by Josi Kilpack
The night had definitely become chilly by the time she reached the office building where she would be picked up. She stepped into the shadows and rested her back against the stucco wall. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. The cold, the anticipation, and the sheer fear compounded to create a feeling of such intensity it didn’t seem real.
Five minutes before midnight, a red Pontiac drove into the parking lot, and any control she’d managed to pull together went right out the window. He was here.
But he hadn’t seen her, and she pulled farther into the shadows. What am I doing? she asked herself, without being sure whether the question was posed for having left home or for staying hidden. Her heart hammered.
After a few more seconds, she took a deep breath and stepped out when the car pulled up to the curb. She knew she’d never forgive herself if she let this opportunity to meet Colt pass her by. And she couldn’t risk his disappointment if she didn’t follow through. She needed him so much, more than ever before. If she stood him up now, she might lose him forever. He would understand why her parents’ announcement was so hard for her. He’d know why she was so upset.
There was a click—unlocking the door, she assumed—and she took a deep breath. The door handle was cold to the touch as she pulled it open.
“Colt told you I would be picking you up, right?”
She had hoped Colt would come anyway, but knew she would see him soon enough—and considering how much he talked about his uncle, she felt as if she knew him too. So she slid into the passenger seat without looking too hard at the driver. She felt awkward and embarrassed—sure that Colt’s uncle was appraising her and wondering what Colt possibly saw in such a fat redhead.
“Yeah, he told me,” she said, hating how young her voice sounded. She did not want to sound like a child. “How’s his ankle?” she asked.
“Feeling better,” his uncle said.
Jess nodded. She was glad.
“He said to give you this.” He held out a bottle of red cream soda.
She smiled and took the bottle, staring at the label. The anxiousness to see Colt built even more.
“That’s your favorite?” the uncle asked, and she looked at him for the first time. His giving her a gift seemed to be permission somehow. He was old—older than Dad. He had a beard, and his hair was shaved really short, like a soldier. She glanced away, feeling bad for looking too close. He wasn’t at all like she’d expected. She’d assumed Colt’s uncle from Florida would be a surfer type—young and hip. This guy was nothing like that. It was disconcerting to be wrong.
“Yes,” she said, unscrewing the lid and taking a long swallow, hoping it would calm her nerves—and wishing Colt was here to enjoy it with her. She wondered how far away the hotel was. She thought of her parents at home asleep, and the guilt began to rise up. She quickly squelched it. She couldn’t feel bad about that. Her parents had created this—they had put her in this position.
“Mine, too,” she heard him say. She swallowed and leaned against the back of the seat, feeling herself relax. Her body was almost instantly warmed, and she took it as a sign that everything was okay.
“That’s so funny. It’s Colt’s favorite too,” she said, noticing that her tongue felt funny—like she’d sucked on too many jawbreakers and rubbed some of the roughness off. She licked her lips and then took another long drink. “Where’s the hotel?” she asked as they pulled onto I-15.
“Not too far,” he said. His voice was soft like kitten fur, and she felt a melting sensation in her muscles. That was weird. “Go ahead and close your eyes. I’ll let you know when we get there.”
She opened her mouth to say that she was too excited to see Colt, but her words came out garbled and hushed. It felt as if her brain were slowing down. Maybe she did need to rest, just for a little while. It was nearly midnight, after all.
“Sleep tight, Jessie,” he said as she drifted off. She was confused. Only Colt called her Jessie.
52
Kate blinked her eyes a few times before she could focus. The nausea hit hard as soon as she sat up. She winced, bowing her head and taking a deep breath. With each pregnancy she hoped the morning sickness would be more bearable—but that hadn’t been the case yet. If anything, it felt worse.
The clock read 6:19. Why wasn’t Jess practicing her piano? Did she sleep in?
Kate shook her head. No doubt this was further rebellion on Jess’s part. Quietly she slipped out of bed, but the movement woke up Brad.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she said back as she slipped her feet into her slippers.
“Wha—what time is it?” he asked, rubbing his eyes as he rolled onto his side.
“Jess didn’t get up. It’s almost six-thirty.”
Brad ran his hand through his already bedraggled hair. “I think we might have a teenager on our hands, Kate.”
Kate nodded. It sure looked that way. “I’ll go get her up.”
“I’ll do it. I wanted to talk to her about last night anyway,” Brad said as he swung his feet over the side of the bed and stretched his arms over his head.
“Oh, okay. Maybe that would be better,” Kate said, relieved to have his help.
The early morning was still gray, so she turned on lights as she headed toward the kitchen. Brad exited the bedroom after she did and soon disappeared downstairs. Kate opened the pantry and pulled out boxes of cereal while nibbling on saltine crackers, hoping they would settle her stomach.
“Kate!” Brad called a moment later. She turned to look at a concerned Brad standing in the doorway. “Jess isn’t here.”
