Chapter 1 #2
One hour earlier
I’m the real Annalee Gilbert.
Annalee had no idea why some stranger out there was in possession of her daughter’s cell phone, much less answering it and telling everyone she was Miley’s mother.
But I intend to find out. Right after I figure out where I’m at.
And where the laundry truck she’d hitched a ride in was taking her.
She was still shaken by what had happened back at the hospital. The nurse’s insistence on calling her Jane Doe — even after Annalee had stated her name — had totally creeped her out. The name Jane Doe brought to mind a lifeless body in a morgue with a tag tied around her bare toe.
Ugh! She felt as wobbly as a newborn kitten and was wearing nothing but a hospital gown, but she wasn’t dead yet, no thanks to the hit-and-run driver who’d landed her in the hospital.
Pushing the soiled linens off her, she sat up while the truck continued rumbling down the highway. It wasn’t much of a getaway vehicle, but a recently revived coma patient leaving the hospital against doctor’s orders didn’t exactly have a lot of options at her disposal. According to her nurse, she’d been unconscious for the better part of three weeks following the collision. Unfortunately, the nurse hadn’t volunteered any other details. And for the life of her, Annalee couldn’t seem to remember them with any clarity on her own.
All she could remember was getting into her pickup truck at the farm, rolling down the window to wave at her daughter, and driving off toward…somewhere. She couldn’t remember where she’d gone or anything else that had happened between when she’d driven away from home and when she’d awakened at the hospital. She’d begged to call her daughter, and the nurse had granted her wish, only to have that weirdo pretending to be her answer the phone. Afterward, the nurse had offered to sedate Annalee to “take the edge off,” propelling Annalee to make a run for it the moment she left the room.
And here I am, wherever here is.
She surveyed her surroundings, noting that the roll-top door was caved in a little. It was as if the truck had backed into something big and unforgiving. Sunlight poured through the bottom and sides where the door wasn’t shut all the way, dimly lighting the interior of the vehicle.
The linens smelled awful and were probably infested with germs. She took shallow breaths as she contemplated her next move. Her gaze landed on a rack of supplies mounted against the wall.
It took several attempts before she succeeded in standing. She kept her feet spread apart and her hands pressed against the side of the moving truck for leverage as she inched her way to the supply rack.
It contained a stack of empty laundry bags, a pad of carbon-copy laundry invoices, and —miracle of miracles — a laundry worker’s uniform. Annalee snatched it up and dropped back to the floor with it, shrugging out of her hospital gown to pull on the uniform. She was still barefoot, but it was progress.
She glanced around again and her gaze landed on a pair of rubber galoshes by the door that she hadn’t noticed before. She crawled over to them. It felt gross pushing her bare feet into them, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Even though her borrowed outfit was humble, there was a certain dignity in being clothed again. Sadly, it didn’t change the fact that she was still penniless, thirsty, and on the run.
The truck slowed and swung a hard right, sending Annalee sprawling across the dirty linens. “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she groaned, pushing herself upright again. She hated how weak she felt.
The brakes squealed beneath her as the truck rolled to a stop. She dove beneath the linens again, pulling her discarded hospital gown over her borrowed galoshes.
Footsteps made their way to the back of the truck, and there was a clanking sound as someone unlocked it. Then the door rolled open, blasting the interior of the truck with sunlight.
Annalee’s ears picked up on a drone of voices, one male and one female.
“I don’t know what they expect us to do,” the woman whined. “We’re not staffed to keep an entire hospital in clean linens.”
“You’ll need to take that up with H.R.” The man didn’t sound too sympathetic. “I’m just the delivery guy.”
Annalee heard the roll of metal wheels outside the truck.
“Just put everything in the cart.” The woman still didn’t sound too happy about the size of the laundry order.
The man gave an unsympathetic bark of laughter. “Nice try, but I have some phone calls to catch up on. Like I said, I’m just the delivery guy.”
Annalee heard his footsteps move back around the truck and felt the movement as he leaped back inside the cab. He slammed the door shut behind him.
The woman started muttering furiously beneath her breath. “What a useless piece of?—”
Annalee plugged her ears with her fingers to take the place of a bleeper button. Then things grew abruptly quiet again. She pushed aside the soiled sheet covering her head and discovered that nobody was standing behind the truck any longer.
An idea bloomed in her mind, one that might actually stand a chance of getting her out of this mess. Or at least out of the truck.
She wormed out from beneath the linens covering her and crawled toward the sunlight. It was so bright she had to squint as she shimmied her legs over the edge of the back of the truck. She rolled to her belly and slid ever so slowly to the ground. Despite how careful she was being, she would’ve fallen if she hadn’t had the bumper to hold on to.
A squeak of alarm alerted her to the fact that the grumbling woman had returned.
