When We Collide (34 page)

Undeterred, I ran around to the back door.

I had to find them.

I had to.

I ignored the quiver in my heart that told me this
would all be in vain.

Again the door was locked. I lifted my leg, bracing
my hands on the porch supports, and slammed the sole of my shoe
against the door near the jam. Aggression lit. I kicked again…and
again…a frenzy of movements and need and determination as I fought
to break my way in. Sweat gathered in my hairline and ran in
rivulets down to catch in the collar of my shirt. I stood back,
gathered my strength, and rammed the door with my shoulder. I cried
out in pain and relief when the jam finally gave.

The splintered door flew open, exposing the inner
desolation of the tiny house. Darkness crawled over its walls,
barren, devoid of any good because Maggie had already taken all of
it with her.

She hadn’t been here.

Still, I couldn’t stop myself from screaming her
name. The house echoed it back at me.

I turned and ran to my car. The little red light
blinked on my phone. A missed call. I fumbled for it, swiping my
finger across the faceplate. Blake.

I pressed send, pulling a 180 and spewing rocks as I
jerked my car back onto the road.

“Did you hear anything?” flew from my mouth the
second Blake answered.

From the reluctance on the other end, I knew he had.
I slowed as the foreboding spread. The nausea in my stomach
increased with every second of silence that passed. My car came to
a standstill in the middle of the road.

“Blake, just tell me.” I had to close my eyes to get
it out because I was certain I didn’t really want to know.

“Will, they...found Maggie’s van wrapped around a
tree...about fifteen miles out. She was on the back roads. I’m
guessing she was looping back around toward Jackson.”

My world fell out from under me. Images flashed. The
innocent boy with his hands and face pressed to the pizza parlor
window. Maggie’s expression when she’d stood in front of her
sister’s house the last time I’d seen her.

“Are…are they okay?”
Tell me they’re
okay
.

“Will…” Blake stumbled over my name, and the sharp
edge inside plunged a little deeper as I braced myself for my
brother’s news. “They weren’t in there.”

Silence stretched between us with the
confirmation.

My head fell back to the headrest, and my eyes
cinched closed, a clash of thoughts behind them. The smallest
ripple of relief broke with inundating swells of despair.

How could I be back to this place, to the place
where I sat helpless?

The sob that had lain strangled in my throat pushed
from my mouth.

I’d seen the sickness Troy was capable of evidenced
on Maggie’s body, but how far would he go?

“William,” Blake said. It sounded like sympathy, a
consolation I wasn’t sure I would ever find. I had no idea how this
would ever end.

All I wanted was for them to be safe. I’d give
everything I had in exchange for their joy—my happiness, my
desires, my life. I’d always been willing. But I always fell short,
every good intention I ever had never good enough.

“How do I stop this?” I didn’t expect an answer, and
I just received Blake’s soundless sadness on the other end.

I sat on the side of the bed in the guesthouse,
smoothing my hand over the sheets where I’d held Maggie the night
before. If I concentrated hard enough, I could see her there, could
smell her sweetness and the intensity of her love, feel the caress
of her hand, dip my mind back into the ecstasy we’d shared.

Exhaustion threatened to steal me now, the night I’d
spent alive in Maggie and the day of desperation taking its toll.
I’d driven the town and roads for hours, searching for…for
anything—a trace, a hint, a whisper. In the end, I had let life
slip through my fingers again.

I’d gone directly from Maggie’s to the police
station, begging and pleading—demanding.
It was Troy…It was
Troy
, I’d said again and again, a claim that had been met with
suspicion. Hushed words had been uttered behind closed doors and an
accusation thrown my way, a suggestion at my own blame, that maybe
I had somehow been involved, though the officer who’d taken my
statement hadn’t been fast enough to hide the recognition that
flickered in his eyes when I asserted Jonathan was my child. He’d
seen it too.

When they let me go, they promised to look into it.
My gut told me I hadn’t been taken seriously, just like last
weekend when I’d made a similar claim, and again I cursed this tiny
town. I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d protect Troy because
they’d rather keep the secrets of this place than have them
exposed. I left the small station and drove until I could drive no
more, until I traveled the road where they’d found Maggie’s van
what felt like a million times, until it blurred and bled and I
thought I might die, until the sun sagged at the horizon and sank
with a gut-wrenching goodbye.

