Wrong Turn

by Diane Fanning

  At last, she was inside. She pushed the door tightly closed. And then, she shoved on it once again. She threw the deadbolt and stood stock-still feeling the fear and anxiety drain from her body. Home, she thought. Home safe and sound. A nasty little voice in her head whispered, I bet Mom thought she was safe and sound in her home, too. She pressed her skull between her hands and breathed in deeply through her nose, held it in for a moment, then let it out slowly – just like her therapist taught her. She feared she would be haunted by her mother’s brutal death for the rest of her life.

  Within two minutes, she felt the calm wash over her. But the day’s tension left its scar. She wanted a cup of coffee right now more than anything. She knew her dad had forbidden anything with caffeine after school but today simply had to be an exception. It could be worse, she thought, I could have an urge to hit the liquor cabinet.

  She brewed a small pot, fixed a cup and went out on the balcony to await the arrival of Kara and Ruby. As she sipped, a new course of action percolated through her thoughts. Maybe it would be better if I checked out the model apartment first. Make sure that there was a real reason to raise the alarm. Maybe they knew I was in the stall the whole time and everything they said was one big joke. Maybe they wanted me to report what they claimed to have done but actually hadn’t to make me look silly and stupid and have me labeled as a crybaby tattletale. Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of her little sister and the sitter.

  She listened to Kara scold her about the coffee. Charley insisted she was sorry when she really was simply annoyed. Kara still treated her like a stupid, little child. Ruby’s prattling had been annoying her of late but today she welcomed it, willingly giving her hand to her sister and allowing her to drag her away from Kara’s lecture.

  Ruby was on non-stop chatterbox mode. Charley nodded her head and made non-committal responses as Ruby kept the virtual monologue going. It started to give Charley a headache but it beat listening to Kara’s admonishments. She was, she believed, far too old and far too mature to have to answer to any sitter. Ruby was a baby in need of supervision, she thought, but not me.

  If I want coffee after school to help me get through my homework and studying, then I should be able to have it, she told herself. A tiny internal voice said, That’s not why you had coffee today. She suppressed that bit of truth and grew determined to confront her father about the caffeine restriction. After all, she was in middle school; she was no longer a baby.

  Dinner was an unbearable ordeal where her dad kept asking what was on her mind and she kept insisting that nothing was. Finally, he gave up, telling her, ‘That’s never true, Charley, there’s always something on your mind. Just remember, when you’re ready to talk about it, I am always here ready to listen.’

  She thought about all the times he wasn’t there when she needed him and almost snapped out a blistering comment. But knew she was being unfair and said nothing. Once the table was clean and the dirty dishes stacked in the dishwasher, she slipped out on the balcony to call Lucy. She tried her home phone first. When she got voicemail she left her a message: ‘Lucy, I think maybe somebody I know did a bad thing but maybe she didn’t. Maybe she was just trying to act tough. Maybe she was trying to scare me. Or maybe it’s just one big joke. I don’t know what to do. I need your advice. Call me anytime, day or night.’

  She thought about calling Lucinda’s cell but decided if she was still at work, she was busy with something. It’s time I stopped running to her like a baby every time I have a problem, Charley thought. It’s time I stood up for myself and solved my own problems. She formulated her schedule for the next morning. She’d set her alarm to get up before her dad and slip out of the house before he came downstairs. Then she’d go over to Twelfth and Jefferson and find out if there was any truth to what they said. If they were telling the truth, she could deliver an eyewitness account of what she saw. Or, if it was nothing, she would never speak of it again.

  She went online and printed out walking directions from her condo to the apartment complex. Just over a mile and a half, she could walk that in half an hour – no sweat. And she should be able to do that, check out the scene and get to the school before the first bell. She fell asleep with a smile on her face; she had a plan of action and that was always better than sitting still waiting for things to happen.

  TEN

  The moment Charley’s alarm started to ring the next morning at five thirty, she slammed it off and got dressed. She made sure she had some money to stop at Starbucks and snuck out of the house. She avoided the lobby by taking the elevator down to the garage and slipping out through the rear entrance.

