Finding Claire Fletcher (28 page)

“Did you fuck him?” he said.

“What?”

“You heard me, you fucking bitch. Did you screw him? Like the others? You haven’t learned anything from the past, have you Lynn?”

Then he smiled. Panic woke inside me. I half-crawled, half-squirmed toward him, a begging stance. “Don’t,” I said.

He turned to the table and snatched up the jar I kept the sugar in. It wasn’t overly large; it just fit into the curve of his hand. But it was heavy and the ceramic shell was hard.

I shielded my head with my arms, hands at the back of my skull. He beat me until sugar flew from the jar, raining down on me, an onslaught of white crystal sheets. He beat it against my body until the jar broke and he was sweating with exertion. He beat me until I passed out on the floor, my last image not of him—face red, hands raw and swollen from his work—but of Connor and his lopsided smile.

The composite got a fifteen-second spot on the eleven o’clock news. Disappointed, Connor wondered if they should have held a press conference, but the morning paper had much more in-depth coverage. He picked up a copy of the Sacramento Bee on his way to the division and read it at his desk. Beside a large copy of the composite sketch was a smaller set of photos of Claire—one of her school photograph and an age-progression photo, which didn’t do her justice. The headline read Officer Cleared of Wrongdoing in Shooting of Suspected Rapist Opens Cold Case.

The article named Connor and recounted his involvement in the recent botched arrest wherein he’d shot and killed a suspected rapist. While on the desk, he had reopened the case of Claire Fletcher, a local teen abducted ten years before. It asserted that Connor had fresh leads, was very close to solving the case, and that he believed that Claire Fletcher was alive. At the end, a lengthy review of the case was given, and the phone number for the Major Crimes Unit was listed in the event that readers had any tips.

Before lunch Connor fielded two tips, one of which was from a man who claimed to have abducted Claire, killed her, and cut her body up into pieces. Connor sent a patrol car out to the guy’s house in case he had cut someone into pieces. The second was a woman who worked at a pharmacy near the Fletcher house and claimed a man matching the composite had worked there between 1996 and 1999 as a pharmacy technician. She couldn’t remember the man’s name but promised to get Connor copies of the man’s personnel file.

He met Jen and Mitch for lunch for the second day in a row to go over their leads. The waiter returned to take their order, and then Mitch pulled a file from under his jacket and handed it to Connor.

“Tax returns,” he said.

Connor flipped it open and found himself looking at tax returns and W-2 forms for Rod Page, dated 1993 and 1994. “How did you get these?” he asked.

Mitch smiled at Jen, who said, “I have a friend, a very good friend, who works for the IRS.”

Connor looked at both of them. “This is illegal,” he said.

Jen arched her eyebrows. “It’s been ten years,” she said. “I just want my child back. Now that I know she’s alive—that she really is out there somewhere—that is my only priority. I’m a little past worrying about what’s legal and what’s not.”

“All right then,” Connor said. He looked at Mitch. “Just so we understand each other, Mrs. Fletcher, neither I nor Mitch ever saw these documents. We didn’t get them from you. You didn’t get them from your friend. Your friend could lose his job and go to prison over this.”

“Her job,” Jen corrected. “Yes, we understand each other.”

“So,” Mitch said. “This guy worked for the park service. Summers only. Basically drove around making sure no one was starting unauthorized campfires, cleaned up trash, kept the roads and walking paths clear. Things like that.”

“He didn’t make much,” Connor noted.

“No, he didn’t,” Mitch agreed. “Unless this guy is doing some serious work under the table, he must already have money.”

“You think?”

“What else would give him that kind of mobility? If he’s using an assumed name, which we can pretty much guarantee since the social security number on those belongs to a dead man, he would be able to hide a modest savings. He may have had some kind of insurance settlement he’s living from or something like that.”

“True,” Connor said.

“It could be anything,” Jen said. “Some civil lawsuit or insurance settlement. It wouldn’t surprise me if this guy took out a policy on his own mother and then killed her for the money.”

“There was a man who worked with Rod Page,” Mitch said. Before Connor could open his mouth, he went on, “I already talked to him. He didn't remember much, but he said he remembered Rod Page because Page wasn't memorable at all. He said Page was quiet, kept to himself. Didn't talk much. The only thing that might be of use is that Page once told this guy that he was originally from Texas.”

Connor met Mitch's eyes across the table.

“We’ll run a search for arrests and warrants in Texas for peepers and flashers,” Connor said.

The waiter set their drinks down on the table. Jenny took a sip of water and asked, “Did the composite generate any leads yet?”

“As a matter of fact, I got a call this morning from a woman who works at a local pharmacy. She said a man matching the composite worked there as a pharmacy tech between 1996 and 1999. But that was all she had. She couldn’t remember the guy’s name. She’s supposed to get a personnel file and get back to me.”

Jen’s hand flew to her chest. “Oh, my God. Are you telling me this guy worked at my pharmacy after he took Claire?”

“Didn’t you say yesterday that the composite looked like your old pharmacist?” Mitch pointed out.

Jen’s face paled. She looked like she might be sick. “Yeah. Maybe the woman who called you is thinking about the same guy.”

“Well,” Connor said, “We don’t know if the pharmacy guy is Rod Page or not, although it is possible. I still have to check it out. And I also want to check out the Texas angle.”

After lunch, Connor returned to the division. He took six more calls about the composite that afternoon, but none of them seemed promising. Texas yielded nothing. He’d gotten the VICAP results back but there were thousands of cases to sift through, leaving Connor to wonder if three quarters of the country’s population were sexual deviants. By the end of the day, he was no closer to finding Rod Page.

