Taken (6 page)

“I need your help. I fixed dinner for the Novaks tonight and I want you to go with me to take it to their house.”

Jessie was horrified. “Oh, Mom. What will I
say
to Mrs. Novak?” She felt sick.

“You know, Jessie, it’s important to learn how to comfort people who are having a hard time.” Her mom sat on her bed and smoothed back Jessie’s hair. “Sometimes you don’t say much. Just come with food or rake their yard or shovel their walk and let them know that you’re thinking about them.”

“But, Mom. A missing baby. It’s so terrible. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and make it worse.”

“It couldn’t really be worse,” said her mother. “Why don’t you bring that beautiful picture you took of Andel in the hospital? Anna hasn’t seen it yet.” She hugged Jessie. “Come on. You’ll do fine.”

Jessie changed her clothes and dragged herself downstairs to the kitchen.

“Here, Jessie. Wrap these rolls up in foil and get the salad out of the fridge.”

Jessie followed her mom’s directions and soon was admiring all the work her mother had done getting this meal ready. “This smells so good. I love lasagna.”

“I made the same thing for us. We’ll eat when we get home.” Her mother set everything in a lined box and closed the lid. “Let’s go. We won’t stay long.”

Jessie ran to the kitchen desk, pulled out a copy of the baby picture and slid it into a clean manila envelope from a rack by the counter.

In the car, Jessie said, “Where’s Phillip?”

“He’s still asleep. He’s all worn out from his big day sledding,” said her mother. “Dad’s at home.”

They pulled into the Novaks’ driveway. The little house was dark except for one light in the living room.

Jessie rang the doorbell and Ben Novak answered. “This is so nice, Trudy. Hi, Jessie. Come in.” He was slim and handsome. Not very tall. He and Anna were both small. His brown eyes had dark circles under them.

Anna Novak sat in a big blue wing chair in front of a blazing fireplace. A soft pink blanket covered her lap. She looked up and smiled at Mrs. Hanson and Jessie. “It’s so good to see you both. And the food smells delicious.”

Jessie didn’t say anything. What she wanted to do was cry.

“Come here, Jessie,” said Anna Novak. “I know how sad you are. We’re all sad, but it actually helps to talk about the baby. And you were one of the people who saw him. Not many did.”

Jessie walked to the young mother, leaned down and hugged her. She couldn’t see her very well for the tears in her eyes.

Mrs. Hanson said, “I’ll put these things in the kitchen and Jessie can set the table.”

In the kitchen, Jessie found placemats and silverware in the cabinet drawers. She set the little table for two people and got plates from the cupboard. Her mom was making coffee and unwrapping the meal. When the salad and rolls were on the table and the lasagna was heating up in the oven, Jessie and her mother went back to the living room.

“We’re going to leave now so you can eat,” said Mrs. Hanson.

“Thank you,” said Ben Novak. “It smells wonderful.”

Jessie walked to Anna Novak’s chair with the envelope. “Remember when I took the picture of little Andel?”

“Oh, I do!” said Mrs. Novak. “Do you have it there?”

“We enlarged it and made a copy for you and Mr. Novak,” said Jessie. “I hope it’s okay to bring it.”

Mrs. Novak smiled and took the envelope. “It’s a lovely thing to do, Jessie. Thank you so much.”

“We need to leave, Anna,” said Mrs. Hanson. “I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

Jessie and her mother opened the door and stepped out into the winter night.

Chapter Twelve

That evening, after dinner, Jessie’s father came into the living room to listen to her practice the piano.

Jessie stopped playing and handed her dad the notes she had written from the garage sale. “We really had the sale,” she said, “because we figured the kidnappers might need baby stuff and would be trying to avoid the stores.”

“What? So are you still donating the money to the homeless shelter?” asked her dad.

“Sure. And Phillip still gets his toy money.”

“Well that’s a relief,” said her father. “So what’s this you’ve written?”

“Those are Tina’s notes. We made up some sign language—Bryce, Tina and I. If we saw someone that seemed suspicious, then Tina would follow them to their car and get a license plate number and write a description of the person and the car.”

Her dad was quiet, thinking. “Well that was a pretty good plan.” He sat down on the sofa with the notes. “Why are you giving them to me?”

“Because we haven’t any way of looking up someone’s license plate. I mean, so we can get a name and address,” she said.

“That’s probably a good thing. Apparently the word
danger
doesn’t mean much to you,” her dad said.

“Knowing someone’s name and address doesn’t seem so dangerous to me,” Jessie said.

“It isn’t the
knowing
,” answered her father. “It’s what you might
do
with the information.”

“All we would do is keep an eye on the address to see if there was a little baby living there,” said Jessie.

“Jessie, I know you. You would
not
leave it at that.” Her dad shook his head in exasperation. “Pretty soon you’d find a way to get into the house or apartment. That would be illegal.”

“That’s why I’m giving you the notes,” said Jessie. “You can give them to the police and they can check out these people.”

“The police have to have a reason to check out people,” said her father. “They can’t just go knocking on a door without legal cause to do so.”

“I remember that,” Jessie said. “Anyway, there are the notes. And the good part is we made a lot of money at the sale.” She went back to her piano lesson.

While she played, her father read the notes. When he finished he said, “The notes are interesting, Jessie. I’ll pass them along to the police and we should also give them a copy of the enlarged picture you took of the baby.”

“Are they going to go public with the picture?” Jessie asked.

“I talked to them about it. They want to have it in their case file, but aren’t ready to put it out to the public.” He stood up.

“But, Daddy,” maybe someone will have seen Andel and could call the detectives.”

“It’s delicate. They’re afraid the kidnappers would see the photo. It might scare them out of town. That is if they’re still
in
town. But the police think they’re still here because of the snowstorm. It’s not a good idea to take a newborn out in this weather.”

