by Dekker, Ted
“He couldn’t remember.”
She was out of her chair. “Phone number and carrier.”
Jay asked the owner, quickly jotted down the information on a pad, and handed it to Benner.
“Call them . . .” Olivia said.
But he was already calling.
She could hear the throb of her pulse in her ears as she paced. Her lungs tightened. If the cell phone had been left on, they would be able to track its movements for as long as the phone had held its charge.
On the other hand, if the cell phone had been off, or died before Alice had been taken, they would know nothing.
It would be back to waiting. God, she hated waiting.
Benner covered the receiver with his hand. “They got it. It’ll take some time for them to work it on their end, but they’ve got an active signal. Phone’s still on.”
* * *
ACCORDING TO THE data provided by the carrier, the blue truck carrying Alice and her abductor had traveled north out of Greenville on US 25 on the night of the abduction. Well outside of town, the man had veered west on I-26, exited near Asheville Regional Airport and made his way onto the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Despite the difficult terrain and dense vegetation, the wireless company had been able to track the vehicle’s southbound progress into the mountains to where it had angled off the main road and onto a ribbon of dirt road that disappeared into the woods. Five miles in, the truck had stopped where it had remained for the past three days.
Because the smartphone had been in standby mode, the battery life had been conserved long enough for them to determine the exact GPS coordinates of the device. And the truck.
Within hours, a tactical team had been assembled and converged on the location.
Olivia knelt in the thick shade that pooled beneath the trees at the clearing’s edge and scanned the scene. Thirty yards away, the blue truck was parked next to an old cabin with a green metal roof that drooped over a covered porch. The building’s darkened windows gazed out like hollow eyes at the thick forest that crowded it on every side.
Her attention lingered on the truck for a long moment.
“You okay?” Benner said at her side. He was clad in a black Kevlar vest and held a 9mm by his side.
“I’m fine.”
They’d staged their operation from the main road and moved on foot to avoid drawing attention. The plan was simple: Olivia and Benner would enter the front with Asheville SWAT and secure the cabin. Local FBI assets would provide secondary support on the exterior. Speed was the key, which is why they were moving now, with the sun still high in the sky, not later. Every minute they waited was a minute wasted.
“Adam Three in position,” a voice crackled in her earpiece. The backup unit was in place.
“Copy that, Adam Three,” she whispered. She gave a nod to the captain of the SWAT unit. “Let’s roll.”
He motioned his team of five forward with Olivia and Benner bringing up the rear. Moving low and fast, they left the cover of the forest and angled toward the northeast corner of the cabin in single file, weapons raised.
Olivia’s pulse quickened with each step, her nerves raw and humming with adrenaline. They reached the edge of the cabin, rounded the corner, passed beneath the front windows in a low crouch as they closed the distance to the front porch.
The SWAT leader lifted a clenched fist as they approached the front stairs, bringing everyone to a silent halt.
Olivia’s eyes flicked from the door to the window. No movement that she could see. She scanned the clearing, half expecting the man to make a run for the truck. But there was no sign of the man, no sign that they’d been seen.
We have to move . . . we have to move . . .
After a breath, the man motioned forward with two fingers. One of the men broke rank and climbed the steps with a black battering ram at his side. In unison, the others followed close as he crossed the porch and, in one smooth motion, swung the metal ram.
It connected with a loud boom that rattled the cabin’s front windows. The force of impact nearly knocked the door from its hinges as it swung open violently.
The man stepped aside, dropped the ram and drew his weapon as the others rushed past him and into the cabin.
Olivia entered the dimly lit cabin close on the SWAT unit’s heels.
Weapon leveled, she crossed the room, eyes sweeping right to left as she went. The main room was empty. Daylight filtered through the grimy windows and the tang of woodsmoke and bacon hung on the air. Her focus clicked through the surroundings, registering every detail as she moved toward a narrow hallway straight ahead.
To the left: a dinette with two wooden chairs and a small kitchen.
To the right: a brown couch and two chairs gathered around a large crate used as a coffee table. Beyond it, a fireplace with a heap of gray ash.
She pulled up in the hallway as SWAT kicked in the door on the right and two men rushed through, weapons snugged against their shoulders. The fast rustle of bodies and gear. Boots clomping against the hardwood floor.
“Clear!” the voice came from inside the room.
The remaining officers turned their attention to the rickety door on the opposite side of the hallway. Forced their way in without hesitation. Two seconds later it too was declared clear. Empty. Then the next room: a bathroom.
Olivia angled into the first room. She stopped, eyes searching. A small bed covered with a tattered quilt. A pillow with a teddy bear, one eye missing, on top of it. A single window—bars on the exterior.
But no Alice. They were gone.
“Get forensics in here! I want every inch of this place searched. She’s a smart girl, she might have left something behind for us.”
Benner stood in the doorway with his gun at his side. “You got it.”
“And gather the others. Our guy’s made a run for it.”
6
AN INVESTIGATIVE team comprised of thirty-two local police and FBI agents gathered in front of the cabin as the whump of a circling helicopter filled the air. Two men held a large map of the area as Benner spoke.
