It Only Takes a Moment

by Mary Jane Clark

  Eliza considered Annabelle’s words, thinking of some of the parental pleas she had seen televised over the years. The dazed parents, trying to hold themselves together as they begged for the return of their child. In their most desperate hours, expected to go out there and face the cameras and the barrage of questioning. How were they able to do that?

  But she knew the answer. They had been able to do it because they felt their child’s life depended on it.

  “All right,” she agreed quietly. “And, Annabelle?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Annabelle?”

  “Yes?”

  “Tell me it’s going to be all right.”

  “Yes, honey, it is going to be all right,” said Annabelle, giving Eliza the answer she needed to hear. She knew it wouldn’t do Eliza any good to tell her what else she had learned in her research. The vast majority of kidnapped children who were murdered—were dead within three hours of their abduction.

  “I want to offer a reward.”

  Eliza stood beside the table where the FBI agents were stationed.

  “I was thinking of a quarter of a million dollars,” said Eliza. “Do you think that seems like enough?”

  Trevor Laggie whistled softly. “That kind of dough sure sweetens the pot. Just be prepared for people coming out of the woodwork with leads that turn out to be nothing.”

  CHAPTER 33

  The men were busy, spraying windshields and scrubbing hubcaps. They kept working when they saw the police car pull into the service area, but they watched quietly and warily, hoping not to call attention to themselves, ready to run if they had to.

  “Which one of you is Vicente Rochas?” asked a heavyset cop.

  The men put their heads down and concentrated on their cleaning tasks.

  Seeing that no one was going to volunteer any information, the police officers walked into the office.

  “We’re looking for Vicente Rochas.”

  “He’s out there working, isn’t he?” answered the cashier.

  “Will you come and point him out to us?”

  The cashier locked up her register and followed the policemen outside.

  She looked around the lot. “I don’t see him, but I know he was here this morning.” She turned to one of the workmen. “Hey, Miguel, where’s Vicente?”

  The workman shrugged.

  One of the policemen stepped forward. “Listen up, fellas. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell us where Vicente Rochas is.”

  No one said a word.

  “Don’t make us go around checking your working papers, guys. If you want to stay in the good ole U S of A, you’ll tell us where Vicente is.”

  At the side of the building, the door to the men’s room opened and a man with a small frame and caramel-colored skin came out slowly.

  “I am Vicente Rochas,” he said.

  They took him to the police car. Vicente sat in the backseat while they peppered him with questions.

  No, he had no idea where his mother-in-law was. He hadn’t seen her since Sunday when she’d spent the afternoon with him, his wife, and their daughter.

  Yes, he knew where the Blakes lived. No, he had never told or shown his friends where the house was.

  No, he had no idea where Janie Blake went to day camp.

  No, he didn’t have working papers.

  “Please, don’t turn me in,” Vicente pleaded. “Don’t send me back to Guatemala. There is nothing for me or my family there.”

  “If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about,” said the heavyset policeman. “But we’re going to be watching you, Vicente.”

  CHAPTER 34

  A mile a minute. With each minute, Janie could be another mile farther away. She could have been taken over two thousand miles by now.

  Eliza stood in the den and spun the globe she kept there, mostly for Janie’s benefit. Her fingers traced various routes going up and down the eastern United States or spraying out in varying degrees in a westerly direction. Janie could be in Florida or Canada or Arkansas or Michigan. Janie had last been seen a full twenty-four hours ago. By now, if an airplane had figured into the kidnappers’ plans, Janie could be almost anywhere.

  Her cell phone rang and Eliza glanced at the tiny identification window. Margo Gonzalez was calling.

  “Hi, Margo,” she answered, noticing that her free hand was trembling.

  “Oh, Eliza, I’m so sorry about all this. I would have called sooner, but I was tied up with a suicidal patient all morning. Are you holding up?”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “I was going to wait till tonight to come out for the meeting with Annabelle and B.J., but I can leave now and be out there in an hour,” Margo offered. “I can bring something to help calm you.”

  “I might take you up on that at some point,” said Eliza, “but right now I want to try not to take anything. I want my mind to be clear.”

  “All right, but just think about it, will you? There’s no need for this to be more painful than it already is. Give yourself a break.”

  “Okay, I’ll think about it,” said Eliza.

  “And make sure you eat and get some rest.”

  “I will,” Eliza promised.

  “All right. And I have something else I need to talk to you about, Eliza. Something that, under these circumstances, seems so ridiculous to even bring up. But I wouldn’t want to do anything without running it by you first.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I got a call from Linus this morning. He asked if I would be willing to fill in for you while you’re out.”

  “As cohost of the show?”

  “I know, I know,” said Margo. “It’s crazy. I’m still so green when it comes to TV in general and I have absolutely no experience in doing what you do. I told Linus all that, but he says he still wants me to take a stab at it. Who knows what is going through that crazy mind of his.”

  “Crazy like a fox,” said Eliza. “There’s always some method to his madness. We just don’t know what it is yet.”

  “Well? What do you think?”

