Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

bound or blindfolded. Or slapped. I started to cry.
    Who had kept her all these years? If she hadn’t grown up with the knowledge of having been adopted, then hearing it from me—a stranger to her by now, I realized—would be confusing and scary. She wouldn’t believe me. More likely, she’d think
I
was a kidnapper.
    Railroad tracks were ahead, beyond a flashing yellow light. Sixty-five minutes had passed since I’d left the airport, and I’d been off the highway for twenty, long enough for the sun to drop to the horizon in my rearview mirror. I turned on my headlights and flipped open the disposable phone Jeannie had given me. Dividing my attention between the road and the display, I sent a quick text message to update her on my location. It would have been easier to just call, but if Trish really did have a transponder on the car, I worried she might also have it bugged. Jeannie would get my message to Richard and the authorities
if
my phone had any juice left.
    The uncertainty left too much to chance. I texted Richard too.
    Except for the tracks, the only sign of civilization was a leaning barbed-wire fence separating me from empty, overgrown fields. I passed an ancient wooden barn that had toppled sideways next to a sun-bleached old pick-up, left so long ago its bumpers touched the ground. The road began to morph into something made more of dirt than asphalt. I crossed the railroad tracks and checked my odometer.
    A quarter-mile later, the driveway I was looking for disappeared to the right into a forest of pines. My directions said to look for two No Trespassing signs nailed to trees on either side of the drive. They were worn and faded, neglected like everything else—including my common sense, I supposed. But what else could I do?
    I eased onto the dirt track. The car bumped when its tires rolled off the road and I let it creep slowly, hearing only the crunch of a thick layer of pine needles. Far ahead, the drive curved, and I couldn’t see where it ended. The forest swallowed most of the remaining light from the disappearing sun.
    Red reflectors glinted some distance ahead and realized I was coming up on a vehicle parked at the driveway’s end. When I came around a final patch of trees, I found the car beside a rustic cabin. An elevated porch wrapped around the modest shack, and thick curtains covered its windows. I pulled up beside the other car. The porch light flicked on. Its feeble glow barely extended to the edge of the porch, but I felt like I was under floodlights.
    I turned off the engine and took a quick look around. No one was in sight, but several bags of trash had been left beside the porch steps. Beside them, a couple of shovels and a stack of firewood leaned against the porch.
    In front of me, a screen door swung open and Trish stepped outside. I was eye-level with her suede boots. I followed her slim figure all the way up, past jeans and a pullover sweater, to a hateful, steady gaze and opened my car door.
    The screen door smacked shut behind her and I stepped out of the car into muggy evening air that smelled like damp earth and pines. My shoes sank into the soft ground. Far away, I heard a train whistle.
    “Where’s my money?” Trish said.
    I leaned into the car and got the pillow from my maternity disguise. When I unzipped it showed her a fistful of cash, she nodded.
    “What about the kids?” I could hardly breathe, much less speak. I wondered if Annette was really inside the dumpy little cabin.
    Trish pulled the screen door open and held it, never taking her eyes off me. Faint sounds of a television program grew louder and softer as light flashed on the door in various hues.
    “No,” I said. “You bring them out here, to me.”
    She shrugged and disappeared inside, and the screen door slammed behind her. A moment later, she returned with Casey on her hip. His curls and cheeks were exactly as I remembered from Richard’s pictures. I couldn’t believe she’d kept her word. My eyes went immediately to the doorway behind her, but Annette wasn’t there.
    Trish stalked down the front porch steps, the heels of her boots clacking on the wood. Casey looked sleepy, but not mistreated. She thrust him at me. “Here.”
    The baby clutched my blouse and laid his head on my shoulder. He turned his face into my collar and began to suck his thumb. Maybe anybody was more comforting than Trish.
    She stared at me. “Your little girl’s a brat. Like her bitchy mother.”
    I clutched