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Lydia’s hands trembled as she traced the angry red lines along her neck. They had faded quite a bit since her last tangle with death but still felt fresh. Seeing them, in the full-length mirror, inside her walk-in closet, stirred the panic. It also brought new memories to mind. She begged them to come forward even though she dreaded the replay.
Having just awoken for the day, Lydia’s memories were at their most detailed. She’d dreamed of the attack. As she had done every night since her abduction and escape. A morsel of importance hung in their foggy recounting. There was something she needed to remember. And fast. Lydia couldn’t shake off the feeling that time was running out.
The front doorbell rang. Her muscles startled. Lydia had to deliberately calm her heart rate back to normal. Why was she so jumpy? This wasn’t the first time she’d been attacked. Not even the first time that fall. Though this assault had come more unexpectedly than the others. Lydia hadn’t been tracking any new crime or poking any invisible bears. She’d only been enjoying coffee.
Instantly, she fumed with anger. How dare her kidnapper taint her favorite place with such a dark memory! She would not let that stand! Maybe that’s why she so desperately wanted to recall every single second she’d spent in the back of the van. Maybe she was trying to rescue her feeling of safety.
The doorbell rang again. Lydia could hear Ivy call out to the morning visitor. She’d get the door. Lydia could finish getting dressed and come back to her mirror later. When she raised her eyes from her throat to her face, she was surprised to see tears rolling down her cheeks.
“There’s no time for that,” she said, frustrated at herself as she wiped them away with the collar of her nightshirt.
***
DOWNSTAIRS, LYDIA GREETED Ivy, who was lounging on the couch, with a soft pat on the shoulder. Baby Scout, Ivy’s daughter, snored on her momma’s lap. She smiled in her sleep. Ivy looked into Lydia’s face. Her eyes were heavy with worry. Just as they’d been for the last week.
“Kat’s in the kitchen,” the teen said.
“That means Flora’s on the way.” Lydia tried to smile but couldn’t. Normally, she was happy to have her best friends around her. But recently they’d brought heaviness with them.
She left Ivy and welcomed Kat. The woman was brewing coffee with her back to Lydia. When she finally turned, Lydia knew what she would see. A reflection of Ivy’s anxiety in Kat’s usually spunky eyes. Sure enough, Kat turned with a grin on her face and a cup of coffee in her hand. But that panic was still there.
“Did you sleep any better?” Kat asked. As she’d asked the past five mornings.
Kat and Flora had started their worry-over-Lydia-routine first thing in the morning, as soon as Ethan had given the all-clear. Lydia’s husband dove headfirst into the search for her abductor the moment Dr. Lawerence, the town physician, had sent Lydia home.
Both ladies came, without children, for their morning visit. They stayed approximately thirty minutes, made coffee and breakfast, and went home.
After lunch, one of them would swing by and pick up Baby Scout, so Ivy could get school work done or go to therapy. The other friend normally arrived an hour later to sit with Lydia. Then Scout would come back home in time for dinner, which Flora and Kat took turns providing.
Lydia loved how tender-hearted her friends were but hated being doted over. She knew she was a mess, that she needed help, and could use a great deal of rest. But there simply wasn’t time. Not if she was going to figure out what was going on in her dreams and catch her abductor.
Kat and Flora didn’t understand her need to wrap this up quickly or her desire to be alone to think. Lydia would need them. Definitely. When she had enough scraps to piece together into a whole. If they didn’t give her the time to dig for clues in her rattled brain, she’d never come up with enough tidbits to form a complete thought. Let alone an investigation.
Kat assessed Lydia from her side of the kitchen counter. Lydia was lost in her own thoughts. Kat guessed she could understand that. Who wouldn’t be after surviving Lydia’s last few escapades?
What concerned Kat most was that Lydia hadn’t even sipped her coffee. Like she didn’t realize it was there. Something deeper had Lydia shaken if she wasn’t enjoying coffee anymore. This was serious.
