Never Let You Go

by Erin Healy

  Rachel was frozen over a coffee cup at the break room sink, staring at Lexi.

  “You’d like to keep talking? We can go on if you like. Let’s talk about all the ways you will not be able to save your daughter from dying.”

  “You monster! Where is my daughter?”

  “She’s with me.”

  “You will give her back to me, Ward.”

  “Whether you get her back will be up to her, honestly. But I can promise you one thing: when you find her again—if you find her—she won’t be the Molly you know and love today.”

  Lexi reached out to brace herself on a locker. “What do you want?”

  “From you, nothing more. I have it.”

  “You must want something. Name your price.”

  “She is my price.”

  “But what about the money?”

  “Don’t you get it, Lexi? This was never about money.”

  Her mind was spinning around Ward’s twisted logic. She could not untangle it.

  “This was always about you,” Ward said, “and what you owe everyone else. For betraying Grant. For killing Tara. What you really deserve for all your sins.”

  “What’s that?” Her voice was a whisper.

  “The same thing you think everyone else deserves. Grant, Norman, me: justice.”

  “Why should Molly have to pay for my sins?”

  “All children do.”

  “My sins aren’t against her. Or you.”

  “True enough. She’s just an innocent bystander. I’m only the justice of the peace.”

  “Who gave you the right?”

  “Authorities more powerful than you or I. It’s the way of the world, Lexi.”

  “You wouldn’t know justice or peace if they offered to buy you a drink.”

  “Ha-ha! You have a sense of humor in a time of crisis. I admire that.”

  “I’ll call the police.”

  “I have no objection. I’ve been eluding police for longer than you’ve been alive.”

  “I’ll find you!”

  “You do that. You make me your life’s work. It’ll be the only thing worthwhile after this.”

  “Ward.”

  “Warden. Say it.”

  “Warden.” His name was a petition on her lips.

  “That’s right.”

  “You must have a ransom of some kind.”

  “I don’t.”

  “She’s all I have.”

  “That’s what justice calls for, isn’t it? Paying what you owe with what you’ve got? When the time comes, no one ever wants to pay. It’s why you can’t forgive Grant for walking out on you. It’s why you want Norman to stay in prison. Someone has to pay, and you think it shouldn’t be you.”

  “No, I think it shouldn’t be my daughter.”

  “Listen carefully to me, and maybe one day you’ll understand: I punish the children for the sins of their mothers. In the year of my jubilee, I collect all debts. Molly is your debt.”

  “Let me talk to her!”

  “There is no time for that.”

  “Let me know she’s okay!”

  “But she’s not. She really is not.”

  { chapter 30 }

  When Lexi realized Rachel was trying to ask her what had happened, she was hyperventilating and chanting, “He has Molly. He has Molly.”

  “Who has Molly? That guy Ward?”

  “Call the sheriff! I need the sheriff.” Lexi was still holding the phone receiver as if hanging up would disconnect her from her daughter forever. Her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t dial 9-1-1. She kept hitting the 8 and 9 keys together.

  Rachel depressed the switchhook, then dialed for her. The cashier’s slow, intentional gestures brought Lexi’s focus back to center even though she couldn’t stop the shaking.

  “Emergency operator. What’s your emergency?”

  “He has Molly! He’s going to kill Molly!”

  “Who is Molly, ma’am?”

  “My daughter. He kidnapped her and said he’s going to kill her!”

  Rachel gasped.

  “And your name?”

  “Lexi Solomon.”

  “And you know the person who took her?”

  “Warden Pavo. He’s an old . . . friend. Was. Please hurry. Put out one of those alerts!”

  “Where did you last see your daughter?”

  “I was at . . . it was this morning . . . we were—he took her from school.” Her mother should never have left her. Never. Never.

  “What school, ma’am?”

  “Wasson Elementary.”

  “Up in Crag’s Nest.”

  “Yes!”

  “Where are you now?”

