Forgive Me

by Daniel Palmer

  Angie’s phone rang. Carolyn Jessup.

  “Any news?” Her voice shook with longing. Carolyn knew everything Angie did, including the Musgrave lead.

  “Nothing yet. We’re about to meet with Sean Musgrave.”

  “Anything from Nadine’s cell phone?”

  With Carolyn’s permission and the help of the phone company, Angie would be notified if any calls were made from Nadine’s phone. The FIND MY PHONE App was running, but so far there hadn’t been a single ping. Mike had already contacted everyone Nadine spoke with in the twenty-four-hour period before she’d vanished and had come up with blanks all around.

  “She’s not coming back, is she?” Carolyn’s breathing turned heavy.

  “Don’t say that,” Angie answered. “Until we find her, we don’t give up hope. That’s our rule.”

  “I just have a feeling, I have a really bad feeling,” Carolyn said. “Last night I had this dream, this terrible dream that Nadine was floating in the house. She floated from room to room, her nightgown hanging down, but she was weightless. She looked white as the moon, and her skin was cold to the touch. I woke up screaming her name. I know it’s a sign. An omen. Something horrible has happened to her.”

  Mike noticed Angie’s puzzled expression and pantomimed the motion of drinking from a flask.

  Angie shooed him away. “When I know something, I’ll call. Stay strong for Nadine.” She ended the call.

  “What was that about?” Mike asked.

  “Nothing. Just Nadine’s mom being anxious, that’s all. It’s completely understandable.”

  Angie was shaken, though she didn’t share any of those feelings with Mike. Something about Carolyn’s dream had gotten to her. She pictured another girl floating about a room somewhere in New York City, a little girl with a sad smile and a deformed ear. Angie couldn’t help but wonder if something horrible had happened to both girls.

  CHAPTER 18

  They met Sean Musgrave in the food court in the bowels of Union Station. He was waiting for them in front of Kelly’s Cajun Grill as planned.

  Musgrave was in his late twenties with a clean-shaven baby face and the solid build of a high school linebacker. He wore a white shirt with a couple official looking patches sewn on the sleeve. Pinned to his breast pocket was a bronze star reminiscent of something a sheriff might have. With him was a swarthy looking fellow with a goatee, dressed in a nice suit that didn’t look like it was bought at the mall.

  He introduced himself as Vincent Cosco, general manager of the shops at Union Station and the guy in charge of mall security. Vincent led Angie and Mike through a locked metal door at the back of an alcove where the restrooms also were located. The shopping area’s nice lighting and visual amenities were evidently saved for places where customers actually hung out. Back where cash registers didn’t chime, it was a different aesthetic. The walls were bare concrete and matched the color and material of the floor. The lighting was dim but bright enough to show off the exposed ductwork, wires, and copper pipes overhead.

  He took everyone to a windowless room with a coffeemaker that looked like a relic from some archeological dig, a sofa, rectangular table, and bridge chairs—all that wouldn’t be picked up curbside even if they had a TAKE ME sign pinned to them—and a small fridge Angie wouldn’t open if Mike double-dog dared her.

  Musgrave and Vincent sat on one side of the table, Angie and Mike on the other. She withdrew the pictures of Nadine from her bag and spread them on the table for Musgrave to study.

  He looked them over, one by one, taking his time, being thoughtful. Angie knew nothing about his background, but he’d seen something, he remembered it, and he’d taken the time to contact someone who might care. That made him A-okay in her book.

  “Yeah, that’s her all right.” Musgrave nodded.

  Vincent picked up the pictures and studied the photos for himself. “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” said Musgrave to his boss. “It was on the second floor, between Heydari Design and Jois Fragrance. I remember it because I thought the girl looked young and might be nicking.”

  Vincent looked to Angie and Mike. “Nicking is a term we use for shoplifting.”

  “But she wasn’t stealing?” Mike asked.

  “Nah, at least I think she wasn’t,” Musgrave said. “A guy came up and talked to her for a while. I was watching because I had my eye on her anyway. I thought she knew him at first, but then he walked away. The girl stuck around, but then she took off after the guy. That’s the last I saw her.”

