by Alona Jarden
As I added one line to another, I knew that, regardless of recent findings, it had been a home for me nearly all my life and I missed it. I drew the kitchen where I’d prepared breakfasts for my father and myself just a week ago, after which I drew the living room where we sat and sometimes talked straight into the night until, and finally, I drew the balcony that had been very meaningful to me as a child.
I spent more than an hour trying to master every detail of the balcony and was amazed to see the resemblance between the balcony at Andrew's cabin and mine. I had just redesigned it at our apartment. I’d pushed the crate, which was so important to my Dad, to the corner and in front of it I’d placed two rocking chairs, but he never sat on either one of them. He always claimed that he disliked the movement of the chair and that he preferred to spend time with me on the sofa in the living room.
At that moment, sitting in the cabin, drawing, it seemed that I would prefer to sit there, on one of the rocking chairs on the porch alone, over sitting next to my so called father in the living room again, as if nothing had happened.
Maybe I was waiting for him. Perhaps I was waiting for Andrew to come and sit next to me, but I knew he wasn’t coming back. I wasn’t even slightly surprised when the cops kicked open the cabin door. I was sketching the house I had forgotten when they did that. I’d seen in my mind the details that were important for me to document, put the tip of the pencil on a clean new white sheet of paper, and had only managed to draw the defining lines before they broke into the safe space that Andrew and I shared like a storm wind, putting a noisy and violent end to my time there.
"Are you Kate Briggs?" a hysterical policeman turned to me.
"Yes, yes, that’s me."
"Ma’am, we are here to rescue you!" He went on and scanned the rest of the cabin, obviously searching for whomever had held me there against my will, but I knew he wouldn’t find him.
I remained sitting on the floor in my room, watching him and the other officers running from one corner of the cabin to another, smiling in amusement. They wouldn’t find the man who’d held me there against my will. Not only because he wasn’t there, but because he had never done that.
"Ma'am, are you here alone?" he came back to me.
"Yes," I stood up.
"That's it, Kate, it's over."
"What's over?"
"Your abduction. You're free now." He continued explaining that he had come to take me to the police station and added that my father was also waiting for me there.
I never have been able to keep my snarky comments about people’s demonstrated stupidity to myself. I looked stunned at the policeman who had kicked open an unlocked door. If he had stopped for a second, he would have been able to see so clearly that I was sitting there without anyone pointing a gun at me. I remember how he claimed to have rescued me, and although it was a trigger for a witty remark, I’d said nothing.
Something inside me no longer reared its head, and I didn’t feel the need to showcase my superiority over the people around me. Maybe I didn’t feel so superior anymore?
That officer, stupid as he was, knew where he had come from and where he was going. I was willing to bet my life that he knew for sure who the woman who had borne him was and who his father was. He must have known what he would call them the next time they met and, if he knew all that, for all his stupidity, I couldn’t feel any smarter than him, for I hadn’t the slightest clue.
The hysteria that initially characterized the policemen's behavior dissipated as soon as they realized there was no danger to them or to me, and I managed to develop a more relaxed conversation with them. They explained that I had no reason to be afraid because Andrew had been arrested and was locked up in the police station.
"Is he is okay?" I quickly demanded to know more about him, "Was he injured or interrogated under threat or something?"
"He's okay, ma'am." I could see that he didn’t appreciate my concern for my kidnapper’s safety. "What matters is that you're all right."
"I was fine even before you knocked down that door," I exhaled in frustration as I gathered the things I needed to take from there into a backpack I found in one of the cabinets, after I agreed to accompany them to the police station.
I folded the T-shirts he had bought for me, collected all the drawings I had finished from the floor, and also picked up those that were just contours and ideas inspired by shreds of memories. I then placed the various drawing pencils back into the denim pencil case Andrew had given me and stood there for a second, looking around.
"Ma’am, we really have to get going now." The cop seemed unnecessarily nervous. "Did you get everything you need?"
"There's only one more thing left," I added, hurrying to pick up the bottle of whiskey I’d left on the balcony before coming back to the living room. "Now we can go." I smiled and followed him to the back seat of the police car.
Strange. I didn’t feel I had been saved from a kidnapping or that I had survived a terrible experience.
I felt as though they'd prematurely pulled me out of an illuminating holiday, but for some reason, I was relieved to end it that way.
The trees around us got less and less dense as the car neared the end of the great forest and my heart pounded with great force.
I didn’t know if I was more excited about my reunion with my father, my reunion with Andrew, or the extraordinary closeness I was to finding out the full truth of my life.
The one and only thing I knew for sure, was that the end was near.
Chapter 31
Mr. Briggs
"I'm warning you, Mr. Briggs," Officer Swenson raised a threatening finger at me. "If you go wild or do anything that will compromise the suspect's interrogation, I'll have you arrested."
"Okay, okay," I waved my hands in surrender. "You still haven’t told me who the suspect is."
"The guy's name is Andrew Costa. Does that name ring a bell?"