This I couldn’t handle. Sickness clawed at my
insides, a fear so real it saturated me through. It was as if I
could feel their grief, sense whatever torment Troy was putting
them through. I both welcomed it and wished I could purge the
images that plagued and tore at my soul from my mind. Yet I held
onto them because I didn’t want them to go through it alone.

I fell to my knees on the hardwood floor. The walls
closed in, suffocating…and I felt it, felt them. I cried out,
begged her name.

I lay my cheek on the cool floor, nails scraping the
slick wood, grasping for something, grasping at nothing.

Consciousness tilted and edged.

Darkness fell.

Laughter floated, an echo, a call. William pushed
forward, drawn into the dusky haze. Wind whipped at his feet,
stirred up the fallen leaves on the dead winter floor. Each step of
his boots was leaden with a burden that simmered somewhere in the
periphery of his understanding.

“Bet you can’t find me.” The innocent voice was
distant as it fell upon William’s ears, filled with mirth at the
game the child played.

Those words rushed as fear through William’s
veins.

His footsteps pounded in his ears as he followed the
trail of the soft voice that lingered on the wind. Among the
knotty, sinewy trees, their boughs twisted and twined, William
paused to listen.

A branch snapped off to his right—another peal of
laughter as the child dashed giggling from behind one tree to
another more than a hundred yards away.

“Wait,” William called, stretching his hand out in
the child’s direction. Please.

For a moment, the small boy peeked out from behind a
large tree trunk and stared back at him with huge brown eyes.

William’s heart lurched with the boy’s face, a
picture of himself—his son.

The child giggled again, his feet too agile as he
took off, his dark blond hair like a flare striking in the
moonlight before he disappeared deeper into the darkness.

Panting, William chased the boy, begging him to stop
while he stumbled over exposed roots and overgrown earth that
seemed almost alive as it worked to hold him back.

The child’s laughter drifted along the breeze,
brushed across William’s face, beckoned him to a place he did not
know.

William struggled to find him, to close the
distance, but the gap only grew. The laughter faded and shifted.
The boy’s sudden fear hit him like a knife to the chest. Somewhere
in the deepest recesses, far beyond William’s reach, he heard the
child scream.

I jerked from sleep, body thrumming and my mind
keening in awareness.

“Oh God…oh God.” I dragged myself to my feet, eyes
frantic as I searched the darkened room. I knew. Oh God, I knew. My
sight adjusted and I zeroed in on my keys on the bedside table. I
grabbed them and raced out the door. The gibbous moon hung low in
the sky and sent a flood of muted light slanting across Blake’s
backyard. A solitary porch light lit the dozing house. It was so
peaceful, a dramatic contradiction to the chaos plundering my
thoughts.

Doubts filled my consciousness. Not of the certainty
of the dream, but for the actions that had been set in motion the
second I’d been thrown from sleep. I shoved them back. I had no
time for second guesses.

I fumbled with my keys and pushed Blake’s house key
into the lock, squeezing my eyes shut as if it would somehow hide
my presence. But every extra second I had brought me a second
closer to Blake being too taken by surprise to stop me.

Inside the house was quiet. So quiet. I could almost
hear my apprehension rushing ahead of me, scraping across the
floor. I took a step forward and stopped to gather myself when the
floor creaked. I just had to go for it.

I managed to slip through the house unnoticed.
Blake’s bedroom door was open a sliver. A soft snore pulsated from
within.

Flinging the door wide open, I flicked the on the
light switch and rushed across the room.

Blake shot up in bed, thrashing from the covers. I
knew he’d be on the defensive, ready to protect his family. His
eyes went wide when they met with mine, filled with a confusion
that quickly shifted to worry. Grace grabbed at her covers, pulling
them up like a protective shield as she blinked herself from
sleep.

I said nothing, just hoped the surprise would keep
Blake in bed long enough so I could get in and get out.

