Girl Who Wasn’t There

by Vincent Zandri

  I hear it then, while I’m trying my best to catch my breath.

  Chloe, screaming, crying.

  “Mommy! Mommy what has he done to you?!”

  Her words break me out of my trance. I pull myself off of Walton, stand, turn. I see Penny lying on her back in the driveway. A pool of blood is forming under her. The blood is dark red, nearly black in the moonlight. Chloe has gotten out of the truck. She’s standing over her, crying, screaming.

  My own blood feels like it’s spilling out the bottoms of my feet, my shredded heart along with it. I go to her, drop to my knees, stare down at her blood-spattered face. My vision is clouded by tears.

  She tries to raise up her hand, but she doesn’t have the strength. That’s when I take hold of it, clasp it between both my hands. It’s as cold as ice. Her eyes close. Her breathing ceases.

  Instinct kicks in. Not the instinct to kill, but to heal.

  I bring my mouth to hers, blow air inside it. I press my hands together, apply pressure to her sternum, pressing down upon it in five second intervals. She’s been shot in the chest and abdomen so while I’m trying to jump-start her heart, it’s just as likely I’m doing damage to her internal injuries. Causing more internal bleeding. But what choice do I have?

  “Come on, Pen!” I shout. “Live!”

  She coughs, her eyes opening and closing. I remove my hands from her chest, only to see the blood that’s exiting the sides of her mouth, streaming down the sides of her face.

  “I’m calling 911,” I insist, reaching for my phone.

  “It’s over, Doc,” she says, trying her hardest to work up a smile. The blood is oozing like a small fountain out of the entry wounds in her chest and stomach. The blood is all over my hands. “Over for me, for us. Over before it begins again.”

  “Don’t talk, babe,” I say, my soul shattering. “Save your strength. We’re gonna get you out of here. Get you to a doctor. A real doctor.”

  “Stop it, Doc. You of all people know I’m not making it out of this.” Then, trying to lean up, “Looks like you caught a bullet, too, Doc. You’d better dress it before it gets infected.”

  I nod, the tears streaming down my face. I haven’t been shot. At least, I don’t think I’ve been shot. The blood that soaks my shirt. It’s Penny’s blood. It’s Walton’s blood, too.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I whisper, knowing there’s no point in explaining the truth.

  She looks beyond me, at Chloe.

  “We finally found you, sweetheart,” she says, her voice weakening, barely audible now. “You had us so worried.”

  “I’m okay, Mom,” Chloe says, voice trembling, tears falling. “I love you.”

  “I wanted something better for you, Chloe,” Penny whispers. “I thought I was doing the right thing. But it turned out to be so wrong. I’m so, so, so sorry. Will you forgive me? Will you both find it in your hearts to forgive me?”

  “Shhhh, Pen,” I say. “It’s all going to be okay. Your heart was in the right place.”

  “Come here,” she says. I can barely hear her now. “Come … here.”

  I bring my face down toward her, position my ear over her lips.

  “I always loved you, Doc,” she says. “I always will.”

  I feel her warm breath against the side of my face. I make out a final profound exhalation. It is the sweet breath of her soul. And then she’s gone.

  “Mom?” Chloe, begs. “Mom, Mom?”

  My little girl drops to her knees, starts clawing at her mother. “It’s okay, Chloe.

  It’s okay.” I grab hold of her, stand, lift her up in my arms, clutch her tightly. “It’s okay. She’s in a good place now. Mommy’s in heaven.”

  “Mom!” Chloe screams. So loud the birds light from the trees and fly away like lost souls into the moon glow.

  My body is shaking. Trembling. No choice but to hold it all together. I set Chloe back into the truck. Then, I search the truck bed for a cloth or a tarp. But there’s nothing to be had. I do however find a rag stored behind the seat, with which I wipe the blood from my hands. I also find a navy blue windbreaker. It bears the words “Lake Placid Fire Department” on its back. I carry it to Penny, drape it over her face. As soon as we’re out of here, I’ll dial 911, and report the shooting. It’s possible the police will already be on their way, but I don’t want to take any chances on Penny being left to the elements, or the wolves that surely live among the trees that surround this place.