“The only tire marks coming or leaving the cabin are the truck’s. That means he didn’t drive out of here. The K-9 unit picked up Alice’s scent in the house and followed it to two sets of fresh tracks leading into the woods on the south side of the property. Our guy left on foot, and he may have left under cover of night. We don’t know.”
He drew a line with his finger from the cabin’s location to the flowing green contours of the mountains. “There’s nowhere else for him to go, but along this ridge or over it. Search Group Three is staged here.” He pointed to a location to the south. “They will sweep north and converge with the teams departing from here. If our perpetrator’s in the area we’ll box him in. We don’t know how much of a head start he has, but he’s got Alice in tow, so he’ll be slower than us.”
He looked at Olivia. “Local police has eyes in the sky providing support. If our guy’s still in the area, we’ll get him. Special Agent Strauss will coordinate Search Group Two and Captain Richardson with Asheville PD will oversee Group One. Any questions?”
The group was restless, but no one spoke.
Olivia scanned the team. “This is our best chance, folks. Remember, we don’t know what this man is capable of or what his mindset is. We have to assume he’s armed and willing to harm Alice if he gets pinned down. Be smart; I don’t want her hurt.”
They watched her without responding—she was saying nothing they didn’t already know.
“Let’s go.”
The group broke up, each team forming up and setting out from the clearing with their assigned task.
Olivia stood for a long moment, studying the squat cabin, which now stood vacant and lifeless. The CSI team meticulously processed the blue truck sitting next to it.
Judging by the contents of the trash bag Forensics found behind the cabin, the perpetrator had kept Alice here for several days, likely since the night of the abducti
on. Question was, when had they left?
She turned from the cabin and hurried to join the search.
Hold on, Alice. Just hold on a little longer.
7
Day Six
5:37 pm
LOUISIANA. That’s all I knew. Because Wyatt had blindfolded me and asked me to lie down on the front seat for the last four hours of the drive.
He’d kept me at the cabin in the woods for three days, just as he’d said he would. I felt like I was living in a strange dream most of the time. Sometimes, like when I thought about how he’d taped Louise up and put her in the closet, it felt like a nightmare, but mostly it felt like we were just pretending. And most of that was because of Wyatt.
He was a moonshiner, he said, and being in the woods was home to him. He was perfectly happy living on a diet of eggs, bacon, sausage, white bread, peanut butter, boiled cabbage, pork, milk, an occasional Snickers bar (which was a real treat for him), and a slug of moonshine now and then, though he was careful not to drink too much. He said it could make you go silly in the head.
But it wasn’t only that Wyatt was at home in the woods; he didn’t seem to have a care in the world apart from making sure that I was safe and comfortable. Not once did he talk about any concern that the authorities might find and take me, or the trouble he might be in for kidnapping me. He was only thrilled that he’d succeeded in rescuing me, as he kept putting it.
Watching him, I couldn’t help thinking that he actually thought he was on a vacation with his daughter, and his enthusiasm was sometimes a little infectious.
He didn’t tell me much more about Kathryn and nothing about where we were going, because he said Kathryn wanted it all to be a surprise. Instead he talked about moonshining and told me stories from his days in the enterprise, his successes and mishaps and avoiding the law. Evidently there were laws about selling alcohol, all of which were an abuse of rights, he said.
When he wasn’t telling stories, he was trying to convince me to play one game or the other—I spy, find the pine cone, poker with an old deck of cards and pebbles as money. It took some convincing on his part to persuade me to play, but as I did I found some comfort in the distraction, particularly since I almost always won once I learned the rules. As the days passed, I began to see that Wyatt was a kind man with a good heart who rarely showed any deep concern.
In fact, the only time he became uptight at all was when he talked about Kathryn. I didn’t see it at first, but I began to notice that lines sometimes formed over his brow when he spoke about her. He seemed fiercely loyal and deeply caring of her, but there might have been some fear in those lines as well.
In the middle of the second night, I scratched out a note on an old piece of paper I’d found outside. There were no pencils or pens I’d seen so I used a piece of charred wood from the fireplace. In the note I gave my name and said that Wyatt Lowenstein, a moonshiner, had kidnapped me and was taking me somewhere to meet my real mother, Kathryn. I also wrote that my real father was a senator from Nevada named James Ringwald who was now dead.
I tried to think of what else might be useful but couldn’t think of anything. I didn’t want John or Louise to worry about me too much so I added one more line: Please don’t worry. Wyatt is a kind man and is taking good care of me. He said I can come home soon.
I folded the note up and hid it under the mattress. If they found it, they would at least be able to assure Louise that I wasn’t being mistreated.
At dusk on the third evening, which was actually the fourth night of my kidnapping, Wyatt cleaned up the cabin, wiped the truck down with great care, and led me through the woods, south, to a small clearing. A blue car was hidden there under branches—our ride home, he said, with a big grin.
Home. The word frightened me.
Thirty minutes later we were back on a main highway, again headed south. Two days later we were in Louisiana, and I was curled up in the front seat, blindfolded.