  When she stepped up to the counter at the coffee shop and ordered a grande latte with an extra shot, the barista gave her a peculiar look. ‘You know that’s three shots of espresso, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, I do,’ Charley said.

  ‘Are you sure you’re allowed to have that?’

  ‘I thought the customer was always right,’ Charley snapped. ‘I have the money,’ she said, slapping a ten-dollar bill on the counter. ‘I don’t think there’s a law against serving a minor coffee, is there?’

  ‘OK, OK, just don’t come back here whining or send one of your parents in here to yell at me,’ the barista said as she took the money and returned her change.

  The pick-up counter was above her head, but she reached up and grabbed her drink when it arrived. The guy at that end said, ‘Hey, little girl, are you sure that’s yours, it’s a latte with a triple shot.’

  ‘It’s mine,’ Charley said through clenched teeth.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t you want some hot chocolate or something?’

  Charley just turned and walked away. She was so tired of being treated like a child. She stalked out of the store, praying for more height soon. When she arrived at the complex, she spotted the model apartment sign displayed just as prominently as the girls had said it would be. She circled around back and saw the big trash can below a busted window.

  She tossed her empty coffee cup inside the receptacle and tried to hoist herself up on top of it, but she was too short to get the needed leverage. Looking over the area around her, she spotted a pile of wooden pallets. She dragged one over next to the can, stood on it and realized she still wasn’t high enough.

  She grabbed another one and struggled to get it up on top of the first. She shoved on it to make sure it was sturdy and then scrambled up on the trash receptacle. She pushed a few sweaty strands of hair out of her face and reached for the window sill. She nearly cried when her first effort to pull herself up failed. Now she was not only angry about the situation, she was mad at herself for being too small and too weak. She tried again, nearly slipped but, at last, with the help of a foot on the wall, she was able to pull herself up on the ledge and look inside.

  Below her, water was running in the bathtub, slopping over the edges and flowing like a little stream out the door. She had no choice. If she wanted to get inside, she had to jump in the tub. Do I really need to? she wondered. The water’s running; obviously something they said was true. But that could be a coincidence; maybe someone turned it on to see if it worked and forgot to turn it off. She had to be sure. She clung to the sill, and made the small drop. When she pulled her hand away, she realized she’d been cut on a piece of broken glass.

  She swirled her hand in the water, watching a little stream of red eddy into the tub. She used her uncut hand to grab the faucet and turn off the water. She stepped out onto the wet floor, grabbed a towel off the rack and pressed it against the cut. She turned off the sink faucet, too, and opened the medicine cabinet, searching for a bandage, but it was empty. No one lives here, dummy, she admonished herself, why would you even look?

  She sniffed the air for the scent of urine but everything just smelled musty and damp. She sloshed out of the bathroom and into a bedroom where the carpet was drenched by the ankle high water. She squished across the sodden flooring to the living room where she saw the
red writing on the wall and the red daisy on the carpet. The can of spray paint bobbed in the water. She picked it up and went into the kitchen.

  She turned off the water running in the kitchen and opened the cabinet under the sink and sniffed. Ewww – pee. She remembered that smell from the stairway in the downtown parking garage. She was standing beside the dining-room table when the door blasted open and four uniformed officers burst into the room, guns pointed right at her.

  ‘Uh, uh . . .’ was the only sound Charley could make come out of her mouth.

  ‘Drop everything in your hands, girlie. Drop it all now,’ one of the officers shouted.

  Charley looked down at the can and the towel in her hands as if seeing them for the first time. She jerked her hands open as if what she’d been holding had just burned her fingers. The can clattered on the top of the table, then rolled to a stop beside the centerpiece. The towel fell to the floor, laying on the watery surface, absorbing it for a moment, before sinking to the bottom.

  ‘Hands up in the air!’

  She shoved them up as high as she could.

