by Alec Peche
“Hannah, I brought you some clothes that my niece left at my house. I wasn’t sure what size you were, but now that I’ve seen you, you look about her size. Damian, do you have a shower she could use before she puts on some clean clothes? And perhaps a washing machine so we can get those clothes you have on clean.”
Hannah looked at them, trying to gauge her personal safety. She really wanted to shower as she’d been on the run for a week, but she didn’t know if she could trust the pair of adults. She looked down at their healthy and happy pets and decided she would trust them for the time being.
“I have a shower in my bathroom. I’m afraid I don’t have any female smelling soap or shampoo, unless you brought some, Ariana.”
“As a matter of fact I did, again thanks to my niece,” Ariana replied reaching into the duffle bag she brought with her.
Damian directed the two women to the only bathroom in his house and found a clean towel for Hannah to use, then backed out of the room to let the two women finish their preparations.
Ariana returned a moment later to Damian’s kitchen counter where he stood. It was as far away as he could be from the bathroom and still be inside his house. Miquel was guarding the bathroom door while the two cats were staking out their territory on his living room furniture.
“What do I do next with the girl?” Damian asked feeling overwhelmed between the lack of sleep and this sudden female invasion of his lair.
“I think she’s been on the run from something for I guess a week. Let’s try and get the story out of her and then I can take her home with me since I’m guessing this is a one bedroom house.”
“I designed this house with only my occupancy in mind. There’s no room for guests of any sort let alone a teenager. I’d be grateful if you would take her home with you. I have a friend who’s a female retired detective and I thought about calling her, but I sense a story here and I’m not ready to turn her over to the authorities immediately, so you were my next solution.”
“She’s hardly said anything, but I see the intelligence spilling out that you were talking about. I’m guessing she’s about fourteen, and I wonder where her parents are?”
“Can I get you some tea or something else to drink or perhaps some cookies?” Damian asked recalling his manners.
“I’ll take some tea and let’s save the cookies to eat with Hannah. I think I just heard the water shut off. I was going to suggest she wash her clothes here, but it would delay us returning to my house. The question is how long will it take to get her story?”
“She may not feel secure in letting go of her only possessions, so let’s wait and see if she talks.”
“While we wait, why don’t you tell me about this Bat-cave you built. I bet there are all kinds of special gadgets protecting it, though your jet ski hardly matches the Batmobile from the movies.”
They heard the bathroom door open, and a cleaner Hannah in the clothes that Ariana brought, stood in the door frame. Her wet hair hanging in strands, she was yawning with exhaustion.
“Hannah, we’re going to take you to Ariana’s house tonight as she has a spare bedroom, but you need to talk with us. Do you need any medical care?” Damian asked.
Through another yawn, she said, “Medical care? Why would I need to go to a doctor?”
“Have you been hurt over the past few days or however long you’ve been looking for shelter?”
“No,” she said slowly, “Why would I be hurt?”
“Okay, we needed to ask. Where are your parents and why aren’t they looking for you?”
“They can’t look for me, they’re dead.” Hannah said with a sob.
Damian looked over at Ariana to decide where to take the questioning next. Ariana went to the girl and hugged her, then put an arm around her shoulder to steer her to Damian’s sofa.
“Hannah, what are you hiding from and how recently did your parents die?”
“They were killed last week, and the men that did it are after me.”
“Did you tell the police that?” Damian asked. He couldn’t recall a news story in the past week of a couple murdered and a teenage daughter missing.
Hannah was sobbing, reliving the terror of the men chasing her, and she finally said, “The men took them and said they were going to dump them into a lake. I’ve been running since and I won’t talk to the police.”
Damian looked at Ariana puzzled and then asked, “Why?”
“Because one of the men was a cop.”
Damian looked at the sad child seated on the couch next to Ariana and exhaled a huge breath. It was approaching midnight, and Hannah was exhausted and it seemed like this was a long story to tell.
“Ariana, do you have an additional guest room that I can occupy?” Damian asked.
“Yes, why don’t you pack an overnight bag? We’ll head over to my house and settle Hannah in and then we’ll all talk in the morning when we’re not dead on our feet,” Ariana said and then winced at her word choice.
He silently did as Ariana suggested and when he reappeared to take Hannah down to the boat, she was asleep with her head in Ariana’s lap. He mouthed ‘sorry’ toward her, but she just shrugged and smiled. The child was so tired that when he picked her up she barely stirred and so Damian carried the featherweight child downstairs, through his workshop, and out onto the dock with Miguel at their heels. He settled her in to the cushions in the boat and covered her with a few blankets, again struck by how close this teenager was in age to what his youngest daughter would have been.
