I look up at him. “You have to be strong right now. For Caroline.”
“I will,” he says, but I can see the terror in his eyes.
“Caroline?” I say again.
From inside, I hear a small voice. No words, just a quiet whimper. Human.
I take my backpack from Rory and pull out my mini tool kit. I grab the flathead screwdriver in my left hand, the Phillips in my right, and slide them through the padlock in opposite directions. Then, in a single motion, I jerk them apart, driving force onto the opposing sides of the lock. The flathead catches the wrist of my right hand, opening a gash. Blood pours from the wound, mixing with the rain, but I don’t care. The lock begins to give.
Hand pulsing, I switch the screwdrivers back in the opposite direction and give one final thrust. As I do, the lock breaks apart, metal pieces thudding to the ground. I stand up, unlatch the door. Inside, it’s too dark to see. I open the door a few inches to let in the light, illuminating a narrow military cot. An uneven concrete floor. A plastic bucket in the corner. A rope hanging on the wall beside the door. The smell is intense. Urine, fear, sweat.
As my eyes adjust, I realize someone is standing against the back wall. She wears oversized shorts, a thin hoodie, no socks, no shoes. She is shivering. A chain attaches her to a bolt on the floor.
A ray of light reflects off of her pale skin. Her beautiful hair is gone. She is bald. Thin.
Just like Gray Stafford.
“Caroline?”
Her head moves slightly. “Rory?” Barely a whisper.
I turn to realize that Rory has stepped into the kennel and is looking over my shoulder, his eyes wide open in horror.
He rushes past me, past the filthy blankets on the floor, the puddles of muddy water. He throws both of his arms around Caroline, pulling her in close. In an instant, he has his jacket off, and he wraps it around her. He doesn’t say a word. He stands there, holding her, a stunned look on his face. She tucks her head into his chest, sobbing.
I hear the truck coming down the hill from the house. I pull the door closed. With the three of us crowded into the cramped space, the door closed, the smell is even more intense, more terrible, the darkness magnifying everything. A mouse skitters behind the hay bale.
Even muffled against Rory’s chest, Caroline’s sobs are loud. “Shh.” I need to calm her. I put my ear to the door to listen for the truck. I hear the noise of the engine fading. Are they gone?
I hand Rory my phone. “I need you to use this for light. Be careful. Only the screen, not the flashlight. Point it toward the floor.”
He continues holding Caroline with one arm. With the other, he turns on the phone and directs the screen toward Caroline’s feet. I bend down and examine the thick leather cuff around her left ankle. A chain extends from the cuff to a bolt in the floor. Sawing through the leather cuff would take time. The loop connecting the chain to the bolt, though, is old and rusted. I fit the screwdrivers through the single loop. My hand is throbbing, blood leaking from the cut, running down my arm. I jerk the tools in opposite directions several times. Nothing. I try again. Finally, the metal loop snaps, freeing Caroline from the bolt in the floor.
I loop the chain around her ankle, tucking the end into the cuff. She winces. “I’m sorry,” I say. “This will keep it from making too much noise.”
Rory is still holding her tight, her face buried in his chest. She’s shaking violently.
“My neck,” she whispers.
Rory directs the light of the phone to her neck. “What have they done to you?” he mumbles in horror. That’s when I see the collar.
It is made of rubber, with an embedded lithium battery. Is it a tracking device? An alarm? I reach into my backpack for my Swiss Army knife. “I have to cut this off,” I tell Caroline. “Be perfectly still.” She freezes in place as I work the knife back and forth, slowly cutting through the rubber. The knife strikes something rigid—a plastic-coated wire running through the center of the collar. I continue sawing through the rubber, careful not to sever the wire. As soon as the wire is cut, it will likely send an alert.
I remove the collar, leaving the wire intact. Then I carefully wedge the knife between Caroline’s neck and the wire, protecting her skin with my free hand. In a single motion, I slice outward toward myself. As the knife splits the plastic coating of the wire, a jolt of electricity surges through the wire, into my body. Caroline goes rigid for a split second, but she doesn’t say a word.