  ‘Turn around!’

  ‘But, but . . .’ Charley objected.

  ‘Turn around!’

  She obeyed the order, her knees shaking, heart pounding. She didn’t think they’d shoot her in the back but she’d heard some strange stories on television. Her wrists were grabbed from behind. Her hands secured in a pair of cuffs. A hand pushed on the back of her head. ‘This way, girlie,’ the officer said, maneuvering her around, leading her out of the apartment and into the back seat of a waiting patrol car.

  On the way to the Justice Center, she spit out the names of the kids responsible for the vandalism, admitting she didn’t know all of their last names. ‘Please don’t say anything else,’ the officer in the passenger seat said. ‘We need to read you your rights but before we do that, we need to have one of your parents present.’

  ‘No,’ she insisted. ‘I just need Lucy – I mean Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce.’

  ‘You want Pierce?’

  ‘Yes. She’s my best friend. Don’t call my dad. He worries about me too much.’

  ‘Lieutenant Pierce is your best friend?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ he said with a chuckle.

  ‘No, really, she is, honest,’ Charley pleaded.

  ‘Just shut up, kid, before you get yourself in even more trouble.’

  Charley simmered. She’d gotten pretty disgusted with adults over the last twenty-four hours. But these two were the worst. Wouldn’t even let her explain anything. She hoped nobody called her dad.

  She rode up in the elevator to the fifth floor with an officer by each side. She took turns staring at them but neither one would look her in the eye. They walked down the hall and stopped outside of an office marked ‘Sgt. Cafferty.’

  One of the officers went into that room, leaving her there with the other one. She followed the conversation inside. ‘Got another little criminal on the line, Cafferty. You might have to throw this one back, though; I think she’s too small to keep.’

  ‘Deadly kids come in small packages,’ she heard the other man, who Charley assumed must be Sergeant Cafferty, respond.

  ‘She claims Lieutenant Pierce is her best friend.’

  ‘Pierce? Oh, give me a break. How old is this kid?’

  ‘Looks about ten.’

  Out in the hall, an indignant Charley shouted, ‘I’m eleven. I’m in middle school. I’m not a little kid.’

  ‘Zip it, kid,’ the officer with her said.

  ‘Whoa, officer, sounds like a hardened criminal to me,’ Cafferty joked. ‘Empty her pockets and put her in an interrogation room. And if you have cuffs on her, take them off. It really freaks parents out, with the little ones especially.’

  ‘Sergeant Cafferty, sir!’ Charley shouted. ‘I need to see Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce. Don’t call anybody until I talk to her.’

  A dark-haired man in a suit came out of the office and looked down at her. He had those spooky blue eyes, the kind that always made her feel like a butterfly pinned to a board. ‘You want me to call Pierce?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said. Then, quickly added, ‘Please, sir.’

  ‘What’s your relationship to Pierce?’

  ‘She’s my friend.’

  ‘Really, what did she bust you for?’

  ‘She didn’t bust me, she’s my friend.’

  ‘Right. What’s your home phone number?’

  Charley pursed her lips tight.

  Cafferty crouched down on his haunches. ‘C’mon, what’s the number?’

  Charley shook her head. ‘I’m not telling you anything until you let me speak to Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce.’

  Cafferty rose back to his full height, a look of disgust on his face. ‘Take her away.’

  The two officers hustled her down to an interrogation room. Once inside, they removed the handcuffs. ‘Now, everything out of your pockets. Everything.’

  Charley pulled out her cellphone, a pen and the change from the ten she spent at the coffee shop, laying it on the table. As an officer started to scoop it all into the palm of his hand, she said, ‘Wait! That’s my stuff. You can’t just take it.’

  ‘You’re under arrest, kid; we can take anything you’ve got.’

  ‘Can you leave my cellphone here?’

  The two officers burst out laughing and one of them said, ‘No way.’

  ‘I promise I won’t make any phone calls without permission. I just want to play a game while I wait for the sergeant guy to come back.’

