Twin Threat Christmas (3 page)

Eric nodded patiently. “So, who killed him?”

“He did—” she pointed at Virgil, who was still on the screen “—or one of the guys who works for him.”

For a long, silent moment, Vanessa looked at Eric, waiting for some sign that would indicate whether he believed her or not. She wasn’t sure what she would do if he didn’t. All she knew was that she had to keep her children safe. The news report was a terrifying development. Where could she go without being recognized? Where could she hide?

Finally, Eric spoke. “Can you prove these guys killed him?”

Vanessa blinked, her shock at being free, her uncertainty about what to do next, clouding her thoughts, muddling her judgment.

“Look, Vanessa, I want to help you, but this does not look good. Debbi wants to call the police.”

“No! Don’t do that. Please.” Vanessa wrapped her arms around her shoulders, wishing for the millionth time that none of this had ever happened. She’d gotten away, but only briefly. Her face was all over the news. She’d have to stay in hiding, keep her daughters in hiding, or she’d go to jail and lose her kids. “If you call the police, they’ll take the kids. I’ll go to jail, their word against mine.” She repeated the threat Jeff had ingrained in her, the fear that had kept her frozen in the basement, even when she thought about breaking out a window and running for help.

“What happened, Vanessa? You disappeared eight years ago, and everybody thought you were dead. What’s been going on?”

“It’s a trafficking ring. They’re criminals.”

“Who are? This Virgil guy?”

“And Jeff—they came to the house and killed Jeff this evening. I ran with the kids or they would have killed us, too.” She swallowed, hating the words, hating the memories. “Jeff kidnapped me eight years ago as part of this human-trafficking scheme. They take girls and traffic them, but Jeff kept me to himself. He left me tied up when he wasn’t around until Abby was born.

“Once Abby was born, he allowed me just enough freedom to take care of her, never enough to get away from him. He was always there, for every minute of every medical appointment, every second I was ever around other people, watching me, making sure I didn’t reach out for help. Not like I would try anything—I knew he’d go after my family if I did or take Abby from me. It’s a big ugly crime ring. They run drugs, too. They use the drugs to control people. Virgil’s just one piece of it.”

Eric swallowed slowly, as if forcing himself to digest her words. “Can you prove it?”

“I know a few things, but no, I don’t have any evidence against them. Any time I saw a piece of paper I wasn’t supposed to see, Jeff warned me what would happen if I ever so much as touched anything that could be used as evidence against them. I purposely closed my eyes. I had no choice.”

“The only way to prove your innocence is to prove these guys are guilty.”

“I agree.” Vanessa nodded. But at the same time, Eric’s words scared her. “But Virgil’s not the ringleader. He was Jeff’s contact, some kind of bully employed to keep guys like Jeff in line, but he wasn’t in charge. If we turn in Virgil, that’s just cutting off an arm.”

“And the real monster would turn on you,” Eric muttered, understanding. “So, who’s the ringleader? We find him, find evidence against him, and we can prove your innocence.”

Vanessa liked the idea. If they could shut down the trafficking ring, all the other innocent girls who’d been taken just like her could go free.

There was just one problem.

“I don’t know who’s in charge.”

THREE

E
ric was wide-awake now, but he almost wished he could roll over and forget this nightmare had ever happened. Except that Vanessa was back. He’d prayed for her safe return, even imagined himself holding her tight if he ever had the chance again. But the fact that she was a wanted fugitive gave him pause. He wanted to believe she was innocent, but there were too many things he didn’t understand.

“Want to tell me what happened? Maybe we can sort out how to catch this guy, or what to do, or something.” Eric was also hoping that he’d learn enough to tell him whether he was crazy for trusting Vanessa. He wanted to pull her into his arms, to embrace her as he’d always pictured himself embracing her if she was ever found. But if she’d been held captive by a man for eight years, maybe she wouldn’t welcome his touch. He held back, waiting for some sign from her that would tell him if it would be okay for him to reach out to her.

“Oh, wow, where do I start?”

“How about the night you went missing?”

Vanessa closed her eyes, gulped a breath and then shook her head. “I need to start before that. You know I was working as a waitress at the Flaming Pheasant down by the interstate.”

“That’s where you were last seen, getting off work at the end of your shift. You walked out the back door, but you never came home. Your car was still in the spot where you parked it when you arrived at work.” Eric filled in what he knew.

Vanessa nodded, confirming his words. “There was a guy, the same man who was murdered this evening. Back then he was young and handsome and charming. He was a regular at the restaurant. He’d say the kindest things to me. ‘You have pretty eyes’ or ‘I like your smile’—not creepy things or even really hitting on me. I just thought he was nice, you know. Unlike a lot of other customers, he never complained, never got impatient when the kitchen was slow. The restaurant often wasn’t busy, so we’d chat. It got to where I looked forward to seeing him. My day was better if he showed up.”

Eric felt a bead of cold sweat creeping down his arm as Vanessa spoke. If he hadn’t known where her story was going, it would have sounded so innocent. He might have felt jealous of the guy, but he wouldn’t have been suspicious.

