Locked (The Heaven's Gate Trilogy) (2 page)

I picked up the page and
started scanning the list.  Cheerleading.  Volleyball.  Yearbook.  Track.  My
heart started racing and I suddenly felt lightheaded.  I wasn’t prepared for
the sudden sense of panic that came over me.  This was what I’d dreamed of,
right?

I took a deep breath,
trying to calm myself, and carefully laid the page aside.  As I sat there,
unsure of what to say, Mom reached across the table and tucked a loose strand
of hair behind my ear.  “Just think about it, okay?”

Before I knew what I was
doing, I blurted the words.  “Mom, why did you leave Dad?”

Her face turned soft; her
eyes, even more sad.  “Come with me, honey.”

I followed her upstairs
to a little alcove she called her den.  “It should be in here somewhere,” she
said, stretching her tiny five-foot-two frame up to reach an upper shelf.  Her
perfectly manicured fingers wrapped around a faded volume and pulled it down. 
She sat on the little loveseat in the corner and patted the space beside her,
beckoning me to join her.  I sat down, intrigued.

“I’ve been saving these
for when this day came,” she said, setting the book down in my lap.

I opened the cover and
found myself looking at a yellowed newspaper clipping.  “Missing Girl Saved –
But How?”  screamed the headline.  A grainy photo showed a police officer
carrying a little girl, wrapped loosely in a blanket, in his arms.   The girl
gripped something in her fist, trailing it behind her.

“Is that me?” I asked,
suddenly shy.  I let my fingers graze over the clipping.

“Yes,” my mother said. 
“With your blankie.  Somehow you managed to hold on to that thing, even in
those circumstances.  I saved every one of them,” she said, turning the album
pages to show me newspaper story after newspaper story, carefully laid out on
acid-free paper.  “It was bad enough that you had been taken, Hope.  But the
mystery surrounding your rescue, well that was like catnip for the press.”

“What do you mean?” I
asked.  I had never heard about any mystery.  In reality, I remembered nothing
and had heard very little about my abduction.  In the past, I’d liked keeping it
that way, mostly out of resentment.  But now my mom had piqued my curiosity.

My mother frowned
slightly, her eyes searching my face.  “I know you don’t remember, do you?  You
didn’t even remember back then.”  She paused, seeming to gather her strength before
continuing.  “When the police found you, you were unharmed, thank God.  But
they never found the man who had snatched you.  They think he was killed right
there, in the motel room where they found you.”

“What do you mean, they
think?”

“Well, they found this in
the bathroom,” she said, slowly turning another page.

I stared at the dark
photograph, unable to make out what it was.

“What is that?”

I thought I saw her
suppress a little shudder before she braced herself yet again.  “It is what is
left of a human being who has been burned to death.”

I stared dumbly at the
page, barely registering what she said as she continued to speak, carefully
choosing her words.

“They confirmed it was a
person through DNA testing.  They were never able to match it to anyone in
their crime databases, so really, they had no way of knowing who it was or
whether it really was the person who took you.  They couldn’t even tell if the
person was alive or dead at the time of the burning.  Presumably dead, or you’d
think there’d be signs of a fight.  But we really couldn’t tell.   All we ever
knew was that this….person….was dead, and you were alive.  With no memory of
anything at all.  Untouched…except for this.”

She reached out to stroke
the Mark on the back of my neck and I shrank away.  I didn’t like anyone even
knowing about that spot.  I sure didn’t want her reminding me of it.

“But how is that even
possible?” I demanded, trying to ignore the hurt look that crossed her face as
I pushed her hand away.   “I mean, how could a person just go up in flames and
not burn the whole room down at the same time?  And me, even though I was so
little, wouldn’t I have remembered something?”

My mother smiled, but
this time with an edge.  “Therein lies the problem.  You didn’t.  Traumatic
repression, the psychologists surmised.  Whatever happened was locked away in
your little brain, and you were surprisingly none the worse for it.  And nobody
could figure it out, Hope.  Not the best minds in the police department or the
FBI.  We finally just chalked it up to one of life’s mysteries and tried to put
it behind us.  All of us but your father, that is.”

Her hands twisted in her
lap.  It still pained her to talk about it.  I felt a twinge of guilt for
having brought up the whole subject, but not enough to make her stop.

“He could not let go of
the idea that this was not a random act.  He became obsessed with the idea that
you’d been singled out on purpose.  That maybe, the person who took you was
still out there, and that you were still in danger.  I thought it was his way
of dealing with the guilt, at first, and was sure it would pass.  But it
didn’t.”

“Guilt?” I prompted her,
my nerves now on edge.

She slumped in her seat. 
“He’d been the one with you at the playground the day you disappeared.  He
blamed himself.”

I stared dumbly at the
photo album.  He’d never told me that.  He’d never told me any of this.

My mom reached over and
closed the album, and then took my hand in hers.

“I didn’t want to leave
you, Hope.  And to tell the truth, I didn’t want to leave your father, either. 
I still loved him and I guess in some ways, I still do.  I just couldn’t live
with his obsession any longer.  It was stifling us.  He was not the same person
anymore, sweetie.  His whole world had narrowed down to a paranoid focus on
protecting you.  He lost his job, and then another and another.  He just
couldn’t bear to be away from you that much.  Even normal things, like going
out to dinner, became ordeals.  What I saw as harmless fun he saw as needless
security threats.  So I left, fully knowing that someone had to take care of
you both, and that that someone was me.  I had to be strong, keep my job and
make sure you had everything you needed.  I just didn’t realize that he would
use that against me and take you away.  Or that what I was seeing was just the
tip of the iceberg.”