"No," I raised my eyebrows at her. "It feels like it sounds familiar, but I can’t remember where from."
She sat with me for a few more minutes and then, after being updated that the suspect was being taken into the police station, hurried me to the right side of the interrogation room.
"I apologize for having to do this, Mr. Briggs, but I'm letting you know that I have given clear instructions to the officers around you not to let you leave without my permission."
"What do you mean? Am I under arrest?"
"No, no," she smiled. "But if you want to watch this particular investigation, you'll have to agree to my terms."
"I... I must say I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with my detainment in this room."
"Those are my conditions, Mr. Briggs. If you wish, I can arrange for you to return home and interrogate the suspect without you."
I didn’t see a reason to argue with her at that moment, but my feelings changed as soon as they brought the suspect into the room.
I pressed my face against the window overlooking him and waited to catch even a second of his gaze, so that I could find out what kind of a man he was.
Suddenly, I was happy for the cops surrounding me, because if I’d believed that he had hurt her, I would probably have tried to break through to the interrogation room to wrap my fingers around his neck until he revealed where she was or until I squeeze the life out of him.
Andrew sat in the chair of the interrogees, in front of Officer Swenson, and didn’t seem broken or frightened. He looked around with a wondering look that allowed me to sit on the chair more relaxed. I hadn’t detected any warning signs from him.
He may have kidnapped Kate, but he hadn’t hurt her. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he didn’t look like a psychopath who wanted to hurt someone.
It wasn’t necessary for Officer Swenson to make him admit guilt and, in fact, it seemed to me as if he was actually relieved to tell them where Kate was. He seemed happy to know that soon, someone would be there to pick her up and I wondered if, as I expected she would, she had dr
iven him crazy.
"Andrew, I just received an update that my forces have arrived at the cabin you mentioned." Officer Swenson kept calm and, again, I was disappointed that she had placed guards around me, as I really wanted to join the forces that went to meet Kate there. "I hope for your sake that they find Kate safe and sound."
"They won’t find Kate there." His answer managed to make me nervous, and I pressed myself tensely to the window.
"What do you mean?" she raised her voice. "You said she was in a cabin in the woods, Andrew."
"Attention all forces," one of the policemen with me in the room called on the radio. "According to the suspect's interrogation, this may be a trap. Please proceed with great caution."
"I said that the woman you're looking for is in a cabin in the forest, but that's not Kate. Not anymore..."
"Andrew?" Officer Swenson asked in a threatening tone.
"If I'm not mistaken, you won’t find Kate there." I couldn’t understand why he breathed a sigh of relief before continuing, "I believe, with all my heart that the person awaiting you there is Katarina." The mention of that name took my breath away.
Where did he know that name from? Why was his name so familiar to me?
Officer Swenson glanced quickly at me and, as happened before every time she gave me a suspicious look, a terrible shudder pierced all parts of my body.
"How do you know Katarina?" she changed her tone and turned to face the suspect.
"We grew up together."
"Where was that?"
"In Costa Rica."
"Before or after her mother was murdered?"
"Oh," he seemed impressed by the level of knowledge she showed. Knowledge that, based on the minimal details I had agreed to share with her, was quite a feat. "I see you managed to reach a fraction of the truth on your own, Officer Swenson."
"I did." She smiled. "Would you like to help me and make up the missing pieces?"
"With pleasure." He breathed deeply and, to my astonishment, began to elaborate.
He sat there for a very long time, saying things about me that no one else knew, before he went on about how he’d completed his psychology studies as part of his plan to do exactly what he was accused of doing at that moment - kidnapping Kate.
I felt like my blood was boiling with rage when he described how I was nothing to her when she was a child, a description that was so accurate it was too painful to handle. Despite being her biological father, unfortunately, for years I was actually nothing to her.
I put my hands on the glass and listened as he explained how she used to call me 'Uncle Christian'.
From the look on his face, I assumed he was very pleased with himself, but if he could see the expression on mine, he would understand I was much more pleased than he was. I was so glad he insisted on us having no blood relation, as I had already proven otherwise. I only hoped it would be enough to refute his other claims in my regard.
"Are you sure about this, Andrew? These are very serious accusations." Officer Swenson looked at him stunned when he finished blaming me for murdering Kate's parents with a kitchen knife and kidnapping a girl who wasn’t mine across the border.
"I am." His face seemed sad. "Unfortunately, I'm completely sure of it."
"So why didn’t you come here sooner? Why didn’t you go to the police? Why on earth would you decide to kidnap Kate?"
"I kidnapped her because she’d forgotten that she was ever Katarina." Once again, Officer Swenson looked at me and I felt the exact moment Andrew's words became credible in her mind and got worried. "I couldn’t come to you before I helped her remember what she had forgotten."
"And did you succeed in doing so?"
"I guess we'll soon find out." Another sigh of relief came out of his mouth. "I guess we'll find out in a minute whether she has cooperated with me out of necessity, or if I really found her."
"Katarina?"
"Yes," he burst into tears. "I can’t believe this moment has come after all these years. I can’t believe I actually found her."
