Dark Hope Page 2

  “He wouldn’t do that to me. Not now. He’s been oddly cooperative since the mediator made her decision.”

  “If you say so. I wouldn’t put anything past him.” Clayton had had an up-close view of her troubles with Don over the years, and it had soured him from having any optimism. “Drive safely, then, and call me if you change your mind.”

  I won’t, she thought to herself as she ended the call. I’ve waited too long for this moment to share it with anybody else.

  two

  I didn’t have much to take with me from Alabama: my school, Holy Innocents, had required uniforms, so I had little clothing of my own. Dad had always deemed the things my mother kept sending me “too showy,” and he’d promptly packed them up to send to Goodwill. Mom had said to leave my treadmill; she’d get me a new one. So I loaded up the backseat of her Audi convertible with my books and climbed in, ready to put my past behind me.

  As Mom backed out of the long rutted driveway, I took one last look at the house in which I’d lived for almost ten years. Dad wasn’t there to wave goodbye. When I’d told the judge I was afraid he’d make a scene, he’d ordered him to vacate the premises for the hour before and after my mother was supposed to collect me. He was probably down at the church, praying for a miraculous intervention to keep me from moving to Atlanta. Resentment flooded through me, and I crossed my arms, refusing to acknowledge the fluttering in my stomach.

  “Ready to go?” Mom asked, looking expectantly into the backseat at me. I nodded and she accelerated. In an instant, a cloud of dust obscured my view of the house.

  We rode in silence. My request for a change of custody had come as a surprise to my mom. She’d never challenged the original arrangements over the years, had never pumped me for information or probed to find his failings as a father. It was like she wanted him to be a good dad, was even rooting for him. When I’d insisted on talking in private with the court-appointed mediator, she hadn’t questioned it. She’d never tried to get me to explain why I wanted to move back to live with her.

  Now, as we weaved in and out of the fast lane, she kept her end of whatever unspoken agreement she had with my dad and left me to my own thoughts. But I didn’t want to think. Instead, I let the steady hum of the asphalt under the tires lull me into a half-sleep.

  “Here we are,” Mom said briskly, jolting me out of my trance as she made a sharp turn. The two hours had gone swiftly, and I was surprised to see that we were in a neat subdivision, almost home.

  My mom still lived in the same big house in the suburbs we’d had before my parents separated. It made no sense. She had to drive miles to get to the airport. She lived alone. The house was a massive colonial looming ahead of us at the end of a cul-de-sac: great for a family with young kids, a bit much if you were a single not-quite-divorcée.

  The perfection of it was jarring after living as we did in Alabama. Even though Dad and I technically lived in a decent neighborhood (thanks to the generous check Mom sent every month), our house was pretty sad. Dad had blocked out most of the windows with aluminum foil, nailing their sashes shut, and had installed double deadbolts on every door. The yard was a dead zone with bare patches of dirt and stubby clumps of straw, all that was left of the bushes some previous owner had planted. From the mint green and plum wallpaper that looked like it came from an old Holiday Inn to the saggy garage door, the entire place looked like someone had abandoned it circa 1992. The covenants had expired on our neighborhood, so the neighbors just shook their heads and whispered among themselves about what a shame it was.

  That wasn’t the only thing they whispered about us. My dad had embraced an extreme religious-slash-survivalist lifestyle that was way outside the bounds of any normal church. He’d raised me like a hunted thing, always wary, pushing well-meaning neighbors away to keep me isolated from the “threat”—whatever threat it was that he imagined. We lived on the edges of social acceptability, my daily trips to school tolerated only because of the legalities and my mom’s refusal to let him homeschool me. Between his erratic behavior and the story of my past, we were outcasts, tolerated at best in the small town in which he raised me. But now, all that was going to be over at last.

