?”
“Relax. I’ll take care of the planning. They won’t call in the cops. They’ll be too worried about the kids.”
Troy shrugged. He didn’t give a hoot what happened to the kids, as long as he got his money. With enough he’d go to Mexico and lay low for a while—live like a king. There was nothing connecting this mess to him. The word on the street was that they were searching for fancy boy, not him. So after he was sure he was in the clear, he’d go find his mom and get back his money. Or what was left of it.
“Look.” Colton leaned forward. “The only thing you have to do is nab the girls. Get them to the van. Then we drive to this vacant farm I’ve arranged. The rest—the note, the ransom—leave it all to me. I figure we can get a million at least.”
“I get half.”
“You get a quarter.”
“I get half or I’m walking.” Troy put on his mean face. “Remember, it’s me who took all the risks with that broad. Me who got kicked. And plugged in the eye. You didn’t tell me she was such a strong witch. Didn’t expect it since she’s such a looker.” Troy had punched fancy boy in the eye for that when they had met up later, just to even stuff up a bit. “And that guy of hers—if I hadn’t found that rock to clobber him with, I’d be back in the slammer. Bottom line, I deserve half after what I went through.”
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