UNREAL ( A Suspense Filled Abduction Crime Thriller ), Page 2

  No doubt he was looking forwards to some alone time with her mom, and once again she pushed the thought of her mother doing things she had yet to experience into the darkest corner of her mind.

  Greg patted her cheek and gave her a smile.

  “Come back to the party now?” he asked.

  She gave him a small hug as he took her back to the house.

  The afternoon trickled away with praise for Sharon’s cooking and talk of everyone’s summer plans. The couple that Julie was pretty sure was Dave and Beth spoke of a cruise near summer’s end, and Julie saw her mother raise her eyebrows at the mention of the dates. By then, her baby girl would be home safe and trying figure out her future. Sharon failed to comprehend that that was a truly terrifying place to be. In some ways, the road trip would eliminate the need for heavy decisions, and Julie welcomed the reprieve.

  “But this thing that you girls are doing,” Beth began, “How fun!”

  Julie really wished they could resume discussing the seasonings in her mother’s pasta salad.

  “It’s going to be the shit,” Kim said. By now she had enough of a buzz on and lost her filter. Sharon sniffed and headed back to the kitchen as the other ladies tittered. Their husbands seemed amused by Kim’s bold candor. Julie looked over to Greg. She couldn’t detect one of shred of emotion on his face. It appeared to her that he was simply studying Kim and pondering a possibility. It was a little out of the ordinary. Greg wasn’t the type to make a pass, and even if he was, he’d be an idiot to do so with her best friend under his roof. Still, Julie felt a slight sense of unease. No question. It was the best thing that they were getting far away come morning.

  “Excuse me, please.”

  Julie followed her mother and watched her start to load the dishwasher. She had to hear Julie tapping her nails against the counter, but she made no move to look in her daughter’s direction.

  “Mom?”

  “Just trying to clean up, Julie.”

  She sighed and realized that she had to make a last ditch effort to put this thing to bed. Sharon was freaking over nothing, and Julie had to find a way to make her understand.

  “Mom.”

  Julie wrapped her arm around her mother’s shoulders. She could feel the small sob starting in her shoulders and nuzzled Sharon’s neck.

  “Why do you worry so much?”

  “I… just don’t want to be left alone.”

  “Alone? But you have Greg, right?”

  “You know what I mean, Julie.”

  As frustrating as her mother could always be, Julie got it. A person doesn’t lose the love of her life and not fear for her only child. Julie turned her mother towards her.

  “Mom? Mom, look at me.”

  Sharon slowly did as she was told. So often she looked on the verge of tears.

  “It’s a few weeks, Mom. I’ll be back before you know it. Back here. I’m not moving out right away.”

  Sharon let out a light laugh.

  “Thank heavens for that! Because you know, I really couldn’t bear it if I had no one.”

  “Oh, Mom.”

  Julie pulled her into a tight hug. Whatever else happened, she would always be her mother, and no matter how much Julie sometimes wanted to fight it, she was destined to stay her little girl.

  “It’s gonna be fine. Just give me a little breathing room, okay?”

  Sharon nodded and lingered in her daughter’s arms for a few moments more.

  The party finally broke up. Greg shifted back into regular stepdad mode and asked Kim if she was okay to drive.

  “Absolutely, Mr. Heller.”

  Greg wagged a teasing finger in her face.

  “And you better not be imbibing when you’re behind the wheel tomorrow.”

  Sharon appeared on the verge of a whole new set of reservations when Kim reassuringly patted her cheek.

  “Relax, Mrs. Heller. Julie’s in good hands.”

  Julie walked Kim to her car. It was a cool night, and the air felt like a relief against her face.

  “Some shindig, Jules.”

  “It was ridiculous. I barely know them.”

  “Hey. But you got the cash in hand, right?”

  Julie made a mental note for them to stop at the bank before they hit the road. Come Monday morning, the strangers’ gifts would be waiting for her withdrawal and whatever might come her way.

  “I guess.”

  “Your mom really needs to chill.”

