Girl Who Wasn’t There

by Vincent Zandri

  “That’s because you’re giving them reason to concentrate on you. Sources said you grabbed hold of Penny inside the hotel lobby. That when you approached a Marine and his girlfriend in the bar, you were drunk and belligerent. There’s reports of you fighting and getting violent inside your hotel room. Then that goon … what’s his name, Bertram … showing up at the police station and on the local news, his face destroyed, his finger nearly yanked off. I won’t even bring up what you did this morning, for God’s sakes, taking that hotel detective hostage and assaulting her. You’re not even supposed to be in Lake Placid. By law you’re supposed to remain in Albany where you’re to be looking for a job and reporting in to your parole officer.”

  “I needed to spend quality time with my family. It’s been a while, you know? It was Penny’s idea, and to be honest, I jumped at the chance.”

  “Yeah, well, how’s that quality time going for you, Sid? You’ve broken enough laws to put you back in the pen for four back-to-back life sentences.”

  “Do I have to answer that?”

  “No, but you do have to answer to parole and the Lake Placid Village law enforcement authorities. And after all the work we did to get you free, I can bet it’s all for nothing. They’re going to want to incarcerate you again, Sidney, and this time it will be for good. So why not turn yourself in to me now, and at least plead your case to the courts? You’re under obvious duress because of the abduction of your daughter, and you acted out of emotion. Any red-blooded man and father would do the same thing. That will be our defense.”

  I find myself looking at Penny. Rather than concentrate on me, and my conversation with Joel, she seems fixated by her smartphone. Something she’s watching on the little digital screen.

  The thoughts race through my head. Maybe Joel is right. Maybe Penny and I should get back in the Jeep, head back to town, turn ourselves in, leave the rescue of Chloe up to the cops. Maybe that’s the only way out of this mess. The only way I can guarantee that I will not be transported back to prison.

  “What about contacting Lochte?” I pose.

  “I’m already on it,” Joel says. “He’s of the opinion that you need to turn yourself in right now. Like me, he understands your state of mind. But the goddamned law is the law, Sidney. You can’t make it all up to suit your own purposes. Only God can do that.”

  Me, nodding. Penny turns to me, her eyes wide open, her face withdrawn and pale. Filled with a sudden burst of stress. She stands.

  “Get off the phone, Sid.” Her words are forced, emphatic.

  I look into her eyes, whisper, “What? Why?”

  “Get off the phone … Get off the damned phone!”

  “Sidney,” Joel says. “You there?”

  “Ahhh yeah, Joel …”

  “Sidney, what’s happening?”

  Penny, stepping toward me, her face practically in my face. She grabs the phone out of my hand, thumbs the END CALL button.

  “Why did you do that, Penny? That’s Joel. The one man we have on our side.”

  She hands me back the phone.

  “You’re not … We’re not turning ourselves in,” she states.

  “Joel said it’s the best move. I believe him.”

  “It’s too late for that,” she says, holding the screen on her smartphone up to my face.

  “It’s never too late,” I say.

  “You’re now wanted for murder, Sid,” she cries. “Two … fucking … counts. The murders of our daughter, Chloe, and Giselle.”

  CHAPTER 31

  THE WOOD FLOOR beneath my feet goes soft. Like I’m no longer standing on something solid, but instead, sinking into quicksand. This nightmare is only getting worse. The burning wood pops. It startles me, like a gunshot I didn’t expect.

  Penny presses PLAY on the video that’s now appearing on her smartphone screen. I see a field reporter standing outside the Lake Placid Village Police Station where Chief Joe Walton is holding a press conference in the rain.

  “We are saddened by the events of this morning,” he says into the multiple microphones attached to the wood podium before him, the rain pelting the visor on his police lid. “Namely the presumed loss of a little girl, Chloe O’Keefe, eleven years old, the child who’d been reported abducted by her parents yesterday afternoon, and the loss of one of the village’s most prominent citizens and a former decorated member of this police force, forty-five-year-old Giselle Fontaine. While Fontaine was found dead in her bathtub only a few hours after her harrowing abduction ordeal with the accused, we have not yet uncovered the body of Chloe. Although based on the physical and circumstantial evidence at hand, we are suspecting and expecting the worst.”

