Winter Storm

by Barbara Winkes

  Rebecca wanted to believe that Craig would have that shred of responsibility.

  “We will,” Bev stressed. “I need you to stay here, be available.”

  “Is that so? How many folks do you have working tonight, and how long until you can get backup from out of town?” Rebecca shook her head. “No way. I can’t wait for that.”

  “Rebecca, I really recommend—”

  “If it was your kid, Bev? No, don’t try to tell me to sit here and do nothing.”

  Callie stood up wordlessly.

  “Didn’t you hear?” David said. “Well, of course you would support this nonsense. We’ll all stay here and wait to hear from Bev.”

  Callie shrugged. “You can stay here if you want. There’s tea and coffee. We’ll see you later.”

  * * * *

  She caught up with Rebecca at her car, turning her around by her shoulders. “Rebecca, wait. Let me drive.”

  Rebecca handed her the car keys without protest, obviously aware that she wasn’t in any condition to drive.

  “Where are we going anyway?” she asked once they had both fastened their seat belts. “It’s a pretty big area Bev was talking about.”

  “Yes, but a lot of that is woods and the highway. There are motels and cabins.”

  “Do you have a picture of Maggie?”

  Rebecca bit her lip. Her yes was barely audible.

  “Okay, let’s get her home.”

  Callie still wasn’t sure about the exact direction they were going in, but she drove on. Rebecca seemed lost in thought, or maybe she was just praying. It made Callie almost jealous, the way she had found a never-failing safe place. Callie had a hard time imagining that such a place existed. Still, she felt relieved that a bigoted church official could not take that space from Rebecca.

  “I’m sorry,” Rebecca said after a while. “I needed to get out of there. David…I had no idea he’d be so hostile.”

  “This is tough on both of you. People tend to lash out when they’re scared.”

  Rebecca sighed. She was on the verge of tears.

  “Seems like I do that a lot. I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve that. It turns out I’m not any better than—”

  “No,” Callie interrupted her. “We argue sometimes, okay. You never scared me like she did.” Except when you make me think that this is all too much for you and some day you’ll leave me anyway. She didn’t say that out loud though.

  “I don’t know what to do. If he…” Rebecca let her words trail off, leaving the rest up to every worst case scenario in Callie’s imagination.

  “Maggie will be all right. She might be wondering what’s going on, but she will be okay.”

  Rebecca gave her a small smile. “Thank you.”

  At a red light, Callie took her hand, squeezing it. She just hoped she wasn’t making any premature promises. Craig Lowman wouldn’t go as far as actually hurting his niece just because he wanted to get back at Rebecca—would he?

  At the first motel, there was a bored twenty-something girl who said she hadn’t seen any children tonight. She kept chewing gum while she talked, conveying without a doubt that she didn’t care for the conversation. Callie thanked her and steered Rebecca out of the lobby.

  “It’s all right. We’ll find her.”

  After four more unsuccessful stops, Rebecca called David to learn there was no news from either Bev or Craig. She then called Dina who was crying on the phone.

  “Why would Uncle Craig do that?”

  They had no answer for her, but when Rebecca hung up the phone, she was crying, too. Callie held her close until she’d gained her composure back. There was the sign of a diner in the near distance. She suggested they get a coffee and something to eat. It was going to be a long night.

  Callie hadn’t known she’d been freezing until she wrapped her hands around the coffee mug, trying to get some warmth into her clammy fingers. At least she had been able to convince Rebecca that it was a good idea to take a break and regroup. They ordered a sandwich and some fries to share. Rebecca wasn’t eating. She seemed hypnotized by the picture of Maggie lying in front of her on the table.

  There they thought all along that Nicole was the real danger. True, she still thrived on innuendo and manipulation, no matter how much she claimed she had changed. Craig Lowman was a man who had once been given a lot of power. Now that it had been taken away from him, he didn’t deal very well, regardless of the fact that this was his own fault.

  “I don’t get it. He used to read stories to Maggie.”

