In the Image of Grace (25 page)

I shook my head still taking him in. His one arm was
bound in bandages and his other one still had an IV in it and that
thing they stick on your finger that’s attached to something that
beeped.

“You still have an IV in Jeremy and you’re attached
to something else.” I honestly didn’t know what to call it, a blood
oxygen monitor thing. I was just trying to think of excuses to get
him to stay. He already got shot for me. I didn’t want anything
else to happen to him.

“I’ll just take the IV out.”

I sighed. Like he said, he was coming with me whether
I liked it or not. “Well, let me at least help you.”

Jeremy sat down on the edge of his bed and held out
his arm. I was hesitant and was tempted to close my eyes. I took a
deep breath peeling off the tape that held the IV to his arm. I
then gently grabbed the needle part shoved in his vein and very
carefully pulled it out.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Jeremy said leaning forward
giving me a small kiss on the lips.

I helped Jeremy slip on a tee-shirt and he gave me
his hat, which I pulled on, and his glasses’. To top off my look I
slipped on a light blue hoodie his mom brought him. He pulled the
blood oxygen monitor of his finger. We dashed out of the room and
down the hall. We snuck through the ER and slipped outside from
there. We were tempted to run down the block, but didn’t want to
bring suspicion to ourselves, so we casually walked away from the
hospital.

Luckily we were able to hop on a bus right away,
which was good because it was rather cold out and Jeremy didn’t
have a coat. We took a couple seats in back. Luckily there weren’t
a lot of people on there. The less people the better because I
didn’t need to be recognized. The bus smelled like a combination of
urine and sweet potatoes.

“We made it out,” Jeremy said already looking
exhausted. He was slouched in the seat with his arms hanging at his
side.

“I don’t know if this was the best idea. You really
should have stayed.” I nervously bounced my knee.

“Charlotte, there’s something bigger going on
here.”

I sighed. “I know, I just want you to be okay.”

“I am. What about you?”

“I don’t know. I really haven’t had a chance to think
about anything. Somebody tried to kill me and did almost kill my
sister and shot my boyfriend and now I think I’m going to find
something I’m not really sure I want to find because it would mean
that my worst fears have come true.” I bit my lip looking at
Jeremy. “You look tired. Are you tired?” I asked Jeremy realizing
that I hadn’t given my brain time to think and it might have been
going a little haywire.

“I’m fine,” he reassured me.

“For now.”

We got off the bus walking in the direction of the
house. Jeremy’s held his injured arm up against body, steadying it
with his hand as he walked.

“You have to be freezing,” I said to him noticing
that his stubble was the same exact length as it was days ago. I
reached up and rubbed his chin as we walked.

As if he read my mind he said, “That’s as long as it
gets.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m not a full formed man yet.”

“You are, but men do grow and develop until they’re
twenty-one. Aren’t you freezing?”

“Yeah,” he confessed smiling at me. “We don’t have
that far to go. I’ll be all right.”

“Hey, let’s turn down this way and come up from the
alley, just so nobody could see us,” I suggested we approached a
side street.

We turned left down the side street. Then right down
the alley and walked down the alley past all the garages, back
porches and chain linked fences until we came upon our garage. I
looked down the gangway and saw a couple photographers milling
about, but they didn’t look very hungry. All the good stuff was
over at the hospital.

“When they’re not looking we can climb over the gate,
run down the side of the garage and to the walkway space between
the house and the garage, all right,” I told Jeremy while looking
down the alley both ways just in case somebody followed us. Jeremy
bobbed his head yes.

After a couple minutes the few milling around the
front of the house near the gangway moved and luckily it was
garbage day, so we flipped over a garbage can. We climbed on top
and I went over the gate first. Jeremy followed. We quickly ran
past the garage and turned sharply left once the garage ended. The
two of us stood in the small shadowed space between the house and
garage.

“Now what,” Jeremy asked.

Little did he know I had a plan. “See next to the
stairs, those little windows.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll just break one and climb in,” I said looking
at the short rectangular window that was painted black.

“Won’t we set off the alarm?”

“No, I don’t think so. The basement windows don’t
have the sensors on them, at least I’m pretty sure they don’t, so
the only way we’d set off the alarm was if we opened the basement
door and actually entered the house.”

