I start to take the keys, then stop. “You did it all for her, didn’t you?”
The keys clink in Laura’s hand.
“You knew even when you were pregnant. Did Derek?”
I shake my head, because it doesn’t matter. Grace would have always been the legitimate heir, even if I’d showed up at some point, but Laura must have learned enough about her in-laws while she was pregnant to know that given the choice between a legitimate heir born with Down syndrome and an illegitimate one born without…they’d have rejected Grace.
I felt carved-out and slick with nausea. Grandmother Abbott’s disdain for Grace wasn’t a secret even from her. I’m ready to gag on the disgust I feel for a woman I’ve never met.
“That’s why you helped my mom all these years, so she’d stay hidden and keep me hidden too.”
Clink, clink, clink.
“I don’t want anything from his family,” I say. “I just want my mom. Grace is…She’s…” Laura won’t want to hear anything from me about her daughter. I spent all of five minutes with her, but I don’t even hesitate as I reach behind my neck and undo the clasp of my necklace. I coil up the chain along with the ring and set it atop the banister. “Grace should have this.”
I take the car keys, and Malcolm and I step out into the rain. The second Laura shuts the door, I turn to him.
“I met her,” I say. “Grace. She was sweet, so sweet. And I hate my mother right now. I hate her. And Laura. And most of all, I hate my grandmother.”
Malcolm is missing crucial pieces that would allow him to understand everything I’m saying, but he doesn’t hurl any questions at me; he runs a hand over my hair and cradles my head.
“You really found her?” I ask him.
“I found where she was three days ago.” His arms tighten around me, as though he’s trying to support me for what he says next. “I don’t know if she’s still there. And, um, she wasn’t trying to hide. Not like a woman who’s spent nearly two decades avoiding capture. It was like she wanted someone to be able to follow her.”
I bite down on the inside of my cheek, thinking about the risk she’s been taking. If they’d still had Malcolm, they’d have found her long before I could. “She was drawing them away from me,” I say with certainty. “And I know she’s still there. She’s been waiting for this. It’s my birthday at midnight. And now I know exactly why she had to wait till I’m eighteen. Whatever else Laura warned my mom about, keeping Grandmother Abbott as far away from me as possible was highest on that list. She’s planning to turn herself in.”
The clock inside said it was almost nine o’clock. In three hours, I’ll be safe. And Mom will be…
Gently, I free myself from Malcolm’s embrace. “Let’s go.”
* * *
I’m not reeling from shock and a concussion like I was the last time I pulled into a motel parking lot. I’m alert and focused, and fear has been my companion for so long that I’ve forgotten how it feels to be in any other state. Except now excitement is also tripping through me, and something like desperation.
“Katelyn.” Malcolm lays a hand on my arm. “Why don’t you let me go first? It’ll probably freak her out if she opens her door and sees you.”
I soak in the warmth from his hand and try less successfully to draw comfort from his words. He’s trying to protect me from what he believes might devastate me. He’s not so sure my mom is safe and sound inside the motel he tracked her to, watching the clock. I get that, but I can’t believe it. “She’s fine, and so am I. You’ll see.”
The car door shutting behind me brings the entire motel into hyperfocus. It’s a large two-story L-shaped building with red doors and a matching roof. There are several other cars in the parking lot besides ours, and I note them all without meaning to, another game Mom and I played whenever we went to a restaurant. She’d let me get dessert whenever I could correctly recite the description of every car in the parking lot.
It’s been five days since I saw her. Only five days. It feels longer, like an eternity. I know she’s inside.
I could never have anticipated the last week. It’s fair to assume that Mom’s plans impacted with reality in ways she couldn’t have guessed either, but she’s okay. I hate that I have to keep telling myself that, but I do. I keep it up for every step until I’m standing outside room 7A.
The rain has stopped and the Do Not Disturb sign is hanging on the door, swaying back and forth in the same breeze that lifts my dark-brown hair into my line of vision. I take a minute to smooth it back, tucking it neatly behind my ears and tugging my sweater down in a vain attempt to make it fit better. That’s all the repair I can make to my appearance here; it’ll have to be enough.
My hand hovers over the door but doesn’t move. Something thick is in my throat, and the wind catches my eyes at just the right angle to make them sting and water.
And then I knock.
There is no answer, so I try again, rapping the metal door with a force that approaches painful. I don’t stop, can’t imagine ever stopping, until the door disappears under my hand.
The force of the red door swinging open blows my hair back, and it’s her. She’s standing there, eyes wide, with a knife in her hand.
Flinching is instinctual, as is crossing my arms in front of my face, until…
“Katelyn!”
The blunt side of the knife presses into my spine as she surges forward and wraps her arms around me, only to jerk back just as quickly, leaving the hand with the knife on my shoulder. Her eyes, if possible, go even wider, and she shakes me once.
“You can’t be here. Not now.” She pulls me into the room with the same strength she used to scale our neighbor’s fence, then slams the door shut behind me. She opens her mouth, then closes it, hugs me again, softer this time, and almost buries her words in my hair. “You’re supposed to be so far away.”