  The press lobs questions at the cop, but he holds up his meaty hands as if to say, Not now.

  “The photos we’re about to show you are disturbing,” he warns. “You should all be cautioned.” He turns, nods to one of his uniformed policemen who pulls out a big white poster board that serves as a backdrop for six full color eight-by-ten-inch glossy photos.

  “Can you all make these out?” Walton asks.

  The cameraman working the presser for the news channel broadcast on the digital smartphone zooms in on the first photo. It shows a woman who is most definitely Detective Giselle Fontaine, her face bruised and battered, her mouth gaping open, along with her blue eyes. There’s something wrapped around her throat. It’s a pair of yellow polka-dot bikini bottoms. The bottoms are bloodstained, if not blood-soaked.

  “Oh God,” I mumble to myself. “What the hell has happened to our little girl?”

  Penny’s eyes are rolling back in their sockets. She begins to fall. She’s overwhelmed, physically, emotionally. Her heart is palpitating. She’s going into shock. I grab onto her.

  “Penny,” I say. “Breathe, honey, please breathe.”

  Each photograph is broadcast over the news channel, one by one. All a different version of the same thing. Giselle dead, her face and neck horribly black and blued. Her neck choked by Chloe’s bathing suit.

  The chief moves in closer to the microphones.

  “Currently, our number one suspect in the double homicide is a fifty-year-old male and the father of the suspected deceased, Chloe O’Keefe, namely Sidney O’Keefe. Released from a downstate maximum-security penitentiary only last week for which he had been doing a twenty-five-to-life sentence in the murder of four undocumented Chinese aliens back in 2007, O’Keefe is proof that some natural born killers should never be paroled. And I can’t stress the word never enough.

  “As I’ve already indicated this morning, O’Keefe and his wife took Fontaine hostage, holding her with her own gun, which they took off her person. They then fled the police who’d arrived on the scene to investigate the beating of one Tom Bertram, who identified O’Keefe as his attacker late last night. While the O’Keefes fled to the woods located in and around Keene Valley, it appears they doubled back to exact their revenge on Fontaine as she was heading home. At this point, we can’t be certain when O’Keefe assaulted his daughter, but said assault was likely deadly, and the primary reason behind his false story of her having been abducted right off the beach on Mirror Lake.

  “As of this moment, both local and state police have joined in the hunt for O’Keefe who, at present, is at large with his wife, Penny. Penny, it should be noted, is considered coconspirator in the double homicide. Like her husband, she should also be considered armed and dangerous. If anyone within the vicinity of Lake Placid and/or the Keene Valley should accidentally come across the two perpetrators, we urge you not to engage in any open contact with them, but to instead immediately dial 911 and contact local police authorities.”

  Chief Walton walks away from the mic to the shotgunned questions lobbed by the many reporters present. That’s when the video ends.

  “What the hell just happened?” I say, my voice barely exiting my dry mouth.

  “They killed her. They killed them both. And they’re blaming us, Sid.”

  “But that’s
impossible. The only pictures they showed were of Giselle, and even then, we can’t be sure she’s dead.”

  “What are you saying?”

  It hits me with all the intensity of the electrical storm still waging outside the log walls of this long-abandoned cabin. Setting the smartphone onto the stool, I grab hold of Penny’s shoulders.

  “Don’t you see what’s happening here, Penny? We’re being set up. We’re being made to look like murderers. Or, at the very least, I’m being set up.”

  “But why, Sidney? Why go to the lengths they are going to? I mean, it’s the police for God’s sakes. I thought you said it was Rabuffo who wanted his revenge. But we’re running from the very people who should be helping us. Helping our daughter.”

  I think about my phone call with Joel. About the reason they baited me with Chloe outside the hotel room last night. About them needing something from me in order to get at what they want.

  “Because they want something,” I say.

