Ransomed Dreams Read online

  “I was following them. A black truck hit our van and sent it down the hill.” Bright white lights and screeching metal filled her mind. Air burned her lungs. Short gulps didn’t satisfy and forcing more words out felt impossible. Within seconds a female officer placed a scratchy blanket around her shoulders.

  “Did you see the driver?”

  “He was young, had a chubby face. A college student, maybe? I … I’m not sure.”

  Firefighters started hauling stretchers up the hill. Two of them. The female officer stepped into her view.

  Beyond the officer, a heavyset medic clambered up the hill toward a group of uniformed men. “They’re gonna be DOA, man. No need to break your neck getting down there.”

  Her knees buckled. “Oh no. Please. No.”

  The older officer took her arm and steadied her. “Ma’am, is there anyone we can call to be with you? To bring you to the hospital?”

  Tears stung her eyes. She searched the ground for her phone until the female officer placed it in her hand. “My parents … were expecting us.” She covered her mouth and tried to get a breath. “Thompson. My daddy.” She handed the phone back. “In the contacts.”

  The last stretcher came up the hill, and Gracie thought she saw a bloody foot move. She fought against the female officer who held her near Mark’s Mustang while the firefighters loaded the stretcher into a second ambulance. “It’s best that you stay here, ma’am.”

  “My husband and babies …”

  Minutes passed in a haze as other police officers arrived and left. Then her parents pulled into the chaos. Her father took her in his arms and nodded to the remaining officers.

  “Daddy you have to hurry. I saw Elizabeth move. I need to get to them.”

  All the way to Gwinnett Medical, no one spoke a word.

  They’re okay. They have to be okay. Over and over the words raced through Gracie’s head. Another part of her mind heard DOA.

  She jumped from the car as soon as her dad pulled up to the ER doors. She rushed straight to the reception desk. “Please, my family. They were brought here. A car accident. I have to see them. My name is Gracie Lang.”

  The woman forced a smile. “Just a moment.”

  Police officers milled around just beyond the desk. One of them stepped away from the others. The older officer from the side of the road. “Mrs. Lang?”

  “Yes.”

  Her mother’s arms tightened around her waist.

  The officer motioned for her to follow him as he walked through the ER doors. “They’re in trauma room one.”

  “Is my family okay? Please tell me they are …”

  He stopped just outside the door. His stiff posture softened, and he shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m really sorry, ma’am. The EMTs did everything they could.”

  “No! This has to be a mistake. I saw my daughter move. They have to be alive.” She pushed her mother’s arms away. “I need to see them.”

  The officer stepped away from the door.

  “Gracie, I’ll go.” Her dad’s strong hands held her rooted in place. “You stay here with your mother.”

  “No. I have to see for myself.” She forced her legs to walk through the cold metal door. All around, the ER buzzed with voices, clanging metal, and-electronic rhythms. An acrid smell assaulted her senses, and she focused on the center of the room.

  Three white sheets.

  I can’t do this.

  Every thought of how to survive this moment froze like the December ice outside. Useless muscles refused to move. Warring emotions unraveled the last thread of peace holding her heart together.

  Nothing remained.

  Gracie fixed her eyes on the lifeless covered bodies.

  A mistake. This was all a mistake. A different van. Not her family.

  The nurse stood next to a large form covered in sterile white. She waited patiently eyes filled with compassion.

  A traitor to her inner scream to flee, she moved forward. The nurse began folding the sheet down. Gracie closed her eyes.

  Maybe it won’t be Mark. This is all a mix-up.

  She drew in a few shallow breaths and opened her eyes. The blond hair and defined jawline belonged to her husband. No mistake.

  An icy hand wrapped around her heart and it exploded.

  Oh, Father, why can’t this be a mistake?

  She reached out quivering fingers and then recoiled at the chill of Mark’s cheek. Beneath the bruises and lacerations was the face she had kissed good morning for the past seven years.

