Found and Lost (5 page)

Janelle was probably already on her way there.
But they won't get us.
The promise stayed lodged in his throat. He had no idea if he could keep it.

9

Clay's taillights faded, and Violet lowered her forehead to her knees. Janelle, at least, was guaranteed re-education. Violet hadn't totally failed, not quite. But her primary responsibility was to Clay, not a bunch of Christian strangers. One blessing shone out from her disaster of a mission: Khloe wouldn't get shoved into re-education if her dad wasn't caught. But in light of everything else, that relief seemed shallow.

Oak bark prodded her back, but Violet didn't move from her knees-to-chest position at the base of the tree. She inhaled the dampening air and looked up into the foliage that rustled its disappointment. Even Phil and Felice might have escaped. Or maybe not. Her phone vibrated, and she pulled it out. Natalia.
Where are you?

Temporary retreat had been smart of Clay. He wasn't abandoning them. He'd come back when it was safe. In fact, if she asked him to, he'd come back now. Miles away, thunder rumbled. He wouldn't leave her in the rain, would he? She hit Reply. She could say she was hurt. She could say …

Her thumb hovered over the phone. She'd done the right thing so far. She had to keep doing it.

Even if it cost her her best friend.

“Violet.”

She jumped, scraping her back against the tree. Oh, no. Khloe. Crouched and picking her way forward, her yellow shirt a spotlight against the trees. Khloe half straightened and brushed her wind-whipped ponytail away from her face.

None of this was happening like it was supposed to.

Across the field, through a filter of ferns, sound and light drifted. Green lights rotating. Authoritative shouts. And once, a woman's husky-voiced shout in response. Janelle.

What made a person stay behind and let her friends go free? That had to be true brainwashing.

“Hiding out in the woods? Seriously?” Khloe whispered.

“What're you doing out here?”

“Finding you, stupidhead.”

Dumb loyalty. Violet shoved the phone back into her pocket. No luring Clay back. No “come get me” text to the con-cops. Not yet, anyway, unless she wanted Khloe to know everything.

“Oh. My. Gosh. Violet.”

“What?”

Khloe swayed forward. Violet slid toward her through the ferns. “Hey, it's okay.”

“Our purses. We left them.”

Khloe's purse. On the shelf. Shoved behind a box, but they'd find it. Even if Clay escaped, Khloe couldn't.

“It's over. My life. All over.”

Violet snared her hand. “We'll turn ourselves in right now. We'll explain to them that you had no choice, your dad made you—”

“I'm not going to re-ed, Violet. I'm not. Ever.”

A chill washed over Violet, as if the rain had begun to fall. “They have your … our IDs.”

“And they'll search our houses first. We can't go back there. We'll have to go … somewhere … until all this blows over.”

Khloe folded forward, gripped her knees, and cried. Violet wrapped her in a hug and rocked her.

“Shh, okay, it'll be okay.” Violet rubbed her back. She had to go find a con-cop and identify herself as their spy. But she couldn't walk away while Khloe clutched her shoulders.

“Dad and Mom, they'll look less suspicious too, if I disappear for a couple days. Then they can say they didn't know about me.”

“And what'll we do, sleep in a tree and survive on fern leaves?”

Khloe shuddered against her.

“There's nowhere to go, Khloe.”

Khloe pulled back. “This is going to sound crazy, but like a month ago, Daddy told me that if something ever happened … I think he meant something like this.”

What in the world was she talking about?

“There's a house at the end of our block, with a big deck added on. He said somebody would come for me.”

“Somebody.” Good grief. Khloe wasn't talking about some random person's porch. She was talking about one of
their
porches. A resistance haven.

“They don't have to know I'm not a Christian.”

No, they didn't.

“But if you want to turn yourself in, you can, Vi. They might go easier on you if you do, who knows how it works. I just can't start my senior year in re-ed. I can't do it. By August, September, this will all be over. Things will be normal. We'll laugh about it.”

