The Edge of Normal

by Carla Norton

  “Remember Patty Hearst?” Reeve’s voice goes up a notch. “Remember how she was indoctrinated by the SLA? Remember how Beth Goodwin’s captor spouted all that twisted, pseudoreligious crap?”

  Hudson rubs his chin. “Same thing with that creep who took Jaycee Dugard, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Coercion is common in captive situations,” Dr. Lerner explains. “It’s part of the captor’s strategy. POWs, for instance. A parallel situation, with coercion employed along with extreme emotional and physical deprivation.”

  “And torture,” Reeve adds hotly. “The media always tries to make it sound titillating, calling it sadomasochism. But people who are kidnapped are not masochists. They’re beaten. They’re starved. And whether it happens to trained soldiers or to young girls, whether or not there’s actual rape, torture is still torture.”

  The conversation lurches to a halt.

  Reeve glares at her melting ice cream, excuses herself, and bolts from the table.

  In the restroom, she washes the heat off her face. This is twice in the past two days she has allowed anger to overtake her. She makes a face in the mirror, muttering, “Well, Miss Sunshine, that went well.”

  * * *

  After lunch, Deputy Hudson directs Reeve to a parking structure where she can park her Jeep all day for free—something unthinkable in San Francisco—and the three head toward the Cavanaughs’ home. Having barely spoken since lunch, Reeve hunches in the backseat, watching the scenery roll past, telling herself to get a grip. What’s the worst that can happen? The kid won’t like you? You’ll make her cry?

  As the highway dips and turns west, they cross a long bridge. She stares out at the unfamiliar territory, the wide river that runs through town like a blue vein. What the hell was she thinking? It’s not like she has an obligation to be here. It’s not like she’s a card-carrying member of the Pay-It-Forward Society of Kidnapping Survivors.

  Nick Hudson tries to engage her in conversation, but she feigns trouble hearing, then pretends to like a country song on the radio, asking him to turn it up. She searches the mournful lyrics for meaning while they wheel through a residential neighborhood, where trees shed crimson leaves and early Christmas decorations line rooftops, sprawl across lawns, and crowd porches.

  The moment they turn onto the Cavanaughs’ street, she spots the TV vans. “Oh, crap!”

  “Sorry about the welcoming committee. You might want to scrunch down,” Hudson suggests, but she is already slipping out of her shoulder harness and gluing herself to the seat.

  The vehicle slows as they approach a gate. She hears car doors slamming around them and voices calling out Dr. Lerner’s name, begging for comments. Hudson keeps the tinted windows rolled up tight while Dr. Lerner calls the Cavanaughs on his cell phone, announcing their arrival.

  She shuts her eyes. As the vehicle eases forward, past the clot of reporters and through the iron gates, she clamps down on the swelling apprehension that coming here was a mistake.

  * * *

  Tilly’s eyes fix on Reeve from the moment they’re introduced. She’s a wisp of a girl with long wheat-colored hair and a pixie face. She wears a serious, unflinching expression, but looks younger than thirteen in her pink flannel pajamas and fuzzy blue socks.

  Mrs. Cavanaugh offers coffee, but Deputy Hudson is the only one who accepts, politely adding that he’ll take it in the kitchen, “so the rest of you can talk.”

  They sit in a pleasant room with high ceilings and logs flickering in the fireplace. The air is fragrant with the fresh, piney aroma of a tall Christmas tree, which stands unadorned in one corner of the room. Except for several unopened boxes of lights and ornaments, the décor is unseasonal and nearly bland, apart from several colorful oil paintings that appear to be the work of the same artist.

  Tilly perches on the sofa with her parents, looking very small between Gordon and Shirley Cavanaugh, who are both tall and big-boned. An assortment of sweets sits untouched on the coffee table that stands between the sofa and the overstuffed chairs occupied by Dr. Lerner and Reeve.

  “We’re so grateful you decided to come,” Mrs. Cavanaugh says. Her face looks damp, but her expression seems warm and open. She keeps one hand on Tilly’s knee, as if reassuring herself that her daughter is really home, and this small shared intimacy brings Reeve a stab of longing. She recalls being in exactly that spot. The memory swims behind her eyes.

