Ashley burst from the tree line, letting out a battle cry. In her hands was a plain, wooden staff. She launched herself into the air, punching her staff forward, and fell unceremoniously to the ground three feet in front of the wagon door.
“Damn depth perception,” she grumbled, pushing herself back up to her feet. With a less enthusiastic cry, she walked up to the door and smashed the staff against the lock until it broke off.
Jade muttered, “Show off.”
Ashley grinned at her. “She’s just jealous of my badass moves.”
“Your badass moves just announced our presence to everyone from here to Maken. Get that door open and let’s get the hell out of here before someone thinks to come investigate.”
The look on Jade’s face was hard, but humor colored her voice. It made Elise think about how she used to joke with her mom, and a quick pang tightened her chest. She pushed it aside and went to open the door.
The moment the door swung open, a brown and white blur rocketed out and landed on top of Elise, knocking her to the ground. Ashley raised her staff above her head and moved to bring it down on the creature when Elise shouted, “No, don’t!” She laughed as Chase licked her face with a relentless fervor. Tears of joy fell down her cheeks as she wrapped her arms around the wriggling pit bull. “I thought you were dead!” In response, the dog increased his attempt to remove her face with his tongue.
“What in the good name of Milufan is that beast?” At hearing Ashley’s voice, Chase turned toward the girl, keeping his body over Elise’s, and let out a barrel-chested growl.
“It’s okay, Chase. She’s a friend,” said Elise, pushing the heavy creature off her so she could stand. She walked over to Ashley and put a hand on the girl’s arm. “See, she’s friendly.”
Chase gave a nervous glance over his shoulder at Jade, lowered his head, and wagged his tail slowly. Ashley inched toward him; her hand held out in front of her. Chase sniffed the outstretched hand and gave it one small lick with his pink tongue. His body visibly relaxed and his tail wagged more quickly.
Ashley scratched behind his ear, her easy grin brightening her face. “Well, he smells awful, but he is pretty cute. He kind of looks like a snoggum, but the ears are totally wrong. Plus, I would be missing a hand to match the eye if he were one. What is he?”
Before Elise could answer a noise at the back of the wagon drew her attention. Aroon stood quietly watching the events unfold in front of him. As soon as he noticed the girls’ attention on him, he let out a happy grunt and hopped down to the ground. Elise ran to him and caught him in a tight embrace. “I was so worried about you, Aroon.”
“I’m sorry to break up this touching reunion,” Jade said, not sounding sorry at all, “but we’re all going to end up back in these Milufan-forsaken rolling cells if we don’t get our asses in gear. Move, ladies. Move!”
Chase turned to the woman and let out another small growl. Jade looked him dead in the eye and growled back. The dog tucked his tail beneath him and walked behind Elise, looking indignant at the challenge. “And again, I say. Move!”
Chapter Eleven
Henry
The couch beneath Henry squeaked slightly as he shifted his weight. The cold crept up his feet from the damp carpet they rested on. He placed his head in his hands and tried to fight the migraine that threatened to render him absolutely useless. He was used to stress headaches, which had become much more prevalent over the previous months. After the last sixteen hours a part of him thought he should just give in and head to his bedroom, but he would just lie there and stress about all the things that could be happening to his wife and daughter. He could just as easily invent scenarios in his mind on the ruined couch.
When the police had finally wrapped up, they released his home back to him and reminded him not to leave town. An amber alert had been sounded asking for the general public to keep a vigilant eye out for Elise Kowalski, age nine, with curly brown hair and hazel eyes. Height four feet, four inches. He had provided Elise’s most recent school photograph to accompany the alert. It stated the girl would likely be in the company of her mother, Caitlin Kowalski, age twenty-nine with straight blonde hair and blue eyes. Height five-foot-seven. Both presumed under duress by an unknown subject. The picture he provided for her was one he had taken just after they had adopted Chase. She had her arms wrapped around the emaciated pit bull, pure joy radiating from her.
Detective Stathem walked Henry through the house when they arrived several hours earlier. He had asked Henry to look closely to see if anything was missing. They needed to know if it had been a robbery gone wrong or if the girls were the intended targets. Henry searched every room as thoroughly as he could under the circumstances, and except for the bathroom and family room, the only thing that appeared to be missing was the bed and pillows from the spare bedroom. Henry had no idea why someone would steal them or how they could be removed from the house without his neighbors noticing. The small fire-proof safe in the master bedroom closet sat untouched, and all the electronics were securely plugged into their appropriate outlets. He’d avoided looking too closely at the main bathroom and the area outside of it while the police were there. A quick glance of the destruction was all he could handle with an audience.
After more unstructured questioning, Detective Stathem let Henry know he had gotten all the pertinent information he needed to continue his investigation. He told Henry he would give him a call later with updates on the investigation and any additional questions.
