Found and Lost (4 page)

A month later, the fear began to go stale, and Aubrey returned, older behind the eyes, more swollen around the middle. And timid for the first time. After only a few meetings, she dropped off the edge of their little world. Each of them bore some fault for that. When Janelle and Abe questioned the wisdom of welcoming Aubrey back after a denial of faith—Janelle not waiting until Aubrey wasn't around—Clay had tried to remain neutral. Maybe he should have joined Karlyn in fighting for Aubrey.

How had she died?

“MB” had to be Marcus. The next time Clay saw the man, he'd ask him.

A second sheet of paper was folded against the letter. A birth certificate. For Elliott … Sobczek. Marcus must have gotten to know some shady people in the last few months.

The Jeep's automatic dome light shut off, encasing the garage in darkness. Light from a street lamp shone through the single window. Funny that no one in the house had opened the door. Maybe they hadn't seen or heard Clay pull in. He retrieved his fugitive's diaper bag, then the slumbering fugitive himself, and stepped up to rap on the screen door's wooden frame.

The door on the other side swung inward to flood the garage with light. Small brown moths fluttered toward the screen door, collided with it, and hung there. A man pushed it open and swiped at the light switch on the wall.

Two long fluorescent fixtures hung from the rafters with fine chains. They flickered on and buzzed above Clay.

“Here he is,” the man said. Eyes level with Clay's through bifocals, he stared down at Elliott. He held the door open with one outstretched arm but didn't motion Clay inside.

Protocol did not exist for this situation. Clay lifted the baby carrier into his arms and held it out like a postal delivery.
Just sign here for your new bundle of joy.
What he really needed was a stork suit.

The man took the carrier, took the child, and a strange twinge passed through Clay's chest. He was transferring guardianship of a child from one home to another as if he knew where this child belonged.

The man set the carrier onto the mudroom floor. Clay handed him the base and diaper bag, and he set them down inside as well. He leaned down to cup Elliott's soft shoe in his hand, then turned back to Clay and smiled, ignoring a moth that fluttered past his head into the house.

“We're on schedule, leaving tomorrow morning around six. No one will ever know he was here.”

Clay scrambled to decipher the subtext that, as Marcus, he should clearly know. Leaving tomorrow … a stack of boxes in the garage … Clay peered over the man's shoulder as surreptitiously as he could. The mudroom was empty. Not even a rack of coat pegs hung from the walls.

They're moving.
And taking this child with them.

Before the pause could loiter, Clay smiled. “Perfect.”

“Thank you for everything you've done. We're so happy to give him a home.”

What would Marcus say? A question Clay never expected to ask himself. “I know you'll take care of him.”

“We surely will, sir. Thank you.”

Clay nodded.
Escape now.
Before his ignorance exposed itself and destroyed this entire operation. “Good luck.”

A nod, a smile, and at last a closed door. Clay dashed the several steps to the Jeep and fled. No more of this. Pretending to be someone else, wrenching kids from place to place like some omnipotent social worker. That baby's father might still be searching. No, surely Marcus had attempted to find him. A vague queasiness knotted Clay's stomach. What he'd just done …

In the rearview mirror, green lights rotated.

Run.

As if there was any point. But he had to try. The Constabulary squad car gained fast, rode his bumper, and … passed him. It rocketed down the road. Cars ahead had already pulled over. Clay's hand slipped on the wheel as he jerked the Jeep to the gravel shoulder.

“What was that, God? A warning? Or are You just cracking up from Your heavenly throne right now?” He leaned back against the headrest and swallowed hard. The air in the Jeep suddenly tasted sour. “Okay, whatever it was, I got the message.”

7

Khloe leaned across the Jeep's backseat to whisper in Violet's ear. “I seriously owe you.”

Violet shrugged. Her stomach was balled so tightly, she could barely sit up straight. She felt like Jekyll and Hyde. Her Jekyll half wanted to march into this terrorist church and text the address to the Constabulary. Her Hyde half wanted to confess to the Hansens. Or maybe dash off into the night.

Clay parallel-parked on the left side of the street and turned off the ignition. Silence seized them all, him and Natalia in the front seat, Violet and Khloe in the back.

“Okay,” he said. “Everybody out.”

Violet hopped down to the blacktop and held back as she shut her door, but the noise still sounded too loud. She jumped as Khloe's door slammed.

“Oops,” Khloe whispered.

“Shh!” That was Natalia.

They followed Clay single file across the empty street, over to the next block. Violet brought up the rear of their stiff and silent parade. Unseen traffic passed a few streets over, a muted whir, normal people driving to and from legal destinations. Violet glanced back in the direction of the main road, just in time to glimpse a white flicker in the clouds above the horizon. Then another. No thunder, though.

