“Health physics.”
Everyone gave Tristan an odd look except for her Aunt Bridgette who smiled from ear to ear. Angus, who had fallen asleep during all the excitement, woke up at the sound of the two words.
“Did you just say health physics?!” Angus demanded to know.
Tristan laughed, “Yes. I did.”
“You’re going into medicine?! Angus yelled loudly.
Tristan wasn’t sure if he was happy or angry. Sometimes it was so hard to tell.
“Yes. I plan to follow-up my education at Bloomsburg with a med program at Penn,” explained Tristan confidently.
Jack gasped and clutched his chest. Jenna put her arm around her friend.
“Don’t die on us now… Are you alright?!” Jenna asked, only half joking.
Jack choked up a laugh, but there were tears in his eyes. Bridgette and Moira had tears flooding down their faces.
“She’s something else… Isn’t she?” Jack said to Jenna, who smiled in return.
“Your girl did real good,” Jenna agreed.
Suddenly, something that hadn’t happened in a very long time occurred.
“Oh, my God!” Frank bellowed as he looked at Angus’ face.
Everyone’s eyes focused on Angus’ face as his lips turned up into a brilliant smile. He flashed his movie star smile at everyone at the table, but no one received the courtesy more than Tristan. No one had ever witnessed Angus look so happy before.
“What kind of medicine are you going into?” Angus asked his only granddaughter.
Tristan replied with a confident smile, “Veterinary.”
Angus, who was already happy, nearly fell out of his chair with excitement.
“You mean we will have a real vet in the family and I won’t have to be the on-call doctor for the barn?!”
Tristan shook her head happily. Angus had never been so happy in all his life.
Chapter 3
June 16, 2000
Seattle International Airport
Gate 24A – Flight 1304
7 A.M.
Angie Macklon sat in seat 13B as her leg tapped nervously up and down against the plane floor. She reached into her carry-on bag and pulled out another stick of gum. As she stared out her window at the runway, she chewed her gum quickly as panic gripped her mind. Angie could feel her anxiety increase with each passing moment. After talking on the phone last night, Angie’s parents Roger and Gwen quickly booked Angie on the 7 A.M. flight from Seattle International Airport to Philadelphia. Angie wasn’t keen on the idea of flying. She felt so out of control being nearly forty thousand feet above the ground. She also wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of going back to Elkhart. The very place she had spent her life running from. But it appeared at this late hour, she had no other choices. She had little money, no apartment, no husband and no one else to turn to.
Suddenly, the speaker over Angie’s head squawked to life as a most annoying voice addressed the passengers of flight 1304. Angie jumped at the noise and casted an evil glare towards the speaker while she listened to the announcement.
“Good morning passengers and welcome to Pacific Northwest Airlines! The time is now 7:07 A.M. and we are expecting bright and sunny skies once we depart the Seattle area. Our flight time is approximately five hours and twelve minutes. It’s a beautiful day to be flying Pacific Northwest! We will be taking off momentarily. Thank you for your patience and enjoy your flight!”
As the plane began to move, Angie’s knuckles blanched from panic.
***
Angie is not what you would call an ideal flyer. She didn’t even have what most would consider as flying anxiety. Angie’s fear was astronomical. For five hours straight a seemingly endless train of irrational thoughts entered Angie’s mind and tortured her as she clung to her arm rest.
What if we crash?
Or the wings fall off?
Is the pilot drunk?
I wonder if I ask, if I could see the pilot’s credentials?
I should have taken the train.
What if the engines stop?
What if the engines fall off?
And turbulence… What if we hit turbulence?!
What if the turbulence is so bad that we crash?!
Oh, my God. I’m going to die on this flying tin can!!!
By the time the plane had reached maximum altitude, Angie was in the midst of a full-fledged panic attack on the plane. Her face was red, her eyes were watering and her knuckles were white from holding on too tight. The seating arrangement didn’t help matters much, either. A young mother and her screaming son had taken the seats next to Angie. The boy had been screaming since they left the airport and Angie thought she was going to start screaming, too.
Somebody shut this kid up!
“Miss… Are you okay?” asked June, an elderly but bubbly stewardess with a Texan accent.
Angie looked at the stewardess with a forlorn expression on her face.
“I need alcohol.”
“Well, here’s our menu, honey…”
“Rum and Coke. Keep them coming.”
***
The plane came to a jarring halt on the runway at Philadelphia International Airport. Angie felt like she was about to lose her lunch, which consisted of a few packs of finely salted peanuts and a half dozen alcoholic beverages. It took forcible measures to remove her still white-knuckled hands from the arms of her seat. Although the plane had landed, Angie didn’t feel much in terms of relief. She knew what lay before her. A three-hour drive to Elkhart with her sisters Misty-Lee and Courtney. She often wondered if all their years of using peroxide to bleach their hair blonde had finally deteriorated their brains. Angie needed to pop an Excedrin to prepare herself for the ordeal.
