Kidnapped in Kansas
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Jennifer Brown
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PROLOGUE
If Holly had seen the strange woman waiting for them outside her apartment, she promptly would have taken Georgia’s hand, turned, and walked the other way. But the woman was half-hidden, crouched in the bushes, and she didn’t pop into the open until they’d already climbed the porch steps.
“Icefall,” the woman breathed, emerging from the leaves. She had a People magazine—cover facing out, featuring the Precipitators’ cast striking their fiercest hands-on-hips poses—clutched to her chest as tightly as if she were holding a baby. She was wearing a full Icefall costume. A superfan. “Icefall. It’s you.”
“No. She’s not... We don’t want...” Holly was juggling Georgia’s backpack, lunch bag and a still-wet painting of a lion that Georgia had made in her pre-K art class, while trying to locate her keys, which had fallen to the bottom of her purse. She didn’t want to set down anything. She’d done that before and the superfan had simply picked up Georgia’s backpack and scurried away, leaving Holly to buy all new school supplies when she had barely been able to afford them the first time. “If you could just step back, ma’am...”
“Do you write your name yet, honey? Icefall? I-C-E-F—Oh, I can’t believe I’m looking at real-life Icefall. Do you—does she do autographs? Maybe a picture? Can I get a picture? Give me the Icefall pose, sweetie.” She pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of Georgia before Holly could move her child out of the way.
“No. No pictures, please.” Holly tried nudging Georgia between herself and the door.
Georgia stared at the woman with her wide, blue eyes that looked tired from having resisted her nap that day, her arms slack at her sides. She didn’t reach for Holly or cringe against Holly’s leg, and that probably scared Holly most of all. The paparazzi were bad enough, but at least they were just doing their job. Superfans were, at times, way worse. Georgia was already so accustomed to her privacy being invaded that she just let it happen. What unhinged, fan-madness would she silently endure as a teenager, a young woman, an adult? Holly hated to think of it.
“Can I have a signature, though? It doesn’t have to be perfect. Look, I brought a pen. Purple! Your favorite color! You can sign the cover right here where your face is.” The woman wiggled a pen in the air.
“She doesn’t do that.” Holly finally got her hand around her keys. She pulled them out of her purse, stuck the key in the door and turned just in time to see the fan do the unthinkable: reach for her child.
“Look at that hair, though. It’s real. I always wondered if it was real or if Hollywood put a white wig on her. I can’t believe it’s real. I bet a lock of that hair would bring a pretty penny. Not that I would ever sell it, of course. But if I were to get my hands on one, it’d sure be priceless.”
“Don’t touch her! Stay away!” Holly’s yell startled both the woman and Georgia. Georgia’s lip trembled, but in true Georgia form, she still didn’t cry. Holly reached down and grabbed her daughter’s hand. “Come on, Gee.”
The lion painting fluttered to the ground as Holly pulled Georgia inside the building, turning to make sure the door latched behind her. What had that woman meant about getting her hands on a lock of her daughter’s hair? Would she have taken one if Holly hadn’t gotten Georgia out of there? How? Did she have scissors or would she have just yanked? Either scenario made Holly feel cold. This was a new level of fandom that they hadn’t yet endured.
Georgia whimpered and pointed at the lost lion painting but still didn’t protest as Holly whisked her upstairs.
“Sorry, baby, I’ll come back down and get it as soon as that creepy woman is gone.” But Holly knew it wouldn’t be there. The woman, unable to secure an autograph or a lock of hair, would settle for the painting, which would never hang on the refrigerator like an ordinary child’s painting would. Holly was certain she would later see it on an online auction site. And the woman was right—it would bring a pretty penny.
Once inside her own apartment with the door locked behind her, Holly rested her back against it for a long minute, her heart beating out of her chest. Not for the first time, she wished she’d never entered Georgia in that cute toddler competition two years ago, or said yes to the ice cream commercial after that. And, especially, she wished she’d never signed Georgia on to play the part of “Icefall” in the Precipitators superhero movie that swept the nation over the holidays. Life had been a whirlwind ever since and not in a good way.
She took a few moments to slow her breathing, allowing Georgia to trot off to her bedroom to reunite with her favorite stuffed kitty cat after a long day in pre-K, and then picked up her phone.
She called the police first. And then Jim, her manager at the grocery store, who was none too pleased that she was asking to use all her accumulated vacation time, effective immediately.
And then she called her mom in Garnett, Kansas, to say the six words she’d been obsessing over since Georgia’s newest contract offer had come in.
“Mom, I need to come home.”