His crying didn’t seem to affect Officer Swenson, but his words did and she turned her paralyzing gaze back on me.
She had been wrong about me before, and had realized it when the DNA test result came in. But, suddenly, she had discovered someone who claimed that she might have been right in the first place.
"Is everything okay over there?" she asked, looking into the mirror, as if wondering if I had gone mad at the sound of his words.
"Everything is calm," the policeman next to me pressed a button and answered her, while maintaining eye contact with me.
"Can I also tell them something?" I asked him.
"You can sit still and not disturb anyone," he continued, not daring to look away from me.
Officer Swenson asked that Andrew guy questions I wouldn’t answer myself and got the answers I would have preferred to have kept hidden from everyone for the rest of my life. All I could do was sit down, so I did. I sat quietly and didn’t disturb anyone, as the policeman asked me to do, and weighed my options.
"The treasure is in its entirety," a voice I didn’t recognize reported on the radio.
"The treasure is in its entirety," the policeman quickly pressed the button and updated everyone in the interrogation room.
"I must say, I'm happy for you, Andrew." The look he got from Officer Swenson reminded me of the one I’d had the privilege of receiving when she was sitting in my living room, thinking that I was just a father looking for his daughter. "Kate is on her way here and it sounds like you've been telling the truth. She's safe and sound."
"Now all that's left to do is see if she'll come back here as Kate or Katarina, huh?" he smiled at her.
"Either way, she's going to come back as Kate, Andrew. Even if she was once, at five and a half years old, Katarina, now, at twenty-four, she's Kate for all intents and purposes."
I tried to remember a certain boy from the neighborhood named Andrew, one who was an unusual friend of Kate's, and I could not. She had been a very popular girl, always surrounding herself with other children, but as I really was no one to her at that time, none of them stood out as 'a risk'. Otherwise I would have made sure that he was...
"Mr. Briggs?" Officer Swenson came into the room, surprising me, as I hadn’t even noticed that she’d left the interrogation room.
"Yes?" I got up and stood in front of her.
"Do you have anything to say about what you've heard?"
"No. Nothing. That was a made-up story based on theories and speculations and you... You already know that Kate is my biological daughter."
"I wonder if that changes the rest of his claims, sir."
"Come on, this guy claims I murdered her father, but I've already proven to you that I'm her father."
"All I know is that something in the words you’ve said to me has felt wrong from the moment you opened your mouth."
"You can’t seriously think that I..."
"I don’t have to think anything, Mr. Briggs. Kate will be here in less than an hour. She is all I need to fill in the missing truths in both of your stories."
"Officer Swenson, I thought we'd passed this phase in our relationship," I pushed my luck with a hinted smile.
"Mr. Briggs, I've seen the results of the lab report, I know that Kate is your biological daughter. But, only if I think that she's lying to me, will I believe you're related."
I sat there counting the seconds.
I didn’t know whether it was a countdown to my daughter's arrival or to me standing on trial for a double murder and an additional kidnapping, but I knew it was a fateful count.
I tried to decide what I could tell her, if her memories really had returned to her. Damn it. That wasn’t how I’d wanted the truth to come out. I’d kept her mother's letter in case a situation like this ever occurred and was so sorry that I’d had to destroy it.
All I could do was hope that the paternity test would be sufficient to prove to my daughter that she was the only
thing that mattered to me, and I kept on counting the seconds until she was back in my arms.
Chapter 32
Andrew
Officer Swenson left me in the interrogation room.
She was clearly in a completely different mood from when she had entered, and so was I.
Something in the way she stared at me, just moments before closing the door behind her, made me feel that I hadn’t completely surprised her. In fact, if I had to guess, I'd say that the added information I gave her actually gave some credence to the hypothesis she had already formulated.
"Mr. Costa, can you hear me?" her voice echoed from the speakers while I was trying to make a new plan of action, one that would be optimal for me in light of the recent changes.
"Yes."
"Can I count on your cooperation if there is a confrontation between you and Mr. Briggs?"
"I'll need you to define what you call 'cooperation' before I answer that, Officer Swenson. Are we expected to hold hands and live together happily ever after?"
"Absolutely not," she sounded amused. "I just need you not to raise your voice and to keep your cool."
"I believe I can commit to that."
"I am serious, Mr. Costa. You will remain silent until I ask you to speak or ask you to answer one of my questions and, even when doing so, you will respond without making accusations that will lead to an outburst of unnecessary emotion. Is this still something you can commit to?"
"I promise," I smiled at my reflection, hoping that that fucking monster stood behind it. "I promise to behave."
I assumed that she’d had the same conversation with him also. With the man who abducted my Katarina. I wondered if he’d also taken it upon himself to keep calm, because I made it my goal to drive him crazy.
Ten minutes later, one of the policemen took me out of that small interrogation room and led me to another, more spacious, one where Mr. Briggs was already sitting.
His eyes were fixed on me, and on either side of him stood an alert policeman, ready to stop him or me, if we decided to lash on each other.