  I love her too damned much for that.

  CHAPTER 46

  DRIVING.

  Sick to my stomach now that I have no choice but to leave Penny behind. Her body behind. How the hell did it all come to this? How did I finally get my family back only to lose my true love? My Penny from heaven?

  … You’ve done some bad things, Sid. Karma. It can be a real bitch …

  When we come to the highway, I head south for Albany. Immediately following my 911 call to the local authorities under condition of anonymity, I dial the one person on God’s earth who can possibly help me at this point. My parole officer, Drew Lochte.

  “Tell me I’m not waking you,” I say when he answers.

  “I can’t believe it,” Lochte says, his somewhat muffled voice telling me, Yeah, I woke him up. “Sidney, what the hell have you done? There’s state and fed BOLOs out on you. Every cop from Albany, New York to Albany, Georgia, wants to put a cap in you, pal.”

  “I didn’t do it,” I say, my mouth dry, my eyes still filled with tears.

  “You didn’t just say that.”

  “I did not kidnap or hurt my daughter. And I did not beat and/or kill anyone.” Then, thinking about it for a brief beat. “Well, scratch that last part, but trust me when I say they had it coming, and the law will see it that way.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “Hang on,” I insist.

  Then, I hand the phone to Chloe, who’s seated directly beside me.

  “Speak into the phone, Chloe,” I say. “Tell the man on the other end your name.”

  I give her the phone and she presses it to her ear.

  “Hello?” she says, her voice sounding hollow and distant over the shock of her mother’s death. “My name is Chloe O’Keefe. My daddy rescued me and another girl. Her name is Susan. They kept us inside an old cellar under a trailer in the woods. It was really, really horrible.” Her voice shaking, the tears coming again. “They did something really bad to my mom.”

  “That’s enough now, Chloe,” I say, holding out my hand.

  She places the phone on my palm, then wipes her eyes. Susan takes her hand, holds it tightly.

  The phone once more pressed against my ear.

  “That satisfy you, Lochte?”

  “What happens now?” he asks. “How do I know you’re not still in the process of abducting your own daughter, and from the sound of it, another kid also?”

  “Because I’m contacting you of my own free will and because I’m dropping them off at your house.”

  “My … house?”

  “Either I hear an echo or I have a great signal all the way up here in the mountains.”

  “Listen, Sidney,” he goes on. “The best thing for you to do is turn yourself over to the authorities—”

  “—Drew, if I do that, they’ll lock me up for good, and Chloe will be out on the street. You know how the system works. Close the cage door on him now, ask questions later.”

  “I am the system, Sidney.”

  “Then I’m asking you to help me out for just an hour. That’s all I’m asking. Let me drop off the girls to you. No cops, no feds, no press, nothing. Understand? After that, just give me one hour. I don’t find what I’m looking for in that time, I’ll turn myself in. Fair enough?”

  Breathing on the other end of the line.

  “Not exactly the most fair and balanced deal I’ve ever heard in my life. But if you’re willing to turn your daughter over to me, I guess that’s saying something. You know where I live?�
�

  “I know it. I found it on Google earlier this week.”

  “I should have known.”

  “And, Drew?” I add. “Remember, no cops. I don’t want things getting more ugly than they’ve already gotten. That happens, I’ll have nothing more to lose. And there’s no telling what I’ll do.”

  The parole officer is smart enough to read between the lines. He knows exactly what I mean by “ugly.” By “no telling what I’ll do.” That, should he betray me, things could get ugly for him. No doubt he can feel my desperation over the phone.

  “I read you, Sid,” he says. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

  “Not if I see you first.”

  “Oh, and Sid? What is it you’re looking for?”

  “I’m not sure exactly,” I say. “But I think I’ll know it when I find it.”

  I cut the connection.

  We drive.