  The nurse stepped away but Gracie knew she waited with the police officer, just beyond her view. If she could get through the officer’s questions. Beyond her parents’ heart-wrenching sobs. Past her front door at home. She would turn the lock and …

  Gracie looked at the ceiling. “Please, God. Please let this be a dream.”

  When she looked back down, nothing had changed.

  The nurse had removed the sheet to reveal Mark’s face, but Gracie needed to see his hands. She moved the white cotton material away from his side. The sheet felt as cold as his rigid limbs. She’d give anything for one more touch of his gentle hands as they caressed her. Held her together. Lent her courage.

  Gracie forced her fingers to move. Her knees quivered as if she’d run a marathon, and she could barely see for the flood of tears that splattered as drops of gray all over the bloodied sheet. She turned away to keep from falling, only to face a sight no mother could bear.

  My babies.

  Leaden hands muffled the scream that fought its way through her lips. Gracie shut her eyes against the two small covered forms in front of her.

  Her burning eyes held no more tears. She didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to remember anything from this day. The only life she wanted existed before this room.

  The joy of Mark’s proposal.

  The first time she saw Elizabeth and Joshua, red and squalling.

  The sweet scent of her newborn babies, or the brush of a kiss on her cheek.

  A young nurse pressed two items into Gracie’s hands. The pungent odor of blood and hospital antiseptic stung her eyes and nose. The woman whispered something about them being ready to take home.

  Home. Gracie stared at the things in her arms. Joshua’s fire truck and Goodnight Moon, Elizabeth’s favorite book, felt like shadows in her arms. They were all she had left.

  Gracie turned for one final look before she stepped out to the bustling world whirling without her.

  Three white sheets.

  1

  Today Elizabeth would have been six.

  Gracie checked the clock radio on her bedside table. Still dark outside, she had over an hour before the alarm would blare and her feet would have to move. Jake paddled his honey-colored paws, lost in a dream at the foot of her bed. The soft thickness of her rose-patterned comforter bunched around him.

  “Wish I could sleep like that.”

  She slipped out from under the heavy comforter and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her golden retriever didn’t stir. One more week of school and she’d have survived her first year away from home.

  Alone.

  A photo on the nightstand captured her attention. In an instant she was back in Georgia, sitting on her front porch swing, camera aimed, watching Elizabeth and Joshua play in the yard. The autumn leaves swirled in the wind against a crisp blue sky From his garage den, a growling daddy “bear” marched into the leaves and stalked the pretend hikers. Two squealing kiddos with carbon copy smiles turned toward him. As he approached, Elizabeth and Joshua reached out to grab hold of the muscled arms of their daddy. Gracie snapped the picture when the trio turned in her direction.

  It felt like yesterday.

  She climbed back into bed and snuggled under the warm comforter. She smiled as the sweet memory washed over her.

  I can hear their laughter.

  Then she remembered the three white sheets.

  Hot tears spilled down her
cheeks. Someone in a raging black truck had ripped her family away from her. And every memory still stung with unfinished business.

  That had to change.

  A ringing phone made her heart and Jake’s body leap. She lunged for the receiver before the deafening noise hammered her brain again. “Hello?”

  “Gracie? Did I wake you?”

  The voice of her best friend sent her heart back into place. “Under normal circumstances, calling at 4 a.m., it’s a good bet I’m still asleep.”

  Leah ruffled through some papers. “But not today.”

  “No.”

  “You going to make it?” Leah McDaniel sounded like a mother hen, but she kept her trial lawyer questioning at bay. For now.

  “Elizabeth would have been in my class next year.”

  Leah sighed.

  Gracie knew there was nothing more to say. For two years they’d searched for clues and cried on the anniversary of her family’s death and on each of their birthdays. She grew weary of the continuing ache.

  “I’m doing something different today, Leah. I’m tired of walking through their birthdays like a zombie with puffy red eyes.” Jake scurried back to the bed, dog tags jingling, and she rubbed his warm fur. “This time I’m going to find out what happened. My family deserves justice.”