  Mr. Cavanaugh apologizes that their son can’t meet them because he’s out with friends. After a few more polite comments, Reeve realizes that everyone is waiting for her to speak. The room suddenly seems overheated. Pinching the numb patch on her left hand, she licks her lips and begins, “I’m not sure how much help I can be, really, but I know a lot about what you’re going through.”

  She meets the eyes of the family assembled around her and describes what comes to mind: the comfort and strangeness of being home again with her parents. The shock of seeing her older sister as an adult. The hollow realization of how much she had missed.

  At first, she says, she wrestled with an absurd concern for her captor’s welfare and worried that she would be punished, or that she would be blamed.

  Tilly holds her with a steady gaze, and Reeve recognizes herself in those eyes.

  Her story pours out. She describes the unreal quality of the trial, the constant presence of the media, the long wait for the verdict. When she mentions the insomnia and the recurring nightmares, they all nod mutely.

  “My family tried to help, but still I felt that nobody understood me. I was very withdrawn.” She exchanges a look with Dr. Lerner and continues, “There was no chance of any real connection with my former friends. I mean, I met with a couple of them, but I felt like a total alien because they had grown up without me, you know? They were all involved in high school, like normal teenagers. They didn’t mean to be insensitive, but they asked such lame questions, and I’d been through something that they couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I felt like my entire childhood had been sucked out of me.”

  While she talks, the parents sigh almost in unison, but Tilly remains motionless, staring with those serious eyes. The girl is so dwarfed by her parents that Reeve wonders for a moment if she might be adopted, wonders if that would make the least bit of difference. She checks Tilly’s gray eyes, then her mother’s. The same.

  Reeve realizes that she’s stroking the scar at the back of her neck and makes herself stop. “It took my father a while to find a good psychiatrist. First, you see, there was a doctor up in Seattle that I would go to, but she was…” She shifts in her seat. “I don’t know, we just didn’t click. So it was a relief when we found Dr. Lerner, because you could immediately sense this calmness about him, like he just understood everything, on multiple levels, without explanation.”

  She shoots a quick smile at Dr. Lerner.

  “Anyway, he helped me right from the start. And he introduced me to Beth Goodwin, of course, who was absolutely wonderful and kind.” She pauses, shifting again in her chair. “And then we moved to San Francisco, which helped. But then my mother got sick.”

  A long silence is punctuated only by the soft sputter of the fire.

  Mrs. Cavanaugh clears her throat and asks, “How old were you, dear, when you were, uh, taken?”

  “I was twelve.”

  Tilly stares. The girl’s eyes are a mirror.

  Mr. Cavanaugh asks, “And, if you don’t mind my asking, how long were you, um, were you held captive?”

  She swallows a lump of emotion. “Three years, ten months, and twelve days.”

  The sensation of being locked in the trunk of Daryl Wayne Flint’s car comes back to her in almost palpable detail: the warm, oily closeness, the growl of the tires, the jarring impact, the spinning, and then the eerie stillness, with just the ticking of hot metal.… How many times had she fantasized about being rescued? And yet, when all the commotion began unfolding on the other side of the car’s wrecked skin, she had stayed qu
iet, listening hard through the shouting for her kidnapper’s voice, waiting for him to take command and order the strangers away.

  Mrs. Cavanaugh’s face puckers and she rises from the sofa, crosses the room and, in one quick motion, leans in and enfolds Reeve in an awkward hug, breathing, “Oh, you poor dear girl,” into her hair.

  Reeve flashes a pained look in Dr. Lerner’s direction, and then the hug is over.

  Before Mrs. Cavanaugh can reclaim her seat, Tilly shoots to her feet and asks, “Would it be okay if I show her my room?”

  Her parents exchange surprised looks. After a moment, Mrs. Cavanaugh murmurs, “Of course, honey. That would be fine.”

  Tilly faces Reeve. “Do you want to see it?”

