The Taking of Carly Bradford

by Richards, Ramona

  She stopped, turning on him suddenly, her eyes wide. “I hit him.” She closed her hand tight on his arm. “I kicked him, too. Here.” She placed her palm against his lower ribs, causing Tyler to stand a bit straighter. “I’m sure hard enough to leave a bruise. And here.” She touched his jaw. “I’m positive I landed a good right cross, but low. Jawline or neck. Enough to push him backward. If we find someone soon, there might be bruises.”

  Soon. If only. Tyler fought to keep his mood level. In three months there had been no “soon.” From her mouth to Your ear, Lord.

  Dee felt her good mood waning as soon as they left the site and headed toward the Bradfords. The information she’d offered Tyler had been so minor. Tidbits, really. What could he possibly do with those? What in the world made me think I could help him? Help Jack and Nancy, yes, but Tyler? Her shoulders drooped and they both fell silent until they had passed back through Mercer on the way to Jack and Nancy Bradford’s home.

  “What is your goal in talking with Jack and Nancy?”

  Dee hesitated at the abrupt question, then turned to gaze out the window, her thoughts drifting back over the past three years. “You can’t imagine how lonely this is for them. It’s not like being a couple who’ve never had children. They will never be that again. They’ve lost something that’s a precious part of their very being, and each day is a painful journey through a kind of limbo. Your friends, no matter how much they love you, eventually burn out. They aren’t experiencing your grief, so they fade away, tired of it. They want to keep on with you, but spiritually, emotionally, they can’t. They have their own lives and families.”

  She looked down at her hands a moment, then continued. “When Joshua and Mickey were killed, I lost every desire to live. Every other thing in my life, even good ones like my parents and my work, were like ash. My faith vanished as thoroughly as fog on a summer morning. I still can’t think of God as a provider, only as a taker. He took everything, then left.”

  She paused and looked out the window, wishing the peaceful springtime New Hampshire landscape could help her gather her thoughts and ease the restlessness in her mind. “Almost everyone leaves, eventually. I sank so fast….” She shook that thought away. “Aaron Jackson stayed near me almost three weeks. He called or e-mailed every day, just to ask me if I’d made it through the day in one piece. He sent me this book about a family who had lost their son. He pestered me until I read it, especially the part about deciding just to make it through today. Not tomorrow. Not forever. Just today. Every day was a decision. I can live without them today.”

  Dee glanced at Tyler, whose face remained stoic, his eyes focused on the road. “Go on,” he whispered.

  Looking back down at her lap, Dee forced herself to continue. “You see, that was huge. A huge daily decision because I didn’t want to live without them, Tyler. I couldn’t envision a life without them. Everything else—my parents, my work, everything—turned to smoke, something I could see but couldn’t feel. Aaron pushed back, hung with me. He was a thousand miles away, but was the one who really got me through the toughest times.”

  She looked up at him again. “It’s not that I want to be an Aaron for them—I’m not as strong as Aaron, and their grief is not my grief.” She shrugged. “At least not yet.” When he stiffened, she added, “And I hope not ever. But I can listen in a way few other people can.”

  Silence held reign in the car for a few moments, then Tyler spoke, his voice so low, she could barely hear it. “I pray you can, too. More than I’ve been able to.”

  Dee turned to him, puzzled. “What are you talking about? You’ve been awesome. Your whole team has.” She twisted to her left until the seatbelt pressed into her hip and her body faced him. “I know I read Fletcher the riot act back there, and said some things to you that were unfair, but that’s because I’m a mom who knows how bad they hurt!

  “You were right, and I’ve been thinking about it since you said it. I’ve followed the press. I’ve listened to Fletcher talk to Maggie about the case. You’ve been handicapped from the beginning by the lack of evidence, the rain, the fact that you couldn’t prove Carly had not run away. I can’t imagine you doing more than you have. Just because you don’t have the resources of the FBI or a big city force doesn’t mean you haven’t done everything that could be done. You care!” She flopped back to face forward again. “And that’s a lot more than I can say about some cops in cases like this.”

