Bring Her Home

by David Bell

  Then he heard it again. His name being called by Paige.

  He ran, following her path around the end of the unit and into the next driveway. Paige stood in the middle of the road, her arms down at her sides. Bill came up next to her, not seeing what had frozen her in place.

  “That bike,” she said.

  Paige pointed forward where a red Cannondale road bike leaned against one of the unit doors.

  “So?”

  “It’s pretty new. Look at it. A brand-new bike amid all this junk. And it’s just leaning there, outside that door. Bill, why is it here?”

  Bill’s heart started to double-time. “Probably just kids.”

  “You just said it’s tough to get in. Did they ride their bike over the fence?”

  “Maybe there’s a hole in back. Maybe it’s been there for years.”

  But he knew that wasn’t true. Paige was right. It was a brand-new bike. The kind of bike that spent its time in a garage at a nice, safe house.

  He started toward the unit where the bike was parked. The wind swirled between the buildings, kicking up grit and paper and rattling some of the doors that weren’t locked. Paige walked behind him, her presence comforting. He tried not to make any noise that would startle whoever was there. He trod lightly, but if someone was behind one of those doors with the wind blowing, he doubted they could hear him coming. Even the sound of the car crashing through the gate may have been distant and faint, chalked up to vehicle noise on the road.

  When Bill reached the bike, he studied the door it leaned next to. No lock. He pressed his head against the fiberglass door and tried to listen. Nothing came through.

  “Bill,” Paige said, her voice low. “Be careful. You don’t know who’s in there.”

  “A kid with a nice bike,” he said.

  He grabbed the handle and threw the door up.

  He stood face-to-face with Teena Everett.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  Teena’s mouth fell open, and she took a step back.

  When she did, Bill saw past her, into the interior of the storage unit.

  In the corner, in the indistinct light, someone sat on a ragged mattress. Bill saw dirty blond hair and the familiar shape of the face that was so much like her mother’s.

  “Oh, my God.”

  Bill pushed Teena aside and darted toward the mattress. He dropped to his knees, reached out, and wrapped his arms around Summer.

  “Oh, my God. Oh, Summer. Oh, baby. Are you hurt?”

  Paige was there next to him, also reaching out for Summer. Paige was crying, and Bill felt the sting of his own tears. He saw his daughter through them, and he wiped them away to take her in.

  Alive. She was alive.

  “Dad,” she said.

  Her voice was faint, hoarse. Like she’d swallowed gravel. Her skin was pale, the circles under her eyes dark. She looked as though she’d lost weight, ten pounds at least. And she was dirty. Very dirty.

  But she was alive. Alive.

  Alive.

  “Don’t say anything,” Bill said. “Shhh. We’re here. It’s okay. And the police are coming.”

  Summer moaned. She seemed out of it, a little delirious. Unable to focus her eyes. Bill looked around. He saw an empty water bottle, some bread.

  “I’ll get the car,” Paige said.

  “Yes, get the car.” Bill took a quick glance at Teena, who had scooted back, her eyes wide.

  Paige started moving away, then stopped. “The keys.”

  “Shit.” Bill dug in his pockets and threw them to her. “Thanks.”

  Then he turned back to Summer. He eased onto the shitty mattress and moved next to Summer. Only then did he see that one of her arms was stretched out and away from her body in an unusual way. He saw the chain. A pair of handcuffs, one end around Summer’s wrist, the skin red and raw beneath it, the other hooked through the chain, which was attached to a hook in the wall.

  “Oh, God,” Bill said. He tugged on the chain, feeling foolish once he did, but of course it didn’t budge. “The police will get you out. They’ll cut it off.”

  “I tried,” Summer said. “I pulled and pulled until it hurt. Teena tried. . . .” She looked up at Bill, her eyes focusing for a moment. “He said he was coming back. That we were going away somewhere. He said he and I could start a new life somewhere else.”

  “He’s crazy, honey. Just crazy.”

  “Did he get arrested? Did he . . . Is he . . .”

  “He’s dead,” Bill said. “He’s dead and gone. It’s okay now.”

  “She said . . .” Summer made a vague gesture in Teena’s direction, rattling the chain as she did so. “She talked about him. . . .”

  Bill looked up. He’d forgotten about Teena. Forgotten her face at the door. Forgotten that she stood there, watching Bill reunite with Summer.

  Teena shrank back a little, moving into the shadows by the far wall.

  “Do you have the key, Teena?” Bill asked.

  She shook her head.

  “What are you doing here?” Bill asked. “Why didn’t you tell anybody she was here?”

  “I didn’t know,” Teena said. “I swear. I just found her a little while ago.”

  Bill heard the car approaching, the low rumble of the engine, the crunch of the tires over the grit and garbage in the driveway as Paige pulled up to the door. But as long as Summer was bolted to the wall, they couldn’t take her anywhere.

  Paige came to the open doorway, and Bill said, “There’s a blanket in the trunk. Can you get it?”

  Paige did, and Bill stood up and wrapped it around Summer’s small, frail body.

