Vanishing Day

by Valerie Davisson

  Who was he and what did he want? Had Shannon interrupted a burglary, gotten scared, and ran over here? Why not go to her mom? Where was her mom? She wished Ben would get back and tell her what was going on.

  TZ2 ... TZ2 ...

  Before she could get back inside to write the partial plate down, Logan’s right foot caught on a tree root, sending her flying. Turning her shoulder to the ground just before she hit gravel, she managed to protect Shannon as she fell, landing with a thud on her arm, wrenching her knee as she went down.

  18

  “It’s OK, it’s OK,” Logan whispered, kissing the top of her head.

  Purgatory came bounding up right behind her, ready to assist. Gingerly getting up onto her good knee, leaning on Purgatory’s massive shoulders, she gradually raised herself to a standing position and hobbled back to the house. Once inside, she sank gratefully onto the couch. Relinquishing her hold from around Logan’s neck, Shannon threw her arms around Purgatory. Guardianship transferred, Logan rubbed her right arm.

  “TZ2, TZ2 ...” she kept whispering to herself. No paper in sight, she got her phone out of her pocket to send herself a text.

  A minute later, Ben came in the same way Shannon had, looking very relieved when he saw them sitting there.

  “Is Lori OK? Did you see that guy?” Logan asked, trying to keep her voice calm for Shannon’s sake. Ben took her cue.

  “No, just heard someone run out,” he said, “You OK?”

  “I’m fine, just tripped. I got part of his license plate,” she added, indicating her cell phone, “TZ2 ... something,” I couldn’t get it all.”

  Ben picked up his phone off the counter and dialed 911, giving in the universal “Wait” signal as he stepped into the kitchen and spoke in low tones so Shannon couldn’t hear him. Logan heard the operator answer just before he lowered the volume.

  “911 ... What is your emergency?”

  “There is a seriously injured woman in the house next door. Her name is Lori, Lori ...” Ben answered, looking back to Logan for Lori’s last name.

  “Wright,” Logan supplied.

  “Wright,” Ben said, “My name is Ben, Ben Halvard.” He gave them Logan’s name and address. “I don’t know the address of Lori Wright’s home, but they’re the next house down the hill, west of here, towards the ocean. ... We’ll show them when they get here ... I don’t know, she was unconscious ... No ... we didn’t move her, “ he said, then lowered his voice so Shannon couldn’t hear, “she looks bad.”

  “No,” Ben said in answer to the operator’s next question, “there’s no one else in the house as far as I can tell. A guy ran out when I got there. He must have been the man who attacked her, but I didn’t get a good look at him. Her daughter, Shannon, ran over here. Yeah ... hold on ...”

  Walking back into the living room, Ben sat on the couch next to Shannon and Purgatory. He gently looked through Shannon’s curls.

  “I don’t think so. She looks OK ... I don’t know exactly,” he looked at Logan, eyebrows raised, “maybe three or four?”

  Logan nodded. She remembered Shannon telling her she was three when Logan asked the standard meet-a-kid questions.

  “I’m putting you on speaker for a minute,” he said, pressing the appropriate button and laying his phone on the coffee table.

  Then, as naturally as if she were his own daughter, Ben reached his arms out for her to climb in his lap. Without hesitation, Shannon let go of Purgatory and complied. Both Logan and Ben did visual checks as she went over. No blood, hers or her mother’s.

  Logan hoped that meant she hadn’t been anywhere near her mom when she was attacked.

  “No, looks good,” Ben said, settling Shannon into his lap, warming her bare feet by rubbing them between his large hands.

  “OK,” Ben said, “We’ll wait until the police get here.”

  Logan reached over and disconnected the call for him.

  When Ben tried to gently disentangle himself from Shannon’s hold, she let out a heart-breaking cry.

  “That’s OK,” Logan said, motioning for him to stay where he was.

  Not very good at waiting, Logan started pacing.

  “I’m going to go wait with Lori,” she said.

