The Love I Lost (Ariadne Silver Romance Mystery #2)

by Morris Fenris

  “Damn it! This clearly means the money is now in the hands of the kidnapper!”

  Daryl scouts the whole area surrounding the shack for any clues. It looked undisturbed. Within minutes, he had to admit the money had been taken. Now, there’s no stopping the abductor from killing Eugenia!

  He had to call Ariadne and inform them about the development. There’s no other way for it. The police had to get involved now, unless the kidnapper calls in a few hours and agrees to send the girl.

  “Should I wait for the kidnapper to call—give it a chance before getting them all panicked?” Daryl contemplated. He decided against the cowardly choice and called Ariadne.

  “Ariadne, it’s me.”

  “Daryl!” Ariadne almost shouted into the phone. “What’s taken you so long? Did you manage to get the abductor when he came to take the money? Did you find our girl?”

  “Hold your horses, Ariadne! I’ve been hidden in the area where Lucien dropped the money, looking closely at any car that passed as well as the money…”

  “…And?” Ariadne almost sounded suspicious, like she feared the worst to have come true.

  “…And the money is gone, Ariadne!”

  “What!?”

  “Yes. I went and looked the place where Lucien dropped the money. There are no footprints around. It’s too dusty and windy. I have no idea how he came and took the money. I swear I kept a close eye the whole time!”

  “God damn you, Daryl! We trusted you! How can you just let things fall apart like this!” Ariadne spat in the phone, positively fuming. “Now that he has the money, he can do anything to our daughter! He may have even seen your stupid hiding place. He could even kill her! All because of you, Daryl. Fuck you! You’ve lost track of my daughter…”

  “Ariadne… I am really sorry.”

  “Sorry, my foot! Don’t ever bother to call me back again. Oh, and you’re never going to see a cent of your fee. Fuck off, Daryl,” Ariadne hung up and crashed to the floor weeping.

  III

  Unfortunately, that’s the scene Lucien walked in. He noticed the phone in her hand, and immediately concluded the worst.

  “What is it, Ariadne? What happened? Please tell me, mon ami!”

  “Lucien…” she called out in between her sobs. “Daryl just called…”

  “What did he say? TELL ME!”

  “The money’s gone…” Ariadne sobbed, “He doesn’t know where!”

  “WHAT! HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN! ALL BECAUSE OF YOU AND YOUR DARYL!” Lucien lost it. “WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE CALLED ANYONE. WE SHOULD HAVE DONE WHAT HE ASKED US TO—DROP THE MONEY AND KEEP QUIET!” he continued to blow up.

  “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, ARIADNE!” he stomped off, leaving Ariadne even more heart-broken. Not only had she lost her daughter, but also the man who she loved so dearly. In that one moment, she knew, her whole family was torn apart.

  ***

  Lucien starts pacing across his bedroom. Stunned, he is in waters way over his head. He still can’t believe all that had happened in the last 24 hours. He almost expected his daughter to call out for him, and come stomping through the doors to get him out of his sulking.

  “Where do you start feeling? Worry – at having taken your daughter taken? Fear – for her safety? Anger – at everybody for letting this happen? Guilt – for not doing a good enough job of parenting? Sorrow – for having lost your only child? I just don’t know how to handle all this! I can’t believe this is happening to me!”

  He stops in front of the mirror, takes in his dishevel appearance and the starting of dark circles from under his eye. The distress is plainly evident on his face. He noticed how he looked like a broken man—like someone who had lost everything within moments.

  “No! This is not who I am. I can’t give up on Eugenia. I need to find her. I need to find out what happened to her!” he shouted at himself.

  And then he remembered the dreadful things he shouted at Ariadne. Remorse filled him up, until it was the only feeling left within him. Something was really wrong with him to have thought so badly of the woman. She was trying to be strong for him; he knew how much she loved Eugenia.

  “Loved. Past tense. No! That can’t be. She cannot be dead. We have to do something!”

  ***

  “Ariadne,” Lucien called out into the living room, unable to find Ariadne anywhere. “Where are you?”

