“Oh, now you want to be quiet?” Scott snapped. I’d never seen him this angry. Abbi joked he had a temper, but I’d never seen it.
“What happened?” she asked with her hands on her hips. It caught me off guard how closely she resembled Abbi in that moment. Abbi’s forehead had been set in the same stubborn line as hers earlier tonight, and her eyes had narrowed in the identical pattern.
“Abbi took off, and we can’t find her,” Scott said.
Kate’s eyes filled with panic. “Why did she do that?” She rushed down the stairs, joining us in the entryway.
“She was upset,” I said. “You know how teenagers can get.” Scott glared at me, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to add more to her plate. She wasn’t in any kind of state to deal with Abbi.
“Why was she upset? What happened?” Kate asked.
Scott refused to meet her stare. “We told her what happened on the day you went missing.” He paused, working up the courage to say the words. “She knows that you weren’t kidnapped and that you chose to leave.”
The color drained from Kate’s face. “She does?”
Scott nodded, hanging his head like a puppy hung his tail between his legs when he’d been caught peeing on the floor. Kate sank to the floor at the base of the stairs. She pulled her knees up to her chest and burst into tears. Scott rushed to her side and wrapped his arms around her.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.” He rocked her back and forth like she was a small child.
He touched her the same way he talked about her—with such tender adoration, as if she were an expensive piece of china that might break if he pressed too hard. Tears sprang to my eyes. I wanted to put my arms around them both, and for a second I almost moved in their direction, but instead I stood there awkwardly until the intimacy of the moment became too much, and I had to look away. I moved around them into the kitchen, waiting in the doorway for a few minutes to see if he’d notice I was gone. The tears in my eyes found their way down my cheeks when he didn’t.
TWENTY
ABBI
NOW
I’d never been in the park this late before. I had no idea what time it was, but I wasn’t ready to go home. It’d taken me over ten minutes to get my lungs to stop burning—that was how fast I’d run. Dad had to be worried sick; that was a given, but I couldn’t bring myself to go home. Not yet.
“Hey, kiddo,” a voice broke into the night.
I turned around. “Dean?”
He walked through the shelter and up to the picnic table, where I’d been sitting for the past few hours. “I figured this is where I’d find you, but I don’t ever want you here at this time of night again. There are too many weirdos out for you to be alone in a park after dark. You understand?” I nodded. “Now come here and give me a hug.” He put his arms around me, and I sank into his chest.
“Did Dad call you?” I asked.
“No, I just happened to be going out for a midnight stroll.” He smiled at me and brushed the dirt off the bench before sitting down next to me.
“Shut up.” I punched his thigh. I didn’t need to ask how he knew where to find me. For years, it’d been my secret spot—the one me and Mom used to go to on Sundays whenever we were letting Dad sleep in. I’d never told Dad about it because it was the only place where I had a memory of Mom that was all mine. All his memories were of the two of us or him watching her while she interacted with me. The one thing he couldn’t give me was what it was like when it was just the two of us. It was only a piece, a sliver, really—just a flash of me on the swing with the sky above me and the feel of her hand on my back for a brief second—but it was something, and it was where I came to feel close to her. I’d shared my spot with Dean after he’d lost his brother in a motorcycle accident, hoping it’d bring him the same peace and comfort it’d brought me.
“Did he tell you what happened?” I asked.
“He said that all of you were arguing and you’d gotten upset and left. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
I shrugged, exhausted and spent from the day. “I found out Mom abandoned us, and Dad’s been keeping it a secret from me all day. That’s pretty much it.”
“Sounds like a lot to me,” he said.
Dad was supposed to be my rock through all of this. How was I supposed to deal with any of it if I couldn’t trust him? I didn’t have any experience with not being able to trust him. He had never come close to betraying me. It was one of the things I liked best about our relationship. “Dad promised to always tell me any information he had on Mom.”
“Promise not to bite my head off when I say this?”
I cocked my head to the side. “That depends.”
“You’re not going to like it, but you might have to cut him a break on this one. It’s not like he waited weeks to tell you. I mean, you didn’t even give him a day. Those are pretty high standards, don’t you think?” He squeezed my arm, pretending he was going to pinch me until I couldn’t help but giggle. “My two cents?” I nodded. “Maybe you’re mad at your dad because you got left out of an important moment this morning? I totally get that, and, honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t think to wake you up. I should have, so if you’re going to be mad at him, then you’re going to have to be mad at me too.” He smiled at me while he shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Did I miss anything else?” I asked.
“No, and we recorded the entire thing. I’m pretty sure I can get Camille to let you watch it.”
“Really?”
“Of course. It’s not like anything on there is a secret.”
I let out a deep sigh. “If Mom left because she wanted to, does this mean nobody is going to get arrested?”
He wrinkled his forehead. “We can’t make an arrest if there hasn’t been a crime, and she hasn’t revealed any.”
“But at the hospital they said it looked like she’d been tortured—that’s a crime.”
“It’s not illegal if it’s done with your consent.”
“She allowed herself to be tortured?”
