True Blend (29 page)

“She’s talking,” George tells her.

“What?” Her eyes move to her daughter’s face as she takes her from George and cradles her.

“Mumumum.” The voice doesn’t stop, repeating it over and over again.

“She’s talking, sweetheart,” George says as he stands very near and puts an arm around her and Grace. “She’s going to be okay.”

Amy looks at her daughter in disbelief, wipes tears from Grace’s face with her thumb, kisses her and lightly rests her fingers over her mouth. They feel her daughter’s breath and lips and jaw shaping words. She never imagined what it would take to end Grace’s silence—that her daughter would have to relive moments of the crime to do so. Because that’s what just happened: George grabbing Grace up in a second of distress mimicked the kidnapping in the bank parking lot, bringing it all back to her. Except this time, Amy was able to save her. It’s as though Grace waited in her silence, for all these weeks, for her mother’s arms to sweep her to safety. And finally, finally, she did.

George moves behind her and leans down close to her ear. “Let’s take Grace over into the shade. We’ll get her something to drink.”

Melissa, Chelsea and Nan hurry over. “Is she okay?” Nan asks. “Did she touch the hot grill?”

“I’m really sorry, Amy,” Chelsea says. “We were just having fun with the bubbles.”

“Not to worry. She’s fine,” Amy says, hoisting Grace up higher. “She’s perfectly fine, aren’t you Gracie?”

Grace stops crying then and looks directly from Amy to Chelsea. “Want to go in the water,” she says while hiccupping her sobs still.

Amy laughs, then looks back at George. He’s the only one who knows what this means. The only one who fully realizes what impenetrable wall has just been broken through. He takes her arm and leads them over to the wading pool where two chairs sit side-by-side. Amy sits with Grace in her lap and hugs her close. When Nate approaches with a huge bowl of chocolate ice cream and rainbow sprinkles, she’s a little surprised when George steps in front of him. She can’t hear what the brothers say, but George takes the ice cream and stands there until Nate turns and heads back inside.

“Here you go,” George says then, crouching beside them and giving Grace the bowl. She digs in and lifts a dripping spoonful to her mouth. When she lifts the next spoonful to Amy to taste, she thinks it has to be the very best ice cream she’s ever had.

“Amy,” George says quietly. “Do you think Grace is all right? You okay here?”

She nods, leaning around Grace to slip off her sandals. “Couldn’t be better,” she whispers to George. Then she hugs her daughter again. “Love you, Grace. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Grace answers before slipping off her lap and taking a high barefoot step over the edge of the plastic pool into the water, Chelsea kneeling close by, reaching into the pool, her fingers making gentle splashes beneath glints of sunlight, in the shade of the leafy tree.

Twenty-four

AMY LIFTS THE SUV’S REAR door, visually calculating how many trips she’ll have to make between the car and the house. Her parents are arriving tonight and she wants the kitchen stocked. Spilling out of grocery bags are half gallons of ice cream, wafer cones, fresh coffee grounds, cake ingredients, peaches and plums, hamburgers and hot dogs. Gone are the carrots, celery, onions and soup chickens. She’s had enough of those sad foods to last a good long while. This visit is different. Celebrating is in order.

As a town constable, her father has to get back to New Hampshire the next day, but she’s so happy her mother is staying on for a couple weeks. All Amy wants to do is sit on the summer grass with her, Grace chattering in her swing, sharing ice cream as she tells Grace’s brave story. That’s all. Three generations of women connecting easily beneath the shade of an old tree. Or sit with her mother late in the evening with a slice of cake and a cup of decaf.

A return to normal. It’s started. A day has passed since Grace found her voice. She is getting better and Amy’s optimism leaves her thinking that maybe the stalking can be explained too; maybe it isn’t what it appears to be. She lifts two bags and positions the house key in her hand so that she can easily unlock the door. “Come on, Grace. Let’s get these things put away before Grandma and Grandpa get here.”

“Want to swing, Mommy,” Grace says, pointing to the tire swing beneath the maple tree.

The screaming of the day before strained Grace’s throat, leaving her voice hoarse. Amy nursed her with cool juices and ice-pops and now she hates to deny that voice’s request. “Later, honey,” she says gently, walking up the driveway to the back of the house before the heavy bags slip from her grip. “When Grandma gets here.” She finagles the kitchen screen door open and positions the key between her fingers. “Hold the door for Mommy, okay?” she asks, tipping her foot against the screen door so that it won’t close on Grace.

