Lulling the Kidnapper

by O. L. Gregory

  “So the son calls the cops to report the vehicle as stolen. A couple of officers show up at the house and the son explains that it may have been gone for up to a month. The officers ask the son for a description and the son says it was a dark blue, nineteen eighty-one Lincoln Town Car, and gives them the license plate number.”

  “The car I was kidnapped in,” I whispered.

  “Exactly.”

  “So no one was even looking for the stolen car while I was in it.”

  “Yes and no. Your employer saw this guy take you. He couldn’t get to you in time, but he did call in a description of the car, to nine-one-one.”

  “He ditched that car in the woods later on,” I said.

  “You’re getting ahead of me. You’re employer isn’t the only call that came into nine-one-one about you.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “Other people saw the abduction happen and called it in. The person who your captor cut-off, to get back on the road, tried to follow the car. He was talking to the nine-one-one operator on his cell phone from the bypass that he’d followed this guy onto. Said that you had kicked out the tail lights and were wiggling your fingers through the holes.”

  All I could do was nod, all this time I had thought that no one had cared enough to get involved.

  “The guy who was trying to chase you down lost the car when your captor started weaving his way back and forth between the busy lanes, trying to get ahead.”

  “Damn.”

  Mom cut in, “That man actually sent us a letter, through the officers on your case, apologizing for losing the car in the traffic.”

  “Well, that wasn’t his fault. It actually makes me feel a little better to know that someone tried,” I told her.

  Mary Beth continued her story, “Three other people on that bypass called in about your waving fingers. But there were no officers in the immediate area when the calls started coming in. And by the time police arrived to the area of your last known finger wave, the car was long gone. Pennsylvania state police put a helicopter in the air to try and track the car down, but that didn’t help either. He had to have had a route already planned out with the single purpose in mind of getting as far away as he could, as quickly as possible.”

  “Did the police ever find that car?”

  “Yes, six months later a father in upstate New York took his five sons into the woods for a camping trip. Shortly after leaving the windy dirt road, they came across a car that looked like it had been abandoned. When they took a closer look, they saw that the tail lights were missing on the passenger side. The father took a wild guess at what had happened and called it in to the police up there.”

  “And let me guess, you found my prints, but no one else’s.”

  “That’s right. He’d completely wiped the interior and exterior down, we assume, before the kidnapping.”

  “And then he’d worn gloves the whole time he kidnapped me.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Is that as far as anyone was able to track me?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did the old man ever get his car back?”

  Mary Beth shook her head. “No, he said he didn’t want it back, knowing what it had been used for.”

  “He had a second car waiting for us there. The car he still drives…”

  Mary Beth had me start from day one and she strategically asked me questions to keep my description flowing in as chronological an order as possible.

  I’ll never understand how, but my mother remained stoic by my side. She was quiet, allowed me to focus on the officer, and served as a constant source of strength and as a reminder that I was no longer fighting the battle all on my own.

  Robles came in and interrupted us at one point to tell me that Officer Mitchell had gone into the house and completed his first sweep for information. “The man that held you was meticulous.”

  I rolled my eyes, “I’m well aware.”

  “Mitchell had the power to the house cut-off, to simulate a power outage. He thought it would buy them a small window of time to go in and collect evidence.”

  I was already shaking my head, “Oh, my God. I didn’t think to tell you about the generator in the quick rundown I gave you back at the trailer. Tell me they didn’t turn on flashlights and go inside.”

  “No, they heard a humming while they were still outside and realized that a generator had kicked on. They found that he had all the cameras, the two alarm panels, and everything in his office wired into it.”

  “Two alarm panels?”

  “He’s got one inside the office, monitoring the door to the room.”

  I should have known. “So they set that one off? This guy knows I’m out?”

  “No, we’ve got a computer god over there. He bypassed the alarm system, set the cameras on a loop so the guy thinks all is well, and got Mitchell into the office. We collected his laptop, his desktop, and three external hard drives. They’re on their way back here now. Our specialist is already having a field day with the laptop.”

  “So the computers didn’t self-destruct?”

  “Not with our guy on the case, he’s a computer genius.”

  “Why’s he having a field day? What did he find?”

  “He’s already hacked into the guy’s office e-mail. This means we know where he works, what name he is using, and we found all the information for the trip in one of the attachments. He’s in Chicago. In fact, he’s got a file on his home screen specifically entitled ‘Chicago’ with all kinds of paperwork and plans in it.”

  “So now what?”

  “I just wanted to give you a quick update. As soon as Mitchell gets back in here we’ll call Chicago police and start feeding them information. We know what hotel the company set him up at. With any luck, we’ll get him while he’s still in bed.”

  “Could it really be this simple?”

  “We’ll soon find out.”

  The questioning and recounting had continued on after Robles had left the room. I found I had to take a break at one point. Mary Beth told me to take as long as I needed and directed me to the restroom.