  “Um, sure.” Reeve gets to her feet and follows the girl down the hall. Tilly is quiet as a cat in her sock feet, and Reeve feels clumsy in her heavy black boots.

  The girl’s bedroom is all yellow and decked with frills, posters, drawings, photos, and knickknacks.

  “Nice room,” Reeve offers, noticing with relief that there is no computer and no TV. At this stage, the news coverage would be brutal.

  Tilly picks up a framed photo. “This is when I went to Disneyland. I was seven.” She shows it to Reeve, then takes it back and shows her another. “This is Christmas at my Aunt Becca’s house. She made me this marionette.…”

  Reeve trails after Tilly, watching as she picks up item after item, narrating her history. Reeve remembers doing this, too, remembers trying hard to recover any scrap of her lost childhood. She hopes that Tilly will have better luck, being so young, still small and flat-chested, while Reeve could barely recognize the child she had once been.

  Tilly lifts a small jewelry box made of stained glass. As she hands it to Reeve, she studies Reeve’s face and asks, “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “So,” Tilly says matter-of-factly, “you were in that dungeon about eighteen percent of your life.”

  Reeve considers this. “Yes, that’s about right.”

  “That’s more than me.”

  “Uh-huh. So you’ll start feeling better pretty quickly, I think.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Do you have any scars?”

  Reeve blinks, momentarily taken aback. “I do.”

  “Can I see?”

  The girl is so straightforward that Reeve can only respond in kind. She takes a quick breath and peels her sweater off over her head, realizing that this is the first time she has undressed in front of anyone other than a medical doctor in years. She decides not to take off more unless asked. Even standing in a bra and jeans, she has plenty of scars.

  Tilly steps in close, her face expressionless as she examines Reeve’s skin. She tips her head from side to side, then slowly walks around Reeve to inspect her back. “What are these long ones?”

  Reeve tenses. “I was whipped.”

  Tilly traces one scar that begins at the back of Reeve’s neck and ends below her ribs. “They kinda look like leaves, don’t they? Or feathers.”

  Reeve says nothing, holding very still as Tilly comes around to stand in front of her. The girl raises one hand and puts a fingertip on a flat round scar on Reeve’s right shoulder, then touches the matching one on the left. “What are these smooth ones?”

  Reeve blinks away a sudden image. “I was electrocuted.”

  “That must have hurt.” The words are sympathetic, but the tone is utterly neutral.

  Tilly gently grasps Reeve’s wrists and turns her arms one way, then the other, examining the thin scars that bracelet each wrist. Then, with deliberate fingers, the girl touches a sequence of small, circular scars that run up Reeve’s arms like the paw prints of a cruel animal. Tilly proceeds slowly up to her elbow, shoulder, and back down again, bending so close that Reeve can feel her breath.

  Finally, she stands back and announces, “I have those, too.”

  In one easy motion, Tilly pulls her pajama top off over her head, an act so completely spontaneous and unself-conscious that Reeve realizes the girl is still accustomed to being naked.

  “See?” Tilly says, raising her skinny arms toward Reeve. “Mine are still pink.”

  Reeve stares at the tight cluster of three fresh cigarette burns on Tilly’s pale skin.

  “These other ones are more faded,” Tilly says, pulling down her pajama bottoms and baring a matching pattern of scars on her rump.

  Reeve bites back a curse and mutters, “That sadistic scumbag.”

  Tilly opens her mouth to speak, then purses her lips and crosses her arms, hugging herself with her hands thrust deep under her armpits, as though holding something terrible inside her chest.

  FOURTEEN

  Surveillance is the perfect specialty for someone with voyeuristic tendencies, and Duke is an expert on such specialized technology that almost no one outside of Quantico—and certainly no one within Jefferson County law enforcement—can understand exactly what he does. They bring him a cell phone, he gives them the data. They ask for video surveillance, it comes streaming across their desktops. They need a wiretap, it’s done.

  It especially pleases him that he has received so much of his training compliments of local, state, and federal governments. Various framed certificates are displayed on his office wall. Whenever anyone congratulates him on some arcane aspect of his expertise, he modestly thanks the Department of Homeland Security.

