Page 11 of The Kidnapped

“Well, my show needs a new researcher. We just lost a good one to CNN.”

“A job?”

“Why not?” Kenna shrugged. “I mean, you’d have to interview. I’m a producer and a host, but I don’t make the hiring decisions. I can get you an interview, though, if you’re interested. It also might not be the best job for you; I don’t know. You would be doing research on the stories we cover, and there’s a lot of tragedy and bad news there.”

“I don’t know if I could handle that right now.”

“I get it. And if you change your mind, they’re starting interviews next week with the first round of candidates. You’d have an in with me, and you’re local. We’ll be calling in candidates from all over.”

“But I have no experience in television,” Hollis shared.

“That’s a bonus. We just need someone who can dig and find the facts to support the story. We have two full-time researchers on staff. You’d be the third. They’d help you learn the ropes, if you got the job. It’s pretty much entry-level stuff, but it pays okay, I think.” Kenna thought about it then. “Actually, I have no idea how much it pays. I’d have to look it up. But you can think about it and let me know.”

“I’d have to update my resume,” Hollis said, thinking out loud.

Kenna smiled and replied, “You do that. Text me later, if you’re interested. I’ll be working on the episode for you and your mom, so we’ll just keep in contact. Like I said, no pressure. If it’s something you want, cool. And if not, no big deal.”

“Okay. Thank you, I appreciate it.”

“Sure. Now, Aaliyah has an indoor soccer game, and I’m on orange slice duty this time since Rip had a home visit this morning, so I’ve got to head home and get slicing so that I can get her there on time, or my kid and my wife will kill me.” Kenna laughed a little. “Never thought I’d be a soccer mom. I was a wrestling aunt first, and I liked that, but I love watching my own kid out there on the field, kicking ass and taking names.”

Hollis smiled and asked, “What position?”

“She’s a badass defender. You should see her make a slide tackle. Ripley hates it. I love it.” Kenna laughed again. “Anyway… I’m really glad we got a chance to meet in person.”

“So am I,” Hollis said, meaning it.

She liked Kenna. The woman seemed like a genuine person who cared about what she did, just like Olivia had said about her. Now, Hollis also knew that to be true, which made her feel better about doing the show.

When she left the coffee chain with her now-cold coffee in her hand, she drove the rental car she’d picked up the day before back to her mother’s house and sat in it for a while, thinking about how her life had changed.

No, changed was the wrong word. Uprooted, maybe? Twice now, her life had been uprooted by her father and his selfishness: once when he’d taken her, and now again, since she’d discovered it. So far, he’d only made excuses about why he’d done it.

Hollis knew that the story would have to deal with her dad being a bad guy and now being locked up. He’d already been extradited to the US and was, apparently, being held in the county jail not all that far from where she was right now. Kidnapping was federal jurisdiction, so Hollis had no idea what that would mean for him, but she hated the thought of her dad spending the rest of his life behind bars. He’d done his best with her. When she’d gotten her period for the first time, he’d told her that it was natural, that everything would be okay, and then he’d gone to the local store and spent nearly all his money on at least ten kinds of feminine hygiene products because he hadn’t known which she’d need. When she’d gotten picked on in school for being the new girl who didn’t talk much, he’d spoken to the principal and her teacher to get the bully to stop.

Now, he was sitting in his cell, and Hollis was sitting in a car outside her mother’s house. Her mother, who had been through so much and who still smiled. Hollis got out of the car and used the key Olivia had given her to let herself inside. She saw her mother on the sofa, with her eyes closed. Hollis’s heart raced, and she moved to her. This wasn’t okay. They’d only had a few days together. She couldn’t lose her now.

“Hey, sweetie,” her mother said with a scraggly voice as she opened her eyes. “I tired myself out and needed a nap. How was it, meeting with Kenna?”

CHAPTER 5

Raleigh stared at her computer screen. She used to love her job. Now, she couldn’t focus on anything other than her daughter. Eden would be four years old right now. Raleigh wondered what she’d be interested in these days. A year ago, she loved to color. Whenever they’d gone to the grocery store and strolled down the aisle with cards and books, Eden would always want a new coloring book. Raleigh would indulge her because Eden had colored in every other one she owned already, and she loved to color. Would she still love it? Had she moved on to something else, like most kids did? Was she on a bicycle with training wheels?

Raleigh closed her computer and looked at the photo on her desk. It was of the two of them and one of the last pictures she had of them together. It wasn’t fair. They’d gone through so much just to have her. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She had. She’d gone through so much to have her. Millie had gone through a lot, too, but that had been before this. That had been when they’d still been a couple.

