Stain of Guilt

by Brandilyn Collins

  My first waking sense was of voices above me.

  “I think we should call an ambulance, don’t you?” a woman said.

  “Don’t know. What if she can’t pay for it? It’s a long way to the hospital. We don’t even know who she is.”

  “Wait. She’s coming to.”

  I remembered sinking to a hard floor, but now I lay on something soft, a cushion behind my head. And something over me. A blanket? My head rolled to the right, my eyes opening. A lemon-colored blur wavered before me. I frowned, then blinked a few times. The blur crystallized. A large yellow flower. Green leaves. The fabric on the back of a couch, inches from my nose.

  “Hey, there.”

  Who was talking? Did I know these people? Where was I?

  In a sickening rush, it all came back.

  I dragged in a shuddering breath, turned my head toward the sound. “I need water.” The words sounded cracked and broken.

  “Sure, honey, I’ll get it right now.”

  Footsteps hurried away. I tried moving my head to follow them, but my neck felt made of lead.

  “Don’t worry now, she’ll be back.” The man again.

  I looked toward him, vision still bleary until my focus could readjust. There. Gray hair, bulbous nose, deep-set eyes. Prominent ears. Near seventy, perhaps.

  The woman returned, glass in hand. “Here you go.”

  I was too shaky to hold the glass. She helped me sit up, then held it to my lips. I wanted to guzzle it but couldn’t. I took slow, even sips until half the water was gone, then shook my head to say “no more.” The woman pulled the glass away.

  They introduced themselves as Clay and Shirley Welron. Then asked my name, where I lived. What was this about a man kidnapping me? Did I want to call someone?

  “Yes, please.” I was feeling better now, alertness returning. Able to sit up completely, I finished the water. Shirley took the glass to the kitchen for a refill and returned. Clay picked up a phone from an end table, stretching its long cord to lay it beside me. He stood back, hands clasped and mouth working, watching as I dialed. Shirley hovered, fingering her red cotton robe. It occurred to me that my arrival must have frightened them badly.

  Jenna answered on the first ring. When she heard my voice, she burst into tears. I’d never heard Jenna cry like that. My heart pinched until I thought it would break in two. My chin lowered to my chest, eyes waiting for tears that wouldn’t come. My body must have been more stressed and exhausted than I’d realized.

  “It’s okay, Jenna, I’m okay. Really.”

  “He didn’t hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. But he took me at gunpoint. And he wrecked the car, and I had to escape into the forest. Is that bad enough for you?”

  “Oh,Annie.” Jenna’s ragged breaths morphed into a laugh of desperate relief.

  “Is that Mom?”Kelly’s voice filtered through the line. “Let me talk to her, let me talk to her!”

  Muted noise followed—the sound of a hand being placed over the receiver, the jar of the phone moving from person to person.

  “Mom!”

  “Kelly, honey, yes, it’s me. I’m all right.”

  For a moment she could say nothing over her sobs. I soothed her, saying I would be home soon, that I wasn’t hurt, that I was so sorry to scare her. Sudden fresh tears formed within me, spilling down my cheeks.

  “Mom, just come home.”

  “I will, honey, I will.”

  “It’s been terrible. We’ve been so worried, Erin and her dad too. They came over when all the sheriff’s cars got here. And then Erin stayed while her dad helped look for you.”

  Dave, out in the black forest, looking for me. I pictured him searching, and my heart clutched.

  “Kelly, can you put Jenna back on now?”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “Love you too. So very much.”

  I asked Jenna about Stephen. He’d been downstairs, she said, but ran into the office when Kelly shouted the news that I was on the phone. Did I want to talk to him?

  Suddenly, I had no idea what I would say to my son. What could he possibly be feeling after all he’d done? He was the one who’d slipped into the night, left the sliding glass door open . . .

  “Of course I want to talk to him.”

