Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf Read Free Book Online

houses away, throw the van into Park and leap out and hit Lock on my key fob. The temperature has risen in just the few minutes I’ve been driving; the oppressive air crawls heavily into my nostrils and sits like sludge in my chest. Two police cars are idling in front of the house and I rush up to the nearest officer, who has emerged from his squad car and is calmly surveying the house that looks eerily quiet, empty.
    Without looking at me, the officer holds up his hand to silence me before I even speak.
    “Please stay back,” he says.
    “I’m Ellen Moore, the social worker. I called 911,” I say, as if this explains everything.
    He raises his eyebrows, finally looking me in the face. Sweat glistens on his bald forehead, his uniform already darkened with perspiration. “Officer Stamm,” he introduces himself. “Then you probably know a lot more about what’s going on in there than I do. What’s the situation?”
    I try to keep my voice composed, level, but it still shakes with fear. “Manda Haskins lives here with her two children, Kylie who is seven and Krissie is four. Kylie called me a few minutes ago and said that her mom’s boyfriend, whom Manda has a temporary restraining order against, came over last night. Kylie said that this morning he started beating up their mother, so she and her little sister locked themselves in the bathroom and called me. We got disconnected and then I called you. I’m afraid the boyfriend is done with the mom and now is going after the girls.”
    I don’t have time to go into the entire all-too-familiar story of Manda Haskins’s life with Officer Stamm. That Manda is twenty-five years old but still seems to always choose the wrong man. She may have been pretty once, but now Manda looks closer to forty than twenty-five—a meth addiction will do that to you. Her face is set in a permanent scowl. Manda lost custody of Kylie and Krissie two years ago when the police stopped her van and found that she was housing a mobile meth lab inside. She swore that her boyfriend was the one who placed all the drug paraphernalia in the back. In return for testifying against the boyfriend and admitting herself into an inpatient drug treatment center, Manda avoided jail time. In foster care the two children did well and all thought that Manda had done the work. Gotten clean, gotten a job. I’d hoped for so much more for Manda and her girls, but apparently her self-improvement didn’t extend to her choice in men.
    “Any weapons in the house that you know about?” Officer Stamm asks.
    I shake my head. “No. I mean I don’t know. Have you been able find out what’s going on inside?”
    “Not yet. We’re going to walk around the house, take a look in the windows, see if we can hear anything. Have you tried to call the kids back?” Stamm asks.
    “No,” I say. “I was afraid if the phone started ringing it might lead the boyfriend to where Kylie and Krissie are hiding. Should I call now?”
    “Yeah, go ahead. We’ll walk around the perimeter and see if we can hear a phone ringing. That might give us an idea of where the kids are. If the kids or the mom answer, try to find out the status of the situation and keep them on the line.” Stamm and the other officer begin to make their way around the house and I scroll through my received calls to find the number that Kylie called me from, hit Send and the phone goes directly to voice mail. Stamm looks at me over his shoulder and I shake my head in disappointment. He rotates his hand in a keep-trying gesture. I scan my phone looking for Manda’s contact information. In the back of my mind I remember that at one time she had a landline number as well as a cell phone. I locate the number, press Send and an instant later I can hear the faint trill of a phone ringing from within the house.
    A woman, a neighbor I presume, sidles up next to me. “What’s going on?” she asks. I give her a cursory look. She is wearing flip-flops, flannel boxers,