“We better hurry up before somebody catches us then.
What can we break the window with?”

I looked around the small walkway. There wasn’t
anything there we could use. “Let’s check out the garage.”

In the garage we found a shovel with a substantial
handle on it and figured that would work. I was going to need a
shovel anyways. I took off Jeremy’s hoodie I was wearing and we
wrapped it around the end of the shovel to quite the sound. We
didn’t need to draw any attention to ourselves. I busted in the
window and crouched down low to the ground and stuck my feet in the
small space we needed to go through. It was pretty tight.

“I’m not going to fit through there,” Jeremy sighed
while he squatted next to me as I shimmed through the window.

“You’re not wide, just long. I think you’ll be okay.”
I got my legs and butt in and cautiously lowered myself. I felt
something under my feet. It felt like a plastic storage tub or
something. I placed my feet on it and let go of the window and
pulled myself fully into the basement. I jumped off the tub I stood
on and attempted to look around, but it was pitch black besides the
very faint stream of light coming through the window we just
broke.

Jeremy poked his head through the window to make sure
I made it okay. I gave him a thumbs’ up and he made his way
through. He had a bit more of a struggle because he was a lot
larger than me. He also had an injured arm and was still weak. He
didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was hurting as he squeezed
his way through. Once Jeremy was in the basement with me we fumbled
around to find a light. After whacking at the dark air for a while
I hit something, heard a little tink and reached out and felt a
small metal beaded string. I pulled it and a light bulb came on. I
was able to see Jeremy dimly lit standing across the basement from
me.

“Hey,” he said looking down and then squatting. “It
seems that the floor down here is all dirt or most of it, except
the landing near the stairs there.”

I looked over to where the stairs were to see the
cement landing at the bottom of them. “Crap,” I cried suddenly. “I
forgot the shovel.”

Jeremy looked at me with his head cocked to the
side.

“We’re going to need it,” I informed him. I walked
over, stepped back up onto the storage tub and poked my face out
the window. The shovel was just to the left of the window and I
reached out and grabbed it and jumped down. “Look for lumps or
spots perhaps where it looks like the dirt was moved.” I then took
in a deep breath, “Like somebody was buried.”

Jeremy scrunched up his face and pulled his head back
with what I said. I sighed and nodded. We started searching. We
scoured the whole basement and didn’t seem to find anything, so I
then took the shovel and started digging in various places. I first
dug a hole under the light because if you were burying something it
would have been the best lighting. Jeremy knelt next to hole and
dug the best he could with his hands.

“Shoot, not here either,” I groaned after we dug our
fourth hole, which all were at least a couple feet deep. The two of
us were getting dirty. Jeremy’s face was smeared in dirt from
itching it with his dirt covered hands. I had my sweater sleeves
pushed up and dirt up to my elbows.

I closed my eyes and tried to take myself back to my
dream. I could see Reginald and I could feel the dirt filing my
lungs and I was my mother, but yet I was myself. I then opened my
eyes and somehow knew exactly where to dig. I led Jeremy to under
the wooden basement steps. He tried to take the shovel from me, but
I wouldn’t let him grab it. We then started to dig. At first it
seemed like we were coming up empty handed. I kept digging and
digging. Then all of a sudden I felt something with the end of the
shovel. It was hard and I dropped the shovel.

“Oh God,” I murmured sitting down on my feet. Jeremy
came and sat next to me. “I know it’s her, I just know it.”

Jeremy looked me in the eyes and without a word we
started gently digging in the dirt with our hands. I felt what the
shovel hit in my fingers, it was hard and smooth and long. I
cleared away the rest of the dirt and in my hands I held what
appeared to be my mother’s femur. Jeremy’s mouth hung wide open.
His eyebrows were raised high. My mouth also hung open at the
horror of what I held in my hands. Neither of us said anything. I
put the bone down and started crying. Jeremy wrapped his one arm
around me and I stuck my face in his shoulder and balled. He
stroked the back of my head. My heart felt so much pain at that
moment. All my worst fears were realized. I was never going to meet
my mother because she was dead. I sat in front of her bones in the
basement to my house. The pain filled my whole chest. Then my whole
body and I fell into Jeremy and cried so loud if anybody was in the
house I’m sure they would have heard me. Jeremy didn’t say anything
he just kept stroking my hair. He didn’t try to quite me up or make
shushing noises. He just let me cry out some of my pain.

