The Day I Lost You: A totally gripping psychological thriller

by Alex Sinclair

  “Where’s he going?” the mediator asked me, hurrying over to the table.

  I couldn’t answer her question. I didn’t know.

  I’ve thought about that moment for the last month. Michael’s thinly veiled threat scared me enough to think about taking Alice away from him. I should have done something sooner, though. I waited too long to finally act. I shake my head as I remain hidden behind the support column.

  “Erika,” I hear Henry call out. His yell brings me back to the present. I am still catching my breath as I hide from the receptionist who thinks he is doing me a favor.

  I glimpse back to see him confused and lost at the other end of the corridor. From here, all I need to do is backtrack while Henry is distracted, and then go to Desmond’s apartment. Henry will be too far away to stop me.

  I force myself to move quietly over the carpet. My feet press lightly against the surface, yet they ache from going up and down the stairwell. Every step I take, no matter how light or heavy, sends small shock waves up through my body that will do their damage over the next few days. I don’t care, though. My body isn’t the priority. It’s Alice, my little girl, whom I have failed to protect from harm.

  I reach the middle corridor and start to run. Desmond’s apartment is so close I can see the numbers. Henry rushes out from behind and grips me with both hands to slow me down.

  “No!” I yell, as he moves in front of me to block my path to 707. “You can’t. I need to save her. She’s in there.”

  “We don’t know that, Erika. It’s not safe.”

  A few of the residents come out of their apartments, to see what all the fuss is about. They are stepping out from behind doors I had previously knocked on. One remains shut: 707.

  “Look what you’ve done,” I say to Henry. “He’ll know now. He’ll know we’re on to him.”

  Henry doesn’t answer. He instead focuses all of his energy on blocking me. I try to push by him, but he easily stops my weakened body.

  “Just calm down, Erika. I’m going to call the police. They will be here soon.”

  “I don’t need them here to—”

  The elevator opens with a ding, pulling both of us toward it. Desmond steps out and sees us near his door. He has a plastic bag in his hand. He sees me watching him as he steps back slightly. He thinks we’ve called the police. Then, time slows down.

  Alice takes a single step out of the elevator. Desmond drops the bag and scoops her up in his arms and launches himself back into the elevator. The items smash down with a thud and break. Glass shatters and liquids spray in all directions. I instantly smell alcohol in the air.

  I rush away from Henry toward Desmond. The elevator doors roll shut with a thud before I take two steps. “No,” I yell, as I run for the call button. I reach out, but it’s too far away. I won’t be able to stop the elevator from going to its next destination, whether it be up or down.

  I hit the button and repeat the motion over and over, as if the twentieth time will magically pry the doors open.

  Henry grabs my hand and stops me from hitting the button. He stares into my eyes, knowing that he has potentially sealed Alice’s fate. “I’m sorry.”

  “Up or down?” I say in reply, as I think about Alice having to travel up and down the building inside an elevator. “Tell me which way they went.”

  Twenty-Two

  Then

  Being patient had never been my strong suit. I’d always been the type to want things to happen in a timely, efficient manner. The research I did in Brooklyn Heights turned out to be a waste of time when Michael purchased the apartment on the Upper West Side, and it forced me to rethink our future in its entirety.

  I had been living in the new apartment for a few weeks now and was eight and a half months along with my pregnancy with Alice. I was sitting in our local Starbucks, waiting to meet Michael, when I received a call from his cell.

  “What is it this time?” I asked him, knowing he was going to cancel our lunch date again.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “One of our big clients needs an extra meeting to go over something important. I’m going to be about twenty minutes late. I’d get out of it if I could, but they—”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” I said. “I’ve heard every possible excuse now. There’s nothing you can say that I will believe. Just admit that you don’t want—”

  “It’s not like that and you know it. God, I’m so sick of this. I’m out here busting my ass for our family, so our child has everything she will ever need and so you don’t ever have to work another day in your life, and this is the attitude I get in return.”

  I allowed a wall of silence to form between us. I decided not to give him any more ammunition for his pathetic, selfish argument.

  “Say something,” he said.

  “What’s the point? I don’t have anything left to say to you. If you can’t understand why it’s important to keep your promises after all this time, then I guess you never will.”

  I heard a massive sigh roll down the line and out of my cell. I could picture Michael fuming and about to explode on the other end. If I weren’t so heavily pregnant, I was sure he would have totally lost his cool and really let me have it.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  “Don’t let me keep you. I’ll see you at home.” I stamped my finger on the screen, ending the call to let Michael know I wouldn’t be waiting the twenty minutes. I’d done it before and ended up sitting around for more than an hour waiting for him to grace me with his presence. I tossed the device down on the table with a clatter.

  “Erika,” shouted out one of the baristas, holding up my decaf coffee. I knew I shouldn’t be drinking it, but things had been so stressful between Michael and I that I found myself ordering one every other day.

  The barista saw my swollen belly and brought the beverage to my table. I had ordered the drink to go, knowing in my heart that Michael would cancel. I was getting sick of telling the staff that I would be ordering for another person who was on their way, only to get up and leave after a short time.

