One September Morning

by Rosalind Noonan

  Jump.

  Oh, God! He took her.

  “Sofia?” Maybe she’s here. Maybe his threats were unfounded. “Sofia, honey?” Pushing out of the chair, she breathes over a wave of dizziness and stumbles over to turn on the light.

  Palming the walls for support, she searches the apartment. Although there are signs of Sofia everywhere, from the sweet baby-powder scent of her hand wipes to the plastic booster seat strapped onto Abby’s kitchen chair, the child is not here.

  Being upright makes her dizzy, and she races into the bathroom, gagging. Afterward, she rinses her mouth with cold water. As she straightens and spies her own reflection in the mirror over the sink, the seriousness of the situation hits her once again. She has lost a child.

  “Oh my God!” The words are almost a desperate prayer as she grabs the phone and searches her directory for Charles’s number. He took her. He took Sofia away!

  Did he think she wouldn’t remember?

  With shaking fingers, she presses in his number and waits, seconds ticking slowly, as the phone rings and rings.

  “This is Dr. Jump.” His voice sounds cordial, professional.

  “You need to bring her back, right away,” Abby says, swiping her sleeve over her face. Until now she didn’t even notice that she was crying. “Bring her back to me.”

  “Who is this?” Now he sounds pompous.

  “Bring Sofia back right now!” she rages.

  “Abby? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  As the bottom drops out of her world, Abby collapses onto the dining room table. Her mind goes to the dark places where Jump might have taken the toddler…did he mistreat her? Was that part of his psychosis?

  The table’s surface, cool against her cheek, grounds her somehow, reminding her that her reality is not a hallucination. Jump took Sofia, but obviously the direct approach is not getting her anywhere. She needs to take a different tack. “You took her for a walk this afternoon,” she says. “Remember? After we ran into you in the park and I…” She restrains her fury as the pieces fall into place. “I got sick.”

  From the cider you pressed me to drink. Poisoned. Laced with some drug.

  Which one did he use on her? OxyContin? Morphine? Xanax? Percocet? Or a mixture of narcotics and tranquilizers?

  A drugstore full of prescription medications lurks at Dr. Jump’s fingertips.

  That would explain the sudden illness, the cotton mouth, the nausea. But right now, her fury isn’t going to play with Jump.

  “Thanks for taking care of her,” she says. At this point she’ll suck up to him, stroke his ego, anything to get Sofia back safely. “How about if I come pick her up?”

  “Abby, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Has the stress of the internship gotten to you? Or perhaps it’s latent grief from John’s death. Grief does have a way of catching up with us.”

  “No! Stop twisting things around and tell me what you did with Sofia!” she demands. “Where is she?”

  His sigh is dramatic, loaded with pity. “Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if you’ve lost track of a young child, you’d better call the police…and not your internship director, who has better things to do on a Saturday night.”

  “You’re lying!” she protests, but it’s all in vain. With a click, he disconnects the call.

  “Damn you!” Abby hangs up and pushes herself away from the table. Her head, still woozy from the drugs, is swimming with panic and adrenaline, but she has to organize her thoughts.

  First priority: find Sofia.

  She goes through the house once again, this time searching under the bed and inside closets. Where could she be? Abby’s heart twists at the image of Sofia alone in the dark. “Where are you?”

  She can’t do this alone. Every minute counts when a child is missing.

  Quickly, she calls 911 on her cell. While she talks to the dispatcher, she shrugs on her jacket and begins circling the house. The sight of the pink tricycle on the front porch makes her throat grow thick with emotion but she presses on, circling around the side, checking every shrub.

  The dispatcher on the phone is removed but patient, and Abby tries to stay calm as she answers every question. Yes, a child is missing. A baby girl. No, not an infant, she’s three, more a toddler. How long? It’s been a few hours. Struggling to explain, Abby simply says that she dozed off while the child was playing and she’s afraid the little girl let herself out of the house. She’ll tell Suz the truth, of course, and once the police arrive she’s going to tell them the entire story: the drugs, the lies…all of Jump’s deceptions.

  But, right now, Sofia is everything.