  “No, Logan, she said the police are on their way. That guy could come back,” Ben objected.

  “I’ll be fine ... that guy is long gone and we haven’t heard anything. You stay with Shannon. I promise I’ll be careful. If she’s conscious, she’s probably worried sick about Shannon. Someone should be there with her,” Logan said.

  Not liking this arrangement, but knowing it was useless to argue with her once her mind was made up, Ben nodded and sat back in the couch, letting Shannon snuggle against his chest. Purgatory lay at his feet. Logan knew he didn’t like the idea of her going over there alone.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, “the guy already left and the cops are on their way. Ambulance, too. If he does come back, he’ll be seriously outnumbered.”

  “Pepper spray?”

  Rick bought her a gazillion cans of pepper spray to keep in every pocket, jacket, and purse she owned. The only time she actually had to use it, she sprayed the wrong guy. Not her best moment.

  Trying not to wince as she put weight on her damaged knee, Logan grabbed the flashlight from the counter and retrieved the pepper spray from her jacket. She held it aloft and wiggled it for Ben to see, then tucked it into her pants pocket before exiting the house. Being careful not to trip over another tree root, Logan stepped around the fallen trash can. So far, her knee was holding, but not without complaint.

  A silvered sliver of moon watched her steady progress to Lori’s back door. Such a peaceful night. No violence could have been committed on a night like this. Like an undiscovered Edward Hopper painting, dim, yellow light reached out from the open door, creating a triangle of illumination on a small square of cement. Logan checked her pocket for the pepper spray, stepped into the hallway, and listened.

  It was silent as a morgue.

  19

  Hoping Lori wasn’t dead, she made her way to the living room. Only two days ago she and Shannon played on the floor in this living room. Now she dreaded going in.

  Steeling herself for the sight, at first she saw nothing. Maybe Lori wasn’t hurt as bad as Ben thought she was. Maybe she was cleaning herself up in the bathroom.

  Then, on the outside curve of the circle of sick, lemon light created by the living room lamp, she saw Lori’s foot, sticking out from behind Shannon’s play tent. Covering the short distance in a few long strides, Logan lifted the play tent out of the way, and almost threw up.

  Lori, or a person who used to look like the healthy, young mother laughing and talking at the Otter Festival two days ago, lay completely still. Curved into a horizontal C, only the front of her body was visible.

  Logan never saw anyone beaten this badly. Every inch of Lori’s distorted and swollen face was either red, ripped, or covered in blood - a physical record of each blow received. Rivulets of blood, some already beginning to dry, ran from her smashed nose, over a torn lip, down her chin and onto her t-shirt. The whole front of her chest was drenched. Left eye swollen shut. A few inches above the brow, where her hairline used to begin, showed only a roughly two-inch square of white scalp. Blood pooled around her head, like a deep, crimson halo. Her right ear, filled with blood, black in shadow, had begun to crust over.

  Logan sank to the floor, kneeling beside Lori, afraid to touch her. One hand on the floor to steady herself, she reached carefully forward with the other and placed two fingers on the side of Lori’s neck, trying to find a pulse.

  Every inch of her wanted to do something—mop up the blood, clean the wounds, put Neosporin everywhere and bandage everything up neatly. But with injuries this severe on the outside, Logan knew Lori must have even more serious ones internally. If there were any bro
ken ribs, moving her even an inch in the wrong direction could puncture a lung or some other vital organ. She would bleed out before the EMTs could get here. She’d just have to wait.

  At least she reassured herself Lori was still alive. Pulse was faint, but still there. Rocking back on her heels, Logan began taking deep, even yoga breaths, willing the woman to hang on. Where is that ambulance?

  While she was waiting, Logan looked around the room for anything that would explain what happened here. The front door was open but didn’t look damaged. No broken windows. At least not in this room. So, not a random, interrupted burglary. Unless the guy had a key, Lori must have let him in. Someone she knew? Had she ordered pizza and thought she was opening up to the delivery guy?

  Watching the woman, Logan tried to breathe deeply for her.

