Anna folded her arms. “The first few days of a missing person case are the most important, and what do you mean it’s pointless for you to get involved? You’re her mother.”
“Yes, I’m her very busy mother with five clients scheduled today.” She glanced at her watch. “And I’m due in the courtroom in three hours. Very important people depend on me, Anna.” She gave Anna a look that clearly said
let it go,
then jabbed the power button on the computer. “I sure hope you kept on top of things yesterday.”
“Oh sure, I kept on top of things.” Anna unfolded her arms and spun on her heel, disappearing into her own office. “I went through your emails,” she called out as she sat down at her desk where Karen could only see her back. “I sorted through your voicemails; there were a lot of messages from people concerned about Naomi, and one from your sister, Elizabeth. Doesn’t she have your cell number?”
“Nobody has my cell number except for you and Jason. You know all my other calls are forwarded from here.”
“Not even Naomi?” Anna spun around in her chair, and it was then that Karen noticed her wrinkled clothes and the misplaced pillows on the leather sofa across the room.
“No, not even Naomi.”
“What if she needs you? How can she get a hold of you if she doesn’t have your number?”
“Naomi never needs me. Did you sleep here last night?”
Anna blinked.
“Anna?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why would you sleep here?”
Her face turned scarlet as she stood from her chair. “Why wouldn’t I sleep here? I only had people and reporters coming in here every five seconds yesterday asking about you. I only tried to call your phone five billion times. I only sat here worried sick ever since they announced on the news that there was a robbery the night she disappeared
three blocks
from your house. What if someone took her, Karen? That’s what they’re saying. You and your husband are two of the most prominent people in this city, and you’re hiding her under the rug.”
Karen closed her eyes and forced her mind back to a calm place. She was starting to come undone, and she couldn’t let that happen. A woman in her position had to stay strong. Her career depended on it. She wasn’t showing remorse or guilt or anything over Naomi, and that obviously bothered Anna. The problem was that Anna couldn’t possibly understand how her relationship with Naomi worked. She opened her eyes and stood.
“I’m going to go get some coffee.”
“But I always get your coffee.”
“Not today.”
Karen marched out of the office as she rubbed a finger between her eyes. Was this how everyone was going to react? Shocked at her behavior? The reporters were already camping out near the house. It was only a matter of time before they realized she had snuck away to come to work. They would be here by afternoon pestering her with questions. Jason would have it even worse. He was the CEO of one of the largest companies in the western United States.
She snatched a mug from a cupboard and filled it with coffee. She needed it badly today. Jason had kept her up all night worrying about Naomi. He wondered if he should go back to work, if he should try to help search for her more than he already had, if it was his fault she was gone. Which was ridiculous. She was almost eighteen. When Karen was that age, she had left her family, excited to start her own life away from what was barely a home. She could still smell the burnt macaroni and cheese her sister had tried to make in the kitchen of their trashy trailer and the greasy hamburgers her father grilled outside every weekend until the snow fell. Her mother had worked at a factory, and whenever she came home she plopped herself onto the lumpy couch and chain smoked until Karen had to go outside so she could breathe. The only refuge was school. On her ceiling she had taped a poster of Harvard. One day she would go there and graduate and live in a big, clean house by the ocean.
“And that’s exactly what I did,” she mumbled into her coffee. She marched back to her office and sat down. Anna was still at her desk.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Karen said, causing Anna to turn around to look at her.
“What am I thinking?”
“That I’m a terrible person for reacting this way.”
“That’s not what I—”
Karen held up a hand. “Everybody will think that, but they’re wrong. They don’t understand the pressures Jason and I deal with—what we have to maintain in the public eye. I’ve given Naomi everything I never had. If she’s anything like me, she’s not in any danger. She just needed some space. Her boyfriend hit her, and she probably thinks running away for a little while will teach him a lesson. She’ll come back in a few days.”
