Her face brightened again. “You know what Daddy made me start doing?”
“No, what?”
“He made me start taking karate.”
“That’s an awesome idea, Sierra.”
“You wanna come watch me take a lesson sometime?”
“No,” I said, and her face fell. “I wanna go take the lessons with you.”
She giggled. “They have a beginner’s class for adults.”
I pulled her into my arms for a hug. “Sold.”
My boss made it down to the trailer, too, after he got the news. It didn’t take him long to find me. “Erica,” he said as he rushed to my side, “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Gerry.”
“I saw it happening, but I couldn’t get to you in time.”
“I heard.”
“I saw you fight. You should have been able to get away.”
“He was geared up, a bulletproof vest, steel-toed boots, and a cup. He was prepared for anything I could have dished out.”
“The whole thing has given me recurring nightmares.”
I snorted. “Yeah, me, too.”
“Aw, hell, I’m sorry.”
“Well, now maybe your nightmares can have a happy ending.”
He smiled, “I know it’s going to take you a while to get yourself back together. But, whenever you’re ready, your job is waiting for you.”
“Wow, thank you.”
“Full time or part time, whatever you need, it’s the least I can do.”
“I don’t quite know exactly what I plan on doing, just yet.”
“Take as much time as you need, let me know what kind of hours you want.”
“Thank you.”
He held up a hand. “Don’t thank me, please. Just don’t disappear again.”
“I will do my very best,” I said, my tone solemn.
And so the day wore on, people came out of the woodwork to share something with me that had happened while I was gone. Most people shared either big things that had happened to them, or just tried to catch me up in general. Very few actually dared to ask me what had happened during my months of captivity. And even then, they didn’t ask for many details. Either they were afraid of what I might tell them, or they figured I didn’t want to go through it all again.
Mom floated in and out, bringing me drinks, food, and sunscreen. I can’t say that I ate and drank everything she tried to get into me, but I was thankful that she was doing her best to mother me. I’d missed that.
Morning eventually turned into afternoon. I had just finished having a conversation with a couple friends from school, who had driven down, when a local news crew showed up, looking for an interview.
The crew had made their way through the crowd out front and was approaching the porch. I saw them as they passed the corner of the trailer and the interviewer looked at my dad and uncle sitting on the steps. Before the gentleman could figure out which man he should address, my dad turned and looked at me with a questioning eyebrow.
I shook my head and stood up. I made a beeline for the door. Straight into the trailer, weaving my way around the people inside, passed the bathroom, and into my grandparent’s tiny bedroom. I almost crawled into the trailer’s one and only closet and I had to stop myself before retreating that far.
I knew my story would be in the news. Asshole had created too many problems in too many states for the story to fly under the radar. But I was not up to giving an interview, giving answers to questions, and then having people who’ve never been in my situation decide for themselves if I had done the right thing or not. I wasn’t about to put myself in a position to have to defend my actions to a group of people who were after ratings. No, thank you, the police could handle that.
There had been a radio playing outside, but someone had turned it off. The people were being abnormally quite and I was drawn to the window. I drew back the edge of the curtain and watched as my father and four uncles herded both members of the crew back into their van. There was no violence, no shouted words. But everyone’s attention gravitated to the small scene that was unfolding.
“Well, if she won’t do an interview, that’s fine. We can’t possibly imagine what she’s going through. But maybe you and your wife could say a few words?” the interviewer cajoled as he was walking backwards.
My uncles swallowed up the space of every step the man retreated.
“As I’ve already said,” Dad replied, “we’re very grateful that she was able to escape. Her mother and I are thrilled to have her back and in good health. But we are not doing any interviews at this time.”
“But, sir! Maybe if you could just say that on camera-”
“Look, buddy,” Uncle Steve said as he all but backed the guy up against the van, “he said no, he meant no. Now get in your van and leave.”
The man relented and gave a nod to the cameraman. My family all stepped back so the crew could get into the van and back out of the parking area.
As soon as the van had driven out of sight, I opened the bedroom door and slowly made my way back to the porch. Those still milling around inside each had a smile or an encouraging word for me.
Not a single one questioned me as to why I’d felt the need to disappear and hide for a few moments. I don’t know if they knew what had happened outside or not, and I didn’t care. Maybe they just figured that I was due a little latitude in the strange behavior department and had steered clear from the topic.
When I finally made my way back to the porch, a man I had never met before was waiting for me. We each stood there for a moment, staring at each other.
“Can I help you?” I asked for lack of anything better to say.
“Are you Erica?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Aaron Fletcher.”
Well… good for you. I stood there, watching him in silence, waiting for him to clue me in on how he was connected to me.
“I’m sorry… I just… I had to see for myself that you were okay.”
“I don’t understand. Who are you?”
“I’m the one that tried to chase the car on the day you were taken.”
