The Girl Who Was Taken

by Charlie Donlea

  “You have one of those?” Barb asked. “A guy who thinks he can come and go as he pleases?”

  “Can’t say I do, ma’am.”

  Barb waved her hand to dismiss the thought. “You with the police?”

  “No, not exactly. I’m with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina. I was the one who performed the autopsy on your son.”

  “Oh yeah? Cops said I could call you if I had any questions.” Mrs. Delevan turned and paged through the papers to her right, gave up after a minute. “They gave me a card, it’s in here somewhere.”

  “Here,” Livia said, handing her a new one. “I’m always available.”

  “You come all the way down from Raleigh?” Barb said, reading the card.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Long way.”

  “It was a pretty drive. Trees are starting to change,” Livia said. “And I don’t like talking to family over the phone about something so delicate.”

  “Well, I appreciate it. Police tell me my Casey didn’t drown, that maybe somebody killed him.”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s what my examination revealed.”

  “Somebody stabbed him, they said?”

  Livia nodded. “That’s what it looks like, yes.”

  Homicide detectives, Livia was learning, were notorious for leaving out “unimportant” details when talking to victim’s families. Livia could imagine the two Raleigh detectives setting foot in this home and knowing two things immediately. First, Barb Delevan had nothing to do with her son’s death. And second, she wasn’t going to be useful to their investigation. To streamline their visit, the detectives had left quiet the details about the suspected manner in which Casey Delevan had died. “Stabbed” carried the connotation of a sharp object to the gut. As awful as that image may be, unidentified holes to her son’s skull were worse.

  Barb Delevan shook her head, took a sip of vodka and a long drag from her cigarette. “You sure he didn’t drown like the newspeople say? He wasn’t really stable. Mentally, I mean. I could see him jumping from that bridge before I could see him . . . well, before I could imagine someone hurting him.”

  “I’m sure, ma’am. Your son did not drown.”

  “But on the news, they say he might have.”

  “I understand, but the newspeople have it wrong.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Lots of ways. But the strongest evidence we have is that your son had no water in his lungs. This tells us without question that he did not drown. And he had no injuries consistent with a long fall from a bridge.”

  “So it’s true? Someone stabbed him?”

  Livia nodded and Casey’s mother wiped her eyes before taking another hit from her cigarette.

  “He suffer?”

  Livia had no way of knowing this. But based on Maggie Larson’s report that whatever was used to penetrate Casey Delevan’s head had breached the brain tissue as deep as an inch and a half in four different locations of the temporal lobe—responsible for hearing and cognitive ability—there was a very good possibility that Casey Delevan suffered a long, slow death while bleeding out and completely conscious. The only good news was that he might have been deaf and unable to comprehend what was happening. Then again, he might have lost consciousness, making his death truly painless. This long afterward it was simply impossible to know for certain. Still, Livia’s answer was immediate.

  “He died instantly.”

  Barb nodded. Knowing that her son had not suffered relieved some of her burden.

  “I’d like to ask a few questions about Casey, if that’s all right,” Livia said.

  Barb shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Police said you two were estranged.”

  “We didn’t talk, if that’s what you mean.”

  “May I ask why?”

  Another sip of vodka. “Long story.”

  “I drove a long way.”

  “Why’s it important?”

  Livia thought for a moment. “About a year ago, summer before last, a couple of girls went missing from up where I live in Emerson Bay.”

  Barb pointed two fingers at Livia, cigarette between them and smoke twisting behind. She nodded her head. “I ’member that. That one girl is still all over the news. One that got away.”

  “Correct. The other girl? She was my sister.”

  “Other girl who was taken?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was your sister?”

  Livia nodded.

  “Well, shit on that. Sorry to hear, Doc.”

  “Thank you.” Livia shifted in the recliner. “The reason I mention it is because Casey and my sister, Nicole, were dating when she disappeared. My examination of the—” Livia stopped herself. She almost said body, something Dr. Colt had lectured them about. Relatives didn’t want to hear about bodies. The deceased were still very much alive in their memories. “—of your son indicates that he likely died around the same time that my sister went missing. End of the summer of 2016. Maybe fall. So for my own selfish reasons, Barb, I wanted to find out a little about Casey. About the person my sister was dating.”

  “You’re not sayin’ Casey had something to do with those missing girls, are you?”

  Having built a good rapport to this point, Livia didn’t dare reveal her suspicions. And the truth was that she had no idea what to think about Nicole and Casey. “Of course not. I’m just looking for anything I can find about that summer. Anything I can learn about my sister before she went missing.”

  “You know,” Barb said, pouring more vodka into the white Styrofoam cup, “we’re a lot alike, you and me.”

  “Oh yeah? How’s that?”

  “My older boy, Joshua, he went missing. He was nine. Out with Casey and their daddy at the fair. Their father was such a piece of shit, excuse me. Worthless as a husband and no good as a father. Knowing this about him, I still let him take my boys to the fair that day. He came home with Casey. Never saw Joshua again.”

