When She Flew (24 page)

“Oh, honey,” she said, walking toward me, taking the thing from my hand and turning off the television, then pulling me against her, her arms around my back, her cheek on the top of my head.
“Shh shh shh,”
she whispered in a rhythm like a heartbeat. Her body was soft where I wrapped my arms around her, where I laid my head.

Outside the window, a flash of white flew by. Too big for a seagull, maybe an ibis, but I was tired of thinking about birds. I was tired of thinking about everything. All I wanted to do was go to sleep in my own bed back home.

26

I
t was nearly ten thirty when Michael dropped Jess off several blocks from the North Station House at her request. She needed a few minutes to walk, to clear her head, to form words and arguments.

The morning was brilliant, bleached by sunlight, breezy. A train moaned in the distance; a homeless woman dressed in too many coats shuffled by. It was just another day for those driving along busy North Point Boulevard, for the baggy hooded boys on skateboards in the park across the street, the moms pushing strollers, holding toddlers’ cherubic hands. There’d been a shooting in east Columbia the night before, according to the front page of
The Oregonian
in the corner box. Fifty-two Iraqis had been blown to bits as they gathered for a wedding. What would be the headline on tomorrow’s paper? Jess wondered.

It would have been nice to grab a muffin or a cookie at the old snack bar on the next block, but the chatty owner would have the TV on. She probably already knew Jess was a fugitive. Jess walked slowly, head down, listening to the nineteen messages that had accumulated on her phone over the past ten hours.

She listened to Sergeant Everett’s calls from the previous evening in full, her stomach tensing at the sound of him realizing she wasn’t just dawdling on her way to Wood Dock. Each message was more stern than the last, and then there’d been his nasty call that morning.

It was starting to make sense—right after she spoke with Everett that morning, he’d made her cell number available. Curse words were not his only intimidation tactic.

The first media calls had been from assistant producers at local network affiliates. Now she listened to the next round, from the big-gun investigative reporters at all of the local channels.
The Oregonian
had called several times, as had various talk radio shows.

And then the call from New York. A producer from
Good Morning America
asking if Jess would tell Mr. Wiggs and his daughter that they’d love to have them on the show as soon as possible. They could offer travel expenses, hotel expenses, and a generous gift toward the girl’s college fund, if they’d agree to come on and talk about what their lives had been like, what it was like to live in the forest, what had driven them away from civilization, and how it felt to be “captured.”

Her breath caught at the word. They weren’t interested in Ray and Lindy as human beings. These people only wanted to portray their story as entertainment, as reality TV rather than real life.
The Swiss Family Robinson
meets
Survivor
meets
Law & Order
. They had no qualms about the ramifications of that kind of media attention on someone like Ray, and how that might affect Lindy’s future. Jess didn’t even know how what she was doing would affect them, but she believed it was better than the alternative. Lindy was a good kid, smart and scrappy. She hadn’t been given the best of circumstances in life, but Jess sensed in her the soul of someone who could do anything she felt determined to.

The last message was from Z. “Hey, sorry I’m such an insensitive oaf. I only meant to tell you that I hope you’re okay, and I wish I wouldn’t have been such a boot licker last night. I feel pretty crappy about caving like that. So, whatever’s happening with you, with those folks, if you need a friendly voice or help, or anything, I’m . . . Well, I’m here.” She listened twice to his message, thinking,
Who uses the word “oaf ”?

She paused before hitting SAVE, letting it sink in. He believed in her. So did Michael, and Rosetta, and the couple on the farm. These were all sensible, reasonable people, she thought. Yes, her decision to help Ray and Lindy stay together and in a safe place was going to have dire consequences on her career, on her life, but she’d also gained something in making the decision. Maybe it was courage, as Michael had said, but it just felt like stubbornness, the need to do the right thing. She’d always thought these qualities came from doing what the law demanded. But in the past nineteen hours, she’d listened to her own voice, and even though it scared the hell out of her, it felt more genuine, and more important, than anything she’d done in a long time.

At the next street she turned and the station house came into view, flanked by three television satellite trucks and a small platoon of media vehicles. She combed her fingers through her hair, fished in her purse for lipstick.
I’m an idiot,
she thought,
caring what I look like on TV,
but she couldn’t help herself. The damn ID photo had been bad enough.

Before crossing the street to the station, she stopped, turned her back to the building. Everett’s cell number was on her phone; she pulled it out and hit SEND.

“Everett,” he growled.

“Sarge, it’s me. Villareal.” She pronounced it “Villa-reel,” rolling her eyes. Like she could kiss up now. “Are you at the station?”

“Never mind where I am. Where are you?”

“On my way in.” She looked over her shoulder. Would he be looking out his office window?

“You got ’em?”

She paused, and he knew.

“Goddamn it, Villareal. Don’t even bother coming in unless you’ve got the girl with you.”

“I was hoping we could talk, Sarge. I’m two minutes away.”

“What do we have to talk about? You lied to me, Officer. You said you were on board, so I trusted you. You fucked up a perfectly good career, Jess. Goddamn it.”

“I wasn’t planning anything when I said that, Sarge. I swear. It’s not like this is a big conspiracy or anything. I’m just doing what I feel I have to do.” She paused so he wouldn’t hear the emotion in her voice. “I’m looking at the building. I’m almost there.” She turned and started to walk toward the eerily still scene—equipment everywhere but few people milling about.

She saw him now, watching from his second-floor office, and met his gaze.

“Just hear me out.”

“Do not cause a scene out there, Villareal.”