In the distance, but not far enough, voices shouted to each other. Khloe hugged herself, and Violet glimpsed the two of them at ten years old, when Natalia was about to discover that they'd used her credit card to buy forbidden concert tickets online. Violet still couldn't say how they'd expected to get there, but their logic said that Khloe's mom couldn't deny them transportation once the tickets were purchased. Now, despite her speech seconds before, Khloe gave Violet that same stare, the one that said,
How do I survive this?
The one that said,
Please don't desert me now.

The voices felt closer. Violet dragged Khloe several feet deeper into the trees, until Khloe started to run alongside her. Their fingers wove into a sweaty link.

Khloe was soon panting. “Can't we … stop? Climb a tree—or something?”

“No.” Violet tugged her onward.

“Why not?”

“They could bring dogs in.” A tree would be nothing but a trap.

They had to run as far as they could, as fast as they could. Violet's T-shirt stuck to her back. Feathery ferns and rough weeds tried to trip her. In the dark, she miscalculated distances, and her elbow left skin on a tree trunk.

Eventually, lights filtered through the trees before them. The voices had faded and then disappeared. Violet slowed, stopped. Khloe still clung to her hand, pressed the other to her side.

“Ow,” she whispered.

The lights ahead blinked. No, moved. White lights, red lights, and that whooshing sound. Traffic. Probably a main road, judging from the speed of the passing cars.

“Violet?”

“Let's hope there's a street sign. We have to figure out where we are.”

She set out toward the road. Rustling grass behind her assured that Khloe was following. She emerged into a gust of wind that dried the sweat on her back and raised goose bumps on her arms. The scent of rain filled the air around her. Perfect, if a dog tried to trail them later.
Come on, sky. Rain already.

She jogged a hundred yards or so to the closest road sign, where a residential street butted up against the forest and intersected with this road.

“I know where we are,” Khloe said behind her.

“Me, too.” Mostly.

“I can find my street from here. And that porch.”

Yes. This was it. God had sent Khloe back here to continue Violet's mission.

But Khloe would find out.

No, she won't.
Violet linked her fingers through her friend's. Their charm bracelets clinked against each other.

“You're coming?” Khloe's whisper lilted with hope.

“Where else would I go?”

“Home, stupidhead.”

Violet squeezed her hand. “Overrated.”

10

His steps should echo through the foyer, down the hall, into the kitchen, but his tennis shoes were silent. Like the house. Like his wife, who slid away into their bedroom and shut the door. What Clay needed right now was the edge of a cliff to jump from, a plunge into water that would numb the silent screaming in this house. His keys dangled from his fingers. He rubbed the key to his bike, cold and ready. What he needed right now was an infinite blacktop carpet rolled out before him—curves and blind hills and speed.

He rushed to the rack of hooks hung across the room, below Natalia's calendar of waterfall photos. The keys jingled as he shoved them onto a hook. No bike. No running. He wasn't that man anymore.

This loss wasn't the one that tore holes in his dreams. Khloe was still alive, still healthy … and imperiled by his own stupidity. Clay wandered to the fridge and pawed for a Dr Pepper. The can chilled his palm.

Go back there and get her.

He popped the can's seal. Cool fizz sprayed his palm and tickled his throat going down. Maybe pop would settle his stomach. He gulped half the can before he noticed the blender parts in the sink. The glass container lay on its side, not even soaking. By now, the thin pink coat of strawberry smoothie had dried and crusted. Khloe had whipped up and gulped down one of her creations before they picked Violet up tonight for the Table meeting.

“Did you wash the blender or leave it in the sink?”

“I'm such an irresponsible teenager.”

Clay turned the water on hot and squirted some soap onto the dishrag. Behind his eyes, something burned.

“Lord,” he whispered. “You know I can't go out there and get her. So You bring her home.”

“What are you doing?”

He didn't turn to face Natalia's brittle voice. “Praying.”

“Ironic.” She stomped to the sink and slammed the faucet off. “Do not clean that thing.”

Clay angled a glance. Natalia's lips pressed into a thin, trembling line. He wanted to reach out and trace her cheekbone, her lips. He flipped the water back on.