I listen for an alarm but hear nothing. Does it set off a signal inside the house, or perhaps on her captor’s phone?
“We need to go now,” I say. “We really need to move.”
She doesn’t respond.
Rory pulls back from Caroline, cups his hands around her face. “Caroline, did you hear my mom? We have to go. Can you walk?”
“Yes.” I see terror in her eyes. “But, I’m stuck. The chains.” She’s still in a state of shock.
“I’ve cut the bolt,” I say. “You’re free. We have to go now.”
I grab the rope from the wall, loop it over my shoulder. Then I open the door a crack, glancing out. The truck is in the parking lot of the racetrack, about five hundred yards away. A man and a woman stand beside the truck. The woman is tiny, wearing a cowboy hat. The man wears a suit. They appear to be waiting for someone, but they’re not alarmed. If someone received an alert when I cut the collar, it wasn’t them.
I shut the door and whisper, “There are two people out there. We need to stay low and move fast.”
Caroline is freezing to the touch. Her mouth is moving, but I can’t make out the words.
I open the door and lead Rory and Caroline out. The people are so close I can hear their voices. Their backs are to us. They’re looking in the direction of the house. Caroline is dazed, her eyes glassy. She’s squinting, having trouble adjusting to the light.
I motion for the kids to follow me. We creep down the slippery hill, leaving a noticeable trail in the mud. Then we are under the rail and back along the tree line. We run along the fence until we reach the limb of the tree where we first entered. My heart is pounding. I glance back to see if the people have seen us, but they’re still standing there, talking, gazing up toward the house. I feel less conspicuous here in the shadows of the trees and rain. I throw the heavy rope up and over, and Rory jumps up to reach the end dangling over the branch. He pulls it down to the ground. I quickly tie off four footholds to form a makeshift ladder. I motion for Rory to go first.
In a flash, he skitters up the rope and onto the limb, positioning himself to help Caroline over. She stands beneath the limb, dazed, shivering. She is so weak and thin. With her bald head and pale skin, she looks alien. I remember how Nicole described Gray Stafford—more creature than human, shuffling toward her on the beach.
I hear tires on gravel in the distance. Caroline hears it too, turning to look in the direction of the house, terror in her eyes. I tune my ears to the sound of the car, that music my dad taught me to listen for. It’s the Land Cruiser, no question.
I put my hands on her shoulders, look into her eyes, and say, “You can do this.”
She nods. I help her into the foothold and hoist her light body up the rope. Rory reaches down and pulls her up. She’s out of my sight now, and I hear her landing, leaves rustling on the ground.
I use the rope to pull myself up onto the limb. Rory reaches down, grabbing my hand in his strong grip. Once I’m steady on the limb, he drops onto the ground next to Caroline. From this vantage point I can see the Land Cruiser pulling up beside the truck. The big man steps out, greeting the couple, but he doesn’t even glance toward the kennel. My gaze is drawn to his pants—bright yellow, plaid. Plaid Man, in the flesh.
From their formal handshakes and the way he seems to be showing them the track for the first time, I realize the couple is probably oblivious to the kennel; they’re h
ere on separate business.
I untie the rope, hoist it over the fence out of sight, and scurry backward along the limb, dropping down on the other side.
Caroline sits against the tree, Rory hovering over her, watching for danger. Her bare feet sink into the wet leaves and soil. I take off my sneakers, put them on her ruined feet, and lace them.
“Thirsty,” Caroline gasps.
Rory unzips the backpack, pulls out a bottle of water, and holds it to Caroline’s lips. She drinks, water dribbling down her chin, gasping, until the bottle is empty.
Together, Rory and I lift Caroline, helping her to stand. Her arm feels so thin, just skin and bones. She is so weak, but we have to hurry. How much time do we have before Leonard Blake realizes she is missing?
We walk along the fence, back to the logging road. I look back, relieved to see our footprints disappearing in the rain. “If we hear a vehicle, we have to jump off the road and hide in the trees. Understand?” They both nod.
