Freedom's Child: A Novel Read online

  With metro police, be back later xoxo V.

  I’ve learned more about my son in five minutes of walking through his house than I have in all these years that stand between now and my last moments with him.

  My poor Mason. The way he cried when they arrested me. The way he screamed “Mommy, don’t leave me” still stretches out that black cavity in my chest where my heart was ripped out. It turns my guts in knots, that sweet voice of his, so young yet so full of desperation. Feelings like those know no age limit. Children feel desperation, pain, sadness, just the same as adults. And I told him I’d be right back, that I wouldn’t be long. And it grinded my insides to mince, trying not to cry in front of him, trying to keep a smile. It felt like I was drowning in my tears from the inside out. I can’t take the thought, twenty years later. I take the merlot from the counter and chug it in one, easy swallow.

  What the hell am I doing? I don’t want my child’s first impression of me to be a terrible drunken mess. Hello, I’m your mother. Watch me piss myself and uppercut a few innocent bystanders and tell you how much I hate you because I have no earthly idea what in hell I’m saying when I’m blackout drunk! Oh, what a glorious fucking reunion this is! I run to the sink and shove my fingers as far back in my neck as I can to make myself throw up. My nails scratch my throat, my bowels clench with the heaves. I need to get the hell out of here. I need to get him out of jail. I need to find my daughter. I need to move.

  But then my cell phone vibrates in my back pocket. Should I answer it? Should I let it ring? The caller ID reads “Mobile Number,” with a 631 area code. That’s Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. Mastic Beach. That’s the Delaneys. It’s not Peter’s cell number, at least.

  “Hello,” I answer. My heart feels like it’s about to burst its way out of my sternum.

  “Hello, my love.”

  My first words to the Delaneys. I’ve thought about this a lot over the past two or so decades, what I’d say to them. But words fail me; I freeze.

  My heart stops as he continues. “What’s the matter? Things getting a little too hot for you back in Oregon?”

  Play it cool, Freedom. Play it cool. “Well, a little birdie came to me and told me that you delinquent simpletons were making rounds to see my children.” There’s a short silence. “Delinquent. D-E-L…”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Lovely.”

  “You know, Nessa. Eighteen years gave me a lot of time to think. A lot of time to paint pictures in my head.”

  “They let you finger-paint in there too?” I pull Mattley’s gun from my boot and place it on the counter on the off chance that he’s keeping me on the line to stall me, to corner me. I mean, I know he’s not that smart of a man, but any idiot could plan something like it.

  Matthew ignores me, his voice as smooth as ever. “It can get awfully lonely in a place like that. And a sweet, innocent thing like Rebekah? With all that fun we had years ago, that time we made love, I suppose your daughter could make a close second.”

  “When you fucking raped me?”

  “You say potato, I say potato,” he says. “Either way, you remember when we made love. That was the night you killed my brother.”

  “My two years in Sing Sing was worth killing your shithead brother. And Matthew, I promise you this. Touch one hair on my daughter’s head and I will stick the needle in my own arm and save the state a few tax dollars if it means watching you die right in front of my eyes.”

  “But Nessa, she even looks like you! Do you not find that romantic? How I still want you after all these years?”

  “It’s fucking terrible, how you can think of your own flesh and blood like that.”

  “I guess it is weird. Perhaps illegal in some states, though I don’t know about here in Kentucky.” He laughs. “But I’ve had a twenty-year hard-on for you, Nessa.”

  “Let her go, Matthew.” I make sure he can hear the rage burn holes through my vocal cords. “I’ll fuck you till the cows come home, if that’s what you want. Just let Rebekah go!”

  “You know what?” Matthew asks with urgency. “Here’s an idea! Why don’t you join us?”

  “Here’s another idea, scumbag. Me for her. A fair trade. You let her go, you can do whatever you want with me, capisce?”

  “That works for me. La Grange. There’s an abandoned warehouse on a lot past the closed-down power plant.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  “She’s a little tied up at the moment.”

  “Then no deal.”

  Matthew grunts. “For you.”

  A short silence, then a cough, a woman’s cough. “Where am I?” she cries.