  Tyler remained silent again, and she sneaked a glance at his face, to find him grinning. “You think this is funny?”

  He shook his head. “I’m just glad you’re on my side. I like your passion.”

  Dee crossed her arms, fighting her own smile. “Yeah, well, I’m glad I’m on your side as well.”

  Tyler’s eyes widened a bit, but he said nothing as he turned into the long drive leading to the Bradfords’ spacious and comfortable home. The half-timber Tudor home had been built almost sixty years ago, one of the first homes in a neighborhood that ran along Mercer’s wide stream and catered mostly to professionals who made their money in Portsmouth, Manchester or Boston, then retreated in the evenings to Mercer’s peaceful and secure small-town life. The large homes, mostly modeled on sister designs in Boston, rested on tree-clustered, pristinely manicured lawns.

  Nancy Bradford opened the door herself, and she and Jack ushered Dee and Tyler into a cypress-lined foyer, Nancy’s low kitten heels popping lightly on the Italian floor tiles. “I made tea and coffee, if you’d like some.” She pointed to a door on the left side of the foyer. “It’s in the library.”

  Taking a deep breath, Dee plunged in head first. “Actually, I was wondering if you and I could talk in Carly’s room.”

  Nancy and Jack looked at each other, their discomfort shining on their faces. Before they could protest, Tyler placed his weight on both feet, focusing on Jack. “I could use some of that coffee, if you don’t mind, Jack.”

  His “cop” stance, thought Dee, intrigued by how fast he’d slipped into a “divide and conquer” mode with her.

  Jack looked from Tyler, to Nancy, to Dee, then back to his wife again, as if deciding his best course of action. Nancy pointed at the curving staircase at the end of the foyer. “Carly’s room is this way, upstairs.”

  Jack, looking amazed and greatly relieved, motioned for Tyler to follow him, and the two men disappeared into the library. Dee followed Nancy’s graceful ascent of the stairs, marveling at how clean the house was, how the aroma of vanilla and lavender lingered in the air both cleansing it and creating a calming ambience. After Mickey and Joshua died, her house had become a pig sty that worsened in exponential ways until her parents moved her into theirs, then cleaned and sold hers.

  Carly’s room didn’t have the same scrubbed feel, although it reminded Dee distinctly of a design magazine’s idea of what a little girl’s room should look like. Pale yellow walls were accented with white shelves, holding neat lines of soft dolls, collectable plates, and Barbies still in their boxes. The closet doors had been removed, and the walls had been extended inward a foot or so, and the area had been converted into a combination closet, computer station and DVD setup. Children’s books lined two of the closet shelves. On the smoothly made bed, a golden yellow comforter awaited Carly, the plump yellow and white pillows resting against the headboard.

  Against the far wall and under a bay window, however, the real play area took shape, hidden from the doorway’s line of sight. Baskets filled with well-loved and slightly soiled toys lined up on the edge of a soft, colorful rug, and a doll house crammed with furniture and small figurines sat near the head of the bed. On the seat of the bay window, a small white poodle lay, his head on his paws. When he saw Nancy, he raised his head expectantly, his tail beating a steady rhythm.

  “Sasha,” Nancy said, her voice almost a whisper. “He’s been here since Carly disappeared. Jack has to physically carry him downstairs to eat and go out. He won’t go on his own. And when he comes back in, he heads straig
ht here.” Now her voice dropped lower than a whisper. “It’s killing me.”

  Nodding, Dee sat next to the loyal pooch, stroking his head. “I had to give Joshua’s dog to a friend with boys. He was grieving himself to death, the same as I was, and we couldn’t help each other.”

  A box of art supplies peeked from under the golden dust ruffle, and Dee pointed at it and looked up at Nancy. “Do you mind?”

  Carly’s mom shook her head and knelt to pull the box free of the bed, revealing a stack of drawings, crayons, chalks and watercolors. Art papers were covered with broad splashes of reds, greens, blues and yellows. Most of them were landscapes that overflowed with trees, the stream that danced through the backyard, and oversized butterflies.