Search parties had already been organized, and they were out sweeping the woods near the family’s home. When Henry volunteered to help, Detective Stathem said, “I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you, Henry. Especially after everything your family has already gone through, but I can tell just by you didn’t get an ounce of sleep last night. We’re going to keep the media away from you as long as we can, but you know as well as I do, they’ll be expecting a statement from you sooner rather than later. You can’t go in front of a camera looking the way you do now. Get a few hours of sleep in your own bed so you can face the vultures with a clear mind. Believe me, we have an entire community out there looking as we speak. And who knows, maybe your family will be here with you to make that statement when you get up.”
“Thanks, Richard,” Henry said hollowly, placing a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “You’re probably right. I can’t think straight right now. Just… just find them, okay?”
The detective’s face softened. “I will do everything in my power to get them back to you. Now rest up.” He turned and exited the house leaving Henry alone with his thoughts.
Henry walked over to the bathroom, took a deep breath, and walked through the doorway. Absently he took stock of the flimsy white door with a grownup sized crack through the center of it. At any other time, he would fret about the damage done by the flooding, but in that moment, it seemed like an arbitrary concern. The pedestal sink was on its side, porcelain strewn all over the tan tile on the floor. The shower curtain, as well as the rail it had been attached to, were laying in the bath tub. Someone had forcefully ripped it from the wall. The toilet had also taken damage. Henry had to physically hold back the vomit when he saw a dark brownish-red stain running down the side of the tank.
He turned away from the mess and made his way to the brown and tan striped couch outside the bathroom. There he sat envisioning Arthur grabbing his wife; his daughter locked away cold and hungry. The images that passed through his mind were more and more brutal as time passed. He held his head and tried to contemplate his bed, but even though the migraine threatened, he could not find the strength to stand. Numbness encapsulated his feet and he wished it would surge through the rest of his body. Henry needed nothing more than to feel nothing, but the sensation remained in his lower extremities.
He had decided he would remain in that one spot for the foreseeable future when a knock at the front door pulled him from his stupor. It was a crisp, succinct succession of drumming. The s
ound that typically signaled a police officer’s arrival. Henry rubbed his hand over his face and stood to answer. It seemed like no time had passed since Detective Stathem’s departure, but the clock informed him it had been at least three hours. The girls could have been found in that amount of time. A sliver of hope blossomed in his chest, and he quickened his pace to the front door.
On the front steps stood his father-in-law looking somber. “Any news?” Henry asked, stepping aside to let the older man in. Alexander took the silent invitation.
“Nothing on my end,” Alexander said, “and I’m guessing from your question you haven’t heard anything new either.”
“Not a thing,” Henry said. “The police left a few hours ago. I wanted to go out and search but was advised against it.”
“That was probably sound advice.” Alexander walked into the small dining room and took a seat as he talked. “Lisa and I have been out in the woods. I checked out some of the places where Elise likes to hide. I was hoping at the very least maybe she was scared off by whoever… whatever bastard did this. She has a network of locations near our house she may want to run to, but we couldn’t find a trace of her. I finally forced Lisa to go home and take a nap. I convinced her it was for her benefit, but truthfully, I just couldn’t look at the anger and sadness in her face anymore. That woman does not deserve any more pain and suffering in her life.”
“I’ve been in so much of a fog, I didn’t even think about Elle’s hiding spots. We have had a few scares over the years when she’s decided for one reason or another she needs to get away for a bit.” Henry was making a mental inventory of Elise’s favorite spots. “It would be much more likely she’s hiding close to here. I’ve got to go look. I wish Caitlin was here. She knows where Elle likes to go the most.”
He turned to find his shoes. Alexander placed a hand on Henry’s arm, effectively stopping the search for footwear. “The police figured the same thing, Henry. I already gave them the locations I thought most likely over here, and they have hundreds of volunteers combing those woods. There is less focus over by my house, which is why I personally went to check. If one, or both, of them are out there someone will find them.” A sheen of liquid filled Alexander’s eyes, and he looked away from Henry.
“They’re not dead, Alex,” Henry said, with more certainty than he felt. “They are not dead.”
“You’re right. I know you’re right.” Alexander walked back to the dining room table and looked at it. “When was the last time you ate, son?”
Henry’s sluggish mind took several moments to process the question. “Last night. Before all of this.” He waved his hand around.
“Let’s get some fuel into you,” Alexander said, walking into the kitchen. “And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. We need to get our statements written out before you have to face the press. I’ve already had a phone conversation with Sandra Cho. That woman is relentless for a story. I called for a press conference at four-thirty, so that gives us about two hours to prepare. I only want to talk to those animals once. It was enough of a circus the last time.” He didn’t say when, but he didn’t need to. Their families had become adept at the “no comment hand flip” during the trial.
Everyone who had even the smallest tie to Caitlin had been interviewed. Her former coworkers were hounded. Some of them gave their own noncommittal “no comment” responses while others used their five minutes of screen time to exploit his wife. One woman, Mariam Conway, was nearly the downfall of Caitlin’s defense. Henry had a sneaking suspicion she’d received an incentive from Arthur’s legal team. She spewed hate filled vitriol about Caitlin any time a camera was around to perform for.
Mariam was a front-end manager at the grocery store Caitlin had worked as a florist. She was in her mid-forties and slightly rounded with an unkempt tangle of bright red hair that she always had pulled back with a rubber band. Her muddy brown eyes were constantly scanning for customers she could assist.
