Eliza shrugged. “I didn’t know we were having anything done. Mrs. Garcia must have scheduled something.”
Eliza stretched out on a lounge chair under the striped awning that shaded most of the patio and began flipping through the mail. After opening a few envelopes and scanning the contents, she put the pile down, lay back, and closed her eyes. I’m still not adjusted to these early hours, she thought. I’m just going to rest for a few minutes.
When she opened her eyes again, the shadows in the yard were different and Eliza could tell the sun had shifted position. She looked at her watch. It was almost five o’clock. Janie would have gotten home from camp a half hour ago. That’s sweet, Eliza thought. Mrs. Garcia had kept Janie from waking her mother when she got home from camp.
She rose from the lounge chair, picked up the mail, and went inside the house.
“Janie?” she called. “Mrs. Garcia?”
Eliza listened for a response but heard nothing. She went to the garage again. The station wagon was still gone. She checked the kitchen table and counters looking for a note. Finding none, she looked on the hall table and her desk. Nothing. Nor were there any signs that Janie had even come home. Usually, there would be some arts-and-crafts project deposited on a table, or her camp bag, with its contents of wet bathing suits and damp towels, left sitting on a chair.
Eliza felt her body tense. It wasn’t like Mrs. Garcia to take Janie somewhere without leaving a note. She called Mrs. Garcia’s cell phone.
“This is Carmen Garcia. Please leave your message and I will get back to you.”
“Hi, Mrs. Garcia. It’s just after five o’clock and I’m wondering where you and Janie are. Will you call me as soon as you get this message? I’m starting to worry.”
Next, she found the phone number for Mrs. Garcia’s daughter and tapped in the numbers, identifying herself when Maria Rochas answered. Eliza could hear a baby crying.
“I was wondering if your mother was there with Janie?” Eliza asked as she paced to the living room window. Her eyes searched the road.
“No, Mrs. Blake. My mother didn’t stop over today,” said Maria. “In fact, I haven’t talked to her all day. Is something wrong?”
“Everything’s probably fine, but if you hear from her, will you ask her to call me?”
“Of course I will,” said Maria. “And when my mother does get there, will you have her call me and let me know everything is all right?”
“Absolutely, Maria,” said Eliza. “Thank you.”
Clicking off the phone, Eliza told herself to stay calm. Most likely, there was a perfectly good explanation. Maybe Janie had gone to play at a friend’s house after camp and Mrs. Garcia was picking her up now. Maybe Mrs. Garcia had realized she needed something from the grocery store and she had taken Janie with her.
Eliza sat on the sofa in front of the picture window, willing the station wagon to pull into view.
CHAPTER 11
Beneath the tear-streaked vestiges of face paint, the redness of the handprint was fading, but the violence of the man’s strike had affected her. Janie kept her head down. The blindfold that had been tied tightly when they got into the back of the van made it certain she wouldn’t be able to see the people who were separating her from her mother.
She couldn’t tell how long they had driven and she had no idea of the route that had gotten them there. But now, she and Mrs. Garcia were sitting side by side on a soft mattress. Janie inched herself closer to her caretaker, desperate to find comfort.
“Mrs. Garcia,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”
“I am, too, chiquita. But don’t worry. Your mamá and her friends will come and get us.”
Janie hiccupped. “You promise?”
“I promise,” answered Mrs. Garcia, knowing she had no right to make such a pledge. “Your mommy is very strong. She is very powerful and she will make sure nothing bad happens to us.”
Janie was silent as she considered the woman’s answer. She wanted to believe Mrs. Garcia, wanted to believe that everything would be all right. But if her mother hadn’t been able to protect her from these bad people, maybe she wasn’t as strong and powerful as Mrs. Garcia said she was.
CHAPTER 12
One dead end after another.
There was no answer at Camp Musquapsink, which had closed for the night after the last campers left for the day. Calls to Susan Feeney and some other neighbors provided no comforting information. Marcia Demarest, the owner of Demarest Farms, said she hadn’t seen Mrs. Garcia but asked Eliza to hold on a minute while she checked with the other workers who manned the big red barn that provided luscious fruit and vegetables, a bakery, a deli, and fresh flowers for its eager customers.
“I’m sorry, Eliza,” said Marcia when she came back to the phone. “But nobody has seen Mrs. Garcia or Janie here today.”
Eliza bit her lower lip as she considered what she knew.
Daisy had been barking wildly when she arrived home.
The screen doors leading to the house had been left open.
The car was gone and there was no note.
Susan Feeney had seen a work van parked in the driveway this morning, but Eliza hadn’t scheduled any work to be done.
It was the last fact that bothered Eliza the most. Mrs. Garcia would have mentioned it if something needed to be repaired. What was that van doing in her driveway this morning?
With a feeling of panic washing over her, Eliza decided it was time to call the police.
CHAPTER 13
“I’m Eliza Blake,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady but hearing it cracking. “I’m worried that something has happened to my seven-year-old daughter and our housekeeper.”
The Ho-Ho-Kus police dispatcher instantly recognized the caller’s name and decided he should contact the chief of police at home. Only fifteen minutes later the chief and two uniformed officers arrived on Eliza’s doorstep. Two detectives were close behind.
