by Dekker, Ted
Or so they said. Made sense.
One of the intuitive leanings I learned very quickly was a simple longing to know my real mother and father. For several months, I felt certain that being with them would somehow offer a kind of wholeness that I couldn’t otherwise find. But when it became clear that I never would meet them, much less know them, I began to set this idea aside and embrace the prospect of being perfectly happy with John and Louise Clark, the generous and loving foster parents who’d taken me in four months earlier.
So when I answered the door that night and stared up into the blue eyes of a strange man who claimed to be my father, my world suddenly felt flipped on its end. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what to think.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Louise said.
I sat next to her on the sofa with my hands in my lap as the man’s words whispered through my mind like ghosts.
Your mother wants to see you. She wants you to come. She loves you. Your mother has been looking for you for thirteen years.
Louise put her hand on my knee. “It’s important that I know what happened. This world is full of predators and if there’s anything, anything at all, that might present a threat, I need to know. Please, Alice, you have to tell me. What did he say?”
Your real name is Eden.
My mind was still spinning. I didn’t want to open up a can of worms for Louise—she was a sensitive woman and had taken a great liking to me, as had John. What would it mean for her to learn that my real mother wanted me back, assuming that was true?
No one can know that I’m here.
Was I afraid? Yes and no. Yes, because I got the distinct impression that the man who claimed to be my father was afraid of being found out. Why was that? And he didn’t appear to be the put together father I had imagined. His blue shirt had a few smudges on it and his hair looked like it could use a wash. But his eyes were kind, weren’t they?
So, no, I wasn’t afraid. More like confused. What if the man really was my father? What if they really had been looking for me for thirteen years? What if I belonged with my real mother instead of with John and Louise?
“Sweetheart, you have to talk to me.”
A loud crash of glass from the back of the house cut my thoughts short. Louise twisted and stared at the hall, which ran to the kitchen. For a moment neither of us moved, me frozen by curiosity, she by fear—I could see it on her face.
The sound of the back door closing made me wonder if John had come in through the back, but that didn’t explain the shattering of glass.
Louise gasped and instinctively grabbed my arm.
The padding of heavy feet sounded down the hall.
Louise spun to me, frantic. “Get behind the couch!” she whispered. “Hurry! Hide.”
But it was too late to hide. He was there again. The man who claimed to be my father. Standing at the entrance to the living room, dressed in the same blue shirt tucked into light-brown slacks, this time wearing leather work gloves. He had a hammer in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other and he stared at us as if he was as surprised to see us as we were to see him.
For a few long seconds, none of us moved. I could feel Louise’s hand trembling as she gripped my arm, and her fear spread to me. The thought that my father had come to get me was chased away by the notion that he planned on doing it using a hammer and duct tape.
But then there was the way he looked at us, almost apologetically, and I couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t want to harm us.
The man half-lifted his right arm. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He saw that Louise was staring at the hammer, so he lowered it to the carpet and lifted an open, nonthreatening hand.
“I promise, I’m not here to hurt anyone. But I have to take her with me.”
Louise still didn’t seem able to speak.
“I have to take her and I don’t want to cause any trouble.”
Louise came off the couch like a spring. “Get out!” She shoved her finger at the door. “Get out of this house right now.”
“No, no, no . . . I can’t do that.” He stepped forward, hand still raised to calm us, face red, but not with anger. “It’s okay, I promise. I’m not going to hurt you but I have to take her. And I can’t let you call the cops yet.”
“You can’t do this!” Louise was panicking.
“Yes, I have to. I have to.”
My heart was crashing through my chest. I knew that I should be running for the door or something, but I couldn’t move. And a small part of me was wondering if this really was my father. He didn’t look like he had done this sort of thing before. In fact, he looked as uncomfortable as we were.
Why?
His eyes switched to me. “Stay on the couch, darling. Please don’t move. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I have to do this. It’s the only way. Please don’t . . .”
Louise bolted toward the dining room then, but she only got three running steps before the large man leaped in front of her, grabbed her waist with one arm, and lifted her from her feet, screaming and pounding at his back.
“Sh, sh, sh . . . .” He tried to hush her, but she wasn’t listening. So he grunted in frustration, dropped her to her back like a sack of grain, and shoved a gloved hand over her mouth.
“Be quiet! I told you I don’t have a choice and I don’t want to hurt you. But you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep putting up a fight.”
His eyes lifted to meet mine. “I’m so sorry, darling. I didn’t want to do it this way. Stay on the couch okay? I’m not going to hurt you. Promise. Just stay right where you are.”
By now I was truly afraid, but I saw no reason to make a run for it. He would only tackle me. And there was still that small voice that told me he was a good man and maybe my father. So I pulled my legs up onto the couch, hugged my knees, and stayed.
The fall seemed to have knocked the wind out of Louise, because she’d gone silent.
