The Abduction

by James Grippando

  “Mommy.” It was the voice of a young girl, calling from the east bedroom.

  Instinctively Allison rushed to the door. She tried the knob, but it wouldn’t turn. She pounded with both fists. “Emily!” she shouted. “I’m here! I’m here!”

  She shoved with her shoulder, but the door wouldn’t budge. Frantically, her eyes searched the hall for a chair or something to help break down the door. Then she froze. At the other end of the long hallway stood a dark-haired girl wearing a pleated pink dress. Allison could barely see her face in the dim lighting, but she could hear the voice as if she were standing right beside her.

  “My name’s not Emily,” she said. “It’s Kristen.”

  Allison sprinted the length of the hall, but the girl disappeared into the bedroom and slammed the door. Again, the knob wouldn’t turn.

  “Kristen, open the door!” She pounded on the door in frustration, then stopped suddenly, intuitively, as she felt an eerie presence. She turned. At the opposite end of the hall stood a little blond girl wearing the same pink dress. The face was not quite discernible. The voice, however, was plainly heard.

  “My name’s not Kristen. It’s Emily.”

  “Emily!” She peeled down the hall, past the center stairwell. She was just a few steps away when the girl ducked back into the room and slammed the door. Allison dove for the knob. This time, it turned. She flung the door open, then stopped cold.

  Her heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t a bedroom. It wasn’t even a room.

  She took a deep breath, absorbing the strange surroundings. Thick red velvet curtains shrouded the dark entrance. Four empty chairs faced a brass railing, with more darkness beyond. Allison stepped closer to the rail, then back, frightened. Beyond the rail was a theater full of patrons facing a lighted stage. The audience laughed at one of the actor’s lines.

  Her mouth went dry. She was standing on a balcony.

  A shuffling noise emerged from behind the curtain. She felt the urge to run, but destiny wouldn’t allow it. She turned quickly, coming face-to-face with an angry man who resembled no one she knew, yet she had the strange sensation that she knew him well. Her lips were about to utter his name as he aimed his pistol at point-blank range. The thundering crack echoed throughout, robbing Allison of her voice, her sight, and all sense of time. She was falling backward, tumbling over the rail, moving in slow motion. The world seemed to ooze as the cries of a grieving woman filled the old Ford Theater, a haunting replay of the unforgettable words of Mary Todd Lincoln.

  “They’ve killed the president! They’ve killed-”

  “Allison?”

  Allison shot up in bed at the sound of Peter’s voice. She was soaked in sweat, completely out of breath.

  “Are you okay?” asked Peter as he switched on the lamp.

  She blinked hard, adjusting to the light. Her heart was racing. She squeezed Peter’s hand. “What a horrible dream,” she said, her voice quivering. “I think I’m driving myself nuts.”

  “It’s all right. I’m here for you.”

  “Honest to God, Peter. If they don’t find Emily soon, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “Kristen,” he corrected her.

  “Huh?”

  “You said, ‘If they don’t find Emily.’ You mean Kristen.”

  Her eyes turned misty. “Of course,” she said as Peter held her tight. “I meant Kristen.”

  22

  Harley Abrams caught a few winks of sleep on the airplane, arriving in Nashville at nine o’clock Thursday morning. Tanya Howe’s decision to boot the FBI from her home was understandable under the circumstances, and Harley certainly had known other distressed parents who had buckled to a kidnapper’s demands to shut out law enforcement. Since the first ransom demand had gone directly to Tanya’s home, however, her refusal even to allow the FBI to continue monitoring her telephone could seriously impede the investigation.

  Harley arrived at Tanya’s house in an unmarked Bucar with a female agent. They carried none of the trappings of the FBI-just a bag of groceries and a casserole dish. He apologized to his colleague for what might appear to be sexist duty, but it was important to demonstrate to Tanya that the FBI could easily come and go from her house in inconspicuous fashion, playing the part of concerned friends or neighbors who would console a grieving mother by relieving her of simple tasks like shopping and cooking which, in a time of crisis, are no longer so simple.

