by Lisa Gardner
“I’ve never worked with a family mentor,” D.D. confessed.
“The program has the best of intentions: Let parents who’ve already been through the worst offer support to families who’ve just entered the crisis. I’m sure the volunteer mentors receive some training for the role, but at the end the day . . . they’re laypeople, not experts. They’ve had one experience. Whereas someone like me”—Pam’s gaze flickered to Keynes—“like us . . . there is no such thing as one response to crisis. Our job is to appraise the family and identify the approach that is right for this one particular situation. Whereas the volunteer mentors . . . inevitably, they are operating from a place of their own trauma. Whatever advice they offer, suggestions they have, has more to do with who they are and what they went through than the family they are supposedly aiding. To me, they’re more inclined to try and fix whatever they perceive as having gone wrong in their case than help the new family through their own experiences. Now Rosa, on the other hand . . .” Pam frowned. “She’s the rare mentor who seems to be able to distinguish between her daughter’s disappearance and what the Summerses are now going through.”
“How often does she meet with them?”
“In person? Not often. Rosa lives three, four hours north, and given in the first four weeks, the media circus camped out on the Summerses’ sidewalk . . .”
“She speaks to them by phone.”
“Mostly. How often is hard for me to say. The Summers phone rings a lot.”
“But you’ve seen her, obviously.”
“Twice. First time she spent the day with mostly Pauline, quietly holding her hand.” Pam paused, regarded D.D. intently for a second. “That’s rare, you know. Just being with someone. I’m the supposed expert, and I’m not even that good at it.”
“You have a job to do,” D.D. countered. “That’s different.”
The victim advocate shrugged. “Second visit was at the five-week mark. Pauline was coming out of the worst of her funk. Rosa had more of a strategy meeting with both Summerses. Questions they should ask, rights they have, resources that are available to them. In particular, Colin wanted to know media strategies, how to make a personal appeal for his daughter’s safe return, that sort of thing.”
“I’ve seen a couple of those on the news,” D.D. agreed.
“Rosa’s advice was solid enough. Most of it was things we’d already told them, but I can understand it sounding better coming from someone who’s been there, done that. The biggest thing she repeated—which I appreciated—is that this is a marathon, not a sprint. If they really want to be there for their daughter, they need to come up with a way to stop living from minute to minute waiting for the phone to ring and settle in for the long haul. Come up with a system for family and friends to visit where it’s helpful but not overwhelming. Return to work, the everyday patterns of life. Ignore the press, unless it’s on their terms.”
“And her advice on managing the case detectives?” D.D. asked, because there had to be advice on investigator relations. Any family had issues with investigator relations.
“The detectives are not their friends or allies. They work for the state. If the Summerses really want to know what’s going on, they should hire their own private detective.”
D.D.’s eyes widened. “Did they?”
“Colin talked about interviewing candidates.”
“Lovely. More cooks in the kitchen. Bet the case agent will love that.”
Pam merely shrugged. “Do I think a private eye is magically going to make a difference in finding Stacey? No. Do I think it helps Colin feel more in control of the situation, and therefore ease some of his stress in the short term? Sure. Problem is, Rosa Dane had it right: This is a marathon, not a sprint, meaning eventually a PI’s lack of progress will be just as hard to take.”
“So when did they meet with Flora?” D.D. gambled.
“Rosa’s daughter? They haven’t, to my knowledge.”
“Did Rosa discuss her daughter’s experience?”
“Yes.”
“So they’re familiar with her case. Makes sense they might want to personally meet her, don’t you think? The walking proof that a young girl can disappear from a bar and still one day be found safe?”
“Maybe. But I’ve never seen Flora at the house.”
D.D. frowned. “She was following the Summers case. Closely.” She shot Keynes a look. He didn’t deny it.
Again, Pam shrugged.
“Could she have talked to them by phone?” D.D. asked.
“Possible. They never mentioned it, but Colin, especially, isn’t one to share. Why are you so sure she had contact with them?”
“Colin, when he called this morning. He asked directly if Flora had been the one to kill Devon Goulding, which was a pretty big conversational leap. Furthermore, when I pressed him about Flora, he immediately became evasive. I would swear he must know her, if only from what he wasn’t willing to say.”
“I never saw her at the house,” Pam considered out loud. “And Pauline never mentioned anything to me, but it’s possible Flora met with Colin at his office.”
“Why meet with him and not Pauline? Talk to the father but not the mother?” D.D. asked.
“I might know the answer to that,” Keynes spoke up abruptly. He was relaxed back in his own chair, fingers now clasped on the table.
“By all means,” D.D. indicated.
He turned his gaze to his fellow victim advocate. “According to your assessment of the family dynamics, Pauline, the mother, functions as the heart of the family—the emotional epicenter.”
“True.”
“While the father, Colin, he’s the brains and the brawn. He’s focused on tactics, strategies, anything to ensure his daughter’s safe return.”
“Alpha male,” Pam agreed.
“Flora isn’t interested in emotions. She’s not comfortable with them. Tactics, on the other hand, getting things done . . .”
At that moment, D.D. got it, knew exactly where Keynes was leading.
