by Pamela Wells
“She’s alive dad, she’s alive!”
Lacey threw her arms around her father and the tears spilled out. Her entire body shook with sobs that had been held back for a long time. Jim hugged his daughter tightly with tears pouring down his own face. Both of them had been afraid to admit that they even considered the possibility that Laura might not be alive. Neither of them had voiced these kinds of thoughts to the other, not wanting to admit what they were really thinking, yet both carried the thought deep inside that Laura was probably dead. Getting an email like this one was like a slap in the face. A wonderful, joyous, welcome slap in the face!
Jim pulled away from his daughter, wiped his eyes and then turned to the computer. He held his breath as he read the email again. Relieved that it wasn’t a dream and that the email was still there he clicked on the print button and waited for the letter to print.
“I’m going to call Detective Chisholm. He needs to see this. Your mother says she is trying to escape so he needs to be on the look out for her and we want to stay close to the phone. Lacey, use your cell phone and call Pastor Brooks. Tell him about the email and explain that we won’t be in church this morning. I don’t want to leave the house in case your mother calls. Ask him to have the church pray for her, she could be in a very difficult situation right now.” Jim wanted to pace as his mind raced with all these thoughts but he couldn’t with Lacey’s messy floor so he moved towards the stairs.
“Josh should be here soon, dad. He said on the phone that he was going to pick up Maggie and come over.” Lacey followed her dad up the stairs, clutching her cell phone and went into the kitchen to make the call to Pastor Brooks.
Jim used his own cell phone to call the detective wanting to keep the household phone free, just in case Laura might call. He definitely did not want his wife to get a busy signal. His heart pounded with excitement at the thought of hearing his wife’s voice on the phone. He prayed that today would be the day he would get that call. Her voice, asking me to pick her up. Oh Lord how I would love to get a call like that. Or the detective can call me and tell me they found her, alive and well. I would be just as happy with that call too God! Jim’s heart cried out as his hopes soared.
Jim was able to get a hold of the detective and Don promised to be at the house shortly to take a look at the email. Jim paced nervously and excitedly back and forth holding the email from his wife. One thing nagged at the back of his mind as he read the email over and over. Why was it so short? Why didn’t she say anything else, like where she was? Why didn’t she say who her kidnapper was or if she was ok or not? These facts worried Jim. There was no information in the email that would help the police find Laura. The only negative reason he could think of for the email being so short was that she must have been interrupted. She was able to send the email so she wasn’t caught before she was able to click on the send button so Jim hoped that she was still able to follow through with her escape plan, but what if she wasn’t? Jim shuddered; he didn’t want to think like that. He didn’t want to think that God would allow of their hopes to be raised so high, only to have them crashed to the ground. That would be too much. This had to mean something positive.
Jim had wrestled with many emotions during the past few months. He had always been a very calm man with a pleasant, laid back sort of personality, but lately he had felt a rage that he hadn’t even known he was capable of. When he first thought Gerhard Bloone was the man responsible for Laura’s abduction he felt like he could actually commit murder. As a Christian this was a feeling or emotion he was not familiar with.
He didn’t like that he was capable of feeling such rage but at the same time he knew, and trusted, God understood those feelings. If it wasn’t for the Lord’s strength he would never have made it through. He still felt that rage inside him, knowing there was someone out there that was holding his wife prisoner and keeping her away from her family was a hard thing to deal with. Some days he fought with depression as well. A depression so heavy it threatened to pull him down so low he feared he would never climb out of it. God was faithful and He used Lacey, Josh and Maggie to keep him going. The Lord also used friends from church as well, especially Lee and Janice. He had friends from work and they tried to help but some were not so supportive or helpful. One of his workers recently had the nerve to suggest that Jim ‘move on’ and consider going on a date or getting out somewhere to meet other women. It was all Jim could do to keep from punching the man in the mouth. He was sure later when he thought about it that God must have sent an angel to pin his arms down so he couldn’t strike the man. He knew the guy meant well in his own way. It was, however, a very thoughtless thing to say. There was no way that Jim would consider even thinking of another woman. He just wanted his Laura back. He was even willing to let go of his rage and all thoughts of vengeance towards the kidnapper. It was something he prayed about often and asked the Lord to help him with. Jim looked at the couch in living room and remembered picking it out with Laura. He wanted to see her sitting on it again. He wanted to sit on that couch with her and watch a silly movie on TV. He wanted to sit on that couch with her and discuss Josh and Maggie’s wedding and make plans for their future. That will happen, won’t it God?
“Pastor Brooks assured me they would pray for mom this morning and he wants you to call if there is any news. Did you get a hold of the detective?” Lacey asked excitedly as she entered the room and went over to the window to watch for Josh. Jim filled her in and watched her with a smile. He hadn’t seen her this animated in months.
It did his heart good to see his daughter hopeful for a change. Please God, bring her mother home.
“Here’s Josh and Maggie!” Lacey announced as she ran to the front door to greet them.
They only had to wait a few more minutes before Detective Chisholm arrived as well. Jim welcomed the detective into the living room and they eagerly showed him the email. He looked it over and weighed his words carefully before speaking to the family.
