Chasing Amanda (36 page)

Molly thought about Tracey and the fear she must have felt that first fateful evening, walking in the dark tunnel, wondering if she’d ever come out alive. She wondered what went through Amanda’s mind during the first hysterical moments of her abduction.
It’s not your fault.
She wriggled her ankle as she moved forward, determined not to be the weak link in Tracey’s rescue.
Rescue
.
Molly knew all too well that her search could end up at a dead end, and if so, she’d let her marriage go for nothing.

Damn him!
Cole should support my visions!
She knew how crazy that thought was, but she also knew that the one time she’d let her guard down, to the police, to Cole, she’d been essentially laughed at, and it infuriated her. Her pace was quick, her senses acute. The only noise was that of her fast footsteps on the dirt and her heart thumping in her chest.

She recalled her vision of Tracey being lowered into the box and felt certain she was in the right place. She worried about the Knowing—what if she passed out and the abductor…or killer…found her? Molly pulled her thoughts away from the negative what ifs and back to the task at hand. She dropped more seeds and noticed something on the ground a few feet ahead of her. She bent down and picked up a tiny white piece of a candy wrapper. Her eyes grew wide, hopeful. She withdrew the other torn wrapper from her pocket, and saw that they fit perfectly together. Molly moved forward with renewed vigor.

Molly slowed as she came to a cross section where tunnels ran in each direction, one to the left and one to the right. She contemplated the path, listened, but heard nothing in either direction. She bent down, inspecting the dirt at the entrance to each of the tunnels. She followed the one to the right, which, by the scuffs in the dirt, seemed to have been traveled more recently. She dropped a number of seeds in the entrance and continued dropping them as she walked. A darkened opening appeared in the wall to her left. She stopped, her fear rising. She listened to the silence, then peered cautiously into the room, ready to run, or fight.

The room was empty, except for a few scattered pieces of wood. She let out a relieved sigh, and pushed on. She followed the same heart-pounding process for each opening, her pace slowed considerably as she cautiously inspected each one, floor to ceiling, looking for any sign of Tracey, of life in the underground maze.

When she was met by another bisecting tunnel, Molly once again sent her light down each tunnel and inspected the dirt. She hoped she was choosing the right paths and knew that if she didn’t leave the trail, she would never find her way out of the convolutions. She determined that the tunnel to the left had been recently used and moved in that direction. In her mind, Molly saw a quick flash of Tracey walking away from her, in her belly she felt the pull of the girl. She stopped, flashed her light behind her, ahead of her, then back behind. She turned back toward the tunnel that had been on her right. She gathered the dropped seeds and moved them onto her new path. “Okay,” she whispered to herself, “I’m coming, Tracey. I’m coming.”

Molly’s pace had slowed significantly from when she’d first set out. Her ankle pained her, and her adrenaline had subsided, replaced with a growing fatigue. The air was difficult to breathe, although she’d already become used to the rancid smell. At the next intersection of tunnels, Molly sighed, tired of the decisions, and for the first time, questioned what she was doing. Who
did
she think she was? Maybe Cole was right. As she headed down the tunnel to the right, which was wider and low-ceilinged, she contemplated turning around, finding Cole, and trying to repair her marriage, admitting she was wrong. A muffled noise—a voice perhaps—broke her thoughts. She stopped, turned off her flashlight, and listened—Cole quickly forgotten.

Molly’s heart pumped in her ears like a drum. It took every ounce of her concentration to hear past the rush of blood. Her fear magnified when she heard a noise come from the darkness behind her.

“It’s for you!” Tracey said, excitedly. She was proud of the picture she’d drawn of a beautiful garden.

Mummy smiled from across the room where she was putting cans of vegetables onto the shelf. “I never knew you were such an artist.”

“I’m a good drawer,” Tracey gleamed, putting her crayons into the cardboard box that sat in the center of the table. “Mrs. Tate picked my picture out of the whole class’s to put up on our classroom door.” Tracey yawned.

