Keep Her Safe

by Sophie Hannah

  Having said her piece, Tarin Fry returned to her chair and sat down.

  Bonnie Juno closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them, she said, “Heidi, Dane—start the process of tracking down Riyonna Briggs. Try and find her quick so that we can disprove all of Ms. Fry’s clever theories. Uh . . . now?”

  Dane Williamson and Heidi leaped out of their seats. Once they’d gone, Juno exhaled heavily and said, “Good. Let’s hope they get the right result soon: Riyonna safe, well, back at Swallowtail. Cara Burrows, too. Goddamn it. I’ll be honest with you guys: no one hates eating humble pie more than me.”

  “How was it?” My kidnapper grins at me. A gun and a grin. I never thought I’d see the two together, both aimed at me. “Better or worse than the first?”

  “Better. The bacon was crispier.”

  Today’s lunch was another sausage and bacon sandwich. It turns out that getting food and drink brought to me in the trailer is as easy as asking questions is problematic. In the past hour, as well as the sandwich, I’ve had a decent cup of decaf coffee, a glass of orange juice and an apple. I’ve also had a shower: lemon and lime shower gel.

  I guessed right: he’s willing to stay and talk if I don’t talk about Melody or our situation. That means more time with the gun pointed at my head, but it’s worth it. Anything’s better than the ropes digging into my wrists and ankles, cutting off my circulation.

  “I don’t much like bacon,” he says. “People always say it’s the thing they’d miss the most if they stopped eating meat, but not me. I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Miss most. Those words are nearly enough to set me off again. I manage to avoid crying or screaming.

  “I need to ask you something,” I say in as casual a tone as I can manage. “Not the same questions I’ve already asked, I promise.”

  “Good.”

  He looks grateful. He likes Well-Behaved Cara. I decide to take a risk. “Look, I understand that you’re not in charge of . . . whatever’s going on here, and that you don’t know the answers to a lot of the questions I asked before. But you can tell me one thing at least.” I force myself to smile.

  “Okay. Shoot. Oh!” He waves the gun in the air. “Sorry. Bad choice of word.”

  “Yeah, let’s change that to ‘don’t shoot.’”

  He laughs. My abductor finds me funny. That’s nice.

  He didn’t protest at my suggestion that someone else is pulling his strings. It doesn’t surprise me. He’s a good guy and nothing is ever his fault—that’s how he sees himself and how he needs others to see him.

  “I’d be really grateful if I could send a message to my family. Obviously you’re not going to hand me a laptop and leave me to it, but . . . if I told you what to say, do you think you could maybe—”

  “No way. Sorry.”

  “Please, hear me out. If you’re worried about the message being traced to your computer, what about letting me write a letter? You could read it before I sent it. If I could just let my family know I’m safe, that I’m being looked after—”

  “Cara, please.” From his voice, anyone would think I was torturing him—that I was the one with the gun and the ropes. “Don’t put us both through this. The answer’s no.”

  “But . . .” I can’t stop the tears from spilling over. “That’s not fair. I’m sorry, I don’t want to give you a hard time, but it’s not. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, and—”

  “You think I don’t know that? It’s not fair, no. Nothing about this whole goddamned mess is fair.”

  Looking at his eyes, it’s hard not to believe that he’s thinking more of his predicament than mine. What is that, exactly? Having to feed and look after and talk to and deal with the fear and misery of a woman he might one day have to kill?

  No. Stop.

  If I let myself think that way, it’ll only panic me. I can’t risk goading him into killing me sooner than planned. And I have to believe that might not be the plan. If whoever’s in charge definitely wanted me dead, I’d be dead by now. My only hope is to keep him talking, on subjects that don’t get him agitated, until I can think of an idea that’ll get me out of here.

  “All right, if I can’t send my family a message, maybe I can have something else I want.”

  “Like what?”

  I’m scared to say it. Scared of what it will mean if he says no.

  “Folic acid.”

  “What’s that? You mean drugs?”

