Take Me Home

by Nancy Herkness

  She called Holly and asked who the next person on the list was, calming her sister down, even as she felt the fear roiling through her. Holly gave her Frank’s sister’s address, where she repeated her lunatic story. The woman looked at her strangely, but said Frank hadn’t been there since Saturday morning. Two more stops proved equally fruitless, and Claire decided to head back to Holly’s house to regroup.

  “Maybe we should call Robbie,” Claire said as she slumped in a kitchen chair.

  “No, I don’t want the police involved. At least, not yet. It’s bad enough they know about Frank’s drinking problem. I don’t want them to think he’s a kidnapper too.” Holly choked on a sob. “He’s just trying to scare me.”

  “But why?”

  “I forgot to tell you. Paul called this morning to say they were serving Frank with the divorce papers today.”

  “So he’s pissed off and hitting you where it hurts, the bastard.” Claire really wished Tim had punched Frank in the nose when he had the chance. “I see one more name on your list. Who is it?”

  “The last person I thought of, but it might make sense. His great-aunt Judy lives on a farm out near the Dinosaur Cave. I haven’t been out there in years, so I don’t remember exactly where it is.”

  Dinosaur Cave was one of the area’s tourist attractions. An amateur spelunker had found a mastodon jaw in one of the caverns, so the owners had given the cave its dramatic but inaccurate name and set it up for walking tours. The biggest drawback was the location—several miles from town along narrow, winding country roads.

  It sounded like just the sort of place Frank might take his daughters if he wanted to terrify his wife.

  “Do you have an address I could plug into the GPS?” Claire asked.

  Holly shook her head. “The only one I know is the McElhenny farm. She probably gets her mail at the post office.”

  Finding the farm wasn’t Claire’s only worry. She was nervous about the possibility of confronting a furious, vengeful Frank alone and far from help.

  “Does Great-Aunt Judy have cows or horses or something?” Claire asked.

  Holly looked at her as if she were an idiot. “It’s a farm.”

  “Right.” Sometimes Claire’s brain got stuck in New York mode where farms could be just houses out in the country with empty fields around them. “I think I’m going to call Tim. He makes house calls, so he might know where the place is.”

  And it would be good to have Tim’s large, solid presence behind her if the scene got ugly.

  “He already knows what’s going on, so I guess that’s okay.” Holly’s voice was shaky.

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t call Robbie to stay with you?”

  “No, no, I’ll be fine. In fact, I hope Frank comes back here. I want to give him a piece of my mind.”

  “Attagirl! That’s my sis!” Claire said, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. She stared at it a moment, trying to decide how to phrase her request. “Hello, yes, this is Claire Parker. I have kind of a personal emergency. May I speak with Dr. Arbuckle as soon as possible?”

  It took no more than thirty seconds before Tim’s deep voice rumbled into her ear. “Claire, what can I do to help?”

  Claire let out the breath she’d been holding without realizing it. She gave him a brief summary of the situation.

  “I’m on my way. See you in ten minutes.”

  That was it. Nothing more was needed to persuade him. Claire’s eyes swam with tears of relief that she could shift some of her burden onto Tim’s wide shoulders. She had to look away from her sister so Holly wouldn’t see her moment of weakness.

  True to his word, Tim was there in nine minutes. Claire knew because she checked the clock every thirty seconds.

  She went out on the porch to meet him. Just seeing him jog up the steps toward her sent a tendril of calm curling through her. Rising onto her tiptoes, she fisted her hands in his plaid shirt and pulled him down for a quick, reassuring kiss before she said, “I’m so sorry to interrupt your—”

  “I’m glad you called me.” He held her against him for a quick, frozen moment, then released her. “I brought the clinic’s pickup because no one will be surprised to see it tooling along the back roads.”

  After Tim assured Holly he was familiar with the farm, they headed back out to the truck.

  “I got some extra pointers from Estelle Wilson before I left the office,” Tim said, putting the pickup in gear.

  “Oh my God, she was my first-grade teacher,” Claire said. “So she retired and went to work for you?”

  “Lucky for me. She knows everyone and everything about Sanctuary.”

