CHAPTER 3
Parker reached Mt. Pleasant in two hours. Normally, he could have shaved off twenty minutes or more of the journey, but he didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention. Not that there were too many policemen on patrol at this time. He was, however, starting to pass people driving north or south to their jobs in bigger neighboring towns. There wasn’t much to do by way of work in Mt. Pleasant, unless you happened to work at the gas station or grocery store.
He passed the family-owned Kathy’s Herb Shoppe on Main Street and turned the corner to his mother’s house, pulling up in the driveway and jumping out to punch in the code on the side of the garage. Normally, he’d park outside if he came so early, but today he didn’t want to risk his truck being seen. The stop was necessary in his mind, though, because he needed to talk to his mother, to prepare her for what was going to happen. He was all Norma Hathaway had left.
She was waiting by the kitchen door when he entered with his key. In one hand she held the telephone, in the other a can of pepper spray. When she saw him, the anxious look on her tired face vanished, and she stepped toward the door, rapidly punching in the code for the alarm he had installed last year when there had been a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood. Petty things like small TVs and thin gold bands had gone missing, but worse was the violation people had felt. They didn’t have a lot in this town, and Parker had wondered why anyone would target them—until a gang of teenagers had been arrested. Biggest news of the city in the past decade. At least before today. By evening, his mother would be the recipient of many meals and desserts from the neighbors, outpourings of their love and sympathy over her loss.
“Have you been drinking?” she asked, studying him carefully.
He shook his head, irritated but not angry. “No.”
She had a right to suspect him, though he hadn’t let her down in a long time. She would probably always wonder if he would fail, and her constant worry and fear alone were enough to keep him sober—even if he hadn’t already decided that he would never return to his old ways.
One thing both of them would agree upon: his actions of this night were not a failure. Though his mother hadn’t known of his plan, she would be happy he’d succeeded. She knew what was at stake every bit as much as he did.
“Look,” Parker said, speaking urgently. “I’m only here for a few minutes. I have to work this morning.” He was employed at a construction site in Manti, a good half hour’s drive from Mt. Pleasant.
“Why are you here then?” Her hands were on her sturdy hips, and her brown eyes that matched the shoulder-length hair were intense. “Did something happen?”
In answer, Parker took her hand and led her out to the garage. She hesitated when one of her slippers fell off, and he impatiently waited for her to put it back on. “People are going to be coming around asking questions,” he said. “I didn’t want you to worry.”
They stood on the passenger side of his truck now, and he gestured toward the window. His mother was short and had to stand on tiptoe to see inside. It always amused people that Norma could be so short while Parker and his brother had been such tall, strapping boys. Like their father. But he didn’t want to think about his father or his brother. There had been no love lost between them during his growing up years, and he still paid the price for that every day of his life.
“Madison,” Norma breathed. She stepped back, flung open the door, and reached for the child.
“No.” Parker held her back. “Don’t wake her. I’ve got to get her to Manti before I go to work.”
“But who’ll watch her?”
“I have someone.”
Norma’s brow wrinkled. “Someone she knows?”
Parker shook his head. “She’s used to strangers.”
“Let me come with you.” Her brown eyes were ringed in small wrinkles, really the only place that showed her fifty-seven years. Wrinkles born of great suffering.
“I don’t want you involved. People are going to be asking questions. I only came here so you’d know she’s okay when the questions come. But I can’t tell you where I’m taking her, and you can’t admit to anyone that I was even here.”
“You’re going away. I’ll never see you again.” Panic laced Norma’s voice.
“No.” He shook his head. “If it comes to that, we’ll go together.”
“It will come to that. Dakota won’t let it rest.”
“Maybe she will.”
“Then the law won’t.”
“I can’t let her hurt Madison!” Desperation tightened his chest. “I have to protect her.”
“I know.” His mother’s arms went around him, as comforting as they had been when he was a child. “I’ll get my stuff taken care of,” she whispered. “Don’t you worry. I’ll sell the house, cash out everything. We’ll disappear.”
He knew how much it cost her to say that. This was her home. She’d come here as a young bride, raised two sons, and become a widow. She was offering to leave all her friends and extended family.
“It might not be necessary.”
“It will. You can’t hide her here that long.”
“Maybe I can—at least for long enough. Maybe the authorities will investigate Dakota.”
“Maybe.”
Parker drew back and shut the truck door. “You call and let me know where she is,” his mother said.
He shook his head. “I’ll be here sometime during the weekend, same as always. This time without Madison.” That was a given because his daughter would have to remain in hiding, but he wanted his mother prepared. She lived for Madison’s visits.
“I love you, Parker. Don’t you forget that.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
“Grandma?” Madison pushed herself to a seated position, rubbing her eyes.
This wasn’t going at all as Parker had planned. He shouldn’t have stopped. Now if the authorities caught him, Madison would remember that she’d seen her grandmother.
Norma opened the truck door and gathered the little girl into a hug. “Oh, baby. It’s so good to see you. But you have to lie down now and go back to sleep. You and your daddy are taking a little trip.”
Madison grinned. “I like trips with Daddy.” She yawned. “Is it my birthday again?” For her fourth birthday two months ago, he had taken her to Disneyland.
“Not yet,” Parker told her. “And we’re not going to Disneyland, but we’ll have fun anyway.”
“That’s right.” Norma patted the seat. “You’re tired, sweetie. Lay your head right there and take a little nap.”
Madison yawned again. “Okay, Grandma.”
Parker exchanged a meaningful look with his mother. “I’d better get going.”
“Yes. You’d better.”
He hugged his mother and whispered in her ear, “I’m sorry. Sorry for all of this. I’m sorry it’s going to be so awful for you.” Answering questions, lying for him and Madison—who knew what she might be forced to do? He knew his mother well enough to understand that a little part of her would die every time she took a step closer to the wrong side of the law. That he felt the same showed he’d come a long way.
“I’m stronger than you think,” she said. “I’ll manage. You just keep her safe.”
He drove to Manti, not to the small apartment he shared with two guys from work but to a small, run-down house on the edge of town that he’d rented fully furnished for less than he’d expected. There was still time to change Madison’s hair color and her clothes before the local girl he’d hired came to babysit, a girl who barely spoke English, and whose family had reasons of their own not to contact authorities. Then he’d drive his truck back to his apartment and climb in his window in time to “wake up” with the other guys.
He’d tried to think of everything, but what if he’d missed something important? His heart banged in his chest with a fierceness he hadn’t felt since that first time Dakota had left him and taken Madison, and he’d realized he had no way to protect his daughter.
For now, at least, Madison was safe.
As he carried her inside, her arms went up around his neck. “I’m glad you came and got me, Daddy. I missed you.”
Tears gathered in his eyes. “We’re together now. And I’m not ever letting you go again.”