“I was here.” Dan’s voice was glum. “I was part of the search committee that swept through these fields in the first few weeks after Lauren was taken.”
With information from Lauren and Hawkins, a time frame had been pieced together. Hawkins had kept Lauren in a house at the beach during the first five months of her captivity. Investigators were still trying to pry the precise address from Hawkins, who had gone silent once he realized that his “sister” was not going to be brought around to visit with him. Still, it was apparent Hawkins had kept Lauren well hidden at the coast until he was sure that every nook and cranny in this area had been checked out and cleared. Unfortunately, the constant news updates of the search for Lauren would have kept him apprised of those details. Once the search had expanded to other areas and more distant parks, Hawkins had brought Lauren back here, to his aunt’s farm.
He had gauged his moves well, the bastard.
“I remember because the compound was fenced off and locked up,” Dan went on. “We waited in the rain while one of the cops got the key from Vera Hawkins. Inside the fence was a cabin and a maintenance building with a slop sink and john and a shed. Mostly I remember the debris. Old chassis and auto parts abandoned in the dirt. It was a hellhole.”
“Yeah.” Hank scanned the gentle green hills, punctuated here and there by trees and lined by aging post-and-beam fences. “Don’t expect it to be any better.”
Because she had brought her students here on field trips, Rachel knew the history of Green Spring Farm, an institution in this part of Oregon for more than a hundred years. Originally an equestrian center, the farm had housed famous horses like Roy Rogers’s Trigger and the Lone Ranger’s Silver when they had been brought to shows in the Northwest back in the forties and fifties. Over the years the barns and buildings had been purchased and sold a few times and fallen into disrepair. The most recent owner, Vera Hawkins, had inherited the farm from her father, who had managed to restore it enough to turn a small profit by leasing the land to an organic farming cooperative. One of the big red barns was still used as an equestrian center, while the other was leased by the Town of Mirror Lake for classes, camps, and private parties. Not a gardener, Rachel had always considered the place to be a quaint touch of country in an otherwise growing suburb.
At last, they closed in on the cluster of trees that hid the compound.
Most of the fenced-off area was well hidden, surrounded by old-growth trees and bushes and blackberry brambles that were so overgrown, in some spots the matted snarls rose three feet above the path. Hank pointed to the prickly vines that reached over the path. “Watch your step. I already snagged my pants on those thorns.”
Inside the big metal gate, Rachel was surprised to see a neatly tended garden with some early lettuce ready to harvest. At the far end of the garden, two men were scraping through the mud, one on his belly. The white letters printed on the jacket of the man facing away from them identified them as FBI.
Hank nodded toward the men. “As I said, it’s still an active crime scene.”
Off to the left was a one-story clapboard house, its roof green with moss. A wobbly brown tent stood beyond the house. To the left was a shed that was tilting dangerously toward the fence, and a mound of trash that was probably the source of the foul odor.
“The shed is falling down.” Hank nodded toward the dilapidated building. “But the house has electricity, an old TV with a VCR, a prefab shower, and a sink. We think that Lauren was sleeping in the tent. We found a sleeping bag in there, along with some magazines and a sketchpad. It’s all been photographed and vouchered for evidence.”
“Lauren hated camping,” Dan said as they scrutinized the tent like art lovers in a museum, seeking to experience and connect to the exhibit. “Remember when I slept out in the backyard with her that time? She was back in her room before midnight. She said the noise of the bugs in the grass was keeping her awake.”
“She was not a fan of the outdoors.” Beyond the creatures and flowers she had loved to sketch, Lauren had been an indoor girl. Not a hiker or a gardener. “But I guess she adjusted to the circumstances.” I guess we all have to adjust. Rachel flipped up the hood of her jacket as a light drizzle began to fill the gray air. “It feels like we’re a hundred miles from civilization.”
“Which was probably Hawkins’s intention,” Dan added.