  And for the first time since she wriggled out of my body twenty years ago, I hear Rebekah. I bury the phone in the heel of my hand so they can’t hear my emotions burst out of me uncontrollably, a shriek of relief, of pain, of rage, of longing. Her voice changes everything. This isn’t about the Delaneys. I have to get her. Rebekah isn’t just a concept, something to move toward. She is real, and I swear I can feel her as if she’s standing right next to me.

  It’s not until I try to speak that I realize all my emotions have complete control over my voice. Compose yourself. Be strong. Get her. “And how do you know I won’t call the cops?”

  “Because you’re a fugitive now.” He inhales. “And because you want me to keep my beautiful niece Rebekah alive until you get here.”

  “She’s not your—” I start. But he hangs up on me before I can finish the sentence. I punch one of the cabinets and let out a roar.

  Stay cool. Don’t blow your lid, Freedom. Stop looking at that bottle. Pour it down the sink. Good girl. Now map it out on your GPS. The warehouse is only twenty minutes away. Make sure you have Mattley’s gun. Now move. Fucking move. Go get Rebekah.

  One perk about being confined to a wheelchair is that it’s easy to gain a person’s trust. “I really ap-ap-appreciate you seeing me, especially th-th-this late,” Peter stutters.

  “I’m actually happy to see someone’s going out of their way to help Rebekah. I, of all people, realize how corrupt the police here really are,” Ger Custis says as he pours tea from the kettle into a cup for Peter. “And, like you asked,” he says and puts a straw in it.

  “You do?”

  “Sure,” says Ger as he mutes the television in the living room with a remote. The two of them sit around a folding tray stand with their teacups. The heating vents drone from the ceiling, the room full of antique tapestries in the old Colonial two-story home. In a small garbage pail beside his recliner are a couple empty boxes of TV dinners. “My wife went missing four years ago. Took the police around here all but a week to give up on investigating what had happened.” He puts his hand in the air.

  Peter stares up at a plaque on the wall that reads AS FOR ME AND MY HOME, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD. “It’s nothing that the police are looking into, unfortunately. But I’m wondering if they can be related. That’s why I’m here. Maybe you wouldn’t mind telling me about your wife’s disappearance.”

  “You really want my opinion?” He helps Peter with his straw and pushes a small plate of cheap cookies toward him. “Virgil Paul. I saw him and my little Carol on the news channel. And it’s the first time I’ve seen my Carol in twelve years. I nearly dropped dead at the sight of her. And goodness me, how big Rebekah looked in those pictures they showed. I haven’t seen her since she was a tiny thing.”

  “And what makes you think Virgil had something to do with your wife’s disappearance?”

  “My wife didn’t disappear, she was murdered.” He sits back in his recliner in his red flannel pajamas and with a full head of white hair. “I know it. Fifty years of marriage, I knew my wife enough to know she didn’t just disappear.”

  The singing of a mechanical wooden bird interrupts them at half past. “That’s some clock you have there,” Peter comments.

  “Thank you.” He crosses his hands over his chest. “Was a hobby of mine until a few years back.”


  “So, what about Reverend Paul were you saying, Mr. Custis?” Peter says as he chews a stale oatmeal cookie.

  “Psh, that man has the audacity to call himself a reverend.”

  “That’s right, you were a reverend too, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, a Methodist.” He shakes a cigarette out of a soft pack. “I’m retired, it’s OK to smoke. Anyway.” He sits up. “I’ve known Virgil since he was a yuppie in seminary. Was a good kid. I was one of his professors when I taught history. Was a helluva preacher too. But, as it happens with the rare preacher, he lost sight of God and set his focuses on other things. On money, on himself. I suppose people forget that we’re only human too.” He flicks the ashes into an empty teacup and continues: “Virgil and Carol seemed happy for a long time. Especially when they adopted Mason and Rebekah, they were the happiest family you’d ever seen, or so we thought.” Peter sips through his straw and listens with intent. “They became more isolated, his views becoming less and less aligned with what the Bible says about love and humility. He started to become convinced that God spoke to him, that he told him the exact hour of his return. He found ways to take scripture out of context for his own advantage. It was as if overnight the gates went up and that was it. And believe me, we tried our hearts out to reach them. We called the police and everything. But there was nothing we could do. He had Carol under his spell, along with a good-size congregation who stayed with him during this transition. Many had left, stories here and there about what happened with the Third-Day Adventists. But you know rumors in small towns, like playing the game telephone. And that was it.” He rubs his brow. “Peter, do you believe in God?”