  Yeah, but he never wasted any chance to make you look bad. Callie knew that much of Rebecca’s strained relationship with her ex-mother-in-law was courtesy of Craig.

  “People change,” Callie said, only afterwards aware that this was a loaded statement. Maybe Rebecca was just too tired to think of all the implications here.

  “I wish I could think we all just overreacted, but…on the phone, the way he sounded. Mean. I don’t know. Desperate. That’s what scares me the most. He has nothing left to lose.”

  “It’s never too late to act like a decent human being.”

  “Maybe it’s my fault too. For a moment there, I thought it was all too much, and maybe I wouldn’t feel that way if I didn’t have the responsibility for my family.”

  “You needed a break. That doesn’t make you a bad person—or mother. Some people are just plain mean.”

  “That’s a beautiful girl.” The voice of the waitress, cheery and a little loud, startled them both. “Funny, a while before you came, there was one here with her dad, she looked exactly like her.”

  “What? How did she seem to you—was she okay?” Rebecca’s despair was heartbreaking.

  “Whoa, wait a minute. What’s going on here?”

  “The girl was kidnapped,” Callie told her. “By her uncle, not her father. We’re looking for her.”

  “Holy shit.” The woman’s eyes widened. “She looked fine to me—they were talking. Had fries and burgers, and he bought her an ice cream cone. I never thought…”

  “It’s not your fault,” Callie said quickly. “How would you know? We’ll call the sheriff so she can come here. It’s late, and the weather’s just getting worse. They wouldn’t have gone much further.”

  She took out her wallet to pay for their meals, but the waitress shook her head.

  “That’s fine, darling.” She touched Rebecca’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. It’s a mother’s worst nightmare.” Her words were probably meant to be reassuring. They had the opposite effect on Rebecca, who seemed to become even more aware of all the worst-case scenarios.

  Callie picked up her phone to call Sheriff Wilkins, only to find a long-winded apology in a voicemail from Nicole. The intended apology didn’t seem all that serious, because she ended it with: She will never put you first. It wasn’t something Callie wanted to consider at the moment.

  * * * *

  Rebecca picked up her cell phone with shaking hands. Bev, David, or even Craig—all of them could mean bad news. Instead, a small voice asked, “Mom, is that you?”

  “Maggie? Oh, my God, Maggie, where are you, are you all right?”

  “Why did Uncle Craig pick me up?” Maggie seemed surprised, but she didn’t sound particularly distressed. She sounded…normal. Rebecca nearly fainted with relief.

  “He wasn’t supposed to. Don’t tell him though. If you can just tell me where you are, I’ll come pick you up.”

  “He misses Aunt Maria a lot. I do too.”

  “I know, honey.”

  “It’s a hotel. I don’t know the name. I can’t really see outside because it’s snowing so hard, but it has a blue door.”

  “Okay. That’s great. We’ll come find you.”

  “The lady at the front desk has a nose ring,” Maggie said, “and really red hair. I think I want to go home.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.”

  “Hon, who are you talking to?” she heard Craig ask in the background.

  “You sa
id we’d call Mom to let her know I’m all right. I thought you forgot.” There was a hint of defensiveness to Maggie’s voice.

  “You shouldn’t have. It’s late. You probably woke her.”

  Rebecca was quite sure that if he’d been standing in front of her right know, she would have punched him. Probably, she would have kicked him in some sensitive place too.

  “Let me talk to her for a second. Maggie?”

  His next words chilled Rebecca to the bone, and her only hope was that Maggie was out of earshot.

  “Rebecca, I hope you enjoyed talking to your daughter,” he whispered. “It’ll be the last time. Bye, Mommy.”

  Rebecca was trying to communicate what had just happened, but the words didn’t come out and her fingers were suddenly too numb to hold the phone. She saw Callie and the waitress looking at her worriedly, and then the world faded to black.

  The darkness had been merciful.

  It didn’t last nearly long enough. The world was the same color of fear, only with embarrassment added.