Angie grabbed her carry-on bag and walked down the center aisle. As she exited the plane, she expected to feel some sense of relief. After all, she wasn’t thirty thousand feet in the air anymore. Strangely enough, she was even more stressed out after disembarking the plane. If anything, Angie felt more nervous now that she was closer to home. Closer to the demons of her past.
The airport was packed with travelers and Angie felt disoriented thanks to her cocktails and a minor case of jet lag. She looked up at the sign that hung from the ceiling as she weaved through the maze of an airport in search of her luggage. Angie walked for what felt like miles through the crowded airport. Finally, she found the baggage claim area, and she waited patiently for her luggage to come shooting down the conveyor belt. As Angie bent down to grab her suitcase, she heard them.
“Like! Oh, my God, Misty! Is that her?!” shouted Courtney in her rage-inducing Valley Girl accent.
“No. That can’t be her. She looks so old!” insisted Misty-Lee.
“Umm… No… I think it is her! She’s what like forty now?!”
“Thirty-seven I think.”
Angie rolled her eyes as she listened to her dim-witted sisters argue over her identity. If Angie thought their voices were embarrassing, it was nothing compared to the way they were dressed. Misty-Lee’s peroxide dyed blond hair was crimped and fried by years of damage and mistreatment. Her fluorescent orange mesh shirt hung off of her right shoulder exposing her tan lines. She completed her ensemble with a pair of too-tight, too-short jean shorts and a pair of pink and orange sneakers. Meanwhile, Courtney was wearing a pair of skin tight flare jeans with a black tank top and noisy sandals. Her stick straight blonde hair was cut at an angle, but instead of looking stylish, she just looked slightly lopsided. Angie decided to put them out of their misery and wave.
“Over here, girls…” Angie called, waving her hand at her sisters.
Angie watched as Misty-Lee whispered to Courtney, “Oh, my God, Court! It is her!”
Suddenly the pair let out screams of excitement as they sashayed across the linoleum floor. It was like watching a tornado comprised of bright colors, bad hair and fake nails racing towards you. Angie stared at them with wide eyes, mortified to be seen in public with them. Angi
e tried to look happy to see them, but the end result was that she looked horrified.
“Oh, my God, Angie! Look at you!” cried Misty-Lee.
“You look…” Courtney started.
“Old?” Angie suggested, recalling their previously made comments.
“No! You look so mature!”
Angie rolled her eyes but couldn’t help but laugh at her excitable younger sisters. It was hard to believe that they were from the same gene pool. Clearly, the water in the gene pool became tainted after Angie was born.
Angie hugged both of her sisters, but sneezed from the overabundance of fruity body spray they were wearing.
“Oh! Are you sick?!” asked Misty-Lee with a disgusted look on her face. She jumped back to save herself from Angie’s germs. Angie held her tongue.
“No… I think I might be allergic to your perfume.”
Misty-Lee disregarded Angie’s complaint and just nodded in return.
Your perfume is killing me. Thank you for concern. Three hours from now, I could be dead from an allergic reaction.
“Oh well… C’mon! Our car is outside!” exclaimed Courtney, ready to hit the road.
Angie followed her sisters out to their car and had to laugh when she saw it. Misty-Lee and Courtney drove a purple Camry with a license plate that read “Vixens” in bright pink letters.
My mother needed better pre-natal care.
Against her better wishes, Angie got into the backseat of their car as she prepared herself for three hours of vapid, shallow, and intelligence-depleting conversation, courtesy of Courtney and Misty-Lee.
***
Courtney drove seventy miles per hour down I-95 as Misty-Lee puffed a cigarette in the passenger seat. The smoke caused Angie to gag in the backseat.
“So, Ang! We have so much to catch up on!” said Misty-Lee in between puffs.
“Oh, I know…” said Angie, playing along. As far as she was concerned, she’d rather not catch up. No good could come of it. She had to make the best of a bad situation, though.
“So, what’s been going on back at home?” Angie asked, just trying to make conversation.
“Eh, same old. Dad’s mad at Mom because she has a QVC shopping addiction. Cory threw Dad’s keys down the toilet this morning and he was late for work. Old man is so uptight these days!” Misty-Lee complained.
“I would be pretty uptight if my wife spent all my money and my grandson flushed my keys down the toilet, too,” admitted Angie.
Misty-Lee rolled her eyes.
“Ugh! You’re just like him!”
“How’s Allison and Beatrix?” Angie asked ignoring Misty-Lee’s statement.
“Oh, you mean Trixie and Ally?” asked Courtney.
Angie curled her lip up at the nicknames.
Have they all turned into bimbos?!
“Trixie’s great. She’s the captain of the cheer squad and she’s about to graduate from high school. Mom is throwing a huge party tomorrow night. Ally is in the middle of some pre-teen angst phase. Biggest attitude ever!” said Courtney with ample attitude herself.