Raleigh had been twenty-four when they met. Millie had been thirty and the much more experienced older woman. They’d fallen in love and moved in together a year later. They hadn’t planned on getting married, but neither of them had ruled it out. The one thing they’d both known they wanted had been a baby. After thinking about adoption versus in vitro, Millie had told her that she wanted to be pregnant. She wanted to be the one to give birth and hold the baby in her arms after. It had been important enough to her, and Raleigh had just wanted to be a mom, so they’d started the process. Three attempts later, they still hadn’t had a baby. Millie had blamed herself and lashed out at Raleigh. Raleigh had offered to have their baby, and Millie had gotten mad at that. Raleigh had suggested they could adopt. Millie hadn’t wanted that. Raleigh had done research about having the fertilized egg of one mom implanted in the other, but that would mean she’d be pregnant, and Millie wouldn’t be. No idea had seemed to work, so they’d tried a fourth round. When that hadn’t worked, either, the doctor had suggested they stop since the likelihood of it working on the next attempt hadn’t been high, and the costs had been getting astronomical.

Millie had gone into a deep depression after that. Raleigh had done what she could to help. She’d suggested they go to a couple’s counselor, that Millie explore therapy on her own, and that they consider adoption or Raleigh getting pregnant again, but nothing seemed to pull Millie out of her funk. Eventually, they’d watched their friends get married and become parents, causing Millie to retreat into herself even more. Raleigh had loved her, but she hadn’t known what else to do. Her girlfriend, the woman she’d thought she’d spend the rest of her life with, hadn’t wanted to look at her, let alone touch her. Millie had started sleeping in their guest room. Raleigh had started making excuses to work late in her office or to go out with friends. At that point, they weren’t a couple anymore and hadn’t been in a while.

Raleigh had still wanted to be a mom, though, and at age thirty, she thought maybe if she did this, maybe if she could get pregnant, Millie would see that they could still be parents together. She hadn’t thought it would take on the first try, so she hadn’t told Millie what she was doing. She hid this very important thing from her partner and still felt guilty about that. She hadn’t known it at the time, but the day she’d come home to find her girlfriend moving out of their house was the day she’d conceived. Eden came along months later, and Millie was already gone.

When Raleigh told her that she was pregnant, Millie looked at her for the first time in a long time then, and there was such an expression of disgust that Raleigh knew they were over. She’d made a mistake in thinking this would fix them, but she hadn’t made a mistake in getting pregnant because she’d ended up with her beautiful baby girl.

Raleigh would probably never know why it had been so important to Millie to have the baby herself that she’d been willing to ruin their relationship. Now, she wouldn’t know Eden, and Eden would’ve been her daughter, too. Millie lived about twenty minutes away from the house Raleigh had moved into after Eden was born. When she’d found out that Eden was missing, she’d rushed over, and she’d been there for Raleigh. Millie had been there for her through the hardest part of her life. She still called every few weeks to check in and offered to help however she could. She was married to a dentist now, and it hadn’t taken Millie long to find her, either. Six months after she’d left Raleigh, they’d met. Another year after that, they were engaged, and they’d married the following autumn. Millie’s wife also had a child from a previous marriage, and they were now a happy family, from what it seemed. That had hurt Raleigh maybe the most of all. She’d tried everything to make Millie happy. They could’ve adopted. Raleigh clearly hadn’t had any problems getting pregnant herself. But Millie had been insistent. Now, she was forty-one years old and had a stepdaughter. Millie was happy with someone else, and Raleigh was alone.

???

“I’m still finding stuff out,” Hollis shared. “It’s like, every day, there’s something else that’s suddenly making sense to me when it never did before. We moved around so much. It seemed that just when we would get settled, we’d have to leave again. I learned to know when it was coming. It was usually when I’d get home from school. There would be a candy bar on the table. Dark chocolate with almonds; the fancy kind.” She chuckled a little as she looked at her shoes. “We didn’t have much money, so spending a few dollars on candy like that wasn’t like him. It signaled bad news. Later, it got to the point where he wouldn’t even say anything. The candy bar delivered the news to me: the next day or, sometimes, a couple of days later, we’d leave.” She laughed a little louder. “In fact, when I was thirteen, I saw the candy bar on the table, so I went into my room and packed my stuff. I didn’t have much, just a couple of bags, really. The next morning, I put the bags out in the living room, expecting the truck to be packed, too. He came out of his room and asked me what I was doing. I told him we were leaving, and he said we weren’t. I told him I saw the candy bar. He said it was from last time. He’d been putting food in the cabinets and moved it. I guess I stopped eating them before this. I just left them where they were. Instead of buying a new one, he’d been reusing the same one. He’d left it out by mistake. I unpacked, and three months later, there it was again. It was sitting there on the kitchen table, mocking me. I ate it that time. I wanted him to buy a new one. I was so angry. I couldn’t understand why we could never just stay in one place.” Hollis looked up and met Raleigh’s eyes. “I don’t know what to do about all of this. He’s my father. He’s sitting in a cell right now because he should be; he did something awful. But he’s still my dad… It’s silly because I can’t seem to stop thinking about that damn candy bar. He didn’t have to buy it. He could’ve just shoved our stuff in the truck and told me to get in. But he still bought it. He always tried to make it sound like a good move once we were on the road. He’d call it an adventure, like he always did, and he’d let me know what cool stuff we’d get to do when we got there.”

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