Missing Daughter

by Rick Mofina

  Maddie was dressed in jogging pants, a T-shirt, sweater, sneakers and was hugging a stuffed teddy bear. Some of her hair had been cut away where her head had been bandaged. She grew apprehensive as Perry introduced Croll and Metcalf.

  “We’re all here to help you find your family.” Croll smiled.

  “The doctor said her scan results were good. No signs of neurological damage. But that it’s impossible to know how long her post-trauma memory loss will last.” Perry brushed Maddie’s hair behind her ear. “Maddie says little bits are coming back, isn’t that right, sweetie?”

  Maddie nodded.

  “That’s good,” Metcalf said. “We’d just like to ask a few questions, okay?”

  Maddie nodded.

  Croll and Metcalf turned to the table where they each had laptops and another device that looked like a mobile credit card machine.

  “We’ll start with this fingerprint scanner.” Metcalf placed Maddie’s right thumb on a sensitive square on the screen, held it there as a light flashed. Then Metcalf entered some commands. “We’ll see if you’re in any of our regional or state databases, maybe for a school thing, a job, or if you got into trouble or have been reported missing, anything like that. It’ll take a little while.”

  While the machine searched, Metcalf asked Maddie questions.

  “You’re certain your name is Maddie?”

  “Yes, pretty sure.”

  “And you’re sixteen?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “What’s your last name?”

  Maddie shook her head while hugging the bear.

  “Do you know what happened, how you got hurt?”

  “No.”

  Metcalf’s fingerprint machine beeped, showing a No Hits response on the screen.

  “Hmm, looks like you’re not in the Florida system,” Metcalf said, then went to her laptop.

  “Maddie, do you have any memory of where you live?” Croll asked. “A landmark, or the sound of the town or city’s name? Maybe you’re in Florida visiting, or on vacation, or staying in a hotel?”

  Blinking, she touched her cheek to the bear’s head and thought.

  “I think it had the word New in it?”

  “The hotel?”

  “No, the city, I think.”

  Croll began searching the state database of missing children files or news reports for New Port Richey, New Smyrna Beach and any others she could think of. The search yielded no results.

  “What about the files for New Mexico, New Jersey and New York?” Metcalf suggested.

  Croll’s keyboard clicked with rapid typing as she submitted the name “Maddie” then “Madison” with spelling variations for the smallest state first. Nothing for New Mexico. Then she moved on to New Jersey and her computer flashed: One file found. The case of Bradley Madison, aged five, from Atlantic City, had been closed. He was found a year earlier.

  With Metcalf watching over Croll’s shoulder, she queried the database for New York State. Her screen flashed: One file found.

  Croll opened it.

  The page filled her screen with a Missing Child—Possible Abduction headline over the name Maddison Lane and two color photos, a description and a case summary that read:

  Maddison Lane was last seen in the bedroom of her home in Syracuse, New York, at age twelve. It is believed she may have been abducted. Maddison’s photo is shown age-progressed to sixteen years old.

  Croll and Metcalf studied Maddie, then the age-progressed photo, not believing what they were seeing.

  Denise Perry walked around the table, saw the file, then looked at the girl in the chair. Her hand flew to her mouth.

  “Honey—” Croll moved closer to Maddie and lowered herself “—can you pull up the cuff of your pants so we can see your right ankle?”

  Maddie swallowed and slowly tugged up the right leg of her jogging pants, revealing a half-moon-shaped birthmark.

  “Oh my God,” Perry said. “It’s her. It’s Maddison Lane!”

  52

  “You’d asked me to call if anything unusual happened with the Lane policy?”

  The Lane case?

  Zubik had just answered a call from Nathan Hurst of American Eagle Federated Insurance. He glanced at the cardboard boxes filled with Lane case files, which he’d hadn’t archived, stacked on top of his filing cabinet. Zubik demanded they remain there as a monument to his refusal to surrender.