“Attitude, huh?”
“Oh, my God. The worst! She’s a complete know it all, too! Yesterday she kept trying to tell me that the capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburg, when we all know it is Pittsburgh!”
Angie stared at the back of Misty-Lee’s head in shock.
Is she really that stupid?
“Ah…” said Angie not even bothering to question it.
There is no use arguing with an idiot.
“How’s Mom doing?” asked Angie.
“Full of hell! She stole my cigarettes the other day and said she was so disappointed in me for smoking. She had a Pall Mall hanging off her lip as she said it! Hypocrite.”
“She was a total bitch this morning! Woke us up at 6 A.M. and screamed at us to get up before we were late.”
I can so feel the love in this car. Now I remember why I stayed away for so long.
“What about Bernard? Is he still hanging around?” asked Angie inquisitively.
Courtney and Misty-Lee glanced at each other with troubled looks on their faces. It was as if their shallow façade dropped completely, and all that was left were two scared little girls.
“Um… You didn’t hear?” asked Misty-Lee warily.
“Hear what?” asked Angie as a chill ran up her spine.
“Dude… He’s dead,” said Courtney bluntly.
Angie’s eyes went wide.
“Dead?! How?” Angie asked in astonishment as if the thought alone was purely preposterous.
“I can’t believe no one told you,” said Misty-Lee in amazement.
“Tell me what? What happened?”
“He was shot. Mr. Morrow shot him in the head.”
Angie took the thought and mulled it over in her head.
She was missing something.
“What’s the whole story?” asked Angie, desperate for the truth.
“Apparently Bernard kidnapped Mr. Morrow’s daughter. Tristan, her name is. Courtney goes out with her brother. The girl escaped back to her house, but Kendricks followed her there. Mr. Morrow caught him in his house and shot him dead. Turns out Bernard was also responsible for four other deaths, including Mrs. Morrow.”
Angie appeared to be stunned. She never thought that anyone would have the power to stop Bernard Kendricks. Angie knew the depths of his depravity. She knew it all too well. No wonder no one had told her after all that she had been through with Tiffany. Poor Tiffany. The thought that she had been in close proximity of Kendricks only heightened the fear that she had carried all these years. It could have been her. The thought shook Angie to the core of her soul.
“I’m shocked,” Angie admitted.
“Are you? We always knew that he was a nut job.”
“I, for one, am not surprised at all,” said Misty-Lee bluntly.
“You know what I think…” said Courtney.
Misty-Lee gave her a sharp look.
“Can we not discuss Tiffany right now?” asked Misty-Lee casting a wary glance at Angie.
“I’m just saying… I swear that he was the one responsible for Tiffany’s death. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Don’t say stuff like that… You were too young to remember any of this.” scolded Misty-Lee.
The topic of conversation caused Angie’s nerves to go on edge. She remembered vividly how her sister had died. It kept her awake at night; even still. She wouldn’t put it past someone like Kendricks to do something that vicious; especially if he was responsible for four other deaths. As the car barreled down the highway, Angie felt the demons of her past breathing down her neck.
***
Gwen O’Mara sat at her Gateway computer browsing the sales on QVC’s website when she heard a car pull into the gravel driveway.
“Roger! She’s here!” yelled Gwen out to the kitchen where Roger was reading the Wall Street Journal.
Gwen jumped up from her cushy computer chair which spun around on a plastic mat that protected the rug. She barged out the storm door to greet her daughter who she hadn’t seen in years. Her clog sandals scraped perilously across the gravel driveway. Then she saw her. Angela looked so much older than Gwen remembered, but she also looked much better than she expected. Break ups, job terminations and eviction do terrible things to people; especially when they all happen on the same day.
Angie dropped her suitcase in the driveway as she braced herself for her mother’s hug. Gwen ran to her and swept Angie into a hug. She was thrilled beyond belief to finally have her back home. Angie thought that Gwen was about to squeeze the life out of her when Roger appeared at the door. Roger, who was Angie’s father, smiled down at her and winked.
“Alright, Gwen. Give the girl some room to breathe,” said Roger with a laugh.
Angie gave her father an appreciative glance as she broke free of her mother’s embrace. Angie ran towards her father and gave him a big hug. Angie didn’t have a very close relationship with her mothe
r, but Roger and Angie very much saw eye to eye. It didn’t matter how much time had passed. They would always have each other’s backs. As Angie walked into the O’Mara house for the first time in two decades, she felt the slow burn of anxiety begin to rise in her chest.
***
The O’Mara family gathered in the cramped kitchen of 27 Caribou Road for dinner. Gwen prepared spaghetti and meatballs and called everyone down to the dinner table. Courtney and Misty-Lee protested that they had other things to do, but were quieted when they met Roger’s stern glare. Ally, Angie’s youngest sister, stormed into the kitchen with a miserable scowl on her face.
Stolen Innocents (The Shadow Series Book 2) Page 5