  He whispered in her ear. “They’ll be here soon. It will be fine then. Just fine. Just a little while longer.” He looked at Paige. “You’ve got the phone. Why don’t you call them again? Hurry them up.”

  She took the phone out of her sweatshirt pocket, but before she dialed, Teena spoke up.

  “No,” she said, her voice echoing in the storage unit.

  “What?”

  “No. Don’t call. Just wait.” She stepped toward Bill and Summer. “I’m scared. You all are going to think the wrong thing. You’re going to get me into trouble with the police. And I can’t be away from my mom now. I just can’t.”

  CHAPTER NINETY

  Bill held his hand out, moved his body forward so it formed a barrier between Teena and Summer.

  “What are you doing, Teena?” he asked.

  “You can’t . . . leave yet. I want to explain something.”

  “You will be in trouble if you knew about this and didn’t do anything,” Bill said. He shifted his tone, tried to sound placating. “But if Adam hurt you or threatened to hurt you, then maybe you won’t get in trouble. Just tell the police what Adam did to you.”

  Teena’s voice sounded hurt. “He didn’t do anything to me. Nothing bad.” She gestured with her hand. “He was like a father to me. He helped my mom. He really did. I thought he was . . . different than this. I didn’t know.”

  “I know. We all thought that. But now we know he did a lot of awful things,” Bill said. “Like putting Summer here. And being involved with Haley. Plain and simple. Did he hurt you too?”

  Teena was shaking her head. She looked scared, nervous, like her circuits were overloading. Tears pooled in her eyes, and a vein pulsed in her neck. “He wasn’t excluding me. He said he was going to help me too. Us. Me and my mom. I believed him. I wanted to believe him.”

  “What did he promise you?” Bill asked.

  “Adam told me I was like a daughter to him. I was special. And when the time came, he and I could leave together. And my mom. We were going to start a new life.”

  “He was lying, honey,” Paige said.

  Teena’s eyes were wide and the whites prominent in the half-light of the storage unit. “Y
eah,” she said. “Yeah. He did lie.” Her voice faded. A sob caught in her throat, and she lifted her right hand to her chest. She quickly composed herself. “He said we would have left sooner, but he had to finish things at his job, to get paid more. He earned it. The day he died, we were going to leave. He was going to come to the house for Mom and me. He’d been getting ready to leave town. We were going to go that night.”

  “What was he going to do with Summer?” Bill asked. “Why was she here?”

  “I don’t know,” Teena said. Her resolve appeared to be weakening. “I swear I didn’t know about this until today. Tell them, Summer. I just found you an hour ago.”

  Bill looked at Summer, who nodded. It looked like it cost her a great effort just to move her head.

  “How did you know Summer was here?” Bill asked. “Did he tell you?”

  “Adam started acting weird around then. He didn’t come by our house for a few days, right when the girls disappeared, and my mom cried and cried because she couldn’t reach him. She was freaked out because my friends got hurt, and she thought it could have been me. She started to drink when she couldn’t find Adam. It was terrible. I rode my bike to his house, to find him and ask him to come take care of Mom.”

  “Did you see something there?” Bill asked.

  Teena looked reluctant to speak. Bill took a step forward, but Paige stepped in.

  “Teena, it’s okay to tell us. This is all over now. The police are coming.”

  The girl locked eyes with Paige, and her features relaxed. “I’m glad. I’m glad they’re coming. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “What happened, Teena?” Paige asked. “Why are you here?”

  “He drove me back home. We put my bike in the trunk of his car, and we drove to our house. He went back to the bedroom and talked to my mom. He gave her coffee and sobered her up as best he could. And then when he left, he pulled me aside. He told me that he wanted to leave town with us, but he might not be able to. He didn’t tell me why. But then he handed me something.” She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “It was the address and the key, for this place. He told me if anything ever happened to him, anything bad, he needed me to come here, that there was something in this unit that he wanted me to know about.”

  “Did you come out here right away when he died?” Bill asked.

  Teena shook her head, her eyes full of tears. “Not right away. I was sad, and my mom was sad. Devastated. She cried and cried. She started drinking again. I wanted to come out here and look, but I couldn’t leave Mom alone. She’s getting better, so I came out here. I had no idea what was out here—I didn’t—but I thought it might be something meaningful. Something that would help me remember Adam. I had no idea. I mean . . . I was shocked when I saw her. I started crying.” Her chin quivered. “She looked awful. And I couldn’t get her loose.”

  “Really?” Bill said. “Did you really try to help her?”

  “Tell them, Summer. I tried to help you. Tell them.”

  “We couldn’t get the chain loose,” Summer said, her voice a hoarse croak.

  Bill heard the approaching cars just then, the whooping of the sirens.

  Teena started shaking, her shoulders bouncing up and down as she sobbed. “He must have thought I was a fool. A stupid fool. I believed everything Adam told me, and it was all lies. He was someone terrible.”

  Bill turned to Summer, cradled her in his arms again.

  “It’s okay, honey,” he said. “It’s all over.”

  “Dad,” she said.

  “Yes, honey?”

  “Thanks . . .”

  “Thanks?”

  “Thanks . . . thanks for not giving up on me.”

