The Faithful (16 page)

The moment he left, I opened the Safari browser. It was awkward with my left arm in a sling, but by holding the phone in my left hand I was able to use the fingers on my right to type into the search bar “Ryanne, missing child.”

The wheel spun and spun, trying to get enough of a signal to perform the search. A list of websites had just popped up when an Asian man in a black suit entered the room.

“Ms. Wilson? I’m Special Agent Dennis Chang, of the FBI.”

I barely glanced at his badge.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, taking a seat on the plastic chair beside the bed.

“I’ll live.”

“It was a very brave thing you did, ma’am.”

I shrugged as best I could with only one working shoulder. “I would have wanted someone to do the same for me.” My fingers gave an involuntary twitch over the phone.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Go ahead.”

“Please let me know if it gets to be too much for you; I understand you suffered a concussion?”

“I’m all right.”

“Great. First, can I get your full name?”

“Rowan Jane Wilson.” He took me through a few more standard questions such as my date of birth, address, phone number, and occupation.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I should be calling you Dr. Wilson.”

“Rowan is fine.”

“All right, Rowan. Do you mind if I tape this? Great, thanks. We can go through all the other details later; for now, let’s focus on the most important things. Can you give me a description of the suspect?”

“Suspects—there were two. A man and a woman.”

“And the man grabbed Leora Wylie?”

“That’s right. The woman was waiting in the driver’s seat of the car. She’s the one who ran over me.”

“Let’s start with him. Can you describe him for me?”

“He was tall, maybe six feet or more. Caucasian, with brown hair. He was wearing blue jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt.”

“How old would you say he was?”

“I don’t know, maybe in his thirties.”

“Did you get anything else? Eye color?”

“I think they were brown.”

“Anything else you can remember?”

I shook my head.

“What about the woman? Did you get a good look at her?”

“Yeah, we locked eyes through the windshield.”

“Can you describe her?”

“Blond hair, blue eyes. Maybe in her twenties? I don’t know about her height or anything.”

“Of course. If I send over a sketch artist, do you think you could help us with a couple of composites?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Thanks, that would be a big help. So, on to the vehicle. Other witnesses at the scene described it as a blue Ford Escape, is that correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Any chance you saw the license plate?”

I slumped back into the bed. “No, sorry. How dumb!”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve issued the Amber Alert with a partial plate of the vehicle. But this has been a big help. No one actually saw the suspects. It might help us to track them down.”

“I hope so.”

“So, can you tell me what happened? Leora’s mom told us her daughter ran down the path to the parking lot.”

“That’s right. I heard her mom calling for her.”

“And then what happened?”

“I guess the guy came up behind me. He lifted me up and threw me headfirst into a tree. I blacked out. When I came around, I ran to the parking lot. I saw him shove her into the backseat of the car, and then climb in beside her. So I jumped on the hood.”

“Was Leora fighting him? Screaming, crying?”

“No, she was limp. He’d injected her with something.”

His eyes sharpened on me, and I realized my mistake. I’d only seen that part in the dream.

“He drugged her?”

I nodded mutely.

“Witnesses say you were lying down near the playground. That you suddenly jumped up and ran, leaving your possessions behind. Is that true?”

Well, damn.

“Agent Chang?” A woman with skin the color of caramel and spiky black hair poked her head through the door.

“Yes, Agent Ortiz?” he turned his penetrating gaze away from me, and I tried not to let my sigh of relief be audible.

“I just got a call from Agent Metcalf. He says he missed the eleven o’clock flight into Albuquerque tonight. He wanted you to know he’s catching the next flight out, but it’s not until the morning. He’s flying into El Paso instead and should be here just before lunchtime.”

“How did he miss his flight?”

She smiled. “Apparently he caught some guy trying to break into his townhouse, and had to subdue him until the cops arrived.”

“No kidding?”

She nodded. “The guy was armed to the teeth. Agent Metcalf said he didn’t know who was more surprised, him or the perp, when he opened the door and they came face to face.”

“I’ll bet. Is Metcalf all right?”

“He’s fine. Can’t say the same for the perp, though.”

“Good.”

“Hey, listen. Leora Wylie’s grandmother is here. She asked if she could have a moment with Ms. Wilson, to thank her for what she did.”

Agent Chang looked at me for consent, and I managed my one-shouldered shrug. Agent Ortiz disappeared.

“So, where were we? Oh, right. Can you tell me what you were doing in the park in the first place? And why you suddenly jumped up and ran down the path? Did you know Leora was in danger?”

“Excuse me, sorry to interrupt,” a woman said from the doorway. Agent Chang and I both turned toward her. My heart sank.

She
was Leora’s grandmother?

Kahina recognized me at the same moment. “You!” she screamed, barreling forward. Startled, Agent Chang jumped up.

“
You
were at the park today?
What did you do to my grandbaby?
”

Agent Chang stepped in front of her, trying to protect me.

