Emily, Gone Page 7

  “Vicki?”

  AS TIME MOVED ON

  After days of not eating, Rachel became so gaunt her bones stuck out like oversize knobs on a chifforobe.

  “You have got to eat something,” George said, his face stretched tight with worry.

  Rachel looked at him, her eyes hooded and her mouth twisted into an expression of anger that was almost piercing. “How can you even think of eating when you know our baby is going hungry?”

  “I don’t know any such thing,” he argued. “Whoever took Emily is no doubt caring for her the same as we did.”

  “Really?” she replied icily. “And just how do you think they’re doing it, since she’s still breastfeeding?”

  Having no answer, George turned away and dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. He stood with his back to Rachel, listening as her ragged breath whooshed in and out like thin puffs of air from a faulty bellows. When the toast was ready, he buttered it and set the plate in front of her.

  “Starving yourself is not going to help Emmy. You need to keep up your strength so when she does come home you’ll be able to take care of her.”

  Rachel stared at the plate for a moment, then took a piece of the toast in her hand and lifted it to her mouth. After a single bite, she dropped it back onto the plate, stood, and walked away.

  That first week the hardware store remained closed, and George stayed by Rachel’s side. When she cried he tried to comfort her, and when she ranted he tried to calm her, but there was neither calm nor comfort to be had.

  Sparks of bitterness bristled around Rachel like bees swarming a flower, and her mood changed from one moment to the next. She blamed herself, blamed George, found fault with everything, and was satiated by nothing.

  The anger she allowed to fly loose, George held inside. “We’ve got to trust that God will bring Emmy back to us,” he said, but his seemingly stoic behavior served only to infuriate Rachel further.

  “Trust God!” she shrieked. “How can you trust a God who allowed our baby to be taken from us in the first place?” While her words were still hanging in the air, she doubled over and began sobbing.

  By then, Mama Dixon was at the house every day, but she gave Rachel a wide berth and busied herself with chores such as cooking supper or dusting furniture that had no need of it. If Rachel was in the living room, Helen inevitably found something to do in the kitchen. Without intending to do so, she made it apparent that the abiding concern she had for her son was far greater than what was felt for his wife.

  That Friday, Rachel became hysterical and charged that George was to blame for not pushing the sheriff to take action. Eager to stay clear of such a fray, Helen moved to the front porch and sat weaving a crochet needle back and forth through a shapeless square. With her ears perked, she listened as George tried to calm Rachel but offered nothing in his own defense.

  “I know how much you’re hurting,” he said, “but laying blame will not bring Emmy back. Sheriff Wilson is doing everything he can—”

  “He hasn’t done anything!” Rachel screamed, the sound of her voice so thunderous it rattled the dishes in the cupboard and made Helen’s ears ring. “He’s asked a million questions but is no closer to finding Emmy than we are! How can he sit there in his office and do nothing when some monster has stolen my baby? Emmy is my flesh and blood! My baby, my only child!”

  A late-summer breeze fluttered the filmy curtain at the front window, and Helen watched as George crossed the room to take Rachel in his arms. He held her against his chest, and in time her sobs grew softer and more muffled. When she was stilled with only the heaving of her chest against his, he spoke.

  “I need you to stay strong,” he said. “Emmy is not just your child; she’s our child. I would give my life if it would bring her back, but it won’t. Right now, all we can do is pray: pray that she’s safe and well cared for and pray that she’ll soon be returned to us.”

  His words didn’t fill the emptiness of her arms and did little to comfort her. So Rachel continued to sob until the ache became so great that she could no longer bear it, then she swallowed one of the blue pills Dr. Elliott gave her and slipped into the oblivion of sleep.

  Later on, when the sky was dark and the sound of crickets came from the field beyond the house, George sat beside his mama on the front porch. Helen creaked back and forth in the wooden rocker, the crocheted square now abandoned in her lap.

  “Is Rachel sleeping?” she asked.