  Panic overtakes her as she checks the park, searching in the tunnel slide, the sandbox, behind the picnic table. This was where it started with that damned hot cider. What a fool she was! Why did she drink it—just to avoid making a scene? So what if the neighbors thought she was rude and crazy.

  Breathing is impossible, but she pushes on, her entire body trembling.

  “Are you still there?” the dispatcher asks.

  “Yes, yes, I’m here.” She breaks into a run on the path until she reaches the back of her house.

  “Please stay on the line,” the woman says firmly. “The police will be there in two to four minutes.”

  “I’m here.” Abby’s jaw quivers as she cuts around the side of the house and begins to search the front. The light from the streetlamp bounces off the hood of her car, and she heads that way, wondering if she should wait to call Suz or phone her right now.

  Two steps later, she sees the bulky quilted coat in the backseat.

  Sofia is strapped into her car seat, deathly still.

  “Oh, honey!” In one forward movement Abby lunges toward the car and grabs the door handle.

  The interior light of the car and the rush of cold air cause the child to stir, allaying Abby’s worst fears. “Sofia, sweetie…” She leans into the car fumbling over the straps with one hand. “I found her,” Abby tells the dispatcher breathlessly. “In her car seat. I’m hanging up now so I can get her out.”

  “The police are on their way. Should I dispatch an ambulance, too?”

  “No, I don’t think so. She’s breathing and…I don’t want to scare her.”

  As this conversation goes on, Sofia cracks open her eyes, then rubs her face with one fist. “Get out!” she whines, kicking her legs.

  A very good sign. Abby tucks her cell phone into her jacket pocket and unbuckles the straps. “Here you go, pumpkin.” She tries to lend a hand, but Sofia is already climbing down to the floor and reaching for Abby, who hoists her into her arms and hugs her thoroughly and gently. The downy feel of a child’s hair against your cheek, the smell of baby powder and cherry No-More-Tears shampoo, the perfect combination of solid bone and pliant muscle and flesh—Abby savors it all, grateful for Sofia’s safety.

  “Abby?” Sofia pats her shoulder and Abby lifts her head. “Can I have french fries?” Her tone is so earnest Abby feels a pang in her heart.

  “Are you hungry, sweetie?”

  Sofia nods, yawning. “Do you have french fries?” she asks, tucking her tiny fingers into the collar of Abby’s coat. “I hungry.”

  “We’ll get you some french fries,” Abby promises. She closes the car door and carries the little girl up the front walk and into the warm house.

  When the police arrive two minutes later, Abby focuses on keeping things on an even keel for Sofia, who seems happy to lie on her back with her legs curled to her chest and watch Dora the Explorer.

  When the police ask Sofia what happened that afternoon after Abby “got sick,” she just shakes her head and answers, “I’m not allowed to tell.”

  Officer Thompson asks her, “Who says you’re not allowed to tell? You can always tell the police.”

  But Sofia just shakes her head and smiles. Her lips are sealed.

  Outside on the front porch, Abby keeps one eye on her charge inside as she quickly tells the p
olice her account of the afternoon—that she was drugged and Sofia was abducted by Dr. Jump.

  “Those are pretty heavy charges, ma’am.” Officer Thompson shifts from one foot to the other.

  “I know, but it’s the truth. I…I would give you one of the cups he put the drugs in, but he took them away.”

  Officer Thompson nods. “Have you ever used illegal drugs before, ma’am?”

  “No! Of course not.” Abby covers her eyes with one hand then rakes her hair back from her forehead. Her head hurts and nausea still bubbles in her stomach, and, to top it all off, the police don’t seem to believe her. “You need to go and arrest Dr. Charles Jump for kidnapping and…and whatever charge there is for drugging someone. He lives in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters on base.”

  “Ma’am…Mrs. Stanton…” the second cop speaks up now. An older man with bristly gray hair and a mustache, Officer Bigelow. “We deal with your situation a lot, and I can assure you that we don’t take sides.”

  “My situation?” Abby’s fists press to her hips. “What might that be?”

