All That Remains (A Missing and Exploited Suspense Novel Book 1)

by Hannah Holborn

  “I’m sorry,” Harvey says.

  «41»

  Gabriel wakes, his aching head nestled on the empty Kentucky Fried Chicken box. He holds his breath to listen. The radio’s off and he can’t hear Willard’s breathing. This is it, his chance to escape. He untangles himself from the sleeping bag, then pushes down on the door handle. If Willard comes, Gabriel will run fast. His legs won’t buckle. He won’t care about the pain in his shoulder. The dome light blinks on, something he forgot would happen.

  Willard stands outside the car. He has changed out of the jacket and jeans he’s worn every day. The brown shirt with a red flowered collar he has on looks like it was meant for a girl. “The renters left a load of clothes in the dryer,” he says. “Their loss, our gain.”

  Gabriel takes in a wall of bare shelves and the outlines of tools drawn on a corkboard. Broken pieces of statues are lined up on a shelf. Curtains are closed over a window. He can’t tell if it’s day or night, just that Willard’s car is parked inside a garage. They are at their final destination—Willard’s house in Trenton.

  Willard kicks the car door open wide. Handcuffs dangle from his hand. “Home sweet home,” he says.

  «42»

  New neighbors are a problem for Chase. Some are nosy, some have good memories for faces, and one was even her worst nightmare, a cop. Chase stands at the kitchen window of her rental home, watching movement at the house next door. She’s looking for flaws in the man who moved in the previous evening. He’s not a cop, of that Chase is sure. No precinct on earth would employ someone so unfit. He’s wary, which could be a bad sign. Chase knows from experience that suspicious people notice everything. He seems to be alone, which means fewer new people to worry about, another plus. He hates dogs, a definite minus.

  Chase reaches down to ruffle the fur of Radar, her partner in crime. During the years Chase has evaded a warrant for her arrest, the aging mutt has provided much-needed emotional support and stability. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I won’t let the fat little man hurt you. Promise.” That morning, unaware that Chase was spying, the new neighbor threatened to kick Radar when the dog approached his property line. Thankfully Radar obeyed when Chase whistled for him to come inside.

  As Chase leans against a wall, surveying her home, she’s overcome by a feeling that time is running out for her here. Two years before, when she had to move in the night because she was recognized, she left almost everything she’d accumulated behind. She feels at home in the space she’s created out of second hand crap. The place is bright and amusing. On the lemon-yellow walls she has a collection of black velvet paintings including a unicorn, a nude alien, Princess Leia in her metal bikini, and poker-playing dogs. She painted the frames neon pink. There are hula-dancing chickens on the curtain fabric, a white table and two chairs painted with yellow polka dots, and a miniature toilet water dish for Radar.

  Despite the cheerful decor, she’s not happy here. Chase is a social being who will never be content with only a dog, however great, for company. Even so, the social life of prison can never lure her back. She’d rather die of loneliness first.

  Chase grabs her keys and purse. Even paid-under-the-table jobs require punctuality. “Be good while I’m gone,” she tells Radar as she heads out the door. It’s a needless warning for the well-behaved dog.

  The new neighbor is still outside, dragging an ugly angel statue onto the front lawn. It’s do-or-die time. Although Chase is only wanted on marijuana and bail-breaking charges, her face is posted on some internet sites. She dreads meeting new people; afraid she’ll see recognition in their eyes. Gathering her courage, she draws the neighbor’s attention by saying, “Hey.”

  He sets the angel upright and looks her way. Faking confidence, Chase crosses into the man’s yard, hoping he won’t kick her. She extends her hand and gives her fake name. Sweat from exertion has beaded on his small, pale forehead. She reads fear in his eyes, but also pride. If Chase is right, he’s a man with something to hide, something he’s proud of. Chase keeps her hand out, needing to seal the deal of neighborliness for Radar’s sake before she goes to work. The moment their skin touches, she regrets her insistence. His clammy palm has the texture of skinless chicken. “Willard,” he says, “Willard Crawley.”

