When at last Doug and Aaron came home, Kay watched the reluctance on the boy’s face as he went to his grandparents. It was clear he was having trouble processing all the things his mother had said about them. But after a while, he seemed relieved that they were here to help.
The reunion couldn’t have come at a better time.
D
OUG AND
K
AY LEFT THE
G
ATLINS ALONE WITH THE KIDS TO GET
reacquainted, and Doug collapsed onto the bed. Sweat poured from his forehead even though the night was cool. His breathing was labored.
Kay checked his dressing. “Should I call Derek, honey? You don’t look good.”
“I’m okay,” he said. “Just give me a few minutes to rest.” He took her hand and pulled her down next to him. “Kay, where is she?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. We’ve been praying all day, Doug. They’ve got to find her soon.”
He closed his eyes and pressed his fists against them. “I should have been guarding the house. I should have heard him sooner.”
Kay took his hand and kissed it. “Doug, you did hear him. You may have stopped him from killing us.”
“He didn’t want us dead,” he said. “He needs us alive so we can pay him to get her back.”
“But there hasn’t been a ransom note.”
“There will be.” He hoped he was right. If there was, Moe would be motivated to keep Sarah alive. “Aaron won’t be able to handle it if anything happens to her. He’s almost at the end of his rope now. He’s only nine.”
A knock sounded on their bedroom door and Kay called, “Come in.”
Deni came into the room. Jeff, Beth, and Logan trailed behind her, and Craig brought up the rear. “Mom, is Dad all right?”
“I’m fine,” he answered. “Come here.”
His children all came to the bed. Logan and Beth climbed up on it next to him and Kay. Jeff and Deni stood over him. Craig hung back at the door.
“You don’t look fine,” Deni said. “Dad, you look really sick. You’re not taking care of yourself, and if you don’t stop going all over the place to look for her, then you might get an infection and die.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Jeff said. “I’ll take Aaron and his grandparents to look for her, and you can stay here.”
He tried to laugh. “I’m okay, guys. I’m just tired.”
“Your gunshot wound doesn’t hurt?” Logan asked skeptically.
“It hurts, but I can stand it.”
“
And
you have broken ribs,” Deni pointed out. “The doctor said for you to take it easy. You could puncture a lung or something.”
“I can’t take it easy right now. Sarah’s still missing, and I have to do everything I can to find her.” He settled his gaze on the ceiling. “I’m hoping she’ll be found tonight. The police have several leads they’re working on.”
“So how are the Gatlins doing?” Kay asked Deni.
“Some tears,” Deni said. “Really stinks, you know? Them coming all this way only to find out that their granddaughter has been kidnapped. But I think it’s helping Aaron to have them here.”
Doug took Deni’s hand. “Since all of you are here, let’s pray, why don’t we?”
Deni took Jeff’s hand, and the rest of them grasped hands. Craig remained at the door.
“Come on, Craig. You too,” Kay said, reaching out a hand for him.
He looked reluctant, but he came and stood at the edge of the bed, between Jeff and Deni. They began to pray one at a time, speaking as they felt led. Craig remained quiet.
Silently, Doug sent up a prayer for him too, that God would work on his heart. It looked like he really was going to be a member of their family, and Doug needed to start thinking of him as a son … whether he liked it or not.
M
OE
J
ENKINS SNIPPED A TENDRIL OF
S
ARAH
’
S HAIR, WATCHED IT
fall to the floor. Too bad he couldn’t sell it. He knew women who’d cut off an arm to have hair like this.
Careful not to wake the child, who had cried and screamed until he’d had to drug her with Dramamine, he snipped again and added another strand to the heap on the floor. She was too identifiable with that hair. And if his first plan didn’t work, then he’d have to resort to plan B. And that meant the hair had to go.
He finished cutting her curls off, then gently brushed his fingers over the crudely cropped haircut. She looked like a little boy now. Perfect. He’d be able to walk or bike across town with her in broad daylight and no one would recognize her.
And the hair would add a great touch of drama to his ransom note. Kick up the urgency a notch or two.
He scooped the hair up onto a piece of notebook paper, then dumped it into a Ziploc bag that had previously held his dope.