He locked his island up and soon they were crossing towards Ariana’s home. The bay was deserted at this time of the night and the high speed straight path had them at her dock in little more than ten minutes. With Ariana in the lead, she led him into the house and up a flight of stairs to a guest bedroom where her niece stayed whenever she visited. The room was filled with pictures of the two of them.
After they tucked Hannah into bed, they left Miguel guarding her, as he would alarm Ariana if Hannah tried to sneak out in the morning.
Damian asked, “Do you need your boat covered or moved overnight? I can do that for you.”
Ariana replied, “There’s no rain forecasted for tomorrow, so I’ll just leave it be for this one night. I brought your overnight duffle in along with her clothes. I feel like we should call the cops, but with her last revelation, I afraid to do so. Let’s see what happens in the morning.”
“I apologize for getting you involved in whatever is going on here. I’ll admit my first thought was one of fear of being alone on my island with a teenage girl. Thanks, again.”
“Damian, we all make our own choices and I could have chosen not to come just as you could have decided to turn your dinghy around and head back to the Richmond Marina, but there was something here with Hannah that we both felt compelled to help her with. It’ll make sense in the morning after we all get some much needed rest.”
Soon Damian was stretched out in a very comfortable guest bedroom, his mind still racing. It was time to close it down, he was very sleep deprived and once he got some sleep maybe his brain would work better. Finally, he drifted off.
Chapter Eighteen
After a decent sleep, Damian and Ariana were in her kitchen the next morning sipping coffee and munching croissants. Damian felt much better as he’d actually slept soundly in Ariana’s guest room. She’d checked on Hannah who was still sleeping. She let Miguel out to pee and then he resumed guard duty at her bedside. Hannah had been asleep nearly ten hours and it was mid-morning with the sun shining. He needed a ride back to his island, but he had hours in front of him figuring out Hannah. He wondered how Natalie was doing with getting the truck in the San Leandro junk yard. He’d checked his phone for messages, but all was quiet so far.
He and Ariana had discussed possible scenarios concerning Hannah including the fact that she was a runaway and her parents weren’t really dead, but they’d both felt the truth of her story. Damian had searched the recent news and there was sim
ply no mention of a couple being murdered and their teenager missing.
Ariana had left Hannah a note that they were in the kitchen and she should come down when she was ready, and a half an hour later, they heard sounds of movement and the click of dog paws on tile indicating the two might be heading their way.
As she saw Hannah tentatively approach, Ariana said, “Good morning Hannah, why don’t you have a seat here,” pointing to a seat between her and Damian. “I’ll get you a chocolate croissant and orange juice. How does that sound for breakfast?”
Hannah nodded and sat down, clearly shy and unsure what to do or say to these adult strangers. At least she had the friendly dog to pat. Ariana placed the food and drink in front of her and Hannah looked around. The two adults must have already eaten and were drinking coffee. It was then that she felt stinging tears hit her eyes as she recalled her parents in almost this exact same position.
Ariana saw the flow of tears and guessed that the setting reminded Hannah of her family. She went over and just hugged the girl. When she sensed the girl had regained her composure, she walked her over to the breakfast bar stool and sat her down. Damian had watched the entire episode in silence, then asked, “Hannah, what’s your last name?”
“Sherwood.”
Damian nodded then typed away at his laptop. Hannah picked at her food in silence. He soon had information on her and her family.
“You live in Shepherd Canyon and attend the Mastley School and you’re fourteen?” Damian asked.
Hannah nodded.
“Police were called by your school because you didn’t show up to class and no one has seen your family. It says here that the police indicated that in a search of your house there was evidence that your family had left and moved to Bogota, Columbia. Hannah, do you have any connection to Columbia?”
“No, we weren’t moving. My mom and I talked about my attending UC Berkeley and being able to live at home and commute to school. I won’t be going to college for two years.”
“Two years? Aren’t you at least three years away from college?” Ariana asked.
“I skipped eighth grade and I’m doing advanced placement courses and I have straight As” Hannah replied and then added, “I’ve been tested and I have a very high IQ.”
Damian thought that must have helped her survive on the streets for a week although IQ didn’t necessarily translate to street smarts. Since she was so smart, it was time to be honest with Hannah. He was very smart himself and he always liked facts no matter how unpleasant.
“Hannah, I don’t know what to do with you. I have a friend who is a retired detective from the San Jose police department. Maybe we should seek her help as there seems to be a problem with Shepherd Canyon police.”
“No, please don’t call her,” Hannah replied in a panic, looking for the doors to Ariana’s house to run.
