Return (Coming Home #1)

by Meli Raine

  He gives me a sour look.

  “May I come in?” he asks in a clipped voice.

  A crowd appears on the lawn, most of them carrying microphones and calling out to us. Mark steps in quickly and slams, then chains, the door.

  The roar of disappointed shouts makes my stomach flip-flop.

  I remember all this.

  The news channels did the same thing when Dad was arrested. Back then, it was Amy and Elaine who ran interference for me. Now it’s my turn to return the favor.

  This is not a favor I ever wanted to return.

  “How are you?” Mark asks, his eyes darting around the world. He’s nervous.

  No. Not nervous.

  He’s alert. In combat mode. Like the star of a spy movie in constant surveillance, ready for anything. Then again, he is a cop. And if there were ever a time for a cop to be like this it’s now.

  “Me? You’re worried about me? Minnie’s the one who’s falling apart.” My eyes fill with tears and I look up at him. His face softens with compassion. “Poor Minnie,” I continue. “She feels so guilty she didn’t call Amy’s work to find out where she was.”

  He puts a hand on my shoulder and rubs, slowly. “She shouldn’t feel bad. Amy’s a grown woman.”

  I shake my head. “Elaine and I are doing what we can. Minnie’s doctor has us giving her anxiety pills to help her relax and just snooze, but...”

  He sighs. “But she can’t be too knocked out for the police interview.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I’m the police interview,” he says reluctantly.

  I jerk my head up at him. “You?”

  “Yeah.” He runs a hand along his chin. “Me.” His eyes are troubled and have gone dark. I resist the urge to hug and comfort him. There is this terrible horror between us, and right now he has a job to do. Finding Amy is more important than anything else.

  Even compassion.

  Noise. A strange disturbance. The back door opens and Mark rushes it, startling poor Elaine, who is trying to sneak in before the camera people see her.

  “Oh, my!” she cries out as he comes toward her, one arm wrapped behind his back, his hand on his gun. “Mark! So glad you’re here.” Elaine starts panting, her arms filled with a grocery bag. Mark gently takes it out of her hands and sets it on the counter.

  She gives him, then me, a hug.

  “How’s Minnie?” she asks, holding my hands. “Brian’s just sick over this. Just sick.”

  “I’m here,” says a voice behind us. We turn to find Minnie standing there in her bathrobe, hair on end, her skin the color of bleached pavement. She lurches forward and almost faints. Mark reaches for her and guides her to a chair at the small two-person kitchen table.

  Elaine gets Minnie a glass of water while I stand there, feeling useless. When life goes bad in a really public way, a lot of your time is spent filled with stress but also with too much time. There’s nothing to do.

  But there’s plenty to feel.

  Elaine pulls me aside and whispers, “Has she been out this entire time?” Elaine left about four hours ago.

  I nod.

  She purses her lips and frowns. She looks like a disapproving church lady. “I know the doctor said it was fine to give her those pills, but...”

  I shrug. I figure they’re the grown ups. I have no idea what I’m doing. All I can offer is comfort. Meanwhile, I’m freaked out on the inside. Maybe it doesn’t show on the outside, but I’m an internal mess. All I can think about is how Amy must be so scared. Are they hurting her? Why did they kidnap her? Who are “they”? Why is Mark the one doing the questioning of Minnie?

  Elaine interrupts my rambling thoughts. “And as if it all weren’t bad enough,” she hisses, her voice a mix of anger and sadness, “the gossips all over town have their tongues wagging double-time. They all say Minnie should be out there on television begging for the captors to release Amy. That she should be part of the search parties all over the three counties. Like any of them know what Minnie’s going through.”

  My own rage flares up on Minnie’s behalf. “Those bitches.”

  Elaine startles. “Carrie!”

  “Well, they are,” I reply, emphatic. I’m not going to apologize or back down for telling the truth.

  Her eyes narrow and she slings an arm around my shoulder. I swear she’s hiding a smile. “Yes,” she says with a sigh. “They sure are. If they’d take half the energy they put into talking about Minnie behind her back and use it to bake a casserole or come over here and chase off the news reporters....”