“You detest dirty dishes left in the sink.”

“She'll never learn to do things for herself if we're constantly—”

“That's your biggest concern for her at this moment, that she learns to wash the dishes?”

Natalia grabbed the blender jar's handle, and it slid from Clay's soapy grasp and smashed against the lip of the sink, fracturing the base away. Jagged pieces of glass dropped into the sink. Soap dripped onto the counter.

“You come home from dragging us there and making us criminals and then leaving your child to fend for herself, and the first thing you do is clean the kitchen.”

Leaving your child.
Clay's wet hand curled around the counter's edge. “That isn't what I did, Nat.”

She picked up a sudsy sliver of glass and tried to find where it fit.

“You can't glue it back together.”

She hurled the jar into the sink, and it shattered. “Fine.”

“Natalia …”

She crossed the kitchen, snatched up his keys, and offered them on an open palm. “Is this what you really want?”

No. Of course not. Clay fought for a deep breath. He dried his hands on the pale-green towel. Behind him, the keys rang against each other as Natalia shoved them back onto the rack. Her steps retreated down the hall, and a door shut.

Lord, I can't do this.
Clay stalked to the back door, then into the garage. He shut the door behind him.

Crossing the garage left him breathing like a marathoner, smothering on the feelings that bubbled up as soon as he could be alone with them. He straddled the bike and gripped the handlebars.

His brain resumed working for the first time since he'd heard the
thump
of his daughter throwing herself from the Jeep. The Constabulary had her ID, and they would come here to interview her parents. A year ago, they would have come at a decent hour, likely dinnertime, when they could be more sure of catching interviewees at home. These days, rumor said they enjoyed showing up at random times. Just because they could. They could knock on the door right now.

They would question him. About his daughter. About their household beliefs.

Or maybe they wouldn't question at all. Maybe they'd simply inform him that his daughter was in their custody.

Clay bent forward over the bike but couldn't relieve the stomachache. “Lord, what are You doing?”

Minutes streamed away. Somehow sitting astride the bike held a hollow comfort. He wouldn't start it. He wouldn't ride it off into the predawn. These days, he was a man who stayed, and Natalia knew that. She was scared, that's all.

When his gut eased and his brain settled, he trudged inside. Silence tried to push him into the garage again, but he shoved back.

“Nat.” He walked through the kitchen, the living room, the den, their bedroom. “Nat?”

Only after he'd searched every other room in the house did he admit that he'd known her location the whole time. He pushed Khloe's door open.

Natalia lay stretched out on the bed, hands curled around Khloe's sketchpad as it rested on her chest, staring at Khloe's gallery on the far wall. Pencil sketches, mostly people. Mostly strangers. An elderly woman she'd watched in the park. Twin boys chasing each other through the mall playground. But Violet's profile hung there too. And Clay's favorite sketch of all, Natalia pulling cookies from the oven.

She flinched as Clay stepped into view. Her head turned toward him. “You're still here.”

Clay pressed his back against the door trim. “I was in the garage.”

“Oh.” She pushed herself up, reached over the edge of the bed, and set the sketchpad on the carpet.

“We need a plan, Nat, for when they come tonight, or tomorrow. What to say, and … you know.”

Stiffness infused her as he spoke. She drew her knees up and huddled in the center of the bed. The nod barely came.

“I … Nat, I …”
I know this is my fault. I know I'm helpless to fix it.

“I need to know now. What are you going to do?”

“Do?”

Her green eyes wouldn't rise to his. The rigid curl of her body pushed his mind toward the old panic. Two paths formed inside him. Leave or stay. He stepped into the room, across the indigo carpet. He sat on the edge of the bed, and Natalia's eyes remained on the lavender quilt.

“I'm going to find our daughter,” he said. “That's what I'm going to do.”

When his arms enveloped her, she didn't pull away, didn't shove at his chest, didn't impale him with verbal spears. She crumbled against him. She grasped the buttons of his shirt. He breathed in her mango shampoo, and his lips found rest in her hair.
Lord, You'd better help us. Soon.