Girl Who Wasn’t There

by Vincent Zandri

  “Then why are we running, Doc?”

  “Because I don’t trust them. I don’t trust Walton as far as I can throw him.”

  In my head I’m thinking about the lecture he gave me inside his office after he insisted Penny step outside. Him telling me about Rabuffo, about his vault, then accusing me of hurting my own daughter.

  “Then we’re doing the right thing,” Penny goes on.

  I attempt to work up a smile.

  “God willing,” I say.

  I pull back out onto the road.

  “Where exactly are we heading?” Penny asks after a few beats, the cool sweet-smelling breeze blowing against our faces, my stomach calming down.

  “We’re going to head down into Keene Valley and the Mount Marcy range. There’s a lot of abandoned cabins in that area. We get lucky, we’ll find a secluded spot that will take the police forever to find.”

  “Then what?” Penny asks.

  I shrug my shoulders, feel the cool wind against my face.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “I’ve never been a fugitive before.”

  “What’s that mean, Doc?”

  “It means there’s people out there who want to kill us. And if we die, Chloe dies. So we need to hide.”

  But I pray the forest is big enough to hide us from the law. But not so big that we can’t find Chloe before the sun sets a second time.

  CHAPTER 29

  THE FARTHER WE drive into the mountainous Adirondack wilderness, the more alone we seem to be. But I know the sensation of isolation is nothing more than an illusion. A dream. When I spot the police SUV coming up on me fast, the dream is completely shattered. With flashers flashing and sirens blaring, the far speedier black and white vehicle pulls up on my tail. So close I can make out the smooth-shaven face of the uniformed cop who’s doing the driving. I can also make out the round face of Chief Joe Walton riding in the passenger seat.

  One eye on the road, the other on the rearview, I see him pull the mic from the dash, bring it to his face.

  “Sidney O’Keefe,” he barks out the SUV rooftop-mounted loudspeakers. “We demand that you stop your vehicle. Get out. Hands raised high above your head.”

  I punch the gas, try and pry more speed out of the Jeep. I set my hand back on Penny’s shoulder.

  “Be prepared to lower your head!” I shout, the wind buffeting our faces in the open-topped Jeep. “They start shooting again, they just might hit something this time. They’re that close.”

  “Sidney O’Keefe!” Walton says, his voice loud and tinny. “This is your last warning. Stop your vehicle or we will fire on you!”

  Up ahead, a trail marker for one of the many high peaks that can be accessed on both sides of the narrow, winding road. The idea hits me like a lightning strike.

  “Penny,” I say, “grab hold of the roll bar. Don’t let go until I tell you. You got it?”

  Slowly, she raises up her right hand, grabs hold of the roll bar. With her left hand, she reaches out, grabs the horizontal bar mounted to the dashboard directly above the glove box.

  “What are you going to do?” she asks.

  “I’m going to get us out of this.”

  Tapping the breaks, I make it look like I’m obeying Walton’s commands. I even raise up my left hand as if to indicate a kind of surrender. As we come upon the trail marker, I continue to slow the vehicle as the cruiser behind me also slows while keeping close on my tail. So close, we’re nearly trading paint.

  “Hang on tight!” I yell.

  The green sign is nearly upon us on the right-hand side.

  “Here we go!”

  I turn the wheel sharply to the right, the back end of the Jeep fishtailing, the tires spinning on the pavement as I give it the gas, but catching and propelling us onto the trail. Behind us, the cop piloting the SUV slams on the brakes, sending the vehicle sliding off into the ditch on the opposite side of the road.

  I throw the Jeep into the 4-wheel drive by pulling back on the floor-mounted transfer case stick shift. The Jeep bounces and bucks along the uneven, mostly vertical trail, but manages to negotiate the terrain like a mountain goat in full gallop.

  In the rearview I see the passenger-side door on the SUV open and Walton emerge from it, his service weapon in hand. He aims the piece in our direction, but we’re already too far gone, the trees and brush shielding us.