Anna turned back to her computer. “Seems like she had plenty of space before.”
That wasn’t worth answering. Karen couldn’t believe she was wasting her time arguing with Anna. There was too much to do today. She stared at her email inbox and blinked as the screen turned fuzzy. Lack of sleep, that was all. She swiveled her chair to face the windows behind her as the caffeine from her coffee seeped into her system. The ocean was calm beyond the city, just like her. She would stay calm. Even if Naomi was truly in danger, showing the public her fear and insecurities would not help anyone. Nobody could understand her relationship with Naomi. It was like a flower trying to bloom. If someone disturbed it, it would die, just like her broken relationship with her own mother had died. She wouldn’t let that happen, especially from reporters trying to pry into her life.
Taking a sip of her coffee, she turned back to her computer.
III
THE AIR SMELLED LIKE BACON. NAOMI KEPT her eyes closed as sunlight warmed her face. She was comfortable beneath a heavy quilt. Turning, she snuggled her cheek into a fluffy pillow.
Wait a minute.
The motel room. The book of poetry.
She sat up, her heart hammering. The room was mostly empty and definitely not a motel room. There was a four-poster bed, a nightstand, a dresser. The door was dead bolted from the other side. There was a bathroom and a walk-in closet with clothes on hangers.
She wasn’t dreaming. She couldn’t be dreaming with this much pain. She touched the ends of her short hair as tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked them away. She had to think and keep a level head. First of all, where was she? Was she safe, or seconds away from danger?
She lifted the quilt from her body and stared at her bare feet. They had taken her shoes off, and she couldn’t see them anywhere. She touched her lip. No blood. The split had closed. The wound at the base of her skull throbbed, but it was clean and healing over. They had taken care of her, and that frightened her more than anything else. She swallowed. Her throat was parched.
Trembling, she got out of bed and entered the bathroom where she leaned over the sink and drank straight from the tap. The water sloshing in her stomach, she straightened to look at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t about to flip on the light to see more of the terrified girl staring back at her. She looked terrible. Her hair was uneven and serrated, not even fit for a punk star.
She peeked inside two shopping bags on the counter. Toothbrush and toothpaste, floss, a brush and comb, soap and shampoo. Even underwear. Her size.
She raced out of the bathroom to the window by the bed and pulled back the curtain. There was hard packed snow on the ground. The bedroom was on the second floor of a house facing a quiet street. Ancient maple and pine trees dotted the neighborhood of fancy houses and landscaped yards. Her fingers brushed across the window sill and she nearly jumped at what she saw. Someone had installed a lock on the outside. Why bother? Even if she managed to get out, the fall would break a leg or an arm.
So they wanted to keep her here like a caged animal.
Yeah, right.
Running to the door, she yanked on the handle. Locked. She threw herself at it, pounded, kicked, but didn’t yell. She was already dizzy. White stars exploded before her eyes. She blinked and shook her head. More stars. Blackness. Her knees were suddenly Jell-O. She was going to crumple in a heap on the floor if she didn’t make it back to the bed in time. All she needed was to lie down. Two seconds.
Finally, she made her way back to the bed and crawled under the warm blankets. Her stomach tightened. Hunger. That explained the stars, the exhaustion, and the ache in her stomach. She hadn’t eaten in days. Maybe she would give up for now.
A clock near the bathroom showed that it was five. She focused on the second hand ticking its way around, around, around. She closed her eyes and saw two yellow lights speeding toward her. No time to run. No time to do anything but widen her eyes in the foggy darkness. An explosion ripped through her lungs as her feet flew out from under her. Gritty tar and gravel, slamming doors and panicked voices, breaths on her face. She was lifted up into nothing.
A HAND brushed across Naomi’s forehead and she opened her eyes. It wasn’t Jesse or Eric, but a woman.
“Hello,” the woman said with a sweet smile. “I’m Evelyn.”
