Capturing Angels

by V. C. Andrews

  “What do we have?”

  “Margaret Sullivan. She took a bad tumble on her stairway. I think she’s dead,” I said as the paramedics rushed by me and gingerly approached Margaret’s body. The first patrolman whipped out a notepad.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m Grace Clark. My daughter was kidnapped nearly a year ago—Mary Clark.”

  “Out of a mall,” the second patrolman said. “I remember that case.”

  “Yes.” I nodded toward Margaret. “She was part of it.”

  “This woman helped kidnap your daughter?” the first patrolman asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you push her down the stairs?” the second patrolman asked quickly.

  “No. She fell trying to push me down. Go on up. You’ll see the insanity in the shrine she built to my daughter.”

  They looked at each other. Other patrolmen stepped up but didn’t enter.

  The paramedics looked toward us, and one shook his head while the other tried some CPR.

  “This could be a murder scene,” the second patrolman whispered to his companion.

  “Get on the horn,” he said. “Where do you live?” he asked me.

  “Right next door. She babysat for my daughter often.”

  “Okay. Why don’t we find a place for you to calm down?” he said, nodding toward the hallway. “An investigator will be here soon.”

  “The FBI will be here soon,” I said. “I called them.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  “We have to search this house to see if we can find any address, someplace where they’re keeping my Mary.”

  “Absolutely. Let’s just take it a step at a time.”

  “Maybe if we go upstairs . . .”

  “No, we don’t want to disturb anything yet, ma’am.”

  “I didn’t kill her. She tried to stop me from calling you. I was upstairs . . .”

  “All right, all right. Let’s just get you settled. Maybe a glass of water.”

  He guided me somewhat forcefully away from the scene at the stairway and toward the living room. The sight of it gave him pause. I had tossed everything, pillows, books, magazines.

  “What happened here?”

  “I was looking for anything that would tell me where my daughter is being held captive,” I said.

  He nodded. “Maybe we will sit in the kitchen, then,” he said. When he looked at how I had torn apart the counter drawers, the papers, he paused again.

  “Let’s just wait outside,” he said. He took me out of the house, past the other patrolmen who had arrived, and opened the rear door of his patrol car. “You can sit here in the meanwhile.”

  “No,” I said. “I want to wait for Agent Joseph.”

  “I’ll bring him right to you.”

  “I live right there,” I said, nodding toward my house. “I can wait there.”

  “Afraid not, ma’am. Please,” he said, nodding toward the inside of the patrol car. He tightened his grip on my upper arm.

  “You don’t understand what’s happening here,” I said, but I got into the car, and he closed the door. I sat for a moment watching them all, and then I dug into my purse and took out my cell phone.

  “Sam,” I said when he answered. “You’ve got to help me. I know who kidnapped Mary. It was Margaret. She was working with that Sister Alice Francis. Oh, you should see what she did in one of her rooms, the shrine she built to Mary. She has the dress and her shoes and the ribbon Mary wore that day.”

  “What?”

  “She said terrible things to me, Sam. She is the one who told John about us. She had been following me, watching me. She said Mary was with Sister Alice Francis in some sanctuary.”

  “Okay. They’ll get it out of her, then.”

  “No, they won’t. Margaret’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “She tried to kill me on the stairway and fell herself.”

  “Jesus, Grace. I begged you just to call David.”

  I started to cry.

  “They won’t let me do anything there,” he said. “If I came, it would only make matters worse. Did you ever call David?”

  “Yes. They said they would give him the message.”

  “He’ll be there.”

  “But as soon as Sister Alice Francis finds out about Margaret, she’ll go on the run again.”

  “David will handle it right. He’s aware of all that. You’ve got one of the most experienced agents on the case. Trust him.”

  I though about Margaret.

  “I don’t care about his experience. I don’t trust anyone anymore, Sam,” I said, feeling my tears harden on my cheeks. I took a deep breath and finished with something I regretted saying instantly after I had said it. “Even you.”

  I closed my cell phone and stared out at the scene being played before me. It looked like a Shakespearean dumb show, the mute mimicking of a tragedy, with me as the tragic character trying to keep the curtain from closing.

  17

  Harmony

  There was a preliminary argument between David Joseph and his agents and the Los Angeles police department about who had jurisdiction of the crime scene. I had to wait on the sidelines for them to determine who would be the lead investigators and conduct the first interview with me. When I saw a vehicle pull up front with a photographer stepping out and a woman rushing around to join him, I went into a small panic. Margaret’s death would make the late-night news.

  “Easy,” David Joseph told me. “We’re on it.”

  He intercepted them and pulled them aside. Whatever he told them kept them back. The police photographers and the medical examiner were already inside. David Joseph had seen the shrine to Mary and wanted to be sure no one from the media would. The house itself was being roped off, yellow tape placed around the stairway and even the doorways of the kitchen and living room.

