Desire in Frost (13 page)

I never knew how I knew it, but I was able to tell Teddy where to go. Within a few hours, we were pulling up in front of a small yellow house along a one-way street.

Who lives here?
I wondered.
And why would Lauren bring Hope here?
 

Teddy stopped the car in front of the house but on the opposite side of the street. He looked back at me from the driver’s seat. “Remember, we do this my way. Andrea and I will ask questions. You stay here.” 

I knew Teddy had already mentioned this, but my jaw still dropped in disbelief. My mother got to go with him, but I didn’t? But this was
my
responsibility.
I
was the one who was supposed to rescue Hope. My heart dropped knowing I wasn’t going to be a part of it, but the rational part of me was just glad Hope would be safe whether I was in the midst of the action or not. Teddy gave me a serious look, and I quickly agreed that I would stay put. 

“I hope you have your hand cuffs,” I said before he exited the car. I was only half joking, but he shot back a knowing smile that told me that he had them on him. I didn’t even know if he could arrest someone here, but that didn’t matter to me when Hope needed rescuing.

Teddy and my mom exited the car together. I glanced over at Robin. His eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell slowly. I almost thought about waking him and telling him we were here, but he looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to disturb him. 

I watched out Robin’s window and hardly noticed I was holding my breath as Teddy knocked on the door. It felt like time stood still, waiting for something to happen. Teddy pounded on the door again. The anticipation was killing me, but after several long minutes—or at least what felt like it—the door swung open, and a woman with dark hair and olive skin stood behind it. She must have been in her 30s, but I didn’t recognize a thing about her. I didn’t know what I was expecting—maybe Lauren or someone who looked enough like her to be her relative, or perhaps a male who could have been her boyfriend—but when I caught a glimpse of the woman, the pieces of the puzzle just didn’t fit right.

My heart sank in my chest. Was this another mistake? Why was it that every time I felt close to Hope, something happened that only pushed me further away? I was sure Teddy was going to be furious that I’d led him on the wrong path again. Never again would I hear him say he trusted my judgement.

Just as I watched Teddy flash his badge, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I didn’t want to respond, but the vibrations continued. The only person who ever called me was Emma, so I answered it.

“Hello?” I answered quietly, careful not to wake Robin. My gaze never shifted from the front door of the yellow house.

“Crystal,” Emma breathed a sigh of relief as if she had been holding her breath. Something in her tone hinted at urgency, leaving my body frozen in fear. 

“Emma, are you okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m okay. Are
you
?” 

“What do you mean? Of course I’m okay. Why do you sound so terrified?” 

“I just—I guess it’s nothing. I just got a really bad feeling. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” 

“A bad feeling? About me?” 

“Yeah. You’re not near a white garage, are you?” 

“What?” I didn’t quite understand where she was going with this. I glanced up and down the street. The houses were all so colorful here. “No, no white garage.” 

“Good. I’m just getting a bad feeling about a white garage. Just don’t go into it, okay?” 

“Uh . . . okay. I don’t imagine that I will, but thanks for the warning.” My eyes stayed locked on the woman’s porch. She stepped out onto it and closed the door behind her. I saw lips moving but didn’t know what they were saying—probably Teddy just asking routine questions. I needed to pay closer attention. I needed to know what was going on, to see if there was any hint in the woman’s words that told me why I was sent here. “I have to go, Emma. I’m kind of in the middle of something really important.” 

“Okay. Just be careful.” 

“I’ll be fine, Emma. You don’t have to worry about me.” 

We said goodbye and hung up. I really wanted to know what was happening on the porch. I slowly climbed over the middle console and crawled into the passenger seat. I knew my mom had an extra key to Teddy’s car, so I quickly dug it out of her purse and stuck the key in the ignition just enough to roll my window down a crack in hopes of making out some of the conversation on the porch.  

When I turned back to look at the house, I saw it. The corner of a white garage peeked out from the side of the yellow house. It was tucked far back from the street, but it was the only white garage I noticed. I could hear the voices on the porch now, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. My pulse quickened, and my eyes locked on the white building situated behind the woman’s house. 

Emma knew it was going to be there. She warned me about it. That meant it was important somehow. And I knew exactly how. Hope was in that garage. Those long moments the woman took getting to the door must have been spent sneaking Hope out of the house. I may not have believed it myself if I didn’t feel it in my bones. I knew Hope was close, and something about the garage called out to me.

I didn’t process what I was doing when I slid out of the vehicle. The promise I’d just made to Emma moments before didn’t even register in my mind while I moved. Teddy’s and my mom’s eyes were on the woman while her own gaze stared in the opposite direction down the street from me. Nobody saw me slink around the side of the house next door and double back through that person’s back yard. I couldn't explain what possessed me to sneak to the garage on my own. It was as if my abilities were drawing me in and the rational part of me all but ceased to exist.

I stayed low as I approached a window on the side of the garage. My heart pounded against my chest in preparation to face the unknown. I pressed my back against the side of the garage and peeked into the window. For a brief moment, everything within my body froze. A small figure was curled up in a chair near the far side of the garage. Her knees were pulled to her chest and held tightly by her arms.

My nervous system went into overdrive. I recoiled from the window and rested my head on the side of the building, forcing my heart to slow and my breathing to normalize. I had found her. I’d finally found Hope, and she was sitting mere feet away from me with nothing but a wall to separate us. 

I glanced back into the window, careful to keep my face as hidden as possible. I knew for sure that the girl sitting there was Hope. I scanned the room but didn’t see anyone else. My eyes darted toward the porch, but no one could see me from here. I was clear. If I took my chance now, I could get Hope out of there and away from the situation quickly, and Teddy would be able to handle the rest. 