  I take on elevation until the mountain becomes too steep and slick even for the Jeep. With the LPPD having a very good idea of our present location, I maneuver the four-wheel drive vehicle along the base of the mountain until I find a logging road. I used to hike the Adirondack peaks back when I was kid. I know for a fact that logging roads snake their way through the entire Adirondack forest and most of them lead deep into the wilderness. We drive the road for maybe ten minutes until we come to a fork. That’s when I stop.

  “Well, Pen,” I say. “Right or left?”

  “How does the old poem go?” she says, both of her white-knuckled hands still gripping the dashboard bar. “The road less traveled?”

  “And that will make all the difference,” I say, picturing the old, scraggy-faced photo of Robert Frost that hung above the blackboard in my high school English class. “The one on the right definitely looks less traveled.”

  Pushing the gear shift back into first, I hook a right onto the road less traveled, hoping that it not only makes all the difference, but that it’s also a road that accesses shelter.

  The gas gauge reads half full, which in my mind is more optimistic than considering it’s also half empty. It’s good to maintain a positive attitude in these situations. I’m not one for the new wellness fad or alternative medicines, but it’s been proven that a positive attitude can most definitely not only reduce significant stress, it can actually heal wounds.

  Despite the optimism, the midday sun is quickly becoming obscured by thick rain clouds. Thick gray and black clouds, the rumbles from which are noticeable even above the roar of the engine.

  “We’d better find something soon, Pen,” I point out, “or we’re in for a soaking.”

  But what I’m not telling her is that hypothermia can kick in even in the summer and in relatively high temperatures. Once the skin and flesh get rain-soaked, the body temperature can take a nosedive. Which means we need a roof over our heads quick. A cabin, shed, lean-to, or at the very least an awning of some sort.

  Anything.

  A lightning strike off in the near distance. Wait for the thunder. When it comes, it’s loud and forceful, the noise bouncing off the mountain range like a pinball in a pinball machine. The first raindrops follow. I see Penny wipe one of them from her cheek like she’s wiping away a tear. Suddenly the dread of knowing that Chloe is being held against her will fills my veins again like a poison, and the serenity of the forest becomes a kind of living hell.

  “Look,” Penny speaks up suddenly. “There, on the right.”

  “What is it?” I say. “What are you seeing?”

  “I think it’s a cabin. Use your special eyes, Doc.”

  I tap the brakes, focus my eyes on the linear spaces between the trees. She’s right. There’s a wood shack or cabin set inside a clearing beyond a thick stand of old pine trees. I pull around the pines and the structure reveals itself. A single-story cabin made of logs with an old tin roof. Behind it is a sort of open-walled shelter for wood and tools. Its plywood overhang is large enough that I can pull up under it, sheltering us from the rain.

  Downshifting, I pull onto an overgrown two-track that serves as a driveway, and come to a stop under the shelter. Another lightning strike illuminates the sky, and a few seconds pass before the thunder pounds the region like live artillery shells. Penny hops out, her pack tossed over her shoulder, the gun she took from Detective Giselle stored in her pants waist. Her eyes are peeled on the cabin, the front door to which is shuttered with a piece of old gray plywood.

  “Looks abandoned to me, Doc.”

  “More than likely it’s a deer hunt
ing cabin,” I point out. “Which means it’s pretty much unoccupied most of the year except for the fall.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “No,” I say, cocking my head over my shoulder. “But it feels good to say it.”

  The rain starts to pick up. Another lightning strike. Closer this time. The thunder that follows rattles our bones. My bones, anyway.

  “We need to get inside, Doc,” Penny insists.

  I slide out of the Jeep.

  “Shall we add breaking and entering to today’s list of high crimes and misdemeanors, Pen?”

  “Do we have a choice, Doc?” she says.

  CHAPTER 30

  THE SKY GROWS darker, more ominous, the fine hairs on the back of my neck rising up from the static electricity in the air. The rain is growing harder, verging on coming down in sheets. In the back of the Jeep, I find a tire iron. I grab hold of it, bring it with me to the front door, shove one end of the tool into the narrow space between the door and the screwed-on plywood.