  Just when he thought he couldn’t feel worse, he saw Ariadne on the floor. She had passed out just where he left her a while back.

  Taking a glass of water from the kitchen, he shook her awake. “Mon ami, I am really sorry. Please wake up. I need you.”

  Ariadne woke up, really disoriented. She stared into Lucien’s worried eyes for a few seconds, trying to gather her thoughts. How did she get on the floor?

  Then she remembered, and Lucien saw her eyes tighten with sorrow and hurt. “I am really sorry, Ariadne. I shouldn’t have said all that,” he embraced her, trying to soothe her pain. “I apologize, my love,” he murmured.

  “It’s ok, hon. I understand. Eugenia…” she broke down again when she remembered her beautiful angel. “He has her…”

  “We need to find her, Ariadne. I can’t rest until we do. It’s been an hour since Daryl called. It seems unlikely the abductor would call us now. For all we know, he’s run off with our daughter in tow just to get back at us!”

  “Oh don’t say that, Lucien!”

  “Ariadne, we need help. Official help.”

  “Hmmm… I know someone from the police. Larry. Larry Hatfield. He used to be a detective back when I was… you know… back then. I can call him.”

  Ariadne dials the number; it rings for a while. Just when she thought of hanging up, a low baritone voice answered, “Hello?”

  “Larry?”

  “Yes? Who’s this?”

  “Larry. It’s me. Alice…”

  “Alice? Silver?”

  “Yes, Larry. I need your help. Please!”

  ***

  A medium-sized man with a low baritone voice, Larry Hatfield could easily pass of as an average man working a simple 9-to-5 job in any of the offices. Physical impressions can be so wrong, for he was just not an average guy. Larry was one of the smartest detectives in the Phoenix police force. If not for his penchant for women, he would have become the youngest captain.

  Nearly nine years back, Larry had fielded a complaint about a hooker in the upscale hotel, The Star Gate. He set his eyes on Alice then. It would be one of the countless numbers of times he’d used her service. Larry had been one of Alice’s regulars, often talking to her about cases he was solving. It gave her a great insight into his detective mind, enchanting her imagination. He had even started giving her puzzles of clues to put together for crimes he’d already solved. It helped her nudge him in the right direction in at least a few cases. All that lasted until she disappeared from the prostitution scene.

  “Hello? Are you there Larry?”

  “Yes, I am here, Alice. Tell me what happened?”

  “Can you come home so my husband and I can give you all the details? It’s urgent. We really need your help, Larry.”

  “Sure,” swallowing his surprise at the word ‘husband’.

  IV

  Two hours and three coffees later, Larry was up-to-date with the case. He had grilled Ariadne and Lucien for all possible details for about an hour—asking about their life in France, Eugenia’s behavior over the years, her college life, Ariadne and Lucien’s lives in France and US, enemies, and the whole kidnapping saga.

  “Hmmm… This seems like a really well-thought out and researched plan, the kidnapping. Not only was it planned well, it was also executed really smartly. I am sure he is not working alone. He had help.”

  “What are you saying?” Lucien sounded shocked. “What could they be after apart from money? Why aren’t they giving my baby back!?”

  “It could be many things—revenge, greed, possibly they want more money? Or it could be that Eugenia has seen the
m and they don’t want the risk of identification?”

  “Ohh…”

  “I have another theory. Please listen to me first before concluding anything.”

  “Yes? What’s it?”

  “What if, this is not a kidnapping at all? What if Eugenia has actually run off with a boy of her own free will? And all this was just to get access to money?”

  Lucien is horrified. “What are you saying, mister! You’re accusing my own daughter of planning all this!”

  “Larry, that just sounds so wrong,” Ariadne interjected, trying to impose some calm.

  “Think about it for a minute. You tell me Eugenia has been acting up for a few weeks. That she has disappeared for a few days before. This could be just another, more elaborate plan?”

  “But Larry! She’s just fourteen…”

  “Nearly fifteen, darling,” Ariadne corrected.

  “Whatever, fourteen-fifteen… It’s almost the same. And you are forgetting one big factor—she is an invalid! What boy could possibly be interested in a girl like that?”

