Where was the bus?
Where was her son?
Beverly felt short of breath as she realized the obvious. She walked, then ran, toward the house and burst through the door. She tried not to think the worst but couldn’t help herself; she needed to figure out what to do. Did the bus break down, or did Tommie miss the bus? Was he still at the school? She’d have to walk or hopefully catch a ride. She suddenly wished there was a neighbor nearby, a sweet old lady who brought over a pie to welcome them when they first arrived, but no one had come….
If the bus had broken down, she had to know. If Tommie was still at the school, she had to go get him. She tripped on a pile of detritus from the cupboards and went sprawling, her knee coming down hard on the linoleum floor, but she barely felt it as she scrambled upright again. She thought about the disguise she needed to wear, even though putting it on would take time she didn’t have.
She limped up the steps to her room and froze in the doorway. Her room was trashed, clothes strewn all over the floor, closet doors open, even the bed linens on the floor. She blinked, trying to make sense of it.
Had she done this? Yesterday? When she was searching the house? She could remember cleaning out under the sink and the pantry and the closet and the back porch, but by the time she went upstairs, she’d been in such a frenzy that her memories were fuzzy. She’d cleared out the linen closet, but had she done this, as well? She supposed it was possible, but she didn’t recall, and if she hadn’t…
Her throat constricted as she remembered the man with the truck.
Had he come into the house while she was digging at the creek?
She reached for the doorjamb to hold herself steady. She didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to think it had taken her that long to dig, didn’t want to imagine that someone had torn through the house in her absence and done this, didn’t want to consider what might have happened had she been inside when the man burst through the door…
No, she thought, fear sharpening her focus. She couldn’t go there, couldn’t allow herself to go down the rabbit hole. Right now, Tommie was the only thing that mattered.
Steeling herself, she moved into her bedroom, taking in the destruction. Her wig was just where she’d left it in the bathroom, along with her baseball hat. In the mirror, she noticed the blood on her shirt and she slipped out of it, exchanging it for the one that hung over the shower-curtain rod. When she looked more closely at her reflection, she barely recognized the gaunt, haunted woman staring back at her. But there was no time for makeup. The pain in her hand and finger made pinning up her hair almost impossible, and she winced as she did it anyway. After donning the wig, she put on the hat and looked for her shoes near the bed, which was where she usually left them, but she couldn’t see them anywhere. With so many clothes on the floor she had to kick through the piles, without any luck. She looked under the bed, but they weren’t there, either, and she suddenly remembered she’d slept on the couch. She must have taken them off downstairs.
She had begun to move toward the door when she happened to glance back at the now-emptied closet, the image slowly coming into focus. A moment later, she felt her legs buckle. Almost faint, she dropped to her knees, staring with a rising sense of horror at the Christian Louboutin red-soled pumps that Gary had once given her for her birthday, the ones she’d left behind.
They were her shoes, no question; she recognized the box they sat in and the tiny scuff mark on one of the toes from the first night she’d worn the shoes to dinner. Nor did she wonder how or why they were in the house.
Gary brought them.
He’d known that she and Tommie would run again; he must have known everything all along. It didn’t matter that there were cameras in the bus station; he probably hadn’t plastered her image all over wanted posters and distributed them to law enforcement around the country. He didn’t need to; he knew she would travel light, so he sewed GPS trackers into their backpacks. And wherever he’d been, maybe even their old house, he simply sat back and watched their progress on his phone or computer for the next few days. He knew she’d hitched rides in strangers’ cars, knew she’d stayed at the motel and gone to the diner, maybe even tracked her as she’d visited the house the very first time. He probably pulled it up on some sort of satellite or street map and then used his connections to identify the owner.
Removing her wig and leaving it in the bathroom, she staggered down the stairs, dizzy with her own stupidity. Beyond the windows, lightning flashed, and a boom of thunder followed. Rain began to fall, making the house vibrate as though a train were running past it, but in the grip of her thoughts, Beverly noticed none of it.
Gary had contacted the owner of the house, of course. More than likely, he’d done so on the phone even before the owner agreed to show the house to Beverly. He likely offered some bogus story about the opportunity to help the government with an investigation, perhaps even offered her money and told her what he needed her to do. Which explained why the woman hadn’t asked Beverly the ordinary questions or asked for identification or even references. It explained why the woman had been so willing to take cash.
The rest was easy. He’d sent men to check on her, driving beat-up pickup trucks to blend in. And after that? The introduction of a bit of psychological warfare: The first time the man in the truck came, he left the guns and drugs in the house. He’d been careful to remove his boots, though, which explained why there were no footprints inside. Gary knew her and had anticipated exactly how she would react; he knew she would panic if she found prints. The second time the man came, he’d trashed her room in a further attempt to keep her off-balance and terrorize her. At the same time, Gary stationed men in the fields to watch her, so they knew exactly when she intended to run.
Beverly staggered to the couch, her mind beginning to slow as the pieces continued to come together. While she’d picked up groceries or painted the kitchen, Gary had obviously gone to John Small Elementary School and made his arrangements there. He’d explained to the principal and the teacher and the bus driver that Beverly had kidnapped their son. No doubt, he further stressed the fact that Beverly was dangerous and that both guns and drugs were suspected to be in the house; he might even have shown them photographs as proof. He would underscore his concern for Tommie’s safety. In a way that sounded both official and reasonable, he would tell them that it was best to simply rescue Tommie when he was at school, when there would be no risk of Tommie being hurt.
And now? Soon the police or sheriff would be summoned, and she’d be arrested. They were, in fact, probably on their way to the house as she sat on the couch, but the thought of spending the rest of her life in prison was nothing compared to the idea that she’d never see her son again.
Tommie is gone, a voice chanted in her head as the blue fog overwhelmed her. Tommie is gone. There was no way to fix it, no way out. There was no future for her, no matter what, and as her mind grew blank and fuzzy, she was left only with emotions that were as dark as the fog, and further pieces fell into place. Tommie was gone and she would go to prison and Gary would take his anger out on his son, and her sweet young boy would eventually grow up and become a violent, dangerous man.
Outside, flashes of lightning continued to split the sky, and thunder boomed above the sound of pouring rain. The house grew dim, more oppressive, but it meant absolutely nothing. Life meant nothing, and the future was blacker than the world outside, no matter what she did. Every road she’d imagined had come to a dead end, and there was nothing but oblivion.
Tommie.
She realized that she’d never watch him play soccer or football or hit a home run while she clapped in the stands; she’d never see him dressed up before homecomings or proms. She’d never watch him develop a crush for the first time or bask in excitement early on Christmas morning. She’d never see him drive a car or become a young man or graduate from high school and college, and she’d never hear his laughter again.
All those chances had turned to dust and ashes, but even crying seemed pointless. Doing anything was pointless, and for a long time she couldn’t summon the will to move. Her breath slowed while the blue fog thickened, bringing anguish and loss and unlimited sorrow, as though her soul was being inked with poison. The past was a horror show and the future promised nothing but pain, but the present was even worse, suffocating in its intensity.