  Now that David Joseph was able to tie what they saw to the kidnapping investigation, he established himself and the FBI as lead investigators and decided to take me over to my house.

  “Where’s my husband?” I asked.

  “He was with his lawyer when I got the call.”

  “Did you tell him what has happened?”

  “I rushed out. Someone in my office probably told them something about it by now. Let’s go inside, Mrs. Clark.”

  An L.A. detective accompanied us, however. I sat on the sofa in the living room and recognized Special Agent Tracey Dickinson. For a few moments, it seemed as if no time had passed at all. I was right there again at the initial stakeout after Mary’s abduction. Tracey brought me a glass of cold water, and just as I lifted it to my lips, John came into the house.

  I looked up at him, my lips trembling so hard I didn’t think I could utter a word. He looked from me to the FBI agents and the L.A. detective, and then, without any hesitation, he rushed to me, kneeling down in front of me to take my hand.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here.”

  If there was really such a thing as a miracle, I felt it then. I could feel John’s strength entering my body. The sense of protection and security I had enjoyed with him before Mary’s abduction returned and with it that wall that had stood between us and all that had threatened our happiness and health.

  My tears broke free. He dipped into his jacket and produced his handkerchief to wipe my cheeks, then rose to sit beside me.

  “You don’t have to say anything to anyone,” John said. “We can wait for Bob or have him meet us wherever they decide to take us.”

  “No, it’s all right. I have nothing to hide about it. I don’t want to waste any more time than necessary on this,” I said after drinking some more water. “As soon as she finds out about Margaret’s death, she’ll pick up and disappear with my daughter.”

  “All right. Then jus
t tell us exactly what happened, Mrs. Clark,” David Joseph said.

  “Did you strike her on the back of her head?” the L.A. detective asked instantly. David Joseph gave him a dirty look.

  “What? No, of course not.”

  “The medical examiner found trauma at the back of her head. It could have happened from the fall, of course,” David Joseph explained softly.

  “I did grab her and shake her before she came at me on the stairway, and I threw her against the wall. Maybe she hit her head then. I can’t remember. I was trying to get her to tell me where my daughter was.”

  “Why don’t you listen to her first before you come to any stupid conclusions?” John told the detective.

  “Take it easy,” David Joseph said. He glared at the detective, who stepped back. “Please, go on, Mrs. Clark.”

  “When I entered that shrine she had built for Mary, I saw the dress, the shoes, and the ribbon Mary was wearing the day she was abducted. You all saw that room, all the pictures, the candles. What else do you need to know that Margaret was involved in the abduction?”

  I looked from David Joseph to the L.A. detective. To an outsider, especially a professionally skeptical police detective, I supposed it could appear to be a case of a woman gone mad and, at the least, a case of manslaughter if that trauma on Margaret’s head could in any way be tied to her fall on the stairs. I imagined they might consider that I pushed her anyway. Maybe they thought I was simply outraged by the sight of the shrine and the clothes.

  David Joseph nodded. “Don’t worry. They’ll determine pretty quickly if the blow to the back of her head was from the fall or whatever and if it contributed at all to her death.”

  Was that supposed to make me feel better, or was it a veiled threat?

  “Her death? Her fall? Why aren’t we concentrating on Mary?”

  “We will. We’ll comb the house and see what we can find, and we’ll keep this out of the news for as long as we can. Let’s go back over how you came to go over there. What exactly happened?”

  I looked up at them all again. The prospect of relating the events seemed suddenly daunting. A great and deep fatigue gripped my body. I could feel the room start to rock.

  “Are we having an earthquake?” I asked with my eyes closed.

  “What?”

  “Maybe we should give her a chance to rest for a while,” Tracey Dickinson said. “She’s been through a helluva lot.”

  “You get your best information as close to the incident as possible,” the L.A. detective said.

  I opened my eyes to look at him. I could see no compassion in his face, no concern whatsoever about Mary. He looked annoyed, as a matter of fact. Perhaps his dinner had been interrupted.

  “Are you a practicing idiot, or did you just naturally become one?” John asked him. His face turned rosy. “Go search Margaret’s house. Stop wasting time on her. Our daughter is with a mad religious fanatic, and other missing children might very well be, too. Do your job,” he added sternly.

  “I need to lie down,” I said.

  I started to get up. John rose first and took my arm. I paused when I stood and looked at the rest of them. No one looked very sympathetic.

  “And she won’t have anything else to say until she speaks with our attorney,” John said.

  The L.A. detective smirked.

  David Joseph nodded. “Why don’t we wait until morning, then?” he said. “We’ll do what we can over at the other house in the meantime.”

  He nodded at the others, and they started out.

  For a moment, the two of us stood there. John seemed to be wearing the same dazed expression I could feel on my own face.

  “C’mon. Go up and lie down. It’s a good idea. You’ve been through a horrible time,” he said. He walked behind me up the stairway to our bedroom. When I sat on the bed, he asked if I wanted something.