Up until the incident, she had been pleasant to Henry when he was in the store. She would make small talk with him about her kids or the weather or some other banal topic. There had never been anything particularly remarkable about her, but she was friendly with Caitlin. Mariam never seemed like the type of woman who would attack another person’s character.
Her true colors were exposed the first time she spoke in an interview. She painted his wife to be an unstable woman with deep-seated insecurities. Mariam insinuated Caitlin had emotional traumas in her youth that forced her to pathologically lie as an adult. Attention was turned on Caitlin’s parents. Mariam never came out and said exactly what the traumas of Caitlin’s youth were but hinted at some sort of abuse from Alexander. It tore Caitlin’s already fragile world apart. Up until then, she had considered Mariam a friend. She was there during Caitlin’s cancer scare and the emotional upheaval that came when the hysterectomy had become a necessity.
Caitlin had confided in that woman and revealed secrets she hadn’t shared with anyone but Henry. Mariam was able to twist the truth with her own fiction. She was compelling and even funny in her interviews, which swayed the audience to favor her.
It didn’t help that Caitlin became so cold and emotionally detached during the proceedings. To an outside observer, it would be easy to mistake her walls for something bordering on aloofness. Henry knew differently though. He heard her crying and screaming into her pillows at home when she thought she was alone. He left her alone during those times, thinking that she would never forgive him for intruding on her pain.
Public opinion about his wife was still relatively negative, although people had begun moving on to the newest morbid news stories. During the trial, their house had been vandalized more than once. The vandals had spray painted words like “whore” and “liar” in multiple colors and variations of incorrect spelling. At the height of the trial, they’d had to keep a patrol unit watching their house nearly twenty-four hours a day. After the second set of potential vandals were arrested, the attempts died off. That didn’t, however, keep Mariam Conway from spewing her lies for all the world to hear.
They had done the best they could to keep Elise away from the nastiness, but the kids at her school heard the news. Kids being kids, several bullied her severely. They were fortunate Elle’s teacher wasn’t as swayed by the news as some of the other parents were. She’d done everything she could to protect Elise from the worst of the taunting, but they all breathed a sigh of relief on the last day of school.
Henry had broached the subject to Caitlin the previous week of possibly homeschooling Elise the next year. She had responded sharply that if she home schooled, she would never be able to work again and huffed away. He had been planning to talk with her parents about the idea before bringing it up to her again but had not had the opportunity.
Henry’s thoughts kept flitting back to memories of the trial as he and Alexander talked over their statements. He was just finishing up his egg salad sandwich when Alex said, “Okay, my boy, this will have to satisfy them. And at this point, even if it doesn’t, I don’t really care. Go get cleaned up, and we’ll head over to the station. Lisa is going to meet us there. I tried to talk her out of going, but she insists on standing in solidarity with us. Just remember that no matter what anyone says we need to hold our tempers. I have no doubt that Sandra Cho is going to try to stir the pot.”
“I remember how she can be,” said Henry, taking his dishes into the kitchen and placing them in the sink. “You really don’t need to wait here for me. I can drive myself over when it’s time.”
“No problem. I figured I’d take a look at the damage in the bathroom and see if it’s something you and I can fix or if we should hire someone to come take care of it. I have clothes in the car I’ll change into before we go.” Alexander said this nonchalantly, but Henry got the distinct impression the old man was babysitting him. He shrugged it off, realizing the company did help to distract him from his darker thoughts.
He made his way through his bedroom
into the master bath. After connecting his phone to his Bluetooth shower speaker and turning on NPR, he stepped under the hot spray of the shower and washed himself. After thoroughly scrubbing he turned the shower up as hot as he could and let the water run over his tense muscles. Voices passed unheard as he leaned against the wall of the shower. He had almost fallen asleep in his standing position when the speaker gave loud feedback, causing him to jump slightly. He grabbed the bar on the side of the shower to keep himself from spilling unceremoniously onto the floor.
The speaker spat out static for a few moments. He stared at it until voices became clear again. “She’s just jealous of my badass moves…. Your badass moves just announced our presence to everyone from here to Maken. Get that door open and let’s get the hell out of here before someone thinks to come investigate.” Henry just figured he was picking up a signal from one of his neighbor’s audiobooks when the next voice made his heart drop. “No, don’t! I thought you were dead!”
“Elle?” he shouted at the speaker. He brought his mouth closer, “Elise can you hear me?” One of the other unfamiliar voices spoke and then Elise said, “It’s ok, Chase. She’s a friend….” The speaker gave more static and voices began discussing international trade tariffs.
“No, no, no, no, no,” he said, pulling the speaker off the shower wall. “Elise!” he shouted at it again.
Outside the bathroom door, Alexander called, “Henry? Is everything all right in there?”
“Just a minute,” Henry responded. He turned the shower off and pulled a towel around his waist. He opened the door and held the speaker up to his father-in-law. “I heard her! I heard her as plain as day. I don’t know who she was talking to, but she has the dog with her. She’s alive.”
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