Deliver Her: A Novel (18 page)

MEG

“I
knew
it.” With one look at Meg and Melissa’s worried faces, Jacob yanked off his coat, tossing it onto the couch. “When you wouldn’t answer, I knew something had happened. It’s Alex, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But I never wanted—” Meg started.

“She ran away, didn’t she? Damn it. I bet it was that Evan guy she’s been hanging with. When I get hold of that kid, I’m going to wring his—”

He shoved his hands in his back pockets and paced.

“It wasn’t Evan.” Meg moistened her lips. “You’re not going to like this, Jacob. Alex didn’t run away. I . . . I sent her away.”

He whirled to face her. “You what?”

“I . . . I sent her to New Hampshire.”

“You went behind my back, even after I said I was against that reform school?”

“You barely listened to me that night. You were more interested in the TV than what I had to say. I had to do something. You were ready to let her . . . self-destruct.”

“I can’t fucking believe this,” he said, shaking his head. “But wait . . . if you’re both here . . .” He gestured at the kitchen, where Melissa had retreated when he’d come in.

“. . . How did Alex get there?”

Meg took a deep breath. “I hired someone. A transport service.”

“You paid a stranger to take our kid? What is she, some kind of package to be shipped off to New England?”

“I had no choice. You said it yourself that night: she’d never go willingly. But Jacob, there’s something else.” Meg joined him at the fireplace, crossing her arms and shaking off the tears that spilled down her cheeks. “There’s been an accident.”

“An accident? What the—?” Jacob slammed his fist on the mantel. “How is she?”

“We know Alex got out of the car OK. But she’s been missing for a few hours.” Skipping over the morning pickup, Meg offered the sparse accident details Carl had provided. “We have to focus on the good news. She walked away from the car.
And
she left Cass’s scarf as a marker. That’s something.”

“Good news, huh?” Jacob rubbed his face. “The only thing I’m hearing is that my little girl is out there alone.”

“
Our
little girl.” Up close, he looked like hell: bloodshot eyes, fatigue stamped in blue crescent shadows underneath, days’ worth of stubble. Guilt rippled through her. “Jacob, I am so, so sorry. I never should have done this. Nothing you can say will make me feel any worse than I already do.”

“I’ve gotta go up there.” He started for the hall.

Meg ran after him. “Jacob, you can’t. You just drove all that way.”

At the powder room, he turned, eyes hard. “Yes, I did. And if you had picked up when I called and told me what was going on, I could have gone right there.” He went in the bathroom and closed the door.

His eerie calmness jarred her. “I thought about calling you,” Meg lied through the door, “but I didn’t want to upset you while you were driving.”

Melissa emerged from the kitchen. “Don’t make it worse, Meg.”

The toilet flushed and Jacob came out. “I’m going. The thought of Alex out there alone . . .”

“Jacob, please stay. You’re exhausted,” said Melissa.

“This is none of your business,” he said to her. “Although I’m sure you were in on it since day one.”

Melissa glanced sideways at Meg. “I . . . You have every right to be angry, Jacob. I told Meg to tell you.”

Meg’s mouth dropped open. “Christ. Throw me under the bus, why don’t you?”

“Sorry, Meg, but I told you this was a huge gamble.” Her voice softened. “Jacob, at least wait until morning. There’s a raging ice storm up there. The last thing Alex needs is for something to happen to you.”

“Like that expert driver Meg hired?”

“He came well recommended,” Meg said. “Parents wrote testimonials and—”

“You went too far this time.”

This was better
, Meg thought as his voice rose. She deserved his anger.

“Guys, stop. You’ll wake Jack.”

Tomorrow. Jack’s practice.
Meg covered her mouth, recalling her promise to her son.

“Are you serious?” Jacob said after she explained. “I can’t chat about baseball right now.
You
explain it to him.”

Behind Jacob, Melissa gestured wildly at the steps where Jack was making his way downstairs.

“Explain what?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Nothing, bud. Just mommy and daddy stuff,” Meg said. “We have to go pick Alex up.”