  “Stay calm, ma’am.” Bigelow’s eyes are wide with condescension. “I’m just saying we handle lots of domestic disputes.”

  “This is not a domestic dispute!” Abby growls, keeping her voice low.

  “Mrs. Stanton,” Thompson intervenes, “we took a complaint earlier this afternoon, charging you with harassment and reckless endangerment of a minor.”

  “What?” Abby feels the earth shifting beneath her for the second time that day. She backs against the door, holding the knob for balance. “Who lodged a complaint against me?”

  Officer Thompson’s eyes glaze over; he’s seen this a thousand times before. “Dr. Charles Jump.”

  After the police leave, Abby turns her total attention to Sofia.

  French fries are delivered from one of the small restaurants on base.

  The Wiggles expound the beauty of cold spaghetti and mashed bananas over John’s sound system that used to be dedicated to Green Day and the Eagles.

  A warm bath is drawn, and all the tub toys are allowed to float at one time while Abby and Sofia draw on the tiles with special tub crayons and talk about their day.

  “If you get her talking, she’ll tell you if something bad happened to her,” Suz said when Abby reached her on her cell phone after the police left. “She might have been scared to talk to the police, but I know my daughter; she’ll spill the beans to you.”

  Suz had been the eye of the storm, the voice of calm amid swirling chaos. When Abby apologized and berated herself for losing control of the situation, Suz told her to “Shut the hell up and stop blaming yourself.”

  As Abby wipes Sofia’s back with a warm washcloth, she employs her interviewing skills to keep Sofia talking about the afternoon. At the same time, she unobtrusively examines the child’s body for bruises or marks or signs of abuse. Thank God, there are none.

  “You know,” Abby says, a fluffy yellow towel huddled under her chin, “I think tomorrow is going to be a lot more fun than today.” She’s already decided that Jump can go to hell with his treatment plans; after this weekend, schoolwork is the least of her worries. “Maybe we can go visit Chuck E. Cheese’s.”

  “Chuckle Cheese!” Sofia draws a huge orange swirl of excitement on the side of the tub. “Yay!”

  After many questions and rambling conversations about their day, Abby’s assessment is that Sofia wasn’t harmed during her absence. But what did happen during those hours when Abby was unconscious? She knows she won’t be able to sleep tonight, worrying about it.

  They are stretched out on Abby’s bed, pillows stacked behind them, just finishing their third book. “Goodnight, Moon,” Abby says, turning to kiss Sofia on the forehead.

  A tiny fist comes up to rub her nose.

  “I thought you were already asleep,” Abby says.

  “No, Moon.”

  “Sofia? I want to ask you a question. Where did you go today? This afternoon when I got sick and fell asleep, what did you do?”

  “I ride my bike,” she says proudly.

  Did she mean earlier in the afternoon? “You know you’re not supposed to ride your bike without a grown-up.”

  “I know, silly.” Sofia lifts her feet in the air and grabs her toes, knees to nose.

  “Sofia, was there a grown-up with you?”

  “Of course, horse.” Sofia kicks her feet into the air excitedly. “Dr. Jump!”

  Chapter 65

  Tacoma

  Suz

  “She’s asleep.” Suz closes the door to her daughter’s bedroom, closes her eyes and mouths: “Thank you, Lord.” Since Abby and Sofia picked her up at Sea-Tac, Suz has spent most of the time gobbling her daughter with hugs and kisses. You never can kiss your child enough, though you forget that when they piss you off by stealing a toy from another kid on the playground or plumbing their nose for boogers while sitting in a cart at the grocery store.

  Thank God, Sofia is fine. Suz may not know a hell of a lot of things, but she knows her daughter, and her downy little fluff has not been ruffled by anything that happened this weekend. Thank you, God, a million times squared.

  Though when it comes to ruffled feathers, she can’t say the same for poor Abby. She studies her friend, who is stretched out on the couch, her hair rolled into a twist on one side. If that girl hasn’t been to hell and back…“How’re you feeling?”

  “Better today.” Abby rubs her eyes. “I don’t know what Jump dosed me with. I’m hoping it wasn’t something black-market like Ecstasy.”

