Page 88 of Cruel Dreams

The FBI and the district attorney’s office are looking through the Blacks’ foundations, and they’re comparing missing child reports to the records Clayton and Ash kept of the “adoptions” they facilitated. I was one of the first, but like Zane said, rarely did they kidnap children who were born in King’s Crossing. Still, the FBI has matched ten missing children plus me, and it gives me a little consolation to know I’m not the only one going through this.

The pilot announces we’ll be descending into Orlando soon, and I press a hand to my queasy stomach.

“Have you ever reunited a child and her parents like this?” I ask Banks who’s busy tapping information into his laptop before he’s asked to put it away.

“Not like this,” he admits. “Not after so long. I’ve worked on kidnappings, ransom drops, situations where they don’t turn out so well. I’ve read up on cases like yours, and after being abducted, there are children who can never adjust to the idea they were kidnapped. They bonded with the people who boughtthem, and they don’t want to meet their biological parents. If, by some chance, Stella, this doesn’t pan out, it’sokay. You have more than five minutes to decide if this will work, and you can fly back to King’s Crossing whenever you feel like something isn’t right. You have control. Remember that.”

His words relax me. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. I don’t have to get to know Brad and Monica if I don’t want to. I don’t have to stay in St. Petersburg if I don’t want to. Zane will help me do anything I want. He gave me the resources to do whatever I need to do. I can fly to New York and visit Quinn. I can fly to California and work in Mel’s office. I can fly back to the city and marry Zane.

I’m an adult, and I’m in control of my own life.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll stay in St. Pete until you settle in. I can work on a few things at the hotel.”

More knots loosen. “I’d appreciate that.”

He cuts me a glance. “And if you decide not to stay, I’ll put you on a plane back to King’s Crossing and Zane will pick you up. No harm done, okay?”

I sigh. “Okay.”

We stop talking as we start to descend over Orlando. Curiously, I look over the sprawling city. I’ve never been to Florida before, have never seen a palm tree in person. We land and deplane, and I find a bathroom and freshen up. We have to ride a rail train to a different part of the airport, and I’m glad Banks is here to help me figure out where to go. There are so many people, tourists on their way to Walt Disney World, and the crush triggers my anxiety.

My heart is beating so fast I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack, but I’m wide-eyed, too. Disney paraphernalia is everywhere, and there are huge souvenir shops within the airport.

I walk with Banks past enormous Disney princess posters hanging on the walls to a set of escalators. They’ll take us down to the corridor that leads to the luggage claim where my parents said they would meet us.

As we round the musty hallway corner, a couple huddled into each other comes into view. She’s blonde, like me, and the man is a taller, beefier version of Zane. I blink. That’s what we’ll look like in twenty years.

She spots me and leans away from him. Straightens. Steps tentatively forward. Her eyes are the same blue as mine, and surprisingly, our hair is cut into a similar style. She covers her mouth, but even from my place in the middle of the corridor, I can see it doesn’t stop her from crying.

The woman knows I’m her daughter.

Just like I know with all my heart, she’s my mom.

I stumble forward, and Banks says, “I guess no introductions are needed.”

Monica, my mom, takes another step but stops.

We stare at each other, and finally, she opens her arms in welcome.

I run to her, and I never think to count the minutes she hugs me.

There isn’t a place to sit and talk near the baggage claim, cutting our hellos short. We walk through the parking ramp, and Banks says he booked a hotel room in St. Pete and we can visit there or at their condo.

They agree their condo will suffice, and my dad, Brad, leads us to a silver minivan parked on one of the upper floors of the ramp.

The air is hot, thick, and wet, so unlike the weather in King’s Crossing, and in seconds, perspiration drenches my skin. There’s a stickiness to everything, and the ramp smells dirty and dank.

Monica’s silent, but she doesn’t let me go, even going so far as to sit in the backseat with me, letting Banks have the passenger seat in front next to my dad.

Using the GPS on his phone, he navigates the twisty roads leading out of the airport, and Banks starts texting.

I lean into my mom, and it’s peculiar to call her that. She’s a stranger, by every definition of the word, but there’s a connection I can’t describe as she clutches my hand, cuddling me into her side. A hint of the same vanilla scent I like to wear catches my nose, and it calms me. I didn’t know what to expect, meeting my mom and dad. I didn’t think to do any research on them. I don’t know what my dad does for a living, or how my mom spends her days. I wonder where my sister is, if she hates me and that’s why she’s not here to meet me.

My mom’s not slim, but she’s not chubby either. She’s dressed in a sundress and sandals, her skin tanned and her toenails painted a bright red. Shelookslike a mom, and that soothes me in a way I hadn’t considered whenever I thought about meeting her.

We sit, our fingers laced together, and she taps my cast, her eyebrows raised. I shrug uneasily and she tilts her head in a classic “mom” move I can already interpret. In a way, it reminds me of Maryanne and when I would try to lie to her. My mom won’t let me get out of explaining what happened. She occasionally presses a kiss to my temple, the way Zane does when he wants to touch me but not bother me. I miss him, but Banks looks over his shoulder and winks, and it brings me back to now, when the most important thing I should be doing is reconnecting with the family I lost so long ago.

---