Bowie turns, waves for me to come to the door. All hope falls away then. Because I know she is here.
She’s here.
The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.
– Flora Whittemore
Bowie
I WANT TO spare Keegan this. I’ve been in places like this before. I know what to expect. But I am sure that she does not. And I see that I’m right when the loaded young girl who had answered the door leads us to a room upstairs and leaves us there.
Keegan is so pale that I’m worried she might pass out. She puts her hand on the rusty doorknob and turns it, struggling for a moment to get it to open.
The room is dark, the light from the hallway illuminating a figure on a bed in the far corner.
“Reece?”
Keegan’s voice is barely audible, as if she’s hoping this isn’t her daughter, that this will turn out not to be true.
“Hmmm?”
The girl raises up, and suddenly we can see her face. I hear Keegan gasp, a hand going to her mouth. “Reece,” she says. “Oh, Reece.” And she starts to cry.
Innocence deserves our protection.
– Author Unknown
Keegan
I DROP TO MY knees beside the dirty bed on which my daughter is curled in a fetal position. I put my hand to her forehead and push the oily hair away from her face.
She tries to force her eyes open, but it is as if they are weighted with lead, and the effort is more than she can manage. “Mom?” she says in a raspy voice.
“Yes,” I say. “Reece. What have you taken?”
She shakes her head a little, and it’s clear she doesn’t want to tell me.
Bowie puts his hand on my shoulder, leans in close to my ear and says, “This looks like a meth house.”
I hear the words, and yet it feels impossible that my child could be here in a place like this. Anger shoots up from my mid-section, and I want to snap at Bowie, tell him he’s wrong. But I can’t because I know in my heart he’s right.
“Reece,” I say softly. “We’re going to take you somewhere to get help. But you said something about a baby. What were you talking about?”
Reece moans as if she’s just remembered. Tears leak from her eyes and start down her face. “He took him.”
“Him?”
“My baby.”
“You had the baby?”
She nods once, and a dam of emotion breaks free in my chest. I start to sob beneath its onslaught and the certainty that my daughter had not gone through with the abortion. “Reece. Why didn’t you let me help you?”
“I should have,” she says. “I’m so sorry, Mommy.”
It’s been forever since she’s called me this. It seems like several lifetimes ago. I clasp her hand between mine, wanting nothing more than to give her a lifeline, to pull her up from this dark place and the dark thing that has a hold on her.
“Who took him, Reece?”
“Tony. He makes meth here. I owed him money. He said he was going to sell the baby to some attorney, that he would be adopted by a couple who would pay a lot to have him and would give him a good life.”
My stomach feels as if it has dropped from a hundred stories. Sickness overwhelms me. “What’s the baby’s name, Reece?”
“Griffith. I called him Griff.”
I feel a desperation I have never before felt in my life. Not even when I had two young children of my own and was so broke that I didn’t know how I would feed them their next meal. I am suddenly frantic with the need to find this child before something awful happens to him.
I look up at Bowie, knowing all of this is reflected in my eyes, but unable to filter it. “Can you help us find him? Please, Bowie. Please.”
What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?
– George Eliot
Bowie
LOOKING DOWN AT Keegan, seeing the helplessness on her face takes me back to the place I have been in so many times. That place of knowing something horrible had happened to a good person through no fault of their own. And being unable to change the fact that the odds were good there would be no way to right that wrong.
And yet I’ve never wanted to do so more than I do right now.
I force my mind to the state of calm that allows for figuring out what to do next. It means I have to force the emotion from my decision making, disregard what I feel for Keegan, and the empathy I have for the loss she is facing.
My voice is low and even when I say, “First, we should get your daughter out of this place. We’ll find a rehab and take her there. Then I’ll start making calls about the baby. Can you get her dressed and downstairs? I’ll go out and research local rehabs on my phone.”
“Yes,” she says. “I can do that.”
I turn to leave the room, but she stops me with a hand on my arm. “Thank you, Bowie. Thank you.”
IN THE CAR, I get busy searching online for rehabs, quickly checking reviews and comments from various sites in an effort to find the one most able to deal with Reece’s meth addiction. It’s a devil of an addiction, and, at best, she will have a painful road ahead of her.
Within five minutes, I’ve found what looks like a good place for her. I call the number and ask for an emergency placement. I tell the soft-spoken representative who addresses my questions that Reece’s mother will be bringing her to the facility. She says that will be fine and they will be expecting us.
The door to the broken-down house opens, and Keegan appears with Reece, her arm around her shoulder. She’s helping her to walk. Reece’s head is drooped forward under the effects of whatever she took last.
I get out of the Rover and run to meet them. “I’ll carry her,” I say, scooping the girl up in my arms and walking to the vehicle. She must weigh ninety pounds or less. I place her in the back seat, buckling her seatbelt at her waist. Her head drops back against the headrest. She’s barely conscious.