  I put the coffee away quicker than I should have and decided to head home to the apartment to take a bath. I needed to unwind after the phone call with Michael. I wasn’t going to let his crap fall through me to our baby.

  Our baby. The statement sounded wrong in my head whenever I said it. Michael had spent most of the pregnancy “working for our future child,” as he would put it. He went to as many doctors’ appointments as his schedule allowed, eager to find out how the baby was doing. It was never to support me. He went to my pregnancy classes when he had time, but only to ensure I was doing them right.

  He thought he was being helpful, but he never once massaged my feet at the end of a long day or cared to find out how I was coping. He just paid for it all and monitored my every move like I was too stupid to work things out on my own.

  Michael seemed so proud to be the breadwinner of the family, but there was more to being a father than making a lot of money. It wasn’t like he had zero choice in the matter and needed to make ends meet so we could get through it all. He just wanted to keep his career on track and not let something as inconvenient as a pregnancy slow him down.

  I made my way the few blocks home and reached the lobby, where I said hello to the receptionist on duty. You could simply walk into the building without swiping your key card first. I shuffled over and into the elevator. As the double doors sealed shut, an overwhelming panic swept in through every crack in the box, as if the elevator were filling with water. The fear seeped in and made its way to the corners of my brain I thought were safe from harm.

  I thought about Michael and our future. Would we make it with a baby in our lives? Would that be too much for our fragile marriage to handle? It would all be my fault if things failed. The voice in the back of my head told me so whenever things went wrong.

  I pulled the stop button and fell to my knees.

  Twenty-Three

  Now

&n
bsp; Henry stares at me with his mouth open and both hands scrunching up his hair.

  “Which way did they go?” I ask him again, as I stand by the elevator that has whisked Desmond and Alice out of my grasp. “Up or down?”

  “It sounded like it went up,” he says.

  “Are you sure?”

  He stares up at the elevator doors and thinks about his answer for a second longer than I feel comfortable with. “Pretty sure.”

  His words hit me hard. I need more confidence than that from him. I feel my stomach twist into knots at the thought of being so close to finding Alice. She was right there, only a few strides away, but I couldn’t get to her in time to save her from Desmond—all because of Henry.

  “I’m going to need more than ‘pretty sure’!” I yell. The residents who had come to see what all the fuss was about have left and gone back into their apartments. Only an old woman remains, staring at me for a moment too long before she shuffles back inside.

  “There’s no external display telling us where the elevator is coming from. It just appears when it’s available. But I could hear the car going up.”

  I shake my head as the seconds tick away. I move toward the stairs, knowing I need to go either up or down. Which way would Desmond take her? Would he go to the ground, deciding to flee the building, or would he take her to a hiding place somewhere inside Stonework Village?

  I try to think what Michael would have planned on doing. He’d have Alice kept nearby. The closer the better. He’d want the control of being able to have her safely produced at any moment so he could find her. He could show everyone and a judge that I was an unfit parent who lost her child, and have Alice finally taken out of my hands.

  “I don’t know what else to tell you,” Henry says.

  I walk away from him for a moment, trying to clear my head. Henry stays near the elevator and leans on its frame. Just as I’m about to lose my cool, I see Henry’s security key card on the ground where we had wrestled. I glance over my shoulder as I walk to it. He’s still staring at the elevator, so I scoop it into my hand and shove it into my pocket. By the time he realizes it’s missing, I’ll be long gone.

  “I’m going up,” I say.

  “Okay,” Henry replies. “I’ll head to the lobby to cut him off if he goes back down. I can lock down the building with my phone from here. I’m calling the police, too, while I’m at it.”

  I don’t respond as I run through the entry to the stairwell and begin my climb. Henry has to know how mad I am that he held me back and allowed Desmond to slip away. But he also knows that I still need him to handle things until the police arrive.

  I pull myself up the steps as quickly as possible. I decide to go up the stairs to pursue Desmond, figuring he must be taking Alice back to where he has been hiding her. That place has to be near Michael. Maybe I interrupted Desmond going back to his apartment, or Alan’s, for something he needed so badly he was willing to risk being caught out in the open with Alice.

  What did he need? Was it something for my Bunny, something vital? I try to push the thought out of my head that some ex-con is responsible for my daughter’s welfare during her kidnapping.

  I’m running for the fourteenth floor, but I decide I’ll stop at each level in between to do a quick sweep. All the while, I can’t help but think Desmond could have gone in the opposite direction, heading for the lobby to escape with my daughter out into the busy city streets. The thought sends a shooting fear down my spine that causes me to stumble and misplace my step. How good is Henry’s ability to lock down the building against someone who works in maintenance?

  I fall up into the stairwell, slamming my head into a wall. I feel a sting of pain that is quickly followed by a warm sensation. I scramble to my feet and keep going to open the door to the eighth floor. I don’t have time to waste checking if I’m okay, despite the pain in my head. Desmond could be close, and I’m not letting him get away. No one takes my daughter from me. No one. I don’t care if Michael makes me look like the worst parent in the world, I will fight until my last breath to get Alice back.

