Stolen Lives: A Detective Mystery Series SuperBoxset (11 page)

She put the cell phone in her pocket and then knelt down next the talker, searching for a wallet or some kind of identification. He had nothing. She rose and walked over to Allison, taking her by the shoulders and turning her around to face her.

“It’s okay now. We can go.”

Allison looked up at her with a distant stare. Whatever she had been through, Miriam was certain that it was traumatic. She held the girl’s hand as they walked down the steps of the stage to the aisle where a few candles still burned.

“Allison, I’m going to ask you something. Are you listening?” Miriam said.

“Uh-huh,” she answered, nodding.

“Did you see a girl named Ana? Wherever you were being held. Did you see her?”

“Yeah,” the girl said.

A rush of relief came over Miriam.

“Okay. I need to know everything about the place you were taken. Any details.”

“I want my mommy,” the girl replied.

“I know, honey. And we’ll take you right to her. In the meantime, you have to tell me everything you know.”

Allison said nothing in return. Miriam understood that it would be difficult to probe her in such a way, but there was no other choice. The key to finding Ana was there, somewhere in Allison’s recollections. And Miriam wasn’t prepared to rest until she got the answers. She was a mom and she would figure out how to do it, and hopefully, without causing Allison any more pain.

Teamwork

Trapped in the basement, Ana wasn’t alone for very long before another girl, close to her in age, was brought in to keep her company. Her name was Allison and she was from Miami. She had been abducted while playing in her front yard. The bad man hadn’t done it. He never left the house. He had someone else do it. Allison was nine and in the fourth grade. She was terrified, but relieved to find another girl just like her was also being held and seemed to be mostly okay.

“What do they want with us?” she asked Ana.

“I don’t know,” Ana said. Her face was bruised and she hesitated telling the girl how she got them. Allison looked scared enough.

“How many people did you see?” Ana asked. It had been hours since her capture, and she had yet to see anything beyond the basement. It was all too clear why there was an empty bucket in the room. Whoever was holding her had no intention of letting them see beyond the walls.

Allison, however, was privy to more information. Her abductor—a bearded man who smelled funny—hadn’t used any chemicals to knock her out. He simply grabbed her, threw her in a van, and tied her up.

“The man blindfolded me,” she replied. “I couldn’t see anything.

Ana placed a comforting hand on Allison’s. “Allison, listen to me. We have to get out of here. I don’t know who these people are or what they want, but we need to find a way out.” She stopped talking, silenced by footsteps above.

With the dilapidated state of the basement they were being held in, and the moldering smell of earth and leaves, Ana guessed they were in some kind of cabin, likely some place in the deep woods. She could hear muffled voices talking now above them. And the footsteps were coming from multiple places, telling her that there were more people than she initially believed.

“How did they get you?” Allison asked.

Ana wasn’t sure where to begin. She rubbed her forehead; she felt sore all over. Her ribs throbbed with pain from the fall down the stairs. She was lucky to be alive, she assumed. It hurt to think. It hurt to breathe.

“It’s hard to remember. I… I think this guy just came in my house and had some kind of rag that he put over my face.”

Ana stopped and looked up at the ceiling as the footsteps continued. “Allison, have you ever heard of the Snatcher?”

Allison gave her a funny look and shrugged. “No. Who’s that?”

“He’s a bad man who kidnaps kids. There were like five girls he kidnapped. I think that’s who took us.”

Allison covered her mouth in fear. “Oh no. What are we going to do?” She began to cry.

Ana took her hand and squeezed. “We stick together, no matter what.”

The muffled conversation got louder upstairs. Someone was angry. They froze and listened. A loud crash was followed by glass shattering.

“What do you mean Greg’s dead?” a man’s voice shouted. “How the fuck did
that
happen?”

“Mr. Anderson, please,” another voice said.

“Where the hell are my parents?” the man asked.

“I think they’re in protective custody right now.”

“And my other brothers?”

“Jake and Walter were taken back to the station.”

Another loud crash rattled the ceiling. It seemed as though the man had just turned over a table. Allison winced and wrapped her arms around Ana, hiding her face.

“It’s okay,” Ana said, brushing back the girl’s blonde hair. “Don’t be scared.”