“Roll over.”
When she hesitated, he pulled her over onto her stomach and held her down with a knee on her back.
Hands now free, he quickly pull off a long strip of tape, pulled her arms behind her, and strapped her wrists together tight.
“You can’t do this.” She was crying now. “Please . . . Please, she’s just a little girl.”
“I’m not going to hurt her, I already told you that!” He sounded as if he’d been insulted. “I would never hurt her. She’s a very special girl.”
“Please . . .”
But that was as far as she got before he twisted her head around and strapped tape to her mouth.
He jumped down to her ankles, gripped them together with a large hand and bound them so she couldn’t walk.
Then he stood and stared down at her for a second, breathing hard from exertion. He looked around at the room, at the front door, then at me.
“I can’t let her make a fuss after we’re gone. So I’m going to put her in the closet, but she won’t be hurt. Okay?”
He seemed to want my permission. I was still in too much shock to talk.
“Will you promise to stay put while I do that?” He eyed me sympathetically, unsure. Then walked up to me and sat down on the couch.
“Maybe it’s best if I put some tape on your legs and wrists so that you don’t try to run. I don’t want to, you understand, but I know this might all be a bit frightening and you might try to run. If you do, I’ll have to catch you and you might trip or something. I can’t let you get hurt, you understand. I just can’t do that.”
He stared at me again as if looking for my approval.
“Can you hold your arms out?”
He tore off a strip of tape.
Now at a crossroads, I saw no alternative but to follow his lead. Even if I did have a scrapping bone in body, I didn’t stand a chance of either outrunning or overpowering such a strong man.
So I slowly lowered my feet to the carpet and held out both arms. They were pale and they were thin and I had n
o doubt that he could snap them like twigs if he wanted to.
Instead he put the tape on as if securing something delicate, like crystal tubes. After another moment’s hesitation, he tore off another strip and placed it gently over my mouth.
“I’m sorry, darling. I really am. I don’t want you to scream when we leave, you understand?”
I don’t know why I nodded, but I did. Maybe because I knew then that I was going with him and nothing short of John coming home a few minutes early was going to change that.
“Thank you.” He stroked my head with his hand, then crossed to Louise who had her head lifted as far as she could and was glaring at him, enraged.
Scooping her up in his arms, he dragged her to the small closet under the staircase, pulled the door wide, and carefully set her on the floor inside. She objected vehemently behind the tape, but she didn’t struggle—she knew it was no use.
With one last apology—“Sorry”—he shut her inside. Less than thirty seconds later he had the closet door wedged shut with a chair from the dining room.
Then the large man in the blue shirt who said he was my father led me from the house on my own two feet, walked me to a blue pickup truck across the street, helped me into the front seat, and drove away into the night.
3
Day Two
5:43 am
Special Agent Olivia Strauss’s mind clawed its way out of her haunting nightmare at the sound of buzzing on her nightstand. Cell phone . . .
Michelle?
Eyes blinking against the patchwork of shadows that blanketed her studio apartment, she lay still, shirt soaked through with sweat. No, it wasn’t Michelle. Her daughter was dead. Had been for many years.
She leaned over, picked up her phone and stared at the familiar name on its bright screen. Todd Benner. She thumbed the Talk button and brought it to her ear.
“Tell me you have a good reason for calling at this hour,” she said.
“Sorry to drag you out of bed.”
“I was up anyway. What’ve you got?”
“Abduction case was just called in. They’ve asked for the Bureau’s consult.”
“Who? Where?”
“Hour away, Greenville. A thirteen-year-old girl was taken from her foster home.”
Silence.
“Liv?”
“What’s her name?”
“Alice. Alice Ringwald.”
She could feel the sudden surge of her pulse. Her own daughter would be thirteen if she were still alive.
“Liv?”
“I’m still here.” Her mind shifted. She was already on her feet and halfway across the room, snatching a robe from the back of a chair. “When did it happen?”
“Between seven and eight o’clock last night. I’m still waiting on the full report so details are sketchy. The abductor, a single middle-aged male, fled the scene in a truck with Tennessee plates.”
She glanced at the clock. “He’s got ten hours on us . . . they could be halfway across the country by now.”
“Which is why we’re being called in.”
“Any of our people on scene yet?”
“Forensics will be there at seven. I told them we’d be close on their heels.”
“What else do we know?”
“The local detective talked with the mother. He’ll be on scene when we arrive.”
“She was there?”
“She’s the only witness.” A beat. “Liv?”
“Yeah,” she said, swapping the phone from one hand to the other.
“Listen, if you’re not up for this . . . I know this week is tough for you every year.”
“Come on, Todd. You know me better than anyone else.”
“Which is why I’m saying it.”
“It’s also what makes me one of the best.”
“I’m just concerned about you. That’s all.”