“Slowly, he started to learn things about me. Asked where I was from, about my family. I told him that I lived with my grandfather, about how my parents died in a car crash when Alyssa and I were little—told him I had a twin sister. Maybe I should have been suspicious that he was interested to hear about me, but he was always so friendly and positive about everything, I couldn’t resist talking to him.”

Much as Eric wished Vanessa would hurry with her story, or even skip over the parts that made his skin crawl, nonetheless, he sensed it was important for him to hear it. Not just in case there were details that might help them track down the leader of the trafficking ring, but because, after all, Vanessa had been through a terrible trauma. She needed to tell someone what had happened.

He also felt strongly the need to hear her out. Eight years ago, he’d failed her. He hadn’t been there for her. But he was here now. He had a second chance—the kind of second chance he’d prayed for, but never really dared to dream he might get. He could be here for her now. It wouldn’t change the past, but it was the best he could do.

Vanessa looked down at her hands as she spoke, as though eye contact would be too difficult, given the content of her story. “Then one weekend, I was really bummed that I had to work, because I wanted to come out here to the cabin. Jeff said he wanted to make me feel better, that he wanted to do something special. He offered to take me out after I got off work. By then I felt like I knew him, even though I didn’t, really.”

Eric didn’t want to interrupt, but he had to. “You didn’t tell him about the cabin, did you?” If Jeff knew about the cabin, then he might have told Virgil or any of their associates. They could track them down. No doubt they wouldn’t want someone at large who knew so much about them. They were probably looking for Vanessa right now, not content to let the police and television viewers do their searching for them.

“No. I never told him about this place. It’s too special to me. It didn’t feel right to share it with him, even before...” Her voice trailed off.

“So you went out with him after work?” Eric prompted, dreading to hear what came next.

“Yes. I got in his car, and at first he was just as charming as ever. But we didn’t stop. He kept driving toward Chicago, and I realized I didn’t know where I was and didn’t know where he was taking me or how to get home again. It was dark out, almost winter, and very cold. I started to ask questions, and he just kept assuring me that he had a special place in mind, and I was going to love it.” Her voice broke.

“I didn’t love it. I hated it,” she whispered, shaking her head, her unspoken words telling him vastly more of the horrors she’d suffered than anything she might have said. “He tied me up, did whatever he wanted to me.” She wiped away a tear, gulped a breath and kept talking.

“He kept me tied up for nearly a year. When I got pregnant with Abby, for a long time he threatened me that I wouldn’t be able to keep her, but eventually he came around and took me to the doctor for medical care, but only once I promised not to let on about who I really was. He had these fake IDs. I was Madison Nelson, supposedly four years older than I really am, with blond hair. After that, he didn’t keep me tied up, just locked in the basement with my baby.

“For a long time, I tried to think of a way to escape, to get away when he wasn’t looking, but I couldn’t leave Abby behind, and I couldn’t run with a baby. Once I got pregnant with Emma, I knew there was no way. I hadn’t been able to escape with one child—how could I run away with two? So I turned my attention from thinking about how to escape, to thinking about how to give my girls something resembling a normal life. Jeff recognized the change and let us out more, even took us to the park, but he was always there with his gun on him when I wasn’t locked away.”

Eric wasn’t sure what to do or say. Part of him wanted to pull her into his arms, to hold her tight enough to squeeze the brokenness inside her back together. But he didn’t dare do that. The fact that she couldn’t even look at him told him she wasn’t ready to welcome his embrace.

Back when they were high-school friends, he’d more than once worked up the courage to place his hand on her back or his arm across her shoulder, innocent ways of testing whether she felt anything for him like what he felt for her. But he’d never gotten a clear indication from her either way, and after all she’d been through, he wasn’t sure how she’d respond to the old gestures of their friendship. As a high-school science teacher, he didn’t play a huge role in helping those who’d been abused, but he’d had some training on how to spot signs of abuse and what to do about it. So he kept his hands to himself and listened as she continued her story.

“Jeff used the kids for leverage. And I think maybe that’s why he got sucked into work so much—his boss used the kids for leverage, too. That’s how I knew I needed to be ready to leave. I overheard Virgil’s threats the last time. He wanted money—I don’t know how much, but I know it was a lot, more than we had, which supposedly Jeff had kept back from some of the deals he’d run, or that he’d missed out on by not running some deals, I don’t know. They wanted the money, or they were going to kill us. All five of us.”

At her words, Eric remembered. “Your son, Sammy. You said you left him with your sister, but she doesn’t even know you’re alive?”

“I wrote a note on the shirt he was wearing. It said ‘A DNA test will prove this is Alyssa Jackson’s son.’ It wasn’t a lie,” she clarified. “Sammy isn’t Alyssa’s son, obviously, but since we’re identical twins, a DNA test would still conclude she’s his mother.”

“So, you handed him to her?”

“No. I couldn’t risk that—I couldn’t let her see me or she’d come looking for me, and that might lead Virgil to her. That’s the same reason I didn’t use Sammy’s name. No, I left him in her manger.”

“In her manger? The nativity scene? Her concrete sculptures?”