Hank explained that Hawkins had given Lauren free reign over the compound most of the time she was here. In the first few months at the beach, Hawkins had programmed Lauren to follow orders. By the time she arrived here, she had nearly given up trying to escape. “Kidnappers force their victims to relinquish control of their lives. Paula mentioned hearing about Lauren being locked in a cage, which we figure is the large dog kennel in the shed. Apparently Hawkins kept her in there from time to time when he wanted to keep her out of sight or punish her.”
Rachel winced, and Dan kicked at a stone jutting through the mud. None of this information came as a total shock; Rachel had done some research about the psychological dynamics of kidnapping. However, picturing their daughter in this desolate patch of land would make for more tortured, sleepless nights.
Dan raked his pale hair back. “Have you been able to sit in on any interviews with him? Has he confessed yet?”
“His interrogation is being handled by the FBI and the district attorney’s office. But last I heard, he’s still pretty tightlipped.” Hank rubbed the back of his neck. “But I didn’t bring you here for the grim images. You have to see the inside of the house.”
Rachel rubbed her palms on her jeans, wishing she were anywhere else but here. In sharp contrast, Dan followed with vitality—almost a spring in his step. She had called him on it that morning over coffee. His cheerful tolerance of the situation with Lauren and the police and the social workers.
“Hold on a second,” he’d said. “Are you mad at me because I’m being upbeat about finding Lauren? Because I could accuse you of being too rigid. Holding on to the pain. Stuck in the mire of regret.”
“Honey, we’re in the same boat,” Rachel had said. “I’m just trying to get our daughter on board with us.”
“For starters, we’ve had one daughter on board all along, but you seem to have forgotten that, and I think Sierra is beginning to feel a little left out.”
It wasn’t an accusation; it was simply the truth. “You’re right. Did Sierra bring it up? Did she talk to you?” Rachel cupped her hands around her warm mug, trying to stay rooted in the moment, though her mind was spinning off in other directions.
“We talk every day, sometimes more than once a day. I know you’ve kept her at bay to focus all your energy on Lauren, but for Sierra, it feels like a rejection.”
Dan was right. Rachel knew she was wound too tight lately, and though she sensed that it was putting Lauren off, she couldn’t help herself. She felt like she was trying to force round pegs into square holes, pressing too hard because she was so desperate to make it all fit together, all the pieces of their separate, varied lives. Her attempt to talk with Sierra before the press conference had been met with that snappish “What do you want now?” attitude. At the moment, nothing was working. She wished she could be enthusiastic like Dan, but she did feel stuck in the muck. Nothing had moved forward since the moment they’d learned Lauren had been recovered.
Hank led the way toward the tired gray house with mildew stains running down the siding. “You have to see the inside of this one.” Inside, he flicked the light on, and the walls came alive. Every single panel of plywood, every crossbeam, was covered with an illustration made by a combination of paint and Sharpie and crayon that seemed to have been melted and then layered on for texture.
“It’s Lauren’s work, and it’s . . . amazing.” Rachel went to one corner to follow the beanstalk into the crayon sky. “She must have worked on it all these years.” There was a hopeful beauty to it, as well as lonesomeness and a heartrending sadness.
Rachel sighed in awe. It was a visual f
east. Winged elves and butterflies and dragonflies. Peasant girls and catlike gladiators and insect-like robots. Spotted mushrooms and flowers and enchanted skies sodden with stars. Dragons and a beanstalk spiraling into the clouds and a veiled girl with a diamond tear sparkling on her cheek.
“It’s Peter Max meets anime,” Dan said. “Though I would have recognized the hand behind these illustrations anywhere. Thank God he let her paint and . . . what is this? Sort of a melted crayon texture?”
Rachel shrugged. “I guess she worked with whatever medium was available.”
Hank paused in front of the painting of a woman bent over her hoe, the sunken lines of her shoulders and bowed head imitating a man-sized sunflower beside her. “All the gritty candor of Toulouse Lautrec with the vivid color and raw emotion of Van Gogh.”
“What?” Rachel squinted at him. “I can’t believe I heard you say that.”