  Who did this to you?

  Interrupting a break-in didn’t sound right. A thief wouldn’t stick around to deliver this kind of personal attack. They’d just run away.

  No, this must have been personal. Or some crazy person.

  Logan tried to see out the window, but the curtains were shut. She wondered how Ben was doing with Shannon, as she strained to hear the sounds of a siren.

  After an excruciating wait, an ambulance turned up Killer Hill from PCH and Logan ran to the door to wave them down. Ben didn’t know the address exactly, so she didn’t want them wasting time driving up and down the street looking for the right house, or going to her place first. Lori might not have that much time.They parked in Lori’s driveway and turned off the engine. A 30-something-year-old woman and a large, bald man jogged up onto the porch, bags and backpacks in hand.

  “Cops here yet?” the woman asked.

  “No, the woman is in here,” Logan said, hurrying them into the living room.

  Hesitating only a second, the woman, Babs according to her name tag, nodded to her partner, Joe, then followed Logan into the house.

  “Jeez!” Joe said.

  For an EMT to react like that, with all he had probably seen in the course of his job, confirmed to Logan how bad Lori’s injuries were.

  Babs, already kneeling beside the victim, unpacked her bag, set her jaw, and asked when the woman was found and if they knew how long she had been unconscious. When Logan couldn’t tell her much more than the time Shannon ran to her house and Ben came over and found Lori, both EMTs went to work. Their well-orchestrated movements put Logan in a trance. She was staring at the IV they’d inserted when Babs sat back on her heels and brought Logan back into reality by repeating a question.

  “They said there was a little girl here, too. Is that correct? Where is she?” she asked, “Does she need to be seen?”

  “Yes,” she said, dragging her eyes away from Lori. “Shannon, her daughter. She’s next door with Ben. She doesn’t seem to be injured, at least not physically,” Logan said, “She ran to my house when this happened,” she said, “As far as I can tell, she’s not hurt, just very scared.”

  A rolling gurney magically appeared. Joe must have gone outside to get it. On three, they lifted Lori gently onto it and began rolling it as gently, but quickly, as possible towards the front door.

  “We need to get mom here to the hospital,” Babs said to Logan, hustling out the door, “If you know of any family, you may want to call them.”

  “OK,” Logan said, not feeling for one minute that anything about tonight’s events were OK. Lori never mentioned any family.

  Helpless, Logan watched as they loaded Lori into the ambulance, flipped on lights and sirens. Babs was talking on the radio, presumably to the hospital, while her partner monitored Lori in the back.

  “The police are on their way—Children’s Protective Services, too,” Babs yelled out of the window as she backed out of the driveway.

  The last Logan saw of the ambulance, it careened onto PCH at the light, racing towards Hoag hospital, almost twenty minutes north of Jasper.

  20

  Poor kid. Shannon probably just saw her mother viciously attacked, and now complete strangers from Children’s Protective Services were coming to pick her up and put her in some kind of foster home. Logan didn’t know how these things worked but doubted any of the upcoming options were good ones for Shannon. Shannon ran to her for help. The thought of handing her over to strangers went against every maternal instinct Logan had.

  And what if her mom didn’t get well? What if she died from her injuries, which, from the extent of them, seemed completely possible. What would happen to Shannon then?

  When Amy had been a baby, Logan insisted and Jack finally agreed to set it up so if anything happened to them, Logan’s Dad would raise Amy. The two were always close. Jack’s very social parents put up a fuss for appearances, but quickly gave in. Jack’s mom looked particularly relieved. She wasn’t exactly the grandma type, always insisting Amy call her Monica.

  The police weren’t here yet.

  She didn’t think Lori would mind her going through her things if it was to find something to help Shannon. She went back inside and shut the front door. It looked like the violence was limited to the living room, so she wouldn’t be disturbing any forensic evidence by looking through a few drawers. Someone already dumped the contents of Lori’s backpack onto the floor, or maybe everything fell out during the fight or attack, whatever it was. Still, she’d bet on the former. All the zippered pockets had been thoroughly emptied.

