“Mom?” Jennie McGrady set her suitcase in the dark entry, flipped on the light switch, and closed the door. Her long dark braid swung forward, then back again as she straightened. “Mom!” she yelled again, this time leaning against the banister and directing her voice up the stairs. “I’m home. Why didn’t you pick me up at the airport?”
She braced herself for the welcome-home cheers and the little five-year-old brother who would appear at any moment, leap into her arms, and give her one of his super-duper bear hugs. Nick didn’t come. The unexpected silence wrapped an ominous web around her. Both cars were in the driveway. They should be home.
Jennie raced up the stairs two at a time. She stopped at her bedroom first, wondering if they were waiting there to surprise her, but found no one to greet her except the dozens of stuffed animals she’d collected over the years.
She made her way down the hall, poked her head into Nick’s room, then Mom’s. Their beds hadn’t been slept in. Hurrying back down the stairs she called again. “Mom? Nick?” Her pulse quickened. She scanned the living room. Two glass eyes peered at her from the couch. Jennie scooped up Coco, Nick’s favorite stuffed bear, and hugged him.
“Come on, you two. You can come out now.” When no one answered, she tightened her hold on Coco and hurried past the dining area into the kitchen hoping for a note that would explain their absence. She flipped on the switch and the room exploded with white light from the recessed florescent fixtures in the ceiling.
No note. The spotless white counter and sink reminded her of a movie she’d seen once where all the residents of a small Midwestern town disappeared. She couldn’t remember why.
Jennie set Coco down, bolted to the fridge and threw open the door, almost laughing with relief when she saw the leftover milk in Nick’s Mickey Mouse glass. A piece of fried chicken with one small bite taken out sat next to it.
Leaning into the refrigerator, she shook her head and eyed its contents for something to drink. You really are something, McGrady. Getting spooked over an empty house like a little kid. You’re sixteen, for Pete’s sake. Jennie had come home to an empty house before, of course, but this seemed different. Okay, maybe Mom and Nick had gone shopping and were late getting back. Or maybe Michael, Mom’s sort-of boyfriend, had taken them to a movie or to the park, or for a ride up the Columbia River Gorge. There were a million explanations. So why didn’t any of them sound right?
Because Mom would never forget you. The voice hung in the air as if someone had spoken it. Jennie frowned, remembering how disappointed she’d been when Mom and Nick weren’t at the airport to meet her plane. Jennie and Lisa Calhoun, her cousin and best friend, had just returned from a cruise in the Caribbean with Gram and her new husband, J.B. Mom should have been there. Instead, she had called Aunt Kate, Dad’s twin sister, asking her to pick Jennie up at the airport and drop her off at the house.
“She didn’t say why,” Kate had said when Jennie asked. “She just said something had come up.”
Jennie shoved aside the growing apprehension by telling herself that if it were anything serious, Mom would have told Aunt Kate. Being sisters-in-law, they usually told each other everything.
Jennie scanned the refrigerator shelves, then reached behind the milk carton to grab a diet cola and smiled at Mom’s not-so-subtle reminder. Mom always put the Coke behind the milk as a subtle reminder that milk was the preferred drink. She started to pop back the top of the can, then changed her mind and pulled out the milk instead.
When she opened the cupboard to retrieve a glass, the back door opened. “Are you sure you checked the entire house?” a man’s voice said. Jennie recognized it. Michael Rhodes, Mom’s boyfriend. Or at least he had been. They’d gotten engaged a few weeks ago. Then Mom started having second thoughts. “Michael is too much like your father,” Mom had said. She was wrong, of course. Mom had been wrong about a lot of things lately.
Michael was nothing like Dad. Jason McGrady worked as an undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA. Michael built houses and planned to become a minister.
At first Jennie had resented Michael. Now she wasn’t sure how she felt. She would have preferred to have Dad come back home, but like he’d said, “You can’t have everything the way you want it.” Jennie shook off the memories and the confusion that accompanied them when she thought about the circumstances surrounding her mom and dad and focused her attention on Mom and Michael.
Mom walked into the kitchen, with Michael only a step behind. “I’ve looked everywhere. The police are out patrolling the neighborhood now. I can’t imagine—” she stopped in midsentence and stared at Jennie. “Oh, Baby,” Mom cried as she closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around Jennie’s waist. “I’m so glad you’re back.”
With Mom being nearly a head shorter than Jennie, hugging still felt awkward. For a moment she rested her chin on Mom’s auburn hair, feeling more like the mother than the daughter. When Mom drew back there were tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be at the airport. I …” She glanced back at Michael as if she expected him to finish her sentence. He didn’t.
“Hi, Jennie.” He sounded as though he were addressing someone at a funeral. He closed the door and leaned against it. “Welcome back.” Turning to Mom he said, “I’ll check with the police again—find out what I can do to help. Unless you want me to be here when you tell her.”
“No.” Mom took a deep breath and sighed. “Thanks. I’ll take care of it.”
“What’s wrong?” Jennie’s stomach tightened. It didn’t take a mind reader to know why Mom was so upset. “It’s Nick, isn’t it? Something has happened to Nick.”