by K. T. Tomb
She put his business card in the front pocket of her jeans and left the others sitting on the counter.
Not long after, the FBI packed up their forensics team and left her with a ransacked house to clean and straighten. There was fingerprint-dusting stuff everywhere, even wastebaskets dumped on the floor. She noticed they had taken their equipment off the landline phone. That meant they were not expecting a ransom call. At that moment, she felt her world drop out from beneath her feet.
She walked to Cassidy’s room and was shocked as hell to discover they had ripped up the new pink wall-to-wall carpeting from her room and had taken it with them. The bedding, too.
Mary walked across the now-torn carpet padding and flopped in exhaustion on Cassidy’s stripped mattress.
As the sun came up, wrenching sobs tore out of her—Mary beat the bare twin mattress with her fists and feet until she was bruised, gasping for breath, and dry heaving.
Chapter Three
“Mary, you have to eat something.”
The words entered her ears but did not register. Her mind was focused on breathing and clinging to the hope that Cassidy was alive.
“Mary! Snap out of it!”
The voice of her sister penetrated through her haze as she lay face down on Cassidy’s stripped mattress, where she had agonized for…she didn’t know how long, her phone plugged in next to her.
“Grace? You came?” She looked up at her sister.
“Of course I did. Sorry I wasn’t here earlier, but I had to take the day off and arrange things with a babysitter. I couldn’t come until today.”
“Thank you for coming,” Mary said.
“You’re welcome. You need to eat.”
“I can’t. I didn’t even know you were here.”
“When you didn’t answer the door, I used my key.”
“Glad you came.”
“I came to get you moving. You’re no good to Cassidy if you starve to death.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“It’s been almost two days. You have to be hungry. And you haven’t slept well. Hey, is that puke on the floor?”
“Yes.”
“Mary, clean that up! Why were you throwing up and leaving it there?”
“I was crying so hard, I vomited. And at that point in time, I just didn’t care about the floor.”
“You don’t need to be a drama queen right now. This isn’t about you. It’s about Cassidy. You need to help the FBI catch this kidnapper and get your daughter back.”
“Tough love from you, no matter what, right?” Mary complained.
“That’s what you need right now. Get up!”
Hearing Grace nag her brought back all of the things that she hated about her irritating, pushy, older sister. She really wished that everybody would just leave her alone and go find her baby. She couldn’t imagine eating or sleeping. It seemed too unfair. Cassidy probably hadn’t been able to eat or sleep, so what gave her the right to have those luxuries?
“Where are my cigarettes?” Mary asked groggily.
“You don’t smoke anymore. You don’t need a cigarette. You need to eat because that is what people do in times of trouble. They feed their pain.”
“Don’t tell me what I need and don’t need—just get some goddamned cigarettes!”
“This is not a good time to swear at God and if you do it again, I’m calling an exorcist.”
“Like you know one,” Mary said childishly.
“I know how to use Google.” Grace took a pack of low-tar cigarettes from her purse and put them on the nightstand. “These are absolutely disgusting. Have one.”
“How do you even smoke those?” Mary asked, sitting up.
“I can’t stand the taste of them either. I put them out after two puffs because they taste so bad. They’re so nasty that they’re helping me to quit.”
“I’m not smoking those things.”
“Good. Let me make you some soup and crackers,” Grace offered.
“That’s sick people’s food. I’m not sick.”
“What do you want then?”
Mary’s stomach growled. “Your tuna casserole. I have all the stuff for your secret recipe on the counter. I was going to make it for dinner that day that Cassidy was kidnapped. It’s her favorite and I like it, too.”
“Grace’s tuna casserole, coming up. In forty minutes. Don’t expect me to become your short-order cook, though. I have a family of my own. I’m just here for the day.”
“Thanks, sis,” Mary said.
“Take a shower. You reek.” Grace put the cheap cigarettes back in her handbag.
