Natalie had known that money would be a constant source of stress. She had a thousand dollars in her suitcase, mostly in twenties, all fresh bills, neatly banded. That was all she could siphon out of the home cash supply and checking account without tipping off Michael, who was very attentive when it came to the finances. Each dollar mattered to her now more than ever, but such was life on the run.
The route through New Jersey was a slog, and if the kids hadn’t had their devices, they would have been asking how much longer every few seconds. The late evening traffic clogging the long, flat highway puttered along at the speed limit, which Natalie found irritatingly slow. She wanted to blink herself into the next state, get herself and the kids as far away from Michael as possible. Eventually, she’d have to confront him. But she’d do so from a position of strength and only when she was certain he couldn’t retaliate in all the horrible ways she imagined.
For the next several miles, Natalie stared out the window at the New Jersey scenery rolling past. It was a barren vista, dotted with oil refineries and desolate, radioactive-looking marshlands. The stark landscape echoed Natalie’s emotions. Troubling memories of all she’d endured, all she’d witnessed, came back to her. She held on to these thoughts for a few miles, using them as reminders as to why she had to run.
New Jersey eventually faded into memory as the miles spun on. The kids, worn out from a long day of traveling, finally drifted off, even though the rented booster seats didn’t provide much comfort. Addie slept with her head cocked in a neck-pinching way, while Bryce curled up cat-like into a tight little ball beside her.
She drove with the radio off, her phone off too, worried about GPS tracking. She assumed there’d be an accumulation of increasingly frantic messages from Michael. At first, Natalie reasoned, he’d probably think this was all about his infidelity. Thanks to a second anonymous note she’d received, one straight from Michael’s paramour, now hidden inside a shoebox in her closet, she had proof of his affair. Of course it had to be Audrey, though she never did get official confirmation or that promised in-person confession. But now, in light of all that she knew, Michael’s affair (or affairs) seemed insignificant. Knowing what her husband did, Natalie figured he would soon put it together and realize exactly why his wife and children had vanished.
And that’s when his real worries would begin, and then he’d become truly dangerous to them. There were several instances of Michael’s anger over the years that she could brush aside at the time, explain away, but in light of what she now knew, they took on a whole new significance. Natalie reflected on one particular event from her distant past, which at the time she had minimized. She would never forget the stranger her husband had become after a harmless fender bender in the grocery store parking lot. Addie, just an infant, had wailed in her car seat while Natalie tried to calm her as Michael pounded his fists on the other driver’s window, looking ready to kill. Only Natalie’s shriek, “Michael, stop!” had brought her calm, kind husband back to his senses.
The upsetting incident faded from her thoughts as they slipped into Pennsylvania without any fanfare. I-78 was a merciless highway dotted with a surprising number of fast-food restaurants and truck washes. By half past ten, they were closing in on Harrisburg. Natalie pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour Walmart.
She needed supplies, very specific supplies.
The kids were awake now. Poor Bryce. He still carried the weight of his missing teddy bear in his bleary eyes.
Just inside the entrance, Natalie noticed a man with a thick beard, his heavy frame stuffed into a camo jacket—a hunter, perhaps. He seemed to be leering at her and the kids. Almost immediately, Natalie’s radar went off.
Something about him seemed amiss.
They’d been gone many hours now, and it took only minutes to do a social media post. Just one image on Facebook could go anywhere and everywhere. Michael could have easily offered up a hefty reward to anyone who helped him find his missing family. Perhaps the man in the camo coat had seen such a post.
Natalie kept her head down, averting her gaze, hoping not to attract the man’s attention while her heart pounded in her chest like heavy-soled footsteps. Don’t look … don’t make eye contact, she told herself.
She passed him on the right, but couldn’t resist a quick peek in his general direction. Her radar continued pinging too loudly to be ignored. She rotated her head ever so slightly, giving him nothing but a passing glance just to make sure he wasn’t a threat. What she saw turned her blood to ice. He was staring right at her with a penetrating look, hard as granite. Even with his thick, knotted beard, Natalie could see a crooked smile upon his lips. He took a menacing step toward them, a glint coming to his dark eyes, and that smile morphed into something more sinister. Natalie’s heart did a dance as he advanced stealthily.
Maternal instinct took over. She grabbed Bryce by the arm, hard enough to make him yowl. Michael had done something like that once, grabbed Bryce by his wrist when he wouldn’t pick up his Legos. He’d given the arm a hard tug, then came a pop followed by a cry of pure agony. At the time, Natalie had thought it was an accident—Michael not realizing that the ligaments of a young child could easily slip out of place and get caught between the two bones of the elbow joint. While at the hospital, she heard the name for the injury: Nursemaid’s Elbow, which gave quite the free pass to dads everywhere. Back then she’d thought of that incident as nothing but overzealousness on Michael’s part, but now, in light of recent events, she saw it much differently.
He did it because he couldn’t control himself.
There was darkness inside him.
The memory of that trip to the ER came and went as Natalie dragged Bryce down the detergent aisle. Without being told, Addie stayed in lockstep with her mother, thank goodness for that.
She advanced several feet before daring a glance behind her. Please … please don’t be there, was her singular thought. She swiveled at the waist nonchalantly, feigning interest in the products on the other side of the aisle. But there he was—the man in the camo coat had followed them, and was approaching with a look of determination.
Terror flooded Natalie as she clutched Bryce’s hand harder. Addie took no notice of the man approaching them. She had smartly stayed close to her mother and Bryce because that’s what she’d been trained to do. But what training did the camo coat man have?
Maybe Michael hadn’t put the word out on social media to find his family. What if instead he’d hired someone with the skills to track her down? And what if the camo man, now only fifteen feet away, hunted more than animals? How the tracker had found her so quickly was irrelevant. The bigger question was if this store had a rear exit, or better yet, armed security.