  Livia paused at the revelation. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

  “Me too. So I know how you feel. About your sister. Casey would’ve known, too.”

  “When did that happen? Your other son?”

  “July twelfth, 2000. He’d be twenty-seven now, but I only know him as that nine-year-old boy stuck in my mind.” Mrs. Delevan looked off into the corner of the room.

  “Joshua was never found?”

  Barb shook her head. “My Joshua is gone. Police questioned my husband for a long time, but they finally gave up on that angle. There was a predator at that fair, and he waited until Joshua drifted far enough away from his daddy. That’s all it was. The police checked in with me for a year to tell me about their leads and about the case. But they stopped calling eventually. After a while, I gave up hope. Me and their daddy were never the same. I still blame him. He didn’t have nothin’ to do with Joshua’s disappearance, but he was the one supposed to be watchin’ my boy that day. He knows it, too. So he took off about a year after we lost Joshua. Casey and me never seen him again. Casey hung around until he was eighteen, then he took off like his daddy. Ain’t talked with him for three, four years. Then I get a call from the police. Now both my boys are gone.”

  Livia listened to the sad life of Barb Delevan. The self-destruction and drawn shades and dark house and reclusive lifestyle made a great deal more sense. And so, too, did Nicole’s attraction to Barb’s son. Their cousin Julie’s disappearance—a turning point in Nicole’s childhood—was something Casey Delevan would have related to. Livia imagined Nicole finding comfort in that connection, something she hadn’t found from her family. Livia had been off at college when Julie disappeared and didn’t see the ramifications until the following summer when Nicole was withdrawn and confused. A nineteen-year-old kid herself, Livia wasn’t equipped with the tools to comfort her younger sister about something so tragic. Her parents tried to shield the horror of it by moving on and hiding the details from her.

  “I’m rea
lly sorry for your loss,” Livia said. “I won’t take up any more of your time. If you need anything, or have any questions, please call me.”

  “Thanks for coming all the way down, Doc. And for setting my mind to rest that my boy didn’t suffer.”

  “Of course.”

  “And it does get easier,” Barb said, sitting up and pouring more vodka. “Day by day, I miss him less and less.”

  Livia stood. She knew Barb Delevan was talking about her missing son whom she hadn’t seen for nearly twenty years, not Casey. That Barb and Casey had lost touch, Livia was sure, had to do with the nine-year-old boy trapped in Mrs. Delevan’s mind.

  “Thank you,” Livia said as she headed for the door and the fresh air outside.

  CHAPTER 11

  Megan McDonald pulled up to the house in West Bay. It was dark and dreadful, but she’d never had the heart to tell Mr. Steinman how hard it was to come here. He was lonely, and Megan understood that if she didn’t visit him, no one would. His wife was a number of years older than he, the love affair originating from two separate marriages and now, on the downhill side of life, culminating with Mr. and Mrs. Steinman in separate rooms much of the time.

  It was a sad life that Mr. Steinman had described to Megan over the past year, and she had decided not to let him live out his days alone. She owed him something, and company is what she had to offer. That she needed to drive along Highway 57 and past the spot where Mr. Steinman had found her staggering the night she escaped from the bunker was an added element to the silent sacrifice Megan made to visit the man who had saved her life. But Megan couldn’t claim full martyr status for her visits to Mr. Steinman. With all her friends away at college, she actually looked forward to their cribbage games.

  She climbed from her car and knocked on the door.

  “Come in, my lovely young lady,” Mr. Steinman called from his couch. He sounded in a jovial mood this evening.

  Megan pushed through the front door to the smell of old people, a combination of talcum powder and antiseptic. Some might be turned off by the home. It was less than organized, and with some neglect could be featured on a hoarding reality show. But Megan was always flattered when she visited Mr. Steinman. He was not elderly, just sixty, and his self-awareness had not abandoned him. She knew the stacks of clutter in the corner were his way of tidying up for her presence. The smell of rubbing alcohol and antiseptic, she knew, could not be avoided.

  Mr. Steinman sat in his worn green recliner, a deck of cards neatly arranged on the coffee table next to the cribbage board. This was, Megan knew, the highlight of his week.

  “Hi,” Megan said.

  “Long one or short one?”

  “Short. Sorry, I’ve got to get home and then to therapy.”

  Mr. Steinman leaned forward and shuffled the cards. “Sit,” he said. “Soda?”

  “Sure.”

  The cards fluttered together as he shuffled them. “Help yourself.”

  Megan grabbed a soda from the kitchen and then she sat at the corner of the couch. Mr. Steinman dealt six cards.

  “I’ll let you have the crib to start,” he said.

  Megan smiled and analyzed her cards. “Go easy on me.”

  “Never. Where’ve you been lately?”

  “Book stuff. Interviews and all that.”

  Mr. Steinman regarded her over the top of his cards. When their eyes met, he looked back to his hand and discarded two cards into the crib. “You’re not fooling me, you know that?”

  “We’ve just started playing, I haven’t tried to fool you yet.”

  “I mean with the interviews.”

  Megan paused briefly, but then discarded her own cards to the crib.