I hold her, soaking up her body heat and ignoring the slight sour scent of sweat on her skin. For all my confidence with everyone else, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to do this again: See her and hug her. Feel safe.
But that feeling is fleeting and wholly insufficient in the face of so much deception. I pull her to sit on the edge of the bed with me. “I found my grandfather,” I say.
I don’t ask why she didn’t tell me he was still alive. Everything is tangled up together. Revealing one piece would have involved divulging the whole. I might not agree with her decision to keep all this from me, but I understand her reasoning.
“I saw the sonogram picture, and I know Derek Abbott is my father.”
Mom goes stiff at this.
“And then I went to see Laura.”
Her back snaps tight.
“I also met my half sister. She doesn’t know who I am, but I talked to her. She has a cat named Elvis.” My voice turns harsh. “And you kept her from me.”
Mom stands and takes two deliberate steps away, her back to me. “I know.”
“That’s it?” A dizziness begins to buzz in my head, making me grateful that I’m sitting. I see her shoulders start to tremble, matching my voice. “You lied about my entire life. My grandfather, my sister. Who my father was, and the fact that you’re accused of killing him!”
Mom looks at me from over her shoulder, her eyes brimming with tears, but she says nothing.
“Say something!”
Her voice is a whisper. “I can’t.”
“You can, but you won’t. You don’t know what I’ve been through these past few days, what I’ve had to do.” My voice chokes on the last word.
She starts to turn her body toward me, pauses in the act to breathe through her nose, then turns the rest of the way. “You were supposed to stay at the motel, where you were safe. I could have explained everything once it was over.”
“Safe? No, Mom, there is no safe.” I suck in a deep brea
th. “They found me at the motel.”
I tell her about the bounty hunter chasing me through the woods, how I hid from him under a bed, disguised myself, ran from a cop, and found my grandfather, only to end up locked in a pitch-dark room waiting for a painful interrogation that I didn’t stick around for.
“You did good.” She takes my face firmly in her hands. “You did the exact right thing.”
I pull away. “I had no choice, because you left me alone.” Still standing close to her, I take in her wan appearance: the limp and unwashed hair, the scrape along her jaw, the dark smudges under her eyes. She looks like she’s been through at least as much as I have. But then my eyes drop lower. She’s not standing right, even though she’s trying to hide it.
“Mom?”
She doesn’t answer, but her eyes shift away so deliberately that I feel compelled to look in the opposite direction.
At first, all I see is the unmade bed, which in and of itself would raise warning flags. Mom would make her bed while sick with the flu, even if she had to take puke breaks while doing it. That’s not hyperbole; she’s literally done that before. But then I see the crumpled-up coverlet hastily thrown over the mattress, nearly but not completely hiding the stains underneath. Some are red, others rust brown. As I pull back the sheet, larger splotches come into view.
When I turn back to her, the pretense is gone. She’s got one arm braced on her knee, and she’s leaning heavily against the dresser with the other.
“It’s not bad,” she says, her taut lips belying her words. “I thought I had time when I left you and went somewhere I shouldn’t have. Someone was watching, and I sliced my thigh open getting away.”
I’m at her side in half a heartbeat, helping her to the edge of the bed; she can’t hide her grimace when she sits. It’s worse when I roll up her loose pant leg to expose the makeshift bandage she’d applied and secured with duct tape.
A washcloth is crusted to her skin with dried blood, and I have to run another one under the faucet in the bathroom to work the edges free. I can feel her studying me, my hair, my hands, connecting what dots she can as I work the bandage free. She lets me do all this in silence, leaning back to give me better access. When I peel the final side off, it reveals a deep gash running from above her knee all the way to her midthigh.
I see yellow fat.
If it were any deeper, I’d see bone.
I choke and bring my hand to my mouth. Our roles reverse, and suddenly she’s the one comforting me.
“It’s okay,” she says. “It looks worse than it is.”
Another lie. She’s told me enough over the course of my life that I’m beginning to recognize them.
I tape a fresh washcloth back over her thigh. “This is why you didn’t call, isn’t it?” I say. “You knew they were going to catch up with you. You wanted to lead them away from me.”
“I thought it was the police again. I didn’t know until I left you, until they found me at the cemetery.” She gestures at her thigh. “I realized I couldn’t risk contacting you without endangering your life more than I already had.”
“Derek’s grave? You went to say goodbye to him.” Heat sears up my neck. “And then, what, you were heading straight to the police station? Is that how you were going to keep your promise to tell me everything? From behind bars?”
She reaches for me, but I jerk away and I see her flinch like I slapped her.
I feel like I’m locked in a flooding room. My neck is craned back as high as possible while the rising water laps at my jaw, leaving me time for one last breath before I’m submerged and trapped.
“Did you do it?” I say. “Did you kill him?”
“Baby, it’s complicated.”