“Want to swing,” Grace says again as she holds the door.

Amy smiles, still not used to the sound of her daughter. “Let’s find Angel first. You have to take a nap with kitty before Grandma and Grandpa see you.” She hefts a bag that slips lower and carefully presses the key into the deadbolt lock. Before the key is fully inserted, the kitchen door falls open with only her touch. Every sense is heightened as she remembers locking and double checking the deadbolt before she left earlier. Remembers turning the doorknob and pushing on the door to be sure, before turning away and brushing lint off her white board shorts.

She nudges the door further open and stands on the threshold. Someone has been, or still
is
in, her house. From the doorway, her eyes sweep the kitchen and a glimpse of the hallway and living room. Everything stands stock still in the summer heat: the kitchen chairs tucked to the table, the telephone on the wall, the rose from George in the vase. She turns and scans the countertop, the stove, the sink. There are no whistling teapots, no soiled coffee cups. No noises.

“Angel,” Grace cries, running past Amy when the kitten sashays across the kitchen floor.

“Grace!” Amy yells in a harsh whisper. She sets the bags on the floor and nearly falls over her crouched daughter as she rushes to lift her up onto her hip. “Shh.” The order is stern and unmistakable. “We must be very quiet.” Grace’s surprised eyes are riveted to her face. Even the kitten freezes at her sudden distress. “Shh,” she warns again, clutching her daughter tightly, turning silently and inching toward the living room. If an intruder is in her home, she wants the advantage of surprise.

Each step is cautious. Grace’s arms clamp around Amy’s neck. Does she feel her pounding heart, too? In the living room, there is a sense of déjà vu. She’s done this before, this standing in place, observing the room. She already scrutinized the furniture and her growing collection of antique tables and lamps backlit by sunshine reaching through the paned windows. Sitting at a table in a weapon safety classroom, she considered skirting one of the tables with a heavy fabric.

Teach her a good place to hide.

She has to hide Grace and turns again to hurry back into the kitchen. The room is big and warm and full of padded chairs and a blue farm table and plenty of cabinets where she can carve out a child-sized space. Bending while holding Grace, Amy opens one lower cabinet after another. The pots and pans littering them will make too much noise to brush aside. And can she really close her daughter behind a cabinet door, her legs folded up to fit the space, without her Bear or seashells or bubbles, snuffing her words again? She shifts Grace on her hip. It would kill her to put her in there.

Amy looks at the ceiling because that’s where her gun is. Upstairs. She walks through the living room, slips out of her sandals and climbs the stairs barefoot. “Shh,” she reminds Grace, a hand poised to cup over her child’s mouth if necessary. A drop of perspiration trickles along her temple. At the top of the stairs, she can’t be sure if she hears a noise. They edge along the wall and fold into her bedroom doorway. “Oh God,” she whispers. Her bare feet press quietly over the carpet to her closet. She stands Grace beside her and pulls the gun case off the high shelf, unlocks the combination on the second try and touches the weapon. Her hand jumps back.

Every touch, every noise is a gun going off on her nerves. Grace wraps an arm around her leg. “See Mommy’s pretty dress?” Amy pushes clothes aside on their hangers to clear a space beside a silky black dress. “I want you to stand there next to the dress.” She takes her daughter by the shoulders and guides her backward. Grace resists, stumbling a step.
Teach her a good place to hide
. Folds of long skirts and tunic tops hang like veils around her shoulders. “You have to stay right there until I get you,” she orders, her hands holding Grace’s arms firmly. “Please Grace. Please don’t move.”

There is a low noise then, and Amy abruptly straightens to decipher it. Someone is moving the sliding closet door in the far bedroom. The door unmistakably rumbles as it glides along its track.

“Dear God,” she whispers, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She sets the gun case on the bed and presses a magazine into the grip. This isn’t happening. It can’t be. There had been so much happiness this morning. Grace was tired, but talking. Softly, but repeatedly. Hope returned, mounting with each spoken phrase building her delicate house of cards.

