Sounds Like Deception (Sounds Like 2)

Chapter One

I switched from one XM station to another, pressing the touch screen as if I was somehow going to be content with talk radio or music. I was lying to myself if I thought that was true. There wasn’t a distraction big enough to keep the thoughts from bouncing in my head.

I hit a pothole in the road and grabbed the wheel to avoid the shoulder. I careened back into my lane.

“Shit,” I muttered. I wasn’t used to the car yet. It still had the temporary tags from the dealership.

I felt like I could crawl out of my skin. I would never be content again. Not after what I had just done. I tapped a button on the steering wheel to increase the volume. The louder it was the greater the chance I could drown out the guilt in my head.

I was swimming in guilt. Trying to keep my head above it. Pressing my lips upward to take gulps of air in case it slinked down my throat and cut off the oxygen.

For the past three days, it was all I had. Guilt and me. It slept next to me in the lonely hotel bed. It sat next to me in the passenger seat with its feet up on the dash. It followed me inside at the gas stations for a snack break. I couldn’t escape it. I couldn’t shake it. It was going to tail me this entire trip.

Deep down, I knew I deserved this kind of companion. One that wouldn’t let me have a sliver of hope. No joy. No happiness. I had to live with guilt on this journey.

The guilt for what I had done to AJ and me. I had sabotaged our second chance.

He would think it was payback. Some twisted kind of retribution for the way he left me five years ago. I had accepted that chance the minute I walked out his door.

Left him sleeping in the bed we had shared. Sleeping next to the sheets we had burned to ash.

I kept driving. I stopped at night when I was tired. It wasn’t like I had planned any of this. I didn’t have hotels mapped out or rest stops. I was driving toward something I had wanted my entire life. I hoped AJ would understand that. I also understood if he didn’t.

Driving for three days should have given me time to think clearly. I remembered when road trips used to give me clarity. There was something about turning up the music as scenery blurred past that restored calm. But not on this trip.

I kept replaying horrible scenes in my head. A sane person would have pulled over when she had a flashback of a gun pointed at her face. A sane person never would have gotten behind the wheel after a nightmare that was actually a memory of being shoved in a wooden crate and packaged up for sale. A sane person would have stayed with the man she loved. She would have spent time with him, caring for his injuries. Tending to her own pain. Shutting out the world and mending. Healing.

But after Flight 552, nothing felt sane. It didn’t feel safe either. I didn’t know where to land. I woke up early Monday morning to a text. I did the one thing I’d been doing for years. I chased a lead.

I shouldn’t have exited on I-95 in Virginia. I had a chance to slow down and change my mind when I drove through North Carolina. I could have stopped to see my mother and sister in Raleigh. There was solace there. Love. A warm bed and my old room. But I kept driving. Right through South Carolina and Georgia. It was as if something propelled me. I wanted to believe I was driving toward something. Not running from the trauma I had survived.

If I let myself go back to the memory, it only paralyzed me with fear. The men who had ransomed and sold me were still out there. The FBI didn’t know who they were. I sure as hell didn’t know either. There was a recklessness under my skin that told me I had to keep moving before they found me again. It was stupid and careless. I had nothing to protect me but AJ’s gun. A gun he and I both knew I’d never use. I could never bring myself to pull the trigger.

I spotted sugar cane, wide canals, and moss. The scraggly gray plant was everywhere. Hanging like spiders from low limbs. I was somewhere on the backroads of Louisiana.

I picked up the Styrofoam cup from the console, rattling it in the hopes there was a drip of caffeine left, but it was empty. I hadn’t passed a gas station or drive-thru in over thirty minutes. I was off the beaten path. At some point I had forgotten to pay attention to signs of civilization.

As I drew closer, it somehow felt as if I was simultaneously in the right and wrong place. I knew this was the address I had tapped into the GPS, but I was uneasy, as if I had gone too far. It didn’t help that the farther I drove, the more I began to lose signal on my phone. Siri kept cutting out, until she stopped telling me how many miles I had to go.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. My throat felt numb when I saw the name on the rusted mailbox: Harper.

Beneath it was a sign that read: Private Drive No Trespassing.

Only the r’s were missing in all the words, so instead it was Pivate Dive No Tespassing. I wondered if it was a prank some local high school kids played. But as I scanned the area, I couldn’t spot another house.