  Nancy touched them lovingly. “Carly loves butterflies. She drew them incessantly. One of the teachers at the school raises butterflies, and he promised he’d teach her when she got old enough.”

  “Will she have him next year?”

  “No. He’s not actually one of her teachers. He just saw her butterflies on a school art display and asked her at lunch one day.”

  Nancy handed the drawings up to Dee, who examined each one carefully. “Translating art into science.” Dee traced one of the butterflies with her fingers. “Is she interested in science?”

  “Not that I know of. She likes the woods.” Nancy sat on the bay seat next to Dee and pulled Sasha into her lap. The dog sniffed her hands, then nuzzled one palm. Nancy scratched him behind the ears and under the chin, and the dog sighed heavily and nestled down against her stomach. “She’d sit here with Sasha for hours reading, or drawing what she sees out the window. Somewhere in that box are drawings of snow falls, thunderstorms and spring flowers. Sometimes, she would go out into the woods, then come back and draw a flower or lichen she’d found.”

  “More art than science.”

  Nancy nodded, then shrugged. “Jack hopes it’s more biology or botany than art. He had wanted a boy, wanted to have another doctor in the family. He comes from a long line of surgeons and families with all boys. Carly is the first girl in two generations. I thought he’d be disappointed, but he fell in love with her the minute he saw her.” She smiled wryly. “Still hopes she’ll be a doctor, though. So he was thrilled with the idea that she’d learned to raise butterflies. Saw it as her first scientific curiosity.”

  “Have you met this teacher?”

  Nancy’s finely arched brows came together over thoughtful dark eyes. “I think we met him at a parents’ meeting once. Sweet man. Mr. Riley.”

  Dee scanned the room again. “Does Carly play with all these dolls?”

  Nancy chuckled, a soft sound that surprised and pleased Dee. “No. Most of these are mine. The books, too. They were in storage until we bought this house, then Carly asked if they could be put in here. She says they remind her of how much I love her and how much my mama loves me.” She paused. “Mahmaam. That’s what Carly calls my mother. Not sure where she gets it.”

  Dee paged through more of the drawings, amazed at the maturity in the artwork. Carly had picked up the technique of adding shadows for depth and altering shapes and sizes for perspective. Then, she peeled away another page, revealing a dark, starkly different drawing. Flattened, without the depths of the other, this one depicted what looked like a hospital E.R., with a black-haired little girl on the examining table, her foot encased in a cast. The nurse standing next to her had bright red hair, and her mouth was open as if in a scream, and her eyes wide and green. Carly had drawn lightning strikes emanating from the nurse.

  Dee looked up at Nancy in alarm. “What is this?”

  The cloud of sadness settled again over Nancy as she reached for the drawing. “We’re not sure. Six months ago, Carly broke her ankle. We took her to the E.R. in Portsmouth, and they fixed her up. While we waited for the paperwork, I went to the ladies’ room, leaving Carly alone for less than five minutes. When I came back, she was in tears, saying a nurse had come in and yelled at her, telling her that her father was a bad man, that she should hope he never had to set her leg.”

  “My goodness. What happened?”

  “I demanded to know who had said such a thing. They declared that no nurse had been in the room.” Nancy sighed. “We asked her to draw it, and the red hair told us it was probably Bethany Davidson. She’s a nurse there and the only person to ever file a complaint against Jack with the AMA. She claims he let her niece die on the operating table.”

  “Did they fire her?”

  Nancy handed her the artwork. “No. They could never prove she was there. She wasn’t on the schedule. They even pulled surveillance tapes at Jack’s insistence, but Davidson wasn’t on any of them.”

  Dee stared at her. “An eight-year-old doesn’t make something like that up. Especially not with the detail of red hair.”

  “No. But it becomes the word of a trusted, experienced nurse with an alibi against a frightened child’s.”

  “Did Tyler question this nurse?” Dee returned the disturbing picture to its box.

  Nancy nodded. “Twice, if I remember. Once alone, and once with that FBI agent who worked on the case. Davidson claims she was out of town.”