“I can see why you got so excited this morning. I’m sure this seems like it came from your wife.” Don spoke cautiously. He could see the hopeful faces of those before him and he didn’t want to destroy their hopes but neither did he want to add to them falsely.
“Seems like it came from her? Well of course it came from her! You can tell by the return email that it’s from mom’s email account.” Lacey stated emphatically.
“That’s true, but anyone could have accessed your mom’s account if they had her password. Do any of you know what your mom’s password is? Was she careful with her password? Is it possible that anyone outside this house might know what it is?” Don asked the questions fully aware that this would be an extremely cruel prank for anyone to pull on the Reid family and he hoped that it was indeed an email directly from Laura herself.
“I didn’t know mom’s password.” Josh spoke up right away and Lacey quickly said the same thing.
“I knew it, but I know she was careful with something like that. She didn’t tell her password to friends and knew better than to give it out on the internet. So I doubt that someone else would be able to access her email account. Her password is Aragain. Its Niagara spelled backwards.” Jim responded.
“That’s a clever password and not one someone would be able to guess too easily.
So ok, let’s assume that Laura did indeed send this email, and I’m not saying she did.
Please understand that we don’t know for sure this came from her. This isn’t like a regular piece of mail where we can compare handwriting or something. There is no way to verify one hundred per cent that this letter came from Laura, but assuming it did, it still doesn’t tell us much of anything, other than the fact that she is alive. Of course that’s a very good thing to know and I’m not belittling that fact. It’s just that that’s all it tells us.
According to the email it comes from your mom’s account and it was sent last night about six o’clock, but other than that we have nothing to go on.” Don wanted desper
ately to encourage these kind people but he couldn’t give them something that wasn’t there.
“If she sent this around six last night and was about to escape, shouldn’t we have heard something by now?” Maggie asked and then immediately regretted her question.
What a stupid thing to say! Oh God, how I wish I could turn back the clock and remove that question. It was, however, a question they were all thinking of, they just didn’t want to voice it.
“I’ve noticed how short her email is and she really doesn’t give us very much information. So I was thinking that she was probably interrupted, heard someone coming or something. That would explain why she doesn’t tell us anything more, like where she is or who has her, but she did actually send the email so she wasn’t caught in the middle of it. Perhaps she just got nervous and sent the email too fast before she thought to give us more information. It’s also possible that she wasn’t able to escape after she sent this.” Jim said this last sentence with a very heavy heart. He wanted desperately to believe his wife was on her way home but he also knew that she would make contact with her family a priority the moment she was free. The fact that they haven’t heard from her was not a good sign.
“Wait a minute!” shouted Lacey, who jumped to her feet in excitement. “Emails can be traced can’t they? Josh you’re a computer genius, can’t you find out where this email came from? Get an IP address or something? Maybe if you can’t the police can!” Lacey looked from her brother to the detective hopefully. Maggie also looked up with hope in her eyes.
“I’m afraid not.” Don shook his head. “There’s no way to trace this particular email. Let me explain. You see every computer using the internet is given a specific number, just like the telephone system. Now when you are using your phone, you dial a number assigned to only one person in the world and the phone network recognizes that number and you are connected almost immediately to that person. The internet uses a similar system called IP addressing. Each computer is given a unique IP address and all other computers can talk to your computer via its IP address. Without it, it would be like calling someone without their phone number. The person who sent this email, possibly your mother, was using a popular email website called Hotmail. Now when a person normally sends email using a program called Outlook or Netscape mail, the program records this person’s IP address inside the email message’s underlying code. Since Hotmail resides on the internet, and not on the computer sending the email, it could not be certain if the IP address is that of the sender, or that of another computer in between itself and the sender. Now if we had the valid IP address of the sender we could contact the Internet Service Provider, or ISP, of the client, and get their home address by asking the ISP who was using that particular IP address at the time that the email was sent.
Since we do not have a valid IP address, this email cannot be traced. I’m sorry but tracing this email is not an option.”
“He’s right.” Josh added, “There’s no way to trace an email from Hotmail. If there were, I would have already been working on that.”
“So there’s nothing we can do then? We are right back to where we started from!” Lacey sobbed in frustration.
Jim hugged his daughter tightly and tried to comfort her, “We aren’t right back where we started from, honey. We now know she’s alive. All these months we’ve had no idea whether she was alive or not and now at least we know she’s alive. Her kidnapper has held her captive all this time so I have to believe that even if he caught her trying to escape, he wouldn’t hurt her. I choose to believe that she is still alive and now that we know that much, we know how to pray for her. We know to thank God for keeping her safe and alive. We now know to pray for continued protection. God will lead us to her and bring her home. We can’t give up. We must keep on trusting Him.” Jim got out his bible and turned to Proverbs 3:5 and read,
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” Jim knew that as he spoke these words to his children, Maggie and the detective that God was holding up a mirror in front of him, meaning the words were just as much for him as they were for them. Inside, his heart was breaking for his wife and he longed to hold her in his arms. Yet he knew that God was in control and he had to keep on trusting Him.
He mustn’t give up or give into the doubts and fears that plagued his mind.
