Nobody's Damsel

by E. M. Tippetts

  A week later, Jason was home and the trailers for Blood Ritual were on television every twenty minutes, or so it seemed, and spammed all over the internet in click ads. I watched the premiere the night that it aired, while Jason sat beside me, reading a book on his iPad and twitching with discomfort.

  At first the show was pretty generic. Clayborn was the tough as nails detective who knew how to flip her trenchcoat so that it flared like a cape. I was detached, dispassionate. The scene in which Clayborn stormed into the hospital and flashed my scars made me chuckle a little, though it also made me wonder how many people thought I’d survive when I’d shown up in the emergency room. Vicki’s choice there was definitely quirky.

  The first time the sock monkey doll appeared, it seemed to glow with significance, and somewhere along the way I found I wasn’t watching a show anymore. I was in Teresa’s hospital room, feeling the silkiness of her hair, seeing the emptiness in her expression, and fearing that she’d never see her daughter alive again. I was in the house where we found Esperanza’s remains. I saw myself on a hundred other crime scenes and looking over thousands of pieces of evidence, unable find the one fact needed to bring a criminal to justice. Enough to get them to trial, perhaps, but not to obtain a conviction.

  Passion wouldn’t be enough; intelligence wouldn’t be enough; moral certainty wouldn’t be enough; the inexorable conclusion time after time would be that life is no respecter of persons. And yet, I couldn’t believe this and still get out of bed in the morning and go to work.

  Esperanza was gone. She wouldn’t have descendants to look her up on a family tree or visit her grave. All that remained of this family were memories of the select few who’d known them. Any stories about them passed on would weaken with each retelling until they faded out altogether. Nothing in this world is permanent. It might have been pure chance that I survived my brother’s attempt to kill me, but I didn’t want to live in a world of chance. If I made something of myself, perhaps someday others would look at me and believe that there had been a higher purpose after all.

  Everything the characters did on the screen was futile. The dice had rolled and come to rest long before they began their frenetic search for the culprit. Tears began to fall on my hands as Clayborn and the others chased down dead end after dead end, and none of them yielded the little girl, or even a clue as to her fate. I was only dimly aware that Tanner was played by Jason; to me he was a man in need of faith and about to be demolished by chance.

  Hot anger boiled up in my chest when Clayborn had to admit defeat to her boss, and then to her God. I watched, gutted, as she typed up the file as a cold case and I resolved, in response, to keep my hope and my sense of moral justice with me through case after case, no matter how many failed. I had to be the kind of person who showed the world that goodness prevails, because the alternative was too bleak to bear. The greatest gift any of us could give humanity was to give meaning to suffering by suffering until we chanced upon enough raw materials to create meaning.

  Tanner’s last look of utter despair broke me altogether. I sobbed as the final credits rolled.

  “Chloe?” Jason touched my cheek. “You all right?”

  I couldn’t answer. I was crying too hard. All that festering emotion poured out of me, as sudden and inexorable as flash-floodwaters down a canyon.

  “Chloe?” He had his arms around me now.

  “It actually feels good,” I managed to say between hiccups. It was as if searing hot rain dumped down on me, burning away all the anger and frustration and leaving pure acceptance in the ashes. There was nothing more I could do for little Esperanza except move on, work another case, and keep rolling the dice.

  Jason leaned in and kissed me, gently at first, but only at first. I grasped his shirt, my nails biting into the fabric.

  Later we’d see how the episode lit up the blogosphere and logged over eighty million views in one weekend. Months down the line, the show would be picked up for another season, Vicki and Jason would win their Golden Globes and Emmys, and Jason would get the phone call that led to the film role that earned him his first Oscar nomination.

  Right then, in the moment, though, we were too busy rediscovering each other. He hoisted me in his arms and carried me into the bedroom where, for the first time in a long time, I was able to let go and just focus on the moment, the smooth softness of his skin with its moisturizer scent, the way he looked at me as if I were the most desirable woman in the world, the way he whispered my name as if it were etched in his heart.