  Does he think I’m asking for LSD? “It’s a health supplement. Pregnant women are advised to take it. I had some in my casita at the resort.” And now I don’t have it. I didn’t get time to pack.

  “Sure, I’ll get you some of that. No problem.” He looks happy. This is something he can easily agree to.

  I feel worse than I did before I asked. His willingness doesn’t mean he cares about my baby’s life. It only means he wants to feel good about himself. If he’s told to shoot me dead this time next week, he’ll do it thinking, I did my best for her. I brought her that folic acid, didn’t I?

  “Thank you,” I say. “I’d also like some information.”

  “You mean pregnancy related?”

  “No. About Melody Chapa, her parents—”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Stop asking about Melody.” He’s looking at the gun. A few seconds ago he was looking at me.

  “Listen,” I say softly. “If you want me to stop asking, I will, but can I tell you something first? Only because I think that if you understood why I was asking, you wouldn’t mind as much.”

  His eyes move around the room: up to the ceiling, over to the window. I’m wondering if he heard and understood me when he says suddenly, “Go on.”

  “Thank you.” Here goes. Don’t screw it up, Burrows. “I know I’m here because of something to do with Melody Chapa. Because I saw her and I told people. I understand all that. And I know a bit about the case. For example I know her body was never found. I read as much as I could online, once I knew I’d seen her. And now I’m here because of her, indirectly. I mean, I’m not saying it’s her fault I’m here, but . . . I’m caught up in it all, and it’s not my fault, either. It’s really not.” My voice cracks.

  I stop and wipe my eyes. Feeling sorry for myself will get me nowhere.

  He shuffles an inch or two closer to me. “Cara, believe me, I know none of this is your fault.”

  “What I’m trying to say is that knowing more about the situation—having more information—would make me feel so much better. Just being able to understand. Don’t I deserve that? It’d be no threat to you or anyone else. I can’t get out of here, I can’t communicate with anyone. What harm would it do for me to know the story I’m mixed up in?”

  “The less you know, the safer you are. Trust me on that.”

  A burst of rage jolts me out of reasonable-negotiator mode. “So it really is the old cliché, is it? You could tell me, but then you’d have to kill me?”

  He scowls down at the gun. I will it to turn around and shoot all its bullets into his face, one after another. If that happened, I could stand up and walk out of here. There’d be nothing stopping me. “Don’t joke about it, all right?”

  “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate.”

  He nods quickly, repetitively—as if he needs me to reassure him that I’m going to make everything okay. Whenever I thank him, apologize, cooperate, he shows signs straightaway of being grateful.

  “If you’re not allowed to tell me the story, the true story, the secret part, how about bringing me a computer so that I can read and watch whatever’s out there and in the public domain? Surely that can’t do any harm. You can sit right next to me with the gun to make sure I don’t try to send any messages.”

  “No. Don’t ask me again.”

  “I don’t understand.” A scream rises inside me. If he won’t let me do anything apart from eat, drink and talk about things that don’t matter, then I might as well be . . .


  No. Don’t even think it.

  I can’t give up yet.

  “I’ll stop asking when you give me an explanation that makes sense,” I say. “Why can’t I read articles about Melody Chapa on the internet?”

  “It’s better if you don’t.”

  “Better for who?”

  “Please don’t raise your voice to me, Cara.”

  “Annette and Naldo Chapa, Melody’s parents? See, I know their names. Is it better for them if the world believes they murdered their daughter? I can’t see how.”

  “I’ll tie you up and leave if you carry on like this.”

  “And if I don’t you’ll do what? Stay here pointing a gun at me and refusing to do anything that’d make my life bearable? What a choice.”

  “If you drive me out of here with questions, I won’t be back for a long time. Shit, Cara, the last thing I want to do is threaten you. Can’t we just—”

  “Is it Kristie Reville?” It can’t be Annette and Naldo Chapa. They’re in jail. “Is she the one giving the orders? Or . . .”

  No. It can’t be.

  Can it?