  “At work! King Grocery.”

  “In Crag’s Nest?”

  “Yes, I told you. Are you sending the sheriff? Are you—”

  “How long has she been gone?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t called the school . . .”

  Oh God, what if she’s already dead?

  “Do you have reason to believe your daughter is in imminent danger?”

  Lexi started screaming at this operator, whose questions were taking too long. “What does kill her mean to you? Yes! She is going to die if you don’t—”

  “Law enforcement is on its way to the school, ma’am. How soon can you get there?”

  “In seconds.” She could probably get there before the sheriff did. Lexi hung up and blew past wide-eyed Rachel. There was no time to tell Lenny.

  She jumped into her Volvo and took off without latching the seatbelt.

  Where would Ward have taken her? Lexi didn’t know any of his haunts. She didn’t even know if he’d been in Riverbend all these years or had only come back since Grant’s release.

  Oh God, please keep my daughter safe. You’ve got to bring her back to me.

  The two-mile drive to Molly’s school seemed to take hours.

  Without warning, three men collectively responsible for destroying the life she had wanted so many years ago all reemerged from their rats’ nests at the same time. The consequences of their arrival were too dramatic, too profound, not to have been . . . what? Planned. Calculated.

  Her head ached. Her grocery apron was covered in wet spots from fallen tears.

  She took the last corner to Molly’s school without downshifting and going about fifteen miles an hour too fast. She clipped the curb. Lexi bypassed the parking lot and pulled right onto the sidewalk closest to the admin building.

  She realized as she burst into the school offices that she was expecting to find Molly sitting on one of the chairs lining the wall. Her daughter wasn’t there, though, and the sight of one of Molly’s classmates brought fresh tears to Lexi’s eyes. The girl was swinging her legs and studying the split ends of her long red hair.

  Lexi unloaded her fear on the woman behind the desk.

  “What happened to Molly?” she demanded.

  The tone of Lexi’s voice caused her hands to stop moving over the keyboard. She looked at Lexi over the computer monitor. The name plate on the front of her desk said Sue Jacobs.

  “Where is my daughter?”

  Sue stood without taking her eyes off Lexi, apprehension in the frown lines between her eyes. “You’re Molly Solomon’s mother.”

  “Please tell me that there’s been a ridiculous misunderstanding and she’s still in class!”

  A counter separated the women. The little redhead stared, her whole body still.

  Sue Jacobs withdrew a green three-ring binder from under the counter and opened it. She licked her middle finger and flipped through a few pages. Her silence was choking Lexi.

  She paused on a page of handwritten names, dates, and times, and ran her finger down the list. She shook her head.

  “He signed Molly out a half hour ago,” she said.

  Lexi grabbed the book and looked.

  Molly Solomon. Time out: 11:40. Time in: blank. By: Warden Pavo. This, signed with a smiley face in the O. Lexi studied the s
ignature. It was her own handwriting. Reason: unpardonable sin.

  Unpardonable sin?

  Sue had been reading the book upside down. “He said it was a family emergency,” she said, seeming as perplexed as Lexi about what he’d written. Lexi grabbed a tissue out of the box on the counter and swiped at her wet, snotty face. Sue cleared her throat and moved to a file cabinet.

  “Molly had a note. I could have sworn you wrote it.”

  “Where is it?” Lexi yelled. “Where is it?”

  Through the bank of windows on the other side of the office, Lexi saw the sheriff’s cruiser pull up behind her car. She’d left the driver’s door open.

  Lexi ran back outside without waiting for Sue.

  Sheriff Dawson and his deputy, Crystal Ames, were still unfolding themselves from their sedan when she reached them. They were moving so slowly that she wanted to inject them with adrenaline. At this rate Molly would be dead before Crystal got her clipboard off the backseat!

  Why couldn’t anyone understand how urgent this was?