Mary’s breath shuddered out. “I’ll only feel better when I get my baby back safe and sound.”
When Mary came out of the shower, she heard somber voices coming from the living room. One voice was her sister’s. The other was a man’s voice. She peeked out the window of her bedroom and saw an FBI-issue black SUV in her driveway behind Grace’s car.
She was both elated and terrified that the FBI was back, to either provide her with the promised bodyguard, or to interrogate her, probably both. Mary dressed in jeans and a pullover sweater and blow-dried her dark hair. She put on socks and her everyday boots. She steeled herself for whatever they were going to tell her.
As she walked toward the living room, she thought, Please be alive, Cassidy. Please be alive, Cassidy.
“Here she is, fresh as a daisy now,” Grace announced.
Mary shot her sister a dirty look and Grace said, “Back to your normal self, I see.”
“Only on the outside,” Mary replied. Mary was relieved to see that Grace was not crying, which she would have been if the news about Cassidy had been bad.
Grace said, “Mary, this is FBI Special Agent Zack Donovan.”
It was the dark-haired agent with the intense sapphire-colored eyes. “We’ve met. Nice to see you again.”
“Likewise.”
Grace paused as the two shook hands and said hello. “I’m going to check on the tuna casserole. I’ll be back in a few after you two talk privately.”
Mary nodded at Special Agent Donovan and sat across from him in a recliner chair. The agent was wearing a different black suit, this one cut more closely to what must have been an athletic body. A bulge under the suit jacket showed that he was packing heat. Well, of course, he was.
“Special Agent Donovan, do you have news for me on the progress of the investigation?”
“Yes, I do,” he said quietly and she saw he had an overnight bag with him, as well as a laptop briefcase. “First of all, call me Zack. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few days. I’m going to stay here with you. Is that okay?”
“Yes. But I thought they were going to send a female FBI agent to stay with me.” There was a lull in the conversation as Mary waited. Zack was setting her up for something difficult.
“They sent the best person for the job. Me.”
“Why you?”
“Because I get results on my own that the team can’t seem to get.”
Mary’s mouth twitched nervously. “Okay. Glad you’re here.”
“Thank you. We are on day three now, almost day four, and the FBI doesn’t have any idea who or where or why. I’m going to stay with you until we figure it out together.”
“Me? I don’t know what happened to my daughter,” Mary said.
“I need you to help me figure that out. Whatever is in your brain that can help, I am going to extract it from you.”
“I’ll try, but I really am tapped out. I know nothing. I don’t even know if my daughter is alive.”
“We don’t know either, but we have something small to go on. Okay, I lied. Something big.”
“What?” she asked, her heart pounding.
“I want to talk to you about some evidence found inside your house.”
“Oh, no. He didn’t do anything creepy in my house, did he? I mean…sexual?”
“Not that we know of. But you have some explaining to
do.”
Mary’s back stiffened. “What do you mean, I have explaining to do?”
“We found some DNA off a little paper cup in the bathroom trash can. muchidy’s big-footed visitor to her bedroom got himself a drink from the bathroom tap, crumpled the cup and threw it away. It’s like he wanted to be caught.”
“Seriously?” Prickles rose on the back of Mary’s neck.
Zack said, “Mary, here’s the strange news: You know Cassidy’s abductor.”
“No, I don’t. I swear!”
“Yes, you do,” Zack said. “Or you did know him.”
“I don’t understand. What DNA evidence could you possibly have found that—” Mary cut herself off.
“Aha! I just saw a light bulb go off over your head. You would be a terrible poker player.”
“It’s not what you think. I really don’t know who he is, Zack.”
“Explain how you could not know that Cassidy’s father is not your dead husband, but another man who is most definitely the father of Cassidy. We pulled her DNA off her toothbrush. And the DNA in the paper cup is a paternity match. For sure.”
“Oh, my God.”