  Harley rang the bell and waited.

  “Go away, Mr. Abrams.” It was Tanya’s voice from behind the closed door.

  Harley leaned forward. “Tanya, if anybody is watching, it’s going to look a lot worse if you turn us away than if you simply let us in. Just greet us as if we were friends, not the FBI.”

  Thirty seconds passed. The chain rattled and the door opened. In role, Tanya embraced the female agent the way she’d greet a loyal friend, then invited them in and closed the door. Her polite expression faded immediately.

  “I told you I don’t want the FBI coming to my house anymore.”

  “I heard,” said Harley. “May we sit down and talk, please? If you still feel the same after you’ve heard the FBI’s side of it, I promise we’ll respect your wishes.”

  Tanya looked skeptical, but she took their coats and invited them into the dining room.

  Harley and his assistant sat on one side of the table, with Tanya on the other. He took one look at her stern expression and knew he needed an icebreaker-something to cool her contempt. He forced a yawn.

  “Excuse me. Didn’t get much sleep last night. I was up late talking to the attorney general.”

  “Is that so?” she scoffed. “Have her spin doctors figured out how she’s going to top my father’s declaration of war?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. But I do want you to know that the FBI had nothing to do with your father’s speech last night. That was completely his doing.”

  “Is that what Ms. Leahy told you to come here and say?”

  “She doesn’t even know I’m here. As a matter of fact, she and I spent most of the night talking about the abduction of her own four-month-old daughter, eight years ago. They never found her. Never caught the guys, either.”

  Tanya blinked away some of her rage.

  Harley softened his voice, sensing an opening. “I’m working on a theory. Just a theory. No evidence yet. Just trying to see if whoever abducted Ms. Leahy’s daughter might also have abducted Kristen. Of course, that will be a very difficult theory for the FBI to pursue if Kristen’s mother isn’t talking to us.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t mess with my mind. Just ask what you want to know.”

  “Fair enough. One of the things that troubled me about Ms. Leahy’s case is the manner in which her baby was taken. The abductor broke into the house while she was home, took the baby right out the window. That’s a very unusual taking. Most abductions are in public places-the park, department stores. Often the child is tricked or lured away. A stranger posing as an authority figure, a man who offers a boy twenty dollars if he’ll help him find his lost dog. Something like that.”

  “Is that what you think happened to Kristen?”

  Abrams shrugged. “Don’t know. We have no witnesses. We do know they took the van and that Reggie Miles was killed. He didn’t drown. Autopsy showed severe head trauma. That’s consistent with a forcible taking. And if both Kristen and Ms. Leahy’s daughter were taken by force, that would lend some credence to our theory that there’s a common thread.”

  “I can’t see Kristen falling for some ruse,” said Tanya.

  “Did you warn her about strangers, the tricks they might play?”

  “Of course. These days, what mother wouldn’t? But some things you can’t teach. Kristen had good instincts. She’s a very smart girl.”

  “Abductors can be clever. Lots of smart kids get abducted.”

  She shook her head, then smiled sadly. “Let me tell you what Kristen was like. When she was four years old she came home from he
r first day of Bible study and told me she’d learned all about Adam and Eve. It was so cute the way she told it. They lived in a beautiful garden and had everything they wanted, but God told them not to eat from this one apple tree. Then one day a big snake in the apple tree told Eve to eat the apple. So she did. And so did Adam. That made God angry, so he told Adam and Eve to go find their own garden.

  “‘Now, Kristen,’ I asked, ‘what’s the moral of that story?’ She thought for a few seconds, then looked up at me with this smart expression. ‘Mommy,’ she said, ‘never talk to snakes.’”

  Harley smiled with his eyes.

  Tanya’s face brightened at the memory, then her eyes clouded. “I can assure you of one thing: Kristen never talked to snakes. The only way those monsters could have gotten my Kristen is the same way they got Ms. Leahy’s daughter. By force.”