Don watched Jim Reid as he spoke to his family and couldn’t help but be moved by the man’s faith. He was amazed at how well Jim had held up over the past several months. He had made comments to Jim a few times about how strong he was and each time Jim had given the credit to his faith in God. Don hadn’t really taken him seriously at first but as he got to know him and his family more he started to see the reality of it. He wasn’t much of a church going man himself, he often worked on Sunday’s and if he didn’t work then he’d rather sleep late and enjoy a peaceful morning at home. He didn’t understand the appeal of getting up early on a Sunday to sit through a long church service. Yet he had to admit, this family had a quality about them that was different. There was something about them and the way they handled this crisis. They were upset and worried about Laura, which was normal, but the way they dealt with their worries and fears was different. Don wondered if perhaps their church might be unlike the one he had been exposed to when he was younger. He thought that perhaps one Sunday morning when he was off he might just check it out. Yes indeed, the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.
Chapter 20
Gerhard waited a few days, letting Laura worry about what he was going to do over her escape attempt. He could tell every time he came down the stairs, from the way she looked at him, with fear in her eyes, she was afraid of what he would do. He figured she must be worried sick about her daughter. The truth of it was that Gerhard didn’t know what to do. He had been shocked at Laura’s bold escape attempt. He had been coming back down the hall to his office when he thought he heard a noise at the front door and turned towards it. When he saw Laura standing there he couldn’t believe his eyes. A part of him truly believed she would never leave even if she were able to, that she was really Christine and living downstairs, happy to be there. He was also amazed to feel true fear pounding like a hammer in his heart. The thought of how close she had come to actually escaping. If he had come down the hallway a few minutes later she would have been gone. She only had to get as far as the road to a passing car, or to a neighbor’s house to make contact with someone else and it would all be over. He was stunned at the fact that she had made it through the kitchen with him and his mother right there. They hadn’t seen her. He had to admire her courage and stealth. Now however, he had to deal with the situation and he wasn’t sure what to do. He had threatened her in the past so she no doubt was expecting him to act on those threats. He had no intention of going after Lacey and actually hurting the girl. Lacey had nothing to do with this and Gerhard had enough on his hands with Laura. He didn’t want to risk trouble with the police by going after Lacey too, but Laura didn’t need to know that. Laura believed Gerhard would do something to Lacey. She would have no way of knowing for sure if he actually did do something or not, so he could use that fact to his advantage. Plus the anticipation and fear of the punishment can be just as effective, if not more so than the punishment itself. So Gerhard deliberately let Laura stew for a few days as he thought of the best way to deal with this.
The answer to Gerhard’s dilemma landed neatly in his lap one afternoon at work. He had stopped in to the hotel staff room and saw a copy of the daily newspaper on the lunch room table. The headline read, ‘Young Woman Found Badly Beaten’. The article went on to say that the woman was in intensive care in the local hospital. Police did not expect her to make it through the night. Her name was not being released until her family could all be notified. The rest of the article talked about her being found in a bad neighborhood of Niagara Falls. The police suspected drugs were involved. Gerhard took the paper back to his office. He carefully cut out the
headline and part of the article, making sure to only keep the information he wanted. This was exactly what he needed and would work out perfectly. He smiled to himself as he tucked the article into the pocket of his suit coat.
The rest of the afternoon progressed as usual although Gerhard found it hard to focus on the hotel business. The winter had been quiet and business had been very slow but that was normal for Niagara Falls. Spring time brought in more tourists and by the summer the place would be packed and no doubt filled to capacity every weekend and close to it during the week. Normally Gerhard had no trouble throwing himself into his work but these past several months had proved to be a strain for him. He thought when he kidnapped Laura, it would take the pressure off him with his mother. He would be able to relax, and enjoy some freedom. However he felt anything but free. Every time he saw a policeman his muscles tensed up. Each time there was a knock on his office door he expected it to be the police, there to arrest him. He had nightmares about it as well, the dreams becoming more intense and realistic. Some mornings when he woke up he felt truly surprised to find himself at home in his bed instead of a jail cell. Then there were other days when he felt himself actually believing the illusion he had created for his mother. When he came down the stairs and saw Laura sitting there he truly believed she was Christine. His mother had grown so attached and comfortable with her and she was so happy having her there. He knew he had done the right thing in bringing his sister home. His mother used to nag at him in the evenings and give him a hard time about every little detail and she didn’t do that anymore. He hadn’t seen her this content in years. Gerhard often came down the stairs quietly, stopping half way and sitting on the steps, listening to their conversations. The two women had some pretty intense discussions and Gerhard enjoyed listening to them converse. Christine had become very religious and Gerhard got a chuckle watching her try to convince their mother that she needed Jesus in her life. Hilda was a stubborn one and not easy to convince. Gerhard knew that his mother was enjoying the sport of it all, stirring up a debate with Christine, and trying to get her mad. From what Gerhard could see Christine didn’t play along very well though because he never saw her get mad or even argue back. She was incredibly patient with Hilda and very calm when she talked to her. So unlike the way she was as a teenager. Back then she was a regular ball of fire. It didn’t take much at all to set her off.