We cover the first half mile at a good clip. My feet slip in the mud, sharp rocks and buried roots digging into my skin. Caroline is out of breath, walking between Rory and me. Fifteen minutes into the journey, she stops and gasps for breath, bent over with her hands on her knees. She bends down farther and dry heaves once, twice.
“Are you okay?” Rory asks her, his voice anxious. He turns to me: “Mom?”
She stands up straight. “I’m okay.”
She almost sounds like Caroline again. There is willfulness in her voice, but once we take a few steps farther, it’s obvious she’s too weak for this hike.
“We have to make it off of the logging road,” I say.
Rory puts his face close to Caroline’s and says a few words into her ear. She nods. He leans down and in one move hoists her up over his shoulder. We move rapidly down the logging road, along the tree line. No sign of the Land Cruiser. No sign of anyone. Rory leads the way, clearheaded, strong.
My bare feet are burning. The blood flow from my wrist has coagulated into a sticky mess. I listen for cars. We need help. We need a ride. But there’s no one we can trust, and I can’t even explain exactly where we are. I pull out my phone again, looking for service, but there is none.
After another quarter mile, Rory puts Caroline down, takes a moment to catch his breath, and we walk toward the spot where our path met the logging road. The air smells like pine and earth, reminding me of the camp in the Poconos where Rory used to spend two weeks each summer. My eyes scan the ground for the red tee. I pick it up and put it in my pocket. Our progress downhill is slow because of the mud. We pass the waterfall, and I’m relieved to see it, to know we’re going the right way. Near the abandoned cabin, we find a protected area among the trees, and we collapse.
“You must be starving,” I say to Caroline.
She looks at me blankly, still in shock.
I open the backpack and take out two full water bottles, handing one to her and one to Rory. Rory opens the bottle for her, and she gulps it down. I unwrap the cheese and break it into small pieces, handing them to her one at a time, so she won’t choke. Then I open a sleeve of graham crackers. She eats ravenously for several minutes, guzzles the last of the final water bottle, then scavenges the bottom of the backpack for a few remaining crumbs. The rain pounds the ground around us, heavy drops hitting the leaves, a soothing music.
She looks up to see both of us staring at her. “Was I supposed to share?” A joke, almost. A sign of the girl Rory knows, coming back to herself.
Rory smiles and puts his arm around her, so gently. “No, you weren’t supposed to share.”
Finally—bruised, scraped, muddy, bloody, and wet—we reach the bottom of the trail. We’re not out of danger. We still have to get across the open field, across Armstrong Woods Road, and back to the car.
Has Leonard Blake realized she’s missing? Surely by now he’s looking for her, for us.
Just short of the trailhead, I pull Rory and Caroline into a huddle. “You have the key?” I ask Rory.
He feels in his pocket. “Yes.”
“I need you to go get the Jeep and bring it to the edge of the field there.”
“Okay.”
As he sprints across the field, I turn to Caroline. “You’re safe now.”
She tries to say something, but no words come out. After several seconds, she says, “I thought he was going to”—she shudders—“but he didn’t. Why did he take me, if he didn’t want that?”
“Did you see the person who took you?”
“No, it was so fast. I was walking home, a car pulled up behind me . . . and then, I woke up in a strange bed. I couldn’t move. I think I was drugged. When I called out, no one came.” She is sobbing. I wrap her in my arms. The Jeep pulls up right across the field from us. Rory gets out and opens the back passenger side door. “Ready?” I ask Caroline.
“Yes.”
“Don’t look back. Just run.”
53
T. S. Eliot wrote, “If you are not in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” In seven paragraphs accompanied by visual aids, illustrate this tenet with an example from your own experience.
The spires of the Golden Gate Bridge are obscured by fog. Alcatraz squats low in the bay, barely visible. I crack the windows to breathe in the cold, clean smell of ocean and fog. Caroline and Rory are asleep in the back seat. Her head rests on his shoulder, his arm draped protectively over her. Empty Gatorade bottles and sandwich wrappers are scattered around them.