  Afterwards, when we lay in the dark, my head against his chest, I said, “Don’t ever tell me that what you do doesn’t matter. What you do makes all the difference, okay?”

  The next morning, as I left for work, the security guard let me know that, “Some fans put up a banner on the fence last night that we left up. We can take it down it you’d like.”

  I nodded, not really listening. Jason’s fans were Jason’s business, and we still had a regular stream of them thanks to those stupid, day glo arrows that had appeared that one night. Now they were a series of black blotches where they’d been tarred over, which still gave a pretty easy to read route to our home. Jason knew how to handle all that stuff. I swiped his Prius from the garage (it was my car now, he’d catch on soon enough) and headed out.

  When I reached the gate, I saw that the banner was enormous. It looked like it’d been made from a long roll of butcher paper. Once I pulled through the gate and onto the road, I saw that it said in large, black letters: “Siempre Esperanza”. Spanish for, “Always Esperanza”, or more accurately, “There Is Always Hope.” Clever.

  It was only fitting that these were the words I read before I noticed a lone fan standing on the opposite side of the road with a baby on her hip. She wore jeans and an oversized quilted jacket. Her hair was frizzy and full and her skin a deep chocolate brown. When she turned to look at me, I saw her gray eyes and the dark burn scar down one cheek.

  I slammed on the brakes so hard that my tires shrieked against the asphalt. The girl jumped back and her baby began to cry. “Sorry!” I shouted. I hit the button to roll down the window, but hit the wrong one. The back window began to slide down. It took me three tries to get the right window.

  The girl had retreated away from the edge of the road and looked at me with frightened eyes. “It’s okay!” I shouted.

  “I didn’t put the banner up.” Her voice was timid. Even with my silent, hybrid car engine, it was difficult to hear her.

  “Dina?” I said.

  Her eyes went wide and I could see her hands begin to shake. Her baby’s cries became a wail.

  “Is that your name?”

  “How did you know?”

  I grabbed my cellphone and dialed Detective Baca.

  “Miss Chloe? You’re calling early.”

  “I’ve got Dina Ramirez here in front of my house.”

  “Come again?”

  “She’s alive. She’s right here. She’d be, what? Fifteen now?”

  The girl, overhearing these words, came forward and peered in through the open window. “I’m eighteen,” she said.

  “Listen,” I said to her. “There was a stuffed animal you used to own before your abduction. It was your favorite. Can you tell me what it was?”

  “A pink pig. I used to chew on the ear.”

  “You hear that?” I asked the detective.

  “I’m getting in the car now.”

  I gave him the address, then said to Dina, “Do you want to come inside? Have some breakfast?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I know your case. I’ve met your grandfather.”

  “Grandfather’s still alive?”

  “Come in. You’ve got to be cold and hungry.”

  Her gaze fell on the logo on my polo shirt. “You work for the police?”

  “Yep.”

  “So did Mr. Vanderholt have to call you for something?”

  “I’m his wife.”

  The gir
l’s jaw dropped.

  “Come on inside,” I reached over to open the door. “Jason would love to meet you, I’m sure.” I texted Jason’s phone to tell him to get showered and dressed. He’d been working out in the gym when I’d blown him a kiss goodbye.

  Detective Baca pulled up to the gate only minutes after I ushered Dina in through the back door. If he found my home over the top when he stepped inside, he gave no sign. His gaze was fixed on Dina and her baby daughter.

  I put out a platter of pastries in the solarium and we all sat down. Jason came in a moment later wearing jeans and a t-shirt, his hair still wet from the shower, a baffled look on his face. Dina caught sight of him and went pale. “You… he… I…”

  “Jason,” he said, holding out a hand to her. Then he looked at me and Detective Baca.

  “Sit down,” I told him. I turned to Dina and put a pastry on her plate. She was clearly too shy to dig in by herself. “Last we knew, you’d been killed and your body destroyed in an incinerator. We thought your case was closed fifteen years ago.”