  A girl I met once in the wrong hotel bathroom in the middle of the night. A scared fourteen-year-old child with a stained woolen toy in her hand.

  Is it Melody? Is she the one who gets to decide if I live or die?

  “Hey. Hey, wait.”

  Tarin Fry turned to see Patrick Burrows heading toward her at speed. Good. She’d been meaning to seek him out after she’d checked on Zellie, but as he was here now . . .

  “What are we going to do?” he said.

  “We?”

  “Yeah. Do you think they’re going to take Cara’s disappearance seriously now? I mean, are we just going to leave them to it and hope for the best?”

  “So suddenly we’re a ‘we’?” said Tarin. “After you let me make the case alone, and failed to say a single word in support?”

  “What are you talking about? I agreed with everything you said. I thought you were brilliant.”

  “Yet you didn’t say so in front of the detectives and the celebrity TV lady.”

  Patrick looked confused. “Well, there was no point both of us saying the same thing. Why, what did you think I—”

  “Forget it.” Tarin cut him off abruptly. “Shall we go inside? You’ll burn if you stay in the sun—do you even have any sunscreen on? Of course you don’t. So let’s go to my room, so I can check on my daughter. And I’m not walking in this heat. I’ll get us a club car.”

  “From where?” Patrick looked around. “I don’t see any.”

  “See the little white phone on the wall?” Tarin walked over and pressed a few buttons. “A club car will now appear. Unless Bonnie Juno’s crew’s using them all. She takes precedence—with the police, with the hotel staff. Did you see that Williamson creep? He could barely restrain himself from licking her butt crack.”

  “I hate those club cars,” said Patrick savagely. “I feel like an invalid, being taken everywhere in a wheelchair. Who decided it was a good idea to build a holiday resort too big to walk around?”

  “It’s American exceptionalism in action,” Tarin told him. “I love it. Listen. Do you hear the distant sound of wheels coming closer?”

  “That won’t be coming for us. It’s too soon.”

  “Oh, that’s ours. It’s going to come around that corner any second now.” She smiled when she was proved right. “Now, quit whining and get in. I have questions for you.”

  Patrick waited until they were in the club car and on their way before saying, “Questions?”

  “Yeah. You told us all that Cara left home without telling you, leaving only a note, because she needed time alone. Why’d she do that?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “Yeah, I know. And you know I know—we all just talked about it, did we not? So don’t waste my time. Why’d she do it?”

  Patrick looked trapped. He didn’t want to tell her, evidently, but being English and no doubt more repressed than Tarin could possibly imagine, he even more didn’t want to say it was none of her business. “The pregnancy wasn’t planned. We’d only ever wanted two children. Cara told me and our son and daughter that she was pregnant and she asked us what we wanted to do about it. We all answered honestly: none of us really wanted another baby. Me because, frankly, it’s exhausting enough having two to worry about, and the kids . . . I think they were just scared. They like their lives as they are and didn’t want anything to change. But . . .” He stopped.

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But what? Quit stalling.”

  “When I found Cara here and we talked, it turned out she was angry that none of us had asked her how she felt about the pregnancy. She’d asked us but we hadn’t asked her.”

  “Seriously? None of you said, ‘How about you? What do you think about keeping this baby or getting rid of it?’ Even though she’s the one carrying it? Nice. I don’t blame her for running away.”

  “I didn’t ask because I didn’t need to.” Patrick looked upset. “It couldn’t have been more obvious that she wanted to keep it. And the more obvious it became, the less me and the kids tried to talk her out of it. We’d stopped voicing any objections long before she ran off. I think we’d all kind of accepted it. I thought she knew that.”

  Tarin groaned. “You thought she knew? But, like, you didn’t discuss it? None of you said, ‘You know what? If you want to keep this baby, then so do we. Let’s do it, and all will be well.’ Instead, you all just quietly stopped voicing objections and expected Cara to be happy with that. And meanwhile, from start to finish, none of you directly asked her how she felt?”