At the closet, I raked the clothes aside, exposing
the face of the tall safe hidden in the back. I’d lived there long
enough to know the safe was there and what Blake kept inside—and I
had known Blake long enough to guess what code he’d use.

In an uncontrolled frenzy, I twisted the dial with a
shaky hand, counting, counting, praying. It unlatched, swinging
open to a shotgun, boxes of shells. A handgun was kept in a
separate box on the top shelf. I dug into the box and pulled the
handgun out. It felt so foreign in my hand, too heavy, all wrong.
Ignoring the thought, I grabbed a box of bullets and dumped a
handful into my palm, shoved them in my pocket. I’d do whatever it
took.

My breaths came erratic as I closed the safe and
spun the dial once. When I turned, Blake sat on the edge of his
bed, gripping his head with his hands. “What are you doing?”

I knew well enough he warred with himself, that
Blake knew exactly what I was doing—that he both wanted to stop me
and wanted me to go.

“I’m getting my family back.”

For a moment, Blake blinked in confusion.

“What?” he finally said, pushing to his feet and
shaking off the drowsiness. “Did you hear something? You know where
they’re at?”

“Yeah, I know where they’re at,” I said. He’d taken
them where it all had started. Where Troy had drawn a line and made
the connection. Where Troy planned to make me pay.

“Where? What the hell is going on?”

I just shook my head.

I had no time to explain, and even if I did, I
didn’t think I could. There’d been times when I’d felt tempted,
when I’d wanted to share, when I’d wanted someone else to know.

Now, it felt private, something revealed between me
and my son when the right to know him had been taken away.

I headed toward the door.

Blake started for me, panic in his footsteps.

“Will, come on, man. Don’t do anything stupid.”

I looked back at my brother.

Stupid.

I had the urge to laugh, the urge to cry.

“I’ll do anything, Blake.” It didn’t matter if it
was stupid or whatever consequences had to be faced, it was worth
it. As long as they were safe.

Creases edged Blake’s face, a shock of fear, a twist
of compassion.

“I have to go.” I spun on my heel and headed for the
door.

Blake grabbed my arm. “Then I’m coming with
you.”

I turned on him and pressed my body hard against his
chest, my words a fierce whisper. “No, you’re not. You’re staying
here, with your girls. They need you, Blake. I have no idea what’s
going to happen out there, and I won’t let you risk that.”

Blake stumbled back as my meaning sunk in, and I
took the chance and left my brother staring behind me.

Grace rustled from the bed. “I’m calling the
police,” she said.

That was fine. I planned on it too, but there was no
way I was going to stand aside and leave this in their hands.

I quietly slipped back through the kitchen and out
of the house.

Once outside, I ran. Orange lights flashed as I
clicked the lock to my SUV. I jumped in, kicking over the ignition
and slamming it into gear in almost the same motion. I tore out of
the driveway and up the road.

I couldn’t bring myself to look in the direction of
Maggie’s sister’s house as I flew by. Grace had spent the afternoon
with her while Blake and I had searched. She’d been standing in the
middle of her yard when I returned. I’d slowed, locked in the
misery of her gaze when I passed. Like me, she was destroyed. I saw
it. Felt it. But I hadn’t stopped because I had no idea how to
share this pain.

Nearing the end of the street, I jammed the brakes
and skidded to the side. With my heart pounding, I stretched up to
dig the bullets from my pocket. My entire being vibrated as I
loaded the gun, the small clink and grate of metal-like little
shots of electricity injected in my nerves as I slid each one into
the chamber. Unsteadily, I set the gun on the seat next to me.

The town was dead, no traffic or evidence of
life.

I flew.

As I left the town behind, I picked up my cellphone
and dialed 911. I told the operator where I was going and what I
knew I would find. I hung up when I was told not to approach
them.

Memories engulfed me, expanded my chest and mind,
the anguish and ecstasy of that summer, my hopes, the immense love
I’d found in her and the insurmountable heartbreak it’d cost us. As
I squinted to find the old dirt road and pulled over to the side,
it felt as if it all culminated here, in a moment when I would
either win it all or lose my reason to live.