Kate furrowed her brow. “What?”
“She’s not in her room.”
Kate put the box of Mini-Wheats on the countertop and headed toward him. He moved aside to let her pass. “Maybe she’s in the shower.”
“I checked. I’ll look around up here,” Brad said. “You can look downstairs.”
Kate hurried to Jess’s room. The light was off, and she wondered if Brad had even lit the room before he looked. She flipped on the light as soon as she reached the doorway.
“Jess?” she called. Silence. She scanned the room. The blinds were open, and the bed was messed up. But when she stepped in and placed her hand on the sheets, they were cold.
She ran to the bathroom. “Jess?” she called, turning on the lights and then falling silent. The only answer was the slow drip-drip of the shower faucet. She checked the tub and found it dry—Jess hadn’t showered today. Her heart began to speed up, even though she was telling herself to stay calm.
She turned on the light in Caitlyn and Sharla’s room, and the bodies cocooned on the beds shrank from the light. “Is Jess in here?”
“Wha . . . what?”
“Is Jess in here?” she asked. Her words were clipped and fast. She crossed the room and looked in the closet. What would Jess be doing in her sisters’ closet?
“No,” Caitlyn finally said in a voice still heavy with sleep.
She said something else, but Kate was already moving on to Keith’s room . . . and then to the storage room. As she ran back to the stairs, she scanned the living room again. Kate hurried up the stairs and met Brad in the hallway. They held each other’s eyes, speaking volumes without words.
“Oh, my gosh,” Kate breathed, and had to reach out for the wall to steady herself as the room seemed to spin just a little bit. Her heart was beating hard. Jess was gone.
Brad was breathing fast too, his eyes panicked. Kate started reliving their argument last night. Jess had been so mad, so hurt. Hurt enough to leave? The idea seemed impossible.
“Let’s check the house one more time,” Brad said. “Look everywhere.”
Kate nodded, and Brad ran past her while she headed toward the rooms he’d already checked. They met up at the top of the basement stairs just a couple of minutes later. Brad was holding a pink piece of paper in his hand. He held it out to Kate, and she took it with a shaky hand.
I need a time-ou
t. I’m at Terrezza’s and I’ll be home soon.
Jess
“Who’s Terrezza?” Brad asked, taking the note back, his voice flat. Kate had a hard time concentrating.
“She ran away,” she said, not believing this had really happened. How could this happen?
“Who’s Terrezza?” Brad asked again.
Kate shook her head. “I don’t know any Terrezza,” she said.
They both stood there then, not knowing what to do, staring at the note in Kate’s hand. “I’ve never heard her even talk about a Terrezza,” she added. How could Jess have a friend she didn’t know about? Was that why Jess was acting so strangely? Had she made some bad friends at school? How would Kate not know? Kate knew everything her kids were involved in—every friend, every teacher. Everything.
A few more seconds passed before Brad sprang into action. “I’ll go drive around the neighborhood to see if she’s on her way home. You start calling her friends.” He turned toward the kitchen and fumbled in the basket for his keys. Kate watched him, but she didn’t move.
“Mommy?” a timid voice called up from the bottom of the stairs, causing both Brad and Kate to turn and look at the frightened faces of their other children. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” Kate said, but she shared a quick glance with Brad, and seventeen years of marriage allowed her to speak without words. She would take care of the kids. He would find Jess.
53Jess tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids were too heavy. So were her arms, her legs, everything. It was the strangest feeling, one she’d never experienced. She didn’t understand what was happening. Maybe she was dreaming, but had she been asleep? She couldn’t think fast enough to figure out anything. She’d been going somewhere, but had she arrived? She was going to see someone, wasn’t she? Her mind reached back, strained to hold on to a solid thought, something she could build on, but her thoughts were as vaporous as her body was unresponsive.
Colt!
She forced her eyes open as simply thinking his name cleared her head, but the sun was too bright and she had to close them again. She took a deep breath. Even inflating her lungs was difficult. The vibrations beneath her told her she was in a car, but why? And where? She felt her heart rate increase as her thoughts cleared enough to let fear in. Something was wrong; that much she knew. After several seconds, she opened her eyes again, squinting this time, but all she could see was the upholstery of the car’s seats. She was lying down on a back seat. A bump in the road jolted her and the road became rough. Colt, she thought again, trying to hold on to that thought, trying to figure out what was happening.
“You’re awake,” a voice said, startling her. She squinted toward the voice and saw two dark eyes beneath grey eyebrows looking at her in the rearview mirror.
“What’s . . .” She meant to ask what was happening, but the effort it to took to form just one word seemed to drain her of energy.
“We’re going to see Colt,” the man said.