He nodded like he wished it wasn’t true. “At least during the first month she was with them. It’s all on the video.”
“But she had marks on her back like she’d been whipped. She said that was okay too?”
“She did.”
“She admitted this?” He nodded again, but no matter how many times he said it, I couldn’t wrap my brain around how someone would let themselves be treated so awful. And if whipping was okay, then how bad did things have to get before she said enough was enough?
“Now that doesn’t mean we won’t find out other crimes were committed during her time with them, because there’s an entire decade we don’t know about yet. Our investigation is far from complete, but we are no longer looking at kidnapping charges, which shifts the FBI’s involvement when it’s not a crime that crossed multiple state lines. It changes the threat level and the amount of manpower we devote when the danger is no longer immediate. I know it’s a huge dagger in the heart, but it brings us a step closer to solving the puzzle.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”
“Okay, well, the case is moving painstakingly slow, but it at least gives us more important pieces, and those pieces are enough for me to sleep better at night about your safety.”
“What do you think happened to make her leave us?” I asked. It hurt to say the words, but that was what she’d done. I might as well get used to it.
“It’s not a crime for people to go missing. It happens all the time. More than you’d think. Remember when I told you that all those years ago?”
I nodded. It was shortly after I’d stumbled on the Vanished forums. I had been thirteen, and up until then I’d never considered any other possibilities about Mom’s disappearance other than the ones Dad had given me. We had been working on our genealogies in history class, and it had stirred up all these questions and emotions inside me, so I’d googled Mom. Vanished had been my first hit.
> The things I had read shook me to my core, and Dad wouldn’t consider anything they wrote. He wouldn’t even talk about it with me. Eventually, I’d gone to Dean for help processing everything, and unlike Dad, he had been willing to admit there was a possibility that Mom may have decided to leave on her own. I had told him how they talked about the possibility that she might have committed suicide, and he had shocked me when he had told me that they’d already ruled it out. It was one of the things I loved the most about Dean. He was refreshingly honest. Always had been.
“And then she just suddenly decided to come back? Why would she do that after all this time?” I asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” He took his arm off my shoulder and cracked his knuckles. “But I’m going to do my best to figure this mess out.”
“Thanks, Dean.” He had a way of always making me feel better. “All of this is just happening so fast. It’s like every time I get my feet on solid ground, something happens and I’m falling all over the place again. Tonight was just like bam—bam—bam.”
“It must be hard for you to see your mom this way,” Dean said.
I shook my head. “That’s the thing nobody understands. It’s really not.”
His eyes grew in curiosity. “It’s not hard seeing her so wrecked?”
“It’s hard to see her in pain, yes, but I would hate seeing anyone in pain. That’s not what I’m talking about. Dad has before-and-after versions of her, but I don’t. My only version of Mom has always been through his eyes, but it was never mine. She was never real to me from experience. It was always his version. You know what I mean?” He nodded, signaling me to continue. “It’s easier for me in a way because I didn’t know her, and all I want to do is get to know her. I don’t care who she is—I just want to know her. Even if she turns out to be totally damaged from whatever she went through, or she’s a completely different person than I thought. It doesn’t matter. Not to me. It’s different for me than Dad.”
He tousled my hair with his other hand. “You’re a smart kid, you know that?”
I smiled. “Dad’s totally freaking out, huh?”
“Yep, but this time I can’t blame him.” Over the years, Dad had freaked out many times and called the police or Dean to check up on me somewhere. It was one of the reasons why I’d never had a boyfriend. I was sure he’d follow our every move, and I’d die of embarrassment. “I texted him when I spotted you sitting here, but he’s probably climbing the walls waiting for us to get back.”
“We should go?”
He nodded. “We’ll do this thing one step at a time, kiddo. One step at a time.” He reached out his hand to help me up, and I smiled at how much he sounded like Dad.
KATE
THEN
I moaned with ecstasy as the hot water spilled over my head. I couldn’t remember the last time it’d been hot. Even the water they’d used to bathe me with after I came out of the cellar had been cold. It felt so good it didn’t matter that I wasn’t in a real tub. I sat cross-legged in a hollowed-out tin while Margo bathed me in preparation for Scott’s visit. I was glad they’d allowed her to be the one. I’d still be mortified when she moved her way down to my private areas, but it’d be less awkward and embarrassing if it was her.
Her fingers massaged my scalp as she lathered my hair with shampoo. “Fill me in on how things are going,” she said, since I hadn’t seen her since the day I left the center.
I’d been secluded at a remote cabin in the woods with another recently converted disciple, Willow. New disciples were always paired up and served as each other’s mirror while undergoing their Phase One training.
“I really miss my family, but it’s a relief not to be living with one foot in both worlds,” I said. That had been the easiest part of settling into discipleship, not having to be in conflict all the time. “How long have I been gone?” I asked. Coming out of the cellar had been almost as disorienting as going in, since they’d taken us straight to the cabin and left us without any cues to time or the outside world, just like it’d been down there.
She shook her head. “Letting go of time takes a long time,” she said, laughing as she realized her play on words.