  George nodded. “She’s taken a sedative that should last through the night.”

  “I heard how she spoke to you, acting as if it were your fault.”

  “She’s hurting, Mama. She didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Helen lowered her eyes, took up the crochet needle, and twisted a loop of yarn around her finger. “All the same, it’s not proper.”

  George leaned his head against the back of the chair and gazed up at the night sky. In a voice threaded with the sound of heartache, he said, “Mama, you’ve got to understand, Rachel’s grieving. Her heart’s crushed. She’s struggling just to make it from one day to the next . . .”

  His voice trailed off, and he sat there staring up at the sky, sorrow covering him like a shroud.

  Peering over the top of her glasses, Helen said, “I didn’t mean anything by it, only that—”

  George lowered his face and turned to her. “I know you didn’t, but right now we’re both hanging on by a thread. Rachel needs forgiving, not somebody finding fault with her behavior. If hollering at me helps her to get rid of that anger, I can take it.”

  Without looking up, Helen caught the loop of yarn with her crochet hook and pulled it through. “Well, it doesn’t seem—”

  “She’s my wife, and whatever she needs, I’ve got to be there for her,” George cut in. “The one thing I couldn’t take would be losing Rachel as well as our baby girl.”

  Nothing more was said, but they remained there for a long while, her creaking back and forth in the rocker, him looking out at the road that ran past their house. When he heard Rachel moaning in her sleep, he kissed Helen’s cheek and claimed it was time for him to be going to bed.

  “Tomorrow morning I’ll be reopening the store,” he said.

  For a long while Helen sat there thinking of how George asked her to be sympathetic to Rachel, which under these circumstances shouldn’t be hard to do. Yet . . .

  She thought back to the first time she met Rachel and remembered how it had been easy to find fault: a clinging vine, she’d thought, frail-looking and not well suited for George, even though he seemed to hang on her every word. Six months later they were married, and George moved out of the house. Gone, just three years after his daddy died.

  With George no longer there, she was alone in a house way too large for just one person. During those long, lonely nights she’d gone from room to room wondering, What now? Then Rachel called and invited her to dinner.

  Helen remembered it all too well, the feeling that she had gone from being George’s family to being a guest in his house. Cast out. Pushed aside. Replaced by Rachel.

  Really?

  She ran the images of those early visits through her mind one by one, searching for the singular word or action that had caused her to feel as she did. Although she could remember each visit—the chicken a bit underdone, a soggy piecrust, and George endlessly raving about what a wonderful homemaker his bride was—in all those memories she couldn’t find the thing that caused her to dislike Rachel.

  Jealousy?

  The thought came at her like an angry wasp, landing and leaving a sting behind.

  Impossible.

  The rocker stopped, and she sat thinking of how she’d made an enemy of someone who should have been a friend. Instead of gaining a daughter, she’d lost a son. Over the past five years she’d grown bitter when there was nothing to be bitter about. She’d sharpened her tongue to a razor-like point and pushed her friends aside, angry at the world because Henry died before his time and
Rachel took her son.

  But the thing was, Rachel hadn’t taken her son anywhere. They’d been there all along: inviting her to dinner, bringing Emmy for a visit, sitting alongside her in church. Now George was asking for her patience.

  She was a mother, just as Rachel was. She’d turned her back on them once, and as the moon rose higher in the sky and the stars reflected pinpoints of hope, she vowed she would never do it again.

  The very next day, Helen called the mechanic and asked him to come and service the 1957 Ford that had been sitting in the garage ever since Henry’s death.

  “Sand the rust from the fender and get it in tip-top shape,” she said, “because I expect to be doing a lot of driving.”

  Nine days after the kidnapping, George reopened the hardware store, but he did so with a heavy heart. Although he went about his routines as always, first dusting the counter then stacking new merchandise on the shelves, his thoughts were with Rachel. That morning as he pulled out of the driveway, he’d glanced back to see her standing in the doorway, her shoulders stooped and tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Hidden in the shadows behind her was Helen, standing at the ready like a watchdog. Just as she’d once been fierce in her disdain for Rachel, she was now fierce in her protection. She arrived in the morning and stayed until the supper dishes were washed and put away.