“I won’t,” she said, then snapped the phone shut when he turned away. It buzzed in her hand. Another New York number. She wondered how long it would be before all the morning shows and the cable news channels started calling. She’d have to get her number changed. There was no way this wouldn’t be a long, drawn-out drama the media would salivate over, with hearings and trials and god knew what. She might be helping Ray and Lindy hide away, but she was becoming more and more exposed.

She would apologize to the neighbors about the satellite trucks, the intrusive reporters. Maybe she’d take them brownies; everyone loved her brownies. She hoped she wouldn’t have to move. She’d been pregnant with Nina when they’d first rented the house, and after the divorce she’d signed a rent-to-own agreement with the owner. It wasn’t the best house in the world—it was small and suffered far too much neglect on her part—but it had been her home long enough that she didn’t want to imagine another.

She kept walking, avoiding eye contact with the camera operators and sound techs, the reporters filing live updates of nothing much happening. They didn’t notice her; out of uniform she could be anyone. It was hot already for midmorning. How did their makeup not melt off? she wondered. How did they not sweat through their suit jackets and silk blouses?

Out of habit she walked to the employee entrance, passed her keycard over the plate. No green light, no beep, no lock clicking open. They’d taken her out of the system.

“Officer Villareal?” A female voice, right behind her. “You are, aren’t you? May I ask you a few questions over by my van?”

Shit,
Jess thought. So much for slipping in unnoticed. She turned toward the main entrance, head down at first, the way suspects always did on camera. She lifted her head and kept walking.

“Hey,” another voice called, male, excited, “it’s her.”

Car doors slammed, people scurried, grouping around her, hastily pulling on headphones and raising booms and mounting cameras on shoulders, arranging hairdos and grabbing microphones.

“Officer Villareal! Officer Villareal! How about an exclusive?”

“Where are they? Where are Ray and Melinda?”

“Has the girl been abused? Is the father mentally competent?” Jess strode quickly, not looking at anyone, just trying to make it to the end of the sidewalk, then up the steps, then through the door—

“Where are they, Officer? Come on. Why are you hiding them?”

“Can you confirm or deny rumors of white suprema—”

“Jessica! Were you the kidnapper or the kidnappee?”

The door was in reach. She grabbed the handle, then turned to face them. “I’m a police officer, for god’s sake, not Heidi Fleiss. Back off.”

They went silent, seemed about to retreat, then surged forward again as she slipped inside. Their clamoring faded behind the glass doors. They’d no doubt been ordered to stay outside.

Behind the glass at the front desk, two newbie officers looked up, freshly post-academy, here for as long as it took them to get a better posting. They were both blond, and Jess could hardly tell what gender they each were until she got close enough to see breasts on the one on the left.

“Officer Villareal here for Everett,” she said. “He’s expecting me.”

They knew why she didn’t just buzz herself back. Everyone knew everything, of course. They’d probably been glued to the television in the conference room all morning. The officers looked at her differently from the way they would have the day before, like she was either Norma Rae or Norman Bates—she couldn’t tell which. She wished someone from her shift was on, but they wouldn’t be in until three.

The female officer picked up the phone, murmured, then set it down. “The sergeant says to go straight to his office.”

What was she going to do, run naked through the crime lab? Steal marijuana from the evidence room? Influence others to turn actual criminals loose on the streets?

“Fine,” she muttered.

The door buzzed. Jess stepped through, wondering if the cameras outside were getting all this, wondering, in spite of everything, how big her butt looked. Even when everything had changed, some things never did. Thank god she wasn’t in uniform pants.

Everett looked tired. He, too, was in civvies, a golf shirt and chinos. His day off.

“What are you trying to do, kill me?” he said. “Get me fired? Your ass is already grass. At noon, the chief
^’
s going to announce you’re under investigation. Is it worth it, Villareal? One kid?”

“What if it were your kid, Sarge?”

He slammed his open hand on the armrest of his chair. “Don’t pull that shit with me. Just tell me what the fuck is going on. We’re going to find them, you know. It’s only a matter of time. Help us now so we don’t look like complete morons, and you’ll get your old job back in two months.”

“May I sit?”

“I don’t care if you goddamn spin on your head. Spill it.”

Jess sat in the chair she’d used the night before, dropped her vibrating purse between her feet, and pulled out the doctor’s report.

“Here,” she said, sliding it across his desk. “No sexual abuse. Healthy, normal.”

He scanned it, then looked up. “What does this prove? They’re still homeless. She’s still going to be truant come fall, living in unacceptable conditions. Or have you managed to fix that, too?”

Jess chewed her bottom lip. She’d planned on telling him they’d taken a bus to who knows where. She’d be in more trouble with the department if she told the truth, but the truth was so much better.

“Actually, they’ve found a place to live where Ray can work for room and board and a little money. Lindy can go to school there.”

He cocked his head. “What? Where?”

She shook her head.
Add obstruction to the list,
she thought, realizing she should have called an attorney before coming in. Things were moving so quickly. She was reacting from instinct, whether or not that was a good thing.

He sighed and picked up his phone, punched in numbers, then sat back in his chair, staring at her.

“Everett here,” he said after a moment. “Villareal’s in my office.”

He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nope. Just her.” He nodded. “Mm-hmm, yup. Well, she has a doctor’s report for the girl. No sex abuse. And she’s got them hiding out somewhere, won’t tell me where.”

“Hiding out?” Jess felt her jaw unhinge. She scooted forward in her chair, looked the sergeant in the eye until he looked away. “Tell him Ray will be working, they’ll have a home. They’ll have a normal life.”