All the commotion and yelling suddenly stopped. Ana kept her head tilted up, staring at the ceiling. They remained in the corner near the mattress, with the side of the stairs in view. Upstairs, the man paced and continued talking. Ana could recognize his harsh voice as belonging to the large man who had hit her and thrown her down the stairs, and every time he talked, she got chills.

“Okay. Take the other girl to her. This whole thing is messed up beyond belief.”

“Then what?” another man asked.

“Once she lets her guard down, you get that bitch and bring her to me.”

“I don’t understand why you’re wasting your time with this broad. You have half the damn state looking for you right now.”

“Excuse me?” the man shouted. “I’m not paying for your worldly advice, I pay you to act.”

“All right, Phil. Damn, man. I get it.”

Their conversation ceased as footsteps sounded outside. Ana remained still, so still she could hear her own breathing. Allison had buried herself in Ana’s side. Who were they talking about up there? What did any of it mean?

“Next time anyone comes down here, we have to try to make a run for it,” Ana said.

Allison looked up. “How?”

“He’s big. We can outrun him.”

Allison studied Ana’s bruised face and nervously broached the question. “Did he do that to you?”

Ana paused and nodded. “Only because I hit him on the head with a shovel.”

Ana smiled. “You did?”

“Yep. And I almost made it out, but the door was locked.”

There was a shared confidence between the two girls. They were complete strangers, but in that moment, Ana felt closer to her than any other girl she had ever known. Footsteps suddenly sounded. The same thumping boots Ana knew belonged to the bad man. To their immediate despair, they heard the basement door open. Allison squeezed Ana tightly, and began to sniffle and cry.

“Shhh,” Ana said. “Don’t be afraid.” It was hard advice to follow considering her own creeping terror. A pair of black boots came trudging down the stairs, followed by someone wearing sneakers and blue jeans. Ana tried to stand, but Allison was clinging to her. “Come on. We have to make a run for it.”

Allison shook her head, her eyes clenched shut and tears rolling down her cheeks. It was too late. The man had reached the bottom of the stairs, holding a tote bag in his hands. Any signs of Bobby were gone, replaced by the man’s reddened, leering face.

Ana looked up, making eye contact with him, against all her better instincts. For a moment he just stood there and stared, saying nothing. The top of his head was bandaged with a blood-stained cloth that ran across his graying hair, giving Ana a brief moment of satisfaction.

He walked over to the huddled girls and tossed the tote bag onto the floor. Looking at Ana, he spoke. “I took these clothes from you room, but plans have changed.”

Ana looked away, saying nothing as Allison buried her face into her chest.

“You there,” the man said, pointing to Allison. “What’s your name again?”

Allison didn’t respond beyond a few faint whimpers.

“Her name is Allison. Now what do you want?” Ana said with as much anger as she dared to muster. It was what he mother would have told her to do: show strength.

The man disregarded her insolence and squatted near them, knees cracking. “Allison,” he began in a calm tone. “I need you to change into the clothes in this bag.” He pulled out a Hello Kitty shirt and held it up. Ana noticed dirt stains all over it that weren’t there before.

“What’d you do to my clothes?” she asked.

“We have to make sure that Ana looks the part,” he responded.

“She’s not going anywhere,” Ana said, staring him down. It was a bold move, but the man wasn’t in any mood to argue. Without hesitation, he wound his hand back and smacked Ana in the face, sending a shock through her body as she cried out and fell back against the wall. Allison screamed out and started to cry, clinging more tightly to Ana. Ana freed one of her arms and felt her face, as white spots danced in front of her eyes and in the air all around her.

“You shut your mouth,” the man said. He then tossed the shirt to Allison, followed by a pair of jeans. His knees cracked again as he stood up, towering over them.

“Let’s go, Allison,” he said with his hand out.

Allison held on to Ana, looking away from the man.

“I’m not going to ask again,” he said, balling his fists.

“Do it,” Ana said softly into her ear. “Take the chance to leave while you can.”

The man nodded in agreement. “Now
that,
I can agree with. Listen to her, Allison.”

But Allison further attached herself to Ana, refusing to leave. The man shook his head in disappointment and sighed.