  The truck is filled with a silence so heavy and thick, it’s like we’re caught up in a different dimension altogether, where gravity is twice as heavy and the oxygen twice as difficult to breathe. I’m trying to rationalize this whole thing in my head. One question looms large. I understand Penny’s desire to see Chloe get a fair shot at life, even if it entails stealing Rabuffo’s money. But was it worth pursuing if it meant she’d become beholden to people like Walton, House Detective Giselle Fontaine, and the Stevenses? These were some bad people, and in the end, they wouldn’t have hesitated to cut Penny out of what she was owed.

  That is, had they lived.

  No matter how I try to navigate the logic on this whole thing, I keep coming back to the same starting place. And that is my lawyer, Joel Harwood. For the longest time, Joel was my hero. The man who counseled me, fought for me, believed in me. He got me out of prison at a time when I’d lost all hope.

  But then, the freedom wasn’t really free since it came at one hell of a price. I’d have to expose Rabuffo for what he was. And in doing so, place my life at risk or, more importantly, the lives of my wife and child. But I’d still have my freedom, and not just some half-assed freedom where I’d be required to live in a halfway house, wear an ankle bracelet, report in to my employer at the supermarket where the best job I could ever hope for would be to stock some shelves and bag groceries.

  The kind of freedom I was ultimately bargaining for was absolute and came with no conditions other than reporting in to a parole officer. That was one rule that I could not get around. But I didn’t mind, so long as I was out of prison and back with my family.

  My girls.

  I drive, my eyes fixed on the open road, the halogen lamp light reflecting the white line stripes speeding under the truck like tracer bullets. But in my head, I see Joel. The big, thick-chested man, always impeccably dressed in his dark blue suit and red and white Albany Law School rep tie forwarded to him by his alma mater as a thank-you for his generous donation. The little matching pocket hanky over his heart, the perfect salt and pepper hair slicked back against his round skull with product, the expensive white Oxford, the gold Rolex, the wad of money-clipped cash in his pocket, the shark skin, gold credit card carrying wallet stored in the interior of his jacket pocket. The gold ring on his pinky finger.

  I picture the whole package.

  I also see him with Penny. See him wining and dining her. See him luring her into bed. I try not to see what happens next, but that doesn’t prevent me from knowing precisely what happened. But what I want to know is when he finally worked up the courage to propose his idea to Penny. When he finally felt confident enough to bring her in on the plan. To have Rabuffo arrested, to have him out of the way for good. How he must have convinced her that she had no choice but to work with him on finding out the combination to Rabuffo’s vault. To find a way to coerce it out of me. Or else, Chloe wouldn’t have a chance in the world at a future.

  I’ve seen him live and in action in a court of law. If there was one thing Joel could do it was litigate and manipulate. He could convince a jury that the sky was falling if he wanted to. It was a gift Joel had, and no doubt, he used it on my wife.

  Chloe is asleep, her head resting on my shoulder. I can’t tell you how good it is to feel her pressing against me. Susan, however, is not sleeping. She’s staring at her phone, which seems to be dead.

  “You doing okay, Susan?”

  She nods, her eyes still glued to the dark phone screen.

  “I’m okay,” she says.

  Like my daughter, she’s in shock. I’m also wondering if she’s requiring an insulin shot. God knows I have no way of getting my hands on any, anytime soon.

  “Susan,” I say, “you don’t have to talk if you don’t want. But can you tell me how long you’ve been living inside that trailer?”

  Slowly, she peels her eyes away from the useless blank screen and shifts her focus to me.

  “I’m not really sure,” she confesses. “It’s hard for me to remember anything else but that smelly, awful hole in the ground.”

  “But you were on the beach yesterday morning. You seemed so … normal. Unaffected by anything.”

  She smiles. “Did I? Was I nice? Did Chloe have fun with me?”

  It hits me then. “You don’t remember, do you?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t remember being on the beach with Chloe. With two older people who claimed to be your parents. You don’t remember any of it.”

