Authors: Liv James
“There are no apartments,” she said,
shaking her head. “Brighton’s too small to
have apartments. Maybe over a store on
“Clara, I will figure something out,” he
said. “I’m sure I can find someplace to live. I’m a grown …” he stopped short
as his eyes caught on something above her head. She saw the color drain out of
his face.
She turned to see what he was looking at
and gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.
A news report was rolling on a television
screen suspended from the diner’s ceiling. There was no sound but it didn’t
matter. Clara understood the story completely.
Her heart began to pound and her face grew
hot as she read the words scrolling across the bottom of the screen but kept
her eye on the photo of the beautiful little girl.
“Holy shit, Clara. It’s an Amber Alert.”
She continued to read.
“Elizabeth Ann James was taken from her
bedroom in this upscale St. Louis
community sometime between
11:00 p.m.
Tuesday evening and
7:00 a.m.
Wednesday morning,” the television scrolled.
“Police had been focusing their investigation
on a known sex offender who lives several blocks from the family’s home, but he
has been cleared in the case. Volunteers have been scouring the community for Elizabeth but have found
nothing until they received a tip late last night that the girl may have been
spotted with a woman on the Pennsylvania
turnpike early Wednesday morning. Video surveillance at a toll booth confirms
that the girl was in the car, a 1986 Toyota
sedan, with a woman.”
“Oh my God,” Clara said. “Oh my God. What
the hell did she do?”
Jon dialed 911 on his cell phone. He pulled
the phone away from his ear and looked at it, incredulous. “It’s a recording,”
he said. “A fucking recording that says no 911 service is available. What the
hell do you do if there’s an emergency?”
“Call the police,” Clara said, waving the
waitress over. She pointed to the television screen. “We know where that little
girl is. She’s staying in the Firelight
Falls cabin up at
Foster’s Glen. Can you call the police and let them know?”
The waitress looked at her as if she’d gone
mad. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“Positive,” Clara said, already walking
toward the door as Jon threw money down on the table to pay the bill. “Please.
Tell them to get there as soon as they can. Tell them that Rebecca Spritzer is
the woman who kidnapped her.”
“How do you know?” the waitress asked,
hesitating.
“Because she’s my sister,” Clara said.
Jon flew back to camp, barely making some
of the turns in the wide sedan. Clara’s hands were shaking. She meticulously
traced back over everything in her mind, from the moment she’d first seen
Rebecca with Elizabeth
outside the office until last night when she took off. It explained why she
didn’t have a car seat or much of anything else that a mother would be sure to
carry for her child. Clara thought she was just unfit, but the truth was she
wasn’t even a mother at all. She’d made it all up.
Clara swiped at the tears that slipped from
her eyes. She wasn’t sure how she was going to break the news to Josie. Her
poor mother, who’d put her heart back on the line for Rebecca, who was thinking
she might have to adopt her own granddaughter, would now have to face the truth
that Elizabeth wasn’t her granddaughter at all. She belonged to the distraught
couple on the news, the mother pale from crying, the father stoically searching
for their daughter. And the father’s name wasn’t Matt or Matthew. It was Carl.
So Rebecca had to have been lying all along.
As Jon rounded the curve in front of Firelight Falls, Clara went still. The red minivan
was there, parked askew on the grass in front of the cabin.
“She’s back,” Clara said, jumping out of
the car before Jon had a chance to put it in park. She ran up to the front
porch and burst inside. Jon was right behind her with his long legs.
“Mom!” she yelled. “Mom!”
“In here, in here,” Josie said, shooting
Clara a look of disapproval. “Shhhh. I just got Elizabeth down for her nap.”
“Mom,” Clara said, taking her mother by the
hands. “Where’s Rebecca?”
“She showed up this morning after you
left,” Josie said. “She apologized for taking off but said she had something
really important to take care of. I didn’t press her on it.” She looked at
Clara and then at Jon.
“Should I have?”
“She stole Elizabeth,” Clara said.
Josie let out a breath and shook her head.
“I know you think that, Clara, but it’s a custody issue. These things are never
cut and dry.”
“No, Mom,” Clara said, trying to stay calm.
“Elizabeth
isn’t Rebecca’s daughter at all. She abducted her.”
“What are you talking about?” Josie asked,
studying Clara then glancing up at Jon.
“Jon and I went to breakfast this morning
at the diner in Valleyview,” Clara said. “Elizabeth’s
picture was on the news. Her parents, Mom, they’re in St. Louis. They’re frantic. We told the
waitress to call the police. They should be here soon.”