  “And you remembered it that clearly?” Angie was dubious.

  Musgrave nodded again. “Yeah. I mean, it was like a thing between them. It was . . . like a little story or something. I dunno. Guess it caught my eye and I remembered it.”

  A mall cop observing a young girl closely didn’t give Angie the creep vibes. It was Musgrave’s job, and she believed his accounting of events.

  “Do you remember when you saw her?”

  Musgrave’s face went a little blank. “I’m not sure.”

  “Do you remember doing anything that day? Buying anything?”

  Musgrave gave this some thought. “Oh yeah. I went to Atlas Comics and bought the new Batman book. It came that day. That was weeks ago. Dang, time flies. I wouldn’t have thought it was that long ago, but it was.”

  “What made you remember that?” Good old Mike, always probing.

  “The cover had a young girl about Nadine’s age chained to a chair and the Joker was standing behind her, but all you could really see was his face. It was an awesome cover and it stuck in my mind because of that girl.”

  Angie bought his explanation, no problem. She had a hard time not jumping out of her skin, though. “You wouldn’t happen to have the receipt, would you?”

  Musgrave pursed his lips and fished out a wallet thick as a Bible from his back pocket. He looked a little embarrassed at its girth. “I collect paper like lint. I don’t really toss anything until I can’t sit comfortably anymore. Silly habit.”

  For the next minute or so, he leafed through weeks of his life documented in the form of scrap paper. He unfolded every receipt he had stuffed in his wallet since goodness knows when and eventually handed Angie a slip of paper marked with faded blue ink. Angie confirmed it was a receipt from Atlas Comics, and the item purchased was indeed a Batman comic book. She glanced at the printed date . . . and saw it was dated six weeks ago.

  “Is there surveillance footage near those stores I could look at?” It was hard to contain the excitement in her voice.

  Musgrave turned to Vincent, who said, “Yeah, it’s all online. We purge the data every six months for storage reasons.”

  “Could I see the footage, please?” Angie kept her expression as still as possible. She was trying to manage her own expectations. If this lead didn’t pan out, the disappointment would hit hard.

  Vincent left the room and returned carrying a laptop computer. It did not take long to open the security camera system’s interface in a web browser.

  “A few years back we would have had a tape library to sift through,” Vincent said. “Now it’s all digitized and easy to find footage. Mostly we use it for shoplifting cases, but we’ve certainly caught a number of other crimes on camera.” He returned his focus to the laptop screen.

  Angie got up so she could peer over his shoulder. Mike did the same. Part of the interface was a map marking the various locations of installed cameras.

  “Okay . . . okay. So, we’re looking for the camera near Heydari Design and Jois Fragrance. That would be . . . ah yeah, here. SF-R2R. That’s second floor, rear, second to the right.” Vincent tapped the location of the camera and entered the date March 18th. Today was the 29th day of April.

  Angie said, “It would be sometime before six o’clock because that’s when Sean bought the Batman comic.”

  Vincent shot Musgrave a slightly disapproving look. “Your shifts go to seven.”

  Musgrave shrugged off the rebuke. “I did
n’t want it to sell out. Anyway, it would be late afternoon because I bought it pretty soon after I saw her. That’s why it was so fresh in my mind and stuck there.”

  “So let’s watch from four to six. See what we see,” Mike said.

  Vincent queued it up. The black and white recording played in a window the size of a YouTube video. Taken from a high angle. the image resolution wasn’t great and the playback a bit grainy, but the quality was good enough to make out faces.

  “Can you speed it up?” Angie asked. The anticipation was too much.

  After fifteen minutes at four times normal speed, Mike shouted, “Stop!”

  Vincent froze the playback. There she was. Nadine Jessup, dressed in a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a low-cut top with a backpack slung across her shoulders.

