No Safe Place

by Mary Head

  A short, sniffly laugh slipped from David as he rubbed his fingers with his forehead, thinking of Chris and feeling guilty over the way he treated him earlier that day.

  “So anyway,” Hannah continued, “this is for you, your favorite Beatles song. Apart from ours,” she added with a small smile.

  There was a quiet moment as she looked down at her hands, getting them into position, and then she began to sing what was now his favorite version of “Hey Jude”, the exact version that was the tone he had set for her on his phone.

  His head dropped, his tears falling hot and fast as he listened to her sing, and he sobbed all the way through, clutching his head in his hands.

  When she stopped singing, he sniffled hard, and shook his head when he heard her say, “Sorry it was kind of bad. I did practice, though maybe not enough.”

  “Perfect,” he whispered, taking a deep breath as he looked up at the video again.

  “I hope you liked it, though, and that it made your day a little bit better.” She paused, her mouth twisting as though she was trying to think if there was anything else she wanted to say, and then she smiled brilliantly. “I love you, Daddy. I’ll see you when you get home.”

  The video ended, and David moved the progress bar back a few seconds so he could see her smile again.

  “I love you too, baby,” he murmured, staring at the image of her on his screen. “I love you so much, and I miss you, and I swear to god I’m going to find you and bring you home. I swear.”

  The ache in his chest was unbearable now, everything from the past couple of days catching up with him all at once.

  But what stood out most was that sudden, sharp stab of fear he’d felt earlier, the fear that he knew was really Hannah’s, and he choked out another, “I swear,” before dissolving into sobs once more.

  Chapter 27

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Jackie looked up to see Eddie standing in the doorway of the room, and he shrugged, lowering his gaze to his hands.

  “Just. . . thinking,” he muttered. He heard a sigh, and then Eddie crossed the room to settle beside him on the bed.

  “I miss him too.”

  Jackie didn’t reply, still staring down at his hands. That wasn’t what he meant at all, but he didn’t want to say anything and risk upsetting Eddie. His mind was on Hannah, still unconscious in the basement. He had stayed with her all night after Eddie had gone to bed, wanting to be there in case she got sick again, and in case Eddie got any bright ideas while she was so vulnerable. It was only when he heard Eddie getting ready for work that he had come upstairs, and his thoughts had brought him here.

  Neither of them came into this room very often, the door usually shut tight, but every once in a while Jackie would pass by as he walked down the hall, and it would be open with Eddie inside. Sometimes, he was perched on the edge of the bare mattress with Luke’s old baseball glove in his hands. Other times, he was just standing in the middle of room, staring around at the few reminders he had left of his son.

  “Remember when Luke broke his arm on that damn thing?”

  Jackie glanced up and followed Eddie’s gaze to the scuffed up skateboard propped against the wall by the closet door.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, frowning as he looked at it. He also remembered giving it to Luke for his thirteenth birthday.

  Jackie remembered a lot of things, but there was one memory that burned within him. He’d kept it from Eddie, knowing it would just upset him, and not seeing the point in bringing it up with so much gone and buried.

  When Eddie came to him with the idea of kidnapping Agent Cole’s daughter as revenge for what had happened to Luke, the memory resurfaced, urging him to tell, urging him to put a stop to Eddie’s plans before they got off the ground. But Eddie had assured him they wouldn’t hurt her, that it was just to scare Agent Cole for a few days and then they would let her go.

  We’re not going to hurt her.

  It wasn’t even a broken promise; it was a lie.

  He knew he should tell, should’ve done it that first day after seeing the way Eddie fought Hannah at her house, or the way he was pressed against her when Jackie returned from getting her water, his face close to hers and her hands wrenched up behind her back.

  Things had seemed to go downhill so quickly. Now, after everything that had happened the day before, Jackie was afraid to tell his brother what he knew, afraid of what might happen to Hannah, or to himself.

  Maybe he was just a coward.

