by M. Homer
The hallway smells like piss and the lifts are broken so I take a deep breath and walk up the stairs until I find number twenty-three.
I knock on the door and wait while I hear a shuffling sound approaching the door. I hear a chain get placed on the door and then it slightly opens up.
“What’d’ya want?” Rheumy brown eyes peer out the hallway at me.
“Hello, I’m Nathan. Your grandson said I could ask you about a family who lived here a long time ago,” I start saying.
“I don’t know nothin’,” she says as she starts to shut the door in my face.
I stick my foot out to stop it shutting completely. “Please, I just want to know if you remember them. I think the young girl in this picture may be in trouble and anything you remember might just help her!” I spurt.
“Damn!” she says, sighing while eyeing the photo. I remove my foot and she shuts the door. I turn to walk away defeated but then I hear the locks being opened. “Well, you better come and show me the picture properly then,” says a short, bent, old lady glaring up at me.
I walk right in and hand her the photo. She takes it and shuffles over to a cabinet sitting in the corner where she grabs her glasses. Once these are securely on her head she brings the photo close to her face.
“Hmm, these are the West kids,” she says, waving the photo at me. “Yes, I remember them well. They used to spend all day playing just out there.” She shuffles towards the window.
I walk over and look at where she is pointing. I see a fence and some rubbish bins and scowl, thinking of Sam and her siblings playing in such trash. Where the fuck were their parents?
“The Wests were bad people—all of them—even their useless mamma. I remember that woman from before she was married, when she was called Mary Carver. I never had proof but I think she was sleeping with the brother-in-law,” she tells me, almost reading my thoughts out loud and answering them.
“What about the brother-in-law?” I jump in. “What happened to him?”
“After the fire, he grabbed the little girl and just disappeared. I have no idea what happened to them both,” she says, shaking her head, lost in her own memories. “I remember this photo well. I gave it to her just after the fire. She looked so sad and scared. I thought it would help her, you know. Never thought I would see it again,” she says, looking down at it and running her fingers over it. “Funny thing is, the other day; I thought I saw him outside over there while I was watching out for my boys.” She points outside again, but this time to where the youths are sitting on the car. My heart catches in my throat. He was here!
“Please can you tell me where he went, after that day I mean?” I ask her eagerly.
“Nah, I don’t know. I thought he sat there in his car for a while and then he was gone.” She shrugs.
“What was he driving?” I ask hopefully.
“It was a red van, one of them old ones. A Dodge maybe,” she replies, scratching her head.
“Thank you for your time,” I say. I’m already walking out and calling Barry.
“She was a sweet little thing. It was a real tragedy when she lost those baby boys. You should have seen how she looked after them, like a real little mamma, better than her own mamma anyway!” she adds, closing the door softly behind me. “I really hope you find her safe.”
I stop and look at the closed door thinking of Sam while the phone starts to ring on the other end of the line.
“Barry, he has a red van, possibly a Dodge,” I tell him the second he answers the phone, “and he was here, in Berkley Square where he used to live before he moved to the trailer park, just recently,” I rush out in one quick breath.
“A red Dodge. You got any more information ?” he asks, sounding harassed.
“No damn it, but it’s a start and Barry, he was here!” I shout the last few words out. As I walk past the youths, they eye me guardedly, but I don’t have time to talk to them. I jump in my car and start driving. “You need to look at where they moved after the apartment burnt down. He’s there; I just feel it in my gut.”
“Okay, let me do the police work. I will call you as soon as I hear anything. Go and get some sleep,” he tells me. As if!
I want to throw the phone down in disgust. The frustration of not having answers and not having a solution is killing me. I head to the nearest motel and book a room, not because I am tired but because I just don’t know what else to do right now. When I get in the room I lie down on the bed in all my clothes and close my eyes, trying not to freak out.
Hours pass and still I hear nothing. I finally know I can’t put it off anymore. I need support and I call Ben.
“Hey bro.” Ben answers on the third ring, sounding happy. I can hear the girls in the car singing along to a popular song.
I don’t waste any time. “Ben, something’s happened to Sam,” I choke out.
“What the fuck? What do you mean?”
I hear the radio get turned off and silence in the background as everyone listens to Ben’s voice.
I tell him the story and this time I can’t help the tears. I know I am a pussy but I am so scared. Scared of losing her, of losing yet another girl I love. I don’t think I can survive another loss. Ben listens to my whole story from start to finish without saying a word.
When I am finally done talking I hear him take a deep breath.
“Stay put, we’re on our way. We’re about four hours away but we’re coming bro; hang in there.”
I put the phone down and finally fall into an exhausted sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Hours pass and I am woken up by a car’s lights streaming into my room. I get up and check the time. They will be here any minute and I am relieved. Left alone right now, I could be a danger to myself.
The lights go off from the car and I hear familiar voices outside. I run to the door and throw it open. The girls come running toward me hugging me tightly and both crying.
“Shit, Nathan, we’re so scared,” Mandy tells me as she pulls back to look up at me.
I hold onto them both for support and whisper back, “Me too Mandy, me too.”
