by L. T. Ryan
“Hello, Cassie,” I said to the woman. “This is Special Agent Bridget Dinapoli of the FBI. We’re working together trying to find a kidnapped child. Do you mind if we speak with you for a few minutes?”
Cassie stepped out of the shadows, crossing the porch and stopping in front of the top step. Her auburn hair reflected the sun. Her blue eyes looked pale. So did her skin, which poked out of her shorts and tank top, causing me to think she didn’t get out much this summer. She studied Bridget for a few moments, then said, “Come on inside.”
Bridget looked back at me. She seemed a little uneasy. I placed my hand on her shoulder and nodded for her to move forward.
Once inside the house, Cassie led us to the living room.
“Please excuse the mess. I haven’t felt like cleaning much lately.” She looked sad, distant.
I glanced around the room. There were a couple cat toys on the floor, and a magazine or two on the sofa. Other than that, the place was spotless aside from a fine layer of dust on the side tables and mantelpiece.
“You have a lovely home,” Bridget said.
“Thank you.”
I shot a look at Bridget. People in our profession didn’t enter a house and say things like that. Cassie must have thrown her off her game.
“What about the child?” Cassie asked.
“Nine years old,” I started. “Abducted along with another child from the school playground. Two men, one had remained in the car. They escaped and dropped out of sight for a few days. The reason for the abduction was—”
Cassie held up her hands. “No, don’t tell me that.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to figure out where to go next. “We’ve got the boy back. The girl is still missing.”
Bridget said, “Her name is—”
Cassie again threw up her hand. “No, not yet.”
“Why not?” Bridget asked. “Don’t you need it to contact her or whatever you do? We should have stopped by her house and brought a shirt or her favorite doll or something. Right?”
Cassie smiled at Bridget and then me. She leaned forward, placed her elbows on her knees, resting her chin on her hands. Her gaze traveled back to Bridget and remained there for two or three minutes. Bridget shifted around a few times. I could tell it made her uncomfortable. Cassie smiled, looked away, and let her eyes close slowly.
Bridget glanced over at me. I shrugged. I had no idea what Cassie was doing.
Finally, Cassie opened her eyes and straightened up. “It doesn’t work that way, Bridget. I don’t call in to anybody or have some spirit guide that follows me around. At least, not that I know of. I can’t hold something of the child’s, a doll or favorite piece of clothing, and see where she is. Honestly, I don’t control this.”
“Then how does this work?” Bridget looked intrigued, like she had started to believe that the woman could help us.
“They come to me.” Cassie’s gaze remained focused on Bridget, unblinking.
Bridget’s tone and chin both dropped. “Who does?”
“The deceased. I give them a voice.”
“So, you can only help us if she’s dead? She’ll come and tell you where her body is?”
“Sometimes.”
“But I thought you said that they had to come to you?”
“Sometimes it is the victim. Other times it is a friend or family member. Once, it was a total stranger who had witnessed the events but had been too scared to speak up. At least, while alive.”
“Right.” Bridget slapped her hands on her knees and rose. “I’m sorry we wasted your,” she glanced at me, “and our, time.” She started toward the door.
“Please, don’t go,” Cassie said. “I know this makes no sense. Trust me when I say I used to be the biggest skeptic there was. Even growing up in a place like Savannah, where there is no shortage of ghost stories, I never believed in any of that. I wasn’t born like this, Bridget. I didn’t ask for it. It just…happened.” She glanced at me. The look in her eyes told me that she did not want to recount the story of how she received this gift. She’d told me once that it drained her to relive it. So I shook my head and gestured for her continue. “I understand what you’re thinking. Even Detective Tanner has doubts I can really do this. He’s only here because he’s superstitious. You guys came here, and if anyone out there was watching, they might have followed. And if they did, they might approach me. And then I might be able to tell you something.”
“Lots of mights in there, Cassie,” Bridget said.
Cassie’s lips parted, but she said nothing. I imagined that she was used to this level of skepticism.
“All right then,” Bridget said, sitting down on the sofa next to Cassie. “Can you tell us where she is?”
Chapter 46
Debby’s hands hurt. The muscles of her fingers were frozen in a death grip. The skin between her thumb and forefinger on each hand was split open and raw from broken blisters. Wooden splinters of every size stuck out of her palm and fingers. She pulled them out by pinching them between her fingernails or her teeth. Some splinters were buried so deep she couldn’t get them out at all. She wondered if turning off the light would make the pain go away. Maybe the darkness would wash away her misery. It didn’t. She flicked the flashlight back on and moved forward to inspect her progress.
A smile crossed her face as she realized that she’d broken through the wall. No light passed through the small hole. She stood within a few inches of it and shone her light. It appeared to be wide enough for her to maneuver around in there. All she had to do now was break through enough of the wall to allow her to slip through. She considered this for a moment. If she made the hole too big, then the man could get through it as well. His body looked frail. The trick would be creating a hole big enough for her, but too small for a less than normal sized man.
So long as they didn’t have a dog with them, she figured she’d be safe back there even if the room behind the wall turned out to be nothing more than a few feet of space. It’d devastate her of course, but at least she’d go out on her own terms. And while Debby wasn’t quite sure what that meant, it sounded better than being murdered.