  The waitress came rushing to their table with a glass of water. Rebecca only hoped she hadn’t called an ambulance.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “We need to get to that motel. That girl, she lied to us. My God, that’s where he was with Maggie!”

  “Bev and a colleague will go and get her.” Callie laid a hand on hers. “You fainted.”

  “That wasn’t really—”

  “Yes, it was. Besides, look at the weather outside. We wouldn’t even make it all the way back.”

  “If you don’t want to drive, I will. It’s my car anyway.”

  “You can’t, Rebecca. Take a look outside.”

  In the driving snow, the highway couldn’t be seen from their window. The headlights of cars driving by occasionally were barely visible.

  “This is my child. I need to.”

  “Bev will handle this better than any of us can. Rebecca, please.”

  “He said I’ll never see her again. I can’t let that happen.” Rebecca was already on her feet, tying her scarf. “Are you coming?”

  Callie realized she was dead serious. She followed without further protest.

  * * * *

  The wind hit her in the face like a punch, and she blinked against the snowflakes. Driving in this weather was suicidal, but Callie didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t let Rebecca go and deal with her crazy ex-brother-in-law on her own. She didn’t know how to stop her. The only thing she could do now was take the wheel and hope for the best.

  Maybe they were lucky and Bev would get there first. Callie believed that Craig would listen to his old colleague.

  He once carried a gun, she thought with a shudder. She imagined he had to give it back when fired from the department, but he probably owned another weapon. She was cold, frightened for Maggie, and, if she was honest, frightened for herself. The situation was all too reminiscent of the traumatic moments she’d gone through last Halloween. Callie couldn’t even start to imagine what Rebecca was feeling now. For sure, she couldn’t leave her side.

  “Can’t you drive faster?”

  “I won’t. I want us to get there safely so we can take Maggie home.”

  Rebecca solemnly stared out into the darkness. “I can’t lose her.”

  “You won’t.”

  It wasn’t the time for competition. Callie was well aware of that, and still her own fears fed off Rebecca’s.

  By now, the car almost crept down the winding road. There would be a red light after that next curve. Callie didn’t want to miss it. She noticed that her fingers were clammy, clutching the steering wheel. She would have liked to stop somewhere, just to get out of the storm, but there wasn’t even a light in sight. Chances were, the next building would be the hotel where Craig was with Maggie, and maybe, a gun.

  It wasn’t fair after all they’d been through already.

  She took a look at the gas gauge.

  “No. For Christ’s sake!”

  Okay. No reason to panic, she told herself. They probably wouldn’t make it all the way home, but they were close to the area where the little bed-and-breakfast with the blue door had been. Why shouldn’t they be a little lucky at least? If Bev had been able to resolve the situation, then they could just stay the night and get home tomorrow.

  Yeah, lucky.

  Rebecca had huddled deeper into her seat. She hadn’t even reacted to Callie’s words. This was not good. It was hard to tell if Craig could be reasoned with, but whatever happened, Maggie would need her mother alert. She was probably confused beyond reason by the turn of events.

  “When I was a little girl, I used to make pretend deals with God all the time. Usually I’d promise to beat myself up over something even more, if my wish was coming true in return. I made a lot of offers hoping that someday, I could be certain my parents loved me. I promised that if Maggie lived and was healthy…” She didn’t finish the sentence. “It took me a long time to learn that it doesn’t really work that way, but it’s so damn tempting.”

  Callie didn’t dare ask what Rebecca would put on the line this time to make sure Maggie would be safe and sound.

  They did not make it to the motel. There were a few ambiguous lights in the distance, but for all Callie knew at the moment, it could be a delusion. She had managed to get the car over to the side of the road, so they’d hopefully not get hit. They were stuck in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm. Callie realized she was about to have a panic attack.

  “Okay, so we walk the rest on foot.” Rebecca’s hand was already on the door handle.

  “No!”

  “Come on, it’s only a few steps. See, over there, what else would it be?”

  “No. We don’t even know where we’d be going. We won’t help Maggie that way.”