  I felt a little twinge looking up at my new home as we pulled up the driveway. With its pretty white shutters, sparkling panes, and wide expanse of green grass, it should have been cheery, but the yawning windows looked just as sad to me. As she pulled into the spotless garage, I wondered again why Mom had lived here by herself all these years.

  “You remember; your room is at the top of the stairway. I can help you carry your books up, if you’d like.” The corners of her mouth contorted, as if she was either forcing a smile or trying to suppress one. I couldn’t tell which.

  I nodded, sitting in my seat, my hands folded in my lap, while she got out of the car and opened the door for me. I looked up at her face, uncertain. I hadn’t thought about the fact that I didn’t really know my mom. I hadn’t really lived with her in more than ten years.

  She blew out a long breath and reached in to squeeze my hands.

  “Welcome home, Hope.”

  Later that night, over pizza, we reviewed her plans for the week. And I mean plans.

  “I’ll be taking you in tomorrow for your first day of class. But I need to leave first thing in the morning on Tuesday. My secretary prepared my itinerary for you”—she passed me a glossy blue folder from a neat pile in front of her—“in case you need to reach me. I won’t be back for a few days, but I asked Mrs. Bibeau down the street to check in on you after school.”

  I just nodded, my mouth working the cheese and pepperoni.

  “The school already knows you’re coming. I filed all of your papers. I made you an extra copy”—now a red folder emerged—“to keep in your backpack in case there’s any confusion. We’ll just need to go to the front office when we get there.” Here, she frowned. “Until you get your driver’s license, I am afraid you’ll have to take the bus. I know that’s less than ideal, but it is the best I can do right now. After you make some friends, I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to pick you up. Until then, you’ve got to be out of the house by 7:25. Here’s your bus information.”

  Under her breath she muttered, “For the life of me, I can’t understand why your father didn’t let you get your learner’s permit. You’re so close to being old enough to drive yourself … I just hope we can get you behind the wheel quickly. I’ll have to sign you up for Driver’s Ed.”

  I almost told her it wasn’t necessary, but bit back my response. It probably wouldn’t help her any to know that my father had been letting me drive behind the wheel of his old Honda for years. It was part of his plan for “emergency preparedness.” Whatever that meant.

  Without pausing, Mom turned to the pile. “I’ve assembled a list of emergency phone numbers for you and compiled all the information on the classes you’ll be joining.” Thwack. Another thick folder hit the table. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like to eat, so just in case, I got this set of delivery menus for you for when I’m gone.” She fanned them out in front of her. Her voice was starting to get a hysterical edge to it.

  “Mom,” I interrupted, touching her lightly on the arm. “It’s okay. I’ve cooked for myself before. I’ll be okay.”

  She sagged back into her chair. “Of course you will. I just feel so bad, leaving so soon after you’ve gotten here. If your father knew, he’d—”

  “But he doesn’t. And nobody’s going to tell him.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms, pleased that an opportunity to defy him had presented itself so soon.

  Mom smiled weakly. “No, I suppose not. The judge took care of that, didn’t she? Unless he’s assembled an army of spies, he won’t be able to see you for a good three months.”

  I winced. I wouldn’t put it past my father to have concocted some elaborate scheme to track my whereabouts 24/7. He may have even implanted a chip in me. Memo to self—check for weird bumps when you take a shower tonight.
/>
  My mom interrupted my thoughts. “Here’s a cell phone for you.” She set it down next to my plate. It was sleek, gunmetal gray with a cool graffiti case. “It’s preprogrammed with my cell, Mrs. Bibeau’s number, my secretary’s number, and some emergency numbers. I’ll try to call you each night to see how your day went, kiddo, but it may be late. I’m not sure how your classes at Holy Innocents compare to Dunwoody High’s, so you may have some catching up to do. Or you may find them too easy. If you find you have time on your hands, you could think through your extracurriculars. I picked up this information on the ones I thought might interest you from the school. Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow night after you get home and have a sense of your class load.”

