The Waiting Room

by Emily Bleeker

  “Thank you for taking care of me.” She patted the lump under her arm, only one of more than a dozen evidences of Gillian looking out for her. “I’ll be out soon; I promise.”

  She closed the door and walked boldly forward, following the gray trail of sidewalk that traced the perimeter of the block of impeccable houses. There was something so wrong about this setting. It didn’t give her hope for finding her girl. The tall black streetlamps kept the street nearly as bright as midday. The houses had the curtains open like there were no secrets inside them, ever. She’d been so focused on getting to that dot on the map that she hadn’t thought about what would happen if it was a dead end.

  It could be a bad lead. Maybe Mark got the address wrong or the information was as fake as the code names on the file. Was she walking up to a stranger’s home with a gun under her arm? This could be some sweet old couple that was more likely to sit on the porch swing than steal babies.

  She pushed the swinging gate open with her fingertips and crossed into the well-kept yard, not letting her doubts hold her back while also allowing them to hold her up, comfort her, keep her from utter devastation if at the end of this terrible day she didn’t have anywhere else to go but a home with an empty crib and a mother she’d scared off when she needed her most.

  CHAPTER 21

  The steps didn’t even creak as Veronica ascended them. It was universally peaceful throughout the neighborhood, and the target house didn’t break the mold. As she approached the door, Veronica could hear the soft murmur of voices and smell something savory cooking inside. The more exposure she got to this town and this home and the people who probably lived inside, the more she began to wonder just what the hell she was doing here.

  Veronica took a moment to readjust the heavy bag under her arm, feeling foolish for what was inside. She’d brought a gun to the house of some unsuspecting family off of some information on a PI’s phone. Great. What was she going to do next, bring a knife to a schoolyard and just drop it somewhere in the playground for the kids to fight over?

  With a gun under one arm and an active phone tucked into the cup of her bra, Veronica was feeling a bit like a sideshow freak who was trying to fit into the real world. She straightened her hair with the palm of her hand and bit her lips a few times, one of her mom’s old suggestions for getting color when you had no lip gloss. She rang the doorbell.

  The bell that sounded was one of those pretty chimes. It didn’t just ring up and down with the familiar dingdong but trilled a tiny melody that lasted a full second longer than expected and probably echoed through the remote corners of the spacious house. If she’d lived in that house, she’d find reasons to ring the doorbell every day. It must be such an exciting sound for those who lived inside. The odd thoughts felt a little manic and did little to bring down her blood pressure.

  Short but determined footsteps headed toward her, clomping on what must be a hardwood floor. The steps sounded light and feminine, which both relieved Veronica and confused her. For some reason she had pictured a large man dressed in black who had come to steal her daughter away in the middle of the night.

  As the dainty steps grew closer, her mouth went dry. She suddenly wished she’d had something more to eat or drink that day than the Diet Coke Gillian had offered her from Walmart.

  The woman turned the knob without taking any time to mess with a lock. The smell of warm pot roast and something sweet baking in the oven burst out from the house like a puff of smoke. A young woman with slight hips and dishwater-blond hair swung the door open wide like she was expecting family, unlike the way Veronica greeted people, opening the door just a crack to see who might stand behind it, friend or foe. The woman looked more like a teenage babysitter or nanny than the homeowner, but a platinum band and large diamond winked at Veronica from the woman’s left hand.

  The woman’s face, which had been warm and welcoming, immediately crunched down so that all her features smooshed together into the middle of her face. Her smile was gone.

  “Hi,” Veronica blurted, and searched her mind for what she planned to say if she got this far. Most of her strategy had been based on there being some reason for confrontation at the front door, not a totally innocent-looking young woman who seemed to be willing to trust anyone who was going to ring her doorbell. “I’m looking for Suzanne Reynolds. Is she home?” Using the name of a childhood friend, she hoped that at least she could open some sort of dialogue.