“Yes. The nativity scene is up next to the house. I watched her working in the yard, saw her go inside the house, and I left him in his car seat in the manger with his diaper bag. Then I drove away a couple of blocks and watched until she went outside and saw him.”

For all of Eric’s fears that Vanessa might be crazy, leaving her son in a manger was nearly enough to convince him. Granted, the weather that day was warm for October. The baby would be fine outside, even if he wasn’t noticed for a couple hours or more. And she had stood by to make sure her sister found him.

“But why did you leave him with her?”

Vanessa looked him full in the face, her warm brown eyes boring into his. “To keep him safe. I don’t believe, even for a second, that Virgil or the people he works for are going to let me get away easily. They’ll look for me. They’re probably trying to track me down right now. They know I know what happened. If the cops find me first, I’ll go to jail and lose my girls. If the traffickers find me...” She shook her head. “I thought about leaving the girls with Alyssa, too. I debated where they’d be safest. But if three kids go missing and then three suddenly appear somewhere else, that might lead Virgil to them. And he knows the girls are old enough to identify him. No, this way, we’re split up. If something happens to me, at least Sammy has a chance.”

Her voice broke again, and Eric realized how difficult the decision must have been—to choose to leave her son with her sister, as a gamble that one way or another, at least part of her family might escape the criminals who had terrorized them for the past eight years.

But even more than the pain of her story, Eric felt chilled by the threat that had led her to abandon her infant son. “Do you really think they’re trying to track you down right now?”

“I’m sure of it.” Vanessa shuddered. “They’ve always made it a point to make an example of those who disobey them. In fact, that’s where they got my identity. The real Madison tried to run. They tracked her down, left her body in a shallow grave and made me look like the picture on her driver’s license. Jeff forced me to marry him, and that got me a new ID with his last name. Nobody ever questioned, because she hadn’t been reported missing yet. She wasn’t a minor.”

“You’re sure they don’t know about the cabin?” Eric clarified.

“I wouldn’t have come here if they did.” Vanessa sucked in a breath and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, no!”

* * *

“What is it?” Eric leaned over the chair where she sat.

Vanessa fought to keep calm, but the events of the day were catching up to her, and the latest realization was too much to bear. She’d been so focused on getting the girls to the cabin without being recognized, on making sure they got to sleep peacefully and then explaining her story to Eric, she hadn’t thought about the fact that now seemed so painfully obvious.

“I have to leave.”

“Leave here? Now?”

“As soon as possible. I can’t stay here. I’m sorry—I didn’t think. I mean, I thought this was my place—mine and Alyssa’s, anyway. It didn’t occur to me she might have sold it.”

“She needed the money to keep her concrete-sculpture business going. I was helping her out, in a way. And of course, I always loved it when your grandfather invited my grandpa and me here for fishing trips.” Eric looked a bit confused at Vanessa’s alarm.

She hurried to explain. “But they’re looking for me. If they track me here—that drags you into this. I can’t let them know about you. It puts you in danger. I have to go.” She stood.

“You’re not going anywhere right now.” Eric placed a hand on her shoulder, not pushing down, really, but enough to guide her back into the chair. “Your girls are asleep—are you thinking of leaving without them?”

“Of course not.”

“Don’t you need your sleep?”

“I can’t sleep, not with all that’s happened and everything I have to think about.”

Eric pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture Vanessa hadn’t witnessed in years, which she nonetheless immediately recognized as his thinking face. She watched him, waiting for him to announce whatever it was he was thinking about, grateful for the light touch of his hand on her shoulder.

Even as she waited, she couldn’t help noticing how much he’d changed in the years they’d been apart. She’d recognized him immediately, but only because he was a familiar part of her memories of the cabin—her grandfather and his grandfather had been inseparable fishing buddies and equally devoted to their grandchildren. So in many ways, though she hadn’t at all expected to see him there, he still fit, in spite of the gun he’d been holding.

On closer inspection now, she saw the differences. He was taller, broader through the shoulders, the stubble on his chin deeply shadowed by this hour. He’d be twenty-five, as well, the same age she really was, though her Madison Nelson ID had her at twenty-nine. His dark hair hadn’t thinned, and his dark brown eyes still sparkled like obsidian beneath brows that had thickened with age.

He looked good, as familiar as home and yet fascinatingly different from the boy she’d known. She’d thought about him often during the long, lonely hours of her captivity, but her memories couldn’t compete with being in his presence. She wanted to turn into the arm that was draped so lightly across her shoulder, to bury her face against his chest and sob for all she’d lost and all she might still lose, but she felt afraid to. Probably post-traumatic inhibition, but it stayed her hand.

“Can we,” Eric spoke slowly, releasing his nose and meeting her eyes, “
try
to find out who’s behind this trafficking ring? If we can’t go to the police and we can’t stay here for long, really, the only way I can see out of this is to slay the dragon, to cut off its head.”

Vanessa recognized the phrase from the game they’d played countless times in the woods around the cabin. A gnarled stump of a tree had been their dragon, its branches hooked like claws, dark and menacing. As kids, they’d hacked at it with their “swords” made of sticks.