  “I know. I mean… I know.”

  They’d had the conversation over and over again throughout their friendship. It was time to start talking about something, anything else.

  “So you’ll be back when? Like seven?”

  “Seven? Come on, Jules.”

  “But I thought you said that you wanted to get an early start.”

  “Eight isn’t early?”

  It was, but despite the truce of sorts with her mom, Julie wanted out, sooner rather than later.

  “It is.”

  Kim lingered over her car door with a smile.

  “Just go to bed. Take something if you have to.”

  “Is that your plan?”

  “What’s with the look?”

  “After all you had to drink? If it was me, I’d never wake up for eight.”

  Kim groaned and tugged at Julie’s ear.

  “Such a lightweight. We gotta to something about that, too.”

  Kim was always full of ideas for Julie’s self-improvement. In Kim’s world, that meant more adventures of every level. She’d always held her at bay with the excuse of midterms and finals. But now…?

  Maybe she did want to go a little crazy.

  “Just get me back in one piece or my mom’ll have your head.”

  “Don’t I always look out for you?”

  Always.

  They hugged goodbye, and Kim sped off with a quick toot of her horn and a wave through the window. She wouldn’t take anything, but the thought of sneaking one quick drink before bed wasn’t the worst idea. She’d sleep more soundly and wake up to the promise of tomorrow.

  2

  With the help of just the smallest sip of vodka, morning came quickly. Julie turned over on her side and looked at her clock. It was just past 6:45. Plenty of time to shower and double check that everything was packed. Any hope she had of getting away with the briefest of goodbyes disintegrated when she heard her mother at it in the kitchen again. Knowing Sharon, she wanted Julie to get in a good breakfast, a final meal in her fatalistic mind. Julie sighed at the thought of and dawdled under the hot water until she knew she had to step out and face the music. She brushed her teeth and quickly dressed before hoisting her bags over her shoulders. Counting her purse, her luggage numbered only three items, but that was part of the beauty of travelling between places where people would only see her once. Ensembles could be worn and washed and used again. She knew that Kim would have a different game plan, but Julie liked to travel light. It wasn’t like she needed one more thing to weigh her down.

  She descended the steps to the smell of bacon and eggs and pancakes. Guess her mom wanted to ensure a little more meat on her bones for whatever the open road tossed her way. Julie settled her bags by the front door and followed the aroma of breakfast with a quick glance at her watch.

  7:35. Perfect.

  “Morning,” Julie murmured. Sharon Heller finished setting a plate at the breakfast bar, and she wiped her hands on her apron when she saw Julie in her travelling clothes. Julie registered the brave face she was putting on for her own benefit as well as her daughter’s. The microwave clock read 7:37. She’d choke down a few bites, sip her coffee, and count the seconds until Kim’s car showed up.

  “So it’s almost time,” Sharon said as she sat at her daughter’s side.

  Julie nodded as she nibbled on a piece of bacon. Sharon twisted a dishrag in between her hands, which obviously trembled in the face of the dreaded hour. They sat in silence as Julie dribbled maple syrup on the pancakes. Right now
she was too nervous and too excited to eat much, but she made a show of enjoying the meal for her mother’s benefit.

  When she was eight years old, ages before her father was stripped away from their family, Sharon was already blocking her daughter’s path. Julie remembered flying into a rage when her mother denied her a sleepover at the home of Bethany Irwin, the new girl in her class. At such a young age, Julie could make no sense of her mother’s objections. So what if she didn’t know Bethany’s parents? Julie knew and liked the girl, even though she was jealous of her orange hair and the trail of freckles that ran down her neck. With a red magic marker that was supposed to carry the perfume of cherries, Julie tried to emulate the picture across her own throat. Her mother wiped the markings away with the rough back of a sponge. Julie had believed that that was the reason her mother wouldn’t let her sleep under the canopy bed Bethany endlessly described. So she stuffed her backpack with PJs and her toothbrush and what remained of her Halloween candy. Sneaking out the front door, she could hear her parents discussing the ramifications of a night under a stranger’s roof. From what Julie heard and what she could still remember, her father was less opposed to the idea, but Sharon held her ground.