  Gripping the bar with both my hands, I plant my booted foot against the exterior wall. Inhaling a breath, I yank on the bar. Turns out the plywood is rotted. It comes away from the log wall so easily I almost fall onto my backside. Pulling the entire board off the doorframe and tossing it to the side, I try the doorknob. It turns. I push on the door. It opens.

  “No wonder the owner boarded the place up,” I observe. “No working locks.” Then, stepping inside, “Stay close behind and leave the door open, in case we gotta make a quick exit.”

  Setting the tire iron against the interior wall, I pull out the gun and slowly step into the open room. To my right is a log wall with a set of wood-framed bunk beds pushed up against it. A gun rack is mounted to the wall beside the beds. A pump-action shotgun is stored on the rack, along with a .30-30 lever-action rifle. Something John Wayne would have carried in one of his old Westerns. Whoever owns the place isn’t all that concerned about the safety of his firearms.

  To my left is a big stone fireplace. Thick spider webs shroud the black cast iron hearth, telling me it hasn’t been used in months or maybe years. I step farther into the room located on the opposite side. But then, the word room is too generous. More like a galley kitchen, attached to a small bathroom that also contains a stand-up shower.

  Stepping into the kitchen, I wipe away the spider webs that hang from the ceiling.

  “Hope you’re not afraid of spiders, Pen.”

  “You know I am. If there’s a broom, I can get rid of them while you make a fire, Daniel Boone.”

  I nod, begin making my way back across the front room to the open door.

  “You know what I think?” I say, closing the door on the rain and the storm. “I think this place is abandoned. I can bet whoever lived here either couldn’t take care of it anymore, or maybe died. Places like this are scattered all over the Adirondacks. With no surviving relatives, the places are soon forgotten and simply rot back into the earth like your average corpse.”

  Penny comes back out of the kitchen with a broom. Already she’s swiping at the spider webs.

  “There’s a pile of dry wood by the hearth,” she says. “Now all we need is a bottle of wine.”

  “And our daughter,” I add.

  Luck hasn’t entirely abandoned us. Good luck, that is. Because the chimney is clear. The dry wood catches quickly and burns hot and bright from the unobstructed draw. All too often you hear about critters getting stuck in fireplace chimneys that are underutilized, but not this one.

  With the burning wood going snap, crackle, pop inside the fireplace, I pull out my cell phone, flip the top. No calls, but I know that sooner than later, my parole officer is going to call me and tell me I’m a wanted man. Or perhaps at this point, he’s not even bothering to call me.

  Penny pulls up two wood stools. One for mama bear and one for papa. We both take a load off.

  “Okay,” I say. “Who gets the first call? Parole or the lawyer?”

  “Toss-up,” she says. “That is, if we even have service out here.”

  “Never thought of that. What about you?”

  She’s holding her phone in her hand.

  “Two bars,” she says. “You wanna use mine?”

  “Let’s see how I do with mine. I have the numbers on speed dial. You don’t think I’ve actually memorized them, do you?”

  I decide to contact Joel first. He’s my legal counsel, after all. Could be he doesn’t want me to contact Drew Lochte at New York State Parole in the first place. Thumbing the speed dial for my lawyer, I press the phone to my ear and wait.

  Electronic rings fill my ear. The rings are clouded by pulses of static coming from the bursts of lightning striking all around us. The ringing stops as someone picks up.

  “Mr. Harwood’s office,” comes the faint voice of Joel’s secretary. “How can I help you?”

  My heart rate begins to climb. I know the wrath I’m about to face down, even over the phone. To a man like Joel, the abduction of my daughter by a man like Rabuffo is secondary to the fact that I have taken the law into my own hands. Gone vigilante. Or perhaps secondary is not the right word. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that he will consider the move stupid and reckless. But what he can never know is the desperation that fills my veins. Mine and Penny’s. And desperate times call for desperate measures, it’s true. I simply can’t risk being locked up by the police or anyone else.