I smiled back. It was nice to see her, even if she wouldn’t give me any hints to help ground me. Willow and I got along well enough, but she was twenty-four and had been raised to be a free spirit, since her parents were retired hippies from the sixties. The only thing we had in common was Love International, which was fine, but sometimes it was nice to talk about other things, and that was where our commonality ended. Margo was closer to my age and understood sacrifice, since she’d given up a successful law practice to join. It wasn’t the same as my family, but it was something.
“I missed you,” I said.
“I missed you too.” She squeezed my shoulders. “How are your caretakers?”
I shrugged. “They’re all right.”
The only other people at the cabin were two women whose sole purpose was to tend to our needs so we could focus solely on our spiritual growth and development. They cooked and cleaned for us, speaking to us like children while they did it. We weren’t even allowed to bathe ourselves. I didn’t like being reduced to such an infantile state and hadn’t gotten used to it. Probably wouldn’t.
Margo grabbed my hand and scrubbed underneath my fingernails, but it didn’t matter how hard she scrubbed, the dirt buried underneath them from the hours we spent scrubbing the floors on our knees was never coming out. Not that Scott would mind. He wouldn’t be paying attention to my hands. My cheeks flushed at the thought of seeing him again.
“I still can’t believe Ray is letting you see Scott.”
“It’s important for my spiritual growth,” I said. It was the same thing I had said to Ray each time I pleaded my case to him, and I’d asked so many times before he’d finally agreed that I’d lost count. Phase One of discipleship focused on letting go of our worldly attachments, and I couldn’t do that without having a chance to explain things to Scott myself. Ray had tried speaking with him on numerous occasions, but he was too furious about what I’d done to listen to him. I was hoping he would understand if it came from me.
She wrung her washcloth out in one of the basins she was using before dipping it into the other one filled with warm, sudsy water. “Lean forward and let’s see what we can do about those,” she said, referring to the broken skin on my back.
I grabbed the edge of the basin and clenched my jaw as she tenderly worked the washcloth across my latest lashes. I’d done my best to avoid any reckonings before the visit, but Ray didn’t like the haughty eyes I’d given him three days ago. I’d begged him to just let it go that one time, but he’d refused. Thankfully I was going to be covered, because there was no way Scott would understand this part of the practice.
“It’s going to be okay,” Margo said, like she could sense I was about to spin off.
I sank back into the tub of water. She was right. I needed to relax and enjoy this moment. Who knew when I’d get warm water again, and besides, none of my worrying would change anything. I sank into the bubbles, inhaling the smell of soap. It didn’t matter that it was cheap. My senses missed stimulation so much it hurt.
She let me lie in the tub until the water ran cold and then quickly scrubbed all my private parts while my cheeks burned with shame. I appreciated how fast she finished. I stepped out into the towels she held out in front of me. My skin filled with goose bumps immediately. She stopped me when I reached for my gown.
“Wait here,” she said before turning and hurrying out of the room. She came back within seconds and held up a beautiful red sundress. “Put this on,” she said as she handed it to me.
My eyes grew big. “Are you serious? I can’t wear that. What about the modesty guidelines?”
“Ray approved it.”
“He did?”
She nodded. I couldn’t believe it. The dress even had straps instead of sleeves. Why would he ever let me wear something so
revealing?
“Well, are you just going to stand there and stare at it, or are you going to put it on?” Margo asked.
I took it from her and raised my arms, sliding it over my head and smoothing it over my body. What would he think about all the weight I’d lost? Hopefully he wouldn’t think I was too skinny. He hated when I lost my curvy hips. I slipped my underwear on underneath. I was more nervous than I’d been before I walked down the aisle on our wedding day.
“You look beautiful,” Margo said.
I blushed. “Thanks. Do you think he’s here yet?”
“He should be. I heard the door a few minutes ago.”
“Oh my God.” I stepped backward, reaching for something to steady me against the wave of emotions surging through my body.
Margo gave me her hand, and I gripped it, following her out of the bathroom and into the common area. My eyes took in the room in one sweep—the worn hardwood floors, wrought iron stove in the center, chipped coffee table, and outdated couch, sagging in the middle. Ray sat in one of the wooden chairs from the kitchen table. I scanned the kitchen area, searching for Scott. He wasn’t there either. Was he still outside? Why had Ray left him out there?
Ray rose and moved toward me. “You look so pretty, dear.” He bent to kiss my cheeks, and I pulled away.
“Where’s Scott?” I asked.
“Why don’t you sit?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to sit.”
I wanted Scott. My insides crumbled. I turned my head so he wouldn’t see the tears sliding down my cheeks.
“He showed up to meet me at our designated spot, but I’m so sorry, Kate. He didn’t want to see you. He is under the impression that we had an affair, and nothing I said could convince him otherwise. He said that he wants nothing to do with you. I’m so sorry.”
“No.” An involuntary sob escaped.
“Let me hold you.” He reached for me, and I slapped his hand.
“Get away from me. I don’t want you to touch me.” This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. They were supposed to come. I was supposed to be able to make things right. “What about Abbi?”
When She Returned Page 13