Wrong Way Renee (40 page)

They did as they were told, giving her their outfits. She handed them the bucket and rags.
“Now, wash everything. When the water gets too dirty, call me.
”

She closed the door and propped the chair. Then she stripped her own clothes off as she headed to the kitchen to throw them into the washing machine. A few minutes later she returned to the bathroom wearing a robe.

“Aunt Renee, we're hungry,
”
Gary said.

“I guess you should have thought about that before you decided to make it snow with my forty-five dollar scented powder, hmm?
”

She sat at her vanity
and
used her blow dryer to get the powder out of her hair
, but all it did was make it look gray
.
Too bad she couldn’t trust the kids alone long enough for her to shower. She’d learned that lesson the hard way. S
he threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and brought the childre
n their pajamas. “Change into these.
”

They stopped spreading around the white goo they had on the rags
to eagerly put on the pajamas.
“Can we eat now?
”
Alyssa asked.

“Let's get some of the powder out of your hair. Gary, you wash your hands while I work on your sister's hair.
”
He did as he was told while Renee blew what she could out of her niece's hair. Then she worked on Gary Junior.
All three of them looked like they had gray hair now.

For dinner,
she
opened a can of Spaghettios and gave them each one of the grape juice boxes
Char
had
supplied
. They practically inhaled their food, having worked up quite an appetite.

Sh
e
racked her brain to think of somewhere she could take them to get them out of her apartment.
H
er place couldn't take a few more hours of them. Neither could Apple, who was
no doubt
hiding somewhere.

She turned on the computer and searched local movie listings
. Ten minutes later, she threw two packets of gummy snacks into her purse, loaded the kids in the car and headed for the movie theater.

The eight-plex was crawling with kids. It was opening night for the new Disney flick so every child in Orlando seemed to be running through the theater.
Sh
e took
both
her charges
to the ladies' room with her to lessen the chances that she'd have to take them during the movie. They got on the end of the line.

“I hate going in here,” Gary whined.
“
Why can't I
use
the men's room?
”

“We've already been through that. Stranger danger, remember?
” She nudged him into a stall. “Besides, neither of you can be trusted.”

“I can
go by myself. My mom lets me.”

“Well, I'm not your mom.”

Another woman with a little girl in tow stared at her as if she was a monster. But she didn’t care.

“That whole family has gray hair, Mommy,” the woman’s daughter said.

The mother shushed her and took her to the sink to wash her hands.

Gary left the stall. “I won’t go in here. I want to use the men’s room.”

Renee twisted the collar of his Spiderman pajamas in her hand and bent down so she could get close to his face. She smiled big and spoke quietly through her clenched teeth.
“Listen to me, little boy. You have made my life a living hell tonight, so you better chill out, do what you're tol
d and enjoy the movie. Got it?”

He tried to move his face away from hers.
“Got it.
”

A fiftyish
lady
looked accusingly at Renee. She shot the woman a
don't-start-with-me
look and the woman turned away. They waited an eternity
for Alyssa to come out of her stall
.

Finally, they left the ladies room and found theater four. The previews had already started, so it was pitch black inside. Renee pulled the children behind her as she walked up the steps and found three empty seats. They had to climb over a dozen people to get to them.

Four more previews played before the movie started.

Gary elbowed Alyssa
.

“Stop it,
”
Renee whispered
to him
.

The movie started—
a live action film about a handicapped boy who yearned to play baseball. Renee found herself getting into the movie, even shedding a few tears. About half way through it, Gary elbowed her.

“Quit it
.”

“Aunt Renee?
”
He tapped her arm.

“Shhhhh,
”
a voice from behind them said.

“Aunt Renee?
”
he said again.

“Gary, you need to be quiet.”

“Shhhhh.
”
T
he voice
was more insistent now
.

A few minutes
passed
before Gary Junior again started elbowing her.

“What is it, Gary?”

“It's Alyssa.” He tipped his chin in her direction.

Renee looked past him to Alyssa's seat. But there was no Alyssa. Her heart skipped a beat.
“Where is she, Gary?”

“Shhhhh.”

“I don't know. I was watching the movie. Whe
n I looked over, she was gone.”

Sh
e grasped his shoulders pulling him toward her.
“When? When did you notice she was gone?
”
Oh, God. This couldn't be happening. Why hadn't she sat between them?

“Jeez, you're hurting me.”

She let go of him,
took a deep breath and closed her eyes
for a second
.
“Gary, when did you last see your sister?
”
She tried to
keep
calm.

“I
don't know. A few minutes ago.”

“Sh
h
,
”
the voice behind them said
again
.