  Claire was silent as she watched Tim steer onto the highway, slipping the big vehicle into a space between two cars that she never would have attempted.

  He drove with a fierce alertness that allowed her to let go of the iron control she’d been hanging on to in front of Holly. “I’ll tell you the truth: if the girls aren’t at Great-Aunt Judy’s, I’m afraid Frank may have taken them away somewhere to hide them,” Claire said, her voice catching on a swallowed sob. “He got served with the divorce papers today. God, I just hope he’s not drunk too.”

  Tim took one hand off the wheel and covered her fists where she had them clenched together in her lap. His glance never wavered from the crowded highway. “If the girls aren’t there, we’ll keep looking until we find them. I think our next step should be to call in the police.”

  “I tried to talk Holly into that, but she wasn’t ready yet. She doesn’t want the whole town to know about their problems.”

  “Can’t say I blame her.”

  His voice was tight and hard. Somehow she knew he was thinking about his wife’s suicide and all the surrounding publicity. It must have been horrendous for him.

  “Chief McClung won’t put it out on the radio if we ask him not to,” Tim continued. “Let’s not borrow trouble, though.”

  She turned one hand up to squeeze his, loving the warmth of his palm and the toughness of his calluses. “I’d like to hold your hand for the whole drive, but I think you’re going to need it. Those country roads have some tight curves.”

  “I reckon you’re right, but we’ll wait until I have to turn off this nice straight stretch.”

  She felt tears welling up again and fought them back. “The good thing is the girls are with their father, so they won’t be worried or scared.”

  At least she hoped that was the case. Brianna had sounded frightened on Friday night, but it had been fear for her mother rather than for the little girls’ own safety.

  A few minutes later, he pulled their entwined hands over to his side of the front seat, kissing the back of her hand before he let it go. “We’re about to turn. Hang onto your Jesus strap.”

  It was a left turn. Tim cut the wheel and hit the accelerator hard as a gap opened in the oncoming traffic. Claire closed her eyes as horns blared. She was about to compare him to a New York taxi driver but decided not to remind him of his past again.

  They followed the footprint-shaped signs for Dinosaur Cave, barreling along the twisting single-lane country roads. Then he took a right onto a gravel road, and Claire was completely lost. She hung on for dear life as they bounced between barbed wire fences containing cows, sheep, and an occasional llama. When they reached an intersection with a paved road, Tim turned onto it and slowed down.

  “That field on the left should be McElhenny’s,” he said. “See if you can spot a mailbox or sign of some kind as we come up on the driveway.”

  Claire sat forward and scanned along the fence line. “I think there’s something up ahead. I saw a flash of red near the cattle guard.”

  Narrow metal bars spaced a hoof’s width apart spanned the farm’s entrance road, keeping the livestock in without the necessity of a gate. As they got closer, the red flash resolved itself into a homemade sign with the name McElhennys painted on it in white block letters.

  “Oh, thank God!” Claire breathed as the pickup
rumbled across the metal grate.

  She looked over to find Tim examining the layout of the buildings.

  “Can you spot Frank’s car anywhere?” he asked.

  “No, not so far.” Claire’s throat cramped in panic at the thought of not finding the girls. “Wait, there it is by the barn. The silver Escalade.”

  “I’ll box him in with the truck,” Tim said, bouncing over the ruts of the dirt road at a speed that kicked up clouds of dust. “Then he can’t sneak away while we’re looking for the girls. You know them better than I do. Where should we start—house or barn?”

  Claire looked back and forth between the white frame house with its wide front porch and the tin-roofed barn, its open door a dark, blank rectangle. “How about if I take the house and you take the barn?”

  “We go together. You’re not facing Frank alone.” Tim’s voice brooked no argument.

  She hated to admit it, but she was relieved to have that decision taken out of her hands. Frank wasn’t behaving like a rational human being. “Okay, then.” She thought of Kayleigh’s love of kittens and Brianna’s desire to talk to Willow. “The barn.”

  He drove past Frank’s car and swept around a full circle, parking so the pickup faced the road and hemmed in the big SUV. Claire swung open her door and leaped to the ground.

