“Amber, who thinks you’re dead?”
For several seconds, all I heard was the faint electrical hum of the hospital line and her breathing, shallow enough to make me picture her propped against white pillows beneath fluorescent lights.
“My ex,” she whispered. “His name is Travis Ward.”
The name meant nothing to me, which seemed to be exactly how Amber wanted it.
“Bentley’s father?”
“Yes.”
I looked through the dark kitchen window. The street appeared empty now, but the memory of that black Ford returned with uncomfortable clarity—the missing hubcap, the man behind the windshield, the way the truck had pulled away when I stepped outside.
“Was he driving a black Ford pickup?”
Amber stopped breathing for a moment.
“Older model?”
“Yes.”
“Front passenger wheel missing a hubcap?”
The sound she made wasn't quite a word.
I moved away from the window and pulled the curtain closed.
“He was here Sunday.”
“Oh, God.”
“Amber.”
“Did he speak to Bentley?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Did Bentley see him?”
“I don't know.”
Her breathing became ragged.
“Amber, stay with me. Tell me what I need to know.”
“Lock both apartments.”
“They're locked.”
“Make sure the basement door is locked too.”
My eyes moved toward the narrow hall leading to the cellar stairs.
Ray had installed that basement door himself. Both halves of the duplex shared access to the utility space below, though each apartment had a separate interior entrance. I hadn't checked the exterior bulkhead latch in months.
“Why the basement?”
“Because Travis doesn't use front doors if he thinks someone might see him.”
A cold sensation moved along my arms.
I crossed the kitchen and switched on the porch light.
“Start at the beginning.”
“I can't tell you everything over the phone.”
“You can tell me enough to keep two children alive.”
The words came out harder than I intended.
Amber accepted them without protest.
“Travis and I were married when I was nineteen. Bentley was born the next year. Travis could be charming when other people were around. He'd hold doors for strangers, send flowers to my mother, volunteer to help neighbors fix things.”
She paused to cough.
“When we were alone, everything had rules.”
“What rules?”
“What I wore. Who I talked to. How long grocery shopping should take. How much gas I used. Which friends were ‘bad influences.’ Whether I was allowed to keep money in my own purse.”
I knew the shape of what she was describing before she gave it a name.
“He hit you.”
“Eventually.”
That single word carried years inside it.
I sat at the kitchen table.
“Did he hurt Bentley?”
“Not the way he hurt me.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“He grabbed him once. Bentley was two. Travis was angry because Bentley wouldn't stop crying. He shook him hard enough that I saw fingerprints on his arms the next morning.”
Amber's voice had changed. It was no longer frightened. It was flat, precise—the voice people use when they've told a terrible story enough times to separate themselves from it.
“I left that week.”
“And he found you?”
“Repeatedly.”
“How?”
“Family. Friends. Online records. Once because I used a pharmacy rewards card I shouldn't have used. Once because a cousin posted a birthday photograph with a restaurant sign in the background.”
I thought of all the ordinary ways a life could announce its location without permission.
“So you kept moving.”
“For years.”
“And Maddie?”
“Her father was someone I met later. Daniel. He died before she was born.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He was kind.”
The way she said it told me that kindness had surprised her.
“Travis never knew about her?”
“No. I was already gone again by then.”
“Why did you come here?”
“Because I thought Travis had stopped looking.”
“What made you think that?”
Another pause.
“Three years ago, he tried to kill me.”
My hand tightened around the receiver.
I said nothing.
Amber continued.
“He found me outside Terre Haute. I had Bentley with a friend that night. Travis followed me from work. He forced my car off a county road, dragged me out and left me in a drainage ditch after I stopped moving.”
The kitchen clock ticked over the stove.
“I woke up in the hospital two days later.”
I closed my eyes.
“There was an investigation. Travis disappeared before police could arrest him. The detective believed someone had told him I died, because he stopped trying to find Bentley immediately afterward.”
“Who would tell him that?”
“One of his friends. Maybe his brother. Nobody knows.”
“And you let him believe it.”
“A victim advocate said disappearing might be the safest thing I could do until they caught him.”
“So Collins isn't your married name.”
“It was my grandmother's.”
That explained the blank spaces in her history, the sparse visitors, the way she never posted photographs online. Details I had mistaken for privacy now rearranged themselves into survival.
“Was Travis ever arrested?”
“No.”
“For three years?”
“No.”
“How does somebody wanted for attempted murder simply disappear?”
“He had friends in three states. Cash jobs. People who thought I was the problem.”
There was bitterness now.
“And this week he found you.”
“Monday morning.”
“What happened?”
“I saw his truck from the bathroom window.”
I pictured Bentley's account: Maddie eating cereal. His mother going into the bathroom. Something falling.
“You collapsed because you saw him?”
“I couldn't breathe.”
“A panic attack?”
“Partly. I have asthma. I'd been sick for days, and when I saw him outside, I couldn't get air.”
“Did he come inside?”
“No.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“He looked right at the window.”
My skin prickled.
“I pulled the curtain. My inhaler wasn't helping. I remember Bentley knocking on the bathroom door, then waking up with paramedics around me.”
“And you told Bentley an aunt was coming.”
“I panicked.”
“You left two children alone.”
“I know.”
Her voice cracked.