Renee turned around
.
“Will you please shut up? My four-year-old niece is missing.
”
She got down on the floor to look under the seats as best she could in the dim light. Her neck began to ache
even with the protection of the collar
.

“Alyssa? Alyssa, where are you?
”
she whispered. She stood up and scanned the perimeter of the room. Grabbing her purse and Gary Junior, she bolted from the theater. In the hallway, she found a pimple-faced teenage boy we
aring a maroon theater uniform.

“You have to help me.
My four-year-old niece is missing. She's about this high.
”
She held her hand above her waist.
“Alyssa is her name and she
’s got braids in her hair. And it’s gray. Her hair, that is
.
Like ours.
She's wearing pink pajamas. Please call the police. I'm goi
ng to search the ladies' room.”

The teen ran toward the lobby as Renee pulled Gary with her and frantically searched the bathroom. She crouched down looking under each stall. But there was no sign of the child.
Dragging
Gary behind her, she
stalked
into the men's room.

“Lady in the bathroom,
”
she called. Two men standing at urinals turned around, both wide eyed. She got on her knees to search again. Still no luck, but she did confirm that men are pigs. Her hands felt like they were caked with dried urine from touching the floor. She had to stop to wash them.

She ran from the men's room and
nearly
slammed into the pimple-faced kid. A dull pain settled in her lower back.

“Ow,
”
the kid complained, rubbing his shoulder.

“Are they coming?
”
She
rubbed her sore neck.

“Yeah, they're on the way. We've posted employees at all the exi
ts
in case someone tries to leave with her.

In case someone tries to leave with her.

The words reverberated in her mind, sending shockwaves through her. Her heart beat a mile a minute.

An older man approached her.
“Ma'am?”

“Yes?
”

“The police are on their way. I'm the manager. My name's Aaron. We've had this type of situation here before. And I'll tell you we've always found the missing child. They're usually hiding somewhere. My gr
andson used to play that game.”

Something clicked in Renee's mind. She turned to Gary Junior who was staring at a movie poster on the wall
as if all was fine and well
.

“Gary?
”

“Yeah?”

“Your mom said
something about Alyssa being over hiding. Wh
at can you tell me about that?”

He shrugged.
“I don't know. She sometimes hides in the middle of racks at stores where mom takes us t
o buy clothes. Junk like that.”

Renee looked at the manager.
“Aaron, when you've had this sort of situation before, wher
e have you found the children?”

Aaron held his double chin in his hand and
star
ed up at the ceiling.
“Let me think. Okay, we found a couple in bathrooms. W
e found one in our party room.”

“Where's that?”

He led her to a door marked
Private.
He pulled it open to reveal another door. They entered the room as Aaron switched on the florescent lights. Three long tables were set up end-to-end and about two dozen chairs were placed upside down on top of the them. Renee and Aaron bent down and scanned the area under the tables. Still no Alyssa.

There was a knock at the door, then it suddenly swung open. The pimple-faced kid came in, holding Alyssa by the hand.

Renee
ran to her niece and hugged her.
S
he picked her up so she could look the child in the eyes, even as her back protested.
“Where have you been? We've been looking all over for you.
”
How could she convey the danger Alyssa could have found herself in?

Alyssa's lower lip started quivering, then the tears began flowing.

Renee
set
her down.
“Where were you? You know the police are coming and if you don't tell me where you were, I'm going
to let them take you to jail.”

The child's eyes grew wide, as did Aaron's and the teenager's.

“I was
…
I was playing a trick on you. I went hiding.
”
She sniffled, then
popped
her thumb in her mouth.

“I found her in the store room,
”
the teenager said.

“Someone must have forgotten to lock it on thei
r way out, Miss. I'm very sorry.
”
Aaron
ushered them out of the room
.
“I'll go let the police know we've found her. They
should be arriving any minute.”

Two uniformed officers
strode toward them as they returned to the hallway
. Aaron told them they'd found the child.

Renee was disappointed to see that neither officer was Joe.
She mentally smacked herself for her selfish thought.

It was after nine when
she
arrived back at her apartment with the children. Being a fan of containment when it came to childcare, she ran a bath and had both of them get in the tub together. She posted herself as sentry on the toilet seat and instructed the little angels to wash-silently.

With her cordless phone at her side, she read a magazine, afraid a book would monopolize her attention too much. At nine-thirty, she finally allowed
them
to emerge from the tub
, wrinkly but clean
.

She marched them to the couch, then assumed her position in an easy chair across from them. Having no more energy or patience, she succumbed and called
Char
's cell phone.
“Come get your children, now. I can't even begin to tell you all the damage and embarrassment they've caused tonight, let alone sheer panic. You'll f
ind them hog tied on my balcony
”