  Jackie sighed and pushed to his feet, mumbling something about getting something to eat as he walked from the room, leaving Eddie alone on the bed.

  Chapter 28

  David pushed into Hannah’s room, her clean clothes stacked in his arms and a couple of dresses on hangers hooked over his fingers. He’d spent the morning doing the laundry he hadn’t gotten to the day before, in between going through more files and making notes, and he carefully put everything away, shirts and jeans and a pair of socks. He pushed the last drawer closed, and then walked over to hang the dresses in her closet.

  As he pulled open the door, the message she’d left him at some point on Wednesday flashed through his mind, teasing that he still couldn’t see her new dress for their cherry blossom date, and he realized that’s exactly what he was staring at.

  It was white with flowers in various shades of pink that looked like watercolors on a canvas, with short sleeves and a modest neckline, and a light pink belt was looped around the neck of the hanger.

  It was a beautiful dress, the flowers giving it a dreamy, whimsical quality that was perfectly Hannah, and a heavy feeling of guilt settled deep in his stomach. He’d ruined the surprise of the dress, and though it had been unintentional, he knew she would be disappointed.

  Sighing, he hung up the dresses in his hand and then closed the door before turning slowly, his eyes sweeping around her room. Her school bag hung over the back of her desk chair, right where he’d put it, and her purse was in its usual place, suspended from a pink-painted wooden hook on the wall right next to the door. The bed was unmade, the covers still tossed aside from when she woke up Wednesday morning, and in her nook, he could see a book on top of the small bookshelf, her extra pair of reading glasses folded on the cover.

  Everything looked normal, but in reality, everything was all wrong.

  He walked forward, still moving slowly, almost as if he was trying not to disturb the space, and then settled carefully on the edge of her bed.

  Almost 24 years ago, he spent an entire weekend painting the walls of this room light pink. Karen had initially decided she didn’t want to know the sex of the baby beforehand, and then a month before the due date, suddenly changed her mind. He remembered that visit to the doctor, remembered the technician pointing to the monitor and saying three simple words: It’s a girl.

  While he mainly just wanted the baby to be healthy, and didn’t care what the sex was, part of him had wanted a daughter, and there she was, his perfect baby girl.

  Karen let him pick the name, and a month after that ultrasound he finally got to meet his daughter, Hannah Elise Cole.

  It was love at first sight.

  The furniture for the nursery had been a gift from some of Karen’s friends, a beautiful cherry wood crib, with a matching changing table and rocking chair. He had cringed when it was delivered, knowing it must have been horribly expensive, but he wanted the best for Hannah, and had accepted it all graciously. He had memories of Karen sitting in that rocking chair, holding Hannah in her arms as she fed her, and remembered daydreaming about a relationship that would never come to be.

  When Hannah was eight, she decided she wanted a change, and the light pink became a sunny yellow.

  At 13 came the desire for her nook, and it had been her birthday present that year. He’d still had money left over from their Disney trip the year before, and was able to afford to help her decorate the space too, supplementing her babysitting money to buy her chair, bookcase, table,
and lamp.

  It was when she was 21 that the room underwent its most drastic change and became the space it was now. She had just broken up with Seth and moved back home, and in an effort to distract her and make her feel better, David had suggested completely redoing her bedroom.

  Though she agreed, she refused to let him pay for everything. In the end, he’d bought her bedroom set, a white wood frame bed with matching bedside table and dresser, while she bought the rest of the furnishings and decorations.

  Including the bedroom set, her room was mostly white, but there were splashes of color everywhere – the jewel tone glass knobs she’d put on her desk, dresser, and bedside table to replace the plain white ones; semi-sheer curtains on the three windows, six individual panels of blue, green, pink, purple, orange, and yellow; the brightly colored sheets on the bed – that kept it from looking boring. It was like the room was another canvas for her to express herself on.

