by Erynn Mangum
I opened my cell phone and looked at it. Who did I need to call? Who did I want to call?
I sent Maddy a text message. We are going out of town for a few days. No cell reception. Talk later.
Then I called Justin. It was almost two, which meant last period had started a little over thirty minutes ago. I was expecting his voicemail.
Just so I could tell him not to bother with the homework.
“Hi, Kate,” he answered.
I frowned at the phone. “Justin?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you answering your phone?”
He paused. “Um. You called me on it.”
“No, I know, but aren’t you in school?”
“I’ve got study hall the last period. I went out to the hallway.”
I shrugged. “Oh.”
“So, uh, did you need something?”
Mom was calling her secretary, Madge, to tell her to hold all of her appointments.
“Yeah, Justin,” I said, quietly. “I need you to not pick up my homework anymore. You see, there was this great vacation house that opened up, and Mom and Dad decided we needed a little bit of family time away from everything. And since I wasn’t going to school anyway …” I let my voice trail off. “But thanks for helping me out these last few weeks.”
I got ready to hang up.
“Wait, wait,” he said. “You’re just leaving?”
“Yeah.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that,” I said. It didn’t seem like the people on the other end of Mom and Dad’s calls were having this much trouble believing them. I must not have been a very good liar.
Justin paused like he didn’t believe me and he had more questions, but I jumped in before he could start. “Anyway, good to talk to you, thanks for everything, bye!”
I closed my phone quickly, feeling bad for hanging up on him, but I would have felt worse if I’d let something slip.
Twenty minutes later, I was throwing as many belongings as I could into my suitcase that I hadn’t used in two years.
I didn’t even remember what my suitcase looked like. Dad had to get it out of the garage for me because I couldn’t find it.
“Maybe we need to go on ‘vacations’ more often,” Dad said, rolling his eyes.
We both knew why we hadn’t gone anywhere for so long. Mom couldn’t stand the thought of us going on a family vacation without Mike.
And Mike was never here.
So we never went.
I put in socks, T-shirts, long sleeves, jeans, and shorts, just so I was prepared for any type of weather, though if we were driving and Deputy Slalom was planning on us getting there — wherever there was — by five, then we weren’t going very far away.
I grabbed a few books, found a couple of DVDs that I hadn’t seen in a while to throw in there, and reached over for my sketchpad.
It wasn’t on my desk.
Actually, it wasn’t anywhere in my room.
“Mom, have you seen my sketchpad?” I asked her as she ran down the hall, hauling an armload of whites that were fresh from the dryer.
She shook her head. “Sorry, Katie-Kin. Did you check the family room?” She disappeared into her bedroom. I could see Dad in there packing ammunition beside his clothing.
I looked in the living room, the kitchen, and had DJ go look in the black Tahoe. Detective Masterson was home packing, and he would bring back the car we were going to take.
“You can’t be too careful,” he’d said.
DJ came back inside shaking his head. “Sorry, Kate. It’s not there.” He had a helpless look on his face, and he’d had it on there since we’d gotten back to my house.
I figured he was probably wishing he was coming with us. He’d spent the past three weeks living with us, after all.
“I’m sorry you aren’t coming with us,” I said.
He just nodded at me. “Me too.”
I went back to my room to finish packing. Suddenly I remembered where my sketchbook was. I’d left it underneath my chair in Deputy Slalom’s office.
I heard Detective Masterson come into our house then. He stuck his head in my room. “Time to go, Kate.”
“I left my sketchpad and pencils at the station,” I told him.
He shrugged. “We don’t have time to stop for it. I’m sorry, Kate. Do you have another one you can bring?”
I had one from last summer that still had a few empty pages in it. I sighed and packed that one instead alongside a bunch of pencils that weren’t my favorite brand, but weren’t awful.
Detective Masterson had brought a white GMC Yukon and parked it in the garage. We quietly piled into it while the garage door was still closed. DJ was still at our house when we left.
“Hope we see you again soon,” I said as we climbed into the Yukon.
He nodded. “Drive safely.” He closed my door and walked quickly back inside, shutting the door behind him. The goal was to leave as unnoticed as possible. There was no telling whether there were still camera crews watching my house.
Detective Masterson instructed all of us to duck down in our seats for the time being. He wanted whoever was watching — if anyone was watching — to think that he’d driven up alone and left alone. I think Dad had the hardest seat to do that since he was sitting in the passenger seat.
Mom and I laid down on the backseat. All of our bags were behind us and I started thinking about where we were going. Was it a hotel? A cabin? I’d seen movies where the people had to be put in protective custody, but I’d never ever thought it would happen to me.
Finally, Detective Masterson said we could sit up again. We were on the highway, headed west.
“Can you tell us where we’re going now?” I asked.
He shook his head. “You’ll be able to tell the basic area soon, but it’s best if you don’t know details, Kate.”
“Is it a hotel?”
“I can’t tell you.”
I looked out the window. “Is it a camping site?”
“Kate,” he said, looking at me in the rearview mirror. “No details, kid. Sorry. You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Detective Masterson?”
