Look for Me

by Lisa Gardner

  “All families have secrets,” Horgan informed her. “That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”

  “Wait, you’re paid big bucks? Cuz last time I looked at my check . . .”

  She and Horgan finished working out the details. Of the task force that would now be assembled. Of the hotline that would have to be set up to handle the flood of calls from the Amber Alert. Of the press conference Horgan would be giving, along with media relations officer Chip Laskin, because there was no way D.D. could spare the time. Of the need for even more bodies. A team to follow up with mass transit, given the number of bus lines and T stops within walking distance of the Boyd-Baez residence. More detectives to approach local businesses and nearby homes for possible security camera footage. If they could capture a glimpse of Roxanna Baez walking her dogs past an ATM, or running from a strange man down a cross street, or giggling with a group of friends at a bus stop . . .

  Plenty of options for leads, plenty of avenues worth investigating in an area as densely populated as Brighton. D.D. didn’t need more ideas for locating a missing teen. She needed more hours in a day.

  D.D. ended the call. Got back to work.

  • • •

  THEIR FIRST BREAK CAME MINUTES later, but not the way D.D. would’ve liked.

  “Manny! My son, my son! Manny, where’s Manny! What happened to my son! Maaaannny!”

  D.D. arrived at the front door just in time to watch a big guy with dark hair and a menacing scar down his left cheek careen around two approaching officers and go barreling into the uniform with the murder book. Both crashed to the ground with other officers rushing to assist.

  More screaming, some shouts and calls from the neighbors. “Hector, calm down!”

  “Don’t hurt him!”

  “Hey, that’s Manny’s dad. Let him go. He just wants to know about his kid.”

  D.D. waded into the fray. She might not have had bulk on her side, having one of those high-powered metabolisms that kept her wiry in good times and gaunt in bad, but she was a mother. Past experience had taught her that everyone, even oversized brutes, had been trained since birth to obey Mom.

  She grabbed the big guy by his arm and dragged him out of the pile. “You! What’s your name, sir?”

  “Manny!” he cried, eyes still wild. “My son! Mrs. Sanchez called me. She told me shots were fired. She told me they are dead. Manny!”

  “Name, sir. What is your name?”

  “Hector Alvalos!” one of the neighbors called out while the big guy nodded frantically.

  “You’re Manny’s father? You knew Juanita Baez?”

  “My son!”

  “All right, all right. Let’s go someplace quieter where we can talk.”

  D.D. nodded at the murder book officer, who was now back on his feet, brushing himself off. He kept a wary eye on Hector Alvalos, but appeared no worse for the wear. Given the circumstances, the officer would be within his rights to press charges. But the officer merely jerked his head toward the rear of the property, D.D.’s best option for a meeting spot clear of gawking locals and busy crime scene techs.

  Keeping a tight grip on Hector’s bulging arm, D.D. led him around the house, feeling Hector squeeze his shoulders to fit in the tight space between the fixer-upper home and its towering neighbors. She stopped in the stamp-sized backyard, noting for the first time the raised garden bed, overgrown with the straggling remains of herbs and tomatoes this late in the fall. Phil was already on the back porch, positioned next to two metal dog bowls, waiting for them.

  “Repeat your name,” D.D. instructed firmly. Hector seemed to be calmer now, taking deep breaths as Phil activated his recorder.

  “Hector Alvalos,” he mumbled.

  “And what is your relation to the Baez family?”

  “Juanita and I used to live together. Manny is my son.”

  “Start at the beginning, Mr. Alvalos. Tell us everything.”

  Hector, it turned out, was a bartender. He’d met Juanita ten years ago at a local watering hole. They’d hooked up a couple of times, then moved in together when Juanita discovered she was pregnant with Manny. From the very beginning, it had been a turbulent relationship. A family of soon-to-be-five crammed into a one-bedroom place. The girls sleeping in the family room. A heavily pregnant Juanita wedged into the lone bedroom with Hector.

  Tempers had been high. Their major hobby tequila. Which had led to fights, then tears, followed by more fights and more tears.

