James Grippando - The Abduction

“No way she’ll live,” said another. “I bet she’s dead already.”

“Okay,” Wilcox replied. “Let’s assume worst-case scenario. She’s dead, but we don’t find out about it until after the election. Then what?”

“What do you mean, then what?” replied Governor Helmers. “It’s too late. The election’s over.”

Wilcox said, “That’s my point. We need to be proactive here.”

“What do you have in mind?”

There was a pause. Allison leaned closer to the door, straining to hear the response. Finally she heard Wilcox’s voice again.

“We should talk about the attorney general’s daughter. Play up the courageous way Allison endured the abduction of her own child. The way she turned her own personal suffering into a nationwide crusade to increase public awareness of the dangers children face. The legislation she fought for. All of the work she did with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Coalition for America’s Children before she became attorney general.”

Helmers said, “She won’t be thrilled about doing that.”

“It’s the only way,” said Wilcox.

“Let me put it another way. She won’t do that.”

Wilcox said, “Okay, forget that angle. The truth is, merely reciting her distinguished résumé isn’t going to cut it anyway. The only way to neutralize Howe’s momentum is to personalize the loss of Allison’s daughter for the American public.”

“What do you mean, personalize it?”

“Resurrect it. Let the people know what Allison went through.”

“Forget it, David.”

“I’m talking subtle things. I don’t know,” he said lightheartedly. “Maybe they can pull her daughter’s old picture out of archives and start running it on milk cartons again.”

Helmers chuckled. “Oh, that’s real subtle. While we’re at it, why don’t we trot out a new campaign slogan? Allison Leahy-the scarlet letter president. Don’t think adultery. Think abduction.”

Laughter filled the room. Allison pushed the conference door open and stood in the doorway. The laughter ended.

“That’s a pretty catchy slogan,” she said, glaring at Helmers. Her gaze turned to Wilcox. “But I think I prefer the milk cartons.”

The men stewed in their silence. Finally, Wilcox spoke up. “Allison, we, uh-”

“Don’t even try to explain, David. Just carry on without me. And get used to it. Because win or lose, that’s where you’ll be after this election-without me.” She turned and hurried down the hall.

Wilcox ran after her. “Allison, we need to talk.”

She wheeled and faced him. Her face flushed with anger. “From the very beginning, I laid down one inviolable rule in this campaign. No one was going to make a campaign prop out of my daughter. Did I not say that?”

“Allison-”

“Did I not say that?” she pressed.

“Yes. You said it. But-”

“But you just don’t care. Imagine what it’s like to actually see your own daughter’s picture on a milk carton, or to see her picture on the TV screen at the post office, along with a hundred other kids who’ve been missing for years and who will probably never be found. Imagine going to the mall or grocery store and checking every baby carriage out of the corner of your eye, thinking maybe it’s her. And then imagine-just imagine -your own campaign strategist coming up with the brilliant idea of trotting out her memory for political exploitation.”

“I wasn’t serious.”

“You were serious. Don’t make it worse by lying to me. Please, just stay out of my sight for a while.” She turned and charged out the door.

A blast of frigid air from the latest cold front greeted her on the sidewalk, along with her Secret Service escorts. She didn’t slow down until she was sliding into her limousine. The car door slammed, and she watched from the backseat as the limo pulled away. Wilcox gave chase along the sidewalk. She couldn’t hear his voice, but his pained expression filled the window. His breath steamed in the cold air as he tapped frantically on the glass and mouthed the words, “Allison, please! ”

“Step on it,” she told the driver.

The limo burst into traffic, leaving Wilcox at the curb, shivering in his shirtsleeves.

Kristen Howe is not afraid.

Flat on her back in a chilly basement on a too-soft mattress, she kept thinking that same thought over and over again. With eyes shut, the words fixed in her brain like a mantra, just like when she was five years old and afraid to sleep with the light off. Most of the time, the voice in her head sounded like her own. But when the demons ran wild, when her racing heart pushed her to the brink of panic, she would hear her mother’s calming voice.

Kristen Howe is not afraid. It’s only her imagination.

This time, however, she knew she wasn’t imagining. If it was all just in her mind, then how come she couldn’t talk? She had tried to speak aloud-to step out of her mind and actually tell herself she was not afraid-but the tape on her mouth was definitely for real. The metal cuffs digging into her wrist and ankle were real, too. The pain in her bulging bladder was real. The footsteps and strange voices she’d overhead were all too real.

Yet, at times, none of it seemed real.

She remembered walking toward the high school, taking her usual route from the college campus. She remembered the van following too close and stopping at the curb. The passenger door opened. The driver’s face was hidden beneath the rubberized Lincoln Howe Halloween mask. A man who definitely wasn’t Reggie grabbed her by the arm. The rest, however, was a total blur. Flying through the air and tumbling to the floor. A thick blanket of blackness over her eyes. A stabbing pain in her thigh like the jabbing of a needle. And finally, a weird, weightless sensation that numbed her body, the way she felt when she’d had her tonsils removed.

The next thing she knew she was waking up, her hands and feet bound, her mouth taped shut. At first, the blindfold made it impossible to discern whether she was really awake. When she closed her eyes, she saw nothing. Eyes open, nothing still. It was yesterday, or maybe the day before, when the blindfold came off for the first time. The sudden burst of brightness had overpowered her eyes, and when she finally focused she saw a man in a ski mask. She nearly screamed, but the gag prevented it.

By the fourth or fifth time it was becoming a routine, something to mark the passage of time, a ritual that reminded her she was still alive. The man would come and remove the cuffs. He’d lead her up a flight of stairs to the bathroom and remove the gag and blindfold, then leave her alone with soap and a washcloth, a toothbrush. Then he’d give her something to eat. It became a little less scary each time, but his ski mask definitely gave her the creeps. Even so, his voice wasn’t mean or anything. He was actually gentle and attentive to her needs, always asking if she was hungry or warm enough. After a few visits, she knew his voice well. When the men talked upstairs, she could distinguish his voice. So far, she’d been able to pick out three different voices. She couldn’t hear everything they said, especially when the furnace was running. But she’d heard enough to know that he was the only one looking out for her, making sure she was clean, fed, and comfortable. She’d even heard him threaten one of the other men, telling him no one was going to hurt the girl. Repo was his name. One of the men had called him Repo.

“Kristen,” she heard him say. “It’s morning.”

It was that Repo guy, and his voice made her shudder. She cringed as he gently removed her blindfold. Kristen opened her eyes slowly, then blinked at the ceiling. The dim light from the lamp on the dresser cast a nebulous glow across the basement. The shutter on the little window above the sink made it impossible to tell whether it was night or day. She had no idea if it was actually morning. She would just have to take his word for it.