Finding Claire Fletcher (A Claire Fletcher and Detective Parks Mystery Book 1)

by Lisa Regan

  “Yeah. He lives in Elk Grove too, near my brother. I don’t see them as much as I should. Losing our mom was horrible. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if something had happened to my brother.”

  Jen nodded. “Brianna is a wonderful person underneath all the hurt. She just misses Claire. We all do. I just want my baby back, Connor,” she said with a sigh.

  “I know,” he said. “I’ll do my best to try and find her.”

  Jen Fletcher spent more than an hour at Connor’s home. They talked easily, and Connor felt as if he had known her for years. He gave her his card and wrote his home number on the back, instructing her to call or stop by with questions at any time.

  When she left, she pulled him into an embrace that seemed impossible given her size. She held him close and squeezed him tightly for a long moment. She kissed him on the cheek with dry lips before she left.

  Once she was gone, Connor phoned Farrell. “Jen Fletcher just left,” he said. “You could have given me a heads-up.”

  Mitch’s hearty laugh came through the line loud and clear. “Why? What were you doing?”

  “Nothing,” Connor said. “I just wasn’t expecting her.”

  Connor could see Mitch waving a meaty hand dismissively. “Oh, Jenny’s a sweetheart. She’s all good stuff, that one. It’s Brianna you have to watch out for.”

  “Watch out for?” Connor said.

  “Oh shit,” Mitch said.

  Connor’s eyes widened, and he stood up in the middle of his living room. “You gave her my home address too?”

  “Hey,” Mitch said, voice rising defensively. “There’s no talking that girl out of something once she’s got it in her head to do it. You have a gun, right?”

  “Very funny, Farrell,” Connor said humorlessly. “So when can I expect her?”

  “Don’t know,” Farrell said. “Just let her do the talking.”

  “You mean the yelling.”

  Farrell ignored that. “You’ll be fine. It has nothing to do with you anyway. She’s just … bitter.”

  “Is there anyone else you plan on sending to my door? ’Cause my dance card is full,” Connor said.

  “Women beating down your door, huh?” Farrell said, laughing again.

  “Something like that,” Connor said, thinking about the one woman he’d like to beat down his door.

  Farrell changed the subject. “I got the make and model on that car,” he said. “She was right, you know. The Chevy Caprice from the late eighties is almost identical to the car Strakowski gave you today. Write this down. A Pontiac Parisienne, probably eighty-seven or eighty-eight. Only difference between that and the Chevy is the hood ornament—well, from the outside anyway.”

  Connor took down the information. “A Parisienne? What the hell kind of name is that for a station wagon? Okay, thanks. I’ll check it against the list; see if I can narrow it down some more. Listen, see if you can get last knowns on Teplitz, Speer, and Randall. I want to talk to those guys.”

  “I’ll have ’em tomorrow,” Mitch said.

  They hung up, and Connor took Jen Fletcher’s Tupperware dinner to the fridge. He looked over the vehicle registry again and found a single woman who had owned a blue Pontiac Parisienne station wagon and lived several blocks from Strakowski at the time Claire was abducted. Her name was Irene Geary. He locked his front door and went to bed. Tomorrow he would find the car owner and break the case wide open. He hoped.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  In his dream, Connor stood in the doorway from which he had shot the rapist nearly two weeks ago. Except this time, Boggs and Stryker were smoking cigarettes outside the closet door, joking irreverently about each other’s wives; although in reality, only Boggs was married. Connor maintained a shooter’s stance. His Kevlar vest pulled heavily on his shoulders. His gun was aimed at the sliver of closet door between the heads of Boggs and Stryker. They didn’t seem to notice he was there or that he had a gun aimed in their direction.

  Behind him, a gruff voice said, “Come on, kid. Let’s go.” It was Farrell. Connor wanted to turn and look at the older man, but he could not. It was as if his body were frozen in place, but he could feel every nerve ending, every small twitch of muscle. He yelled for Boggs and Stryker to clear the way, but they did not acknowledge him. It was as if a massive block of soundproof glass separated them from Connor and Farrell.

