The Last Friend

by Harvey Church

  “This is her,” Monica said, easing up to the bookshelf against the wall, her finger on one of the photos of Elizabeth. “She’s so beautiful.”

  Looking up, Donovan recognized the picture. It had been taken the weekend prior to her abduction. They’d gone for a walk and stopped in front of a Frank Lloyd Wright home, right there in Oak Park and not very far from this very house. Elizabeth had asked for him to take her picture, so he’d obliged. She smiled, the gap between her top teeth obvious in the photo, but Elizabeth had never been self-conscious about it, not with him anyway.

  “She never mentioned this day. But, man, she looks so happy here,” Monica said, moving along the shelf as if to stop the cracking in her voice. She stopped at the next photo, a school portrait. “This is the one they published in the papers.”

  The papers. Of course. After Elizabeth had been kidnapped, the security officers at the Navy Pier had involved the police. An official search had ensued. Press conferences a day later. Pleas, the desperate kind with sobbing parents at the podium, holding hands, begging for their nine-year-old daughter’s safe return.

  Everyone had known about Elizabeth Glass.

  And for a few weeks, everyone had looked for Elizabeth Glass. Entire neighborhoods had set out to find the missing Glass girl. Businesses had pledged to help fund recovery efforts. The FBI had promised to meet any ransom requests, but none were ever made.

  Monica snapped her fingers, stepping toward him, getting in his face. “I said, is that an urn?”

  Donovan wiped the sweat off his forehead.

  “You okay?” Monica brought her smeared eyes closer to his as she frowned and scrutinized him. “You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m fine.” He rose from his chair and paced.

  “So is that your wife’s urn?” It was difficult to place her tone—impatient, abrupt, aggressive?

  Blinking hard, Donovan turned his attention back to the bookshelf and Amelia’s polished urn with the fancy design etched into its curves. “Yes, she—”

  “Killed herself,” Monica said, finishing for him. “I know. That was in the papers, too. I was still a prisoner back then, so I didn’t know about it until I escaped and went through everything.”

  Escaped? If she’d managed to get free…

  “Was Elizabeth still alive?” Donovan cleared his throat, digesting the bombshell of her admission. “Six years ago, when her mother died, was Elizabeth with you then?”

  Monica seemed to take a long time to answer. Maybe it was difficult for her, Donovan thought. Maybe she hated to think about Elizabeth’s death as much as he hated to. Or maybe she was a con artist, so full of shit that she needed to think long and hard about the simplest questions so that she didn’t trip herself up.

  At last, Monica gave her head a subtle shake and looked away. “She was already gone.”

  Elizabeth would have been seventeen. Already gone? She hadn’t even experienced her teen years.

  “I’m sorry.” She grabbed an image from Amelia’s memorial service, the laminated postcard that he kept next to the urn. “Your wife was pretty, Mr. Glass. I can see why they ran a story about her, not just a regular obituary.”

  True. It had been more than just an obituary. The Trib had brought a bit of life back to Elizabeth’s kidnapping by covering Amelia’s suicide. That had been six years ago. In that time, Donovan had come across just one real lead, making for two leads in total over the course of fifteen years.

  “You found her, didn’t you?”

  Donovan nodded. That part hadn’t been in the paper, the part where he’d walked in on Amelia. “She was tired,” Donovan said, walking to the bookshelf. He felt the eyes of his daughter and wife staring at him from the photos. Six years ago, those stares had been accusatory. Now, they waited for him to either do something or join them.

  “I was out the day she did it,” Donovan said, “following up on a lead. I’d spent a lot of time preparing for it, which meant Amelia had spent a lot of time planning her day alone. She didn’t believe me, but I thought I’d figured out a way to get Elizabeth back. Amelia was convinced our daughter was already dead.” Donovan swallowed the lump in his throat. “It sounds like a mother always knows.”

  Monica sighed and looked away. “Do you still have her bedroom, Mr. Glass?”

  “Bedroom?” It seemed like an odd request, the kind that aroused a bit of suspicion unless Monica was planning on summoning Elizabeth’s spirit, and Donovan simply didn’t believe in mediums, he considered them frauds.