  He reflected on all those Saturday-morning meetings with Asher in their usual booth at Big Ivan’s Diner, and how they reviewed the case. Now, Asher was poised to leave town for a job with Homeland in Washington. Time had flowed like a river, and they still hadn’t cleared the case.

  “Yes, Mr. Hurst, the Lane case. What do you have?”

  “Ryan Lane visited me the other day. He seemed quite, well, a mess. I could smell alcohol on him. He was a man on the edge...”

  “His daughter’s disappearance has taken a toll over the years.” Zubik glanced at the small photo on his desk of Rosie, the black Lab he’d adopted a week earlier from a shelter. Then he swiveled in his chair. Asher was across from him, talking on her phone to a Florida cop named Metcalf.

  “...but what was more troubling,” Hurst continued, “is that Mr. Lane asked me how long he needed to keep paying premiums on his daughter’s policy and how long before she was declared dead. Well, I...”

  Zubik watched Asher’s face turn serious, and she stood.

  “What?” Asher said, her eyes widening as she absorbed the information on her call, waving at Zubik to end his call now.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Hurst, I’ll get back to you,” Zubik said as Asher’s call ended.

  “Oh my God, Stan—you are not going to believe this!”

  53

  Ryan Lane was extending his measuring tape along the wall of a new house in the suburb of Willowind when he got Zubik’s call.

  “Police in Florida have a girl that they’re convinced is Maddie.”

  Ryan froze, not understanding or believing.

  “Say that again.”

  Zubik repeated the news, and as he relayed details Ryan’s heart rose. He stuttered a quick, thankful goodbye to Zubik with a promise to call him back. Fingers trembling, Ryan then called Karen at the store. She was at her register when he told her their daughter had been found alive, and her scream startled customers in her line.

  “Oh God, is it really true, Ryan?”

  “Zubik said it’s her. It’s Maddie!”

  “We have to go now! I need to see her. I have to hold her today!”

  Events began unfolding fast.

  Cole arranged for tickets for Ryan, Karen and himself on the next plane to Miami, where the airport had just reopened after the storm. Tyler stayed with Jill and Dalton. Cole had alerted his investigators in Miami to keep him updated.

  The Miami bureau of the Associated Press broke the story, and got a call to Ryan and Karen just before they boarded, requesting reaction.

  “It feels like a dream,” Ryan told the reporter. “We need to see her.”

  Karen sat in the middle seat of their 737 looking at the photos of Maddie that police had sent. They included close-ups of her half-moon-shaped birthmark above her right ankle, unmistakably Maddie’s. Karen smiled at it like she did when Maddie was a baby.

  Yes, this was Maddie, but she was older; her face had changed from the twelve-year-old little girl Karen last saw. It was fuller, tanned, somewhat hardened but looking so much like the teenager in the age-progressed picture. Karen was unable to imagine what had happened to her in all those years. Was she cared for? Was she mistreated? Where had she been? Who had she been with?

  Maddie was alive. Karen thanked God for that. Her daughter was alive.

  Tears filled her eyes and she squeezed Ryan’s hand, relieved he’d only been drinking
sodas on the plane. He’d shaved, he looked better, hopeful, but had retreated into his thoughts, leaving her to wonder if they could ever overcome the damage inflicted by Maddie’s lost years.

  The agony had strained their marriage to the breaking point. Ryan had been able to keep the drywall business afloat but he drank too much, and Karen went through the motions of her life like a ghost, like she wasn’t there. Tyler was still undergoing therapy and was determined to leave home and join the military, to see combat as soon as he could.

  Throughout it all, Cole had been unfailing in his search for Maddie. He’d helped arrange age-progressed photos of Maddie. They were used by police, by the national support groups and his investigators in their search for her across the country.

  But the heartache of missing Maddie was overwhelming for Ryan, Karen and Tyler. It had left them broken people.

  Will we ever be happy again?

  Karen looked at Cole beside her, working on his laptop, assessing information his investigators had sent him, and was struck by the dark truth she shared with him.