  At that moment my eyes locked with Shirley’s. She and Clay had retreated across their living room and now perched on matching chairs, trying not to listen, hanging on every word. The look of empathy on Shirley’s round-cheeked face—as if she sensed the gap between me and my son. Somehow I knew it was an expression founded on experience. I don’t know why that split-second unspoken communication between us strengthened me, but it did. Perhaps merely because I saw that she’d survived the ordeal.

  I gave her a weak smile.

  “Hi, Mom.” His words sounded strained.

  “Stephen. Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice.”

  “It’s good to hear you, too.” He hesitated. “I’m . . . glad you’re okay.”

  I closed my eyes, feeling his pain writhe just beneath the surface. The catch in his breathing told me what he couldn’t put into words: he couldn’t forgive himself for what he’d done.

  “Stephen, everything will be all right. Do you hear what I’m telling you? Everything.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Well, the detective wants to talk to you.”

  “Is he right there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He is?” Why wasn’t Chetterling out looking for me?

  “He’s been here, talking to people and getting deputies and search teams out and stuff. Here he is.”

  Phone shuffling noise once more. Then Chetterling’s voice. “Annie!”

  The happiness in his tone tightened my throat. “Hi.”

  “Boy, you don’t know how glad I am to hear your voice.”

  “I’m glad to hear yours too.”

  “Where are you, other than in someone’s house?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. All I know is we headed east on little back roads.”

  “Okay. Maybe you’d—”

  “Ralph, listen. First, be careful. Bland’s armed with a good-sized gun. Second, you got a pen? Write this down before I forget it. Four-Annie-silly-girl-five-nine-two—4ASG592.”

  A pause. “Got it. Tell me that’s a license plate.”

  “It is.”

  “California? Sounds like it.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, visualizing the plate. “Yes. It’s a white car. Four doors. A Ford. And it’s an Enterprise rental.”

  “Great. We’re on it. How long ago did you see him?”

  I frowned, focusing on my knees. For the first time I noticed how dirty my clothes were. “I don’t know. I sort of . . . lost track of time.”

  “That’s all right. Don’t worry, we’ll get him. I’ll put out this plate right away. And your drawing is already being faxed around the state.”

  No reply would form. The sheer thought of Bland behind bars made me almost sick with revenge.

  “Annie? You there?”

  “Yeah. I . . .” A wrench clamped around my throat. My body seemed to sink right into the cushions, as if my last bit of energy had trickled away. “Ralph, just get me home.”

  I huddled on the couch, drinking water, shivering on and off, while Clay gave Detective Chetterling directions to his house. I’d ended up in Lassen County, not far outside a small town. Chetterling asked Clay if they’d let me rest there until he came to pick me up. No doubt the Lassen County Sheriff’s Department would be glad to bring me home, he added, but statements needed to be taken from the Welrons, and he preferred to do that himself. Coming up Highway 299—a much straighter drive than the back roads Bland had evidently taken—Chetterling could arrive in about ninety minutes. Meanwhile, Sergeant Delft would work at the Redding office, fielding all the information about Bland to other law enforcement.

  By the time I’d said a final good-bye to Chet
terling and my family, my eyelids would barely stay open. I lay down on the couch, mumbling about getting a few minutes’ rest. Shirley’s gentle hands tucked a blanket around me.

  Sleep rolled in like a midnight fog.

  Chapter 35

  I stumble through black-green woods, branches reaching out to grab me, roots rising up to trip me. Bill Bland pursues me, breath hot on my neck. Kelly sobs in the distance, and Stephen calls my name. I cannot find them. Their sounds echo ahead of me, then behind, then to my side. Another voice joins, speaking in a low drone. I cannot understand what it is saying . . .

  The forest shimmers, compacts. I rise above it, up and out, into light that glows red against my closed eyelids. Voices waft through my ears, my head. A woman . . . a man . . .

  Chetterling.

  My eyes blinked open to daylight. I turned my head, looking across the Welrons’ living room and beyond to see the detective seated with them at the kitchen table. He closed a notebook and glanced at me.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

  Never had his voice sounded so good. Chetterling’s presence meant safety. My home. My children.