He sighed. “Yes, Kate?”
“Can you turn on the radio?”
He flipped it on and it was tuned to the local country station, and I had to wonder about the detective’s musical tastes. This wasn’t cool country like Rascal Flatts.
This was old-school country, like whatever the guy’s name was who had the long, gray hair and wore old blankets around.
Dad started humming along and settled back in his chair contentedly. “See? This was the era of good music.”
“Agreed,” Detective Masterson said.
I looked at my mom, who was rolling her eyes. Mom tends to be very modern-day with her musical choices. She worked out to the Black Eyed Peas and Justin Timberlake.
I told Maddy that and she’s thought my mom was the coolest mom ever since then. Apparently, her mom doesn’t work out and the only music she ever listens to is the commercial medleys between talk show hosts.
Mom always said that the eighties were a period of horrific hairstyles and much-too-short shorts for men, so why in the world did anyone assume that those same people who created those styles could create quality music? Her case in point was Madonna, but I would have used someone like Boy George.
He was just plain weird.
Two hours later, we were passing the signs for Columbia, Missouri, when Detective Masterson put his blinker on and exited the freeway.
I perked up. I’d been staring out the window without really watching the scenery, trying to block out the old-timer country music.
We were going to Columbia?
He kept driving through the town and turned right on a tiny two-lane road that went on and on for miles. All around us were trees, hills, and more trees. And the trees got thicker the farther we drove.
Detective Masterson made several more turns and finall
y stopped in front of a tiny house in the middle of a clearing that was pretty much in the middle of a forest.
“Welcome to your hopefully temporary home,” Detective Masterson said, putting the Yukon in park and turning off the engine.
The house looked creepy. I stared at it through the windshield. It was small and square and looked like it could have been the hideout for the Unabomber at one point.
Everyone climbed out, and I stepped out of the car onto a carpet of pine needles. The trees were ginormous and I wondered at what point the little house had last seen daylight. Between the thick trees, hardly any sun made it through to the ground.
Birds were chirping, but other than that, it was totally silent.
I shivered, creeped out again.
Dad picked up his and Mom’s suitcases, and Detective Masterson grabbed his and mine before heading up to the front porch of the house. He unlocked the front door, and it squealed in protest as it opened.
“Come on in,” he said, leading the way and flicking on lights as he went.
The house was tiny. There was a living room and kitchen directly off the front door. Then a short hallway and three miniature bedrooms. Orange shag carpeting covered everything but the kitchen. Detective Masterson set my suitcase on the creaky twin bed in the last bedroom. “Might as well get comfortable, Kate.”
I looked around the room. Everything had dark wood paneling covering it, even the closet doors. The bedspread on the bed was an ivory-colored quilt. There was a short dresser in the room and no other furniture.
I walked back into the family room, where Detective Masterson was talking quietly on his cell phone.
“Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” He saw me come in and waved to me. “I’ll tell her, sir. All right. Bye.” He closed the phone, pocketed it, and looked at me. “I need to show you something that this house has.” He pointed to the kitchen, and I followed him in there.
The kitchen was old. Old orange linoleum, old appliances, old dark wood paneling everywhere.
Detective Masterson knelt down in front of the sink. “See this?” he pointed up under the countertop. I bent over.
A small white button was there.
“Yeah,” I said.
“That’s a silent alarm. There’s one in every bedroom, two in here and two in the living room. If you push that button, a team from the FBI will be here in the next four and a half minutes.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“If anything feels even off to you, you come find me. If you can’t find me for whatever reason, you push that button. Got it?” He was looking at me very seriously.
I nodded again. “Got it.”
“I’ll show you where all the buttons are.”
He took me on a tour around the house and pointed out every hidden button. I never would have seen them if they hadn’t been pointed out to me.
“How often do you guys use this house?” I asked.
“This is the first time our department’s ever had to use it,” Detective Masterson said when we got back into the living room. “But it’s open to all police and FBI in the Missouri area.”
“And when was the last time someone thought about updating it?” I asked, poking at one of the yellowing lace curtains over the front window.
He grinned. “You don’t like it?” He looked around, smiling. “I guess it could use a little sprucing. Hopefully we won’t be here long enough to pull out the home décor books though. And really, it is pretty up to date.” He pointed to the window. “All the glass in here? Bulletproof. And the alarm system, of course. And there’s a sensor that tracks body heat that is within the five miles surrounding this place. All those gadgets are in my room.”
“What about bears?” I asked.
“What about them?”
“Do they come close to the house?”
He shrugged. “They’ve never hurt anyone if they do.”
Not quite the answer I was looking for. I’d seen a documentary on TV one time about a man who tamed bears and fed them on his land, and he was trying to tell the world that they really were just nice, cuddly creatures, but I had a hard time believing him.
Sort of like when people have told me that rats make good pets. I just don’t believe them. Rats are disgusting.
I sat down on the olive green and orange-striped couch and looked at the TV. It had a dial on it.
Dad and Mom came out into the living room then.