Naomi backed away and sat up. The sunlight shining through the windows was heavier than before. Evelyn blinked as the rich glow shifted across her face. She looked a lot like Eric—same clear olive complexion, angled cheekbones, and dark hair. Hers was in loose ringlets falling to her shoulders. Her lips were pretty, a deep red. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and leaned forward.
“Are you alright? Can I get you anything? I brought you some food. Eric said you haven’t eaten for days.”
She gritted her teeth. “He never gave me any food.” Her voice was weak and frail. It felt strange to speak. She should probably keep her mouth shut in some sort of defense, but Evelyn wasn’t threatening in any way and the words flowed to the tip of her tongue. “He gave me pills.”
Evelyn sighed. “He thought rest was more important for you. We didn’t want you dying or anything.”
Naomi didn’t know if she should laugh or be horrified. Why would these people care if she died? They wanted her to keep her mouth shut about whatever they thought she had seen. Dying would take care of that. Why waste the energy keeping her locked up like this?
Evelyn pointed to a sandwich and glass of milk on the nightstand. “Go ahead and eat, but take it slow or it might come right back up. Do you want me to leave?”
She snatched the plate with shaky hands. Bacon, lettuce, and tomato, something Brad had made her once. She sank her teeth into it, and a small groan escaped her throat.
“I’m glad you like it.”
Naomi hardly heard her. The sandwich was so good.
Evelyn stood. “I want to cut your hair. It looks terrible. I’m sorry he ....” She chewed on her lip, blinking as she looked at the floor. “Eric is my brother. He didn’t have any choice but to take you.” She glanced at the door. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
She left the room in a hurry, the locks turning in place as Naomi looked down at her sandwich. It was the best food she had ever tasted.
AN INTENSE, pounding headache and spells of stomach cramps plagued her most of the night. After deciding it was because of the food, she wished she had heeded Evelyn’s advice and eaten more slowly.
Now she tossed and turned beneath the blankets, repeatedly waking in a cold sweat until she looked at the clock for the hundredth time, saw that it was six in the morning, and realized her headache was finally gone.
She heard muffled voices. Doors opened and closed, and the faint hum of a hairdryer drifted through the far right wall. One of her kidnapper’s bedrooms was next to hers, but what were they doing awake at six o’clock in the morning?
She could pound on the door again.
No, she felt too sick. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so crappy. Her nannies always took such good care of her when she was sick as a kid. They never let it get too bad.
The air was missing something. She was used to the sounds of crashing waves and screeching gulls. She longed for those sounds now, the smell of salt in the air when she woke up every morning to the brisk commotion of her parents getting ready for work. They woke up at six every morning, but they had jobs. Did her kidnappers work like normal people? It was so weird to think of them that way, but as the clock ticked through the darkness, she heard them passing her door, talking and clearing their throats as if nothing was wrong. Downstairs, dishes clattered, cupboard doors closed. Faint voices, laughter, the smell of coffee. All the voices sounded male except for Evelyn’s smooth tones.
The minutes ticked by, each one building up the nervous tension inside her until she finally slipped out of the bed and rushed into the bathroom.
“Good thing there’s a lock,” she grumbled and switched on the light. She pressed both of her palms to her forehead and looked at herself in the mirror. She needed to think, to feel safe for two minutes. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall.
Think. Think.
They thought she had seen something. She hadn’t, but they weren’t going to let her go now. It was obvious they were going to keep her here until ... until what? She groaned and dug her fingernails into her scalp. Whatever happened, she had to play by their rules until she could figure something out. Eric would kill her if she made one wrong move. She believed that with every fiber of her being. She had to obey.
For now.
She left the bathroom to search through the clothes in the closet. Jeans, long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, even a pair of cotton pants and a camisole to sleep in. They were all brand-new, the correct sizes, and clean. The smell of her own dirty body was getting on her nerves. She could at least take a shower before Evelyn came to cut her hair. She snatched a change of clothes.