  “Leave your door unlatched,” Tim said, jogging around the truck’s hood, “just in case.”

  She didn’t ask in case of what. She didn’t want to think about the implications of needing a quick getaway.

  They walked side by side from the sunshine into the dimness of the barn. Claire nearly reached for Tim’s hand to bolster her courage as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the change in light.

  They stood on a wide, tiled breezeway lined with open stalls sporting shiny electric milking equipment. “No kittens,” Claire murmured in dismay as she scanned the empty, echoing space of the dairy barn.

  “There are stairs over there,” Tim said, gesturing left. Claire started toward them, only to have him catch her wrist. “Let me go first.”

  She looked up to find his eyes lit with concern, while the lines around his mouth were deep and tight. She nodded, and he gave her wrist a quick squeeze before he let her go and strode to the open wooden steps that disappeared up through the ceiling. He went up the steps quickly and with surprising lightness for a man of his size.

  Claire stayed close behind him, reaching the top step just as a woman’s voice called, “Dr. Tim? What brings you here? Don’t tell me there’s another outbreak of red nose!”

  “No, no infectious epidemics right now, Mrs. McElhenny,” Tim said.

  Claire dodged around him to find a tall, thin woman with a graying ponytail standing in an open doorway, a baffled expression on her lined face.

  “This is Claire Parker, Holly’s sister,” Tim said as naturally as though they were at a cocktail party. “We came by to pick up Brianna and Kayleigh.”

  Judy McElhenny looked even more bewildered. She gave a quick nod of greeting to Claire. “I thought they were spending the night.”

  “Change of plans,” Tim said. “Their mother needs them at home. Is Frank around?”

  “He’s in the house, pretending to watch the TV but snoring like a buzz saw.” A nervous smile twitched at Judy’s thin lips. “He’s been traveling a lot for work. It wears him out.”

  Claire noticed the change in Tim’s posture; his shoulders dropped and his hands opened out of clenched fists. He had been braced for a belligerent Frank, and now the threat was gone. She felt her own shoulders relax a fraction.

  The older woman hesitated a moment before she turned back to the door. “Brianna! Kayleigh! Time to go!”

  “But we’re almost finished with our house!” It was Kayleigh’s voice, and Claire’s knees nearly buckled with relief at the sound.

  “Your mom wants you,” Judy called back. She shrugged at Tim and Claire. “We were building a house out of straw bales.”

  “So we don’t get to bake special oatmeal cookies?” Brianna said, emerging from the door, her hair and clothes sprouting bits of straw. “Hi, Aunt Claire. And Dr. Tim.”

  Kayleigh came right behind her, and Claire swooped down onto her knees to engulf them both in a bear hug. “Oh, it’s so good to see you guys. I missed you.”

  “We missed you too,” Brianna said politely, but with a note of confusion in her voice.

  The girls obviously weren’t worried by their unusual afternoon off from school, so her greeting made no sense to them. Loosening her hold, Claire felt the tension drain from her. She stood and took their hands in hers. “Let’s get them down to the truck before Holly wonders where the heck we all are.”

  She started down the steps.

  “Dr. Tim, there’s something I want to ask you about the mastitis,” Judy said.

  Claire kept going. She just wanted to get the girls safely back to their mother. They clattered down the steps and across the tile.

  “Auntie Judy’s nice,” Kayleigh announced, “but she doesn’t have any kittens to play with.”

  “You can always play with the kittens at Sharon’s,” Claire said, hustling them over to Tim’s truck.

  “Can we miss school too?” Kayleigh asked.

  Claire laughed as she boosted the little girl into the backseat of the extended cab and buckled her seatbelt. “Probably not.”

  She helped Brianna in next. “We aren’t really supposed to miss school, are we?” her older niece asked.

  “Not really, but it’s okay if there’s a good reason for it.”

  Claire closed the door and let out the breath she’d been holding.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing with my children?”

  Claire spun around to find Frank rounding the back of the truck, his face scarlet with rage. “I’m taking them home, where they belong,” she said, keeping her voice low in the hope the children wouldn’t hear.

