Author Spotlight: Annette Nauraine

Read an excerpt:

Her arms weighed down with four heavy grocery bags, Olivia Maxwell staggered up the steps to the front door.

The door was slightly ajar, which meant the alarm wasn’t on.

Her heart took a dip. 

She had dropped her daughter, Ariel, off only thirty minutes ago because she had complained of being tired. She was twenty-two and had Down Syndrome, but knew to lock both locks, turn on the alarm, and not answer the door. 

Olivia did everything she could to keep her children, Ariel, and nineteen-year-old Taylor, safe from burglars, fires, floods, thieves, airplanes falling from the sky, nuclear waste, lead in the water, chemicals, kidnappers, drowning, earthquakes, and molesters.

Why had she let her guard down and left Ariel alone? 

Olivia shouldered the front door open and kicked the door closed behind her. She juggled the bags onto the kitchen table.

“Ariel,” Olivia called. “You’re supposed to keep the front door locked and the alarm on. Otherwise, it’s not safe.”

No answer.

“Ariel?” Olivia called again.

Maybe Ariel had fallen asleep in her room. Olivia trotted upstairs to Ariel’s bedroom, but her bedspread lay neatly smoothed over the mattress with her collection of My Little Pony characters neatly arranged against the pillow. Olivia looked out the window and scanned the backyard. 

Empty. 

Olivia hurried to check her bedroom, Taylor’s bedroom, and the bathroom. Her lip twitched the way it always did when she was nervous. She yanked open every closet even though she knew Ariel wouldn’t hide in the dark.

Nothing.

Olivia felt like someone held her throat in an ever-tightening fist.

It was one of May’s first lovely, warm days, so maybe Ariel had decided to take a walk. But she knew only to leave the house if she first asked Olivia or Taylor for permission. 

Back in the kitchen, Olivia clawed her phone out of her purse and checked the tracking app she had installed on Ariel’s phone. But the app showed Ariel’s phone was in the house, so where in God’s name was she?

Don’t panic, don’t panic. At least not yet.

Olivia speed-dialed Ariel. “Pick up, pick up, please, pick up.” 

Ariel’s phone lay on the charging pad on the kitchen counter, ringing and ringing and ringing. 

Ariel never left the house without her phone because if she did, she was barred from watching America’s Got Talent, and she lived for that show.

Olivia’s mind spun into panic mode. 

Olivia charged back out to the front porch. Shielding her eyes from the late afternoon sun, she looked up and down the street, hoping to see Ariel trudging down the sidewalk.

Nothing.  

Someone must have convinced Ariel to open the front door and kidnapped her. Someone had been watching the house and knew a vulnerable person lived there. Olivia tried so hard to be a good mother, but she hadn’t been paying attention and now it was too late. 

Olivia was about to dial 911 when Taylor’s Subaru pulled into the drive. Ariel sat in the front seat, eating an ice cream cone.

The knots in Olivia’s stomach released. She closed her eyes, looked heavenward and muttered a curse, then a prayer of thanks. 

Taylor climbed out of the car and waved. “Hi, Mom!”

She forced a smile despite her still thudding heart. “Where were you guys? I was scared to death when I came home to an empty house and an unlocked door.”

Taylor adjusted his baseball cap, and the grin on his face hardened. 

Oblivious, Ariel climbed out of the car. “Tay Tay buy ice cream cel-brate home.” She held out a cone, ice cream dribbling down her hands. “Lick?” she offered.

Olivia said, “No, thanks, Honeybun. You forgot your phone, young lady, and you know what that means—no AGT this week.”

Ariel stomped a foot. “Crap.”

“Sorry, but rules are to keep you safe,” Olivia said and gave her daughter a kiss on the temple. 

Olivia wrapped her arms around her son’s waist and pulled him in for a real mom hug. She recognized his smell the way all mothers can identify their babies: young man, leather, and gym socks.

“Gotcha!” Taylor lifted Olivia off her feet and jiggled her up and down like a rag doll. 

Her friends teased her about being the size of a twelve-year-old, which was about right. It was a mystery how she had given birth to a six-foot-three hulk like Taylor. 

Feet dangling in mid-air, Olivia laughed. “No matter how big you are, I’m still the mom.” She knocked his hat off and ruffled his hair.

Taylor set her down, picked up his hat, and settled it back over his lush curls. “Don’t blame Ariel. She was so hyped to see me she forgot her phone.”

Olivia straightened her clothes. “I’m glad you’re home, but I thought you had finals for two more days, so I wasn’t expecting you.” 

Olivia looked up at him with a chastising lift of her brows. “Next time you take her, please leave me a note or send me a text.”

“I did leave you a note. It’s on the kitchen table.” He rested his meat hook fists on his hips and arched an eyebrow at her. “And my phone’s out of gas, or I would have texted you.”

Taylor looked so much like his father that it knocked her sideways. He was as strapping as Derek and had his dad’s jumble of dark brown curly hair which sprang out from beneath his baseball cap. His angular face was defined by the fatless cheekbones of someone who played a lot of sports. Bulkier than when he had left for school after Christmas, she noted that he had an unfamiliar swagger. 