  “Do you want to do it?” asked Eliza.

  “Not particularly,” answered Margo. “In fact, the thought of it really frightens me. But something in my gut also tells me that I should do it, as long as it’s all right with you.”

  “Then do it,” said Eliza. “I’m absolutely fine with it, Margo. And you don’t have to come out here tonight with Annabelle and B.J. You have to get up too early in the morning.”

  “Are you kidding me?” asked Margo. “There’s no way I won’t be there!”

  CHAPTER 35

  When the FBI agents got to the Broadcast Center, Joe Connelly met them in the lobby and escorted them down to the security center. They sat in his windowless office while Joe shared the contents of his aberrant behavior computer file.

  “Naturally, I’ve been going through this file since we got the news that Janie Blake was missing,” said Joe. “There’s one letter that keeps haunting me. I leave it to you to figure out if it’s completely harmless or something else. You’ll see a notation about it on the computer there, but I want to show you the actual letter itself.”

  Joe opened a blue folder containing the letter and the envelope it had come in, and slid it across the desk to the FBI agents. Without touching the letter, one of them read it aloud.

  Dear Eliza,

  I watch you on television and read all about your career at KEY News. I think not only are you a wonderful newswoman, but you are the world’s best mom. You seem to love Janie so much. I wonder if she knows how lucky she is. Janie is such a beautiful child, wouldn’t it be terrible if something happened to her? Can you imagine what your life would be like without her? Janie better appreciate how lucky she is to have you, because it only takes a moment for life to change forever.

  “No signature,” noted the FBI agent.

  “Yeah,�
� said the other. “And get a load of those little hearts and flowers and smiley-face stickers plastered all over it.”

  CHAPTER 36

  It was embarrassing, but Uncle Lloyd said she had to do it. Nell had a standing appointment at the public pool on Tuesdays. She took an exercise class in the water with the old women who had tried to mother her since her own mother died. Any time she missed a class, they checked up on her and, while it usually made her feel good that they cared about her, she didn’t like to give them a reason to stop by unannounced. Even though all the attention Janie Blake’s abduction had gotten on the news this morning had upset her, Nell had been determined that she wouldn’t miss the class today.

  As they all waited for the instructor to appear, the women talked about the Janie Blake story.

  “Dear Lord, what has this world come to?”

  “That poor little girl.”

  “Her poor mother.”

  “It just goes to show that you can have all the money in the world and you still can’t protect yourself from bad things happening.”

  “I think it happened because Eliza Blake must have a lot of money. She’s a target for evil people who want to take advantage of her.”

  Nell took her long braid and tucked it under her mandatory bathing cap. She listened as the old ladies talked among themselves but she said nothing.

  The instructor arrived and the women carefully descended into the pool. Nell moved along with the others, twisting and reaching, following the instructor’s directions as best she could. To Nell, the forty-five-minute class seemed to drag on forever.

  When the instructor signaled they were done, Nell got out of the pool and wrapped herself in a towel.

  “Everything all right with you, Nell?”

  Nell looked around and saw Cora Wallace standing behind her.

  “Yes, everything’s all right, Cora.”

  “You’re looking kind of pale, honey.”

  “I’m fine, Cora.”

  “Are you eating all right, Nell? How about I make you some of my chicken soup?”

  “I’m eating fine, Cora. And thanks, but it’s too hot for chicken soup.”

  “You sure? It’s no problem. I can bring some by this afternoon.”

  “Don’t do that,” Nell snapped.

  Cora was taken aback by the tone in Nell’s voice. Her smile faded.

  “I’m sorry,” said Nell. “It’s really nice of you to offer, Cora. But I really don’t want any.”

  “All right, dear,” said Cora, “but I worry about you, Nell. Since your mama passed, we all want to watch out for you. Are you upset about this Eliza Blake situation? I know how much store you set by her with your scrapbooks and everything.”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it, Cora. And anyway, I’ve got to get home. I don’t like leaving my uncle to take care of things by himself.” Nell turned and made her way to the locker room to change.

  CHAPTER 37

  They would be taking a chance but it was worth a try.

  She wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her earlier and she cursed herself for not thinking of it when she had gone into the camp office to pick up Janie yesterday.

  Mrs. Garcia waited until the next time Janie asked to go to the bathroom. The kidnapper, masked as Popeye again, untied their hands and took off their blindfolds.

  Once they were in the bathroom, Mrs. Garcia carefully disconnected the skinny wire that ran from the microphone on the shirt collar to the transmitter on her waistband. She leaned close to Janie’s face and stared directly at the child. “Listen to me, chiquita,” she whispered. “This is very important.”

  Janie stood still, her eyes wide.

  “I am going to boost you up and you climb through that window. Then you are going to run as fast as you can. Just run out to the road and follow it.”

  “I don’t know where I’m going,” Janie whispered back.

  “Just follow the road, mi hija. Keep going until you meet up with people. Then you tell them who you are and that your mommy is looking for you. They will help you. Tell them you need to tell the police.”

  Janie jumped at the loud pounding on the door.