He’d explained that I had to wear the blindfold so that I wouldn’t know where they lived in the event I decided I didn’t want to stay. The authorities would force me to tell them where they lived and they couldn’t risk that. And I had to lie down because if anyone saw a girl wearing a blindfold in a car they might be suspicious and call the cops. They couldn’t risk that either.
On one hand, that made sense to me. On the other hand, I already knew their names—wasn’t that enough information for the authorities to go after them?
So why the secrecy?
But I still chose to believe that I really would be able to leave if I wanted to, so I had no problem lying down blindfolded. I didn’t want anyone to hurt Wyatt, however strange that might seem. In fact, I even wondered whether I should have given his name in the note I’d left. If it led the authorities to Wyatt, they might put him in prison, like he said.
He might have been wrong in taking me the way he did, but part of me didn’t blame him. He and Kathryn had only gone to terrible trouble and risked so much because they were so eager to have me back. Part of me felt desperately wanted and maybe that’s what being a daughter was supposed to feel like.
“Okay, sweetheart. You can sit up and take the blindfold off.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. We’re almost home.”
I pushed myself up and pulled off the blindfold. The sight that greeted me through the windshield was unlike any I’d ever seen.
It was late afternoon, dusk, and a bit gloomy. We were on a narrow, gravel road with tufts of grass growing down the center. But it was the thick blanket of trees that struck me. Huge trees, with drooping branches and vines as far as I could see. The road dropped off into deep, wide ditches on either side as if they’d been dug to protect the road from the tangle of encroaching trees.
“Where are we?”
“Home.”
I stared at the huge trees on my right and saw that the gravel road was built up, higher than the ground, which looked wet. No, not just wet.
Flooded with water.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The swamp,” he said. “You’re going to love it. Lots of water. We have lakes, rivers . . . Our house is just around the corner.
I immediately thought about what little I knew of swamps and images of snakes and beady-eyed alligators strung through my mind. The sound of the road crunching under the tires somehow worsened the sudden fear that gripped me. I felt totally isolated and far away from anything that was familiar or safe.
And then we were around the corner and driving down a dirt driveway.
“End of the line,” Wyatt said. “This is as far as the road goes. We already passed the last house half a mile back. We have all the land you could dream of down here. You’ll see.”
We passed a square outbuilding with a sloping tin roof. No windows that I could see. Maybe it had something to do with moonshine because barrels were stacked behind it. Three old trucks sat out front, one of which was on blocks, missing its rear wheels.
We passed a swing set—metal tubes that formed a teepee with hanging chains that held two tires. A small woodshed sat by itself just past the swing set. Maybe a toolshed. The ground was partly grassed, partly bare, without any care given to it. Bushes and trees grew up here and there, wherever seeds had happened to fall.
It was hard to believe that I was somehow connected to such a strange place hidden away in the swamps. It was all so foreign.
An old, white house with a porch loomed between the trees ahead, to our right. Windows across the front, a black roof, three steps leading up to a porch—about what I might expect in a house.
What I didn’t expect was the large, paper sign with the words Welcome Home written in red that hung from the porch’s roof. Nor the sight of the dark-haired woman wearing a flowered dress with long sleeves, standing under it, watching us intently. Nor the short boy who stood next to her.
“That’s your mother and your brother,” Wyatt said.
I don’t know what I expected
because up until that moment I had only thought of ‘mother’ in terms of an idea without putting any face or body to it. But now I was looking at her and I panicked.
What if I didn’t like her? What if she wasn’t as kind as Wyatt? What if she was disappointed in me?
What if she wasn’t my real mother?
“Don’t be nervous, sweetheart. It’s going to be just fine, you’ll see.”
Wyatt brought the car to a stop at the end of the driveway fifty feet from the house, put the shifter in neutral, and turned off the engine.
I stared up at the two people on the porch, mind suddenly blank. The blond-haired boy was staring in wide wonder, and I could see the strangeness of him immediately. His head seemed a little large for his body, and his face looked . . . well, I didn’t know quite how to think of it except . . . off.
I shifted my eyes and looked at the woman. Kathryn. Who was peering at me through the windshield, looking as tense as I felt. For a moment I thought she might be frightened.
This was the mother who’d gone to such great lengths to find me?
Maybe she was afraid . . . I was, wasn’t I? Maybe a voice in her head was telling that it was all too good to be true. Or that I was too skinny to be her daughter. Or maybe she was afraid that I wouldn’t measure up to her expectations for the daughter she’d dreamed about for so many years. Or maybe she was just nervous.
She was suddenly moving, rushing down the steps in her ankle-length dress with long sleeves, then running toward us, nearly frantic.
I didn’t know what was expected of me, and a glance at Wyatt told me that neither did he. He just watched, hands on the wheel.
Kathryn flew up to the car, gripped the door handle on my side, yanked the door open, and stared at me, speechless, lips trembling.
I was only distantly aware of the heat and humidity that rushed into the car when she opened the door. I barely heard the chorus of a million bugs and insects that might have otherwise convinced me to quickly shut the door.