After Anna(118)

Maggie felt her heart lurch. Anna was inside the house. She could have been shot.

Maggie got out of the cruiser, ducking behind the police officer in the driving snow. More gunshots blasted in the farmhouse. Lights flashed again in the windows.

Maggie had to see what was going on. She took off running to the farmhouse. Her legs churned in the heavy snow. Icy flakes bit her cheeks. She ignored the police calling her back.

A group of SWAT team members hurried from the farmhouse with two handcuffed men, hustling them onto the porch. Uniformed police and FBI agents rushed the handcuffed men to waiting cruisers.

Maggie stumbled in the snow but kept running. Ice bit her cheeks. Her breath grew ragged. She heard women screaming in the farmhouse. The sound cut to her heart, bringing tears to her eyes. She had to get to Anna.

Maggie kept running, snow swirling around her. Another group of SWAT team members hustled two more handcuffed men from the house, their heads down. Police and FBI agents clustered around them and hustled them to cruisers.

Maggie reached the front yard, where police personnel hustled this way and that. They jostled her, calling instructions.

‘Miss, stop, get back, it’s not safe!’ one shouted, and a group of police blocked her path.

‘My daughter’s inside!’ Maggie shouted back, but the police linked arms, forming a barricade.

Maggie watched the porch from behind them. Another SWAT team emerged from the farmhouse with two girls in parkas.

Maggie’s heart leapt with hope. But neither girl was Anna. She told herself to get a grip. She remembered Chief Vogel’s saying there were seven victims. There were five to go.

SWAT team members hustled out with two more girls in coats. Maggie’s hopes soared again. She stood on tiptoe behind the police to see better. Neither girl was Anna. Only three girls were left.

Maggie began to panic. Anna had to be soon. Anna couldn’t have been shot. Anna had to be alive.

SWAT team members brought out another two girls. Maggie jumped up and down. She felt a bolt of recognition. She knew one of the girls. It was Samantha Silas.

‘Samantha!’ Maggie called out, but Samantha didn’t see her in the chaos and darkness before she was hustled off the porch.

Maggie started praying. Anna had to be next. She couldn’t be dead. She had to be alive.

SWAT team members emerged from the house with a young girl in a coat, whom Maggie’s heart recognized instantly, the way it was supposed to, even after all this time. A mother’s heart, in the end.

‘Anna! Anna!’ Maggie cried, tears brimming in her eyes. She pressed against the police, but they wouldn’t let her past. ‘That’s my daughter!’

Anna turned to the sound, finally spotting Maggie as the police hustled her off the porch. ‘That’s my mom!’

Maggie shoved the police aside to get to Anna, and Anna broke free of the SWAT team members to get to her. They made their way to each other, falling into each other’s arms, clinging to each other in the blowing snow.

Maggie held Anna tight, finally holding her beautiful baby girl.

And vowing never, ever to let her go.





Epilogue


Maggie and Noah, After

Five months later, the sun was rising in a clear sky, shedding dappled light on the backyard. The Eastern Redbud tree was blooming with tiny pinkish-purple flowers, the forsythia bush had exploded in yellow stars, and the snowbells bowed their pure white heads. The Zephirine Drouhin rosebushes along the fence had grown sturdy canes with floppy green leaves, sending thinner tendrils curling around the wooden pickets and making a natural border dotted with hot-pink rosebuds, which released a sweet fragrance.

‘What do you think of those roses?’ Maggie asked, leaning back in the cushioned lounger.

‘I think they’re gorgeous,’ Anna answered, lying on the lounger beside her, with Wreck-It Ralph curled into a purring ball at her feet.

‘I think they’re incredibly gorgeous.’

Anna smiled. ‘This is usually when you tell me that Zephirine Drouhin is one of the few varieties that are both thornless and fragrant.’

‘I was just about to, because I like to hear you pronounce Zephirine Drouhin.’

‘With my French accent?’

‘Yes. Say it for me.’ Maggie was only half-kidding. She was so happy that she’d gotten Anna back, and that her daughter was recovering from her horrific ordeal with intensive therapy, support, and love. Anna had good days and bad, but this was one of the good ones, an Easter Sunday morning. Anna had taken the year off from school, and Maggie had stayed home to support her in her recovery. Fortunately, Anna had been spared a trial because the other co-conspirators had also taken plea deals. Jamie Covington, Samantha Silas, and the other four victims had been restored to their families.

‘Zephirine Drouhin,’ Anna said, in French.

‘Sublime.’ Maggie smiled, then heard Noah laughing by the bushes. She looked over to see him gesturing to Caleb, who was rifling behind the forsythia for the plastic eggs they had hidden, filled with M&Ms, Reese’s Pieces, and other caffeinated treasures.

‘Caleb, keep going!’ Noah called out, laughing.

‘Here? Or here?’ Caleb raced back and forth with his bag.

‘There!’ Noah pointed beside the bushes. ‘Look there! There’s more in that direction.’