  Sheriff Dawson nodded at Lexi, all squinty because he never wore sunglasses, just a cowboy hat with a rim not quite broad enough to protect him from the brutal sun of the high-desert climate. He also never wore a uniform, but blue jeans, a black chamois shirt, and that silver star. His square face sported a gray mustache and graying wavy hair that almost brushed his shoulders. If he hadn’t felt the need to bring Crystal, he probably would have shown up on his cruising bike.

  Crystal was young enough to be his daughter. Lexi’s age, but fair skinned, copper haired, and mean as a copperhead.

  “Lexi,” the sheriff said, glancing at the Volvo. “Haven’t been up to the grill for a while. Guess I’m due for some of Chuck’s chicken-fried steak here pretty soon.”

  “Molly’s been gone more than a half hour,” Lexi said. “We have to hurry.”

  “Who ran off with her?” he asked.

  “Warden Pavo.” Crystal wrote this down.

  “Someone you know?”

  “From a long time ago. He and Grant used to . . . work together.”

  “Well, now. Isn’t that interesting?” he said to Crystal.

  “What? What’s interesting?”

  “Seems Grant’s back in town,” the sheriff said.

  Lexi nodded. “He’s working in Riverbend.”

  “Not today, it seems.”

  Grant’s whereabouts didn’t interest Lexi. Except that the last time she’d seen him, he was clearly upset about Ward’s threat against Molly.

  “He owes Ward some money,” she said.

  “Is that why you think this guy Ward took Molly?”

  “He told me he doesn’t want the money.”

  Crystal stopped writing. Her eyebrows arched up over her dark glasses.

  “Ward’s contacted you?” Sheriff Dawson asked.

  “He called me at work. Eight, ten minutes ago.”

  “Why you instead of Grant, if it’s about money?”

  “I don’t know. But like I said, he told me—”

  “What’s he demanding if not money?”

  “Nothing. He said he doesn’t want anything.”

  “Maybe you’ve got something else he wants,” Crystal muttered. Her tone made Lexi feel like a suspect in Molly’s disappearance.

  “Please, I need to find her.”

  “Any idea where he would have taken her?”

  Lexi groaned and shook her head. She had no idea.

  Sheriff Dawson crossed his arms and planted his feet wide. “Crystal, why don’t you have a talk with our school people in there”—he nodded to the offices—“and then we’ll go have a word with Mr. Solomon.”

  Crystal moved like a sloth up the sidewalk. Lexi bounced on the balls of her feet.

  “I don’t know where Grant lives. I’ll need to call my moth—”

  “Grant’s down at our office,” Dawson said. “Deputy Garrison picked him up about five minutes ago.”

  “Picked him up?”

  “At your place, I hear. Anything you want to tell me about that?”

  Ward appreciated the simplicity of children. For them, the world was a small, ordered place run by basic desires—to know one’s daddy, for example. For that reason alone, disrupting their lives should have been easy work for him. And yet they were too innocent to be easily disrupted.

  Therein lay the challenge. He had to admit he enjoyed it.

  She sat on the passenger seat of his truck.

  Ward figured he had a couple hours before anyone would track Molly to the food court of the Bedrock Mall, depending on how long it took the sheriff to sort out the details of Lexi’s distribution operation and her daughter’s abduction. The self-imposed time limit gave Warden a little thrill.

  Mere hours to ruin a little girl—mind, heart, and soul. It used to take him months.

  “Sophisticated kid like you probably doesn’t like mall food,” he said to her.

  “That’s okay.”

  “How long’s it been since you had a greasy burger?”

  Molly wrinkled her nose.

  “Oh, girl. You’ve gotta live a little. What’s your favorite food that your mom won’t let you have?”

  “Uh, nothing.”

  “Nothing? She lets you eat whatever you want?”

  Molly looked confused.

  “How about dessert before vegetables? You get away with that?”

  She grinned then, and giggled a little. “No.”

  “Then Dairy Queen it is. And they have greasy burgers too, if you want one afterward.”

  “I think Daddy should decide where to eat.”