Ariana frowned at Damian and put a hand on Hannah’s shoulder to calm her and said, “Hannah, we don’t want you running away; you need some adults you can trust and so you’re stuck with Damian and I. Legally, Damian and I are in trouble as we have no right to take care of you and have a responsibility to notify the authorities, but I want to keep you safe. Are you sure your parents are dead and not just in hiding?”
“Yes, three men stormed the house. My parents built a safe room in our house to protect me and them. We even had drills on getting into the safe room as quickly as possible. I was up late reading and heard someone come through the front door, so I headed for the safe room that was in my bedroom - it was in the back of the closet. There are cameras and microphones throughout the house and monitors in the three safe rooms so we can watch and hear.”
“Three safe rooms?” Damian asked. “Why were your parents so afraid that there would be a home invasion?”
“I don’t know; the rooms were built when we moved into the house two years ago.”
“Where did you live before that?” Ariana asked.
“New York City.”
“Oh, so did I. So you ran into your safe room and watched the rest of the house on the monitors. What happened next?” Ariana asked gently.
Through sobs, Hannah said, “They walked into my parent’s bedroom just as they were trying to get from their bed into their own safe room. They hit Dad in the back of the head and grabbed Mom by her hair.” Hannah’s sobbing was getting louder and her words harder to understand, but they knew they needed her to tell the full story.
“Then what happened?” Damian asked fearing the answer.
“They put a cloth over their faces and they stopped moving and just lay on the floor dead. They zipped mom and dad into sleeping bags and then carried them out of the house into a van.”
Ariana handed Hannah a box of Kleenex and said, “And then the men drove away with your parents?”
“Sort of.”
“Hannah what do you mean sort of?” Damian asked.
“They left one of them behind and he was supposed to find me. He searched the house and even opened the safe room in my parent’s bedroom expecting to find me. When I wasn’t there he stayed in the house for several days and even stayed in the house when the police came to the door. He welcomed them in and showed them an order that Mom had signed to move the house’s furniture and they believed him.”
The last sentence was said through a mixture of disbelief and sobs. Damian and Ariana looked at each other and silently agreed they could ask the girl no more questions, and Ariana went over to the girl to hug her for a while. The crying stopped eventually and Ariana had Hannah drinking orange juice. Hannah’s final sentences came.
“I waited until the man was asleep and snuck out of the house. I was hungry and knew I needed to get far away. I thought I could hide at our boat at the marina, but just as I was about to sneak on board, some men came up from the lower level and cast off the lines to take off. It had taken me part of the night and all day to walk to the marina and just when I saw the boat leaving the dock I didn’t know where to go or what to do so I climbed into your boat to rest a moment and fell asleep.”
Damian nodded and went to work researching her parents on his laptop. Something very powerful was in play here, because it was as if, except for that mention of her school to the police, Hannah and her parents didn’t exist.
Chapter Nineteen
No further effort was made to get any more information from Hannah. Instead Ariana encouraged all three of them outside into the sun and Miguel was more than willing to distract. Soon Damian had Hannah using the drone to drop toys for Miguel in the water. It provided the perfect cover for Ariana and Damian to discuss next steps and to cheer up Hannah.
“She’s a great kid and she has been through a very hard time,” Ariana said.
“Yeah. I don’t think her parents are necessarily dead which is good, but they have fallen off the face of the earth. I think we need to keep Hannah at your house until we can figure out what to do. I was thinking of starting by slipping into her home to see what clues there are.”
“Me? What do I do with a teenager?”
“I don’t have guest space at my house and besides I’m a guy,” Damian replied as if that settled matters.
“Yes, but she needs to be in school, I don’t have the legal right to care for her. What if she has a medical emergency, how to I explain her existence?”
“I can set up all the fake identification you and she’ll need, remember, I’m a computer genius,” Damian replied with a grin.
“Are we doing the right thing? Maybe we should call the police?”
“I’d hate for someone like her to get caught in the system, until the situation with her parents is straightened out. I can share her with you when you have to leave town. We’ll just be surrogate parents until the real ones are found.”
“How are you going to explain her to your friends?”
“Good question and I don’t have all the answers yet, but let’s ask her as well. She’s a smart kid, let’s explain to her what we’re thinking and
go from there.”
Miguel looked tired and Hannah walked over to them and asked, “Are you done discussing me yet?”
As Damian said, the kid had intelligence and backbone; he started the conversation with Hannah about her future.
“Hannah, we’re not sure that your parents are dead and you shouldn’t be either, but someone has to care for you right now and keep you safe until we have answers about your parents. Like you, I’m a genius also. I can create paperwork so that it appears you’re Ariana’s daughter and I’m her back-up. You need to be in school, though not the one you were in. If you have a medical emergency, we need paperwork that gives us the legal right to take care of you. Our alternative is contact the police and keep this all proper and legal. What do you want to do?”