Outside, the sun had started to set, casting long shadows in her cell. She knew that she didn’t have much time; the man would come with food soon, food and drink. And he would watch to make sure she finished.
I have to hurry, I have to hurry, I have to hurry…
She continued to dig, even though every muscle in her body protested, from her fingertips all the way down to her ankles.
And then, when it seemed as if she didn’t have the strength to lift the plate even more time, the girl realized that the hole just might be large enough.
She forced her head under first and then her shoulders, as the girl in the cell across had done. Only she’d been more careful than the other; her hole was deeper.
After her shoulders, the rest slid through the gap easily enough. And even though her legs were exhausted, they carried her tiny body as she started to run.
Chapter 37
“Chase! Chase, wake up!”
Chase’s eyelids fluttered and Stitts grabbed her shoulders and shook her again.
“Wake up!”
Her eyes snapped open.
“I escaped,” she gasped. Then she blinked several times and shook her head. “What the — what the fuck happened?”
Stitts glared at Detective Mayberry, who was just standing with his huge belly bulging out in front of him, a scornful look on his face.
“Take it easy, Chase. You ran into Detective Mayberry and bumped your head.” Stitts gently brushed his fingers over her forehead and Chase winced. “I think you’ll be all right, but it was one hell of a knock.”
Chase looked at Stitts in disbelief, before turning to Detective Mayberry.
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Detective Mayberry grumbled, his tone unapologetic. “I saw you running back and forth like a chicken with its head cut off, but I didn’t think you’d run into me.”
“You knocked me down. You’re all out to get me, you’re all—” she hissed and then grabbed her head as if she was suddenly struck by a splitting headache.
“Can someone get her a glass of water? Some ice?” Stitts asked.
Everyone looked around, but no one moved. Eventually, it took Terrence nudging Jordan before he reluctantly left the room.
Stitts and Terrence helped Chase into a chair, where she sat with a glazed expression on her face.
Then Stitts took up residence beside her, waiting for Jordan to return with the water and ice.
“What are you doing here, anyway, Detective Mayberry?” Terrence asked.
Mayberry, who was oddly unaffected by what had happened — if anything, he was annoyed, — strode forward.
“I looked into those fairs, like you asked.”
Terrence’s upper lip curled.
“All of them? The Triune fair? Kingston Springs? Williamson?”
Mayberry held out a single thin folder to his superior.
Terrence only looked at it.
“How can that be it?”
“Well,” Mayberry began. “It seems like they’re all the same thing. The details are sketchy, but it appears as if there’s only one fair. The company that runs the joint just moves it around to the different counties surrounding Nashville… first Triune, then Franklin, then Kingston Springs, then Belle Meade. As far as I can tell, ninety percent of the employees remain the same.”
Stitts tried to come to terms with what the man was saying.
“So, when Stephanie McMahon’s parents missed the Williamson fair, it was because they closed down and moved onto the next County? To Kingston Springs?”
Stitts was vaguely aware of the fact that Chase was regaining most of her senses beside him, and he knew that she was primed for another outburst.
Mayberry shrugged.
“I dunno about the order, but it’s possible. Like I said, it’s the same people and as far as I can tell from the pictures on the Internet, most of the same rides and attractions, too. Personally, I can’t believe no one noticed this sooner.”
Chase grumbled something under her breath.
“Are you sure?” Terrence asked.
Again, another shrug. Apparently, this was Mayberry’s favorite, and perhaps only, gesture.
“Yeah, I think. They’re obviously moving money around to avoid the IRS or whatnot, but it’s the same people.”
Terrence finally took the folder and opened it, scanning the first few names.
“And of these recycled employees, did anybody stand out to you?”
“All… and none. Nothing that looks like a child abductor. The closest thing I got is a guy who was accused of statutory rape when he was a teenager. He was 19 — just turned — and his girlfriend was 17. The father evidently didn’t like him and decided to press charges. The case was thrown out, and so far as I can tell, the man hasn’t done anything illegal since. That’s all I got, boss.”
Terrence frowned and Stitts felt himself doing the same despite his best efforts to stop it.
So, now we have four missing girls who all attended fairs in different counties, which are actually all the same fair that just up and moves every few weeks. Fairs that keep the same employees who are mostly ex-cons.
Chase cleared her throat.
“What about the other girls?” she asked.
Detective Mayberry gave her a look.
“The other girls?”
Chase gestured to the images lying on the desk, the ones from the folder that she brought from Quantico.
“Did they go missing from fairs? And what about the employees back then? Anybody stand out? Any of them same from thirty years ago?”
Stitts watched as Detective Mayberry’s eyes drifted from Chase to Terrence.