  “Yes,” Monica said. “Often, parents of missing kids will keep their bedroom exactly as it was before the child disappeared. I think it’s as much an act of self-preservation as it is an effort to maintain hope and provide a familiar place for when the child returns.” Monica turned her eyes back to Donovan. “I just want to get a better feel for how my friend lived before . . .”

  Looking away, Donovan shook his head. “I’m sorry. But Amelia was clearly disturbed by the abduction. It drove her nuts. So five years ago, we converted the bedroom.” He lifted his shoulders. “It was getting tired, old. We wanted something fresh, something new, so we turned it into a hobby room.”

  There was something of a hesitation in Monica, but she pressed her lips together before allowing them to blossom into an agreeable smile. “That was probably a smart move.”

  “It was.” Except Donovan already realized that he’d screwed up. Five years ago, Amelia was dead; they’d never converted their daughter’s bedroom, hadn’t even touched it, in fact. If Monica had picked up on the timeline discrepancy, she didn’t let on. Donovan cursed himself for the sloppy oversight and for not paying better attention to these details. “So,” he said, “why don’t you tell me what you know about the day she was taken?”

  CHAPTER 4

  The way Monica told the story, Donovan could almost smell the air at the Navy Pier from fifteen years ago. It was June, it was hot, and it was busy that weekend. They’d stayed hydrated, drinking water during the L train commute into downtown. He remembered Elizabeth’s big eyes as she’d stared out the windows. The Chicago skyline had that effect on most people, himself and his daughter included.

  “At the end of the day, you were all going to take a second ride on the Ferris wheel, and your wife ran off to the bathroom,” Monica said. She was sitting now, her elbows on her knees as she leaned forward.

  He nodded, remembering how Amelia had sworn that if she boarded the Ferris wheel without first going to the bathroom, she’d have an unpleasant accident. So while she hurried off to the women’s washroom, Donovan had dropped to one knee, bringing his face level with Elizabeth’s.

  “You said now was your chance to buy the overpriced cotton candy.” Monica grinned as if she’d been there. “Her mother wasn’t a fan of the sugar or the cost, but you had a plan. The cotton candy came in blue and pink; you’d eat the blue, and she would eat the pink. You’d share it. It would be gone before your wife returned. Of course Elizabeth agreed to it; she’d wanted a treat since she first saw the cotton candy stand.”

  It was all true. Donovan didn’t know how Monica could know all those details if she hadn’t spoken with Elizabeth. He’d taken Elizabeth’s hand and together they had walked to the cotton candy vendor. While Donovan had waited in line, Elizabeth had stepped up to the railing overlooking the water. He kept glancing back to check on her, and the last time he’d seen her, she’d hooked her arms over the top of the railing and was watching him, a big smile on her face that had melted his heart.

  “She remembered your striped shirt; cream with blue vertical lines. Some were thick, some were narrow. You had jean shorts, with a rolled-up cuff at the bottom.”

  Jeez, how did she remember those details? Even Donovan had forgotten about the outfit he’d worn. But now that he’d heard Monica describe the shorts and shirt, Donovan remembered them precisely.

  “The last time you looked at her,” Monica went on, but now her face had gone heavy and a little pale, “you
crossed your eyes and stuck your tongue out the side of your mouth. She laughed. She always laughed at how goofy you could be with her.”

  Donovan felt his throat tightening. He’d known his daughter wouldn’t always appreciate his puerile tactics, but until she stopped, he’d promised himself to make her laugh at least once a day. It was more for his own sanity than for Elizabeth’s; the sound of his daughter’s laughter was all the medicine he’d ever needed.

  Monica straightened her back and swallowed what appeared to be a difficult lump. “That was when Roger grabbed her. Elizabeth was still smiling, watching you step up to the vendor to place your shared order, and then—snap.” She snapped her fingers for effect, and Donovan flinched. “He had her and he was walking away. Not running, she said, just walking, and while she kicked and tried to scream through the big, meaty hand that he’d clasped over her mouth, she kept watching you and hoping you’d just turn around again, just take one more look and then you’d have seen her, she said, and she knew you’d have dropped everything.”