Keegan gets in the passenger seat, and I jump in the driver’s side, turning the GPS on with the address of the rehab. “I found a place about twenty minutes from here,” I say to Keegan. “They said to bring her in.”
Keegan looks at me then with such gratitude that I realize again how completely overwhelmed she is with what is happening.
“How will I ever thank you?” she asks.
“You don’t need to,” I say, forcing myself not to think of all the things that can go wrong from here.
Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.
– Joseph Campbell
Keegan
THE REHABILITATION CENTER is a pleasant-looking building, brick and stone with lots of landscaping and bright-colored flowers that label it as a happy place.
But I feel anything other than happy at the prospect of leaving Reece here. At the same time, I know I have no other choice. She is in such bad shape.
Bowie pulls up to the front entrance, looking at me with his serious blue eyes. “I’ll help you get her inside,” he says. “And then I’ll come back out and start making calls about the baby.”
I nod and get out, knowing if I try to speak, the words will never make it past the tears threatening to spill out of me.
Bowie comes around and opens the back door, reaching in to lift Reece out. Her head lolls back and she makes a sound of protest.
“Where are you taking me?”
The question is barely audible. I take her hand as we walk through the main doors, telling her, “To get you the help you need, Reece. This is where you need to be right now.”
She squeezes my hand hard, murmuring, “Griff. Griff.”
ADMITTING REECE TO this place is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Somehow, I manage to get her to agree to the admission. She’s able to sign the papers she needs to sign, and I’m grateful for that. She’s nineteen, and this has to be voluntary.
Bowie disappeared shortly after the woman at the front desk began helping us. I’m
praying he’s able to get the police to start looking for the baby.
I’m not sure I’ve even fully processed this fact yet.
Reece has a baby.
How has she taken care of him? Is he all right? Was she on drugs while she was pregnant?
I steer my thoughts away from the questions because I have no idea what to do with them. I focus instead on answering the questions the admissions attendant is asking me. What kind of substance has Reece been abusing? How long has she been doing so?
I have no real answers for her. Only guesses and possibilities. She is sympathetic, as if I’m not the first parent to sit in this chair in a similar position.
“The detox process for methamphetamine addiction is quite unpleasant,” she says, the edges of the words blurred with her soft southern accent.
“What are the symptoms?” I ask, concern for Reece flaring inside me.
“Of course they vary patient to patient and will also depend on the length of use and addiction. Typical symptoms are vomiting, depression, and thoughts of suicide. Extreme irritation and anger are also common.”
“That sounds horrible,” I say.
“It’s not an easy process to get through,” the woman says, her expression sympathetic. “The doctors can help manage the symptoms with anti-anxiety medications. They can also offer some really good anti-nausea medicines to help with that. And depending on your daughter’s weight and blood work results, they might also give her intravenous vitamins and nutrients as well.”
“That sounds good,” I say, realizing there is nothing good about any of this.
As if she’s read my thoughts, she says, “We really try to do everything that can be done to help get the patient through the most difficult parts of the detox. But in truth, symptoms can go on for months after quitting the drug.”
“Such as?”
“In extreme cases, amphetamine psychosis can occur. This is similar to schizophrenia in its effects. The patient can have sensations of bugs crawling under their skin, seeing things that aren’t there. But let’s hope that’s not the case for Reece.”
At the sound of her name, Reece jerks her head up. “Where am I, Mom?”
“You’re in a hospital, Reece,” I say, taking her hand. “Remember? We’re here to get you some help.”
She nods a little, and her eyes glaze over once more.
“I’ll get a nurse to come with a wheelchair, and we’ll get her settled in her room. Be right back,” she says, before disappearing down the hall.
I reach across and take my daughter’s hand in mine. And I wonder how we could possibly have ended up in this place. Why I didn’t see the warning signs far enough in advance to prevent this from happening. I try to hold back the sob swooping up from deep inside me like a tsunami from the ocean floor. But I can’t, and I bend forward, crying for my failures as a mother and all the pain ahead for my daughter.
Never ignore a person who loves you, cares for you, and misses you. Because one day, you might wake up from your sleep and realize that you lost the moon while counting the stars.
– Author Unknown
Bowie
I CALL MITCH FIRST. Not because he will be able to work on finding Reece’s baby, but because I know he will point me to the best agent to contact.
He answers the phone with, “Did you find her?”
“We did,” I say. “Thank you so much, Mitch.”
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know. She’s in rough shape. Looks like meth addiction.”
“Man, I’m sorry. That’s bad news.”
“Yeah, but there’s more. She has a baby. And it looks like the dealer she’s been buying from abducted him with the intent of selling him to pay off her drug debt.”
“Damn.”
“I know. It’s been a fast reintroduction to the underbelly of the drug life.”
“You need a name,” Mitch says.
“I do.”