I didn’t give it another thought. I knew it was something I had to do. It was now or never. I held my breath and scanned the area cautiously while I circled around to the side door. As I passed another window, I quickly checked again that Hope was alone. The best I could tell, she was. A mixture of emotions overcame me, sending my heart pounding and my hands shaking.

I nervously gripped the door handle but couldn’t wait another moment. I rushed into the room and immediately over to Hope. She saw me instantly, and her eyes lit up.

“Hope!” I called, hurriedly crossing the garage to her corner. Her arms reached out toward me, and I swooped her up, cradling her in my embrace. I was ready to explain to her who I was and that I was there to save her, but I didn’t have a chance before she spoke. 

“Crystal!” she exclaimed excitedly. 

My whole body tensed for a brief moment, but there wasn’t time to ask her how she knew my name. All I knew was that I had to get out of there and back to the car before anyone realized I was missing from it. It hadn’t even occurred to me to worry about where Lauren was right now. For all I knew, she had dropped Hope off here and left. The desire to get Hope to safety consumed me.

Hope and I pulled away from our embrace and gripped each other’s hands. I didn’t even get a chance to turn around before witnessing the terror fixed in Hope’s eyes. Before she could shout a warning, something hard cracked into my skull. I crashed to the ground, and my vision went black in response to the ache pulsing through my head. The world swayed around me, and I couldn’t make sense of which way was up and which way was down.

Objects across the floor blurred. Even after a few seconds when my vision returned, I couldn’t understand what was going on. I quickly realized I was no longer holding Hope’s hand. I knew I had to get up, but I still couldn’t find my balance. I braced my palms against the concrete and strained to push myself from the cold surface. The room spun around me, and a high-pitched ringing assaulted my ears.

I finally found my way to a sitting position and cradled the area of impact with my left hand. My head reeled in a terrifying struggle to figure out what had just happened to me. I blinked a few times, and when my vision began to normalize, I looked around the room. A wooden board sat a few feet from me, and I instantly knew it was what hit me. 

Then my eyes adjusted to find two figures standing in front of me. A woman with wild red hair held Hope against her body with one hand clamped down around her mouth. 

Lauren
, I thought, my mind full of spite for the woman. Every ounce of empathy I’d ever felt for her drifted away and was replaced with rage. I wouldn’t stand by and let her beat me to a pulp, and there was no way I was going to let her hold onto Hope the way she was, not with the terror fixed in Hope’s chocolate eyes. 

“Stop it, Lauren,” I demanded with every ounce of courage I could muster. I finally found enough sense of equilibrium that I stood from the floor. The task was harder than it sounded with the pounding headache and impaired sense of balance the blow had given me. 

Lauren took a step back. Her eyes went wide, and it made me realize how crazy she actually looked. There was no doubt about it; Lauren needed some serious help. Unfortunately, I didn’t have it in me to worry about helping her when Hope was shaking in terror. All I could think was that I hoped her mental state was stable enough that she wouldn’t hurt Hope.

“How do you know my name?” Lauren demanded. “Who are you?”

“Just let her go,” I insisted, taking a gentle step forward. Lauren only distanced herself from me, dragging Hope with her. “It’s not worth it, Lauren.” 

“She’s my little girl! I’d do anything for her.” Lauren pulled in quick, shallow breaths with each step she took away from me. Just a few more feet and she’d be trapped against the back wall. She glanced around frantically until her eyes fell upon an object on the shelf behind her. She quickly grabbed for it and held the screwdriver out at me as if it were a sword. “Stay away from us,” she threatened with a shaky voice.

“Just calm down,” I tried as kindly as I could. “You know she’s not your little girl. You know she’s not Penny.” 

Lauren’s face twisted into a cross between fear and anger. “How do you know about Penny?” 

“I just do.” I inched closer to her. “Now, let Hope go.” 

“Shut up. Just shut up!” Her eyes darted around the room, but she still held the screwdriver out at me. Her gaze fell upon me again as she spoke. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re not taking my little girl away from me again.” 

I kept her talking, hoping this might calm her down and she’d eventually release Hope. Frankly, I didn’t have any other strength in this situation and didn’t know what more to do. If I dove quickly, I might be able to grab ahold of the board she had used to hit me with, but I didn’t think I had it in me to inflict physical pain on her, even as worry for Hope’s sake washed over me.

“Why didn’t you ever tell Scott about Penny?” I asked, partially to keep Lauren talking and partially out of my own curiosity. I knew she had tried to tell him the night before he left, but she never did. Maybe things would have turned out differently if she had told him and he’d been a part of their lives.

She narrowed her eyes at me like she couldn’t quite place how I knew about her and Scott. Still, something about her demeanor changed as she reflected back on this time in her life. I almost thought I saw tears in her eyes, and she even dropped the screwdriver slightly when she spoke.

“He
left
me. I was going to tell him, but at the last minute, I decided I didn’t want to make him choose between me and his father. So I let him worry about his dad for a while. After his dad died and he was done grieving, I was going to tell him, only
she
was already a part of his life, and they were getting
married
. Do you know how that made me feel?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s like he reached into my chest and ripped my heart out. The one man I ever loved was gone thanks to another woman. But how could I tell him then? I couldn’t break apart a family like that, so I kept my distance.”

“You didn’t even tell him Penny died,” I said to keep her talking.

“He didn’t know about Penny at all. How could I tell him his daughter died when he didn’t even know she existed?” Lauren’s expression grew more sour as she talked. “What do you care anyway? And who are you?”

Her eyes narrowed at me the same time I opened my mouth to give her some lame excuse, but she spoke again before I could. “And why were you at my house?”