“Are you tired, honey?” Mummy asked sweetly.

“A little,” Tracey said. She stood up from the log she’d been sitting on and turned toward her mattress when an unfamiliar woman entered their chamber. Tracey’s eyes grew wide, “Hi!” she said enthusiastically. “Are you a friend of Mummy’s?”

Molly could barely breathe. Fear drove her forward, into the chamber, and quickly toward Tracey, taking in the two dirty mattresses, upended logs, and the Bible on the makeshift table. She put her arm protectively around Tracey, her eyes glued to the woman who stood by silently watching, as if in shock. “Are you Tracey?” Molly asked in a rush of breath.

Tracey nodded.

The woman’s eyes darted erratically between Tracey and Molly. She began to shake, backing up against the wall. Suddenly she lurched forward. In one swift action Molly pulled Tracey tightly against her chest, threw herself back-first against the wall, avoiding the woman’s grasp. Tracey screamed, tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Mummy!”

“Give her back!” The woman clawed at Molly’s back. “I saved her! Give her to me!” She pulled fistfuls of Molly’s hair. Molly bent over, shielding Tracey, unwilling to loosen her grasp, her scalp searing with pain.

“No!” Molly growled, using her elbows to fight off the large, powerful woman.

The woman grabbed Molly by the back of her shoulders, throwing her down to the ground, and ripping Tracey free from her hands. Molly jumped quickly to her feet and upon the woman, punching her arms, grabbing them. The woman held tight to a screaming, petrified Tracey.

“Go, Tracey!” Molly screamed. “Run! Get away from her!”

The woman back-fisted Molly in the face. Molly tumbled to the floor, scrambling to get to her feet and retrieve Tracey, who was being dragged toward the entrance of the tunnel. Blood poured down Molly’s face. She grabbed Tracey’s arm. “Let her go!” she commanded.

The woman ignored Molly. “Tracey, run!” the woman said. Tracey ripped herself from Molly’s arm and clung to the woman’s legs.

“Mummy! Mummy!”

Momentarily dumbfounded, Molly took in the scene—had she made a mistake? With her next breath she lost the doubt and jumped at the woman, who took a step backward with Tracey in her grasp, leaving Molly reeling before her, flailing her hands toward the girl.

“Give her to me!” Molly screamed. She was no match for the large woman. She lunged at her legs. The woman kicked her away—Molly reeled from the blow to her gut.

“Get away from us! Go away!” the woman yelled. She picked up a rock and threw it at Molly. Molly ducked, the rock caught the side of her face. The woman kicked Molly’s arms, her chin, and Molly fell to the ground. Tracey’s screams pierced the air. Molly looked up just in time to see the woman lift a large log over her head.

“Get away from her!” the woman screamed. Suddenly, the woman was thrust forward and fell to the ground, writhing in pain, the log landed with a thud beside her.

Molly picked up Tracey, who flailed and kicked to be released, and ran toward the opening, grabbing her discarded flashlight, and fleeing along the path of scattered seeds.

Tracey’s shrieks trailed behind her, “Mummy! No! Mummy, the toxins! Mummy, help me!”

Tracey had lost her will to fight by the time they neared the end of the tunnel. She trembled, clinging tighter to the strange woman’s arms with each step as they approached the entrance. The stranger had told Tracey that her name was Molly, and that she was a friend, that she wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her, and that she was taking her back to her mommy and daddy. Tracey had not been relieved. She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, like she was on a roller coaster and had just gone down an enormous hill—
the toxins
. At first Tracey had sobbed at the news of being brought to her parents,
I am home! I don’t want to leave! I want to be with Mummy!
But eventually she had calmed, her tears subsided into short, fast hiccups, and later, even, tired breaths. She’d told Molly that she was scared of the toxins, and asked Molly to bring her parents into the tunnels, instead. When Molly asked about the toxins, Tracey became silent, as if their meaning were a secret. After much prodding, Tracey eventually relented, and told Molly that she didn’t want to die. She’d said that she didn’t really know what they were, but that they lived outside and they could kill you if they got in your body. Molly had simply pulled her closer, shielding the back of her head like an infant’s, and told her that nothing was going to kill her. She was safe.