I finally calmed myself. Jeremy wiped some tears off
my face with his thumb and we continued digging. I uncovered a
patella, a tibia and eventually found a pelvis. Then Jeremy pulled
something out of the dirt and he gently held it in his hand. My
mouth dropped to the ground when I saw my mother’s skull.

“We’re going to have to get her out of the house.
Especially if Reginald finds out we were down here,” I said in a
whisper.

“Should we call the police?” Jeremy asked still
holding my mother’s skull.

“I don’t trust Reginald. I’m sure he already has some
sort of prepared statement to explain this. We have to bring her to
the police ourselves.”

Jeremy nodded and put the skull down. He got up and
went over to the storage container that we used to step down on.
“We could use this,” he said lifting off the lid.”

“Only problem is it won’t fit out the window,” I
pointed out.

“Yeah, hey, we could see if there’s something in the
garage and then we could remove her piece by piece through the
window.” Jeremy stopped talking and shook his head. “There is
something so wrong with that statement.” He looked over at me. Then
at my mom’s remains still shaking his head.

“Is this too much for you?” I asked.

“No, I knew what we were coming here to do,” Jeremy
said somberly putting the lid back on the plastic tub. “You wait
here with her and I’ll go look in the garage.”

“Can you get back out?” I asked. “I don’t want you to
hurt yourself.”

“I should,” Jeremy reassured me stepping up onto the
storage bin. He stood on the outside edges of it, so it wouldn’t
cave in at the middle. Then he turned his back towards the wall and
leant back. He was easily able to fit his body up to his shoulders
out the window. He put his good arm up and out the window and
pulled the rest of his body through the shallow opening. “Owe,
crap,” I heard him say as I saw his feet disappear.

“What,” I gasped rushing to the window.

“I just cut my hand on some of the glass,” he said
down to me as he squatted next to the window.

“You okay?”

Jeremy smiled at me. “I’ll be right back.” He was
probably getting tired of me asking him the, are you okay question.
I knew I was tired of people asking me.

I went back to under the stairs and continued gently
digging away the dirt. Almost my mother’s entire skeleton laid
exposed in the dirt for me to see. I took in a deep breath and
almost couldn’t let it out. My mother was no longer a missing
person. I sat in silence with her, trying to get to know her before
we had to take her away.

It had been quite a few minutes since Jeremy climbed
out the window to go look in the garage. I got up and walked across
the basement towards the window. As I approached it I saw something
fall past outside. It took me a second to realize it was Jeremy. I
could just see the upper part of his body. He was crumpled on the
ground with his face turned towards me. His eyes were closed and
blood was flowing down from his forehead coating the rest of his
face a bright red. I didn’t want to scream because then whoever did
that to Jeremy would know that I was down there, but I did anyways.
I let out a loud blood curdling scream, was it ever going to end?
My legs took control of my body with my heart wildly thumping,
trying to get out of my chest. My legs ran me across the basement,
up the wooden steps two by two and I flung open the basement door.
As soon as I stepped into the house there was a hand around my neck
pulling me in. I didn’t get a chance to scream again.

Reginald held me up in the air and looked up at me. I
kicked my legs like mad and pried at his hand around my neck. With
his free hand Reginald closed the basement door standing in the
hall that led into the back of the house choking the life out of
me. He looked at me with eyes wide open and a huge grin on his face
showing me all his big fake white teeth. I continued to struggle. I
could feel my air supply dwindling. My lungs screamed for
assistance. I kept kicking and with all my might I threw a kick
that landed right in his parts. He doubled over, dropping me to the
floor. I scrambled to get to my feet, but quite couldn’t make it
because it felt like the earth was about to flip over on me, so I
started to crawl towards the back of the house. Getting to the back
door and out to Jeremy was my plan. I didn’t get too far before
Reginald reached out and grabbed the back of my sweater, lifting me
to my feet.