  “No, but I get it,” he answers honestly. “As a believer in God, what do you think of the dreams Virgil claimed to be having?”

  “I’d say it was one of two things. Virgil is either psychotic or evil.”

  “Is there a difference between the two?”

  “Psychotic people will do bad things because they can’t help themselves, they don’t understand it’s wrong. Evil men do bad things because they know they’re wrong and can help themselves.”

  “Do you think he could be capable of murdering your wife or granddaughter?”

  “I couldn’t even pretend to know the man enough to answer. But let me tell you about Adelaide, my wife.” He cracks open a can of beer. “I’m retired, it’s OK to have one a night,” he justifies. “Adelaide was the stern one between us. I was the softie, the one the girls would talk to about personal things. But Adelaide was a strong woman, in body and in spirit. As a Christian, she never questioned God when Carol went into isolation. She never questioned God when Clare hung herself a few years after that. I can’t say it was the same for me, but Adelaide was what got me through it.

  “But I think in many ways, Adelaide only appeared to be as strong as she was. Between Carol and Clare, I think a good part of her died. But she stayed strong, if only for me.” Ger pulls at the Budweiser can. “And four years ago, I don’t know what encouraged the choice, but she was dead set on getting into the Third-Day Adventists.” He smiles at the thought. “She was ready to put up a tent in front of those gates, I tell ya. And I insisted I go with her. But she said no. Said she needed the drive to herself so she could think. She always liked to think when she drove, liked to pray behind the steering wheel of a car, for whatever reason.” He becomes distracted. “God, she was the most beautiful woman you’d ever lay eyes on, I mean a knockout.”

  “Was that when she disappeared?”

  “When she didn’t return that night, I knew something happened. I reported it to the police, but they said I had to wait twenty-four hours, and I waited. It was the longest twenty-four hours of my life.”

  “And that was it?”

  “That was it. Except they found her car a week later in the Ohio River. But there was no sign of Adelaide. Police said she probably drowned outside the vehicle.” He uses his sleeve to wipe away a tear from his face. “Carol and those kids are the only living family I have left. And Virgil has stolen that from me.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as me.” Ger coughs. “All those souls wasted on that evil man and his cult.”

  Trying to distract the old man from thoughts of his wife and daughters, Peter says, “You know, I never got into history, myself. I was always bored by the subject.”

  Ger smiles at Peter. “Think of your favorite movie, or your favorite book.” The subject seems to put a gleam in Ger’s eye. “Now imagine only ever seeing the last scene, or reading the last chapter. You’d have no earthly idea what the heck was going on, would you?”

  “I see.”

  “The same thing as now. We can’t understand anything about this world without knowing what led to here, what happened before us.”

  Peter finds this a good point, but he has to get something off his chest. “Mr. Custis, did you not know that Mason isn’t a part of that cult anymore?”

  Suddenly, the sorrow in Ger’s eyes is replaced with something that might be hope. “He’s not?”

  “No, and I hate to say it, but he thinks you’re dead.” Peter starts to head for the door. “And I know he’d love to see you. He’s turned out to be a good man.”

  “Why, that’d be wonderful.” He stutters, can’t seem to catch all the words trying to escape him at once. “Would you tell him for me? Nothing in this world would make me happier.” Ger opens the door and holds it for Peter. He shakes his head in disbelief.

  “By the way, why did you stop making these? They’re amazing.” Peter points to the cuckoo clock on the wall.

  “The last one I made my wife took with her to bring to Carol in hopes that she’d get to see her. After that, it only became a reminder of my dead wife.”