  Connor yelled and yelled. Beads of sweat formed along his hairline and popped, sending hot drops down his face. He felt an urgency he could not explain. Finally, he sighted and aimed between the heads of the other detectives. He fired off a shot. Boggs and Stryker disappeared. Farrell rushed into the room past Connor and opened the closet door.

  A man whose face had been blown off fell to the floor at Farrell’s feet. But it wasn’t the rapist Connor had shot in the chest. It was Claire’s abductor. Even though Connor had never actually seen the man, in his dream he knew with certainty that the body before him was that of Claire Fletcher’s kidnapper.

  Mitch looked at him, eyes burning intensely. “Where’s Claire?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Connor said.

  “Where’s Claire?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The dream shifted and Connor was running through the halls of his house. They were elongated, stretching before him, the distance from one end to the other infinite. There were more doors than his little house could hold, but he checked every one, yelling Claire’s name and getting no response. Every room was empty.

  Then he heard sirens. He kept running, bursting from room to room. The sirens got louder and closer. As he moved through the endless maze of halls, he realized the sound was not that of sirens but of a phone ringing. His dream self started searching the rooms for the ringing phone until his body began to wake—and somewhere between sleep and waking, in the haze of unreality and confusion, his mind told him that he was dreaming; he had to wake up because the sound was actually his phone ringing.

  Connor rolled to the side of the bed and thrashed in the general direction of the phone. He opened his eyes the moment his hand closed over the receiver, the glowing green numbers of his alarm clock greeted him. It was 2:27 a.m.

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice husky and raw with sleep.

  There was nothing. Air.

  “Parks,” he said.

  Silence. Then, “Connor?”

  “Yeah?”

  More silence. Then his body jolted fully awake as a rush of adrenaline surged through him. His upper body sprang from the mattress. He sat on the edge of the bed. He wanted to say her name, but he was afraid that if he did, he would suddenly wake up to find that the phone call really was part of his dream. He felt dizzy.

  “Claire,” he said.

  Still no response, but he could hear her breath moving in and out of her body in ragged gasps.

  “Claire? Don’t hang up. God, whatever you do, do not hang up.”

  “Connor,” she said again.

  “Where are you?”

  “I can’t tell you that. I just called because I …”

  “Claire, tell me where you are, and I will come and get you. Just me. I’ll bring you in.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  Connor’s body pulsed, his blood rushing so furiously it sounded like a tsunami in his head. He wanted to swim through the phone wires and capture her. He had never felt so powerless in his life. She was there on the other end, and he couldn’t get to her.

  “Claire, I know what happened.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath, and her voice went up an octave. “No, no you don’t. Listen to me. What I did—coming to you—I may have put you in danger. I’m not supposed to see or speak with you again, but I had to warn you.”

  Connor gripped the receiver so hard his hand ached. “What are you talking about Claire? Are you in trouble? Let me bring you in.”

  Her voice was throaty, as if she were about to cry, and Connor felt a tightness in his chest. The woman he met was so se
lf-possessed. Damaged, but very poised and in control. He could not imagine her crying.

  “I can’t,” she said. “Please. Just be careful. I have to go.”

  “Claire, no,” he pleaded. He must have sounded as desperate as he felt because she did not hang up right away. He listened to her breath, which had become even more irregular. Connor lowered his voice. “Just wait,” he said. “Don’t do this. I can help you.”

  “No one can help me,” she said. “You don’t understand. Please, just be careful. You could be in a lot of danger.”

  She didn’t speak for a long moment. Then, “I have to go.”

  “No.” The word came out much more forcefully than he anticipated. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t hang up either. Connor didn’t know what to say, yet he did not want to sever the connection. He knew what he was about to say would sound ridiculous, but he forged ahead anyway. “I just want to see you again.”