  Will we be able to keep our mistakes buried?

  As if reading Karen’s mind, Cole gave her a furtive look and touched her hand as the jet began its descent.

  * * *

  At Miami’s airport they were met by nearly fifty news people. Cameras flashed, microphones were thrust at them and Ryan repeated what he’d said to the wire service while they hustled with Van Brophy, one of Cole’s Miami investigators, to a waiting SUV.

  It whisked them across the metropolis to a Miami-Dade police office.

  More news crews were waiting for them as they hurried through a side entrance to meet Detectives Chad Powers and Julia Castillo, who ushered them and Cole to a small office.

  “We’re going to take you to her,” Castillo said, “but there are a few things you need to know.”

  Karen struggled to concentrate and keep from bursting as Castillo updated them.

  “We’ve been talking to her with the lead Syracuse detectives on video conference, trying to determine her place of residence, how she came to Florida. But she’s suffered a head injury and remembers very little about anything, so we’ve been unsuccessful. Syracuse police will follow up in New York on formalities, like fingerprinting or DNA. We all believe this girl is your daughter, but once you confirm it for us, we’ll have you sign a few papers, release her to you and you can take your daughter home. Karen, Ryan, we’re happy for you.” Castillo smiled. “Most cases don’t end this way.”

  Karen cupped her hands to her face as they were led down the hall to a meeting room, glancing at Ryan then Cole.

  Four years, she thought. Will she recognize us?

  Inside, sitting in a chair between Anna Croll and Officer Penny Metcalf, was Maddie.

  Slowly, she stood in silence before them, wearing shorts, a pink T-shirt, sneakers. A bandage about the size of a playing card was affixed to one side of her head. Karen took quick inventory, relieved to see the birthmark above Maddie’s ankle. She had grown so much. Her face was rounder, her shoulders, chest and hips had developed. Maddie, their little girl, was now a young woman. Karen saw Maddie’s chin quivering and searched her eyes, which were glistening as Maddie said, “Hi.”

  “Maddie!” Karen shrieked, taking her into her arms, feeling Maddie’s fingers clawing into her back as Ryan suddenly crushed them both into his arms, snuggling his head into theirs, gasping for air as he sobbed.

  “It’s you, it’s you! Oh Maddie, it’s really you!”

  54

  The next day they returned to Syracuse.

  At home, Maddie stood in her bedroom, looking around like she had arrived in a strange new world. Nothing was familiar. She ran her fingers along the bed, glanced at the posters on the wall, the gifts stacked in one corner. Then her attention shifted to her reflection in her dresser mirror.

  She touched her bandage, struggling to mentally grasp all that had happened. At the Syracuse airport they’d met privately in a room for a moment with the two detectives who’d tried to find her all these years. The man said, “This is Fran Asher, I’m Stan Zubik. We’re happy you’re home safe, Maddison. We’d like to talk to you in a few days, when you’re ready.”

  Then her family tried to rush her by another cluster of reporters, lights blazing and flashing, with Maddie’s father only saying, “We’re so happy our nightmare is over.”

  They made it home where more of her family embraced her. It was overwhelming, and they’d decided to let everyone see her one at a time. So much was happening so fast, like a new kind of hurricane, filling her with anxiety. She saw it in herself in the mirror. Now, she saw Karen’s face beside hers, joyous and glowing.

  “I keep telling myself it’s real, I’m not dreaming you’re home. I feared I’d never see you again, but deep in my heart I knew you were alive. It’s really you!”

  Maddie gave her a nervous smile.

  “You really don’t remember, honey? You don’t remember us, your life before?”

  Maddie pursed her lips, shook her head, blinking.

  “The doctors in Florida said it might take time for everything to come back. We’ll get a doctor to help you here. We’ll talk to your school. We’ll go shopping for new clothes and—” Karen nodded to the gifts “—we’ll catch up with birthdays and Christmases. We’ll have a big celebration.”