  Julie marched out of the house and raced down the street. At a maple tree, she kept running. Barely past the next block, it suddenly occurred to Julie that although she knew Bethany’s address, she didn’t have any idea as to how she would reach her desired destination. Frozen on the sidewalk, Julie had to make a decision. Should she keep running in the hope that her new friend would appear on her porch with a freckled wave? Or should she try to sneak back home before her parents even realized that she was gone? Eight didn’t translate to stupid, and Julie trudged back home under the weight of the treasures that she‘d have to unpack alone.

  Circling the maple tree for the second time in minutes, Julie was just in time to see her father starting to back his car out of their old driveway while her mother stood on the porch, frantic and frozen in the space of a single stance. The thought of making another run for what she had no way of finding flashed across her mind, but Julie was too slow to make good on the notion. Sharon saw her and moved from where she had been fixed in distress. Her daughter made no attempt to struggle away until Sharon’s arms were firmly clenched about her shoulders.

  “I said no, Julie! Don’t you understand what that means? What did you think you were doing?”

  “I---”

  Her mother answered her own question with a quick whack against Julie’s cheek. Flying from the driver’s seat, Julie’s father pulled his wife to their lawn and asked her what she thought she was doing. Julie listened to all the reasons why Sharon thought she was in the right as her father railed against what no mother should ever do.

  “Someone has to teach her---”

  “I don’t care, Sharon. You won’t teach her anything like that.”

  “And what would you do? Reward her with ice cream?”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Oh. That’s real nice language in front of the kid.”

  “It wasn’t for her.”

  “Stop!”

  In the loudest voice a little girl could manage, Julie made them quiet. It was the only way that an eight-year-old could take the floor and plead her case.

  “I’m… I’m sorry. I won’t ever do it again.”

  Julie went to bed without dinner and spent the rest of the weekend indoors. It was a kid’s price for a moment of defiance.

  Now Julie dragged her fork across her plate in the absence of half a pancake and two forkfuls of egg. Years later, not too many to count, Julie got where her mother was coming from. Bethany’s parents could have been anything. Pedophiles. Serial killers. In time, Sharon learned that they were members of the PTA, and the long-awaited sleepover finally came to pass. It had been a blast, even if the canopy bed didn’t match all of Bethany’s talk. Yet it was natural to fear them at first, to fear the unknown.

  But Julie was no longer eight.

  “Now you will check in, right?” Sharon asked.

  “I will, Mom. I promise.”

  “And you’ll be careful?”

  “Sure.”

  Sharon spun her spoon around the rim of her coffee cup and finally let out a sigh.

  “I guess there’s no stopping you then.”

  Julie wrapped her arm around her mother’s neck and plopped a maple syrup kiss on her cheek. Sharon slid back in her seat and wiped the stain away with the corner of her napkin.

  “Maybe I am being silly,” she said. “I just---”

  The sound of Kim’s car nearing the house silenced Sharon before she could finish.

  7:53. Early.

  Awesome.

  Julie finished her coffee and hopped of the stool.

  “Are you gonna see us off?” Julie asked.

  Sharon smiled and placed an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. Greg was already in the foyer, and he helped Julie bring her meager luggage to Kim’s sky blue Camry. The car had seen her through four years of college. Used at the time of purchase, it still had enough life for the task at hand, but Kim already spoke of retiring the old girl once their summer sojourn reached its conclusion.

  “Hey, Jules. Mr. and Mrs. Heller.”

  Greg waited dumbly for the trunk to pop open as Julie took the bags.

  “No room there, Greg,” Julie said.

  “What---”

  She shot Julie a knowing smile. As anticipated, the trunk was filled to capacity with enough of Kim’s belongings to crisscross the country in a variety of outfits to rival a soap opera character nine times over. Julie took her bags from Greg and deposited them in the backseat.