Colt. That name gave her comfort, and she let her head fall back against the seat again. “Why . . . is . . . it . . .” She couldn’t finish that question either. What was wrong with her? Her mouth was dry, and she tried to work up enough saliva to ask again while looking at the window positioned above her. She saw sky and trees and sun. With a jolt she realized it was morning. Daytime! Her breath caught in her throat, and she looked up at the eyes still watching her in the mirror, which was bouncing up and down in rhythm with the road beneath them.
“It was the only way you and Colt could be together,” he said, and she felt a chill run through her body.
“You’ll understand, Jessie,” Colt’s uncle said. “When Colt explains everything you’ll understand that this was the only way it could work. It’s destiny, Jessie. It’s fate.”
It’s daytime, Jess thought in her mind as her heart hammered. She felt sick to her stomach. Tears leaked from her eyes and panic consumed her. She was supposed to be at school, shocking Britney with the story about sneaking out to dinner with Colt. It was supposed to be a normal day. Her whole chest was tight, her stomach spasmed, and her head was spinning. What was going on?
I’m supposed to be home.
54
“It’s seven-fifteen,” Kate called out half an hour after Brad left, her stomach still in knots. “Backpack check.” Brad hadn’t called. She hoped that meant he had found Jess and was reading her the riot act in the driveway. How would Kate act toward her daughter when she got home?
The kids weren’t even dressed yet, let alone ready for her to do the final inspection to be sure they had all their homework and books. She ran from here to there, finding shoes, matching shirts to pants. Despite her worry, she felt the anger build up toward her oldest daughter. Had she any idea what her little tantrum was doing to her family?
The phone rang and she ran for it, tripping over Keith in the middle of the floor putting on his shoes. She almost did a face plant but managed to catch herself with the wall.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly, hoping—praying—begging—it was Jess. Just as she picked it up, she saw the number on the caller ID. Julie. Maybe she had news.
“Did you guys find her?” Julie asked.
Kate felt tears rise at the realization that Julie didn’t have anything that was going to make things better. She also realized another feeling—embarrassment. She hadn’t thought about it before now, but if Brad was calling people, everyone knew Jess had run away. “No, Brad called you?”
“Yeah, half an hour ago. He hasn’t found her?”
Kate wiped at her eyes and turned so the kids couldn’t see that she was crying. But they knew something was wrong. As Caitlyn and Sharla had gone about getting ready, they kept glancing at her, their expressions worried and scared. “No, did you ask Britney?”
“Yeah. She was as surprised as I was.”
“Does she know a Terrezza?”
“She said she knows a couple of Theresas at school, but she’s never seen Jess hang out with any of them, and she’s not familiar with the odd spelling. She doesn’t have any idea where Jess would go, other than coming here—and she didn’t.”
Keith began yelling about someone hiding his other shoe, and it woke Chris up, who started wailing. Kate moved the phone away from her ear and hollered at Caitlyn to get Chris and Sharla to help Keith find his shoe. They did it without grumbling. “I’d better go,” Kate said into the phone as she glanced up at the clock. She hadn’t even done the girls’ hair yet . . . how ridiculous was she to be worried about their hair?
“I’m coming over,” Julie said. “Clay’s going to go to work late so he can handle things here. I’ll be right there.”
“No, it’s okay,” Kate said quickly, automatically falling back on her ability to take care of everything. “The kids will be off to school in just a minute and—”
“I’ll be right there,” Julie repeated. The line went dead.
Kate hung up the phone and wiped at the residual tears. She didn’t want Julie here. It would be easier to deal with this without thinking about other people and their reactions. The very idea made her stomach tighten. No matter how relieved she would be when Jess got back, she was going to tell her in no uncertain terms that this was not the way to handle an argument.
“Mom, where’s Jess?” Caitlyn asked.
Kate looked at her twelve-year-old daughter. What could she say? Tell her Jess ran away? That Kate didn’t know where her own child was? What would people think when they learned what had happened? The humiliation caused Kate’s neck to get hot.
“I think she just had something to do at school.” She forced a smile but had a hard time meeting her daughter’s eyes. It was paramount that she pretend nothing was wrong. She had to be strong for her children right now. Jess would be home soon; Kate was sure of it. She would not make things worse by getting hysterical. “Everything’s fine.”
55
Monique stayed in bed for five days. Harrison bought a casket online a
nd arranged with a mortuary close by the morgue in Canada to have Terrezza sealed within it and shipped home as soon as possible. They had a simple funeral service Wednesday. Monique could hardly stand it; she was consumed with anger and unfiltered sorrow. Seventeen years old and gone forever. As soon as she got home she went back to bed. Karl and Jamie stepped in to greet the numerous acquaintances dropping in with flowers or food. Monique did nothing but mourn.
Thursday morning Harrison came into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching over to place a hand on her arm. He didn’t ask how she was doing. She knew he didn’t need to.