  He heard a muffled sound, and her voice was barely a whisper. “I know. I want to see you too.”

  Silence. He carefully listened to her breathe, taking in every little part of the sound. Finally, he said, “Just tell me what to do.”

  “You can’t help me,” she said. “It’s too late for that.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said. “Give me a chance. Please.”

  “I wish I could.” She was definitely crying now, and the sound of it made Connor sick to his stomach.

  “Claire,” he said softly. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Be careful,” she said. “Don’t come after me. I’ve already put you in danger. Just protect yourself.”

  He waited for the click and dial tone, but she stayed on for another moment. “Connor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I—” She stopped. He waited. He could hear her gulping air. “I’m sorry,” she said, hanging up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I hung up the pay phone and wiped the tears from my eyes before turning away from the narrow booth. My body trembled; I couldn’t control it. I gripped the grimy edges of the small shelf below the phone. Tears streamed down my face. Fear tickled my throat and the backs of my knees. The shivering and the tears came unbidden. I tried to breathe, but all that came out were strangled sobs. It was as if I were no longer in my body. I felt the emotion physically taking over, but my mind no longer had control. I hadn’t felt like that for many years.

  My nose ran, and I fumbled in my pants pocket for a tissue. Of course I could not find one. I never carried anything on me. I settled for my shirtsleeve. I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated as hard as possible on my breathing. I listened to the cars pass by on the street, focusing on the sound. Air swishing, tires moving over the asphalt. If I did not get control soon, the world would start to spin and I would pass out. I couldn’t draw attention to myself, and I couldn’t be late getting back to the trailer.

  “Get a grip,” I muttered to myself.

  Let me bring you in.

  For a split second, I had thought that if anyone could bring me in, it would be Connor, and that thought made me cry. As if it were that simple. No one could rescue me, and if Connor tried, he would be sorry in more ways than one.

  I wiped my eyes a final time and walked unsteadily back to the truck. I made it to the trailer moments before he pulled up to the house across the road, but I felt Tiffany’s watchful eyes on me as I hurried inside.

  When I had visited her the other day, it seemed as though she really didn’t know anything. I had spent the last couple of days trying to convince myself of that, but maybe she did know that I had taken one of my ill-fated trips home, and she was just waiting to tell him—waiting until she had something to gain by telling him or until his attention waned.

  I didn’t bother with the lights. I moved into my tiny bedroom and changed into my pajamas, which consisted of a pair of sweatpants and an old, oversized T-shirt I bought at a thrift store. I swiped a sweater from my closet and pulled it around me. The door of the house across the way slammed shut, but no rattle on my own door followed. I had only made Tiffany suspicious with my visit, although I sensed that she was hiding something.

  In the last seven years, I had waged many small battles with her in this fashion. She had increased the torture of my small life exponentially from the day she arrived, making my days more difficult in new and unexpected ways; although before she arrived it had been no picnic.

  I climbed into bed and closed my eyes. My imagination conjured the heady scent of Connor and the smooth balm of his skin heating my own. The words seemed to come from another part of the trailer rather than from my memory. “Tell me what to do, Claire.”

  I had tried to tell him what to do, even though it scuffed and scraped a part of me that still yearned for sweetness. I hoped he would stay away. He had to. I couldn’t bear to think of what would happen to Connor if he didn’t let me go forever.

  I had witnessed my captor’s revenge for my sins firsthand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  1996

  One day after he had left me cuffed in the living room, I spied a newspaper on the floor by the couch. It took a lot of wiggling and squirming, but eventually I pulled it toward me with my feet, losing half of it in a trail of pages. I looked at the date on the paper, and my world tipped to the side.

  He’d had me for a year and a half.

  I was sixteen, almost seventeen. I had been missing for a year and a half.