Dan chuckled. “You’ve been holding out on us, Hank.” His lighthearted teasing eased the tension in the dim house.
“You know I’m a Duck,” Hank said, referring to the mascot of the University of Oregon, “I was a double major at U of O. Criminal justice and art history.”
“Must get a lot of mileage in the locker room.”
“Believe me, it’s not discussed in the locker room. I keep it under my hat, usually, but looking at these paintings, I’ve got to say, your daughter has talent. That’s why I wanted you to see these. It would be a shame for someone to paint over them.”
“I wonder if there’s a way to remove these without damaging the building’s structure,” Dan said, touching the raw edge of drywall that didn’t quite meet the stud.
“I don’t think damaging the building will be a concern. After the investigation, I think these buildings are going to come down. That shed is about to fall down; it’s not structurally sound. And once the location of the compound becomes public knowledge, you run the risk of having looky-loos tromping around back here. I think Vera’s going to take these buildings down.”
“Do you think Lauren would want to save these?” Rachel bit her lower lip as she followed the long tail of a purple dragon that was cabled like a bungee cord around the ankles of a thin young woman who was swan-diving through a night sky speckled with stars. “I mean, it’s extraordinary, but it might always remind her of a terrible time in her life. I don’t know if she would be more attached to the art or more determined to cut the ties to the past and move on.”
“I think that’s a question that only Lauren can answer,” Dan said, “and I don’t think she’s ready to do it just yet.”
It felt good to debate Lauren’s future, good to have a tangible connection to their daughter. “Well. If we’re allowed to dismantle these walls, I would like to hold on to my daughter’s creations.” As Rachel began to take pictures on her cell phone, she wondered if all this drywall and plywood would fit in the garage. Maybe they could rent a storage space. She got Dan going with his cell camera, and soon the dim, one-room cabin was punctuated by flashes of cell phone photography.
“I’m reluctant to let go of anything that Lauren might find reassuring down the road,” she said.
“But it might be a negative reminder of a terrible time. Maybe Lauren will want to burn these shacks to the ground. She might want to light the first torch.”
Rachel nodded. Either way, they would support her. Her throat grew thick as she opened a swinging panel and found a portrait of a Madonna with an angelic infant in her arms. It was a reminder that the naïve preteen she’d lost, her baby girl, had borne a baby of her own.
With robotic resolve, she snapped the photo and moved on.
Chapter 21
The digital camera stood silent as a sentry on the tripod, an eternal witness to Lauren’s animated description of how Mac used to tell her that she could only be tickled on Saturday.
“And one day, she was in my tent, and I kissed her and gave her a little tickle under the chin. And Mac said, ‘No, Mama. Tickle me only on Saturday.’ I told her it was Saturday, and she said, ‘No. Saturn-day.’ And since I had been teaching her about the planets in the solar system, I thought it was the funniest thing. We both laughed so hard we cried.”
Paula cocked her head. “Sounds like you were a wonderful mother.”
“Mac was a wonderful girl.” Lauren went on to describe the little girl’s fluffy blond ringlet curls, the chubbiness of her cheeks, the way she followed Lauren around the compound like a little duckling. “That’s called imprinting,” Lauren said. “I read about it in a book. The baby duckling follows the first one it sees, and that’s usually the mother. Well, with Mac, I was just glad she followed me and not Kevin. It would have killed me to think that she liked Kevin better than she liked me.”
Thank the good Lord, Lauren was a talker. She had answered Paula’s questions, told anecdotes, described her feelings, and even reflected on her various incidents with a mature philosophical bent. Lauren had shared heartwarming details about Mac and annoying things that had made her hate Kevin even as she’d relied on him for her existence. That was the paradox for a kidnap victim: the love-hate relationship with the abductor. Paula believed that Lauren’s insistence on being called Sis, the name that Kevin gave her, was symbolic of her allegiance to him.