  “They belong with me just as much as with my bitch wife.” He bore down on her, his hands balled into fists.

  Claire squared her shoulders and stood her ground. “Not if Holly doesn’t know where they are. You can’t just take them out of school and not bring them back.”

  “I can do whatever I damn well please. They’re my children. No piece of paper from a lawyer can change that.” An ugly sneer twisted his features. “Don’t they say possession is nine-tenths of the law?”

  “Maybe with things, but when you take a person, it’s called kidnapping.”

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her within inches of his face. “You tell my bitch wife that I don’t appreciate getting handed lawyer papers when I’m working. And you tell her I’ll take the children any time I want to until she gets a proper attitude about who’s in charge.”

  Claire flinched as spittle landed on her cheeks.

  “Get your hand off her, Frank.” Tim’s voice was low but pulsated with menace. “You don’t want your children to see me knock you flat on your back.”

  Frank seemed to freeze, his grip so hard she could almost feel the bruise forming. Then he flung her away from him, her elbow banging against the truck. “Brought your tame grizzly with you again, I see.”

  Tim stepped between them, blocking her view of Frank. If she thought his voice was menacing before, it now emanated cold fury. “If you ever touch Claire or Holly again, I will cause you pain you can’t even imagine.”

  “Are you threatening me? Because I’ve got witnesses.”

  Claire peered around Tim to see Frank backing away as he glanced right and left. Judy McElhenny stood in the barn door, her gaze flicking between the two men.

  “Witnesses to what?” Tim asked. “Kidnapping? Assault? You’re right. You’ve got witnesses. Go back to the house, Frank. You don’t want to make me any angrier, or I might forget I have an audience.”

  Frank glanced at the truck, where two small faces peered out the back window. A vein pulsed in his forehead. “You’ll be hearing from me. Both of you.” He sta
lked away toward the back of the house.

  Tim stood still until the slam of a door broke the silence. Then he nodded to Judy. “Nice to see you, Mrs. McElhenny.”

  “You too, Doc,” the older woman said. Her look turned apologetic. “Frank is just upset about the divorce.”

  “Guess so,” Tim said. He turned back to Claire, probing her arm with careful fingers. “Does this hurt? Or this?”

  She fought the desire to burst into tears as the fear-induced adrenaline drained from her body. “No, no, nothing hurts. I’m fine.”

  He enveloped her in his arms and lowered his head to rest it against her forehead. “I shouldn’t have let Mrs. McElhenny hold me up in the barn. I should have been here to keep Frank away from you. When I saw him touch you, I wanted to flatten the bastard, but I couldn’t in front of the girls. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s my fault. I should have waited. I just wanted to get them home to Holly.” She rested against him, wrapping herself in the safety and comfort of his presence.

  He pulled her in tighter before letting his arms drop. “Let’s get on the road.”

  Swinging open the unlatched door, he helped her into the high cab. She could see the guilt in his eyes and in the tense set of his shoulders, but she didn’t know how to banish it.

  “We didn’t say good-bye to Papa,” Brianna said, her voice small and tentative.

  “I know, sweetheart,” Claire said, racking her brain for an explanation. “He...um...was waiting for an important phone call for business and heard the phone ringing in the house.”

  “Oh, okay.” Claire was amazed that Brianna seemed to accept her improvised excuse without question.

  “Aunt Claire, we got to miss part of school and ride on the tractor with Jake,” Kayleigh said, joining the conversation. “But we were supposed to get cookies too. Aunt Judy was letting us help make them.”

  “We’ll buy you ice cream sundaes at Dairy Queen on the way home,” Claire said, throwing Tim a rueful glance as he turned the key in the ignition.

  “Why don’t you send your sister a text message? See if she wants ice cream too,” he said.

  “Good idea!” Claire said, pulling her cell phone out of her jeans pocket. Before she pressed the speed dial for Holly, she leaned over and said in a voice pitched for his ears only, “I couldn’t have found them without you.” She laid her hand on his forearm, feeling the reassuring flex and strength of his muscles under her palm. “I don’t know how to thank you.”