“So you think they took the baby for themselves?”

“We just don’t know. Or maybe they’re going to sell him for adoption.”

“Oh. That would be bad,” said Jessie. “Just
anyone
might end up with Andel. And maybe they wouldn’t be good parents.”

“Exactly,” said her dad. “There would be a reason why an approved adoption agency might not work with them.” He started to leave the room. “So let’s hope for snowy cold weather for a while. Gives us time to catch this baby snatcher.”

Jessie finished practicing and ran to the hall phone to call Tina. “I rewrote your notes and gave them to Daddy. He’s going to give them to the police,” Jessie said.

“Do you think they’ll tell us our suspects’ names and addresses?” asked Tina.

“No way. Daddy thinks we’ll go haywire and do something illegal.”

Tina laughed. “Why would he think such a thing”?

Jessie laughed too. “I cannot imagine.” She twisted the phone cord in her free hand. “Anyway, we took in a lot of money for the homeless shelter and Phillip gets to go shopping. Mom’s said to wait until Friday to deliver the money to the shelter since the sale is running this week after school.”

“I’ll come home with you tomorrow and help, in case we get customers or suspicious lookers,” said Tina.

“What? You’re off babysitting duty?” asked Jessie.

“Mom will have to take care of her own children for a while,” laughed Tina.

Chapter Thirteen

The next day, Monday, Jessie and Tina walked home together after school.

“I have to stop at the grocery store. I need laces for my tennis shoes,” Tina said.

In the store, Jessie checked out the hair dye section while she waited for Tina. Everything looked the same as on Saturday.
I guess no one in Fairfield colors her hair.
The boxes were dusty from not being moved. An older woman stood in the last row studying the different shades of dye.
She looks familiar. Oh my gosh, she’s the customer at the garage sale who ran off when she spotted me.

Jessie stepped back into a corner and watched the woman. When the lady reached for a box on the shelf, Jessie saw it. Her heart skipped a beat. The woman’s left hand had the traces of the burn, the one she saw on the fake nurse in the hospital. Suddenly the woman turned and looked right at Jessie.

Jessie twirled around and headed for the door. As she passed Tina, she made the “danger” signal and spread out her fingers on her chest, the “woman” signal and pulled on her right earlobe and the “follow” signal and waved her cupped hand toward herself and jerked her head a little toward the woman.

Tina watched her, nodded and went back to looking at the shoelace section.

Jessie burst from the store and headed toward the Town Center. She heard footsteps crunching through the snow behind her. She didn’t look back.
I need to ditch this woman. Then Tina can keep following her.
Jessie picked up speed and rounded a corner across from the Square. Shops lined the sidewalk. Now she was running. At the end of the block, she crossed the street into the Square. The snow was deep on the grass, but Jessie had her boots on and turned at the side of the Courthouse and ran to the cleared-off sidewalk on the other side of the Square.
Gotta get off the snow so the woman can’t follow my tracks.
She crossed the street and slipped into a shop doorway to take a fast look at the person behind her. The woman was coming through the deep snow in the Square, following Jessie’s tracks.
She’s pretty fast for an old woman.
Tina was behind the lady.

The woman stopped at the far side of the Square and looked around. Jessie stood still. Tina was slowing down and making snowballs. She looked casual and convincing.

The woman shook her head, got onto the sidewalk and headed down the street. Tina continued trailing her. Jessie entered the yarn shop where she’d been hiding.

“Why Jessie Hanson,” said the store manager. “Don’t tell me you’re turning domestic and are taking up knitting.”

Jessie smiled. “That’s not a bad idea. I think I’ll just look around.”

Jessie checked her watch. Five minutes later, she left the store, crossed the Square and hurried up the inside stairway to her father’s office.

The entry door sign read Carl G. Hanson - Attorney at Law. Jessie opened the door, stepped into the waiting room and sank onto a chair, breathless.

Her dad looked around the corner. “Well. Let’s see. Out of breath. Face flushed. Let me guess. You’ve been up to something and it scared you.”

“How do you always know these things?” asked Jessie. “You’re right, but this time I’m innocent. I didn’t start it.”

“What happened?” Her father sat down in the chair next to hers.

“We were in the grocery store—Tina and I.” Jessie pulled of her mittens. “I saw one of the customers from the garage sale. The one who hurried to her car when she saw me. Remember my notes?”

“I remember,” said her father. He was listening.

“I got out of sight and just watched her. When she reached for something on a shelf, I saw the burn on her hand. It’s kind of faded now. More like a shadow.”

“Which was it—a shadow or a scar?” he asked.

“A light scar, I guess.” Jessie unzipped her parka.

“Then all of sudden, she turned around and saw me.”

“Okay.”

“I took off and when I passed Tina, I gave her the hand signals for ‘danger,’ ‘woman’ and ‘follow.’”

“What did Tina do?”

“Well we’d talked about the signals. You know, don’t react when you receive one. So that’s what she did. She just nodded and went back looking at shoe laces.”

“Where’s Tina now?” asked Mr. Hanson.

“I ran across the Square and ditched the woman when I hid in the yarn shop doorway.”

“Yes. And Tina?”

“She’s still following the woman. But the woman has never seen her and Tina’s looking very casual.”

“We’d better go find Tina,” said her dad. “Come on.”

Chapter Fourteen

“There she is,” said Jessie.

Her dad steered the car to the curb. Tina looked up and hurried through the snow to the car. She opened the rear door and got in.

“What happened?” asked Jessie.

“I’m getting snow all over your car, Mr. Hanson,” Tina said.

“Don’t worry,” said Jessie’s dad. “Phillip tracks in everything.” He started down the street. “Did you find out anything?”