“Colin Summers didn’t hire a private investigator to find his daughter,” she said.
Keynes shook his head. “No. Chances are, he hired Flora instead.”
Chapter 21
ARE YOU IN PAIN RIGHT NOW? Do your joints ache, your fingers burn? Does your skull throb? No? Then you’re fine.
Are you thirsty right now? Doubled over with hunger pangs, licking at your own skin just to have something to taste? No? Then you’re okay.
Are you freezing right now? Or maybe overheated, with sweat streaming down your face? Feeling either stifling hot or bone-cracking cold? Not yet? Then you’ve got nothing to complain about.
Are you lonely right now? Terrified or frightened or overwhelmed by the dark? Are you thinking that if he left right now, never came back, there would be nothing you could do? You would be stuck here. You would die here, all alone. And your mother would never know, never even get to bury your body. Just as he has threatened, promised, time and time again.
No?
Then you’re fine.
Listen to me. Believe me. Trust in me. I know what I’m talking about.
I’m comfortable. I’m not in pain or hungry or cold or hot or frightened. I need nothing. I want nothing.
I am fine.
Locked alone in the dark, I’m perfectly all right.
* * *
WHEN I WAKE UP AGAIN, I’m immediately aware of a change to the room. Food. The smell of roasted chicken wafts toward me through the dense black. And the scent of something hot and savory. Gravy, dressing, mashed potatoes? Maybe all three? My stomach growls immediately, and despite my best intentions, I start to salivate.
I still can’t see. I remain alone in a sea of night. Not even a sliver of light to illuminate the frame of a doorway. But the smell is strong and fresh. Definitely, there’s food som
ewhere in the room.
I sit up gingerly, feeling around with my fingertips. The last thing I want to do is knock over a plate of sustenance and waste this unexpected offering. I still have no sense of time or rhythm in this sensory-deprivation chamber. Does a chicken platter mean it’s dinnertime? Of the day I was taken or later?
And does this mean I’m entitled to food, three hots and a cot, as the saying goes? Or is this yet one more experiment being conducted by Evil Kidnapper? First, to explore my reaction to a cheap pine coffin. Now, to witness the animal in the zoo at feeding time.
Had he read my case file? Maybe he’s one of the crime junkies who followed my case in the news? A fan of sorts who heard about a girl who was kidnapped and held in a pine box. Except, instead of being horrified that such a thing could happen . . . it struck a nerve. Unlocked a deep dark fantasy he never even he knew he had.
Such guys exist. After I returned home, I received letters from several of them, turned on by all the lurid details of my captivity. I even received a marriage proposal.
Because Jacob Ness isn’t the only monster out there, and yes, they take an interest in one another’s work.
I remind myself I’m not interested in motives yet. Just tangibles. And the scent of chicken could promise more than just food. What about a ceramic plate? Or, better yet, a cutting knife?
I move slowly off the mattress, dropping to my knees, as my tethering chain rattles behind me. It irks me to crawl on the floor. I’m nearly positive he must watch through the one-way glass, wearing night-vision goggles to penetrate the gloom. Because, again, why go to all this trouble if not to enjoy the spectacle? Most likely he waited till I’d dozed off, then opened the door I haven’t found yet, delivered the food, then exited in time to take in the show. I hate the idea of some person, some faceless, nameless freak, watching me crawl. But tripping over the dinner offering would be worse, so forward I go, bound hands in front of me, chain rattling behind me as I inchworm forth.
The smell is coming from the opposite side of the room, where the pine box was. I make my way carefully through the dark, feeling my way with my fluttering fingers. Sure enough, I hit the edge of the pine box with my left shoulder. I pause, back up, feel around the edges.
He’s rebuilt it. Son of a bitch. I’d smashed the thing apart, left it in half a dozen distinct pieces. Why not? But now, it’s once again intact.
I curse, am tempted to halt my pursuit of roasted chicken in order to destroy the box out of pure spite. But I force myself to stop and think.
Why rebuild the box? Head games? Because even now, somewhere outside the viewing window, he’s grinning to himself, watching me explore a cheap pine coffin with my fingertips. He wants a response, is probably leaning forward in anticipation of my look of terror. Fuck him. No way I’m giving him that satisfaction.
Okay, so when did he rebuild the box? Surely if he’d come into the room, even while I was sleeping, and worked on it, I would’ve heard him. And given I’d yanked apart all the various wooden panels . . .
He must’ve removed it. Snatched up the pieces and carted them out. Then, after rebuilding it—or buying a second one?—redelivered it.
This makes me frown. I keep my back to the one-way mirror, feeling suddenly uneasy. I’m not sure which thought disturbs me more. That my captor can enter and exit the room multiple times without rousing me, or that he might have an unlimited supply of cheap pine coffins.
I finger the lacy edge of my satin nightgown. Again, the level of preparedness indicated by his actions. A predator who is more than your average bear. A man who’s done his homework.
He knows me. I’m almost certain of it. One of the men who wrote me a letter in the past five years? One of the very many predators, who read every salacious detail of my captivity and thought, wow, if only I could get a girl like that for myself?