  “Thank you. That’s extremely helpful.”

  She looked away, then rose and handed both agents their coats. “I think you should go now.”

  Harley and his assistant rose and followed, slowing as they reached the foyer. “I wish you would reconsider and let me bring back my agents. We need to build some trust here.”

  “Mr. Abrams, I’m a black woman born and raised in the South. The first time I’d ever heard of the FBI it involved illegal wiretaps the government had put on the phones of black civil rights leaders. The FBI has a long way to go before it can walk into my living room and expect me to trust it.” She opened the door, showing him the way.

  Harley let his assistant go first, then stopped in the doorway. “I can’t defend everything the FBI did in the bad old days under J. Edgar Hoover. But I can tell you this much. The kidnappers are definitely going to contact you. As Kristen might say, you are going to talk to snakes. And when you do, you’re going to wish the FBI was right there with you.” He flashed his most sobering look, then turned and headed for his car.

  After a fitful night, Allison ended up oversleeping for her 9:00 A.M. campaign strategy meeting. It was the first chance for high-level strategists to convene in one place since Tuesday’s abduction. She was twenty minutes late by the time she reached the Leahy/Helmers national campaign headquarters on South Capitol Street.

  It tickled her to see that the big “Leahy for President” banner was still blaring its message to the stodgy Washington law firm directly across the street, the one that had rejected her résumé a quarter of a century ago. Thirty minutes with the hiring partner-a blue-blooded Yale man-had made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t about to get the job. Not only was she a woman, but she was from a state school that wasn’t even geographically close to the Ivy League. His obligatory offer to take her to lunch had come across like a consolation prize for the small-town girl. Allison declined, then put on her best Ellie Mae Clampet accent and said, “What I’d really like, mister, is to go for a ride on the underground train.” The moron had actually given her a buck with directions to the nearest Metro station. She’d spent the rest of the day in the Hall of Presidents at the National Portrait Gallery, dreaming.

  Allison left her Secret Service agent at the doorstep and rushed inside.

  “Morning, Ms. Leahy,” said the young woman at the photocopy machine. “They’re waiting in the war room.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a polite smile, then rushed down the hall to the main conference room. She stopped just as she reached the closed door, overhearing some choice words from her strategist, David Wilcox.

  “I don’t give a shit how Allison feels about this,” said Wilcox.

  Allison kept her place outside the door, just listening.

  “The fact is,” he carried on, “Kristen Howe’s abduction is going to decide the election. First the sympathy factor vaulted Howe into the lead. Then those wonderful weepy photos of the general gave us a boost. Now his declaration of war against criminals has put him back in the lead. It’s not a question of whether we politicize the abduction. It’s how we do it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” came the response.

  Allison recognized the genteel southern accent of her vice presidential running mate, Governor Helmers.

  “After that speech last night,” said Helmers, “I honestly think that poor girl’s a goner. I’m still on the campaign trail, and Allison should be, too. The pledge she made at her press conference to stop campaigning and focus on the abduction is all wrong. She needs to stay as far away as possible from the investigation. Let the stink fall all over Howe and the FBI when they pull that girl’s body out of the Potomac.”

  “We can’t just stand back and wait for that to happen,” said another man, her media consultant. “What if the girl lives?”

  Gee, thought Allison, still standing in the hall. What a shame that would be.

  “No way she’ll live,” said another. “I bet she’s dead already.”

  “Okay,” Wilcox replied. “Let’s assume worst-case scenario. She’s dead, but we don’t find out about it until after the election. Then what?”

  “What do you mean, then what?” replied Governor Helmers. “It’s too late. The election’s over.”

  Wilcox said, “That’s my point. We need to be proactive here.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  There was a pause. Allison leaned closer to the door, straining to hear the response. Finally she heard Wilcox’s voice again.