***
FLORA RUSHED INTO THE kitchen chucking bags from her shoulders and dropping them on any available flat surface.
“What is it?” Kat asked, instead of greeting Flora. She moved Lydia’s untouched coffee aside, so Flora couldn’t spill it.
Flora gulped air, struggling to get her words to form. “Again,” she said. “It’s happened again!”
Flora’s proclamation sent Lydia’s memory buzzing. It hammered her with memory after fuzzy memory. The truth stayed just out of reach but nearly there.
“What has?” Kat asked.
Flora eyed Lydia, who sat still and unfocused at the kitchen bar. She then flashed telling looks at Kat. “You know,” she mouthed.
Kat shook her head. “No, I don’t,” she mimed back.
Flora bobbed her head toward Lydia. Her eyebrows rose and fell as if controlled by hyperactive hydraulics. Kat still didn’t follow.
Lydia ignored her friends’ attempts at subtlety. Instead, her energy wrapped around the word “again.” It replayed it and slowed it down in her mind until the word sounded like an old record playing on the wrong speed. Manish. Deep. Warbled. Again?
Unexpectedly, Lydia was back in the van. Bruised and battered. Battling for her life. She heard the driver talking into his cell. Her head hurt, forcing herself to remember.
“Again,” he questioned. “Please don’t make me do it again, Mac.” His voice was sad, panicked, and riddled with regret. Lydia’s fear hadn’t allowed her to notice at the time. Instinct had taken over.
The man pleaded with the person on the other line. “I didn’t know.” His voice wasn’t quite right. Something in its rhythm and pronunciation wasn’t typical. It reminded Lydia of something. Something she should know but couldn’t name.
“Mac,” she whispered, startling her company.
“What about Mac?” Kat asked.
“Just a name. A name the kidnapper said.” Lydia blinked hard, trying to come fully into the present. “Again?” she asked her friends. “Another kidnapping?”
Flora swallowed. She hadn’t meant to upset Lydia. Though, in hindsight, she didn’t see how her news could do anything but upset her. “Yes,” she said, softly. “About an hour ago. Ethan’s already on the call.”
Kat planted her hands on her hips. “And how did you stumble across this information?”
Flora pointed to a handled brown paper bag sitting on the kitchen table. Lydia suddenly noticed the scent of hot blueberry muffins. “I picked those up, as a treat.”
“At 3 Alarm?” Lydia asked. The cool absence of feeling behind her eyes spooked Flora. She took a step back.
Fretting her hands, Flora answered in a rush. “Ivy said you haven’t been eating. I thought maybe a special treat would get you back to your old self. I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I should have figured it would send you back to last week. I was just trying to...” Flora turned to wipe her tears away.
Kat stared at her inquisitively. “Was that what you were trying to tell me? Someone else was abducted? That’s what the whole game of charades was about?”
Flora sniffled but didn’t answer. Lydia rested on her stool deep in thought. She remembered sitting at 3 Alarm. Right before being taken.
“Who was it?” Lydia asked.
Ivy strolled into the kitchen, following the scent of muffins. She paused in the center of the room. “Am I interrupting? I thought someone said muffins?”
“There, over on the table,” Flora said, having regained her composure.
“Who was it?” Lydia asked again. She locked eyes with Flora.
Flora looked to her friends for guidance. She hadn’t meant to stir up stress. She didn’t want to continue to do so.
Kat put an arm on her distraught yet helpful friend. “It’s okay,” she said. “Maybe it’ll help.”
Flora pointed to Lydia’s coffee. “Drink that first,” she commanded.
Lydia did so. The warmth filled her from her throat to her toes. “There done. Now, tell me. Who was taken?”
“Serene Barritt, the writer.”
Ivy let a gasp slip as she chomped on a banana nut muffin. Three pairs of maternal eyes cut her the side-eye. She explained. “Just like that Penny girl said would happen.”