It Only Takes a Moment

by Mary Jane Clark

  “Thank you all for coming tonight,” Eliza began, wishing that Maria and Vicente Rochas were there. “I can’t tell you how much our family appreciates your keeping Janie and Carmen Garcia in your thoughts and prayers and how much you are encouraging us by standing along with us here. Knowing that all of you are supporting Janie and Mrs. Garcia, and are determined that we find them, somehow makes things a bit more bearable and a lot less lonely. So thank you for that and please, continue praying that we find Janie and Mrs. Garcia.”

  Music played and songs were sung. When the vigil was over, Eliza turned to Katharine and Paul and insisted that her in-laws go home to their apartment in Manhattan.

  “Get a good night’s sleep,” she urged. “Mack’s with me. I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure, dear?” asked Katharine.

  “Absolutely,” said Eliza. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  Eliza shook hands and accepted people’s warm greetings for almost an hour. Before she left to go home, she sought out Stephanie.

  “Well, did you get any feelings?” asked Eliza.

  Stephanie cracked a smile. “It doesn’t work like that,” she said. “It’s not immediate. But since you said you’d spoken about the things I’ve seen regarding Janie, I told a couple of reporters here tonight, too. Maybe that will help. Maybe somebody will be spurred by my visions.”

  FRIDAY JULY 25

  CHAPTER 111

  At precisely 3:15 A.M., the KEY News car pulled up at the curb in front of the Greenwich Village apartment house. Annabelle was already waiting in the lobby.

  “You’re late,” she said as she climbed into the sedan.

  “Give me a break,” said B.J. “I could barely get out of bed. Plus, I stopped to get us some coffee. There won’t be anybody on the road this early. I’ll make up the time.”

  “I want to live,” said Annabelle as she took a paper cup from the cardboard container on the seat. “Take it easy.”

  “You have directions?”

  “Of course,” said Annabelle, pointing to the MapQuest pages sticking out of her bag. “Start off by taking the George Washington Bridge.”

  What traffic there was, was headed into Manhattan, not out of it. In just under an hour, they were in front of the Marzipan Bakery. The windows were dark. Annabelle and B.J. got out of the car and rapped on the glass door. Nobody came to answer.

  “I guarantee there’s something going on in there. Somebody’s got to be getting the stuff ready for today,” said Annabelle.

  “Let’s go around back,” said B.J.

  They walked to the rear of the building. A car was parked near the heavy iron door that led into the bakery.

  “See?” said Annabelle. “Somebody is in there.” B.J. knocked, then banged on the door until it was opened by a middle-aged man wearing white cotton pants and a white T-shirt. His face was flushed and his forehead was covered with perspiration.

  “Yeah?”

  Annabelle handed the man her business card. “We’re with KEY News,” she said. “And we’re hoping you’ll be able to help us.”

  “With what?” asked the man.

  “We’re trying to track down something,” she said. “A package of cookies and other goods from this bakery was sent to KEY News for Eliza Blake. We were hoping to find out who sent them.”

  A bell rang and the baker looked over his shoulder. “Hold on a minute,” he said. “I have to get the crumb cakes out.”

  Annabelle and B.J. followed him into the kitchen and watched while he pulled the trays out of the industrial-type oven.

  “God, that smells great,” said B.J.

  “Thanks,” said the baker as he slid a tray onto the cooling rack. “Now why do you want to know about the cookies? You didn’t come out here in the middle of the night just to thank whoever sent them.”

  “You’re right,” said Annabelle. “There was a note inside the box and we want to find out who wrote it.”

  “Would whoever wrote the note be in any kind of trouble?” asked the baker.

  “Not necessarily,” said Annabelle. “But I’m sure you can understand that, with Janie Blake’s kidnapping, we want to check out anything that seems strange.”

  “What? You think whoever sent the cookies kidnapped Janie Blake and that babysitter of hers?” asked the baker. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Look,” said B.J. “Nobody knows who’s responsible, but that little girl and the housekeeper have been missing for almost four days now.”

  The baker looked over at the pictures that were tacked on the wall over his worktable. “I have kids myself,” he said.

  “So you have an inkling of what Eliza Blake is going through,” said Annabelle. “Whatever you know that could possibly help find Janie, you should tell us.”

  “All right,” said the baker. “I know who sent the cookies.”

  The baker offered them some crumb cake and coffee. “I’m going to have to keep on working while we talk,” he said.

  He sprinkled flour over the surface of the marble worktable. “Rhonda Billings is a tortured soul,” he began. “Her daughter was killed in a car accident a few years ago. The kid had just gotten a new bicycle and wasn’t really that steady on it yet. She was riding close to the curb and all of a sudden a car was coming and Allison lost control. Rhonda saw the whole thing.”

  “God, how horrible,” said Annabelle, thinking of the twins and the New York City traffic they dealt with every day on their way to school or the park. Standing and watching as a car plowed into them and killed them would be beyond anything she could endure.