  Kim stayed in the car with the motor idling as Sharon hugged her daughter close with the words be safe, baby. Greg followed suit and slipped a small wad of bills into Julie’s pocket.

  “Mad money,” he whispered. “Now just go have fun.”

  This was unexpected. In between Greg’s cash and what she had yet to deposit in the bank, that shouldn’t be a problem.

  Julie slid into the passenger’s seat as Kim threw the car into reverse. Once they reached the end of the drive, Kim honked her horn and Julie offered a goodbye wave. With Greg’s arm around her shoulders, Sharon seemed contented. Probably not as much as she would be when Julie ultimately returned, but Julie didn’t want to think about that now. Only the open road was on her mind.

  After a quick stop at the bank, Kim twisted the car onto the highway. That so many people would be on there on a Sunday morning shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but Kim moaned when they were trapped in gridlock to rival rush hour.

  “Come on!” she cried as she banged her hands against the steering wheel. “What’s the deal here?”

  “Maybe a stalled car or something,” Julie said.

  “Or a horrible accident. If we hadn’t stopped at the bank, my God! It could have been us, Jules.”

  She was channeling Sharon to somewhat successful effect, and Julie playfully punched her shoulder.

  “Shut up,” Julie teased. “So what did your mom have to say?”

  Kim lit a cigarette before she spoke.

  “Said she’d see me when she sees me.”

  One extreme to the other. Sometimes Julie envied Kim her lackadaisical mom who only showed a passing interest in her only child. A girl didn’t have to mind a curfew if it was never set. But that also led to many a missed milestone. Kim’s mother hadn’t even made the briefest of appearances at their graduation ceremony. That had to hurt, but it also made Kim worldly wise and self-reliant well before the time when it was no longer a choice. A part of Julie envied that, too.

  They finally hit the source of the traffic jam. Flat tire and rubberneckers.

  “Called it!” Julie said.

  “You said it was a stalled car.”

  “It’s the same difference.”

  Kim lit up again as Julie flipped through the terrestrial radio. Sweet as the car was, no one would miss the lack of
satellite stations when Kim finally upgraded to a newer model. She settled on a static riddled rendition of The Cranberries Linger and watched unfamiliar towns pass by. The plan was to turn off at the first pang of hunger and rely on back roads with quaint names for as long as possible. Julie had neglected to share that part of the schedule with her mother. Why give her another cause for concern?

  “Is Brian like crushed?” Julie eventually asked.

  “Not about this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I dumped in on Thursday.”

  Stunned, Julie slowly turned the volume down a touch.

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Kim said through a puff. “Time to move on I guess.”

  They’d only dated for a few months. It seemed an odd couple from the start. Dirty boys, bad boys, were more Kim’s speed. But as that final semester reached its conclusion, Kim opted for something of a square. He always wore khakis and dark-rimmed glasses that concealed a nice pair of light brown eyes. At first Julie thought it was just an experiment, one more type for Kim to check off. Then it got serious. Not exclusive by any stretch of the imagination; it wasn’t like Kim was going to marry the guy and start popping out babies by the dozen. But for it just to be over before anyone had the chance to blink still came as a surprise.

  “It thought you really liked him,” Julie said.

  “Did. Do.”

  She stamped out her second smoke and smiled wickedly at her friend.

  “But I don’t need any guilt weighing me down. I’m looking for more than just sight-seeing, Jules.”

  She had figured as much. Kim would take the trip as a chance to sample the local wares and entice her to take a taste, but Julie figured that what Brian didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

  Obviously Kim was of a different opinion.

  “How’d he take it?” Julie asked.

  “Okay I guess. Hey, he had to know that it would end sometime.”

  Sure. But it still had to hurt. Kim raised the volume, a signal that the matter was no longer up for debate. If Julie had wanted an argument, she could have just stayed home, so she let it drop.

  They pressed on for nearly two more hours and talked about the bad Botox on display at the party and Greg’s gift of cash.