  “What exactly can they want that bad, Doc?”

  Realization … It’s like a bright white light that suddenly turns on over my head. Joel wasn’t lying when he said Rabuffo’s lieutenants are going after their fair share of his fortune.

  “They want Rabuffo’s cash, Pen. And they think I alone hold the key to it.”

  “So you think it’s possible our daughter is alive?”

  I nod.

  “I do,” I say. “They want us to think she’s dead so that we’ll come out into the open. It’s their leverage. But we’re not going to take the bait. We’re going to stick it out right here until we can figure out a way to get back to town, find out who knows where they’re keeping Chloe, and then we’re going to get her back. Only then will we turn ourselves into the police.”

  “With Joel’s help.”

  “With Joel’s help,” I agree.

  CHAPTER 32

  I TOSS TWO more logs on the fire. It sparks while the dry logs take to the flame like tissue paper.

  “So what do we do now, Sid?” Penny begs, her hands trembling. “I’m going crazy here. I feel like my skin is peeling off my body. I need to see Chloe. I need to know she’s alive.”

  “They got us up against a wall, Pen. Like I just said, they believe my only choice … our only choice … is to give ourselves up.”

  “Are we going to do that?” Penny begs. “Give ourselves up, I mean?”

  “Here’s what’s going to happen, Pen. Whoever is doing this to us … whoever is masterminding it … is going to make contact with us. They’re going to try and make a deal. Our freedom in exchange for something else.”

  “What about Chloe?”

  “That’s the thing,” I add. “We don’t negotiate for anything less than Chloe’s release.”

  “In exchange for what, Doc?”

  “Who’s the common denominator in all of this?” I pose. “What’s the reason the DA let me out of prison in the first place?”

  She thinks about it for a moment. But she doesn’t have to think long.

  “Rabuffo,” she says.

  “Rabuffo has a treasure trove hidden away, Pen. My guess is that our enemies believe I not only know precisely where to find it, but that I know the combination to the vault itself.”

  She looks at me for a moment. Rather, not at me, but into me.

  “Well, Sidney,” she says, “do you?”

  I hear it then.

  Something coming from outside other than the weather. The sound of rotors chopping through the air. I go to the front door, open it, poke my head out. Just enough to get a look without being spotted. But then, they can see the smoke. If it’s a police chopper, they can pick up the heat signal from the fire on their infrared equipment. They can pick up our voices with basic over-the-counter sound equipment you can purchase at the local Radio Shack. They know we’re in here regardless of my exposed face.

  We’re sitting ducks.

  “What is it, Doc?” Penny asks. “Is it the police?”

  “A helicopter,” I say. “They’re on to us, Pen. They know where we’re hiding out.”

  I head out into a rain that’s eased up now that the bulk of the storm has passed. The black-and-white Lake Placid police chopper makes a low-flying pass, like they’re buzzing the place. I do the only thing I can do. I raise up my right hand, hold my middle index finger high.

  Back inside the cabin, I stare down Penny.

  Choices.

  Surrender to the police. Head outside with our hands held high. Or stand our ground.

  Penny’s eyes locked on mine.

  “We’re screwed, Sidney,” she says, her voice trembling, big tears falling. “We’ve got nowhere to go. We have to give up.”

  My chest tight, mouth dry, temples pounding. Instinct kicks in. The survival instinct. It overrides all reason. But it’s not just my survival that’s at stake here. Nor Penny’s. It’s Chloe’s. Nothing matters more than Chloe’s life. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure these bastards do not harm a single hair on her head.

  I go to the gun rack at the opposite side of the room. I pull down the shotgun, examine it. It’s not in bad shape. It could use some oil, but otherwise in working order. Pulling down the .30-30, I can see it, too, is in working order.

  The chopper buzzes overhead as it makes another pass. It sounds like it’s about to crash through the roof.

  “We’ve got to do something, Doc,” Penny insists. “Do it now.”

  “Like go outside and hold our hands over our head?” I respond. “Surrender? Only to lose our daughter forever?”