They gathered in the kitchen and Eliza recounted everything she knew, trying to keep herself composed and her mind focused.
“I know Janie got off to camp safely this morning. I spoke with Mrs. Garcia right after I got off the air.”
“That’s at nine o’clock, right?”
“Yes,” said Eliza.
“Which camp does Janie attend?”
“Camp Musquapsink.”
“That’s over the state line, in New York, isn’t it?” asked the detective.
Eliza nodded. “Yes, in Sloatsburg.”
“And you don’t know if your daughter came home from camp or not?”
“I could kick myself now, but I fell asleep in the backyard. I didn’t really think anything was wrong at that point. I didn’t wake up until after the time the bus usually drops Janie off. I’ve called the camp, but there’s no answer.”
The detective looked at one of the uniformed officers. “Give the Rockland County Sheriff’s Office a call and have them check out the camp,” he instructed.
Eliza shook her head. “I don’t understand it. Mrs. Garcia didn’t mention anything special she had planned to do with Janie. It just isn’t like her to go somewhere with Janie without telling me or leaving a note.”
“How long has the housekeeper worked for you?” asked one of the detectives.
“About two years now,” said Eliza.
“How did you find her?”
“Through an agency,” Eliza answered.
“We’ll need the name of the agency,” said the detective.
Eliza looked at him. “Hold it right there,” she said. “You don’t have to go investigating Carmen Garcia. I’d trust her with my life. In fact, more than that, I trust her with my child.”
Holly Taylor was lifting the London broil off the backyard grill when the phone rang. She took a sip of red wine before she picked up the portable phone from the table on the patio.
“Hello?”
“This is Officer Kyle Downey of the Rockland County Sheriff’s Office. We’re
looking for Holly Taylor.”
Holly’s face, already flushed from the heat of the barbecue grill, grew hotter still.
“This is Holly Taylor.”
“You are the director of Camp Musquapsink?”
“I am.”
“Ms. Taylor, we have a report that a child who goes to your camp is missing.”
Holly sat down on one of the cushioned outdoor chairs. She could feel her pulse racing in her ears. Don’t panic, she told herself. You must not panic.
“Oh, no,” she said, showing concern but trying to keep her voice as even as possible. “Which child is it?”
“Janie Blake.”
Though over two hundred campers registered each summer, Holly prided herself on knowing all of them by name. Some of them, like Janie Blake, had the added distinction of having famous last names, being children of professional sports players, media moguls, and Wall Street barons living in Manhattan or the New York City area. Janie’s mother was arguably the most well-known parent the camp had ever had.
The thought that something could have happened to Janie, or any of the campers entrusted to her care, made Holly physically ill. And if the camp was involved in any way, had been remiss in any of its safety procedures, the adverse publicity could be ruinous. Still, Holly knew she should tell the truth.
“Janie was at camp this morning,” she said. “But her caretaker came and picked her up.”
“What time was that?” asked Officer Downey.
“I’m not quite sure,” said Holly. “I think it was right before lunch. But I can check the log we keep in the office. I’ll drive over to camp right away.”
“How long will that take you, Ms. Taylor?”
“I should be there within half an hour.”
“Someone from the sheriff’s office will meet you.”
Holly hoped to reach the camp and check the log before the police arrived, but when her car pulled into the parking lot, a Rockland County sheriff’s vehicle was already there. Two tall, tanned officers in light blue uniforms stood at the entrance to the office waiting for her.
She unlocked the door and the officers escorted her inside. Holly went directly to the reception desk and pulled the leather-bound book from the drawer. She opened the log to the day’s notations, quickly seeing that there were only three entries, all of them made before lunchtime. Two children had been taken out of camp by their mothers to go to morning dental appointments. Then, at 11:23 A.M., Carmen Garcia had signed out Janie Blake.
Damn it. Nobody had looked at the log afterward. Nobody had read the words written a full eight hours ago now.
Holly forced herself to hold up the book so the police officers could read the shaky script—an instruction that had been totally ignored.
“Call police.”
CHAPTER 14
It was time to catch up. The scrapbook was nowhere near up-to-date.
Nell positioned herself next to the magazine racks at the CVS and waited while a teenager took out last month’s issues and replaced them with the current ones.
“Mind if I go through those?” asked Nell, pointing to the pile of outdated magazines.
The high school kid shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”
Nell bent over and began to weed through the stack. A few were no-brainers. Eliza Blake smiled from their covers. Others required further scrutiny. Nell read the teasing announcements on each one about what could be found on the pages inside. She located four more magazines that contained what she wanted. After she was satisfied she wasn’t missing anything, Nell went to the checkout counter.
“Evening, Nell. Haven’t seen you in a while,” observed the elderly man at the cash register.
“I’m busy, Charlie.”
“I know what you mean,” said the man as he began holding the periodicals’ bar codes under his scanning gun. “I don’t know where the days go sometimes.” He scrutinized the dates on the magazine covers. “Hey, Nell, these are old issues. You shouldn’t be charged for these.”
It was a little game they played: Nell bringing the magazines that were too old to sell up to the register, Charlie letting her have them for free.