Josie stared at Clara, trying to make sense
of what she was saying. Her eyes welled up with tears.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
“It was her, Mom. I’m so sorry,” Clara
tried to choke back her own tears. It was almost too much to bear to see her
mother cry. She knew the episode with Rebecca might end up badly but she never
expected anything like this.
“Oh, Clara, why?” Josie asked, falling onto
Clara shoulder. She felt her mother shudder in her arms. “Why would she do
this?”
“I don’t know,” Clara said softly. “But we
need to go find her. The police are on their way.”
“She’s on the trail with your father,”
Josie said, stepping back and wiping the tears from her eyes. “She got back
just in time for the morning activities. She looked exhausted but she was
adamant about going on the hike and she wanted to partner with you. She got
upset when I told her that you weren’t here, that you’d gone to breakfast with
Jon.”
“But she went on the hike anyway?” Clara
asked. “And left you here to baby-sit?”
“You dad felt like it was partially his
fault that you weren’t here so he volunteered to go with her instead,” Josie
said. “He told me he wanted to talk to her anyway about the way she just took
off last night without telling anyone where she was going. He wanted to explain
to her that she wouldn’t be able to do that if she wanted to work for us.”
“It’s just the two of them?” Jon asked.
“It’s a competition,” Josie explained, “to
see who can hike the whole Foster’s Folly trail in the shortest amount of time.
Karen broke the team into two groups and then had them set off 15 minutes
apart. She’s timing them to see who’s the fastest.”
“When did they set off?” Jon asked.
“They were the first group. Maybe 45
minutes ago?”
“How long is the hike?” he asked.
“It’s the full Foster’s Folly,” Josie said,
searching Jon’s eyes. “It’s supposed to take about three hours.”
“Let’s go,” Jon said to Clara. “We need to
find her and get her up here to face the police.” He turned to Josie. “Will you
be okay here? The police are on their way. Will you be able to talk your way
though this? They’re going to want to take Elizabeth right away.”
Josie nodded through her tears. “Just go
find Rebecca,” she said. “And bring her up here to face up to what she’s done.”
Clara ran into her bedroom and grabbed her
backpack and the map Karen gave them the first night. She stopped in the
kitchen and shoved four bottles of water and a handful of granola bars into the
pack. Jon took it from her and swung it over his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Be careful,” Josie called after them. “Now
that I think about it Rebecca was overly angry that you weren’t here this
morning Clara. Who knows what she’ll do when she sees you.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Jon said, grabbing
Clara’s hand.
They jogged down the porch steps and
started toward the trail. As they rushed past the cabin something caught
Clara’s eye and she slowed.
“What is it, Clara, come on, let’s go,” Jon
said, grabbing her hand again to pull her along.
“No,” she said, shaking him off. He
followed her gaze.
“What the hell is that?” he asked,
stopping.
A tall package leaned up against the door
to her room at the back of the cabin.
CHAPTER
18
“Where the hell did that come from?” Jon
asked.
“I don’t know,” Clara said, walking over to
the side door. The package was longer than the others and appeared overstuffed.
She looked at the return address.
“Tulsa.”
“Open it,” Jon said, glancing around to
make sure they were alone.
Clara reached down and picked up the box.
She held it in one hand as she pulled the tape off the flaps with the other.
Inside she saw the same packing paper she’d found in the other boxes. Her hands
began to shake.
“What’s wrong?” Jon asked.
“It’s definitely from David,” Clara said.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s the same packaging as the others.”
Jon took the box from her and dumped the
contents out onto the ground. Glass fragments broke and bounced on the hard dirt,
as photographs landed among them.
“It looks like the wreckage from his
rampage at the gallery,” Clara said, kneeling down. “Like he took the broken
glass and frames and used it for packing material.”
Jon reached down and picked up one of the
pictures.
“Fuck,” he said. She could see anger
surging through him.
“What is it?” she asked, trying to catch a
glimpse of the picture in his hand.
He turned it slightly so she could see it.
It was her, on the bed at Hidden
Falls cabin, naked as Jon
stood over her.
“How …” Clara choked.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said gruffly. “Come
on.”
He picked the photos up from the glass
fragments and crumpled them in his big hand. He was so angry she wasn’t sure if
she’d be able to keep up with him as he took off down the trail.
“Jon …” she called after him.
“Don’t you get it?” he asked, stopping to
face her. “It’s Rebecca. It’s got to be. She’s working with that asshole. I bet
she was working with him all along.”
“You think she took these pictures?” Clara
asked, her eyes growing wide. “I know she’s screwed up, but come on. Why would
she do this?”
“She took them,” Jon said forcefully. “And
if she didn’t, it means Carpenter’s been here watching us the whole time.”
He handed Clara the photos. There were some
from each day, even one of the two of them by the campfire.