Chapter 2
Two
MARISSA
Carefully, I study the door locks of Grace’s room for the umpteenth time. “You know, these locks don’t look very safe. Maybe I should get you one of those things you slide into the door latch to keep people from breaking in.”
“Moooom!” Grace groans. “Nobody is going to break into my room and murder or kidnap me.
You’re being so dramatic.”
“I’m not being dramatic . I want to make sure my baby is safe.”
“All right, can you hurry up with your little inspection before I starve to death?” She throws her arm over her forehead. “I’m starting to feel faint.”
“Yeah, I can feel my stomach eating my backbone.” Amanda rubs her hand over her stomach for emphasis.
“And I’m the over-dramatic one?” I chuckle. “I want to speak with Mrs. Holly, and then we can go get food.”
“Please don’t embarrass me.” Grace slaps her hand into her forehead as I go to find her teacher in the hallway.
“Mrs. Holly,” I greet her.
“Ms. Summers, it’s so nice to see you. I’m so glad you let Grace join the program this year. When I saw they were opening it up to younger students, I just knew the top kid in my class had to be a part of it.” She gestures to Grace.
“Well, thank you so much for helping her get the financial aid she needed to attend.”
“While I would love to take the credit, I didn’t do much. Grace’s application essay and grades really spoke for themselves. Thousands of students across the country applied to be sponsored, and only five were chosen— Grace is the youngest. She has one of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaching. You must be so proud of her.”
“Oh yes, so much so.” I place my hand on Grace’s shoulder. “I actually wanted to talk to you about her safety. How can we be sure these dorm rooms are safe?”
“I assure you we have taken every precaution to ensure the children will be safe for the entire five weeks. The university has increased security, and they are enforcing a strict curfew for those under sixteen. Oh, and my room is at the end of the hall.” She motions behind her. “Only two rooms away from Grace, there is another teacher at the other end, and my husband Mark is one of the other teachers on the program. We all love your daughter and want to make sure she is taken care of,” Mrs. Holly reassures me.
“I really appreciate you looking out for my girl.”
Once I am confident Grace will be safe, and I’ve made sure all of the teachers and chaperones have my phone number just in case, we head out for lunch. I haven’t told Grace or my sister where we’re going, the significance of the place, or who will be joining us.
As we make our way through the streets of downtown, it doesn’t take long for me to remember just how much I hate the traffic here. After what feels like forever, we finally pull into the parking lot of the little diner on 34th and Main and make our way inside. The pretty blonde hostess, who doesn’t look a day over sixteen, greets us with a smile.
“How many in your party?” she asks.
“Four,” I say at the same time Amanda says three, causing her to give me a confused look.
“Mom’s joining us.” I shrug.
She leads us to a booth near a window, to the side. The waiter, a tall shaggy-haired college student, comes over to take our order. Once he’s taken our drink order, we are left alone once again.
“This is where I met your dad.” I blurt out, surprising everyone, including myself.
“Really?” Grace’s eyes widen at the fact that I’m actually talking about him.
“Yep, right back there at that table.” I point to a table in the back corner. “I was meeting a few friends for dinner one night. I knew his sisters Freedom and Anneliese would be here, but I wasn’t expecting him. I walked in, we locked eyes, and I fell in love instantly.”
“So, he was from here too?” She cocks her head to the side.
“No, he was from somewhere far away and was only here visiting. Anyway, after that, we talked all night and became pretty much inseparable for the next week. Two months later, I found out I was going to have you.” I give her a smile.
“So obviously, I’m named after my aunt,” she pauses. “That explains why I have my name, but why was she given the name Freedom?”
“Her mom was from East Germany, and when her family fled to West Germany to escape communism, her parents were killed. She only escaped because Freedom’s father found her and helped her. You can’t just name a child anything over there, so when they found out they were going to have a baby, they petitioned the courts to allow the name because it symbolized everything that happened when they first met.” I freeze, realizing I have said too much, and now, Grace has more than enough info to start looking for them.
“So, Gracie, what are you most excited about doing while you’re here?” Amanda senses my panic and changes the subject quickly.
“I’m excited for everything.” She kicks her feet under the table. “I want to learn as much as possible. Most computer classes start off with teaching about Karel, but I already know everything about him. I’m ready to learn something more advanced.”
“And who is Karel?” Amanda asks.
“He’s a robot, and you program him to do certain tasks on screen. I’ve already mastered him.”
“Oh well, that sounds boring,” Amanda laughs.
“There’s my favorite granddaughter!” My mom calls out from across the room.
“Gram, I’m your only granddaughter!” Grace rushes to hug her.
“Well, Gracie, you never know. Apparently, people have children all the time without telling anyone.” She glares at me.
Let’s just say she’s never been a fan of my decision to become a single mom purposely, and she never misses a chance to let me know it. I don’t want to think about how many times I’ve gotten the “Amanda may have been young when she got pregnant, but at least her child had a father” speech. By now, I’ve become a pro at ignoring all of her snide comments.