  Peter looks down at the cell phone he stole from his mother. Eleven missed calls. A text:

  Smile! We finally have the bitch! :D

  My name is Freedom and I stop the motorcycle beside a car with New York plates. When I turn it off, the silence is deafening. I can just about hear the burning of the stars above me. Ahead, a building of loose siding, rotting in isolation. Behind it, a silhouette formed by moonlight, the steel of an old power plant etched against an icy sky, a long and distant curtain of steel and hazardous waste. I think about letting the air out of the Delaneys’ tires; that’s what instinct tells me to do. But then they might have to take me to her. Things might not end well if I do that. Actually, I don’t see them ending well at all.

  I stand in front of their car and my bike. I force my shoulders upright, leave the fear behind. I build up the rage, the determination I have for getting my daughter out of here. It all collects into a ball in the pit of my lungs and rises to my throat.

  “Matthew!” I scream with all the power I have in my windpipe. “Here I am.” An animal scurries in the tall grass beside the warehouse. There’s no other response but for the high-pitched squeaks of bats that zip from a few trees. “Matthew!”

  I breathe it in. The night. The cold. The darkness. God help anyone who stands in the way between me and my daughter. Remember, you are not a sad case anymore, you are not Nessa Delaney. And don’t revert back to Nessa when in their company. You are Freedom. You are strong, unbreakable. You are the monster they fear, their worst motherfucking nightmare.

  But still, there is no answer.

  My phone vibrates with a text:

  Come inside.

  I have to use all my might to push open a sliding wooden door; I grunt with the force. Bundles of hay and farming equipment decorate the abandoned space, the smell of years-old gasoline seeped into the ground. The door slamming open sends an echo through the warehouse, a gust of wind blowing back. Stillness.

  My steps make the floorboards creak; moonlight pierces the spaces between the wooden planks that make up the walls. I listen for any kind of life, but instead I’m met with the wind hissing through the space. Somehow, though, I can feel Rebekah here, like a sweet breath that stands out fro
m such a bleak place. I smell the trace of cigarette smoke when I hear the steps above me. A loft, Matthew front and center, looking down on me.

  “Nessa, Nessa, Nessa.” His voice calm.

  I look up at him. Don’t let him see me sweat, see me tremble. “I’m here.”

  His smile slices through the shadows; I feel it in the roots of my hair. “So you are.”

  “And Rebekah?”

  “But of course, love.” He looks over his shoulder. Luke and John join Matthew at the edge of the loft, a landing with no railing. The brothers manhandle Rebekah by the elbows, her hands tied behind her back, a hood over her face. She screams, but there must be something in her mouth. I think my heart stops beating. This is my daughter. This is her, in the flesh, at the hands of the most psychotic people to have ever walked the planet.

  “We have a deal?” I call up. “I’m unarmed, alone. Just let me have her, and I’m all yours. You have my word.”

  “Your word?” He laughs. “Sure.”

  “Don’t—” I start to scream. But before I can, the men push her from the loft. She screams. I run. It’s natural, perhaps my first push of maternal instinct. Like a ton of bricks, she falls on top of me, but I break her fall. I can’t catch my breath on the impact, but hearing the men’s footsteps run down to me does the trick.

  I lift Rebekah up by the back of her pants. “I need you to stand, honey.” I whisper to her. The men charge us like a wall, shadows becoming more recognizable the closer they get. I push her in front of me, but she falls; one of her legs is not working. I reach for the gun. It’s not there. Where the fuck is it?!

  There’s nothing to defend myself with: no wooden beams, no crowbar, nothing convenient like you see in the movies. Think, Freedom. But there’s no time to think. I get in front of her and try to gently shove her with my back.

  I unbuckle my belt and yank it through the denim loops of my pants. A line of rope burn bites my hips. As soon as Matthew’s face is close enough to see, I use the buckle’s end to whip him across the face. I can feel the sting from here. Luke and John try to tackle me, but I rip through the darkness with the leather strip, my aim impressive, even to me. “You stay the fuck away from her!” I scrape the floor with my boot, hoping to find the gun with my foot. In the corner of my eye, I see Rebekah feel her way out with her shoulders, head covered and hands still tied. She finds her way out the door.