“But I won’t hog you. Daddy has a lot to tell you and show you too. Daddy’s a good man, full of love. I suppose he wants you to be a boy, but don’t worry, because it won’t be long before you’ll have a brother and maybe a sister. They’ll be close to you too. They won’t be like my brother and sister are to me, strangers with the same blood. You won’t need them; you won’t need such an uncle and aunt. We’ll be enough family for you.
“So grow, my precious, grow as fast as you can. As soon as you’re ready, I promise, I’ll get you out of this…this incubator.”
Anna felt the woman’s fingernails glide over her skin. She sensed that the woman would like to simply tear her stomach open and pluck the fetus out. She imagined that was just what might occur. It would make the child seem less like Anna’s baby and more like her own if Anna didn’t actually deliver the infant. It would truly be like taking a baby out of an incubator. Anna saw herself bleeding to death, left to die, discarded, thrown in some hole and deserted and forgotten.
The images quickened her already racing heart. She was sure she had broken out in a sweat. The crazed woman would soon realize it and know she was awake. She swallowed back a cry, squeezing down her terror. The woman opened her hand again and lay her palm on Anna’s stomach. She rubbed in circles and chanted, “Grow my precious, grow,” as if she had some magical power to make the baby develop faster. Then she brought her lips there again.
“Good night, my precious darling,” she whispered. “Sleep well and feed.”
“What is it, Mommy?” Anna heard the man ask from the doorway. The woman lifted her hand from her stomach as if she had accidentally placed it on a hot stove.
“Nothing. I’m just…making sure everything is all right.”
“When you didn’t come up, I thought something might have happened,” he said. “We don’t need any more trouble tonight,” he added with the tone of a warning. What other trouble did they have? Anna wondered.
“There’s no trouble. She ate everything.”
“Good. Let’s get some sleep now, Mommy. I have a full day at the hospital tomorrow. Tommy’s off. I want to be able to get all my work done and get home to my family,” he said with a smile in his voice.
“Okay, Daddy.”
She pulled Anna’s nightgown down and stepped away from the bed to get the tray.
“I’ll take that for you,” the man said.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
Anna sensed they were both still standing there, gazing at her.
“I wish it wasn’t going to take so long,” the woman said.
“It’s not really that long. Look at how long we’ve waited,” he reminded her. She sighed.
“I don’t know if it’s so good for you to come down here so often, Mommy. It only serves to remind you of the waiting. Maybe I should bring her breakfast tomorrow and every day, and when I’m off, I’ll bring her lunch and dinner too.”
“No. I want to be sure everything’s going all right. I want to see for myself, Daddy. Not that I don’t trust you. I just need to be sure. Besides, you have enough to do. You’re the sole breadwinner since I stopped working.”
“Whatever you want, Mommy. Ready?”
“Yes.”
She heard them go to the door, pause, and then leave. The lock clicked; their footsteps died away, and only that grinding was heard. Anna let out a long-held breath, sat up, and thought about her attempt to escape. She knew she would have only one chance, because if she failed, they would strap her down in this bed and keep her like an invalid until the baby could be taken.
She tried to remember the little she had seen about the place when they had first brought her. She knew she had to get to the basement door. If it was locked, she would have to go upstairs to get out. But getting out might not be enough. Where were they? How far from other people? How would she get this horrible thing off her head?
The questions and difficulties seemed to heap impossibility over her hope, but she had to make the effort. She went to the hook in the wall and loosened it completely so that all that had to be done was tug once to get the chain free. Then she thought about what would happen in the morning.
The woman would come in with her breakfast tray. The woman was stronger than she was, and crazed with a viciousness that would make her a formidable opponent. Anna had to utilize surprise. She could attack her as soon as she came through the door, but if she wasn’t in the bed, the woman might become suspicious and cautious.
And what if the man hadn’t yet gone? What if she screamed and he came to her aid? Anna certainly couldn’t overpower both of them. Moving about with this thing on her head was hard enough as it was. The disadvantages were enormous. She grew more and more depressed thinking about them.
But she sucked in her stomach and clenched her jaw.
I must get out of here tomorrow, she warned herself. I must try while I still have some strength in my body. A week from now, I’ll be even more helpless.
Going back to sleep was dangerous, she thought. What if she didn’t wake up before the woman arrived? She had to keep herself awake, ready, and stir the adrenaline. No sleep, not even dozing.
She started to walk around the room, holding the chain so it didn’t drag on the floor. Periodically she went into the bathroom and ran some cold water. Then she stopped doing that because she was afraid they could hear the water in the pipes.
How much time had passed? Hours? Only minutes? She tried counting, but that started to make her sleepy. She tried singing to herself. She recited psalms she knew by heart. She took the Bible the woman had brought and read from it aloud. She paraded some more, and after she had done all this, she had the terrible, sinking feeling only an hour or so had passed.
I’ll be exhausted, she thought. I’ll be too tired to lift a finger in my own defense.
I’ve got to get a little sleep, just a little.
She returned to the bed and sprawled on her side, facing the door.