He gives me one.
HER NAME IS Bethany Daniels, and she’s based in the Knoxville field office.
She answers my call on the first ring. “Hi, Bowie. Mitch texted me to expect your call. I’ve heard some good things about your time in the bureau, and I also enjoy your books. How can I help you?”
“Thank you,” I say. “I have a friend whose daughter has been involved with a meth dealer here in Knoxville. He’s apparently taken her six-month-old son and is planning to sell him to get back what she owes him.”
“Good heavens,” Bethany says. “Do you have a name?”
I give her the name Reece had given us.
“Any known address?”
“No,” I say. “Apparently, he moves around.”
“Handy if you don’t want to be found,” she says.
“Yeah. He sounds like really bad news. I’m afraid if the baby isn’t found soon—”
“Let’s not go there,” she says. “I’m on it, okay. Can I reach you at this number?”
“Yes. And thank you. Really.”
“Hey, if I had my way, I’d take the sewage truck and suck up every one of these loser dealers off the streets. They’re just parasites.”
She hangs up before I can agree or disagree. I sit for a moment wondering if they will be fast enough in finding him. And what the outcome will be if they aren’t.
By the time Keegan walks out to the car, her face solemn and tear-stained, I’ve decided I’m not willing to wait around to find out.
WE START BACK at the house where we found Reece. The same drugged-out girl who had answered the door earlier appears again, this time less coherent and more buzzed.
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” she slurs. “I never heard of anybody by that name.”
I stand right in front of the girl, using intimidation as a playing card. Keegan is to my right, slightly behind me. “So if you haven’t heard of him, who’s supplying your party favors?”
“Ain’t no party around here,” she says, looking up at me through slitted eyes.
“Look, a baby’s life is at stake, so my patience with your denials is going to run out in approximately two seconds. At that point, I’ll pull out my phone and call my friends at your local police station and ask them to come take a look at this house for suspected illegal drug activity. And when I add to that the fact that a baby has been kidnapped by the thug supplying the drugs, they’ll be here before you can even think about where to hide your stash.”
“Aw, man, come on,” she says. “I didn’t ask to be involved in any of this. Reece is the one who kept overspending. You can’t take drugs you can’t pay for.”
“I’m sure it took a great deal of experience for you to come by that nugget of wisdom, but again, if you don’t tell me where I can find the lowlife who took that baby—”
“All right, all right,” she says, holding up an unsteady hand. “He moves around, but the last I heard he was staying with an old girlfriend. Over on Cedar Street. It’s the house at the end of the cul-de-sac. No grass in the front yard and an old Chevelle on blocks.”
“Charming,” I say. “If he’s not there, I’ll be back.”
She gives me a look that wouldn’t bode well for me if she had a gun in her hand. I step back just as she slams the door.
I take Keegan’s hand, and we run back to the car, aware that every minute has become precious.
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
– George Bernard Shaw
Keegan
BOWIE ALL BUT ignores the speed limits as we tear down street after street, following the GPS directions. It’s only ten minutes away, but it seems as if it takes forever to get there.
We finally reach Cedar Street, and Bowie swings a hard left into the driveway. I start to open my door, but he puts a hand on my arm to stop me.
“Keegan, stay here. Let me go to the door.”
“What if he’s dangerous? I can’t ask this of you—”
“
You’re not asking.” He reaches under the driver’s seat and pulls out a gun.
“You brought that with you?” I ask, shocked.
“Old habits,” he says.
“Bowie, wait—”
But he’s already out the door, slipping the gun beneath his jacket.
The house looks like something out of the worst neighborhood you can imagine. The roof is missing huge chunks of tile. The chimney is slightly askew, as if someone climbed a ladder and took a sledge hammer to it. The paint—a mock cheerful sky blue—is peeling in wide swatches, revealing a dirty white beneath.
My heart is pounding so hard I can hear its drumbeat in my ears. My palms instantly begin to sweat. I watch, numb, as Bowie knocks at the rusty metal door.
Upstairs, I glimpse someone pulling back a curtain and peering down at the front stoop. The curtain quickly closes, and I suddenly fear that they might run out the back with the baby.
I jump out of the Rover, calling to Bowie. “Upstairs. Someone’s there! Should I go around the house?”
“Keegan, no! I’m going in. Stay where you are!”
But he might as well have ordered me to turn myself to stone, because there is no way I can stay here while he goes in, risking his life.
Playing my hunch, I run as fast as I can around the house, tripping over a tree root and barely catching myself before I hit the ground. I’m up though and charging to the backyard, thankful there’s no fence.
I hear a door squeak open, footsteps on concrete, and just as I round the corner of the house, I see a skinny guy with long, greasy hair bolting down the sidewalk, a baby boy under his arm like a football. The baby is crying.
Dragonfly Summer (A Smith Mountain Lake Novel Book 2) Page 16