  “Well sure. But we’ll probably get there before he does.”

  “Are there lots of choices?”

  “Millions.”

  “I’ve never been to the mall before.”

  “That’s a crime! Why not?”

  “Mom says there’s nothing there worth seeing.”

  “Really. Well what do moms know? There’s a pretty fountain right in the middle of the food court.”

  “Are there fish in it?”

  “Just pennies. And quarters for wishes worth making. You want some quarters?”

  Molly shrugged.

  “What do you wish for?” Ward asked.

  She shrugged again and looked at her lap.

  “You can tell me.”

  “That’s okay.”

  Ward laughed. “Bet I can guess?” Molly looked at him. “You wish your mom and dad would get back together.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What? You think if you say it, it won’t come true?”

  “Isn’t that how it is with birthday wishes?”

  “Well sure. If you’re four or five. But you’re all grown up, little lady. Those rules don’t apply to you any more.”

  She pieced this together in her mind, maybe deciding whether it was worse to be four or five or to have had the rules change without being told.

  “Do you mean I can just say wishes and they’ll happen?”

  “No no no. I mean wishes don’t come true anymore. You turn six, and slam-bam, thank-you ma’am, wishes aren’t worth the quarters you pay for’em.”

  Molly looked like he’d told her that Daddy wasn’t coming to lunch.

  He wasn’t, but Ward would mention that later.

  “You’re teasing me.” It was a question.

  “Wish I was, little lady. But telling the truth is part of growing up and being responsible. You know what else I wish? I wish moms and dads always told their kids the truth so I didn’t have to keep doing it for them.”

  Molly blinked.

  “Tell you what. Let’s not let a little thing like spoiled wishes ruin our day. I’ll make it up to you. When we get to the fountain I’ll tell you the truth about why you’ve never been to the mall, and I’ll give you a hundred bucks to throw in the fountain for the heck of it. Trust me, it’ll make you feel better.”

  { chapter 31 }

  Grant understood that drug inve
stigations could take years before they amounted to anything, so he felt half lucky that this was the sheriff’s first visit to Lexi’s home. Luckier that they didn’t find the bags lining the bottom of his shoes. On the other hand, his breaking and entering gave them permission to go into her apartment and have a look around.

  Grant didn’t know if they found cause to keep an eye on her place until Lexi walked into his cell. She was the last person he’d expected to visit. For a split second he feared she’d been arrested too. The sheriff, a mustached man in a black shirt, watched them.

  She grabbed hold of the bars near her face. There were no cuffs on her wrists.

  “Lexi, what are you—”

  “Ward’s got Molly,” she whispered.

  Grant swallowed. “How?”

  “From school.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I must have done something.” She started to cry.

  “No. No, you couldn’t have.” Grant’s visit to the Blue Devil reared its head in his mind. “What does he want?”

  “He won’t tell me. Nothing, he says.”

  Grant put his hands over hers. She leaned her forehead into the gate, and he reached through the bars and stroked her hair. She let him. The sleek locks fell over his fingers. Touching her filled him with confidence.

  “We’ll find him in time,” Grant said.

  “How?”

  “I might know where to start looking.”

  “Where?” Lexi straightened and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  He looked at the sheriff. “The Blue Devil. A nightclub down in Riverbend. On the south end of Parker Avenue. He’s got a place in the basement.”

  “I know it,” the sheriff said.

  Grant described how to get into Ward’s operation from the back of the building. He also mentioned the inside elevator in case the rear door was locked. The elevator was located on the main floor behind a sliding panel near the restrooms.

  “I can show you,” Grant offered.

  “You can stay right here,” the sheriff said. Grant put a lid on his frustration for Lexi’s sake. “We’ll check it out. Got a couple other leads from the school. And an Amber alert sighting of his car headed north. Those come first.”

  The opposite direction from the nightclub.

  “They said you broke into my home,” Lexi said. She didn’t seem angry about it, though.