  Roger. His name was Roger.

  Donovan struggled to keep his composure. He’d already lost it once that morning; he didn’t want to lose it again. Wrestling the emotion, he frowned and shifted in his chair. “The other people, they probably thought she was just another brat who didn’t want to leave the Navy Pier.”

  Monica nodded, agreeing with him, and that was when Donovan realized that little responses like that would only allow her to add credibility to her claim of knowing Elizabeth. Deep down, he didn’t trust this girl, no matter what color her hair or how soft her eyes or how much detail she added to a story he seemed to have half forgotten.

  “When I saw that she was gone, I panicked. She could’ve been standing right in front of me, and I wouldn’t have seen her.”

  Nodding some more, Monica reached for her bottle of water and took a sip. She seemed to struggle with swallowing it, and when she tried to replace the cap, her hand shook and caused her enough difficulty that it took her several tries to secure it. “She saw you, Mr. Glass. Saw how you stepped away from the vendor’s cart and just stopped dead in your tracks when you realized she was gone. She said you ran to the railing and looked over, as if you thought she’d fallen into the water. You called her name a couple of times, then interrupted a couple at the railing, but they weren’t standing there when Elizabeth was watching you.”

  Shaking his head, Donovan admitted, “Nobody saw anything.”

  “Because they hadn’t,” Monica said.

  “What else did she say?” He wanted to hear more.

  “She watched the panic twist your face and swore you’d made eye contact right before she disappeared for good. And in that passing moment, when she thought your eyes locked, all she remembered thinking was that she wasn’t going to cry, and neither should you.” Monica stopped herself and grabbed her water again. Donovan noticed how her hand didn’t shake anymore, not even slightly. She was calm and deliberate. She’d clearly rehearsed her lines dozens of times, probably even more. “She knew you’d miss her, but she took comfort in knowing she would see you again, Mr. Glass. You, your way with her, that gave her strength to survive everything that Roger put her through.” She paused, just long enough for a heartbeat. “And what he put her through was more than any person could ever fear.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Right before Monica’s cell vibrated, she asked Donovan the kind of question that would normally trigger alarms. She wanted to know if he trusted her, a question that Donovan felt only untrustworthy people might ask. If they were trustworthy, his logic suggested, they would allow their behavior to speak for itself.

  Plus, he reasoned, it was one hell of a loaded question. Monica knew details that nobody but Elizabeth could’ve known. Yet she had purple hair, black nails, dark eyeliner, and a curiosity that aligned with the checklists the local police left at retirement homes about elder fraud.

  “Of course,” he said, nodding a little too vigorously while Monica checked a message on her phone’s display.

  “She was lactose intolerant,” Monica said midway through tapping her response, and her remark startled him.

  “Pardon me?” Donovan reached for his Nespresso, but the cup was bone dry.

  Placing her phone in her lap, she met his gaze. “The reports and articles said you were buying ice cream, not cotton candy.”

  In the official press release issued by the police and reiterated later by the FBI, Donovan had gone to buy ice cream for his daughter, not cotton candy. The error had been deliberate, Agent Klein had explained at the time, and it would help them isolate reliable witnesses and true suspects once they started making arrests. Only someone at the pier that day would know he was buying cotton candy instead of ice cream.

  “But here’s the thing,” Monica said. “Statistically, most children are abducted by someone they know, right?”

  “Ah, but Elizabeth’s case was different,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “It wasn’t a spousal dispute over custody or anything like that. It was—”

  “Different,” Monica said, cutting him off as her phone vibrated once again. She picked it up, scowled at the screen, and then returned her attention. “Anyone who knew Elizabeth would know of her intolerance. If the feds had arrested them, they’d have explained the lactose intolerance.” Now Monica returned to the phone and started tapping again.