  I stopped playing with the stringy cheese that had dripped off of my slice and stared at her blankly as she set the list on top of the pile. “Extracurriculars?”

  Mom’s lips compressed into a thin line and her eyes got sad. “You’re a perfectly healthy fifteen-year-old girl, Hope,” she said, softly. “Your dad did what he thought best, but …” She stopped then, choosing her words carefully. “You should be out in the world, honey. Not locked up all day.”

  I picked up the page and started scanning the list. Cheerleading. Volleyball. Yearbook. Track. My heart started racing and I suddenly felt lightheaded. I wasn’t prepared for the sudden sense of panic that came over me. This was what I’d dreamed of, right?

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself, and carefully laid the page aside. As I sat there, unsure of what to say, Mom reached across the table and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Just think about it, okay?”

  Before I knew what I was doing, I blurted the words. “Mom, why did you leave Dad?”

  Her face turned soft; her eyes, even more sad. “Come with me, honey.”

  I followed her upstairs to a little alcove she called her den. “It should be in here somewhere,” she said, stretching her tiny five-foot-two frame up to reach an upper shelf. Her perfectly manicured fingers wrapped around a faded volume and pulled it down. She sat on the little love seat in the corner and patted the space beside her, beckoning me to join her. I sat down, intrigued.

  “I’ve been saving these for when this day came,” she said, setting the book down in my lap.

  I opened the cover and found myself looking at a yellowed newspaper clipping. “Missing Girl Saved—But How?” screamed the headline. A grainy photo showed a police officer carrying a little girl, wrapped loosely in a blanket, in his arms. The girl gripped something in her fist, trailing it behind her.

  “Is that me?” I asked, suddenly shy. I let my fingers graze over the clipping.

  “Yes,” my mother said. “With your blankie. Somehow you managed to hold on to that thing, even in those circumstances. I saved every one of them,” she said, turning the album pages to show me newspaper story after newspaper story, carefully laid out on acid-free paper. “It was bad enough that you had been taken, Hope. But the mystery surrounding your rescue—well, that was like catnip for the press.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I had never heard about any mystery. In reality, I remembered nothing and had heard very little about my abduction. The physical consequences had been mild—except, of course, for my neck, which I didn’t want to think about right now. The emotional aftermath, though? Pretty heavy. Psychologists had poked and prodded me, trying to get my fractured brain to cough up the secrets of what had happened during the horrible forty-eight hours I’d been missing. But my mind refused to cooperate, earning me the labels of “traumatized” and “victim.” I didn’t like to think of myself that way, but truth be told, I wasn’t eager to pry those forgotten hours out of the recesses of my memory. I liked it the way it was, with the facts about what had happened to me safely locked away where I didn’t have to think about them. But now my mom had piqued my curiosity.

  My mother frowned slightly, her eyes searching my face. “I know you don’t remember, do you? You didn’t remember even back then.” She paused, seeming to gather her strength before continuing. “When the police found you, you were unharmed, thank God. But they never found the man who had snatched you. They think he was killed right there in the motel room where they found you.”

  “What do you mean, they think?”

  “They found this in the bathroom,” she said, slowly turning another page.

  I stared at the dark photograph, unable to make out what it was.

  “What is that?”

  I thought I saw her suppress a little shudder before she braced herself yet again. “It is what’s left of a human being who has been burned to death.”

  I stared dumbly at the page, barely registering what she said as she continued to speak, carefully choosing her words.

  “They confirmed it was a person through DNA testing. They were never able to match it to anyone in their crime databases, so really they had no way of knowing who it was or whether it really was the person who took you. They couldn’t even tell if the person was alive or dead at the time of the burning. Presumably dead, or you’d think there’d be signs of a fight. But we really couldn’t tell. All we ever knew was that this … person … was dead, and you were alive. With no memory of anything at all. Untouched … except for this.”

  She reached out to stroke the Mark on the back of my neck, and I shrank away. I didn’t like anyone even knowing about that spot. I sure didn’t want her reminding me of it.