Grace brought in a tray with three plates of tuna casserole squares and three cans of Diet Coke from the fridge. She went back to the kitchen for three glasses filled with ice and then came back in the living room. “You know I love you, sis. But it’s not helping find Cassidy if you don’t cough up some details about this crazy thing that Special Agent Donovan just told you. He told me first.”
“He told you this while I was in the shower?” Mary asked.
“Yeah, to see if I knew who this guy might be, but, as far as I know, your dead husband was the father of Cassidy. Now, it’s proved that he isn’t. So, tell the truth to the FBI agent. He is here to help. And frankly, I am curious as all get-out.”
“I can’t talk about it!” Mary said loudly.
Zack said, “Mary, this is the best clue we’ve had so far. We don’t know where this guy is, but now we know who he is, or at least who his DNA says he is. We’re trying to match him in our DNA databases at FBI headquarters, but it takes a long time to do that and he has to have been arrested before and have given a DNA sample for us to find him that way. Or he has to have contributed to public DNA and genealogy databases. Help us to help Cassidy. Cough up a name for me. Please?”
Mary’s chest suddenly hurt. She took several deep breaths and let them out. “I don’t know his name. I swear.”
He nodded sympathetically, understanding at once. “Where did you…meet?”
“In Northern California, where I grew up and went to college and earned my degrees. At the time, I was engaged to Joe, who is now deceased. I was a good little Catholic virgin, waiting for our wedding night. And he was waiting, too, bless his heart. We didn’t have much, but we were in love. He was my soul mate and we used to joke that we knew each other in another life. That’s how amazing our relationship was.” Mary took a breath and let it out. “This is so hard.”
“I know,” Zack said. “Please, go on.”
Mary nodded. “A couple of months before our wedding, I was teaching a night class and as I was walking to my car, a man attacked me—he raped me in the parking lot. I never told anyone about it except my fiancé because I was so devastated. I wanted to call off the wedding, but, to his credit, Joe would not let me do that. I never, ever knew who raped me. And I mean, not ever. I kept it quiet. I never reported it to the police. After we married, we moved downstate to Southern Cali because I lost my nerve for teaching night school and no day positions were open at the college. I also wanted to leave the area because I was scared. Scared he would do it again to me.”
“You should have reported it, Mary,” Grace scolded. “You let that scum go free to do it to other women.”
Mary cringed. “I know. I kept trying to make myself deal with it, but time kept passing and I wanted to put it all behind me.” She swallowed hard. “When my husband Joe and I found out I was pregnant, just a week after the wedding, he accepted the child as his because he was just that good of a man. He did not ever want a paternity test for Cassidy because he loved her so much, and he was the best father a baby girl could ever have. He also wanted to get me away from the Bay area because I was so scared, so paranoid that it would happen again. We came down here to L.A. and stayed with Joe’s mom, then lived with her. She was the sweetest lady I ever knew, like a mom to me, and such a fine grandmother to Cassidy. Cassidy was full-term, if a little small. I always suspected, but now I know for sure that she is not Joe’s baby. Biologically. Just the daughter of his heart.”
“God, sis. I didn’t know. I thought Cassidy was a preemie,” Grace said. “And here, I thought you left San Francisco because of—because of the way we grew up and your resentment that Mom didn’t protect us from that neighbor guy.” Grace’s voice wavered. “Anyway, that guy is dead now, the one who did that to us as kids.” She paused. “We haven’t discussed that for years.”
“With good reason. Please, Grace, let’s not talk about that now.” Mary took a deep breath and let it out. “Nobody except the doctor knew that she wasn’t a preemie and that she was full-term, but she was small. Delicate.” She stopped to blow her nose and threw away the tissues.
“Please go on,” said Zack.
“Joe and I wanted to keep things a secret about her biological father. Not because he was ashamed of anything I did. I fought like a wildcat against this big man and I told Joe about it. The rapist got some damage done to him before he punched me in the face, knocked me out and…got inside of me. Tore me up. It took months to heal inside.”