  “What’s going on in there?” came the voice from the other side.

  “In a minute,” Mrs. Garcia called out.

  “Hurry up,” demanded the voice. “I have better things to do with my time than stand here waiting for the both of you.”

  Mrs. Garcia looked at Janie. “Ready?” she whispered.

  “I want you to come with me,” Janie whispered back.

  “I can’t, Janie. I’m too big and there is too little time for me to try to squeeze through. Be a brave girl. You run and get help.”

  Pacing back and forth across the room, the kidnapper waited, not particularly concerned. The housekeeper may have been on the chubby side, but she would be no match for him physically if she should get the bright idea to come out and attack him. Actually, there wasn’t anything for her to attack him with. He’d made sure there was nothing in that bathroom but a towel and some toilet paper.

  “Popeye’s waiting,” he called. “How much longer?”

  “Coming,” said Mrs. Garcia.

  But the door didn’t open—and it dawned on him that he was hearing her actual voice, not a voice transmitted through the microphone.

  He grabbed for the doorknob and pushed his way through.

  Janie ran down the road, breathing hard, her sneakers pounding on the ground. Why wasn’t there anyone around to help her?

  She looked over her shoulder, afraid of what she might see. But the road behind her was empty. The man wasn’t coming after her, she thought with relief. She kept running until she tripped. She fell forward, the beaded necklace she had made in camp coming from her neck and flying to the side of the road. Janie put out her hands to block her fall but she felt the burning pain as her knees scraped along the ground. She pulled herself up and kept running.

  Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she felt the strong hands come from behind and grab hold of her shoulders.

  CHAPTER 38

  Special Agents Gebhardt and Laggie stood in the kitchen doorway and watched as Eliza sipped a cup of tea at the table with her in-laws. Eliza, Katharine, and Paul Blake were pale and quiet. Eliza’s hand trembled as she brought the cup to her mouth.

  “Let’s take a walk outside,” Agent Gebhardt said to her partner.

  The FBI agents strolled the perimeter of the property, discussing the case.

  “Of course, we have to consider the fact that she is in on this.”

  “Come on, Barbara, really. I know we should look at the nearest and dearest first, but are you going to tell me that Eliza Blake would actually have her own daughter kidnapped?”

  “This world is full of sick stuff, Trevor. You know that. I was stationed at the Columbia, South Carolina, field office when Susan Smith got on TV, sobbing and pleading for the return of her two little boys. Then it turned out she’d strapped those babies into their car seats and let her vehicle sink into the lake. I was there the day they dragged their tiny bodies out of the water. I’ll never forget it.” Despite the hot July air, Agent Gebhardt rubbed her arms to warm herself.

  “Still, Barbara, I don’t buy it that Eliza Blake would have anything to do with having her own daughter abducted,” said Agent Laggie, “or stage a kidnapping to cover up something even worse.”

  “I’m just saying,” said Agent Gebhardt, “all we know for certain is that Mrs. Garcia took Janie from camp yesterday morning. We don’t know if she was forced to do it. We have to look at the possibility that Garcia did it on her own or that Eliza told Garcia to take Janie and knows where they are.”

  “Then why offer a huge reward? Why would she want people trying to find Janie?”

  Agent Gebhardt shrugged. “Offering a reward looks good.”

  “Well, what about the ‘Call police’ notation in the camp log? That sounds to me like Mrs. Garcia was trying to get help. She wouldn�
��t do that if she and Eliza had planned it.”

  “Maybe,” said Agent Gebhardt. “Or, as I said before, maybe Garcia just wrote it to throw us off, to make it look like she was under duress. We have to look at every possibility, Trevor.”

  Agent Laggie shook his head, unconvinced that Eliza Blake should be considered a suspect.

  They walked back into the house, not realizing that a sound technician hired by the Mole stood on the other side of the hedges aiming a very sensitive parabolic microphone to record every word they said.

  CHAPTER 39

  Popeye the sailor pulled the ropes so tight around Mrs. Garcia’s wrists that she cried out in pain.

  “Shut up, mamacita. You’re lucky I don’t beat the hell out of you. Try something like that again and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

  Blindfolded again, Mrs. Garcia could hear Janie hiccupping in between sobs. “My legs hurt,” the little girl cried.

  “Let me help her,” Mrs. Garcia begged as she thought of the glimpse of Janie’s legs she had caught before the kidnapper covered her eyes. “Let me wash those cuts out and put some bandages on them.”

  “Uh-uh. It’ll teach the kid a lesson. If she tries to run away, she gets hurt.”

  “But the cuts could get infected,” insisted Mrs. Garcia.

  “Nice try,” he said. “But now I don’t trust you. And besides, I skinned my knees plenty of times when I was a kid and they healed up just fine without anybody fussing over them.”

  Once he was certain there was absolutely no way either Mrs. Garcia or Janie would be able to free themselves, he left the room, walked outside, and got some plywood from the shed. He covered the bedroom and bathroom windows, pounding in the nails. He then lit a cigarette. After he took a few drags to calm himself, he went back inside the house and made a phone call.