  Maddie gently raised her palms.

  “Oh, sorry,” Karen said. “Too much, too fast. I’ll back off, give you space. But I need to tell you something before the others talk to you.”

  Maddie was listening.

  “We’re never, ever going to argue again, okay?”

  Maddie nodded, smiling, and they held each other.

  Alone for a moment, Maddie went to her window, seeing it reinforced and secured with white bars with a decorative scrollwork design. She looked through it to the backyard, the high fence and the forest beyond.

  “The fence and window guards are new. Uncle Cole and I put in a new high-tech security system, too,” Ryan said from the doorway. “You’re safe here.”

  “That’s good,” she said.

  “But if you’re uncomfortable in your room because of what happened, Tyler will swap rooms with you.”

  “It’s okay. I think I’ll be okay here.”

  “Look, honey, I know you’re having trouble remembering what happened to you, but you have to know that whatever comes back to you, whenever it comes back, that I love you with all my heart.”

  Maddie turned, rushed to him and they hugged for a long time.

  After Ryan left, Tyler came to her room and sat on her bed. Looking at her, he said, “Your voice sounds deeper. You got taller. I guess, I did, too.”

  She smiled at him.

  “This is weird.” He let out a little laugh. “But in such a good way.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “You really can’t remember stuff, like what happened to you?”

  “No. I wish I did.”

  “Do you even know where you’ve been all this time?”

  “No.”

  “How you got to Florida?”

  “No.”

  “What about here? Can you remember any of it?”

  “Not really. People seem worried and it’s all scary, kinda crazy, like there was this life I had but I don’t remember it.”

  Tyler thought, nodding. “A lot happened,” he said. “Like Gabriela Rios, one of your best friends. She got cancer and died about two years ago. And Logan Bostick, a guy you liked, he moved to France with his family.”

  Maddie shook her head. “It all sounds sad, but I don’t remember them.”

  “Some things haven’t changed. Bennie still delivers pizza, just like he did that night.” Tyler smiled. “Oh, yeah, and as for me, I’m going into the army later this year.”

 
; “Oh.” Maddie sounded even sadder.

  “Yeah, well, things got pretty rough living here when you were gone. I never ever stopped thinking about you. I begged God to bring you back. I got this to give to you for the day you came back.”

  He pulled out a bundle of tissue paper from his pocket and unfolded it, revealing a pink woven fabric bracelet with a small gold metal charm bearing one word: Hope.

  “I’m really sorry I didn’t do anything that night, but I never gave up hoping you’d come home.” He was crying.

  Maddie smiled, put the bracelet on and hugged Tyler. “Thank you.”

  Her aunt and uncle were next to see her.

  “You’re our miracle.” Jill embraced her, kissed her cheek. “We all prayed so hard. Your uncle Cole and his team, everyone over the years, worked so hard to find you and now you’re here, like an answered prayer!”

  Jill kept hugging her.

  “And you’ve become this beautiful young woman.”

  Cole handed Maddie a new top-of-the-line cell phone.

  “I had my people rush this over for you,” he said. “Ty will show you how to use it, if you need help. My numbers are programmed in there. I want you to contact me at any hour for anything, anything at all. We’re all here to help you.”

  Maddie thanked them and, after they left, Dalton visited her.

  “Everyone’s insanely happy you’re home,” he said, glancing at the door to be sure they were alone. Then he softened his voice. “Maddie, do you remember me at all?”

  “No, not really, sorry.”

  He looked at her for a long time.

  “My dad said you talked to police at the airport. What did they ask you or tell you?”

  “They want to talk to me in a couple days. Why?”

  “I was wondering, that’s all.” He bit his lip, glanced at the window, the fence and the forest.

  “Do you remember what happened the night you disappeared?”

  “It was a long time ago. I’m not sure what I remember.”

  He gave her a long, uneasy look, as if he were searching for something in Maddie’s eyes and unable to find it.