  When I came out, my dad was standing in the hall with a bag and a big plastic cup.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  I smiled and sighed with relief, “Yes-” I caught myself, I had to start acting like I was free again, “Yeah. I am.”

  “Your grandmother stopped and bought this for you. This late, all they had were a couple of hot dogs. But, she got you your favorite slushy.”

  I smiled, “Is she still here?”

  “No, she headed to the trailer to wait there. The entire family is on their way to the marina,” he gave me an apologetic look, “both sides of the family. We tried to tell them that it might be too overwhelming for you, but they’re all headed down here anyway.”

  I looked at him a little wide-eyed, “…So I guess I won’t be getting any sleep anytime soon.”

  “Not from the sounds of your grandmother. She talked like she was going to start cooking for the entire marina. There’s rumors floating in that they’re planning to start gathering the grills and holding a daylong cookout.”

  I closed my eyes, “I’m glad you’re giving me warning and telling me now.”

  “You don’t have to go back there today. If you can’t handle it, I’ll take you home as soon as you’re done here. You can sleep the day away in your own bed.”

  “No, I’ll go back to the marina. They’re concerned, and I appreciate that. But I might want you to get me out of there at some point.”

  “You just say the word.”

  “Thanks.” I accepted the food from him and headed back into the room where Mary Beth and Mom waited. They let me get myself situated before the questioning resumed.

  Mom left the room once, needing a break of her own, but told me to continue while she was gone. After the recounting was complete, Mary Beth asked me some follow-up questions and told me what I might be able to expect in the coming weeks.

&n
bsp; Then she had me meet briefly with a nurse who gave me a quick once-over and drew some blood to make sure he hadn’t been slipping me anything. She offered to have the hospital screen it for anything that might show up and I gave her my nod of permission.

  We were in the process of finishing up when Mitchell, Robles, and my father reentered the room and sat down at the table with the three of us.

  “Chicago PD has him!” Robles announced, his smile wide.

  Tears, that I didn’t even know I had left, welled up in the corners of my eyes. “What?”

  “It was a two for one deal, too,” Mitchell added.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he tell you that he was originally supposed to come back last night?” Robles asked.

  I sat up a bit straighter, “No… He said that his meetings would be over on Friday and that he would have some free time until he had to board the plane Saturday afternoon.”

  “We contacted his boss, who was very upset to find out what one of his best employees was up to. He said that Sebastian McNeil - which is his real name, by the way - was always talking about his young wife, about how he was so head-over-heels in love with her, and how the two of you were making so many plans together. He was in absolute shock to hear that McNeil was going to use the company as a way to get you out of the country. He said that McNeil had asked that he be assigned to a later flight, if possible, because he wanted to do some sightseeing. The company agreed and moved his flight. We also found out that McNeil was able to keep the same room and paid for the extra night.”

  As I sat there looking at their smiles I suddenly got the feeling that I was the only one who wasn’t getting the punch line of some joke. “I don’t understand. He never left me alone. I don’t get why he’d extend… Oh…” Asshole had been up to something. My face clouded in confusion, what else could he have needed? He was building the life he’d always wanted…

  And suddenly light dawned, and my confused silence turned into stunned silence… My eyes closed and I shook my head in a denial that I didn’t feel because I knew what I was thinking had to be true. “Oh. My. God.” I looked from Mitchell to Robles, “He was getting my gift. He said that he was going to bring a really good gift back for me, to make up for my having to leave me alone for so long.”

  “That’s exactly what he said. He claimed he’d done it all for you.”

  I started rubbing my temples. “He’d offered a while back. I specifically told him that I didn’t want him to do that. I said I didn’t want one. I can’t believe… No, I can believe it. But I thought I had taken care of it.” I shifted around my chair in agitation, “I told him I wanted a dog from a shelter!”

  “Back it up,” Mom said. “What did he do?”

  “He kidnapped a child for her,” Robles answered.

  Mom just turned to look at me with her mouth hanging open.

  “Oh,” I said with sarcasm, “he offered to knock me up, first.”

  Mary Beth interjected, “She spoke about that after you had excused yourself and left the room for a few moments.”

  “I’d told him that I wasn’t ready for a baby and that we had plenty of time. He then offered to adopt a child for me. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with kids and that I wanted to start with a pet first.”

  “Adopt?” Dad deadpanned.

  “I knew what he meant by adoption and did what I could to convince him that it was too soon to go adding to his little imagined family.” I turned back to the officers, “Let me guess, he told you the child was being neglected, or abused, didn’t he?”

  Robles nodded. “He claimed that he was passing by and was moved by the way the child was being treated. But we know that he had booked a second seat on the plane a week ago. He may not have known what child he was going to come home with, but he definitely planned on bringing home an eighteen-month-old female. He had documentation and everything, all he needed was a picture.”