“How’s your uncle doing?” he asked.
“He’s fine, Charlie.”
“Tell him I was asking for him, will you?”
“I will,” said Nell as she reached for the long braid that hung down her back and pulled it to the side so it rested on the front of her shirt.
As he slid the magazines into a plastic bag, Charlie looked at the covers.
“I see you’re still keeping that scrapbook of yours, huh?”
Nell nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“It must be pretty big by now.”
“The first and second ones are finished,” she said proudly, “and I’m starting on a third.”
“You really are crazy about that Eliza Blake, aren’t you?” he asked.
Nell smiled sweetly. “I love her. I just love her.”
Turning to the neatly stacked magazines on the Formica-topped table, Nell took one from the top of the pile and began flipping through the pages. When she came to the article she was searching for, she picked up the scissors. She cut jaggedly around the edges of the first picture: a smiling mother and a happy child riding bicycles together on a sunny day.
Nell studied the photograph. The light was shining on Eliza’s face and the way she was looking at Janie made Nell’s chest tighten. She wished her mother had looked at her that way when she was younger. They had never ridden bicycles together, and Nell knew that her mother had never loved her in the same way Eliza loved Janie. Her mother hadn’t been good at showing love.
Nell worried sometimes that she had contributed to her mother’s death. When her mother got sick, she didn’t have the strength she needed to fight. Nell suspected she had used up all her energy on her. Nell’s father had taken off when she was a baby, and her mother had raised Nell by herself, along with working as a waitress to earn the money that barely paid the bills.
There were always so many bills. Nell could remember her mother complaining as she hunched over the kitchen table in their tiny rented bungalow, trying to parcel out the money every month, paying the minimum due on the credit card statement and just enough on the utility bills so the heat and the electricity wouldn’t be turned off. Still, it seemed the collection agencies were always calling, and there had been many nights when they had used candles to get through the evenings and had huddled together under their quilts to stay warm.
Her mother was forever bringing leftovers home from the restaurant, muttering about how she had to keep her lousy job so they wouldn’t starve. She was forced to find activities that didn’t cost much. When they splurged, once a year, on Nell’s birthday and went to the movies, they timed it to go to the early-bird matinee. They never bought overpriced candy at the concession stand, stopping beforehand to get it at a grocery store. Her mother didn’t have time to read to her, so some of Nell’s earliest memories were of the story hours she’d attended at the public library. The sessions Nell had there were her happiest, and soon reading and scrap-booking became Nell’s favorite activities.
She positioned the photo of Eliza and Janie Blake exactly in the middle of the scrapbook page. Then she artfully arranged star and heart stickers around the picture, creating a display that pleased her. Slowly and deliberately, Nell made her way through all the magazines, cutting and pasting and filling page after page in the scrapbook.
When she was finished with her work, Nell closed the book with satisfaction and a sense of anticipation, knowing there would be more pictures of Eliza to come.
CHAPTER 15
An Amber Alert was issued on surrounding highways while color photographs of Janie Blake, supplied by Eliza, were transmitted to police stations around the country. The local police went from house to house, asking the neighbors if they had seen Mrs. Garcia or Janie that day, or if they had noticed anyone or anything suspicious. So far, Susan Feeney was the only one w
ho had anything to report. She told the police everything she could remember about the black van she had seen in Eliza’s driveway that morning. It wasn’t much. She thought there had been a dent in one of the van’s back doors. From her vantage point across the street, she hadn’t noticed any identification on the side of the van, nor had she noted the license plates. She couldn’t even say for certain if they had been New Jersey tags. But law enforcement started checking to see if there were any reports of a stolen vehicle matching that description.
Before the long summer evening had slipped into full darkness, Eliza’s home was swarming with law enforcement personnel. As the minutes dragged into hours, Federal Bureau of Investigation special agents searched the premises, dusted for fingerprints, and set up their on-site command center in Eliza’s garage. Dozens of agents from New York and the Newark field office were out searching and FBI computers in Quantico, Virginia, were spitting out records on sex offenders as well as child abuse and extortion perpetrators. Though no ransom demands had been made, the notation in the camp ledger signaled that something was terribly wrong.
“‘Call police,’” said Special Agent Barbara Gebhardt as she looked at her notes. “The housekeeper could have written that just to throw us off.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a domestic was in on a kidnapping plot,” said Agent Trevor Laggie. “It makes it a lot easier to kidnap somebody when you have access to their home and know their schedule.”
Eliza sat on the sofa, face tear streaked, hair disheveled, and arms wrapped around her body, listening to the conversation between the agents. She was using every bit of energy willing herself not to fall apart. She couldn’t panic, she had to pay attention. She knew Janie and Mrs. Garcia, while none of these people invading her home did. While Mrs. Garcia had been with them only since they’d moved to Ho-Ho-Kus from Manhattan two years before, time and time again, Eliza had witnessed the woman’s honesty, dependability, and utter devotion to Janie. The woman who made sure to return any spare change she found between the cushions of the sofa when she cleaned, and whose eyes filled with tears whenever Janie fell off her bike, would never steal Janie away.
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