He tried to think, but his brain was muddled. He’d taken too many painkillers to dull the pain of his gunshot wound. The bullet had grazed his waist, taking a chunk of flesh with it.
Focus
, he told himself.
Think.
Maybe he shouldn’t alert them that he’d cut off
all
her hair. If they knew that, the police could sketch pictures of what she’d look like without it.
No, he’d only send one strand. That way they’d know he meant business and it would give them the drama he needed.
He took the rest of it out of the bag and dropped it on the warehouse floor. Then he got a clean piece of paper. Trying to steady his hand, he wrote out the ransom note:
If you ever want to see the kid alive again, bring $200 to the 10th Street Bridge tonight at 11:30. If I see police anywhere around, Sarah dies and you can bury her dead body next to that tramp of a mother of hers.
There. That ought to do it. He sat there and stared at it for a moment, aware of the irony that he would go to all this trouble for two hundred bucks. But he knew the Brannings probably didn’t have more than that, and you couldn’t get blood out of a turnip.
He figured the Brannings would have already spent some of their disbursement, but if they’d gotten enough for ten people — the six of them and the four Gatlin kids — that would have been 250 dollars. He didn’t buy their story about the stolen money. No way they would have kept those brats for nothing. Two hundred dollars wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, and if they didn’t have it, they could get it from others.
Hopefully they cared enough about the kid to pay it.
If they didn’t, he could go to plan B — move to another town and keep her until the next disbursement. She was his, after all. And if she gave him too much trouble, he could always go to plan C.
He could keep his promise to bury her next to her mother.
T
HE SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS WERE CROWDED TONIGHT.
Though Aaron’s grandparents had been offered that Eloise lady’s house for the night, they had decided to stay at the Brannings’ in case there was word from Sarah. They had pulled out the sofa bed in the living room, and Grandma and Pop were sleeping on that.
That made it difficult to sneak out without being caught. But Aaron had had plenty of practice; he figured he could make it.
He slipped off the bed without waking his brothers, then quietly got dressed. He had given sleep an honest try, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah. He imagined terrible things happening to her. What if she was locked up somewhere in the dark? He pictured a damp dungeon, or a cage like in
Hansel and Gretel
, and Sarah screaming until her throat was raw
.
She had such a fear of the dark after all those hours she’d spent in their mother’s closet. What if that man had beaten her or worse? What if she was calling Aaron’s name?
What if she was dead, lying somewhere in the woods like their mother?
Fears circled like vultures in his mind, keeping him from sleep. He had to go out and find her. Lying in bed had given him ideas. There was a house his mom had taken them to once, when she’d had to get her dope. The place had stunk worse than anyplace he’d ever smelled. They’d been cooking dope in a back room, and the place was full of crazed and heavy-lidded friends of hers, smoking from lightbulbs — or something like them. There were needles lying around and people with stripes up their arms, sitting in a dazed stupor.
Maybe Moe bought his dope there too. Maybe Aaron could find someone there who’d seen him and Sarah.
He went down the hall, careful not to make a sound, then stepped down each step. His foot creaked on the third step and he held his breath.
Maybe no one had heard.
He made his way to the ground floor, then headed for the front door. It was too risky to take one of the bikes, since he’d have to raise the garage door to get it out. That would surely wake the Brannings. And if he rolled the bike through the house so he could take it out the door without opening the garage, the
click-click-click
of the wheels would surely wake his grandparents in the living room.
No, he’d just have to walk. Quietly, he turned the dead bolt on the front door. It clicked too loudly. He stopped and listened, but no one stirred. Wincing with the effort of silence, he turned the knob and pulled the door open. The hinges squeaked.
“Aaron, where are you going?”
He swung around. He couldn’t see who had caught him in the darkness, but it sounded like Pop.
“Nowhere. I was just — ”
The flashlight came on, shining in his eyes. His grandfather came closer and closed the door back.
Bolting it, he said, “Aaron, come sit down with me. Let’s talk.”
“I wasn’t doing nothing. I just wanted some air.”