  “It was,” said the baker. “Brutal.” His strong hands kneaded the dough. “Rhonda hasn’t been the same since. She and her husband tried to have another baby, and she did get pregnant, but she miscarried. I don’t know all the details, but afterward she was told she wouldn’t be able to have another child.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I even heard something about a suicide attempt.”

  Annabelle digested this information. “Do you think there is any possibility that she would take someone else’s little girl?” she asked.

  “Possible?” Forming the dough into loaves, the baker considered the question. “Almost anything’s possible, isn’t it? To tell you the truth, there have been times I’ve been creeped out having her here in the kitchen with me, thinking maybe she would completely wig out and hurt herself or, worse yet, me. But she has seemed happier lately.” He looked up from the dough in his hands and said, “I know Rhonda was seeing a shrink—he’d be able to make a call about her taking somebody’s kid better than I could.”

  “But do you have a gut feeling about it?” pressed B.J.

  “I can tell you that Rhonda Billings is a very troubled woman who still longs to have a child. Her husband has stuck with her through all this, though Lord knows how. He must be at the end of his rope at this point. I keep her on here because she’s a good employee and gets her work done, plus I feel sorry for her. But sometimes, when she goes on and on about Allison, I think I’ll go crazy myself. I don’t know how he’s stood it.”

  “Was Rhonda here at work on Monday morning?” asked B.J.

  “No,” said the baker. “We’re closed on Mondays.”

  CHAPTER 112

  Overflowing baskets and tall vases of flowers lined the dimly lit room and people with grim faces stood watching as she approached the small casket. The little coffin was covered with a spray of roses and lilies of the valley arranged in the shape of an angel.

  With every bit of strength she had, Eliza forced herself to go forward. She knelt before the casket, her fists clenched, her eyes shut tight. She felt excruciating pressure. Everyone was looking at her, waiting for her reaction, relieved that they were watching her life and not theirs. Nothing would go forward without her doing what she had to do.

  You have to look. You have to look. You have to see what’s inside.

  Eliza bent her head down and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw w
as a cascading shower of white tulle spilling from the casket walls. Her hand shook violently as she reached out to pull back the bridal veil.

  Eliza bolted upright, her nightgown clinging to her body with cold perspiration.

  CHAPTER 113

  Will Jorgenson ate his cereal as he watched the exclusive interview with Eliza Blake air on KEY to America. His heart went out to the poor woman.

  He sat up straighter when she mentioned that there was a new lead in Milford. His pharmacy was in the town. He’d heard all about the young woman who’d been found with her throat slit at the Urgentcare Center down the road. That was all anybody could talk about yesterday. A killer in their own quiet town.

  Watching the video of Janie Blake, smiling with excitement and pleasure, Will’s mouth turned down at the corners and he felt his eyes begin to tear up. What a lovely child she was. So innocent, so young.

  “There is such a happy shot of Janie waiting to talk to Santa Claus last Christmas,” Eliza was saying, “and a little while later there’s video of her upset and hiccupping when the visit didn’t go so well.”

  Pictures appeared on the screen of the child trying to catch her breath, her facial expression downcast.

  “…that picture of Janie is the one that is far more likely to look like she does now. Whenever Janie is scared or really worried, she gets the hiccups.”

  Hiccups.

  That surly guy who came into the pharmacy the other day had been asking about hiccup medicine. That was a fairly rare request. Will tried to remember what the guy had actually purchased. He seemed to recall that children’s aspirin had been in the basket. He did remember that the guy paid cash.

  Should he call the police? he wondered.

  He listened to the rest of the interview. Eliza implored anyone with any information at all to call the Find Janie hotline and announced that a psychic had told her Janie was near moving water and that the letter M was also involved in some way and that a bridal veil was part of the case.

  Poppycock, thought the druggist. But the poor woman is so desperate she’s resorted to consulting a psychic.

  He made up his mind. It was better to call with his information even if it turned out to be nothing than to not call and have it turn out that the kidnapper had been in his store. He imagined that, after the interview, the hotline would get thousands of calls from the public and his call would get lost among all the tips. He figured he’d be better off just calling the Milford police.

  CHAPTER 114

  The FBI agents laid the evidence envelope on the desk. The sheriff inspected the contents through the clear wrapping. The handwritten letter was decorated with colorful stickers.

  “The postmark sent us here, but, as you see, it’s not signed. Got any ideas?”

  The sheriff stroked his chin. “I’d bet my badge I know who sent that letter,” he said.

  The agents waited expectantly.

  “You don’t think that whoever wrote this has something to do with the Blake abduction, do you?” asked the sheriff.

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  “Well, I think that letter was sent by Nell,” said the sheriff.

  “Nell?”

  “Yep. She’s had a tough life, that one.”

  “How so?”

  “Father deserted her, mother didn’t really want her. After her mother died, Nell got stuck living with her no-good uncle. He’s got a heck of a temper.”

  “Any reason why Nell would write a letter like this to Eliza Blake?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “I’m no expert, but I think that girl needs a mother figure to look up to. After all, she’s only nine years old.