Just a little sleep. Surely, I’ll hear the key in the lock again and I’ll be ready.
God, give me strength.
Her eyelids grew heavier. She couldn’t keep them open.
That grinding, that damnable grinding…
She fell asleep dreaming about a giant rodent gnawing its way through the wall to get to her so it could rip out the fetus and consume it.
Thank God for the nightmare, she thought after it woke her. I might have slept too long.
She waited, eyes open, staring at the door.
23
When McShane stepped out of Lidia Ambrook’s apartment, he saw Frank Reynolds and another FBI agent drive up. They got out of their vehicle and headed toward him, neither looking as if he were in much of a hurry. The other man looked more like an FBI agent, McShane thought. He was tall and broad, with a chiseled face and granite chin. He had a military posture, firm, confident.
“What’s the story here?” Reynolds asked without making any introductions.
“The woman I described to you yesterday, Anna Gold’s friend, was murdered earlier tonight. Medical examiner thinks the killer injected her with something that brought on heart failure, suffocation. I’m waiting for the autopsy, but he found a trauma on her neck that looks like it was caused by a hypodermic needle, and there is evidence of a struggle.”
“Yeah?” Reynolds said as if McShane had just described nothing more important than what he had had for dinner.
“Well, Anna Gold disappears, her friend is murdered—”
“Did you find anything to tie the two events together?”
“Nothing concrete, but I have this feeling—”
“This woman wasn’t pregnant too, was she?” the other agent asked.
“Not that I know. Why would they kill a pregnant woman, anyway? That would kill the baby, and they’re supposedly in the business of saving babies,” McShane said with a smirk.
“They found one of the missing women in Texas. Apparently she had suffered a miscarriage. Her body was left at the door
of a church.”
“How was she killed?”
“Not with a hypodermic needle. She hemorrhaged and was allowed to bleed to death.”
“Two of the fanatics seen in Texas were here during the demonstration at the clinic,” Reynolds said.
“But Anna Gold was abducted about the same time the demonstration was taking place.”
“I didn’t say they were at the demonstration. I said they were here at the time,” Reynolds corrected. “A man and a woman, both in their early thirties. They drive a late-model white Ford van, and a van of similar description was seen by a stock clerk at Van’s about the time Anna Gold was abducted.”
“What clerk? I asked if anyone had seen anything,” McShane said.
They both stared at him.
“Sometimes,” Reynolds said, “we can get answers local law enforcement doesn’t get because we know what questions to ask.”
“And people tend to think harder for us,” the other agent said.
“Unless you have anything else, this looks like a separate problem,” Reynolds added, nodding toward the complex.
“Okay,” McShane said, annoyed with their arrogance. “You going to tell Cutler or should I?”
“We’ll tell him, but if you come up with anything you think would be of interest…”
“You’ll be the first to know,” McShane said. “So, how is your investigation of Anna Gold’s disappearance going, then?”
“We think these people are holed up in a farmhouse outside of Parksville,” Reynolds said. “She might very well be in there too.”
“Parksville? Anna Gold’s family lives there.”
“Just a coincidence, I’m sure,” Reynolds said. “Anyway, we’re keeping the place under surveillance and waiting for the right moment.”
“Right moment? What right moment?”
“The one that doesn’t turn it into another Waco,” the other agent said. “You know how that went and what followed as a result.”
McShane nodded. Maybe all this was out of his league.
“Okay. I’ll carry on with the assumption this is a separate felony.”
“Probably a love affair gone sour,” Reynolds said, looking at Lidia Ambrook’s apartment.
“Passions run amok,” the other agent agreed with a cold smile. “Nine times out of ten.”
“Romance has become a dangerous thing nowadays,” Reynolds said.
McShane couldn’t resist, but he said it with a smile.
“Is that why you have so little of it in your life?”
The other agent laughed. Reynolds shrugged.
“Maybe,” he admitted. “See you later, alligator.”
McShane watched them return to their vehicle. He thought about what they had told him and what he had theorized. If they were right and they knew who the abductors were and where they were keeping Anna Gold, he was running all over the place, pissing in the wind.
But what if they weren’t right?
He looked at his watch. It was a little after eleven. Late, but who could sleep now? He went to his car to use his cellular.
Miriam Gold answered before the second ring.
“Sorry if I woke you,” he said quickly. “This is Detective McShane.”
“You didn’t wake me. I stay up late so I can fall asleep,” she confessed. He liked that honesty and the simplicity of the confession.
“I’m afraid what I’m going to tell you isn’t going to help cure your insomnia.”
“Something terrible has happened to Anna?”
“No, a friend of hers. I was wondering if she had ever mentioned her: Lidia Ambrook.”
“She did mention her, yes. Anna likes her. I had the feeling she was her best friend, or only friend. What happened to her?”
“It looks like she was murdered earlier tonight.”
“Oh, no. You think the same people who abducted my sister did that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“I thought you were off her case, that it was the FBI who was investigating now.”
“It is, but I had interviewed Lidia Ambrook and I had the feeling she might have known Anna’s lover.”