  He whistles, thinking about this, while he turns into the driveway of a two-story residence with fantastic views of the mountains. It’s time for his second visit to the former home of his newest girl, the marvelously agile Abby Hill.

  He’s amused to note that Mr. and Mrs. Hill do, in fact, live on a hill.

  Duke has been inside the Hill residence once before, and has since glimpsed the parents around town, but they didn’t seem to recognize him. Even if they did, it would mean nothing. He was just another man in uniform who swam before their eyes during a time of intense strain, when they were suffering the shock of their daughter’s abduction. Another nameless face, less important than the blustering federal agents who charged up from the Sacramento regional office to briefly run the show. The Hills might confuse him with any other officer who appeared during that brief, agonizing window between the day of their daughter’s disappearance and the dimming of all rational hope.

  At most, the Hills might harbor some lingering memory of him as the technician who installed the listening devices on their phones in case their daughter’s kidnappers called demanding ransom.

  No call came, of course.

  So now Duke is back. He rings the bell and Mr. Hill, a listless man with a waxy complexion and dark-rimmed eyes, opens the door.

  Duke introduces himself, and Mr. Hill’s face betrays a wince, “Yeah, I got the message. We know why you’re here.”

  Since there has been no sign of the Hills’ daughter, and since ten weeks have passed without a ransom demand, the FBI has recognized the futility of monitoring their phones. So Duke, as a key member of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, has the job of coming through this door once again. His final mission is ostensibly to remove the remaining surveillance equipment.

  He nods politely and comes inside.

  Aware that the Hills are succumbing to the awful undertow of fear that they will never see their daughter again, Duke intends to get the job done mostly in silence. If pressed, he is prepared to voice sympathetic platitudes.

  Mrs. Hill offers a cup of coffee, which Duke accepts, sipping while he steps from the kitchen, to the den, to the master bedroom. He moves according to plan, smoothly replacing the FBI’s clunky listening devices with tiny elegant versions of his own. As he’s finishing up, he returns the empty cup to the kitchen and asks to use a bathroom.

  Just as he did at the home of Gordon and Shirley Cavanaugh, and at the home of Michael and Patricia Creighton.

  He walks down the hall, flips on the bathroom light and fan, and the
n backtracks, quietly slipping into Abby’s perfectly preserved room of sweetest pink to secure one more miniature device. He glances at the framed photos of a plumper, healthier Abby before hiding the device in the wall, beneath the light switch plate, where it pulses with a steady electrical flow. Far more reliable than batteries.

  Certainly, anyone with an RF scanner would be able to find his devices, but Duke never worries about this. Except for some rare occasion when the FBI might conceivably send someone up from the Sacramento office to scan for bugs, Duke is the only one in the county with any interest in that task. He snickers at the irony.

  After bidding good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Hill, he climbs back into his SUV. Back to work, where he will have to finish the day at his desk.

  Despite his virtuosity, Duke finds the surveillance business often dull. Part of his time is dedicated to the electronic monitoring of escape-risk suspects. And criminals are, for the most part, pedestrian and dim.

  Drug dealers—who unfortunately demand the bulk of Duke’s time—are a particularly witless bunch. The names and faces change, but they appear as indistinguishable players in the same stupid soap opera, a never-ending loop. Duke has concluded that only fools fail to see that greed and drug abuse are futile in combination.

  Only a select few drugs interest Duke. Rohypnol, for instance. He’s found that “ruffies” can be quite useful.

  * * *

  Duke has been back in his office less than an hour when Officer Tomas Montoya appears in his doorway. Montoya grips the top of the door frame with the fingertips of both hands and hangs there, apelike and grinning. “Hey, did you hear the news about the dogs?”

  Duke looks up from his computer. “You mean the ones you’ve been dating?”

  “I date foxes, not dogs,” Montoya quips, entering Duke’s office and pulling up a chair. “I mean the dogs that are working the Vanderholt property. Actually, both properties: The one he moved out of, and the one he moved into.”

  “Cadaver dogs? They’re searching for remains?”