My friends all crowd into my room and I share with them what I know. Ben is pacing the room and smoking like a chimney but none of us cares about that right now.
“Where the fuck is this Barry guy?” Ben asks me.
“I don’t know,” I tell him brokenly.
Just then the phone rings. “Hello?”
“Nathan, have you heard any news?” I hear Mister Marsh ask.
I feel bad. I haven’t called them to keep them updated and I know they must be feeling so frustrated at not being able to help.
“I’m so sorry I haven’t called you Mister Marsh,” I answer. “I took a flight out to Hammond when I found out Dean had disappeared. I just know he has her and I am getting her back.” I try to put some confidence in my voice.
I hear him crying and I grit my teeth, holding back my own tears.
“I love that girl. If that bastard touches a hair on her head, I will kill him myself,” he finally says.
I feel for them both, I really do. At their age they can’t go hunting for her around the country as I have and just sitting there waiting for something must be agonizing.
“I know sir, so do I,” I reply.
We hang up after I promise him I will call him back within a couple of hours. Then we all sit and wait all looking at the phone, willing for it to ring with good news.
Mandy and Carrie go out to buy us food and water. When they return Carrie hands me a chicken sandwich and a bottle of water and sits down next to me.
“Nathan,” she begins, “I need to apologize to you.”
I look over at her with tired eyes. I have no idea where she is going with this conversation but I see by her face that what she has to say is important to her.
She continues to hold her own bottle of water in her hands and rolls it nervously between her hands.
“I loved Kate, I really did, but
when she started dating you, I hated her for a while,” she says softly.
I look over at her in surprise. “Why?”
“Because she took you from me,” she says brokenly, still playing with the water bottle and avoiding looking at me.
What? “Carrie you were always my friend. I never stopped being your friend because of her.”
Carrie finally looks up at me and smiles, shaking her head. “No you idiot, I didn’t want to just be your friend. Didn’t you understand that all those times I was telling on you or shouting at you I actually liked you?”
I look at her in shock. Carrie had feelings for me?
“Anyway, I was mad and I stopped being the friend she needed. I mean we stayed friends but it hurt too much to talk about you and well, I think I let her down.” She starts weeping. “When she was lost and getting more and more fucked up, I just walked away. My jealousy of her, for stealing you away, when you were never mine in the first place, just destroyed the friendship we had. I should have been there for her when she needed me but I wasn’t.”
“No,” I say, putting my arms around her and pulling her next to me. “You were a good friend to her. She always spoke highly of you. You were the one who made her laugh and do crazy things which kept her from getting too down!”
“No, the fact is, I did an even worse terrible thing after she died. Instead of looking at myself, I blamed you for it all and when you started dating Sam, I did it again,” she says.
I pull her away from me and lift her chin forcing her to look directly into my eyes. “I don’t blame you for her death. None of us can be blamed. I understand that now. Carrie, you can tell Sam you’re sorry yourself when you see her, okay?” I add with determination.
She looks at me with hope in her eyes and hugs me tightly. I choke on my own tears, praying silently that Carrie will get the chance to do just that.
We sit through the night huddled together, seeking support from each other without words. I feel frozen, every nerve ending dead. When the phone finally rings, we all stare at the phone in shock. Ben dives for it and answers it with a curt hello. I see him nodding and then the phone is thrust into my hand.
“Nathan, we found her,” Barry tells me in a rush.
“Oh thank God! Is she all right?” I fall down on my knees.
“She’s quite badly hurt. We’re on the way to State Memorial hospital now, and I’ll meet you there.”
I feel my friends pulling me up and I say something about the hospital. We all run to the car and Ben speeds off to the hospital in a daze. No one says a word until I pass the phone to Mandy and ask her to call the Marshes. I just can’t do it, not right now, not until I know she is okay. Mandy nods and I hear her urgently talking to Mrs. Marsh, tears streaming down her face.
We get to the hospital in record time and all pile out of the car and run toward the emergency entrance. I see a policeman sitting in the corner looking at the doors as they swing open. He sees us and comes striding up to us purposefully.
“Nathan?” he asks as he extends his hand to me. I grab it absently and look past him towards the nurses.
“Nathan, you need to come with me,” he says.
I finally stop trying to look beyond him and take Barry in for the first time. He is an older man with graying hair, a lined weathered face and a mustache.
“What happened? Where is she?” I finally choke out.
He gestures for me to sit down next to him in the plastic waiting seats and turns to face me. “We went to the trailer park you told us about. It took some time to figure out which one belonged to Dean. He had it in another name, Carver or something.”
“Carver was Sam’s mom’s maiden name,” I tell him recalling my conversation with the old lady.
“Yeah well, no one was there when we eventually found it but when I looked in through the window, I saw all his stuff, including a wall covered in images of a girl I could only assume must have been Sam, almost like a shrine. I figured he had to be coming back with his stuff all there so we stayed and waited.
Late last night, his van turned up and we waited in ambush as we watched him drag Samantha into the trailer. The second we saw him dragging her in, Nathan, we rushed in. When he heard our voices, he decided to fight back, screaming for us to leave him alone. We asked him to bring the girl out but he flatly refused. He must have had a gun in the trailer because he shot out at one of the officers. The shit hit the fan with guns going off everywhere. He was shot dead instantly.