  “But you’ve been there and done that … for the entire first year after the accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident! That kid must have been drunk, and driving intoxicated isn’t an accident. He should be in prison.”

  “Gracie, we don’t know that. The police didn’t find much evidence and had no leads. Even with all of us hounding them—you; your parents; me, your brassy lawyer friend way up here in DC—the officers in charge of the investigation did all they could.”

  “Well, I’m going to do more.”

  “When?”

  Her old college roommate had gone soft. Gracie’s heartbeat surged. She’d run her plan by Leah and succeeded without much of a fight.

  “I’ll call my parents tonight. Then after I make it through the last week of school, I’ll leave for Georgia next Monday or Tuesday.” She got out of bed, walked to her closet, and pulled out a soft blue and yellow flowered sundress. Elizabeth’s favorite color of sky and Joshua’s favorite because it looked like sunshine.

  Mark would have loved undoing the bow in the back. She shook that thought away. Over two years as a widow didn’t make a body’s natural physical responses any easier to manage. Avoiding the thoughts helped a little.

  “You’ll call with updates? And you know if Kevin and I can do anything to help, we will.”

  “I know, Leah. And I love you for it.” She picked out matching blue slingbacks and moved to the dresser for jewelry.

  “I’ll be praying too.”

  “Pray that God will answer sooner than later this time.”

  “Be careful what you ask for, Gracie.”

  She knew Leah’s heart. But the caution did little to dampen her spirits. Gracie had reignited the fire that had lent her strength during her first year alone. For the first time, a birthday wouldn’t send her running to her scrapbooks crying. She’d fight. The powerful zing circulating through her blood did wonders for her energy level.

  She ended the call with promises to be careful and not get her hopes up too far. But they already were. This time would be different.

  Gracie fingered her old-fashioned gold locket. The heavy oval contained pictures of her babies right after they were born.

  For them. She’d find answers this time. In the deep places within her, the truth remained just beyond her reach. But this time she’d take hold of it, and life would make sense again.

  Hope Ridge Academy loomed before her.

  A year of teaching first grade at the exclusive school hadn’t lessened the overwhelming sense that walking through school security was like visiting the president.

  Gracie maneuvered her car into her parking place under one of the huge oaks that surrounded the brick federal-style main building. Exiting her still new-smelling red Jeep Wrangler—a birthday gift last month from her parents and sister—she remembered the last phone call from Beth.

  “After you finally agreed to let Mom sell the Mustang on eBay, I loaded the Jeep with perfect specs on-line, and Mom and Dad picked it up. It’s a great guy-magnet car.”

  Like Gracie needed that. But she didn’t need Mark’s car gathering dust in her parents’ garage either. Letting go of that piece of her husband pricked at her heart. At the same time, one small shackle to the past fell away.

  Now if she could just keep Beth’s pestering at bay. Her sister’s insistence that she needed to date again dogged her heels. Soon. Because she wasn’t getting any younger. Little sisters could be pains, even up to the wise old age of thirty.

  Walking past the stately front columns of Hope Ridge reminded her of being in Old Philadelphia, imagining the American Revolution days. Until she stepped inside. There, high-tech surveillance cameras and magnetometers greeted her with beeps and electronic blips.

  “Morning, Mrs. Lang. Ready for schools end?”

  She returned the older security guard’s smile. He’d been like a surrogate grandfather, a true friend she’d eaten lunch with many times over the past year. “Sure am, Mr. Jennings. You and the missus going to travel the country while we teachers catch up on sleep?”

  He waved her through the large metal portal. “Believe we will. Not getting any younger, you know. You have big plans besides sleeping?”

  In May she’d turned thirty-two and felt every day of it. But Mr. Jennings at sixty-plus acted far younger, with a spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye. Maybe age was all in the mind.