“Wow, I haven’t seen a TV like that since college,” Dad said, excitedly. He reached over and twisted a knob, and the TV blinked a few times and then came on to pure static.
“Yeah, about the TV,” Detective Masterson said. “I think since we are so thick into these trees, only a few channels make it through.”
Dad twisted the knob around, and Mom joined me on the couch.
A couple of minutes later, a baseball game flickered through the static. Dad was overjoyed.
“Look at this, Claire!” he said, sitting down next to Mom. “Kate, this was what TV was for us when we were little kids. None of this flatscreen HD madness. Just good old-fashioned rabbit ears.”
“Mm-hmm,” I said. I was a little distracted by the pitcher’s head moving from right to left across the screen without bringing his body with it.
I got up from the couch and went to get my sketchbook. The only place to draw was on the kitchen table, so I sat down and pulled out my rubber-banded pencils.
Detective Masterson was standing in the kitchen, checking out the contents in the fridge.
“No food?” I asked.
“Oh, there’s food. The guys in Columbia stocked it for us before we got here.” He pulled out a big jug of chocolate milk. “Want a glass?”
I couldn’t even remember the last time I had chocolate milk. Probably since before Mom’s big health kick. I started nodding.
He poured two glasses and then sat down at the table with me, passing my cup over.
“What are you working on?” he asked.
I shrugged. I had been working on his face, but I’d left that sketchbook in Deputy Slalom’s office. “I don’t know,” I said. Maybe I’d draw my parents now. Or the pitcher with the wavy head.
“So, I got you something,” he said. “Before I knew we were coming here, but I did pack it in my suitcase, so hang on a second.”
He disappeared down the hallway and came back with a thin box. Sitting back down at the table, he passed it over to me.
NIV Bible.
I frowned. It seemed like the box holding the Bible might be spell-checked more carefully. What in the world was a “Niv”?
“You don’t have to read it,” he said, watching my face. “I just thought with some of the questions you’ve been asking me, and your mom trying to get you guys to go to church more, that you might need a Bible.”
“Thanks,” I said. “What’s a ‘niv’?”
“A niv?” he parroted confusedly and then looked at the box. “Oh! NIV? That means New International Version.”
“Oh,” I said. I opened the box and the Bible was thin and on the smaller side, covered in soft, buttery-smooth brown leather.
It was nothing like the incredibly bulky and heavy Bibles I’d seen at South Woodhaven Falls First Baptist.
“Thanks, Detective Masterson,” I said, smiling at him.
“You’re welcome. And I would start in Luke, by the way,” he said. “This isn’t like a normal book where you start at the beginning and work your way through.”
I nodded.
Dad stood up. “Okay, his head is making me crazy,” he said, fiddling with the rabbit ears on the back of the TV.
Now the pitcher’s head was standing still, but his body was moving back and forth.
“HD TV is looking pretty good right now, huh, sweetie?” Mom said, and I could hear the mocking grin in her voice.
It could be a long time in this tiny house.
Chapter Eighteen
FIVE DAYS PASSED VERY SLOWLY. BY THE END OF THE SECOND day, Dad had rigged an
entire coat hanger system over the TV, and we then had about fifteen more channels than we originally had and no more fuzzy heads.
Mom had paced the short length from the front living room window to the back kitchen window two hundred and seventeen times. Then she started doing lunges from the back window to the front window.
Detective Masterson spent most of the time reading. I’d discovered he was a Clive Cussler fan. The only thing I knew about Clive Cussler was that the movie Sahara with Matthew McConaughey was based on one of his books.
I wasn’t really a Matthew McConaughey fan. He was shirtless too much of the time.
I alternated between working on pictures of Mom and Dad while munching on Chips Ahoy and taking naps, since I still wasn’t sleeping at night.
The house was starting to feel smaller and smaller.
Wednesday morning at two fifteen, I was still staring up at the ceiling with bleary eyes. When we’d first gotten there, the room had been pitch black at night, because there weren’t any streetlights like at home to give a comforting glow to the room.
After the first night of no sleeping, Detective Masterson handed me a night-light to plug in.
I felt like a wimp for needing a night-light to sleep. I was, after all, sixteen years old, and night-lights were typically used with what? Two-year-olds?
Next thing I knew, I’d be asking for a blanket and a binky.
The night-light helped though. Obviously I still wasn’t sleeping, but at least I wasn’t laying in bed with my heart pounding wondering if there was someone in my closet or not.
I slept with my closet doors open too.
I looked at the clock again. Two seventeen.
Yay. Two whole minutes had passed.
Sighing, I reached over for the ancient Tiffany-style bedside lamp and turned it on, blinking into the sudden burst of light. My eyes felt raw and dried out, sort of like week-old grapes that probably just needed to be tossed.
The Bible that Detective Masterson had given me was laying on the bedside table. I hadn’t read anything in it so far.
Start in Luke, he’d said.
I picked it up and opened it. The pages were super thin, like tissue paper. Maybe owning a Bible wasn’t a good idea for someone like me who tended to accidentally rip things.