I sit blankly and listen to his words wondering where the fuck Sam was in all this. She is all I want to know about. I can process what happened with Dean later.
“Where is she? Did she get caught in the crossfire?” I manage.
“Nathan, she was unconscious when we found her. We don’t know what he gave her and what he did to her but she was on the ground when all the shooting took place. She wasn’t shot. Right now she is with the doctors.”
I get up now, ignoring Barry and head over to the nurse’s station. “Excuse me, I am looking for Miss Marsh,” I tell her.
She looks up at me and gives me a curt nod then looks down at her computer and starts tapping into it. Five seconds later she looks up at me again. “I’m sorry, Mister…” She waits for me to say my name but I ignore her. “Um…she is still with the doctor right now. As soon as he comes out, I will let you know.”
“Is she okay?” I ask desperately.
“I’m sorry sir, but I don’t have any further information to share.”
I sit next to my friends. Barry hovers too and for a moment I wonder why until I realize he has an investigation to complete. I close my eyes and think of Sam. I know how beautiful and strong she is inside. I know despite the crappy cards she was handed as a child, she came out beautiful, funny and willing to give life a go. I know when she comes out of this fucking hospital, I am never letting her go again. I feel as if all I have done for the last two days is sit around and wait and I am sick of it.
Chapter Thirty-Five
After what feels like hours, I hear the elevator doors open and as usual, I look up hopefully. I see a sight that almost stops me breathing. It’s Sam. A nurse is pushing her out of the elevator in a wheelchair. She has on a white hospital gown which drowns her sweet, small body. Her beautiful face is bruised, she has dark rings under her swollen eyes and I can see bandages wrapped around her ribs through a small slit in the gown. Seeing her so broken almost kills me.
The nurse pushes her towards us and stop when she reaches us.
Sam looks up, her beautiful blue eyes tracking all of us one by one, only coming to a stop when they rest on me.
I stand up and approach her cautiously. She hesitates for a second and then stands up gingerly, throwing herself into my arms, crying.
“Be careful, I don’t want you to hurt yourself even more than you already are,” I tell her, feeling her broken body. “Shh you’re safe, I’m here now,” I whisper into her hair. I am afraid I could hurt her but I’m just not willing to let go. “I am so sorry I wasn’t there baby.”
She is shaking, so I take my jacket off and put it over her shoulders to help her warm up.
“He was going to keep me locked up,” she sobs into my shoulder. “I tried, I really did try to break free but he…he was just too strong. I felt so useless Nathan. He told me about my parents, and they were bad people too. I can’t believe they were all so fucked up!”
“No! Baby you were so strong, you held in there and waited for help. You never gave up,” I tell her, pulling her chin up to see my eyes. I kiss her lips. I need to taste her and make sure she is okay. “I know about your parents too, but babe you are so special, so much better than them and even as a child people could see it in you,” I add, thinking of the old lady talking about Sam and how she cared for her brothers.
Her wet eyes look up at me in pain. “I thought I was going to die and all I could think about is how much it would hurt you if I did. I thought you would spend the rest of your life
blaming yourself. That would have been the worst thing ever but I knew you would never stop looking for me,” she says.
I don’t tell her how accurate her words are or how much she connects with me on a deeper level. This girl knows me so well and in some ways it scares me. “I would never have given up on you,” is all I say to her.
She gives me a smile and then suddenly she is engulfed by the rest of our friends.
“Oh, my God!” Carrie shrieks into her ear, pulling her away tenderly from me and into her own arms. “I am so glad to see you. If something happened to you and I couldn’t have said sorry for being such a bitch I would have been so upset with you!”
I hear Sam give a small laugh. “Easy now ladies, I am a little sore.” She grimaces at them. I watch from the sidelines as she finds comfort from the others.
Ben also hugs her, chastising her and saying she is never to disappear again, as if she had a choice. He mentions something about her favorite dinner and I guess he is promising her something to make her feel better. Mandy just stands to the side and sobs in relief. I go and put my arms around her silently, helping her to get herself together. Mandy has always been the soft hearted one in our little group and I love the way she cares so deeply for all of us.
Barry comes to talk to Sam. “Sorry guys. I need some time with Miss Marsh. I need to get her statement.”
Sam nods but looks around for me, clear panic in her eyes.
I go to her and gently touch her shoulders. “I’ll wait here for you. I promise.”
She closes her eyes, takes a deep, painful breath and then nods her head. I watch as she goes off limping, clutching her side, with the policeman into a private room.
I take another seat, along with the others who refuse to leave, and we all play the waiting game again.
We finally make it back to the motel and I give my phone to Sam so she can call her family. The second she speaks to them she starts crying inconsolably so I take the phone from her and speak to them myself, reassuring them she is okay and safe. I walk away from the others and tell them how the police found them and how they ended up shooting Dean. I tell them, in a broken voice, that Sam will probably need to come home and spend some time with them and they beg me to bring her straight home.