“Why? Where is she? Daddy just got home. Why does he have to go out again?”

“It’s important, honey. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Jack dropped onto a stair and began to cry. “Then who’s taking me to practice tomorrow? Mom, you promised Dad would. You pinky-sweared.”

“I can’t tomorrow, bud.” Jacob knelt in front of the boy, placing a hand on Jack’s knee. “But I will next week. Promise.”

“You guys always promise.”

“I’ll take you, honey,” Melissa said. “I was a pretty good slugger in my day.” Taking Jack’s hand, she helped him to his feet. “So how about we head back to bed, ace?”

Partway up the stairs, Melissa turned and made a shooing gesture. “If you’re going, go. I’ll take care of Jack. Just let me know what’s happening.”

Meg waited until Jack was out of earshot to speak.

“Jacob, if you’re going, I’m coming with you. You can sleep while I drive.” She was slipping into her coat when someone rapped on the storm door. Her mouth fell open in surprise when Shana let herself in.

“I need to talk to you,” Shana said.

“Shana, this is a really bad time . . .” Meg began.

“I’m sorry. It’s superimportant.”

“What’s going on, Meg? Is Shana in on this, too?” Jacob twirled his keys at her.

“In on what?” Shana asked, bewildered.

“This scheme involving Alex.”

“I told her before. I haven’t heard from Alex all day. I just came back because—”

“Give me five minutes, Jacob,” Meg said. “
Please
. Trust me.”

“Trust you?”

Meg whispered in Jacob’s ear. “This must be about Alex. She wouldn’t have come back otherwise. Please. Don’t leave without me.”

Meg led the girl upstairs to Alex’s room, Melissa’s attempts to soothe Jacob drifting up behind them.

Shana balanced on the edge of Alex’s bed. “I . . . I didn’t tell you the truth before.”

Meg’s throat constricted. “You heard something else from Alex?”

“No, no. It’s about . . . other stuff.”

Meg stood and pressed Shana’s knee. “I’ve got to go, honey. If you want to talk, call me in the car.” She lifted the girl’s chin. “You’re a good friend, you know?”

Shana lips trembled. “No, I’m not. I’m a shitty friend.” She grabbed Alex’s stuffed unicorn from the unmade bed and clutched it to herself. “It’s all my fault.”

“How? You told Alex to stop helping Evan. What else could you have done?” Meg stole a glance toward Alex’s door.

“Not Evan.
That
night. Her Sweet Sixteen.” Shana folded herself over the stuffed animal.

“Meg, let’s go!” Jacob called from downstairs.

She couldn’t risk Jacob leaving without her. She moved toward the bedroom door. “Shana, please. Whatever it is . . .”

Shana gulped. “It was me. The drinking that night. It was all my idea.” Haltingly, she confessed how she smuggled vodka into Alex’s party in gift bags, setting up the ladies’ room like party central. “Cass tried to talk me out of it. She was so straightedge, pulling Alex around by the nose all the time. I just wanted to Alex to have a little fun, you know, like, YOLO?”

No, Meg didn’t know. YOLO sounded like a candy or a boy band. She so didn’t have time for this.

“Cass got in my face before the party,” Shana continued. “She goes, ‘You better pray you only live once, Shana, because I swear to God, I’ll make your life miserable.’” Tears streamed down Shana’s face. “Cass said she’d friggin’
haunt
me if I did anything.”

“I’m sure that was just a figure of speech on Cass’s part.”

“It wasn’t. It feels like she is, every day,” Shana sobbed. “Alex had nothing to do with it, I swear. When I offered her the vodka in the bathroom, she took it. It’s my fault. I made her.”

“Come on, Shana. Nobody
makes
anybody do anything. You’ve had enough D.A.R.E. assemblies to know that. You were wrong to bring the alcohol that night, but Alex decided to drink on her own.”

“But when I saw how mad she was, I pushed her to drink
more
.”

Meg frowned. “What was Alex mad about?”

“The fight with her dad. She came into the bathroom crying. Something about a college she liked. He shot her down pretty bad, said the school was too far away or too expensive or something.”