What was I supposed to say to this guy? It’s okay that you failed, gunshot wounds heal. Thanks for trying, it’s the thought that counts. Thanks anyway, it only took me a year and a half to get myself out of the mess you couldn’t save me from. I kept my ungracious, knee-jerk reaction, comments to myself. I walked back over to the corner bench I had been sitting on earlier and gestured for him to sit adjacent to me.
I saw Dad and Uncle Mike retake their positions on the steps. Dad positioned himself so that he could keep an eye on my visitor.
I turned back to Aaron. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize your name. The police told me that someone had tried to follow the car, but they never told me who it had been.”
“No, I’m sorry for barging in on your welcoming party. It’s just that, when I heard about the escape of the local teen who had been kidnapped last year… I just had to see for myself that you were all right.”
“I am as all right as I can be, given the circumstances.”
“I wanted to apologize to you. I tried. I tried really hard to stay on his tail until the cops could get there.”
“Sir-”
“Aaron, please.”
I looked him in the eye and nodded. “Aaron, honestly, I’ve spent all these months not knowing that anyone had tried. I stewed and ranted about how I had done everything they try and tell a young woman to do in that situation, only to have it not do me a damn bit of good.”
Dad must have been listening, because he got up and drifted over to sit beside me.
“I’m so sorry I failed you,” Aaron said, anguished.
I gentled my tone, “You’re missing my point. I thought that either nobody had bothered paying any attention, or that nobody had cared enough to help out a stranger.”
“I cared. I noticed. I saw him on the side of the road when I was still a good di
stance back. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, that maybe it was a mannequin he was stuffing into the trunk. I had to catch myself and correct my thinking because mannequins don’t move and kick. You never expect to witness something like that, and your brain doesn’t want to accept that it’s seeing something unthinkable happen.
“I still thought that I was overreacting when I slowed down a bit as I got closer. The guy was away from the trunk and into the driver’s seat so fast, and he pulled right out in front of me. Before I knew what I was doing, I was pursuing him. I called nine-one-one and told them that I thought I had just witnessed a kidnapping. Once we hit the bypass and he started weaving around traffic, I knew that I was right. And then when I saw the tail light fixture go flying and your fingers waving… All I could think about was, what if it you were one of my daughters?”
I smiled. “How many daughters do you have?”
“Three. And while I knew you weren’t one of them, I knew you were somebody’s daughter. Somebody, out there, was going to be getting the worst phone call of their life. That’s why I followed, because if it had been any one of my daughters, I’d want someone to try and help stop it.”
“How did he lose you?”
“I was behind him, in the left lane. I knew there was an exit coming up, but he was going so fast, I never dreamed he would try and take it. But he cut-off a car in the right lane at the last second and swung that big car right onto the exit ramp. I couldn’t get over and follow, there was no way. All I could tell the cops was where he got off.”
I took a deep breath and let go of the anger I had harbored about how I had thought that day had played out. “Thank you.”
“But I didn’t help you.”
“But you tried. No one asked you to help, yet you took it upon yourself to try. You cared enough, about a person you didn’t know. You cared enough to put your own life at risk. You could have crashed the car. He could have pointed his gun behind him and shot at you. You could have been injured trying to help a stranger. And for that, I’m grateful.”
“How can you be grateful? I didn’t help you!”
“I was angry in the beginning, for a lot of reasons. One being because, like I said, I thought no one had bothered to help me. At first, all I could express to the asshole who had taken me was that anger, which did me absolutely no good. But later, I stopped spewing my anger and him and bottled it up inside, instead.
“I used it to power my determination, to keep believing that I would find a way not only to get out, but to make sure he got caught. And now that all that has happened, your apology and explanation has just helped me to let go of a piece of that anger. And that’s exactly what I need to be able to do. I need to let it go, so I can move beyond it. That’s why I’m grateful, not just that you tried to help, but because you came here today and told me the story from your side.”
He smiled. “So I just helped bring you closure?”
“A piece of it, yeah.”
“So, by coming here, I wasn’t being an insensitive jerk to bug you about this now. I helped you begin to heal?”
I chuckled at his confused expression. “Yeah, thank you for sharing your story.”
Aaron’s eyes started leaking all over his face and onto his shirt. …It’s weird to watch a grown man cry and feel like you’re the one that caused it. I turned to look at Dad, to see if he knew how to make it stop.
“He’s been beating himself up ever since that day. Every holiday he sends a card, always asking if we’d heard anything new, always apologizing for what happened. That day has haunted him as much as it has haunted your mother and me.”
Light finally dawned through my thick skull. Aaron hadn’t really driven all this way just to see if I was all right… I turned back him, as he was using a fist to wipe away his tears, placed a hand on his shoulder, and whispered, “I forgive you.”
Still too choked up to speak, Aaron nodded his thanks and stood to leave. Dad got up to stop him and Aaron put out his hand, thinking Dad wanted a handshake. Dad waved the hand off and reached out to hug him.
As the sun began to go down, guests began to head for home, and people in the marina started retreating into their own trailers. Some were still milling around, and some stayed to help clean up.