Annalee pasted on her best smile and swung her head around. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She found herself facing a scowling woman in her mid-to-late thirties with tightly braided black hair and a tattoo of a butterfly on her wrist.
Annalee allowed her gaze to rest admiringly on the butterfly. “Nice ink.”
“Who are you?” the woman shot back, sounding suspicious.
“Annie.” It was close enough to her real name. She plowed onward, keeping the details vague. “They called me in on my sick day.”
“Called you in from where?”
“From the other location.” Annalee employed a duh voice, hoping like crazy that the dry cleaning company had more than one location. “They said something about a mechanical failure at the hospital, and that we would be expected to pick up the slack.” She reached for a pile of linens and tossed them into the cart, while keeping a firm grip on the tailgate.
“You know what?” The woman threw her hands into the air. “I honestly don’t care if you fell off a UFO. I need all the help I can get today.” She anchored herself beside Annalee and started shoveling linens into the cart resting between them.
She introduced herself as Maggie and kept up a steady stream of complaints about the company she worked for, making it easy for Annalee to simply listen and nod.
“Did they really call you in on a sick day?” Maggie finally asked, sounding even more incensed.
Annalee nodded glumly. “Don’t worry. I’m not contagious. It’s, um…” She lowered her voice, casting a furtive look toward the front of the truck. “It’s that time of month,” she lied, “if you know what I mean.”
“Do I ever!” Maggie gave a sympathetic chuckle. “Tell you what. If you agree to stick around for a few hours and help out, I promise to share my chocolate stash with you.” She nimbly hopped inside the truck to push the harder-to-reach items closer to the cart.
Annalee’s stomach growled at the mention of food, making her grimace. “Sorry,” she muttered. “They called me in at the last minute, so I didn’t have time to grab breakfast.” Wow! She wasn’t half bad at making stuff up.
“You poor thing,” Maggie clucked, hopping back to the ground to finish the task. “Maybe you should dig into my chocolate stash sooner rather than later.”
Annalee’s heart leaped with hope. “Maybe we should,” she gushed.
When they were finished unloading the truck, Maggie pulled down the roll-top door and slapped the side of the truck to notify the driver he was free to leave.
“Alright, chocolate time,” Maggie announced.
“Sounds good to me!” Annalee’s stomach growled again as they pushed the cart toward the entrance of the dry cleaner. Fortunately, the double front doors were already propped open.
Once inside the store, she absorbed her new surroundings, looking for anything that would help her pinpoint her current location. While Maggie ducked behind the front counter and did some rummaging around, Annalee’s gaze landed on a set of business cards on the counter. The address of the building she was standing in was in Clarendon, Texas.
Clarendon? She quelled a shiver, realizing she was only about forty miles from home. Forty miles from the scene of her accident. Forty miles away from her only child who was probably frantic with worry about her.
The laundry truck rumbled to life outside the store windows and rolled away.
“Cold?” Maggie straightened and gave Annalee a worried look as she slid a pair of chocolate chip granola bars across the counter toward her.
“Not really. Just…you know…crampy.” Annalee gratefully accepted the granola bars, unable to remember the last time she’d eaten anything solid. While in a coma, she would’ve been fed a liquid diet through a feeding tube. It had to be why she felt so famished.
Maggie plopped a bottle of water on the counter in front of Annalee. “There’s a coffee shop about a block away if you’d rather have something hot to wash down the granola bars.” She made a face. “They’re too cheap to keep our coffee maker going here in the middle of June.”
June. Annalee mentally pounced on the word as Maggie supplied yet another detail about her current existence. That certainly would explain the warmth and the sunshine. She tore open one of the granola bars while pocketing the other. It was an odd feeling not to be in possession of a wallet, cell phone, or the lip balm she normally carried. However, it was comforting to remember something so simple.
Maybe her memories leading up to the collision would return soon, as well. Right now, the most important thing was getting in touch with her daughter. She needed to know that Miley was okay.
It was a burning thought Annalee couldn’t shake. She hungrily downed half of the first granola bar and chugged down most of the water.
Maggie eyed her progress with approval. “Gotta stay hydrated when you’re on your feet all day like we are.” She produced a second bottle of water and slid it Annalee’s way. “Fortunately, the company keeps us stocked with water. It’s not fancy, but it does the trick.”
“Thank you!” Annalee decided that now was as good a time as any to press her luck. “Can I ask another favor?”
“Sure! Whatcha need?” Despite all of Maggie’s earlier crabbing about her employer, she seemed anxious to please the “help” Annalee had made her believe they’d sent her way.
“To make a phone call, please.” Annalee pulled the lining of her pockets inside out for emphasis. “My cell phone must’ve fallen out of my pocket in my friend’s car when he dropped me off. Either that, or?—”
“Just make it quick.” Maggie pulled out her personal cell phone and slapped it on the counter. “All of these hospital linens aren’t gonna wash themselves.”