  Larry kept quiet, and continued to stare coolly at Lucien, letting the question hang in the air, trying to grasp at an answer.

  Ariadne looked at Larry, deep in thought. The harder she thought about it, the more it made sense. Money. It can make people do a great many things. She’d seen that all her life.

  She looked at Lucien, eyebrows pinched together, trying to defend her daughter. Somewhere in his heart, though, the thought continued to grow like a parasite. She could see that in the very way he held his body.

  “Just one last thing. I’d like to speak to Daryl.”

  V

  The next day, as arranged, Daryl and Larry meet at a coffee shop in Ajo.

  “Hi, Daryl,” Larry shook his hand.

  “Hi, Larry. I’ve heard about your work from my sources. Must say you’re good.”

  “Thanks man. But let’s get down to the business on hand. You must have evaluated the developments. What do you think happened to Eugenia?”

  “I really have my doubts about the whole thing, honestly. The bag disappeared right in front of my eyes. I was keeping an eye on the cars majorly. I have a feeling, they were timed so I could miss the kidnapper.”

  “Yes, I agree. I thought so too. The abductor is very planned and careful. I too felt he had help.”

  “Yes. I wish it weren’t so though. Alice, I mean, Ariadne, was pretty distraught.”

  “I have a theory that I put forth to Alice and Lucien—that Eugenia decided to run away with a guy of her choice. And that this whole thing is just a farce to get hands on money. What do you think?”

  “Hmmm... There were two cars that passed when I kept watch. One belonged to a red-haired woman who had a bunch of kids in the back. They played music so loudly, it distracted me. It could have easily been planted. The music to cancel any noise from the kidnapper’s actions.”

  “And the other one?”

  “It came from the other direction. I could barely get a look at the guy—I know it was male. The car was billowing a lot of smoke and gathering dust up.”

  “Hmmm. Could it be the kidnapper? It’s a deserted Part with lots of dirty tracks. You can easily take one route and come out the other way.”

  “Yes. Quite likely. Either way, I must say. This whole thing has been quite slick!”

  “I agree.”

  “And there are only two possible endings to this abduction. First, the guy has succeeded in taking the money and is already in Mexico by now with Eugenia…”

  “…or he’s killed the girl and has taken a flight to somewhere last night,” Larry completed the thought.

  “Yes. Either way, it’s very difficult to get a hand on the abductor now—without any description or details. Eugenia’s friends from college too seem to be clueless about any boyfriend.”

  “You spoke to them?”

  “Yes, I couldn’t possibly live with myself after such a goof up. I have been looking into the case all of yesterday. I spoke to some of Eugenia’s classmates yesterday. They did not even know about her extra library attendance.”

  “Hmmm… Makes it a bigger case for the theory that she ran away willingly.”

  Chapter 5

  I

  Time crawls when you’re waiting in nervous tension. Yet, in the haze of worry and sorrow, time also overlaps its edges and one day soon turns into many. If you asked Ariadne, she would say it had been 94 hours 32 minutes since that first dreaded phone call. For Lucien, this period lasted forever. Even though logic suggested otherwise, he couldn’t help run towards the phone every time it rang in the hopes that it was his daughter.

  Unfortunately for him, the abductor never called back. Neither was there any sign of Eugenia. The police were legitimately involved now that the girl was missing for over 24 hours. Larry Hartfield oversaw the case personally.

  Yet, information flew in very slowly, almost painfully so. Lucien felt like he was a walking talking dead man, with no ounce of life left.

  Ariadne was alternatively a buzz of actions and a dead weight on the sofa. She couldn’t help beat herself about Eugenia. Almost three-fourths of her mind believed that she may have ran away. But that small part refused to believe the angelic girl she’d come to love as her own could do such a thing.

  Food faced the worst casualty—Lucien shirked food like death, probably more so. Ariadne binge-ate without tasting any morsel to calm her stress.

  Communication was the second. Barely a few words passed between the husband and wife over the course of the days. They spoke only when the phone rang, and then went back to their own worlds of misery. There was a huge white elephant in the room, almost sucking out the very oxygen in the air.