It would take a while—a few months or even years—to unravel the complex relationship between Lauren and her alleged abductor. For now, it was up to Paula to make sure Lauren knew she would be taken care of, and that she did not need Kevin Hawkins anymore. Paula couldn’t chance another getaway attempt like last night. Thank God Rachel had arrived at the right moment.
The girl had been talking for more than three hours when her voice began to squeak and Paula called a break.
“You’re doing great, but I think you need to give your voice a rest for a bit. Stretch out. Hit the restroom. Get your circulation going.”
While CeeCee plied Lauren with juice boxes and cookies, Paula ducked into the hallway of the Children’s Center to sneak a look at her cell phone. As she’d expected, there were way too many phone messages and e-mails. She sorted through the e-mails first—finding what she wanted from Hank Todd. The two houses he had suggested for her were both available; the owners were even willing to let them go rent-free out of consideration for Lauren O’Neil. Hank had even sent one of his cops, Pete Wolinsky, to drive by both places and snap some photos so that Paula could get a sense of the houses.
Thanks, Hank, she tapped onto her smartphone, and then checked Wolinsky’s e-mail. The two houses were beautiful, a sleek contemporary on a hill and a craftsman-style home on the lake. She liked the second one because it looked homey and the location on a peninsula would offer a certain level of privacy. Three bedrooms and three baths—that should be enough. She suspected she would be staying there with Lauren and an FBI agent. She wasn’t sure if DHS would want to involve a therapist, too. She hoped that Truman was briefing the family about the house, because she barely had a minute to pee right now, but if not, she would deal with it later. She was good at picking up the pieces.
She sent a text to Hank saying the craftsman house was a go. Then she leafed through her notepad for the number of the FBI agent she had met at the meeting. There she was . . . Bija Wilson. She called her and left a message, passing on information about the house and asking if she would be the agent assigned to watch Lauren when she was discharged from the hospital.
So many things to line up. Early this morning she had sent a text to Courtney Brown, one of the other social workers, asking her to move or cancel all of Paula’s appointments for the next two days. Courtney had responded with a quick “Will do!” That girl was on her game.
And Paula herself, she had not felt this alive in years. Oh, she’d handled plenty of cases that had broken her heart or engaged her resources and skills. But nothing like Lauren O’Neil’s case. It was a gift, the challenge of a lifetime, and Paula felt right to be in the middle of it.
Sometimes, divine providence rang clear as
a bell.
Back in the small office decorated in cheerful cinnamon chairs and a Pacific blue couch, she found Lauren and CeeCee laughing together. A good development. It showed Lauren beginning to open up to other people.
“How’s your voice?” Paula asked. “Are you getting tired?”
“I’m fine.” Lauren shrugged. The fine blond hairs on her forehead reminded Paula of a baby chick, and once again came that familiar rush of maternal love. Right now, Lauren needed so much, and Paula was happy to be the one to care for the girl. Of course, her personal issues were not supposed to be a part of her professional relationship. There were appropriate professional boundaries that had to be maintained with a client. But honestly, it was too late for that. This case was filling a need for her, and she was a good match for a girl who had spent the last six years in rural isolation.
“You’re a trooper.” She took her place in the chair beside the camera. “Are you ready to go on?”
“Sure. It feels good to get it all out.”
“I’m glad. Telling your story is good therapy, but some people struggle to get it out.”
“You’re a very articulate girl,” CeeCee added. “You know how to use your words.”
“It feels good to tell the truth, after all these years. And Mac . . . he wouldn’t let me talk about Mac anymore. He said I was getting too depressing, but I just wanted to talk about her . . . to remember her.”
“Well, you can tell us anything, depressing or not,” Paula said. “And before I forget, I wanted to fill you in on our plan for this evening. Apparently, there’s been a pack of reporters camped out at your parents’ house since early this morning. The police and the FBI are thinking that it’s a good idea for you to keep away from there for now.” She told Lauren about the idea of a safe house, and then showed her the photo of the lake house on her phone.
“It looks pretty nice.” Lauren turned the iPhone and blinked when the photo moved. “How did you get a picture on your phone like that?”
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