  “Veronica? Why are you here?” Her voice was as dead and still as her features.

  Hearing her name come out of the stranger’s mouth sent stab of terror through Veronica’s midsection and made colors swim in front of her eyes so that she could barely see through the haze. It was all real. These people had been watching her. They knew who she was. They were interested in her life and in her child.

  “Who the hell are you?” Veronica demanded, low, angry.

  “Get off my property. I’m calling the police.” The childlike woman was now glaring at her, closing the door instead of holding it open. Veronica couldn’t let that happen.

  “I’d like to see you call the police. I’m sure they’d love to hear how you’ve been stalking me. I know that you hired a private investigator to follow me. Why? Where is my baby?”

  The woman didn’t respond, just shoved the door closed, but Veronica put her foot against the bottom and her hand flat against the wooden panels. Ramming from the other side, the panicked woman spoke.

  “I will not talk to you. Get off my front porch.” She was frightened in a way that reminded Veronica of that trapped-animal feeling again. She was hiding something, and it was more than the fact that someone at this address was tracking Veronica and her life. The waifish woman was hiding and protecting something inside the house.

  “You sure as hell are going to talk to me. You’re stalking me and my kid. Where is Sophie? Where is she?” Veronica’s voice rose to a near shriek. Maybe now it was time to call the police, but if she didn’t act fast on her own, then this woman would get away and hide. Veronica wouldn’t get answers.

  Pushing on the door, Veronica tried to place her body over the threshold so it could not click shut. The other woman had her whole body leaning against the other side.

  “Get off my porch . . . or else . . .”

  With one more shove against her already-aching shoulder, Veronica stumbled back enough that her foot moved and the door slammed shut. Then there was the sound of someone fiddling with the lock, trying to get it closed.

  This woman wouldn’t listen to her. She didn’t want to talk, and Veronica didn’t have time to wait for the police to come. If the woman wouldn’t listen to a desperate mother on her own, perhaps Veronica would have to be more compelling.

  With a quick flip, she took the bag out from under her arm, unzipped it, and let the gun fall into her hand, heavy but comforting.

  With the gun in her right hand, and racing against the scratching sounds of the frantic woman on the other side, Veronica used all the force of her body to ram into the door. Pain shot through her injured arm and up into her neck and head, but the oak door swung open easier than she’d expected it to. On the other side was the wisp of a woman, her knee-length floral skirt up around her hips, sprawled out on the floor like a discarded rag doll. Veronica pointed the gun at her, shaking in her hands.

  “Answer my questions and everything will be okay. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want my little girl back.”

  The woman seemed stunned, like perhaps she hit her head when Veronica broke down the door. She raised herself up on her elbows and shook her head a few times like she was trying to get water out of her ears.

  “Don’t shoot me,” she pleaded. “We didn’t mean to scare you. Your mother was worried about you and . . .”

  “My mother?” A wave of nausea threatened to pull her under. It was a deep, sickening feeling, like when she got a call about the accident and already knew what they were going to say on the other end. Her mother was involved.
It all came together into a blurry mess that almost made sense. That’s why she disappeared after the fight, not because she was scared or angry at Veronica but because she was involved.

  Every molecule of guilt and worry transformed into outrage, like they’d gone through an instant chemical reaction. It pounded through Veronica’s veins, her blood burning her from the inside out with every heartbeat.

  She pointed the gun with a renewed resolve at the woman cowering on floor. “Where is my little girl?” she asked, ignoring all the other possible questions she could have posed at that moment. “Tell me where Sophie is right now.”

  The woman sat up slowly, pulling her skirt down over her thighs. “I don’t have your daughter, Veronica.” She touched the back of her head, and her hand came back bloody. The dark swoosh of red seemed to shift her focus. Veronica ignored the blood so it didn’t remind her of the other times she’d resorted to violence today. Instead she took in her surroundings.