Khloe appeared at her side. “Heat lightning.”

“The air got cooler on the way here,” Violet said. “Maybe it's a storm.”

“Nah, just looks like one.”

Ahead of them, Natalia beckoned with a quick, taut motion. They jogged a few steps until they caught up.

This street, Apple Lane, dead-ended into a main road a few hundred feet ahead. Clay had brought them in the back way. They hadn't left the residential neighborhood, but a few of the houses on the left appeared to be used for businesses. Sweet Serenity Massage Therapy, read the sign in one front yard. The next, hung from the porch awning, read Debra's Salon. Clay veered toward the final house, up a redbrick walkway to the door. A black-lettered whitewashed sign stretched above the doorway: J's Little Country Store.

The Christians met here?

He knocked on the door, then glanced over his shoulder. His smile caught the streetlight. Right, because he thought he was helping them find the truth or something.

Violet turned a circle in search of the house number. There, the mailbox: 5682 Apple Lane. She dug into her purse for the phone.

The door cracked open, but no light shone from inside. A female whisper seeped into the night. “He prepares a table.”

“Before us,” Clay whispered back.

“In the presence.”

“Of our enemies.”

The door eased open further, still without spilling a bit of light. Clay slipped through the opening into the blackness, and Natalia followed him.

Austin's voice yelled in Violet's head.
“Do not go inside.”

Khloe tossed a glance over her shoulder:
Don't leave me.

“Come on in, Violet,” Clay whispered from inside.

She had to. She scaled the two steps up into the black lair. She'd find a way to leave as soon as she sent the text: 5682 Apple Lane.

The door sealed behind her, and she was lost in a cocoon of darkness and scent. This country store sold candles. Lots of them. A warm hand slid into hers.

“Dad says be careful not to bump into stuff.”

Khloe tugged her along, and Violet followed, almost stepping on Khloe's heels. They must have crossed the whole length of the house by now, or maybe the darkness made the seconds feel like minutes. Ahead of her, someone opened a door. She was tugged forward again, into a warmth that suggested this room was usually closed off from the air conditioning.

“Careful—stairs,” Khloe said, a second before Violet would have pitched to her death. She gripped a wooden railing and descended one silent carpeted step at a time until Khloe's heels clicked on tile.

Someone flipped a switch, and a bare bulb overhead flooded the room with light. The basement was a storage room piled with boxes, some still sealed with packing tape, others with open flaps poking upward. People clustered, seven including her. Too many for the space in the center of the room, connected to the stairs by a narrow cleared path.

“Welcome, Clay's guests.” An older woman, fifty or so, beamed at them. “I'm Janelle.”

Aunt Natalia stepped forward, prodded by decorum as always. “Natalia. It's a pleasure to finally meet all of you.”

Violet pulled her stare away from Natalia's convincing smile. “I'm Violet.”

“Khloe, with a K,” Khloe said.

“Say, brother.” A young guy with dyed-black hair and an eyebrow piercing stepped forward. “Thought you only had one kid.”

Clay laughed as if the guy had made a joke. As if he'd talked to this twenty-something man too many times to count … which he probably had. His rolling stride met the younger man halfway, and he shook the outstretched hand with that signature Uncle Clay, life-is-awesome grin. He was as comfortable as Violet had ever seen him anywhere.

“Violet's my adopted niece—Khloe's best friend. I could practically claim her on my tax return.”

Not much of an exaggeration, especially during the summer.

“Aha,” the man said. “Glad to have you all. I'm Phil, and my beautiful bride is Felice.”

Felice couldn't be more than a few years older than Violet. “Our teacher isn't here tonight. He broke his ankle and still isn't getting around very well, but we're praying for him.”

Because of course, they prayed to God. Maybe even to the same God that Violet prayed to, just … differently.

Janelle invited everyone to sit in a circle on the floor, and Violet braced herself for a creepy chant, or a tirade against the government, or whispered plans to bomb a daycare center. But the group continued their small talk: the latest blockbuster movie, Tigers' box scores, Phil and Felice's new neighbors and their yappy dog. Apparently, no teacher meant no lesson.

Maybe a sliver of her wanted an extremist lesson. Knowledge of their beliefs would help her steer clear, maybe even help her know when to report someone else and when to shrug off their spiritual ideas as misguided but harmless. Austin would protest that, but he couldn't guarantee she'd never be in a similar situation again.

Just send the text.

She would. In a minute.

Her patience paid off about ten minutes later, when Janelle dug into her purse and brought out a leather-bound book with gold-edged pages. Smaller than the one hiding on top of Clay's bookshelf, and burgundy.