  “We should talk about the attorney general’s daughter. Play up the courageous way Allison endured the abduction of her own child. The way she turned her own personal suffering into a nationwide crusade to increase public awareness of the dangers children face. The legislation she fought for. All of the work she did with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Coalition for America’s Children before she became attorney general.”

  Helmers said, “She won’t be thrilled about doing that.”

  “It’s the only way,” said Wilcox.

  “Let me put it another way. She won’t do that.”

  Wilcox said, “Okay, forget that angle. The truth is, merely reciting her distinguished résumé isn’t going to cut it anyway. The only way to neutralize Howe’s momentum is to personalize the loss of Allison’s daughter for the American public.”

  “What do you mean, personalize it?”

  “Resurrect it. Let the people know what Allison went through.”

  “Forget it, David.”

  “I’m talking subtle things. I don’t know,” he said lightheartedly. “Maybe they can pull her daughter’s old picture out of archives and start running it on milk cartons again.”

  Helmers chuckled. “Oh, that’s real subtle. While we’re at it, why don’t we trot out a new campaign slogan? Allison Leahy-the scarlet letter president. Don’t think adultery. Think abduction.”

  Laughter filled the room. Allison pushed the conference door open and stood in the doorway. The laughter ended.

  “That’s a pretty catchy slogan,” she said, glaring at Helmers. Her gaze turned to Wilcox. “But I think I prefer the milk cartons.”

  The men stewed in their silence. Finally, Wilcox spoke up. “Allison, we, uh-”

  “Don’t even try to explain, David. Just carry on without me. And get used to it. Because win or lose, that’s where you’ll be after this election-without me.” She turned and hurried down the hall.

  Wilcox ran after her. “Allison, we need to talk.”

  She wheeled and faced him. Her face flushed with anger. “From the very beginning, I laid down one inviolable rule in this campaign. No one was going to make a campaign prop out of my daughter. Did I not say that?”

  “Allison-”

  “Did I not say that?” she pressed.

  “Yes. You said it. But-”

  “But you just don’t care. Imagine what it’s like to actually see your own daughter’s picture on a milk carton, or to see her picture on the TV screen at the post office, along with a hundred other kids who’ve been missing for years and who will probably never be found. Imagine going to
the mall or grocery store and checking every baby carriage out of the corner of your eye, thinking maybe it’s her. And then imagine-just imagine-your own campaign strategist coming up with the brilliant idea of trotting out her memory for political exploitation.”

  “I wasn’t serious.”

  “You were serious. Don’t make it worse by lying to me. Please, just stay out of my sight for a while.” She turned and charged out the door.

  A blast of frigid air from the latest cold front greeted her on the sidewalk, along with her Secret Service escorts. She didn’t slow down until she was sliding into her limousine. The car door slammed, and she watched from the backseat as the limo pulled away. Wilcox gave chase along the sidewalk. She couldn’t hear his voice, but his pained expression filled the window. His breath steamed in the cold air as he tapped frantically on the glass and mouthed the words, “Allison, please!”

  “Step on it,” she told the driver.

  The limo burst into traffic, leaving Wilcox at the curb, shivering in his shirtsleeves.

  23

  Kristen Howe is not afraid.

  Flat on her back in a chilly basement on a too-soft mattress, she kept thinking that same thought over and over again. With eyes shut, the words fixed in her brain like a mantra, just like when she was five years old and afraid to sleep with the light off. Most of the time, the voice in her head sounded like her own. But when the demons ran wild, when her racing heart pushed her to the brink of panic, she would hear her mother’s calming voice.

  Kristen Howe is not afraid. It’s only her imagination.

  This time, however, she knew she wasn’t imagining. If it was all just in her mind, then how come she couldn’t talk? She had tried to speak aloud-to step out of her mind and actually tell herself she was not afraid-but the tape on her mouth was definitely for real. The metal cuffs digging into her wrist and ankle were real, too. The pain in her bulging bladder was real. The footsteps and strange voices she’d overhead were all too real.