  “Hi.” Sudden embarrassment washed over me. I pushed myself to a sitting position, then winced as my head thumped in protest.

  I wanted to leave right away. Chetterling agreed to take my statement at my house so we needn’t delay the reunion with my family. Both Stephen and Kelly had begged Jenna to let them stay home from school, he informed me, and she’d relented. But before he and I left, Shirley and Clay insisted we eat breakfast, especially me. Chetterling sided with them. If I didn’t eat, I’d probably just faint again, and did I want that?

  Somehow I managed to down a piece of toast and two glasses of water. Plus a couple aspirin.

  On my way out the door, I couldn’t thank the Welrons enough. They waved away my gratitude, insisting they’d been glad to help.

  “When that man that took you comes to trial, you’ll see us on the stand.” Clay stood on his porch with hands in his pockets, a vindictive gleam in his eye.

  Chetterling and I spoke little on the trip home. I must have dozed on and off, because it didn’t seem to take very long. When we did talk, it wasn’t about Bland at all. Worries about Stephen had risen to the surface.

  “You’ll receive a notice in the mail about his court date,” Chetterling explained. “It’ll be one of those general times for juvenile court, and you’ll just have to go and wait your turn.”

  The thought of watching my own son face a judge seemed otherworldly. “But they won’t send him to juvenile hall, right?”

  “Not for a first offense. He’ll likely get probation.”

  “What if he doesn’t straighten up? What if he keeps making wrong choices and ends up in the hall?” My words caught on a hook of fear.

  “Annie.” Chetterling threw me an empathetic glance. “That’s always possible, but there are a number of steps between here and there. If probation doesn’t work, Stephen could be put on weekend work detail or house arrest. If he refused to comply with either of those two things, he’d be taken immediately to the hall. But the juvenile court system is not about retribution. It’s about trying to turn kids around before they find themselves adults and in real trouble.”

  All those years of my sitting in courtrooms, sketching the defendants and lawyers and judges, covering the tragedies of people on the wrong side of the law. Now I would sit in court for a member of my own family. Surely I would be judged as well. What kind of mother was I if a child under my roof made these kinds of choices?

  “One thing you’ve got to avoid, and that’s beating up on yourself.”

  Chetterling had certainly learned to read me well.

  “Believe me, I did the same thing when I was raising my niece. There I was, in law enforcement, and not able to keep her out of trouble. Annie, you do the best you can with kids. You teach them morals, model a right way of living, and still they’re going to do what they’re going to do. Some never give their parents any problems. And some nearly put their parents in a grave. I’ve seen it all. I’ve also seen kids from terrible homes, kids that you wouldn’t give a chance in the world, be model citizens.” He shook his head. “Sometimes you just can’t explain life.”

  “How is Nicole now?” Chetterling, a private man, had spoken so little of his niece. I didn’t even know how old she was.

  “Great. Totally turned around. She’s married, has two young children.” He shot me a rueful smile. “I look at those kids and tell her, ‘Just wait, your time’s coming.’ Thought scares her to death.”

  As well it should.

  Tiredness overcame me once more. I lay back against the headrest and closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, we were pulling up to the curb at my house.

  Never had home looked so good. Despite my exhaustion I bounded out of the car and up my front walk. Kelly and Jenna met me on the porch. We group hugged, all three of us breaking into tears. Kelly clung to me, crying long and hard.

  Stephen was waiting in the great room. I marched over and claimed a hug before he could decide whether he wanted one or not. His arms went around me and held on tightly. “Mom, I’m so glad you’re back.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, shuddering a muted sob. “And I’m glad you’re back.”

  We pulled apart, my hands still on his shoulders. He couldn’t look me in the face. Dropping his gaze to the floor, he mumbled, “I’m sorry for leaving the door open.”

  My heart lurched. Maybe, just maybe, he’d learned his lesson. Maybe he really would turn around now. “We’ll talk later. But you can know one thing for now. You will stop doing what you’ve been doing. ’Cause I’m not going to let you tear your own life apart.”