  “We were both drinking too much,” Hector said heavily. “It wasn’t good. I know that now.”

  “What happened?” D.D. asked.

  The big guy shrugged. He was wearing an open red-checked flannel shirt over a stained blue T-shirt and jeans. It looked to D.D. like he’d just rolled from bed. If he was still working nights as a bartender, maybe he had.

  “Manny was born. Place got more crowded. Less sleep. Juanita . . . She was angry all the time. Seemed like I couldn’t do anything right. So I worked more. Drank more. Then five years ago . . . I couldn’t take it. We had a big fight. Juanita was screaming. The kids were screaming. I . . . I punched a wall. Put my fist right through it.” Hector rubbed his knuckles as if in memory. “I knew I did wrong. I could see it, on my boy’s face. He was scared of me. I took off. Just hit the stairs, kept running.”

  D.D. waited.

  “I heard later . . . Juanita didn’t take it well. Drank harder. There was some drama. Family services was called, but I’m not sure what happened. I’d left town and Manny doesn’t remember much. But Juanita lost custody of the kids. She had to do court-ordered counseling, join AA. Then she got the kids back—”

  “She lost the kids,” D.D. interrupted.

  “Yes. Juanita blames me for the alcohol, for all her problems back then. Which isn’t fair. She was drinking way before she met me. But together . . . we were so loco. Apart is better for us. She is sober now, goes to AA every week. Manny says so. And me, I cleaned up my act, too. For Manny. He is my boy. Every Sunday, I pick him up and it’s our day together. Juanita and I, we might have the devil inside. But Manny . . . he is perfect. In every way. Perfecto.”

  D.D. nodded. Her hand was still on Hector’s arm. Now her grip relaxed. But she kept her gaze on his face, her voice level.

  “You’re saying Juanita was an alcoholic when she met you. But now she’s sober?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about this new guy, Charlie Boyd?”

  “Mmm, they met maybe a year ago? Juanita is a nurse at St. Elizabeth’s. Charlie came in for stitches. Had cut himself on the job.”

  “He’s a contractor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you like him? Get along?”

  Hector shrugged. “Manny likes him. He’s helping Charlie work on this house. Fix up the place, learn some skills. I like that. Maybe Manny will become a contractor, too. Better money than bartending.”

  “Sounds like Charlie spends a lot of time with your son.”

  Hector stiffened, but didn’t take the bait. “Charlie doesn’t like me. Like I said, Juanita blames me for her drinking, so Charlie does, too. But I asked around. Charlie’s not so perfect either. At one time, he was a man who liked his beer. Manny, though, he says everything is good now. Charlie gave up drinking for Juanita, even goes with her to meetings sometimes. Life is calmer. Juanita . . . happier. That’s good. I loved Juanita once. She is the mother of my son. I want her to be happy.”

  “And the girls?” D.D. asked. “Roxanna and Lola? Who are their fathers?”

  “I don’t know. Juanita never talked about them.”

  “One man? Two separate fathers?”

  “Different men. But not around. I told you, Juanita was a drinker before she ever met me.”

  “What can you tell us about the girls? Did they get along? Like Manny?”

  “Roxanna and Lola?
Yes, of course. Manny is their baby brother. They love him. Maybe spoil him. It’s not so bad that Juanita moved in with Charlie. Otherwise, poor Manny was being raised in a family of girls.”

  “Roxanna is sixteen. Pretty?”

  Hector shrugged. “Sure,” he said in a way D.D. took to mean he was being polite. “But, um, maybe not like her mother and sister. Juanita, muy guapa! And Lola . . . her mother’s daughter. Trouble, that one.”

  In other words, D.D. thought, Roxanna was the ugly duckling of the family. Interesting. “She into boys?”

  “Roxanna? No! Roxy is quiet, shy. She reads, takes her studies very seriously. When Juanita and I were living together . . . Roxy fed her siblings, got them dressed, then off to school, where there was also day care for Manny. She took very good care of them.”