  “No…” she said. “I was on the Res.”

  “The Reservation? Which one? The Navajo Reservation?”

  She nodded. The Navajo Reservation was the size of some states and a legal entity unto itself. In it were several towns, and a lot of open land that was off the grid. I could see easily how a person could disappear there. “My stepfather left me there, in front of someone’s house, and then drove off. Nobody ever came looking for me. I didn’t see my face on no missing child posters or nothing. Once I knew my mother was gone, I figured nobody cared.”

  “So who looked after you?” asked Detective Baca.

  “Would they get into trouble? For not turning me in?”

  “Were you raised? With a family?” he pressed.

  “Yeah. They adopted me. Except they never did no paperwork. I just got dumped on their doorstep and they decided to take me in.”

  “So any relation to your stepfather at all? Were they his family?”

  She pressed her lips shut, then said, “They made me feel safe.”

  “And your mother was dead,” I filled in, “and your grandfather an alcoholic.”

  “Right, I didn’t have no one who woulda cared.”

  Detective Baca shook his head. “The feds caught your stepfather and he said he’d killed you. We’d have kept looking if we’d only known, Dina. People cared. They still care.”

  She picked at her pastry. “I saw the show last night, that Mr. Vanderholt was in.” She still didn’t look at him. “Blood Ritual? And I thought about how the police might remember me. It was the first time I thought about them and how maybe they’d care. Like someone really did miss me after all. I just came over to Mr. Vanderholt’s house because… I dunno. I live here in town now and I thought maybe I’d leave a note. Something to say thank you.”

  I glanced at Jason who’d frozen, mid-chew. He looked sidelong at me.

  “Mission accomplished,” I said. “This is way better than any note.”

  “You better believe people care,” said Detective Baca. “And your grandfather? Well, he’s changed his ways. He misses you something awful. Would you like to go see him?”

  Dina pursed her lips and looked down at her daughter in her lap. The baby could sit up and gazed around at us with bright, intelligent eyes.

  “He’d like to meet his great-granddaughter,” the detective assured her.

  “Dina, I don’t know how much you remember about your family,” I said. “Did you know that the Ramirezes own a pretty decent sized land grant?”

  She shook her head. Her blank expression told me that she didn’t even know what that was.

  “They’ve got some substantial assets,” said Detective Baca, “and they were within a generation of dying out. They’ll all be very happy to know that isn’t going to happen. Everyone’s going to love seeing you and your daughter.”

  Dina turned to look at Jason, who still looked stunned. “Who’s the lady who played the detective?”

  “Vicki Hanson,” I said.

  Jason recovered himself and pulled out his iPhone. With a few taps on the screen, he put it to his ear and said, “Hey. I know it’s early, but you gotta wake up. You decent? Get on Skype. No, seriously, just do it.”

  A moment later, Vicki’s pixelated face appeared on the screen. She’d brushed her hair and put on some lip gloss. It was disgusting how put together she looked with so little notice. “Vicki, this is Dina,” he explained. “Formerly a missing person. She saw the show last night and decided to come pay me a visit. Everyone thought she’d died fifteen years ago and she thought no one missed her, until she saw your performance.”

  Dina’s smile was devoid of all shyness. “It was such a good show. I cried so hard.”

  Jason was right. Even though Dina didn’t know Vicki, she felt like she did. It was as if Vicki were an old friend, even though Dina had only just learned her name.

  Vicki, for her part, was speechless. She stammered. She looked at me in confusion.

  “What Vicki means to say is,” I explained, “you showing up is something beyond her wildest dreams as an actress. You know, I can tell Jason how much his work makes a difference, but something like this proves it in a way I just can’t.”

  Dina smiled a smile that showed she really didn’t have any idea what I was babbling about. In the end Vicki recovered herself enough to tell Dina how wonderful it was she’d come forward and wish her all the best of luck with the reunion with her grandfather.