Clay gave a small gasp. “Janelle …”

“I thought we could read from it tonight, take turns, you know? I was going to write out verses on some paper, like Abe does, but I decided to bring all the verses.”

“But we never …” Clay's voice faded into a sigh. Phil and Felice gazed at the book with some mix of fear and reverence.

Send the text.
Violet's fingers curled around the faux leather handle of her purse, and its fraying edge dug into her palm. If they caught her, what would they do to her?

“Let's pass it around and read some of our favorite verses.” Janelle flipped through the book as if she knew the exact page number she sought.

“Oh, awesome.” Felice actually clapped her hands.

Violet slid her hand into an inner pocket and tugged out her phone. From inside her purse, with a glance downward, she started a new text message. Brought up the number Austin had given her.

Next to her, Khloe pulled her own phone from her pocket. Surely
she
wasn't texting her current activity to anyone. No, the intermittent movement of her thumbs didn't look like a text. Violet slanted her gaze at the phone. Pinball.

Did Khloe think Violet was doing the same thing? Demonstrating boredom and disrespect for these people?
Khloe, this is serious stuff.

From Khloe's other side, Natalia's hand darted to the phone and snatched it away. She reached up behind her and set it on an empty shelf, in full view of the whole group. Then she did the same with Khloe's pink clutch purse.

Khloe's mouth rounded in protest, then snapped shut.

“‘Thomas said to him,'” Janelle was reading, “‘“Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”'”

Oh, Violet knew this. Rick had read it a few weeks ago.
“Jesus said to him, ‘Within you are the way, and the truth, and the life. Within you is access to the Father.'”

Janelle's words didn't match Rick's voice in her head. “‘Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”'”

Of course, this Bible was different. But it didn't sound … well, it didn't sound the way she'd expected.

Whatever. Details didn't matter. Not here, not tonight. Violet's mission mattered.

5682 Apple Lane. J's Little Country Store.

She pressed a final key. Message sent.

8

Forcing them to come might have harmed his cause. Beside Clay, Natalia maintained an interested pose, sitting with her typical model posture and meeting everyone's eyes in turn. But her arm made the barest contact with his, and its rigidness betrayed her. She was scared or angry; he'd know which if he could face her for a second and read her eyes.

He pulled in a breath of stagnant storeroom air and sighed. Khloe's hostility was no secret to anyone in the room, not after the phone fiasco. Violet … What was in her head? She'd pulled her phone out first, but then she'd put it away. Maybe she was paying attention.

“Who else wants to read?” Janelle said.

“Pick me.” Phil grinned and shifted his seat on the cool tile.

They each passed the Bible along until it rested in Phil's hands. His forehead crinkled as he searched, and the hoop in his left eyebrow stood at attention. “Here we go. This is from Isaiah. I love Messianic prophecies. They make you all in awe when you think about how many years this was before Jesus was born.”

Messianic prophecy? Really? Natalia needed to hear something simple, something easily applied to her.
Okay, stop. The Bible's the Bible, right?
And he'd brought his family here to hear the Bible. Which he wasn't even listening to.
Focus.

“‘But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the L
ORD
has laid on him the iniquity of us all.'”

Natalia's discreet nudge conveyed her opinion of that passage. Clay elbowed her in return.
Just listen.

“You want to read something, babe?” Phil held the Bible out to his wife still open, as if one wrong move could crumble it to dust.

“I wouldn't know where to start,” Felice said.

Violet shifted her purse to her other side, out of Khloe's reach, and slid her phone into the pocket of her jeans. Next to her, Khloe leaked irritation like a sieve. What, had she tried to use Violet's phone after Nat took hers? Disappointment closed Clay's eyes.
I finally got them to come here. To hear the Bible.
Wasn't God supposed to act in this circumstance, somehow illuminate Himself?

“Maybe we could talk about what we've read so far,” Janelle said. “Does anybody want to say something or ask—?”

Bang-bang-bang.

The pounding on the door petrified Clay's body like an ancient tree, living tissues turned to stone.

“MPC, open up!”

Instantly, they all ceased to be people, became instead a ball of panic winding ever more tightly into itself. Frozen to the floor. Rounded, darting eyes. Then whispers pinged off the cinder block walls.

“We should've moved the location months ago, when—”

“But how do they know we're—?”

Keep speculating, imbeciles, until they kick in the door.
Meanwhile, Clay would do what he did best.

Run.

He'd already sprung to his feet. Survival instinct. He zipped across the room and tore down the black curtain that blocked light from the tiny window near the basement ceiling. He pried at the window.
Come on!
It fell open and left a stripe of rust across his palms. His wife's hand clutched the back of his shirt and trembled.