  “Roxy is the responsible one?”

  “Yes.”

  “She have a job?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “She’s close to the dogs? Maybe the one who takes them for walks?”

  “Blaze and Rosie? Manny loves those dogs! Charlie, he rescued them from some breeder. The kids, even before they liked Charlie, they loved his dogs. Roxy and Manny often take them for walks together. Manny says they are very good. When they were puppies, they were never allowed outside, so now they like to be on the back porch, lie in sunbeams. On walks, they trot right along; you’d never even know they were blind.”

  “The dogs spend most of their time outside?”

  “In good weather, yes.”

  D.D. looked up at the brilliant blue sky, figured today qualified.

  “And Lola?” she asked.

  Hector hesitated. “Mmm. Lola is very pretty. Too pretty for thirteen. And fiery, like her mother. She doesn’t take her schooling seriously. And she definitely likes boys. Manny says she and Juanita fight. All the time. Things have not been easy lately.”

  “Manny mention any particular boy his mother and sister might have been fighting about?”

  “Manny’s nine. He thinks his thirteen-year-old sister is silly; he doesn’t pay much more attention than that.”

  “But Manny loves his sisters and they love him?”

  Hector smiled. His whole face softened, the jagged mark on his cheek becoming less menacing, more of a war wound. And D.D.’s heart broke for what she’d have to tell the big guy next.

  “Those girls, they would do anything for Manny. And he loves them, too. He’s sweet, kind. Not at all like me. Can I see him now? My son?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Alvalos . . .”

  “He’s at the hospital?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Alvalos . . .”

  Then, she didn’t have to say the rest. He knew. From the neighbors’ reactions, the crime scene tape, the detectives who wouldn’t let him inside the home.

  Or maybe a parent simply always knew. Felt it, like a light suddenly winking out.

  Hector’s knees buckled. He went down, D.D.’s hand upon his shoulder. She kept it there while he hung his head and wept.

  Chapter 4

  AFTER MY MORNING RUN, I showered—forever—then threw on a pair of old gray sweatpants and a rumpled white T-shirt from my favorite kickboxing gym. I padded into my tiny kitchen, stood, stared, tried to identify anything I could eat. My mother was a compulsive baker under stress. To this day, our time together remained awkward. Her anxiously seeking my face for signs of fresh bruises, abrasions. Me trying to pretend that no, I hadn’t wandered the streets of Boston at three A.M., trying to blow off steam by baiting predators and picking fights. But at least when my mom came down from her farm in Maine, she brought me food and baked even more while she was here.

  According to my refrigerator, she hadn’t visited in a bit. I should do something about that. Pick up the phone. Make the effort. Be the daughter she deserved.

  What my mother and I had in common was guilt. Guilt on her part that I’d been abducted, though it was hardly her fault. Guilt on my part that my kidnapping had put her through four hundred and seventy-two days of hell, though that was hardly my fault. Jacob Ness. He did it. Hurt us both. And we hated him, vehemently. Which was the real problem. We both needed to let him go. Samuel told me that all the time. I would truly be over my trauma when I could go an hour, a day, a week without even thinking of Jacob’s name.

  I wasn’t there yet.

  I gave up on food, poured a giant mug of coffee instead. Then I crossed the three feet from my kitchen to my family room, where I set myself up on the sofa, laptop balanced on my knees, coffee mug at the ready. Light streamed in from the bank of windows on my second-story apartment. I kept the windows covered in a light gauzy material, enough to grant some kind of privacy in the midst of an urban area while allowing sunlight to filter across the room. Needless to say, I still didn’t do well in small dark spaces.

  Such a bright, sunny Saturday morning. So many things normal people must do on a day like today. As for me . . .

  I booted up my laptop. I got to work. Because while I’d never sold my story to any of the producers or agents banging at my door, lately I had started sharing it. In little bits and pieces. To a select group of kindred spirits, other survivors like me, also trying to find their way.

  A year ago, I’d established a private chat room where we could meet. Sometimes just to vent or support one another through a particularly bad day. But also where, from time to time, we shared more detailed posts from our own experiences.