  I run through the eighth floor, finding it to be almost identical to the one below. A few of the residents are moving about their day without a care in the world. They have no idea what disturbing things have been going on in their building. I rush up to the first person I see.

  “Have you seen a little girl come through here with a bald man?”

  The middle-aged woman, dressed in sportswear, moves a step back from me and shakes her head. “No, sorry.”

  I probably look deranged to her—at best—but I had to ask. “If you see anything, call reception straight away.”

  She brushes by me in a hurry and says no more. I spot a man in a suit leaving his apartment. I rush toward him with intent. He sees my eyes focusing in on his, and backs up with a defensive posture.

  “What do you want?” he asks preemptively.

  “Have you seen a little girl come through here?”

  “No. I’ve been in my apartment all morning.” The man doesn’t look at me as he continues on down the corridor to the elevator, adjusting his tie as he goes.

  I continue on, knowing these residents are useless and uncaring at best. Why are people so unwilling to help each other? Why don’t we trust anyone we meet? As I run around the floor, searching in desperation for Desmond and Alice, I can’t help but think back to the first time I took her to playgroup. The judgmental eyes of those parents will stay with me forever.

  My mind falls back a year to the moment I walked up to the entrance of the playgroup building, Alice’s hand tightly in mine as she shuffled along by my side. It was her first half-day visit, with six other children around the same age, to the small play center that was close to my apartment.

  “Mommy, please,” Alice said, while resisting me enough to slow my stride. I decided to step her off to the side to see what all the fuss was about. She gazed up at me with doleful eyes.

  “It’s going to be okay, Bunny.”

  “No, it won’t, Mommy. They won’t like me.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, as I squatted down to her level and brushed some hair away from her face. “They’ll love you.”

  Her eyes darted around. She stared at the building and glanced back at me before shaking her head. “That’s not what Daddy says.”

  I let out a puff of frustration. I wanted to shout and demand what the hell Michael had been saying to Alice to make her think such a thing, but I held my tongue as best I could.

  “What did Daddy say to you?”

  Alice fiddled with her hands and shifted her focus to the ground. “He said that as soon as the other mommies meet you, they won’t like me and neither will their kids.”

  “What the he—” I stopped myself from cussing in front of Alice. She didn’t deserve to be worried about something Michael had said to insult me. I shook my head and closed my eyes for a moment to block out his negativity. I needed to be the bigger parent.

  “Why won’t the other mommies like you?” she asked me.

  How could I answer that question? I was beyond pissed that Michael would stoop so low as to try and poison Alice with such a remark. Why was divorce such a messy affair? Even after years of it, he still found the time to get little jabs in.

  “Mommy?”

  “They will like me, Bunny. And, you know what, even if they don’t, I’m still going to be nice to them. Do you know why?”

  She shook her head.

  “Because we’re better than that. We don’t say things that aren’t nice to other people. If they did that to us, it would upset us and make us feel bad.”

  “Okay, Mommy,” she said with a cheesy grin. “I’ll be nice, and they’ll be nice.”

  “Exactly. Couldn’t have put it better myself. Now let’s head inside and make some friends.”

  “Okay,” Alice said in her high-pitched bubbly voice. She held up her hand for me to grab hold. I wrapped my fingers around hers and continued to walk
along the path toward the playgroup entrance. We pushed through the heavy door and saw the other families had already arrived. Chatty mothers and busy children filled the small room. It was clear that they knew one another.

  Alice stayed still, matching my frozen state. I didn’t know what to do or what to say to blend in with them. I felt like the new kid in school, the one nobody wanted to talk to out of fear of being ostracized. A momentary hush washed over the space as a few of the moms stared at me. I swore I saw sneers forming on their lips.

  “Come on, Bunny,” I heard myself say, as I moved Alice along toward the rest of the pack. The stares of the other parents hit me, making me feel as though I could never be trusted. Michael’s words spun around in my head. The mothers continued to go about their conversations in lowered voices. Only now, I was positive I was the topic of their discussions.

  I decided to not let anyone bother me, and encouraged Alice to join in the fun with the other children, who were already playing.

  Michael was somehow right. They didn’t like me the second they met me. But that didn’t seem to fit the looks on their faces. It wasn’t that they didn’t like me; it was as if Michael had called ahead and told them all that I couldn’t be trusted. I knew that wasn’t the case, but it was hard not to let my mind think such stupid thoughts.

  Knowing I needed to set the tone for Alice, I refused to let the other children judge my Bunny in the same way. Fortunately, they allowed her to play. The innocence of a child took more than a few judgmental parents to defeat.

  Alice melded into the group within minutes while I sat on the outside of the inner circle of the playgroup, feeling about as pathetic as a person could.

  After ten minutes of Alice enjoying her time, I took a few steps away from the room and pulled out my cell. I dialed Michael’s number and sighed when the call went to voice mail. He wasn’t going to get off that easy, so I left him a message. “I know what you said to Alice about playgroup. If you ever try to poison her against me like this again, so help me…” I took a deep breath and hung up. I knew better than to leave threatening messages on his cell, but I couldn’t help myself.