Molly held tightly to Tracey’s body with one arm, withdrawing something from her pocket with her other. She held her hand open for Tracey to see. Tracey stared at the heart-shaped charm. She touched her delicate finger to the chain.

“My necklace,” she breathed, wonderingly. Her other hand was drawn to the necklace that hung around her dirty, swan-like neck. “I have a new one,” she said politely, her little body trembling like a newborn bird’s.

“I see that—but you should have this one, too,” Molly said, and placed it in Tracey’s palm.

A large, curly-haired man lowered himself into the hole just as Molly reached the entrance to the tunnel. She recognized the blue police sweatshirt.

“He’s a police officer. He’s here to help us.” Molly set Tracey on the ground in front of her and Tracey spun around, clasping her arms around Molly’s legs. “Tracey,” Molly said, crouching down so she was face to face with the scared little girl, “It’s okay. This nice police officer is going to help you out of this tunnel.”

“Are you coming?” she asked in a quivering, unsure voice.

“You bet I am. Right after you, okay?” Molly reassured her.

Tracey nodded and took hold of the officer’s warm hand, gripping it as if it were a lifeline. He lifted her up with ease, and they heard welcoming cheers.

Molly was not feeling very gracious, stewing over her earlier treatment, and frantic with worry about Cole. He grasped at words to apologize, but she didn’t give him a chance. She quickly told him what had transpired. She looked frantically around the campsite, which flurried with activity.

“Where’s Tracey?” she asked urgently.

Mike pointed to the nearby ambulance where Tracey sat huddled in a blanket, safe, waiting for her parents to arrive. Molly was instantly moving in Tracey’s direction. One paramedic was taking Tracey’s blood pressure, the other speaking into a walkie-talkie. Tracey looked up, saw Molly, and tried to get out of the ambulance, but the officers gently held her back. For an instant, Molly saw Amanda’s face in the first grade photograph, as it had appeared in the newspaper the day they’d found her; her smiling face, her dancing eyes, and the headlines above,
Body of Amanda Curtis Found
. Molly closed her eyes against the memory, feeling both the guilt and the relief of the moment, and went to Tracey.

“You’re going home, little one,” she whispered in Tracey’s ear.

Between the heightened fear in Tracey’s eyes and her tight grasp on Molly’s arms, Molly found herself wanting to cry. She hated that Tracey was going to be forever damaged by the past week. She fought back tears, trying to remain strong for Tracey’s sake. Molly pulled Tracey into her lap and rested her head on Tracey’s dirty, matted hair.

A police vehicle drove along the path toward the scene, slowing to a crawl, and finally stopping a few feet from the ambulance. The back door flew open, and Celia Porter quickly climbed out. She was thinner than Molly remembered, her face had aged ten years since she’d told the story of Tracey’s disappearance.

Celia looked in their direction and screamed, “Tracey!” running toward them. Tracey wriggled free of Molly’s protection, fresh tears poured down her cheeks. Tracey’s father was two steps behind Celia, but he sprinted forward and hoisted Tracey up to his chest. Tracey’s spindly legs wrapped around his thick body. Celia threw her body against the back of Tracey, sobbing, gripping her so tightly that Tracey tried to wriggle free, just a little, to take a breath. Mark Porter wrapped his long arms around Tracey and his wife, securely, protectively. Tears sprang from his eyes unabashedly.

Sal had been in the police vehicle with them and stepped out to guide them away from the site of the tunnel. He glanced at Molly sorrowfully, or perhaps he was embarrassed. At that moment, Molly didn’t care what he felt. She looked away, her thoughts turning back to Cole.

A strong hand grasped Molly’s shoulder, pulling her out of her worried stupor. She spun around. Pastor Lett stood before her. Molly walked into her open arms.