He left the division later than usual, but didn’t go home right away. He dreaded going back to his empty house with its concealed weapons tucked about. He drove by the Fletcher home on Archer Street. The living room lights glowed behind gauzy curtains. He sat across the street in his car for several minutes, watching as a light in one of the upstairs rooms came on.

He felt a twinge of unease, although he couldn’t say why. Perhaps it was his constant undertow of worry for Claire, who was still out there in parts unknown. The last time he’d heard her voice it had been heavy with tears.

He thought about stopping by Farrell’s office, but instead he went home. As he walked up to the front door, he scanned the perimeter for anything amiss but found nothing out of the ordinary. The flowers along his walk swayed, as if in welcome. He closed and locked the door behind him.

The last thing he remembered was reaching for the light switch in the dining room.

When I woke up, pain coursed through my body like the rhythmic booms of a car stereo playing so loudly you could feel its vibration in your teeth as it passed on the street. I was bound to the thick column beneath the kitchen table.

The chain, a personal favorite of his, was one he had fashioned himself years ago and had used often on me. It looped around the metal column beneath the table, fastened with a padlock, which he had begun using when he figured out I could easily undo the metal clips he originally used. From the base of the table, the chain extended three or four feet. He had attached handcuffs to the end of it, the tiny chain between them inexplicably threaded through one of the links on the larger chain. He had my wrists cinched so tightly that the metal of the handcuffs bit into my skin and pressed mercilessly into the bones of my wrists.

My left eye would not open. I lifted my hands and felt the side of my face, which had swelled disturbingly large in the wake of his beating. My skin was the texture of a grapefruit peel, and I imagined it looked like I had a grapefruit growing out of the side of my face. Dried blood crusted the edges of my mouth.

My right eye searched the kitchen and locked onto the object I was looking for. He had left it on the floor where he’d thrown it at me. Using my legs and squirming like an epileptic, I used my feet to pull the newspaper to me. On my knees, I bent my body toward the floor, my face inches from the page and read the article with my good eye.

I was shocked to see the composite and wondered where in the world Connor had gotten it. It was a good likeness of my abductor, although in it he looked much younger than he was now. The article named Connor directly but even if it hadn’t, I believed my abductor would have found him. My captor was all-knowing, all-seeing, or so it had seemed these many years.

The night I left the trailer and found Martin in an upscale city bar, bedding him at a nearby hotel several steps up from the motel in which I’d first given my body up to another man, I’d thought for sure that my captor would have no way of finding out who I’d been with.

I had known that Tiffany watched from one of the windows as I left in the truck. When I returned, he was still not there. I knew she would tell him I had been gone for almost an entire night, but I figured he would only beat me, maybe revoke my newfound privileges, or maybe kill me.

But I thought for certain he’d have no way of really knowing where I’d gone or who I’d been with. Martin was dead two months later, and like the newspaper clippings in which my brother and mother and sister were almost killed, a new one was taped to the inside of my trailer door. One in which Martin had no nosy neighbors to call the police before the fire blazed out of control, burning him alive.

With Jim, I’d been far more careful. I’d studied my captor’s schedule. When the time came for me to sneak away, I’d put the truck in neutral and let it roll down the road as far as I could get it before starting it. I was gone only six hours, and the house was dark when I returned. Again, I turned off the truck and let it roll to its place behind the trailer. Neither he nor Tiffany alluded to the fact that they knew I had even left. It was months later, when something I said or did displeased him that he stopped by and dropped Jim’s wallet on my kitchen table.

I didn’t know how long he’d had it. If he had actually done anything to the man or if he’d just pilfered the wallet to use later as a way to intimidate me. All the same, it had worked. It worked because no matter what I did, he found out. I had no idea how. It had been almost three weeks since I’d met and slept beside Connor Parks, nestled in the warmth of his arms, against the lovely smooth skin of his chest.

I realized my captor had not known about Connor. Otherwise he would not have flown off the handle when he discovered the newspaper article. Seeing the composite, it was no wonder he believed I had gone to the police. Tears blurred the vision in my right eye. I tugged uselessly against the chain. Connor was a police officer. A detective. He’d shot and killed someone the day I met him. Surely he could defend himself against this man.

I sat upright, flexing my body, testing this way and that for pain that might hinder any escape I made. I had no idea how much time had passed, but outside the world was dark. The small lamp I kept on the table was lit. I’d turned it on before he entered, anticipating a cup of tea while I sat there and read a book, waiting until I could sneak out to check on Connor.

I took several deep breaths and shifted so that I could brace my feet against the base of the table. Pulling with my hands and pushing with my feet, I tried to break the chain from its vise around the column. I was not thinking clearly. Pain in my ribs screamed and my body went limp, gasping for air.

I shifted again, this time bracing my feet awkwardly against each of the benches on either side of the table. I pushed against them and pulled with the chain, trying instead to dislodge the column from the table so that I could slip the chain over it. It did not give.

A sob rumbled up from the back of my throat. Tears leaked slowly out of the slit that was my left eye and burned my face as they slid down to my chin. They flowed more freely from my good eye.

I stood up, though the length of the chain did not allow me to straighten my body completely. I used both hands to pull at one corner of the table, but the effort caused too much pain, and I found myself back on the floor.

I looked at my hands and the flesh of my wrists blooming on either side of the metal rims of the handcuffs. I pulled at my right hand. I could easily dislocate my thumb again. At least I could easily deal with the pain of it. I had done it twice before in desperation. But now the cuffs were flush against my bone, and my hands seemed much larger than they had before. There was not even room for the cuffs to scrape the skin away.

My mind raced. There had to be some way. There had to be something I could do to free myself. I looked around the kitchen for anything I might use, and my eyes fell on Tiffany, standing just inside the trailer door, silent and staring at me.