Melissa Foster - Chasing Amanda

“I called last night and made flight arrangements. I was sure you figured it out the other night, when you came back from looking for the dogs? When you walked in and I was on the cell phone speaking cryptically?” Molly gave him a puzzled look. “I had an airport taxi pick him up this morning and drive him to the Carters’. He’s been there for hours.” “But I just spoke to him a few hours ago.”

Erik held up his cell phone. “That’s the great thing,” his dark eyes sparkled. “With a cell phone, you never really know where I am.” He put his arm around his mother and kissed the top of her head, very parentally.

Molly reached her arm around his back, which felt broader than it had when he’d left for school just weeks earlier. She had needed to see him, to touch him. She had missed his presence.

“Are you hungry? What do you want me to make you?” Molly slipped into mommy mode again so easily, like riding a bike.

“Naw, Dad and I ate a little while ago,” his voice was deep and thoughtful.

“Oh, gosh!” Molly said. “I almost forgot. I have to return a call to Pastor Lett. I’m so sorry! Give me just a quick minute, okay?” She saw a look of disbelief pass from father to son.

“Come on, buddy, let’s watch a movie. She’ll be at least that long,” Cole said.

Home is different now , Tracey wrote in her new journal. Everything felt different to her. The warm bubble bath had felt good; the clean clothes, her soft sheets, and her favorite toys comforted her, but she still felt funny. Her mother and father treated her too carefully, as if she could break. Tracey missed Mummy. She wanted to know where she was, if she was okay, and if she was worried about the toxins. She knew she wasn’t supposed to worry about Mummy—her parents told her that she was a bad person and that taking her had been wrong, but Tracey didn’t think she was all bad. After all, she really hadn’t hurt her—and the toxins! Tracey was so confused. She tried to explain to her mother and father about the toxins—how they killed Mummy’s mother and her grandmother—but they didn’t believe her. Tracey felt sure that they just didn’t know about the toxins. Her mother told her that what Mummy had said about the toxins was just a story that she’d made up to keep Tracey with her, but Tracey didn’t believe her mother. She really wanted to see Mummy, and she needed to learn the right way to talk to God, just in case.

Tracey’s mother told her that they’d have to see the police officers again sometime soon to answer their questions about where she had been kept and how she had gotten there. She said that they’d had loads of people looking for her and everything! Tracey wondered why all those people couldn’t find them; they always did in the police shows. She told her mother that Mummy had never hurt her, but she didn’t tell her about the bad spot. She didn’t want Mummy to get in trouble. When her parents asked her why she went with Mummy into the tunnels, Tracey couldn’t tell them. All she could remember was that she’d wanted her necklace. Her mother cried, then, and told Tracey that she needed to understand why she went and that she was sorry that she wasn’t a good mother. Tracey felt horrible! She told her mother that she was a good mother, and that even if she didn’t know about the toxins, that wasn’t really her fault, but her mother just threw her hands up in the air and walked over to Tracey’s father and cried. Tracey was trying so hard to be good that she couldn’t understand why her mother was so sad. Maybe she was worried about the toxins.

Emma had crawled into Tracey’s bed the night before. She came right in when she thought Tracey was asleep and curled up in front of her. Tracey didn’t mind. She had missed Emma a lot and grew sad when she’d heard her sniffling, like she was crying. Tracey had reached her arms around Emma and had held her like she was a giant doll. Then Tracey had cried, too.

She and Emma were playing now, but whenever Emma took one of Tracey’s toys, their mother yelled at Emma. Tracey didn’t need her mother to yell at her. She didn’t mind that Emma took her toys except for the dolly that Mummy had given her. That one was not for sharing. It was special.

Tracey wanted to see Molly again, too. Her mother told her that she could, as soon as the people with the big cameras left their front yard. Tracey peeked out of the curtains when her mother wasn’t looking—she didn’t understand why their house was suddenly so special, but she liked knowing it was on television, even if she wasn’t allowed to watch it. She wanted to go outside and let them take her picture, but her mother wouldn’t allow it. She called them sharks, but they didn’t look like sharks to Tracey.

Who knew this house could feel so warm? Pastor Lett thought to herself as she scrubbed the shelves in the library of the Perkinson House. It was just after four o’clock in the afternoon, and she, Hannah, and Newton had been cleaning the home for most of the day. They cleaned and dusted each room, polishing the floors and scrubbing away years of idle dirt. She was pleased to be making the home livable once again. Pastor Lett refrained from going into the upstairs bedroom, the images of Mrs. Perkinson and her daughter, coupled with her current anxiety, were just too much for her to fathom. Thank goodness for Hannah, who was more than happy to take over the cleaning of the bedrooms, and she had yet to mention seeing anything out of the ordinary. Newton had been busy repairing the outside of the house, rebuilding the steps, replacing rotten wood, and unsheathing the windows. Hannah had brought a few old throw rugs, and Newton and Betty had purchased several pieces of used furniture.

Pastor Lett was once again thankful for the loyalty of her friends. She knew she would not have been able to go through this coming out on her own. She stepped outside and the brisk afternoon air refreshed her. The gloom she had felt for so many years around the house began to lift, and it seemed that even the air itself had become lighter and less burdened. She walked off the wide porch and into the yard, astonished at how welcoming the house looked without the windows boarded up—or perhaps it was the relief of knowing the ominous lies that had been tied to the house were soon to be lifted.

Twenty Eight

Molly held Cole’s hand as he drove past the Boyds Presbyterian Church, following Pastor Lett’s car, on the way to visit Rodney. Molly looked beyond the church to the spider’s web of yellow police tape. A chill ran through her . Molly was thankful to Pastor Lett for allowing her to meet Rodney, at the same time, she felt apprehensive about visiting him. She was glad Cole was going with her. She glanced behind her at Erik who was busy texting in the back seat. After so many days of bedlam and confusion, she almost felt a sense of calm.

They drove up to the familiar Victorian home. The front porch had three colorful rocking chairs and a sign that read: Everyone Is A Friend, And All Friends Are Welcome . There were green pastures with outcroppings of rocks peppering the ground. An enormous willow reached its long slim branches over a running creek just to the right of the house, with an iron bench under the umbrella of its limbs. Molly was astonished that Newton and Betty had been able to successfully hide Rodney for all those years.

Rodney shuffled out of the front door and into the outstretched arms of Pastor Lett, her eyes aglow with love and delight, her quick pace one that Molly could not have envisioned had she not seen it with her own eyes. She was dwarfed by Rodney, who effortlessly wrapped his arms around his older sister’s body and spun in a circle, gleefully yelling, “Carla, come back! Carla, come back!”