  “It’s the way you smile,” Mr. Steinman said. He looked up, held eye contact this time.

  “How’s that?” Megan asked.

  “When you’re here and you get a good run or a string of fifteens, you smile. You really smile. Not that fake thing you do with your lips together when you’re on TV.”

  “Oh, I have different smiles?” Megan let out a halfhearted laugh that she didn’t even believe.

  “Yeah, like that. It’s as fake now as it is when you’re gabbing with Dante Campbell. I don’t like it.”

  She played her first card, a ten of diamonds.

  “Don’t lead with a ten or a face card. I tell you the same thing every time.” He laid a five on top of it and moved his peg two places on the cribbage board. He threw down a four of hearts. “And don’t think you can purposely play badly to distract me. Why do you smile like that in interviews?”

  He was old and reclusive, but Megan could never argue that Mr. Steinman was anything but observant.

  “I don’t know. ’Cause I don’t like doing them.”

  “Then stop.”

  “I can’t. Everyone wants me to do them.”

  “You go through life doing all the things everyone else wants you to do, and you’ll wake up one day realizing your life’s passed you by and you’ve got a list of stuff you’ve never gotten to.”

  Megan threw a nine onto the table.

  “Yeah, well, I’m doing what I need to do at the moment to earn myself some freedom. I’ve got other things I’m working on, too.”

  Mr. Steinman threw a card. “Like what?”

  “Like trying to figure out what happened the night you found me.”

  Mr. Steinman paused, lowered his cards. “How are you doing that?”

  Megan shrugged.

  Mr. Steinman stared at her. “Speak.”

  “With my doctor. We’re getting closer to figuring some things out about where I was held.”

  Mr. Steinman dropped his cards onto the table. “I was talking about getting on with your life as far as doing things that you want to do. Like going to college. Or taking that trip to Europe you keep talking about.”

  Megan shrugged. “Maybe.”

  There was a loud crash from another room, and Mr. Steinman was up in a flash. Megan had never seen him move so quickly.

  “Wait here,” he said. He scampered through the kitchen. The keys he wore clasped janitor-style to his belt loop jingled as he moved.

  Megan heard a door open and his footsteps pound on the stairs. Sitting in the living room by herself, Megan tossed her cards onto the table and took a deep breath. If she wasn’t fooling Mr. Steinman during her book tour, she certainly had everyone else guessing. Missing was climbing the best-seller list and Megan was waiting to hear where it landed. Whether Mr. Steinman approved or not, she’d have to use her fake smile for the foreseeable future.

  Mr. Steinman returned a few minutes later, slightly winded and with a glistening layer of perspiration on his forehead.

  “Everything okay?” Megan asked.

  “Not entirely. I’m afraid I’ll have to take a rain check on tonight’s game.”

  “Oh, of course.” Megan stood up.

  “Or . . . I don’t mean to kick you out . . .” he said. “Would you like to finish your soda?”

  “No. I’ll take it with me.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m terribly embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be. I’ll come back and we’ll play again.”

  “When?”

  “Um, next week?”

  Mr. Steinman nodded. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need any help? I promise I don’t mind.”

  With an ushering hand on her shoulder, Mr. Steinman led her to the door. “I’ll be fine. Come again next week. Please.”

  * * *

  Megan sat in her bedroom and scrolled though her phone. A year and a half ago, she couldn’t pick up her phone without several text messages waiting for her. Now all she managed were a few e-mails from friends who still kept in touch. But e-mails were a distant way to communicate, meant for parents and old acquaintances and readers of her book who stalked her and hoped for a reply to the desperate praise they typed in the too-long messages.

  “Honey?” her mother said in a whisp
ered voice as she poked her head into Megan’s bedroom.

  The word honey had never crossed her mother’s lips until after the abduction. And the whispered calls into her bedroom were the definition of regression, as though Megan were an infant waking from an afternoon nap.

  Oh, there she is! Megan could almost hear her mother squeak in the annoying baby voice of a new parent. Look who’s awake.

  “What’s up, Mom?” Megan said, looking up from her empty phone.

  “Claudia’s on the line. She has some exciting news.”

  Claudia was the literary agent her mother had sought out when she came up with the idea for Megan to collect her thoughts about her abduction and stick them between a hardcover binding, which displayed on its cover the eerie forest from where she had escaped, and Megan’s thin-smiling face on the back flap like a James Patterson novel.

  Megan’s mother walked into the room and handed her the phone. She smiled. “You’ll want to hear this.”

  Megan took the phone and placed it to her ear. “Hi, Claudia. What’s going on?”

  “Dante Campbell is pure gold! We knew there would be a big regional audience, but since the interview your book has taken off. I just got word that you will be eleven on the New York Times Best Seller list for next week.”

  Megan looked up to see her mother’s smile, wide and steep across her face.

  “That’s . . . awesome,” Megan said in a monotone.

  “I’ve set up another interview for you. There are lots of requests coming in. I need to know your schedule so we can book them.”

  “I work eight to four.”