“Don’t look at him,” Chase ordered. “I asked you the question, not him.”
Jordan returned with a glass of water for Chase. He held it out to her, and she reluctantly took it but didn’t drink.
“Well,” Mayberry began hesitantly, “I looked into the other victims, the three other girls who went missing around the same time as your sister, but I couldn’t find any mention of a fair.”
“Then look harder,” Chase snapped. “I know for a fact that one of those girls went to the fair — my sister. I know, because I was with her.”
“You sure about that?” Jordan asked suddenly.
Chase tried to get to her feet, but Stitts laid a hand across her chest and succeeded in holding her down. He gestured for Jordan to keep his mouth shut, but the man was on a roll and there was no stopping them.
No, please, not now, he silently pleaded.
Stitts’s heart had decided to race so hard that he felt it climbing its way up his esophagus. In a few moments, he was certain it would eject itself from his mouth.
“What are you talking about?” Chase demanded.
“Please—” Stitts began, but Jordan was having none of it.
“Maybe you don’t remember things exactly how they happened back then, Chase. After all, it was what? Thirty years ago? I can’t remember the last time I took a shit, let alone what I did 30 years ago.”
Chase tried to swat Stitts’s hand away, but he held fast. He knew that if this went the way it was headed that she’d need to be seated when the truth came out.
“I would never forget that day. I would never, do you understand me. I swear to God if I had my—”
“Calm down, Chase. Jordan, this isn’t the time. Let’s focus on this case, let’s focus on Stacy Peterson and the other missing girls,” Stitts said quickly, trying to stem anger in the room.
Chase grabbed his arm tightly.
“Not the time? What are you talking about, Stitts? You know exactly what happened the day Georgina went missing. You read the file. I told you what happened.”
Terrence suddenly appeared behind Stitts.
“I think we should tell her the truth, Jeremy.”
Stitts sighed and lowered his head. He knew ever since he met her that this day would come, and he’d been dreading it ever since.
“The truth? The trut
h is that my—”
Terrence retrieved two folders from the desk and held them out to Chase.
Chase snatched them from the man and flipped the first one open. She quickly scanned the first page and the closed it, a look of disgust on her face.
“Yeah, this is the police report taken when I was with my dad all those years ago. So what? I brought this in and I’ve read it more than a dozen times.”
“Look at the other one,” Terrence instructed.
“This better not be a sick, twisted game, because—”
Stitts, his chin still glued to his chest, said, “Just open it, Chase.”
It must have been his tone, or maybe his expression, as Chase went silent and turned her full attention to the folder in her hand.
Her eyes moved across the page just a couple of times before she looked up again.
“How… how is, this is impossible,” she whispered, all the anger gone from her voice. “It isn’t… it isn’t possible.”
Chapter 38
Chase read the entire statement in the second folder three times before turning it over to make sure wasn’t written on some sort of cheap wax paper. Then she read it again.
“This a fucking joke,” she whispered. Her mind, which had been scrambled even before she’d bumped into Detective Mayberry, was on the verge of total collapse now. “Naw, I don’t believe it. You assholes made this shit up. Forged my dad’s signature or something.”
Chase looked at Stitts as she said this, desperate for the man’s support. Despite all the changes over the past few years — including losing her husband and son — there had been one constant: Stitts. The man was there for her. He cared about her for reasons she didn’t completely understand, and he was always there.
Except for in this moment.
“It is a joke, isn’t it, Stitts?” Chase asked more quietly this time.
Stitts just shook his head.
“It’s not a joke, Chase.”
Chase, her hand trembling, gripped the statement tightly. Unlike the first, the one that she had brought with her from Quantico, this one wasn’t a single page, but three.
“But I wasn’t taken… my sister was taken. Georgina was taken,” her voice came out in a dry whisper. Even at her lowest of lows, even when she’d been selling her body for her next fix from Tyler Tisdale, she had never felt so disassociated from reality than she did now. “Georgina was taken… I ran.”
The images that flashed in Chase’s mind now were a strange composite of her crawling out of her cell and then running from the dungeon, while at the same time sprinting away from the man with the aviator glasses. The man who had his thick, hairy arm wrapped around Georgina’s neck all the while telling Chase to be quiet, to stay still.
“No, this isn’t right. I ran,” she repeated. “I ran. I ran, I ran, I ran…”
“Maybe… maybe I should get her another glass of water,” Jordan said, his tone softening.
Stitts looked over the TBI Agent. Even though he had started this, it wasn’t his fault. It was nobody’s fault, really. What Chase’s parents and the police force had done back then, they’d done to protect her. They did what they thought was right to save the sanity of a scared little girl.
They had no idea what this would do to her fragile mind decades later.
