Sam shook his head, stroking Maureen’s hair as he met Bodine’s eyes over his wife’s head. “Everyone’s all right.”
“I’m all right. I’m all right.” Swiping at her face, Maureen pulled back. “Did I turn everything off? I need to check if—”
“Everything’s off,” Sam assured her. “We need to go now, Reenie.”
“Go where? What’s happening?” Bodine demanded.
“Alice.” When her voice cracked, Maureen took a deep breath, let it come out slow. “They found Alice. She’s in the hospital. In Hamilton.”
“They— Alice? But where—”
“Not now, honey.” Sam kept his arm firm around Maureen’s shoulders. “We’ve got to go get your grannies. We can’t let Cora drive with the state she’s in.”
“I—I—left everything in the kitchen,” Maureen began.
“I’ll take care of it, Mom.”
“Chase, Rory, I was going to leave a note. I forgot. I need—”
“I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them.” Bodine moved in, hugged Maureen hard, felt the tremors. “We’ll be right behind you. We’ll be there.” She framed her mother’s face with her hands. “Take care of the grannies.”
It was, she saw, exactly the right thing to say. Her mother’s eyes cleared. “We will. We’ll take care. Chase and Rory.”
“I’ll find them. Go now.”
The minute her mother was out the door, Bodine dashed toward the back of the house, dragging out her phone. She didn’t stop when she hit the kitchen with its scents of Sunday roast and fresh bread, but punched Chase’s number as she streaked outside again.
“Where are you?” she demanded the second he answered.
“Checking some fences. We’re riding in now. We’re not late.”
“You need to get home right now. Right now, Chase. They found Alice—Mom’s sister, Alice. Is Rory with you?”
“Right here. We’re coming.”
Relieved, she ran back in, up the back stairs. She tore off her dress, grabbed jeans and a shirt. Her mind flashed back to her mother, crying and shaking.
Her mother didn’t have her purse, Bodine realized and, half dressed, dashed into her parents’ room to grab it. She tried to think of what else her mother might need, thought of the state of the kitchen and the meal.
She dragged on the rest of her clothes, called Clementine. Then ran down to meet her brothers.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It felt like a dream. Nothing seemed quite real.
Maureen sat close beside her, gripping her hand, and that was real. That was real. So was her mother holding her other hand.
Cora wondered if they kept her from floating away.
She heard the doctor, but the words he spoke just kept circling in her head, couldn’t seem to take root.
The grandchildren came in. Did she smile at them? They always made her smile, just by being.
Bob Tate was there, standing by. Bob had called her, told her …
Alice.
“I’m sorry.” She struggled through the fog, tried to concentrate on the doctor’s words. “I can’t seem to make my mind work. You’re saying she doesn’t remember who she is?”
“She’s experienced considerable trauma, Mrs. Bodine. Long-term trauma, physical, mental, emotional.”
“Long-term,” Cora repeated, blankly.
“She’d do better with straight talk.” Tate stepped forward, crouched down so his eyes and Cora’s were on level. “It’s looking like somebody held Alice against her will, likely for years. He hurt her, Cora. She’s got scars from him hurting her. Scars on her back from beatings, on her ankle from what I’m going to say looks like a shackle. She was raped, and not long before she was found. She’s had children, honey.”
The shudder, like sharp fingers clawing, ripped right through her. “Children.”
“The doctor said she’s given birth more than once.”
Yes, straight talk, she thought. Better.
Horrible.
“Someone took her, and chained her up, and beat her, raped her. My Alice.”
“Some of the scars are old, and some aren’t so old. He hurt her mind, too. They’ve got a doctor here who’s going to help her with that, just like Dr. Grove’s going to help her.”
Years. She’d lived years and knew how they flew, even when some patches of them crawled like snails.
But years? Her Alice, her child, her baby, held and hurt for years?
“Who did it?” she demanded, the fog burned to cinders by rage. “Who did this to her?”
“I don’t know yet.” Before she could speak again, his hands tightened his grip on hers. “But I can and do promise you, on my life, Cora, I’ll do everything there is to find out, to find him, to make him pay for it. I swear that to you.”
Rage could wait, Cora told herself. The weeping and wailing already churning inside her could wait. Because …
“I need to see my girl.”
“Mrs. Bodine.” Dr. Grove moved in again. “You need to understand she might not recognize you. You need to prepare yourself for that. You need to prepare yourself for her appearance and emotional state.”
“I’m her mother.”
“Yes, but she may not know who you are. You need to be very calm when you go in to her. Your instincts will be to hold her, to ask questions, to expect a response. She may become agitated. If so, you’ll need to leave her alone, give it more time. Can you do that?”
“I can and will do whatever’s best for her, but I need to see her, with my own eyes.”
“She doesn’t look the same,” Tate told her. “You prepare for that, Cora. She doesn’t look or sound like you remember her.”
“I’m going with you.” Maureen got to her feet. “I’ll stay outside the room, but you’re not going by yourself.”
Cora gave her own mother’s hand a squeeze, then rose and took her daughter’s. “I’ll do better knowing you’re there with me.”
“I’ll take you in. Mrs. Bodine,” Grove continued as he led the way, “you need to resist asking her questions about what happened to her, reacting to the signs you’ll see of what’s happened to her. Stay calm. She may not want to be touched, she may not want to talk. Use her name. She’s calling herself Esther.”
“‘Esther’?”
“Yes, but the sheriff continued to call her Alice, and she calmed when he talked to her.”
“Did she know him?”
“I don’t believe so, at least not on a conscious level, but he was able to connect.” Grove paused outside the door. “Sheriff Tate says you’re a strong woman.”
“He’d be right.”
With a nod, Grove opened the door.
In her mind, Alice had stayed the pretty, wild-natured young girl who’d run off to be a movie star. That pretty young girl, and all the stages of that girl before that day.
The little girl in frilly dresses and cowboy boots. The fretful baby she’d rocked late at night. The defiant teenager, the child who’d crawled into bed with her seeking comfort from a bad dream.
The woman in the bed with the bruised face, the dull and graying hair, the hard lines dug in around her mouth and eyes bore little resemblance to those precious images.
Still, Cora thought, she recognized her daughter.