“What did you do to Leora, you devil’s spawn!”

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Agent Chang was trying to push her back to the door.

“I won’t! I won’t! Not until she tells me where my grandbaby is!
She knows
.” She stabbed her finger at me, spittle flying from her mouth. “She’s a part of it!
She knows who took my Leora!
”

“No . . .” I finally managed, shaking my head. Nausea swelled inside me, and I began to retch.

Agent Chang turned to look at me, his eyes full of speculation.

“No, I swear! I had nothing to do with it!” I said between heaves.

He pushed Kahina out the door, still screaming and slobbering. I could hear Agent Ortiz arguing with her out in the hallway, trying to get her to calm down. Agent Chang gave me one last hard look as he left the room.

“I’ll be right back.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Although hurling up the contents of your stomach while your head is splitting open is nothing I would recommend, there was an upside: Dr. Sanchez refused to allow Agent Chang to continue the interview. Through bouts of retching, I heard them arguing in the hall outside my room. Agent Chang was desperate to question me further, but the doctor stood his ground.

“She’s given you as much information as you’re going to get right now. You can talk to her in the morning,
if
I think she can handle it.”

“She has vital information about this case, and I’m sure you’re aware that every second counts in a kidnapping.”

“I understand your predicament, Agent Chang. But my job is to protect my patients, and I do not believe further questioning is in her best interest at this time. Concussions can have very serious long-term effects, if not handled with diligence and care. Dr. Wilson needs to rest. She needs time to recover from her injuries. I’m off shift for the evening, but I will re-evaluate her tomorrow—”

“She’s agreed to speak to a sketch artist—”

“In the
morning
, Agent Chang. She’s not to have any more visitors until the morning, and only
after
I’ve examined her and given the okay. Understood?”

Silence descended. I felt vaguely queasy, but doubted there was much left in my stomach. The nurse shuffled around, cleaning up the mess. I kept my eyes closed and my hand over my phone, hoping she wouldn’t take it away. She placed a damp cloth on my forehead and dimmed the lights; I sighed gratefully.

“I’m hooking up the acetaminophen drip to the IV now. Do you need anything else?”

“No. Thank you.”

“The call bell is by your right hand. I’ll check on you in a bit.”

“Okay.”

“Get some rest.” She squelched away, her shoes wet from the postvomit mopping.

I lay there until the pain medication kicked in, and then pulled the cloth off my forehead and used the button on the side of the bed to raise myself to a sitting position. I stayed that way for a while, eyes closed, waiting for my stomach to settle, and then pulled my phone out of the nest of covers.

I read through the list of hits, scrolling past links for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, several articles for missing boys with the first name Ryan, and a Wikipedia link to a martial artist named Ryan Bader.

On the second page, there was a link to a news article from the
Omaha World-Herald
, dated Sunday, June 22, 2008. My heart fluttered, and I noticed my hand was trembling as I touched the link to open it. After what felt like an eternity, the article appeared. I had to squint to make out the small print.

KIDNAPPING OF LOCAL GIRL STILL A MYSTERY TWENTY YEARS LATER

By Samantha J. Mathis

This Tuesday will mark the twenty-year anniversary of the disappearance of seven-year-old Ryanne Elizabeth Jervis, and police say they haven’t given up hope of finding her.

Ryanne was last seen biking home from Elkhorn’s Westridge Elementary School on the last day of school before summer vacation, on June 24, 1988. Her disappearance rocked the small community of Elkhorn, and led to the implementation of new laws regarding police procedure in the first twenty-four hours following the disappearance of a minor.

Ryanne’s bicycle was found just off Main Street, in the bushes near Papillion Creek, a small tributary bordering the train tracks that run through downtown Elkhorn.

Despite receiving hundreds of tips, the Elkhorn Sheriff’s Department ran out of plausible leads within days of her disappearance, and the case quickly went cold.

Joshua Metcalf had just joined the Elkhorn Sheriff’s Department as a junior officer when Ryanne Jervis went missing, and her disappearance had a lasting effect on him.

“Finding Ryanne became an obsession for me,” said Metcalf, now a special agent for the FBI. In the years since her kidnapping, he has dedicated time and personal resources toward finding her.

In 1992 he started the “Run-4-Ryanne,” a ten-mile walk/run that takes place every June, and raises funds for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

“Ryanne would be twenty-seven now,” Agent Metcalf said. “Her disappearance destroyed her family and shocked the citizens of Elkhorn. I’m committed to finding out the truth.”

Asked what he thought happened to her, Agent Metcalf responded, “I don’t know. But I still think she’s alive out there. Call it intuition. Or maybe it’s just blind hope. Maybe I just want to believe she’s still alive.”

Over the years, the FBI has released composite sketches to show what Ryanne Jervis would look like as a teen or an adult.

“It’s been twenty years,” Metcalf said. “For the sake of those she left behind, those who loved her, it’s time to bring Ryanne home.”

