Part 3 (1/2)

She turned to Louise. ”Can you show me her room?”

The woman led her directly across the hall and nudged the door open. To her right, rays of suns.h.i.+ne highlighted yellow-painted walls the color of daffodils. A full size bed with a lavender comforter sat against the far wall, and a small desk nestled beneath the window was stacked with books. Several framed pictures, black-and-white landscapes of the desert, were laid out on the bed.

Olivia stepped deeper into the room. Picked up one of the pictures.

”She was going to hang those up last night,” Louise said. ”She picked them out herself. She was beginning to feel like this was her home too.”

”Tell me about Alice. What is she like?”

”Quiet. Curious. She's unusual for her age, we saw that the first week she was with us.”

”How so?”

”John and I have raised two so we're used to the turmoil that comes with this age.” Her face lightened. ”But Alice is different. She's more like an adult trapped in a young person's body. Unusually quick-minded, but nave to the ways of the world. She trusts too much. That scares me the most. When the man broke in, she just sat there on the couch. She did what he told her. She didn't say a thing.”

”And the man? How did he react to her?”

”That's the thing. He seemed apologetic. Scared even. It was so strange. He forced me down only because I tried to run. I know it sounds crazy, but when he said he wouldn't hurt us, I believed him.”

”Did he say anything else? Anything unusual that sticks out?”

Louise thought for a moment then shook her head. ”Not that I can think of.”

”The detective who interviewed you last night wrote in his report that Alice suffered from amnesia. That she couldn't remember anything beyond six months ago. There's nothing in the file that explains why.”

”They say her amnesia probably came from trauma she suffered at some point. Her brain's way of protecting her, like post-traumatic stress disorder.”

”What do you know about her parents?”

”Nothing. They said the doc.u.ments are confidential. Do you think someone from her past took her?”

Yes.

Everything pointed to an abductor who valued Alice for who she was and his connection to her. It was why he'd come to the front door first. Why he hadn't worn gloves when he'd come. Why he'd been apologetic. Why he hadn't harmed either of them. It was always in the whys.

But she didn't say yes. Not yet.

”Half of all children who're abducted are taken by family members. It's a possibility that we can't rule out.”

Louise blinked. ”Actually, now that you say that, there was something else. He said Alice was a special girl. He made a point of saying it.”

”Special?”

”Yes. No . . . Very special. He said she was very special.” She paused. ”What do you think he meant?”

Olivia's thoughts spun back to Mich.e.l.le's abduction. A monster that could not fathom the meaning of special had crushed their lives.

Five minutes. That was the time difference between saving Mich.e.l.le and allowing her to be taken. Time. In Alice's case, it wasn't the time it took to get a quart of milk; it was the time she'd lived prior to her amnesia.

”It means we have hope,” she said, reaching for her phone. ”It means he values her. It means we may have more time. It means the key to her abductor probably lies in her past.”

”A past she doesn't remember.”

”But someone else does. Whoever that is, I have to find them.”

She dialed the field office on her cell phone and got her lead a.n.a.lyst. ”Get me Alice Ringwald's adoption files. I want everything, as far back as you can go. And find out who's running the orphanage that handled her adoption. I want them on the phone ASAP.”

4.

Day Two

10:23 am

I DON'T KNOW how long it had taken us to reach the cabin in the woods-maybe two hours after we left the city-but it felt much longer because all I could think was that at any second the police were going to pull up with flas.h.i.+ng red-and-blue lights behind the truck and take me back. Each minute it didn't happen felt like an hour; every mile farther felt like the distance between the earth and the moon.

Back in the house I'd been in too much shock to fully realize what was happening, but the moment we pulled onto the highway with me sitting in the cab, gray duct tape over my mouth, I realized that everything I knew might be changed forever. I really was being taken. Stolen. Driven away into the darkness without a clue about what would happen to me.

I might end up a slave. I might end up dead. I didn't think the man would kill me-my thoughts were more about suddenly feeling totally lost. For six months I had carefully constructed my world from nothing, and now that nothing seemed to be coming back to me.

There on the highway I began to cry silently.

The man had been focused on getting away as quickly as possible and the sight of tears on my cheeks so surprised him that he swerved. He reached over and took the tape off my mouth, apologizing profusely: ”I'm so sorry. Are you okay? I promise I'll take the tape off your hands as soon as I can pull over, but I have to get to a safer place. Please don't cry . . . It's going to be okay. You'll see . . . you'll see . . . .Please don't cry, sweetheart.”

He told me that his name was Wyatt; that he was my father; that everything was going to be okay. That my mother's name was Kathryn and that she was going to be out of her mind with excitement when she heard that he'd rescued me.

But I kept crying.

Worried, he pulled out his cell phone and called her. On one hand, I could hear the enthusiasm in his voice when he told her he'd rescued me, but his face went flat when he told her that I was crying. He listened intently for a while.

”I will, sugar. I promise.” He listened again. ”You're right . . . It would be too much. I will, sugar. I promise.”

They spoke a little while longer and then he hung up. He glanced at me with sad eyes.

”Kathryn said just to let you feel whatever you need to feel. It's going to be okay. This is a big shock to your system and you're going to be confused for a little while. To let you sleep and tell you more when you wake up. You just need to know that she loves you very much. You're going to be so much happier now. You'll see, sweetheart . . . you'll see.”

”Why are you doing this?” I asked. I think those were my first words to him.

”Because you're our daughter. You deserve to belong to your own family. It's the way it should be. I can't tell you everything right now; Kathryn said you should go ahead and cry if you want to. It's okay. I promise.”

By the time we left the highway maybe an hour later, my mind was numb and my tears had stopped. We followed a few paved roads then turned onto a dirt road that wound up into the hills to an old cabin hidden in tall trees. It was dark so I couldn't see much as he led me into the house and to a bedroom at the back.

He lit a small oil lamp and brought me some pickles, a gla.s.s of milk, and two Snickers bars with a plate of crackers. The small bed had been neatly made and the room looked tidy. A brown teddy bear sat on the white pillow, smiling at me with one white eye.