“No, Mom, it’s not. The world says you’re a killer. My grandfather still thinks you’re a teenager. But he swears Derek was going to marry you. His actual wife at the time says you killed him. But then how could she help you? Either you killed a man for rejecting you or he was planning to leave his pregnant wife for you when he found out about me, and…what? Someone else killed him? His whole family decided to band together and blame you, and you’ve kept silent all these years letting them?”
The questions limp from my mouth. I don’t ask them because I’m compelled to hear the answers; I’d ask the same things in a room by myself. But with nothing else to stop the rising water, I say, “Tell me the truth. I can’t take another lie.”
“And that would be enough for you, my say-so?” Mom angles her head at me, the lightly chiding gesture so familiar it aches. “Would you really believe me if I said I didn’t kill him?”
I open my mouth to shout yes. I can already feel my body swaying toward her—to hug her, hold her, and let her tell me it’s all going to be okay. I’ll believe her, anything she says, because I want this to be over more than I want the actual truth. I want it gone: the fear, the doubt, the sick uncertainty. I want my mom back.
My heart tears open. “Just say the words. Tell me you didn’t kill him.”
“My real name isn’t Melissa Reed. It’s Tiffany Jablonski. Your real father wasn’t Anthony Reed. It was Derek Abbott. Your grandfather isn’t dead, and you have a sister. You’re not even the age you think you are. Did you know that?”
My chin quivers as I stare at her. “Why are you doing this?” I say. I’ve seen her face every day of my life; I know it better than my own. Without consciously meaning to, I take her hand. It’s the same one that stroked my head as a child when nightmares chased me from sleep. The same hand that smeared green paint on every visible inch of my skin when I decided I wanted to be a gecko for Halloween. The same hand that held mine when we hiked the last mile in the Smoky Mountains a few months before.
She can’t tell me she killed him. She can’t tell me she didn’t.
All the lies. So many.
The soft knock on the door momentarily startles me but sends her into kill-or-be-killed mode. She pushes me roughly to the floor and has the knife back in her hand all in the same motion.
“Katelyn?” Malcolm calls. “Are you okay?”
She whirls on me as I stand, a million silent questions in her eyes.
“It’s okay. He’s a friend. He’s the one who helped me find you.” When my words don’t have the desired effect, I add, “He saved my life, and yours too.”
She lowers the knife infinitesimally, and I open the door to let Malcolm in. He sees the knife right off and halts with one foot in the room.
“It’s okay,” I say to both of them. “She cut up her leg, but she’s fine. I told you she would be.”
He lifts his head in a half nod, acknowledging what I said but unable to tear his eyes away from the knife my mom is pointing at him.
“Please give me that,” I say to her, but she’s equally focused on Malcolm and barely listening. “Mom.” That gets her attention. The knife trembles, and her eyes slide to me. “This is Malcolm.” I take a slight step in front of him before ripping off the Band-Aid. “My grandmother hired him to find you.”
* * *
Just like I kept my makeshift blade from the motel room tight in my hand for hours after meeting Malcolm, Mom is slow to fully release her knife. I coax her into a chair and run through the details of discovering Malcolm and then the two of us escaping together, dwelling on the initial injuries Malcolm sustained to give Mom and me a chance, and later his dogged insistence on helping me find her even after I gave him an out. I think I mostly succeed at convincing her he’s not a threat, but she does insist that I leave the knife within easy reach of her.
The first thing she asks him is “Where’d you leave Laura’s car?”
“At an apartment building two blocks down the road,” he says. Then to me in a lower voice: “I assumed everything was okay when I saw her let you in.”
I nod, silently thanking him both for the privac
y he gave us and the foresight to ditch the car some distance from the motel.
“He should go,” she says, then, with a slight eye roll that seems directed at herself, “You should too.”
“Where would I go?” I ask. “Back to my cell at the bounty hunter’s place?”
She doesn’t answer, because she has no answer.
“Whatever you were planning to do, it’s over now,” I say. “You’re not leaving me alone again.”
Mom’s gaze slides to mine at the steel in my voice. “I’m done running,” she says, matching my tone.
“You’re also done making unilateral decisions. I’m eighteen now, remember? Or I will be in a couple hours. I get a say. And since you can barely stand without breaking into a sweat, it’s gonna be a big one.” I have no idea what we’re going to do in the long term, but the short term is obvious. “First up is your leg. You should have gone to the hospital days ago.” I suppress a flare of queasiness remembering the red streaks emanating from the wound.
“She can’t go to the hospital,” Malcolm says.
I round on him, shocked that he isn’t taking my side. “That’s the only place she can go. Her leg is bad: it looks infected, and she’s lost a lot of blood. She’s going.”
He takes a few cautious steps toward Mom and me, the way you’d approach a snarling animal. Which is exactly what I feel like. “The investigator knows she’s here somewhere, and that she’s hurt.”
He glances at Mom for confirmation, and she nods.
“Okay, then they probably have people at all the nearby hospitals waiting for her to come in.”
The ground opens up to swallow me. He’s right.
“Malcolm,” I say, lowering my voice and moving toward him. “She needs help. She needed it days ago. I just got her back. I can’t even think about—”
Girl on the Run Page 15