Olivia was proud of him. Taylor was a good man. After he finished his medical residency, he would make someone a good husband. Until then, she just had to make sure his grades would get him into medical school. 

Olivia tugged at her sleek ponytail, and her lip gave a final, residual twitch. “I was worried when I couldn’t find her.” Kidnappings happened all the time on those true crime shows, and it could have just as easily happened to Ariel. 

Taylor easily hefted a pair of duffle bags out of the trunk of his car. “You shouldn’t get so bent out of shape if Ariel’s not home. She knows her way around.”

His cavalier attitude made Olivia’s jaw clench, but she resisted reminding him about Ariel’s safety. He was a great brother, but clueless about what it felt like to be a parent. He would eventually understand when he was the one sweating bullets, waiting for a teenager to come home late or his daughter missed a period. 

She said, “So why are you home early, anyway?” 

Taylor’s gaze slid away. “I finished up early. I’m going to take my bags in.” He pushed the front door open and headed inside. 

Frowning at his retreating—escaping—back, Olivia and Ariel followed him into the house. 

Dropping his bags in the entrance hall, he headed immediately to the kitchen. He lifted a grocery bag on the kitchen table and pointed to a bright pink sticky note. “Here’s the note we left you.” He pulled it off and shoved it at Olivia. “All you had to do was look.” 

She read the note and tossed it in the trash under the sink. “I’m glad she’s safe—and that she was with you.”

“Mom, just admit you didn’t find it, okay?” Taylor opened the fridge and pulled out three sticks of string cheese.

She sighed, regretting that they had already gotten off on the wrong foot. “All right, I’m sorry. You left me a note. Thanks.” 

“Stop worrying already.” He grinned.

Oh, just you wait.

She couldn’t not worry because it was in her DNA. She knew your entire life could change in an instant if you weren’t careful.  

Ariel sat at the table licking the dripping ice cream cone. Olivia said, “Wash your hands, honey.”

“Okay.” Ariel rose and laid the remnants of her ice cream cone on the counter. Over the sink, Olivia soaped up her daughter’s hands.

“Mom, she can wash her own hands,” Taylor said snottily.

Olivia shot him a look, but let Ariel finish washing her hands on her own. 

When she had dried her hands, Ariel said, “I’m going in to watch The Wiggles.”

“Okay, Honeybun.” To Taylor Olivia said, “I’m making salmon for dinner. That okay with you?” 

“Anything’s fine,” he mumbled around the cheese in his mouth.

She bit back the words, ‘don’t talk with your mouth full.’

Olivia pointed to the fire alarm above the sink, its light glowing green. “Now that you’re home, maybe you can change all the fire alarm batteries.” 

“Why? I did it at Christmas.” He took a mug from the cabinet, set it under the coffee maker, inserted a plastic pod, and flipped the switch. “Why are you so safety-obsessed?”

“I’m not safety obsessed,” Olivia said. “I like to change the batteries before they fail. People die of smoke inhalation, not fire. I taught you that.” 

“Oh, yes you did,” he muttered. “And a hundred other useless things.”

She frowned at his strapping back. Her friends teased her that she was afraid of everything, including kittens, but life was full of danger. Food past its due date, exploding lithium bike batteries, cars that could slip out of the park and roll over on you, avalanches on ski mountains, getting trapped you in your car when a bridge fell, cuts that could turn septic, and severe allergies to things you had no idea you were allergic to. 

Or not listening to your mother. 

He rapped the coffee machine with his knuckles. “Why isn’t this dumb thing working?”

“You know I always unplug the appliances when I leave the house,” she said. 

He gave a noisy, irritated sigh. “God, Mom, you act like every day is Armageddon just waiting to happen.” He plugged the coffeemaker in and flipped the ‘on’ switch again. “I’ll bet you still carry that stupid window hammer in your car, don’t you?”

She did, but she wasn’t going to endure any more of his derision. 

He leaned against the counter, and she flapped him out of her way. “I’m just cautious, is all.” She set the slab of salmon in the sink. “How did your spring semester go?”

“Fine.” The coffee machine hissed into his cup.

Fine? Fine? That was it? He had been gone three months, and all he could say was fine? 

Olivia said, “You stopped texting or answering my phone calls, so I had no idea how things were going. I was worried.”

She had briefly considered installing the tracking app on his phone, but her friend, Frankie, had said, “Are you crazy? He’ll never trust you again. Is that the kind of relationship you want with your teenage son?”

Olivia’s response had been, “Yes, if it means he’s safe.” Frankie’s withering scowl made Olivia give up the idea. 

Olivia felt Taylor’s annoyance, like a cold front rolling in. She tried a softer approach. “I like hearing from you.” 

“Mom, I’m nineteen,” he said. “I’m in college. You don’t have to check on me every day. It’s like you’re the Gestapo or something.”

She didn’t try to disguise her hurt. “I am not the Gestapo because I like hearing from you.” 

If he texted, she knew he hadn’t had a concussion in lacrosse, wrecked his car, and that there hadn’t been a mass shooting on the campus. To make sure Taylor didn’t take up his dad’s hobby of cheating death. 

Because one day Olivia hadn’t been there and death won.