Free Divine by Karen Kingsbury Page B

Mary was right.
     
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Chapter 7
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    Grace Johnson had never missed her husband more. If Jay were here, he would've known how to find Emma and the girls, how to reach them and bring them home. Instead, she wandered alone around her small three-bedroom house across the river from the nation's Capitol. How could God have allowed this, and how had everything gotten so bad? Grace hadn't gone a day without blaming herself since Emma left home years ago.
    Two weeks ago Grace had dropped by to see Emma and had realized how bad things really were when she'd seen for herself the bruises on Emma's face, the finger marks on her arms. The way the girls had cowered behind Emma even after they saw that the person at the door was their own grandmother broke her heart.
    Grace could still see the horror on Emma's face. "Mama! I told you never to drop in without calling!"
    The situation had been horrific, so much worse than Grace had ever imagined. Not only was Emma battered, she was painfully thin and her fingers trembled. Sure signs that she'd found her way back to taking crack. Grace wanted to take her and the girls home and never let them back on the streets again. But that wouldn't work any better than it had worked when Emma first moved out.
    Grace had taken a step inside the apartment and let her gaze dart around the room. There were broken windows and dents on the wall. Pieces of a vase lay near one of the baseboards. "What—" she'd looked at Emma, her mouth open— "what has he done to you?"
    Emma didn't answer. The look on her face told the obvious—she couldn't answer. Instead she shook her head and blinked fast. "I'll figure it out myself, Mama." She put her arms around the girls and pulled them to her sides. "It's not like it looks. Everything's fine."
    Fine? Grace took a step closer. "Look at your arms." She brushed her fingers across her daughter's bruises. "How could he do this?" Her eyes lifted to Emma's. "It is like it looks."
    For the next five minutes she had begged Emma to leave Charlie and come with her, to get help and counseling and a new start.
    But Emma had shrieked at her, pointing at the door. "You're the problem, Mama! Leave me alone." She pushed herself past the girls and opened the front door. "We'll figure it out ourselves."
    But they hadn't, of course. Grace left and called the next morning. When no one answered, she went back to the apartment and knocked on the door.
    Charlie answered, his eyes bloodshot.
    Grace wanted to spit at him. Instead she looked into the room, peering around him. "Where is she?" Her tone was beyond angry. She wanted him in jail for what he'd done to her daughter.
    Charlie was scraggly with dark hair and unkempt facial hair. He reeked of cigarette smoke and something else—something strangely sweet. Drugs, probably. He took a step back and shut the door all but a few inches. "She's gone. Took the girls."
    "Fine." Adrenaline raced through Grace. "I'll stay outside until she gets back."
    "Look . . ." Charlie flung the door open and gestured toward the apartment. The smell of smoke grew stronger. "She's gone. She ain't comin' back. She's a crackhead, and she needed a fix." He shrugged. "She'd sell her soul for a fix."
    Sell her soul? Fear reached up and grabbed her around the throat. If Emma was that far gone, maybe Charlie was right. She'd been through bad bouts with drugs before. They made her crazy, desperate. Grace pinched her fingers against her temples and squeezed her eyes shut. Think. .. please, God, help me think.
    She blinked and looked at Charlie again. "Where'd she go? She must've told you." Her daughter had no family in the area, no one except her. No matter how she'd messed up, regardless of her poor choices, Grace had always known where to find her.
    Until now.
    "Listen, lady, she's gone. If you see her, tell her I'm looking for her. She owes me a thousand dollars." Charlie slammed the door in her face.
    Grace left, not sure where to go, what to do.