  Dee slipped off the window seat and sat on the floor, pushing the art box back under the bed. In doing so, her hand brushed up against leather, and she pulled out a stray shoe, a small leather Mary Jane with a silver buckle. Nancy gasped and pulled it from Dee’s grasp. Tears filled her eyes but did not escape. “This has been lost for months! I wanted her to wear them to church one Sunday, but she could only find one.”

  Dee smiled, remembering Joshua’s adventures with his shoes. “My son once lost a pair at a state fair, one at time. And he was forever leaving them in some neighbor’s yard.” She watched as Nancy’s quivering fingers traced the strap. “What was her favorite store?”

  Nancy placed the shoe in her lap, and Sasha sniffed it thoroughly, as if Carly’s foot would suddenly reappear in it. “There’s a pet store in Portsmouth that she likes. She made friends with all the clerks and the dog trainer. Carly wasn’t very girly.” She smiled sadly and looked around the room. “This is mostly me. I keep hoping she’ll suddenly turn into a frou-frou girl, I guess. I imagine one day she’ll wake up and ask if she can have her own room with her own interests. I’ve asked, but she insists she likes it like this.”

  “Enjoy it,” Dee said. “Independence comes way too soon for most of us moms.” Her heart swelled when Nancy smiled at her.

  “You really think Carly will come home, don’t you?”

  Without knowing why, Dee suddenly realized that she really did think the little girl who loves butterflies was still alive. “I do. Seriously.”

  Nancy took a deep breath. “Tell me about Joshua.”

  Dee braced her back against the side wall of the bay seat and gathered her thoughts about her son. She also made a mental note to ask Tyler about the pet store and the mysterious Mr. Riley, the grown man who’d expressed such an unusual interest in one particular little girl.

  NINE

  Tyler let Dee take the lead on this, realizing that Nancy’s vulnerability made her the more fragile of the two; he could talk to Jack until the women finished. Jack, on his part, had appeared eager for male companionship. He’d eagerly dived into the chat, and so far they had talked sports over the coffee, then Jack had invited him to the backyard. They simply strolled a few moments, then Tyler realized that they were slowly heading for the spot where Jack had watched Carly vanish into the woods with Sasha, never to be seen again. Time to break the ice.

  “How’s Nancy really doing?”

  Jack’s noncommittal shrug told him nothing. “She’s still shaken, as you can imagine. Sometimes I’m absolutely terrified to leave her.”

  “What about you? How are you handling it?” He paused. “Honestly.”

  Jack walked in silence a few moments. “I’d be better if I could do something. Anything. I love Nancy, but staying here and waiting for Carly to suddenly reappear ou
t of the trees is slowly making me crazy.”

  “Any new thoughts about anyone we should talk to? Any other folks come to mind that might have had a problem with you or Nancy?”

  Jack shook his head. “I’ve run myself ragged with that one. I’ve gone through every file I had here, had my office folks go through the files there and at the hospital. I called the AMA to see if they’d forgotten to notify me about anything. Bethany Davidson’s name came up again.”

  “But we’ve talked to her. Anyone else?”

  Jack paused, staring out into the woods. “One of the women in my office reminded me of the Titlebaum lawsuit.”

  Tyler straightened with renewed curiosity. “You’re being sued?”

  Jack shook his head, still looking toward the trees. “I’m suing him for patent infringement over an instrument I created that Dr. Titlebaum claims he invented independent of my work.” Without pausing for breath, Jack detailed the instrument’s function and the operations that led to the need for it.

  Tyler absorbed the technical language without understanding. “That sounds like a professional dispute. Do you truly think he’d respond by kidnapping your child?”

  Crossing his arms, Jack dropped his gaze to the ground. “Not until the countersuit he filed is settled.” He cleared his throat and finally looked back at Tyler. “You know we’re still having trouble imagining that anyone who knows us would do this. Nancy still can’t accept it, but I’m beginning to doubt it’s random. What about you?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Jack. I’ve seen some odd things, but even I would hate to admit this is someone we’ve been around every day of our lives.” Tyler took a deep breath and plunged on as they turned and headed back toward the house. “Anyone new who showed interest in Carly?”