Color has already returned to Caroline’s face. Passing through Petaluma, she grabbed Rory’s hand. “They shaved my head,” she said, grief-stricken. “Why would they take my hair?”
Rory ran his palm over her scalp and said, “You look beautiful.” He knew instinctively, without prompting, the right thing to do, the right words to say.
When we drive through the toll booth and make the right onto Lincoln Boulevard, Rory wakes up. He tries to readjust his arm, and Caroline wakes too.
“We should take you to the hospital, sweetie.”
Immediately, Caroline’s face fills with panic, her eyes tearing up. “Please just let me go home with you,” she pleads. “No hospital. Please.”
Her voice is strong. Her appetite is good. Aside from cuts and bruises, she appears physically okay. As an agent, I know the smart move is to take her to the hospital, document the wounds, begin the chain of evidence. But as a parent, I know that what she needs right now is safety, comfort, and a warm bed in a peaceful home with people who care about her. More than anything, she needs her mother.
As an agent, I also know that a trip to the hospital means more than a simple checkup. It means implementation of the hospital’s child abuse protocol, followed by the arrival of a disinterested police officer who is unprepared for a discussion of complex crimes, unknown coconspirators, and even the possibility of public corruption.
I pull up to the front door of my dad’s house, so Caroline won’t be visible from the street. We go inside. I shut the door behind us, lock it, and turn to Caroline. “I need to call your mother to let her know you’re safe. Can you tell me how to get in touch with her?” I don’t tell her that her mother hasn’t even contacted the school. I doubt her mother ever knew she was gone.
“How many days have I been gone?” Caroline asks.
“Seven,” Rory says.
“I’d have to be missing a lot longer than that for her to notice. But I’ll call.” She reaches into her pocket, but her hand comes out empty. “Merde. I forgot, he took my phone.”
Rory hands Caroline his phone. She taps a phone number into the keypad. The phone rings once, followed by a voice recording on the other end, her mother’s outgoing message.
“Mama? C’est moi.” Caroline looks up at me, unsure what to say. “Je dois te dire quelque chose.” I need to tell you something. She hangs up, passes the pho
ne back to Rory, looks at me. “What now?”
“You’ll stay with us until they get back.”
How long will that be? Off the grid, involved in whatever they’re involved in, their daughter’s safety across the world in this seemingly idyllic California town is probably the last thing on their minds.
“You have to understand. My parents are—”
“It’s okay. I know. They would be here if they could.”
Finally, in the warmth of our home, Caroline slides her arms out of Rory’s jacket. There are finger-shaped bruises across her biceps, redness on her neck. As we made our escape, I was so focused on getting her down the mountain and into the Jeep that I didn’t take the time to really examine her. Her legs are also bruised, her feet caked with dirt. Leather still encircles her ankle, the small chain trailing behind.
“I need a bath,” she says. In my work through the years, I’ve often been amazed by how quick people are to adapt, to overcome the most unthinkable things. While some victims never recover, their lives entirely shattered by what they endured, others somehow thrive, as if in defiance of their tormentors. At the moment, Caroline seems strong. But how will she be in two weeks, two months, two years?
I run water for her in the bathtub, pouring in lavender bubble bath. She stands in the doorway, watching me lay out a clean T-shirt and sweatpants. “You’re in luck,” I say, holding up an unopened pack of Hanes boxer briefs I bought for Rory a few days ago.
She’s standing there with a blank expression, her mind somewhere else. Her right foot scratches at the remnant of leather strap still attached to her left foot.
“Just a minute. I’ll grab something to get that off for you.”
She looks confused for a moment, and I gesture toward the frayed strap on her ankle. She lifts her foot and stares down at it, as if surprised to see the strap. I go down to the garage and return with small gardening sheers. She is sitting on the side of the tub, still dressed in the mud-caked clothes. I gently nudge the blade underneath the strap. She winces as the cuff comes off, revealing a band of bloodied skin.
The Wonder Test Page 24