  There wasn’t much there. A small zippered coin purse with $17 and change. A Burt’s Bees tinted lip balm, this week’s work schedule, pens, pencils, and the receipt from today’s pet store shopping trip.

  Ten minutes later, after looking through the few drawers and closets in the house, Logan had found nothing. Absolutely nothing. No drivers license, no passport, no banking records, no phone numbers, except for work. No baby books, or calendars. No computer, even.

  She would check Facebook on her computer when she got home, but from what she’d seen here, she doubted she’d find anything.

  It was like Lori and Shannon Wright didn’t exist.

  What was it the doctor’s creed said? ‘First, do no harm.’ Well, until she could figure out what was going on, protecting Shannon was her first priority. No one was going to harm a hair on that child’s head. It only took Logan a second to make up her mind.

  First, she went into the kitchen and filled an empty grocery sack she found with a few others, stuffed in a drawer. Next, she raided the cupboards and refrigerator for some kid food for Shannon. Her search didn’t yield much. Cheerios, mac and cheese and some applesauce.

  She grabbed another bag and headed into Shannon’s bedroom down the hall. She selected a few outfits, shoes, socks and a little toothbrush from the bathroom. At least she’d have some of her own things, even if the rest of her plan didn’t work out.

  Leaving everything else as it was for the police, she let herself out the way she came in, through the back door, dialing Rick as she went.

  By the time Ben whipped up some macaroni and cheese, things were falling into place. Logan finished her phone call with Rick, made a call to Bonnie, and while she was encouraging Shannon to take “just one more bite” of dinner, wondered how she would explain where her mother was the next time the little girl asked. She’d have to tell her something eventually. She didn’t lie to children, but this was a truth no three-year-old could handle.

  Rick came through like a champ. She could always count on her little brother. Having a cop in the family came in handy more than once. Being in the Jasper, CA police department for over ten years, Rick knew everyone. He and Charlie, his German Shepherd K-9 partner, were well liked and often called out to a variety of crime scenes. Including those requiring the involvement of Children’s Protective Services. Which is why she called him tonight.

  21

  Last month, Charlie helped locate a meth dealer’s drug stash in a wailing, undernourished 4-month ol
d infant’s badly soiled diaper. Nothing got past Charlie’s nose. After removing the drug package from the mess, Rick cleaned up the infant and, by the time the social worker, a Mrs. Croft, from Children’s Protective Services arrived, had him cuddled in the crook of his arm, sucking down a bottle of sugar water.

  Rick would have given him some formula, but there was no food, baby or otherwise, in the house, just a crusty bowl of sugar on the counter. Croft was pleased with the young man’s empathy and pragmatic problem solving. Of course, the bottle wasn’t sterilized, but the baby was severely dehydrated, so Rick’s actions were the lesser of two evils, and the right action to take. Without immediate intervention, this child wouldn’t have lasted the night.

  She was also grateful because Rick’s actions saved her department some very bad press. They’d received several child neglect calls for this address, but due to budget cuts—again—Croft hadn’t been able to send anyone out yet. If the press got wind of that, her job would be toast. It wouldn’t matter that it wasn’t fair, or that she regularly put in 14-hour days. She’d worked long enough in public service to know fair had nothing to do with it.

  Rick wasn’t one to brag, so Logan heard the story of Rick’s baby rescue from Paula, his fiance, and a dispatcher with the department. She said Mrs. Croft still hadn’t stopped singing his praises downtown.

  That’s what gave her the idea to ask him to intervene on Shannon’s behalf. Part of her intensely wanted to comfort and care for Shannon herself, but pragmatically, she knew Bonnie was better equipped. Not only did she and Mike have all the physical things a three-year-old little girl needed: spare bed, extra clothing her size, and a playroom full of toys she would enjoy, she had what Logan could not give her, a home full of caring people, including Haley, who could continue babysitting her, giving her some sense of continuity.