  ‘Kid, we don’t want you entertained in here; we want you bored. Now sit down and shut up or we’ll cuff you to the table.’

  Meekly, Charley took a seat and stared down at the surface of the table. She wanted them to think she felt defeated. She could think better if they got out of the room and left her alone.

  When they were gone, she raised her head and saw her reflection in the glass across the room. She knew that it wasn’t a mirror. Lucy had told her about the two-way glass. They’ll be watching me, she thought. I can’t forget that. She swore that when she was grown up, she’d treat everyone with respect no matter how old they were or how tall they were and she wouldn’t let anybody laugh in anyone’s face in her presence – no matter what they did or said.

  ELEVEN

  Jake had a fitful night wondering what was going on out in Idaho. He woke up every two hours; reaching for his cell to check if he’d missed an incoming call. At seven thirty that morning, he decided he’d waited long enough. He picked up his phone and called the cell of the Special Agent in Charge at the Salt Lake City office.

  ‘Do you know what time it is, Lovett?’

  ‘Seven thirty or so,’ Jake answered, puzzling over the question as he spoke.

  ‘That’s on the east coast, Lovett. Out here, we have what we call Mountain Time and it’s just five thirty – the sun hasn’t even come up yet.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about the time difference. Did I wake you?’

  ‘No, Lovett. I’ve been awake all night, sitting in the ranger station overlooking the campsite where we’ve narrowed down the location of Rogers.’

  ‘Why don’t you go in and get him?’ Jake asked.

  ‘Listen, Lovett, I don’t know how you handle things out east but out here in God’s country, we place a value on women and children and kind of think we ought to protect them.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘At the campsite, there’s a woman and two small children. We were hoping to avoid turning all three of them into hostages. So we’re waiting for him to come out of the tent for a morning whiz or a bit of early fishing. You got a problem with that?’

  ‘No, of course not. Sorry to have bothered you. You will keep me posted on any developments?’

  ‘Don’t call me. I’ll call you.’

  Jake hung up, disgusted with his western colleague. He had to keep busy. He got dre
ssed and drove to his office. On route, he called Lucinda and updated her on the latest in the hunt for Rogers. ‘You sound distracted, Lucinda.’

  ‘I am, Jake. I’ve got two things bothering me. One is an anomaly I found in the Sherman case files last night but I can hardly think about that now because of the other thing – Charley is missing.’

  ‘Anything I can do? Do you think she’s been abducted?’

  ‘Honestly, Jake, I think she’s up to something and we are going to find her safe and sound before we know it. But, in the meantime, no matter how unlikely, I can’t help but worry that something else is behind her disappearance, or that whatever she’s gotten into this time, she’s not going to come out of it unscathed.’

  ‘Let me know if you need my help at any point. I’m following the developments out in Idaho but aside from that I’m at loose ends – nothing that can’t be dropped to help you and Charley.’

  ‘Thanks, Jake. Let me know when Rogers is in custody.’

  Arriving in his office, he asked one of the agents to keep an eye out for any mishaps involving a young girl that might possibly be Charley. ‘It’s not official. We’re not involved in the case but if we can find out anything to help them locate the girl, I don’t think anybody will mind where the information comes from.’

  At his desk, Jake pulled out Rogers’ file and once again went through it looking for any small item he could have overlooked that could point the search for the fugitive in the right direction. Finally, at nine his cellphone rang. It was an agent in the Pocatello satellite office. ‘Sir, I’ve been asked to give you a call and let you know we picked up Rogers. He’s being transported in as we speak. You will receive an update after the completion of his interrogation.’

  ‘The woman and the kids – are they OK?’

  ‘They were still in the tent asleep when we left. They don’t even know we were there.’

  ‘What about Rogers?’

  ‘Scraped up a bit when he tried to resist – but nothing all that serious. He keeps insisting he is not Mack Rogers but he sure looks just like him. As soon as he gets into the station, we’ll get his fingerprints for confirmation.’