The anger I had been holding sharpened, then changed shape. What Amber had done was dangerous. There was no way around that. But fear had reduced her choices to the narrowest tunnel, and she had made one terrible decision believing it would buy her children a few hours.
“Why didn't you tell the paramedics there was a man outside threatening you?”
“I tried to tell one of them privately. Police came to the hospital later.”
“Then why didn't someone check on Bentley?”
“They did.”
I straightened.
“When?”
“That afternoon.”
“No one came here.”
“They went to the address in my old hospital records.”
I swore quietly.
“I had moved but never updated that system. Everything happened too fast.”
“How did you end up in Indianapolis?”
“My oxygen levels kept dropping. They transferred me overnight because of complications.”
“And nine days passed?”
“I developed pneumonia. I was sedated for two days. When I woke up, my purse was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Lost during the transfers. My phone, wallet, everything. I couldn't remember your number.”
“The sticky note.”
“I remembered where I'd put it, not what it said.”
“So how did you call tonight?”
“A nurse helped me get into an old email account. Doug's rental listing was still in there. I found the property address, then used directory assistance to search your name.”
It was such a clumsy, ordinary chain of events that I believed it instantly.
“Why didn't you call police and send them here?”
Silence.
“Amber.”
“Because Travis watches police.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“He has a scanner app. Friends who follow local arrest pages. If police showed up at the house, he'd know I'd contacted them.”
“He already knows where you live.”
“But he doesn't know whether I'm alive.”
I stood abruptly.
“He saw you through the window.”
“Maybe. Maybe not clearly. I don't know.”
“Amber, you told me he looked directly at you.”
“I know what I said.”
Her voice trembled.
“I'm trying to think.”
I heard a murmur in the background, likely a nurse.
Then Amber said, “There is one person you can call.”
“Who?”
“Detective Lena Ortiz. Indiana State Police. She handled the Terre Haute case.”
“Do you know her number?”
“No. But her name should be enough.”
“I can find it.”
“Don't leave a detailed message. Just say Amber Collins needs her to call.”
I wrote the name on the back of Doug's eviction notice.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Her voice dropped.
“Don't tell Bentley about Travis.”
I stared at the wall separating my kitchen from the Collins apartment.
“He's ten, not four.”
“He remembers his father.”
“Then he may already recognize him.”
“No.”
The certainty startled me.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because the last time Bentley saw Travis, he was three.”
“Children remember things.”
“Not this.”
Something about the way she said it caught my attention.
“Why?”
Another long silence.
“Because Bentley doesn't remember what happened the night we left.”
Before I could ask more, a floorboard creaked in the hallway behind me.
I turned.
Bentley stood barefoot in my kitchen doorway.
His hair was flattened on one side from sleep.
He looked at the telephone in my hand.
“Is that Mom?”
I didn't answer quickly enough.
His face changed.
He crossed the room in three steps.
“Mom?”
Amber inhaled sharply through the receiver.
“Is he there?”
Bentley was staring at me.
I held out the phone.
His hand shook as he took it.
“Mom?”
Whatever control Amber had maintained dissolved.
I could hear her crying even from several feet away.
Bentley didn't cry.
He listened.
His shoulders rose once, then settled.
“Where are you?”
A pause.
“Are you coming home?”
Another pause.
His jaw tightened.
“When?”
He listened longer.
Then his eyes lifted to mine.
“You said soon last time.”
I looked away.
There are conversations between mothers and children that strangers should not witness, even when walls and circumstances make privacy impossible.
Bentley turned toward the window.
“No. Maddie's okay.”
Another pause.
“Miss Arlene helped.”
His voice grew smaller.
“I did what you said.”
That sentence nearly undid Amber on the other end.
Bentley pressed the receiver harder to his ear.
“I kept her with me.”
He listened.
Then, suddenly, anger entered his face.
“Don't say you're proud of me.”
I turned back.
His chin trembled.
“You shouldn't be proud.”
Amber said something I couldn't hear.
“You were supposed to come home.”
Another pause.
“You always say we'll be okay.”
His voice cracked.
“Were we okay?”
He handed me the receiver and walked away before either of us could stop him.
I heard the Collins door open.
Then close.
Amber was openly sobbing now.
“Go after him.”
“I will.”
“Arlene.”
“Yes?”
“If he asks about his father—”
A flash of headlights swept across my closed curtain.
I froze.
An engine idled outside.
Low. Uneven.
The same rough sound I had heard from the black Ford.
“Amber.”
“What?”
“I think he's back.”
The engine remained running.
I set the receiver down without hanging up and crossed to the edge of the curtain.
I moved it less than an inch.
Across Kilgore Avenue, parked beneath the dead streetlamp, was the black Ford pickup.
Someone sat inside.
I could make out only a silhouette.
Then the driver's door opened.
I let the curtain fall.
“Amber,” I whispered.
“What do you see?”
“He's getting out.”
I hurried toward the connecting wall.
Bentley was next door.
So was Maddie.
And for the first time since this began, the person Amber had spent years escaping was walking toward our porch.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: I Reached Bentley Before Travis Reached the Porch, but One Sentence From the Boy Proved Amber Had Hidden More Than Fear
For Nine Mornings Bentley Knocked at 7:10, and Every Polite Request Made the Silence Next Door Feel Stranger
Part 5 of 15