  Helen was seldom more than an arm’s length away, but Rachel seemed not to notice. She went for hours on end without so much as a word to her mother-in-law, and when Helen brought a soothing cup of chamomile tea Rachel left it to grow cold. In the past, Rachel’s indifference would have been something to rankle Helen, but now she’d had a change of heart.

  A FORCED MOVE

  When he discovered Vicki missing, Murphy stood looking around the cabin. The baby blanket was still spread across the floor, Vicki’s jeans hung on the back of the chair, but she and the baby were gone.

  To where?

  He lifted the pile of newspapers, moved the box of diapers aside, and just about turned the place upside down searching for a note, some explanation of where she was. Nothing. No note, no indication of anything wrong, and yet she was gone.

  He stepped outside and eyed the wooded lot behind the cabins. It was thick with loblolly pines, downed branches, and overgrown brush. Not a place you’d take a baby—unless you were hiding.

  A spiny burr of fear dug into his back. Had somebody seen them? Maybe recognized the baby? Reported their whereabouts to the police? His heart began to pound furiously, and beads of perspiration rose up on his forehead. A car door slammed, and he felt his knees buckling beneath him.

  No, no, no!

  As he fell into the chair, he heard the lighthearted sound of laughter.

  “Thanks again. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Vicki’s voice.

  The door swung open, and in she walked, the baby leaned against her shoulder, fast asleep.

  “Where the hell were you?” Murphy screamed.

  “Stop yelling! Are you deliberately trying to wake Lara?”

  “I don’t give a damn who I wake! Where were you?”

  She gave him an angry glare, then scooped the blanket off the floor. With him right at her heels she crossed the room, tucked the baby into bed, then turned back.

  “I got hungry and went out for a bite to eat, all right?”

  He stood there dumbfounded for a half second, then screamed, “You went out? Where? With who?”

  “If you’ll stop yelling and give me a chance to answer—”

  Murphy couldn’t stop. All the anxiety, the fear, the anticipation of what could happen erupted inside his stomach and burst forth in a barrage of angry words.

  “I told you not to leave here. Especially not with that baby!”

  As his voice grew bigger and more aggressive, hers became smaller and more fragile.

  “You also told me you’d be back by six. I was afraid—”

  “Afraid of what? I was stuck in traffic and couldn’t call. You had food here; why’d you have to—”

  “I thought maybe you weren’t ever coming back.”

  “Shit, Vicki, why would you—”

  “Because you’ve made it obvious enough you don’t want this baby.”

  “You’re right. I don’t want this baby. She’s not ours to keep. If you’ll listen to reason and let me drop her off someplace where they can see she gets back to her real mother, we can—”

  “I am her real mother,” Vicki said and turned away, sobbing.

  They argued long into the night before she finally said the guy who owned the Hideaway had taken her to Beef ’n’ Brew out on Route 50. As soon as he heard that, Murphy knew they had to leave.

  Things were different now. Somebody knew they had a baby with them. He thought about the reward money and knew in many cases it would be enough to turn brother against brother. They were nothing more than two strangers renting a cabin. It was no longer safe.

  In the middle of the night, with the sky pitch-black and heavy storm clouds obscuring the moon, he packed into the trunk of the car the meager belongings they’d accumulated. Before the first light of morning, he woke Vicki and told her they were leaving. She wrapped the baby in the thrift-store blanket, carried her to the car, and climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  Murphy gave a half-hearted shrug. “We’ll have to find a place to stay until this gets resolved.”

  “Until what gets resolved?”

  He glanced sideways with his brows arched in a way that suggested he was incredulous at the question. “What we’re going to do about the baby.”

  “Stop calling her the baby! Her name is Lara, and I’m keeping her.”