Another noise, then. Amy spins toward her doorway at the sound of a dresser drawer being pulled out. It is an old Shaker style bureau from a flea market: stripped, sanded and painted white. The wooden drawers have no runners. Are her stalker’s slick hands reaching into the drawer, sweeping through the space? She wants to run into the spare room, screaming:
What do you want? Just get out of here! Go now!

Well they’ll get nothing, she decides, picturing Grace being snatched away at the bank. Never again. She tries to swallow, but her throat closes up with what’s coming. She presses the handgun discreetly to her side and turns to Grace. Her daughter steps forward, her pinky curled around a swatch of the silky black floral dress fabric while she sucks her thumb. Amy conceals the gun behind her back. “No sweetie,” she whispers. It’s horrendous, the way the kidnapping forces her to do things she does not want to do, never wanted to do in her life—moving Grace into a closet, bending and hugging her close with her free hand, pressing her face to hers, kissing her cheek—all while holding a gun behind her own back. “Let’s make a little tent,” she suggests, quickly framing skirts and pants around her child. “This is like hide and seek, Gracie. You stay right there until I find you. Show Mommy how very brave you are, okay?” She drapes the hanging clothes around Grace’s body. “I’m going to close this door a little bit. You stay right there.” As she says the words, her eyes hold Grace’s, unblinking, willing unconditional obedience. “Shh now.”

Satisfied that she understands, Amy turns around and moves to the doorway, her eyes darting between the bedroom down the hall and the gun in front of her.
Stress and fear screw up your motor skills and it’s damn easy to fumble with too many controls on a gun
. She brings her other hand to the gun, gripping it tightly and feeling the shake of her own nerves. Her body has its own mind now and it’s telling every one of those nerves to stand on edge. She moves out into the hallway, glancing back at her closet before closing her bedroom door. Her steps are sure but silent as her bare feet inch along the landing with her back to the wall, her eyes never leaving the spare bedroom. There will be no mistakes this time. A dresser drawer slides open. Her breath stops. Quick footsteps move through the far room, but the door is nearly closed, blocking Amy’s view.

Cover. Try to place something thick or hard, preferably both, between yourself and the attacker.

Amy disagrees. She presses her back firm against the hallway wall, lifts her two arms gripping the gun and trains it on the spare bedroom. Shafts of sunlight come in through the hall window, catching swirling dust particles and shining on the handgun like a spotlight. She has the advantage; her presence isn’t known. Whoever leaves that room will have two choices coming face-to-face with her nine-millimeter. Either they will follow her order to pick up the telephone, call the police themselves and wait to be arrested with her weapon fixed on them, or they will take a jacketed hollow point. No negotiating. No questions. She owes Grace this protection.

In a violent confrontation, you won’t be cool, calm and collected.

Her outstretched arms waver, guessing at a moving target’s path, and her finger, held back from the trigger, quivers. Oddly, the tremor is startling and she stares at the vibrating motion of her finger. No one warned her about this damn shaking. No one advised her how to stop it. She slowly forces her finger in, fitting the pad of it lightly above the trigger, afraid those shaking nerves alone can discharge the gun once the safety is released.

She lifts her sight then to the doorway, blinking away a bead of perspiration that rolls into her eye. Her thumb releases the safety lever. Ready.

The door opens and Amy lifts her arms higher. Aim. “Don’t
move
!” she shouts as the intruder appears before quickly stepping backward, her hand to her heart. “Oh Jesus Christ,” Amy cries, her weapon trained on her mother’s shocked face. Her finger wavers, adrenaline making it unsure of its next move. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Her mother’s open hand presses against her chest as she ducks behind the door.

“You scared me half to death!” Amy stamps her foot. A sob interrupts her words. “Jesus, Mom, damn it!” she says, resetting the safety before forcefully lowering her stiff arms to her side and slumping against the wall. “I almost
killed
you.” She sinks into a crouch and wraps her aching arms around her legs, the gun hanging in her grip, her head bowed onto her knees.

“Amy?” Ellen asks from behind the door. “What’s happening? Can I come out?”

“
Yes
. Why didn’t you
say
something? You’re not supposed to be here until
tonight
!” Amy yells as her mother blurs behind her tears, liquefying in a nautical striped shirt and denim capris. “What if I had pulled the trigger?”