“Just get what you can from Murphy. We’ll brief on the way. I’m headed out the door in twenty. I’ll swing by and pick you up.”
Olivia ended the call and sat in silence. Glanced at a framed picture of her daughter that hung on the wall.
It’s what makes me one of the best.
It was the truth. Her passion bordered on personal obsession. If her superiors knew how close she stood to the brink they might rethink her assignment.
Seven years had passed and the wound was still raw. It had been a perfect afternoon. Her husband, Derek, was away on a business trip so she’d taken off work for a girls’ day out, just like the old days when Michelle had been younger—pancakes at Dominy’s, then to the zoo, then a Disney movie marathon at the local dollar theater.
At six o’clock that night Michelle had fallen asleep on the couch while Olivia set about whipping up a batch of her daughter’s favorite: peanut butter cookies. But a quick look in the fridge revealed that they were out of milk to go with the cookies.
Milk. Just a quick trip to the store down the street to buy a quart of milk. Five minutes tops. Problem was, she’d been in such a rush to get there, get the milk, and get back that she’d forgotten to lock the door on her way out.
When she returned, the door was ajar and Michelle was gone.
After three days of frantic searching, the detective delivered the news she’d dreaded. A utility worker had stumbled across Michelle’s dead body in a field three miles from their house.
The life Olivia had known ended that day. Her daughter was forever gone and within six months, so was everything else. Sleep was the first to go. Then her job. Then her friends. Then her husband, who might have coped with his own loss if not for her unrelenting depression.
Why? Because of her. Because she, and no one else, had left the door open.
Three years later, she’d found a new home with the FBI. Michelle’s case had gone cold and remained so to this day, but there were a thousand Michelles out there, and Olivia made every one of them her own.
Olivia snatched the bottle of Xanax that perched on the nightstand, emptied one into her hand, and grabbed the half-filled water bottle on her nightstand to wash it down.
The clock was ticking.
Forensics was already processing the house when Olivia arrived at the Clarks’ residence. They’d been briefed by the local supervisory detective, Randy Smith, on the drive. A dozen protocols were already in full motion, teams of people already engaged in the search—dispatchers, patrol officers responding to the Amber Alert, detectives, CSI, citizens now being informed of the abduction on the news. Evidence was being compiled, a case would be quickly built based on that evidence, searches would be made. What could be done was being done by caring, very capable investigators.
But for Olivia, only one question really mattered now: Why?
“I want to talk to them alone,” she said, staring at the front door, now open. Benner knew both her penchant for connecting emotionally to a case, and her preferences for how to do so.
“I’ll join you in a bit. Smith is with the witness who saw the vehicle.”
She nodded, watched him depart, and stared up at the house. They were all the same, really. Every crime scene would offer up its evidence: the where, the when, the what, the process, the means. But it was the why that kept Olivia awake at nights.
Why do you take children?
Why did you choose her?
Why did you take her?
Her mind skipped tracks.
Why did I leave the door open?
Why did you kill my daughter?
Alice wasn’t Michelle and there was no evidence that she’d been killed, but Alice was a Michelle and if they didn’t find her in time . . .
Why? To understand that single question, Olivia had to connect with Alice’s parents and to her environment.
She took a deep breath and walked up the sidewalk, through the front door, and into the home from which Alice had been taken.
A middle-aged couple stood in the middle of the dining room, watching two technicians combing for fibers. Neither looked like they�
�d slept.
She approached them and extended her hand to the mother.
“John and Louise Clark?”
Louise took her hand.
“My name’s Olivia Strauss. I’m the special agent in charge of the FBI’s investigation.” She offered Louise a smile as she looked into her swollen eyes. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I know it’s hard.”
“Thank you.” A fresh tear slid down the mother’s face.
Olivia took a tissue from her pocket. Offered it to Louise. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
John cleared his throat. “We’ve been asked a lot of questions. Truthfully, we could use some answers.”
“I understand. You can be assured that we’re doing everything we can. A whole set of procedures were set in motion last night.”
“What procedures?”
“Local authorities sealed off the immediate area and issued a statewide Amber Alert within an hour of the abduction. That turned a lot of eyes—local and state police, as well as the public—our way. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was immediately notified and Alice’s information was entered into the National Crime Information Center’s database. A leads management system is in place—every tip will be followed up. The team has already processed more than two dozen. It may not look like it, but the search for Alice is in full swing out there.”
Louise softened. “They asked for some of her clothes.”
“For the scent. The local K-9 unit established an active search grid of a half-mile in every direction and detectives started working door-to-door last night, talking with anyone who might’ve seen anything out of place. They’ll pick it up again this morning. We’ve also cross-checked criminal and sex-offender databases to determine if any might be principal suspects or possible participants in the crime.”
“They said our neighbor reported the truck,” John said.