Page 44 of The Kidnapped

CHAPTER 15

“We’re planning a graduation party for a kid who won’t graduate,” John shared. “Well, at least not with us. JJ would be graduating in the spring. My wife has missed three birthdays already. Another one’s coming up. She said she didn’t want to do a birthday party for him this year, like we’ve done in the past, but she’s still buying the gifts. I was good with that. I thought that she might be in that next stage of grieving or whatever, that she was finally starting to move on. Then, she said she wanted to have an open house for JJ like all the other kids do when they graduate. I don’t see the point. He’s not graduating. It’s either he’ll never graduate at all, or he’ll graduate wherever he is now. So, why celebrate something that’s not actually happening?”

“What’s the harm, though?” Molly asked.

“I don’t want to sit around and have people walk through my house all day, leaving gifts for JJ when he’ll never be around to get them. We don’t need money for his college. He’s not going to college. It will be horrible and awkward, and I’m just tired.”

“I understand,” Molly said.

And she continued to talk, but Raleigh wasn’t listening anymore. It was already halfway through the group session, and Hollis’s chair next to her own was empty, which wasn’t like her. Ever since that first night, Hollis hadn’t missed a meeting. Raleigh wanted to text her to find out what was going on, but it would be rude to John, who was sharing, and the rest of the group, who was trying to help him get through this. She wondered if it was the same for all of them. Whenever someone spoke of something they were going through, Raleigh always related it to herself and to Eden. It was selfish, she knew that, but she also couldn’t stop it. When John talked about his son graduating from high school, she thought of Eden at eighteen. Her cheeks wouldn’t be as round. Her hair might be darker. Would she play sports in high school? Would she be a valedictorian? Would she have her first crush or first love by then? Would she have had her heart broken yet?

After John finished sharing, Shelly started talking about her best friend, who’d gone missing five years prior. People were pretty sure the woman had been killed by her ex-boyfriend, but no one knew that for a fact; they’d never found a body. The ex-boyfriend remained a suspect, but the cops couldn’t arrest him on suspicion only, so the case was still open, and Shelly was without a woman she’d known since first grade, who was more sister than friend to her.

When the meeting wrapped, Raleigh said her usual goodbyes to be polite, but she was concerned about Hollis, so she rushed through them to get outside and pulled out her phone. She thought of texting, but then she’d have to wait for a reply. She called instead, and it went straight to voicemail, which it had never done before.

“Hey, it’s me. Raleigh. You weren’t at group tonight, so I wanted to check and make sure everything’s okay. Can you call me when you get a chance?”

She hung up, but something still felt off to her. In the time she’d known the woman, Hollis had always answered when Raleigh called. She’d responded to texts almost right away every time, too. The last time they’d talked, Hollis had mentioned she was going to call in sick at work in order to stay at the hospital with her mom longer. She’d thanked Raleigh for the cot and the use of the hospital shower when Raleigh brought Hollis her stuff from the house, and that had been it. Raleigh had stayed there for another hour or so, but then she needed to get home to get some sleep. She hated leaving Hollis there, though. Something in her told her to stay, to take the chair so that Hollis could sleep in the cot, but it wasn’t her place. So, she’d left and asked Hollis to keep her posted on her mom’s progress.

Raleigh was sitting in the car in Hollis’s driveway. This was too much, right? She was basically stalking the woman right now. But she knew Hollis’s address now, and she still felt like she needed to know that Hollis was okay. Another call had gone to voicemail, so she’d driven here on impulse, and now she was sitting, staring at Hollis’s rental car in the driveway, which meant Hollis was either home or still at the hospital. Raleigh got out of the car and decided to ring the bell. If no one answered, she’d just go home and wait for Hollis to call her back.

“Raleigh?” Hollis asked when she opened the front door.

“Hey. I promise, I’m not a crazy person. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You weren’t at group tonight.”

“Oh. They finally released my mom, so I had to get her home and settled. Come in,” she said, moving aside so that Raleigh could enter.

“I thought I was picking you up.”

“They let her go right before group. I didn’t want you to miss a meeting because of me,” Hollis replied.

“I called before I came over, by the way. I don’t want you to think I just came over here.”

“My phone was dead. It’s charging in my bedroom. The cheap gift-shop charger stopped working.”

“Well, now that I know you’re okay, I can go,” Raleigh told her. “I just got worried.”

Hollis smiled softly, which made Raleigh smile, too.

“Raleigh?”

She glanced behind Hollis to see Olivia coming into the living room from the kitchen.

“Hello, Mrs. Richardson,” she greeted.

“Olivia,” the woman replied.

“Mom, Raleigh came over to check on me since I didn’t go to the meeting tonight.”

“Isn’t that nice?” Olivia noted and exchanged some kind of glance with her daughter. “Hollis was making me a late dinner now that I no longer have to deal with hospital food. Are you staying?”

“No, I just came by to make sure she was okay. I’m going home to make something for myself, actually.”

“Have dinner with us,” Hollis offered.

“You said you couldn’t cook,” Raleigh reminded.

“I can’t.” Hollis pointed to her mom. “She has recipes and gives me pointers.”

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