  “But how is that even possible?” I demanded, trying to ignore the hurt look that crossed her face as I pushed her hand away. “I mean, how could a person just go up in flames and not burn the whole room down at the same time? And me, even though I was so little, wouldn’t I have remembered something?”

  My mother smiled, but this time with an edge. “Therein lies the problem. You didn’t. Traumatic repression, the psychologists surmised. Whatever happened was locked away in your little brain, and you were surprisingly none the worse for it. And nobody could figure it out, Hope. Not the best minds in the police department or the FBI. We finally just chalked it up to one of life’s mysteries and tried to put it behind us. All of us but your father, that is.”

  Her hands twisted in her lap. It still pained her to talk about it. I felt a twinge of guilt for having brought up the whole subject, but not enough to make her stop.

  “He could not let go of the idea that this was not a random act. It got worse when the police couldn’t figure out that mark on your neck. At first they’d thought it was a brand—the sort of thing a gang would do to mark a little girl as property before putting her up for sale on the streets.” I blanched, but my mom didn’t slow down. “But they couldn’t trace it back to any organized group and nobody would confess to having seen it before. And over time, as the rawness of it healed, it came to look less like a brand, more like a tattoo.

  “They ran it through their databases for cults, looking for a connection there. They even brought in a few language experts to see if there was a word that could be deciphered, but, to tell you the truth, by that point I didn’t care. They couldn’t find an answer and I was tired of dwelling upon it. I was just glad you were safe.

  “But not your father. To him, that mark was the key to the entire mystery. He became obsessed with the idea that you’d been singled out on purpose, that the mark was meant to show it. That maybe the person who took you was still out there, and that you were still in danger. At first, I thought it was his way of dealing with the guilt, and I was sure it would pass. But it didn’t.”

  “Guilt?” I prompted her, my nerves now on edge.

  She slumped in her seat. “He’d been the one with you at the playground the day you disappeared. He blamed himself.”

  I stared dumbly at the photo album. He’d never told me that. He’d never told me any of this.

  My mom reached over and closed the album, and then took my hand in hers.

  “I didn’t want to leave you, Hope. And to tell the truth, I didn’t want to leave your father, e
ither. I still loved him, and I guess in some ways, I still do. I just couldn’t live with his obsession any longer. It was stifling us. He was not the same person anymore, sweetie. His whole world had narrowed down to a paranoid focus on protecting you. He lost his job, and then he lost another, and another. He just couldn’t bear to be away from you for long enough to go to work. Even normal things like going out to dinner became ordeals. What I saw as harmless fun he saw as needless security threats. So I left, fully knowing that someone had to take care of you both, and that that someone was me. I had to be strong, keep my job, and make sure you had everything you needed. I just didn’t realize that he would use that against me and take you away. Or that what I was seeing was just the tip of the iceberg.”

  I thought about all the crazy things my dad had put me through: How he’d overwhelmed the mothers in our neighborhood with his overzealous lists of do’s and don’ts until the invitations for playdates had shriveled up. How he’d insisted on accompanying me on every field trip and social event, going so far as to sit with me on the bus, until I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even want to go. The forced marches through obscure biblical texts, drilling me in preparation for God-knows-what. His odd security procedures and mock safety drills. I’d always thought my mother had willingly left me with my father so she could focus on her high-powered job as a partner in a consulting firm. In a weird way, I’d blamed her for my father’s behavior and for how circumscribed my world had been. I’d never understood why any of it had happened, until now.

  Mom’s eyes were watery now as she hesitated, and then she reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear. This time I didn’t flinch.

  “I didn’t tell you this before, Hope, because I didn’t want you to do anything but love your dad. I guess I kept hoping things would get better and that one day you would be old enough to understand. I just want you to know that I never, ever thought that things would turn out the way they did. And I never thought it would take so long to get you back home with me.”