  Murphy pulled onto Route 40 heading east and said nothing. He was confident this routine of pretending the baby was actually Lara would come to an end once he told Vicki of his plan. All he needed now was a place where they’d be safe until she had enough time to let the idea settle and grow on her.

  Before the sun cleared the horizon, Murphy was nearing Memphis. He left Route 40 and started north on Route 55 with the intention of bypassing most of Tennessee. Kentucky was home. He felt more comfortable with the lay of the land there, and his car had Kentucky license plates, so it would be easier to blend in.

  As he drove, he again thought through his plan and became even more certain of it. Once he’d convinced Vicki of his intention to get married and adopt a child of their own, she’d realize how foolish it was to try to hang on to this baby. It could jeopardize everything. They could end up spending the rest of their lives in jail. Caged. Apart from each other.

  For now, they had to fly under the radar. Lie low. Remain hidden. Knowing he couldn’t count on Vicki to be discreet and remain inside, they’d do the next best thing: hide in plain sight. Paducah maybe. It was more a city than town, busy enough and big enough for them to get lost in the crowd.

  After having slept through most of the drive, Vicki finally opened her eyes and looked out the window. Gazing at the long stretches of land interrupted only by an occasional billboard, she asked, “Where are we going?”

  As he turned onto I-24, he answered, “Paducah.”

  She gave a wide grin. “Good. I love Paducah. All those nice restaurants along the lake and cute garden apartments. I could meet other moms, and Lara would have kids to play with—”

  “Being in a city doesn’t mean you can start socializing. We’ve got to keep a low profile. At least for a while.”

  A look of annoyance settled on her face. “How long a while?”

  Murphy was tempted to share his plan with her right then. He opened his mouth but then stopped himself.

  Not now. Wait until the time is right.

  He hesitated, shifting his eyes toward the side window as if searching for a sign or specific landmark. “Hard to say. Weeks, maybe. Months. It depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “Let’s get settled first, then we’
ll talk about it.”

  She turned away, her lower lip pushed out and her brows pinched together. “I’m not hiding away in some dingy little cabin like last time.”

  “I’m not asking you to, but you’ve got to be careful. Start making a bunch of friends and before long they’ll be asking you questions about that baby. Questions you can’t answer.”

  “I can answer anything,” she said defiantly. “Go ahead—try me. Ask me something about Lara.”

  Murphy shook his head and said nothing. He wasn’t about to get suckered into this no-win game. In the pit of his stomach he started to get a feeling of uneasiness about Paducah. I-24 circled around the edge of the city, and he considered staying on it, maybe looking at an area on the southeastern side of town, an area less busy, with fewer restaurants and no tourists.

  As he neared Jackson Street, Vicki squealed, “Turn here!”

  In a knee-jerk reaction, he did as she asked but regretted it almost immediately. Jackson Street curved around and became 21st Street. As they passed by the quaint coffee shops and ice-cream parlors, Vicki gave a lingering sigh.

  “This is my favorite part of town.”

  The familiarity with which she said it intrigued Murphy. “Have you been here before?”

  She nodded. “Several years ago, with my sister, Angela.”

  “You’ve got a sister? You never mentioned—”

  She turned away from the window and focused her attention on the baby. “Yeah, well. We kinda drifted apart.” She didn’t offer another word of explanation.

  It struck Murphy as rather strange that two sisters would simply drift apart. “What caused it? Was there some kind of problem?”

  “I guess.” Vicki continued playing with the baby, but it was as if a dark shadow had fallen across her face.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Un-uh. I’d just as soon forget my sister, the same as she forgot me.”

  Turning back to the window, Vicki watched the streets whiz by and remembered that trip to Paducah. The two of them had been happy together, the kind of happiness she’d thought she’d hold on to forever, but it didn’t work out that way. Once they were back in Madisonville, everything changed. Angela moved in with a girlfriend who said there wasn’t room enough for anyone else, and Vicki was left at home with a daddy who was a mean-ass drunk.