“I hear you.” Annalee’s fingers trembled as she picked up the phone and dialed her daughter. While it rang, she spun around and walked outside through the double doors that were still propped open.
Come on, Miley. Pick up, hon!
The line connected and a woman asked irritably, “Who’s this?”
It definitely wasn’t Miley’s voice. Annalee’s insides swirled with dread. “I’m trying to reach Miley.” What she really wanted to ask was, Who are you, and why are you answering my daughter’s phone?
There was a pregnant pause, followed by an ugly laugh. “Aren’t we all?”
A burst of anger turned Annalee’s insides to burning embers. “Put my daughter on the line,” she snapped. “Now! Before I go to the police.”
The woman’s laugh died. “You aren’t in any position to be making demands.”
“What are you talking about?” The dread inside Annalee grew. “Who are you?”
“Annalee Gilbert, of course. Miley’s mother.”
“How dare you,” Annalee gasped. “Whatever twisted game you’re playing, you’ll never get away with it!” Who was this woman, and what was her game?
“Too late,” the woman mocked. “Your husband is dead, your farm was foreclosed on while you were in a coma, and your daughter is missing.”
Annalee’s knees buckled over the way the nasty woman had tied all three events together — like they were related or something. Her hand shot out to brace herself against the wall of the dry cleaning building.
“Who are you?” she rasped. Why are you doing this?
“I’m you, of course,” the strange woman assured with another one of her strange, humorless laughs. “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you no longer exist, my dear. Your life has been taken as a ransom.”
I’m not your dear, you freak! “A ransom for what?” Annalee was beginning to doubt the sanity of the person she was speaking to.
The line went dead.
“No, no, no, no, no!” She frenziedly redialed the number, but it went straight to voicemail. Again and again and again.
“Annie,” Maggie called from inside the store.
“Coming,” Annalee called back. She frantically dialed her daughter’s cell phone one last time but got the same result. By the time she stepped back into the dry cleaning facility, she was battling tears. The fact that her daughter appeared to be missing was news to her.
I have to find her! Preferably before the crazy woman on the phone found her.
As she re-entered the shop, she found Maggie staring wide-eyed at a television screen mounted to the wall. A news station anchor was blabbing about a woman who’d stolen another woman’s identity.
Wait. What?
Annalee blinked at the sketch that flashed across the screen. It was a sketch of her . She felt the color leave her face.
Maggie’s head swiveled her way, and her startled gaze clashed with Annalee’s. “Is that you? Is your real name Annalee?”
Annalee shook her head helplessly. “I can explain.”
“I’m sure you can.” Maggie darted around the front desk and snatched her cell phone from Annalee. “I’m so sorry, but they said we should report any sighting of you to the police.”
Annalee gaped at her. “Do I look dangerous to you?” She was armed with nothing more than a granola bar!
Maggie doggedly started dialing. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, lifting the phone to her ear.
“That makes two of us!” Wondering what the world was coming to, Annalee reached for the second bottle of water Maggie had laid on the cabinet for her and moved to the door.
“Wait,” Maggie called after her.
“Not a chance.” Annalee waved her bottle of water in the air without turning around. “Thanks for the water,” she called. She’d made it too far to turn back now. Sheer determination gave her the strength to walk across the parking lot and wobble onto the shoulder of the highway. She stuck out her thumb, shuffling backwards. “Please, God,” she begged, “help me find my daughter!” She also needed to get out of Clarendon before she got hauled to the sheriff’s office for questioning.
She walked for a few minutes, surprised by how long it was taking the police to arrive. The dry cleaning place soon dropped out of sight.
A rusty green pickup truck sped past her without making any attempt to slow down.
She sighed and wearily dropped her arm.
Then a cattle trailer rolled her way and squawked its brakes as it slowed down. The passenger door popped open, and an old cowboy leaned her way. “Where ya headin’?”
She waved vaguely in the same direction he was going.
He beckoned her closer. “Hop in. I’m on my way to Heart Lake. If you need to stop sooner, just give a holler.”
Heart Lake. It sounded familiar. She wondered why, and then she remembered.
Heart Lake was located next to the Comanche reservation where her late husband’s father had grown up — the same place Miley had always insisted she wanted to visit someday to get in touch with her stepdad’s roots, whatever that meant. If Miley was truly missing, like the whack job over the phone had claimed, it was possible she’d found her way there.
I hope.
It wasn’t as if she or her daughter had any place else to go now that Gilbert Farm had been foreclosed on. They had a distant relative by marriage living on the reservation — Miley’s great-uncle, assuming he was still alive. Even if Miley wasn’t with him when Annalee arrived, maybe he’d be willing to help her find her daughter.
She clamped her bottle of water between her legs as she buckled her seatbelt, closing her eyes to hold back anxious tears.
Hold tight, baby girl. I’m on my way!