Jacob hurled a thirty-second warning up the stairs. Why had he never mentioned this argument to Meg, a discussion that had apparently left their daughter so distraught it triggered the night’s events? If Jacob tried to leave for New Hampshire without her, she’d throw herself in front of his car to stop him. “So the fight with her dad made Alex want to drink?” Meg prompted.

“She said you acted psycho, too.”

“Me? How so?”

“You fought with him, in front of the photographer and everybody.” Shana licked her lips. “Alex lost it. Said she wanted to die. That the party was wrecked. She wished she’d never even had it.”

Meg could barely remember sniping with Jacob the way Shana described. Had this forgettable argument cost them their daughter?

Shana twisted the unicorn’s horn. “In the parking lot after . . . how could you not know she was drunk?”

Meg
had
thought it strange Alex didn’t say good-bye that night. The three friends had emerged from the banquet hall, shoeless, high heels dangling from their wrists like purses. Scary how, even barefoot, they had looked twenty-one, even twenty-three, in sophisticated makeup and fitted dresses, upswept hair. Cass had done most of the talking.

Meg sighed. “You know, Shana, I was exhausted that night. I just wanted to get Jack home. I didn’t think a half hour was such a big deal.” She’d also been preoccupied, pissed off at Jacob for cutting out early when he should have sucked it up and stayed, for Alex’s sake. The girls had been so convincing that Meg relented, allowing them to stay out until eleven o’clock. She had even handed Shana’s brother Logan money for Slurpees.

Slurpees.
How could she have been so naïve? “I wish I
had
paid more attention, Shana. We all have regrets from that night.” She patted the girl’s leg again. “Thank you for telling me this. We’ve all got a lot to think about. Now I really need to go.” Meg headed for the door.

“Cass didn’t,” Shana called.

Meg leaned against the doorframe. “Cass didn’t what?”

“She didn’t drink that night. She didn’t even want to go to that party after.”

“What party?”

“A party at Logan’s friend’s house. Cass only came along to take care of Alex. She thought we
were
going to 7-Eleven for Slurpees. When I told her in the car about the party, she was really pissed off. She started fighting with Logan. She wanted him to take us home.”

“But Logan wouldn’t?”

Shana shook her head. “They were his friends. He promised. Cass took off her seat belt and threatened to jump out of the car. That’s when Logan decided to turn around. He said he didn’t want to deal with the drama. But I still wanted to go, so I leaned over and . . .” Shana’s words tumbled out in great choking sobs.

Meg pressed a hand on Shana’s shoulder. “And what, Shana? Tell me. What did you do?”

CARL

“When did you last see your daughter, ma’am?”

“I . . . I don’t know. Around three o’clock, I guess?” Iris dabbed at her eye with a tissue. She had been flabbergasted to learn Mia had disappeared and to hear what Cam and Carl discovered in her daughter’s studio. “Mia never leaves without telling us. And she certainly would have told us if some stranger wandered in.”

The moment they discovered Mia missing, Cam had slipped out Swiftriver’s front door to check the parking lot. Meanwhile, Lopez led Iris to a chair by the makeshift radio center and began questioning her about her daughter’s habits and activities. Carl heard nothing that aroused his suspicions about the artist, especially compared to the young people he encountered in his work.

Mia often helped out at Hope Haven, a residential home for teenage girls in Glencliff, about a twenty-minute drive from Swiftriver, Iris explained.

Iris’s friend Ellen ran Hope Haven. “It’s where I met Mia,” Iris said. “And now she’s practically a mentor to the girls there.” While Iris paused to blow her nose, Cam explained how they had adopted Mia from Hope Haven.

“Has your daughter ever been in trouble before?”

“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Iris flashed. “My daughter is missing, and you’re making her out to be some kind of criminal? She’s a good girl.” She stood up and walked over to study a painting on the wall, as if its subjects, the father and mother walking the young girl up a hill, might offer some answers. She turned to wave an arm at Carl. “I know the kids you work with have issues, Mr. Alden, but Mia’s . . . motivated. Head and shoulders above most of the kids around here maturity-wise.” She reached to straighten a set of glasses on a shelf.