  I cried then. Great wracking, sucking, gulping sobs that I had held in up to that point. I let something go inside me that I had been holding on to for all those months. It hurt the way I imagined giving birth might. Great floes of denial floated and idled out of my reach, solid masses I had been clinging to, sleeping upon, pressing my face into.

  It was real. It was all real. This wasn’t a temporary state of affairs. It wasn’t a nightmare I would wake up from. It was really happening, and there would never be a SWAT team on the other side of the door. Even left to my own devices, I had been unable to break free. This was actually my life, all of it, and it was just going on, working scrupulously through the days, indifferent to my pain and my hope.

  That day, without rushing, without even breaking a sweat, I carefully worked my hand loose from the cuff once more. My thumb popped more easily out of joint this time. I gritted my teeth and reset it with a gasp.

  I walked to the door, unlocked it, stepped outside, and walked toward the trees. At a slow, steady pace I picked my way carefully through ferns, thorny branches, fallen tree trunks, and rocks. I walked and walked.

  Finally, I came to a stretch of road lined with trees on both sides. My mind acknowledged the fact that I was actually free. All I had to do was flag down the next car that came down the road in either direction, and I could go home. But my body continued along the shoulder of the road without notice. No rushing in my ears, no pounding in my chest, no short breaths coming so quickly atop one another that my throat whistled. I walked, my ears pricked for the sound of a car.

  When I finally heard one approaching behind me, I did not even turn. The car pulled up in front of me onto the shoulder of the road. When he emerged from it in a huff and flurry, I was not even surprised. I didn’t run, did not even look at him. I kept walking past him, past the car. He grabbed my arm, but I wiggled it loose and continued my balanced pace. Again, he took my arm and pulled me, but I bent my body forward, moving with my hips, gaining fewer steps but gaining nevertheless. When he plucked my entire body off the road and carried me back to the car, my legs kept working calmly, slowly, still walking toward home.

  We reached the car, and he clutched the back of my head. The door frame rushed toward my face as it had the day he snatched me, and I thought dryly, One for old times’ sake.

  Acceptance came later that night. I don’t think he ever really wore me down. No, he broke me with one swift and irrevocable act. All those months of pain, torture, and deprivation were almost for nothing. I was not tethered to him by any of those things o
r even the length of time he had kept me prisoner. It was his retribution, his punishment for my walking escape that finally broke me.

  Both my hands were cuffed to the living room radiator. I sat cross-legged, waiting for his return and the beating that would inevitably follow. I felt numb, indifferent. I was ready for the blows, the slaps, kicks, and punches. Ready for them in the same way I would be ready to take a trip in a car or sit down to dinner.

  Without a word he had brought me back, bound me, and left immediately. The only evidence of his anger was the gash above my left eyebrow where my head had met the car door frame hours earlier.

  I had made my ill-fated walking attempt in daylight, and when he came back, it was night. Before the door opened, I heard scuffles, grunts, and gasps. Before I saw him, a body landed with a crack and a thud on the floor in front of me.

  She had blonde hair. Her hands and feet were tied. There was something stuffed deep into her mouth and taped there, although one tantalizing edge of the duct tape peeled away from her skin. She was thin and slightly older than me. She squirmed, her body jerking up and down like an inchworm on speed.

  I came to full consciousness. Suddenly jolted into reality, I could feel every inch of my body. My vision filled with the sight of her. I looked around as if seeing the place for the first time. All the colors and shadows became sharp and fast like a slap to the face. My voice rose out of me, strong and high. He stood above the two of us, looking down his nose with the smile of a predator about to tear into a very tasty meal.

  I got up on my knees. I tried to reach her but could not. “What are you doing?” I said. “Oh my God, what are you doing?”

  She was there on the floor—just inches out of my reach—and she would not stop seizing. Her face was turned away from me.

  “What are you doing?” I repeated.

  He pulled her across the room by the hair, and she squealed in pain—her legs pushing furiously to keep up with him, to keep her scalp from being torn off.