  I hadn’t known what I’d think of it. One, this attempt at mentoring others. Two, finally putting even small pieces of my story into words. And yet . . .

  These women I could talk to. These survivors got me.

  And it did help make a difference.

  I took a deep breath, then began:

  My victim advocate, Samuel, says the key to this survivor business isn’t to tell yourself the world is safe. Or to try to convince yourself you have nothing to fear. The world is plenty dangerous and we all should be a little scared. The antidote to anxiety is strength. To remind yourself that you did survive the first time. You made the right decisions, you took the right actions—even if that really meant taking no action at all. You survived. And no one, not even dead and yet still somehow present Jacob Ness, can take that away from me.

  If only I could truly believe.

  Returning home after my abduction, I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night remembering that I was tough, or dreaming about the second, third, or hundredth time I convinced Jacob not to kill me. I suffered terrible nightmares involving coffin-sized boxes, giant alligators, and Jacob’s hands closing around my throat.

  I had to turn on every light in my childhood bedroom. I had to study the pattern on my bedspread. I had to work on deep breaths in, slow breaths out.

  I enrolled in the first self-defense class following a particularly bad night. A night when every time I closed my eyes, I spun away from the safety of my mother’s house and ended up trapped in Jacob’s big rig all over again. If the antidote to terror is strength, then I had to find some muscle, because I couldn’t take many more nights like that one.

  I wouldn’t say I was a natural at hand-to-hand combat. I was underweight, sleep deprived, a bundle of strung-out nerves. But the instructor gave me focus. “Hit the dummy!” That simple, that complicated.

  First time stepping up to the plate, I really wanted to beat the shit out of that oversized Ken doll. Knock the smug smile right off his mannequin face.

  The more I tried, however, the more I failed, which simply made me want to try harder. If I could get my hand properly fisted, if I could get that fist to connect with dummy Ken’s head, then maybe I wouldn’t be so scared anymore. Maybe I would finally sleep at night.

  It took me four classes. While I started eating more of my mom’s carefully prepared meals and took to running up and down the stairs in the house because I st
ill couldn’t go outside or jog along rural roads—and not just because of my own terror but because of my mother’s fears.

  Then: the moment I finally managed to slug Ken. Solid connection. Felt it radiate all the way up my arm from knuckles to wrist to shoulder.

  I cried.

  I hit some practice dummy and I broke down. I bawled and wept all over the blue exercise mat. Sniffling, wiping my eyes, smearing snot across the back of my hand. The instructor didn’t say anything. Just stood Ken back up and ordered me to go again.

  I found something in those classes. A small but savage beast just waiting to be let out of its cage.

  Truth is, I survived Jacob, but I never fought him. On the beach when he abducted me? I don’t even remember that night. Maybe I was that drunk. Maybe he ambushed me that cleanly. I don’t know.

  My first memory is waking up alone in a coffin-sized box, where I made like horror-movie bait and screamed and screamed. Nothing happened. No one magically showed up, set me free.

  I beat my hands against the locked lid. I bloodied my heels against the wooden floor. Nothing. I don’t even know how long Jacob let me stew in there. Long enough without food and water that by the time he finally appeared, I didn’t launch myself at him like a rabid animal. I didn’t go for his eyes or his throat or his balls. I wept in gratitude. I held up my bleeding fingers to him in total, complete supplication.

  These are the things you can’t get out of your head later. These are the comments that still kill me to read on social media now. Why didn’t I struggle harder? Why didn’t I work my hands free from the bindings when he left me tied up in motel rooms? Why didn’t I bolt from his big rig the first time he pulled into a truck stop? Why didn’t I do something, anything more?

  Why didn’t I fight?

  I don’t have those answers. I never will.

  Samuel says this is the biggest burden all survivors bear. The coulda, woulda, shouldas. In his opinion, it misses the point. I did escape from Jacob Ness. I did survive. To second-guess my actions now is just plain stupid.