  But they won’t. I know they won’t. Because they’re the same bitchy McBitchersons who gossiped behind my back when Dad was arrested and convicted.

  There’s a certain class of people in this world who take a deep joy in watching other people suffer. Sometimes they’re the same people who teach Sunday School, who volunteer to run school groups, and who are pillars of the community. Not all of them, of course.

  But all it takes is one.

  After Dad was arrested, I learned a harsh lesson: just because you’re a grown up doesn’t make you mature.

  And just because you do good in a community through volunteerism and leadership doesn’t mean you can’t be a slimy jerk in private.

  A town scandal is the fastest way to separate the jerks from the truly good people. I am so sorry Minnie is learning this herself, up close and personal.

  Mark clears his throat just as Minnie finishes her glass of water and sets it down on the well-worn laminated top table. It clicks with a sound all on its own. I look at Mark. His eyes are on Minnie.

  They’re a strange mix of cool steel and stormy compassion.

  I don’t envy him his job right now.

  My phone buzzes. It’s the missing persons center I’d contacted, hoping for more social media coverage to help get tips on anyone who might have seen Amy when she was being kidnapped.

  I hold up one finger. “It’s a group I reached out to,” I say, turning away and walking into the family room off the back of the house. As I talk and give the basics about Amy’s experience to the person who takes all my information, I roam. I know Amy’s house so well. I practically lived here in high school. We were besties—are besties.

  Are.

  I can’t start thinking of her in the past tense.

  No.

  Just...no. She’s alive, and she’s fine, and she’s fighting. I’m sure of that. I can hear her in my head, calling out for me. I can feel her anger and pain and confusion and horror. I can taste metal in my mouth, like rotten copper, the taste of dread. I can run my hands up and down my arms a thousand times to warm myself as the chill of not knowing where she is seeps in to my core.

  Amy is somewhere. Somewhere alive.

  All of this shoots through my mind as I fight tears. The person on the other end of the phone assures me they’ll start sending out messages on all the social media networks to dig up leads. I know from Mark that the cops are trying in their own way. I also know from listening to Mark gripe in the past about how police departments are so far behind in using the Internet that I have to do something on my own. I have to find help outside of law enforcement.

  Sometimes the system fails to do its job.

  I know that lesson all too well.

  I end the phone call and let out a long, slow sigh. My shoulders ache with tension. I haven’t showered in nearly a day. My hair hangs in ropy loops along my shoulders. I realize Minnie needs to eat, and walk down to the kitchen. Mark’s sitting next to her, his hand on hers, his other hand taking notes.

  Elaine’s already made coffee. Great minds think alike.

  Mark has pictures spread out on the table. I do a double-take when I see them. Five pictures. Five women.

  Only one is Amy, but the other four could be her sisters. If she had them.

  My hands begin to shake as I bring them to my mouth. “Oh, my God,” I mutter from behind my fingers.

  Elaine gives me a sharp look. “I know,
” is all she says.

  I’ve seen the news reports over the past week. Even when I lived in Oklahoma City last month, the third disappearance made national news. Once it became clear the women looked alike, it became cable newsworthy. I don’t look like Amy, but I know plenty of women who do.

  Mark’s jaw is so tense it looks like he could snap a pine tree in half between his teeth.

  His phone rings and he stands abruptly, letting go of Minnie’s hand. “Paulson,” he snaps into the phone. His long legs take him out the back door with four steps, and as the screen door slams shut I hear him say, loudly, “What the fuck, Chase? I told you to keep Allie safe!”

  Chase? Allie? Who are they?

  Elaine pours a cup of coffee then adds cream and sugar. She moves to Minnie and sits down next to her, gently placing the cup in Minnie’s hands, urging her to drink. Something about Mark’s agitation with his phone call sets the back of my neck to tingling. That’s not a work call.

  And Mark’s not angry.

  He’s worried.