  Angie’s heartbeat picked up. No feeling quite matched the adrenaline rush from closing in on a runaway. Her skin prickled and tingled. The excitement was palpable on her tongue, down her neck and arms, an energy all its own. She noted the time on the video playback. 5:15 in the afternoon. “Advance it slowly, please.”

  Vincent clicked a button on the interface.

  Nadine moved in slow motion. After a few a moments, a man carrying a bag from Heydari Design appeared in the frame.

  Angie studied him carefully. Tall, handsome, balding, but in a way that suited him. He wore a nice-looking suit, Oxford shirt underneath. The black and white video meant she couldn’t tell the color of either. He had a conversation with Nadine, but the angle was wrong for lip reading. Angie knew people who could do it if she had a better quality video. They must have been talking about shopping because the man took out a scarf from his Heydari bag. The man and Nadine chatted for a moment, presumably about the scarf, before the man put it back in the bag.

  The conversation continued. What could they be saying to each other, Angie wondered. The man took something out of his wallet—it looked like a business card—and handed it to Nadine, who took it a little apprehensively.

  Angie studied Nadine’s body language carefully. At first, she had seemed a little unsure, a bit defensive, but warmed up as the conversation went on. She began leaning toward him. Her arms had uncrossed and showed openness, receptiveness to whatever he was discussing with her.

  At some point, Musgrave wandered into the frame and soon wandered out. Angie saw him right away, though he pointed himself out in case anyone had missed him. Something the man said to Nadine appeared to make her anxious . . . or embarrassed perhaps. She looked to the ground, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She shrugged. She studied the card he gave to her.

  Who was this man? Angie wondered. What did he want with a sixteen-year-old girl? What the hell were they talking about? Angie wished the surveillance footage also captured sound. The man gestured with his hands and seemed to be asking a question of Nadine. Then he paused, took out his cell phone, and began a conversation with someone else.

  Musgrave wandered back into the frame. He lingered, appearing to notice the encounter between the older man and younger girl before he wandered away again, but they took no notice of him. The man on the phone tossed his head back, and even without sound it was obvious he gave a little laugh. Then the man put his phone away and returned his gaze to Nadine.

  More conversation ensued, but the girl still looked unsure. The man’s body language was harder for Angie to read. Disappointment, perhaps? The two shook hands, and the man turned around and walked away.

  Angie watched with bated breath. What would Nadine do? Could this be a pivotal moment that would forever change her life?

  Nadine hesitated long enough for Angie to think she was going to walk in the opposite direction. Angie’s heart sank when Nadine went running in the same direction as the man.

  “We need the next camera!”

  Vincent checked the maps. “That’s SF-R3L.” After some more clicking, he got the video to load. It was like a scene transition from a movie. There was the man, walking away when Nadine came running into the frame. More conversation took place and the man and Nadine walked out of the frame together.

  “Where are they going?”

  Sean and Vincent exchanged looks. Both studied the map.

  “From here? I’d say the parking garage,” Musgrave answered. Vincent concurred.

  “Do you have cameras there?” Angie was thinking vehicle make and model, a license plate maybe, but Vincent’s frown damped her hopes.

  “Light is too low there for these cameras, I’m sorry to say.”

  Angie gave this some thought. “We need to get pictures of this man to the DC police.”

  “No problem,” Vincent said. “I can get that done for you today.”

  “Great.”

  From her purse, Angie fished out her car keys and handed them to Mike.

  “What’s this for?” he asked.

  “You said you had a big bouncy house delivery.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So, take my car back to Falls Church and get your work done. I’m going to stay here for a while.”

  “And what, pray tell, will you be doing here?”

  “I think this guy is a predator,” Angie said.

  Mike seemed unmoved by Angie’s observation. “So?”

  “So, if I’m a smart hunter and I found a good feeding ground, you better believe I’m going to come back.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Exhibit D: Excerpts from the journal of Nadine Jessup, pages 35-37

  It was a warm spring afternoon when I left the studio with Ricardo. Don’t ask me what day or date. I’ve lost track. Ricardo told me we were moving out, so I had to get all my stuff together. I asked him where we were going. He looked at me and I could tell not to ask that question again. I got this feeling that I was done. They had tried everything to make me into Jessica Barlow. But I’m no JBar. I’m a failure. I’m a loser like my so-called friends think I am. It was a wake-up call for me, what Ricardo pointed out. Their posts, the way they talked about me. Calling me fat. Jump off a bridge.