  Eddie, for his part, did not disappoint. The moment I ushered Dina in through the door, he got up, stared, rubbed his eyes, and stared some more.

  “We need you to identify a person of interest,” I said. “Does she look familiar to you?”

  Dina bit her lip and looked around until her gaze fell on the stuffed pig. “You kept him?”

  Eddie was still too thunderstruck to speak.

  Detective Baca filed into the room behind us and said, “Eddie, that boy who took Sabrina from you wasn’t just a murderer. He was a liar too. Now we’re going to have to do some paperwork. Dina here’s had it rough with no social security number, no proof of citizenship. She’s been here in Albuquerque for a couple of years cleaning homes for a living. The thing about us closing the case, there hasn’t been a missing persons poster with her picture on it up for over a decade.”

  Two tears coursed down Eddie’s weathered cheeks. “Dina?”

  “Hi, Grandfather.”

  He switched to Spanish.

  Dina followed effortlessly, replied, and held up her daughter.

  Now Eddie sobbed in earnest as he stumbled forward to hug both of them.

  “I think we can take that as a positive identification,” said Detective Baca.

  Jason had slipped into the room and stood, hands in his pockets, a grin on his face.

  Eddie glanced at him, froze, and looked again. “You, you’re-”

  “Miss Chloe’s husband,” said Detective Baca.

  The look on Eddie’s face was priceless.

  “Yeah,” I said, “life’s been interesting.”

  Dina went over to pick up the pink pig and hug him to her chest. “I can’t believe you kept him. I missed him so much.” Her eyes, when she turned around, were shining.

  It took me a couple of weeks to get up the courage to take my mother’s advice and extend a hand of friendship to Vicki Hanson. Amazing how scary one phone call could be. I dialed as I sat in my car at the end of the workday and put my hands free device in my ear.

  “Hey Jason,” she answered. She probably didn’t get a whole lot of other people calling from the 505 area code.

  “It’s Chloe, actually.”

  “Oh… hi.” She sounded as if she wasn’t sure whether I was calling to yell at her, be awkward, or a bit of both.

  “I just thought I’d give you an update on Dina.” This was my making-a-report-to-a-cop voice. I’d never developed a make-nice-to-my-partner’s-ex voice, it was a s
ituation of first impression.

  But Vicki brightened at once. “Oh yeah, how is she?”

  I started the engine, buckled my seatbelt, and put the car in gear. “She’s well. She and her grandfather have moved back home to live with the rest of their extended family.”

  “And all that’s going all right?”

  “I think so. That’s the cultural norm, and they seem to have bonded really well. She took her boyfriend with her, too.”

  “That a good idea or a train wreck?”

  “I couldn’t say. He’s the father of her child and they’ve been together for a while.” I didn’t bother to add that he wasn’t a US citizen and that he and Dina hoped to legitimize his status by marriage. I didn’t really know either of them very well, so all I could do was wish them the best.

  “Listen, thank you guys for calling me that morning she showed up and letting me be a part of that.”

  “Of course. It was your performance that turned her up on our doorstep.”

  “I’m still on a high from that.”

  “Me too. So’s Jason. You were right, or Clayborn was. This luck thing is so addictive.”

  She laughed. “Here I was, finally coming to terms with how my career was gonna be, and now I’ve got a successful show again and then this happens.”

  “Your performance really has been good.” This I could say with absolute honesty.

  “Thank you. There’s nothing quite like the feeling that you’re laying it all out there, telling people all the reasons why you aren’t worth listening to, and then having them all say that they understand how you feel. As long as we keep the storyline on track, we should keep reaching our viewers.”

  “The show’s writers letting you have a lot of input?”

  “Yeah… well… so the story editor and I talk a lot.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And last night we kind of did more than talk- No wait! That sounds all wrong. We kissed. That’s all. I didn’t- yeah. Not with the story editor of the show. And then we talked on the phone today and neither of us feels it was a mistake, so yeah.”