  CHAPTER 115

  The computers of the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System came up with a match to an index finger and thumbprint found on the construction paper headpiece discarded in the dry-cleaning plant parking lot. There were also prints from two other people. It was going to take a while longer to see if the smaller ones belonged to Janie Blake because her prints were not on file with IAFIS. The other print was also not in the system.

  CHAPTER 116

  Calling into the KEY to America office, Annabelle let Linus’s assistant know that she and B.J. were going to be delayed in getting back to the Broadcast Center. They waited at the bakery for Rhonda, but she didn’t show up for work.

  “Let’s go over to her house,” said B.J. He turned to the baker. “Would you give us her address?” he asked.

  “Might as well,” said the baker. “You could just go look it up in the phone book.”

  They found the brick dwelling at the end of a road, several miles from the downtown area. There were no cars in the driveway. Several attempts at ringing the bell and knocking at the door brought no response.

  “Now what do we do?” asked B.J.

  “Let’s see what we can see,” said Annabelle. She cupped her hands over her brow to shield her eyes from the glare as she looked through the window. She could see a small pair of flip-flops on the living room floor.

  “Either Rhonda has the tiniest feet of any woman in America,” said Annabelle, “or those are a child’s shoes in the home of a woman who doesn’t have any children.”

  B.J. took a look. “Maybe she babysits or has a niece or something.”

  “Well, we can’t hang around any longer; we have to head back,” said Annabelle. “But at least we should tell somebody what we found out about Rhonda’s history of losing her child.”

  “Maybe we should let Joe Connelly know,” said B.J. as they climbed back into the car. “He’s the head of security, and Rhonda’s package came in on his watch.”

  “Yeah, but if we tell him, he’s going to wonder how I found out about the cookies and the letter to begin with. That could get my source in trouble.”

  “Who’s your source? Paige?” asked B.J.

  “You know I’m not going to tell you,” said Annabelle.

  “Yeah, yeah,” said B.J. “All right, if not Joe, then who?”

  “Eliza,” said Annabelle. “And she can tell the FBI agents sitting right alongside her.”

  CHAPTER 117

  Eliza went directly to Agent Gebhardt after Annabelle called with the information about Rhonda Billings.

  “Do you have any idea how many leads we have?” asked the agent. “Thousands. It takes time to track them all.”

  “Well, this one sounds promising,” said Eliza. “The disturbing package and letter from the woman, her horrible personal history, and honestly, the fact that she works at the Marzipan Bakery adds to my interest in her.”

  Agent Gebhardt closed her eyes for a moment, fighting to keep her temper in check. “Not that psychic’s ‘letter M’ nonsense again.”

  Eliza stood firm. “I’m telling you, somebody’s got to go up there to check on this woman. If it turns out she has my daughter, how will the FBI look if they had the information but didn’t follow through quickly enough?”

  Agent Gebhardt said nothing, knowing that, if the child molester they were picking up led them to Janie, Eliza’s demand would be moot.

  CHAPTER 118

  A line of unmarked cars and police vehicles waited at the end of the street. When the command was given, the armed occupants got out and started toward the house, trying to stay out of sight, finding hiding spots as they drew progressively closer to their target.

  When everyone was in place around the house, a cluster of FBI agents, guns drawn, crept up to the front stoop. One of them knocked on the door and yelled, “FBI. Open up!”

  The agents were fully prepared to force the door down, but it opened almost immediately.

  Isabelle stood in the doorway, taking in the scene in front of her. It didn’t upset her as much as it did the first time she had encountered a situation like this. But there were definitely more cops now than there had ever been.

  “We have a warrant to search the premises and for the arrest of Hugh Pollock.”

  She stood back and let
them enter, knowing she had no other choice.

  It didn’t take long to search the house and to ascertain that Janie Blake was not inside. But they did find Hugh. He was sitting cross-legged in front of the dollhouse in his bedroom. The agents informed him of his rights, handcuffed him, and led him out of the house.

  “Don’t worry, Hughie,” his sister called after him. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Do you believe this crap?” said an agent, looking around the room.

  “Sickening,” said his partner. “He’s got the room decorated like a little girl’s.”

  The room was painted pink. Disney posters decorated the walls. The single bed in the corner was covered with a Hannah Montana comforter. A collection of American Girl dolls was arranged on top, their skirts fanned out artfully. On the floor beside the bed, a stuffed animal slept, carefully covered with a miniature blanket. But the closet contained men’s clothes.

  “He actually sleeps in here?”

  “I think I’m going to puke.” The agent shook his head as he walked over and opened a dresser drawer. With his latex-gloved hand, he reached in and pulled out a small white tube sock. He held it up.

  “Think this fits our big pervert?” he asked.

  CHAPTER 119

  Mack had the morning papers spread out on the kitchen table.

  “I’m not going to hide it from you, Eliza,” he said, handing her the Daily News and the New York Post.

  Eliza scanned the headlines.

  ELIZA’S IN ANOTHER WORLD

  ELIZA’S GONE PSYCHIC