  He nodded.

  Greetings over, there was so much to do, and I possessed the energy for none of it. I wanted to keep hugging my family, answer their questions. Assure them that I hadn’t been hurt, that things would soon be all right because Bland would be caught. And Kelly insisted I call Dave because he’d been so worried. He’d taken Erin to school that morning, but promised to call and tell her when I arrived home.

  I shot a look at Chetterling. He’d touched base with the Sheriff’s Department—the Office, as he termed it—in a long phone call. I knew he’d heard some new information, and I had to know what it was. But I wouldn’t question him in front of the kids. Chetterling now stood ready to take my statement. I would have to tell him the whole story. Everything I could remember, both for Bland’s future day in court (please, God!) and to help locate him now. The very thought of relating all those details weighted my limbs.

  “Kelly, would you call Dave for me? He’s probably seen the car out front anyway. Tell him I’m fine, and I’ll talk to him later. But right now I have to meet with the detective. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Solemn-faced, Kelly headed for the telephone in the TV room. I watched her go. What have I done to my daughter? When will she ever feel safe again?

  Stephen hung against the fireplace, gauging my every move. He didn’t look at Chetterling, whose presence surely caused more than a little ambivalence within him. The detective who’d picked him up for drug possession, and the same one who’d brought his mother home in one piece.

  “Annie.” Jenna turned her back to Stephen and spoke in a low tone. “Chetterling is waiting to talk to you.”

  “I know.” Standing zombielike, I tried to work my brain enough to decide where we should go. Stay in the great room? Kitchen table?

  “Maybe you should go to your office.” My know-me-like-a-book sister gave me a gentle nudge. “That way you can talk in private.”

  I took a deep breath.“Will you come too?”

  “If you want.”

  “Yes. Please.” Maybe some of her strength, her stamina, would flow into me.

  I looked past her shoulder toward my son. “Stephen—”

  “Yeah, I know. You have to talk to the detective.”

  Was that tired empathy in his voice—or
returning sarcasm? I gazed at him, the fifteen feet between us suddenly feeling like a canyon. What was it going to take to bridge it?

  Minutes later Chetterling, Jenna, and I sat in my office, the detective at my desk so he could take notes, and the two of us before him in matching chairs pulled over from the wall. Chetterling also had a tape recorder running so that nothing I said would be missed.

  “Okay.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “First I need to know what you heard when you called the Office.”

  “Right.”

  He adjusted his position, elbows on the arms of my leather chair. A small motion, but it seemed fraught with weariness. Only then did I realize he’d gotten even less sleep than I had. He’d been up all night, looking for me.

  “First, a detail regarding the media. As you know, they can be a real pain in the neck.”

  Oh no. Not more reporters. I hated publicity. “They found out I was kidnapped.”

  “I’m afraid so. Took them awhile. They listen to law-enforcement radio chatter to pick up stories, but this all happened in the middle of the night. This morning, however, when we knew you’d been found, and bulletins for Bland’s arrest were being circulated . . . there was no way to keep that quiet. Delft said calls have been coming into the Office from all over the country. I’m talking national news,Annie. Things might be pretty intense for a while.”

  Chetterling didn’t have to spell it out for me; I’d been around reporters during my stint as a courtroom artist. I knew what they would do to get a story. And my kidnapping could easily woo them as a major one. An artist, creating a drawing for American Fugitive, becomes the target of the fugitive herself . . .

  I groaned. This had sensationalism written all over it.

  “One thing we have managed to keep under wraps, however,” the detective continued, “is all of the information about the shirt and gun Bland brought us. For obvious reasons we don’t want that in the news right now.”

  Agreed. But what a hole in the story. Without that motivation made known, Bland would look all the more like a pure maniac. Everyone would want him caught. The thought almost made me smile.

  “But if your phone starts ringing, I’d like you to answer it.” Chetterling indicated the extension with a movement of his chin. “You don’t have to answer reporters’ questions, but we do still have the recording device plus a trace on your phone, and just in case it’s Bland . . .”