  “She looks like all these missing women,” Mark hisses. My heart begins to do jumping jacks in my chest. “You need to dye her hair or cut it or get her out of this area.”

  I stand as close as I can to the window near the deck where he’s pacing. Who is he talking about? Not Amy.

  “You heard me. This has all the benchmarks of a brew home.” The last couple of words out of Mark’s mouth sound slurred. Weird. They sound like “a brew home” but that makes no sense. I must have heard him wrong. What the heck is a brew home?

  “I’m sitting here, Chase, with the grieved mother of a missing woman. We have all the pictures of the five who were taken spread out in front of us at her kitchen table.” Veins bulge in Mark’s neck. I’ve never seen him so commanding. Austere. Visceral.

  “And you’re fucking arguing with me?” Mark continues. I can’t stop listening. I’m completely hypnotized. Sweet, warm, intense Mark has just flipped into being a man I don’t know. His words pop back into my head:

  “I’m not who you think I am.”

  Mark stalks over to the back railing, but his voice is loud enough for me to hear his next words.

  “...and now I have to get Carrie out of this mess. She’s front and center. He’s coming for her next, even if she looks nothing like these other girls. But Allie does. You need to protect Allie and I need to get Carrie the fuck away from all this before she finds herself in the middle of a mess that makes her dad’s death look like a kid’s birthday party.”

  All the air leaves my body. My legs become noodles and I grab the counter to avoid slipping down to the floor in a puddle of shock. What is Mark saying?

  A loud rushing noise fills my ears. I slip down to the ground. My back is propped against the lower cabinets. I’m turned away from Elaine and Minnie. They can’t see me. My vision fills with black and tears. My ears sound like I have white water rapids running through them. This is too much. This is all too much.

  My dad is dead.

  My best friend is missing.

  My new boss may be the one who killed my dad.

  My ex-boyfriend is kissing my new boss’s daughter.

  And now it turns out Mark knows who did this, but isn’t telling anyone.

  The screen door slams open and Mark rushes in. He walks right past me and then halts. He turns around and bends to my eye level. His face is bright red and his eyes dart around the room, like he’s being preyed upon.

  I know the feeling.

  “Carrie? Why are you on the floor?” His voice is gruff.

  I sniff and stand. “I, um, tripped.”

  He glares at me, his body standing, chest whipping from facing Minnie and Elaine then back to me. “I think I have all the information I need, Minnie,” he says in an official-sounding voice. “We don’t have any leads yet on who took Amy, but your information will really help us.”

  My mind splits in two: one part screams “liar” while the other just watches, observing.

  Observing Mark lie.

  Chapter Twenty

  As Mark says goodbye to us all with a rushed set of glances and more fake promises to Minnie about how he’ll do his best to find Amy, I feel like I’ve been gut-kicked by a horse.

  Mark

  Knows

  Who

  Did

  This

  I race after him, leaving Elaine sputtering my name. I throw open the front door and scream, “STOP!”

  Mark continues his march to his car. Maybe he doesn’t hear me. I don’t care. I run so fast I feel like I’m flying. He starts the police car engine and is backing up when I thump my hands on the hood of his car, hard.

  He looks up in confusion and on alert. His expression changes to irritated relief when he sees me. He rolls down the window.

  “What?” he says impatiently. “I have to get back to the station.”

  I’m breathing hard. My hands are curled along the edge of his lowered window. My chest feels like it will explode.

  “You. That call. Who was that?” I gasp.

  His eyes change instantly, the golden brown becoming something ominous. “Police business. Nothing you need to know about.”

  “You’re acting weird,” I blurt out. A newscaster within a few yards from us tilts her head like she’s listening. I see her motion to her cameraman. Great. The last thing I need is for this to be caught on camera. I have enough problems already.

  “Weird? Jesus fucking Christ, Carrie, I’m the lead investigator in a kidnapping case! What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “THAT MISSING PERSON IS MY BEST FRIEND!” I bellow. All hope that Mark is the same good, sweet guy I loved years ago is gone. Gone, gone, gone. Gone like my dad. Gone like my dreams.