  «43»

  Harvey’s flight north a week after Ben’s death has wound his nerves tight. The trip has a dual purpose: he’ll make right on a wrong and interview Helena if she’s well enough, and he’ll offer his support to the grieving widow of a friend Harvey once wished, if not dead, at least out of the picture.

  He caught a late flight from Fenny, however, and his arrival coincides with the tail end of the hospital’s visiting hours. The visitor’s parking lot is full, with the only empty stall blocked by a double-parked late model BMW. A woman in her fifties, one whose expensive clothing and jewelry scream entitlement, uses a remote to unlock the door of the car.

  Harvey steps on the gas to reach the spot before the woman can leave. “Way to double-park,” he says. “Were you worried someone might ding your paint?”

  The woman turns and Harvey sees suffering behind a mask of perfectly applied makeup. She looks from Harvey to her angled parking job. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just watched my daughter die. Candace was nineteen.”

  If he could Harvey would resurrect the teen and take back his words. Instead he averts his gaze from the woman’s beseeching face, as he offers a useless condolence.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman says again. Then she’s gone, narrowly missing an elderly couple as she haphazardly steers the BMW away from the place of no return.

  ¤

  Harvey’s not expected by anyone on the hospital’s intensive care unit, including Romy. He checks in at the nurse’s station and is reminded visiting hours are over in forty-five minutes. Then he’s directed to a room at the end of a depressing green and yellow hallway lined with wheelchairs, linen carts and full laundry hampers.

  Bouquets, helium balloons and get-well cards festoon the small space of Room 412. Harvey is surprised by the exuberance of well-wishing lavished on Romy. Ben was social, but Romy had always struck Harvey as private, a woman satisfied with the company of her husband and children.

  He gives himself permission to let go of the guilt he’s carried in the week since the Kiknicky’s accident, until he realizes he’s misread the situation. It’s the room’s second cubicle—one without any cards or flowers—that belongs to Romy. A rumpled bed and uncluttered rolling table are free of personal items. Instead of flowers she has a glass with a bendable straw, a kidney bowl for vomiting in, and a single drawing signed by Helena. The picture of a mutilated flower is bad, but the printed words are worse: Scabs are daisies meant for picking.

  Harvey steps further into the room when a sound alerts him to the presence of someone taking a sharp breath in the washroom beyond the open door. Four steps bring Harvey within sight of Romy seated on a wheelchair. Her once beautiful face is turned toward the mirror. The angry red skin of one side is held together by stitches. The top of her gown is removed to expose one perfect breast and bloody bandages covering a flattened area where the second breast should be.

  Romy’s eyes are closed and her fingers brush the unharmed breast. The muscles of her face are stiff with the agony caused by the sight she has forced herself to witness. The moment is too raw, intimate, and vulnerable.

  Harvey glides toward the door, praying his shoes won’t squeak on the floor. The only thing he can do for Romy Kiknicky now is slip away unseen.

  ¤

  The pediatric intensive care unit, in contrast to the adult unit, is overwhelmingly cheerful. Every surface makes a canvas for murals of shapes in pinks, yellows, blues and greens. Creatures with big eyes frolic on floors, walls and counters. The nurse at the desk wears a Disney-themed uniform and greets Harvey with a warm smile of welcome.

  When Harvey explains his purpose the nurse shifts her body to decrease the space between them. “Helena has suffered a trauma
tic brain injury,” she says. “She currently suffers from retrograde amnesia.” The nurse taps a pen on the clipboard. “There are other concerns as well with Helena. Personality change. Mood swings. Anger. Don’t expect a jolly reception, Detective.”

  Harvey smiles. “I’ll take my chances.”

  When the nurse leaves Harvey in a room with space for four children, Helena is sitting on the farthest bed. With the exception of some faded bruising on her forehead, her injuries aren’t obvious.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Harvey says.

  Helena glances up. Her gaze conveys recognition, but no warmth or interest. She looks past Harvey to the empty space behind him. “Where’s Effie?” The question is an accusation.

  “She moved away with her mother,” Harvey says. “She’d visit if she could.”