I thought about all the
crazy things my dad had put me through:  How he’d overwhelmed the mothers in
our neighborhood with his overzealous lists of do’s and don’ts until the
invitations for play dates had shriveled up.  How he’d insisted on accompanying
me on every field trip and social event, going so far as to sit with me on the
bus, until I was so embarrassed I didn’t even want to go.  The forced marches
through obscure Biblical texts, drilling me in preparation for God knows what. 
His odd security procedures and mock safety drills. I’d always thought my
mother had willingly left me with my father so she could focus on her
high-powered job as a partner in a consulting firm.  In a weird way, I’d blamed
her for my father’s behavior and for how circumscribed my world had been.  I’d
never understood why any of it had happened, until now.

Mom’s eyes were watery
now as she hesitated, then reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my
ear.  This time I didn’t flinch. 

“I didn’t tell you this
before, Hope, because I didn’t want you to do anything but love your Dad.  I
guess I kept hoping things would get better, and that one day you would be old
enough to understand.  I just want you to know that I never, ever thought that
things would turn out the way they did.  And I never thought it would take so
long to get you back home with me.”

She gave my hand a little
squeeze before continuing.

“Maybe it’s just as well
that whatever happened is locked away in your memory.  But there’s no need for
you to be locked away, too.  Now that you’re here, maybe you can spread your
wings.”

The cell phone in her
pocket started chirping.  She pulled it out and flipped it open, frowning.

“I have to take this,
Hope, I’m sorry.  But it should only be a minute.”

With that she stood.  She
answered the phone brusquely and I marveled at her transformation as she
stepped into the hall.  Her voice seemed to drop an octave as she drilled the
person on the other end of the line with a sharp staccato of questions.  Even
though I couldn’t hear what she was talking about, I could tell from the tone
of her voice that she was not happy.

She slipped back into the
den, her face crumpled in a frown, her long manicured nails tapping absently on
the phone.

“There’s been a legal
challenge to the project I’m working on.  My client is demanding I come out a
day early.”  She plopped down next to me.  I saw the effort she put into
steeling herself.  “Of course, I told him no.”

I thought of all the
times I’d blamed her, unfairly, for putting her job first.  I needed to let her
know that I understood.

“You should go, Mom.”

She looked up, startled. 
“What?”

I launched into my
reasoning before she could stop me.  “It sounds really important.  I mean, your
client wouldn’t call you on the weekend if it wasn’t, right?”

She nodded her head, the
grooves in her forehead growing deeper.

“You’ve already taken
care of everything for me at school.  And I really don’t need you to take me
in.  I’m fifteen, Mom,” I added, gently.  “I would really prefer it if you let
me go in by myself, just like any other kid.”

Her eyes got a little
misty again as she tucked the phone back into her pocket and folded her hands
in her lap.  “Like any other kid,” she echoed back wistfully.

“Maybe we should go over
the instructions again,” she said, struggling to feel in command.

“Mom, I’ve got it.  I
promise.”

She sighed, her shoulders
sagging in acceptance.  Then, she stood up, resting one hand gently on my head,
stroking my hair just like she had when I was little, smiling ruefully.

“I guess I’d better let
them know and go pack, then.  If you need me, I’ll be just down the hall.”

She left me alone in the
den, the clippings and pictures from my past in my lap, wondering just what
else about my past I didn’t know about.

*****

I woke up to an empty
house and a note written on the back of an old grocery receipt.  “Note” is
actually an exaggeration; it was a list of what my Mom calls “bullet points”:

·
                    
Bus at 7:30,
end of cul de sac

·
                    
Wear hat

·
                    
Lunch money

·
                    
Mrs. Bibeau
after school

Love, Mom
.

Mom had taped it to the
bathroom door along with a twenty dollar bill.  I glanced at the alarm clock. 
It was only 7 a.m., but already my mom was long gone to catch her flight to
wherever – I didn’t know how I was ever going to keep track. She flew to a
different city every day. 

This was what I wanted, I
reminded myself as I brushed my teeth.  Anonymity.  Space.  A parent who didn’t
hover around me all the time, afraid I’d disappear if he looked away for even
an instant.  I was tired of being the girl who’d been abducted, the girl who
had never been able to remember a thing that had happened to her. 

I rifled through the
closet to find something that would help me blend in.    Everything in there
was too ridiculous for words – I guess I’d have to remind Mom that I was not
going out for cheerleading, nor was I planning to be an extra on some stupid
teenage soap opera.  Besides, after years of wearing uniforms I had no idea
what went with what.  I fought back a rising sense of panic and pulled out a
pair of jeans and sweatshirt, hoping it would do the trick.  I fiddled with my
hair, worried that my Mark would show.  I settled for wrapping a chunky scarf
around my neck, thanking my stars it was still cold and the scarf wouldn’t
attract attention.  I glanced at the clock again and frowned – time to catch
the bus. 

I walked swiftly to the
end of the cul de sac, mowing down a granola bar on the way.  Nobody else was
waiting.  I kicked at the pothole in the pavement and shifted my backpack, fervently
hoping that the pothole would open up and swallow me before I’d have to board
the bus and suffer through this day.  The sound of gears grinding uphill warned
me I’d have no reprieve before the yellow lights came into view.

I boarded the bus like a
prisoner walking to the gallows.  The minute I stepped on I slunk into the
first seat I could find, hoping to avoid all the “new girl” stares I was sure
to attract.

“Fresh meat!”  Raucous
laughter mocked me from the back of the bus.  Something hit me in the head – a
wad of paper.  I sunk even lower into my seat, fiddling with my scarf and praying
they’d just ignore me.

“New girl!  New girl!”