“Lover?” Miriam said disdainfully. “Yes, I suppose that’s what he is, her lover.”
“Do you remember anything else Anna might have said about Lidia—anything at all?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to sit and think awhile and try to recall our conversations on the phone.”
“Okay.”
“I guess you haven’t been able to get much sleep either,” she said, “with all you have to do.”
“No,” he said, smiling.
“Well, I have this herbal tea my friend Sophia Mendelson gave me. She says it guarantees you a good night’s rest.”
He laughed.
“You’re welcome to try some.”
He started to laugh again and then thought, Why not?
“It’s late,” he said, but not convincingly.
“How long will it take you to get here?”
“Actually, I’m only about twenty minutes away. We law enforcement people can push the envelope on the highway.”
“Pardon?”
“Go faster than the speed limit.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll put up the water.”
“Isn’t your father…?”
“He’s asleep. He’s always been able to go to sleep when he wants,” she said, not disguising her disapproval.
“Be there in eighteen minutes,” he told her, and started his engine.
Fifteen minutes later he turned down her road. He pulled into the Golds’ driveway less than two minutes later. She was waiting at the door.
“I guess you do drive fast,” she said, smiling. She wore a light cotton white shawl over her shoulders and had her hair down. It gleamed in the porch light, as did her eyes. “Come in, please,” she said, holding the door open.
He stepped into the house and followed her to the dining room, where she had set out the teacups, a plate of small cakes, lemon, and cream.
“Sit. I’ll just get the tea,” she said. She moved gracefully to the kitchen. He sat and gazed around the room. When he was here before, he hadn’t noticed the oil painting of a rabbi teaching a young boy lessons from the Torah. There was a look of great satisfaction on the elderly rabbi’s face and the boy looked studious.
“Nice picture,” he said, nodding toward it when she returned with the teakettle.
“My aunt Ethel did that,” she said. “My father’s youngest sister. She still lives in their old brown-stone in Brooklyn.”
“Talented lady.”
“Yes. There are galleries that have her paintings. She’s very fond of Anna and is heartbroken over what has happened between her and my father, but she doesn’t know about her being abducted.”
He watched her pour the tea into his cup. She had long but very feminine fingers and thin wrists. She smiled at him and poured herself a cup before sitting next to him.
“So, how was this young woman murdered?”
“We think she was injected with something fatal,” he replied, and sipped the tea. He nodded: “Good.”
“You can put lemon in it or cream, but I think it would be better with lemon,” she said.
“Right. Lidia Ambrook appears to be your sister’s only friend. She must have been very lonely after she left your home.”
“She told me she was lonely here.”
“You’re not? I don’t mean to pry, but…”
“No, it’s all right to ask. Anna and I are different. Anna was always more rebellious, always demanding answers, never accepting faith on its own. Logic, reason, she insisted. She challenged from the day she could speak, and she was more conscious of what she called our isolation.”
“Your isolation?”
Miriam smiled.
“Anna wanted to be more like Reform Jews, whom my father calls gentiles with Jewish names.”
“I can understand him being a little upset about it, but to deny her
very existence…”
“It’s the other way around in his mind, Detective. My father cannot separate himself from who he is, and so he believes Anna has denied his existence.”
“Pardon?”
“To deny the tenets of our faith, he thinks, is to deny him. You see, Jews everywhere think of themselves as members of the same family. We are all sons and daughters of Abraham, and like any member of a family, you have to accept its burdens and its tribulations. ‘You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ It’s our destiny, you see, to serve God, spend time studying Torah, faithfully observing the ritual and ethical commandments.
“To my father,” Miriam continued, “for Anna to deny her faith was to deny her existence, so when she turned her back on the rituals and denied the commandments, he viewed her as committing suicide. And so, he mourns her death.”
“Did you try to talk him out of that?”
She smiled softly and shook her head.
“You don’t talk my father out of anything. You make him see that he agrees,” she said. McShane laughed. “I tried to get him to see her as in need of his love and not rejecting it. I tried to get him to feel she needs him more, but he’s not a patient man, nor is he as forgiving as he wants to be.
“After you told us what happened to her, he went into prayer and has been doing nothing else. I know he’s praying for her, although he won’t admit it to me.”
“You’re obviously a great asset to him at this time of his life.”
“I do what I have to do,” she said. “‘Honor thy father and mother.’”
He nodded and reached for one of the cakes.
“Very good. Homemade?”
She nodded.
“Rugelah. You’ve had it before?”
“If I have, it wasn’t this good,” he said. She blushed. “So, did you give any more thought to Lidia Ambrook and your sister?”
“I remember Anna telling me that Lidia was really hooked on astrology.”
“Right.”
“And that she was preparing charts on her and the man she was with.”
McShane dipped into his pocket and unfolded the paper that had the chart. He handed it to Miriam. She nodded.
“I found that, along with some others, in Lidia Ambrook’s apartment. It might very well be Anna’s lover’s chart, then.”
Under Abduction Page 18