  “Trying to make you his sex slave?”

  Abby sighs. “It didn’t make me horny, but I did feel like I was burning up at one point. I don’t know what it was. He might have dissolved a morphine capsule, which would be consistent with the nausea and throwing up, or he could have mixed a few drugs. He’s got access to all kinds of medications.”

  “You’ve been through the wringer, kid.” Suz sits at the far end of the sofa and gives the toe of Abby’s sock a squeeze. “You want to stay here tonight?”

  “I think I’d sleep better here, and I can go to work directly from here in the morning.”

  “Mi coucha es su coucha. But do you really want to go to that loony bin and see him?”

  “Of course I don’t want to; but I need to. I’m starting to get the big picture with Jump, I think. I need to stand my ground, not let him bully me, and definitely not let him stab me in the back. This calls for vigilance and fortitude.”

  “And Luke friggin’ Skywalker’s light saber. Abby, you’ve got to defend yourself.”

  “You’re right.” Abby sits up and tucks her feet under her as Suz pulls down a throw blanket and spreads it over the two of them. “I’ve been piecing things together in my head, looking in my textbooks, trying to profile Jump, and my take is, he’s a very dangerous man. I think he’s a sociopath. The clinical term is antisocial personality disorder. A sociopath acts without remorse or guilt. He has no regard for the feelings or rights of others. He can be charming at times. He’ll give the appearance of engaging others in relationships, but there’s no depth or meaning. He has an innate ability to find the weakness in people, and he’ll prey on that weakness and gain pleasure from doing it. He’ll target a person and use that person for all they can give, whether it’s sex, money, or power. He’s manipulative, deceitful, intimidating. It’s a chilling profile, really.”

  “You’re describing every psycho killer from every movie that’s kept me up late at night.” Suz hugs a pillow. “How do you cure these monsters?”

  “There is no known treatment for sociopaths, unless the disorder is caught before adolescence.”

  “Really? So these people are just fucking crazy?”

  Abby lets out a breath. “Fucking crazy would be an accurate term. People use Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer as examples, but there are an estimated two million sociopaths in North America, living with families, working in offices. Making people’s lives a living he
ll. A sociopath isn’t necessarily a murderer, but he might kill someone if he has something to gain by it and, most importantly, if he can get away with it. A sociopath doesn’t want to be caught or punished, and it’s the risk of punishment for a crime—not the guilt or realization that it’s morally wrong—that prevents him from committing it.”

  “I’d say Jump fits that description.”

  “I wish I’d seen this earlier. I have a theory,” Abby says.

  “Lay it on me.”

  “Let’s say my diagnosis is correct, that Charles Jump is a sociopath. He goes into the army and lands in the same platoon as this popular former football star, John Stanton. He’s never met Stanton before, but when he sees that reporters follow him around and the bosses treat him with a certain measure of respect, Jump buddies up with the notion that some of John’s celebrity glow will land on him.”

  “I can see it. But Charles Jump met John in college, right?”

  “I think that was a lie.” With a tired groan, Abby stretches down to the floor for her bag. She pulls out a folder and hands it to Suz. “Last night, after Sofia went to sleep, I pulled some of John’s things out of the attic. Do you see the photo that Jump gave me showing John and him together? Well, when I was going through a scrapbook I came across this picture of John with his football buddy, Spike Montessa. Take a look at the photos side by side.”

  “Okay.” Suz places the photograph next to the newspaper clipping. “Good Lord, it’s the same photo!” In both photos John is on the left, with his arm slung around the shoulder of the other man whose uniform number is twenty-one. “One of these was doctored,” Suz says, checking the lines, the face tones, the lighting. “Now see, there’s a shadow on the left side of John and Spike’s faces, but Jump is fully lit like a studio shot.”

  “Right. The photograph with Jump was Photoshop’d. I don’t know why I didn’t see that before.”

  “You had a few things on your mind,” Suz says, sneering at the picture of Jump before flopping the folder onto the coffee table. “That weasel. So he faked a friendship with John to try and get into the limelight.”