  “You said she was abducted by someone named Roger.” Donovan paused and ran some quick calculations. When he spoke the name of his daughter’s abductor, it hurt; he felt an invisible hand wrap around his throat and squeeze. But now that he had a real-life name, he needed to know more about it. “I’m not related to a Roger. Not on my side, not on Amelia’s. What can you tell me about Roger, Monica?”

  “His real name probably isn’t Roger.” She was barely paying attention, too caught up in the rapid tapping of her text message until she finally sighed and stood up. “I’m sorry, Mr. Glass, but I promised someone I would be somewhere. I have to leave, but I’ll come back tomorrow after work. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, and I bet there’s a lot. Being held captive with your daughter for all those years, we shared almost everything.” She pushed a smile onto her face, the kind that a fraudster would give . . . or someone who’d indeed been subjected to the type of captivity and abuse that Monica claimed. “At least a million times.”

  Watching her—do you trust me, Mr. Glass?—Donovan smiled back and walked her to the door. While she tied her leather boots with the studs up the back seam, he offered to drive her wherever she needed to be.

  “Thank you,” she said, her head bent forward while she tightened the laces. “But I drove. I have my own means.” When she finished with her boots and straightened her back, Monica just stood there. It became awkward; the foyer area wasn’t very big, and they’d just met, so their goodbye didn’t exactly call for a hug.

  “Thank you for stopping by,” Donovan said at last. He opened the door for her.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise.”

  As she skipped across the front porch and then down the stairs and across the front lawn, Donovan admitted to himself that he had some serious doubts about Monica keeping any kind of promises at all. But he walked out behind her anyway and watched her hurry down the sidewalk to a Ford Mustang with custom rims and tinted windows with glitter in them. It was an older model, loud, and it seemed out of character for a young woman with purple hair like Monica.

  Something didn’t fit, Donovan realized. As the Mustang drove past and turned around at the end of the street, he waved and told himself he should get on the phone right away. Call Agent Klein. Tell him about this strange young woman.

  But by the time he retreated into the house, locked his front door, and found the agent’s business card, he knew he couldn’t hand Monica Russell over just yet. Maybe not ever. Because once he did that, he’d lose the only lifeline he had to his allegedly deceased daughter.

  And, like any father clinging to a fin
al thread of hope, Donovan just couldn’t do that.

  CHAPTER 6

  His inability to sleep had started after Elizabeth’s abduction. Any parent in his situation would suffer from a touch of insomnia; that he hadn’t slept a full eight hours in roughly fifteen years didn’t surprise Donovan, his friends, even his family doctor in the least. His sleeping struggles only worsened after Amelia’s suicide, and for the past six years or so, his average night consisted of two hours staring at the ceiling and unwinding, four or thereabouts hours of actual sleep, another hour of trying to get back asleep after a pee break or some random noise on the street woke him up, and another hour waking up and figuring out his day.

  That night, after meeting Monica Russell for the first time, Donovan slept less than two hours, and at five thirty the following morning, he reached for the cordless phone on his end table and called Eric, Amelia’s older brother. At fifty, Eric was a partner in one of the big law firms downtown. He would be awake. He would be ready to head downtown. He would agree to coffee.

  “Donovan,” Eric said soon as he picked up the phone. “Everything okay?”

  “Do you still hang out at the Starbucks on Randolph?”

  “I will this morning. When are you leaving your place?”

  “Now.”

  “See you in thirty.”

  They hung up. Donovan changed out of his starch-crisp pajamas and into a clean pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, the kind with a collar and buttons up the front. Almost as professional as Eric, he assessed before heading downstairs, finding the keys to his Chevy Impala, and leaving the house.

  * * *

  The Starbucks on Randolph had limited seating, but at this time of morning, Eric was the only one at a table. Decked out in a three-piece suit that probably cost more than Donovan and Amelia had spent on their first home, Eric held a venti cup, the largest size, and it was likely filled with espresso, or something harder if such a thing existed. After ordering his cappuccino, Donovan joined his brother-in-law at the table. They used to shake hands, but like sleep following the death of his wife, they didn’t do that anymore.