  The wooden floor reached through all the rooms that Veronica could see. No one else seemed to be rushing in to investigate the sounds of their altercation at the door. A maroon runner went up the stairs and turned at a platform to follow the stairs back up to a long hall that disappeared into the recesses of the upper level. On the floor at the foot of the stairs was a phone with a shattered screen, dark but calling to her.

  She held the gun up high enough that it would still be a threat to the woman on the floor. The weight of the weapon brought her back to target practice with her dad before she’d learned to run out the door anytime he wanted to be alone with her. It was terrifying holding up a gun and pointing it at another human being. She didn’t know if she’d be able to pull the trigger like she had when she was a child and had learned to put a hole in the middle of nearly every paper target put in front of her. She tried to erase the blood and fear from the face in front of her and instead imagine the blank white and black of copy-paper targets instead. If there was anyone she was willing to pull the trigger for, it would be Sophie.

  With a steadied mind, Veronica moved over inch by inch, trying to get closer to the device without letting on to her plan. The woman was still tending to her injuries when Veronica reached the phone, but as she leaned over to grab it, a sound pulled her attention away. It wasn’t the angelic trill of the doorbell, and it wasn’t a timer from the kitchen—it was the sound of a baby crying. Veronica’s heart exploded, sending electricity through her limbs and to every corner of her body, leaving her feeling supercharged.

  Immediately she aimed the gun again, this time pointing it directly at the woman’s head.

  “You bitch,” she spat. If it weren’t for the extra step of taking off the safety, she might have let her finger slip. If she’d hurt her mother and fought against a madman and shoved down a woman she’d never met, it would be nothing to let her finger loosen against the trigger and pull. Instead, she kept the gun held high and backed toward the kitchen, where the crying seemed to originate.

  “No!” the woman shouted. “Don’t you dare touch her.”

  Veronica glared at the cowering woman and continued to follow the swell of the baby’s wails. “You shut your mouth.” She waved the gun like she’d lost any apprehensions to shoot anyone who stood in her way . . . and she was a little afraid she had.

  “Don’t you touch her!” the woman screamed, scrambling up onto her knees, her skirt going askew again, wrapping around her body. Veronica had two choices: shoot or run. The baby cried again; this time it wasn’t a fussy cry but sounded more like a wail of pain or fear. It was Sophie; she was sure of it.

  The gun fell to her side, and she forced her feet to run, fast, one flip-flop flying off her foot as she pushed off the hard floor and dived toward the kitchen. The light there called to her like a homing beacon. No one was going to keep her from her baby.

  The woman was charging from behind, her feet pounding despite her small frame. But Veronica was fast, and there was no way she’d let this woman get past her. There was no door to the kitchen, just an open entry with white trim around it. She was moving so fast her hand holding the gun slammed against the wooden frame, causing stabbing pain that barely registered because she was so focused on getting to the child in the kitchen.

  There she was, little blond-haired, blue-eyed Sophie Shelton, tears streaming down her face, screaming now in a swing that was ticking but barely moving. Veronica’s throat clinched shut, fighting back a scream, making it hard to breathe.

  “Oh, my sweet baby!” she sobbed, rushing forward and putting the gun down by her side as she knelt in front of the swing. There wasn’t time to unlatch the seat buckles and lift the tray keeping her secure in the seat. Instead, without thinking, Veronica put one hand under her daughter’s arms and the other pinched the white buckle on her right hip and then pulled, gently but firmly. Sophie popped out of the seat, her left foot tangling for a moment in the seat straps but breaking free after two tugs. Then she was in Veronica’s arms and pressed into her hip like they’d been hanging out that way every day while doing chores or making dinner. She felt perfect.

  But her awe lasted only a moment before the woman barreled into her and dived toward the gun. It skittered across the floor. The woman grabbed for the weapon and looped an arm around one of Veronica’s legs.

  “Get off me,” Veronica said, kicking hard, trying to free herself. Several hard, shoeless kicks against the woman’s shoulder and one final one against her cheek set Veronica free as she slipped out, almost losing her balance, with Sophie held tightly in her arms.