We spend the next hour eating, catching up, and enjoying each other’s company.
After lunch, we take a tour of the school to make sure Grace will be able to find her way around campus come Monday. Then we make our three-hour journey back home.
We are a few minutes away when Amanda looks at me and says, “So, you survived. How are you feeling?”
“I miss her already,” I sigh.
“That’s not what I was talking about, and you know it. You brought him up today. It’s the most I’ve ever heard you talk about him, especially in front of Gracie. You have to be feeling some kind of way. I’m just not sure if it’s good or bad.”
I grip the steering wheel tighter and take a deep breath. “I should have kept my mouth shut. Now, she’s going to go and look them all up. She’s already been begging me to let her do one of those genealogy tests.”
“Well, she’s twelve. It’s not like she can book a flight to Germa— Wait, didn’t you spend a week in Germany not long before coming to stay with me? Was that really for a class, or was that for him?”
I give her a sideways glance as I pull into the driveway and park the car. “Freedom was missing, so I went to join the search party,” I shrug. “I was there the night they found her. As it turns out, the police in Germany aren’t any better at finding missing people than the police here are. Adam wasn’t there. He was hiding from the cops, which I didn’t know about until much later.”
“You do realize you’re going to have to tell me the full story one day, right?” She raises an eyebrow.
“There isn’t much to tell other than what I’ve already told you. Her boyfriend’s uncle owned a small hunting cabin, and the police refused to check it out, so we did. We got there minutes before he torched the place. It’s almost been fourteen years, and I still have nightmares of the screams we heard coming from that cabin. So, to be quite honest with you, I’ve tried really hard to forget all about it.”
“Fair enough.” She gets out of the car, but I stay a bit longer, waiting for my heart rate to calm down after going down memory lane.
Finally, I get out and join her. “All right, sis, I’ll see you later.” I move to hug her assuming she will be going back to her house.
“Nope.” She grabs my shoulders, spins me , and starts pushing me toward the house. “I still need answers.”
I open the door, walk directly to the kitchen, grab a glass of water, and sit at the table. “I’m not sure I have any more answers to give.”
She takes the seat across from me and folds her arms. “What happened to Adam? Did he get caught? Is he serving life in prison? Did he prove his innocence and live happily ever after? I feel like there is so much you aren’t telling me.”
“I have no clue about any of that. Never checked to see. I left and never looked back. Did you forget?” I say a little sharper than I mean to.
“You mean to tell me you haven’t tried to look him up once in the last thirteen years?”
“No.” I stare into my glass of water, avoiding her gaze. “I was afraid of what I would find. What if he’s happily married with like fifteen kids?”
“Well, then I would say one more kid isn’t going to hurt anything,” she laughs.
“Ugh, you know what I mean! I don’t think my heart could handle that.”
“Let me get this straight.” She points at me. “You left him, yet you want him to be miserable and pining away for you?”
“No, I want him to be happy. I just don’t want to see it. I don’t want to know that he was able to move on like nothing happened when I never have.”
“You need to get laid.”
“Seriously, is that all you think about?” I press the cold glass to my forehead.
“What?” She throws her hands in the air. “You know what I always say: The best way to get over one man is to get under another.”
“I’m good. The last time I was under one, I ended up with a child.” I roll my eyes.
“Girl, get your laptop right now!” She snaps her fingers and points to the door. “We are looking him up. You need some closure.”
“I doubt someone on the run is going to have social media, but if it’s going to shut you up.” I begrudgingly get up and go to the other room.
“You never know,” she yells after me.
I grab the laptop, open it, and pull up a search window before walking back into the kitchen. “Just like I suspected, no social media.”
“Give me that.” She grabs it from me as I sit back down. “What’s his name?”
“Adam Schaefer.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Umm, somewhere in Germany,” I shrug. She looks up from the screen and cocks her head to the side. “What? I really don’t know.”
“You were there! You seriously don’t know the name of the town you visited? I’m not buying it.”
“That was where his sisters lived. He had a different mom, and they lived somewhere else. He didn’t even know who his dad was or that he had sisters until they were all adults.”
“You’re ridiculous.” She goes back to typing. “Hmm, either you’re lying to me, or he gave you a fake name. I wouldn’t be surprised, considering you gave everyone a fake name back then. Hmm, let me try something else.” She types away for a few more minutes before I get curious.
“What are you doing?” I attempt to grab the computer away from her, but she pulls it back.
“Looking for any news reports involving a hacker and an accounting firm. There isn’t anything. Did you ever think he made the whole thing up to avoid things getting serious between you two?”
I let out a deep breath and pinch the bridge of my nose. “No, but I am now; thank you for that.”
I never considered the possibility of him lying. He had never lied to me before.
Why would he lie to me about something like that?
We messaged each other almost all day, every day, for the two months after that. We made plans to run away together. Could he really fake all of that?
The thought of me keeping Grace away from her father based on a lie makes me sick to my stomach