“Very well. You leave me little choice.”

He swooped down, clutching her legs by the ankles and then jerked her upward. Allison screamed as he yanked her away from Ana and dragged her across the cold, concrete floor.

“You girls have to take the fun out of everything,” he moaned. He stopped and picked Allison up, throwing her over his shoulder as she screamed and cried.

Ana stood and rushed over, hitting his legs. “Leave her alone!”

He walked away and continued up the stairs, ignoring the blows.

“Let her go!” Ana screeched at the top of her lungs.

The man stopped in the middle of the stairs and looked down at her. “I’ll deal with you later.” His boots clomped back up the stairs as he carried a flailing Allison with one arm.

Ana ran up the stairs, chasing after them as the door slammed. Allison’s faint cries from outside the room continued. Ana stared at the door trying to conceive a plan. She thought of her parents and how worried they must be about her. Her mother would want her to fight—to do everything she could to get free. At that moment, she was more than certain that if she didn’t escape soon, she was never going to make it out alive.

***

Miriam fled Homestead in Lou's Crown Victoria with heightened urgency. Allison swayed in the passenger seat, clinging to her armrest. The car was going at least twenty miles over the speed limit on the interstate, but she couldn’t have cared less. Her mind bolted in a hundred directions as the paramount task of finding Ana in time sent her emotions spinning. Of course she had to return the girl to her parents—that much was clear.

But Allison was also crucial to any chance she had in playing and winning Phillip Anderson’s game. They pulled to a darkened rest stop off the interstate where Miriam took a deep breath and tried to get her thoughts together. She had killed three men and would have to alert the authorities.

There was also Lou. She would need to bring him up to speed. She needed help. She needed every tool at her disposal. Through it all, she had overlooked one main element: Allison’s fragile condition. The girl needed to be admitted to the hospital, to make sure that she was okay. Allison was reticent about what had happened to her, and Miriam had yet to broach the subject in full. They parked next to a restroom, one of the few vacant spots in a lot filled with eighteen-wheel semi-trucks. She turned to Allison and began probing, her voice soft and gentle.

“Just bear with me for a moment, Allison. There’s a lot we have to do.” She pulled out her cell phone and handed it to the girl. “But first, I want you to call your parents and tell them that you’re okay. Then let me talk to them.”

“I don’t know her number,” Allison said with a tinge of shame. “On my phone, it’s just Mom.”

“Okay,” Miriam said. “We need to get you to a hospital and have you checked out.”

“I’m fine,” she said, almost too soon.

Miriam leaned closer to her and brushed back the girl’s hair. “That’s good to hear, but we have to make sure. We’re going to catch the man who kidnapped you, and we need to make sure that no stone is left unturned.”

“I just want to go home,” she said, looking down.

“We will,” Miriam said. “But my daughter is still out there. Ana. You talked about her. I need to get her back from the same man who took you. You can help me with that, right?”

Allison nodded with a sniffle. She rubbed her nose and looked at Miriam glazed sadness in her eyes. “She tried to help me. We were going to escape.”

“I know you were. And now we have to do everything we can to rescue her. Understand?”

Allison nodded again.

“Can you think of anyone to call? Any numbers?”

Allison looked up, thinking. “I don’t know.”

Miriam masked her disappointment and moved on. “We’ll go to Miami and find a hospital from there.” She took her phone and rested it in the middle console. Her fingers traced along the GPS screen affixed to the dashboard. “What school do you go to? I’ll look for it on here.”

“Melrose Elementary,” she answered.

Miriam typed it in and a location popped up, only twenty miles away. She then did a search for hospitals in the Miami-Dade area.

“You’re doing fine, Allison,” Miriam said. “Just hang in there and we’ll find your parents.”

She backed out of the parking space, stopped and reached into her pocket. The Beretta was still warm there. She grabbed her phone and scrolled through the contacts, stopping at Lou. He wouldn’t believe her, not right away. And once he did, he’d simply admonish her for going into such a situation without backup. Either way, she needed him. The crisis had escalated beyond her control. They coasted back onto the interstate, headed for the Miami-Dade Hospital, some twenty-five miles away. She called Lou and held the phone against her ear.