  Helena’s attention reverts to the picture she’s drawing. It’s a gruesome portrayal of Romy and Ben. Romy is bleeding and blinded with bandages wrapped around her eyes. Ben’s mutilated body is divided into four parts. “I don’t care,” she says. “Effie’s not my friend anymore, anyway.”

  Pushing aside an impulse to set the injured girl straight, Harvey presses on to introduce the purpose of the visit.

  The interview ends before it begins. The retrograde amnesia the unit nurse warned Harvey about has erased much of the past year, including anything Helena witnessed the night of the abduction.

  Harvey closes his notepad.

  “My dad’s dead forever,” Helena says.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Helena adds the head and torso of a third, smaller person to the picture. “Maybe Effie’s dead forever, too,” she says.

  “She’s not,” Harvey says. “She’s fine.”

  Helena’s face is reptilian when she looks up at Harvey. “If you can’t see her, you don’t know for absolutely certain,” she says.

  Moment later, Harvey has the east wing elevator to himself, with its hand-washing memos and support group meeting posters. His hand hovers over the button for the adult intensive care unit. Ten minutes remain in the visiting hour. Too little time to project hope he cannot summon for a family in ruins.

  His hand drops. His finger presses the lobby button.

  Like the mother of Candace, Harvey flees Mercy General Hospital for his life.

  «44»

  Notoriety is good to Celine. Certain kinds of men get their kicks fucking the mother of an abducted boy. With income from Fenny’s first official escort service she’s updated her wardrobe and moved into the rental penthouse suite of a decent apartment building.

  She’s also satisfied her taste for classic convertibles. She drives her candy-apple red 1991 LeBaron past McFarland Elementary at sixty clicks. If people like that pig Harvey Sam think the sight of her baby’s school doesn’t faze her, they’re dead wrong. It rips her apart every single time she sees it. There might not be a God-shaped hole in Celine’s life, but there sure as hell is a Gabe-shaped one.

  She gave birth to the angel, after all. Twenty-three hours of back labor followed by a C-section, and nowhere near enough morphine to override the pain. Thankfully, the surgery left her vagina intact—useful for her chosen profession.

  After four abortions, she still can’t figure out how she’d missed the fetus’s presence in her body until it was too late. She’d experimented with horse, but she wasn’t an addict back then—unless her addiction was love. She would’ve sold her soul to the devil to win Gabriel’s father. Only he turned out to be a lunatic, not a brilliant Elvis impersonator as she believed. Even so, he had more talent than any of the Elvis wannabees she has dated since, including the current dud.

  At least he’s dead, done in by the psych hospital’s failure to prevent a suicide the previous month. It’s a mercy to be finally free of his accusatory phone calls.

  Celine pulls into the parking lot of the Starlight Lounge. She puts up the LeBaron’s top, then uses the mirror to check her makeup. She gives her lips the touch up they require. The results bring her pleasure; it doesn’t matter if she’s aging, as long as it doesn’t show.

  As she heads toward the pub, she balances on her Salvatore Ferragamo stilettos, keeping her ass on show in case a loving Fenny husband’s watching. Nothing makes her happier than proving the fuckers wrong who say she’s nothing but a two-bit whore. She loves to flash her bling and parade her tight ass at the fat, gossiping Fenny women who blame her for her baby’s disappearance.

  Sure she should have noticed Gabriel was gone. Truth be told, even if she had, Celine knows it wouldn’t have changed a thing. The kid was born with the same damned self-destruct button as his father. She doesn’t want to know who pushed it: one monster’s the same as the next. What she wants is to shift the blame to where it belongs: onto Harvey Sam. And then she wants to forget.

  ¤

  The angel dust is a cheery yellow until Celine stirs the powder into her rye and Coke. She lifts the glass in a toast, then knocks back the bitter concoction. PCP isn’t her thing, but tonight she needs something new to shift her fucked-up reality. When her cross-dressing dealer, Ms. Delish, flashed the vial and batted his rhinestone-studded eyelashes, he promised she’d dig the high.