  “No!” The woman let out a high, shrill scream and, instead of going after the gun, lunged again at Veronica.

  Finally free, Veronica ran. She was a distance runner, but she was still light and fast even on short stretches. The muscle tone was there whether she was running a marathon or escaping a kidnapper who now had a gun. Holding Sophie tight against her chest, Veronica ran barefoot through the dining room and out through the front hall. The front door still stood wide open, so she leaped through it and slammed it shut, hoping it would give her just a few seconds more to get to the car.

  Veronica yelled, hoping that Gillian could hear her on the phone through her dress and bra. “Gillian, I don’t know if you’re still there, but if you heard all of that, I have Sophie. Be ready. We need to go now.”

  The grass was spongelike under her bare feet, and as soon as she reached the sidewalk, she let her soles smack against the rough cement and pulled Sophie in closer. Her baby was crying, clearly picking up on the drama of the moment. Veronica held her even closer, trying to comfort her while also running for their lives.

  Even in the panic of the moment, her daughter’s scent filled Veronica’s nostrils, the same smell from the blankets Sophie sometimes slept with. Her blond hair brushed Veronica lips like feathers. It had been so long since she’d held her baby in her arms. At eight and a half months, Sophie felt so substantial now. When Sophie was a tiny infant, Veronica used to be afraid she’d break her, that she would just turn Sophie the wrong way and she would crumble into a million pieces.

  But this new version of Sophie was full of life. She had a layer of baby fat underneath her skin that welcomed Veronica’s fingers and congratulated her for her part in its existence. For one brief second before diving into the back seat of Gillian’s car, she let herself feel accomplished that the baby had those rolls. It was because of her milk, her middle-of-the-night pumping sessions and daily devotion to a lactation routine, that she was so healthy. Some part of Veronica had been taking care of her daughter.

  That made her proud now that she was holding the product of her efforts in her arms. Most women carried their babies inside them for nine months. Veronica perhaps needed longer. Perhaps her timeline was closer to sixteen months minus a week or two. Whatever the reason, now she had her baby. Now she could hold her. There was no anxiety threatening to take her under. There was only the desire to bring Sophie home and to get away from the woman running after them.
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br />   The car was already running. Gillian must’ve heard something, because she was ready. Veronica flung the back door open and jumped inside, landing on top of some shopping bags and piles of old mail.

  “Go! Go now! Fast as you can!”

  Gillian didn’t hesitate—they shot out like a rocket. Veronica looked over her shoulder. The kidnapper was running at full speed, her dishwater-blond hair blowing out behind her even though there was no breeze on the still-warm summer evening. In her hand was the gun pointed at the ground, and even though the sight of it gave Veronica chills, she was certain the woman wouldn’t shoot.

  The kidnapper had taken Baby Sophie for a reason. She’d taken very good care of her. Her onesie smelled of fresh laundry, and with a pat on her bottom, Veronica discovered a clean diaper. A woman who took such good care of a baby wouldn’t shoot at the car she was riding in.

  Two seconds later, Gillian turned onto the main highway that would take them home, and Veronica took a moment to assess the situation. Sophie’s cries were slowing as Veronica patted her back and snuggled her in tight against her chest.

  How did she never realize that holding their daughter in her arms would bring her some sort of peace about Nick’s passing? How did she not know that considering his eyes through their daughter’s eyes could make her heart rate steady? But today was not a day for regrets. She had her girl. Now that she’d conquered her anxieties, she could be a real mom and take care of the baby like she always wanted to. She should have been worried she didn’t have a car seat for the baby, but instead she just slumped down lower in her seat and prayed that Gillian’s safe driving would get them home without incident. They might be on the run from kidnappers, and there might be angry and confused police officers waiting at her house, but none of it mattered. She was a mom again, a real mom, and she was never going to let that go again.