  The third day, the house had the stamp of death—of life, happiness and domesticity.

  “Ariadne, I need to speak to you,” Lucien finally spoke to his wife, who lay prostrate on the sofa. That was her jail, her hell; the comforts of the bedroom all but forgotten.

  “I can’t stay here anymore. I feel suffocated in this house. I think I will return to Paris.”

  It took a few minutes to register what Lucien spoke.

  “No, please don’t go, hon. Please don’t leave me alone here,” Ariadne pleaded him.

  “Mon ami. Just give me a few days. I need fresh air. I am no good here. I can’t help. I only break down. I am weak. You are the strong one. Please understand. I am not leaving you,” Lucien promised weakly. Even to his own ears, the excuses sounded weak.

  Ariadne tried to look into his eyes, trying to implore he stay. But Lucien could not get himself to look at her.

  “I have almost packed my bags and booked my tickets, Ariadne. I have decided.”

  The finality of his statement hit her, like a punch in her stomach. Even after everything she had gone through in life, Ariadne felt unprepared for such a loss. At that moment, she knew for sure Lucien blamed her.

  ***

  The past few days, Lucien spent in sheer exhaustion—mental, physical as well as emotional. He wracked his brain for any solution; he tortured his body with lack of sleep and food; emotionally, his nerves were stretched to breaking point. He felt alternatively dead and angry.

  Without his daughter, he didn’t know how to love anymore. He didn’t know how to live. All the things that mattered to him earlier paled into nonexistence. Work. Health. Money. Food. Nothing could get fix attention.

  The only thing that induced any emotion in him was Ariadne. And he only got guiltily angry every time he thought about her.

  She was the reason they shifted to the US.

  She was the one overseeing Eugenia.

  She selected the college.

  She regulated her activities, schedule and behavior.

  She knew the traps in American society. She had been a ‘working girl’ herself.

  She was more than experienced with the dark underbelly of the cities in the US.

  She knew how American teenagers moved around.


  She could have easily warned Eugenia about such things.

  She should have noticed and addressed any problems Eugenia was facing.

  Try as he may, these thoughts continued to haunt him till they shredded every bit of doubt.

  It pained him that he thought so negatively about the woman he loved. He wanted to physically hurt himself, but he could not escape the hell in his mind.

  He had to get away.

  ***

  “I am all packed, Ariadne. My flight leaves in three hours,” Lucien called out to meet Ariadne’s bloodshot eyes. The rest of her face seemed dead, like they were set in stone. Guilt shot through his nerves. He audibly swallowed hard. Goodbye was not going to be easy.

  He reached out to hug his wife and kiss her cheek. She merely let him, unmoved by any emotion. Whatever tenderness left in him, he gathered it all and infused it in his hug. He wasn’t sure when he will see her again.

  “I will call you when I reach, mon ami. I have to find a decent place to stay for a while.”

  “Okay.”

  She kept standing at the door, looking at her husband’s disappearing back. She stood for a long while, even after he was long gone.

  In her heart, Ariadne knew Lucien would not return unless Eugenia was not found.

  II

  If there was something that kept Larry awake, it was a mystery, an unsolved crime. He could not not find answers. And ever since he spoke to Daryl, he was gripped by intrigue.

  The next day, he gathered a team of his chosen, well-trusted forensic guys to search the whole area around the shack where the money was dropped. They took hours, painstakingly pouring over the area spreading over at least 10 square miles in either direction.

  Few members were allocated to analyzing the tire tracks. The dirt track was fairly well used over the past few days. So, it was difficult to decipher the tire tracks of the kidnapper’s car. So, they looked at the areas off the tracks, first starting from the area around the shack.

  The rest of the team were looking for clues in the area surrounding the shack—foot prints, fallen goods, cigarette buds, water bottles, handkerchiefs—anything that stood out of the ordinary. Despite hours poring over the terrain, there were no footprints either leading to or away from the drop site. No other signs of human activity too. It indeed was as deserted as it looked.