Lopez swung his notebook open. “So no behavior out of the ordinary lately?”

Hesitating, Iris cradled a crystal decanter. “I don’t know if you would call this ‘out of the ordinary,’ but Mia received an acceptance letter this afternoon from a New York art school.”

“What’s so unusual about that?”

“I had no idea Mia was applying in the city. We thought she would live with us for a few more years. She loves her studio here and all. But obviously she had other ideas.”

“And when she told you?”

“I was a little hurt. We had some words. I may have overreacted just a bit.” Iris peered over Lopez’s shoulder. “What are you writing, anyway?”

“I’m just trying to understand your daughter’s state of mind today, Mrs. Bailey.” He flipped to a previous page. “Another thing. Is your daughter in the habit of smoking marijuana?”

Iris flushed. “You’ll have to ask her father about that.”

Iris looked around for Cam, who was nowhere in sight, then pointed again at Carl. “This is your fault. If you hadn’t brought some disturbed girl through here, my daughter would be down in her studio where she belongs instead of—”

“Whoa, Iris.” Cam had slipped back inside the store.

“I can’t help it. These two are jumping to all kinds of conclusions about Mia.”

He put an arm around his wife. “Listen to me. I just went outside to check on our cars. My truck is gone.”

Mia had keys to Cam’s truck, it turned out. “I always told her my rig handles better in the snow than hers,” he said.

Iris glared at Carl. “Your girl stole it, then. Or forced Mia to drive her.”

“Alex wouldn’t do that.”

“You were taking this girl to a reform school, Mr. Alden,” Iris said. “How can you be sure?”

Lopez checked his notes. “This Hope Haven facility where Mia volunteers. They might know something.”

“I’ll call Ellen.” Iris used the phone at the cash register. “Ellen, it’s Iris. Is Mia there? Good.” Iris nodded vehemently to the men. “And the girl with her . . .” Iris frowned. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Tell her to search the house,” Carl said.

“I see. That must be difficult. Well, then, let me speak to Mia.”

Iris covered the phone while she waited for her daughter. “Mia
did
go there, but Ellen swears she was by herself.”

“Not possible,” Carl said. “Those were definitely Alex’s clothes in the studio.”

“I’d have pushed Ellen on it,” Iris said, “but they’ve got their own situation there. An older girl snuck away from a group at the movies. Ellen’s beside herself.”

Someone came on the line again. “Really? Are you sure?” Iris asked. “But Cam’s car is still there? OK. You, too.” She replaced the phone. “Ellen can’t find Mia. She sent the little ones upstairs to look and everything. She’d just been in the living room two minutes before.”

“I’m going over there,” Carl said.

“See, I told you. We’re innocent,” Kyle the driver couldn’t resist yelling across the store.

“Shut the eff up,” Chester chided.

“Quiet, both of you,” Mendham warned. “We still don’t know what happened to that young lady when she was in your company.”

Carl rubbed his head. “Mind if I borrow that jacket again, Mr. Bailey? Seeing as I don’t have a ride, I guess I’ll be hiking over to Glencliff.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Cam turned to Lopez. “Can’t you get some officers over to Hope Haven to check things out?”

“We will as soon as we can. We’re stretched pretty thin tonight, handling other storm-related incidents, too.”

“Now that we know where Alex went, you can pull those officers off the road,” Carl said.

“Didn’t sound to me like anybody over there was too sure about anything, Mr. Alden,” Mendham said. “Don’t tell me how to run my operation. I’ll send somebody as soon as I can.”

“I’ll take you, Carl.” Behind him, Iris had bundled herself into a long, black quilted coat.

“That’s crazy,” Cam said. “Let the troopers do their job. I’m sure we’ll hear from Mia soon.”

“I’ll be fine,” Iris insisted. “You stay here with the store, and we’ll take Mia’s truck. I need to see for myself what’s going on with her.” She pushed open the store’s door, unleashing another torrent of wind and chimes, and turned to Carl.

“You coming, or not, Mr. Alden?”