Not knowing the time had been the worst part of the ordeal. She could handle being hungry and thirsty. But how could she expect to manage her food and water without knowing the time, let alone how many days she’d been trapped in the room? For this reason, she limited herself to half a slice of bread when the hunger grew too intense. Likewise, she’d only take two or three sips of water at a time. The first bottle neared being empty. She felt tempted to use the water to clean her wounds. She didn’t, though. Wounds would heal. Once you died, that was it.
As she swished the water around the bottle, her thoughts turned to Beans. What had they done with him? Did they move her because they planned on killing him? She spent most of her time awake thinking about him. A few times she shut her eyes tight and did nothing but call out to him mentally. There hadn’t been any response. Not yet, at least. She refused to give up hope.
Debby lifted the bottle to her lips and drained the remaining liquid. It went down warm and did little to squash her thirst. However, the water did dull the ache in her throat and helped get rid of that cotton feeling in her mouth. She set the empty bottle on the floor in the middle of the room. The thought of urinating into it had crossed her mind. Once, she’d stayed up and watched a show about a survivalist who’d done just that and later drank it to stay alive.
“Gross,” she whispered, looking away from the empty plastic bottle. She held the little flashlight between her teeth and attempted to remove the remaining splinters from her hand. They gave her varying levels of pain as she pulled them free and tossed them on the floor. There were a few that remained buried, joining the other splinters she had been unable to remove. She hoped they would not fester and cause her skin to rot.
Debby rose, picked up the shovel and headed toward the back of the room. She went to work creating her freedom hole, as she’d dubbed it. The metal bla
de made a tiny clanking sound with every thrust into the wall. She aimed for a spot a couple inches below the hole she’d made. If she could create enough small holes, it’d be easier to break apart the remaining wall between them. She got the idea when she recalled the one time her brother had let her use his pellet gun. He taped a target to a large oak tree in their backyard. She stood a few feet away and fired off ten or so rounds. The ten shots had all hit pretty close to the center. He let her keep the target. When she pressed her finger against the area, the paper tore. Punching a hole through the wall would be as simple as tearing paper, she told herself.
It never crossed Debby’s mind that she might be deluding herself. She didn’t think that far ahead. Her focus remained on the next jab with the shovel and creating the next hole in the wall. And it happened, eventually. It might have been ten minutes, or maybe a hundred and ten. She had no way of knowing.
Chapter 47
Cassie remained silent for several seconds while her unfocused eyes gazed at a spot somewhere above my head. I wondered what went through her mind at that time. Did she try to force the image of the child? Could she do that? Did she plead for someone to appear before her and show her the way?
Did I really believe all that?
No, not really. I had a tendency to think things were simpler than that.
“I’m sorry,” Cassie said. “There’s nothing.”
Bridget shot me an I-told-you-so look, turned her head and smiled at Cassie, and pushed off of the couch. “Thanks for your time, Cassie. Detective Tanner and I will be on our way now. Sorry to have bugged you.”
Cassie didn’t move, seemingly still caught between reality and wherever she had gone a few minutes ago. I caught her glance as I rose, but she looked away.
“Cassie,” I said. “You call me if something pops up. Even if you don’t think it means anything. I mean it. Okay?”
She nodded. “Yes, Detective Tanner. I have your number.”
Bridget had rushed out of the house, brushing me with a stiff shoulder as she passed. By the time I reached the front door, she had slammed her car door shut. I knew coming to Savannah was a long shot, but we had little else to go on. Perhaps I should have left Bridget behind and come by myself. After all, her presence wasn’t necessary here. I’d brought her along for selfish reasons, and it had the opposite of the intended effect. On top of that, I wondered if having her inside the house had left Cassie feeling uneasy and unable to perform.
I turned back toward Cassie. “Is there anything else I can do or tell you, Cassie?”
She rose from her seat and walked toward me, stopping a few feet away. A hint of lavender passed by me a moment later. She leaned against the wall, resting her head to the side. Her hair spilled down across her chest. She stared at me with intense burning eyes. “You can pray, Mitch. Pray for that little girl to get home safely.”
I nodded, turned and stepped outside, glancing back a few times. I reached the car and took one last look back. She stood behind the front window, staring out at the street. I waved to her and she didn’t respond in kind.
The inside of the car had to be over a hundred degrees. Bridget had been in there with the doors shut and the engine and air conditioning off. She refused to look at me as I slipped in behind the wheel. Her cheeks were flushed red. From the heat, or anger?
I started the engine. The air conditioning was set to max and blew on high. It took two or three minutes for the air that escaped the vents to cool to a bearable temperature. I used my thumb to wipe a sheen of sweat off my forehead.
“I’d just like to say that—”
“What, Mitch? That you wasted our time? That you risked my job by bringing me down here for some supposed psychic who told us absolutely nothing? God, what was I thinking agreeing to this? We’re not getting these hours back. Every minute we’re not out looking for that girl, or searching for those men, they get further away, and our chances of finding Debby Walker alive drop closer to zero.”