The Run-4-Ryanne will take place this Saturday at 9:00 a.m., beginning in the lot of Enfield’s Tree Services on North Main Street in Elkhorn.

Anyone with information about Ryanne’s disappearance is asked to contact Special Agent Joshua Metcalf of the FBI Criminal Investigation Division at (202) 555-6311 extension 332, or the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-555-5678.

At the bottom of the article were two pictures: a school photo of Ryanne Jervis from first grade, and a composite of what she might have looked like at twenty-seven.

I had come face to face with the girl in the school photo. From the other side of a bathroom mirror, she had begged me to find the truth-seeker.

The composite wasn’t an exact match. The shape of the chin was wrong and the nose was bigger than my own. Nevertheless, the woman in the composite looked enough like the face I saw in the mirror every day to leave me no doubt.

I was Ryanne Jervis.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

He saw Dennis Chang the moment he entered the second-floor lobby. The agent was sitting on one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs, a cup of coffee in his hands.

“There you are!” He smiled and stood up as Josh approached. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was matted on one side of his head, as though he had spent a restless night sleeping on a hospital chair. Come to think of it, he probably had.

“Agent Metcalf, how the heck are you? I hear you had a little run-in?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle; I’m just frustrated it slowed me down. So, fill me in.”

“We’ve still got the Amber Alert going, with the suspects and vehicle description. Lots of tips are being phoned in but nothing’s panned out yet. We do have a partial plate, so I’m hopeful. If they haven’t dumped the vehicle by now, that is.”

“And the blood?”

“Lamb’s blood, just like I expected.”

“Have you spoken to the family at all? Any idea if Leora has psychic abilities?”

“Let’s put it this way. Her grandma, who is quite the character by the way, is a local medium and spiritual counselor. When I heard that, I had Agent Ortiz call you.”

“Great. I can speak to the family later. Any chance I can get in to talk to the witness? Who is she?”

“Dr. Rowan Wilson. She works at LINEAR.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s part of the space program, searching the skies for objects that might crash into the earth and kill us all. NASA has some telescopes out on the White Sands Missile Range. She works there.”

“What’s your impression of her?”

“Well, at first I thought she was one of those heroic citizens—spots a girl in trouble and risks her life trying to save her. She got a concussion for her trouble, as well as a dislocated shoulder and a banged-up leg. The kidnappers drove right over it.”

“Ouch. You said ‘at first’?”

Josh listened as Agent Chang filled him in on the previous evening’s altercation.

“Grandma calmed down after a while, but she’s adamant Dr. Wilson isn’t what she seems. Apparently she came to see her the day before, looking for help with some memory problems. Grandma says as soon as she touched her hands, she got a sense of evil surrounding her. Says she kicked her out of her office. Now, I’m not much of a believer in all this psychic stuff, but it’s quite the coincidence that Dr. Wilson visited her, and then popped up at her granddaughter’s kidnapping the next day. And I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“No, neither do I.” Josh pondered this for a moment. “So what’s Dr. Wilson’s story? What does she say happened?”

“She’s pretty vague, actually. There are some discrepancies.”

“Such as?”

“First off, witnesses at the scene say she was sleeping under a tree near the playground. That all of a sudden she jumped up and ran like her ass was on fire, leaving behind her bag, which had her wallet and phone inside it.
Her
story starts with the male kidnapper coming up behind her and throwing her into a tree. I have no doubt that happened, but she’s pretty vague about what she was doing there in the first place. Secondly, she said they drugged the girl, injected her with a needle.”

“Really? That’s interesting.” Josh’s heart kicked into high gear. What if all the kids had been drugged? That would explain the ease with which they were taken.

“Yeah, I thought so, too, but as soon as she said it she got kind of squirrelly. Which made me think: If the male suspect threw her into a tree and she blacked out, how did she see that?”

“Hmm. Is there any chance I can talk to her?”

“Definitely. The doctor has given us permission to continue the interview, but she’s not talking to me anymore. She’ll talk to you, though.”

“Why is that?”

“Because she told me she would.”

“What?”

“In fact, she told me very specifically you were the only person she
would
talk to.”

“Me? But I don’t know her.”

“Well, that may be so, but she seems to know you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Her exact words were ‘I will only speak to Agent Joshua Metcalf.’ I thought that was pretty specific.”

“All right, where is she?”

“Room 240. On the left, at the end of the hall.”

Heart trip-hammering against his ribs, Josh made his way to the room Agent Chang had indicated. The door was open, but he gave a polite knock on the doorframe before entering.

She was asleep, her lashes a dark fan against the purple moons underneath her eyes.

Josh froze in the doorway. The red hair. The high cheekbones. The pale skin, with just a dusting of freckles.

“Sherry?” he gasped.

She opened her eyes. They weren’t brown. They were green. Coke-bottle green.

And of course it wasn’t Sherry. Sherry Jervis was almost twenty years in her grave.

This was Ryanne.