  Gracie set down her soft leather briefcase. Teachers and students alike filed past her. Some with Secret Service escorts; others pouting because their cell phones and iPods didn’t make it past security “I’m heading home next week. Going to follow my daddy’s old military intelligence ways and become a supersleuth.”

  His wise old eyes misted. “Going to pester those police about your family?”

  She touched his uniformed arm. “I need answers, Mr. Jennings. I need to know that I did all I could.”

  “Then you’ll let it go, honey? You got to let it go sometime.”

  “I will.”

  “Mrs. Lang.” The gruff voice of a lanky Ichabod Crane look-alike bristled the hair on the back of her neck. “Isn’t it past time for K through Third’s morning assembly?”

  “No, Mr. Perkins, I have ten minutes.”

  He raised an eyebrow and rubbed his thick brown beard. “Last I checked, I was still the vice principal and school was still in session.”

  Her experience growing up as a military brat forced her to smile, nod, and keep moving. Not to mention stuffing all the smart-aleck words she’d like to say to her stuffy boss. She hadn’t done anything wrong. It didn’t stop her from feeling like a kid being called into the principal’s office, though.

  Or vice principal, as the case was.

  Gracie hurried to her room and locked her purse and briefcase in her desk. Little voices filled the hallway just beyond her classroom door. And the lines of tall teachers with fifteen little ducklings following in neat rows made her smile.

  They reminded her why she taught: For Elizabeth and Joshua and all the little minds like theirs who required patient love and gentle direction for their inquisitiveness.

  It gave her a small taste of the joy of being a mommy again.

  Most days, anyway.

  For now, she had a morning assembly to run. Or Mr. Perkins with his curly brown hair tamed perfectly into place would be circling like a vulture ready to peck at her for every second she was late.

  There was nothing worse than being called to the vice principal’s office the last week of school.

  Well, except for the extra paperwork he could dream up to keep her at her desk all summer. He’d tried that last winter break, tasking her with reworking her lessons to better f
it his idea of what fancy prep school first graders should learn.

  Mr. Perkins had no idea who he’d hired a year ago, though.

  She smiled. Leah and her perfect research papers done the night before they were due had nothing on Gracie Lang and her straight A’s. A dual Education and Literature major with tons of curriculum paradigms stored on her computer, she matched her college roommate’s work grade for grade.

  And Mr. Perkins had his new lesson plans before he could blink.

  Gathering her silly song list and a bag of musical instruments, Gracie headed for morning assembly. If she could harness the zeal she woke up with this morning, her search for clues next week just might yield some powerful results.

  Ones she hoped would help alleviate the fire building in her gut. She didn’t want to repeat the ulcers or insomnia of her first year without her family.

  Justice. That was her aim. For Mark and Elizabeth and Joshua. Their killer needed to know the impact of three white sheets.

  The warm night air whipped his hair as he waited outside Gracie’s dark backyard.

  “Jake! Jake,” she called. “Come on, boy. It’s time for bed.”

  But Gracie’s dog liked to take his time sniffing out his domain. After two years, her watcher knew almost everything about the golden retriever and the young widow.

  Except how to end her quest for answers.

  He crept closer to the wooden fence for a better look. At least she wasn’t hard on the eyes.

  In the full moon, he could see Gracie’s long auburn hair fly free as she wrapped her bathrobe tighter around her athletic body. Her huge dog rushed across the backyard to obey her command.

  She and that dog had been in every major newspaper for months after his accident. And following her every night, he’d grown accustomed to her vanilla spice perfume tormenting his senses.

  He moved in for a closer look.

  Then before she turned to go inside, Jake made an abrupt halt and stood completely still, eyes trained in his direction. The dog’s low growl pierced the quiet night.

  Every muscle in his body tightened as he clamped his mouth over the curse threatening to spill out.

  “Come on, Jake. No one’s there. Let’s go inside.” Her shaky words didn’t convince Jake. But he obeyed her command anyway and disappeared inside the small brick house.