“Medium,” I said under my breath.
“What?” Her head whipped toward me. I didn’t have to look at her to see the anger in her eyes.
“Cassie’s not a psychic,” I said in a hushed voice. “She’s a medium.”
Bridget groaned and rolled her eyes. I wasn’t sure which was colder by that point, her or the air conditioning.
We didn’t talk the rest of the way to the airport. I dropped her at the curb and then I continued on to the car rental check-in. I found Bridget inside. We stood side by side in line, but we might as well have been on opposite ends of the country. I purchased two tickets back to Philly. She requested a seat at least ten rows away from mine. I didn’t protest. As far as I was concerned, our job was to do everything in our power to find that girl and bring her home alive. If Cassie had given us a viable lead, this trip would have paid itself back a million times over and Bridget would be proclaiming my status as a hero.
Before boarding, I called Sam and asked him to pick me up. I had the feeling that Bridget would want to be alone in her government-issued sedan. Once seated on the plane, I closed my eyes and dozed off, waking up every ten or fifteen minutes it seemed. It helped pass the time at least. Coming to the end of a particularly heavy sleep, I felt a presence and looked up. Bridget stood in the aisle. She gave me a thin smile and then plopped down next to me.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No,” I said, “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I could have made this trip alone.”
She nodded while looking past me. “You were only trying to help. To be honest, I don’t discount the method. I’ve read case reports where those types of people were fairly accurate. If she would have given us just one thing we could go on, it would have been worthwhile.” She paused and I said nothing. Bridget continued, “Chances are I would have been chasing my tail in circles back in Philly. I just wish…”
“I know, Bridget. Me, too.” I reached out and grabbed her wrist as she rose. “You don’t have to leave.”
She freed herself from my grasp. Looking down at me from the aisle, she said, “Yes, I do.”
She walked away, and I turned my attention to the view out the window. In between thick white clouds, I caught glimpses of thin blacktop roads and neighborhoods full of dot sized houses. I wondered if I’d ever run into Bridget again. It wasn’t as if we had a long history together, no real relationship to speak of. We shared a connection, though, and I couldn’t discount that.
The plane landed and the few passengers on board lined up to depart. Five people separated Bridget and me. Might as well have been five miles. She never once turned to look at me. As a group, we shuffled to the front of the plane, and then picked up the pace through the stifling hot jetway. Bridget practically jogged to the gate and through the terminal. I kept up with her for the first few minutes, weaving through the bi-directional foot traffic. Then, I stopped. I decided if she wanted to be alone, I’d let her. Nothing good would come out of me chasing after her and forcing the issue.
Sam met me outside. The sun hung deep in the west. It was hot, but the humidity had relented. That made it a little easier to breathe in the exhaust that plagued the area. Sam had my Chevy and had taken full liberties with it, double parking and blocking one of the traffic lanes. Every car that had to merge into the other lane had a driver or passenger who shot a scornful look in our direction.
I got in on the passenger side and adjusted the air vents so that the cold air blew toward my face. “Thanks for coming out, Sam.”
“Did the trip result in anything positive?”
“Cassie couldn’t help and Bridget hates me now.”
“Zero for two.”
“Feels more like zero for twenty.”
“We got the boy back.”
“But the girl is still missing, and the assholes that did this are still out there.”
Sam nodded. We remained silent for a few minutes while he navigated toward the highway. As I watched the sun drop lower in the sky, I wo
ndered about the fate of Debby Walker. Was the girl still alive? Would we ever see her? Why hadn’t the kidnappers made demands for her return? Did they deem the risk of collecting a few thousand dollars in exchange for a poor white girl too high?
“Want to get a drink?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, but first I’d like to pick up my car. Is it still outside the Hollands’s?”
Chapter 48
How long was long enough? Bridget asked herself that question every thirty seconds. She’d been inside the airport restroom for close to twenty minutes. Surely, Mitch would have left by then. Even if he hadn’t, he’d be outside the building waiting for his ride, not hanging around the check-in counters. She couldn’t wait too much longer. The flight she’d booked from her cell phone took off in a half-hour. If she missed that, there weren’t any more flights to Savannah that day.
She pulled her hair back into a bun. He was less likely to notice her that way in a crowded space. She exited the bathroom, her chin tucked to her chest, and headed directly toward a self-check-in kiosk. Five minutes later a TSA agent scanned the boarding pass on her cell phone. Fifteen minutes after that, she was seated comfortably on the plane.
The drag of the day, and the week for that matter, caught up to Bridget, and she fell asleep shortly after takeoff. A patch of turbulence woke her, but only momentarily. She rose from her nap as they approached the runway. After departing the plane, she found her way to the rental car counter and secured a Taurus. At this point in the day it mattered little to her what she drove.
Bridget drove to Cassie’s house, navigating from memory. She took a wrong turn along the way, but quickly recovered.
She pulled up to the curb and shifted the car into park. What am I doing here? It was a curious decision, made in a matter of seconds, to return to see Cassie. She couldn’t think of a concrete reason why she returned. It was a feeling that gnawed at her throughout the flight back to Philadelphia.