  Maybe I should. Maybe I should go find a bridge and stop being anyone’s problem. Would it hurt? I think about it. How would I want to die? Cut my wrists? I hate blood. Maybe pills. But what if I just puke it all up. Jumping from a bridge . . . that freaks me out because I’m imaging how scared I’ll be on the way down. Then I guess it won’t matter. But I hate roller coasters. That’s a funny reason not to kill yourself, but if I came to a bridge and got the opportunity, it’s probably what would keep me from jumping off.

  I managed to get my journal out from its hiding place in the mattress without Ricardo seeing it. Maybe he’ll notice the slit I made later on. Maybe he’ll think the ratty old thing had just given out. I sure hope so. I don’t want him to know what I’m really thinking because I’m so messed up right now. I sometimes wish I would never wake up, that I could just die. It would be SO. MUCH. EASIER. Bye-bye world. Bye-bye. Does Ricardo love me or hate me? I just can’t tell anymore. Is there even a difference? Why does love have to hurt so much?

  I thought about what he said about my mom. That really stuck with me. Stuck with me like I think about a knife sticking in my throat or my mom’s throat. I think about him pinning me to the ground, hovering over me. He could take me anywhere, do anything, as long as he doesn’t do that again. I don’t want to make him angry. I love Ricardo and he loves me, but it won’t stop him from hurting me. He’s like a bridge I’m standing on. I could jump off to get away from him, but I’m afraid of the pain that would follow.

  We took the Cadillac. It was parked out front. Keys in it and running. Nobody is gonna mess with Ricardo. He got me something to eat at McDonalds drive through. Then we drove to some desolate street. I didn’t like that I didn’t know where he was taking me, but I didn’t want to be punished again so I wasn’t about to say no or even ask where we were going. He stopped the car and took out a blindfold and told me to put it on. I didn’t want to, but he looked at me hard, and I got scared. Then it got dark because I tied
the blindfold around my head. He tightened it to make sure I couldn’t see out. I felt a breeze pass by my face, but I didn’t flinch. Ricardo laughed. Maybe next time I’ll hit you, he said.

  I thought about the old Ricardo. The one who loved me and made me feel loved. I missed him and I wondered what happened? What did I do wrong? The pictures. It was probably those damn pictures. If only I was prettier, more photogenic, the JBar he wanted me to be. What was crueler, I wondered, to never show love or to give it and then take it away?

  The car turned every which way, but I was blindfolded and completely disoriented. I didn’t know where we’d gone or how long we had been driving. It seemed like hours, but time has a funny way of passing when you can’t see the world going by. I wondered why Ricardo wanted me blindfolded, but I wasn’t about to ask him. He wasn’t talking and that was my cue to stay quiet, to not make any trouble. Trouble caused me pain.

  The car finally came to a stop and I heard him open his door. My heart started beating fast. I had that creepy feeling, like you get watching a horror movie. Something was going to happen. There was a reason I was blindfolded. My gut told me I was about to find out. A moment later, Ricardo opened my door and helped me out of the car. My hand was trembling and he asked what was wrong. I told him I was scared. He said, “of what?” I wanted to say of him, but I didn’t want to make him mad so I said of being hurt. He whispered in my ear, do you think I would ever hurt you?

  I went from outside to inside. I heard the creak of a door and the air turned stale. Someone was cooking something. Beans and rice maybe. I could smell cigarette smoke and perfume. Ricardo helped me down a short flight of stairs. Now there was a musty smell mixed with the smoke, perfume, and food. I thought of the basement at my house that had the same dank smell. I could tell I was walking on a hard surface. I heard a little splash of water under my feet when I stepped in a puddle. My heart was thundering, my body shaking.