But his grandfather wouldn’t listen. With a hand on Aaron’s shoulder, Pop guided him to the study so they wouldn’t disturb his grandmother. He was glad of that. He didn’t need her freaking out too.
His grandfather lit the lamp and sat down knee to knee with him. His silver eyes were solemn, probing. “Aaron, where were you going?”
His mouth twisted. “Just to look for Sarah. I thought of some place she might be.”
Pop’s face softened. “Son, you can’t go out into the night like that or something will happen to you too. Where would we be then?”
“But she’s still out there!” he bit out. “You don’t know her, but she’s really little, and she can’t defend herself — ”
“I know that.” The tears in his eyes backed up his words. “I’ve thought of nothing else all night. I couldn’t sleep, either.”
Hope lit Aaron’s face. “Then come with me.”
“Where?”
He wiped his face. “There was this house where Mama used to buy dope.”
“You think Sarah’s there?”
“No, but maybe somebody there knows Moe and can figure out where he took her.”
His grandfather leaned forward and put his hands on Aaron’s knees. “Son, we can’t go to a crack house in the middle of the night. We could get murdered, and then what would happen to Joey and Luke? If something happens to us, who will look for Sarah?”
“But she’s been gone so long!” Aaron’s voice broke, and he dropped his face into his hands. “What if she’s dead?”
The words fell like a cement block between them. “Aaron, we can’t go out after her tonight. That would be foolish. But we can pray for her. I’ve been praying all night.”
“I can’t pray,” Aaron said. “God doesn’t listen to me.”
His grandfather pulled back. The shadows moved down his face, making the lines in his skin look deeper. “You’re wrong about that. Aaron, we’ve prayed for you for years. God’s heard every prayer, and he’s brought you back to us.”
“That’s because
you
were praying. Not because I was.” He got up and went to the window looking out on the front lawn. He couldn’t see much more than his reflection in the darkness. “He hates me, God does. He’s punishing me for all the stuff I’ve done.”
Pop came over and stood behind him. “Aaron, why do you think that?”
“Because,” he said. “In church, Mr. Doug said that heaven is a perfect place, that God can’t let sin in it. And if he hates sin, then he hates me.”
“God doesn’t hate anybody.”
“Yes, he does. The Brannings read the psalms some nights after supper. I heard it myself one of those times. There’s one that says God hates the wicked and the violent.”
His grandfather turned him around and gazed down at him. “But Aaron, God just meant that he takes sin seriously. He doesn’t overlook it. Then he tells us stories of people who did wicked and violent things, and he forgave them. Like King David. Did you know that there was a time when he was so wicked that he stole another man’s wife, then had her husband killed so he could have her for himself?”
Aaron just looked at him. “David, from David and Goliath?”
“Yes. You know about him?”
“Beth wrote this cheesy play about him. It’s a musical. We’re talking really lame, but all the kids in the neighborhood were in it. Even me.”
“Good. Then you know how close he was to God when he was younger, and how God worked in his life. But later on, he still let wickedness in and was responsible for a murder. How much worse can it be?”
Aaron swallowed. “God forgave murder?”
“Of course he did. And the apostle Paul was a murderer too. Do you know about him?”
Aaron tried to think, but nothing came to him. He shook his head.
“Paul turned out to be one of the greatest preachers who ever lived. He helped spread Christianity across the world, and he wrote a lot of the Bible. Before he gave his life to Jesus, he went around killing Christians for their beliefs. There’s no telling how many he killed. Then God got hold of him and turned his life around, and he was sorry. God forgave him and used him to do great things, Aaron. So you see? Nothing you’ve done, no matter how wicked you think it is, is too much for God. He tells us that if we confess our sins, he will forgive them.”
Aaron stared at his grandfather, wondering if he could trust him. For so long, he’d believed his mother’s stories about how they were out to get her and break up their family. But now he could see that wasn’t true. Grandma and Pop really seemed to love them.
Maybe Pop could be trusted about God too.
“How do you confess your sins?” Aaron asked.
“You just tell God what you did and tell him you’re sorry.”
Sorrow welled in Aaron’s chest, and all his past deeds paraded like drunken dancers in his mind. His face twisted with his pain, and he tried to hold back his tears.