This whole shitty morning had been blown way out of proportion. She hadn’t done anything wrong. The entire ridiculous episode was the old man’s fault. As the officer closed the cruiser door, imprisoning her in the back seat, she watched through the window as the asshole old man drove away free as a bird. The milk she’d bought was spoiling in her SUV and Alton was late for school. How many times could a child be late for kindergarten and still be promoted to first grade?
This was silly. They were all worried for nothing. The children were fine. Ellen loved her children more than anything else in this world. She would never, ever put them in danger. She was a good mother. Always careful. Like this morning, to ensure they were fine until she returned with the milk she had blockaded them in the coat closet before leaving the house. She’d made a game of it by telling them to stay hidden while Mommy went in search of the breakfast fairy. There was no reason for all this fuss or for Art to panic.
Fear knotted in her belly. Then again, she’d never expected to be gone so long.
How long had it been? Minutes? Hours? She tried to focus on the digital clock on the dash of the cruiser. Her vision wouldn’t clear enough to read the blurry numbers. Didn’t matter. When they got to her house everyone would see. The entire episode was nothing more than a series of unfortunate events. The children were fine.
Except the children weren’t fine.
Ellen saw the flames the moment the cruiser turned onto her street. Her heart launched into her throat. People were crowded into the street—her street—watching the burning house—her house.
In time she would learn that the children had gotten out of the closet. Hours, instead of minutes, had passed since their mother left them and they were hungry. Fearless and protective, five-year-old Alton had tried to scramble eggs for his little sister.
The fire had started in the kitchen. The smoke alarms didn’t send an alert to the monitoring service since Ellen had forgotten to pay the bills the past three months. Though her little boy had successfully wiggled the chair out of the way to open the closet door to freedom, he wasn’t big enough or strong enough to get past the doors she had locked to keep them in the house.
2
Copperas Cove, Texas
Sunday, March 25, 10:00 p.m.
The phone wouldn’t stop ringing.
The annoying sound echoed off the dingy walls of the tiny one-room apartment.
Joanna Guthrie chewed her thumbnail as she stared at the damned cell phone. Three people had this number: her boss, a research analyst she occasionally worked with and Ellen. If it was work, the caller would simply leave a message, but it wasn’t work—it was Ellen.
Jo’s foot started to tap so she stood and paced the floor. “Not answering.”
Why should she answer? The calls came about three or four times a year and they were always the same. Ellen would complain about her life and her husband and her kids. She would bemoan the hand fate had dealt her. She would never be whole. Nothing she attempted fixed her. Not the shrinks or the meditation or the yoga or any of the other crazier shit she’d tried, like cocaine, and certainly not the alcohol.
The ringing stopped.
Jo stared at the phone. Two minutes tops and it would start that fucking ringing again. She closed her eyes and exhaled a measure of the frustration always generated by calls from Ellen. Guilt immediately took its place. No matter the reason, whenever Ellen called Jo always wound up feeling guilty whether she answered the damned phone or not. A voice mail carried the same guilt-generating effect.
“Not my fault.” She paced the room like a freshly incarcerated criminal on the front end of a life sentence.
Ellen had chosen her own path. She’d made the decision to pretend to be normal. Dared to marry and to have children. Jo shook her head. How the hell could she do that after what they went through—what they did? Now the woman spent every minute of every day terrified that she would somehow disappoint her family or that something bad would happen to them because of her. Or, worse, that someone would discover her secret—their secret.
Deep breath. “Not my problem.”
Jo had made the smarter choice. She’d cut ties with her family and friends. No boyfriends much less husbands. No kids for damned sure. If she wanted sexual release she either took care of it herself or she picked up a soldier from one of the clubs in Killeen. She didn’t go to church; she didn’t live in the same town for more than a year. She never shared her history with anyone. Not that there was anything in her past that would give anyone reason to suspect the truth, but she hated the looks of sympathy, the questions.
The past was over and done. Dragging it into the present would not change what was done.
She had boundaries. Boundaries to protect herself. She never wasted time making small talk much less friends. Besides, she wasn’t in one place long enough for anyone to notice or to care. Since her employer was an online newspaper, she rarely had to interact face-to-face with anyone. In fact, she and the boss had never met in person and he was the closest thing to a friend she had.
Whatever that made her, Jo didn’t care.
Hysterical laughter bubbled into her throat. Even the IRS didn’t have her address. She used the newspaper’s address for anything permanent. Her boss faxed her whatever official-looking mail she received, and then shredded it. He never asked why. Jo supposed he understood somehow.
She recognized her behavior for what it was—paranoia. Plain and simple. Six years back she’d noticed one of those health fairs in the town where she’d lived. Probably not the most scientific or advanced technology since it was held in a school cafeteria. Still, she’d been desperate to ensure nothing had been implanted in her body—like some sort of tracking device—so she’d scraped up enough money to pay for a full-body scan. Actually she’d been short fifty bucks but the tech had accepted a quick fuck in exchange. After all that trouble he’d found nothing. Ultimately that was a good thing but it had pissed her off at the time.
A ring vibrated the air in the room.
Enough. Jo snatched up the phone. “What do you want, Ellen?”
The silence on the other end sent a surge of oily black uncertainty snaking around her heart. When she would have ended the call, words tumbled across the dead air.
“This is Ellen’s husband.”
A new level of doubt nudged at Jo. “Art?”
She had no idea how she remembered the man’s name. Personal details were something else she had obliterated from her life. Distance and anonymity were her only real friends now.
Now? She almost laughed out loud at her vast understatement. Eighteen years. She’d left any semblance of a normal life behind eighteen years ago. Jesus Christ, had it only been eighteen?
Felt like forever.
“Yours was the only name in Ellen’s phone I didn’t recognize.” He chuckled but the sound held no humor. “Her mom and dad’s number is there. Her little sister’s. The number for Alton’s school, my mom’s and the pediatrician. Mine, of course. But yours was the only other one.” He made a sound of surprise. “I never realized there was no one else. No friends. Not even any of the other mothers from Alton’s class or from our neighborhood are in her contacts. I just assumed she lunched and shopped with the other mothers. Set up playdates, but Alton said no playdates.” He sighed. “Doesn’t really matter now, I guess.”
That inky blackness spread through Jo’s chest like icy water rushing over a cliff. “Where’s Ellen?”
Another of those humorless chuckles. “I wish I could tell you she’s at home with Elle—that’s our three-year-old. But Elle’s with my mom. My wife isn’t here at the hospital with me and Alton either.”
Jo held back her questions through another long, weary sigh. A steady beep, beep, beep echoed in the background. He’d said he and Alton were in the hospital. “Is Ellen sick?”
Wait, he’d said Ellen wasn’t there. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Jo repeated those two words to herself during the silence that followed. Ellen’s problems weren’t hers.