My hands are shaking. With my wrists bound, I can feel my fingers tremble against one another and I hate the weakness. Worse, my instinctive desire to start picking at my own thumb. Find a ragged edge. Tear off the nail. Use the pain to ground me.
As I did, so many minutes, hours, days ago, when I was trapped in the box.
Food. I can smell it, so close it tantalizes. I need to focus. I’m hungry, definitely, and given I don’t know when I might be able to eat again . . .
Evil Kidnapper might have read all about me. Evil Kidnapper might even feel he knows me.
But that was the old Flora. Not the one who’s spent the past five years studying, training, preparing. I am now Flora 2.0.
I’m a woman with promises left to keep.
Dinner. The promise of sustenance. I will not waste it just because of a stupid pine box, some twisted blast from the past, or the unnerving realization someone is most likely watching me.
Time to eat.
I scoot around the box, inching forward with my bound wrists rocking against the floor. I explore between the box and the wall for the prospect of roasted chicken. But . . . nothing.
I move all around the box, continue through the rest of the room. Nothing.
Finally, I sit back on my heels next to the bare mattress, my back once again to the watcher’s window, and contemplate things.
Smell is hard to trace. It could be coming from another room, I suppose. Or, worse, he’s piping it in somehow. Maybe from the grate next to the one-way glass. Meaning there’s no food at all. This whole thing is just like some bad science experiment, where I’m playing the role of mouse in the maze.
But the smell is so strong, so close.
Heat. It comes to me. I’m not just smelling chicken, but I swear I can feel it. Steam wafting through the air. And I felt it strongest, smelled it sharpest, over by the pine box.
My shoulders come down. Immediately, I know what he’s done. Son of a bitch!
I cross back to the rebuilt—second?—box. Sure enough, crude holes are drilled in the lid. (Should I rub my fingertips against the jagged edges? Tear my own flesh, jam a sliver into the softness of my skin, then suck out the blood? Good times from the good old days. Is that what he wants from me?)
I keep my fingers fisted tight as I lean closer and sniff at the first hole. Chicken, no doubt about it. And yes, I don’t just smell it; I can feel it. A trace of heat and steam wafting up from the inside of the box.
Son of a bitch.
I find the padlock easily enough. Of course it’s locked, because why not? As long as you’re torturing someone with the olfactory promise of dinner, of course you’re going to lock the actual food away. I mean, leaving the lid open, where would be the fun in that?
Am I hungry right now? Yes. Am I thirsty right now? Yes.
But am I in pain? Am I terrified, depressed, beaten, too hot, too cold, too overwhelmed? No. Then I’m all right. I can think this through.
Option one, walk away. Or, being me, more likely turn around, once more flip him the finger, then resume my position on the mattress. Disadvantages include going hungry, but also . . . food might not just be food. What about utensils, plates, hell, a plastic cup? Resources, potential tools. The box is a care package of sorts. And being all alone in the dark, I can’t afford to give up on the contents.
Which means I’m going to have to open the box. I did it once before by hammering it apart with my bound wrists. I was pretty pissed off at the time and, frankly, trying to shake up the occupant. An approach I’m not so sure will yield great results for my prospective dinner.
I could pick the lock. Mattress has coils, coils mean metal springs . . . It would take some effort, but I have no doubt of my ability to make it happen.
At which point, he would also have no doubt of my abilities.
Do I want that? To give away so much so soon? To someone whose motives I don’t yet understand and who apparently can enter and exit this room without waking me?
My right thumb, slowly but surely
seeking out my left thumb nail . . .
Who is this guy? What the hell does he want from me?
Why this terrible, awful satin nightie?
And the box, the box, the box?
I hang my head. For one moment, I’m not all right. I hate it here, I hate this man, and I hate myself because I did this to myself. Five years ago, I escaped, and yet I’ve never gotten away. Jacob might as well be standing in the dark, laughing his fool head off.
My own brother running away from the person I’d become. And my mom . . . my poor, resigned mother, who gave up so much, only to one day realize the daughter she loved so much will never come home again.
She just gets the shell.
The smell is starting to fade. The chicken, once piping hot, now starting to cool. And that, as much as anything, gets me moving again.
Do you know who I am? I’m a girl who once loved to frolic with wild foxes.
I’m the girl who survived four hundred and seventy-two days in and out of a cheap pine coffin.
I’m the girl who’s going to get out of this alive.
I fist my fingers. I raise my bound hands, and I swing them like a boom against the side panel of the box. It shudders beneath the force of my blow. So I do it again and again. Bashing against the sides, turning my own body into a sledgehammer and wielding it forcefully.
My knuckles bruise. My skin splits, as rough edges of the box catch and abrade. It doesn’t stop me.
Long ago I learned to separate my mind from my body, my emotions from my pain. And these lessons serve me well.
As I batter the box into submission.
When the side finally caves in, there’s a cracking noise. I like it. I can’t see what I’m doing, so it’s nice to hear a satisfying wooden groan. Now I slow, picking my way through shards of wood, till I can wrap my fingers around the edge of the collapsed lid and jerk it up and over. The metal padlock rattles, still intact but now completely useless given the entire other half of the lid has been wrenched from the body of the coffin.