  Bill held her as close as he could.

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

  Bill entered Summer’s room in the ICU.

  After the doctors and nurses were finished, when an IV had been started to fight dehydration and a warming blanket placed on her body to combat hypothermia, when every part of her had been examined and investigated, Summer sent word that she wanted to speak to her father alone.

  Paige and Hawkins stood with Bill in the hallway. Bill looked to the detective for approval, not that Hawkins could have kept him from his daughter if he’d even wanted to. But Hawkins nodded, content to wait his turn. And Paige smiled and winked, warming herself with a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

  Bill stepped into the room. Summer sat beneath the covers, the very top of her light blue hospital gown peeking above the blankets. Winnie the Pooh sat in the crook of her arm, and already several bouquets of flowers decorated the windowsill across the way. Bill wondered how they’d appeared so quickly, whether the hospital staff brought them in just to cheer the place up.

  Bill liked the sound of the door clicking shut behind him. It meant safety. Security. Protection for his daughter. He understood the long road that lay ahead, the mountains of schoolwork, the knowledge that the entire town knew what she’d been through. During the ambulance ride to the hospital, she told Bill she felt like a freak, like everywhere she would ever go in Jakesville, people would be staring at her, whispering about her, pointing at her.

  Bill expected nightmares too, jumpiness and anxiety about being in public or being alone. Even with Doug Hammond arrested and Adam Fleetwood dead, she would struggle to feel normal.

  A long road, indeed. But she was safe.

  She was alive.

  “Are you feeling any better, honey?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I never thought I’d miss a bed so much. A bed, clean sheets, and warmth.”

  “I can imagine,” he said, then shook his head. “No, I really can’t. But I want you to know I’m going to try. I’m going to be right here with you the whole way. Whatever you need, I’m here. You know that, right?”

  The corners of Summer’s mouth curled up. “I know, Dad. You and Aunt Paige should join the army or something. You’re like Navy SEALs.”

  Bill sat down by the side of her bed and took her hand in his. “I just did what any father would do. I wish I’d found you sooner.”

  But Summer shook her head. “Let’s not do that. Let’s just . . . Let’s try to be happy.”

  “Okay,” Bill said, squeezing her hand, the skin soft as a petal. “Let’s do that.”

  But he could see something beneath her words and her smile. A distraction, an urgency to say something. Bill feared what his daughter might have to say, feared having to sit through a recitation of the hell she experienced, but he wouldn’t look away. Only he could go through it with her, and he would. Every second of it, no matter how difficult.

  “Did you want to say something, honey?” he asked. “Before the cops come in.”

  Summer didn’t speak right away, and Bill rushed to fill the silence. “Haley’s going to come down and see you soon, as soon as the police are finished. If you’re up for it. That will lift your spirits.”

  “Good.”

  “Are you hungry?” Bill asked.

  “Getting there.”

  “What do you want? We can get whatever you want.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  The hospital shrink, the one who would be seeing Summer more and more in the coming weeks, had told Bill to be patient. Above all, be patient. So Bill didn’t want to press.

  She was alive, he told himself. That’s what mattered.

  They had time to work everything else out. And it would take time.

  “When I was out there . . . in that place . . . I had a lot of time to think.”

  Bill waited for her to say more, and when she didn’t, he said, “Sure. I can imagine.”

  She took her time again. And Bill waited.

  Finally she said, “I need to tell you something about Mom.”

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

  Bill scooted closer to the be
d, swallowing hard. His mind raced through possibilities, the thoughts tumbling like falling rocks.

  “What about Mom?” Bill asked.

  Summer lifted her hand to her mouth and started to chew on her fingernail. She just as quickly stopped, but she still didn’t speak.

  “Did you think about her a lot?” Bill asked. “Did she give you strength to keep going when you thought about her . . . out there?”

  “Of course.” She nodded. “The same thing happened when I thought of you. I felt stronger, more determined, knowing you were out there. And when you came through that door, I wasn’t really surprised.”

  “I wish I’d gotten there sooner,” he said. “I wish a lot of things had gone differently.”

  Summer shrugged. “The therapist lady I saw when Mom died always said not to beat myself up over the past. Or something like that. You shouldn’t either.”

  “It’s hard not to,” he said. “Dads are supposed to protect their daughters.” He looked at the floor for a moment. “Anyway, what about Mom?”

  “Oh.” Summer looked cagey, as if she wished she hadn’t brought the subject up. “It’s . . .”

  “You can tell me,” Bill said. “You can tell me anything.”

  “I know.” She laughed a little, but the sound lacked joy. “But here we are, saying to let go of the past. Or not to beat ourselves up over it. And that’s what I’m doing.” She leaned forward, the Pooh bear remaining precariously balanced by her side. “You see, I know something about Mom. About the day she died. And I think . . . I know it led to everything that happened with me. It’s why Adam locked me up out there.”

  Bill tried to be cool. He tried to stick to her therapist’s mantra of being patient. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t stand on the brink of learning something about the last moments of Julia’s life—those moments that had haunted him for more than a year—and just turn away without hearing everything there was to hear.