“Maybe they didn't surround the building.” He interlaced his fingers and bent down to form a step.

Janelle's voice filtered through the roar of adrenaline. “That's right, hurry up, and don't make a sound.”

Natalia's tiny sandaled foot hopped into the cradle of his hands. She leveraged herself up into the window with both hands and shimmied her way into the night.

“J-Janelle?”

Felice's shaky voice forced Clay to turn and look. Janelle had started up the stairs.

“Somebody's got to keep them out,” Janelle whispered, “and I own the place.”

“You have to come with us!” Phil said aloud.

“Without a diversion, they'll get us all. If I barricade the door, they'll spend manpower breaking it down. You keep quiet until you're a ways off.”

While they debated, Clay vaulted his daughter up and through the window.
Run, baby. Find Mom and don't stop running.
The cops should have pounded on the door again. Should have battered it in by now. But maybe only moments had passed in this haze. He swiveled to find the final person for whom he was responsible.

“Violet, come on.” Calm infused his voice, though his heart was trying to punch its way out of his chest.

Violet turned her saucer eyes on Janelle one last time, then stepped into Clay's hands and nearly pitched forward as he heaved her upward. Clay shoved against the soles of her shoes, and she disappeared through the opening.

Bang-bang-bang.
“Open up in there! MPC!”

In the center of the room, Phil and Felice clung to each other.

“Come on.” Clay beckoned them.

Felice's blank eyes blinked. “We can't just abandon Janelle to …”

No time. Janelle had reached the top of the stairs. They were all adults. Their safety wasn't Clay's job.

His slick palms gripped the window frame. He lifted himself up over the drawbridge of window and writhed into a rectangular opening that felt as big as a keyhole. His hands dug into parched grass and wispy soil. He braced his elbows in the dirt and twisted. Free.

A hand gripped his and dragged him up. Natalia. The girls hovered a few feet away. Voices drifted around the corner of the building on a storm-flavored breeze.

“They've got something up against the door.”

“Careful, could be wired to something.”

To flee, they had minutes. Maybe less. He motioned with one arm and dashed across the field behind the store. God must have provided the quilt of clouds that smothered moon and stars. Not that any of those agents would be looking away from Janelle right now. Clay glanced back once.
Come on, keep up.
The cushion of grass muted their hammering feet. Behind them, not quite reaching them, a weak light stretched across the field. Clay's feet dragged, and he turned back to look. The entire store was lit now, and … Another light slithered around the corner of the building. Green. Rotating pattern. Constabulary squad car.

A bitter taste raked the back of his throat. He ran. The muted footsteps behind him pushed his own feet forward. What were the Constabulary doing here? Was it a planned bust?

They'd come the first night Janelle had brought a Bible.

He led them across the first street, all but hurdled the curb, and dashed toward the street where he'd parked the Jeep. By the time the Constabulary organized a true search, Clay and the girls would be long gone. The Jeep waited up ahead. He didn't miss a stride as he tugged his keys from his pocket and clicked the unlock button.

“Okay.” The door handle dug into his hand as he wrenched open the driver's door. “Everyone in—”

“Violet?”

The panic in Khloe's voice turned him around. She and Natalia stood there, both rotating in desperate search. Violet was … nowhere. Gone.

“She was behind me, just a second ago.” Khloe's voice shook.

The Constabulary couldn't have grabbed Violet, not without getting the rest of them. If she'd fallen and twisted her ankle or something, she couldn't call for help.

“Get in. We'll circle the block.”

“Absolutely no way, Dad.”

Natalia gripped Khloe's arm and pushed her toward the Jeep. “He's right, get in. Now, Khloe Renee!”

The middle name had never dented Khloe's petulance before, so it must be fear that propelled her obedience now.

As soon as the Jeep was in drive, reality vetoed Clay's plan. “I'll take you home first. And then I'll come back for Violet.”

“But, Dad, you said—”

“I know what I said.” He drove down the street at an inconspicuous, residential-zone speed. Distance dimmed the store's light. “It's too dangerous to lurk around here.”

“I'm not leaving my best friend for the con-cops.”

“Khloe, I might have to search a little, and I don't want you ending up in the middle of this.” Behind him came the sound of a door flinging open.

“Khloe!” Natalia shouted.

Clay's foot mashed the brake pedal to the floor. Something thumped to the ground. He swiveled to look back. Natalia sat alone. She stared at the open door across the seat, her mouth an oval of shock. She threw open her door and leaped out.

Clay jammed the Jeep into park. “No! I'll get her!”