  I tell the secretary my name, then I ask for Joel. She nervously tells me to wait one second. I picture the blue-suited Joel seated behind his big mahogany desk in his glass-walled office on the top floor of a downtown Albany tower. He’ll have a glass candy bowl filled with Good & Plenty within reach, and not one computer monitor, but two, one of them dedicated to real-time stock market quotes. He’ll be relaxed, leaning back in his leather swivel chair. But when he hears my voice, he’ll instruct his secretary to hold all calls. He’ll straighten up, and concentrate entirely on me and my situation.

  He picks up the phone.

  “Jesus Christ, Sidney,” he snipes, in the place of a hello. “Where the hell are you?”

  I must admit, I’m taken aback. It’s almost like Joel is somehow able to punch me in the gut from a distance of two hundred miles. Under normal circumstances, his demeanor is even keel, even tempered, and by the book. Even when parole negotiations got heated with the DA, Joel always maintained total professionalism. The sudden change in tone tells me he’s worried. Maybe more than worried. Maybe in fear of what could happen to him and his practice, his having been such a strong advocate for my release.

  “They took my daughter, Joel,” I say. “They took my daughter, and I’m going to get her back.”

  “The police will get her back, Sidney,” he asserts. “You must trust the system. You must go back. You must turn yourself in. Do you understand me? Do it now.”

  “Joel,” I say. “Rabuffo’s people revealed themselves. Last night. Someone was holding my daughter outside our hotel room. They let her speak to me. When I took the bait, I stepped outside and one of his goons knocked me over the head with a pistol. I was knocked out for a few seconds, but when I got up, I chased him. When I got to him, I beat him. I couldn’t help myself, Joel. I completely lost it. You would, too, if you were in my shoes. I just want my daughter back.”

  He pauses for a beat or two. Long enough for me to make out his breathing.

  He says, “Why would they bait you like that, Sidney? Why not just send over a note, an email, or a text, listing their specific demands? Why do something so risky like that?”

  “You tell me,” I say, my eyes looking into the hot fire, but seeing the silhouette of my daughter as she stood on the beach beside the big unidentified man. “If you ask me, it was to taunt me. To torture me. To let me know they have power over me.”

  “You notice anything missing from your pockets? Your wallet maybe? Maybe they baited you so that they could search you. Find something you keep on your person at all times.”


  I pat my back pocket. My wallet is present and accounted for.

  “What could they be looking for, Joel?”

  He pauses once more. Then, “You and Rabuffo were pretty damned close. Like a proud dad and his only boy. That’s the way you’ve always described it to me.”

  In my head, standing side by side Rabuffo in the basement of his house. A basement that was like a fortress located within a fortress, with its own alarm system, CCTV system, emergency lockdown system, enough firearms … long and short gun … to wage a small war. And of course, the vault where he stashed his cash and booty. Everything from diamonds to gold coins. Enough to purchase a small country in West Africa.

  “So what’s your theory, Joel?” I go on. “Where’s this going?”

  “Well now that the big boss has had his legs cut out from under him by the FBI, could be his lieutenants want their fair share of the Rabuffo fortune. Maybe the only way they can get at it is through you. You ever think of that, Sidney?”

  I’m standing, even before I feel myself making the conscious decision to stand.

  “Why, Joel?”

  “Because, like I’ve already said, you and the big boss were pretty cozy before you got sent away.”

  “I owed him.”

  “And he, in turn, employed you. Reciprocity at its purest. Until … well, you know what happened.”

  “Yah,” I say, “I was there.”

  In my head, the flashes of gunfire lighting up the windows of the bungalow the Chinese family lived in. Four gunshots in total.

  “So let me get this straight,” I go on. “This isn’t about revenge for exposing Rabuffo. Instead, this is about something his people want from me.”

  “Maybe a little of both,” he says, exhaling so deeply even I can feel it. “None of this matters, Sid. What matters is that you turn yourself in to me, and then we can let the police do their job, get Chloe back safe and sound.”

  “So far all they’ve been concentrating on is me, and not my daughter.”