  “If you don’t go, I will.”

  “No, Rebecca! That doesn’t work. You don’t get to blackmail me that way.” Though her words might have been over the top, they were heartfelt, and the realization was just too much for her.

  Rebecca was silent for a long torturous moment. Then she opened the door and stepped out into the cold.

  Callie followed her like she knew she always would.

  * * * *

  Focus. Be single-minded. Rebecca wanted to think that she was doing the right thing, but she couldn’t keep the doubts from creeping in. Maybe dragging Callie out in the woods in the middle of the night hadn’t been such a great idea after all. It was bound to bring up bad memories.

  The problem was, everything about Craig brought up bad memories for Rebecca too. She couldn’t stand the thought of Maggie being with him, not because she actually thought he would physically harm her, but because he was mean. Her hands were ice-cold, the snow having soaked her gloves within minutes. She had changed into boots before they left, but they were only ankle-high. So much for her brave rescue attempt.

  “It’s over there,” she said, pointing at the light they’d been following, a hint of blue visible underneath. Callie nodded. Her face was unreadable.

  “I just want to have my child back. That’s all I want.”

  She could finally see Bev’s cruiser in the distance, and then the very memorable blue door of their first stop.

  It seemed like forever that they’d been there. Forever since she’d heard her baby’s voice. Rebecca hastened her steps, nearly slipping on a patch of ice underneath the snow. Callie reached out for her, and Rebecca gave her a grateful smile. Hopefully, when this was over, she could make it up to her for all the ways she’d screwed up. First things first.

  She could barely open the door, her fingers stiff and numb. Shaking. She finally managed before Callie could reach out to do it for her. It was as if time had stood still here, the same girl sitting behind the counter, chewing on her gum.

  She jumped to her feet when she saw Rebecca and Callie.

  “Um, guys?”

  “Where the hell is my daughter?” A calm rational approach wasn’t called for and really a waste
of time at the moment.

  The young woman held up her hands. “I had no idea what was going on! He said you might come looking for her, and that you were crazy! How would I know? He had a badge!”

  “He got fired,” Callie said sharply. “Where are they now?”

  “The cop is upstairs.” She looked very uncomfortable all of a sudden, and Rebecca thought she might faint again.

  “Where is Maggie?”

  The woman shrugged, her expression apologetic.

  “I have no idea. They checked out again pretty soon after they came. They’re gone.”

  “Rebecca, I hope you enjoyed talking to your daughter. It’ll be the last time. Bye, Mommy.”

  She’d know. If something happened to Maggie, she’d know, because part of her would die too. Rebecca didn’t wait for Callie, but hasted upstairs, nearly stumbling on the steps. There were voices at the end of the narrow hallway, and a door stood wide open.

  Bev stood in the room with a colleague of hers. She was looking tired. Rebecca, who couldn’t remember how long she’d been running on adrenaline and nerves, only now realized it had to be close to 3:00 a.m. Not that she cared.

  “We arrived here half an hour ago,” Bev said. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. They were already gone. Good news is, they can’t have gotten this far in the weather. We’ve gotten the news out on the radio and the local TV station.”

  “I don’t know.” Now that they were someplace warmer, if not actually cozy, Rebecca couldn’t stop shivering. “What if he sees it? Wouldn’t that set him off even more?”

  “Rebecca,” Bev said, her tone probably meaning to placate. “Craig has made some major mistakes, but I once worked for him. He’s not a psychopath.”

  Rebecca wasn’t so sure anymore.

  She couldn’t bring herself to stay in this place. She didn’t want to go back home either, as it felt like admitting defeat, but she was aware that she was about to keel over.

  Bev offered to take them back, so they could get the car tomorrow. Callie agreed for both of them.

  In the backseat of the cruiser, she took Callie’s hand, holding on to it like a frightened child, when it was really her own child who needed her. Callie didn’t talk, obviously in need to absorb what had happened just as well. The interactions they had. Nicole, Father Reynolds.