Khloe had run a hundred feet before his first step. His longer strides could catch her, but she zigzagged like a soldier avoiding crossfire. Must have learned that from a movie.

“Khloe, stop.” The words burst from him.

Natalia gazed back over the field. “Clay …”

He stood closest to the curb, so the tide of red and blue light stained him first. Ahead, at the end of the street, a squad car pulled around to block the way. An officer stepped out. Not Constabulary, just a regular cop. Flashlight in one hand, the other perched on his belt, one twitch away from the holster.

“Need any help, sir?” He walked toward Clay.

“Oh, no, officer, we're fine. Um, we lost our dog and …”

Lost the dog. At midnight. But the words were out now. Clay had to sell them.

“She looked like she was going to pee in the car, you know? So we went to let her out and she took off …”

The officer's flashlight beam and gaze pivoted toward the field. Nausea pummeled Clay, but the clearing stretched empty under the clouded night sky, void of fleeing teenagers.

“Sir, I have to ask you to leave the area. MPC asked for local backup, got a tip on an unlicensed gathering. Barricaded themselves inside, and we don't know exactly what we're dealing with right now. Just a block away. I need this area cleared ASAP.”

“Oh, yeah … We saw the green lights.”

“You're going to have to leave without your dog for now. We'll keep our eyes open. She got tags?”

“Yes, and a pink collar.”

“Okay. Now I need you to get back in your car. You can go around my roadblock up there.”

“Thank you, sir.” Clay forced his legs to keep a leisurely pace back to the Jeep. Once Natalia had joined him inside, Clay turned the key to start the slow, confined cage. On his bike, he'd be gone in heartbeats.

He shouldn't have brought his family here.

He'd screwed up. Really, in a big way, screwed up.

He drove toward the squad car at a devastating, unsuspicious crawl. By now, they'd probably discovered Janelle's ruse.

“What are you doing?” Natalia's voice drilled into his racing brain.

“He told me to leave.”

“Our daughter is out there somewhere, probably watching us abandon her.”

Clay maneuvered the Jeep almost over the curb to make it around the police car. This close, the rotating lights made him squint. “I'll double back, but we have to wait, at least an hour. If they see us back here again, they'll know.”

“We should tell them.”

“Tell … the police?”

Natalia glared at him in the rearview mirror. “Obviously not the whole truth, that you're a Christian and pressured your law-abiding family into—”

“That's enough.”

She barely paused. “If we explain that we suspected our daughter and followed her here, but she ran away when we confronted her about her philosophical indiscretions …”

Right, blame Khloe for his actions, his beliefs. Clay turned the Jeep onto the main road, and a fragment of his heart shook loose.

“Go back,” Natalia said.

“Not yet.”

Her hand shot between the front seats and gripped the steering wheel. The Jeep weaved.

“Nat, quit!”

“Go back, Clay. That's our daughter!”

“Text her. Tell her we'll be back for her as soon as it's safe.” The quiet held a new tension. “What is it?”

Natalia's fingers dug into his arm. “Her phone. It's in the store. On the shelf.”

A red light seemed to materialize a few feet ahead of him. Clay's foot slammed the brake pedal.

“Their purses,” Natalia said. “The police will have her photo ID, and Violet's.”

“Not Violet's. At least, not her phone. Text Violet.” Thank God she'd pocketed her phone.

Natalia was right. He had to turn around and go back. He could plow this bulky off-roader right over the curb, over the sidewalk, into the field. He could turn on the high beams and holler for Violet and Khloe until they emerged from their hiding places and ran to the Jeep.

But … no. It all smashed into Clay, how this would go down. The police would identify two minors at the scene of a terrorist meeting and inform their parents.

“She's not texting back.” Natalia's voice was a rubber band about to snap. “She must've lost the phone. We have to go back.”

“They'll never believe we were ignorant of our daughter's terrorist activities if we show up at the crime scene looking for her.”

He had to keep driving. Get away now or there'd be no one to release the girls to later. He cracked his knuckles against his palm until the light turned green, then turned the Jeep toward home.
What kind of father are you?
He was leaving his little girl alone in the woods overnight, hiding on the fringe of a search radius. Hopefully, Violet would find her. Parental instinct told Clay that Violet would survive on her own just fine, would look out for Khloe if needed. But if the Constabulary began an earnest hunt … The image of Khloe cowering from a snarling, snapping search dog sent his pulse into overdrive.

Dear Lord, keep them safe and give them back to me. Soon. Please.

After a mile of straining silence, Natalia's voice came again, calm now. The sort of calm that stole over a landscape just before the touchdown of a funnel cloud. “If any of us end up in re-education over this …”