I slowed the car to a full stop. Was I really going to do this? Dark clouds loomed behind and in front of me, so dark the center of the cluster was black. There was a storm closing in. I gripped the steering wheel and turned right onto the dirt path. I had expected a neighborhood, or at least a row of houses when I received the address. But I knew that was only because I had conjured images in my head of what this was supposed to be. What it should look like. What it should feel like when I arrived.

Instead, this was utter isolation.

I groaned when the rain started to splatter on the windshield. It took me a second to find the switch for the wiper blades. They scraped across the glass, smearing dust and rain in messy streaks.

I passed by the edges of a pond before realizing it stretched into a full lake. Mist collected on the surface. I bounced and bumped over deep ruts in the dirt road. The tree limbs seemed to reach lower, tangled between each other, forming a tunnel over the private drive. The road was at least a mile long, possibly longer. Finally, I emerged in a clearing, shaded by wide oaks.

I turned off the radio as I looped in front of the house on the circle drive. Weeds stuck out from the driveway. For a second, I stared at the one-story farmhouse. I took in the wraparound porch and black shutters. The railings and banister were white. It was so picturesque it could have been on the front of a magazine.

It wasn’t perfect, but it had charm. There were patches of grass in the front yard. Peeling paint around the b

anister. Rustic touches on the door.

It looked as if it was the kind of house that had been filled with stories over the years. Fourth of July parties on the front lawn. Christmas lights and greenery draped on the railing while neighbors sang carols. A vegetable garden, now covered in weeds, that was used to stock the cellar for the winter. It was all there. A storybook that was passed down over generations.

I took a deep breath. Where did I fit in that story? Could I still write a chapter?

I looked at my phone once more. There were no bars. Siri had gone completely silent. I didn’t have service this far out in the country. I shoved it in my back pocket and stepped out of the car. I glanced at my gear in the backseat. It was the first time I didn’t reach for the microphone and recorder. As crazy as that seemed, I didn’t want it. Not now. I needed to be in this moment without holding a mic in my hand.

I would have time to figure out how to explain everything to my listeners later. I could record my own reflections of this meeting. I could conduct an interview looking back on today—piece the story together. I would be able to handle the podcast no matter what I did. But I had to let everything happen first. I knew it was the right decision to leave it.

My reflection in the window was distorted by the rain. I didn’t have an umbrella or a rain coat. The drops fell faster. I jogged along the pea gravel path and up the front steps. I shook out my hair.

I couldn’t believe this was how it was going to happen. That after all these years it would be today. On a muddy road in the backwoods of Louisiana. In the middle of nowhere. Unannounced. As unplanned as the way I came into the world.

I knocked on the door.

I was getting ready to meet my mother.

Chapter Two

The rain gathered in the gutters and splashed over the edge of the roof. I waited. And waited. I knocked again.

“Hello?”

Anticipation turned to frustration. The floorboards creaked under my feet as I shifted back and forth. I looked over my shoulder at the narrow drive I had taken to get here. I couldn’t see beyond the bend in the driveway. It was overgrown with bushes. The foliage was thick on the entire property. It was hard to get a sense of just how large it was.

I jumped when I heard something slam on the other side of the house. “Hello?” I called.

I walked to the edge of the porch and peeked around the corner. I saw a screen door swing open on a cement stoop and bang into the doorframe. Was someone here?

I walked down the porch stairs, not caring anymore about the rain. I wiped the side of my face, smearing my mascara.

“Is someone there? Hi.” I marched up the side staircase. It looked like it was part of a laundry or mudroom entrance.

I tried twisting the handle, but it was locked. I knocked on the door. There was no awning or porch overhead to keep the droplets from running in my eyes.

I pressed my face to the window, but it was dark inside as if the glass was tinted. I couldn’t make out anything. No movement. No light. I couldn’t be entirely sure the house wasn’t empty. I didn’t see the outline of furniture. I squinted, but rain ran in my eye. I heard another bang. This time it came from the back of the house.

I hopped off the side stoop and hurried along the path to the backyard. I was blocked by a fence, but quickly found the latch on the gate and let myself in. The roses growing over the arbor had started to bloom even though they were covered by vines that had no right to be there. The grass was high and the flower pots on the back porch were empty.

The uneasiness I felt grew. I started to think no one lived here, and they hadn’t for quite some time. I walked up the stairs and tapped on the backdoor. It was my last attempt. The jitters and nerves were turning to anger. Why would someone have sent me here?

I moved away from the door when I fully realized this had been nothing but a cruel joke. I didn’t want to admit I could be tricked. I could be duped.