  Breaking up the crisp white on the walls were several framed hummingbird prints, and over her dresser hung the pastel-painted wooden cutout letters of her name that David’s mother had custom made not long after Hannah was born.

  There were pictures everywhere, framed ones on her desk, bookshelves, and bedside table, and others tacked to the bulletin board over her desk. His gaze fell on the ones on her bedside table. The most prominent one was of the two of them, his arm around her shoulders and her lips curved in a broad grin as he pressed a kiss to the side of her head.

  Tearing his gaze from the picture, he looked down at the large rug that covered a fair bit of the wooden floor, and ran his foot over the soft white material. It was dotted with multi-colored polka dots, and he touched his toe to a blue one, and then sighed softly.

  This room had gone through so many changes, a perfect reflection of Hannah as she grew and changed, but now, after so many days of her being gone, it felt stagnant, as if all the vibrancy and color had been sucked from the space. He couldn’t keep away the fear that this room was done changing, the idea that if this whole mess ended badly, he would never touch it again, leaving it exactly as it was when she was taken from him.

  The tears were rising again, and he took a deep, shaky breath. He didn’t need a repeat of last night, especially not in his daughter’s bedroom. He just wanted her back. Nothing felt right with her gone; nothing felt whole. It wasn’t just her physical presence missing from the house, and this room, it was like there was a chunk of him missing too, a hole in his heart that could only be filled by her.

  His gaze dropped to his hands where they rested in his lap, and then his eyes flitted to a patch of grey tucked under the folded back portion of her sheets. He pulled it out, realizing it was the t-shirt she’d been wearing to bed the past few nights, and held it in his hands, running his thumbs over the soft cotton. Even without moving, he could smell the lavender of her body wash that lingered on the shirt and her sheets, and it made his heart ache again; he already couldn’t smell lavender without thinking of her, and if all of this ended badly, he didn’t think he’d be able to bear the scent of it ever again.

  His eyes fell closed as his hands dropped to his lap, and he took another shaky breath as a tear escaped and rolled down his cheek. He needed her back. He needed his heart to be whole again.

  A few moments passed, and then the sound of the doorbell roused him from his thoughts, making him look up with a slight crease in his brow. Juliet and Eli were busy doing footwork on the official case, and he didn’t think they’d be done already.

  The doorbell rang again, and he set Hannah’s shirt aside as he pushed to his feet, wondering who it could be, and hoping against hope that it wasn’t more bad news.

  The doorbell rang once more when he was halfway down the stairs, and his frown deepened when he heard a familiar female voice call his name.

  A beat later he opened the door to see Isabelle Greene, Harry’s wife, on his front porch, a large box in her arms.

  “Izzie?”

  “Hey, David,” she said, smiling warmly. “I was starting to get a little worried when you didn’t answer the door.”

  “I was upstairs – sorry, come in,” he said, stepping back quickly and pulling the door open wider so she could come inside. He started to ask if she needed help, but she headed straight to the kitchen, and he trailed behind her, watching as she set the box on the counter.

  “What’s that?” he asked, frowning curiously.

  “Well,” Isabelle began, raising her eyebrows, “when I got to work this morning, all of the other cooks presented me with food.”

  “What for?”

  “For you.”

  David stared at her, taken aback. “Me?”

  Isabelle nodded as she opened the box and began pulling dishes out. “They all know and like Hannah from when she’s come in to help out, and when they heard what happened to her, they figured that eating decent food was the last thing on your mind, so they all made you stuff to eat. And knowing you like I do, all you’ve been eating for the past few days is takeout and pizza.”

  David gave a short laugh, and Isabelle smiled as she set the last dish on the counter and then lowered the box to the floor.

  “That’s a lot of food,” David murmured, eyebrows raised.

  “It’ll keep you going for a while,” Isabelle agreed. “And maybe some of it will last until after Hannah comes home too.”

  There was a brief silence, and David nodded wordlessly, suddenly not trusting himself to speak. Isabelle gave him a moment, and then reached over to rub his arm.