  Patrick sighed. “If you put it like that, it sounds terrible. Maybe it is. If I could do it all again, I’d do it differently.”

  “I doubt it,” Tarin muttered. “Anyway, we agree about one thing: Cara hasn’t disappeared by choice. We need to do something. If the local cops won’t notify the FBI, then I will.”

  “The . . . the FBI?”

  “Absolutely. Missing British tourist, murder case from Philadelphia spilling over to Arizona? Damn right, the FBI. And here’s what you’re going to do to help me. You said before that you and Cara share an email account. That’s a little pathetic, given that you’re two full-grown adults, but at this point I’m hardly surprised if it’s true. Is it true?”

  “Well, I have a different one for work, but—”

  “Okay, here’s the plan. You’re going to send an email to yourself from that account, as if from Cara. Say, ‘Can’t write much. Need help. Me and Riyonna have been kidnapped. Tell police.’ Keep it really basic and short.”

  Patrick flinched. “Have you lost your mind? You’re asking me to lie to the police? No. Not a chance.”

  “You want the feds here double quick? So do I. This is the way to do it.”

  “They’d trace it to my phone in a matter of minutes.”

  “No, they wouldn’t. That happens in movies, not in real life. Yeah, they can trace it, but it’ll take them a while. In the meantime, they’ll be searching for Cara and Riyonna more effectively than anything we can expect from our two local cops, Smarmy Sanders and Passive Priddey. Pointless Priddey.”

  The club car pulled up in front of the main hotel doors. Patrick followed Tarin as she marched through the lobby toward the elevators. “Come on, I can’t do that and you know it,” he said.

  She rounded on him. “Do you want to find your wife while she’s still alive?”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Patrick. You need . . . Get in the elevator. You want to find Cara safe, you need to do this. I’d do it if I could, but I don’t share an email address with your wife. You do.”

  “I’ve told the police the password. I can tell you, too. It’s bungalow, all lower case, then the number 77—bungalow77.”

  “Great. So now I’ll do it—fine—and the police’ll tell you about it and you’ll do what? Say
it’s me? Because that’s pointless, isn’t it?”

  “No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t say anything.”

  “Can you even hear yourself?” Tarin asked, incredulous. “You’re really that much of a pussy? You won’t do it in case you get in trouble, but you’ll let me do it and say nothing?”

  Patrick groaned. “All right, fair point. I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you.” Tarin couldn’t help making a dismissive noise. “You’re a real pushover, huh?”

  The elevator doors opened. She stepped out and stood with one foot in the corridor to stop them from closing. “What was that sound?”

  Patrick moved to follow, but she pushed him back. “Wait. I can hear a maid’s cart. Wait there. Keep the doors open.”

  She tiptoed forward and peered around the corner, then came back shaking her head. “Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Don’t ask questions. Follow me and back me up. Don’t contradict anything I say.”

  “Back you up doing what?”

  Tarin walked purposefully out of the elevator and turned the corner. A short, rotund maid, a Latina, was half in and half out of 324, the room belonging to “Robert and Hope Katz.” Her cart was in the doorway. There was a clear plastic bag full of trash in her hand.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” said Tarin. “I’m Detective Tarin Specter, Paradise Valley police. This is my assistant, Detective Patrick . . . Ross. Who authorized you to clean this room?”

  “It is on list they give me.” The maid looked confused. “No one say I not to do?”

  Tarin hardened her face and exhaled, as if in disbelief. Actually, there was no “as if” about it. The disbelief was as genuine as her detective status was fake. Even if they all suspected Cara had vanished by choice, anyone with a brain would have given the order for all four rooms—322, 323, 324 and even 325, Tarin and Zellie’s room—to be left untouched for now. If there was even a chance that a not-dead Melody Chapa had been inside one of those rooms . . .

  Dane Williamson should have thought of it. Detectives Sanders and Priddey should have thought of it. Bonnie Juno should certainly have thought of it. Tarin hated to think how much DNA might just have been vacuumed up.