  “They’ll have no choice but to return her to us.”

  “You don’t know what we’re dealing with here, Pen,” I say. “It’s Rabuffo. Doesn’t matter if he’s in FBI custody. He has people who will not only make sure Chloe dies, but that she suffers in the process.”

  She begins to cry again.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” she weeps. “This isn’t happening. This is all a bad dream.”

  “I need bullets,” I say more to myself than to Penny. “I can do without the oil, but bullets would be nice. And shells for the shotgun.”

  Setting the .30-30 back on the rack, I once more grab the shotgun, slide back the action, open the bolt. Like I said, decent shape. Racking the gun, I head into the kitchen, examine the shelves mounted to the wall between the counter and the bathroom. Three boxes of Remington 12-guage shotgun shells. Another three boxes of Remington .30-30 cartridges. I grab hold of all six boxes, carry them into the main room and to the gun rack. Loading the .30-30, I listen to the chopper make another pass, and I see Penny once more staring at her phone.

  She wipes her tears and locks her gaze on mine.

  “It’s a text message,” she explains.

  “Caller ID?”

  “Unidentified caller, Doc.”

  “Read it to me,” I say, cocking the now loaded .30-30, then starting on feeding shells to the shotgun.

  “‘I can make all this go away,’” she recites.

  “That’s it? That’s all it says?”

  “‘I can make this go away,’” she repeats.

  “What about the phone number? Is there an area code? Is it 518?” 518 being the local area code for this part of northern New York State. A code that also includes the capital city of Albany where our apartment is located.

  “It’s an eight-eight-eight number,” Penny adds.

  “Okay, Pen, that means whoever’s doing this is thorough and not prone to mistakes. It also means they somehow know your number.”

  “What do I text in return?”

  “Tell them we want our daughter back. Then we go our separate ways.”

  She doesn’t hesitate to thumb the message into the phone.

  The chopper buzzes the camp again.

  So close, the thundering noise of the chopper causes Penny to shrug, as if the machine were about to take the roof off and our heads along with it.

  “That’s enough of that,” I grouse.


  Switching up the shotgun for the .30-30, I head outside onto the overgrown front lawn. I catch sight of the chopper, a Huey, about to make another pass. Shouldering the rifle, I plant a bead on its nose. As the chopper begins its dive, I wait patiently, holding my breath until it’s almost directly over the tin roof. That’s when I release some of the air in my lungs and fire as rapidly as possible.

  I’m certain I’ve connected with the chopper’s windshield, because I can see the chips of safety glass fly off it. The chopper exposes its belly, rapidly taking on elevation as a defensive maneuver. I fire again, this time aiming for the engine. When I see black smoke emerge from the back of the chopper exhaust, I know I’ve struck home.

  The chopper circles over the wilderness like a wounded bird of prey. But its motor can’t be that badly damaged since it’s now coming back toward me. Something’s different this time. The closer it comes, the easier it is to see that its side door has been opened. There’s a man leaning out of it. He’s dressed in black tactical gear including a helmet and dark goggles. He’s also holding an automatic rifle. The automatic rifle is armed with a grenade launcher.

  I take aim with my .30-30 at the exact moment I make out the flash of the grenade launcher.

  “Holy Christ!” I bark as I launch myself onto the cabin two-track.

  The grenade detonates maybe ten feet away from me, the concussion rattling my teeth and bones, exploded soil and grass raining down upon me. Shaking the dizziness from my head, I do my best to bound back up, and return the fire as the chopper once again zooms away from me.

  But I’m so unsteady and shaken up, all I’m hitting is air.

  The chopper flies another circular pattern.

  It’s coming back. Its trajectory is lower this time. Like whoever is doing the shooting is trying to improve his aim. It hits me then that he might be going for the cabin. Maybe he’ll try to hit it with a grenade, hope for a fire, burn us out into the open for good. It’s exactly how I’d do it.

  “Penny,” I whisper to myself. “She’s inside the cabin.”

  I go for the front door, throw it open. My wife is nowhere to be seen.