They Disappeared

34

Somewhere in New York City

He was going to kill Cole.

In the hours after the man was shot dead before their eyes, Sarah was still trembling. Her breathing had leveled as she held her son, feeling his adrenaline rippling through him. She brushed her tearstained cheek on his head and tried to understand all that had befallen them.

Why is this happening?

The question haunted her.

As Sarah and Cole waited in the awful dread, Sarah’s thoughts pulled her back to that day when she was ten years old, sitting at her desk in school in Billings.

Mrs. Millet had rolled down the big map and tapped her pointer on Antarctica. Tyler Memford whispered, “I’d never go there because it’d be like falling off the bottom of the world.” The vice principal appeared at the classroom door, all stern-faced, asking for Sarah, giving rise to giggles and whispers-You’re in trouble.

The vice principal escorted Sarah to the office. She thought it strange that he’d put his hand on her shoulder but it was a good thing because seconds later everything turned into a dream and she couldn’t remember if she’d remained standing for much longer.

The principal’s office was a forest of people. When she’d entered they’d ceased talking with the words “…they can’t reach any relatives yet…” hanging in the air. Principal Whittle kept rubbing his hand over his chin. The school nurse, her face wrinkled with worry, clutched her own locket. There was a police officer and two state troopers who kept twirling their hats in their hands. Sarah felt everyone’s attention on her, transferring the weight of impending doom. As one of the troopers squatted down, his utility belt gave a leathery squeak. The nurse joined him and tenderly brushed Sarah’s hair while searching her eyes as if the words she needed were there.

“Sarah, sweetheart, we have some very, very bad news….”

The nurse took Sarah into her arms. Sarah stared at the flag, then the room turned red, white, then blue with blazing stars like heaven, spinning and spinning as the nurse and the trooper told her how a tanker truck had crashed into her parents’ car at the edge of the city where they’d been shopping for a new fridge.

“God took them, Sarah. They were killed. I’m so sorry.”

The funerals, the cemetery, the strangeness of her mom and dad’s untouched bed, clothes, dishes, the streams of relatives, friends of her parents, church ladies-the aftermath was all one long blur, so intense she could not remember moving to Laurel to live with her uncle Burt and aunt Ginger.

Like falling off the bottom of the world.

Sarah’s aunt and uncle were kind and loving but for the first few years Sarah felt incomplete, like part of her had been amputated.

She was a shy student in high school, but through her part-time waitressing job at the mall, she had a lot of friends.

She started going steady with Kenyon Rupp.

In her senior year, Sarah secretly dreamed of becoming a teacher, marrying Kenyon and starting a family. But that dream ended here in New York on the class trip when Kenyon broke up with her in Central Park.

Then, like an answered prayer, Jeff Griffin saw her crying and started talking to her. Jeff was in her class. He was a nice guy, sensitive. In Central Park he’d confessed to her that he’d always liked her and told her to forget Kenyon.

“Don’t worry, Sarah, everything’s going to be all right.”

And it was.

Jeff had rescued her.

In many ways, Sarah believed the rest of her life started at that moment in Central Park with Jeff.

When they’d returned to Montana, they started dating and eventually Sarah became a teacher and Jeff became a mechanic and firefighter. They got married, had Cole and they saved for their dream home. Then she had Lee Ann, their little girl. Sarah’s life was perfect. She was so blessed, so buoyant with joy, she was walking on air.

But their world exploded when they lost her.

Why is this happening?

That question had haunted Sarah again as they struggled through the excruciating pain, the utter desolation and emptiness, the guilt and anger.

In the weeks and months after Lee Ann died, Sarah fell into the habit of sitting alone in the dark aching for her daughter to come back. Sarah could still smell her, hear her in the night crying for her; she could feel her in her arms.

But her arms were empty.

Sarah was convinced that she was cursed. She’d lost her parents. She’d lost her baby. Was she going to lose Cole and Jeff? For months she feared that each time Cole or Jeff left the house, she would never see them again.

Lee Ann’s death had consumed Jeff, too.

Weakened by grief and guilt, he’d grown distant and paranoid over Neil Larson, over everything. Jeff the fixer, the rescuer who saved lives, was helpless and so blinded by pain he was willing to destroy what was left of their family.

But now, with everything they had left at stake, they had to fight.

Sarah believed with all her heart that her last-minute plea to Jeff in their hotel restaurant had worked. She believed it because she saw it in his eyes in the van when he risked his life to save her. And she believed it because she heard it in his voice echoing through this hell. “I love you, Cole… I love you, Sarah… We have to fight to hold this family together….”

That’s right, she thought, stroking Cole’s hair.

Now she had the answer to her haunting question.

Why is this happening?

To make us stronger.

We can never surrender.

We have to fight.

Again she glanced over to the area where some of the men were quietly working.

They’re planning something huge, something horrible.

We have to get out of here.

We have to tell people what’s coming.