Jared and Keith had kept their distance throughout the day. They were running interference for me, talking to people, answering questions, and keeping friends entertained. But now they had joined Dad and Mike at the porch steps.
“You ready to lie down and try to get some sleep?” Dad asked, he’d stood and climbed up the stairs and sat on one of the built-in tables across from me.
I sighed, “I should be, but no. I need to… I need to process. Maybe I’ll go sit down on the dock.”
“Moonlit boat ride?” Keith offered.
“Yeah?” I wondered, as I thought about it.
He walked up the steps to come closer. “Yeah. The cool air will clear your head, and no one can bug you, except for who’s on the boat. You go out on that pier and the people who’re still hanging around will wander down to you.”
I rolled my eyes, “If I hear one more person tell me how sorry they are…”
Keith gave a head-nod in the direction of the boat. “So, let’s go.”
I looked over at Jared, “You coming with us?”
He nodded.
I looked over at Dad, “You gonna let me out of your sight long enough to let me go?”
The faintest trace of a smile crossed his features, “I’d offer to drive the boat for the three of you, but I think it’ll do you good to be out with people your own age again. Besides, if I go, I’ll just ask you questions you may not be prepared to answer, instead of letting you process. Just, please, the three of you stay out of trouble.”
“Will do, Daddy. And you can ask me your questions tomorrow. I’ve spent months thinking about what I would want to do once I was free. I just might have more answers than you think.”
Keith went and grabbed the keys, and Jared and I walked down to the boat to start taking off the canvas. Keith was back in a flash, muttering about how a few family members weren’t too excited about his idea. I looked up at the trailer and saw my mom through the window, hands on hips, none too happy to see me leaving.
“Well, they’re going to have to get used to it,” I muttered. “If I’m back in the land of the living, they’re going to have to let me live.”
“They’re just not sure how to handle you,” Jared said.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I’m not entirely sure how to handle me, either.”
“Then what’s your plan?” Keith asked.
I shrugged, “Just take it one day at a time, for now. If I start freaking out or feeling like I’m drowning, I guess I’ll go see a shrink.”
Jared and I untied the boat and we pushed off from the dock. Keith started the engine and began navigating us out of the marina’s immediate area and headed north.
“I can go past that house,” Keith called over the low drone of the engine, “or I can just go around the end of the island.”
“Go on up past the house, I want to see if they’ve taped it off or anything.”
The guys fell silent for the few minutes it took us to get up to the forest green house from Hell. I stood up to get a better look, and Jared came to stand behind me.
“I can’t believe you were this close to us. For weeks we’ve been hanging around, and you were right here,” he said near my ear.
“I can’t believe it, either. I thought he was setting me up for something. All this time, and it turns out that he just wasn’t as smart as he liked to think he was.”
“Yeah, but you still would have found a way out, eventually.”
“For sure.”
The lights were on in the house, and a few men were moving around inside. I could also see two police cruisers parked in the driveway, near the garage.
“If there’s anything in that house that you want back, you better let them know,”
Keith called to us.
I shook my head, “No, thank you. I don’t want anything from there.”
Keith continued cruising around at a slow pace. Jared went up and sat in the seat next to Keith and they let me just quietly sit in the back, contemplating everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
Eventually, we completed a long circle and arrived back at the marina. Jared turned and looked back at me, “Are you ready to head in yet?”
I scrunched my face, “I guess so.”
“Because if you aren’t, we can drop Keith at the dock and go anchor off the island for a while. We could talk, or I could just doze while you get your head on straight.”
We do need to talk… “Let’s drop Keith off at the dock.”
Keith chuckled, “Great, I’m going to enjoy having to explain this one.”
“Tell them we’re only going over to the island, they can look out the window and see the boat,” Jared told him.
Jared and I didn’t say a word to each other as we navigated over, and tossed and set the anchor. Silence, blessed silence, descended when he cut the engine. Sure I could still hear the lapping of the water against the hull of the boat, but that was a relaxing sound. Jared came to sit down next to me and he put his arm across the back of the bench seat of the cabin cruiser.
I leaned my head back on his arm, closed my eyes, and just breathed for a little while. He settled back, too, just taking in the scenery and trying to detox from the day.
I sat there until I finally felt my shoulder and neck muscles relax. So much had happened over the last couple of days, and it had taken its toll. Jared felt the change in my body, wrapped his arm around me, and gave me a gentle squeeze. I curled into him, burying my face in his chest. He continued to hold me, not talking, just comforting. I marinated in the silence a little longer before breaking it.
“I’m not going back to high school. I’m pretty sure I can pass the GED exams.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Maybe I’ll take one or two college courses online this fall, if I can get the GED in time.”
“All right.”
“I don’t want to go away to college until everything is settled with the police, and I don’t know how long that will take. I just know that I want it all over with before I go anywhere. Because once I venture away from home, I want to be able to move on from the mess, once and for all.”
Lulling the Kidnapper Page 19