  Gone like Amy.

  Now the newscasters openly begin pulling cords and equipment toward us. “Officer Paulson!” one of them calls out. I hear one of them murmur my last name.

  Damn.

  “This is not the place for you to freak out on me, Carrie,” Mark says through gritted teeth. He peels my fingers off his window, one by one. He keeps his head down and won’t even look at me. “She’s your best friend. You’re hysterical. You’re becoming unhinged and—”

  “Who’s Allie?” I ask through my own gritted teeth.

  He flinches, then gives me his eyes. “You were eavesdropping,” he growls. “Did you hear everything?”

  I jut my chin up in the air, defiant. “I heard enough.”

  He shakes his head and lets out a long sigh, but says nothing.

  “And what’s ‘a brew home’?” I add.

  His eyes widen, then narrow, and the look of murderous rage on his face makes me take a step back. The force of that look could stop my heart. Mark floors the accelerator of the police cruiser, spraying gravel up on my shins as the newscasters shout his name and a thousand other words I don’t care about.

  By the time the dust settles I jog back to the house where Elaine stands at the door. She ushers me in, hands me a fresh cup of coffee, and goes back to Minnie. As I try to reach up and catch the thousands of thoughts and feelings that fly around my head like I’m in the middle of a blender, my eyes roam to a big calendar on the front of the fridge.

  It’s Friday.

  Euchre night. Except it’s not nighttime. It’s eight a.m. and I’m due at work in an hour. The dean let me stay home yesterday, with a lovely, heartfelt expression of sympathy, but rules are rules. Human Resources said it was an exception.

  Life goes on, even when it’s turned upside down.

  Time to get ready for work.

  * * *

  There’s a handwritten note on my desk. I recognize the dean’s handwriting:

  Carrie,

  I’m so sorry. I’ll be at a conference all day at the medical school campus. Please update the student advising files. It is routine work and should help to keep your mind occupied. May your friend be safe and well, and come out of this better than before.

  Ig

>   “Better than before”? “Ig”?

  A shiver makes its way through the full length of my spine. There is something very, very wrong with that man. I can’t put my finger on it. This is day five on the job and I’ve barely interacted with him. He gives me the creeps. His eyes are like the ones in old paintings.

  Always following me.

  I know he knows I think he had something to do with my dad’s arrest. Politeness stops him from saying a word. When dad was arrested Brian told my dad and me that Professor Landau was the one who masterminded everything. Dad had no idea the chemicals he was asked to order were for a big meth operation.

  And then Brian went silent. He never testified in Dad’s favor. The lawyers never called him. I remember Dad trying over and over to get Brian to tell him what was going on. I remember asking Elaine and Brian and getting nothing but shrugs and nervous looks.

  There’s nothing nervous about Professor—now Dean—Landau.

  He’s so smooth he might as well be an oil factory. Thank God he’s gone all day on the other side of town. That’s one less source of stress for me. Hopefully, Claudia’s not around, either. She and Eric are going dancing tonight, right?

  Tonight.

  The last day and a half have been a blur. A true blur. I had no dreams last night. My mind wouldn’t shut off, and I expected nightmares. Instead, all I got was racing thoughts and horrible imaginings of Amy.

  My mind made up so many awful things.

  At least, I hope they’re made up.

  She could be beaten. Tortured. Raped. Killed. All of those and more. I keep imagining the moment between regular life and the change. How an instant can make everything you know become different—forever.

  Amy was walking off that elevator toward her car like no big deal. She was probably thinking about what to eat for dinner. Whether her pantyhose had a snag. How she could cover her student loan payment and take a fun weekend trip to the mountains.

  And then—BAM! She’s kidnapped. Abducted. All the normal thoughts of life gone.

  Gone.

  I stare stupidly at my desk and reach for my coffee mug. Dean Landau gave it to me on my second day. It’s huge and ceramic, with a rubber top to keep the coffee hot.