“What damage did you do to him?” Zack asked.
“I nailed his face pretty good while struggling with him and cut it wide open from the corner of his right eye down to his chin—with my little diamond engagement ring that he stole from me. He might even have a facial scar.”
“Your scars are on the inside,” Zack said.
“Yes. That’s why I work from home and I never leave my daughter alone. I am too scared to even send her to school, in case something like that might happen to her. Like what happened to me. And to my sister.”
“Rape is a horrible experience. It stays with you forever and ever,” Grace said. “But we’re survivors. You should have told me that it happened to you as an adult. I could have supported you, helped you.”
“You’re stronger than me, but you have baggage of your own. I knew that and I never wanted to add it to your shoulders.” Her eyes wet, she looked at Grace and said, “Please understand that most of all, Joe and I never wanted this horrible thing to come back and hurt Cassidy. So we kept it a secret.”
“God, sis. Why didn’t you call me? How could you keep this from me? We tell each other everything!”
“I only wanted Joe to know. The fewer people who knew, the better. For Cassidy’s sake. It can never, ever come out.”
Grace nodded and crossed her heart. “My lips are sealed. I will never tell her, but you have to tell the agent everything.”
“I know.” Mary got up from the table and slid down in the recliner, curling herself into a ball. She felt a hand on her shoulder and when she looked up, it was not her sister’s hand.
Zack squeezed her shoulder. “In light of all this, I have something more reassuring to say about Cassidy’s kidnapping.”
“What do you mean, ‘reassuring’?” Mary asked, puzzled.
“With this new information, I think she’s probably still alive. I mean, if I treat it like a kidnapping from a noncustodial parent, the odds just raised in Cassidy’s favor of surviving this.”
“Thank God,” Grace said.
Mary said, “I’m not feeling exactly reassured by your statistics. My daughter is extremely vulnerable!”
“Yes, she is, but this isn’t some random kidnapping. He knows Cassidy is his. He has to know. That is the motive for kidnapping her and not some other child,” Zack said.
Mary nodded her head slowly
. “But did he kidnap her to get to know and love her, or to hurt me some more?”
“Good question,” Zack said.
“A rapist has her,” Grace said, shuddering.
Mary cried out, her agony building. She echoed, “A rapist has her!”
Zack said, “We do not know that he is a child rapist. Let’s not jump to the conclusion that he kidnapped your daughter for the purpose of rape—” Zack stopped himself. “Also, the odds are now raised for finding out who this man is. Quite a bit, by the way. I’m going to find him and when I find him, I’ll find her.”
“How are you going to do that?” Mary asked.
“Well, now I’ve got a cold-case rape to investigate. I suggest you access the archives of your brain for that night. Where and when did this happen?”
She named the Berkeley campus and the date, and then closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she stared across the room, as if she was seeing it all happen from outside her body. “After I taught my night class, I was walking to my car from the Math building. He grabbed me and threw me down, pushed up my dress, tore aside my panties.” She let out a cry and then went on. “It was raining. A cold, windy rain. I fought him. I spit on him. I bit him and I punched him with my left hand when I got it loose.”
“What do you mean, ‘got it loose’?” Grace asked.
“He was holding both my hands above me and I slipped it out when he was pulling…himself…out of his pants. I cut his face open with my engagement ring. He bled on me and punched me to unconsciousness and he raped me under a streetlight, right in the building’s parking lot! On the asphalt. That’s all I know.”
“God,” Grace breathed. “I’m so sorry, sis.”
Zack’s fists were clenched. He nodded for Mary to go on.
Mary breathed heavily. “When I didn’t come home that night, Joe came looking for me at the college. He found me in the math building’s parking lot. He picked me up off the ground and woke me with those ammonia capsules they put in automotive first aid kits.”
Zack nodded her along.
“Joe took me straight home because I begged him not to take me to a hospital.” She turned her eyes to Zack. “I guess that’s not very helpful. My rendition.”