  Officer Mitchell took over the explanation, “The toddler is the youngest of three children. Her two older brothers are three-year-old twins. They were being unruly and arguing as their mother tried to get them settled into their car seats in the family mini-van. The little girl was sitting in her stroller, on the sidewalk beside the mini-van, within reach of the mother. But her attention was distracted from the toddler, and focused on getting the fighting twins buckled. When she pulled her head out of the van to take her daughter out of the stroller, the toddler and stroller were gone.”

  I shook my head again, “He just slipped right in and took her. How does he do that? The mother was standing right there!”

  “Eye witnesses said that they assumed he was the father. He didn’t hesitate as he walked up the sidewalk, holding a bag. People just thought the mother brought the kids out first, to get a head start on loading the kids in while the father finished buying whatever was in the bag. He walked right up to the stroller and rolled the girl around to the street side of the van. None of them realized right away that he wasn’t going around to load her in, from the other side. By the time they saw that he had crossed the street, he was already rounding the corner and blending in with the crowd. A man took off at a run to try and catch up to the guy with the kid, but when he made it around the corner, all he found there was the discarded stroller. He couldn’t see the man, or the child, anywhere.”

  “He said he had a roommate assigned to him for the trip.”

  “He did,” Mitchell confirmed. “The roommate went home early Friday evening, after all the meetings were finished. Then McNeil went out and kidnapped the toddler. The police had no idea, when they went into that hotel room for us, they were going to solve one of their own cases as well.”

  “So, he just had her in there?”

  “Yep, she was dressed in a pair of pajamas that had been in the diaper bag, hanging from the handle of the stroller, and was sound asleep on the bed that the roommate had used the night before.”

  “And she wasn’t hurt?”

  “They’ve taken her to a local hospital to be examined, but she appeared unharmed.”

  “And now Illinois is going to add their charges onto his ever-growing list,” Robles said.

  “And he didn’t have a clue that I had gotten out of the house?” I asked.

  Mitchell shook his head, “He’d had his hands full dealing with the toddler and hadn’t checked on you after he’d seen that you’d gone to bed. He thought the police were there because of the girl. He was one confused man when they suddenly started talking to him about two kidnapping charges instead of just one.”

  “He’s still contending that you were in the house willingly,” Robles said. “He told the Chicago officers that your family must have found you and are speaking on your behalf. They told him that you had escaped the house that he’d had you locked away in, and that the only one telling the police what had happened was you.”

  By now, my head was spinning.

  The sun was up by the time we finally left the police station.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Homecoming

  The parking area of the small marina was overflowing onto the patches of grass between trailers by the time we returned. Friends and family milled all around, and picnic tables were already set up with food on them.

  There was some mild cheering when I got out of my parents’ car. That was all well and good, but all the hugging got to me.

  It started out with aunts and uncles, and my other set of grandparents, but then I found myself being passed from one set of arms to another. After so many months without seeing anyone, much less having bodily contact with them, it was… stressful. I had to keep reminding myself that they meant no harm in order to keep the screaming contained inside of my own head, instead of letting it break free. And once I got inside the trailer, I passed through another round of embraces from the people lingering in there. I kept right on making my way through, until I hugged my way right out the other door on the river end of the trailer. It was then that I let th
e shudders course through my body, I figured it was a better reaction than screaming.

  The large porch had been empty because all the action was at the end of the house that was exposed to the rest of the marina. The porch was twelve by twenty-four feet, spanning the width of the trailer, and had built in benches and tables all around. And, for the moment, was serving as my quiet oasis.

  My dad came out a few moments later and found me curled up on a corner bench against the trailer, hiding from the crowd, staring out at a cargo train crossing the railroad bridge downriver.

  He waited in silence until the train had finished passing and my attention was drawn over to him. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I nodded, “That crowd is a bit too overwhelming for me right now.”

  “We could hop on the boat and get you out of here. Go spend the day on a beach. Or just anchor off somewhere so you can take a nap in the cabin.”

  I smiled through the tears clouding my eyes, “I missed you.”

  Tears instantaneously filled his eyes. “Oh, sweetheart, I missed you, too.”

  I wiped my eyes, “I don’t need to leave. I just need to stay tucked away back here. Anyone who wants to ask me questions or talk to me can just come back here, one or two at a time. I don’t want to ruin their fun. I just can’t handle everyone huddling around me just yet.”

  “You got it.”

  Dad and Uncle Mike spent the day sitting on the porch steps, limiting everyone’s access to me. They made sure that no more than two or three people were on the porch with me at any given time.

  My cousin Sierra bounced across the porch and sat down next to me, “Guess what?”

  I smiled at her barely contained energy. “What?”

  “I saw you that day.”

  “I saw you, too.”

  She looked me up and down. “Your face was sad.”

  My smile faded. “I was sad for a long time.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed. “I’m glad you didn’t forget.”

  “Forget what?”

  “How to smile.”

  I grinned. “There are some things you never forget.”