  “Come on; let’s make room for this stuff in the fridge.”

  They spent a few minutes rearranging things so they could fit in the dishes of food, and David took some down to store in the freezer in the basement. When he returned, he frowned at a container that had been left out on the counter.

  “What’s that one?”

  “I may have made you a cake,” Isabelle said, the corner of her mouth rising. “Chocolate with Oreo frosting, all from scratch.”

  David groaned, and Isabelle laughed.

  “I think I may have to cut into that now,” he murmured, prompting another laugh from Isabelle. He moved to the cabinet to pull out a plate, and looked over his shoulder at her. “You want a piece?”

  “Ah, what the hell. Cake at ten in the morning is perfectly acceptable, right?”

  “It is in my book,” David said, withdrawing two plates and bringing them over to the counter. “Especially when it’s your cake.”

  A few minutes later, they were settled at the table, each with a plate of cake and a mug of coffee.

  David hummed happily when he took the first bite. “Delicious as always, Izzie.”

  She smiled and thanked him softly, and they ate in companionable silence for a few minutes until their plates were empty. David refilled their coffee, and Isabelle sighed when he resumed his seat.

  “Harry told me about yesterday,” she began quietly.

  “Yeah,” David muttered, staring down at his mug. “It was stupid –”

  “No,” Isabelle countered. “A little irrational, maybe, but not stupid. Your daughter is missing. She’s your only child, your little girl, and nobody expects you to just take this in stride.”

  “This was never supposed to happen to her,” he said in a low voice. “After all the stuff I did around here and everything I taught her –”

  “This isn’t her fault, David.”

  “No!” David exclaimed, eyes wide as his head snapped up. “No, I’m not saying that, not at all. I will never blame her for any of this. I just don’t understand how this happened. He broke into the house without setting off the alarm, and the only way I can figure he did that is timing it just after Han turned it off using her remote, but how could he even know she had that? And then he overpowered her, and I know Hannah doesn’t look strong, she’s so small, but she’s taken me down, and I’ve seen her take down Chris more than once, so what did this guy do to her so she couldn’t fight him off? Nothing makes
sense, Izzie.”

  “In a situation like this, when does it ever?” Isabelle sighed and laid her hand over his. “Stop beating yourself up trying to figure out what you missed, or what you did wrong. This isn’t your fault either. This is nobody’s fault, except the bastard who took her. Stop focusing on how it happened, and focus on getting her back.”

  David sighed, lifting his free hand to rub at his forehead.

  “I keep thinking of all the times she’s been in pain,” he murmured. “There’s physical, like when she fell out of the oak tree in the backyard when she was nine and broke her arm, or when she sprained her knee her senior year of high school. And then there’s the emotional, like everything that happened with her mom, and then with Seth. And I keep trying to figure out which one this is going to be, like I’m trying to figure out the best way I can prepare myself to help her however she needs it, but –”

  He broke off, tears welling in his eyes again, and Isabelle squeezed his hand.

  “But I think this time,” he continued, and drew a shaky breath. “This time is going to be different. I don’t know what’s happening to her, and I don’t know how to prepare for the kind of pain she’ll be in. I don’t know what I’m going to have to do to help her. I don’t know how I’m going to need to be there for her.”

  “You just have to be there, David,” Isabelle said softly, but firmly. “No matter what, you have to be there, whether it’s as someone to talk to, someone to help her through some physical pain, a shoulder to cry on, or even as a distraction. Support her like you’ve done since the day she was born. I remember when you told me about that first night in the hospital, the first time you held her and sang ‘Blackbird’ to her.”

  David smiled wistfully. “Yeah. Sometimes that was the only way to get her to stop fussing.”

  Isabelle smiled too, thinking back on nights when she and Harry would babysit Hannah, and more often than not, “Blackbird” playing softly was the best way to get her to sleep, especially if it was storming outside.