  “Tea? Maybe something stronger?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  I stared up at him. Suddenly, as if he were a snowman caught in blazing sunshine, he started to crumble before my eyes. All of his face trembled, not just his lips. He sank softly to his knees and buried his head in my lap. The movement was so fast and so unexpected that I couldn’t speak. I held my breath. I could feel his sobbing begin, and I placed my hand softly on his head.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. He raised his teary eyes toward me. “It’s all my fault, Grace. All my fault.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, it is. I missed so much that was happening because I didn’t want to believe it, and when I realized it, I threw up a wall between us. I used my religious beliefs to keep from blaming myself. I drove you away from me by refusing to . . . to feel like a man, to cry like a man has to cry, to shake my fist at the sky and demand to know why us? I thought if I was my usual stone self, my efficient, tight-lipped, arrogant ass, I could somehow get you to stop mourning. It was wrong to ask you to do that. I know that now. I know it too late.”

  “It’s not all your fault, John.”

  “Yes, it is. First, I should have seen through Margaret. I should have realized from some of the conversations we had that she had a fanatic streak running under her religious façade. I missed all the clues and put you in that dangerous place all by yourself. I should have been at your side.”

  “I’m sorry, John. I should have been stronger. I know how disappointed you must be.”

  “More in myself than in you. I know that other men might not think like this. Other men might just think of their own pride and how they have been hurt, but I know I had a lot to do with the path you chose. Is that where you want to go now?”

  “No,” I said. “I want to have Mary back and us back.”

  He nodded, took a deep breath, and rose.

  “I’m not going to ask you to forgive me, John. I know you will. I have to forgive myself. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. “Get some rest. I’m going to see what Bob can do about helping us get through this quickly. I’ll be in my office.”

  He walked out, not as firm and confident as always. He looked beaten, and I hated myself for seeing him that way. I lay back and closed my eyes. I was tired, emotionally exhausted, but I had to gather my wits. Everything had happened so quickly. I felt as if the very ground had been lifted from under my feet. Margaret Sullivan, of all people. I had thought she really loved us. It was too great a shock. The last few hours were a blur.

  I fought back against sleep at first. What if some determined reporter got into the story despite David Joseph’s assurances? I don’t think I slept fifteen minutes. All I could think was that they were out there, worrying more about Margaret’s death and whether it was an accident or manslaughter. They had already wasted too much time on me.

  I rose and rinsed my face in cold water.

  We have to do something, I thought. We have to find some way to be part of this, to make things happen. Without Sam’s personal concern anymore, I was afraid we would fall through the cracks, that something else would come up. The search for Sister Alice Francis would end up on some lower agent’s desk or, God forbid, in the hands of that L.A. detective.

  I started down the stairs. Halfway down, I thought I heard John talking and moved to the doorway of his office. He was sitting there, holding one of his ships in a bottle and talking about it as if Mary was sitting on the floor beside him, listening in her inimitable patient and curious way that did make her very, very special. Watching and listening to him, I could feel myself softening, the love for him I had always had rising like blood pressure. He looked up when I entered.

  “We’ll get her back, John,” I said. “I know we will.”

  He embraced me, and we stood there holding on to each other like two people about to say good-bye forever and ever. The ringing of the door buzzer sent us both out.

  David Joseph was standing there alone.<
br />
  “What?” I asked. I seized John’s hand. I felt the ultimate fear rising to capture my heart and hold it hostage. They surely had learned that Mary was dead. He wore a funereal expression on his face.

  “We’ve just been through a thorough review of Margaret Sullivan’s telephone calls,” he began. “She called a number in San Bernardino five times this past week alone. We tracked the address. I gave it to the local police, but no one is going to do anything until we get there.”

  “Where?” John asked.

  David Joseph was silent.

  “Look,” John said. “We need to be there for her.”

  “I don’t know. We’re—”

  “I lost her!” I screamed at him. “I’ve got to be there when she’s found. Please!”

  “It could be dangerous. We don’t know what we’ll find, even if she’s there, and—”

  “We’re not worrying about ourselves right now.”

  “My God,” John said. “You know what she’s just been through. She practically solved the case herself, but you don’t involve yourself in someone’s death and not come out of it shattered, especially someone who was supposed to be like another grandmother to our daughter.”

  “I know. I know. That’s precisely why I suggest you just wait here for us.”

  “We won’t wait. The moment you leave, we’ll follow you,” I swore.

  He paused, studied my face.

  “I’m getting into our car, Grace,” John said. “Meet me in the driveway.”

  “Okay,” David Joseph said. “It’s against my better judgment, but okay. I’ll stop in front in a few moments.”

  I breathed relief.

  John squeezed my hand softly and put his arm around my shoulders. “I’ll get your jacket,” he whispered.

  I stood watching the cars in front of Margaret’s house, still not trusting anyone, even the FBI.

  John returned with my leather jacket and helped me get it on before putting on his own jacket. We stepped out and closed the door, then walked down the driveway.