“Get her something stronger. Whiskey, if you have it.”
Jordan didn’t even bat an eyeball; he left the room faster than Detective Mayberry had entered.
Stitts wiped the tears from his eyes and dropped on his haunches.
“Chase, you did run that day, but you didn’t get away. The man grabbed you, you and your sister. He kept you for several days before you somehow managed to escape.”
Chase shook her head and then deliberately pressed the sore spot over her left eye. She hoped that the schism of pain would snap her back to reality, knock her out of this strange dream.
“It’s not true; I ran, he grabbed Georgina and I ran.”
Terrence suddenly appeared at Stitts’s side.
“When you first told me about your sister, I got the tech to dig a little deeper into your case. That’s when I first saw the discrepancy, a note on another witness statement that referred to yours. Only it said that your statement was three pages, not one. Darren did his magic and somehow managed to pull up a photocopy of an alternate statement, the one that you’re holding in your hand now. Best I can tell is that this is the original statement you gave, but it was redacted into something smaller. Something different. I’m guessing they did this to protect you, Chase.”
“Wh—wh—what?”
Stitts nodded.
“It’s true, Chase.”
“And how do you know that? How do you know that these TBI assholes aren’t just making this up? Why the hell aren’t you on my side?”
Stitts sighed heavily and turned to Terrence.
“Can you give us a moment, please.”
Terrence nodded, and he guided detective Mayberry from the room. As they left, Jordan arrived and handed a glass of whiskey to Stitts. He took a big swig and then gave it to Chase. She put the glass of water on the ground, then grabbed the whiskey.
It was gone in one gulp.
“Stitts, can you please tell me what the hell is going on? I feel like… I feel I’ve lost my mind. I think I’ve gone insane.”
Chapter 39
“I lied to you, Chase,” Stitts began slowly. “When you first called the FBI from New York City, I had no idea that it was you. It was just sheer luck that Director Hampton wanted to patch things up with the NYPD and thought that it might be good for an agent to go lend a hand. It wasn’t even our jurisdiction, to be honest. But when he asked me to do it, I dug a little deeper. And that’s when I started to remember.”
He had to pause to take a breath, but even then, he couldn’t meet Chase’s eyes. The shame that coursed through his veins even more powerful than any drug that Chase had injected herself with.
“Remember what, Stitts? I don’t… I don’t understand.”
Stitts eventually mustered the courage to continue.
“My dad was a doctor — is a doctor,” he corrected himself. “He’s now a partially-retired cardiologist, but before that, he had to do rotations all over the US. One of those rotations was in Nashville more than 30 years ago.”
Stitts closed his eyes and pictured that time. He was only a young boy then, but he always had a good memory. No, not good; great. He rarely forgot anything, and especially not something as important as this.
“Here’s the thing, when a child goes missing, everyone is called in to help. The police, doctors, nurses, social workers. You name it, everyone is there to lend a hand. In addition to being a cardiologist, my dad also has a Master’s in psychiatry, and he was the only one around who was remotely qualified at the time. And that’s when he met you.”
“What? Your dad?” Chase shook her head. When she didn’t stop for several seconds, Stitts reached out and gripped her. “What are you talking about?”
Stitts finally managed to look his partner in the eyes.
“I remember my dad coming home and telling my mom how fragile a mind is between the ages of four and eight, how impressionable, how moldable. He said that the police had found a young girl named Chase on the highway, dressed in muddy rags, dehydrated and delirious. You’d been gone for three days — kidnapped from the Williamson County fair. They kept you in the clinic for a week, trying to get information out of you so that they could find the others. But you were barely conscious most of the time. At night, you would wake up screaming. Sometimes, it was about your sister, but other times it was about the cell, about you having to dig your way out. My dad and the rest of the team concluded that if things kept going the way they were, that you might hurt yourself. So, they decided to try and change the narrative.”
Stitts cleared his throat and wished that he had more whiskey to swallow.
“After much discussion, they went ahead with the plan to tell
you a different story. They told you that your time in captivity was a nightmare, that you were confused about your sister and that you were never held captive. They told you that you ran from the man in the van and that you got away. And I guess… I guess it stuck. Years later when Director Hampton told me to lend a hand with your case in New York City, I guess I felt guilty because of what my father did and jumped at the opportunity. Remember that first day in the car when I told you about intuition? That humans have more neurons in our guts than dogs have in their heads? I wanted to tell you the truth then, but you were so… troubled. And yet you were functioning. I didn’t want to ruin that for you. It wasn’t my place. After all, I’m not a doctor. I’m just an FBI profiler. And who was I to you? Nobody. It didn’t seem right for me to break the news after all this time.”
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