  She shakes her head. “They would do things to me sometimes. Mr. Walton and that other big man with the gray beard, Gary. Plus, that man they killed today. Mr. Bertram. They put needles in me. Drugged me. They said I had diabetes, so they would inject me. The drugs made me sleepy. Made me forget things.”

  In my head, I’m going over the many mind control drugs that might have been utilized in Susan’s case. Sodium amytal, which has been around since World War II. Pipradrol. Chlorpromazine or what’s also known as Thorazine. Even good old LSD laced with Ritalin has been known to control people’s minds, when administered in the right doses. In a way, I’m relieved. She doesn’t require insulin after all.

  “Gary,” I interject. “Walton. Tom. They all injected you, or held you down while you were injected.”

  “Yeah, they would stick big long needles in me. They’d make it hurt. I’d fight them, but they were so big and strong. Yesterday morning, they lifted me out of the hole, washed me up, injected me with something bad. They said it was because I was having a sugar attack. That I would have a seizure. I remember riding in the truck into the village, and I sort of remember touching the water with my toes, and I remember laughing. I remember saying the things they wanted me to say. Something about wanting an iPhone. Stuff parents and kids talk about.” Shrugging her shoulders. “But other than that, I don’t remember much of anything. But …”

  “But what, Susan?” I say, giving her a quick look.

  “I do remember taking this cell phone. The man who was acting like my father.”

  “Burt,” I say. “Burt Stevens.”

  “Whatever his name was. He left it out on the beach chair. I just took it, put it inside my bathing suit. Then Gary and Tom came and took us away, dropped us in the cellar.”

  “You’re starting to remember more of it,” I suggest, recalling Burt complaining that he’d lost his cell phone on the beach when he arrived at the cabin in the forest with Singh. It all made sense now.

  “I guess if I try real hard, I can remember some things.”

  In my head, I’m seeing Tom Bertram. I see myself beating him. I see him standing before a whole bunch of media darling microphones, lying, telling the entire world that I attacked him for no good reason, other than I’m a monster who should have remained in prison. In my mind, I see him lying in a bathtub soaking in his own blood.

  “You did the right thing, Susan. If Chloe hadn’t sent me those texts, I might not have gotten to you two in time.”

  I also realize how lucky it was that Burt must have been too lazy to install an access code on his phone. I give Chl
oe another glance. She smiles at me.

  “Thanks,” she says. “And I’m terribly sorry about Chloe’s mom.”

  My stomach sinking, once more. I’m choking up, but I don’t want her to know it.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “What about your folks? They must be awfully worried.”

  “My dad left a long time ago,” she says. “My mom didn’t have the money Mr. Walton thought she had. She never came for me.”

  So that explains it then. Susan was a permanent hostage in the Walton trailer. A prisoner not only of that cellar and evil men, but of fate. What horrible ordeal she’s truly gone through, I’ll never have any idea. But she’s young and she seems unharmed, physically speaking that is. But I know that the real emotional damage she must have endured will take years to heal. Years and time.

  “I’m going to go to sleep now. If that’s all right with you, Mister …”

  “Call me Doc,” I say. “All my friends do.”

  “Okay, Doc,” she says. “Good night.”

  “’Night, Susan. Have a good sleep. You’re gonna need your strength come daylight.”

  CHAPTER 47

  IT’S THE MIDDLE of the night by the time we reach the Albany city limits. One of the first things I did upon my discharge from prison was look into my parole officer. His age and experience, his marital status—divorced—no kids, his record on returning parolees to prison and, of course, where he resided. In this case, Albany’s Pine Hills district. Pine Hills is a popular area for city, state, and federal workers who rely on public transport to take them to and from their downtown office buildings, day in and day out.

  Turning onto the Fairlawn Avenue, I don’t pull up to the small, yellow bungalow right away. I take a moment or two to scope the place out, make sure Lochte was being true to his word when I told him no cops. Thus far anyway, it looks like he’s keeping his word. That’s one of the things I liked about his profile. Word around town was that many of the parolees who’d been assigned to him made it through the parolee period unscathed, telling me Lochte was a man of his word. Something he prided himself on.