  Twenty minutes in and the promised euphoria hasn’t arrived. Instead, Celine’s hands and feet are numb and everything in the club feels far away. The dancing crowd undulates as she weaves her way toward the washroom, but the energy doesn’t move her. Celine doesn’t even want to seduce the slim, black Elvis impersonator slaughtering the King’s ‘70’s hit “I’ve Lost You,” although her life’s goal is to fuck a record-breaking number of Elvii. The man is supposed to be a sound-alike, rather than a look-alike, but he’s neither. Not that it matters.

  As Celine stumbles through the throng, she realizes the PCP has delivered. For the first time in months she doesn’t care that her baby is missing. Gone is gone, that’s all.

  The door appears to inhale and exhale as she enters the women’s washroom. A white look-alike Elvis combs his ducktail, hogging the room’s single mirror. Like so many unimaginative Elvis tribute artists, he’s dressed in embroidered white leather and loaded with jewelry. A blue scarf is draped around his neck.

  If Celine’s mouth would cooperate she’d tell the intruder to take his cock next door to the men’s room where it fucking belongs, but the impersonator turns, and Celine screams instead. The eyes of Francois, her dead husband, stare out from a decomposed face.

  Speaking through a toothless hole, he says one damning word, “Gabriel.”

  Celine backs against the wall, then crumples to the floor. All she wants is to be left alone by the dead. Francois’s ghost could kill Celine with fright, or mess her up so badly she’ll never recover.

  “So I lost our kid,” Celine says, “but at least I tried to be a mother. You were only ever a fucking ghoul. Please, please go away.” Instead of leaving, Francois gently touches her head with his decomposing hand, as though he can forgive her.

  Part Three

  Summer Vacation

  «45»

  It’s worth it, the risk Gabriel takes to watch the woman and her dog through the mirrored window Willard put in the kitchen door. What he likes best is when the dog barks and the woman tells it to hush up. Because they’re loud, he can hear their voices except during the times Willard locks him in the basement cell.

  The woman next door looks a lot like Celine, only without blue eyes or curly hair. They even smoke their cigarettes the same way, by closing their mouths and letting the smoke escape out their nose.

  Gabriel would use all of his safe time to watch the neighbor, but one of the cars Celine calls a "muscle" crawls down the street blaring angry music with a thumping beat and the neighbor stuffs the cigarette butt into a beer bottle. She mustn’t like the sound because she goes inside, leaving the dog behind. Its wide yawn exposes a mouth full of teeth and Gabriel wonders if any are worn-out like the molar Willard’s seeing a dentist about today.

  The dog looks toward Willard’s house as
it tries to stand up. Its woofs sound like an invitation to play. Gabriel’s hand closes in on the door’s metal knob that Willard said would fry his brains. The dog barks a warning, and Gabriel stumbles away from the door. Lately he’s been forgetting to be careful.

  It’s been days since Gabriel’s been upstairs. He’s left alone in the house the three days a week Willard works at a recycling plant, but he can’t escape the new pair of handcuffs that cinch up so tight they cut him if he struggles. Willard hardly ever uses the broken pair anymore. He won’t use them at all if he figures out Gabriel can wriggle out of them.

  It’s almost time to go back downstairs, so he crosses the room to explore Willard’s treat cupboard. The locks on the drawers and cupboards aren’t all closed because Willard now trusts Terrance to leave food alone. Gabriel sniffs an open chip bag. He licks sour cream and onion-flavored powder from the inside foil, but doesn’t dare eat any in case Willard still counts chips.

  He lifts the only rug in the house, one made of braided rags just like one in Miss Granger’s classroom, and sets it on a stack of old newspapers. Using a damp rag brought up from his cell, he wipes the already clean floor that was under the carpet. He takes off his dirty socks when the floor has dried, then steps inside the safe circle. With his eyes closed, he imagines Miss Granger’s classroom until it grows up around him.

  With the classroom in place, Gabriel imagines that’s where he is. He’s the lucky kid Miss Granger picks to sit beside her as she reads. He can’t make out the words of the story, but today she reads with the gravelly voice of the woman next door.

  A scurrying noise makes Gabriel open his eyes on time to see a mouse zigzag across the floor. Despite its speed, Gabriel can see the pearly color inside its ears. The fur on its tiny body looks soft to touch and Gabriel feels less alone.